Surprise Beck at L.A. Knit

"Would you like to buy some creative writing for a dollar?" I'm waiting in line to be detected for metallic objects and disposable cameras, ensuring that all will be safe inside the extra-special super-secret Surprise Beck Show at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood. The boy to my right is adorable, and he is offering me a prettily bound booklet of his scribblings. A decade ago, this kid could have been Beck himself. Only one dollar to support a budding artist.

"No," I say.

Inside, my friend Spiegs and I scramble to find a good place to plant ourselves. Along the way we point out people who might be celebrities of a higher caliber than The Guy That Played A Bully In Revenge of the Nerds II who was in front of us in the metal detector line.

"That might be Sara Gilbert." I direct Spiegs' attention to a girl who might be Sara Gilbert.

"Might be," Spiegs confirms.

We expect to be surrounded by celebrity. Beck is here, in the capacity 500 Knitting Factory main space, and tickets were hard to come by. The show is being called a rehearsal for his upcoming performance at the Wiltern Theatre in support of the Recording Artists' Coalition. But the record executives and friends who know record executives and B-list television stars surrounding me know that this show is really for the fans.

I spy a guy who might be Steven Soderbergh, and I selfishly hold my tongue. We try to grab one of the many empty tables upstairs but they've all been reserved with name cards. The last one we come to bears the name "Dorf." I am giddy. Tim Conway will be here soon.

Back downstairs we find a spot by the stage-right wall and start drinking. A kid in glasses with a tall friend spots my notebook and asks if I am writing an article.

"If you wanna trash this place I can tell you a story."

I make no promises.

He tells me about their trouble getting into the club with tickets bought over eBay. I ask for their names, but they are frightened to go on the record. And I wonder why I asked.

After his tall friend retells the entire story word for word, I introduce them to Spiegs, who is a segment producer for Judge Joe Brown. Which in Hollywood is as good as having a law degree.

The room is packed and sweltering. Is that Beck?

Beck is alone. Without fanfare, he shambles onto the stage with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. He speaks to us about the heat in the room and begins to identify the deodorants of the people closest to the stage. He speaks to us and we are grateful.

Beck is cute. Under his shaggy mop of hair, in his raggedy t-shirt and unfastened buttondown, he introduces the first song, "Pay No Mind," as a protest song written 10 years ago. "There were a lot of things to protest?10 years ago."

Beck is funny. "Pay No Mind" veers into Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'," which morphs into a long, musical monologue taking jabs at his own celebrity. Talking about hanging out with Eminem: when the DJ comes, Eminem "pulls out his guns," but when the DJ goes he and Beck take a risotto class at the Learning Annex or visit Potterybarn.com or practice dance steps for an upcoming video with the choreographer for The Matrix.

His band joins him for the next song, "Cyanide Breath Mint," and two things become clear. First, despite being backed by a full band, we'll only be getting the loping folky songs tonight. And second, it doesn't really matter because this is not a rock show. It's a personal appearance. Beck is just footsteps away from us and he's talking to us and we don't want him to stop.

There are a couple of little girls in front of us who alternate between giggling at Beck's banter and cooing every time he blushes after messing up a new song or something cute like that. A third girl rushes up to tell them that someone in the balcony has just passed out from the heat and fallen down the steps. I ask her to repeat the story, but she spots my notebook and clams up. I conclude that Beck fans are terrified of the press. Then I spot a guy who might be Topher Grace.

Beck is huggable. During "Fourteen Rivers Fourteen Floods" I imagine that Beck and I are close friends who, unbeknownst to each other, start dating the same girl, a graphic designer just out of Parsons named Beverly. Neither of us is crazy about her, until I bring her unawares to Beck's birthday party. The party is at a Silver Lake bar called Pump, and when Beck sees Beverly he is surprised because she told him she couldn't come to the party because her mom was in town. Beverly looks like she's just been in a car crash as she realizes the predicament she's happened into. Beck's eyes dart between Beverly and me. My eyes dart between Beverly and Beck. Beverly starts to cry when we come to blows. One of us shouts, "I love her, man!" or maybe both of us do.

Beck and I don't speak for a couple weeks as we each try to win Beverly's heart over a series of alternating dates. Until Beverly gets freaked out and dumps us both. When I bump into Beck at a bar near my apartment, we make up and get drunk enough to admit, without speaking it, that what we were really fighting about was the mild lust we held for each other. Beck spends the night at my place and we sleep naked in each other's arms without penetration. The shame of the following morning puts a wedge in our friendship that we are both willing to live with.

When the song ends, so does my fantasy. And I see that the girl who witnessed the balcony swooning is now looking at me in a way that demands my tongue in her mouth. I decline. She's not Beck.

Before he begins "Dead Melodies," Beck mentions having had lunch with Steve Jobs to discuss the upcoming launch of the "iBeck." He tells us it's a high-speed yogurtmaker, and though it's a dumb joke we laugh violently. I doubt anyone in the room would fail to pre-order tomorrow morning at Apple.com if such a product actually came into existence.

The song begins and the crowd becomes a bit unruly. A wave of shushing crashes against scattered conversations throughout the room. The shushers don't understand. Beck has stopped talking to us to play a song. And while he plays a song, we want to talk to each other about Beck.

The two executives in front of me have spent the night jockeying their wives back and forth by their torsos to get them good sightlines. One small sightline remains, and they're arguing over which wife is worthy. Some new songs are played. Then a sleepy version of "Tropicalia" and a pretty cover of VU's "Sunday Morning." We're heading into the encore and the heat is starting to clear people out. I'm now drunk and dehydrated enough to want to make out with something. I see the hostile witness to the fainting spell come running back to our area. She whispers something to her friends and they start shoving their way through the crowd.

"You leaving already?" I ask.

She comes back to tell me that she saw a guy at the bar who might be Jack Black.