Nightmare at the Rose Bowl
I’m going to preface this by saying I’m a spoiled shit. Having duped people in thinking I’m working sports media, I am privileged. I get to watch sports live in a space where cheering is not allowed. Hell not talking to someone is not considered a faux pas.
I was invited by a PR company to look at the renovations going on at the Rose Bowl while also getting to watch the September 17 UCLA noontime game against Texas from a luxury box. I knew full well I wasn’t going to be in the press box, and I was fine with being in a confined space with cheering fans. That’s why god invented iPods.
The problems started before that Saturday. My ticket and parking pass was supposed to be sent via Federal Express on Friday. I had to cover a Dodger game that night, but when I got back home there was nothing.
Being someone with horrendous rejection issues, I sent an email back to the PR company wondering what was going on. Am I still invited? Is this still happening?
Saturday morning I got a reply saying that it was still going on, sorry for the confusion, Fed Ex said they delivered, yadda yadda yadda. But nothing.
Since I would have to pay a lot for parking, I opted to take public transportation to the Rose Bowl. I was also running a bit late, so I had no time to get coffee. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem since I’m in a luxury box, they surely have to have coffee available.
Once I got to the stadium, meet up with my PR contact to get my ticket and get in the box, I find there is no coffee. There’s food, beer, soda and hard liquor available. But. No. Fucking. Coffee. I ask to get some coffee in the box.
Anyhow I get the tour and thankfully get a cup of coffee from the Rose Bowl trailer. We get back to the box, no coffee. I ask around if I can get coffee in my box, and the response I get is that they don’t have coffee.
What the fuck? No coffee?
Things were so dire instead of homicide I dropped way into suicidal thoughts. Well maybe that had to do with the combination of no coffee and watching UCLA football.
I am fully aware that I could have gone all the way downstairs and waited in a long line to buy a small cup of coffee for whatever gouging price they sell for. But no. Isn’t the point of a luxury box? Like I prefaced earlier, I’m a spoiled shit. In press boxes I get as much coffee as I want. It just boggled my mind that in a luxury box at the Rose Bowl, one the most historic venues in the world, coffee was not to be had.
I threw a hissy fit. I was around a bunch of people I didn’t know who looked happy. My head felt like it was going to explode. I was in misery. I did think about hurling myself out of the box, but I didn’t want to be the story — I guess all the time I spend in press boxes have rubbed off on me.
The game ended and I got back to Old Town Pasadena at around 4:30 where the first coffeeshop I saw was Intelligentsia Coffee. Fuck them.
They are so fucking snooty about their coffee they had no empathy for the caffeine-deprived desperation in my bloodshot eyes. They took their damned time to get me my red eye, and then they had the fucking nerve to charge me $7.85 for a 16-ounce cup.
I know tons of people who like Intelligentsia, but fuck them. I hope they go bankrupt. It’s coffee, not fucking foie-gras. And not that good coffee at that.
The lesson learned: like people struck with emphysema who have to lug around an oxygen tank, I need to lug around a coffee tank. I also learned I’m not a very nice person uncaffeinated.