My addiction

After a long drive...ok, FOREVER!!!... we arive. This takes you from sitting in the van on the road half asleep and bloated from gas station junk food to GO! GO! GO! I'm the drummer so it's going to take me the longest to set up. At times I envy those other guys that bring a 3 peice drumset with all of 2 symbols on stage. My kits quite a bit larger. It takes me around a half hour to set up. Firt we must go argue with the guy that thinks I should play on the drums that are already set up. I find him arguing with the owner of the drums that are already set up. That takes care of itself. Next comes the chaos of the unload. Where you just throw everything out of the van wherever you're parked. I find all my stuff and begin setting up offstage. Yes, this is one of the shows that we're not headlining so we have to set up and tear down between sets. So I'm setting up on this particular day in the hot sun. As usual there are around 10 kids all grade school standing behind me just waiting to strike. I have learned how to multi task. I answer questions about being a "Rock Star" while I set up and at the same time I comunicate with the other members of the band along with the stage crew. Then it's on to... "We're on,..no. Wait a minute.... Ok! we're on....oh wait....Ok! GO!" Then I'm running back and forth much like a ping pong ball.....that carries.....stuff. Ok, not the best analogy. So now my hunormous drum set is spread all over a good fourth of this massive stage and I'm getting dirty looks from the stage crew. I throw down my carpet and have everything together in under 3 minutes. Good thing I set up off stage. SOUND CHECK!!! This is enough to make me feel like I need a shower. Now I'm informed that there are a couple other bands playing before us. I tell them that there's no way I'm moving my stuff again! So the other two bands get to use the rest of the stage. So we take off to the motel for awhile as it's going to be a couple hours before we go on for sure.... or say they tell us. I pretend to take a nap, change into my camo shorts and my flaming skull shirt. For a moment I stand looking in the mirror trying to decide whether to wear go with the bandana or to let my locks fly around while I play. I go with the bandana. keeps the sweat out of my eyes. We get somethin' to munch on, which is never a good idea before a show, and then it's band meeting time. Discussing goals and other things.... Now we're back on the road and...we're lost. Just blocks away from the stage and we can't find it. A couple phone calls and we're there. Now we wait. The last band before us wants to spend some more time on stage and is ignoring the coordinaters one minute warning. Hate to be there when that conversation happens. Now we're up. A quick second sound check and..... I can't hear the guitar and the vocals are too loud and can you please take my kick drum out of my monitor mix?! Finally we're on. It's right into the first song and I'm looking at 10,000 people. I feel like someone just punched me right in the guts. A couple of good screams from the croud and I'm full into it. No more gut punchy and out comes this furious rock star! Some of the croud goes nuts and some of them just sit there looking at you like...."They don't sound anything like the band I came here to see." Half way through the set it's like war! Sweat flying off of me as I let my sticks fly! I'm throwin' in all this extra stuff that we didn't rehurse and thank God I get a grin from the singer. You want double kicks you got it baby!!! Wow, the rythm guitar sounds terrible! My monitor just went nuclear and is blasting a hole in my head but I just play louder! My bass player, who's clear on the other end of the stage, is jumpin' and spinnin' and the croud is just feeding it. This is where I live! It's where I breath! Up in front of all of you who love me and all of you who don't like me so much! In this hour I'm completely free!.... End of the set! Now comes the chaos of the tear down. I only hope the stage crew appriciates how quickly I'm out of their way. Bam! I'm off stage and tearin' down and fending off all the kids that want to bang on my drums. I let them each have a turn and then it's back to work. Everything loaded up.... we hang out and watch the last show....to see what they got.... Then I stink all the way through the signing of the cd's and T's and whatever else they want signed....all the way back to the motel where I take the best shower I've ever had and try as hard as I can to sleep in my little room away from home.

Here we go again.....!!!

The alarm on my phone went off this morning at 4:45. Kinda' strange that my phone is taking the place of everything else that I use to need.....like an alarm clock. They got 'em now with everything. It's a game machine slash mp3 player slash camera slash PC slash instant messenger.......I think you can get the new i phone with a cutting torch attachment if you want.

Anyway, I fumble with the phone for a moment, really missing that big snooze button, then I'm sitting up. Central command informs me that the lower starboard limb is emitting pain. Must have been sparring in my sleep again. You ever wake up in the morning with grass and leaves on your feet? Ya, me either....

So I stand up and sure enough my ankle lights up. I hobble off to the bathroom sifting through memory blocks. I can't figure out what I did to myself and at this point I'm thinkin'..."Man, I can't go to work like this." "Whatever, I'm 236 lbs of bad ass is what I am, and I'm goin' to work!" I reply...out loud for some reason?

Getting ready for work isn't really a comfortable thing for me. Not that early in the morning anyway. Usually I stumble about in a random fashion like I'm having an epileptic seizure in slow motion but I somehow manage to get my clothes on and get out the door. Well, most of the time anyway. Not so easy when I'm feeling something like a sprain.

Nothing wakes me up like shoving pain strait down a long pipe of Levis. On the way out the door I invent several devices that would be most useful in my situation. Not doing me any good. I forget about my injury somewhere in the thirty minutes it takes me to get to work. The first step out of the my monstrous SUV reminds me. Now don't bust my chops for using more fuel than you do. I have eight people to haul around much of the time and at the moment the Burban is all I have.

I drag my lifeless limb behind me all the way to the time clock. I think to myself, "Self, we're going to have to muster every ounce of stubborn we gots to get through this one." Self responds..."idiot." Briefly I consider finding a place to hide. A place where I might lay down.

By rough calculation I would have about fifteen minutes before they begin searching for me. What I would have to do is lay down next to something heavy so that it appears as though I have been struck in the head and knocked unconscious. Not really worth fifteen minutes of rest....or is it?

Ten minutes later I'm workin' away arguing with myself. I hate leaving work early. Oooo! Stepped on it just right! AGAIN! A buddy of mine notices the angry grimace...."You look bad man! Did you sprain your face?!!" He says smugly, cracking a grin. I manage a strained, "Thanks man." Step, ow, step, ow, step, MAN!!! I didn't even make it to break time. I packed it in and went looking for the boss. Fortunately he was near by. He had his boss with him. Oh, this is great, I think to myself.

So I'm waiting for them to finish their conversation when my boss stops mid sentence, looks at me and says "What!" This makes me posture slightly. "I'm gonna' have to bug out early today man." I say in a tone that says I don't like you either. The boss don't like me. Reason being, I deemed a rather large, very expensive piece of equipment in the shop hazardous. The product run on this machine had to be out sourced. It was very dangerous to run. I won and he hasn't exactly been speaking to me since then.

"Why!" he responds. So I tell him what's goin' on while he stands there glaring at me. Before he can say anything his boss pipes up. "Yes, that would be fine. Get some rest." I walk away still feeling the heat of the bosses glare at the back of my head. So, I'm out to the truck, out of the parking lot and on my way to get cash. Murphy says I have to get gas before I leave town. While I don't generally live by his law, a quick glance at the gas gage has me in agreement. Why on this day....

Upon stepping out of the burban I find that it's become much more difficult to walk. $3.67!!! And that's the cheap stuff. Weapons grade is close to $4! Now, if there are any resident Californians reading this, I apologize. I feel your pain and I'm glad I'm out here where it's still affordable. I start pumping gas.

I'm getting these looks from this young woman at the pump next to me. She smiles....says hi just as I'm putting the gas cap back on. Her expression changes into something that resembles dread as I start trying to walk. I look at her and say, "Hi, I'm Quasi Moto, how ya doin'?" I was trying to make her laugh. Instead she just stared at me looking ill.

Back at the house I'm muttering my own home grown profanity under my breath as I lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling. My first trip to the bathroom and back has me convinced that I need a crutch or a cane of some sort. So I stand there in my room on one foot looking for something that I can use to temporarily replace my leg. My wife hands me a stick that's about 2 feet long.

I'm around 6 ft tall. I would have had to bend myself in half to use it. She's laughing at me as I try to explain why I can't use it. I'm across the room from her leaning on my drum rack. Drum racks are like large simple erector sets consisting of pipes, clamps and square tubing. The legs on these things resemble the legs on some walkers that I've seen.

A dim light bulb appears directly over my head. I reach down and undo the clamps connecting one of the side supports and remove the piece. It was about the length of a cane and had two rubber feet. It's shaped like a "T". "Yes!" I exclaim. I turned the leg upside down and leaned on the small cross piece that supports the feet with both hands holding all my weight between my semi normal right step. "Freedom!" I was off to raid the fridge.

I looked like a crippled man trying to ride a broken pogo stick. I was hallin' ass until ran out of carpet. The end I had against the floor was capped with a hard piece of plastic that glided nicely across the tile. Right in the middle of a bout of mad laughter I came crashing down to the floor. Under the incredible force of my falling weight, the pseudo cane was launched clear across the dining room and kitchen.

"What just happen?!" my wife yells. I'm slow to respond.... "Uuu....I...Shakka when the walls fell....." Seems the crash knocked an old star trek episode loose in my head.

Bad thing is I've got practice with the band on Saturday....dunno' if I'm gonna' make it or not.

Ouch!

Five minutes of waking...

Wrenched out of sleep I here the laughter of my 3 year old as he lines up for another headbutt. I can’t be angry, he gets it from me. Not half a second goes by and the two youngest are bouncing on the bed. Nothing quite like having 30 some odd pounds of bouncing baby boy land ya’ square in the guts.

Might have killed me if I were laying on the floor. Why do they always land on their knees? So I roll out of bed onto the floor. No work ’till Monday, I think to myself and stumble off to the bathroom. I stop briefly to watch a car through the window. Rolled by a little too slowly. McPherson county QUD 13 somthin’ or other....I must be slippn’.

Somewhere between the bedroom and the bathroom I step in God knows what but it’s cold and sticks...and what in the world is that smell!!? I quickly enter the bathroom to escape the crossfire of hotwheels and Duplo blocks....the voice in my head alerts me..."you’re being flanked moron! Hit the deck!" Safely inside I lift my foot to take a look at what I stepped in. Do I peel it off or go outside and scrape it off on the concrete steps.

Ah, no glasses...can’t see it. I rip it off my foot and wash my hands. Judging by the smell it’s......it’s......unidentifiable. I turn to the throne and lift the seat and lid with the big toe on my right foot to find an entire roll of tp in the bowl. For a moment my mind begins to calculate the odds that it is still dry. I stare into the toilet for a good 17 and a half seconds.

I knew what I had to do but as you can imagine I didn’t want to do it. I reach down into the shiny white abyss, grab hold of the cold soggy mass and lift it from the bowl.....uncovering a real American hero, GI-JOE. I throw Joe and the roll into the small bathroom trashcan and wash my hands for the second time in the 4 minutes I had been awake.

After using the stool slash cubby I slide open the shower curtain. To my amazement the tub is half full of toys and clothes all coated with what appears to be an entire bottle of Suave shampoo and conditioner. I close the certain and think....Gawd, I’ll take one later.

In our midst....

Standing tall, in our midst........
Standing tall, in our midst, are the thieves of our piece of mind. For it is out of their mouths that come the symptom of what afflicts us. Spawning freely out from their lips a hopeful undoing. To rise as they long onto the backs of those who yield. I...do not. Flame in heart and vengeful gaze I step out bold and defiant. Few words I utter as this blade I let fly. Though many and cunning, all at once halted by their lies. For stands one that knows these untruths that they speak. The darkness held inside. And so they fall. Crushed beneath the weight of the burdens that they hold. Undone are they all by a whisper of what is. They advanced as giants retreating quickly..... exposed. And so small they were that I...standing tall in their midst and as guilty as they, on their backs I did tread. And take the glass of time in my hand. So burn the sands of time to glass. With this great hammer, shatter the past. Turn these stones to butterflies..........make stars out of all my lies....and with this fire purge away the wrongs I hide inside.

Ingenius....or bright like a peice of drift wood....

You ever do something that you know is stupid.....but you do it anyway? I’m not talkin’ about one of those things that’s dangerous but it’s so fun you can’t help it. I’m talkin’ about....well.....accidental attempted suicide. Where was I when Bill Engval was handin’ out signs.......So earlier tonight I get this wild hair....and decide to change all the light bulbs in the whole house.

We had some mix matchin’ going on that just drove me nuts. I’m one of them freaks that can’t stand it when something is uneven. Ya, one of those guys. So, I replace everything. Kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, bathroom....closets.....and family room. Now I have a box of mix match bulbs that would make Thomas Edison proud.

No more burned out lights. No more candle lit 20 watt next to the supreme indoor / outdoor 120 watt X-Ray CANNON! I took lights out of my bed room tonight that look like they came out of some underground excavation equipment! Reading the wattage on some of these babies solves one mystery for me. My gas bill is so low because there’s a hundred thousand BDU heat wave coming off of half the fixtures in my house!

I have several small burns on my hands because I....well....I can’t just sit there and wait for them to cool off before I take them out. I tried an oven mitt. Those things are just too beafy. Anywayz.....So now I’m done. I’ve got every light in the house on and I can hear the wheel on my meter spinning outside. Finally I begin shutting everything down. I really had no choice. I could hardly see through the pretty purple spots in my eyes.

I’m so pleased with my work that I sing while I’m flipping switches. "Every light in the house is on......front porch looks like runway lights....." No I don’t like country. "The front porch light is out!" The sound comes from one of the kids I think. I stop and cringe when I hear it. Like Elmer Fud before he fills up with read stuff and blows smoke out of his ears.

How could I have forgotten the front porch? It’s the most important light on the property! It’s my California upbringing. Moments later I have my tool box and I’m on the front porch....in the dark....no flashlight. There are two fixtures on the front porch and both are out. I go right to work. I start with the one closest to the front door.

Keep in mind that we just moved into this place and I am not familiar with this particular style of porch light. Something I should probably do in the day time right? Not me. I must do this now! I finally locate a screw. Just one on top. I press my finger against the screw so that I can tell by the mark on my finger what kind of screw it is. Smart thinkin’ right? "Gawd what a dork," I think to myself.....because I CAN’T SEE MY FINGER......woohoooo!!!! So I take a "shot in the dark" and use my philips.

Bingo we have a match! First try too. I can taste the falling dust through the big stupid grin on my face. I remember thinking..."Hey, this thing is kinda’ pretty." It’s black iron with several panes of glass. I touch the screw driver to the only screw I can find and as soon as I do the big chunk with all the glass falls off and smashes onto the porch! I stand there for a moment poised in this odd position....contemplating the laws of physics. Perhaps the loud crash wasn’t the glass breaking?

I look down to discover that the fixture smashed all the light bulbs I had so carefully placed in a bag and on the porch....right at my feet. No, we’re still not to the stupid part yet. This is just life's way of setting it up. I take the piece and the shards of glass in the house and too my room where I super glue them back together in record time. Luckily only one pane broke and another came loose.

I built a rocket ship out of pickup truck parts and super glue once....that’s a completely different blog. Now I have returned to the porch. I replace the light bulb. I turn the light on. The light works. I move all my junk to the next fixture which is on the top of a black pipe sticking out of the deck..porch...thing...y. There are two panes of glass busted out of it. I look back at the fixture by the front door and quickly calculate the odds that I’m responsible for breaking the glass in this one as well.

Finding no broken glass on the ground and deck around the light leads me to believe that the light fixture......had been broken "previously". I know.....I should work for CSI right? I find a screw and pop the top off. There’s no light bulb. Urrrr!!! No wonder it didn’t work! After all, I’m just a woogy without a squiggle!!! Daaaurr! I take a light bulb out of my pocket...now there’s a safe place.....and attempt to screw it into the socket.

It won’t go in? Raaaagggy? Why? I climb on top of the railing around the deck...porch and look strait down into it. That little voice inside my head says to me...."Hey genius! What do you see?!!"...."Nothing!" I reply. "And why is that?" he says back to me. "Because it’s DARK OUTSIDE!" I say out loud....just realizing that the neighbors car is running. I didn’t look to see if anyone was listening.

Now I’m back in the house looking for the flashlight that I should have taken out there with me in the first place. "Where’s the flashlight?" I say, admiring for a moment all the pretty lights I had put in earlier. "Car!" someone yells. I go get keys, I go to car, I unlock car and retrieve flashlight. I take flash light and point it at my eye and turn it on....because I had to make sure it worked!

Duh! So now I’m one eyed willy or it feels like that anyway after taking a white hot beam of maglite out the back of the head! Half blind I climb once again up onto the railing. I look strait down into the socket to find half a light bulb. Don’t you hate that? What do I do now? I gotta’ get it out right? I jump down, walk over to the front door, reach inside and turn off the switch to the front porch light.

This is where stupid comes in. You can already see it coming can’t you? I think for a second that I should probably find the breaker that channels power to the front porch lights. But I don’t wanna’ do that. That would take a long time.

I put my gloves on and grab a pair of needle nose pliers out of my tool box. I climb the railing once again flashlight in left hand pliers in right. I touch the pliers the the little tiny wires sticking out of what’s left of the base of the bulb. Nothing. "Must be safe," I think to myself. I can hear the other voice in my head laughing quietly.

I reach in and carefully bend one side of the base of the bulb inward. So far so good. I go to do the same thing to the other side when zzzt BAM!!! "If the earth is spinning so fast, then why don’t we all fall off?" Was what went through my head. Completely blinded by the flash that lit up the whole inside of my empty head, I start to fall backwards.

I stick my left foot out to try to land it..."TOOL BOX!" Then with my other left foot....."UUUU....Top of the light fixture??" CRUNCH! Congratulations! You’ve just won a brand new light fixture!!!! Boom!! Onto the deck! Dear Gawd my reeaaar end!!!! I still had the flashlight in my left hand....where were my pliers? Any welders out there?

Yup, my pliers had been arched to the base of the light fixture. Even now pink squiggles are floating around the room everywhere I look. I called Dad to ask him some stuff.....some ’lectric stuff. He was asleep. I decided that the light was like that probably because the exact same thing had happen to someone else. This didn’t make me feel any smarter. I packed it up and went inside thinking that perhaps my life had flashed before my eyes but the blinding arch was so bright that I couldn’t see it.
I’ve decided to buy the house just so that I can rip that fixture right off the deck.
It’s a nice house........

SNOW!!

Can you believe how much snow we've got this year? Maybe it doesn't seem particularly amazing to anyone else. Maybe I'm just easily amused. Where I'm from you have to drive to the mountains in the winter time to see any snow. Here it just falls everywhere. I like snow. I've heard enough to believe that I might be the only one in the state that likes snow. Everyone else complains about it. I like snow because it stops the whole world. It's just a bunch of tiny ice flakes and it stops everything. Time stands still.

I look out side and think to myself, "Self, I couldn't get anything done today even if I wanted to." My self replies back, "Well then, just sit your lazy butt down in that chair and light up that play station!" No time for that. I'm on my P.C. doin' band stuff. So ya, snow stops everything but the band. What I really love is driving in it. When we get dumped on by a sky full of white, I live for a phone call that puts me in the drivers seat whether I like it or not.

Stick the burban in 4 wheel and go!! God help me if I see an empty parking lot after it's nice and packed. I'll shut the 4 wheel drive down and do doughnuts until I barf!!!! I always have some trucker come up to me and say..."You know if you hit a dry spot you'll tip that thing over right?" If the truckers think I'm nuts.......hmmmm. Not like it's real dangerous. I have a friend that use to have a VW bug. When it got icy out he'd load up his bug with friends and off they'd go. His favorite thing to do was to get up to a good 35mph and pull the E brake.

Uuuuu....ya. That's kinda' what I said. For those that don't know, pulling the E brake on ice puts you into a spin. Consider this.....Bug+E brake+35mph=time machine! It took me awhile to figure it out but I'm pretty sure my friend is actually me. I just spun one too many times and wound up stuck in the recent past. Don't think about that too hard. You know what? The first thing I did when I moved to Kansas was play in the snow. I was 19.

I moved out here Jan. of 93'. Blizzard!!!! I thought I was dreaming! I flipped out and built a massive wall out of snow that was about 9ft tall and 3 ft thick. Amy's sister Jen might remember that. I had to put her on my shoulders so she could finish up the top. I think we tried to build an igloo too. Snow days are awesome too. They didn't have snow days in California. They had what they called rainy day schedule. If it rained they'd cut the day short and everyone would be sent home at lunch. Wild, right? It wasn't really rain either. It was like a sprinkle in Kansas.

I remember one time it actually snowed in Modesto. You couldn't really see it but they said that it was snow. They practically declared a state of emergency. It was awesome. None of it stuck and everyone completely lost it! Aaaaah, the power of snow. Check this out.

One time me and my boy Jamie were on our way to work in his Jeep. This thing had a soft top and no real heater. We're haulin' arsss down an old highway between Mac and Hesston when this oncoming van looses control and heads strait for us. We had nowhere to go so we went off the road into a creak. The creak wasn't deep but we did find our self literally buried in snow. We couldn't see out of the windows. After a few minutes in FWD we decide we're stuck.

Jamie tell me I should call into to work and tell them we won't be in. While I'm on the phone leaving a recording for our supervisor he's trying to get his Jeep out. Several times I go back and forth telling then...."Ya, we're not gonna' be there....oh wait a second....we almost got it......nope, doesn't look like we're gonna' make it......no no, hold on...ok we're good!.....scratch that, we're back under a drift again.......Finally we got out of there. My props to the almighty Jeep. We were late but we made it.

Unfortunately at AGCO late and absent were the same thing.

Well, that was all pretty pointless.....YAAAAWNnnnnn.....RAARrr.....Bed time.

Why?

Why?.....No question is more dangerous. It's almost never asked intentionally. I've learned it's danger. I have chosen to avoid it. And there it sets at the back of my mind like an glowing ember casting just enough light for me to see the inside of whatever it is that's bothering me at the moment. It's almost always absolutely fruitless to ask...and we ask away. Why....a question to which the answer never comes.....unetherial. We don't have enough mystery in our lives?

Why.....a question that can be asked a thousand times each time preceding the next and all in an orderly fashion....without being politically incorrect. Why is the sky blue?....really. Why are roses red? Why is water cold? Why can't I see the wind? Why do people hate? Why do we hurt? Why did she die? Why do we live? Why am I here? Why am I? Why do we love? Why do I feel like this? Why can't they understand? Why are so many of us blind? Why do we feed ourselves poison?

Why do we accept our early demise? Why is greed allowed to run this country? Why have we yielded to sorcery? Why jealousy? Why prejudice? Why harm? Why rage? Why kill? Why do innocent suffer? Why do predators run free? Why am I here? Why do I stand in the fire? Why don't I step away? Why can't I sleep? Why do we want God out?

Why do we sit idle as the foundation of this great nation is shaken? Why won't we stop the burning away of what is right?........Why are there so many grains of sand?.......Why are we out numbered by the stars?........Why is the ocean so deep?......Why is the sky so high?........Why can't I trust Him?
Why do I write this stuff.......