Is it age

[JeffD]

Takes a holiday? And a coffee break, and several sick days, and comes in late and unprepared, and leaves early on Fridays.

[oneeyeross]

I was going to reply, but forgot what I wanted to say....

But, truthfully, I have had this happen to me, not so much playing (but a few times) but doing a play. My "big entrance" was to say "Good evening, Mr Talman." And on a few nights, "Mr. Talman" opened the door and I just stood there for a few seconds....trying to remember what I was supposed to say.... ("Wait Until Dark")

[belbein]

I've heard recordings where Ralph Stanley apologizes in advance for a song he's going to sing, saying, "I always forget the first verse," and someone in the band yells it to him.

My father, who lectured daily for his entire life, who was completely at ease in front of a classroom or an auditorium, who was a raconteur par exellence . . .was always afraid of forgetting the punch lines of the jokes he used to spice up his lectures. When he died, we found his little pocket notebooks ... with the first lines of jokes, a set of elipses, and the punchlines.

In fact, when we were at his house after he died, just before the memorial service, my brother and I were looking through these notebooks, remembering his favorite jokes. Of course we'd heard them all. Until we came to one we didn't get. The first line was something like, I don't know: "This farmer has a rooster who won't take care of the chickens," and the punchline was, "Shhh!" We were perplexed, couldn't even figure out how, logically, it would go. And then my mother, who does not tell jokes and does not think things like "The Far Side" are funny, from the kitchen, says, "Oh, that one. See, there was this farmer who had a rooster..." and she tells the joke. The first joke I ever heard her tell.

[bugl3t]

"So many of our songs have the same chords, just different rhythms/melodies. When they come close to back to back I sometimes launch into the wrong rhythm of the other song trying to fit the right words and melody and then just crack myself up."

Seriously, I thought it was a grateful dead thing... you know, all songs lead to "Fire on the Mt" or something like that...

[Bob Bledsoe]

It's your frontal lobe shutting off. Happens to me all the time and I'm not even 40 yet.