It chafes my wallet to fork out $60 to $100 or more to attend an event or performance where I am coerced into standing up to applaud or cheer.
Kathleen and I attended Seattle Opera’s rendering of Porgy and Bess this past weekend. The singers were good, the sets were good, but neither was that good, and the story itself bored the crap out of me. I’d always thought Porgy and Bess had something more going for it than the song “Summertime,” but the story was typical American pap about a poor love-struck guy who fell for a worthless woman and wanted her back even after she betrayed him. I wanted to yell to the guy, “You’re better off!”
And I hate sitting where the seats and aisles are so narrow you’re trying to out-maneuver the person on each side of you all performance long just to win a little elbow room, and your knees feel like soggy pretzels when you attempt to stand up to go take a whiz.
So, when the Porgy and Bess actors and singers came out on stage for applause, I was gratefully surprised to see that almost everyone else in the audience either agreed with me or were too lazy to get out of their seats to give the cast a standing ovation. A few dunderheads stood up of course and clapped their hands like insane Nuclear Battery Bunnies, but for the most part, the audience clapped sitting.
Ball games are especially rife with people standing up and cheering (jeering) when it’s inappropriate. I sat behind this drunken baboon at a Seahawks game one time who would not sit down. I was tempted to beat his brains out with his beer bottle. A Seattle Supersonics game announcer one time kept urging people to stand up and cheer and I was wishing his mike would fall in a glass of water and electrocute him. Then there are the Mariner games where people just have to stand up to see the last couple of outs – particularly if the Mariners are winning.
I don’t mind giving a standing ovation when my pilot and crew safely land my plane during a nasty storm after we suddenly lost 10,000 feet of altitude and people were barfing into their oxygen masks. When that plane thuds to a landing and I realize this was not my personal rapture day I’m real happy to stand up and clap.
Why oh why don’t we SIT when we pay good money to sit? SIT PEOPLE! SIT! (Sam’s sitting. Good boy Sam!).
I don’t mind giving a standing ovation when my pilot and crew safely land my plane during a nasty storm after we suddenly lost 10,000 feet of altitude and people were barfing into their oxygen masks. When that plane thuds to a landing and I realize this was not my personal rapture day I’m real happy to stand up and clap.
Why oh why don’t we SIT when we pay good money to sit? SIT PEOPLE! SIT! (Sam’s sitting. Good boy Sam!).
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