Popping Smoke Over The Treeline

"Son, if you can't talk, click the handset twice".

That's a line from a scene in the movie Platoon in which an officer is trying to communicate with an injured soldier who is about to be overrun by the enemy. While I'm certainly not ailing in any way, the line keeps popping up in my head when it comes to thinking about getting back to this site and writing again. Many of you have contacted me to make sure I'm okay and I certainly appreciate the concern. So here I am clicking the handset for y'all.

Let me just say that this has been a busy summer and August in particular kicked my ass. But in a good way. This month I saw The Black Crowes at the Fillmore on the 6th, Ozzfest on the 13th, some baseball on the 20th, and tonight I head down to Santa Monica to catch Dread Zeppelin for what is the 21st or 22nd time. I also squeezed in a solo camping trip and some weeknight partying which has me reeling a bit. With the lack of sleep and the abundance of alcohol this month, I feel like I'm at Hunter S. Thompson fantasy camp. Looking back so far, I can't figure out how I've kept going. I think the secret is to not stop. September is going to known around here as Detoxember.

So, here come the lies again; The Velvet Revolver story will be finished before I move on, I promise. But the Black Crowes show has some great peripheral tales and the shit I saw at Ozzfest has to be seen to be believed. I'll put up some digital photos from that one, but I'll have to selectively edit them.

Keep on coming back because some day there will be stories to read again. In the meantime, I'm off to Santa Monica for some Zeppelin-inna-reggae-style sung by Tortelvis himselvis. We'll see if that one produces any hazy memories for future consumption.

Thanks as always for checking in.

Click click.