The Damned project was nearly derailed Friday, and then again Saturday. Mere hours before our first full-on practice we all got phone calls from frontman/genius Jeremy (he of the scarves and tight pants) who sullenly declared that there was no way he could go through with this thing he had started. Various financial and residential pressures were turning his head inside out, he had no time to adequately rehearse, and there was no way he wasn't going to suck once the big day came. I gently suggested he sleep on it, as he's usually a very enthusiastic cat (to a fault) and I was sure he'd change his mind the next day. He did. As for Friday, however, the band (imaginatively named "New Rose" by Jeremy, by the way) was officially off, and I was pretty irritated, so I rented a handful of Doris Wishman films and beered it up.

Saturday, I get the call that our guitarist Brother James was still hip, and was essentially taking over organizational tasks in an effort to make it happen. So an afternoon practice was arranged ... this time it was my turn to make a frantic phone call. I've been having minor (but persistent) chest pains for the past few days, and a sudden flareup an hour before practice was too weird not to investigate. With Lori's prodding, I urged everyone to practice without me, and I split for the emergency room.

I got the full treatment ... EKG, chest X-ray, blood work, and the good news is I was not having a heart attack. The doctors couldn't identify exactly what I was experiencing, but immediately life-threatening causes were not to blame. It was a stressful afternoon, lying nearly nude with a needle in my arm for four hours waiting for results, listening to the heartbreaking caterwauling of the psychotic patient a few rooms over ("WHY CAN'T I SEE A DOCTOR? I'M VOMITING BLOOD! HELP! I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE! DON'T LOCK ME IN THIS ROOM! I'M VOMITING BLOOD!"). More doctors today, in a less intense atmosphere, but I'm not so worried anymore. The pain is barely noticeable, but it is real and is still with me, even as I write this. With luck it's just stress, which means it won't be going away for a while, but psychosomatic illness is something I can live with.

Sunday I got up early, spent several hours working on "the book" (more information to come), a few minutes doing homework and was off to practice at last. With better organization we could have easily shaved two hours off the session (my time is stretched thin these days and two extra hours would have been very welcome) but when it finally came to all of us rocking in unison, everything sounded great and I'm confident that Halloween night will be swimming. The drummer is a maniac Keith Moon type, and playing that bass with said maniac was very satisfying. After seven years, I still have the beat ... the callouses on my fingers could be thicker, but aside from that, I wailed solid.

The next week will be full, at least three more practices, homework, class, last-minute Resonance stuff and a million other tasks I'm sure I'm forgetting about. Fellow heads, please forward a portion of your stash to my secret mailbox ... I would hate to have to depend on my own naturally-produced endorphins over the next seven days.