But we paid the price, didn’t we?

Amy and I went early. We love Ashland, you see. As we were touring around the Plaza, Ebbage called us from Roseburg. His clutch had given out, good two hours North on I-5. He had to find a mechanic, leave his car and take a bus to meet us. But there’s no station in Ashland, so he could only make it as far as Medford. While I set up for the show, Amy had to drive a half-hour to pick him up.

He made it in time. From 8:30 to midnight-thirty, with hardly a break, we played damn near every song in our repertoire, with as much emotion and execution as we ever play. Very satisfying. (Our good San Diego friend–and “Yellow House” vid director–John Grimshaw was there, too.)

But I couldn’t help noticing the hot flames of pain shooting up and my back through the whole thing.

Back at the hotel. I ate my leftover Shrimp & Chicken Pasta and laughed at the Girls Gone Wild infomercial with Amy & Ehren.

In the morning, the pain in my back was like getting harpooned in the waist. I’ll spare you the description of pain so severe it makes you wretch non-stop. Not to mention the absurdity of my trying to deal with it: “It’s just the usual lumbar strain… blaarrrrrrrg…. I’ve…. blarrrrrrrrg… had it before… I just slept on it wrong… blaaaarrrrg… need to ice it… blaaarrrrrg!”

Ebbage, and my wife the nurse/actress, are great in a crisis. Clearing and checking out of hotel room in 3 minutes is an impressive feat. (Must be all of those shotgun load-outs after lousy gigs you want to put behind you as quickly as possible.)

And the Medford Hospital is awesome. I had my first experience with Morphine, which was wonderful. (But I was very angry at the admittance staff when they wouldn’t let me lie on the floor in the lobby as I was being checked in. No, I had to sit up in a wheel chair and answer questions in between dry heaves. That was pretty funny.) They were fantastic. I tried to remember all of the nurses names through my haze of pain and morphine. It helped divert my attention from the illness.

Now, the gig which went so well, made each of us $100 in pay, plus another $50 or so in tips. And we sold 13 CD’s. Plus a free meal and a hotel room. Expense out the $800 clutch job, and the $5000 dollar hospital visit, and we only had to pay $5500 to play together.

And it was totally worth it to play a night with Ebbage… and to dream the sweet “awake dreams” of morphine.

One more thing. I missed the Last Drags CD release in Eugene. But I got so many calls from my friends at the show, I felt like I was there. I’m a pretty lucky guy.