A Command Performance From Beck

So I walked into the shoe store.

And there was this guy.

Trying on shoes while his girlfriend watched. It was just the three of us in the store.

And I thought he was just another Silver Lake hipster. He was wearing bright teal pants. And a heavy knit grandma sweater. And very thick tortoise shell glasses.

And given that I see people dressed like this all the time in Los Angeles, I didn't give it much thought. I went to the shelves, and examined a pair of Medium sneakers.

But something was off.

For one thing, this Silver Lake hipster dude was very skinny. Kind of like Beck.

Secondly, his hair was cut like a disheveled mop. Kind of like Beck's.

And so I thought: would Beck wear teal pants?

Yes. That's EXACTLY what Beck would wear.

But on the other hand, this guy wasn't behaving like Beck.

I'd seen Beck before. He opened for Jon Brion once at Largo, demoing songs from Sea Change in a intimate setting before a crowd of a hundred people or so. He was confident, funny - he had that trademark voice.

This guy was different. He shuffled around the store, hunched over like an old man. He had an incredibly nerdy voice, which he used to describe his foot ailments to the salesperson, who patiently listened to his ramblings. They discussed orthotics. It was an incredibly dorky conversation.

But convincing. This guy couldn't be Beck. Beck doesn't complain about ORTHOTICS, for chrissake. He's Beck!

And yet I wouldn't let it go. I positioned myself in a corner of store, and looked askance. Checked out the hipster's girlfriend. She was perched on a bench, sitting calmly, patiently watching him talk about orthotics. Not unattractive, but not a rock star girlfriend. Besides, drawing upon my extensive knowledge gleaned from US Weekly, I remembered that Beck is married to the redheaded chick from Dazed and Confused.

And then it hits me. She's not his girlfriend. She's his personal assistant.

Which explains why, unlike most very special ladyfriends, she's willing to go to a shoe store with him and NOT LOOK AT SHOES HERSELF.

Okay, so now I HAVE to know. The one thing I haven't seen is this dude's face.

So I maneuever closer to him, and he immediately turns away, shuffling away, muttering to the salesperson about his flat feet.

So I loop around and approach from the other side. I catch him by surprise, and he nearly walks into me.

We make eye contact.

And I see, behind the tortoise shell glasses:

Beck.

It's obviously him. The babyface, the blue eyes. As seen on a million album covers.

I'm giving him a skeptical look.

And him? He's SMIRKING.

You see, all of this: the old man posture, the nerdy voice, the discussion of orthotics, it's all an ACT.

Beck didn't want me to recognize him when I entered the store. So being the class clown that he is, he decided to put on a show.

A show for an audience of one. Me.

To communicate the momentousness of this occasion, I must explain that Sea Change was an album that carried me through most of 2002. That was a particularly lonely and unhappy period of my life, and I was desperately resisting those feelings, trying to stay above them. Quietly and gently, that album stole the fight out of me, and slowly submerged me into both sadness and the knowledge of its necessity. Which, as it turns out, is how I learned to be happy again.

And that lesson is merely one of the reasons why Beck is one of my personal heroes.

And a command performance (albeit a goofy one) from Beck is an honor that comes at a particularly appropriate moment in my life.

After that moment of eye contact, I moved respectfully away from him, wanting to allow him to shop for shoes in peace. He kept up the old man shtick, but his heart wasn't really in it anymore.

For the record, he was trying on a pair of white shoes by Le Coq Sportif.