A majestically moustachio'd musical evening...

Friday evening was a beautiful one; despite the daytime mugginess and rain, by 6:00 the sky had cleared and the sun was shining on a temperate, perfect evening. I walked up to the SummerStage at 69th on the East side to get in the long, long line for the free Josh Ritter show right after work. The line stretched for about 2 blocks' worth of park trails when I got there, and by the time they let us in to the venue I couldn't even see the end of it anymore, and that certainly makes sense. Josh Ritter and his rockin' band of folk music superstars were playing a show backed up by the New York Pops orchestra! For FREE! Outdoors! Even if you don't know his music, that sounds fun, right? And if you DO know his music you'll understand why the line was so long.
The concert was spectacularly fun, despite the odd aggressiveness of the fans at the front (I say odd because Josh Ritter is not exactly the aggressive type and it's strange to see people responding to wanting to see him that way instead of with unadulterated joy) and some really, really annoying girls who popped up right next to/in front of us at the beginning of the show and seemed to think that since they were holding a really nice camera, it would be fine for them to run around drunkenly and shout to each other while blocking people's views in order to get good photos. They annoyed me heartily until the music started, at which point I forgot what "annoyed" meant.
Ah, the joys of Josh Ritter. It's amazing how one man can smile so much and not hurt his face. And the orchestra! And he had a poet read his poem with the orchestra playing, and he played Thin Blue Flame with Hilary Hahn on violin, and he did a duet with some dude named Hanser that the crowd went BANANAS over, although I cannot for the life of me figure out who he is. It was magical. And of course, Zack Hickman, Josh's loyal and amazing bassist, was there as always with his 'million miles of moustache' - this guy's moustache is... well...

All in all, it was a fantastic evening.
On the way home, Connor and I stopped to get some pizza and we were so excited and food coma-ed that we got on the 4 and weren't paying attention and ended up, once again, at Yankee Stadium instead of 3rd Ave-149th St. No big deal, we thought, until we noticed that the downtown platform was completely packed, and I mean completely packed as in every inch of available space being taken up, with people in Yankees AND METS outfits.
This meant that a subway series game had just let out. This meant that no matter what we did when we got off the train, the environment outside would be complete insanity. Oh my.
Well, we decided to try a bus to get home rather than fight the crowd on the subway platform, and after about ten minutes of walking through crowds and yelling groups of fans and arguments and grand statements about the superiority of the Yankees (who apparently won because of a fluke missed catch, making the Mets fans particularly ready to get into fights), we managed to board the single most crowded bus I have ever been on. It was so tightly packed that a man pushing his way by me as I desperately held on to an overhead bar tapped me on the shoulder, pointed to my bag, and suggested I keep it closer to me because I might get robbed.
When we got going, I noticed that the... woman... sitting right in front of me was sporting a moustache. Like, a MOUSTACHE. I don't mean a bit of fuzz on her upper lip. I mean a long, thick, wiry-haired, dark, comb-able moustache. The kind that she probably wakes up in the morning and combs and then twiddles with over the course of the day. A very real, very serious moustache.
I was flabbergasted. I mean, I know plenty of women and see plenty of women around who have a bit of hair right there, some of whom decide to remove it and some don't. But this... this was the kind of thing you might see on a woman who's going through hormone therapy pre-getting-a-penis-operation. And perhaps she was in the process of becoming a man, although nothing else about her appearance suggested it.
When we got off the bus, I immediately started yelling "Wow! Wow! Oh my god, WOW! Did you SEE that thing? WHY wouldn't she SHAVE it? Or get electrolysis? Or WAX it? That's just... WOW!"
Connor laughed but pointed out that maybe, in our PC day and age, moustachio-ed women are the last frontier for civil rights. Maybe they're an under-represented sublcass of humanity that gets way too much flack for its natural tendency to grow facial hair.
Which made me pause. I WAS being awfully judgmental. Maybe she loves her moustache, and is proud to have it. And if that's the case, then by all means, grow those whiskers, lady, and more power to you! Way to fly in the face of societal norms and even biology. I salute you, and your moustache.