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Throughout the 1990s, I was convinced that I would earn my keep as a drummer for a heavy metal band. I was about 5'7" tall, weighed 130lbs soaking wet and had scraggly long hair down to my shoulder blades. I spent hours smashing away on a drum set that my parents had saved up for and bought me for Christmas when I was about 15. The world was my oyster - it was only a matter of getting the last licks of "Cowboys From Hell" down...

I'd been in several bands throughout the years, each of which having had its highly original name - gems like "Empire"... "Axiom"... and, of course, the prerequisite name for anyone in a band in that era: "Red Rum". After the first couple of bands proved to be completely unsuccessful, I decided to answer an ad in the paper for a "rock/metal band looking for a drummer". The audition was set for that same day and, at the tender age of sixteen, I grabbed my sticks and drove out to the rough end of town.

The cast of characters was interesting, to say the least. The singer was a 40-something overweight biker chick who had recently been released from prison after serving time for smuggling cocaine across the US-Canadian border in her underwear... the guitar player was a 17-year old with an amazing depth of talent (but an unfortunate habit of sleeping with the singer), and the bass player was... well, untalented - and with an equally unfortunate habit of sleeping with the singer. He could have been sleeping with the guitar player, too - to this day, I'm really not sure.

Anyway, time passed, practice moved to my parents' house from the rough end of town, and the dysfunctional group of wannabe rock stars stumbled its way through festivals and seedy clubs. We had some success, placing 2nd in a couple of local competitions, but overall, there wasn't much money to be had. I had quickly developed a reputation as the "witty" member of the group - a high bar, to be sure. Despite the good times we were having, we were all beginning to get discouraged with our lack of progress as a band.

The beginning of the end of my involvement with the group (and the lesson in the 'reflection rule') came about a year or so after I'd joined. I'd gotten used to the type of people who would come to watch us practice, so when our singer brought her new 6'6" biker boyfriend over, I thought nothing of it.

Practice droned on for a couple of hours, and when we were done, he stood up and faced me.

"Hey, dude - go grab me some water, 'k?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. No problem."

I went upstairs, and grabbed a glass from the dishwasher. I filled it with water, and brought it down. He took a little sip, then pulled the glass away from his face as if it had bitten him.

"YO! There's like, spermies or something floating in here."

I went and looked - sure enough, the glass had obviously not been cleaned. Rather than apologizing to the nice gentleman and retrieving another glass of water, however, from my pubescent mouth, sprang:

"Whaddja do, backwash or something?"

The entire room went silent, and then the bass player went flying by me, tackling the big biker... all the while yelling "CHILL! CHILL, man - he was only KIDDING!". The guitar player, and one of the other guys who came to watch the practice, jumped on the stunned boyfriend as well.

Bewildered, I turned to the singer for an explanation. To my surprise, she was as white as a ghost. As it turned out, the biker had himself been in prison - several times - for various types of assault, including one on a cop. He was "not right in the head", which I later found out (from the guitar player) meant that he was bipolar. I stood there, totally silently, as they brought the guy out of the house. It was unreal, watching as they took him up the stairs, speaking to him in soft tones as if he were a grenade about to explode.

I think I stood in the basement by myself for about 15 minutes after they'd gone. I swore to myself, then and there, that I would always think before speaking for at least 5 seconds about what would happen AFTER the words were out. Dave's reflection rule.

Have I always obeyed the rule?

No.

But that's another entry. :)

Thanks for reading up. I'll be posting more in the next couple of days!

-dave