A Trip To The ER

Okay, let’s get right down to the trip to the hospital that happened this week.  Here’s the story: We played a St. Patrick’s Day show Monday night, and went back to the club on Tuesday to tear down our gear.  After we got our stuff out of there, we helped the staff move some pool tables.   We had two diagonal legs propped up on wheels to make them easier to move – not the most sturdy way to do it, but it gets the job done.  Anyway, the pool table was up on the wheels and Josh was screwing back in one of the feet into the leg.  Somehow one of the wheels slipped out from under the table and the opposite leg came crashing down on Josh’s hand, smashing it under the weight of the entire pool table.  Miraculously he was able to quickly pull it out, but the damage was done.  Although I was standing right next to him, I didn’t see the leg smash his hand; I heard the crash and scream and then turned around to see Josh lying flat on his back holding his arm.  I think I screamed louder than he did.  It scared the hell out of me.  And what we couldn’t see were his fingers; he had them hidden as he was holding them.  I’m pretty sure a few of us would have passed out if a few of his digits were still under the leg of the pool table.  I would have been the first one.  But as it turns out (and quite luckily for Josh) all his fingers were still attached to his hand.  Now we just needed to determine how bad the injury was.  He couldn’t move some fingers, or even feel some of them.  Not a good sign.  So we got him some ice and tried to get him to sit down and relax for a minute.  We finally got back to the hotel, dropped the other guys off, and I took Josh up to the hospital, which is where the fun begins (because by this point, he’s calmed down enough and it is time to have fun with this thing). 

We get checked in at the ER and are immediately sent to a room where a nurse is waiting for us.  At this point in the story I would like to pause and say the care at this hospital was pretty damn good.  It was a small county hospital in northwestern Nebraska and we might have been the only patients there, but the staff were very attentive and gave great care. Our nurse was great, the doctor was great; but the x-ray tech wouldn’t let me go back with them – so she was not so great.  We did snag a copy of the x-rays of his hand though, so that makes up for it.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, at the hospital.  Anyway, as Josh is explaining what happened to him, it comes out that we’re in a band, blah blah blah.  Josh has them look us up on FACEBOOK (see, we had to be the only patients in the entire hospital) I tell the nurse that we’re close to 2100 ‘Likes’, and if she goes around the hospital getting people to ‘like’ our page, then we’ll give her a free CD.  Well not even ten minutes later she came back and told me we had the 2100 ‘likes’ now.  In her defense, we were at 2096 when we got there.  We only needed 4 more.  But nevertheless, she fulfilled her end of the deal so I ran out to the van and got her our “Back In Town” album.  Oh, she also brought us rice crispy treats too while we were there, but wouldn’t give up any of her chocolate (and for those that really know me, that one hurt).  Hmm, I wonder if she actually listened to the CD, and what she thought?  If we are ever in need of emergency care in northwest Nebraska in the future maybe we can find out if she liked it.  But back to Josh and his hand: after the doctor exam and x-rays, we learned that no bones were broken and no tendons were severed, that he would just be very sore for a while.  They didn’t even give him a prescription for some good pain killers or anything; just told him to ice it, take Ibuprofen, and keep it elevated.  None of which he has been doing since.  He’s been practicing on his new bass guitar all day.  That is what happened to Josh.  So don’t be giving him too much sympathy; there wasn’t even any blood. 

So that’s what happened after the St. Patrick’s Day party, but now I’d like to talk about getting there.  The St. Patrick’s Day party at Feik’s 120 Bar in Chadron, NE has kind of been an annual thing for us the past 4 years.  So even though it fell on a Monday this year, they wanted us to be there and we naturally said yes.  The problem was that the weekend prior to that we were already booked to play in Mississippi, nowhere near Nebraska.  But hey, this is what we do; we don’t usually turn down gigs solely based on distance, especially when the club has been good to us in the past.  So we took the gig knowing it was going to be hell trying to get there.  And it was.  We played Saturday night until about 3 in the morning, and had to tear down and be on the road by 9am Sunday at the latest.  To get to our destination in enough time to set up and be ready to play by Monday night, we had to get most of the drive done Sunday.  18 ½ hours later we made it to our stopping point in central Nebraska, where we were able to get into the hotel and get a long nap in before getting back in the van and driving the final 6 hours to the show.  Getting into the hotel at 3:30am was a challenge in itself, but I’ll get to that.  Kevin somehow drove the first 15 hours of the trip on Sunday, all after no more than 3 ½ hours of sleep.  I have no idea how he is able to sit behind the wheel for so long and be able to focus, but he does it.  Finally somewhere on I-29 in Northwestern Missouri he gave up the driver’s seat and let me take over for the final three hours.  Oh yeah, so we finally get to the hotel to check in (remember, its 3:30am and we’ve been in the van for 18 ½ hours; we’re a little tired at this point) and there is no one at the front desk to let us in the door or check us in.  After about 5 minutes she finally pulls up.  Yes, that’s right, she wasn’t even in the building; she was out driving around somewhere.  Really??? She finally gets there in the office (where I presume she was supposed to be) and then takes nearly a half an hour to check us in.  I was pretty tired, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating too much on the time here.  It took her forever to get us keys to some rooms.  First she couldn’t get the amount right.  Then she wanted to just talk and joke around for a while – come on lady, we’re TIRED!!!! But, we eventually got into the rooms and were able to get a couple hours of sleep before we had to be back on the road. 

I guess the point of that story is this: we are blessed to get to play music for a living; if someone wants us to travel that far to come play a show on a Monday night, we’re going to do it.  If a place specifically requests to have us there because we’re the band they want, we’re going to do what we can to make it happen.  It means that much to us.  We are honored that people want us to come to their town, or to their bar, to hear us play our music.  It would have been nice though to have those bunks and a bathroom in the van like I talked about in the last journal entry.  But hopefully we’ll get there eventually.

So the other day I was thinking about my ability to ‘flip the switch’.  I mean two things by this: 1. Going from being at home to being on the road.  2. Going from hanging out off stage to going up on stage and immediately getting into the ‘performance mode’.  I caught myself wondering how I’m able to do it.  I’ll start with the second one.  I noticed at a recent show that I was standing off stage talking with some people and the conversation had nothing to do with music; just a normal conversation.  And in the 10 seconds it took me to walk on stage and for the lights to come up, I had transformed into performer and was in my ‘stage mode’, blocking out whatever I was just doing and getting lost in the music we were playing.  How is it that easy for me to go back and forth?  It was like two different people, and kind of freaked me out a little that it happened like that.  But as I thought about it, I guess I do that a lot more than I realized.  Maybe it is not all that uncommon.  Does it happen for other people too?  I’m sure it does.  But to that extreme?  It just struck me as odd I guess, and surprised me that I was able to basically have two different personalities like that in the span of seconds. 

Then I thought about the duality of my life.  Which takes me back to number one: going from being at home to being on the road.  I feel like I am two completely different people.  It is not just like forgetting about work when I go home at the end of the day, or forget about things at home while I’m at the office.  It really is like two different people.  When I’m on the road and we’re playing shows I am out in bars all the time, I am super social, I drink and party, I sleep in, I don’t care as much about my diet, I drink a ton of Coke, I sleep late, etc. But when I’m home, it is completely the opposite: I never go out to bars when I’m home, I never crack a beer or do shots (and rarely might have a glass of wine), I enjoy the solace of sometimes being alone during the day, I am rarely up past 10pm and get up way too early, I plan and cook healthy meals, allow myself one Coke a day, stuff like that.  It amazes me how different of a person I am.  When we’re out on the road I love being in social settings and getting the attention and everything that goes with it.  At home you couldn’t pay me to go out and party.  I just want to relax and enjoy good food and read a book in bed.  It just seems like such an extreme difference.  And the switch happens so often because of our schedule; we’ll be out for three weeks or something and then home for 8 days.  Back and forth, back and forth.  I don’t know how my body doesn’t just shut down and yell at me to pick one way of life and stick with it.  But here’s the thing, I love them both.  I can’t imagine my life without being on the road and partying and being in the spotlight and playing music. But I also can’t imagine taking away the sanctity of my home life either.  When I’m on the road, I throw myself completely into being a musician and making this band whatever it is.  And when I’m home, I love everything about it and never want to leave.  Again, I just find it odd.  I thought I would share the crazy and sometimes illogical thoughts that run through my head.  If writing this blog has taught me anything about myself, it is that my thought process is definitely a little bit off center. 

Well that’s it for this entry.  As always, make sure you check out our website www.themichaeldband.com to see our schedule and find out when we’re going to be back around.  If you don’t ‘Like’ us on FACEBOOK yet, make sure you go do that; and if you do, then share our page with all your friends and get them to ‘Like’ us too.  And for all the tweeters out there, go ‘follow’ us on TWITTER.  Don’t forget that our new album “Back In Town” is on I-TUNES as well.  And lastly, below are more lyrics from the album.  Be safe out there!

“Moonshine At Midnight”

I met a man the other day, he told me a story about the way things used to be

About a still out in the woods where some good ol’ boys would brew illegally

That gave me an idea, I called some friends and told them what he had to say

So come on over here tonight, let’s bring back the good old days

So bring your cousin and your sister and your neighbor and your granddaddy too

I’ll bring a big ol’ jug of lightening, and we’ll all howl at the moon

We’ll sit beneath the stars with mason jars and old guitars and pick our favorite tunes

And drink some moonshine at midnight just like they used to do

They all showed up at nine in their trucks and I made sure the fire was lit

Grandpa Jones beneath the tree was showing everybody how to take a hit

Well someone made a toast to all of those still running today

And my buzz is kicking in so let’s begin to fly away

So bring your cousin and your sister and your neighbor and your granddaddy too

I’ll bring a big ol’ jug of lightening and we’ll all howl a the moon

We’ll sit beneath the stars with mason jars and old guitars and pick our favorite tunes

And drink some moonshine at midnight just like they used to do

Yeah we’ll gather ‘round when the sun goes down pass it around and take a sip or two

And drink some moonshine at midnight just like they used to do