2003 Baron Phillipe de Rothschild Mouton Cadet

Finished off the last of this fine white Bordeaux in a pre-depature muster for the Great American Music Festival. It took LIn about 35 seconds to clean her glass. A crowd of what proved to be dubious persuasion had gathered and fueled mostly by Splenda Mojitos we embarked for Il Concerto Progressiveleo Degradus. The first part of the evening went well, maybe too well. Dropped the first squad (Jolly Mon, Lin, Keena, A.D. and the mellow Josephine) + sand chairs at the 17th Street stage. Teeth and I then drove to the 4th St parking lot to find the Lot Full sign posted. Ah but! I pulled in to ask Mrs. Otis B. Driftwood what a good alternative would be when, ka-zing someone drove out opening a space. After some wrangling, both Teeth and I found places for an amazingly low rate. Ha! Off to a good start. While crossing the street a car load of Fillapinas noticed Teeth and quickly surmised his medicinal leanings providing several observations about him which he found summarily ego boosting. Then wallked over to buy tickets at the 6th St booth and scored 7 from a person who I initially addressed as "Hey, Man" only to find out that it should have been "Hey, Maam!" Whew. Caugth the Wave Trolley back to 17th Street complete with the HRT Supervisor sticking his head in the door and telling the driver--go straight to 17th St no other stops. I must tell you that there was good reason for a high five. And yet, even then, a small drop of doubt began to form. How could this all be going sooooo well? Arriving back at the 17th St Stage, Teeth zoomed into the Dairy Queen men's head while I drifted over to the first squad's emplacement set up near the stage. The band were on a break so there was time to admire the shaggers, discuss the differing viewpoints on shagging (Brit v. American). The Virginia Beach Shag Club lady had no application forms (a copy of which we thought would be a huge hit during the upcoming Op SeaPenguin) but had a sage observation re aforementioned syntactical difference: "We do ours on the floor, they do theirs on a mattress". Then qualified for a small prize at the Verizon Wireless booth, again arranging some on the spot advice and services from Keena to the two booth ladies. Finally the Band, the Main Event, returned and entertained with heart-warming soul and beach music. A small note: the frayed edges of the Teeth and Keena camp chairs--a foreboding sign? A message from the gods? Should we have paid more attention to this omen? In any case, the Cigar lamp was alighted, the sun assetting, porta-potties conveniently available, we found ourselves amongst a group of slightly older (even older than Jolly Mon) shag-happy folk. We danced. Noting the time and the need to relocate for the next concert, the group began to pack and headed out down the board walk in the gathering dusk. This will be long remembered as the very peak of the evening. Winding our way down the ever more crowded boardwalk, suddenly the alarm bells began a-blasting. AD had become slightly ill and now sought a rapid breakaway towards homeport. We reluctantly cut the umbilical and speculated anon. A short rescue attempt was mounted but ended up without contact. The now less bouyant and reduced crowd drifted toward the 5th Street Stage. Entering onto the sand after surrendering the tickets we quckly noticed the dearth of seating area for a party of five, however, Keena forged into the lead, and our small band struggled to maintain visual contact in the gloaming. Finally, after suffering a number of verbal expressions of unhappiness we found a spot only to discover horrifically that Teeth was nowhere to be found. The search party immediately formed: Jolly Mon set off back toward the Porta-potties (risking reputational damage should he be seen to linger there too long) and Keena set off for the car, cell phone in hand. Lin and I enjoyed a few minutes together among the teeming concert hordes. Finally, Jolly Mon returned, Teeth-less. Journey began to blast away and then Keena too saying that Teeth was probably somewhere just enjoying the concert. Not much later during a trip to the PaPs --there he was mournfully crying out for rescue. Well, you can only imagine the tearful reunion when Teeth was returned to the fold. We watched the rest of the concert on the big screen, the only remaining drama was the final collapse of Teeth and Keena's camp chair which had seen way too much dock duty. Teeth managed to survive even this and as the last strains of "Any Way You Want It" died out we exited the venue and headed out toward our primo parking lot spots. PS: AD survived after all although he may be in for a rough week.!