No, what I wanted to do is just say how incredible it was to see the Magnetic Fields perform their new record 50 Song Memoir live over two nights. It's a wonderful record but - & how I wish the bands I love could do this regularly - it was lovely & insightful to have a stage with projected images (including fascinating animation) as well as the songwriter himself put the songs into context. I found myself afterwards daydreaming about albums I wish I could see performed with the musician letting us know his or her thoughts behind the songs.
Of course, not all albums are openly autobiographical - or labelled as such - nor are most records opaque or downright inscrutable. But still. It was a superb experience, surely one of the best shows I'll see in my life, & I have my wife to thank for it. She saw the show in Brooklyn last year as a birthday present from her oldest sister, & loved it so much she bought tickets to see it here, where her mother lives, & brought me along to experience it. That's true romance.
What's not true romance is that, when we got back to our rental car after the show, we saw this:
No, not the empty bag of brand new Jalapeño Fritos! The busted-in driver's side window!
We weren't the only people on the block who were victims - we talked to a young couple whose car had also been broken into, although the young lady bemoaned that they had only stolen "a gym bag with some dirty workout clothes & my only other pair of jeans," then remembered, "also my tampons." All in a night's work! The young man said it was the eighth time that this has happened to him in two years.
Which makes you wonder, how is that possible? Well, it may be because of this: we called the police to report the incident & were told they were way too busy to come by but we could call back in four or five hours or file an incident report online. My wife did this - the car was in her name - on his phone while we stood for about an hour on a street corner where someone felt they could break into people's cars with impunity. We had to do that because we needed the incident report to give to the rental car company so we wouldn't have to pay for the window.
There wasn't anything of value in the car. (Leftovers for dinner were in the trunk, which was not opened nor searched.) But really, that's not the point. If you know for a fact that the police don't give a shit about investigating or prosecuting car break-ins, & you're inclined to such a career, you're probably going to do so whether there's anything worth stealing - & stealing things, like tampons, which are bound to be worthless anyway.
As well, car break-ins, like other property crimes, are just not prosecuted. (Well, maybe
in some places, but that's a rare exception.) In the Reddit thread linked above, one person mentions they don't even report it - which doubtless makes breaking into vehicles - especially when you can find guns - & targeting tourists (like me) enough they want to make a law to warn tourists of the likelihood - well, it makes the crime a win-win. You might find something, you might not - but you're most probably not ever going to get in trouble for it. It's a big problem.
I've visited the Bay Area over a dozen times in this century & never had this happen before. The good thing is, though it was an unhappiness, we weren't hurt, & it didn't change how I felt about the show. If the Magnetic Fields come anywhere near you with this two-night show, do try to see them. Although maybe look into whether the city is having a smash & grab epidemic beforehand?
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