Cave Dwellers

When I was a kid, our family vacations often consisted of going camping at Rend Lake in Southern Illinois. Rend Lake is the lake that was a few miles from our house, but to make it feel like we were on a major journey, our parents would always take us to camp on the other side.

Now, we did have some fun times, but I would yearn for the times when we would go further than the next county over. And get to sleep in an actual bed. And didn't have to catch our food if we wanted to eat. And use a real shower.

I don't blame my parents. A trip to the lake was a low-cost vacation and we didn't have a lot of money. Plus, the main purpose for a vacation is to get away from the stress of work. My dad worked hard in a coal mine and just wanted to get away now and then. Planning a big trip often just causes more stress and my father was of the belief that encouraging man's careless eagerness to live indoors just exaggerated that stress.

Despite the desire to stay close to home and eat burnt potatoes dug out of a campfire, sometimes we had to venture further out because my mother's family lived on the other side of Missouri. On one of our trips to visit them, we made an unscheduled stop to visit Onondaga Cave. I don't know how our parents felt about it, but that cave blew my brothers and I away. It was awesome. From that day on, anytime we were in the St. Louis area, we would beg to go back and see the cave.

On one of these trips, as we saw the interstate sign advertising that the cave was 87 MILES AHEAD, we started our usual pleading and my mother pointed out that there other caves beside that one. Now, that may have been true, but we had not seen those other caves and as stupid children (you may have noticed this about your own children), we wanted to see the one we knew we loved.

Despite how adorable we were, my mother denied our request and forced us to go to Meramac Caverns instead. Once we stopped crying about how horrible our mother was being to us, we looked around and noticed that this cave was even better than Onondaga. It was amazing. From then on, we became cave people.

Wait. Not "cave people" like we quit school and started living naked in the caverns while eating the few bats we could knock off the ceiling and using their guano to protect our skin from the sun when we stepped outside, but "cave people" like people who really enjoy caves.

Every time we were on a road trip, we kept our eyes open for cave systems and since Missouri has over 6,000 chartered caves, there were plenty to find. Our vacations started to center around cavern systems instead of the local lake. One of our vacations even took us to Arkansas because of a large system of caverns we were eager to explore.

On one of these trips, Dad heard about a cave we could explore ourselves and we drove out in the middle of BFE to find it. We went down miles of dirt roads and eventually parked in a field and started walking. It was a long walk, but we eventually found the mouth of the cave and ventured in. I was in junior high and my brothers are 3 and 5 years younger than me. This means that we are significantly younger and more nimble than our parents and were able to move through the cave more quickly and easily.  As the ceiling of the cave got lower and lower, my brothers and I pulled further ahead.

Before long, it required crawling on our hands and knees to progress further. Our parents checked our lights and told us we could go a few yards up to see if it opened up on the other side. If it did, they would follow us through. We edged forward as the ceiling lowered and lowered and soon had to pull ourselves along on our bellies. We yelled back that we were fine every time we heard our parents voices calling for us and continued forward.

As the ceiling started scraping our backs when we moved forward, we decided to move over into the small stream that was flowing beside us. The water was freezing, but the erosion of flowing water gave a few more inches of space to work with. Unfortunately, the ceiling was still getting lower as we progressed. We eventually had to flip over onto our backs and just keep our faces above the water as we pulled ourselves through. Imagine lying on your back in about a foot of water unable raise your head out of the water because there is a slab of stone about two inches above the surface. This is what we were pulling ourselves through. Of course, now that our ears were underwater, we could no longer hear the cries of our parents screaming for us to answer them.

We slowly pushed forward with no regard as to how we would back out of this if the ceiling got so low we couldn't breathe or what our plan would be if the water started to rise. Remember my earlier statement about children being stupid? We inched along and began to notice that we had a little more space than before. We were soon able to flip back over to our stomachs and move much faster. And then, we found the opening. It opened up into a HUGE room. Stalactites, stalagmites and limestone columns were everywhere. It was beautiful.

As much as we wanted to see everything, we could see that there were several paths out of that room and did not want to get lost, so we needed to head back to let our parents know that there was a room back here and they could come on through. We went back into the hole we just came out of.

Using the same method of lying on our backs to breathe, we inched our way back to our parents and surprisingly found them much sooner than we expected. When they were no longer able to hear us, they had done their best to follow us and prayed we didn't all get lost in there forever. They stopped in one of the little rooms we had found not knowing where we had gone after that. They didn't realize there was a path deeper in if you were willing to submerge yourself in water and pull yourself through on your back. Who was being stupid now?

I think that was the first time I ever got grounded on a subterranean level.

Boredom in Music Land

Yesterday afternoon I braved a mini blizzard, arrived in St. Louis and have been sitting in a dark room ever since. I've been sleeping in an unfurnished room with six gaseous teenagers and really crappy internet service.

That really sounds worse than it is. I have been known to exaggerate.

Much too my disappointment,
there was not a single dinosaur inside.

Last month I wrote about going to see my son's death metal band perform in a club. It was loud, as is necessary for shows of that type, and my ears have stopped bleeding since then. This weekend I am with the band again, but this time it is to record their first EP. They have recorded once before, but it was in the basement of their lead singer's house. This time, we are in a professional studio. It is a much better experience when you don't have to chase rats away to keep them from chewing on the guitar cords.

My being here does not mean that I really have anything to do with this endeavor. Because recording is not a fast process, they have to stay here for a few days to get all the tracks done. With five band members, all their equipment and sleeping gear, it would not fit into one vehicle.

Proposed solution: "Christian, call your dad. He's never doing anything."

So, here I am.

The owner's dog. Pit bull mix to guard
his owner's coffee stash.

Despite not having much to do, it really isn't that bad. I brought my laptop, several books and a few rented DVD's. There is also a big screen HDTV in the next room with a large comfortable couch. I am using these things to distract myself because a person can only watch a drum track being laid down so many times. And it has been done many, many times.

It was really interesting in the beginning. When they first started recording last night, I was fascinated by the microphone setup, the sound board, the process and the beautiful 37" computer monitor the sound engineer has on his computer.

Part of the control room

First, the guitar track (scratch track) must be recorded. This is a basic recording that will not be on the final cut. It is used as the basis for the drummer to play off of later. Once the drums are recorded, other instruments get recorded and added in one at a time. It is an incredibly slow process. The guitar scratch tracks alone kept them up until about 3 a.m. this morning. Since I don't have the energy of a teenager they don't need me for any of this, I went to bed at midnight.

This studio is built for several aspects of the music business. They silk screen shirts for bands, create CD and sleeve art and rent out rooms for bands to practice in. Since we live so far away, they let us crash in one of the practice rooms. While I greatly appreciate the courtesy offered to us, I thought I was going to freeze to death. That room was cold.

Since it is not designed for people to be living here, it is missing some basic accommodations. There is a refrigerator, but no stove or microwave. We ran to the grocery store to have food for the next three days, but since we cannot cook, it is mostly lunch meat sandwiches and fruit roll-ups.

One of the motivational moments between takes

Whether well-fed or malnourished, the plan is to have the entire album finished sometime Sunday afternoon. The guys have really been enjoying the experience and I am thrilled that I got to participate and watch their excitement. Despite all the downtime for me, I love that I was asked to come. I've learned a lot. Hanging out with teenagers, a lot of what I learned involved new ways to fart on each other, but I learned some music stuff too.

Hopefully, the new Odysseus EP will be available soon.

The Freaks Come Out at Night

In November of 1999, while walking the streets of Cincinnati at two in the morning, I saw a strange sight. About three blocks ahead of us were several dozen people wearing flashing headbands, crazy colored clothes and carrying large boxes. Being the curious person that I am, I ran ahead to see what this group was all about. As I got into the center of the group and was about to start asking questions, one of them reached into his box pulled out a handful of condoms and offered them to me. I was a little thrown off by the gift and wasn't sure what to say. Everyone in the group was carrying these boxes and they were all filled to the top. They had thousands of these contraceptives. In fact, the boxes were so full they were spilling out, leaving a trail behind them so they could later find their way home. I soon learned that I was walking with a gay rights group that was on their way to a local bar. They intended to run in, jump up on the stage with the band and start throwing prophylactics at the patrons. I shook a few hands, excused myself and hurried back to the hotel to share this story with my friends. You don't see something like this everyday.

In January of 2001, I was driving with my family in San Patricio, a suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico. As I rounded a corner I noticed a few dogs standing on the side of the road growling at something across from them. As more of the street became visible, I was able to see that there was a line of dogs, about a dozen, standing side by side. Every dog was up on all fours, hair raised, baring teeth and glaring across the road. My son, Christian, asked what they were growling at, but our view of that side was blocked by a building. I made the decision to continue on my path and drive in front of them, but had everyone roll up the windows. As we crept forward, we were craning our necks to see what had these dogs so upset. Once we cleared the building, it was like a mirror image of the other side of the road. There was a similar number of dogs on the other side, staring back and doing the same thing. Was this some sort of canine street gang that was getting ready to rumble? We drove between the opposing sides and not a single dog broke his gaze from his counterpart across the street. I still don't know if that was a turf war, a fight over some road kill, or if they were going to serve up some doggy dance moves to settle their differences, but I did know that you don't see something like this everyday.

When you see something that unusual, it tends to stick in your memory. This past Saturday night was one of those nights. I was in the historical St. Louis suburb of University City with my daughter, Kirsten, nephews Gage and Isaac, and our neighbor's kids, Manny and Bryan. Delmar Avenue has several blocks of outdoor cafes, the landmark Trivoli theater, unique stores, restaurants and pubs. The sidewalks are filled with students from the nearby university almost every night. However, the locals were caught off guard by the people out that night.

 There were zombies everywhere. Between 400-500 undead were wandering the streets, chasing civilians down to munch on their brains, and wreaking havoc over approximately a four block area. People sitting in outdoor cafes were stunned when a horde of zombies came lumbering down the sidewalk toward them. People driving on the street were rolling up their windows while others were snapping pictures. There were many mixed emotions observed on the faces of the people and children who were witnesses to this event, but one thing I knew. I loved it. This was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. I am a huge fan of horror movies and I like zombies more than vampires, mummies, or werewolves. Despite the screams of their victims, seeing them in real life like this was incredible. You don't see something like this everyday.

Zombie Crossing Guards

Despite the brain-dead appearance of the zombies, they seemed to be very well organized. They did not disrupt traffic, they used crosswalks, and even posed for pictures. One zombie even had a megaphone, yelling "What do we want?" The horde would chant, "BRAINS!" There were zombie families, zombies in wheelchairs, zombie dogs and zombie babies. They were everywhere.

This event, called a Zombie Walk, was actually organized by a few local college students. They set up a Facebook page and asked people to show up in zombie costumes. They gave a time and place and then just sat back to see who showed up. With close to 500 participants, I think they had a good turnout. This kind of event is also called a 'flash mob.' A flash mob is when a bunch of people unexpectedly show up in a common place to perform some unusual event to surprise or entertain bystanders. In this instance, it was dress like a zombie and walk down the street. It definitely served its purpose. People were very confused. Lots of bewildered looks. Just as many smiles and a lot of people pulling out their cameras to document the story that their friends will not believe when they get back home.

High Society Zombie

Back in August, I created a list of things I wanted to do before I die. You can see that list here. One of the things on that list was to participate in a flash mob. I have now done that, so I can mark it off the list.

The kids and myself had a great time and have decided that we will look for more similar events to participate in. The hard part is learning about them. The organizers of flash mobs want to keep them as quiet as possible for the surprise of the people who will witness it, however, they need to publicize it enough to get participants. It is a fine line to walk, but the results are well worth it. Flash mobs have received a lot of criticism, but when put together well, they are of little disruption and people seem to enjoy them.

I learned of this event a few weeks ago and decided to come check it out. There was no charge to participate. We just had to pay for the gas to get there, a meal to eat while on the road, and a little bit of money for costumes. The entire night cost me less than $30 dollars and we had a great time. Next year, we will plan ahead a little more to create better costumes, but do not expect the expense to be any higher.

This guy never broke character

I have included several pictures. You can click on any image to see it in full size and if you would like to see all the pictures that were taken, feel free to visit my Facebook page. The link will take you right to the pictures.

Love the contacts. Really added to the look.

Family of Zombies

Zombies were busting out everywhere

The horde that I brought

Gage had a zombie related accident