The Todds

Michele and I were having a good time people-watching while waiting for a concert to start at the Greek in Berkeley last Saturday, and we were testing various hypotheses. One of the standard items is what kind of crowd it is, usually starting with how old and how diverse the crowd is. You would think that there would not be great variance in this, us being "upper middle aged" (for some versions of middle and upper) and therefore expected to attend "see them before they die" nostalgia-acts, but we have eclectic tastes so there really is. In the last three weeks, we've probably seen a 3x range in average age at shows, from college to middle-boomer.

We were having a debate about Why Most Men Look Like Shit (there, I capitalized it, that makes it true). My expertise is largely based on watching Queer Eye, where season after season the leads try to fix someone in a week. Wardrobe and grooming are a big part of it. Standard question on the show: "Why are you wearing gym clothes when you are not at the gym?" (me: blush, slouch in my lazy chair, trying not to think about my normal attire of athletic shorts and a T-shirt). "Why don't you wear age-appropriate layers that hide your gut?" (me: blush, suck in gut that tries to peek out from under my T-shirt). "What sort of product do you use?" (me: blush - "Soap and shampoo?").

Julia had a great hypothesis -- she said that guys look good without trying when they are in their 20s (active life, fast metabolism, less than a decade of liver-abuse), and as they age out of that (especially if they are already in a relationship), they never start trying. This particularly applies to straight men, as the women in their lives (who do keep trying, by the way, and tend to look good until the day they die) let them get away with it. I thought it was a good hypothesis, and proposed it to Michele. 

An outdoor concert on a Saturday night is a terrible place to test this hypothesis, particularly when accompanied by skeptical Michele. She had very little trouble pointing out lots of counterexamples. People were in their nice concert clothes, and the Greek on a foggy August night is too cold for athletic shorts, even if you are a Todd. The crowd was overwhelmingly white and straight (as far as I could tell, my gaydar being particularly sucky, an impracticality that is in sharp contrast with my otherwise reasonably perceptiveness and quickness of judgment and Always Being Right). But they were generally well dressed and looked good. Plus, they were nice—they were chatting with neighbors, smiling, being polite. It was general admission, but people weren't being pushy or obnoxious despite a sellout crowd.

Until just as the show was about to start, I saw a fairly large herd of Todds on the concourse to the left of us eyeing the area immediately in front of us. Oh-oh. 

Now the venue had been open for about 90 minutes prior to that and my interpretation of local etiquette is that it's first-come, first serve—i.e., if you get there at the last minute, you end up somewhere on the far sides or in the back. 

Not these guys. They were takers. 

Sure enough, they pushed and elbowed their way into the non-existent space right in front of us and made themselves at home, high-fiving one another in praise of the great spot that they had just conquered, and not caring a f*ck about all the people they had just mosh-pitted out of the way to get it. In fact, I'm not sure it was even worth a shrug to them, if they noticed at all. 

I go to a lot of concerts, many of which are general admission, standing. I have no illusions about personal space or the right to have an unobstructed view. There is always some migration, and as the band starts people move forward a bit and there is some reconfiguration, and as people move to the music things rearrange. Sometimes someone gets in your space or steps on your toes or happens to be the one guy taller than me, or (more usually) a foot shorter so they'd prefer to be in front of me rather than behind me. Every once in a while a couple will sort of maneuver themselves much closer to the stage than where they started. And as the show goes on you move around a bit and everyone has a good time.

But the way this substantial herd of 10 or 12 Todds just TOOK space from everyone was dick-ish, to be mild about it. Extremely dick-ish. 

At first I wanted to think of these jerks as male Karens. Much has been made of Karens. Wikipedia says "Karen is a pejorative slang term typically used to refer to a middle class woman who is perceived as entitled or excessively demanding." There are numerous discussions on Reddit and elsewhere as to what you call a male Karen (I googled it, but the answers were not compelling. Majority view: it's still a Karen). Plus, a Karen is usually someone who doesn't mind their own business or interacts in a comically inappropriate, entitled way with others. But while entitled, these were not Karens. They didn't interact. They just took what they wanted, without giving it a moment's thought that they were adversely affecting everyone around them. These were Todds. They made everyone else wish for a Karen to call them out.

Why Todds? OK, I can be persuaded to call them something else. Troys? Chads? Brads? Darrens? I'm guessing they were alumni of a fraternity at Cal-State Chico. They were definitely a "dude" and "brah" crowd. They were large, pretty much all 6'2 with "I bench a lot" shoulders. But they didn't have that angular military or cop look—they were softer, with longer hair and more entitled, and no visible tattoos, more money, and all white. They were somewhat groomed (ranging from slicked-back asshole hair to "I'm wearing a baseball cap with sunglasses on top of it at night" to blow-dried male Farrah Fawcett "1986 called - they want their hair back"). They had clearly had a few beers and kept getting more. They were accompanied by a few giggling women, with whom they they rarely spoke—except for the occasional, ‘Babe, are you getting more beer?’, otherwise being too busy high-fiving one another and congratulating themselves on another great day in Todd-land. 

Maybe they played on the same men's league softball team ("it's not about the game, it's about kicking eveyone's ass").

Back in the 80s when I lived in Texas, Todds were Joes and Bubbas and took pleasure in activities like cow tipping and guzzling beer bongs and maybe an occasional bashing. They wore those stained T-shirts with the sleeves cut off. They still moved in herds and took what they wanted.

But Todds here in California are more suburban than that. They looked more like they were in sales for some company nobody gives a shit about, trying to sell their crap to other Todds without understanding what it is or does. 

The initial Todd-herd was already way too large for the spot they appropriated, stepping on people and blankets in the process of moving in, knocking over people's drinks, and being oblivious to or just not giving a shit about what anyone thought about what they were doing. Then they started finding their fellow-Todds and bringing them in (they must have come on a mini-bus from some place like Pleasanton), and every time we thought it couldn't get more obnoxious they outdid themselves. 

I tried to ignore them (not my strength).

We tried to turn annoyance into bemusement by making snide observations about them (not very effective; I was too annoyed for subtle sarcasm).

We turned on the sanctimonious bit—it wasn't about us, but it was So Unfair to those poor people who got there first and whom they squashed and pushed out of the way, and to the woman in the wheelchair who could not see anymore because of a wall of Todds (that helped, but it wasn't entirely honest. It was about us. They were blocking my view, not an easy feat, and distracting me from an otherwise good show). 

I considered Karening to them (better sense prevailed—trying to make contact was pointless, although it was tempting to start hissing little passive-aggressive things. Not sure how aggressive a herd of beer-infused Todds can get when provoked, but it sounds like a bad idea).

All that was left was hope.

Hope that sooner or later they would see an even better place to appropriate and move on.

And so it happened, although not quite in the way I had thought it would. 

At some point, the blob of Todds had gotten big enough that they started overflowing to the next-lower (closer, better) tier, infecting the area in front of them. And when the back Todds could not reach the high-fives of the front Todds anymore, they too started pushing down. After all, Todds move as a herd.

Once the Todds had moved down a tier (finding new people to annoy and displace), our previous neighbors closed ranks and did not let them back in, not even when more Todds tried to join. There was a very clear "What are you thinking, it's full here, go back to your own seats."

Gradually my attention went back to the show.

I started thinking that for future shows, I should take into account the Todd-appeal of the band (and avoid as needed). But then again, we already mostly do.

I think this was an anomaly. 

Must have been a sales conference nearby.