The Poisoned Ink Well

Monday, June 09, 2003



Drumline: Ed and Ric's version

Well we’ve had two visits from the local sheriffs, so far in two days over my son’s drumming. It was before 10 pm last night when they arrived and I just shook my head and said Ok whatever. He wasn't playing the night before, but they said they were in the neighborhood. (What ever) Now, it’s morning and Ed is practicing, again. I’m relieved as long as he is on those drums and pounding away at his teen angst, then I know that he’s not out doing drugs, getting in trouble, or doing anything except hitting cymbals as hard and as fast as he can.

I remember his dad tried to start a band. We lived in a low rent apartment, the kind where people sleep in the lobby and you hand them an old coat to use as a pillow. One of those California neighborhoods full of over grown boys (oh excuse me, I mean Men) where the sign painter is a bass player, the mail man writes songs and plays rhythm guitar, and the apartment manager sings, and if they had been teenagers then they would have a garage band (probably did), except they were all in their 20s and 30s, and too old live with their parents, so instead they had an apartment band. Anyway, they practiced on the second floor in a corner apartment of a four-story tenement. We thought people would call the cops, cause man they were loud, instead we got knocks on the door, song request, and it all usually ended in a keg party. Wish it were like that here.

Boom, boom, bam, bam, crash, crash goes my Ed: I hope someone bails us out of jail, because I will not tell him to stop.

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