The Secret Life of Drummers
Wake up, check email. Update site with show times. Pick up the guitarist and the bassist.
Check bank account. Realize last recording session wiped out safety cushion. Postpone happiness.
Update to-do list on Palm Pilot. Add "Postpone happiness."
Think. Five minutes later add "And drum repairs."
Drive using minimal arm and leg movement. Must conserve strength. If arms are tired, tempo will lag. Muse on how to avoid using arms while drumming. Smile at thought of learning to use sampler and supplying beats via software written by self.
While plotting design of sampler software try experiment half-remembered from 1982 issue of Omni. Switch driving duties with bassist. Perhaps magic coding solution will appear during dreams...
...instead realize after a blood-soaked terrorism nightmare that normally not achieving R.E.M. sleep due to tinnitus has an upside.
Celebrate gratitude about still being alive and not a radiation-soaked survivor of the apocalypse by taking a "road-trip in California-during-sunset" picture. The drummer is always the innovator.
After making record time, spend two hours in L.A. traffic on "the stupid 405." Worry less about nuclear exchanges and concentrate on prolonged highway exposure... and the likelihood of becoming a smog-and-UV-soaked mutant instead.
Arrive at the club. Rub out serious cramps. Tighten the slack of your relaxed tendons using the "Tendorizer" from the D.I.Y Punk Surgery Kit bought at Gilman from "Marsha."
Get denied a soundcheck. Threaten sound person. Remember, not to whine about it, after all, you are the tallest and brawniest in the band.
Convince self that "brawny" is indeed a synonym for other words more honestly used to describe your girth.
Discover that hi-hat stand, bass drum pedal, and snare all have major damage due to slight wind backstage. Yank tooth from own mouth and carve the enamel into a tool which solves all three problems simultaneously. So long as no pressure is actually ever applied to the drum heads or cymbals.
Play show. Endure sound person's vengence as they slowly and agonizingly remove all other instruments from your monitor. Hold back tears as sound person whispers, "Didn't you know that 3 piece pop acts are soooo 1999, you Papas Fritas wannabes? You'll never play Coachella...Coachella...Coachella..."
Place arms and legs in splints. Limp to the merch table. Sell merchandise for the headliner.
Drive back home. "Let" bassist drive. Calculate money earned vs. money spent.
Update to-do list. Add "Postpone biopsy." Reflect on becoming Wiser and What I Want To Be When I Grow-Up.
Maybe...maybe a Guitarist. :)
