Summer ---> Fall

Well...Summer is beginning to wind down and soon Fall will be upon us. The days have started to get noticeably shorter, the evening air a good bit cooler, and the sweltering heat and humidity of the early mornings have begun to yield to the brisk, breezy dawns that seem to be very much alive with the chirping cicada calling out their summer song from the tree line of the woods. The calls of the birds seem to be less about finding mates and more about finding potential found stores for the less fruitful months ahead. While everything is still very green, and there are still blooms on the crepe myrtle trees, there is certainly a sense in the air that soon everything will begin to change again, that the leaves of the hardwood trees will explode with vivid and spectacular colors before wilting away into winter.

The usual "dress code" around here will change soon...in a few more weeks it will be jeans in the morning, shorts in the afternoons, and denim jackets in the evenings. Not sure if it's an actual "dress code" around here per se, but ever since I can remember, that particular clothing did seem to be standard issue for the fall months in the town that I grew up in and still reside.

For some, the end of Summer means the end of fun times, and the end of lazing about, doing much of nothing, as was and still is the case with most children and teenagers who view summertime as their vacation break from the toils of school.
Since I was about thirteen years old, the end of Summer was always an exciting time. The end of Summer always meant being able to go back to school and seeing all of my most dear friends on a seemingly daily basis. The end of summer also meant the beginning of football season, which also meant the beginning of marching band. I LOVED marching band. Even though it could be tough to deal with at times, it was, and still is my favorite team sport.

For those of you who don't believe marching bands can be a team sport, I invite you to go attend a DCI drum corps competition.

I learned a lot out on the marching field. I learned about music, instrument care and repair, proper hydration, tan lines, bee stings, heat exhaustion, staring at girls without getting caught (well, one in particular), social boundaries, friendship, life, love, and trust.

I even got my first piercing on a marching field...true story.

Yep...some of my most fond memories of my adolescent and teenage years were made in marching band. Which is probably why I always pause, quietly listen, and gently smile every time I hear the tappings of a drumline in the distance. Just knowing that Summer is coming to a close and that Fall will soon be here in full swing is enough to make me smile.

Learning mode

So...
I'm currently on a quest.
Well, I'm always on this particular quest, however, lately it seems to be more highly intensified.
The quest? To learn more about my craft; to explore new ideas, new approaches, and new uses for old ideas and learning materials; to learn more about technique and how to utilize my abilities to their fullest potential. It's a quest to become the best drummer that I can be and for no reason other than because I demand it of myself.

It's almost as if I've been called to complete a never-ending mission. I will never finish learning. I doubt that I will ever tire of learning...especially about the world and art of drumming.

Every now and again, I find myself close to mastering a few concepts (the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel), but just when I think I have it completely under my belt and at my disposal, I will become inspired again and the process begins all over again. It's like seeing the light glowing just a tiny bit brighter at the end of the proverbial tunnel and realizing that I'm never getting any closer to it.

So...
In my recent exploring, I happened to check out Tommy Igoe's "Great Hands for a Lifetime". Talk about inspiring!! I now have a newfound love for some of my favorite exercises...RUDIMENTS. His "Lifetime Warm-up" has been quite a challenge and treat to learn, and I hope to incorporate some of my own warm-up rituals into Tommy's concept. Thank you Tommy Igoe for showing the drumming world this fantastic tool!!
For those of you who aren't drummers, rudiments are the basic learning tools and exercises that drummers learn to develop their ability and their drumming vocabulary. Where horns and pianos have scales...drummers have rudiments. Oddly enough, they never cease to be a challenge to play correctly.


Also in my recent exploring, I have picked up some dvds of past Modern Drummer Festivals. So many players, so many different styles, and so much inspiring material to draw from and be motivated by. I'm so excited!!
Again, for the non-drummer, there is a festival every year that is put on by Modern Drummer Magazine. Yes, there is such a magazine. To a drummer, Modern Drummer Festival seems to be one of the hippest and most interesting things in the world. For those non-drummers who happen to have an aversion to the sounds of drums...STAY AWAY!! IT WILL ONLY SOUND LIKE NOISE TO YOU!!
The same goes for PASIC.


I guess at the end of it all, what I'm really trying to say is this...
I am inspired. I have had my drive re-invigorated. Whatever way that inspiration presents itself to me, I am grateful to receive it, and I hope I can use it to its fullest potential so that I may one day begin to reach mine.

I can only hope that Holly and the girls don't want to throttle me about the neck for all of the racket I've been making!!

Father's Day

Well, my fine friends and acquaintances, today is Father's Day. The "sub-holiday" that celebrates fatherhood by awarding proud poppas everywhere with a new tie, coffee mug, set of tools, or a simply a free pass to play an extra round of golf without getting bitched at. In spite of the retailer's sales specials and the greeting card industry's sentimentally-driven fleecing of our wallets, Father's Day is not quite as celebrated in most regards as Mother's Day. How could it be? I mean, Mom should get extra attention and kudos if for no other reason than she actually had to endure the pains of childbirth. Regardless, daddies still get their own day of recognition too (probably due to the numerous times they have to stop watching their favorite televised sporting event and open up their wallets to pay for gum, video games, shopping sprees, or any other form of entertainment their children wish to engage in).

In case you haven't figured it out already from previous blog posts, I am married, and I have two daughters. Step-daughters, actually. I love them dearly. I want to protect them from the perils of the world. They have brought out of me an ability to love that I never knew I was capable of, and I am so thankful for them to have been placed in my life. To a great degree, I am their dad, in spite of not ever being referred to as such. On days like today, however, I am painfully reminded that I am not their father, and I don't need a segment on Maury and a quickly processed DNA test to know it.

At this very moment as I am writing this, the girls, my girls, are out to hang with their dad in celebration of Father's Day. I envy him. Don't misunderstand me, I am exuberantly happy that they are there with him, and ecstatic that they can further cultivate their relationship with him. When their parents divorced and their dad remarried, the father-daughter relationship was crushed and strained at best. It makes me so happy to know that they are rebuilding that relationship. I want nothing more for them than their happiness. My love for them makes me want to take a back-seat and take the leftovers of fatherhood. A role, I couldn't be more blessed to have.

Still, I envy him greatly. Not because I'm jealous over the girls. Rather because he knows what it means to have someone, a child, a piece of himself love him unconditionally, and without end. He knows what it means to called "daddy". Maybe Holly and I will have one of our own...hopefully we will be blessed with that.
Until then, I am content to be whatever I need to be for my girls, be it a protector, a friend, a financier, or the occasional daddy-type of guy.

True, today is a bittersweet day for me... perhaps because I miss my own father so much. Maybe it is because of recent events that have put me in this kind of mood. Recently, I enjoyed the great opportunity to be onstage with Willie Nelson. My own father was huge fan of Willie. HUGE. Actually, "HUGE" would be an understatement. Making music with Willie, onstage and televised, was by far one of the coolest things I have ever been a part of. A true gem in a lifetime of cool experiences. Willie is iconic. His guitar, "Trigger", will probably end up in the Smithsonian. And as cool and endearing as the experience was for me, it was equally as bittersweet and painful. When Willie turned and smiled at me during the performance, I was almost brought to tears because all I could think was, "I wish Pop were here to see this." I sincerely wish that he could have lived long enough to have seen one of his kids be onstage with his musical idol, the Red Headed Stranger whom he held in his heart to be one the greatest and most talented songwriters and musicians to have ever lived. Had he still been with us, I would have seen to it that my dad met Willie, which would have probably been equally as cool for me as making music with Willie.
I know, I know...you sentimental ones out there are thinking to yourselves, "Don't be sad, he saw it. He was watching." A beautiful and heartfelt sentiment, and also not much comfort. But thank you.

Happy Father's Day, Pop. I love you. I miss you. Thank you for inspiring me to become a musician, and for teaching me the love of music. I hope you got to see me with Willie. I hope I have made you proud. ~your loving son.

Where have I been?

Ok, ok, ok...
For the extremely small number of you who actually read this stuff, I sincerely apologize for the long gap between blogs.
There has been much going on. For those of you who are not married to me and would have no other way of knowing, the guys and I have been completing a new record (CD for you Gen-Xers, and "Downloadable Collection" for you youngsters out there!). We also started the new tour season recently. All pretty exciting stuff.

Life for me lately has been pretty normal, I guess...excepting of course for walking the red carpet at the ACMs. My grass is in desperate need of mowing...I suppose I can tackle that this week. I'm sure parts of my home would benefit greatly from a stern spring cleaning...and perhaps a thinning out of stuff I no longer need. Maybe I will get to that one this week also (although I wouldn't bet on it! Eventually, yes, but probably not this week!) My girls are great. No real drama these days. My wife is still the most awesome wife ever...of course! (Be envious gentlemen...very envious!)

Like I said...my life these days is fairly normal.

I did recently discover the wonderful world of twitter.  @chrisfryarZBB  in case you're curious. As with my blogging, I make no claims to being prolific nor entertaining with my tweets...but I am having fun nonetheless.

I also learned how to play the game of craps. Holly and I were in Vegas for the ACMs and we had some free time and decided to entertain ourselves with a short trip to the casino. Personally, I don't believe there is actually is such a thing as gambling...rather, I think there are activities that consist solely of winning and losing. Society refers to it as gambling because society doesn't want to admit to being a total dumbass sucker that happens to be better at losing than winning...just my opinion, I could be wrong.
As it turns out, Holly and I had a blast in the casino. We had anticipated losing a set amount of money, but "beginner's luck" intervened instead. We left with considerably more than what we went in with and had an amazing time. We're already planning to go back soon...not to try to repeat our winning streak, but to just spend time there in Vegas as tourists.


Tonight, Holly and I watched a special on the R.M.S. TITANIC. It featured a lot of footage of the actual wreckage, filmed by director James Cameron, who, in my humble opinion, is very clearly obsessed. It was a terrible tragedy that will probably forever be a mystery. And, Cameron is probably responsible for making it possible for us to know much of what we know about that horrible occurrence of April 15, 1912. His obsession will clearly be our gain. All I know is I have really enjoyed watching this program...especially so because I watched it with my honey! (Though, I could have done without hearing that damn Celine Dion song again. Sorry ladies, I know that you all love it for some reason that completely escapes me, but I think I would rather listen to a family of pissed-off badgers that have been thrown into a tree chipper.)

Why are my eyes open?

I know, I know...

It has been a minute or two since I last blogged. It's a careful balance of something to say, desire to write, and time to write it...and rarely do the three meet simultaneously! Sometimes I have something to say, but not the time. Sometimes I have the desire to write, but nothing to say. Sometimes I have the time, but my desires instruct me to do other things that I deem at that moment to be more important.

Tonight...all and none of those three are occurring and not occurring at the same time.

I got off the phone with my love earlier...both of our eyes were getting droopy, and the quiet yearnings of sleep were drawing us to our respective beds. So we said our "I love you's" and our "goodnight my love's" and hung up our phones.
My mind as well as my body was genuinely tired...I drifted off to sleep for just a short little while.

...and then woke up.

Why am I awake and writing this?

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA!

For some reason which completely escapes me at this moment (probably exhaustion), here I sit, alone, and wide eyed in my hotel room. Nothing interesting to watch on tv. My beautiful perfect wife is at home sleeping soundly (calling her back at this hour would be rude, selfish, and counter-productive). So...blogging seemed to be the most interesting thing to do.

The bad news is...

I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING REALLY COOL TO WRITE ABOUT...

I guess for now I'll just have to struggle to keep my eyes shut and my mind empty in the hopes that tomorrow I can keep my eyes open and my mind focused.

I will say this though...

I happen to be married to the sweetest, most beautiful woman in the whole world. I am so blessed. She also happens to be my best friend and has been since we were kids. I cannot say enough good things about this woman. She's smart. She's funny. She's absolutely sexy. She's creative, thoughtful, and sweet natured...though she would politely disagree with all of that. Most importantly...she crazy enough to be married to my dumb ass. My dumb, rest-deprived, insomniac ass. The fact that she is willing to put up with me and all of my eccentricities is not only amazing, but also makes me love her that much more.

I'll scream it from the mountain tops if I have to...

HOLLY, I LOVE YOU WITH ALL OF MY BEING!!!

Uh...say what?

So me and the boys have a couple of shows in Vegas. One happens to be a private event at "The JOINT", which is connected to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Quite by chance, the biggest adult entertainment convention in the entire world happens to be occurring at the same time.

And the same location.

Of course, the convention and award show is happening in the convention center attached to the hotel and our event (for an entirely different group of people) is in a entirely different location, however, suffice it to say that the entire place is crawling with porn stars.

So as I was walking through the hotel from my room to the buses, stopping briefly at a Starbuck's to get some coffee, I couldn't help but notice that there were lots of women walking around, scantily clad, wearing name tags.
- Incidentally, my approach to such situations is very akin to looking at the sun...you get a sense that it is there and look away. You never stare directly at it! -

So that's exactly what I was doing, when I happened to notice that the girls I was avoiding looking at actually happen to be employees of the Hard Rock Casino. After laughing at myself for a moment, I then noticed that most of the women wearing AVN convention badges were actually dressed fairly appropriately for most moral standards of the society that we live in.

I'm not judging anyone here...just simply trying to point out the comedic value of the situation.

New Year...New Dreams

So a little while before I sat down to write this, I happened to walk through the den where my my beautiful wife and one of my daughters were watching television. Actually, they were both in trance-like states on their laptops, but the tv was on. On the screen, I noticed a wedding ceremony taking place...a "Sex & the City" episode, though I couldn't tell you which one...
Well, if you must know, it was the episode where the jaded, cynical one was...sorry, too vague? Ok then, it was the episode where the jaded, cynical, red head was marrying her overtly nerdy "baby daddy". But that's really not the point.
The point is this - Seeing that wedding scene reminded me of the day I married Holly. We had a small gathering here at the house, and we offered our vows to each other in the front yard. It was a dream come true for me...seriously. For many years, I have been madly in love with Holly and always dreamed of one day marrying her. While I watched the few moments of fictitious matrimonial procedure on the tv I began to realize that one of my dreams had been fulfilled when I married Holly.

This instantly led me to an interesting conundrum..."Hmmm, what now?" I thought quietly to myself. What does one do when a dream is truly realized? This has happened to me a lot in the last couple of years. I have been blessed beyond words. I have had many of my life long dreams come true. I have been slowly and surely ticking things off the old "bucket list". So I ask again..."Now what?"

Here's what I came up with.

Fortunately, we are never too old to set a new goal, or dream a new dream. So I will add to my bucket list. I will dream new dreams. I will set new goals for myself...or at least extend the goals I'm working towards. I'm a big believer in chasing dreams. It's the chasing of those dreams that becomes our path through life. And it's not where we are that defines us...it's where we want to go and how we travel there that does.
As far as my wonderful wife is concerned, since I had a dream fulfilled the day we got married, I need to dream a new dream for the two of us. I need to revisit and reset goals. I will definitely keep this all in the forefront of my mind.