Fall into Winter

It is always difficult now with digital cameras to keep up with photographs. I decided to post for all our friends some of the places we've been and people we've seen from the fall. These first two photographs were taken at our old Stillwater house, that's Bradley Hayes in our backyard and Tabby and I in our garden.

Barbara and Phil, my mom and brother, came for a visit in June. As usual, it was 90 + degrees, so we took Spencer to the waterpark.

Phil and Spencer.

In August, we took Spencer to the Oklahoma Noodling Festival in Paul's Valley, which is 45 miles south on I-77 from Norman. For those of you unfamiliar with noodling, it's catching a catfish with your bare hands without rod and reel. Back in the old terriorial days, it's how people without means put food on their table, so it's a celebration of the human spirit to persist. As usual, it was 100 + degrees with a heat index of 115, so we only stayed a little while!

An Oklahoma noodler.

Tabby's photograph of the BNSF line down to Paul's Valley.

Spencer and his monkey.

Spencer.

In August, Pat, Tara, Kestrel, and Kaya came to visit us. This is Kes and Spencer reading.

Tabby and Spencer.

It was Tara's birthday, so we had a birthday party and she was the princess!

Spencer gets gnarly with the pink featherduster.

In July, we took Spencer to the Cleveland County Fair and he began his fascination with cars, tractors, and trucks, so he's sessioning on this John Deere rider mower. I won't put the photo of him freaking out on the kid car ride. He's not ready for amusement rides yet!

This is Aaron Friskee (aka: the Friz) at Brad's backyard halfpipe. We visited Brad on my way home from Lincoln in September.

Brad and his ramp. Brad's house is like the tree fort for all skate kids in the neighborhood. He's like Captain Hook, and the kids are his pirate band!

Meghan, Bradley's wife.

Spencer, hanging out at the skate session.

Spencer and me at the park.

We took Spencer to get some pumpkins before Halloween. He was into it this year.

Spencer on the slide.

Spencer in his Halloween costume, as a skeleton. He was into it and ran all over the yard.

Spencer at Halloween.

Spencer.

Spencer learned the word "bee" for all insects when our mums attracted butterflies this fall.

Spencer checking out the scene outside.

Zombie vs. Shark

Zombie vs. Shark played their first club gig in Norman last week at the Red Room, with The Ethereals and The Electric Primadonnas. It was a good show and the crowd was cool. We were allowed to play very loud, which made the music sound better. It was quite cool. Photo by J.J.
Here's a link to some live video of the gig, ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2WwHkPrI1s

Zombie vs. Shark

Zombie vs. Shark

Robert Scafe and Jeremy Gragg. All photos by Tabby

Matt Bokovoy.

Ron Haas.

Jeremy Gragg.

Matt Bokovoy.

Robert Scafe.

Jeremy Gragg.

Ron Haas.

The show went well and it was awesome to see about 60 or more people there on a Thursday night. Even better, it was cool to be involved in a collective endeavor, both the band and the show, and have people get into it. There's more photos on our myspace page, so dig it!

Ponca City, Best Session Ever

Boneless to Tail, Ponca City Ditch, March 2005. Tabby and me visited Bradley Hayes and his parents when we returned to Oklahoma. We were looking for a house in Norman, and traveled up to see everyone in P.C. This is the best place to skate, to me, in all of Oklahoma. It's silly fun to skate there, it's always warm, and never crowded. The ditch sits at the north edge of town with wide open fields all the way to the Kansas border. It was a perfect day when we were there and it was spring surreal.

Bertleman Slide, Ponca City Ditch.

Me, Tabby, and Brad Hayes of Sharkbait Magazine/Sharklahoma.

Bertleman, Ponca City Ditch.

Ponca City Skate Ditch, Me, Tabby, Donna Hayes, and Cousin Jared.

Spencer, April 2008, after I returned from the Historians Against War Conference. My friend Charles from The Nation said the family needed to be outfitted properly! I came home with three shirts.

Spencer in his new chair.

Dance of Days

Fugazi, Gilman St., Berkeley, 1988

Gilman Street stood as Maximum Rock and Roll's club, commited to providing a venue for underground music, outside of the repression of the law.

Crash Worship, Gilman St., Berkeley, 1988. Crash Worship was a tripping band from San Diego, who played a very loud, hypnotic space rock tinged with late 60s L.A. psychedelia. They were the loudest band I've ever heard, until I saw My Bloody Valentine in San Francisco in 1991.

Fidelity Jones, Gilman St., 1989. These guys were a Dischord Records band, two of whom, shown here, were in the great punk/go-go music band Beefeater. This is Tomas Squip and Doug Birdzell. Squip reminded me of a cross between John Sinclair and Allen Ginsberg, but without all the drugs or alcohol.

Tomas Squip, Gilman St., 1989.

This is the DC band Fire Party, another Dischord Records band at Gilman St., 1989.

Fire Party, Gilman St., 1989.

Amy Pickering of Fire Party, Gilman St., 1989. When kids and others wrote to Dischord Records, it was usually Pickering or Cynthia Connelly who wrote the note with your records. I used to wait and wait and wait for the mail in high school, hoping my $5 postpaid Dischord release would arrive. Not only is underground music good, it usually costs less as well (since there's usually no stockholders to pay-off with the creativity of bands).

Fire Party, Gilman St., 1989.

The band you see here is Drive Like Jehu, in 1993 one of San Diego's legendary noise-punk bands. They remind me of Sonic Youth or Rites of Spring filtered through the remix of the Stooges' Raw Power (or James Williamson's guitar playing). This is Rick Froberg and John Reese, who was also in Rocket from the Crypt. As well, this is the "old" Casbah rock club, owned by Tim Maze.

Rick Froberg, Drive Like Jehu, Casbah, 1993. It was sad when they broke up, and happily The Dragons (also R.I.P.) emerged to fill the big Marshall stack sound so popular in San Diego. I think that Reese and Froberg are now in the Hot Snakes. San Diego has always been a big guitar-loving town, without pretentious art-rock types (usually Ivy League university grads), so leave your earplugs at home! Who can't forget bailing from your parents house on Christmas Eve, and going to the Casbah to hear The Dragons play three sets, as the Stooges, the Stones, and as the MC5?

Drive Like Jehu, Casbah, 1993.

Drive Like Jehu, Casbah, 1993. John Reese serenading the crowd with Celestion lullabies.

Drive Like Jehu, Casbah, 1993.

Drive Like Jehu, Casbah, 1993.

Drive Like Jehu, Casbah, 1993.

Drive Like Jehu, Casbah, 1993.

These photographs show my old band, Dona Sonora, playing with Willie Nelson at Doc Watson's in Philadelphia, which was booked by Cyndi, a regular at Doobie's Bar. Luckily, Al Hewitt of The Low Road had his camera and documented Nelson's jam with us. The photos look cool, but the jam sounded terrible, since Willie, Tex Cobb, and entourage poured in after Fight Night in Philly, completely inebriated and stoned. Since we tuned to E flat, Willie had a hard time singing and playing, obviously accustomed to E natural. Nonetheless, it was very cool and he watched us play for about 40 minutes until asking if he could jam with us.

The irony was that almost none of us, except Dave Lorenz, our bass player, knew any of Willie's tunes. It was also funny that he showed up during our set, since we played with two country rock bands that night, the opener Marah and the headliner, The Rolling Hayseeds. He would have been better off with either of them.

Jen Streeper and Willie, outlaw-style, at Doc Watson's, Philadelphia, 1996.

Dona Sonora with Willie, Doc Watson's, 1996.

Dona Sonora with Willie, Doc Watson's, 1996. Willie played my white Gibson SG. I'm off to the right of the stage. I bought the white SG because Brian Baker, of Dag Nasty, played one.

Dona Sonora, Upstairs at Nick's, Philadelphia, 1997. Upstairs at Nick's was the best sounding rock venue in Philly, booked by Rick D., who used to run the Firenze back in the day (which had terrible sound). With a good sound system and damp room, there were many good shows. I once saw Zen Guerilla play there, and it sounded like a recording studio.

Rich Alfonse, Dona Sonora drummer, at Nick's, 1997. Rich was a great drummer and Marxist rancantour. He was the top sociology student at Temple the year he graduated. Rich hated my complex song structures, and used to curse me out all the time when we arranged music. Now that I'm 39, I don't like complex song structures anymore, so he'd be happy, if he's not into fusion jazz by now!

Dave Lorenz, Dona Sonora bass player, Nick's, 1997. Dave, Rich, and me met through an ad in the City Paper, and we've been good friends ever since. I figured that when they wanted a guitar player who liked "Fugazi, Black Sabbath, and the Pixies," I knew something interesting would happen, even if it was confused. Dave played through this enormous bass stack, a Sun 8x10 cabinet, with a 200 watt Trace Elliot head. He should have been in Motorhead instead. You should check out Dave's new band, El Dorado, on myspace.

Me playing guitar, Nick's, 1997. Dona Sonora wasn't really well-liked in the pretentious art-rock scene of Philly, since we always played really loud. Only the older punk scenesters like Jack Gory and others liked to see us, since they grew up on the raw power. The only louder bands in Philly were Zen Guerilla and The Photon Band. It was hard coming from San Diego, with its loud guitar scene, to Philadelphia's Ivy Leaguer, Pixies-wannabe scene. So when Dave bought the Sun cabinet, I decided to add a 1969 Vox AC30 to my 100 watt Marshall half stack. It was the same setup as Adam Franklin and Jim Hartsridge from Swervedriver.

Me and Jen Streeper, Nick's, 1997.

Dona Sonora, Nick's, 1997.

This is a photograph of Al Hewitt and Erin Elstner, playing our instruments at RPM studios. The first formation of Paul Dellavigne's The Sinners was practicing. After the photo, Al fell on my SG and cracked the neck. He's still my friend (since I cracked it three times before that).

Dave, Rich, and me at RPM, 1999. Paul must have snapped the photo. Paul's band started when Dona Sonora had broken up and Paul's band The Hot Buttered Elves was on hiatus. Since both me and Paul's girlfriends left us at around the same time, we used to commisserate together at Doobie's and talk about music. So I went to go see him play solo one night when I was under the heavy influence of Mark Lanegan's Whiskey for the Holy Ghost and Mike Johnson's I Feel Alright. Hearing Paul play reminded me of those sad, somber singers, so I asked him if he wanted a backup band. I talked to Dave and Rich, and The Sinners were formed. We actually got along better as bandmates playing with Paul, since they were all his tunes! Now Rich could pick on Paul's arrangements.

The Sinners, Fergie's Pub, Philadelphia, 1999. This was the last show I played with The Sinners. I moved to Nebraska and Paul left for Seattle soon thereafter. We sounded pretty rad, and the band reformed a year later when Paul came back to Philly.

The Sinners, Fergie's Pub, 1999.

This post of photographs of independent label bands probably won't register with many of you under 30 or over 45, unless you follow the punk and hardcore music underground, or ran in parallel art or social activist circles. Although some punk/independent label bands occupy a sliver of the public memory of the corporate music industry, most do not. Their innovative music exists in the punk/underground collective memory, or the individual memories of people who went to shows or took photographs and collected them in their photograph albums. I have alot of punk show flyers from 1980 to 1987 for San Diego, half of which never fully happened because the police shut them down. To the unknowing, it would seem as if there were alot of shows.

All of this creative activity of youth emerged as a reaction to the youth culture of the 1960s, especially music and art, which found exposure in the mass media, and as Thom Frank showed so well in The Conquest of Cool, in youth marketing and consumerism. Gil Scott Heron was correct that "the revolution will not be televised," and so it was. The youth cohort of the late 1970s and 1980s rejected that, hoping to create a "parallel culture" to the mass media and niche- marketed hedonism of glam rock, disco, and new wave. They hoped for an autonomous sphere of culture, which evolved into a social world and also found a mostly far left politics. Even though many books and film documentaries of the American Underground have been released recently, it's still the largest, undocumented youth rebellion yet awaiting a history.

To not be nostalgic, today young people in the underground have more independent music labels and more venues to play at than my own days. Police almost never close down punk shows anymore (perhaps because the Age of Reagan is over, and punks aren't "communist cells" anymore). That is, underground music is stronger and better supported than ever, and it still has not been co-opted by the corporate music industry, even if some "punk" bands have been given limited exposure on major labels.

So be adventurous, donate your Britney Spears or Kenny Chesney or Usher album to the local Salvation Army and get out to support your local youth in their creative idealism!!

Kasey Kolassa: My Friend

This is my oldest friend, Kasey Kolassa, grinding the gnarly hip at Derby Park in Santa Cruz, probably in Spring 1988. I've known Kasey since 1976 when my mom moved our family to Coronado, California. Tabby, Spencer, and me saw Kasey in Santa Cruz over Christmas this year on our way to Berkeley. He still lives in Santa Cruz with his wife Sandy and his kids Grant and Maggie. We went to Derby Park twenty years after our first foray there for a session. And there's nothing better than a session with your best bro. Kasey sent these photos to me, so they're up for posterity now.

This out in front of Kasey's parents home in Coronado. This must be when we were in college, since that's my Guild guitar in my hand.

At the Kolassa's house in December. Tabby, Spencer, me, and Kasey.

Jamming in the basement at Kasey's house. I think I must be in seventh grade in photo, since that's my first guitar, a 1976 Fender Stratocaster. I bought it when they were cheap during the "hair metal" guitar god days, when flying V's and other Hessian guitars were popular in San Diego.

These photographs show a skate ditch that no longer exists, the Uncle Wiggly ditch in Sorrento Valley. During the late 1980s, developers in conjunction with the science complex at UCSD built up Sorrento Valley very quickly. Since all the infrastructure for San Diego's little Silicon Valley needed to go in first, there were quite a few really good skate spots on San Diego's suburban fringe. This place was fairly isolated in one of the canyons near I-5. It was a cool place to hang out there since no one else was around.

Kasey Kolassa, Smith grind at Uncle Wiggly ditch.

Sweeper at the Uncle Wiggly ditch. I had long hair back.

Smith grind. I think that thing on my arm must be there because my arm was bleeding. It was easy to slam at this ditch.

This is big Johnny Reichert and probably Ian Ragovin, Scott Ratigan's little brother. We used to bring him skating all the time, and I think he liked hanging out with the big guys. John Reichert was the gnarliest punk rocker I ever knew, and he had the best record collection. He had every U.K. Subs and The Damned albums. For a big guy, 6'4" and 230 +, he was an aggressive skater. John lives up in Seal Beach I think and is an art teacher.

Boneless at the Uncle Wiggly ditch. Once the cops busted us for tresspassing on this property. It was funny, because there was nothing there. But this was the San Diego suburbs during the Reagan Era, so you can only imagine what the cops thought of our antisocial clothes and activities like skateboarding.

Smith grind. This is either Charles Mehling or Kasey Kolassa. I'm thinking Kasey because of the shoes.

This is Hiawatha Bowen doing a frontside boneless at the quarter pipe at John Reichert's house. We would just put it in the street and hit it with loads of speed. As he got older, Hiawatha really became a great skater, one of the most gifted skaters I've ever seen. He is somehow related to the legendary Quanah Parker.

This is the halfpipe at John Reichert's house in the side yard. This is Creighton Lasky on the ramp, with Mike Garcia, Charles Mehling, and Garrett Scott on deck. Below is my cousin, cowboy Jay Miller and Hiawatha Bowen. John's mom was super cool and just let us build it in the side yard. It was made from "liberated" lumber.

The ramp was super gnarly, 10 feet high with a foot-and-a-half of vertical. I learned to drop in on this ramp and it was a pretty scary beast. Since the chimney was about 12 inches from the side of the ramp, if you wiped out on the house side, you could bet wedged between it and the ramp. I remember seeing Eric Kerley get stuck in there.

Charles Mehling, backside air on the quarter pipe. Chuck was a very good skater that really taught us alot of stuff about skateboarding, since I think he had lived in Upland where that gnarly Upland skate park was. He was kind of the ringleader and he never had any qualms about getting into trouble with the law, for example, when we would drive around looking for empty pools to skate in Gary Gadsen's green VW van after school.

Rock and Roll, the Reichert quarter pipe. Check the Minor Threat t-shirt.

Garrett Scott, backside air at the Reichert pipe. When my family saw Kasey in Santa Cruz, we had alot of cool stories to tell about Garrett. I'll likely share some of those when I do a post on him solely.

Kasey Kolassa, smith grind at Derby Park, probably Spring 1988.

Me on the hip at Derby Park.

This might either be me or this guy named Lars we knew.

Tim Rush, backside grind at Derby Park. Tim had these super wide Independent trucks, so when he grinded on the snake run, it really caught your attention. The edges were not backfilled, so you could grind it anywhere. When we went back last month, it had been finished off to the edge with concrete. How un-punk rock!

Smith grind, Derby Park. I'm wearing my grandfather Bill's French beret. I also liked it because Skeeter Thompson from Scream had one, too. By the way, speaking of Scream, Dischord recently re-issued the classic Still Screaming album, and it's been remastered. It was the first great sounding Dischord album in terms of production, so check it out.

This is Chuck, one of our skating pals, super gnarly frontside air off the hip at Derby. Chuck was a very good skater and a graduate student in architecture and urbanism at UCSC. Once he gave a tour of downtown Santa Cruz to some visiting architects from Europe. They couldn't figure out the metal strips on curbs and ledges around town, and Chuck had to explain to them that they were to deter skateboarders from grinding the ledges.

Me doing a frontside air off the hip at Derby Park. I had some green suede Vision hightops.

Phantoms of the Southern California Past

This is the Little Landers Colony in San Ysidro, during the 1910s. It was a utopian agricultural colony inspired by the back to the land movement and the ideas of William Smythe, an advocate of irrigation in the arid West. Basically it was an experiment in intensive cultivation techniques and specialty crops that had been pioneered by Japanese Californian farmers. True to the times, it was also racially exclusive and closed to all nonwhites, like many utopian schemes in early twentieth century California.

The gardens at the Little Landers Colony. Today this area is heavily built up all long the border.

Pueblo men from San Illdefonso on the grounds at the Panama-California Exposition in 1914. I wrote about these men in my book. Second from the left is Julian Martinez, the husband of the potter Maria Martinez. During the fair, the men donned "Indian" attire at the Painted Desert exhibition to play to tourist stereotypes of native peoples. The photograph is by Martinez's friend Jesse Nusbaum.

San Diego Pageant of 1911. The pageant celebrated the groundbreaking for the Panama-California Exposition after the federal government officially recognized the fair. This is the pageant of the missions created by the poet John Steven McGroarty. Shortly after the event, The Mission Play would be performed by Mission San Gabriel in Los Angeles.

The New Mexico State Building at the fair, designed by Rapp, Rapp, and Hendrickson of Santa Fe. The building is the prototype for the Museum of New Mexico and signaled the flourishing of the Santa Fe cultural revivial. Those interested in the Santa Fe cultural revival should read Chris Wilson's The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition (UNM Press, 1997).

Map of Balboa Park and the PCE.

Model Farm at the Panama California Exposition. I wrote about the exhibition of agriculture in the Journal of San Diego History, http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/99spring/agriculture.htm

Stereocard of Mission San Diego de Alcala.

When me and Tabby lived in Stillwater, we used to go to Guthrie, Enid, and other small towns to rummage through junk stores. I found alot of postcards of San Diego and California, since likely wealthy and modest Oklahomans visited Southern California on a regular basis. I found treasure troves of California postcards. These postcard images created romantic visions of Southern California for those back home and unable to travel. The cards were just one ephemeral item to sell the California Dream to those outside the state. This is the new campus of San Diego State College.

Postcard of the Spreckels Mansion in Coronado. John D. Spreckels at one time owned virtually every major industry in San Diego. He was San Diego's original robber baron. You can read more about him in Mike Davis, Jim Miller, and Kelly Mayhew, Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See (The New Press, 2003).

Postcard of Olvera Street in the 1930s. The L.A. boosters who turned the old plaza into a tourist mecca of fantasy heritage claimed the place was more Mexican than Mexico itself. Nonetheless, it is quite interesting that Olvera Street was Mexican rather than Spanish, especially the 1930s during the campaigns of Mexican repatriation in California, where an estimated one million Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were forcibly repatriated or voluntarily repatriated themselves due to racism and intolerance. The history of Olvera Street can be found in Phoebe Kropp's compelling California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place (UC Press, 2006). It received honorable mention for the Gustavas Myers Book Prize.

Postcard of the Sunset Cliffs near Ocean Beach in San Diego.

Postcard of Lafayette Park in Los Angeles.

Postcard of view overlooking Mission Valley in San Diego. Now the retail malls dominate the valley.

Postcard of Ramona's Marriage Place in Old Town, San Diego. The site was owned by John D. Spreckels and managed by Tommy Getz for tourist entertainment. It is just one of many sites to promote the romance of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona.

Postcard of Ramona's Marriage Place.

Postcard of Junipero Serra statue, San Fernando Mission. Depending on who you are and your politics, Serra is either a symbol of progress or represents oppression. In 1988, his beatification elicited much protest from California's native peoples and it was interesting to see the California historians devouring each other during the controversy. This could be a book all in itself.

I think this is the Santa Barbara mission courtyard. Tabby, Spencer, and me stopped in Santa Barbara during the holidays as we drove from San Diego to San Francisco. It is a beautiful downtown and a nice area of coastal California, but it was a little too shi-shi for us.

Postcard of Mission San Juan Capistrano.

This is Mission San Gabriel, where John Steven McGroarty first staged the famous "The Mission Play." For those interested in the play, I highly recommend William Deverell's Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of the Its Mexican Past (UC Press, 2004).

This is called Tropical Southern California Garden. I found it in an antique store in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

Good Times in the Big Easy-October 2002

The wedding party dinner at the restaurant Feelings (the name was corny, but the food was excellent). We had to postpone this dinner until after the wedding because of Hurricane Lilly. With everyone's flights being delayed the night before the wedding, we had to wait for everyone to arrive! This is a rare unblemished photograph of Tabby.

My dad Ron Bokovoy took all these photographs. As usual, five years later we are still waiting for all those photographs and video footage of our wedding. So whenever you're ready, send it in.

Our niece Kaya and Phil with kazooes at Cafe Sfbisa.

The best man Paul Dellavigne and us at Cafe Sfbisa. Paul was a very good best man. When I forgot my cash at the court house to pay for the marriage certificate (since before the wedding we were searching for a lost pearl earring and waiting for Al Hewitt to show up), he lent me the money. I think I paid him back, but if not, hopefully he'll leave a message here!

The Moms photograph. Barbara Simon, Tabby, me, and Pat at the courthouse.

Kasey Kolassa, my childhood friend, aunt Linda, and Alan Hewitt and Chris Ogilve at Cafe Sfbisa, where we had the reception. Tabby's pastry mentor from Le Bec Fin, Bobby, recommended the local eatery to us and even placed a personal call to arrange contact. The food and atmosphere was memorable.

We got married at the City Hall in downtown New Orleans by a justice of the peace. Given all the bizarre "super-wedding" stuff in the media, like the show at the time called "Bridezilla," we figured that we'd keep the wedding simple and have the reception at a very fine restaurant. Who needs all the frills of a wedding ceremony when fine dinning is probably the most important part of the day?

My sister Melissa, her daughter Kate, and Sherry Bokovoy.

My brother Phil and Jim and Linda Bokovoy, my uncle and aunt, at the Olde Town Inn.

Erin Einhorn and Dave Lorenz at the Olde Town Inn.

Michael and Mary Kay Willard, with their daughter Sofie and my niece Katie (with the bib). The Willards had a hard time driving down as Lilly began to bear down on Baton Rouge and tear through Louisiana. At the last moment, the hurricane slowed down to a category two, made a left (west) turn and hit its bullseye at Baton Rouge. The Willards snaked past it by going east, and coming down through Mississippi. Three months after the photo was taken, Mary Kay and Mike celebrated the birth of their son Sam.

Tabby and her mom Pat Tomaselli at the hotel. We had most of the guests stay at this rooming house hotel called the Olde Town Inn. It's located in the Marigny District and was an old bordello that's been converted into rooms. It had an internal courtyard and garden that was perfect for people to just hang out.

On our way down to New Orleans from Stillwater, Tabby and me drove down the Indian Nation turnpike into the Red River Valley of East Texas. We went through Paris and Texarkana, then took this spooky road south of Shreveport to connect with the main highway. As we drove down, tropical storm Lilly turned into a category 4 Hurricane. We saw lots of Louisiana evacuees driving north into East Texas to escape the oncoming storm with their vehicles loaded down with personal belongings.

So, Tabby and me said "Ah, let's just keep going!" We were getting married and since the Olde Town Inn had been at its location for 150 years, we figured everything would be fine.

In October 2002, my wife Tabby and me got married in New Orleans. With family on the East and West Coasts, we figured New Orleans would be a place where everyone invited would have something to do. It was quite an interesting time before the wedding. Tabby cracked her tooth and the seamstress messed up the alterations on her wedding dress. I had a bike crash where my handlebars pulled out of the headtube and scratched my face. Then I broke my wrist at the skate park in Stillwater, when a bmx biker kid dropped in on top of me while I was skating the half-pipe. All of this happened about one week before the wedding on October 4th!