toasting the quails

Thursday, sep. 30, 2004   |   0 comments

Tonight The Quails played a goodbye-for-now show at the Eagle, a rockus night that started with drinks at Sunny’s, paused briefly as Sinny did the caterpiller right there on the sidewalk in front of Office Max, then swung straight into live, live action when the band mounted the stage and fans donned cardboard mustaches in loving ode to Seth. (I did my washingmachine dance.)

The night ended abruptly when my tether to consciousness seriously slackened (still not sleeping!), and Jeff and Caroleen offered to drive me right on home, yay. Of course the second I fell into bed, PING, I was wide awake again. I turned on the television and was immediately ensnared by a frighteningly well-targeted infomercial selling relaxation tapes to people too nuts to sleep (and/or who suffered from explosive ass syndrome).

“I was lying in bed,” one of the testimonialians said, “wide awake at 2:30 one morning, when the infomercial came on.” Cut to a shot of a woman under bunched covers bathed in television-blue light. And for just one second, I experienced an eerie, bottom-dropping certainty that I was looking at live footage of myself.