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It wasn’t until I drove the motorcycle through the front door and into the living room, on the way to the kitchen to get some beers, that I realized that the party was out of control.   How to explain this lunacy? Was it a plot by nefarious players? Had there been a gas leak?   Did someone spike my Corn Flakes?   All I know is this: in the Spring of my nineteenth year, I formed a band specifically for the purpose of recording and performing my own music. I had just completed a tour of the East Coast playing with a prominent blues band and met the person who would become my first manager; we’ll call him “Don”, largely because that was his name. At about the same time, I had also come across a short, red-headed force of nature named Jim, who looked like a psychedelic bridge troll and who also had a compelling and powerful voice. Jim also would take a piece of PVC pipe, cut a series of holes in it, and play it as a flute.   Jim and I met at a party I attended on my first n

  On a warm summer day, quite a few years ago, my right hand was gripping the steering wheel and my left elbow was resting on the door of a ridiculously overpowered piece of Detroit Iron in the shape of a 1978 Camaro Z 28. I had shifted through to it’s top gear and my foot held the gas pedal to the floor. I held a half-smoked joint in my left hand. I was stoned. I was beautiful. How fast was I going? There was no way to tell. The speedometer, the gas gauge, and a few other important automobile monitoring devices were not working, including the clock. However, every single warning light was burning so brightly on the dashboard that the glare of them was searing them into my brain. Do I smell smoke? And, what is that weird grinding noise? BANG! I don’t know much about cars. I used to be able to change the oil in my vehicle, as well as change the spark-plugs and wires, replace brake pads and bleed the brake lines; just able to maintain the automobile. However, I do know this: I was (liter

  I don’t have a middle name.   I do have first and last names, but apparently my birth was such a mind-bending horror show that Mom didn’t have the strength to come up with a middle name and Dad was so overwhelmed by being a first time father that all he could manage was giving me a middle letter: ‘J’.   Sixty-some years later, so much energy has been expended returning mail, applications, and other forms because I have a ‘secret’ middle name that I’m somehow REFUSING to disclose (for some mysterious reason) that, if we do end up on a planet burnt to toast, it will be due to my lack of a middle name.   I did some research and found out that there is an Unknown Government Agency tasked with handling people who, through no fault of their own, have no actual middle names. This agency operates in a super secret underground bunker which can be found 35 miles South of Cleetus, Alabama just down Rt. 9, past the Dairy Queen.   The agency is run by Lt. General Laurence (“Bite

I was 3 and 1/3 years old in 1941.  THAT’s when I discovered Bing Crosby.  I know what you’re thinking…. who in the heck is Bing Crosby.  You are also wondering how anyone that age could have accomplished anything but toilet training.  Well, I did.  Let me tell you about it. 1941 was a wonderful year to be a kid like me.  Excitement abounded!  I lived in a small house on South Main Street on the edge of a little town called East Milford, population 3500 plus.  (And multiple dogs and cats running amok.)  The surroundings of the town were woods and country.  It was like paradise as a kid.  (I could have one foot in my back yard and one foot in the corner of my neighbor’s corn field. That’s where I kept a rock to hide my dimes in case I found any in the couch cushions.)  And by crackie (my grandma said that a lot), inside our house was just as fun, too. We lived with my Grandma, my Mother and various Aunts. We had plenty of men in our family but World War 2 was raging in foreign par