I was riding my bike to meet my buddy Nick for brunch. Crushin' it down Telegraph, crossing the intersection at 29th. Door flies open on me, pushes me off my bike and into traffic. I hesitate to say I was lucky; if that were true, then I wouldn't have been doored in the first place. However, I managed to not be run down by fellow cyclists and automobiles. More shenanigans followed, not the least of which being the offending driver trying to convince me that I was fine while I flailed and emitted pre-vocal gutturals in every direction, and EMTs arriving and trying to cut my clothes off and attaching a fucking neck-brace that increased my pain in every way. Nick was good enough to come down the street and pay for a taxi to Highland Hospital. What an experience... all of the staff act in this kind of harried and hard-hearted yet sweet and endearing manner... there's a million people hurting and bleeding in the ER and they aren't staffed enough to deal with everyone with nearly enough efficiency and they know it. It felt a little bit like Southern Hospitality's sort of stern kindness, but sideways.
Anyhow, that very day, I was supposed to play a show at the Uptown in Oakland with New York's Child Abuse. Needless to say, as I couldn't raise my arm above my shoulder without debilitating pain, I was not going to play the drums that night. No Babies practiced without me and played the show simply as 2 guitars, vocals and the occasional snare hit. I didn't even mind too much that they didn't want to pick me up from the hospital (FUCK YOU GUYS), sort of. The recording of that, you can listen to here. (I will insert the download link in a short time.)
I got some pain meds, laid in bed for a couple days (the days of my living underneath the Purple House were still in effect) and went about re-upping my food stamps at the Social Service Office on San Pablo, sorry libertarians. While waiting on my number to be called, I got a telephone communiqué from one Mose Witner, who wanted to put together a 10 drummer daytime public performance on October 10th 2010 at Berkeley's Willard Park, in the tradition of the BOADRUM performances in New York, LA and I think that year, in Japan.
I told him I had been doored, and that, gee, I'd have to think about it. I had my bodily safety to consider, not to mention feeling a little funny participating in borrowing so heavily from the BOARDUM idea, but I'll be goddamned if the allure of participating in some guerilla public performance, and of course, testing my ability to drum at all three days after being assaulted by an automobile. I eventually called him back and and told him to count me in.
I showed up just before noon, having stuffed my Frankensteinian drum kit into my tiny 2 door car. We tried to keep it subtle as more and more drummer started arriving, as to not attract police attention, but eventually there were ten full drum kits set up in the sunshine of the day in the middle of a public park. Some ogled and made sour faces, but most people seemed excited about this unplanned fun about to happen.
Jacob showed up and between he and us drummers, we worked out a loose structure and composition to attempt playing. Here are the filmed results, a little shaky, but fully ecstatic.
