repetitive stress situations

now playing: new england patriots versus new orleans saints on fox sports


every now and then, something comes over my son and he slips into his comic mode, and he's just unbelievable to be around. tonight would have been, by all assumptions, jayda's night for attention - she finally, after much persuasion, got a consensus from her mom and i to get her belly button pierced...i took her to do the deed after work, went in with her (along with her friend frankie) to get it done...dylan was along, but he waited in the lobby. didn't want to see it, i'm sure.

so we went to boehringers' afterward, and he slipped into his zone...he started off with a remark about "blood veins"...blood veins, as opposed to all those other kinds of veins, ya know. so i said that we were gonna assign unnecessary adjectives to everything for the rest of the night. i started off with some remark about jayda not putting so many fries in her "chewing mouth" or she might choke on one of them if it got caught in her "swallowing throat"...and it only really got worse from there...culminating in dylan's perhaps-freudian slip about the "ejacuation proclimation"...


somehow, i made it home without pissing my pants...


we were all in pretty good spirits, considering the irrefutable proof we encountered, when i picked up the kids, that their mom is most definitely on crack...she told me that she really liked my hair the length that it is now, and that i "had a richard gere thing goin' on"...


crackhead.


a number of things have been pointing me to a definite necessity for a sabbatical soon. very soon.


first of all, i'm finding of late that something that i've been noticing as a passing fluke for the past year and a half or so has become entirely too regular, too routine, and has increased in its intensity.

it started out as an occasional odd failure on the part of my fingers to execute the orders sent to them by my brain...as far back as some of the stone road gigs, there were times when i could remember intending to play a certain phrase or run, and my hands would have other ideas. i just wrote it off to an intermittent brain fart or something equally harmless. and it happened so infrequently that i never had reason to consider it past the point in time that it happened.

however, i've been finding - now that i've been playing these happy hour gigs in tandem with the "tommy" schedule, that it's descended into many, if not all, of the traditional carpal tunnel symptoms. numbness that shoots up my wrist into my forearm, tingling in my fingers, inability to push down on the strings hard enough to form clean chords...it hasn't been perpetual, but it's been persistent enough to get my attention.

i haven't seen anyone about this yet...i've talked to a few people about it, but i haven't sought out any actual professional help. i will, soon, but i have the gretna show to get through now, i have viva gigs scheduled through the end of the year, and i have an album project that's very important to me that i'm beginning after the gretna show is up that i will finish before i undergo any kind of treatment.


so, long story short - i'm not sure what happens with my hands in 2006, but i have an agenda for 2005, and i'm going to do my best to get everything done that i have on my plate for now.

what this also means is that there won't be any side projects of note for the rest of the year, unless i'm called upon by one of my existing allies for something. i've had a couple of things ruminating (one of which i seem to have booked for the wrong week, at the same point in time that i had to replace my cellphone battery...mister murphy looks over my shoulder and laughs his ass off every now and then, i'm sure)..anyway, a couple of things ruminating that i was hoping to begin working on after the theatre thing had finally run its course, but i'm having my doubts at this point as to whether or not i should even be thinking that way. it's funny, though, man...there i'll be sitting, scanning gigfinder or craigslist looking for "musicians wanted" situations, even though i know that now probably isn't a good time. it's pathetic in the same way that a married man with a mistress sitting in a singles bar reading personal ads in the paper would be.


so i've made the only rational decision i can make - i'm going to finish what's on my plate and deal with following through on my existing committments, and then we'll see what the future has in store.

this album is going to be a very special record...i've committed to the project, but i haven't yet found a home for it. it's certainly possible that i might release it myself, but i'd rather find a credible place for it to lay its head. i haven't been working that hard at that part of it yet, frankly...i made a couple of phone calls to folks that i felt would be the best place to send it, but i haven't followed through on that as of this point in time. but i will.


here's the scoop.


for the longest time now, my buddy jon rosenbaum has had this running joke that i should do an EP of poco covers and call it pickin' up the pizza (a pun on the title of the first record, pickin' up the pieces, for those not in the know).

about six to eight weeks ago, jon and i were having dinner with the band before their show at the old mill in spring lake, nj, and the subject came up...and later that night, i talked privately with rusty about it and got the necessary blessing to evolve jons' brainchild into a full length album of poco covers, which i'd release as a benefit album for george granthams' medical expenses. i'm going to cut the record myself and keep the costs down, utilize the help of friends that i've already spoken with about working on the record (including wendy), and - if no label chooses to participate - sell it through the site and through whatever other avenues will participate, as long as they respect the non-profit spirit of the project.


i really, really want to have that available by 12/1, if that's doable. if this situation with my left hand pans out to be what my instincts tell me what it is, then i'll be as ready as i'm going to be to face whatever the hell this might be.


i've also been weighing a book project that i thought about delving into some years back that i found some renewed interest in recently when i heard from one of the guys who i'd planned to interview for it...so i might think about going down that road (although i can't see how typing is any less a repetitive stress situation than playing guitar could be)...but that's a long way away, for me.


i don't want to cast a shadow of gloom over what's happening for the next four to six months...to the best of my knowledge, this isn't a warren zevon situation...i'm not dying or anything, and life will go on. however, when you've spent this much of your life and you've invested this much of your self-esteem into your ability to do something like what i do, it's pretty daunting to have to think about a life devoid of that ability. certainly, i'm considering the worst case scenario far, far sooner than i should be...but i would have to imagine that most people, when faced with something with this much potential to change their lives, probably do the same thing. i don't think i'll still be thinking this way a year from now, no matter what the reality reveals itself to be...but i'm finding myself forced to consider some possibilities that i had no reason to consider not that long ago.