of bricks!”

“I know, I was there.”  Hooper added, “Now you weren’t sloppy drunk, but you sure were under the influence awful fast”.  He sat back on the couch and laughed a little, “You sure were hot though!  Man, you always came alive on stage, but holy shit…”

“Yeah, yeah, please I am trying to forget what is still pretty foggy.”

“You had a hangover, right?”  Hooper asked

“Well, it must have been.  I rarely have one and only when I mix alcohols, but I had the cotton mouth and I heard my blood pump through my temples most of the next morning.”

“That’s unusual for you.  You were always ready to go first thing the next morning after a night of partying.” He remembered.

“Must be getting old.  Even last night, I felt like I was doing and saying things that I couldn’t really control.”  He saw a little smile in Hooper eyes so he quickly interjected, “But I’m perfectly fine today.”

“Ian I want you to see something.”  He motioned Ian over to the couch so he could watch the computer screen.  Ian hesitated but Hooper patted the cushion beside him and said, “Com’on dude I’m not gonna bite now.”

As Ian took the seat beside him he said, “The thought never crossed my mind”.  He hoped his nose wasn’t growing.

Hooper launched right in, “We often set up cameras at the gigs and tape the performances, kind of like football players do with games.  Understand?”

“Yeah, watch what happened figure out what was good, what was bad and why…”

“Good boy.  Well, before the last set, Marc disappeared to have a smoke, we didn’t know at the time that he had run into you, so Mac went out and started interviewing some of the chicks…”

“Hey, you aren’t how my little performance ended up on You Tube…?”

“Innocent, dude, I swear, you can blame that on one of several hundred who were there.  Happens all the time.  Get used to it.  Now here is some of the footage…”

Ian watched several young women gushing and a couple of men as well.  Hooper went on, “Mac always gets a couple of guys for me, too.  Anyway, let’s skip through this…” He tapped another button, and the women started fast-forwarding.

“I almost missed this, but look over the shoulder of this chick.  Look closely…” Ian watched himself walking up to the bar his back to the camera.”

“That’s me.”

“Thought so.  You’ll get to see the bar tender carry a tray of drinks in a minute.”

“Yeah, I ordered three and he told me to sit down, he’d bring them to my table.”

“I wondered if those were your drinks.”  They watched Ian walk out of the camera eye, obviously empty handed.  Hooper then pressed another button.  “Here let me slow this down.”  The screen slowed to a choppy crawl.  “There did you see?”

“What am I looking for, Hoop?  I don’t understand.”

“Not a problem.  I wasn’t sure myself, but thanks to some software we’ve been using I was able to clear things up a bit.”   

He pushed a button and a disk popped out. He took another from his pocket and slipped it in.  In a moment the screen came back alive with the same footage, only this time the girl was missing.