Suicide and Redemption

Metallica played "Suicide and Redemption" live in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the first time on July 27, 2009. It is a long instrumental.

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TNA Turns 200

On Thursday night, July 30, 2009, TNA Wrestling returns to SpikeTV at 9/8c for two hours of Total Nonstop Action with the huge 200th episode of "iMPACT!". To celebrate the occasion, TNA Wrestling is presenting the biggest event in "iMPACT!" history, featuring all of your favorite superstars!

WWE action... and CoW-orker Inaction

Live WWE is not in my future.

Yet.

I told Megan I would take her to see the WWE live event in Cedar Rapids on Friday, August 14th, her 13th birthday. She said only if her friends can't spend the night that night. I think that'd be fun to take her and to initiate her into the world of WWE. She doesn't need to be a fanatic or goofy fan, but just someone that doesn't say "Oh that's stupid."

No concerts for the month of August that I know of. I'd like to see Inept on Saturday, 9/12/9, @ the Picador since they rocked 1st Ave Live opening for Trapt. Their CD is really good. I submitted a concert review to Dailyvault.com last week so I hope to see it later this week.

Work is chaos with our Client Conference around the corner. I have 5 - 40 hour projects I'm trying to work my way through and, once again, I'm juggling my priorities while my co-workers literally talk from 8:15 - 8:45. It doesn't make sense to me. I am dangerously close to having a bad attitude about it but I know getting upset about it or tattling to someone that could do something about it isn't in my best interest. I do sometimes want to just say, "Don't you have any work to do?!?"

Word on the street is that Alpine Valley charges $11 for a 24 oz beer and $6 for a hot dog. Yikes. Phil went to see Coldplay over the weekend and said it was a good show.

Gotta move.

Republic Tigers sound like the Cure Live and bands I can't stand....

On a Tuesday night in 2009, I don't want to forget that I went with Chris to People's Court in Des Moines, IA, to see The Republic Tigers and Gomez. Gomez was the headliner and I liked them.

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This is what the Republic Tigers sound like:

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I told Chris as we were watching them Tuesday that they sound a lot like my impression of what the cure sounds like. My history with the Cure is brief. I listened to a cassette dubbing of a Cure release called "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" once before I dubbed over it. I know the Cure were immensely popular but, like Smashing Pumpkins, it just has never appealed to me. There's a lot of bands I've never really gotten into. For example, the Rolling Stones or the Grateful Dead or Phish or Aerosmith. Don't own any recordings by them - except RS' greatest hits - and I'm okay with my musical tastes. Never liked Blue Oyster Cult either - their "Don't Fear the Reaper" song SUCKS! I took the kids to the pool last night and they always have the classic rock station on the speakers. I wanted to say "Turn this crap off." My friend Chris has an opinion about Aerosmith as well. "I actually despise Aerosmith. If I wanted a crap-load of CDs with variations of the same song, then they might deserve a second look...." I can't go along with that because I've lik certain aspects of Aerosmith. The drum part on "Walk this Way" the drum sound on "Living on the Edge," but I have no use for most of their singles like "Dude looks like a lady," "Rag Doll" and "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" - that simply awful ballad that went with the movie about the world ending... Bruce Willis was in it... I do REALLY REALLY like their pseudo ballad "What it Takes" - I know all the words. Chris said I was sick.

Trailers

Okay... in order to think this is funny, you have to watch this one:

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Okay, now watch this. Catch the similarity?

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Looks really good

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Ignoring the lady at the beginning of this is required...

NP

Pinocchio, Snow White, and Superman are out for a stroll in town one day.
As they walk, they come across a sign:
"Beauty contest for the most beautiful woman in the world." "I am entering!" said Snow White.
After half an hour she comes out and they ask her, "Well, how'd you do?"
"First Place!," said Snow White.
They continue walking and they see a sign:
"Contest for the strongest man in the world."
"I'm entering," says Superman.
After half an hour, he returns and they ask him, "How did you make out?" "First Place," answers Superman. "Did you ever doubt?"
They continue walking when they see a sign:
"Contest! Who is the greatest liar in the world?"
"I'm entering," says Pinocchio.
After half an hour he returns with tears in his eyes.
"What happened?" they asked.
"Who the hell is Nancy Pelosi?" asked Pinocchio.

Amazin' groovin'

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I could go on and on about B & B, but I'll let this do the talking. For the record, Letters to Cleo is a band I've liked for a long time.

Reconcile these Differences....

I am so tired of the world treating specific groups of people differently. If a man shoots a man, it matters not the pigmentation of his skin. Is not the blood surging through our veins all red?

A white cop shot a black man in Iowa City. Two eye witnesses say the black man was unarmed. The initial police report says the man had a knife.

Busy

This is the start of a very busy stretch.
Tonight is the Since October / Framing Hanley (?) /Trapt show in Cedar Rapids. I am interviewing Since October's drummer at 6.
Tomorrow is a family reunion party in East Dubuque, IL. We are driving up and back the same day. It's at least a 2 hour drive. I anticipate we will be home by 9 tomorrow night.
Sunday, we are going to 11 AM Mass. After that, there is a picnic / going away party we were invited to so we are going to that.
Monday, back to work. Alex has drum lessons.
Tuesday, I'm going with my friend Chris to see a band called Gomez in Des Moines.
Wednesday, Megan has piano lessons.
Thursday looks clear.
Friday looks clear.
Saturday, either we have something going or it is clear.

The weekend after next is a wedding in Des Moines.

The weekend after that is our college campout in Cresco.

The weekend after that is Megan's birthday. She found out she has registration / paying fees the morning of her birthday.

The following Thursday, school starts. It's also the Algona RockFest. (I'm not going.)

You get the point. This is a crazy time in life. It's fun and it's hip, but it's not going to slow down anytime soon.

Work is just as chaotic. We are going to have two releases back-to-back, possibly sending both sets of CDs at the same time. My doc project list has been slowly whittled away. One of our systems was rewritten to .NET and I'm starting to dig into that. I told my manager it would take a week to write the doc fof it. I'd like to be done by next Wednesday. No one knows when the cut will be so every thing is on a sliding scale. I need two weeks to do all the work for the UI changes and to assemble the CDs.

Anyways, I am excited about seeing Trapt and interviewing the drummer of Since October. It is in CR so I have to drive home so I'm just having Pepsi. Nothing too wild or crazy.

Have you ever heard of a band called Aerosmith?

Alex came home from a friend's house today and asked me if I had ever heard of a band called "Aerosmith." His friend is learning to play drums and, apparently, can play the coveted beginning of "Walk This Way." I searched Youtube.com for a "how to" video and, instead, found this:

I KNEW Stevie Ray when he was 14

Well, not me, but PT, a member of Techwr-L did. I read PT's e-mail and it stirred a memory of a different time in my life.

Why? Because I remember the day Stevie Ray died. I was working at the Spring House, a restaurant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Ken, the cook that day, was a guitarist/friend of mine. We had been jamming in my parent's basement that summer, trying to get something going. Ken was studying guitar to learn to play the blues. This was significant because we were trying to write originals instead of the Scorpions ("Rock You Like a Hurricane"), Dokken ("In My Dreams"), and Whitesnake ("Slide it In") material we had been trying to polish the year before. There was no one better than Vaughan in Ken's eyes.

We had a co-worker Fred, who some affectionately called Derf. Fred was a juvenile delinquent. He was supposed to be going into 9th grade but he had flunked 8th grade. He had behavior problems. He had issues with "truth." Fred was also a cook. Cooks got free meals. Fred would come into work and make five huge pancakes - it was as if he hadn't eaten since the last time he worked - and eat every bit on his plate. Fred had issues with "putting fake mice into the tip glasses of the waitresses who he knew didn't like mice." [Side note: the last I heard, he is currently in jail but I heard that from someone about 5 times removed from the situation.] Aside from all of that, Fred had bought two tickets to AC/DC and, because I told him I would drive him, he gave me his 2nd ticket. Fred also claimed that Motorhead was a lot better than Metallica and repeatedly tried to convince me his opinion was correct.

I was the cashier that day. The phone rang. "Hey," Fred said when I answered the phone, "Stevie Ray Vaughan is dead. There was a helicopter crash."

"Shut up," I replied. "Quit lying."

"No, really. He died."

"I don't believe you."

"Would I lie to you?"

"Yes."

"Not about this," replied Fred. "Bye."

And he hung up.

A customer came to pay his bill. I counted back his change in disbelief.

When the customer left, I walked over to Ken. "Ken," I said. "You won't believe what Fred just told me."

"What?"

"Stevie Ray is dead."

"Fred is a jerk for saying stuff like that."

"I think he's telling the truth."

"What? Really?"

Ken and I found out later that day that Fred was not lying. I think, in some way, it lit a fire under Ken's ass to learn more guitar and to take what he was doing very seriously. The music we put together that summer was some of Ken's best guitar work that I have on cassette.

It was a couple of years later that I ruined him. Ken was in Old Stew and he played lead guitar on Metallica's "Enter Sandman."


-----Original Message-----
From: Pro TechWriter
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 8:06 AM

I KNEW Stevie Ray when he was 14 (I'm from Dallas and have a friend who went to high school with the Vaughn boys).

17 Again

Megan's volleyball camp @ Coe ended today at 3:30. I left work to pick her up. I brought her back to work. She sat quietly and read until it was 5:10 and I needed to leave.

We went to Ketelsen's RV and I returned a $7 lock I didn't need. We looked at $40,000 campers I'll never own.

Then on the way to supper, I told her about the Hardee's we passed. It was at that Hardee's in 1987 that the girl I was dating and I stopped to get lunch. We then went to a nearby park where she broke up with me.

We arrived at Burger King for supper.

We then went to the used bookstore and, despite *really* wanting to do so, I didn't buy a CD, record, or book - they had the LP of Xanadu for $1.

We then moved on to see the Zac Efron movie "17 Again." I cried. Yep. I sympathized with the Efron character. I felt a connection between what he said and did and I, frankly, think his monologue about sex and abstaining until you are married is something every one should hear. Efron's daughter - as strange as that sounds - is dumped by her dick of a boyfriend because she won't "show me how much you love me."

Our car ride home was quite animated. I told Megan to never never never never never never never never fall for that line. I hope she got past me saying the word "never" that many times to internalize what I was trying to tell her.

I was happy that the Conservative values of abstinence had found their way into a movie from Hollywood.

When I am off work at 5, I am driving home, picking up Megan, and leaving for Elkader. Karen and Alex are already there. We pack up the camper on Sunday and are leaving it there until our 8/7 journey to Cresco for the college campout.

Evil Drumming

Making Me Laugh

This post, excluding this sentence, is 2,557 words.
Kevin McLauchlan makes me laugh. He posts frequently to Techwr-L and I take guilty pleasure reading his posts. Today, at the end of one of his posts, he mentioned sky diving.

I wrote back to him:
Does it hurt your knees when you land? I had a torn meniscus repaired in my left knee. I turn 40 on 12/4 and I've been saying for a couple of years that I wanted to try skydiving. That was before my knee surgery. I'm petrified of landing and reinjuring my knee.

Kevin McLauchlan wrote back the following essay. Visit his cool website: http://www.mens-health-tips.com/

So, the essay begins now:

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This is a “LONG one here. Get a coffee and have a pee-break before you start reading.

The short answer is "only if you do something stupid".

The [much] longer answer is:

The first few jumps would be tandem - you attached to the instructor who in turn is attached to the giant (built-for-two) parachute. So, the instructor controls everything in freefall and under the open parachute. You start out at 10,000 to 13,000 feet AGL (depending on the drop zone, the planes they have available, the current weather, etc.) and enjoy a segment of freefall up to 45 seconds, after which the instructor deploys high (maybe 4500 to 5000 feet AGL) and you enjoy an extended canopy ride (maybe 4 minutes). The instructor then lines you up (still together, obviously) for a nice landing.

If you are heavy-ish - and even if you are not - there's a second set of handles on the steering lines, and the instructor will probably have had you participating in turns on the way down, and in braking during the final flare and landing.

Your landings under the tandem chutes depend on the skills of your instructor and on how much help you are. :-)

It takes a strong arm to crank out a tight turn, or to pull off a good swoop and soft flare with the weight of two bodies on the rig. If you've already done several today, as instructor, you appreciate every ounce that the student/passenger helps.

ON THE OTHER HAND, some nervous-Nelly students/passengers get a grip on the auxiliary handles and won't let go. This slows the forward speed of the parachute, but also robs it of performance, especially when it's most needed.

Performance can be "most needed" in two situations (at least)

- when you are away from the drop-zone and need optimum glide and speed to get back

- when you land - the best flare, for the softest landing, is preceded by the maximum of speed on approach.

A too-early pull on the breaks can result in a mushy, wobbly, off-heading, or fast-sinking arrival, which is how ankles and knees and other bits get hurt.

If you got past the first two or three jumps (wanting more, I mean... I wasn't talking about survival, which is a given), you switch to jumping wearing your own (school-supplied) rig with a large, forgiving parachute. That can limit the conditions (winds) in which you can jump, but is very soft on landing, through a wide range of control inputs/mis-inputs.

Basically, to do it right, you do what you would do in an unpowered aircraft (which is what you are under a gliding parachute). You line up your final approach toward a clear spot on the ground - no obstacles like buildings, trees, power-lines, crowds of squishy litigious by-standers - face into the wind, open up to maximum speed, come straight in.... and "flare when you get scared". Flaring - putting on the brakes - is the same as lowering the flaps on a winged plane or tipping the nose up into a gentle stall at just the right moment. Done right, it converts all your remaining forward speed into lift, and you come to a stop inches above the ground, landing gracefully and with ever-so-much cool, on your tippy-toes. For the first few "solo" landings, the instructor talks you in via a radio in your helmet. Tells you when to turn, and when to flare for a good landing. As I mentioned, the docile chute you'll have ensures that even a "bad" landing is probably damaging only to your ego... having grass-stains on your butt will do that.

Continuing instruction (for about 20 jumps) gets you to the point of self-supervision, with basic skills at:

- dressing yourself (proper clothing and equipment)

- gear self-check and buddy check

- handling yourself in the plane - awareness, proper procedure to keep you and everybody else safe

- exiting the plane (controlled exit)

- basic freefall skills (includes being in control upon exiting the plane, but also includes... ) regaining stability if your exit (or later activity) is less than graceful, awareness and body maneuvers in freefall,

- altitude awareness and proper procedure at deployment altitude (you don't just dump a parachute without looking for other people above you)

- handling the parachute after you deploy it, to get yourself home while having fun and

- proper approach and landing, both for benefit of your own landing and for doing so in a possibly crowded environment

- and... in case something goes wrong, how to recognize that something is wrong and the appropriate action to take to correct it.

From there, your progress depends on you, your bank account, and the drop zone or club where you spend your skydiving time.

For-profit drop zones are in business. They'll be business-like about whatever progression you want to undertake. You can jump by yourself forever if you really want to. Most people want to pick up skills that will let them jump with others. It's lots more fun.

Most larger drop zones will have a bunch of experienced people who are into various disciplines of the sport, though a given drop zone tends to attract specialists in just a few, and not the entire gamut. SOME of them will be there for just themselves and their friends. They'll be happy to include you when you've got sufficient skills. SOME of them will be staff or the equivalent of "consultants" either of which will provide your further training in this-or-that skill for a price. The price involves

- the cost of their jump, for each training/coaching jump they take with you
- the cost of the video guy - if the coach is not doing the video while participating with you
- salary or cost-plus equivalent if the person is doing this as their employment
- profit for the drop zone.

The profit for the drop zone might be extra, or it might be included in the other stuff. For example, everybody's jump includes the operating costs (plane, av-gas/jet-fuel, pilot, etc.) plus a little for the drop zone operator. They have to price everything to cover their costs, but not to be exorbitant or non-competitive and discourage customers.

SOME of the skilled people at the drop zone might be just friendly sorts who like to coach and will do it for free, or for the occasional beer, or the cost of their jumps on which they coach you. They might be very skilled, or they might be just far enough ahead of you to be useful, and be in the process of qualifying for this or that instructor or coach rating. Or they might just like you. :-)

Not-for-profit drop zones are usually run by clubs. The club might even use the facilities of a for-profit drop zone. OR, they might run a beat-up old plane or two out of a beat-up old airstrip that they own/lease themselves and that they might or might not share with a gliding or flying club (or even RC-model fliers)... I've seen all sorts of combos. They are interested in keeping up membership, providing fun-and-useful services for their membership, covering costs, having enough stray money left over for the occasional new equipment and a few parties per year. Usually clubs are run on volunteer labor.

If the club is active and well-run, it can be a great choice. But you kinda hafta be the type who is willing (even eager) to "give back" with your own labor and skills. Clubs - whether with their own facilities or using a commercial drop zone as their base - often have a convivial atmosphere that continues after the jump day is over, with camping, partying/socializing, off-season activities and trips, etc.

A club that's not extremely well-funded will often represent a slower way to progress as a jumper, though possibly far less costly than paying for every increment of skill at a commercial place.

As one example, (unless it's changed in the past few years) commercial drop zones tend to fly larger planes, which means that larger groups of people go up each time. Which means that organizing is required. Which means that ONE person is in charge of "spotting" determining that the aircraft is above the desired exit point and people should start getting out in their various clumps and bunches. The advantage is that such people are chosen for their experience, so you rarely get stuck landing way off the drop zone, with a long walk back, or calling for a taxi or sheepishly "volunteering" to pay the farmer for the corn plants that you squashed when you landed in his field. Ahem....

BUT, that means the average participant on all those commercial jump loads gets little or no opportunity to learn and practice their own spotting skills. Looking out the open door of a plane that's climbing through 13,500 feet at 200mph on a hazy day, and guiding the pilot (via hand signals or a makeshift indicator light "left... left more... left.... steady... CUT!" is an acquired skill that is nowhere near as easy as you might imagine (even if you imagine it to be rather difficult).

Clubs tend to have smaller operations and smaller aircraft, and they encourage everybody to have frequent turns at spotting, so you tend to pick up the skills. As well, it's common to have everybody (or most members) go through some kind of instructor or coaching phase as part of "growing up" in the club. It encourages people to branch out and learn skills and get certifications/ratings that they might otherwise not have got. It's very common for a northern club (northern US or any part of Canada) to have very little jumping during winter, but to organize "keeping a hand in" activities like a rigger course. That'd be where jumpers learn to repair and maintain parachute equipment (and get tested and certified to do so) and - at higher levels of achievement - to make and modify equipment - as well as to pack reserve (emergency) parachutes.

In fact, some commercial places let people get hundreds of jumps without ever learning to pack their own main (not reserve) parachutes, or without doing it enough to be really proficient. Instead, they provide paid packers who do thousands of pack-jobs per year, like little robots, so that the jumpers don't need to slow down their jumping activity. You can be planning and "dirt-diving" (practicing your moves) the next jump instead of taking the time (and tiring yourself) to pack your rig.

A club would have members packing for students and people who hadn't yet gotten signed-off for the skill, but otherwise, everybody does their own, and therefore has plenty of practice. That constant practice also gives you a better eye for things that might not be broken, but are getting to the point of needing attention on your rig.

Probably the best all-round skydivers have sampled both worlds. They've got hotshot in-the-air skills, and they are well-rounded and competent when it comes to taking care of gear and of just running a drop zone.

Either way, it takes money.

A lot of younger folk pay for their first years of skydiving by being drop zone gofers (not to be confused with gophers), packers, manifest dragons (the annoying person who keeps prodding and yelling to "get this load in the air!") and handles the scheduling and payment-taking, etc. They work as instructors, freefall camera persons, etc. At smaller centers, a lot of young pilots fly jumpers for free, in exchange for the opportunity to log hundreds of flying hours toward commercial and other tickets. People rotate through whatever jobs they [can/want-to] handle, in exchange for "free" or reduced jump costs.

Big commercial centers, mostly in the southern and western US states tend to have full-time employees for most positions.

Jumpers with money don't have to do all that. They can just buy their way to the skills, paying full shot for all their jumps, and paying full shot for the jumps and tutoring of instructors and coaches.

It costs hundreds of dollars for the first jumps, and then drops to thirty or forty per jump once you are self-supervising.
It's also cheaper (and better) per jump to have your own equipment. Rental takes a chunk, and you get equipment that's designed to be safely docile. Nothing wrong with that, until you get confident and want to start jumping something sporty.

Except for the very-well-heeled, a common approach is to jump club/school equipment for your first twenty-or-so jumps, then to purchase second-hand middle-of-the-road gear. That means, it's sportier than what you learned on, but was flown by a conservative or duffer jumper, so you don't have to concentrate so hard that your eyeballs bleed, just to not kill yourself while flying it.

You get accustomed to that and stretch your skills for a few hundred jumps, then sell that (modern equipment, well-maintained, is good for thousands of jumps) and get something sportier/scarier.

Sporty almost always means smaller, and more radical in design, which translates to "touchy" and requires the pilot to be very, good and VERY damned attentive to what they're doing, especially anywhere near the ground, Consider that under a very small parachute - which means a very high wing loading - you are coming down quite fast, and moving forward quite fast. You'd get hurt (or worse) if you just let the thing fly itself (and you) into the ground (unlike the bigger, comfier chutes that might bump you over the ground in ungainly fashion, but would likely land you unhurt). Anyway, the only way to land a tiny, hot canopy and keep yourself intact is to fly it _very_ fast at the ground - experienced fliers often pull radical turns at just a couple of hundred feet, causing them to drop out of the sky, but also to be moving forward at plus-sixty-miles-per hour as they near the grass. They then flare and cruise along clipping the weeds, sometimes hundreds of feet, before running off whatever forward velocity is left after the lo-o-o-o-ong swooping flare.

Anyway, I tended to be a relatively conservative flier and had a parachute that was in the 1:1 (pound of suspended weight per square foot of canopy) wing-loading range. I could pick up a good turn of speed by hauling down my front risers to dive straight ahead, rather than pulling a hook-turn (180-degree swooping turn that's been the death of many), so I could be relaxed about my wing control and not worry that it would kill me if I blinked or farted at the wrong time. :-)

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Since October / Trapt in My Future?!?

Good news!!!!!

A band called Since October is playing in Cedar Rapids on Friday, 7/17. Believe it or not, I am not going to be camping in Elkader.... and... on top of that, I may be able to get passes to the show. This is an e-mail message I received today:

Good Afternoon,
Please let us know if any editorial content may be possible for the artists we have performing in your city.
Thanks for your time,
CEDAR RAPIDS:
7/17 – SINCE OCTOBER @1ST AVENUE LIVE – 3701 1ST AVENUE SE- 3193621730 - 7PM DOS w/ Trapt
ON TOUR NOW
ALBUM OUT NOW THIS IS MY HEART ON TOOTH AND NAIL
http://www.myspace.com/sinceoctober

And, on top of that, they are opening for Trapt, a band I like.
Since October, "Disaster" Music Video

This is my favorite song by Trapt:

Why don't you let me be, leave me alone
You start a fire inside that I could never control
You wanna see a reaction
Come on and cut me down
You've got as far as I'll go
Now you're crossing the line
And I am letting you know
Well, here's your reaction

Stand up
I have had enough
Walk away before I finish what you started
Face-to-face, I will put you in your place
End this game before I finish what you started
Face-to-face, everything will change

You planted the seed, how my anger has grown
Got a feeling inside that I can't seem to control
You wanna see a reaction?
Come on and cut me down
You've got as far as I'll go
Now you're crossing the line
And I am letting you know

Stand up
I have had enough
Walk away before I finish what you started
Face-to-face, I will put you in your place
End this game before I finish what you started
Face-to-face, everything will change

Insult after insult after insult after insult after insult
Insult after insult after insult after insult after insult

Stand up
I have had enough
Walk away before I finish what you started
Face-to-face, I will put you in your place
End this game before I finish what you started
Face-to-face, everything will change

Walk away, everything will change
End this game, everything will change
You wanna see a reaction
You wanna see a reaction
Well, stand up

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And this is my second favorite song by them:

These are the lyrics and, after you read them, I'll tell you what I like about them and why they are meaningful to me:

I wanna meet up with you
And show you what I'm thinking
I'll take you anywhere that you wanna go
I'm sitting here bored and lonely
And you know that anytime you're free
To show me how you feel
I'll take it anywhere that you wanna go
Anywhere that you wanna go

I'd make it right if you wanted it
I want it back more than you know
I'd cross the line if you wanted it
I want you back

I'm waiting for you
To get that feeling once again
Reunited in the end
I've been waiting for you
To capture my imagination
'Cause I've been fooled by the illusions in my head
In my head

Now I realize I never had it so good
You took me anywhere I wanted to go
Now I'm sitting here dreaming of the days
When anytime I wanted I could show you how I feel
I can't go anywhere that I wanna go
Anywhere that I wanna go

I'd make it right if you wanted it
I want it back more than you know
I'd cross the line if you wanted it
I want you back

I'm waiting for you
To get that feeling once again
Reunited in the end
I've been waiting for you
To capture my imagination
'Cause I've been fooled by the illusions in my head

In my head

I'll take it anywhere
I'll take it anywhere
I'll take it anywhere
I'll take you anywhere
You wanna go

I'm waiting for you
To get that feeling once again
Reunited in the end
I've been waiting for you
To capture my imagination
'Cause I've been fooled by the illusions in my head
And I've been fooled by the illusions in my head
And I've been fooled by the illusions in my head

Okay... I think the reason this song resonates with me is because I relate to the idea that illusions of reality - or a false reality - tricked me years ago. I think back to when I was playing in the greatest band I ever played drums in - Old Stew. I know I've written about OS in other blog posts but to reiterate, it was the band I helped assemble back in the fall of 1991. In the spring of 1991, I had assembled a band called "Prophesey" to play at my college's talent show. I was a junior in college. We learned "Purple Haze" and "Tush." After "Tush," I played a brief drum solo. The other members of the band were Ken, who played guitar and sang and James, who played the ripping solos.

After that talent show, Ken and I would talk about getting together and jamming. Finally, one day Ken brought his equipment to my parent's basement and we bashed out Metallica's "Enter Sandman." I had talked about getting a band together for the talent show my senior year. After school started, James came over one night with another guitarist (Catfish) and a singer (Shoebox). With my Yamaha drum machine, we played through "She Talks to Angels" in the living room of my on-campus apartment. I was really impressed with how good we sounded.

Then the idea became: what if James, Ken, Catfish, Shoebox, and I got together and played for the talent show? WOW. We settled on "Enter Sandman" and "Bullfrog Blues," an original song that Catfish, Shoebox, and James had assembled.

After weeks of rehearsals, the five of us played the two night talent show. On the first night, I was nervous as hell. I can't even watch the VHS tape that has that night on it because I was not happy with the sound. Shoebox paced in front of Ken during "Enter Sandman" and tripped on the guitar cord that went to the amp. Ken's guitar was way loud and I didn't sound good during my solo between the two songs.

The second night, though, was a lot better, in my ears. My parents were in the audience to watch me, which was a big deal to me. I was dressed in a 'cooler' outfit than what I had worn the night before. Ken's guitar was better the second night, Shoebox jumped out into the aisle between the rows of chairs during Ken's guitar solo, my drum solo was better, and we launched into an impromptu blues jam at the end of "Bullfrog Blues" that was fun.

It was the last time I've played on stage with a band I would call "my band."

In the spring of 1992, we got some gigs at a bar that is long since closed. We drank free beer and played as a foursome (Ken had left to pursue other interests). It was a lot of fun.

We took the summer of 1992 off. I graduated from college. I proposed to Karen. I searched for a job.

In the fall of 1992, we reassembled with a new bassist, Dave. There was a problem, though. 4/5ths of the band smoked pot. I didn't. I really, really, really, REALLY hated the fact that this was happening to me. I felt powerless as I was college educated and twice a week, I went to rehearsal and watched the other 4 smoke pot. Catfish / James / Shoebox had arranged a gig at the Open Mic night at the Mill in Iowa City. I had asked them to come pick me up because I wanted to hear them. They didn't. Ironically, one of the songs that they played that night was a song I wrote called "Sunshine Summer." It was in November 1992 when I left the band.

I still, to this day, think that Catfish is an amazing guitarist / vocalist / musician / songwriter. When I hear the material he has put out as a member of a local guitar/vocal duo, I hear someone I'd like to play with again. Someday.

And when I hear the song "Waiting" by Trapt, I think of Catfish and I think about how I long to play with him. But I also have the fear that he is still smoking pot and that is something I don't think I could get over. So it's the "illusions in my head" of us playing together that I think about when I hear that song.

I am NOT the same person I was in 1992. Part of me wants to just hold the memories of our times together in my brain and to listen to the tapes we made of rehearsals and one gig. If I could do anything over again, I would be more diligent about recording our rehearsals than I was. I should have taken it upon myself to make sure I always had a cassette recording our time together.

As it stands now, I am still waiting for the right moment to assemble my 90s tribute band....

Empowered

There is a lot happening in my life right now. There is the uncertainty of the economy, which hasn’t directly impacted my family yet. There are the ever present money concerns – what’s in savings? What’s in the check book? Are we saving enough? Are we spending too much on a monthly basis? What are the priorities for which we need to be saving? There are also family dynamic concerns. Am I doing enough to empower my children so that when they are on their own, they know what is right and what is wrong? Tossed into all three of those – and rest assured, there are many other things going on in my world – is this new idea of choice. I have always and consistently believed that choice is the power God gave humans and no other living creature. It is that power of choice that is the *only* constant in life. The other things – economy, money, kids – are in a constant state of flux. Their priority in my life changes daily, sometimes hourly. But, what is not changing is my ability to choose how I react to each of them and the other challenges in my life. It is the power of choice that enables me to decide if I am going to lose weight, gain weight, or stay the same. That power is not to be dealt with lightly. It is a grave responsibility, the same kind Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, deals with. It is that tremendous. I have the power to choose how I react to my challenges. I can choose to fall into those same sad habits that led me to believe I need to change my life in the first place. I can choose to make new habits and to grow as a person, as a whole person. I can choose to walk the middle road, changing some things in my life and bemoaning the lack of power to change other things. And that is where I sit. I sit, often afraid that I have this power. I have wanted to lose weight and for the most part, I attempted to do so by little things. Less Pepsi, more water, walking, smaller portions at meals. These things have become important to me. I want to do these things. I’m consciously choosing this behavior. I was not doing that at the beginning of this year. I will continue to choose this behavior – that makes me happy – in the future for as long as I am able to breathe and take nourishment.

Paranoid! Because of Cosgrove

On Thursday, 7/2/9, this review was published:
http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=6138
Today, 7/6/9, my opinion regarding Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" release, truly one of my favorite releases of all time, was posted: http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=6151

BOMBbastic 4th of July & MJ

We were in Balltown for Breitbach's 4th of July fireworks. Know how some fireworks are boom boom BOOM BOOM BOOOOM BOOOMMMM!! where there is a definite crescendo? There was NONE of that last night. It was BOOOMMMM!! BOOOMMMM!! BOOOMMMM!! BOOOMMMM!! BOOOMMMM!! BOOOMMMM!! until it was over. We sat in my in-law's backyard and experienced the colors over our heads. It was the best fireworks display I've seen - and that includes the Disney World fireworks in Orlando.

In other world news...
Michael Jackson. Hmm... I have respect for what the man recorded. Was he a pedophile or a weirdo?

Maybe.

I don't really care. I grew up in the "Thriller" era. I know I had a 8 track of "Off the Wall" so when "Thriller" came out, I knew who the original "MJ" was. I knew where he had come from (recently) but I had no idea who the Jackson 5 were. I can only name the songs that were radio hits.

"Thriller" was a monster release. I mean, seriously, every song on that release was a single, including "The Girl is Mine," which was a duet with Paul McCartney.

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This is the song that was widely mocked (Weird Al's "Eat It" video *is* hilarious) but watch the opening montage in this clip. The dude could DANCE! I can't, but I SEE good dancing when I see him dance.
Overall, I offer my sympathy to his family in their time of sorrow...

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