Did I Win

I don’t know how to describe this feeling besides luck. Somehow I won two tickets to see Mike Park at the Hirsch on Saturday, and I wasn’t even trying. I’d resigned myself to maybe catching him another time, maybe not. But then there they were.

Mike Park’s been doing this forever in the ska and punk world. I’m not going to act like either of those genres are going through some renaissance moment—but there’s something solid about a musician who’s stayed in the room, kept playing for people who actually want to hear him. No reinvention, no apology. Just shows up.

Getting free tickets beats having to scrape together money I wasn’t sure I had. That’s the obvious win. But it’s also the stranger luck of wanting something and then immediately being able to have it. The timing. The coincidence. You don’t get those moments often.

Saturday at the Hirsch. Just going to be there.