Last night, we’re playing our usual unusual Tuesday night gig at Bailey’s, adding in a full set of patriotic (Eric called it Freedom from Terrorists day) songs like “Born in the USA,” “The National Anthem” (fine, but everyone loves some Radiohead) and my favorite, “Coming to America.” Seriously — what goes better with fireworks than a little Neil Diamond? Nothing.

Which makes me think of my favorite joke: What’s orange and looks good on hippies?

…

Fire.

So we play the first set, which gets a remarkably good reception (we should play holiday sets every week, as no matter how badly we mangle the songs, they get wondrous responses from the audiences). Short break to continue sweating profusely and chat with a few of the regulars, and then we’re back for a return to our usual programming. We blow through an original or two, then into our cover of “And She Was…”, and then, possessed by some demon that hates Eric, I launched into “Seven Nation Army,” which is guaranteed to both get the crowd dancing and screaming and also to make Eric vomit into my amp. After that was our always-rousing “War Pigs,” which — despite my expectations — never fails to get one of the best surges of energy from whatever audience we’re playing for. I guess people just don’t hear enough Black Sabbath on the club circuit in Birmingham.

Sometime in the middle of this set, I looked out into the crowd, seeing who was doing what. About two measures later, I realized that my bass wasn’t making any noise; I checked to make sure I hadn’t bypassed my amp with my tuner (no), that the battery in my active pickup hadn’t fallen loose (no), that a cable hadn’t come loose (three nos and the on-deck batter advances). And I realized suddenly that — aside from the fact that I was obviously not completely in the mix, as no one except me seemed to notice that the low-end had disappeared — there was no sound because I had stopped playing. I had found my girl in the crowd, dancing with her roommate and Eric’s wife, and I had gotten completely and utterly lost in her smile.

And for a few seconds, it didn’t even matter to me that I was pulling the most unprofessional musical move I’ve ever even considered.

These moments don’t come along every day, you know. You’ve got to learn to spot them and, more importantly, learn to appreciate them when they happen, no matter what it takes.

That woman has beauty enough to slow time, to change the course of rivers, to reignite forgotten galaxies.

Everyone should be as lucky as me, to stand witness in the glow of her smile.

But you’re not. Ha.