Talk about your occupational hazards.

So far I've enjoyed my new job at the Echo. All the other people who work there are fun, and free shows are always sweet. Last night it was the Monolators, a husband-and-wife duo (he's on guitar, she drums) who don't really sound like the White Stripes. It seems that in the age of 15-minute celebrity marriages and a 50%-plus divorce rate, indie husband-and-wife duos have become all the rage--a week ago we had the Submarines, who are really a threesome once you count the laptop.
The Monolators' set had ended and 8-Bit was about to go on when the manager took me off wristbanding duty and told me to go guard the stage entrance at Dub Club, which was happening in the club room downstairs.
I'd been at the Echo last Wednesday when Dub Club was going on, but hadn't spent too much time there. As its name suggests, it's a reggae dance party that attracts mostly guys in dreadlocks and, this being LA, your standard complement of scantily clad girls who wear too much lip liner. I don't really get reggae, or at least the kind they play at Dub Club: it's too repetitive, the melodies don't go anywhere and the unnecessarily loud bass verges on brown note territory. As I sat there turning away the occasional non-VIP, I wondered who in their right mind would actually pay to subject themselves to this; then, as I breathed in the thick air, I was reminded that most of these people weren't in their right minds. Someone singing onstage referred to marijuana, ganja and sensemilla in the same verse. An ancient Bob Marley lookalike stood at a corner table selling red, yellow and green smoking paraphernalia. And I had, I realized, been uncommonly focused on the same light fixture for a good ten minutes now.
Oh, fuck.
I'd last been familiar with the particular state of mind in question some three years ago; now, not surprisingly, I was woefully unprepared to deal with it. I made my way over to the nearest security guard to tell him I was leaving my post, but forgot what I was trying to say mid-sentence. Mortified, I ran up the stairs to the outside. The Southern California air had never seemed so crystal clear.
After standing there for a while and downing a bottle of water, I sobered up enough to tell the manager what had happened. He looked amused, then told me he wouldn't station me down there again. Thank god--or Jah, if you're into that kind of thing. I've got enough to worry about in LA without the threat of becoming an accidental pothead.
Next week, though, I head for the relative calm of Pasadena. Wish me luck.