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Long story short

By Eleanor Ankrom

As a person of diminutive stature, (an optimistic five feet tall) I frequently find myself the hapless subject of much curiosity. One of the more common questions short people are asked is "How's the air down there?" or "What do you do if you are all alone and you can't reach something?" "Do you need me to get that?" is another, and the standard response to that should be "No thanks. I've been short my whole life. I'll manage." (Unless you really can't reach something, then it helps to have a large lackey.)

The fact is, at this point in my life, I'm the tallest I've ever been, and, being pre-osteoporosis, I am the tallest I ever will be in the future. Life is looking good in the height department!

One thing that baffles people is how we tiny folk hold our own in the pit at shows. Admittedly, it can be tough in any large crowd where we need to see, but find ourselves behind a wall of shoulders, staring at all the butts in our faces. Fortunately, short people have a secret weapon: The power of invisibility.

Consider a five foot tall person arriving at the club to see a band play (the operative word here being "see") but all around them are the hulking forms of anyone five seven and up, obscuring their view and sloshing beer onto the top of their head. How to deal? Different tactics for attaining the frontlines work in this situation.

"Just dart and weave," says Victoria Ackerman, an avid show goer and five- foot-tall maneuvering extraordinaire. "Tall people don't notice. [If it gets a little rough], push and shove. Possibly use the elbows."

Robin Snyder, a bartender at Café Bourbon St. on Summit, stands at 5'2", but this has never prevented her from reaching the stage.

"I just duck through," says Snyder. "No one sees you. They leave tiny spaces, and luckily I can squeeze my way through!"

Shawnda Hendrix, 5'3" does not back down in the face of lofty adversity. "I just flirt my way to the front," says Hendrix. "Even if it's rowdy, I like to stay up there, because leaving would look like some kind of admission that I can't handle it because I'm short."

Flirting can be a somewhat useful method. "I just tap on some big guy's shoulders," says Kelly Slone, 5'1" "and then I'm sitting on them."

But what about the guys? Shoulders, chairs and big guys are not really going to help them in the short run.

At 5'5" Aleks Shaulov, a local musician, who hawks records at Magnolia Thunderpussy at High and Fifth, admits to having trouble in smaller clubs.

"At a bigger venue, it's no big deal," says Shaulov, "but at the back at a small show, being me, I can always plow my way through the crowd and find a desirable spot. I don't give a f*ck!"

Donovan Roth, of the band The Sick Thrills, and bartender at the Ravari Room, uses a somewhat inventive trick to reach the gold. "I put my hands behind my back and walk backwards so I can't see where I am going," says Roth. He recommends this method to others. "Just put on your punk rock face and head backwards into the pit knocking through everyone you can't see. You obviously fall down quite a bit, but it works!"

Once finally attaining a viable spot where everything can be seen as well as heard, it becomes a matter of holding your ground. Up front a person finds themselves in a sweaty seething mass and the crazy elbows of much larger people. There's no turning back now, but is there more danger for the small elite who have reached the front?

"I wouldn't say too much danger," says Ackerman, "but definitely more than a tall person. It's like being a tiny clover in a field of wheat."

"No," says Shaulov. "I can hold my own. Any trouble I have is because of the metal in the leg I broke, not because of my height."

Some dangers are more unexpected. Snyder's harrowing experience while attending a GWAR! show at the Newport Music Hall demonstrates one of the less predictable height-related misfortunes. Sporting a fresh hoop eyebrow piercing, Snyder darted and weaved her way to the thick of it to thrash around and be covered in the theatrical blood and gore of a good GWAR! show.

"This dude runs into me, he didn't even know I was there," Snyder recounts, "and his finger somehow slid perfectly through the hoop in my eyebrow and pulled it out of my face. At that point, blood was everywhere. I've got it running down my face, in my eyes. Some people took me to the nurses' unit, and the first thing everyone said was, 'What were you doing in the pit? You're, like, two feet tall!'"

Falling down is a more common mishap, and already being invisible, the short person might have some trouble with taking a tumble in the pit.

"Yeah, I get knocked down," says Slone. "But that's when they notice me. The whole crowd will stop and help me back up."

"Someone always helps me up," agrees Ackerman. "Usually another short person."

The long and short of it appears to be that like high shelves and tall barstools, the mosh pit is surmountable for the more compact audience. I often find myself in the thick of things, no worse for the wear, and no, I didn't need stilts. The most important thing to remember is we can fit anywhere and will. Don't be alarmed but I'm standing in front of you right now.

Originally Published: September 16, 2009

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