I'm A Man. I Have A Camera. I Have A Skull.

Who could blame me?

I'm standing there with a real human skull in one hand, a dead giant fish eating bug in the other hand, and a camera hanging around my neck. How could anyone not know I would use these three things to this end?

Who?

No one, that's who.

Sorry We Missed You; Sincerely, Opportunity.

I made mention last week about a band that I did sound for during my last semester of college. The most fun thirty five bucks a night I ever made. A five piece band of talented players, they had a great sense of humor that I understood. It was one of the very few times in my life that I truly felt I fit in. Where ever we went I felt like I was home.

As much as I enjoyed the soundman gig, I was still a wannabe drummer. Every gig I mixed found me sitting (or actually dancing) behind the board wishing I was up there with them. But between full time school and two other part time jobs (thirty five bucks a night doesn’t go far) left me little time for practicing drums. The fact that I didn’t even own a kit didn’t help matters either. I was the Walter Mitty of drumming.

One day I was spanked square in the face with reality. The drummer they had wasn’t working out, he wasn’t keeping up. They loved the guy but they had to let him go. He was devastated. The drive home after his last gig was a sad night that I hope I never have to witness again.

What followed was a string of fill in drummers and auditions. For me it meant it was time to face a harsh reality. If there was one band that I could be in if I had my choice it would be this band. There I sat, woefully unprepared. I couldn’t even do an audition because of it. One of the guys even said how much I’d fit in perfectly with the band if only I could play, but they just fired a guy and had no intentions of going through that again. There wasn’t much I could say to that. I knew it was true. To my horror I realized just what I had missed. My Chance.

I learned a harsh lesson then that couldn’t be taught in any school. I was suddenly reminded of a Harlen Ellison story I once read. A man described a long past moment in his life where he was boarding a ship and he saw a woman debarking. She met his eyes for a brief second then passed on. In that brief second he realized that she was the pinnacle of love. In that one second he could see an entire future with her laid out before him, the price of admission would be to simply say hello. He remained silent as she continued down the gang plank, he stood frozen with the knowledge that he would never see her again. Forty years later he still lamented that one instant.

I did learn one lesson. I worked on my chops. I went to the open jam religiously every week. I bought some drums. I stopped being Walter and started being Ready. I got a drumming gig with a different band and said goodbye to life as a soundman.

I also finished technical college with honors and embarked on a “career”. More than a decade has passed since that time and I’ve kept my hands (and feet) in drumming ever since. In fact, that missed opportunity band called me years later. Their drummer hurt his back and could I play for them in an hour and a half? I held my own.

It’s only now starting to dawn on me that the lesson I originally thought was so large was actually a subset of the lesson I should have learned.

How’s that saying go? Hit the bulls-eye. Wrong target.

Go Forth And Learn

Yesterday I think I mentioned that I actually graduated from one of the colleges I attended. It’s true, I did. It was a technical college, or, according to my friend who owned the frame shop/art gallery I worked at, a Mickey Mouse school. He thought I should hold out for the real deal. He, in his lifelong affluence, didn’t seem to understand that I just couldn’t afford that. But what did he care? He was selling the gallery and moving to Philadelphia with a new chick he met. He was never going to have to see me again anyway. I tried to explain to him as best I could that it was the only way I could do it. I just didn’t have the money or the resources. My parents certainly weren’t going to pay for school, not even some of it. I was on my own. I had been divorced. I had been through two more failed relationships after the divorce. I was rapidly running out of options. I was an adult. I helped him load his U-Haul and drove it to Philly for him. Driving a large truck wasn’t something he was prepared to do.

I even thought about joining the Air Force as a means to pay for school, that’s how desperate I was becoming. I was also getting to the age that I would be too old to join the military if I waited much longer. But since the frame shop sold I found myself in the unique position of being classified as a displaced worker. I didn’t know what that meant but it was explained to me that a displaced worker was someone who lost a job and had no hope of getting another job in that field. There’s not a huge calling for picture framers so I was able to get my second year of school paid for. I took out student loans for the rest of it.

I went to a technical college to get me a trade. Since I had spent a number of years on the road as a sound man I felt that the next logical step was to learn electronics. I discovered that not only did I like electronics, I also had a knack for soldering. Oh, and I was good at math. Were it not for math I would have had to do a lot more than empty all the trash cans to get my high school diploma.

I looked at electronics school as my last hope. If I failed that then I was done for, I could see no other way to get through life and make a living. This time, for the first time in my life, I took school very seriously. I worked my ass off. I made sure I received every last penny’s worth of education that I, and my government sponsors paid for. I graduated with honors. Instead of just getting a job, I embarked upon an entire career.

Momentum is a funny thing. Sometimes it’s enough to carry a person a great distance without feeling the need to ask why, where, and what for.

Count It Off Mook

Yesterday I mentioned something about college. Yes, I went to college. I’ve gone a total of three times so far. I even finished once. But I never did the responsible thing. I didn’t go right out of high school. I went to a different college out of high school. I got married. Yes that’s right, at the ripe old age of eighteen I married a woman who just had someone elses baby. She was only nineteen. The woman not the baby. The baby was brand spanking new.

How long did it take you to figure out how this one worked out? I guarantee it was a lot quicker than it took me. So there I was, twenty two years old, the age I should have been when I walked down the isle to collect my bachelors in architecture, but instead I found myself living in an apartment with four other guys, two of which were in the garage band I played in before the marriage when south. The same band that my then wife didn’t like. The same band that she would not clap for at our one and only gig. The very first real people I had ever played music with.

By the time I moved into the apartment the band had ended. One of the guys was getting ready to go to college. He was going for music. I had never heard of such a thing. He also explained that he was getting financial aid. That was another thing I had never heard of. It’s amazing that I ever made it out of high school being that dumb. As it was the high school wouldn’t give me my diploma until I emptied all the trash cans in the entire school building.

Look at me with the digression. Anyway, he was going to the music school to be shown around and he invited me to check it out with him. I had never in my wildest dreams understood that not only did places like that exist but they would allow me to participate. I was blown away.

The next thing I knew I had a whole entire future placed before me that I didn’t even know existed. These are the moments that one looks back on, turning points, the kind of moments that can change a life.

It did change my life but it still didn’t help me learn to make good decisions.

Hello, My Name Is

As I mentioned yesterday, I tend to talk about myself a lot in the sense that I relate my adventures but I give very little information about who I am. Oh sure, I give away some bits indirectly through some of the things I say, but I don’t come out and say I’m this or I’m that. I probably should.

I’m Mark. No, not the race car driver. I get that all the time. But I’m not the only one who gets it. There’s a ton of Mark Martins out there. Odd how such a stupid name can be so popular. One guy is a judge. He’s got a list of degrees as long as my arm. He’s only three months younger than me. That’s just freaky.

But I’m not him either. I’m the one called Mook. Mook E. Mook. I got that name from a band that I used to do sound for. They dubbed me Mook and it stuck. Audiences really liked the way that syllable rolled off of their tongues. For some reason they liked to chant it. The band even had a little theme song for me. It was my last year of college. I made thirty five bucks a night to do sound. I didn’t have to pay any gas or accommodations, just ride with them and carry gear and mix their sound. They’re great players so the mixing part was quite easy. A year to remember.

Thirty five bucks a night. Holy crap was I poor that year. I mean I’ve been poor lots of years but that year was a tough one, yet it was one of the more fun ones. Funny how that works. For instance this year I’ve made more money than I ever did and yet, it was sort of like the year from hell. But I digress.

I do that a lot.

This Just In

It has come to my attention that I haven’t posted for a while. It has further come to my attention that I tend to only post about myself. Things I have done or may do. Well, mostly done. “Here, I’ve done this thing which I’ll describe.” Then sometimes I even throw in a picture. This small box of self I operate from is the reason I haven’t posted anything for a while. I haven’t done any thing noteworthy. I suppose I could show a picture of my clean bathroom, or describe the smell of my fresh laundry, maybe even talk about the chicken breast I broiled using steak rub since I had no chicken rub. I could expound upon my reason for using steak seasoning on chicken, which is, I would have had to leave the house. The steak rub was approximately the same color as the chicken rub. It seemed safer than venturing out of doors.

I don’t seem to comment on social issues or the entertainment world although I’m sure I have opinions about both.

I read other blogs, lots of blogs. How do these people have so much to say? These are people who think and feel and opine. I like that, in fact I dare say I aspire to that, at least in part.

My blog can be recapped as follows: I cut my hair, I climbed a mountain in winter, I jumped out of a plane, and I climbed a different mountain in summer. There you have almost a year of my life.

For a while I tried to fill the space in between my adventures with a little feature called Saturday Blast From The Past. These were little blurbs that for some strange reason I thought would be good to save, to pass on, to share. I had also hoped that they would act as filler until such time as I could think of something new to say. But after a while I couldn’t even find my way to do that much so I reverted back to filling the space with space.

Or with this.