Before moving West, I saw the Ramones probably ten or twelve times. I would get the local weekly and check if they were playing anywhere in CT, NY, MA or RI. This was, of course, long before the internet.

There was no show like a Ramones show. At least until the last time I saw them at the Living Room in Providence when a bunch of jarheads started swing Xacto knives around ruining everything.

Some performer have to jump around and get the audience into it to get some energy going but not the Ramones. It really was all about the music.  They'd come out onstage without making contact (even with each other), Dee Dee would yell, "ONE TWO THREE FOUR!!!", they'd blast out Do You Wanna Dance or something, and when it was over, two minutes later, do another one.

Joey would move around a little but Johnny and Dee Dee mostly stayed pretty still and I bet if I watch an old show now it would probably even look like they resented being there and were only fulfilling an obligation.

Though it had to be fun to see people flying around in manic ecstasy to Surfin' Bird or Rockaway Beach. There's just no way that wasn't worth everything.

When I came out to Seattle in '96 for an all-expense-paid conference on improving neighborhoods, the hotel offered us a town car to take us anywhere we wanted. One our very first night just after checking in, they brought us to the New Orleans in Pioneer Square for dinner. On the way in I picked up a copy of the local weekly and saw something called the Night of the Living Elvises at the Crocodile.

The driver dropped me, Ellen, Michelle and Dina off and we saw Elvis impersonator after Elvis impersonator backed up by the Memphis Mafia. A Young Elvis would finish his song, a Fat Elvis would come out and the bass player would yell, "One two three four!", and on and on. It was incredible. 

Finally, Drug Addict Elvis came out with a nurse and an whiskey IV drip, holding a toilet bowl full of fried chicken that he would take a bite of and then throw at the audience while sing I Wanna Be Sedated. 

I was jumping up and down on a couch with my friends and even though I had only been in Seattle for a couple hours, I knew I was gonna move here as soon as I could.

This painting is for my sister, 'cause the only thing that would have been more perfect would have been if she were jumping up and down on the couch with me.

I painted this off a photo I found online by a guy named Ian Harper who, although we never met, was no doubt at some of the same shows as I was.

No matter what I ever do in my life, nothing will be better than figuring out how to make a fully functional Great Highland bagpipe out of brass, fiberglass and carbon fiber.

It took me over ten years to figure out all the sound chambers and inside dimensions of the chanter and all that, but I did. I spent THOUSANDS of hours on it. 

And wouldn't you know, the only people who can play these complicated instruments are bagpipers, and except for a handful of them, they all dismissed them out of hand and went out of their way to mock me online and even to my face in various beer gardens of several Scottish Festivals.

So I gave away nine of them to people who, for all I know, probably just stuffed them in a box and threw them in a closet. 

But I saved my Green Marble bagpipe and put it up for sale on eBay. Nobody bought it for $4,000 which kinda pissed me off, so I raised the price to $20, 000. I figured if they weren't gonna sell, I'd rather they didn't sell for twenty thousand than four, which of course, they didn't. So I packed them in a box and put them under my bed.

And then a couple weeks ago I went back to my YouTube channel to put some videos up for my portable cabin and saw something somebody posted last year on a bagpipe video where he called me a fool because, "How can make a bagpipe when he doesn't even play them?"

Well I can tell you RufusMcDufus69 or whatever the hell your name was, it's because I spent YEARS on it. I went to your YouTube channel to see what you've made but it was just a bunch of Pantera videos, so screw you.

So I pulled out my last set of pipes and now they're hanging up in full display in the portable cabin I built, and it makes me happy every time I look at them.

Last year I went up with some friends to Ketchikan for a yoga retreat. I don't do yoga but I REALLY wanted to see a whale. I'd lived in the PNW since 1996 and NEVER saw a whale so I figured this would be my best shot.

The retreat was on an island at a fishing lodge and they had a bunch of 16' dinghies we could use whenever we wanted. One day we went to explore some abandoned village and on the way back somebody told us that four humpbacks were just spotted on the South side of the island so went to see if we could see them.

We saw them from a distance and it was exhilarating. I could see that they were coming up together, staying at the surface for a minute or two, and then going down for about five minutes and then coming up again maybe a thousand feet away. It was hard to say where they would come up so I cut the engine and we drifted for a bit, looking around for them.

Suddenly there were air bubbles all around the boat and fish started jumping out of the water. Peggy said something and, almost in slow motion, the four humpbacks came up out of the water not thirty feet from us. We all gasped and were completely gobsmacked at what we were seeing.

They slipped under the water and Karen asked, "Should we be scared right now?" Laura and I just shook our heads and said, "Naw, it's cool."

I couldn't sleep that night and can still feel one of those whales passing under our tiny boat and I haven't been the same since.

I built a wood cover for my big screen TV 'cause nobody likes it when other people know you watch TV. I painted it black but immediately realized that it looked like a TV that was off. My mom gave me a painting she did in art class of Van Gogh (that makes it an Original Van Gogh) so it inspired me to do something in the Impressionism style (I looked it up). 

This is Ballard Ave and the Ballard Bell. It's not exactly accurate, but it's art and there are no mistakes in artwork. So there.