Reunion?

[ ]There's talk of Bud Greene getting back together after a quarter-century to play a few shows. It's always been on the back burner but Greg, the guitarist, moved out west not long after we broke up. Two Christmases ago a bunch of us ran into each other when another friend of ours, Bert, was playing in town, and we talked about it then. It wouldn't have been out of the question to help cover a flight here and back to do a gig or two, but out of the blue about a month ago Greg called and said that he'd gotten divorced and had moved back here. Of course the subject of a reunuion came up. He said he'd have to knock the rust off but he'd be ready in a month or two, and he was all over the idea. [ ]Sadly Matt, our percussionist, passed-away suddenly some years ago, but I know he'd be in if he were here. May God rest his hilarious soul. Speaking of Matt it was always my vision over the years since he passed that if we ever did do a reunuion, we'd have to try to get one of his congas, if his brother didn't hock every bit of his shit to buy dope, and set it up on stage with a small floodlight, maybe blue, on it. That'd be poingnant. Anyway that just leaves O', and I see no reason he'd say no. He'd do it for the money if nothing else, and there will be money made. [ ]We had a pretty serious following, and I still hear from some of our fans in town, and they're all over it too. Doug put something up about it on Facebook and he said he heard from lots of people and they sounded really excited. Around the same time we went to see Bert play he came back into town to do a Dollar-Seven Band reunuion and I went to that. He plays in Bonerama now so he's big-time, but he's still humble enough to see his old buds. $1.07 turned into Bud Greene, so I saw the same people at the show, and the people I talked to were digging the band, but they were WAY more excited about a Bud Greene reunuion. With all the hype I can almost guarantee the first show, if it happens, will be packed. [ ]The only problem, for me anyway, is that I don't reckon I'll be able to make it. I haven't touched my drums in 11 months, and it's been making me very unhappy. My back is fried, and without some sort of medical intervention, which ain't gonna happen, I'm out. I was all pumped at first, thinking surely I could figure something out (but really knowing I probably couldn't), but reality has set in, even though it hasn't fully sunk-in. I'd hoped to play at least one more gig with somebody...anybody...just so I could go out with a bang, and what better way than Bud Greene. Oh, well. [ ]They'll be fine. I bet they'll get Joe. I replaced him in $1.07 when he left. In some ways he's a much better drummer and they'll probably sound better on some stuff that I couldn't play worth a shit. They'll have a blast. I guess I could go and sing a couple of the songs I used to sing, but my place should be behind the drums. If they do play I don't know if I'd want to go, but I'll support them any way I can. I'm still losing weight, and energy, anyway, so there's realistically no way I can make it happen. Too bad. I could've used it. Smoke one for me.

Lol, It's the Little Things: Bl@ck Emojis M@tter

[ ]This cracked me up. I'm not a big emoji guy and for years I refused to use even one. There's a reason I won't go into here but also they seemed a little too "cute" for my taste. It's not just because I'm a cynical old fuck, and don't get me wrong...I like beauty, Nature, smiley faces, Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain just as much as the next guy, but sometimes, except in the case of a girl or a dog or a kitty cat or whatever, excess "cute" doesn't do it for me. Hey, we all have our issues. [ ]My friend Beck used to give me a lot of grief for not joining the emoji crowd. She couldn't understand what I had against them. She's the emoji queen. She'd send me emails and texts with emojis out the Wazoo, just to prove a point. Gradually though my anti-emoji stance softened. I saw where it might be nice to drop a heart into a text to a loved-one or use a simple thumbs-up as a reply, which does work great. Finally I gave in, although I stuck with the old-school sideways smiley face that you make with a colon and half a paragraph symbol. I wouldn't use any storebought emojis for another year or so. When I finally did I figured it only right that it should be in a message to Beck, so I added a colon smiley to the end of a text. She got a huge kick out of it and texted me back. "Congratulations! I see you've finally joined the dark side." Beck has a wicked sense of humor, and that's one of the many reasons I love her (❤). [ ]Almost three years ago I met a young black kid named Kent. I mention he's black for purposes of this post, and also to maybe help negate some of the black-vs-white bullshit going on right now. It was a trip...one day I was sitting outside and I heard someone nearby playing a horn. I didn't know what it was...it wasn't brash enough to be a trombone or mellow enough to be a French Horn, but it was one of the sweetest horn tones I've ever heard in my life, and I've heard my share, live and on record. I was floored, and for a second I apparently thought I was in a loud Jazz bar with a couple of scotches under my belt, and completely without thinking I blurted out "HORN PLAYER!" It stopped, and a few seconds later this sheepish-looking kid stepped out onto the next deck over. [ ]He probably thought I was yelling at him for bothering me but I looked at him for a second and said "That was you?" "Yes" he replied. "Dude, that's one of the sweetest tones I've ever heard." "Thanks man. I really appreciate that" he replied. "What kind of horn is that?" I asked. "It's a Baritone" he replied. "Oh, yeah" I said. I hadn't heard a Baritone Horn since high school, which is why I didn't recognize it. We immediately bonded over music. He'd come over and we'd talk about music, life, marching band, the hot sisters downstairs from him and such. When he opened up about himself and his life it was amazing how much his life parallelled mine up until the age he is now, which is 23. Everything from our first loves to working our way up to section-leader in band, our love of R&B, our taste in women to our general outlook on life, not to mention the way we tried to treat people and want to be treated. It's uncanny and it freaked us both out. [ ]Sadly his roommate joined the Navy and moved out. Kent stayed for a while but couldn't find another roomie and had to leave. He was the one bright spot about living here, but at least we still keep in touch and he's over this way a lot and he still stops by. My mom loves him, and always says she wishes she could hear him play. He's always genuinely kind and respectful to her, and that means a lot to me coming from a young person these days. He hasn't had many white friends, although it wasn't by choice. He'd just never gone to school or hung out with many. I was the same way until high school. I lived in Crackerville and didn't hang out with many black people until I got into playing music more, and getting to know and play with black musicians. Neither of us is racist in the least, but we've talked a lot about it. He actually agrees with me (really) that it's not normal or what most of us want, but it's been stirred-up ON PURPOSE by those in power. It's great that a 23 year-old black dude and a crusty old white dude three times his age can hang, without a trace of an age or color thing. We're all God's chil'en. [ ]I got an iPhone and I'm still learning to drive it after driving Androids for so long, and there's way more features and Easter Eggs and shit than I'm used to. The other day I texted Happy Birthday to someone and it jizzed out all these huge, lifelike balloons that came out of nowhere and quickly filled the screen. I had no idea it did that and it startled me. I thought my phone had been hit by a solar flare or something, and was frying like a mood ring in a microwave. Kent's going to Las Vegas for a week with some buddies, just to go. He's leaving Friday morning so I called him today to tell him to have fun and send me a postcard and put $5 on 11 for me. He was right up the road doing his laundry at his grandmother's house, so he stopped by to say hi to mom and my dog. He was so excited he was lit-up and he could hardly keep the grin off his face. He said the only thing was that he'd never flown before and he was a little nervous. [ ]He'd told me that his grandmother had a script for Xanax but never took more than half of them and threw the rest away. I told him I bet she'd give him one for the road and he said she probably would. I told him I loved to fly and I'd flown in every kind of plane except a fighter jet, and that it'd definitely give his stomach a ride, but if he liked roller coasters he'd love it. I told him if he couldn't get a "Lil' Xan" from his grandmother, to just relax, order a drink and a bag of peanuts and he'd be fine. He laughed and maybe relaxed a bit about it. I texted him later to say that God had his back, and to text me some photos when he's in the middle of cutting-up with his buds. He thanked me and said he'd text me some pics and he'd see me when he got back. [ ]I'd already said everything so I figured I'd shoot him a thumbs-up. As soon as I hit the smiley button the emoji screen popped up. The thumbs-up icon came up first, and to the side was a line of more thumbs-up emojis that went from light through different shades to brown. It said I could custom-tailor it to match the situation. I laughed and cranked it as dark as it would go and hit send. He'll crack up. I wonder if anyone's ever sent him an African-American thumbs-up before. That's funny. And equal. I give it a Caucasion thumbs-up. 👍

Quote of the Day

"The greatest crime you can commit in an age like this one, in an age of self-worship, is to speak the truth, because the truth affronts us. It threatens us. It asks us to change. It exposes us and it exposes that within us which is not good. The truth becomes offensive." - the Reformed Channel on YouTube

Things I Couldn't Make Happen

[ ]Ever since I can remember my mom has said she wished she had a motorcycle. Coming from my mom that's a very interesting statement, since she was never really known as a hellraiser or a party animal or anything, but when she was young she rode a bike and loved it so much that she's always wanted to do it again. I have to laugh every time she says it but boy do I get it. There's nothing in the world like the rush of power you feel when you turn the throttle on the handlebar. What a badass way to accelerate. There's also nothing like the feeling of hauling-ass at about 120mph, and knowing if you lean up more than about three inches the wind will tear you right off the bike and into the path of a semi probably, while the bike carries on just fine for a mile or so without you. That's intense y'all. [ ]If I'd had the funds I'd have bought her a bike in a heartbeat, and matching ones for dad and me. I figured an Electraglide might be a good choice, although I bet she could've handled a 350cc rice-burner no problem, with proper training of course. I can picture how cool it would've been to get a call from a friend on a Sunday afternoon..."Hello?" "Hey man. Wanna go hang at the river?" "Sorry man but I'm goin' ridin' with mom this afternoon. We're gonna hit the Narrows and then Hugh Daniel to the water tower and then up to the lookout, then back 119 by Lake Purdy, and then we're stopping to grab a bite in Cahaba Heights. Wanna meet us there later?" "Sure. See ya." You either love bikes or you don't, but to ride any bike all you need is a desire to ride. I couldn't get us a set of matching Hondas, and I couldn't do the next-best thing I wanted to do either- buy her a ride around the track at Barber Sports Museum in a sidecar. [ ]I have no idea how much it'd cost but they do things like that there. Who knows...maybe if they'd found out what the deal was they'd have set it up for free. It would've sure been great publicity, and for sure it'd be on the local news, to have an octogenarian riding a motorcycle. She's too frail at age 94 to do it now but she could've easily handled it well into her 80s. I'd have been strapped backward on a chase bike in front of her filming the whole thing. I'd have put it on YouTube and you bet your butt it'd have gone viral. I can see it now...mom riding in a sidecar with a big ol' biker dude at the helm. She'd have on an old-school helmet and vintage goggles, and she'd have a grin on her face you couldn't wipe off with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Too much. [ ]I couldn't make it happen and that's a shame. It would've been epic, as they say. Ha, just as I typed the word "epic" I heard the TV in the living room and Mike from the show American Pickers said "epic" at that instant. I love life's little coinkidinks. Sorry, mom...I wish I could've made it happen for you. Who knows...maybe one day we'll ride the Rings of Saturn or cruise the Milky Way or race a shooting star. I'm in. Ready to ride?

How I Spent My Stimulus Check

[ ]I still have to buy bottles, labels and shrink bands for my lotion and lip balm, and when it's all said and done I'll have spent my stimulus check, and change, to get ingredients and such to make the stuff, and I'll be giving it away for free. I could've spent maybe $400 and gotten enough stuff to make enough for myself and a few family members, but I wanted more people to have it, so I went all-out. Or all-in as they say these days. I've already given some away and mailed out some to several people and I'm sending out more this week. I'm even paying for postage. [ ]If I did sell it I'd get $20 for the lotion and $12 or maybe $15 for the lip balm. It has several additional essential oils, and they ain't cheap. It might sound like a lot at first, until people see that it only takes a few drops, so it'll last a long time, not to mention when they see how it works, and realize that they can replace every single skin-care product in their cabinet with just one bottle. I saw other high-end lotions going for anywhere from about $15 all the way up to well over $50, and under the heading of "Best Lip Balms for 2021" I saw lip balms of the same size starting at about $7 and going up to well over $30, so I'm not out of line, and again, I compared formulas and nothing else can even touch mine for quality, effectiveness of ingredients, purity, plus love and soul. My shit is the shit. [ ]As usual I didn't cut any corners and I searched the globe for the finest, certified-organic ingredients I could find. There's nothing like this stuff anywhere else, and that goes for the lotion and lip balm both. I'm proud of them. I spent all that money on all this stuff, just to give it away for free. There's something serioulsy-ass wrong with me.

Fighting Reek with Reek

[ ]Ever since I've been blogging I've talked about my Main Musical Mentor, among other thing, the legendary Leon, aka Reeon. and here he is. This is a recent photo, and compared to what he looked like back in the day, seriously-overweight mainly, he looks like a million bucks. In fact it looks like he's aged way less than the rest of our bunch, because the extra weight he used to carry made him look much older than he was, plus a healthier diet and lifestyle haven't hurt. It was one of those things that could've gone either way. He wasn't into the "stupid" durgs like meth, coke or heroin but everything else was fair game. The fact that we never heard a peep from him after he moved to NC after high school made us wonder if maybe he'd gone off the deep end, and who knows what. We tried to trace him first through the post office and even a private service, and later the Web, with no luck. Then one day a friend request from him popped up on fb and I was overjoyed [ ]He contacted me first and I spread the word and he friended us all. The return of Reon was cause for celebration. Turns out he got happily married (still is) with kids and a house and all. He still plays in bands and his job is related to music. He's settled down a bit but back in the day he was a freebird, and great fun to have for a friend. He drove a Corvair, Ralph Nader's favorite, and every ride in it was an adventure. His weigh had tested the suspension, and the car bounced and leaned and generally went out of camber going around curves, but he drove it pretty wide-open. It was a head shop on wheels. You'd pray you didn't get pulled over, which by the grace of God we never did, because there were about thirty pipes of various types onboard. [ ]His philosophy was you'd get just as busted for one pipe as thirty, which is true, so why not go all out? He couldn't lower the visor because there was a dozen or so pipes being held in place by it. Those were his main pipes and the rest were in a toolbox. There were tiny pipes and pinch-hitters for driving aoround the 'hood for a quick toke, road-trip pipes with big bowls, "concert" pipes, some Meerschaum and some corncob, reserved for smoking elite weed for special occasions, but his crowning achievement was his "cruising around town" bowl. He created it so we could ride around town in traffic in broad daylight and smoke like there was no tomorrow, with total discretion. It was genius. [ ]He'd taken a huge wooden bowl off of a Hookah or something, and rigged it so that four lengths of thin aquarium tubing came out, one for each passenger, and four people was the most you'd dare try to get into a Corvair. The tubing was long enough to hang by your side, and the two rear-passenger tubes were long enough to fit between the front seats. You'd casually lean your head in your hand or whatever and no one could see the tubes. We'd light a couple if ciggies to account for the smoke, although the car smelled like a Rock concert 24/7, and if we'd gotten pulled over we couldn't have blamed it on cigarettes. We figured that busted is busted so why not go for it. We'd smoke ourselves silly riding around in that wobbly-ass car. If Ralph Nader had seen the Leonmobile cruising down the road, creakin' and crankin' and wobblin' toward him, with four guys stoned right out of their gourds, I don't know if he'd have laughed or cried or had a heart attack or called Richard Nixon. [ ]Things were a bit different back then. In high school we had a smoking area, and some people smoked more than cigarettes. I carried a bag with moist towellettes, to get the smell off your fingers and face, Hall's Mentholyptus for breath and Visine for redeye. It worked great and I was known for it. Leon named it the "De-Reeko Kit" which I thought was hilarious. He may have named it but he shunned it completely. Leon had a very interesting philosophy when it came to smoking pot, specifically the telltale signs- red eyes, the smell of burning rope, etc. It was sort of a variation on the basic theme of "If you can't beat 'am, join 'em." He liked to smoke, and he figured that instead of going to all that trouble trying to cover up everything, if you always have red eyes and smell like pot all day long, nobody would know the difference. [ ]To that end he'd save roaches (the kind from the end of a joint) and make his own "Eau de Reefois" sachets. He'd cut a piece of cloth, fill it with fragrant roaches and tie it with string. He had all his shirts and jackets on hangers, and he'd put the roach sachets in the pockets and hang them around his t-shirts. I was at his house one night and after we toked-up and got ready to go out, he grabbed a jacket from the closet and removed the sachet from the pocket. When I realized what was going on I lost it laughing. He explained his philosophy to me, and while it was the exact opposite of every other pot-smoker on the planet I had to hand it to him...it was certainly original. I've never met anyone else in my life who WANTED to smell like pot 24 hours a day, but that's Leon. I mean Reeon. That certainly was thinking outside of the box. I love it.