For Dawg

Thinking of you, NYC Watchdog.

Arrrgh Mateys!

Talk about runnin’ down a dream.

Several weeks ago I caught an interview with this young man on a local radio program. His name is Zac Sunderland and he is attempting to be the youngest person, at a mere 16 years of age, to sail around the world. Solo. This guy has some major brass cajones. I’m adding him to my blogroll because this has all the makings of an adventure of a lifetime. He’s got the experience to see him through but will have to deal with many obstacles along the way. The least of which might include real-life, modern-day pirates. No Jack Sparrow’s here.

I’m hoping he makes it. People like this are a real inspiration to me. Check out his site and blog and cheer him on!

http://www.zacsunderland.com/blog/

http://www.zacsunderland.com/

Dreams

Did you ever have a dream?

And no, I’m not talking about the obvious one where you’re about do something nasty with Johnny Depp or… take your pick.

I’m talking about having something in the back of your mind that you’ve always wanted to do or be but never dared or had the opportunity to do something about it. Maybe you thought it was silly or impractical. Maybe your parents told you that was something you never could/would ever achieve. Although my parents never outright denied me of it, I wanted to be the next John Bonham.

It was just understood that I should do something worthwhile, meaningful, practical. Logical. And that’s what I did.

But deep in my heart I was meant to be a drummer. I have never felt more at ease than when I’m playing to my favorite music. It is my escape. My vacation. It’s how I keep my balance. I must have been some sort of tribal drummer in a past life. Anyway. Several months ago a mom from my son’s baseball team asked me if I played drums (I was wearing a Zildjian shirt at the time). Then she asked if I would be interested in playing with the band at her church. I was hesitant at first. A church band? Me?

And I say that because I was never raised with religion. But I was brought up to know the difference between right and wrong. And I’m a big fan of the Golden Rule. Hell, Gosh my son, per his mother’s wish, went to catholic school up until this past year. So I get it. ‘Nuf said.

At first, I was thinking to myself, well… I don’t know. The music has to be lame. All organs and choirs and shit. When do the drums kick in? But come to find out, church has gone multi-media. They not only have the live band but a kickin’ 80” video screen for spiritual videos and lyrics to the songs they’re singing. That’s a good thing because as long as I’ve been practicing/playing, I’ve never, well almost never, performed in front of an audience. It’s always been more of a serious hobby than anything else. So I’m happy to not be the center of attention. But after a few rehearsals, and just a few days to learn a dozen songs I’ve never heard before, I played two Sundays in a row, and it felt fucking (’scuse me Lord) great! I have to say that the music isn’t bad. Mostly cover tunes of modern/semi-modern Christian rock tunes. The lyrics… well… typical. On one of the songs the lyric was “God is awesome”. That is so 80’s. Yeah, I guess he’s tubular and rad too. If we were to translate it to the parlance of our times I guess God would be wicked sick. Umm…I don’t think the parishioners are ready for that.

All in all I’m loving every minute of it. To be finally playing with a group of musicians, real musicians, is my dream come true. And who knows? Maybe I’ll earn some major points with the Big Guy along the way.
But not to worry. I’m always going to the beer-drinkin’, pot-smokin’, but completely responsible, red-blooded California dude I’ve always been. And as a bonus, the church band is a rotating line-up of local musicians from different bands, so the exposure…c’mon,… it’s only a matter of time before I’m the next Tommy Lee. I’ve got the package. Ha!

Although, if I had my way, the set list would be the following:
Opening: Holy Diver – Dio
Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath – Black Sabbath
Judas Priest medley of tunes – The Sinner, Devil’s Child, Hell Patrol…etc.
Heaven and Hell – Sabbath w/Dio
Stairway To Heaven – Zep
Encore: God Of Thunder – Kiss

But that’s just me.

Whoa!

Boy. You turn your back for a short while and all hell breaks loose around here. Seems there have been some big changes going in here in the bloggysphere and I’m missing out on all the excitement.

First of all I’m glad that Tug and Shelli made it through some rather violent storms. Both of them were a lot closer to tornados than I would like to be.

Teri had a new storm door installed and, word on the street is, she’s considering a new tattoo.

Blue apparently lives in a place where Wii’s do not grow on trees. This disturbed me so much that I dreamed about it a couple of nights ago. I was in a very small store and there they were, on the counter, looking like they had been there for a while and I thought to myself, “Blue needs one of these!”. Weird.

Nobody is building a small dungeon office in his basement. A place to “get away and play with his geeky toys”. Anyone else buying this?

Avitable? Same ol’ Avi. Just keep your hands and feet away from his mouth.

Amy has discovered the secret to growing pizza. Can you send me some seeds? Puh-leeeze?

Chris is searching for his nuts. And I think it may be time for a worst Super “Bowl” hair-cut contest. I got game.

But the biggest shock of all, to me anyways, was that the ever fabulous Mr. Fab moved almost a 1000 miles away to find true love. Way to go F-man!

And unfortunately, one of “us” suffered a minor meltdown. My heart goes out to this person. Hey, we’re all human. And from what I’ve seen so far, bloggers are a very compassionate group of people. I hope we can forgive and move on. I’ve been in a very forgiving mood lately. Maybe because of all the Christian music I’ve been listening to lately. HA! More on that later…