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Tours de Farce: Once Upon A Time…
Jack and his co-workers labored very hard at their jobs. One moment they would be planning trips, like sending the Rufus T. Firefly family on a cruise to Freedonia, or booking the Jeffrey Spaulding family for an African safari, while the next moment they’d be scheduling hotel rooms for the road crew for Jethro Tull, or making dinner reservations for the guitar techs for Placebo and Aaron Neville. As you can guess, Jack and his comrades in arms definitely had their work cut out for them, because, as everybody knows, roadies always stay in the best hotels and dine at the finest restaurants.
Then came the day that a gentleman from Finland, whose first name was Lassi, called Jack in hopes of arranging transportation and accommodations so that he could travel from his home in Lapland to Dallas, Texas, for that city’s annual lap dancing festival. Unfortunately, on the day Lassi called, Jack was very busy arranging Swedish massages for the Widespread Panic road crew and scheduling manicures for the roadies for Guster and Counting Crows. So, Jack wasn’t quite paying attention when Lassi asked for tickets to see Tonic, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Lassi saw Tonic, all right. Night after night after night Lassi saw Tonic. For Jack, in his haste to arrange Lassi’s trip, put him on the Tonic tour as one of the band’s roadies. And even though Lassi hardly knew a word of English and spoke with a thick Finnish accent, the other roadies just attributed it to whatever he was smoking in that pipe of his and none of them ever guessed that Lassi wasn’t a bona fide, grade A concert pro.
But our little tale doesn’t end in failure, for Lassi loved being a roadie for Tonic, and refused to give it up, even when his family back in Lapland phoned him and begged him to return. “Lassi, come home,” they pleaded. “No can do,” Lassi replied. “For the show must go on and I cannot leave the band until they are Finnish.”
And Jack? What ever happened to the beleaguered travel agent that mixed up his orders and transformed a man from Finland into a roadie for Tonic? Not only did Jack continue to arrange travel plans for roadies, including the crews for Avril Lavigne, Alabama and Jimmy Buffett, but he also secured his own place in history and will be remembered for years to come. In fact, there’s even a drink named after this little episode in concertdom.
For you see, by screwing up Lassi’s vacation plans, Jack became the first person in history to mix a Finn and Tonic.