If I Were King/The real Story

If I were given ridiculous, imaginary powers and I was, say, the owner of the only company in the world that made masks for the public, right off the bat I'd make them washable 100% cotton with biodegradable, replaceable filters, and I'd make every damn one with this image from King Crimson's  iconic debut LP, In the Court of the Crimson King. Not only would it draw attention to a great record by a great band and make artist Barry Godber (posthumously) deliriously happy, but it would leave no doubt as to what this mask business is all about- FEAR. People are waking up, like it or not. Don't be left behind. Have a nice day. 
 
 

Quote of the Day

"My daughter doesn't drink alcohol. She's allergic. When she drinks she breaks out in handcuffs." - Dale B, on YouTube
 

Quote of the Day

"A healer's art at its best is insight wedded to compassion, and thus medicine, no less than religion is a matter of the spirit, of the figurative heart, of the soul. True medicine embraces the belief that each and every one of us is important, and we are all under the canopy of Heaven alike." possibly Elaine S. Marshall

Healer by Todd Rundgren: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FwGy5Hp6yA
 

Live (pro-shot, recent and kickass): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFWUd-7SNDY

The Look

This is an image from a 60s video I saw. I'm old enough to remember this look. You don't see it every day. I dig it. Oh dear God in Heaven I do. She'd be a bit older than me. I wonder what she's up to these days. I guarantee she's still fine. She's a keeper. Dang.
 

Vitamin D and Immunity

Vitamin D, vitamin D, vitamin D. Get some now. It's one of the best things you can do to boost your immune system. I won't go into it, but if you can trust me to know how to do a little research, I'll say that there are a ton of things that are directly working against our immune systems right now, and it's going to get much worse. You need to do all you can possibly do to strengthen your immune system while you can. 

 The best and most easily-absorbed way to get vitamin D is free- sunlight. Be careful though...this will be the third year in a row that UV-C rays have reached the surface of the Earth since they've been measuring, and it's dangerous. Protect your eyes but if you can get just a few minutes of sunlight here and there you'll get a lot of natural vitamin D. 

 Speaking of, and what should bear this out, is two recent charts that were published a few days ago, although you certainly won't see them on CNN. Shhh...it's a secret. Dig this:

This chart came out a few days ago. It shows new cases of the "bug," and you can look it up for yourself on the Florida Department of Health website. It shows the cases have held steady and aren't increasing sharply, as supposedly they are in most other places. But wait...it gets better. 

Looky here. What do you see? The death rate has gone down almost to zero. This is real. It's also exactly the same in certain other places around the world like Sao Paulo and elsewhere...the charts look almost exactly the same. So what's the deal?  The common factor in all these places is sunlight. People hang out on the beaches all year long. In my book it's strong evidence to support the vitamin D theory. You won't hear this on mainstream news. I wonder why...

 The best way for most people, and I'd suggest that everyone get some, unless you're a lifeguard in Miami or something and you're in the Sun all day, is to buy it in capsule form. I always wait until it goes on sale 2-for-1 at the pharmacy or supermarket and it's really cheap, especially for what you get. There are lots of other ways to boost your immune system, including drumming, which is the absolute best way, but people are only going to do what they're going to do, and taking a pill is easier. Of course you can always eat foods rich in it. Natural is always best. "To your very good health!" - Keith Emerson

 

The Daily Bullshit: Do the Fauci-Pokey

Here we "see" Fauci getting "vexed" in his left arm...

...but when he went on TV some time after to say how great it was and how he only had a little soreness in his arm, he grabbed his right arm. What up with that? Just a simple mistake? Hardly. They didn't stick shit into him. He forgot which arm was still sore? Come on, people...wake up.  They're telling you right in front of your face. It's all a show. It's doin' the Fauci-Pokey (literally), and that's what it's all about.

 Oh, but wait...they'll probably come out with some bullshit explanation for it, like he was looking in a mirror or some shit like that. Wake up. #doyourownresearch

 
 

Who Are You? (Who-Who, Who-Who)

Supposedly you can tell your basic ancestry by your foot shape. I don't know how accurate this is but if it's true I'm straight-up Greek. To me that's the most pleasing foot shape, but I kinda like the Celtic one because it's shooting the foot-bird. I guess the Greek one is too. Cool. It might be funny to hold your foot up to someone and say "You're #1 in my book." Comparatively the Roman foot looks like a snowshoe. I guess that's where wide toe-box shoes come in handy. So which foot do you belong to? Who are you? Interesting footnotes.  
 

Beautiful Things: A Christmas Miracle

Last year around this time I got a call from my friend Kat. She has a double masters in psychology and works in town. She was calling about someone she'd worked with and who was a longtime friend. She'd just been diagnosed with a disease I forget the name of at the moment. It has widely-varying degrees of severity and can be fatal on occasion, but Kat didn't tell me how serious it was. 

 All she said was that her friend was anxious about the diagnosis and was having trouble sleeping, plus she'd been in a lot of pain. The meds she'd been given weren't working nearly as well as she'd hoped, and they were making her feel worse. Imagine that. Kat knew I was into herbs and natural remedies and things like that so she asked if I could recommend some things for her friend, whom I'll call "A." 

 I said I'd call her back and spent the next few hours putting together a list of things that had worked well for me, plus a couple of things I hadn't tried but was pretty sure of except that I wanted to double-check to make sure weren't contraindicated for her condition. I called around to all the health-food stores in town until I found one place that had everything, so Kat wouldn't have to drive all over town. I sent instructions on how to prepare and take everything, making tea and such, and Kat said she'd follow it to the letter.

 A few days later I was thinking about Kat's friend, and wishing Kat would call me and tell me that the stuff had helped, but she got busy with work and family, and as it turned out since was a licensed medical professional she was staying with her friend so she could remain at home, but I didn't know that at first. Finally almost two weeks later Kat called me, and I asked how her friend was doing. "Oh, she died peacefully last night. She wanted me to thank you." 

 I was stunned. Kat hadn't told me that she was actually dying. "I'm sorry for your loss" I said. "Thanks" she said. "I was with her when she left. I blew her a kiss and told her she was in for a wild ride, and she gave me a thumbs-up and closed her eyes. It was very peaceful." Wow. I didn't expect to hear that but it didn't sound like a bad way to go really. I was glad to hear that Kat could be with her. 

 "And I want you to know something" she continued, "the last ten days of her life were the most peaceful she's had in a long time. That stuff I got her...she was able to relax, and get a good night's sleep. Her pain went way down and she couldn't believe that. She quit taking almost all of her meds. She was able to come to terms with her condition and the fact that she was dying. We spent most of the time talking about her life and going over old times. She was a sweetheart. You'd have loved her. She wanted me to thank you and send you her love. You made her life sooo much better at the end. She thinks you're a Shaman. Don't ever forget what you did for her. She won't"

 I couldn't have asked for anything more than that, and I had tears in my eyes. That was my best Christmas gift last year. My parents showed by example that it truly is better to give than to receive, and luckily a bit of that stuck with me. I just have to put a shout-out to herbs...it's yet more proof that they work. To know that A found more relief from natural herbs, which are the basis for ALL medicines to this very day, than man-made meds and was able to lose the side-effects and actually be in less discomfort than with the meds was beautiful. If it's a feather in my cap then that's cool but it's just because I took the time to experiment and give herbs a chance, and they came through with flying colors. This is 2020 and I haven't done shit in 2020 but for the year 2019 that wasn't a bad good deed. I'd only hoped to give her a bit of relief but it actually helped her transition into whatever's next. That's heavy. I'm happy that she felt better in her last days. Who knows...maybe I'll get to meet her one day. Merry Christmas.

 
 

The Ghosts of Christmases Past (WARNING: Boring, Personal Recollections)

I hate to say it but like for many people, Christmas this year is going to be at least a partial bummer. Then again you never know...we might just find the "meaning of Christmas," whatever that is. Most people know by now that December 25th has nothing to do with the actual birth of Christ, but we can celebrate it any way we want, and wrong date or not it will still be part of it for me. I just can't seem to get much of a boner for Christmas this year in general though. So what's a pensive fellow supposed to do at Christmas, when it really doesn't feel like it at all? Why, go back and reflect on Christmases past. 

 Of course the ones when we were kids were the best...the smell of a pine tree in your living room, the warm glow of incandescent Christmas-tree lights, family, friends, food, presents, etc. Every year we'd go to my grandmother's house on Christmas night and have yet another dinner that she'd spent half the day cooking, and open more presents. It was a twofer. She had bubble lights on her tree and I thought they were the coolest things in the world. She was a character and I adored her. Her name was Mary Lou but people called her "Ma'lou." When I was little I couldn't pronounce that so I called her "Booie" and it stuck. Even her friends called her that. When I was old enough to realize that I'd giver her her nickname and everybody called her by it I thought it was fantastic. Merry Christmas Booie! I miss you.

 For many years we'd go over to our big family friends the Smith's, and set up all the stuff that needed assembling, for their kids. That was a big part of it for me. I also remember going over to a relative's apartment, in a high-rise downtown that was across from our church. Every year she'd give us these boxes that opened up like a book and contained every flavor of Life Savers candy. I could never afford to buy more than one or two flavors at a time, so having them all was a great treat. I reckon she's long-since gone up to that great Candyland in the sky. I appreciated the Live Savers. 

 After all the usual kid stuff some things happened in between and then I got my license. Christmas really got fun. I was able to drive around and see my friends and go to parties and look at lights and toss fireworks out the windows and smoke doobies and sneak into bars and whatever else. For many years at a stretch there I managed to get into the Christmas spirit one way or another. 

Oh, the Christmas parties I've played. I think I'd learn music all over again just to be able to play the Christmas parties I played. This is just one example of many. This was an Xmas party actually, if you get my drift. It was one year's party for the crazy restaurant that I recently talked about, and was one of the top-3 parties I've attended. 

 My first professional gig (meaning only that I got paid) was at a Christmas party back in high school, with my buddy Douggie Dang. He played in a cool band called Anequasy. The keyboard player Scotty had just switched from drums to keys so I filled in on a gig or two until they found a regular guy Scott's dad owned a big distributorship place and hired us for a lavish party. After that Doug and I wouldn't play together again for several years, before launching into a million bands together. That's him in the photo to the left. BTW. Hey Doug! 

 We rehearsed a good bit for that one gig which was fine by me because we were really tight for a temporary band. We played some good tunes and did them justice. We played Everybody's Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey) by the Beatles, Arrested for Driving While Blind by ZZ Top, Arrow Through Me by Wings, plus lots of other great songs. The food was excellent, the music sounded really good, they let us drink underage, which blew my mind, I had a blast and oh, yeah...I got paid. Good stuff.

 Another incredible party I've talked about before was one given by Birmingham Vending Company. They sold and leased coin-op machines of every kind, from food to pinball to video games. It was great because the family who owned it was Jewish but they always had a Christmas party. For a bunch of kids in a hot band who also happened to be into video games and pinball, it was heaven. There was a huge, beautifully-carpeted room where they had maybe 250 games of every sort. They had every pinball and video game that was out at the time, plus some that hadn't yet been released to the public. 

 

 The food was incredible. On our breaks instead of lingering over a doob like usual we ran out for a quick puff or two and then ran back in and played video games for 20 minutes. On every few tables they'd placed buckets of tokens, which would later come into play. We played a blistering gig that night, and we won over the whole crowd, which was kids to grandparents, and that isn't always easy to do.

 We played everything from Devo to the Dead for the youngsters, plus such classics as Take Five, which pleased the older crowd. but when we played the theme from A Charlie Brown Christmas, everybody found common ground and went nuts and from then on the band could do no wrong. We played it at least three times that night because people kept asking for it, but it was no problem since it's such an amazing tune, and nowhere near as easy as it may sound to play. It was beautiful. 

 I also had a date with a stunning sister who was also named Kelly. That was some sweet-ass icing on the cake. After we finished playing we hurried to load our gear and then ran back in to squeeze in a few more games of pinball and such. Our guitar players Bert and Randy were Jewish, and good friends of the owners, and when they saw how much fun we were having, and maybe how loaded we were too, they said that they were going to be closed the next day, and we could stay as long as we wanted. They gave us the keys and the codes and wished us a Merry Christmas. Plus they told us to please take as much of the food as we could since they were finished with it, and we each left with five pounds of high-end eats. 

 We played video games into the wee hours, and when daylight broke I made an industrial-size pot of coffee, and made up some amazing ham biscuits. I'm assuming it was Kosher. We finally left around 11am, but the party kept on giving, for a long time. Right before we left O' and I noticed the buckets of tokens. We knew they were the same kind that were accepted in a couple of the main video arcades of the day, so I filled up a drum case with several-thousand tokens. For the next two years or so O' and I, and sometimes Randy, would go to the arcade. We'd each buy a buck's worth of tokens so as not to arouse suspicion but we'd have a pocketful of tokens from the party and we'd play free for the next four hours. Thanks Birmingham Vending! Merry Christmas. 

 I took a long break from writing this. I started writing this yesterday evening and I'd be finished long before now but a friend came on YouTube for a live stream and I popped on. He's into herbs and natural remedies and things like I am, plus he can see through the bullshit too, so we hit it off immediately. Usually he stays on an hour or two tops but he was on for over four hours. About half a dozen other friends I've known for several years also popped into the chat. I didn't expect to see all of them and it was a good time. Great people. I wasn't paying attention for a couple of minutes, and out of the blue I saw one of my mom's paintings on his screen. WTF? 

 Then I realized that he was playing a video from my channel where my mom and I sang Inchworm. I had no idea he even knew about it. I guess someone else sent him the link but I don't know. Anyway, it was quite a surprise to hear it, and not a bad Christmas gift. My mom was also very pleased that he played it on his show. A couple of times when I've gone live my mom joined in and interacted with some of my friends via chat, and everyone got a huge kick out of it. My girl Darlene, who's truly an angel with a wicked sense of humor (she's crazy fucking funny) said it was her favorite vid on YouTube, and she meant it. Nice. Thanks, brother Bob, and Darlene. Okay, back to the ghosts of Xmases past. 

 Two of the most fun ones for me were when I got to set up drum kits under the tree for my friends' kids on Christmas Eve. Having gotten drums for Christmas myself I knew the joy they'd experience and I loved being a part of that. I set up one kit for a kid who was five or six. He was Rodney's son. I think he recently started college. Another time I set up a kit for the son of Jack and Elizabeth, who were the first owners of the crazy restaurant. John was around ten, and the whole time I was setting up the drums we were pretty sure that he was on the other side of his bedroom door with his ear pressed up against it, and that turned out to be the case. 

 It was hilarious. Jack and I had been drinking heavily. I'd found an amazing deal on a set of clear acrylic Ludwig drums for John. I wish I had that kit today. I went over after work to set it up. John's room was right by the living room, and we were pretty sure he was still awake and listening to see if he could hear any drum-related sounds. They hadn't told him he was getting a drum kit but he suspected. The terms "setting up drums" and "quietly" don't go together usually, but I was doing my absolute best to set up the drums without making a sound. 

 What made it so difficult was that Jack and I were loaded and we were trying our best not to bust out into laughter. I couldn't believe it but I set up every single piece- snare, three toms, bass, hi-hat and three cymbals, and I didn't make a peep...until of course the very last piece of the kit. I'd forgotten to put the bass-drum pedal on, which was no problem except that I had to worm in into place around all the hardware and clamp it to the rim quietly, which somehow I did. 

 

 I thought I'd gotten away with the world's first silent drum kit setup, but there was some slack in the bass drum pedal from not being attached. It makes the beater shaft flop down against the footboard, and it looks broken to someone who doesn't know what's going on. I didn't want John to think it was messed up and so I pulled the beater up like I'd normally do, which locks it back into place. The problem is that it's spring-loaded, and when the beater shaft engaged, the spring slammed it into the drum head. I'd been so quiet for a solid hour, and then BOOM! We heard a little laugh that trailed off as John peeled his ear off the door and finally went to bed, having had his Christmas wish confirmed. Classic. 

 For many years Christmas meant seeing my friend Rusty. That's him playing congas in the photo above. Rus was the first new friend I made the first day I started in a new school system. Since I played drums I signed up for band. I walked into class and went over to the drum section. The other guys were friendly enough but Rusty looked me straight in the eye with a huge smile on his face, and next thing I knew there was a loud and very realistic fart sound. He had a small jawbreaker under his shoe and when he dragged his foot across the floor it made a great fart sound. Now I liked farts as much as the next guy but I was a bit taken aback that he'd do it so damn loudly, but that was Rusty. He didn't care.

 I was to soon learn that he honestly earned the title of the Fart King, but at the time it was just a pure welcoming gesture. We didn't have band where I'd come from and I didn't know what to expect. I'd heard the kids were snobs, and for the most part they were, but Rusty was different. He was kind and friendly and obviously a little off-base, but he'd just sent me a warm welcome into the club, in his own endearing way, and it meant a lot to me. We're still the bestest of buds to this day. 

 Soon after high school he moved to Tallahassee to take over his dad's biz, but for years he came up for a week at Christmas. The rest of the year he worked his balls to the bone, so when he came up here, away from coworkers and such, he'd go berserk. We've had so many adventures at Christmas that I couldn't begin to even remember half of them, but it was jaw-dropping stuff. One thing that's pretty twisted, but hilarious, stands out. We were in the former Radio Shack (RIP) and it was packed with Christmas shoppers.

 This was the early days of personal computers. There was an early text-to-voice program that was basically a spell-check. You'd type in the misspelled word and the computer would search for the correct spelling, and then say, spell and repeat the word. There was a delay of several seconds as it searched for the correct word, which was perfect for Rusty because it gave him time to set it up and then scamper back across the store so he wasn't nearby when it went off. 

 

 We were standing in line to buy some stuff. Rusty handed me his things and went across to the other side of the store. I didn't know what he was doing but a minute later he was working his way back to me. All of the sudden a very loud, robotic voice blasted the store: "PENIS...P-E-N-I-S...PENIS." He'd typed "penus" into it and it found the correct spelling. I lost it laughing. Rusty had cranked the volume up so everyone in the store heard it. Rusty's sense of humor may be a bit slanted, which is probably why we've been such good friends all these years, but it was brilliant really, and it made my day. Merry Christmas Rus!

 Another interesting thing happened one Christmas Eve, that also happened to involve Rusty. The heater at my folks' house had gone out, and we had to get the repair guys to come fix it. Rusty was over and we'd been playing drums downstairs in the basement. I had tons of nice gear down there. Rus and I left to run some errands while the two guys fixed the heater. When we got back they were finished, and were about to leave. About ten minutes later something gave me a really funny feeling (it was my "Little Voice") and I went down to the basement to have a look around. Sure enough there were several stands, drums and cymbals missing. Altogether it was well over a grand's worth of stuff, which way back then was a lot, especially just to help yourself to on a repair job. 

 They had a good lead on us and were almost back to the office, but I knew if I could blow every stop sign and haul ass I might catch them before they could unload the stuff. We got there just as they were about to leave, and it was obvious they'd been in a hurry, and they freaked when we showed up. We blurted out to another employee to please get the manager because we had reason to believe there was stolen gear in their truck. The two guys denied everything and tried to drive away but Rusty and I blocked their way, and the manager came right out. The gear was in the truck bed under some sheet metal. 

 It was a young guy and an older guy who'd been with the company a long time. They were frozen. The two guys were fired on the spot. It was a shame for the old guy who'd been there forever but he shouldn't have let the kid get away with it. The old guy got his tools and split, but when the kid tried to get his the owner stopped him. "Those are mine" he said. "You're about to owe me." The kid started begging for his tools while Rusty and I loaded my gear into the car. There were some scratches and a punctured drum head from sharp metal, but otherwise no major damage, and it was all there. 

 I thought the kid was going to hock the stuff and buy dope but actually he had a friend who was just starting to play drums and didn't have much equipment, and he wanted to give him that stuff for Christmas. Nice sentiment, but not with my shit buddy. The owner called me into his office. They were otherwise a very reputable company that had been in business for decades. They were who we always used. He got out his checkbook to "compensate" me but I knew that most of it was for not dragging their name in the mud, which I didn't do. 

 The reason I'm telling this is because he wrote me a substantial check, which I hurriedly cashed and did a flurry of last-minute shopping to enhance my giving for that year. He wrote me a check for a grand. I couldn't believe it and tried to refuse it but he wouldn't hear of it. That's why he kept the guy's tools. The guy cried about it and called me regularly for well over a year, begging me to give him back the money (!) so he could ransom his tools, but screw him and his drummer buddy. I cashed the check and Rus and I went out to buy some extra gifts, and a mondo sack of weed. Later that evening we picked up my girl Jean and went out to a nice dinner. 

 

 What really made that Christmas special was being with Jean. She was my first true love and we were crazy for each other. I have to say that, thank God we still love each other very deeply (and are still together in some parallel universe) and that's a gift in itself. I'd already gotten her a few gifts including a nice cut-crystal jewelry box, but after our spending spree I was able to pack it full of beautiful green buds with red hairs- perfect for the holidays. She was thrilled. We all stopped by and hung out with my folks, and then Rusty went home. Jean and I went over to her house and hung out with her family for a while, and then they went to bed. It was just Jean and me, and ...well, it was Christmas. Merry Christmas, Jeano! I love you. 

 One year when I was in my mid-20s I guess we decided to bring back travelling Christmas carols. We worked up some tunes and bought some candles and went around to all our friends' houses and surprised them with our singing prowess. When we were kids it was common but by then it had kind of faded out, so it freaked all our friends out. It became sort of a "progressive-drunk" as well, as our friends would invite us in for a cocktail. We'd add them to the ranks and strike out for the next house. That was a blast. It came upon a midnight clear.

 I've only scratched the surface and I could go on and on but I haven't been to bed and it's well into Christmas Day, so I'd better finish up. I have a weird feeling in my stomach, like I'm about to get on a wild ride at Six Flags or something. I hope it's just the coffee. I'm sort of staring out into the abyss and wondering WTF is going on, and I know I'm not alone. CNN says that Christmas this year "isn't supposed to be fun." Fuck CNN, but I kinda see their point. I have to wonder if this is the last Christmas I'll spend with my mom. That's an awful thought but from what I know about what's going on, and people being quarantined with no say-so and all the other insane shit going on, it well may be possible. I hope not. I really do. Merry Christmas mom! I love you. You too dad. Say hey to Booie for me. 

 I may not be a bundle of joy this year but I do still have some love left in my heart. At least there's that. I hope everybody, no matter what the situation, can find a moment of peace and joy. If you happen to be looking for the meaning of Christmas this year, then may you find it and more power to you. BTW we have a beautiful photo of the last tree we ever set up, back at our family home. I can't even remember how long it's been. The photo could be on the cover of a magazine but I couldn't bring myself to put it up. It reminds me of happier times, which these here ain't. Anyway Merry Christmas, if applicable. Sing some songs. Tell your people you love them. Maybe see you next year. Peace.

 

 

Holiday Tipple

I've been wanting to get into Prickly Pear for years because I've always heard good things about it but I never got around to it until a few weeks ago. I'd been getting some Neuropathy in my feet and I heard it was good for that. It had been going on for about two months, but after three or four days taking it once a day the pain was almost gone, and it had truly been intense. Maybe it's just a coincidence but I doubt it. It flared up a time or two since but if I take some of this stuff once a week or so it seems to keep it under control. 

 I'm hoping it might help my mom's arthritis. Earlier tonight I made her a cup, with honey and lemon. Luckily it tastes good. I thought it would taste bitter and gnarly but it's actually very good. I thought I'd make some for my dog and me to share, and as usual I got a little carried away, but not too bad. I was going to put honey in it for me but I didn't want to give him any, and I was too tired to make two separate batches, so I decided to go with a pinch of beef broth, to make sure he'd drink it. It tasted better than I thought it would, considering that the MSM sulfur I added is bitter. It's not a taste you'd crave but it wasn't bad. Here's the recipe:

Gnarlygreen Drink

2 T Prickly Pear powder*

1 t Ginkgo powder*

1-1/2 T Spirulina*

1 T Moringa powder*

1 t bee pollen

1 t pine tree pollen*

2 T grass-fed collagen

1/2 lemon*

1/4 t Cayenne*

1/2 t beef broth* (Better than Bullion brand, omit if no dog)

1/2 t MSM sulfur*

500mg vitamin C

about 2 cups hot water

Stir for a while, drink. Serves two, or one dog and one human. I use purified water and organic when possible.

*organic

 I forgot to add Turmeric and black pepper but it still has powerful anti-inflammatory properties, plus high levels of antioxidants, nutrition, vitamins, minerals, protein, carbs and even fiber, plus collagen for skin, hair, nails, bones, veins, arteries and internal organs. In short this stuff is kickass. People who say that this is bogus or that you pee it all out or whatever simply are uneducated about nutrition, and more often than not are unhealthy as hell to boot. I doubt I'll have any alcohol this holiday but this stuff is pretty strong, and it's a bit better for you. "If you're green inside, you're clean inside." Cheers.

 

Shots Fired

Almost exactly at 10:30pm CST I heard about fifteen gunshots, from two different guns, and it sounded like it was in another section of this apartment complex that's across a road and drainage creek and about three blocks away as the crow flies. I didn't count the first shots because I wasn't paying attention but I'd say there were at least seven or eight. 

 It was about as loud as a high-quality firecracker but I knew it wasn't fireworks. Each pop was perfectly even in volume and time between. A second or two later I heard a much louder gun..."POP POP...POP POP POP POP POP POP." Eight shots from the second gun, again perfectly even. I'm guessing it was a shootout or a drive-by with two guns but who knows. Usually I go right out on the deck if I hear anything like that, such as a couple of months ago when I heard a noise that sounded like some maniac trying to chop down a huge tree with an ax, which bloody hell if it wasn't, but this time it was gunfire, and so close I looked outside for a minute before I went out. 

 In less than five minutes four cop cars pulled into that part of the complex and started swarming the place, driving around the roads right around where it sounded like the shots came from. I took my camera out but they didn't turn on the lights until they apparently found the perp or perps, since they stopped in one spot and have been there quite a while. Right as they stopped I heard one of the weirdest screams I've ever heard in my life. It was high-pitched and almost like a scream and a gasp at once. I could do without hearing too many more of those for the rest of my life, thank you very much. 

 I stood outside for a few minutes but I didn't hear anything else. They'd all hit the blues at once and I took a few photos to use in this post, but there's a stand of trees in between and all I could get was tiny blue specks of light. Even with my super-night-vision I could only make out a few people walking around. It seems they figured out pretty quickly whom it was. I hope nobody got hurt but it sounded pretty serious. 

 In fact, while I've heard the rare gunshot or two in the distance pretty much in every neighborhood I've lived, that's the most I've ever heard in a row that wasn't on TV or at the shooting range. It was close too. I guess I led a sheltered life up until now but that was attention-getting. Actually it's the most excitement I've had all year. Gunshots for the holidays. Nice. I just LOVE living here.  Merry Xmas.
 

It Wasn't Ironic Back Then: When Bruce Still Had One

I was watching a video and of all things the Village People movie, which came out in 1980, came up. Apparently the movie was so bad it inspired the Razzberry Awards or something like that. I didn't see it, although I'd probably watch it now.

 The video showed about a minute of the movie, and it was the perfect clip for someone like me whose sense of humor is both sick and twisted. I got a kick out of it and I had to wonder if the video's creator noticed. I'd think so. I love brutal irony, and this is savage.

The former Bruce Jenner starred in the movie. In this scene Valerie Perrine's character is distracted, and walks right into Bruce, who's just pulled a hot pan of cinnamon rolls or something out of the oven. She knocks it up against his crotch, and it burns his pecker, as we see in the first image. In the second image we see his reaction. That was comedy in 1980. I suppose you could still get away with it today, although I really don't know. I don't keep up with TV shows or movies any more. 

 Back then it was only funny on the basic level of a guy burning his dick, but now of course there's another layer to it, and it goes much deeper. I'm sure you get the irony. Let's just say that if by some miracle they did a remake of this movie only in the present time, Bru...I mean Caitlyn couldn't redo her old part. Burning one's dick is one thing. 

 I saw all this stuff in real time. I remember the fucking Village People, and going "What the fuck?" and how their music shot daggers into my ears, and soul, and I remember Bruce Jenner, with gold medals around his neck,  on 250 boxes of Wheaties on store shelves. A few years later all of the sudden he was a woman, and I went "What the fuck?" Stereotypes be damned I guess. Well, there's a theory that will sound completely whack to most people, but from my years of research I wouldn't be one bit surprised.

 When he was still Bruce he was involved in a wreck that killed one person and injured one or two others. There were civil suits but no charges were ever brought against him. Of course there's no way you or I would've avoided jail, but as we all know, "stars" get preferential treatment. Still it's odd that he got off scot-free. Some say it goes way deeper.

 They say that he was given an ultimatum by the elite, who've been pushing this trans thing for the past decade or so, because that's how they roll, and the former Bruce Jenner was given a choice- either spend a long time in jail, of doff the dick, and further their agenda. I get that it sounds crazy but crazier things have happened, and having an iconic, manly-man becoming a woman would certainly drive the point home.

 Caitlyn says that she always felt like a woman, but I don't know if that's true...maybe it is but when I look at her face I see something that looks out of place...maybe disappointment or shame, but maybe that's just me. I just know that when I see most trans people they at least look happy in their own new skin. I don't see that with Caitlyn, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm certainly not a hater. I don't hate Caitlyn for one second, or anyone else for that matter. I don't carry hate in my heart. 

 I remember something from way back in the day. It was around the time that margarine products like "I Can't Believe It's not Butter" came out and claimed to taste like butter. The commercial showed a bunch of happy numbnuts going "Duh, it tastes just like BUTTER!" Some daytime TV show decided to test the theory in real-life. They got a bunch of famous people for a taste-test panel and Bruce was one of them

. They made a batch of toast or something and buttered half and put margarine on the other half. Not surprisingly everybody could tell the difference in one bite...everybody but Bruce that is. He was kind of laughed at but he just got a big grin on his face and said he couldn't tell any difference at all. I thought "This guy's daft." 

 I realized that he pretty much fit the profile of a true jock, or had sandpapered his taste buds off. Then some time goes by and next thing you know he's...or rather she's Caitlyn. Not being able to tell the difference between butter and margarine is one thing, but I never thought he'd go and cut his dick off. I never sawr that one coming, but ain't life crazy? It sure provided for some brutal irony. Enjoyed it.

 

 

 

Accidental Tee

Well, dammit, I just accidentally ordered a remix version of the t-shirt I was talking about in the post below. I did a different design with the (allegedly) original smiley face image, drawn by Harvey Ball, way back in the day. 2013 was supposedly the 50th anniversary of the smiley face. I didn't know that. My, how time flies. I changed the bottom line to read: "God help us from this point forward." It would be my personal version, and different from the one I'd give to every citizen in the US if I were king. 

 But I didn't mean to order it, at least not now, but I did. I was trying to play my cat-and-mouse game I discovered a while back. I did the usual deal but there was a glitch, and when I reentered a number and hit refresh it submitted the order without me clicking pay. 

 I figured out over the last year or so especially, if you're interested in buying something online, and there's not a discount up-front, if you let them know you're interested in their product they'll often e-mail or text you with discount offers, and many times the longer you wait the lower they'll go. For non-essential items it's a buyer's market, and they'll work with you, but you'll have to dig it out of them. Can you dig it?

 Last year, when I thought I was actually going to be spending some time at the river, I saw a pair of super-tough, long wearing shoes that were $120, which I'd never pay, and there was no discount offered. I filled all the info and got all the way to the "submit order " button. As you know sometimes when you're looking at an item and you're about to click away, you'll get a pop-up window that says "WAIT...take an additional 10% off NOW!" or something like that.

 That didn't happen this time so I clicked off, but sure enough over the next week I got offers that kept going lower. Sometimes the more interest you show the lower they'll go. It's like dickering over the price at a flea market. First it was 10% off, then 15%, 20%, a big 25% OFF! sale, but I held out. When they finally got down to 40% off, which is generally as low as they'll go without getting too pissed-off, I got them for $65. That's what they should be to begin with, but if they can hit you up for the full retail you can bet your ass they will.

 That's preaching to the choir, but most people don't know that some places will bargain with you, because they don't say it up-front. They don't offer any discount at first, and most people will pay list. It's a fun game and you can save a good bit of money, but you have to bait that hook and toss a line and be patient. Not everybody does it; it works maybe 30% of the time, and to varying degrees, but it's definitely worth a try. 

 That's what I was trying to do here. I had to enter all the info to find out shipping charges, but for some reason it said the CVC # was wrong, which it wasn't, but I entered it again anyway. All I did was hit refresh and it placed the damn order. I tried to cancel it but I didn't see an option. I'm going to contact them and tell them what happened and see if maybe I can cancel or maybe cut to the chase and ask for a discount, but I don't know if I can. I never came close to hitting any type of pay or submit button. I just now e-mailed them so I'll see what they say. I've done this a million times but it's never entered the order without me hitting the submit button. Damn. 

 I guess the shirt is cool enough not to raise a big stink about if they don't want to cancel my order or give me a discount. I think if I saw it I'd get a laugh out of it. The thing is I just sketched it out really quickly, just to get a price. If they offered me a decent discount I was going to go back and fine-tune it, but it's good enough, and I like the smiley face. In Crazytown now of course that there's limited social-interaction, and very few chances for anyone else to see it. If I end up with it I guess it'll just be a personal one-off souvenir collector's item, although I think other people might dig it too. Ha-ha I was going to say that I'd buy it, but I did buy it. Ha-ha, fuck me! Oh, well, it won't break me. Want one? Have a nice day.

If I Were King: Free T-shirts for All

If I were king I'd mandate that on January 1st, 2021 I'd give every man, woman and child alive this t-shirt, or one like it. This is a grainy image of a mockup I did on a t-shirt site. It says "I Survived Motherfucking 2020." In small print (that you probably can't see from six feet away) it says "____ help us from here on out." People can insert their favorite deity, drug of choice, dead Rock star, action hero or whatever in the blank.

 This colorful image is of the visual representation of the radar signal of a fireball meteor entering the atmosphere. It's sort of a "The sky is falling" thing, but it's just something I grabbed and subject to change. Maybe Chicken Little would be better. Maybe on the back I could put an image of a black hole or something. Or maybe an ASShole. 

 Yep, that's what I'd do if I were king. Everybody in America would get an organic, 100%-cotton t-shirt, sized to fit. Outside the US I'd negotiate a fair price, but in this country they'd be free. I'd give the printing gig to my friend from Kenya named Michael, who'd become rich enough to buy a country or two. He deserves every penny. I could probably divide the work between him and my friend Jeffrey the Heron, aka John H, who also sometimes prints t-shirts. I'd have to start a huge company, and I could hire every friend I have and make them all fabulously-wealthy. Wouldn't that be badass? 
 

Quote of the Century

There's a rather unusual piece of music done by one James Kirby, aka the Caretaker, called Everything at the End of Time. What's unusual is that not only is it 6-1/2 hours long, it's meant to represent the frightening onset and the various stages of dementia, and give the listener the experience. Right off the bat it sounds like something that's definitely not everyone's cup of tea. It sounds like something that isn't easy to listen to, but I love a challenge, musical or otherwise, so I may try to give it a go soon. 

 I heard about it last year and I meant to check it out but it slipped my mind. They said it wasn't for the faint of heart, which I believe, and that it was "life-changing," which I don't doubt. My life had just been changed by the passing of my dad, who had to live with the effects of a stroke, and feeling trapped in his brain and not being able to get ideas across (I learned to speak "Stroke") for 11 years. It would've probably hit too close to home if I'd listened to it last year, and if I listen to it now I imagine it might be rough. 

 It popped-up in my YouTube feed last night, as part of a video critiquing it. The channel was a guy I'd subbed a while back but hadn't seen many of his videos. From the stuff I did see I thought he was an older dude but I was surprised last night to learn that he's in his early 20-s. He's wise beyond his years, and unless he's faking it, which I doubt, quite empathic too. Just hearing him describe listening to it gave me a weird feeling of anxiousness and dread and yet curiosity, which isn't my preferred state of mind, but he described it beautifully and intelligently and with great respect.

 Part of the video was a clip showing James Kirby during the undertaking of the piece. The obvious respect and sensitivity he showed were impressive, and as the YT guy said, since he put so much effort into creating it it was worth the effort to listen to it. He gave a stern warning to anyone who might want to take on the task of listening to it that if they weren't in the best frame of mind to begin with it might be best to come back to it later. I believe that too. I make no guarantee I'll make it all the way through it if I do listen to it myself. 

 After I watched that video the official video as it were showed up in my feed. Originally it was released on vinyl but I think those copies are sold out. It's offered completely free for streaming or download on the site. It was released in six installments between 2016 and 2019 but it really took off in September of this year when it was featured on Twitter I think and another couple of places. It has over 5,000,000 views on YT. If I'm not mistaken it only had a million when the guy did his video. I'm going to go into the YT analytics and see what the average view (listening) time is. I certainly can't see five million people listening to all six-plus hours of it. 

 SPOILER ALERT: If you happen to be one of the five million people with the balls to listen to the recording and you want to have a completely virgin experience, then skip the next two paragraphs. I haven't listened to the record, and this synopsis comes from the video. It starts with old-time music from the 20s and 30s, which signifies old age. as it continues it becomes more faint, and more and more random sounds creep in. Sounds pretty hardcore already. 

 The piece was assembles from old recordings on vinyl and even wax cylinders. Apparently as the album starts out somewhat normal, although very lo-fi, but then the familiar music starts to degrade via pops and ticks on the vinyl to the barely-audible wax cylinders. It basically turns into unfamiliar noises, signifying the loss of memories, and at the end is an Ambient piece that represents the death of the person. With things as fucked-up as they are now it's hard to say if listening to it would bring me down even more, or not make a bit of difference, or somehow be a positive experience. It's hard to say, but then again you can say that about everything these days.

 To hear the guy describe the experience was heavy. It sounds depressing as fuck, but the guy said that as hard as it was to listen to at first, he got completely sucked into it, and came out on the other end a changed person. He said that it gave him a new appreciation for the good things in life, which resonates with me, and that's always a good thing. It sounds like something most people would rather endure a root canal than listen to maybe, but overall it was a positive experience for the guy, and it gave him a bigger appreciation for the condition, and what people went through. Bless their hearts. 

 I figured there would be some interesting comments below the main video of the record itself, and the third comment stopped me in my tracks. I'm a "comment guy" and there's so much entertainment in the comment section it's incredible. There's incredible wisdom, amazing assholes and just the dark side of humanity in general, and some of the best comedy you'll find anywhere. Some comments just trip me out and I've posted quite a few, but this one somehow takes the cake.

 Out of nowhere comes this beautiful statement, to nobody and everybody. It's a shot in the dark...a cry in the wilderness and a glimpse of of humanity. Or it's completely trite, weak, stupid and useless, as some people would think. God bless them. I think it's compelling, and it made my day. We're all in this big, fucked-up boat together, yet we sail individually. We're all connected. And I'm blabbering on like the doddering and sentimental old fool I am, but I really dig this comment. So did about 600 other people so far. It was posted three days ago and already it has 609 likes and 78 replies, which is pretty impressive for a comment. It will eventually have thousands of likes. Whomever you are, I hear you. God bless you. 

"Don't ever forget me, please. We will never meet in this big cruel world, but this is the only moment, the only couple seconds you will hear from me. I wish you good luck in your journey on this world, and maybe, but maybe we will hear again from each other. Make the best out of it as long as you can. Love you." 

Amen.

  

Madam Expiration Date

There's a guy on YouTube I follow and he comes up with some funny stuff. He's been ragging on Madonna for the last few years, and perhaps rightly so. He calls her "Madam Expiration Date," which is based on her "Madam X" tour or persona or both, that she came out with whenever it was. That's hilarious. He's right too. 

 Here we see her still dressing like a teenager. I will say that at least her breasts haven't gone further south than the Mason-Dixon Line yet, but what's she...like 85 years old? Maybe it's time she got a nice polyester jacket or something...you know, dress her age. Not many grandmothers can still be rockers. Play music still, if you want, sure, but maybe act your age? Joni did it successfully, but oh, well...WTF do I know? Madam Expiration Date. So true. Good one dude.
 

The Doctor is In

I reckon I ought to start my own medical clinic. I'll call it Dr. Octafer's Wellness Center or something like that. People won't even have to drop by the office if they don't want to- I can do it all remotely. They tell me what's wrong and I tell them what to do and then I send them the bill. Wait...I'm not a real doctor, you say? You're right. I'm not. Neither is MR. Gates. "But he's a trillionaire" you say. So what? It doesn't make him any more qualified to be a doctor than you or I.

 I mean, just because his largest investments are in vakzeenes and related technology it still doesn't make him an expert in the medical field in any way. BTW if he were a real doctor or a politician, that would be a conflict of interest, straight-up, but I suppose it doesn't apply to private citizens, eh Bill? Money doesn't give you the right to call the shots, as it were, or does it? Most people don't care, and they're rolling up their sleeves as we speak. 

 Frankly I think I'm better qualified than Bill. "Doctor" has been my nickname since high school. "Doctor Octafer" to be exact. For the record it was given to me by my Main Musical Mentor, Leon, aka Reeon, when I was about 17. The "Octafer" part was for the fact that he thought I played drums like I had eight arms like an octopus, which was "Octa," and "fer" was the last syllable of our favorite combustible. The "Doctor" thing was because I was experimenting with stuff like herbal remedies, supplements and such. I bet Bill can't say that.

 Is there a form I have to fill out, or a declaration or something? I guess Bill just said "Hey, my name is Bill and I'm rich as fuck, so I declare myself to be a doctor. I get to make medical decisions for y'all." Two can play that game. I'll say "Hey, I'm Dr. Octafer. I'm not rich but I've only had one case of the Flu in the last two decades, so maybe I've learned a few things, and so I declare myself to be a doctor. Shazam." 

 Well, that was easy. I guess I can't really have a big launch party at this time but that's no problem. My bedside manner will be impeccable, whether remotely or in person. I'll do the barter system if it comes to that. Clinic hours flexible. Walk-ins are welcome. No insurance needed, and all get suckers. Call 1-800-DOC IS IN, or go to: www.NowImARealDoctorLol.com. Stay well, and have a nice day.

 

 
 

The Time I Almost Got My Ass Kicked Because of King Crimson

This is probably my favorite "face" image of all time. It's from the inside jacket of King Crimson's legendary first LP, In the Court of the Crimson King. It was done by Barry Godber, who also did the nightmarish, fearful, screaming face on the cover. The artwork blew people's minds, just like the music did, only to a slightly lesser degree.

 The face took up the entire cover, and in the days of vinyl LPs you could see it from a mile away in a record store. Sadly and oddly Barry died of a massive heart attack when he was really young and at the peak of his career. He was in his early-20s, and he died before the album was even released, But his artwork lives on, to cause nightmares in the best of us. If you're not familiar with the image on the cover of the LP you can Google it, but do so at your own risk. 

Ah, what the hell...here it is. Pretty frightening, huh? Whether or not it makes one wonder about Mr. Godber's state of mind when he painted this, as far as what he was going for, which I assume was pure terror, he certainly nailed it. The style is cool anyway, and I've learned to live with it. RIP, Barry.  I hope you weren't as tortured as this artwork is. 

 The face at the top of this page is on the inside, so you didn't see it until you opened up the gatefold cover. Ahhh...the smell of fresh vinyl in the morning. There's nothing like it. Anyway while I was a bit repulsed by the cover image I loved the one on the inside of the jacket.

 I loved to draw it. I made a t-shirt from it, and with what art and Architecture skills I had, plus acrylic paint and a lot of tedious hours I totally nailed it. I ended up giving it to my first love, Jean. It looked really good on her. It made a great Jack-o-lantern face and I carved several at Halloween. It's always stuck with me. The vibe on the inside of the LP is just a tad more relaxed than it is on the cover.

 Back when I played in Bud Greene we played a lot at a place in Sheffield, Alabama called Club XIII. It was north of here near the Tennessee border, and it was typical of the "On the way" clubs as I called them. We played a lot in Virginia, usually both weekend nights, and our booking agencies would book us weekday gigs that were on the way there, such as Huntsville or Sheffield, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, etc. We almost always played Thursday, Friday and Saturday (and occasionally every day of the week), but many times the agencies would offer us a Wednesday night club gig that might not have a huge guarantee, although we did break the guarantee with cover charge quite often.

 Frat parties were a set fee but clubs could be iffy. Some were great and some we played to the walls. They always guaranteed (paid) less than a frat gig or a bar gig where we were established, but more often than not we'd take them. We might only be guaranteed $150 or so a man, or even $100 (we never went lower than that), but it was enough to come close to paying for our fuel, motels and most of our food for the next four days, and most of the money from the next three gigs was pure profit. We started out playing at Club XIII on Wednesday nights. 

 It was slow at first but after we'd played there a few times we started attracting better crowds. The great Spooner Oldham, Long-time keyboardist for JJ Cale, songwriter, producer and all would sit-in with us, as well as Pat Hood, who later founded the band Drive-by Truckers. As usual we'd stay at a Best Western or wherever, but one time, out of the goodness of his heart, the owner, or possibly a friend of his, offered to put us up for free at a motel he owned. We agreed but we were always suspicious when a private individual owned a motel, and this was no different. 

 We followed someone over to the motel and before we pulled into the parking lot we could see that was the same old deal. There were weeds growing up through cracks in the pavement. That says a lot. It was one of those deals where they buy a shitty motel that's in a shitty location and it's going out of business and they get it cheap. They occasionally rent a few rooms cheap to the local bums who didn't give a shit, or put up unsuspecting bands, but mostly they use it to store their shit, or for partying or as a real-estate investment or a tax break or whatever.

 We were offered two rooms I guess but we mainly hung out in one. Luckily there was power and hot water but that was about it. It was cold and there was no central heat, only a tiny space heater that wasn't nearly enough to heat the room but threatened to blow the circuit anyway. There was no TV. We never watched TV anyway except for maybe weather, but still it was weird. There were no towels, so we either had to skip taking a shower or dry off with extra t-shirts, which I did. There was no soap, and certainly no mints on turned-down sheets made of fine linen. Room service? Nah.

 We already knew that mercifully this would be our only night there, free or not. It wasn't like we were broke or anything. Free rooms are always good though, and sometimes they were actually functional rooms in functional motels but sometimes they were like this place...decrepit. I've told a few of the "Motel Hell" stories. This place wasn't the worst we ever stayed but it was still pretty much a total shithole...run-down, cracking paint, rusted fixtures, rooms occupied by various critters, drunks having a party a few doors away...things like that.

 So there we were, sitting around in a shitty motel room, and it was the dreaded "Hurry-up-and-wait" time, where you've set up, eaten dinner, and now you're just killing time waiting to go play. That can be an issue for some bands but luckily we were still a bunch of adolescent goobers, well, most of us anyway, and we always managed to find a way to entertain ourselves. That's more important than it sounds. Some people can't handle it, and granted it's a weird feeling. You start getting excited, or totally bored in some cases, way too early. Some people deal with it by drinking or drugging, and by the second set they can't make the chord changes. We always found a way to avoid that.

 I went into the bathroom to shower and shave. There was a single fluorescent bulb that barely worked. It put out a very dim light that was a funky yellowish color, and I noticed that it made my shaving cream glow bright purple. It looked so cool that I drew the smiling face on the mirror with shaving cream. It looked pretty badass. If you stared at it for a few seconds and then turned out the light you'd see a green afterimage. I called O' in, and we tripped-out on it for a while...turning the light on and off and laughing our asses off. 

 We got to the club and started our first set. I could've sworn I was hearing people talking about "kicking the drummer's ass" or something. I thought I was just tripping and hearing things, but when we took a break, Pat and a couple of guys who worked there came up and told me to be on the lookout for the guy, because he was saying that he was going to kill me. Apparently he'd called the bar to make sure I was there, and told someone I'd fucked-up the room and he was going to kick my ass. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "I don't know" somebody said. "He said something about you trashing the motel room." "That shithole?" I said. "How can you trash a place that's already trashed? I didn't touch a thing." 

 The I remembered the face. "I drew a face on the bathroom mirror. Is that what he's talking about?" I asked. "Yeah, I think that's it" said the guy. "Seriously?" "Seriously." "It's shaving cream" I said. "It'll wipe right off. That guy's crazy." "That's what I'm telling you" said the guy. "He's pissed, and if I were you I wouldn't go outside by myself for a while." "Damn" I said. "Yeah, no kidding. He's on the way. We'll keep an eye out for him." "Thanks man" I said. "Sure man. Sorry about that." "No problem." 

 I was concerned but not to the point of hiding or letting it ruin my night. With the band and a few other people on alert I wasn't worried about him coming in and kicking my ass in the bar, although I have no doubt he could have. He was around 6'-4" and outweighed me by a buck-fifty at least. He dressed like a Cowboy. He was hard not to keep an eye on. I knew the guys wouldn't let him attack me in the bar, but for all I knew he might have a six-gun or something. If he was the sort to get crazy over some shaving cream on a rusty old bathroom mirror he was capable of anything.. 

 I was standing there wondering if he had potato chips up his ass or something when he walked into the bar. He made a beeline straight for me, and the band and a few other guys locked into formation between him and me. He got the message and backed down from coming after me but he lit into a tirade. His face turned crimson and he started screaming "You piece of shit! You trashed my motel room, you asshole. I give you a free room and you trash it. I oughtta call the cops! I oughtta sue you! I oughtta KICK YOUR ASS!" "It's shaving cream, pardner. It'll wipe right off" I said. He continued to yell at me for another minute and then he left. I'm glad that's all it came to and that nobody got hurt. I dedicated the first song of the second set to him but that was just about plenty of drama for one night. No good band wants their drummer's ass kicked. 

 I figured he probably had a meth issue, or coke at the very least. I wouldn't call it normal to get upset over stupid shit like that. Plus the face was artistic- the Crimson face immortalized in shaving cream. Glowing green and purple shaving cream no less. I guess it just wasn't his cup of tea. We finished playing for the night and we didn't stick around. That psychotic fuck wasn't worth fucking with, and he'd probably be at the "motel," so we got the hell out of Dodge as soon as we could. We loaded the equipment and ran by the room to grab our stuff. Two guys went in and the rest were lookouts. We drove to the nearest motel and got rooms. It was worth the peace of mind to pay to use a room for six hours rather than worry about a psycho at Motel Hell. Happy Trails, Cowboy. I left the face for you.

 

Is it Time to Retire the Briefcase?

 

Is it time to put the ol' stick briefcase on a shelf for good? I hope not. I've been carrying this briefcase to gigs for a very long time. I guess we'll see. If 2020 is any indication then the outlook is bleak. I'd planned to be playing live music until I was age 85, and then get an oxygen tank and play for another two decades or so, but I don't know if it will happen.

 External circumstances are dictating our every move pretty much, and live music really isn't happening for anyone right now. What is the future, if any, for live music? God only knows, but I'll say two things...I'm glad I did the bulk of my playing when I did, and I wish this briefcase could talk.

 I've told the story before about how I got this briefcase but it bears telling again, especially since I'm getting nostalgic about it. Senior year in high school my buddy Rusty and I were sitting in a parking lot near where I lived. A sheriff pulled up nearby. He got out of his car to get something out of his briefcase. He set it on his trunk, got out some paperwork and got into his car with the door open.

 Sure enough a call came in. He slammed his door and took off. The briefcase fell to the ground. We figured he'd come roaring back to grab it but he never did, and we waited at least half an hour. A couple of ne'erdowells I knew from school were sweeping the parking lot around a burger joint. They were about to find it so I went over and grabbed it. "Screw it...I'm getting it." Rusty couldn't believe I was actually going to grab a cop's briefcase but I told him that I might as well get it as those two clowns and he agreed. Sure I should've done the right thing and turned it in but I didn't, and I believe the statute of limitations has long run out.

 We drove back to my house to check it out. Inside were things like paperwork and such, plus a pair of handcuffs, minus the key, bullets, a pad of accident-report stickers that you needed to be able to get your car legally repaired after an accident, and that I could've made a total fortune off off if I'd been a bad guy and happened to have some underworld connections, although it was my first sticker, and a serious black nightstick. Rusty wanted the cuffs and the stick and I kept the briefcase. It was a decent case- vinyl leatherette on the outside, lined on the inside with nice fabric, and dividers held by leather straps. I decided to use it instead of a stick bag to hold my sticks, mallets, gizmos and whatnot. With all the dividers I could also keep sheet music, set lists and other paperwork without having to fold it. That was 45 years ago and I still have it. 

 I looked at it not so much as copping a cop's briefcase but giving it a chance at a better life. I know if I were a briefcase I'd much rather see the world with a decent band than spend my life with the same cop, and possibly get caught in a crossfire or something and then be unceremoniously tossed in the dumpster when he retired. Plus the two guys sweeping the lot around the burger joint would've found it anyway. With all due respect I doubt those two Einsteins would've had much use for a briefcase, and God only knows what they might have done with a pair of handcuffs and a big black nightstick. 

 I cleared out the rest of the cop stuff and transferred the contents of my stick bag into it. It was odd at first because things rattled around in it, but once I opened it it took ten seconds to arrange the sticks and stuff, and the set lists and such were right there. I got it right about the time I started playing in clubs. Before that I'd only played in church, high school and a few parties but not yet in any clubs, so it really has been with me since official gig #1. I wonder how many gigs it's seen. I couldn't guess, but it was with me for every one.

 I always loved walking in with it. I don't care if it has more stickers than a surfer-dude's van- compared to a stick bag it has a certain panache. We never had or expected any trouble with someone trying to steal our equipment while we were loading in or out, but just in case my cymbal bag and briefcase were the first things to be brought into the building we were playing, and the last things to leave. Although it was never stuffed with cash as I might have hoped, once when we got paid in cash for several nights in a row and the money was given to me, for about ten minutes there was over $5,000 in crisp $100 bills in it. 

 It was fun to divvy it up and deal it out. For a minute I felt like Scrooge McFuck. BTW it never ceased to amaze me that I actually got paid to do something I'd have done for free. The money was almost an afterthought. Just being able to pay for fuel, food and lodging would've been fine by me but there was a damn good surplus at the end of the day. Between the band and the shifts at the restaurant that I was able to plug into on my two or three off-days a week, I was making a very good living, roughly $90,000 in today's dollars, or in 2019's currency anyway..

 Speaking of stickers it's had quite a few. One or two of the original stickers are buried under newer ones but most of the original stickers are gone. Some are really old though. I just replaced the Nixon sticker but I still had a few vintage ones from the 80s. It used to have a stick-on clock but it finally gave out. That was handy. It still has a working compass in case I ever get lost in the woods with my briefcase. 

 One sticker that is washed-out in the photo is an embossed, holographic "steal your face" Grateful Dead sticker that I got when I flew out to see three shows at Redrocks in '85 or so. That was a wild time and I can still get taken back to that time when I see that sticker. In a gesture of hope I recently added a couple of new stickers. Maybe they'll see the light of day, or maybe not.

 Over the years in addition to sticks and mallets and stuff it's carried a variety of things, depending on the situation and whether I was playing in or out of town. In that regard it was much better than a traditional stick bag because it gave me extra room. It's almost always had a water bottle, and various vitamins and herbal-energy formulas, plus a few moist towelettes.

 I usually had several magazines, and I liked getting local newspapers from the towns we played in, to see what was up with with where we were. Sometimes I'd pack a map of where we were going to be, and trace the route, but of course no matter where we went, there we were. For a time it held either a small bottle of nice wine, in case I might run into a late date and want to have dinner or something, or a pint of good whisky, just for snakebites.

 Sometimes I'd have a Playboy pinup or two that I'd hang up in our motel rooms, just to remind us of why we started playing music in the first place. Just kidding...we got into music for the love of it, and all of that stuff was just a bonus. An amazing, amazing bonus. In fact I always say that if I had it to do again I'd do it just for the women (or the adventures, travelling, meeting new people, the fireworks, the weed, the souvenir t-shirts, the money and other rewards, etc. too for that matter), and I think most guys in bands would have to say the same thing. 

 It was often packed with fireworks, especially if I knew the gig was right for it. We shot a lot of fireworks in the bands I was in. In the Bud Greene band we usually had a dedicated fireworks bag in the van but I usually carried a few small things in my briefcase. You never know when you might need some cheap effects. In the Generic Band one thing that gave us great delight was to shoot fireworks inside a club rather than in the parking lot or wherever. We'd rig them up with delayed fuses, using a cigarette. 

 There were a couple of bars that were large enough to shoot fireworks inside. On our break we'd set up some fireworks on an empty table, light a cigarette, break off 2' or so and stick the fuses into the unlit end. That gave anywhere from three to ten minutes of delay, depending on how long the cigarette was. We'd set it up, casually order a beer and talk to a couple of people and then hit the stage.

 The fireworks would go off after we'd started our set, so even though the club owners knew full well it was us, they couldn't really do anything. The fireworks would go off while we were playing a Zappa tune or whatever and we'd be doing our best not to crack up. It never got old. For a very brief time it held some serious fireworks...an M-1 tank round simulator. It was a plastic cartridge almost the size of a Coke can. It was meant to simulate the flash, concussion, sound and everything else about an M-1 tank round, except for metallic shrapnel. 

 It had two wires instead of a fuse. Normally it was hooked up to an electric ignitor but all it needed was for both wires to touch an energy source, like a battery. A guy got it from an army buddy, who got in trouble for setting one off out in the sticks. It blew out windows in the guy's house from fifty yards away. The police didn't come...the National Guard did. They knew from the sound what it was. He said they knocked on his door a few minutes after he set it off. All they said was "Don't set off any more of those," and left. I love that story.

 He was damn lucky. This was pre-911. He wisely decided not to shoot another one  He gave one to my friend and he gave it to me. I had no intention of using it but I kept it for some reason. I made sure there were no batteries rolling around in my briefcase. It would've blown it to smithereens, and probably messed me up too if I'd been near it. It didn't stay in the briefcase very long, but it still held some serious firepower. Back then you could still get real M-80s occasionally, and I kept some in there for emergencies, such as if we ever wanted to blow the shit out of something or cause a distraction so we could leave town or whatever. I'm kidding...we just loved to shoot them. They were loud as fuck.

 A few times on special occasions I'd load my bass drum up with a bunch of fireworks, tie the fuses together with one long fuse and run the end out of the vent hole in the top of the bass drum. I'd go into a solo and light the fuse. It was nuts. I had a clear front head so it was visible to the audience. I mostly used these things called Jumping Jacks. They looked just like firecrackers, except they didn't explode, and they had a pinhole in the side. All the gas jetted out from the hole which made them spin around and sometimes fly all over the place.

 They changed from red to green and made a cool whistling/buzzing sound. You never knew where they were going to go and that was funny, but inside the bass drum they flew and danced around like a swarm of angry, flaming bees. The effect was massive. For a time I had a hole cut into my front bass-drum head, like almost all drummers do. I'd toss in a smoke bomb or two and the drum would fill with tons of smoke. For the next few songs, whenever I'd hit the bass drum it would send out a perfect smoke ring. That was fun. Music and fireworks are two of my favorite things, and combining them was a real treat.

 During my single times I kept a t-shirt, toothbrush and change of underwear, in case I might spend the night out after a gig. The dividers kept the shirt nice and wrinkle-free. I usually kept energy bars, jerky, trail mix, bananas and things like that, especially if we were on the road. When it's 3:30am and you've just finished a gig and packed up all the gear and you're hungry as hell because you haven't eaten in ten hours and you've just burned several-thousand calories, having a few snacks held off starvation until we could find a gas station or a Waffle House. It could hold a lot of stuff...enough to share. 

 In one divider I kept all my used drum sticks. I learned early on not to throw away sticks. People asked for drum sticks all the time, and I couldn't afford to give them a new one, although at first I did that a couple of times. I kept a Sharpie for note-taking or if someone wanted a stick signed, or for phone numbers. I had a notepad or two and a Crown bag with small screwdrivers, tools, drum keys and extra cymbal felts and such. Sometimes I carried a disposable camera and took photos. Sadly those are long-gone.

 During the Bud Greene years, almost every night I'd go through a t-shirt per set. It didn't matter if it was Summer or Winter- with 250 or so bodies in the room dancing around and grooving, it gets like a sauna. I'd go through about three liters of water, and after every set I'd take off my t-shirt and wring out pools of sweat onto the floor. It was unreal how much I sweated but I loved it because I was sweating out toxins by the bucketful. I used to walk over to Doug, take my shirt off and squeeze it onto the ground and it always blew his mind. We were into playing music and we gave it all we had. I kept three extra shirts for every gig, ready to go, in my briefcase. 

 During the time I was working at the crazy restaurant we played at one of my friend Jon's annual Halloween parties. They were truly legendary. Here I am with my buddies Marko, Robert and my date Julie. As usual things got nuts, and I was distracted by the lovely lady I was with, so I ended up leaving without my briefcase. The next morning Jon called to tell me. 

 

 He and the people who'd spent the night there had found it. They were all still drunk as loons and they were going through my briefcase and examining every single thing in it and doing a running commentary as they took each thing out. I wasn't there to see it but it was still hilarious over the phone. Jon would pick up each item and announce what it was and they'd all crack up. They got a tremendous kick out of it believe it or not, and it was worth leaving it. My briefcase had fun that night too.

My briefcase and I played at so many great parties but this one was a standout. It was one of the ultra-legendary Christmas parties for the crazy restaurant. That was the first year we had to move the party from the restaurant. They'd gotten so out of control that we already had to take the next day off and close the restaurant to clean up from the party, and the cleanups would usually get out of control too, to the point that we almost had to stay closed a second day to clean up from the cleanup.

 We finally got smart and said "Screw it...let's let somebody else do the cleaning up." It was a treat knowing we wouldn't have to worry about getting up the next day to go in and clean up the restaurant. In years past that's what we did. Having to go in after a legendary party, hungover as fuck, and having to clean up a place that's been totally demolished was a true drag.

 The year before that, the "cleanup" was a tragedy. We all stumbled in around noon, and some of us hadn't gotten much sleep. The restaurant was in shambles. Everybody had to have a little hair of the dog just to be able to face the task. Three hours later we were all piss-drunk all over again, and the mess got even worse. One of the managers named Kimberly and I were going at it in a playful way. She was standing behind the bar holding a hose that she was about to hose down the floor behind the bar with. 

 She pointed the hose at me and pretended to turn it on. I reached behind the bar and grabbed the soda gun and pointed it at her. It was a Maubian standoff. We stared each other in the eye for a moment, as things got quiet and whistling music was heard in the distance. Who was going to shoot first? Now Kimberly is very well-endowed. She stuck out her chest toward me and said "Squirt me, motherfucker!" and so I did. She had the advantage in force; there was a lot of water coming out of the hose, and I had to jam my fingers into the spout to get any force at all, but I had the advantage of having chilled water, which had a noticeable effect on her chest. 

 I started out trying to be nice and only squirt water or club soda at her and not shoot sticky Coke and stuff all over the place, but I was blinded by the water and I just started pushing random buttons, and Coke, 7-Up, soda water and whatever else was in the gun went all over Kimberly, and everywhere else. It went on for quite some time and when we finally quit there was a good 2" of liquid covering the floor of the dining room. The only drain was behind the bar, and the floor wasn't sloped toward it. The builders didn't plan on an afterparty flood I don't reckon. 

 We had to locate some squeegees and basically had to bail the restaurant out. We were trying to push the river out the front door, slipping and sliding and busting our asses. It was lunacy. Naturally we kept on drinking, and by around 11pm we were totally shitfaced, and the place was still nowhere near clean. We thought about taking another day off but Kimberly put her foot down. She locked the doors and said we couldn't leave until the place was spotless, which was pretty much about the time we opened for lunch the next day. We decided enough was enough, and that next year we'd have the party somewhere else.

 We picked a place called Top of 21. It was the top floor of a big building and it was surrounded on all sides by glass. This party sticks out for several reasons. I was playing music with my best friends for a place where I also worked with my best friends. The band kicked ass that night. I had a date with a beautiful sweet redhead. I'd just gotten a My Buddy doll, which you can see in front of the bass drum. It was also the first time I tried X.

 Back then the My Buddy doll had just come out and they played the My Buddy commercial 100 times a day. Andy and I used to sing it all the time, and since we actually were buddies, when he drew my name for the Christmas gift he got me a My Buddy doll, and I lost it. I was thrilled. Only he would do something like that and I really appreciated it, plus it was hilarious. I already loved everybody but once the X kicked in I really loved everybody. And everything. I loved my drums, I loved my sticks, I loved my My Buddy doll and I loved my briefcase.

 I remember looking down at it as I did many nights, left-hand drumstick at the ready, there by my side as it had always been. No matter where I was in the country playing, it was always there by me. It was a constant. It was grounding. It even helped with bouts of homesickness, when we'd been on the road for a week or more. I could always find something interesting inside it to occupy myself, and for what it represented to me it made me feel good just looking at it. It still does. When I looked down at it that night, doing X for the first time, it gave me a warm fuzzy. I was soooooooo glad it had been with me all those years. My briefcase and I had a blast at that party. Our bond was stronger than ever. 

 I have to mention something that happened several hours before the party, as we were setting up in the afternoon. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I knew the party was going to be a blast but I took it as a sign that it was going to be extra-good, and it was. Moving the party from the restaurant was genius. It was on top of a 21-story building and by far the tallest building in the area. The view was incredible. You could see for hundreds of miles in several directions. It was exciting just setting up our gear there. 

 We were watching a beautiful sunset when I noticed what looked like a wisp of smoke way out over the horizon. I'd never seen anything like it. It was still 100 miles or more away and I couldn't make out what it was. As I watched it got bigger and closer. I started to see definition and I realized that it was a massive flock of birds. I'd seen large flocks of birds flying over but not like that. I'd say there was easily a million birds, maybe two. It lasted several minutes. Seeing them from far away was amazing enough but I was thinking how cool it would be if they flew around the building and past the windows, and that's exactly what they did. 

 They took dead-aim for the top of the building. When the lead birds got close it looked like they were going to crash into the glass but at the last second they did a synchronous move and the huge flock parted like the Red Sea. There are no special-effects that could touch that. They all flew at window-level. It was a black river of birds, and we were dead-center in the middle of it. You just can't get that anywhere else, and I still think about it with awe and reverence. It was humbling, and crazy-cool. You could look right into their eyes and they were looking right back at you. It was a trip. It was a once-in-a-lifetime deal. 

 I also have to mention that when I first started feeling the effects of the X it was very disorienting. We were in the middle of the set when it kicked in, and it hit me so hard I thought I might pass out or even have a seizure or something. From what I'd heard I didn't expect any of that, but luckily it only lasted a minute or two. I was feeling like I might get sick. I was in the middle of a song and I was concerned about possibly passing out at the Christmas party, although that would have definitely added to the mystique to have someone actually have to be carried off from one of the parties.

 I was trying to stay calm and not hurl and keep playing but I was sort of holding my head down. I remember looking at my briefcase, and it gave me a bit of comfort. I knew I was with my best friends and that if I did pass out or whatever I'd be okay. That was before the photo was taken. I was totally fine by then. I was flying, as you can probably tell from the grin on my face. BTW that's Rusty in the photo, playing congas. Rusty was with me when I got the briefcase. He came up to visit every Christmas and we'd usually have something going on music-wise. He always got a kick out of seeing the briefcase, and as far as I know he still has the nightstick and handcuffs. 

 I'll never forget the moment that all the weird feelings went away and I realized I was going to be okay, and all the lovey-dovey things I'd heard about X kicked-in. It took the love and happiness I was already feeling and ramped it up exponentially. It was like crashing into a dimension of love, and I got a smile on my face that stayed there for the next 6-7 hours at least. At the instant it kicked-in I looked out over the nighttime cityscape, and my eyes landed on the red, lit-up emblem of the Hilton across the street. I cracked-up in the middle of the song. 

 I was relieved that I wasn't going to pass out or flop around on the floor, but mostly it was because while it was supposed to be an "H" it looked for all the world like an "X" to me, and I died laughing. I pointed it out to everybody and we all made the X-sign with crossed arms. Good times. I appreciated my briefcase more than ever that night. I did consider the fact that I might possibly pass out and fall face-down in the middle of it, and it might be the last thing I saw for a while, but as always it was there for me. I really appreciated it. Thanks officer, wherever you are,

This is a happy face. No emoji needed. This was taken about an hour into X-ing, and right after I'd opened my present. It truly flipped me out to get a fucking My Buddy doll, but that's Andy. I was tripping on My Buddy, and BTW I remember that they sold out everywhere and were rare as hen's teeth but he'd gotten one, which was a trip in itself. 

 I'm pretty sure he paid above the sticker price, but that's just an example of someone being incredibly thoughtful, with a damn good sense of humor. I loved it. Of course someone had to snap a photo with me and My Buddy, and I'm glad they did. As far as my personal feelings about the party in general went, this photo about sums it up. That was an amazing party, X or nor, but the fact that about half the people there were doing it too made it that much better. The Love Bug bit pretty much everybody at the party. I'm glad I was there.

Anyway, back to the briefcase. Of all the things I've kept in that case over the decades there's one thing I never carried. I never carried anything related to drugs or paraphernalia. I didn't do drugs anyway but I did smoke a truckload or two of weed. Actually I did carry around High Times magazine (we were actually mentioned in one paragraph in an issue) because it was good reading material, but besides that never even a pack of rolling papers. 

 Amazingly, considering the Bud Greene band was named after our favorite herb ("Which one's Bud?"), we only had one major incident with the law that resulted in an arrest. I wasn't about to have my briefcase confiscated because of a pinch of weed dust in the corner or whatever. It would've returned to the cops, ashes to ashes, and I doubt the briefcase would've have wanted that. By then we'd long-since formed a bond and it wanted to stay with me. 

This is the last gig I've played to date. Will it end up being my very last? It's possible. Too possible in fact. This was a year ago, at one of our favorite watering holes. It was also an official/unofficial reunion for people who worked at the crazy restaurant, and at least two dozen former employees showed up, plus it was really packed to begin with. The love in that room was incredible and I truly wish I could've bottled it. Thank God we could still hug back then. 

 I was having major equipment issues including stolen gear, so I wasn't really able to relax and let it flow and have as much fun as I usually do, although I did enjoy playing. It was a personal thing and it didn't affect the music in a big way really, and we still sounded good. My briefcase was there, squeezed in by my hi-hat stand. I always kept a stick propped butt-end up in the dividers, ready to go in the rare instance I dropped my left stick. I could depend on it. 

 If this is really my last gig, I'll know for sure that things have broken down to the point where it's no longer possible. God that's a horrific thought but if it does happen, wanting to play music out somewhere won't change a thing, and maybe it'll be time to think about the possibility about what comes after this, an afterlife or an eternity if you will, if it indeed exists. You know what they say..."If there's a Rock and Roll heaven, you know they've got a hell of a band." Seriously, if it gets to that point I can guarantee it's going to be a world that's not much damn fun to live in, I hate to say. It's true though. I think about all the bands these days, from kids in a van to pros, and the fact that they can't do what my briefcase and I did. It's incredibly sad and I feel for them but that's another story.

 Aside from a handful of church gigs or parties, this briefcase has been with me at every single gig I ever played. Maybe there's some people who kept their original stick bag for their entire careers but it can't be many. This briefcase got to see the East Coast from Florida to Virginia, plus Mississippi. Like me, my briefcase's favorite town to visit and play in was Oxford, Mississippi. Not every briefcase can say that. Some things were just meant to be, and this is one of them. I was meant to be in that parking lot and that cop was meant to get a call and speed off and lose the briefcase, and it was meant to be my "stick bag." Or it was just a coincidence. Either way I've really enjoyed having it.

 If my stick briefcase and I never play a gig again, then so be it I suppose. It ain't worth playing right now, in a world where literally you can get fined for standing too close to the bass player, that is if you can play anywhere at all. Hopefully down the road live music can make some sort of comeback, but sadly I can't see us returning to anything near what the music scene was. I hope I'm wrong. It gives me some hope when I look at my briefcase, and the general feeling of all the good and crazy times my stick briefcase and I had, so it's a mood-elevator. 

 Like some people, you can get attached to certain inanimate objects you've spent lots of time with. I think maybe there's residual energy in things sometimes, but maybe that's woo-woo talk. Ha-ha I'm sitting outside and an owl just flew up and hooted right as I typed woo-woo. Anyway in these messed-up times, or any times really, things like this can be an anchor of normality in a sea of bullshit. There's serious energy in music to say the least, and maybe it can be stored like in a battery. 

  

 There's definitely some sort of vibe coming from this briefcase, and I believe there's something to it. When we played Club XIII in Sheffield, Alabama, Pat Hood, now of Drive-by Truckers, used to sit-in with Bud Greene. One day he invited us to a private tour of the legendary Mussel Shoals Studios. Legendary owner, bassist, engineer/producer and Pat's dad, David Hood, was there as usual. There was a brick wall coated in sealant that was where many of the vocal tracks to some of the most famous recordings in history were done. 

 The brick wall gave a bit of natural reverb and a millisecond or two of delay. It was perfect for tracking vocals. Artists from Paul Simon to Aretha Franklin to the Stones to most or all of the Beatles, if I'm not mistaken, to you-name-it tracked vocals in front of that wall. I was about to walk past it and in into the main room but I stopped dead in my tracks. It was like a jolt of electricity jumped out of that wall. Either I had a small seizure at that exact moment, or I truly felt some sort of energy radiating from that wall. The latter theory was confirmed when Pat walked over and saw me staring at the wall like a fool. I was literally someplace else for a few seconds.

 "You feel it, don't you?" he said. "Yes" I replied. That was truly heavy. I told him I could feel energy coming from the wall and it hit me like a ton of bricks, and he said "Oh yeah, it's real. Some people can feel it more than others. You're a 'vibe' guy, right?" "Pretty much" I said. For the record, on the smallest level everything in the Universe is a frequency, which is also a vibration. If you ask me there was some sort of energy coming from that wall. Who knows...we don't know everything.

 Bricks have quartz in them. Quartz can store electrical energy. It may be a stretch to say it can hold "musical energy" but anything is possible. Artists of every genre come to Mussel Shoals specifically to get a "vibe," and they'll tell you that. Who has the audacity to say it isn't real? If my briefcase does have residual energy it's certainly positive, or in the high-vibrational spectrum, and that's a good thing.

 If my briefcase has seen its last stage floor, then I salute it. It served me well. If the reunion party was my last gig ever, then I went out on a hell of a high note. As far as the music itself goes it may not have been stellar for me but on a general level of good or bad gigs, and certainly audience quality, I couldn't have asked for more. All the stuffing was hugged out of everybody there. It was beautiful. If that's all she wrote I'll go out on that note. Maybe we'll play again, but if not, thanks faithful briefcase. It was fun. If we had a dollar for every mile we travelled together we'd be rich beyond our dreams. Rock on.