Badmotorfinger. Orignally posted September 6, 2006

As many of you know, I've been on the road quite a bit this summer. I have spent 1 week in Houston, 3 weeks in Los Angeles, and 3 weeks in Phoenix. In addition, I've made two stopovers in Denver and Woodland Park, Colorado to see friends. I even made it out to Crested Butte on the fourth of July! I've have had a chance to play with some pretty amazing musicians, which has been really nice because I haven't been able to play much in the past year. Not to shamelessly name-drop, but I've been able to play with Barry and Michelle Patterson, Brian and Cathleen Hobson, Ben and Robin Pasley, and Mark Bovee this summer, and I must say, it has been pretty awesome. The LA and Phoenix trips have been somewhat draining, but also pretty good for keeping my mind occupied in a turbulent season of life. The flip side is that I've had lots of alone time in the hotel room or in the truck to think and process. The Colorado trips have been restful and re-energizing, as I've had dear friends gather around me and hold me up, both spiritually and emotionally (I love you guys). The last trip to Colorado was a whirlwind, but I got to play two sets. The best part of it, though, was that the morning I was going to get to play, I reached into my bag to get a brush, but it was wedged behind something and I couldn't easily retrieve it. Being the resourceful and engineering person that I am, I figured that the best way to get my brush would be to grab at it with more force (standard male response?) In any case, I very quickly realized the error of my ways, as a sharp and immediate sensation of pain overtook my entire hand. I was dumbfounded! How could a brush tine cause agonizing pain? I recoiled my arm quickly, and realized that my hand was now a nice shade of bright red, as blood was gushing from a brand new hole in my middle finger. Gushing. I looked again in the bag and discovered to my horror that I had neatly wedged my finger into the business end of my razor, and as I washed the wound in the sink, saw that I had taken about 30 percent of my fingertip cleanly off. My friend did as much as possible to stop the bleeding, but the gash was so deep that it did not respond to pressure - it just bled. We eventually got it covered up with the help of a first aid kit and some colorful vocabulary! The funny thing is, I was more worried about whether or not I would get to play! Once I got a bass in my hand, it was obvious that there was no way I could use that finger - my primary bass finger on my right hand. Barry Patterson had a great idea that we should take off the bandage and dip the wound in scalding hot glue, and just play through the pain! (My friends are the greatest!) We got the bandage mostly off, and as the last bit was coming out, I noticed that the gauze had dried into the wound, and as it came off, the gusher started right back up. At this point, those of you with a medical background probably don' t want to know what we did next! I wasn't going to an emergency room to sit for 6 hours to get first aid! They couldn't stich it up, because there was nothing to stitch, the fingertip was GONE! So I refused to do that and miss my chance to play! Instead, we took a rubber band and fashioned a crude finger-size tourniquet long enough to get some second-skin on there, THEN put the gauze and tape on with lots of pressure. I proceeded to play two sets with one finger, and used my ring finger when absolutely necessary. After that, I had almost NO use of my right hand, as one finger was in excruciating pain from not being there, and two others were in a good deal of pain from giant blisters from abnormal use! In addition, I had inferred pain coming off my middle finger, shooting up my arm! Amazingly, the sets weren't terrible! I was surprised that was able to pull it off! The finger is still in a pretty good deal of pain, but is healing somewhat nicely - the only downer now is that after being kept moist by the second-skin for so long, it dried out pretty quickly after it was removed. So now the rest of the skin on that fingertip has cracked and peeled off! It looks like it will probably heal over though, and not be permenantly misshapen. All I can say is, I am so thankful that we didn't use the glue! As soon as I got home, I got a wonderful 3-day weekend with my boys, which besides the poop-painting down the halls and on the sofa, was pretty uneventful! I hope to stay in town for a few weeks and catch up with you guys. Send messages often! They are the highlight of my day! Its strange living alone after not ever having done so...