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Always enjoyable. A little part of me drifts down to the Texas Coast whenever I read one of Cat's reports. bp

Outstanding as always!! Thanks for sharing with us WC.

Thanks, fellas...on a bright note, Jim Shortt was moved into a private room, he is improving. Let's keep our fingers crossed...Cheers, WC1

That's great... we are pulling for him. bp

Right now I just feel like talking. I think I'm gonna talk about a lot of things. After playing music for 52 years, 36 of them on electric instruments run through high-pitched amplifiers, I am just about deaf now. I hear telephones ringing constantly in my head. It's my eardrums fluttering in the breeze that blows through one side of my head and out the other. The band I play in can shatter glass...we move a lot of air. It's not really much louder than the other bands I played in over the last 18 years. I took almost 5 years off during the late 80s to record music that I'd written...I was sick of performing the same songs for the 5 years leading up to taking that time off. I developed a studio tan. I was as white as a ghost. But I was doing what I wanted to do, multitracking my stuff, creating music in the studio and using the whole thing as a tool. Now, I'm being paid the equivalent of a second job to strap on the DragList Telecaster, get up there and do my thing. But there is a price that I'm paying for it. My hearing is very, very bad. 99% of the people I deal with have a typical attitude towards deaf people. They get angry at you and act like you're stupid. Then they talk about you and tell other people that you're stupid. That is just simply not true. There is a movie called "Children of a Lesser God" that I would love for everybody to see. Deafness is an affliction (in my case, self-administered) that branches out into every area of a person's life, especially in how others react and deal with you. It's too bad that most folks have that mindset, but they do, and I have ended up being let down a lot by folks who have that attitude. I don't drink or use drugs, and I think that's helped me through the rough spots a lot more than if I was drunk or high, because you wake up the next day in a pit of ashes and you just want to take more so you feel normal again. When I used to do that a long time ago, I ended up with a well-earned reputation as a flaky and unreliable head case. The guy who plays these gigs now works for me. Pee Wee named him Big Bad John, rock and roll warrior, master of cool. That's the guy I invented to go out there and blow people away. He has all the chops, all the right moves, hits all the right notes and plays provocatively and creatively while still stomping out the beat on every single note of every single song at every single gig. The sly smile never goes away. The key has been not to let that guy come in here and take over. When that was going on, my life was a train-wreck. Thing is, if I didn't have all this going on, I'd want it. So I accept it as my life's calling and it's what I do. What the heck. How many times ya gonna live? Cheers, WC1

I can relate to allot of what you typed WC, as I sit here with my ears ringing The only time the ringing ISN't the loudest thing around me is at the track. I find myself saying "What?" more & more. I contribute my hearing loss to power tools since I was a teenager & the high pitched whine of the CNC over the last 15 or so years.
I was on the 100 hour a week schedule for a few years. Then occasionally I would get up @ 7am, work til 5pm, then go letter trucks until the sun started to rise, go home, shower & head back to the day job. I've done that only a couple times in resent years, just can't pull it off like I did a few years ago.

Remember WC if you burn a candle at both ends you burn out twice as fast. (One of my customers told me that years ago). He then got on my case about killing myself. My reaction at the time was ....yea, yea, yea, ..........

I've slowed down, but still find myself trying to do it all once in awhile. I just hate to turn down work. Take care of yourself WC. We need you around for many, many more years.

A road warrior is like a "knight" to me.
We are what we are..and life Is good! (overall)

I certainly relate to the hearing situation...from the ring of 9000 rpm small blocks to the roar of behmoth engines ( no ear plugs most of the way), has taken it's toll.
heck...maybe it blocks out some things worth blocking out?

One good thing John....."no end in sight" ...
Live long !

"Remember WC if you burn a candle at both ends you burn out twice as fast"

Reminds me of a story Somkey Yunick told about Ralph Johnson. Back in '55, Smokey was commissioned by Chevrolet to develop the fuel injection for the '57 Corvette. GM sent a young Ralph Johnson to work with Smokey.

Smokey said that Ralph used to hang out at a strip joint and started dating one of the strippers. He would work long day at the shop then go to the club, wait for the gal to get off work around 2:00 AM then spend the rest of the night "playing". He would head back to work early in the morning. Smokey said that Ralph did this for about a month straight. Musta been one hell of a guy or he took many years off his life.

Thanks for the post, Cat. We sure do appreciate what you do. I just wish I was there to see more of it. It's your calling. I hope you can fit it all in. I know you'll try to take as best care of yourself that you can. I'm nobody to talk about burning the candle at both ends, but I'm trying to ratchet it back a bit these days. I do have some hearing issues myself. Four years on an aircraft carrier and 15 years in an announcing booth will do that. But I'm lucky that I just have to ask folks to repeat themselves now and then. As Pete Townshend knows, there is a price to pay for being a rock legend. As for Big Bad John, that's what works for you and it's great. To a greater or lesser degree, we all put on acts that we present to others. I'd wager that it's a really small number of folks who show their absolute true selves to the outside world. Certainly, I wear different personalities when I'm chairing meetings in DC, or announcing at the track, or hanging out with friends, or being extra respectful to older folks I meet, etc. In the end, there are those who do and those who watch. I love 'em all, but I have the utmost respect for the 'knights' that Wally mentions. John, you are on the front lines for us. bp