Snow On My Neck

We don’t get much snow here but when we do everything shuts down. It happens like this: first we get First Alert Storm Warnings. That puts everybody on edge – there’s a run on batteries, canned goods, fire wood and thermal underwear. People watch and wait. Then the snow begins to fall – gradual, fluffy white pillows floating in the air, easily landing on the cars. Only a little but it's enough. First Alert becomes Extreme Weather Conditions and people start to panic. They hallucinate tundra and polar ice caps. They hear strange sounds and imagine saber tooth tigers on the prowl, long jawed prehistoric hunters waiting to feed. People have to make it home before they freeze to death on those dangerous streets, or they slip on the ice and lie there broken, and the tigers get them. It’s a scary picture no matter how you look at it.

The schools close. Businesses close early or don’t open at all. The buses put on chains. People slide around in their cars and hit telephone poles, garbage cans and each other. Some people think that the best way to handle slippery roads is to accelerate, spin those wheels, hit the gas. Some people stay home and bar their doors so the snow won’t come inside and get them. It’s howling out there, there must be wolves.

Seattle. It’s a funny town. Starbucks lives here. I just read a great book about them called “Starbucked.” I don’t remember the author’s name but it's current, came out in 2008, and it’s a good read. Some magazine – maybe Consumer Reports – apparently said that McDonald’s coffee was better than Starbucks. That was in the book. I hope it’s true. If I were Howard Schultz I would be embarrassed. But I suppose he can afford to take it with a grain of caffeinated salt. The company has a nickname now – Charbucks. Some people say they over roast. Hmm

So here I sit, updating my blog and my MySpace page. I’ve been doing a lot of booking. Things look good. Trouble is, I can’t play the guitar. I have herniated disc in my neck and its pinching the nerve that goes all the way down my right arm. My little finger is half asleep and I can’t grip the flat pick. Sometimes my left arm gets weak too. It’s getting better slowly, but too slowly for me. I have two gigs after Christmas, on the 26th and 27th. If things don’t improve I’ll have to cancel them. I’ve already run out of money. Damn.

Maybe this is god’s retribution for my last posting. I wouldn’t be surprised. If the Bible is any indication that guy’s a real ass hole. But personally I think it goes back to a case of bad whip lash that I had about ten years ago. That accident kept me in bad shape for a month. I kept playing and everything but I basically had to hold my head up with my neck muscles –and that thing’s heavy. So I think that’s where the weakness came from, and then I moved wrong, or something – and here I am, floating in useless abandon.

In all reality though, on a scale from one to ten this is about a three. So I’ll just have to keep calm, do my therapies and wait. The real pisser is that I was planning to serenade the Mayor on Sunday. That’s a day and a half away. It’s supposed to snow again tomorrow, get high winds, and a lot more freezing. And I can’t put a guitar strap around my neck. The mayor may get a reprieve. Oh well. Soon…….