The Senior Circuit

In 1977 I went to see Led Zeppelin play Tampa Stadium. I was little put off by the $10 ticket price. Ten dollars for one band, that's a lot of money, are they fucking kidding? Now I hear about a reunion. I have no problem with idea of watching senior citizens play music. I think they should stick to chamber music or polka. I can't imagine watching the Who, The Stones or Zeppelin at this point. I think most reunions would be anticlimactic, assuming there was something in the first place.

In 77' about eight of us piled into my friends faded green Chevy van. He had swapped it for four pounds of pot. Extending from the dashboard to anywhere else in the van was an ingenious piece of mind altering gear. My friend called it the dash pipe. As far as I know he invented it. It was a pipe (for smoking pot) attached by a suction to the dashboard, about ten feet of surgical tubing served as the stem. The person riding shotgun normally lit the pipe, while the tubing was passed around the van. My friends brother asked me if I wanted to try angel dust. I did. I remember being pretty disoriented, but cogent, at least I think I was.

Led Zeppelin played three songs. I was stunned by Jimmy Page's guitar playing while he played Nobody's Fault But Mine. It was starting to drizzle a little. After the third song, the rain came down a little more. Robert Plant came out and said something like we'll be back in thirty minutes, our equipment is wet. I went to the bathroom during the break, the rest is a little confusing to me. A little while after I came out a small riot was developing into a bigger one. Bottles were being thrown. Cops were upset. I was nervous, perhaps paranoid, and I couldn't find any of the people I came with. Someone came out and announced that the concert was now officially cancelled. It looked like the end times. The crowd was out of control. I was alone, or at least I couldn't find my friends, I had smoked PCP. I walked to the parking lot and decided to just wait. I thought maybe I would eventually see the van or my friends. It seemed like almost everyone had left, when I spotted my crew.

I never did PCP again. It's funny. I haven't done anything more than pot since the 80's. I haven't smoked pot in awhile. Now when I hear someone has done a line of coke I worry about them. Then I remember things like smoking angel dust.