Just a Little Music for Thought

I've been playing music most of my life. It's my constant, the one thing that hasn't changed throughout the years. It is sometimes strange to reflect on how long it's been since I first picked up a bass: 1983. That's 26 years ago. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I was twelve years old. Like many beginners in the early 80's, I spent my first weeks playing "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. From there, I graduated to "Living After Midnight," by Judas Priest and then, inevitably, Ozzy's "Crazy Train." Those songs are my foundation. As overplayed and cliche as they have become, they gave me the opportunity to dream. They were the songs which took me from being a passive observer/listener of music, to a participant. They were my bridge into another world, a world in which I've never really left.
Some people might look at someone my age and think, "Okay, that's nice, but give it up - you're never gonna be a rock star- you're too old."
To which I would respond, "You've obviously never played."
Nobody who does this does it to become a rock star. At least not after you've grown up and become a semi-rational adult. There isn't really a choice in the matter. It's what I love to do. You like to fish or hunt or maybe sew or paint. I like to rock. Should you give up your rod and reel just because you've hit forty? I don't think so. Some people spend their money on a new sofa. I spend mine on recording an album that my great-grandchildren can enjoy, or at least causes them to smile and laugh, it doesn't really matter. It's much better than a photograph or a distant memory. It's a tangible piece of me. It's a way to live on. It's something that 20 or 30 years down the line, I can listen to and remember.
I not sure why I'm even writing this stuff down. Most of my friends who will read this understand. Hell, the only people who would question my intentions are people that I'll never know or care about. I just felt like saying a little something about music today. My music. I'm really lucky to be playing in a band with friends I care about and making music we can call our own. I've never been able to figure out what I want out of life, and my love of listening to and playing music seems to be the one thing I don't question about myself. It's my rock. Pun absolutely intended. Peace.

The Tale of the Golden Altar and the Guardian of the Spitting Snake

There I was, ground level and facing a sea of immovable sentinels so tightly packed together, and so fiercely protective of their charge, that I'd never be able to squeeze past them to reach the golden altar that stood in the middle of the unending, grassy field. But I was focused, and I was determined. NOTHING, I REPEAT, NOTHING was going to stop me from my goal. Under their very noses, creeping on all fours -and sometimes my belly- I slowly made my way toward the focus of my quest, with the gracious cover of a moonless night sky allowing my passage.
At times during this mission, I thought all was lost. The sentinels would stir and act as though they might see me. They had no weapons, but they did have a unity of purpose - to protect the altar which I approached at all costs. I was alone, they were many. What hope did I have? As I inched closer, just a few feet away from my target, the enemy closed in. With a resounding wail and summoning all my might, I leaned as far forward as I could, I could just reach the altar and my eyes looked upon the Guardian of the Spitting Snake. He alone controlled who may drink from the golden spring at the top of the altar. From the ground, with hope in my dreary eyes, I peered up at him and pronounced, "BEER ME!" -thus, began a series of events that lead to me being kicked out of the University of Wisconsin.

The events described above are of a backyard keg party, one of five or six that were going on at the same time in Badger Court, across from Camp Randall on the U.W. campus. It was my first night in college. There where so many people that I literally had to crawl on all fours and fight my way to the beer. But I did this gladly. Hell, this was everything I had every pictured. This was COLLEGE.
What followed is a fairly predictable course of events. I had fun whenever and however possible, and gave very little thought to my coursework. I slept in. I skipped class. I did as little work as possible-and I got rip roaring, no-holds barred drunk whenever the opportunity arose. This isn't to say I failed completely, I didn't flunk a single class. But my overall GPA was somewhere in the low ones by the end of the year. Needless to say, they didn't invite me back to the party. They sent me a letter a couple weeks into the summer informing me of this. This is "the letter" I spoke of the other day. It changed my life. It was the single hardest slap in the face I've ever recieved. I had truly let my parents down this time. But what was even worse, I think, was the fact I had let myself down. This was a feeling I had never felt before. It was an awful feeling. But in the end, it told me something about myself, I apparently really wanted to go to college. Now, granted, this was a pretty g-damn expensive way of figuring this out, but screw it, for the first time in my life, I realized I WANTED something. After figuring out that I could get into Ripon College on double-secret probation, I never looked back. I had learned my first "valuable life lesson"- if you want something bad enough, you can get it, but you HAVE to want it first.

Talk at you tomorrow.