Previous Episodes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

Before I start the last episode of this ongoing saga, I have an announcement. I regret to inform my loyal readers and random passers-by that this will be my last entry in the Chronicles. The reasons for this are varied, the biggest of which is a lack of time. I apologize if your heart is broken over this unfortunate news, but take comfort in the fact that I do promise to return occasionally to provide updates on the continued Chronicles of Newman as they unfold. It has been a great experience and pleasure sharing theses stories with you and hopefully providing a small piece of your weekly entertainment on Cvillemuse.

Now that that’s out of the way, on with the show….

With my brain trying to sort out all the chemicals I had forced upon it, my attention span was diminishing. For a minute I forgot what I was doing and where I was. Then I heard the distant sound of the unmistakable Derek Trucks’ guitar resonating off of the palm covered hills that surround the Greek Theater. With his single amp check chord, I had new focus and a greater desire to get myself inside the gates.

Bart and I tried to have a conversation, buy every few words were just a mumble and we’d both chuckle and forget what we were talking about for a moment. When we arrived at the back of the line to get in, Bart became noticeably paranoid about the two joints he had in his pocket. He began shuffling around in his pockets, trying to decide the best place to stash them, if not throwing them away. Nothing is worse for a mushroom trip than fear, so I tried to distract him. Finally, he put them in his back pocket under his wallet just before we handed our tickets to the nice lady. There were a few cops on the other side, but no one bothered us and we just walked right past them.

As we used our collective reduced brain power to find our seats, we enjoyed listening to the opening act. I can’t remember who it was, but her voice was very raspy and country, and Derek Trucks was sitting in with her. It was a great warm up for what we expected out of the brothers. We somehow figured our way to our seats, which weren’t really all that good. We were about halfway up, on the outside aisle. The left side (Greg’s side) of the stage was hidden from our view by some sort of support structure. But, hey, this was way better than sitting in the parking lot. So we sat down and enjoyed the opening act, satisfied to just be inside the venue and with such a wonderful buzz.

There was a short break after the opener during which Bart and I chuckled and giggled at our good fortune. After a few minutes, the lights when off and the band took the stage. They opened with One Way Out, and we were immediately up dancing in our seats. Halfway through the song, there was a voice from a few rows behind us.

“Sit down!”

Bart turned around, “NO!” I was glad for this. In my altered state I wasn’t really prepared to deal with controversy. He, however, was, it seemed. So, we stayed put, trying to ignore the angry fans behind us and enjoy the show.

Eventually, they slowed it down and played Melissa, and everyone sat down. We heard “Thank you.” from behind us, which we ignored. Bart pulled out one of the joints and sparked it up. As he handed it to me, he thanked me again for the ticket, and told me how awesome his day had been up to this point. I felt the same way. It had been a pretty sweet day so far, and there was plenty more concert to go.

At set break, we walked down to the concession stand for a change of scene and to get a couple of beers. The line was really long, as everyone had taken the opportunity to do the same thing. As we slowly moved forward, I heard “psst” coming from the bushes to my right. I turned to look. On the other side of the bushes were people sitting at table, but I didn’t recognize, or expect to recognize anyone. Then I heard it again, “psst.” This time I looked at the bush in front of me, and Joe was poking his head through. “Hey, there, guys. How’s the trip?”

He scared the crap out of me. “Hey, it’s Joe. Great, man. How’s yours?”

“Just Dandy. I take it you guys are waiting for beers?” He handed me a twenty. “Would you mind grabbing us two more? We’ll be right here.”

“Sure thing.”

So we waited in line. And waited. It was moving so slowly. When we were about 5 people from the counter, the crowd roared as the band went back on the stage. I ordered four big beers, grabbed my change and Bart and I walked over to the table where Joe and his ol’ lady had been sitting, only to find them gone already. We looked around, but they were no where in sight. So, we double-fisted the beers back to our seats and considered ourselves lucky again. Joe was still hooking it up.

The concert was great. We had returned to our seats to find the lame old “sit down” people behind us were had moved. We were free to stand and dance around as we wanted and we did exactly that. We danced around, drank our beers, smoked that last joint, and thoroughly enjoyed that second set. This was, by a long shot, the most fun I’ve ever had at a concert. With that in mind, Bart and I decided that we should leave a few songs early and give our ticket stubs to his friends that were still out manning the GCS.

We walked out with our adrenaline still pumping as the Brothers jammed on. The walk back to the GCS seemed way shorter than the walk in, but that’s probably because the buzz was wearing off and we were more able to focus on where we were headed. We gave them the stubs, which they were obviously grateful for because they almost sprinted towards the gates to go see the encore. Bart and I were pleasantly surprised to find that we could hear the concert very well from our current location. He fired up the grill and cooked us a few of his, now famous, grilled cheeses as we listen to the last few songs.

After the music stopped, people began flooding back to their cars. It became obvious that, having been the first ones into the parking lot, we were definitely gonna be the last ones to leave, like it or not. So we settled in for a long stay. I sat on the ground and leaned up against a tree and cracked a beer.

At that moment, Joe walked over and sat down next to me. He had a huge grin on his face. I told him that we had really enjoyed the show, and explained how we had left early to give our ticket stubs to Bart’s friends. He chuckled to himself and sparked up a joint. He handed it to me and reached in his back pocket, pulling out his wallet.  “Here,” he said as he handed me thirty dollars, “I want you to have your money back.”

“No way. You gave two tickets for the price of one, half a jar of mushroom honey, smoked four joints with me, and inadvertently bought me two beers in the concert. I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth.”

Joe looked me in the eyes and I could tell that whatever he was about to say was extremely important to him. “Look, man. You have to take it. I shouldn’t have sold you those tickets at all. I won them on the radio. I’m just so glad that they went to a good person that actually enjoyed the concert. You’ve got a good soul, and Karma will be good to you. All I ask is that you pass this on one day.”

I thought about it for a moment. I looked at the money, then I looked at him. He was serious. So, I took it. “Thanks, Joe. I promise I will. I’m really glad that there are people like you in this world.”

“Likewise,” he said. Then he stood up. “Take care, man,” and he walked away.

That’s really the end of the story. I have since passed on my good fortune, or maybe call it Karma - who knows, many a time. I hope you all take a little something away from this story, and do something small to make someone else’s life a little better, even if it’s just for a few hours.

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