Nature Wants To Kill Me

Yeah, I’ve been out of commission the last week. I’m still alive and kicking, but it’s been one hell of a week. For starters, last Saturday I discovered my son’s box spring and mattress were infested with bed bugs. Yeah, they’re real. They’re not just the subject of some fun bedtime tag line you tell […]

Motorbreathless

Metallica were the gateway band for me. My older brother and his bad influence ways pushed Master of Puppets on me like some greasy punk passing me my first joint in the middle school basketball courts. We drove on US 33 on our way to the mall one hot summer afternoon and he pushed a […]

Blue Suede Tap Shoes

My earliest memories are of me sitting on the bare wood steps that led down to my parents half basement and attempting to spy on my mom as she practiced her tap dancing routines. It would start out as me going all ninja, thinking I could somehow blend my stocky, big-boned 5-year old frame into […]

“a cup of coffee and a slice of time…”

So where do you go when you feel like you’ve gotten to a dead end? Where do you find the answers when the questions you hear yourself asking are falling on deaf ears? Your mind tells you “No one cares and no one ever really did”, and who are you to argue with your mind? […]

Paul Gilbert : The Everyman’s Guitar Hero

It’s been close to 30 years so my memory may not serve me correctly, but somewhere in the vicinity of the spring of 1989 I got to see and meet Mr. Big guitarist Paul Gilbert. Why do you care? “Paul who? The Mr. Big dude? Yeah, so what?” Will you please let me finish? Thank you. […]

Tea Leaf Dancers and the Bonus Beat

Flying Lotus, aka Steve Ellison, has been somewhat of an obsession of mine for the past couple of years. His beats are like these liquid-y flows that carry psychedelic melodies through the ether. His music is transformative. There seems to be a constant state of movement and reforming. It’s hip hop-based, for sure. But as […]

Not Enough Room In My Head

Sometimes it takes awhile for an album to find it’s rightful spot in my brain. It’s not necessarily a “grower” kind of album, as it may immediately be catchy and enjoyable, but sometimes there’s just not enough room in my head for those songs to live and breathe. Or maybe I may not be in […]

A Year On The Mend

It was a year ago today that my wife drove us an hour east on a rainy, dreary morning to Parkview Hospital for my back surgery. It doesn’t seem possible it’s been that long. It seems like it was just a couple months ago I was waiting for that day to come, both anticipating and […]

Weird Dream

The alarm went off at 4:20am and I quickly realized I needed an extra 20 minutes of shut eye, so I hit the snooze and quickly went back under. Next thing I know I’m at my aunt’s old two-story house that she hasn’t lived in close to ten years now. We’re all standing around looking […]

Memory Upgrade

So sometimes your memory betrays you. Okay, most of the time your memory betrays you. Like for example, how you may remember an argument with an old friend that caused a riff between the two of you. When you finally have that heart to heart and discuss things you realize you remembered things all wrong. […]