On the brink of superstardom?

Yesterday, Catherine and I flew from San Francisco to Virgina, enjoying a THREE HOUR layover in Washington / Dulles. I don't travel well these days, but though my dizzies were heightened, and I was on edge about getting a headache, I think Fear Of Boredom was worse. In a futile attempt to take the dull out of Dulles, I started checking my Blackberry by the minute. And sometime in between Wendy's and takeoff, an email from Sonicbids popped into my inbox.

For those who don't know what the hell Sonicbids is -- and who would? -- it's an online service for delusional songsters like me that lets you pitch your tunes in vain to all manner of publishing opportunities, live gigs and more. Great service, but very hard on the old ego.

The subject line of my email read: Submission Tracker change for The 6412 Ltd. (Aug-Nov '09)

The 64212 describes itself as a management company, so I knew it would be a longshot. Who wants to manage a songwriter who can't tour or even really play live because of health issues. Oh, and who's got gray hairs to boot. Yeah, nobody.

Still, hope springs eternal, so I bravely clicked the message to read its words. Here's what it said (drum roll):

Hi there.

Jeff Shattuck's submission to The 6412 Ltd. (Aug-Nov '09) has been updated to Not Selected. Log into your account and go to the My Submissions tab to view additional details.

Thanks.

The Sonicbids Team
http://www.sonicbids.com

Despite knowing that this gig was a longshot, as my eyes settled on the words "No Accepted" my first thought was WHY THE F__K NOT?

I began the arduous 3G process of getting online using my Mac, my Blackberry, VMWare Fusion, Windows XP, Verizon Access Manager, a USB cable and  of Saturn's moons, but before I could get the 'net to snare my data, boarding began. I would have to wait until our arrival in Virginia.

Is the suspense killing you? It shouldn't be. Here's what The 6412 Ltd. had to say:

Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your submission. We appreciate hearing from you, but have chosen not to work with you at this time -- keep writing and playing -- you have the basis of some good, solid songs. Once they are more developed, we would be happy to hear from you again! We wish you all the best in your musical endeavours!

Sincerely,
The 6412 Ltd.

"The basis of some good, solid songs"???? BASIS? Damn, I thought the songs were more than a mere basis. But what do I know? Fighting off an urgent need to sleep, I checked out The 6412's site and listened to some of the folks they like. And I get it. First, they want something more eclectic than I will ever do. Second, they want a true act, not some hodgepodge of songs, all sung by various singers and ranging from hard rock to piano bar mood music.

And though I KNOW I SHOULD NOT LET THIS GET TO ME, it does, and per usual, the first hint of criticism has thrown me into the abyss of self-doubt where the dogs of doom howl and it rains all the damn time. Luckily, I'm on vacation (from what, I'm not really sure, since I am unemployed and unemployable for most jobs), so I can deal. I think.

Superstardom will have to wait, I guess.

The last mile seems as long as first 99. Or, "Damn, finishing my album is murder."

For the past several months, I have been a month away from finishing my album. Today, I am about two months away.

Argh.

The problem is twofold:

1) The number of I's that need to be dotted and T's crossed is staggering. Now I understand why Axl took ten years to record Chinese Democracy (well, I don't, but I do).

2) I'm a doubt-riddled perfectionist who just can't stand the thought of wishing I had done something different. Should that chorus have repeated? Is that the best word? Why, why, why did I have the singer hit THAT note? Is my guitar playing really in time?

Despite these issues, progress is being made. On Monday, Sam Bevan (in photo) was able to fix a few notes in Yo Yo (my perfectionism caused me to rethink about four bass notes in the verses to the point where I HAD TO REDO THEM. HAD TO. He also fixed some notes in Indecision, because I had told him the wrong chords during the initial session for this song, a fact I only discovered when reworking the lyrics for the zillionth time with Jeff Tuttle, who co-wrote the song with me and will sing it, said, "Dude, did you change a chord? What's recorded is totally different from what we originally wrote, and the melody doesn't exactly work."

All of which reminds me: I have the best team of people imaginable helping me with this project. Seriously, I do. And over the next few days I'll do a series of posts on the core Playa's: Sam Bevan, Andy Korn, Tim Young and Jaime Durr. These guys are THE BEST.

Rationalizing the irratational, or why I think meditation makes sense.

I was a hard sell for meditation. In fact, I used to think it was a fraud. Hell, I thought all "alternative" therapy was fraud. I even thought yoga was just exercise for people who didn't really want to exercise.

Then I fell and hit my head, and in my efforts to get better, I have actually tried some of these new age, hippie practices.

Nowadays, I see alternative medicine in a whole new light. Sure, some of it still seems questionable to me -- especially Chinese herbal meds -- but the biggies -- meditation, yoga and acupuncture -- are all stuff I think everyone should try.

Especially meditation.

A lot of people, even those with solid knowledge, describe meditation as the practice of quieting the mind. I don't see it this way at all. Rather, I think of meditation as quieting the left brain (the rational side), so that you can experience the world through your right brain (the non-rational side).

I got this notion from a book called My Stroke of Insight, which was written by Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who suffered a stroke on the left side of her brain. As her left brain flickered on an off in the first minutes of the stroke, she had the presence of mind to "study the moment". And when her left brain was on, she was OH MY GOD I'M HAVING A STROKE Jill Taylor and frantically looking for the phone to call 911. But when her left brain was off, she was OMMMMMM Jill Taylor, experiencing life as simply being, and not differentiating much between herself and the world around her. In the ensuing years of recovery, one her many, many struggles, was knowing that once her left brain was fully back online, the sheer bliss or nirvana she had come to know, as a result of her left brain shutting up for a little while and her right brain becoming her dominant center of consciousness, would once again recede into the background. To experience it again, she would have to consciously try to bring her right brain to the fore. In other words, she would have to meditate.

This highly rational explanation of meditation is a Big Deal for me, because I need, to quote Rod Stewart (or Tim Hardin!), a reason to believe. And Jill's explanation has become just that for me. Thank you, Jill.

To learn more about Jill Bolte Taylor, here is her TED presentation, one of the very best TED talks I've ever seen.

Let there be rock.

For well over a year, the only tune I've had posted with any consistency is Here Comes The Weather (at right), which might have created the impression that I write very mellow tunes. I do, but I also write loud, guitar-driven rock songs. I know, I know, I'm a fool to not pick a style and stay with it, get known for it, get better and better at it, but while I would love to make a career of this music stuff, that't not my true goal, hence chaosl.

I just want to write as many good songs as I can, be they rock, pop or polka. So, without further ado, here is the first rock song I've finished for my album. Bang your head!

Throat: RodDammit
Harmony vocals: Josh Fix
Rythm guitars: me (one side is my Strat through my Carr, the other is my Les Paul through my Boogie, love and hate, Strat, Les Paul, get it?)
Lead guitar: Tim Young playing his Strat through his Pignose.
Drums: Andy Korn
Bass: Sam Bevan
Engineered and mixed by Jaime Durr at Hyde Street Studios, Studio C, San Francisco.

Why can't I meditate?

As part of my continuing efforts to heal myself from my TBI (traumatic brain injury), I now meditate for 20 minutes twice a day. I've been doing this for quite a while, and my latest trick is to listen to ambient music, in order to drown out distracting sounds of the city.

My method is simple: I get comfortable, close my eyes and breathe, paying special attention to how my breath feels going in and out and counting breaths to give my ever scattered brain something to help stay focused on. I learned this method from a person who was shot and paralyzed and now suffers phantom pain in his legs; he tried EVERYTHING to overcome the pain, finally trying meditation after speaking with a friend of the Dalai Lama's. It worked. And because he is a bit like me -- a little cynical, rational, science-minded -- I was very receptive to his point of view and ideas for making meditation work. He was adament that fancy techniques, teachers and elaborate mental games were all unnecessary. Just "watch your breath and notice how it feels" was pretty much the extent of his method. Oh, and do it every day at the same time, do it for at least 20 minutes and make sure you are not distracted by noise.

Well, all this I do, religiosly, and yet... I experience far more nada than nirvana. I even add my Brainport to the equation, using its electical pulses on my tongue to stay "inside myself". But I am committed and will keep at it. I truly think meditation -- even my not-so-meditative-meditation -- helps me be more relaxed and happier. And in time, I will get the hang of it. I'm positive.

Ommmm.

A tab is reborn: My Gear now with links!

After getting a few comments, I've gone through and added links to all the gear descriptions for My Gear. Enjoy!

A tab is born: My Gear.

Above on the nav bar you'll notice a swanky to navigation link titled My Gear. Click it to read all about every pice of gear I own. And see photos of my guitars.

Memories.

A few days ago I got some CDs in the mail (how quaint!) from an old grade/high school friend of mine and in listening to them I was transported back through the years, back to when I first played an electric guitar through an amp. Sadly, I forget the guitar, most likely it was a friend's Gibson SG, but the amp was definitely a Marshall half stack. I was probably 15 or so, we were in a garage, and when I first hit a chord and heard the sound that blasted from the Marshall I was hooked. The feeling must have been similar to what a future meth addict feels on that first hit, you have to have it again and again, and you will never, ever get tired of it. To this day, on the rare occasions I get to plug an electric guitar into a proper amp, it's as if nothing has changed. The thrill is not gone. And I am happy for that.

IK Multimedia responds (sort of).

IK wrote back to me about my Amplitube woes and here is the email verbatim:

Dear jeff

10.5.7 is the cause of this, apple made a ton of changes in this update. We
working on the updates for all the products now.

You can solve this by going to 10.5.6 or when the updates come out, we are
sorry about this.. but its happening only with 10.5.7

Jason Williams
Senior Technical Support
IK Multimedia. Musicians First.

Love the sound of Fender? Get those sounds right on your desktop with
AmpliTube Fender! http://www.ikmultimedia.com/fender/features/

In other words, it's Apple's fault. Funny, all my Digidesign stuff works fine. Oh, and 10.5.7 came out in early MAY.

Okay, there, I've made my point, no more rants, as this blog should not be about such stuff.

A public service announcement for musicians: do not buy anything from IK Multimedia.

Musicians first? Right.

Several years ago, I bought Amplitube, a guitar amp modeler made by IK Multimedia. Getting the plug-in set up was a true nightmare, just constant authorization problems. Finally, after much angst, I got the product to product, no thanks to IK. Their customer service was surly (I was nice, I really was, unfailingly) and took as long as a day to get back to me, even after my support ticket was open and the company knew my problem was legit.

All was good until I updated my Mac to OSX Leopard. After the OS upgrade, all the auth problems have returned. And today, after setting aside the afternoon to try to get something done, IK's auth process has foiled me, despite the fact that yesterday everything was fine.

Worse. to contact the company's tech support you have to enter in all kinds of info EVERY SINGE TIME (email, phone, type of computer, and on and on).

Given my latest woes, I have request $50 back from the company, and they can have their software auth codes. I'll be out over $300, but I don't care (well, I do a little, and that's where the $50 comes in). I'll report back once I hear from IK's tech support, but I'm sure they'll basically say go fuck yourself, asshole.

And just make sure this email catches a few searches, here's some tags:

IKmultimedia

IK multimedia

Amplitube

Amplitube 2.0

Guitar amp emulator

Amp emulator

Shitty companies

Oh, and why not some of their competitors:

Digidesign Eleven

Guitar Rig

Softube

Vintage Amp Room

And some of the amps IK models:

Fender

Marshall

Mesa Boogie

Vox

As I walked to a songscreening I snapped this photo and wondered... is this ship for me?

About a month ago, I joined West Coast Songwriters, formerly Northern California Songwriters Association, as a way to have the music biz come to me, rather than me go to it, because of my issues with flying (it really wrecks me, but not always, just often enough that I have kept air travel to a minimum since my accident). My first experience with WCS was, um, not that positive. The visiting Music Industry Heavy did not offer much in the way of insightful feedback for me or anyone else, in my opinion, and took over half the songs for further consideration, which, to me, indicated either an insanely low bar or an inability to make a decision.

Yesterday was different. But first, a quick refresher on what goes on at these events:

You enter a big room, hand your CD/lyrics to the host, sign your name on a list, and… wait. When the Music Industry Heavy arrives, he or she gives a brief talk about the business and where the opportunities lie and then proceeds to go down the list, playing the tunes on a cheap ass boom box -- usually but not always stopping them before they’re over -- and critiquing the performance and the song. And that’s where things can get really interesting, IF the Music Industry Heavy is a good critic.

Yesterday’s Heavy was Antoinette Olesen, out of Nashville, and she was a good critic. No, she was great. She arrived under a crimson bloom of long read curls and greeted everyone with a huge smile and a super personable style. My hopes soared. And as she started into her first critique, I knew I was in the hands of someone who loves and can talk clearly, knowledgeably and compellingly about music and songwriting.

Oddly, I wasn’t nervous. My stomach was butterfly-free and I wasn’t thinking to myself, “You know, it’s kinda warm in here.” But I was uncomfortable. Sitting in a folding chair with my head unsupported was pure torture, so I finally dispensed with decorum and sat on the floor with my back against a wall.

Finally, my moment came. Antoinette said, “Happiness. Love the title.” Play was pressed and when the song concluded she exclaimed, “Cool song! I could hear this on a pop radio! But… not without a little re-writing.” She then proceeded to parse the lyric and pretty much every line she felt didn’t quite work, I had agonized over, wondering whether it was “right” or not.
Unfortunately, to re-record the song right now is not practical, and if I can’t makes some changes, I’m going to leave it for the next album. Am I bummed? NO. I thank Antoinette for pointing out the flaws in my song, before I put it out there into the world.

And so, that big ship coming in was not for me. Next time.

What does a song look like?

At right, is the view out of my living room window, and the photo is one of the many, many shots I've snapped of the San Francisco Bay.

On this particular evening, the bay looked like it was appearing out of time, as though I were looking into the past and seeing a scene from a hundred years ago. The grey light reminded me of those images cameras used to capture on silver. I snapped away.

And I got to thinking, this ephemeral light is like a song before it's a song, when it's just a fleeting idea, there if you notice it, gone -- maybe forever -- if you miss it.

And then I got to thinking about my brain injury and once again ruminated on why I should suddenly be writing so many songs. And though I have theorized that it might be because of a deep neural phenomenon having to do with synapses and dendrites and the like, maybe it's as simple as this: I notice more about the world around me.

Hmmm...

Crossroads.

If you're into rock music you know the myths, especially the one about selling one's soul to the devil in return for hellishly good guitar chops.

My myth isn't as exciting as most, but as I struggle to come to terms with the ongoing symptoms of my traumatic brain injury (TBI) -- and the fact that they have persisted for well over three years -- I've decided to view my intersecting with a tile wall as my crossroads.

How else to put a somewhat positive spin on all this?

Granted, it was not my intent to trade good health for extra time to write songs, and I am hardly a better guitar player than I was pre TBI, but there is no doubt that the accident mystically enabled me to connect better with my muse.

And so last night, as I faded out early at Hyde Street, while Sam Bevan (left) worked with engineer Jaime Durr to lay down some RAWK, I can now blame the supernatural, the paranormal, the devil.

Or a boring tile wall.

Taking a health cue from Michael Jackson.

Eons ago, back when Thriller ruled the charts, Bubbles ruled the tabloids, and Michael Jackson ruled the world, The Gloved One was pictured in a hyperbaric oxygen tank. Rumor was he thought that sleeping in the tank each night would keep him forever young.

I doubt Jackson was onto anything besides a good publicity stunt, but I've recently become aware of the fact that hyperbaric oxygen tanks have helped some TBI patients recover faster and more completely. Could I be one of the lucky ones, one of the patients for whom oxygen excess would lead to better health? I sure hope so.

I first got the idea up in Minnesota from Jamee Tuttle, whom I met through Jeff Tuttle (they're married now, in case the same last name wasn't enough of a clue). Jamee is a Palates instructor and looks 10 years younger than her true age, so when she she muses on fitness and health, you put down your wine glass, stub out your cigarette, put away the cheese and crackers and listen.

She explained how soaking the brain in oxygen could help cells heal and regenerate faster for the simple reason that oxygen is how they grow in the first place. Oxygen, of course, is carried by blood, so sitting in a oxygen tank is a surefire way to supersaturate your blood oxygen levels and ply your cells with the stuff in a way akin to a goose being prepped to become foi gras.

Today, I finally did a bit of research on where I might find a hyperbaric chamber her in SF and sure enough there is one down in China Basin, which is s stone's throw from the new UCSF medical campus, so if anything goes wrong, a doctor could get there fast, although it would be a research doctor, and I'm not sure if they're capable of dealing with a live patient. Sadly, I can't get started right away, because the treatment lasts for 8 weeks -- yup, I will have to go every day, five days a week for two months -- and I'm leaving on a trip in August (staying at sea level, though, so as to minimize headaches!). But regardless, I will call tomorrow and inquire about the cost ( I figure a shitload or two ) and scheduling options.

Even if it has no effect, I'm stoked to have found something might help. Nothing else seems to (save for my BrainPort).

What would Christopher Reeve do?

I admit it. I've been feeling very, very sorry for myself these past few days. I worked on Monday and Tuesday at an ad agency and ended up spending Wednesday in bed, then felt a little off all day Thursday, then woke with a very weird headache today (not quite a migraine, but worse than a standard headache and on the right side of my head instead the left, where my most talented headaches usually make an appearance). And as I lie here wishing I had never injured my brain, wishing to feel free of dizziness for just one day or even a few hours, wishing I were not a burden to anyone, especially Catherine, I have to ask myself: What would Christopher Reeve do?

When I think back on how he kept on with his life with cheer and energy, despite being completely paralyzed from a fall, I am staggered and humbled. I have not witnessed a more courageous and inspiring story in my life. Nothing else even comes close, really. What was his secret? To try to figure it out -- although, most likely his secret is not a secret at all, he was simply a very, very rare human being -- I'm going to buy his book Nothing Is Impossible.

Say tuned.

What happened to TIME, no not the magazine, time itself, as in seconds, minutes and hours?

When I watch the second hand move around an analog clock, everything looks normal. It ticks the same way it always has. But when I turn my attention to the minute hand and the hour hand, well, they're a different story. Obviously, I could never really see them move, and yet, today, they are definitely going faster than they used to. I mean, I can still remember when afternoons seemed to go on forever. When summer went lingered. And when school felt like it would never, ever end. Now, I glance at the clock, then glance again a moment later and an hour has passed. Or more. Whereas I once hoped for the clock to move faster, now I wish it would slow down.

My dad has a theory about this: he thinks, the older we get, the slower we sample the world around us. In other words, our eyes and other senses take in the world in a continuous way, but our brains grab only samples, much like a motion picture opens its shutter (our eyes) and projects the world onto moving film (our brains). When we're young, the brain captures samples at blinding speed, packing each and every second with gobs of information. But as we age, this sample rate slows, and since we are not noticing as much of the world around us as we used to, the world seems to move faster. To go back to the film analogy, we go from capturing every frame to every other. Sigh.

This depressing theory is on my mind because I cannot believe that three years have passed since I suffered my TBI (traumatic brain injury). THREE YEARS. More than three years, really. And well over two have passed since I first hatched plans to make an album. Ack. Worse, despite being less than busy, at least relative to my pace before I fell, I feel like I am racing against the clock more than ever. And if my dad's theory is right -- and I think it is -- I am not imagining an ever faster clock. It really is running faster, according to how I perceive it.

What to do? Work harder than ever to make every moment count, to not dwell on the bad stuff, to finish my album and start another, to do more therapy, to live MORE not LESS.

Because as the Stones so sagely pointed out -- while they were still kids, I might add -- time waits for no one and it won't wait for me.

Now accepting Visa, Mastercard, Amex and the greatest of all credit cards ever, Discover.

Starting today, the mighty Bandcamp (praise be!) is now accepting credit cards. What does this mean for you, my legions of fans? Simple! You can now purchase my song (soon to be album) from Bandcamp (say hallelujah!) without having to use Paypal.

Why is this the epitomy of Awesome (element: AWe)? Because Bandcamp (can I get an amen?) lets you download songs in sparkling CD-quality sound. Sure, you could download a low-rent MP3, but WHY WOULD YOU? A lossless format will give you something like 10 times the data an MP3 will give you. Life is short! Get the high rez stuff.

To celebrate this great day, I urge you to click on the player at right to sample Here Comes The Weather, the first song I've managed to finish for my upcoming album, and if you like it, click through to the Bandcamp (all hail!) site and whip out your plastic of choice to purchase your very own copy of the song.

Thank you!

My first West Coast Songwriter’s event. I was a "winner". Whatever.

One of the things that appeal to me about trying to become a successful songwriter is that it is not easy. If I make it, even in a small way, I will have achieved something truly meaningful. Advertising, my other career, is the same way. To come up with an idea a client will buy is murder. So whenever my idea has made the grade, I walk on air -- you know, for a minute or two, then it's on the next assignment.

In adland, one of the crucibles an idea must survive is the scrutiny of a creative director. You and your partner (in advertising, you are always part of a team, either as a writer or an art director) present your idea as best you can, you show your humble drawings or, these days, vibrant color printouts that look for all the world like finished ads, and mostly, mostly, your hours of work, your endless debates, your lost evenings and weekends and your growing paunch and pasty skin from being couped up inside for far too long are all for naught. In minutes, the creative director slaughters your idea, calmly explaining why it sucks.

Music is very much the same way. You kill yourself to write a great song, then play it for someone who "knows" and FAIL. Only rarely, if ever, do you succeed in convincing someone to buy your song. And this is the way it should be. Because passing this test is only the beginning. Then it's on to the dreaded market, where fickle consumers could care less that some A-list producer loved your song. They think it sucks.

Probably the closest a nobody songwriter like me can get to someone who "knows" is via events such as the one I attended last night, which was held by West Coast Songwriters.

For those who have never heard of such events, they basically work like this: a bunch of hopeful songwriters enter a room, hand their dreams to a person behind a table, and take a seat. A "big time" record industry dude (usually an A&R type, but sometimes a producer or even noted songwriter) then plays the songs in they order in which they were submitted and critiques them. If he REALLY likes something, he will take it for further consideration.

The event I attended took place at Fort Mason, which is an old military base and is constructed on piers that reach into the bay. It's a beautiful setting, but entering the buildings means leaving all beauty behind. Inside, they are drab, cold, a little rundown. I look the echo-filled metal staircase to the second floor, found room 210 and as I entered, wondered if I was in the right place. Yes, there was a sign and yes there was the requisite table with an attendant, but where was the killer sound system and who were these all these OLD people? Turns out, there would be no killer sound system, and the people were the songwriting hopefuls, most older than me. Honestly, it was depressing.

As I took my seat in a folding metal chair, I overheard one man talking loudly about the songwriting competitions he'd one, while someone else was confiding that her songs drew a lot of interest but had no takers. Others, like me, kept to themselves. Also, I was a little concerned. I can't sit in metal chairs for long periods of time, without becoming twitchy and risking a headache (weird, I know, but true), so as the evening wore on, I considered moving to sit on the floor against the wall. In the end, I stayed put.

Will Griggs from Music Umbrella, a small, but apparently noteworthy entertainment management, music publishing, licensing and media consulting company based in Santa Monica, was the visiting Music Dude. Will looked to be in his mid-30s, and affected a cool vibe, but in no way did he come off as arrogant. And he was serious about the task before him. As each song played, he scrutinized the lyrics, and, per usual at such events, he typically listened to 3/4 of the song before signaling the woman manning the boombox (yes, the "sound system" was a crappy boombox) to hit Stop. But I was staggered by his critiques. I was fully expecting him to say, and not even in a polite way, "This sucks." Instead, he accepted well over half the songs he heard, and couched all of his negative comments so thoroughly they really didn't sound very negative. By the time he got my song, Here Comes the Weather (which you can hear via the player in the upper right on this blog), I was only worried about one thing: nothing. I mean, who cares about passing a test 3/4 of the takers pass? Not me. As I said at the outset, I come from the ad world where virtually no ideas live to see the light of day, and the very few that do, are then beaten mercilessly for days before being considered "winners". Your feelings do not matter.

So, yes, my song passed muster. Will had nothing bad to say. And as I walked home, I felt very little satisfaction. None really. There was no air beneath my feet. Only pavement.

Noises from the studio.

I know I keep saying I'll release an album -- and I will! -- but, well, delays happen and frankly, I'm amazed anyone has ever finished an album. It's a lotta work, not helped, of course, by the fact that I have had to cut short and out right cancel so many recording days at the behest of my enfeebled brain.

Still, progress is happening. Here, for example, is a guitar solo! (Note: as you will soon be able to hear for yourself, I'm not much of a guitar player, so this solo will be one of the very few tracks I actually play on the final record.)

Diary of a mad[ison] man, part III of III: The healing power of friendship.

Last Tuesday, I finally returned home after a week in Madison, punctuated by a brief trip up to Minnesota.

Way back in college, I met some people who I knew I'd stay in close touch with for the rest of my life.Today, they all live in Minneapolis, along with their families, and given that the Mini-Apple is a mere stone's throw from Madison, after my treatments ended there, I hit the road heading due north.

The weather was thinking of me, and for all three days of my visit, the sun shown and the evenings were warm.This could have been very bad news, since warm summer nights in Minnesota attract mosquitoes like democrats attract debt, and your sanity can soon be tested as the mosquitoes go out night after night on blood bar crawls. But I somehow timed my visit just right, and the bugs were not yet out in force. So for three nights straight, we ate outside, two nights in St. Paul, and one night about 40 minutes south of the Twin Cities.

These dinners were all unforgettable to me for so many reasons, but mainly they just made me feel good and helped me to forget as best I can the turmoil in my brain caused by my TBI in 2006. No, I never stopped feeling dizzy, or stopped twitching completely or felt totally free of a little nausea, but they were not top of mind, as they so often are, and that alone was a huge relief. And I credit being in the presence of some of the greatest people on the planet for these good feelings.

So many highlights -- talking politics as only former college friends can, playing the blues on homemade guitars around a dinner table, finally finishing a song started about 20 years ago, seeing the Minneapollis Institute of Art, watching one friend's son rock the hell out of a Strat, having ice cream with another friend's sons, seeing one friend's teenage daughter actually, possibly, maybe enjoying a bunch of old guys playing guitars -- too many to recount.

Thank you all in the Twin Cities for an amazing three days. You mean the world to me.

For more photos, click here.