flashingreds...
don't go driving while you're high
(2003-06-12, 5:24 p.m.)
So far this summer, Reb and I have noted a disturbing trend�whenever I go to her house to be fed before a weeknight concert, we end up with tornado warnings.

We had an hour or so of monsoon last night, too. An added bonus. Luckily we made it to the venue just before the downpour started.

C-U is notorious for poor drainage. A solid downpour for a few minutes, and viaducts are underwater, cars are stranded, and rivers run down nearly all of the streets for a good hour. It�s been this way for years�I have a vivid memory of being four (my mother was very pregnant) and having to walk down the stairs of a 15 story office building during a storm, then coming out into the street and feeling afraid I�d be swept away. It could�ve happened then, and it could�ve happened last night.

I digress.

Bad drainage. Wet patrons at the bar. A slim crowd for the large, cold room, though not too bad, considering both weather and day of the week. But the show never quite got off the ground. Wayne came on stage hacking and growling, complained of being ill, of having just woken up, of needing coffee.

He seemed, well, a mess. Barked orders to the new guitarist, who seemed intimidated and earnest. Songs fell apart in the middle. Wayne left the stage a few times to go out to the van, muttering about needing air or clearing his lungs, so the jolly upright bassist and the lead guitarist took over. And they were excellent. But then he�d come back, and he eventually said something about a toothache and complained that all his cold medication was just hitting and making him drowsy.

Dude seemed to doze off during instrumental interludes. No lie. He repeatedly missed the parts where he was to take up singing again.

He kept telling stories of driving high or drunk and running himself off the road/into construction barriers, and we couldn�t tell how many times it�d happened or if it was the same story repeated over and over. Much like he kept launching into �Route 66.�

And as we moved closer to get up and move, we realized just how hellishly pale he looked. At some point it became terrifying to watch. I had to go.

He was still playing, but it�d lasted so much longer than publicized that the streets and roads were fine.

I don�t know what to say. Will they book him again? Will he be okay?

And when I got home? That cat had dumped his fancy Pottery Barn water dish yet again.