I loves me my free concerts.

A week ago, my friend JP and I went to see a festival of free shows sponsored by the city of Pontiac and its merchants. We saw a few small acts ranging from amazing to horrid, but the most bizarre exchange took place with a band that I'd rate somewhere in the middle. I'll call this band Sista Cletus. (That's not their real name. I'm using a pseudonym so as not to offend that fraction of the world that is Cletus-loving, thin-skinned, and Google-proficient.)

After a likeable upbeat folk number, Sista Cletus' lead singer took the opportunity to tell a story to the audience. She started by asking the audience, "Have, like, any of y'all evah done a juice-fast?"

A juice-fast?

She went on, ending every sentence with an upward voice inflection that made it seem like she was talking in questions: "Like, a juice-fast? It's like, when you, y'know, squeeze all these vegetables down? So it's all, like, liquid? And pure vitamins? Then you eat nothing? Just juice? For, like, days? Any y'all evah do that?"

I had the biggest grin on my face, and I was about to make a wise-ankle comment to my friend when I saw all these hands fly up. A vast contingent of her audience HAD juice-fasted, and were now raising their hands to testify! Their expressions were either that of relief, as if thinking, "Finally! Finally, she brought up juice-fasting. I thought she NEVER would. I mean, after the first song, I thought, okay, she'll SURELY bring up juice-fasting NOW, but instead just sang another song. At a concert. How odd. But now, NOW that juice-fasting has been justly mentioned, I am complete. Now I can sit back and take another hit of peyote," or the person was hopping up and down as if to say, "Yes! You've just read my mind! I HAVE juice-fasted in the past, and spent untold minutes suffering in ridicule for it! But you! YOU! You have, right here, just now, at this very moment, validated me, my existence, my very BEING! Now I can sit back and take another hit of peyote."