This episode Scot dives into the world of compliments, via the story of a pair of pink shoes. What’s so special about pink shoes? Scot explores how they act as a magnet for compliments, and what is even going on there.
Scot also ventures into some new territory by going to a local punk show and meeting a band there. Hear his voyage into live music for the first time since college, and discover a strong connection between pink shoes and punk shows that wasn’t obvious at the beginning.
Special thanks to listener Steven, Jeff Clemens (https://twitter.com/jclemy) , and of course Nicole, Jerry, Julio and Israel, aka Rival Squad for the interview and introduction to punk.
The Perfect Show Episode 15 – Pink Shoes/Punk Shows – Production Transcript:
I’m tremendously fascinated by compliments. Not in the way where you compliment me I drop everything and am like ‘go on, tell me more…’ but in the way that I contend a successful compliment pulls off the closest you can come to a real magic trick. Now I don’t believe in magical powers, but I do believe in the power of compliments.
I’ve seen them change moods, or shift whole situations. I’ve seen compliments stop fights, and also open locked doors. Kind of like magic words, actually.
On today’s episode of the podcast, I want to explore compliments and the energy they produce, and one surprising lightning rod I’ve found to attract that energy, a simple pair of pink shoes.
So what am I talking about with compliments producing energy? Well, I’m saying what happens, for me anyway, when someone gives me a compliment, especially when it’s unexpected, it gives me a little, almost literal, zip of energy. It feels like an extra little charge just runs through my system. That term ‘brighten someone’s day?’ That is what it can seem like, and after a compliment you might see someone perk up some, walk a little straighter, or smile in some way.
That’s why I compare them to magic words. You say them and sometimes there’s an immediate, noticeable, real-world effect.
But some physicists out there may be shouting – Scot, that would put you at odds with the law of conservation of energy, which says energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only converted from one form to another. That’s a good point, and also thanks for listening, weird-pedantic-physicist-guy.
I don’t think we are at odds with the law of conservation of energy, because I think it’s not actually creating any energy, merely transferring it like the law says. All genuine compliments start with one thing in common: attention.
That attention is then the energy that gets transfered to the other person through the compliment. You notice someone’s new haircut, or nicely matched outfit, pay attention to a child’s work at school, or some artist’s new creation. It takes a little effort. It takes a little time to learn how to always be looking for those things, but you translate that attention into some kind of a compliment, and when it hits it’s destination, it can acctually lift the spirits of whoever is on the receiving end.
They’re not the only one affected either. I mean, if I land a compliment and I can tell it was successful, I get a little zing out of it too. Sort of positive shrapnel that radiates off the compliment and gets you as well. Which, I guess, speaks to how powerful of a thing attention is, and how much energy is really involved in it.
So, as always, when I need a little infallible wisdom on a subject, I turn to the world of Hollywood. Movies, The silver screen. Um…cinema….the pictures….okay, but we’re talking big budget studios, rooms full of award-winning writers, people who can and do work obsessively over a screenplay until every last letter and punctuation mark are perfect.
So then, when I google the best compliments in the history of movies, what comes up? I mean, it’s a pretty subjective thing, but there does seem to be a consensus for number one, actually.
I think this one gets noticed in part because it’s got big actors, it did pretty good with awards, nabbing Oscars for leading actor, leading actress, supporting actor, and best picture, and well, it not only gives a compliment, but that compliment happens during a discussion about compliments, and then it gets commented on directly, so I think it’s especially highlighted in people’s memories.
I’m speaking of the 1997 movie As Good As It Gets, written by James L. Brooks, starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, both of whom won Academy Awards for their roles, like I said. In the film Nicholson is a prickly writer who is rude and downright awful to everyone around him, and Hunt is a waitress with far too much patience with a person like that, but there’s a famous scene in the middle when they’re having dinner together and it starts like this:
[AS GOOD AS IT GETS CLIP ONE]
And then Jack proceeds to ramble about himself and not wanting to take a medication his doctor prescribed while Helen stares at him and then he finally gets to this destination.
[AS GOOD AS IT GETS CLIP 2]
Yuuup. I’m Team Helen here. It’s not a compliment for her. Okay, so what do you have to say to that, Jack?
[AS GOOD AS IT GETS – YOU MAKE ME WANT TO BE A BETTER MAN]
Oooh, okay, Helen, let him have it.
What? Noooo. Helen. I mean, they sell it, they are great actors, but that’s a TERRIBLE compliment, Helen. That’s when you should be saying this one again:
[AS GOOD AS IT GETS – I DON’T QUITE GET HOW THAT’S A COMPLIMENT FOR ME]
So when Jack pulls out the “You make me want to be a better man” thing, it’s not congratulating or praising anything about Helen’s character. He’s commenting on himself. And I know some people will be like – yeah that’s the point they are making because he’s such a self-centered guy that that’s all he can muster and it’s a huge thing for him, and sure, fine, but it still is a terrible compliment, that still makes it all about him, and Helen shouldn’t have said
[THAT’S THE BEST COMPLIMENT IVE EVER GOTTEN IN MY LIFE]
Because it wasn’t even a compliment!
Can you imagine telling someone about it? Like trying to tell someone about the compliment you just got?
Wow, you’re not going to believe the compliment I just got.
Ooh, tell me!
Well, you know that awful guy? The one everyone hates? Well, he said I make him want to uh be better.
Better than… awful?
Uh, yeah, I guess.
But not even good, just…better than completely awful?
…Yeah.
And then he gave you a compliment?
No, that was the compliment.
Oh.
But Nicholson and Hunt were on top of their games, delivered their lines like real pros, and it worked. I’m not saying it didn’t work, just that it doesn’t make sense, and I think it sort of should if it’s going to get marked down as the best compliment in movie history.
And I’ll argue it actually took that crown from another famous romance relationship movie that came out just one year earlier, The Cameron Crowe smash hit from 1996, Starring Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger. I’m talking, of course, about the film Jerry Maguire.
If you haven’t seen it, Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise, is a sports agent who leaves his big agency to go at it solo and Zellweger plays a single mother who doesn’t know if she and Maguire are partners in business, in romance, in both, or in neither.
It’s a great movie. Tom Cruise is doing his thing, and Rene Zellweger kills it. Cuba Gooding Jr. Pulls down an oscar for his role, Regina King and Jonathan Lipnicki are perfect, and everyone starts quoting Jerry Maguire all over the place.
Two of the most famous lines are actually in the clip I want to play. At a time when they have been apart, an emotional Tom Cruise comes to see Renee Zellweger and gives a manic, impassioned speech to win her back, which culminates in this:
[JERRY MAGUIRE CLIP – YOU COMPLETE ME SHUT UP YOU HAD ME AT HELLO]
Okay, Renee, fair enough, Jerry Maguire could probably have me at ‘hello’ too. I mean, we’re talking Tom Cruise in 1996, at the peak of his Tom Cruisiness. He could probably ‘have at hello’ most of us, if we’re being honest. That’s not where my qualm is. I’m talkin’ about this part…
[YOU COMPLETE ME]
Okay, Helen, can you come here real quick, what was that thing you said?
[I DON’T QUITE GET HOW THAT’S A COMPLIMENT FOR ME]
Right. ‘You complete me?’ Is that a compliment? Lets run it through the simulator again:
Picked up another compliment. This time from Jerry.
Oh, what did he say?
Well, he was giving a big speech and then at the end he said ‘You complete me.’
…and that’s the compliment then?
…yeah. Why?
What’s he complimenting about you?
Well…he’s complimenting my…
…yeah…
…ability to complete him.
Ugh…
But honestly? It didn’t matter what he said. He already had me at ‘hello.’
Totally fair. It’s Jerry Maguire. I get it.
But yeah, that’s another one, just like As Good As It Gets, where it’s not really a compliment at all. It’s totally about the person saying it, completely self-centered, and just pretending to be a compliment. And if these are the best examples that movies have to offer well then maybe this topic needs a bit of attention, so we can define the bounds of what is actually a compliment, and then also maybe explore what the flip side of that would be.
All of this compliment talk got me to thinking about the best compliment I’ve ever received. And once I decided to get into the story of what that was, I actually wanted to reach out and see what other good compliment stories I could find, so I made a mini-episode about it a few months ago with a number to call in and tell me stories of your best compliments and now I’d like to play a listener story that I received.
[STEVEN STORY ]
Thank you, Steven. That’s like the strongest endorsement you can get as a writer. I read what you wrote and now I’m open to joining lives together? Sounds like it was really well written indeed.
So piggybacking off of that, my perfect compliment came when I was living in Japan, and it’s much less the result of my own actions than Steven’s. Actually it happened when I was with my friend Jeff Clemens, who was on the Park Golf episode with me, but we also sat down and talked compliments when he was here, too.
[AUDIO OF JEFF AND SCOT TALKING PERFECT COMPLIMENT]
Now I’m sure this was only necessary for me, really. Everyone else probaby already has the history of Brad Pitt’s hairstyles locked in their long term memory, still rattling around from those late nights in the quad studying to get their Brad Phd degrees, which of course stands for ‘Brad Pitt, Hunky Dude’ degrees.
Brad is a long hair boy sometimes. Troy, Legends of the Fall, Interview with a Vampire. He’s got a short scruffy cut more often, like in Seven, 12 Monkeys, and the Oceans movies, but he’s only done that buzz cut like I had a couple of times.
This means this kind old Japanese lady was most likely thinking of the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the Doug Liman flick where Pitt starred alongside Angelina Jolie as competing assassins who also have the hots for each other, or something. I dunno. I think it was mainly an excuse to film beautiful people and large explosions with movie cameras, but that description actually applies well to a ton of films.
So we’re talking Mr. and Mrs. Smith Brad Pitt. The timing works out, that would have been a movie in circulation back then, and the only other option for a buzzcutt Brad Pitt at that time would have been like the last third of Fight Club, so I think the Smiths are a safer bet.
Though this lady did look like a pretty strict rule follower, so if she was into Fight Club I imagine she wouldn’t have told me about it per club rules 1 …and 2.
Now was there a reason I was telling you this? Yes. Was it partly to tell people that I was compared to Brad Pitt once? Yes. Does it help that this is an audio medium and people can’t see what I actually look like as I tell them this? Maybe. But there is a larger point to why I’m bringing this up.
It was a momentary thing, completely unprompted and sort of silly, actually, but it has stayed with me all these years, and thinking back on that small momentary thing still brings a smile to my face, as it has many times since it happened. It was a gift she gave me that I still have the power to tap into and mine little bits of real positive energy out of.
So I maintain a pretty basic wardrobe. I wear jeans most of the time, I have t-shirts with different things on them but I usually am wearing a plain long-sleeve shirt over the top covering it up. That’s my usual look, and I’ve been sticking with it for a while now.
I don’t do much to accessorize. No necklaces or piercings or pins, but one thing I have come to enjoy immensely is a pair of colorful shoes.
Now colorful or crazy shoes on someone whose whole outfit is also crazy can be too much, that might be a person to avoid for any number of reasons, but someone with an exceedingly normal outfit except for one fun accent like colorful shoes? Well, that’s just some good clean fun.
Right now the shoes I wear for this purpose are all the same make and model. My habit of owning several different colors of the exact same article of clothes extends, of course, to my shoes too.
The shoe I go with, my regular shoe, is the Chuck Taylor All-Stars by Converse. They’re the classic canvas high top shoe with a thick white sole and a white shell toe. There’s a circle with a star and Chuck Taylor’s signature in it on each ankle. In fact, the shoes are often just called “Chuck Taylor’s” or “Chucks.”
Yes! I knew I’d get a chance to paraphrase some Wikipedia to you, okay, here we go. I had thought Chuck Taylor was a famous basketball player from before my time. I mean, to get his name on the most iconic tennis shoe of a generation?
And he was a basketball player, but Wikipedia lists his name with the word ‘salesman’ in parentheses afterward.
Taylor was born in 1901, only 10 years after basketball was invented, and 5 years before they switched from using peach baskets to metal hoops. So he played in high school and then went semi-pro. Pro basketball wasn’t at all like it is today. There was certainly no NBA. That wouldn’t start until 1946, so Chuck Taylor played on his first team, which disbanded after his first season, a bunch of other teams, and by the 20s he was a shoe salesman for Converse.
He would eventually become the player-manager of the Converse All-Stars, a basketball team based out of Chicago that would put on traveling clinics and exhibitions sponsored by Converse to go around and show off and sell their shoes.A shoe that with the input of Chuck Taylor would become the Converse All-Stars that we know now.
A shoe that became so famous and unrivaled that most basketball players wore these shoes for 50 years, from the 20s through the 70s, and they were the official shoe for the Olympic games from 1936-68. At their height in the 60’s, this one model of shoe accounted for 70-80% of the entire basketball shoe market. That’s astounding.
But I didn’t know anything about that when I decided this was the tennis shoe I wanted to wear. I saw this shoe in movies like Back to the Future, Rocky, in comic books and cartoons. To me this shoe was the shorthand for tennis shoe, when I drew my own cartoon characters, if they were in tennis shoes, they almost always wore Chucks.
Once I unlocked the high school achievement of being old enough to work, drive, and buy my own clothes, I found a Converse outlet store near where I grew up. My feet have been size 13 since I was in 8th grade. I got my height later, but my flippers were large early. And Converse All Stars have always been the same at least as long as I’ve been wearing them, so once I knew and liked the fit of my size in that shoe, I have been able to buy new ones confidently without needing to try them on at all ever since.
It saves me time. It saves me hassle. It’s honestly one of the things I appreciate most about this long standing tradition of mine.
I appreciated the memory of it even more when I moved to Japan, my shoe size jumped from 13 to 31, and the selection of footwear available to me fell to zero. There were rumors. People would swear this one store had huge shoes – they may have had one pair of 28s. Or we should go to this bowling alley because they carry every size – which ended up meaning they topped out at 29.
By the time I moved to Hokkaido I had all but given up on finding shoes my size in Japan at all, just wore what I had, which had been holding up until then.
They would not have held up the whole 4 years in Hokkaido, though. Apart from the time and regular wear and tear itself, Hokkaido is rough on shoes. Whether it’s the summers spent hiking and exploring nature, or the winters sloshing around snow, ice, and road salt, my shoes wore out there faster than anyplace else I’ve ever lived.
Funnily enough, it was an outlet store that again came to my rescue. A whole outlet mall, actually. We found a huge outlet mall with many Japanese but also many American stores and brands in Chitose, Hokkaido. A suburb city next to Sapporo where Hokkaido’s main airport is.
And this mall had a Nike outlet store, and inside I found two pairs of shoes my size. I think one was a plain shoe that would be good for some boring Japanese office work situations, but the other pair was actually, uh, how do I describe it? They were white, and green, and blue, and yellow, and uh, I think a little purple in a few places. They were really colorful. I did buy them but only after a bit of hesitation. Me, the person in desperate need of footwear, debating whether or not I could wear a pair of loudly colored shoes. My reasoning was that I had actually never worn a pair of shoes that intentionally stuck out before.
Prior to this I had focused my shoe energy on trying to fit in, or at least blend in, the best I could in most situations. Loud shoes that say ‘notice me’ would have been the last thing I would want to wear. But now I was in a world where blending in wasn’t ever an option. I was never going to fit in, no matter what, in Japan, and anything I wore on my feet would have to get in line behind a lot of other things about my whole look that said ‘notice me’ constantly.
I know I started out by saying I love a pair of colorful shoes, but it’s because of these shoes. This was my first colorful pair. At first it was a situation of beggars can’t be choosers. I needed shoes. These were in my size. There was no telling when or if I would find other options in my size without going across an ocean, and back then online shopping really wasn’t what it is now.
But the more I wore them, the more I enjoyed them. I liked seeing the little flash of color out of the bottom of my peripheral vision as I walked. I liked seeing them on a shoe rack in a lineup of super similar black and brown pairs of shoes. I mean, that was hilarious anyway, because they looked COMICALLY LARGE in those situations, and usually stuck out the back of the shoe rack or some other thing that would make me basically feel like a sasquatch on a daily basis.
But I loved those bright colorful shoes. I loved having them. I wore them to schools, I wore them park golfing, I wore them walking around on the snow, and playing basketball. I wore them when I moved back to the states and wore them until they wore out and fell apart.
During all that time I picked up random compliments all over from people. Just out and about, kids and adults alike would just sometimes comment on my shoes, and they proved at times to be excellent ice-breakers and conversation starters all on their own.
Meanwhile back in the states, after the demise of my colorful Nike’s I’ll admit I just bought random shoes for a while until I happened to discover that I was once again close to my old friend, the Converse Factory Outlet Store.
I switched back to Chuck Taylors. Before Japan I had always gone high tops, but a stretch in Japan and then also in California where taking off shoes to enter houses is a more common occurrence, made lacing the high top Chucks up and also taking them off a huge pain, so I started mixing in the low-top version of the shoe as well.
The way I understand the outlet, shoes that don’t sell at other stores are cycled out and make their way to this outlet store, where they are then marked down further and also put on sale on top of that.
And at least in my size it’s usually chock full of bright and colorful options that have fallen through the whole system getting to this final stop.
After discounts and coupons I usually walk away with a new pair of Chuck Taylors for $10-30. I can come in and be done shopping in only a few minutes because, again, I literally never have to try the shoes on. I know exactly what my size is and exactly how it’ll fit.
I find comfort in that. Buying the same thing over and over again. And maybe it’s the pleasure of efficient shopping, maybe. But maybe also it’s the safety and security of knowing anytime something wears out, gets damaged, destroyed, or fails in some way, I can replace it easily, quickly, but more importantly exactly.
I have found shoes to be the place to come out of my shell a little bit in an outfit. It helps that the whacky and bright colored shoes are usually th e cheapest in the store. I didn’t document this, but anecdotally, I feel that I’ve seen that the more out there and odd colors and styles usually sport the lower price tags. So I tried a few low tops with fun colors, and really liked the accent. I also got random compliments, many from kids, and even teens, which, I’m not going to lie, when a teenager compliments your clothes it feels sort of like – ok. Feather in my cap, there. –
I’ve notic ed shoe compliments while wearing brightly colored yellow, purple, blue, and green Chucks, but I got decidedly more when I wore my pair of pink low top chuck taylors, the shoes that I’m placing at the center of this whole thing I’m trying to describe here about compliments.
I got some non-bright colors from time to time over the years, too. Like black, white, and gray, but the colorful ones are by far my favorite, and now I’ve gotten to a point where when I go in, the more colorful or wild the design is, the quicker I lock it up. Those are the ones I look for exclusively, the weird statement shoes, or the ones that are going to prompt some sort of response, I guess.
A pair of bright pink shoes instantly gave my usual outfit just the right amount of personality, and made it look good, I thought.
The difference in compliments I got when wearing these shoes versus any other I had ever tried was undeniable. It had to be the shoes. They were the only variable I changed in my regular uniform. These pink shoes sparked comments often, and at a variety of places.
The gym, the grocery store, a restaurant, a doctor’s office, honestly it could be anywhere, really. And any random compliment would genuinely give me just a little boost, which would last different amounts of time, but still it was always there. That’s why I talk about compliments in terms of generating or transferring energy. That’s what I would feel happening to me in these shoes. Just getting a random compliment out of nowhere? Is there a way to measure how much renewable energy that produces? I mean, it’s not nothing.
But there were also…the other comments. I talked about the compliments, but the pink shoes also served as a – well, let’s call them ‘crab detectors.’ The same way that when I wore my pink shoes there was a noticeable uptick in people saying nice things about them, which was most people, to be fair, there was also a noticeable uptick in people who would use a man wearing pink shoes as a chance to show…well, what a crab they were.
A crabby person might look at my feet and say something like [sarcastically] “Oh, hey, really nice shoes…” Or something along – I mean it wasn’t always exactly that or the same thing, but you know, and in that way they actually functioned really well for me on the crab detector front.
I mean a lot of times you might be a few minutes into a conversation before a crab says something crabby and outs themselves, but this puts it up front. Crabby people who are going to say crabby things about my shoes usually open with them.
By the way the best response when someone gives you a sarcastic comment like that, and I tested this a few times in these shoes, is to just take the sarcastic compliment as a genuine one. So when they give you a ‘hey really nice shoes’ sarcastically, you can reply back, in the most genuine way possible, ‘ aw thanks, yeah, I really like them.’ or something like that.
You have to play it completely straight, but I’ve found that this sort of deflates the crab, and puts them in the spot where they have to either drop it or then try to stick their heads back out to explain their crabby joke, and, well, crabs don’t like to come out of their shell when someone is there waiting for them, so it usually just ends there. Problem solved, oh, AND, extra compliment received! Double Points!
The pink low-top Chucks quickly became my go-to pair, and even though I had a few more on the shoe rack next to them, those only really went into rotation when I was running late and couldn’t find my pink ones or something.
And what happened was that I literally wore them out so much that I literally wore them out. (have fun with that one, grammar nerds) but yeah, by the end I had worn the tread way down, the sole was coming apart from the rest of the shoe at the sides, they were cracked and dirty in a bunch of places, and well, I’d gotten much more than my original $14 worth out of them.
That was probably back over a year ago now, and there have been two major factors in play since then. The first is I’ve finally started acknowledging my backlog of Converses. Pairs that are in really good or even new shape that I should wear out before getting a whole bunch more.
But the second factor is that x-factor that’s in play whenever you’re dealing with outlet stores, the inventory is constant but unpredictable. If something is there, it may be the only one of that style, and then it’s only there until it isn’t.
When I went in, for a really long time, I didn’t see the same style of pink shoes. I saw lots of wild styles, some even louder than my bright pink model, but having had so many pleasant experiences with my color and style, I had sort of convinced myself they were the perfect shoe, so that’s what I wanted to find.
And then, earlier this year, I walked in, like I did every so often, expecting to scan the shelves for a minute and turn back without finding my prize, but this time was different. This time I found what I had come for. Size 13 Converse Chuck Taylor All-stars in low top and the exact same bright pink that I had before.
After markdowns and discounts they were well under $20, like my first pair, so I grabbed them and made the purchase. Pink shoes were back on the menu, baby.
Well, actually, I still had that backlog of previous shoes I was working on, so the pink shoes went directly into the closet! It was like that famous short story: “For save: pink shoes, never worn.”
But I’ve been wearing the other shoes out slowly, two by two, and I’ve really been anticipating getting those pink ones back into the mix someday. Looking for the perfect time. Looking for a good excuse.
Did I spend countless hours making a podcast just so I could justify wearing a pair of shoes? Well, actually, I was looking for a lot of things with this episode. I mean, I wanted to talk about my pink shoes, yeah, but then what? Like after I say I had pink shoes and the compliment stuff, where do I go next?
And so I googled the topic and my city to see what came up, actually this is a step that pretty much every episode of this podcast goes through where I google relevant words or phrases for the topic and check to see if there’s anything semi-local that I didn’t even know to be looking into.
For this episode that meant searching a few terms, but among them was ‘Pink Shoes Oakland.’
Now I hit enter, but then google must have done a double take and been like – oh dear. This can’t be right, let’s help this poor soul out – so it took my search for ‘Pink Shoes Oakland’ and served me up a – right at the top, in blue, mind you – ‘Did you mean ‘Punk Shows Oakland?’’ as in there’s no way what you searched for is what you actually wanted to search for. There must be some mistake.
And I hesitated here, but ultimately this show is about me having new experiences. Well, really about me trying to have old experiences again, but also new experiences related to those old experiences. So my response? No, I did not mean ‘Punk Shows Oakland’…but I do NOW.
I wouldn’t say I’m a punk music person, per se. I mean, I think I’ve said this before, but I’m not much of a music person in general. I’ve only been to four concerts really, not counting small performances, or like my friend’s high school band, Carnivorous Grass, but four real concerts ever.
Number one was in high school, when my sister, the exchange student from Belgium we hosted one summer, my best friend – who I had a crush on but I couldn’t tell her – and I all went to Starlight Amphitheater in Kansas City to see my first real concert ever – Hootie and the Blowfish.
It was good! They played songs I knew from the radio. I got to stand there while they played ‘Hold My Hand’ wishing I was holding the hand of the girl next to me whose hand I was not holding… It was great!
But yeah, a bunch of hits, nice outdoor concert. It was a good time.
My second concert was a festival in Lawrence, Kansas that I went to my freshman year of college when a girl on my dorm floor that I had a crush on invited me to go with her. I’m sorry, more accurately there was a sign up sheet open to anyone on our floor and she was the one organizing it. But that’s basically the same thing, right?
So I went out to a hot outdoor field where a couple of stages had been erected and wandered around some with various people from my dorm floor, wondering if I was going to run into the girl I had signed up for – I didn’t – and caught some bands in the process. The one I really remember being there for multiple songs of was Everclear, who I was actually pretty into.
But after several hours of not accidentally on purpose running into the girl I liked, and realizing that there were really only three options of what to do with myself, which were walk around a field, stand still, or sit on some hay bales, I decided to head back to the dorm at that point and probably watch a Law and Order rerun or something else more my speed.
Our dorms at KU were only a short walk away from the Lied Center, where the university put on lots of concerts and shows, and I was able to get tickets at a student discount to see Beck open up for the Flaming Lips in a pretty awesome show. That was number 3.
And my last concert was also in college, when I went with my girlfriend – see? I finally had a girlfriend for one, they aren’t all ‘sadboy’ things – and we went to see Coldplay – which actually might be the most ‘sadboy’ band there is, but easily the biggest concert I’d been to yet, indoors in a proper Kansas City concert venue.
So yeah, Hootie, Everclear, Beck, the Flaming Lips, and Coldplay. No one really even remotely punk. I guess early Everclear, maybe? But I was more into their pop songs and ballads.
Also, I genuinely did a thorough search for ‘pink shoes Oakland,’ too, I didn’t see the punk shows suggestion and just completely stop looking, but I didn’t really find anything interesting there, so I decided that the best excuse to break out my new pair of pink Chucks, and see if they still have that same compliment-getting power, could be to just go to one of those punk shows in pink shoes and see what happens.
But which one? Where? How do I find it?
What I found was a Facebook group called East Bay Punks that would post events and flyers for local punk shows all over the SF Bay Area.
I was a little overwhelmed by all the options. Things happening most weekends and also sometimes during the week. I finally posted asking the group for advice on what show to go see, and got a bunch of helpful replies.
One was from someone named Nicole, who just so happened to be in a band performing at a punk show in Oakland soon. The band she’s in is called Rival Squad. They’re a punk band from San Diego, and Nicole sings vocals.
Rival Squad’s show was going to be at a place called Stay Gold Deli in Oakland. Since joining the Facebook group I had seen tons of flyers for shows at Stay Gold. It looked like a pretty decent venue that was always putting on all-ages shows with cool lineups of local and out-of-town bands.
So on a Sunday night in September, I got ready to go to Stay Gold Deli and see Rival Squad perform at one of their Punk Shows in my Pink Shoes.
[PUNK SHOW TAPE]
I contacted Nicole when I knew I’d be able to come for sure, asked if the band would have any time to talk with me for the podcast, and we decided on meeting up before their set, out back in the large patio area that Stay Gold has.
[PUNK SHOW TAPE]
Rival Squad was so cool. Check out the show notes and website for all the links to all their things, but Rival Squad on bandcamp, Rival Squad on Spotify. It’ll all be in the show notes. Just Rival Squad everywhere, like they said.
I bought some nice merch from their table, too. A shirt, pins, and patches. I would have gotten a tape but I have literally no idea how I would play it, so I’ll opt for the digital versions, but the shirt was – you’re not going to believe this – black with white graphics on it! I know. My poser days were almost over. I now owned the real deal.
So while they talked to fans and got ready I buzzed around and checked out the other bands on stage. Tonight the punk bands were all led by female singers. Some absolutely ferrocious, hard-rocking ladies.
And while they switched the band setup getting ready for Rival Squad to close out the night I took a break from all that sound and stepped outside to talk about how it was going so far.
[PUNK SHOW TAPE]
Yup, earplugs. They were just what I needed inside Stay Gold when the bands were playing. It did make it harder to monitor the audio I was recording though, but spare the ear and spoil the recording, or whatever.
[PUNK SHOW TAPE]
I wasn’t expecting to be able to hear any of what I just described at all, but when I listened back I was able to find it. Here, I’ve dropped the music way down, and if you’re listening for it you can make out him saying “I like your shoes” and then me saying “Thank you.”
[PUNK SHOW TAPE]
But how great is that, right? I went there hoping to get an unprompted compliment on my pink shoes and I totally got one! I was stoked that that actually worked out.
And then it was finally time for Rival Squad to take the stage. I got their blessing ahead of time to keep recording during the show, and I did, but man, their music overpowered my recorder at first, until I eventually got dialed in. Here are some moments from their set.
[PUNK SHOW TAPE – RIVAL SQUAD SHOW CLIPS]
Rival Squad played for 23 minutes of fire. The energy in the place was palpable. There were people dancing, people moshing, people singing along in places.
I was there recording, with my earplugs in, and really enjoying my first ever punk show.
There was one thing I messed up on, though. See earlier I had talked to Nicole about the Barbecue there, but I hadn’t wanted to take time away from any of the shows to go and eat a meal, and I already had my hands full with recording stuff, so I didn’t want to be holding a bag, but by the time the show was over the kitchen had closed and I had missed my opportunity to order. Alas.
And then after their set, Rival Squad got a huge ovation, and everyone cleared out to the patio to meet all the bands, buy their stuff, and just hang until last call.
At which point I made my way from the Stay Gold patio back to my car, and I want to play that part a little later, but first here I am driving home as I process what I had just seen and heard.
[PUNK SHOW TAPE]
So yeah, I thought about this some more. The bands I’m thinking of, I mean the ones that had that punk sound – at least to my ears – and made it to major radio play where I would hear them, were like Green Day, The Offspring, Blink 182 and Sum 41, and they were for sure angsty, and putting that emotion on front street, but like I said before it’s mad at love, or mad at life, or mad at growing up, whatever, but they were pretty clipped, politically, and I still love Sum 41, so no disrespect is there, but I don’t really clock their music as in any way political.
I guess the exception, the notable one that got through even to my pop and top 40 self, was Rage Against the Machine. They have been strongly political throughout their whole career while still topping charts and putting on humongous shows all over the world. Even now you can see online people discovering their lyrics and complaining that they’ve gotten political now and it’s just hilarious because that’s who they’ve always been.
The anger in Rage songs isn’t vague or inert. It’s specific and directed. It’s free speech, and protest, in the form of music, and that was the vibe I had gotten at Stay Gold that night too.
[PUNK SHOW TAPE]
I notice that I keep talking about the energy. The energy I was seeing and feeling all around me at the show, and that’s where this whole thing started with compliments too. Feeling like they generate this palpable extra energy out of nowhere, but really it comes from directed attention that someone turns into that energy, and I think with punk music what I’m seeing is the exact same reaction, just in reverse.
What I had just experienced was people with energy, and tons of it, directing that energy into attention. Attention on themselves, sure, but attention on different issues, on human rights, attention to the plights of people in need, attention to just being political and paying attention. With the hopes then that that attention turns to action, the energy continues to move forward, and things eventually get better.
Punk music, at least what I heard, is commentary that is trying to direct action, to address problems, and to make change. Compliments are things you notice, that you say, that become energy, also through a commentary.
From the outside, they may seem opposite, but the compliment path of attention turned into energy and the punk commentary path of energy turned into attention are just opposite directions on a two-way highway..
So what then? What do we do with this information? Well, I think you sort of look at where you are on this line, and see what you can do to better the world around you. I mean, spoiler alert, that’s always my answer, but in this case, it means assessing, and reassessing frequently, because it changes, but see where you are on that line, do you have extra energy that you’re able to direct into attention on things that need it?
Or maybe you don’t. Maybe the idea of extra energy is an insulting one, especially if you feel like you hit empty before your day is even over. Well, in that case, I’d say you can use your attention, which we all have complete control over, and turn it into energy by finding a chance to compliment someone in a real way. A way that turns your attention into energy for both them and you, because remember, from my experience, that little jolt of good zings in both directions.
And I just want to close with the tape from earlier of when I left the show and walked to my car.
[PUNK SHOW TAPE]
And with that, Pink Shoes and Punk Shows become the next entry into the Perfectorium, the index of perfect things.
Visit perfectshowpodcast.com to see pictures and videos related to this and each episode, – for this one I will have pictures of my pink shoes, Me interviewing Rival Squad, their show at Stay Gold, and more.
You can see all the entries to the Perfectorium at the direct link for it, perfectshowpodcast.com/perfectorium.
Special thanks to Nicole, Jerry, Julio, and Israel, aka Rival Squad, for sitting with me.
You can find them on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, just wherever you already get your music.
You can also find the info and links for all the other musical artists in the show notes and on this episode’s webpage, too.
As always, if you’d like to contact the show, you can email PerfectShowShow@gmail.com, and connect on Twitter, Youtube, or Instagram to the name PerfectShowShow.
This episode was recorded and mixed at Morena Studios in Oakland, California.
Please be sure to rate, review, subscribe, and all that jazz, or rather all that punk this time, but mostly if you know someone who you think would enjoy the show, let them know about it. Word of mouth is still the biggest driver of people finding a show.
And remember, think of a compliment as a weapon that’s always with you. Like a samurai sword in feudal Japan or a six-shooter in the wild west. You can’t control when you get a compliment, not really. But you are in complete control of when you dish them out them, and you can look at it like you’re a compliment outlaw, roaming across the landscape, ready to quick-draw an ‘OOh, sharp outfit.’ or a ‘This is really beautiful work’ at a second’s notice. [USE WILDWEST RICOCHET NOISES]
Anyway, until next time. I’m Scot Maupin, and thanks for listening to The Perfect Show.
( 50 eggs)
Other music from this episode by:
Mikesville – https://www.fiverr.com/mikesville
Brrrrravo – https://www.fiverr.com/brrrrravo
Avishka31 – https://www.fiverr.com/avishka31
Steveaik7 – https://www.fiverr.com/steveaik7
Gelyanov – https://www.fiverr.com/gelyanov
Trappy 808 – https://www.fiverr.com/trappy808_
Dawnshire – https://www.fiverr.com/dawnshire
Bastereon – https://www.fiverr.com/bastereon
Nearbysound – https://www.fiverr.com/nearbysound
Aandy Valentine – https://www.fiverr.com/aandyvalentine
From the Free Music Archive and used under a Creative Commons License:
Komiku – https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Komiku
School – https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Komiku/Captain_Glouglous_Incredible_Week_Soundtrack/mall_1328/