MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

“EXCUSE ME, OFFICER. How can I get to the Manhattan Bridge?”

“Manhattan Bridge?! You’re in Brooklyn now, chief!”

Of course I knew that I was in Brooklyn! When you get in the wrong lane and enter the Battery Tunnel against your will, you end up in Brooklyn! Like it or not! Plus you throw $3.50 out the window, quite literally, to pay the toll for going through the tunnel.

So, I thanked the nice officer, pulled ahead and paid my toll. Ahead of me were three roads with signs that each said something about Route 278. The one that I really needed was on the right but I could not get to it because there were barricades in the way. The one on the left led to the Verrazano Bridge and Staten Island. I already mistakenly got onto the Verrazano last Sunday, connived my way out of paying the toll and was allowed to return to Brooklyn. So, since the road to the right was inaccessible and the one on the left was obviously the wrong way, I chose Door Number 2 and went straight ahead. A lucky guess and a few left turns and I was on 278. Five minutes later I was back in Manhattan. Let me try again.

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JF AND A FRIEND of ours were meeting with another man at a Wendy’s on Nassau Street, right near Ground Zero. While driving around trying to find a parking spot, I ended up too far downtown, got onto West Street to head back north, got stuck in the wrong lane and **POOF** I was in Brooklyn. Once I got back into Manhattan I tried again. Then I got stuck in traffic and heard on the radio that there was a demonstration on Broadway from Worth Street all the way down to Battery Park and traffic was not moving. I hopped off onto some side streets, swung back around to Canal Street, plowed my way through traffic down to Chinatown, careened my way down near the Seaport. There I met up with JF near Fulton and Water Street. I missed their whole meeting.

“Where were you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”

After looking like a fool on Sunday with the Verrazano episode, how could I tell her that I did it again and ended up in Brooklyn? I might be stupid sometimes, but not stupid enough to admit to a girl that I’ve been stupid! That would be really stupid and wimpy too!

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AFTER a dinner of oyster soup and a dish of vegetables with eggplant (which I couldn’t deal with), we went to check on the business cards that we were having printed. They were awful looking! The owner of the print shop, a Chinese lady, was not very pleasant. She was blasting JF in Chinese. JF was getting pretty upset. So, I stepped in. After all, I was wearing a tie again! I pointed out the deficiencies of the cards and calmly but forcefully informed this woman that I would not accept them. After some more debate and with the help of another Chinese friend the woman finally agreed to re-do the cards.

She said to me, “I’ll do it only for you because I like you!”

“It’s the tie, isn’t it?”

Well, by this point in the day, I had enough frustration. Between the driving mishaps in the afternoon, the scuffle with the print shop lady, the bad eggplant, I had my fill of annoyances! I was ready to send out my May Day signal. I was ready to send out the SOS!

Such was May Day for me. Sure, it was a beautiful, sunny Wednesday afternoon. I was in the city to see JF. But for the first two hours I couldn’t get to her because of the parking situation which led to the unwanted tour of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. However, the day ended well. We closed out the evening sitting in the car at one of our favorite spots near the Verrazano watching the ships come and go. It’s nice to find some peace in a busy city.

I BLAME CAROLE KING: THE EVIL INFLUENCES OF MY MOTHER’S MUSIC

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

I’M LISTENING TO “Walking into Clarksdale” by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Man! Talk about a stinky CD! I got it a few years ago on Ebay. I guess I just had to listen to it today to remind myself how bad it is! What a disappointment compared to most of their early work in Zeppelin! There won’t be any writing inspiration from this music! I better put something else on!

Let’s see… Dire Straits? Eagles? ELO? (Hmm… “Evil Woman” I could write about X.1 or X.2.) The Goo Goo Dolls? The Guess Who? (Hmm again… “American Woman” Sounds like more ex-wife inspiration.) Don Henley? (“The End of the Innocence” That happened at birth.) Faith Hill? (Wait! Who put THAT in my CD collection?) Carole King? (Lots of childhood inspiration there thanks to Mom!) Led Zeppelin? (Nope. I got a bad Page and Plant vibe right now.) Lynyrd Skynyrd? (“Gimme Back my Bullets” Ah! More ex-wife inspiration!) John Mellencamp? (Someone once told me that I sound like a mix of Bob Seger and John Mellencamp when I sing. “Sammy Cougar Mellonhead.”) Nazareth? (Not again! “Love Hurts” More ex material!) Tom Petty? Pink Floyd?

Did you notice that they are all in alphabetical order? Yeah. It’s one of my idiosyncrasies, just like making sure all of my money is facing the same direction with the smaller bills in front.

OKAY. Here we go. It’s Carole King. Look what you’ve done to me, Mother! “Oooo, Darling! When you’re near me and you tenderly call my name…” What have I become? Oh, this is disgusting! I hope none of the guys at work find out that I listen to this mush! Yet I don’t seem to have the will to turn it off. And it’s taking me back…

I’m remembering the year that my parents divorced. I was nine. The signs that the end was near were pretty obvious even for a nine-year-old. The note on the table that read, “You can have the pool. I want such-and-such,” was a dead giveaway. When the news was broken to Sister C and I, I remember saying, “I know already.” We were in the dining room at Pop’s diner.

Was I angry about it? Did I have resentments? Did it cause some heartache and bring weirdness into my life? I’d be a liar if I answered no. Yet, through the years I realized that I would not have become the person that I am if I didn’t experience living through my parents’ divorce. I also have this gut feeling that I would have been a rather boring person, maybe a passionless average Joe. Just before the divorce I was interested in playing the saxophone. My God! That would have prevented my whole glorious drumming career! I could have turned out to be one of those kids in the band who have no coordination yet insist on “trying out” your drum set. How annoying! And they never stop once they start! A few of these types came SOOOO close to being harpooned through the throat by a drumstick! So, I didn’t spend much time thinking about what could have been if my parents stayed together. To me it felt more like this was the path that my life needed to follow. It’s just the way it was.

“You gotta get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world that you’re beautiful as you feel.” Well, Carole, easy for you to sing about it! Not always the easiest thing in the world though! But I’m learning to do it more!

NOW, where was I? Oh yeah. Age nine.

Remember Pop’s red Ford Ranchero? For the rest of my fourth grade school year we lived with my grandparents and Mom drove us back and forth to school instead of changing schools mid year. (Thank you Mom!) It seemed like we were always on Asbury Road. I distinctly remember “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John playing on the radio one hot afternoon as we drove home.

Fourth grade was also the year of my first fist fight in school. Yeah, there’s a milestone for any boy! The fight broke out in the middle of class. I don’t even remember the other kid’s name now. It was stupid. I had other fights outside of school in those days. One friend and I got into fights every now and then. One time I broke something of his. He chased me all the way home. The front door was locked and Mom was inside vacuuming the living room. This kid was pounding on me and I was pounding on the door. But Mom wouldn’t open it! (I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Mom!) I ended up getting pushed into the rose bushes. He got me good. That may have been our last fight before I moved away. I think he was one up on me. We’ll see who ends up in the bushes if I ever find that guy!

It was also the same year that I punched an eighth grader in the face. He was this big tall kid with flaming red hair. One time he chased me all over the neighborhood, pounding me on the top of the head the whole time. I couldn’t get away from him. Then one day I went to meet one of my friends, David Clark. At the spot where we were supposed to meet there was someone sitting on the other side of the road. I thought it was my friend and yelled, “Hey, Clarkbar!” To my horror, the person on the other side unfolded and stood up. Strutting his way across the street was the giant carrot head! “What did you call me??” “Nothing!” POW!! Right in the left cheek! It worked! It left him stunned just long enough for me to get a head start. I ran to the house of the aforementioned friend (the one who shoved me into the roses) and pounded on his front door. His mom opened the door and yanked me in just as the flaming giant was nipping at my heels! He left me alone after that.

There was another bully where I lived as a kid. His name was Gary Sinko. Sinko doesn’t sound like much of a bully’s name. But we were all afraid of him. I don’t know exactly why. He wasn’t very big. It was all in his attitude I guess. He used to pick on me and beat on me. One day I was crossing through some yards. Suddenly, Gary was standing right in front of me. “Where do you think you are going?” “Nowhere!” POW!! Right in the stomach! Again, it bought me enough of a head start to get away. I never punched a kid in the stomach before. I remember thinking of how soft it felt. He never bothered me again either.

Bullies are everywhere though! Even after we moved to Gram’s I had to deal with a few. One of them was Victor Motyka. Even in fifth grade he had long hair. It was pure blonde. And he was smoking pot back then. He was a bad dude with a big bully attitude. Everyone in school was afraid of him. He was a little crazy. It was dislike at first sight for he and I. He’d push me around and what not. Until one day, the day he made a big mistake. Returning my tray in the cafeteria during lunch one day I bumped into Victor. He decided to show off in front of everyone. Whenever Victor was around, people watched him to see if he’d do anything crazy. So, he started pushing me and calling me “four eyes.” (Yeah, I wore glasses as a kid.) Then he knocked my glasses off onto the floor. POW!! I punched him right in the face! No running this time. I stood there and waited. I guess I put him in his place because he didn’t fight back and he never bothered me again. If you don’t put a bully in his place he will always feed on your fear and never leave you alone.

WOW! Look at what this Carole King music is doing to me! People talk about rock-n-roll causing people to do violent things. I don’t know. I think this mellow junk is more dangerous! Maybe there are subliminal messages recorded backwards on this CD. “I feel the earth move under my feet.” Yeah! It’s from the bodies of the wounded falling down! “You just call on my name, and you know wherever I am I’ll coming running to see you.” No thanks, Carole! You’ll just come running to knock me into the rose bushes! I need to listen to something wholesome instead of all this easy listening angst! Something like Nirvana maybe…

Now, with the proper musical background, let’s go back to fourth grade and talk about…

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PUKING!

I only ever threw up once in school. I told Mom that I felt sick in the morning. She wouldn’t believe me and felt that I was just faking it. As a kid you are guilty until proven innocent. So off to school I went. I made it to lunchtime. I managed to force down some fruit cocktail. But it didn’t stay down for long. After lunch our class was in the library working on book reports. I delayed the puking for as long as possible. That’s the way I am. I can’t handle it. I lay there for hours when I have the flu and dread the idea of puking until it comes out with such violence that it nearly rips my head off. Afterwards I always tell myself that the next time I will puke ASAP because you always feel so much better as soon as you do. But I never do that! So, here I was in the library, choking it down until I couldn’t hold it much longer. The teacher was surrounded by students who were waiting their turn to ask questions. So I in my timidity stood there green-faced until it was finally my turn. I said, “I… think… I’m… gonna… pu…” He pointed and yelled, “Run to the bathroom! Run!” One step. Two steps. Three steps. BLAHHHHHH! Right there on the library carpeting! It was embarrassing but I didn’t feel well enough to care. A few more steps. BLAHHHHHH! BLAHHHHH! Ten minutes later Mom was picking me up in the nurse’s office. “I told you I was sick.”

NOW, the most embarrassing incident in my entire school career happened in second grade. During the whole ten years of school that followed, nothing topped this. No, not the time that I fell in a huge puddle during gym class. No, not the time that I farted by accident in seventh grade geometry class. No, not the time that I got caught burning papers during study hall in the auditorium. This just may be the most embarrassing incident in my whole life. It happened when I had to read a report in front of the class. I did my report on bats, the flying kind. I sat there in utter nervousness as student after student got in front of the class to read. I was so scared! So much so that I did not even have the courage to ask to use the bathroom before it was my turn. (You know what’s coming. Don’t you?) So I got up to read. I was pale white and shaking. All eyes were on me. It was my turn in the spotlight. I can still see all of those kids with looks of anticipation on their faces, waiting for me to start. “My report is on bats. Bats are the only flying mammals…” PSSSSsssss…

Yes! I pissed my pants in front of the whole class in second grade! There! Now the whole world knows! For all of these years the laughter of those kids has echoed in my mind night after night! I can still smell the fear and urine spreading on the cheap indoor/outdoor carpeting! I still curse the flying mammals!

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But God bless my second grade teacher, Mrs. Yates! She quickly ushered me out of the room with her arm around me. “Oh, Sammy! Why didn’t you tell me you had to go? I would have let you. Go down to the nurse.” I walked into the nurse’s office with my pants soaked and reeking. “What happened to you??” “Uh… I got sick?”

SO MUCH for the past. Here’s something interesting. I just joined the Toastmasters club where I work. Let’s hope that my first speech there goes a little better than my speech in second grade! I hope they don’t ask me to speak on the topic of the most embarrassing experience of my life. I’ll be pissed!

IT’S THE WORLD I KNOW

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

COLLECTIVE SOUL plays on as I begin this entry. Not knowing where the words will lead me. Not knowing what stories or memories I might chose to relate to you. I do have some thoughts about New York City running about in my brain. Maybe I’ll go there…

“Has our conscience shown?
Has the sweet wind blown?
Has all the kindness gone?
Hope still lingers on.
I drink myself to newfound pity
Sitting alone in New York City
And I don’t know why.”

AS YOU MAY already know, I spend quite a bit of time in New York City. Chinatown mostly. Driving in, out and around the city has become second nature. I never had much of a problem with it really. A long time ago I learned the secret of how to drive in the city. Want to know it? Simple. Do what the taxi cab drivers do. No hesitation. No apologies. Just drive. If you hesitate, you lose, you wait. Now the drivers that I truly admire in the city are those on bicycles. Some of those guys are insane, especially the messengers! Man, they fly! They dodge pedestrians, bounce off of cars, weave among the traffic up and down the avenues. I have to do it one day! I have to take my bike to the city and go for it! Anyone man enough to go with me??

WELL, recently I was in Flushing for a business seminar. A big group of us went out to eat at Bobby V’s afterwards. Even though our waitress forgot to put our order in (and wouldn’t admit it) and all the rest of our group was on dessert before we even were served our drinks, it was a decent place to eat. It’s in the Sheraton Inn near Shea Stadium.

It’s funny how places that you went to as a kid seem so different when you see them as an adult. Such is Shea Stadium. I think I was there as a young kid with my grandfather. I think that was the time that he caught a ball with his bare hands in the stands. Pop just stood right up and caught that sucker with one hand! One bare hand! It was awesome. And I vaguely remember a friend of his who went with us. He was an older man and he had a big ol’ Jimmy Durante nose. Or did this happen at the Vet in Philadelphia? I’m not sure. But I was at Shea with my dad for a Jets game when I was around 12 or so. I distinctly remember that time because we were in the nosebleed section where binoculars didn’t even help us to see much. And that was the game where some jerk spilled beer all over my coat. But now Shea looks different than I thought I remembered.

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So, after a late meal at Bobby V’s, I drove from Flushing to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn to take JF home. Then I drove back up to the Manhattan Bridge in crossed over into Chinatown to go out through the Holland Tunnel via Canal Street. I don’t know which is worse, paying the outrageous seven-dollar toll to cross the Verrazano into Staten Island or endangering my kidneys driving on Canal Street. I mean, there are ruts so deep on that street that my little red Toyota disappears from view several times before I reach the tunnel! But I usually go that way and make a pit stop at a Dunkin Donuts just outside the tunnel in Jersey City.

ON MY WAY through Manhattan that night I noticed that the Towers of Light were still shining up into the sky. Then I remembered that it was the last night that they would be on. So I went downtown, parked the car, grabbed the camera and strolled around. It was 1:30 am. There were a lot of people there. A lot of people had camera gear set up. I took a few shots. They didn’t come out as good as I would have liked. I walked over to Ground Zero but didn’t stay long. By then it was 2:30. I remember thinking, “Wow! Look at all these people out here at such an hour! What are they thinking?” Duh! What was I thinking?? I was probably the only one in the crowd that still had 75 miles to drive home! I was glad that I took the time to stop there. I still cannot believe that the Towers are gone. I still cannot comprehend the evil that carried out such an act. I wish that we could go back and rewrite that day. Incidentally, I found a journal written by a woman named Deima who worked in Tower One. Her fiancee worked in Tower Two and did not make it out. Her perspective on her loss is moving. Check out “Start from One.” (12/14/15 – Note – Her website no longer exists.)Here’s a clip from her entry for December 11. “A noise that sounds to me like a train slamming into a brick wall drowns out the horns and sirens and suddenly the air in front of me is milky, chalky, grey and white. Smoke or fog, something I can’t breathe, is charging after us, over us. It’s all around. I fall and someone falls on top of me. I think that I can smell cologne. I gag. Building two has come down. Rob works in building two. It is now 9:50 AM.” Be sure to go into her archives and read her entry for December 11.

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“Are we listening
To hymns of offering?
Have we eyes to see
That love is gathering?
All the words that I’ve been reading
Have now started the act of bleeding
Into one.”

LAST SATURDAY, I was in New York with JF. It was a nice time. We went to the South Street Seaport. JF wanted to try on some dresses at Anne Taylor. She looked great in this black sleeveless dress! There’s something about a Chinese girl in a black dress! Is it the dark hair? Is it the dark eyes? Is it the skin tone? Maybe it’s just JF. She sure made that dress look good! At the Seaport we also walked around in several other stores. I got an “air plant” from this little seashell shop. It’s really cool! It doesn’t have to be planted in dirt. It has no roots. Its leaves absorb moisture from the humidity in the air. Talk about low maintenance!

Also that Saturday we went to Long Island City in Queens to visit Yue Yun, one of JF’s friends. This girl works in a garment factory there. She works 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. She was working this day and brought us inside. So, quite unexpectedly I found myself in the middle of what we would definitely call a “sweatshop.” It was a damp rainy day. But even with fans blowing, that room was pretty warm. I am sure that it is nearly unbearable in there in the summer. There I sat with my tie and dress shirt on, the only white guy in the place, surrounded by a few dozen Chinese women and a few Mexican ladies and guys. The floor supervisor came running over asking if he could help me with something, a look of anxiety in his eye. Yue Yun said something in Chinese and he just walked away. I guess whatever she said assured him that I was not INS or CIA or FBI or anything. Can you imagine that? Me as an undercover agent for the CIA or something? There’s a place where JF and I go in Chinatown where they have gambling in a back room. The room is always full of smoke and the sound of mahjong tiles shuffling around on the tables. The bathroom is at the end of the hallway just before the door to this back room. About a month ago I noticed that the people in the room get rather apprehensive when I walk down the hall to use the bathroom. It cracks me up! So now I intentionally use my best secret agent strut when I go down that hall. The last time I did that one guy in the room looked really scared. As soon as I shut the bathroom door, I heard the other door slam and lock. What was he thinking? Doesn’t he know that Inspector Snyder always gets his man? “I’ll be baachk.” And I’ll be wearing a tie too, punk!

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“So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below.
And I laugh at myself
As the tears roll down.
‘Cause it’s the world I know.
It’s the world I know.”*

YES, this is the world I know. This journal just relates bits and pieces of it. Sometimes the tears roll down and I wonder how some of it got to be the way that it is. Mostly I laugh at myself. Someone said, “Tragedy plus time equals comedy.” Five years ago it felt like it was all tragedy and tears. It was like the line in the song above, “Has all the kindness gone?” Back then I would not have believed you if you told me that a whole new world would begin to open up in a few years. “Hope still lingers on.” There is always hope. When you cannot feel it you have to just believe it. How does one believe in hope when he feels like there is no hope? Well, I don’t know how to explain it in a few words. That would take several journal entries. Some of the explanation has been woven between the lines of this journal already. I just know that hope still lingers on even in the darkest of days. You can believe it even when you can’t see it or feel it. I did. You can too. “Walk up on high and step to the edge to see my world below.” Stand here with me for a moment. I finally found the courage to step to that edge. “It’s the world I know.” Sometimes it’s crazy as a single dad. Sometimes it’s quite interesting as an American guy in love with a Chinese girl. Sometimes it’s exciting as a country boy in the big city. Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s heart-wrenching. “Tragedy plus time equals comedy.” If I wrote the story of my life, would it be a “tragically romantic comedy” or a “comically tragic romance?” I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

*Lyrics from the song “The World I Know” by Collective Soul.

CHALK FLOWERS

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

WHILE browsing through some old photos I came across these of simple chalk flowers. It’s amazing how the image of something so plain can take you back in time, open many thoughts, and create significant desires deep in your chest somewhere. It’s a wonder how a small child’s creation can speak volumes to you when you have been so caught up in playing the adult! The images of some pastel colors on the sidewalk in your backyard, long worn away by months of rain and wind and feet, can bring such memories with them. Suddenly you hear the children’s laughter. You feel the warmth of the spring sun. You see the slight shiver of your five-year-old as those last few chilly breezes weave through her skirted legs. You hear a dog barking across the yards, bikes whizzing down the alley, and the lawn mower of that over eager guy who just has to be the first to cut his lawn. A picture speaks a thousand words… and a million memories.

OH! To have the freedom to draw chalk flowers without care! Remember days such as these? Remember when your greatest concern for the afternoon was that your sister might smudge your chalk creation by stepping on it? Remember how slowly the hours strolled along on those spring days? You could take your time and pick out just the right color. You could crouch and contort your body to get into just the right position to make your design perfect – without care that your neighbor was laughing at your methods. You could live the moment rather than worry about sustaining an existence. An unexpected afternoon shower might wash away an hour of work. You might cry for a few minutes. But as soon as the walk was dry, you were right back at it and your loss was forgotten. You were resilient. You were free.

But it seems we have a tendency to complicate things as we get older. We rob ourselves of our own freedom by our worry, our fear, our laziness, our refusal to grow and adapt. It is true that Jesus said that we must be as little children before God. But there is a difference between being child-like and childish. Too many of us have remained childish in areas where we should have matured. We should have learned earlier. We should have acted sooner. We should have been men. But we insisted on being boys. At the same time we cast aside the child-like qualities in order to become “grown up.” We soon grew out of our honesty. Humility and a teachable heart became weakness and stupidity. Wonder and awe were exchanged for pessimism and negativity. Hope and passion were sold for a few bucks so we could buy a beer and a nudie magazine. We thought we were becoming men. We only became insensitive to any beauty around us or in us.

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What signs of beauty have we left upon our paths for others? Have we sketched with the pastels of kindness and compassion? Has love been the outline of all of our drawings along the way? Have we drawn images that will inspire those who come after us, creating a thirst within them for more quality in their lives? Or have we drawn base and obscene characters along our walk? Cheap cartoons with cruel captions to degrade and humiliate even those closest to us? Dare I mention the ones we drew in the blood of hatred? The ones that now may never wash away even under the torrent of a thousand storms of tears and apologies?

FRIENDS… We can go back! We can start again! Maybe we cannot erase all that we have drawn. Maybe we cannot scrub it all away. But while we are breathing we can continue down our walk and create new pictures. As men we can create scenes of depth and meaning. We can copy the simplicity of our children and paint lasting portraits of the meaningful things in life for them to follow. Remember when you practiced with the chalk. Stir up those skills. Get on your knees with the spring sun upon your back and draw. Draw! Draw! Blend your colors. Improve your strokes. You are an artist with a child inside of you. The child will inspire you. Be the man. Draw!

The little ones are watching.

DRAW THE LINE

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

JOE PERRY’S slide guitar licks are bending the sound waves and I am sliding back to age 14 right now. Yeah, it’s Aerosmith again. I have not listened to much music lately. But at lunch today I was telling someone about how different I was way back when. They found it a little hard to believe. But I was certainly a different person then. “Draw the Line” seems like the appropriate background music for this article.

You see, back in ninth grade, I was a rock star. That is what I lived for. Many hours were spent behind my drum kit, a stack of records on the player, headphones pumping at full volume on my ears. Play until I get it right. Play until I get it right. Play until my hands bleed. Do it again. Do it again. Aerosmith. AC/DC. Boston. Kansas. Play until I master it. Do it again. Thin Lizzy. Kiss. Again. Again. Rush… well, at least attempt Rush and then tip my hat to Neil Peart as the greatest.

It was in ninth grade that I participated in my first “Battle of the Drummers” when our school jazz band played a concert before the whole school. My competition was this rather dorky kid, greasy hair, plaid pants, button-down shirt. His drumming was tight though. For a dork, he was pretty fast. I can’t remember his name. Technically speaking, as far as rudiments and precision go, he was just a slight step above me. Drove me crazy! I wanted to be at the top! But I had something that he lacked. I had the whole rock-n-roll image thing working in my favor. On the day of the “Battle” I showed up in my normal faded ripped Levi’s and my favorite Aerosmith t-shirt. It was a black and white half-sleeve with the artwork from “Draw the Line” on it. I was nothing but long hair and denim. How could double-knit polyester ever compete? It was like Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass versus Steven Tyler and the boys.

I remember that just before our concert was to start, one of the cutest girls in our class came up to me. She was one of a set of twins that every guy in school was crazy about. She took a thread off of her coat, tied it around one of my drumsticks, kissed me and said, “That is for good luck.” I was the embodiment of rock-n-roll that day! I had the attitude. I had the sharp looking drum kit. I had the girls. The dork had the rudiments. I had the hair and the attitude! When we battled, everyone politely watched when it was his turn. When it was my turn, the lights flashed, the walls shook and a zillion girls screamed. Still happens when I walk into a room now and then.

IT WAS NOT all fame and glory back then. There was confusion, fear and frustration as a teenager. There were insecurities. There was even a short period when I thought I was losing my mind. It happened one day as I walked down the hallway in school with my girlfriend. I suddenly thought to myself, “What if everything that I see, hear and feel is not real? What if it is all an illusion?” I had this feeling like I could put my hand out and tear through what I saw to reveal what was truly there. I remember feeling like I was floating through life at that point. It was so unnerving! Nothing was real! It was all a big joke, all a big trick that all the non-real people around me conspired to pull off at the expense of my sanity. My mom even took me to talk to a shrink. What was his advice? “When you feel anxious and a little crazy, go play your drums.” I guess that is how I got so good. Insanity drove me to it! You have to be half-crazy to really succeed at anything in your life anyway!

AS I SAID in the beginning of the article, my friend could not believe that I was so drastically different back in the day. It kind of boggled her mind when I told her how cruel I could be to other people. My group of friends and I made it a habit of letting people know just how stupid, ugly or otherwise below us we felt that they were. I remember one poor girl who constantly went out of her way to be kind to me. Yet, every time she said hello to me, my response was, “You’re a dog.” And that was mild cruelty compared to some of the ways I treated people! When I look back on it, I don’t know how my friends and I didn’t get ourselves seriously hurt. We were a bunch of skinny kids picking on kids that were twice our size in some cases. I distinctly remember this big guy. We very affectionately called him “Boogerdy.” He was huge, dressed a little sloppily, and hung out with a group of real nerds. We said horrible things to Boogs! We threw food at him during lunch. We made comments about buffaloes being in his family line and other assorted obscenities.

Somehow I managed to make it into my junior year of high school without getting killed by any of the people that I ridiculed. In the middle of that year my life changed quite unexpectedly. I became a Christian. Maybe I will relate that story some other time. For now I will tell you that my whole perspective on life and people changed. Before I knew what really happened to me, I found myself caring about people. I found myself talking to people whom a few short months before I would have rather died than even acknowledge their existence. The girl who always said hello was no longer an animal but a person with a name.

During this time of my life I found a whole new group of people to be friends with. It was a little hard for me to fit in at first. You have to remember the whole rock-n-roll image syndrome. I found myself associating with people who were dorks. People who were intelligent. People who were not afraid to care about other people. People who were not so concerned with their own coolness. They accepted me. I knew their acceptance was genuine when I attended a home Bible study for the very first time. It was being held at a friend’s house. After ringing the doorbell, I could not believe who opened the door. It was Boogs! Before I could say anything or run or disappear, he shook my hand and said, “Good to see you!” I just wanted to crawl under the welcome mat and hide in shame! We became friends and he never, ever once mentioned even one of the many unkind things that I did to him. Shortly after that night, when I was talking with Boogs in school, one of my “best” friends stopped and said, “How can you even talk to him? He’s so stupid and ugly!” I said, “It just doesn’t matter anymore, man.” He didn’t get it and soon thereafter he didn’t want anything to do with me.

SO WHAT is the moral of the story? Long hair and Levi’s are better than greasy hair and double-knit plaid? He who has the most girls wins the drum battle? No. The moral is that he who has the most heart wins. He wins happiness. He wins friends. He might lose associates who do not know how to be friends. But he wins much more than he loses. He enjoys much more than he suffers. He adds depth and satisfaction to his existence. He adds quality to his character. Without heart, whether you are a dork or a rock star, you are nothing. That is where we must “Draw the Line.” The line is drawn at the issue of our hearts. Got heart? It does a body good! It looks good on ya! A heart is a terrible thing to waste.