Facing Down a Ruptured Eardrum

About three and a half years ago, Graham Nancarrow and I met on a club date in Nashville. We quickly fell in music-love, wrote a bunch of songs, and recorded an album together in 6 days with a few friends laying down bass and drums.

Graham had a headlining gig at Belly Up Tavern in San Diego in early September, and asked me to join him on pedal steel. Monetarily, the gig did not make sense, but love is love, so I cleared my schedule, rounded up a babysitter, and bought a ticket for the wife in an attempt to shoehorn a needed couples vacay into a gig in a beautiful location with beachside accommodations.

The day of the show, I joined Graham surfing. I had never surfed before, and I still haven’t. I just got beat around by waves that pushed plenty of the Pacific into my ears.