Forgot to mention

I neglected to update on Thursday, the ultrasound was able to positively identify that the baby is a girl, so I lost the bet. I admit I was a little bummed because we're only having two kids and I wanted one of each, but she looks completely healthy so I guess that's all that matters. If she's as cute as Macy, I'm gonna have to stock up on shotguns and rock salt to keep the teenage boys off her as she gets older...

I'm surrounded

It's weird how sychronous the news ends up being sometimes...I'll get to that in a minute.

Everyone that knows me knows I am a declared agnostic, meaning that in my opinion I cannot either rationally or emotionally support the idea that a God does or does not exist. I mean, to me it's folly to declare that argument won one way or the other - if God is infinite, and our understanding of life, the universe and everything is finite, then we cannot by definition ever completely know for sure whether a God exists or not. That is the basis of faith, which is a concept I at least understand - faith means that in the absence of any sort of definitive evidence, you make a decision to believe in something anyway. Believing in God or being atheist are alike in that way, in that it requires a leap of faith to really be honest that you go one way or the other. And if you have made that leap yourself, in a way I envy you, because for the life I me I just can't do it. Despite all logic that God does not exist, I can't discount the fact that an existence like that might be beyond my understanding, which means the possibility always remains that it just might be true. At the same time, I see guys like Evander Holyfield walking down to the ring singing their hearts out to a gospel tune because they're just so...SURE...and that level of conviction that I feel would be necessary to have faith is something I may never be able to grasp. But at least I'm honest about it.

Anyway, that said, you can understand why I cringe when confronted with someone else's faith (either for or against). This has reduced the Bible to a text, and organized religions to social services that were once huge political forces...and are trying to be once again. That scares me, because faith is not rational, and this day and age I don't want someone at the helm making decisions who just makes decisions based on gut instinct and damn the cost.

Unfortunately, we have a president in the office who is the most uber-conservative, religious zealot in modern times. Bush makes Reagan look like a hippie by comparison. And he IS making his decisions based on faith, and that's scary - because this is not your average church-going guy, this is an evangelical Christian who believes that the Rapture is actually coming very soon, and seems to be going out of his own personal way to bring it about (not to mention line the pockets of his buddies in big business).

Don't believe me? Then I invite you to watch the program I watched last night on PBS Frontline called "The Jesus Factor" (available online in its entirety at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/). And when you're done with that, read the following article from the Village Voice - "The Jesus Landing Pad" at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php. That's what I meant about the news being synchronous. If either of those stories doesn't scare you, then you really ought to take a deep look at yourself, and understand that Bush is creating an American version of the Taliban - a govenrment based solely on religious values and ancient laws. We laugh at the Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran that have such governements in place, but the truth is it's happening right here, and that is just the tip of the iceberg as to the depth of my dislike for George W. Bush.

One more thing...

Just updated the picture on this blog, that is an old-ass photo but it'll have to do for now since I want nothing to do with a camera at the moment. For reference, I no longer have the dyed black hair or the goatee, to my wife's utter glee. But I have unfortunately also gained about 20 or so pounds since leaving Phrenik, so you'll probably get to hear quite a bit about that in the future. Also, my website is going up in rudimentary form at http://dbodine.netdojo.com

Ahhhhh....

You know, this blog thing might be alright after all. That actually felt good to write all that out. And I didn't mention the aftermath of leaving Phrenik - there are apparently quite a few people who were really bummed by it, musicians and fans alike, and they don't mind telling me...but once they hear the reason just about every single person has said the same thing - that they respect me for stepping up and being a dad, which was a really cool feeling. Fielding quite a few offers for musical collaboration of a non-intrusive sort as well, I might add. I'm not talking about "come join my band", shit I wouldn't ask me that either after I left a band as high up locally as Phrenik. But I've had one guy ask me to throw down some vox on some electronic stuff, another one ask me to help punch up some songs, and another I offered a month or so ago to write a song for him asking when he can hear it. Not to mention that I would love to write music for Phrenik still. I have to get on rebuilding this computer so I can start my home demo studio and feel productive musically.

But anyway, back to life - as I might have mentioned, my wife Becky is pregnant with our second kid, due in mid-October. We have an ultrasound appointment tomorrow morning where we will most likely find out what sex baby we're having. Originally, Becky was all against finding out, she wanted to be surprised, yet the only names she's been coming up with are all girl names. I said what about the boy names, you know, it'd be nice to have one of each although I'll accept 10 fingers and 10 toes. With a baby attached, of course. She said she's convinced it's a girl. I said, yeah, but Michelle (my sister) has these like incredible predictive powers and she says it's a boy. So there's a small bet riding on the results tomorrow morning, and we'll see what direction the names go after that.

Kinda bummed that the Kings lost yet another game seven, I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with Peja that he disappears the latter part of the season (wha- wha- what...? You like sports? Yeah I do, AND I write...get over it). And I hope Vlade doesn't retire, it'd be nice to see this team stay intact for one more try...sigh. Oh well. I have to say, after the Raiders losing the Super Bowl in the way they did, this is absolutely no match in terms of disappointment. But all the same I'm in no mood to watch the highlights on ESPN News. At least football is only a summer away, and I have the Olympics to distract me in the meantime.

Opening salvo

I am momentarily riding a plateau in my life, having just traded the chase of one particular brand of future for another, and basking in the level of difficulty it took to make that change. Lemme splain. I'm 34, which is neither here nor there as far as the categorical value of age goes - you hear "34" and unless you're a Lakers fan (I'm not) you don't instantly think of youth or middle age. More or less you're just thinking, well I guess that's still young, but...uh, lemme see a picture or something. Not having yet given in to the elder times, I look and dress (and, when I feel like it, act) younger than I really am. Most people would think I'm in my late 20's before I drop the truth on them.

So it should come as no surprise that also for nearly 20 years continuously I was in one form of rock band or another, culminating with this last project (Phrenik - http://www.phrenik.com) where I was the lead singer and a main songwriter for one of the most popular Sacramento-area bands of the past couple years with aspirations of much larger things...and quite a few people ready to either give us those things or simply deem us ready for them. Really, that's a musician's dream - to be part of something people want to see so badly they will fork over their time and their hard-earned money to follow you around town to scream along with the lyrics, thrash about wildly, disrobe, go nuts in another world you create for them 30-45 minutes at a time...a regular crowd of anywhere from 50-300 fans ready to rock out at a moment's notice...with all eyes on the prize of the band securing a big-label contract, MTV, touring, the works...

And I quit.

(pause for reaction)

Okay, now that you've thrown yourself about the room in a tizzy going why...why..WHY...how could he DO this? Doesn't everyone want to be a rockstar, and you fuckin walked away what sounds like a golden chance at a future shot on Cribs? Yes I suppose they do, and yes I suppose I did. But you didn't hear...the REST...of the story...in addition to being this mythic-sounding performer endowed with magical powers of audience persuasion, I am also a husband (married 5 years), a father (one daughter on planet and another tot-of-unknown-sex due in October), a homeowner (bought my first house in Feb. 2003) and a computer programmer who quite frankly already makes a decent living. So really, adding "rockstar" to the list is spreading it so thin that my figurative self would make Calista Flockheart look tubby. And that's nasty cause I don't go for the scrawny thing.

I am originally from New Jersey (more on that story to come, I'm sure, I don't mind lording it about), but when I first moved to San Francisco in late 1995, I made the decision that I would work to become a pro musician, but at the same time I would also find a career that suited me and begin working on it...not so much as a backup plan, but more as a matter of preventing myself from continuing to flounder around in poverty while I waited for that call from Tommy Mottola. I promised myself that if I ever reached the point where either career was wholly interfering with the other, I would have to make a choice.

Well, needless to say, that choice was the root canal of all choices - it took nearly six months of over-exertion, marital stress, work lapses, lectures from the band (and band manager) and just general exhaustion to come to terms with the fact that I could no longer do everything I wanted to do, and something had to go. I was on the precipice of a VERY hard decision, but fortunately my love for my wife and my daughter made it easy for me - as I said to someone last night out at the Boardwalk in Orangevale, "it's like...imagine there is someone in this world who loves you SO much that every time you leave the house they cry their eyes out and call for you to come back...and you're always leaving..." I found that a part of me had grown up enough to want to reciprocate the love my 2-year-old daughter was trying to show me by acting like that. My wife had always tried to understand the lack of time I had being in bands, but eventually that wore on her too. So to them the decision was a relief, but to me it hurt like a bitch and so making it I went kicking and screaming full-on into parenthood.

I guess the natural reaction of most people would be to resent their wife or their daughter for "making them quit"...but in truth, I really don't. If I really and truly 110% didn't want to quit, I would have stayed in the band. But in so doing, I would have had to leave my family, sell my house, quit my job and really go for it. No, I made the choice based on a love for the life I'd built outside of music, and the desire above all to see that other life succeed and flourish....and in order to really make that happen, I'd have to be in that other life rather than away touring all the time.

So to sum up, you're getting in on the ground floor of the new life (minus the period of depression that followed The Decision) - you've seen the crossroads, you may get some of the back story, you may get some of the continuation, hell...you may not get any story at all, I have the attentive ability of a fruit fly. But at least you know a little about the storyteller, eh?