My new career

I have some exciting news to share with every one. After much deliberation, I have decided to chuck everything and join the Foo Fighters’ on their upcoming record deal followed by a 200 city tour.  Late this afternoon, I accepted their offer to be the new drummer for the band, though it was a hard choice because we really like Austin.  But I’ll certainly enjoy touring around the world with them and playing “Wheels” every night, the song that I wrote for them last year; I guess they really liked it.

I never knew if I would tour with a band again after leaving Iron Maiden .  I thought my performing days were over after the Maiden Japan tour.  It just seemed like there was no place higher to go – like we had reached the ultimate stage of our development as a band.  I let success go to my head and the crash was hard. Rehab was good for me though, and I’ve found some new material that the FF guys cant wait to record.

So we relocate to Seattle next week, just in time to hit the studio.  We bought this terrific cedar villa high up in the Olympic National Forest that overlooks Puget Sound, though I think we will spend most of our time at the lake house. I’ve already started growing my hair out, and I dug my flannel and sneakers out of the attic.

Yeah, we will miss everyone.  We hate to leave you. But the allure of a life with almost no responsibility whatsoever was just too much to pass up.  I’ll never need to worry about money again, that’s a relief.  And with all the free time that musicians have, I’ll be able to watch my kids grow up and do fun things with them every day – hiking, sailing, hanging out in the cool Seattle scene.  Yessir, Im finally breaking out. I hope you all can come join me on the other side.

Help, I'm alive

I think I could go on living if I never had to have a dental hygienist pick my teeth again with one of those ultra-sonic blaster things.  What a sad, inhuman experience.  Either let my teeth rot out or let me just have eternal-state teeth that never decay, never get coffee stains, never fracture.  What are teeth anyway? Where did they come from, evolutionarily speaking? Are you telling me that random DNA mutations spawned two rows of 18 teeth surrounding a tongue in perfect array?  How many previous rejected hominids had the teeth in alternate configurations, like right in the middle of the roof of their mouths, and were continually biting their tongues?  Every 10 seconds they were cursing, holding their mouths.  And so they failed to survive.  Does Jesus have teeth now?  Those funny little bones, disconnected from other bones in their gummy substrate. Does one think of God having teeth, and if you saw him now, would they be the whitest teeth you ever saw? Did Jesus get cavities, because the water was not fluorinated back then? Does he still have them, and if so why? Does taking on the form of a man mean having these semi-random bones jutting around in one's mouth? And were his teeth perfect and straight, or would he require braces today?  And if they were crooked and over-bitten, or if, say, three teeth had to be pulled during the course of his life, are they all back in place now that he is in the state of his glorification? What would he say to the horrid procedure of having plaque blasted off using ultra-sonic sound waves, sending blinding jolts of paroxysm through his frame?  Would this be part of being "acquainted with sorrow" today? Would he submit to having a crown put on his teeth? Would he find it ironic, given that he laid down all crowns when he left heaven to come to earth?  Would it remind him of the "crown of glory and honor" to come?  When we cast our crowns at his feet, will that include the one I will be getting next month on my #18 molar?  How much more prosthesis will I permit to be added to my mortal coil?  When a person has artificial teeth, and maybe a knee joint or two, is he some percentage less human?  A little more like The Borg of Star Trek, The Next Generation?  And does the natural repugnance of anatomical replacement stop us from proceeding with the horror? No. But consider this question: if a ship, let's say some clipper, gets some pieces replaced, then more pieces, until finally every piece of the ship has been replaced, is it still the same ship?  Can it bear the same name?  If so, then what is the ship's identity? It cannot have been those particular parts that made up the first ship.  So what happens when a human being is replaced by artificial parts?  Does the plastic, silicone, enamel, steel or whatever become me?  Is it identified by my name - like you could take my elbow and say this is John Common's elbow, but what if it was a steel replacement elbow?  No, you would say it's foreign, alien, not really JC's elbow. So, if science makes it possible to replace every part of a person, will that person cease to exist?  My teeth are now approximately 10% foreign matter. But I think I would rather have no teeth than have one of those ultra-sonic picks used on my teeth again.

Twas beauty killed the beast

OK, now that everyone thinks I'm waaayy too fond of drinking, let me divert your attention to more a wholesome subject.

After a frustrating day - I mean, a day that was loaded, permeated, defined by frustration, a day ordained to frustration as if the stars foretold it, a day like 12.12.12 devoted to the destruction of the earth - and I am bombarded by the ugliness of people and the futility of the dumb stuff Im involved in, and the paltriness of the modern world, and the foolishness of children, and the disobedience of pets, and flat tires and dead batteries, then I watch a movie like American Beauty.  And it tells me that the world is so full of beauty, so full in fact that one of the main characters almost cant take it, and his heart is about to cave in, it's so full. And I remember, Oh yeah, there's also beauty, the true knowledge I apprehend through a pleasurable medium.

Now, this is a movie panned by Christian critics.  And it has just enough sexuality that I can't, within pleasant Christian circles, recommend it for fear of causing offense.  And it presents a man with whom the audience is sympathetic, doing very bad things like smoking pot and coaxing an underage girl, but we want him to do it, in our secret naughty intentions (or at least my secret naughtiness, smoking pot with him, rejoicing as he tells off his wife and as their marriage devours itself).  But the redemption is there, and it is almost too subtle, but it is there.

At the end of the film, beauty is hailed, and evil is downcast.  Beauty in the form of love, freedom, virginity, humanity, male and female forms, music.  Bad things are bad: violence, insults, unkindness, oppression, falsehood.  Redemption and then death, enlightenment followed by judgment through natural outworking of bad choices. Amazing.

And after a bad day, a film now 10 years old, dismissed by many, is able to preach to me an old message, a welcome message: the world is full of beauty, overlooked in little things, and we have to slow down to see them. You may have to take up a hobby like home video taping in order to make yourself slow down. But the frustration is not the end. Beauty is the end - look for it, they tell me, slow down.  See.  Look closer. Do something, your own preferred art form.

Food that lies

This one is for Eli

I scooped out a bowl of ice cream, but, as usual, problems arose. It was all wrong. I got angry. I felt like cursing, and unfortunately I said some things I wouldn't say in normal conversation. I said, more to myself really, that things just weren't the same. But I guess I said it out loud.  And an argument ensued.

Things have been in decline for some years, and the springtime of food enjoyment has increasingly succumbed to an autumnal starkness. Indeed, I think many of my favorite foods have been colluding to rebel in some kind of gustatory usurpation. But I could be just imaging that.

My points were at least two-fold, and so I felt I had the stronger argument. One, the whole paltry experience didn't last very long. Oh, I tried! Yes, I tried to slow down, make it last. I exercised various enhancement techniques - chocolate sauce, novelty spoons, etc.  I tried to be sensitive, understanding. I don't think I'm being unreasonable.

But far more incriminating:  the vanilla cream and Oreo chunks were a lie. It made promises, but didn't keep them, not authentically.  Eventually, I began to suspect it had been lying to me for years, and I did not realize it. "How long has this been going on?" I demanded.  It was speechless when cornered. "Have I been blinded all this time? Where is the satisfaction you promised? Why am I still unhappy?  No, stop.  Dont tell me that. Life is not sweet and creamy."

I discovered candy's impotence years ago. Shortly afterward followed all cake. Twinkies and Ding Dongs were just a childhood fling, puppy love, a gradeschool crush, and a wry smile appears across my face at their memories now. Pie? Well...pie and I go way back, but its still a mood thing. But at some point all sweets became uninteresting to me - I just couldn't take the lies any more. Sweetness? Life is not sweetness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.

Meat and vegetables, they don't lie. But sometimes I dont have the patience for their hearty companionship, their constant summons to celebration. I wasn't going to admit it, but I will - I have been secretly enjoying many alternative foods for some years: sushi, mushrooms, wasabi peas, jerky. But while not lying per se, we do not always....*sigh*  How do I put it?  It's like we are not speaking the same language, and eating becomes perfunctory, obligatory. The life, the zest is gone. Ardor cools.

But one friend I know. She can be harsh, the old boot.  And she lies, yes, she's a renown liar. But one anticipates her lies. She's a cheater, she loves and leaves. A regular whore. In the end, she's no better than cake or ice cream for her transience. But she speaks my language. We communicate like no other because she speaks as if she knows of discouragement, weariness, disillusionment, though what can she possibly know of these?  Still, our fellowship, our voluntary fellowship, is a refuge from the storm. For once, I feel understood. She lets me be myself. Perhaps you've met her.