So, I was fortunate enough to be able to go with a dozen or so friends--some old, some brand new--to the last two shows at SPAC. I was particularly excited, as I'd seen my first ever Phish show there on the summer '95 tour and that had just set the hook in my head. So I guess I was a bit nostalgic, which might have something to do with how the last night of the Saratoga run turned out.

Now, one of the fellas I was with had four extras. In fact, when we realized it was the last tour we'd all bought as many as we could afford, knowing that we'd kick 'em down to any friends who needed them at the last minute or in the lot at face. Someone always needs an extra.

But after we'd gotten all our people tix who wanted them we still had some left. So my man wound up trading two on the grass Satruday for two under the shell Sunday. A bold move, especially when you considered the fact that the shell tickets looked nothing like the Ticketbastard tickets we all had. (As it turned out, they were comps from some promo or something, and worked perfectly.)

Leaving aside the logistics, we dallied a bit too long in the lot and I got well and truly blitzed before we realized that we probably only had a scant few minutes until the opener. After we found that the traded tix were legit, I was tasked with quickly getting something, anything, for the last two extras we'd been holding in reserve, just in case the shell tickets had been bunk when we hit the gate.

But my mind was not where I thought I'd left it, and the crowd was thinning out very quickly, and I was all alone outside the gates. Anyone who had a ticket was already in, anyone who was milling around didn't have anything to buy or trade for a ticket. And I was getting nervous. I didn't want to miss that last SPAC opener, you know...

So this tour kid and his girl start trying to bum smokes off me. They want the tix but claim not to have anything they can part with for them. Not a dollar. Not even some kind of symbolic offering. Nothin'.

These aren't MY tickets, mind you, I'm just supposed to convert them for whatever goods or services I can--and quickly--before the show. So I'm feeling desperate at the prospect that NO ONE is left who's willing to part with any amount American folding money for them. The market is simply dead.

And all the while these two are hassling me for a miracle, a smoke, a nug, blah, blah, blah.

And just then the crowd inside went up in a great roar. You know that first yell when everyone gets excited by a roadie walking across the stage doing the last-minute check? It's a little warning to let you know you've got maybe four or five minutes after that, tops--and I still had to cross the ticket check, pat down, bag check AND find everyone inside.

Phuck it. That's it. I'll eat the price of this mistake if I have to, send him a check on Friday if that's what he wants, but I'm not missing the opener. I split the two tix and turned around to walk away from the tour kid and his girl, tossing the tix over my shoulder like so much junk as I walked away.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the two of them dive on the tickets like wild dogs on a pork chop but I was zonked and getting zonkeder by the second so I didn't wait around to watch them hop around and hug each other. I didn't even wait to hear any "Thank you" they might've said. I just charged for the door.

I met up with the crew at the pre-arranged spot and had to explain, monosyllabically, how I couldn't get a single dime for TWO extras. I was feeling pretty guilty about that failure, I tell you what. I was bummed and big booming--a potentially show-ruining combination.

But this is why my man, Pat, is the bomb.

"So what'd you do?" he asked.

"I chucked 'em to a couple of beggars and split. I had to get in here. Show's startin'."

"Well that's perfect then, man. All I really wanted was for you to give them to a couple of gutterpunks who wouldn't get in anyway."

"But Pat, I got NO LOOT. None. Zip."

He opened up a great big sunshine grin. "I didn't expect you to."

Only then did it occur to me that I had just miracled two people. My little sell-the-tickets mission wasn't a failure. It was a raging success. I'd been set up on a prankster mercy mission whose only possible outcome would be to make two people's day. Who knows? Maybe their whole summer. Pat knew there was no way I could sell 'em. He just wanted to go in with his girl and our people, use the can, and let someone else have a turn at handing out a miracle. I'd never done that before in my life and I don't doubt that he knew that. It's never felt so right and good to be an unwitting pawn in someone else's master plan.

And suddenly my heart was full of joy. I felt like I'd gotten miracled myself. I soared on a kind of updraft of perfect vibes while the whole gang chuckled at me, a puddle of until-recently-jaded naiveté. It was good.

I had the show of my life. I can say that without reservations.

Kindness is a very powerful thing. I can only hope that the two kids who got the tickets had as much fun from Pat's random kindness as I did from his prankster kindness.

See you down the road, just in front of the soundboard.

- J