Three years ago some friends were coming into town for a weekend-long music festival, and there were other concerts around town capitalizing on the crowd. My best friend and I go into a bar adjoining the music hall; we've always understood each other deeply though I have long considered him more connective & social than myself. I'm feeling out of place, my self-consciousness playing its usual tricks of having me believe I am sticking out as an obvious square in a dimly-lit room full of talent-possessing, love-making, interpersonally-adept people.
As we get toward the back of the crowded bar I see this tall, thin-as-a-wire guy - who looks as young as we are - with an intensely asymmetrical haircut sitting rakishly in a booth with two very "alternative" styled, patently attractive girls on him.
I tapped my friend and said, "You think that guy's in the band?" My friend turned to me, looked me straight in the eyes with amusement and how damn enjoyable the universe is, and in a moment of unrestrained brilliance said something that changed my life:
"Everyone in the room is in the band."
