Tag and Release

Okay, I was tagged, so I must offer five things about myself that you might not otherwise surmise:

1. I am a bassist. For a long time, I defined myself entirely by that. Not playing in a band anymore, but it is in the core of my soul and always shall be. During my heyday, I sang through the bass. Thunder and lightning were at my fingertips. I have experienced the unique magic of imagining a note, moving one finger to slam it into a stainless-steel roundwound bass string, hearing that sound emerge amplified through a speaker, and actually feeling it vibrate the very bones and tissue of my torso as I stood before my amplifier. From a spark in my brain to a volume of moving air, a sound I created literally shook my guts. One cannot experience such things and not be changed.

2. I was employed as a typesetter for several years and I loved it. I am still addicted to fonts and I maintain a nerdish love of desktop publishing.

3. I've always been artistic; writing, drawing... and I have always enjoyed the notion that the creative mind is the result of some degree of madness. If this is true, then it is a madness that should be nurtured. A divinely disturbing concept.

4. I am an exception to a rule that could have resulted in a tragic life for me. I had enough socio-behavioral strikes against me growing up that I should have ended up as a "statistic": I come from a broken home, was raised in a repressive, violent rural area dominated by a cult-like religion, and so on. Somehow, I managed to escape the stereotypical repetition of history, and have instead strived to become the opposite of what might have been. Except for the resultant psychological expressions described in item #3.

5. My wife and soulmate is creative and artistic also. To her I always dedicate this quote from the movie The Addams Family:

"I would kill for her. I would die for her. Either way, what bliss."

Now, it's my turn to tag someone. So, I tag Mike of the North.