Find a place to sleep. Yesterday, I played a benefit with Brian Fitzpatrick and the Band of Brothers for Blank-Fest. They have these concerts all over the place every year. Admission to the show is a blanket for the homeless. Of course, the one we played ain’t the number one event, but it happened and we contributed, which I think is a good thing. It’s nice in New York today. 65 annoying unseasonable degrees. I don’t even need jacket. But there’s still a long winter ahead and I don’t have to wonder where I’ll be sleeping when it gets really cold.

Start re-learning the guitar. There’s a guy I met through my voiceover work at Sirius. By met, I mean I’ve talked to him and sent him e-mail. I’ve never seen him. He sent me a message last week telling me that he was moving on from his gig there and that I should direct my invoices to his successor. With his message was a list of URLs, so I checked out a few of them. I hadn’t known much about him. It seems that he’s a guitarist. Earlier this year, he had a terrible accident with a power saw that left him without fingers or parts of fingers on his left hand. His fretting hand. I discovered that he’s now resolving to play the guitar again, left-handed.

Incredible. I looked down at my hands and thought about how I’d ever manage. I’m very careful with my hands. I won’t even go bowling. I play so many instruments and nothing is more important than my hands for that. I thought about Curtis Mayfield, who was paralyzed from the neck down when a lighting rig fell on him. When he died, he couldn’t do anything but sing. I’ve often thought of how I’d use a sequencer or something and continue to make music no matter what happened, but now I know someone dealing with that horror and it’s far more shocking than any conjecture. I picked up my bass and turned it upside down and backwards. I wondered if I could do it. My hands just wouldn’t work! After 25 years of doing it, playing bass is second nature to me. But I couldn’t even think my way through it. I turned the instrument back to normal and it felt so good in my hands. What a long road that would be. I wish Alex all the strength in the world. There but for the grace of God go I, but I don’t have to start re-learning the guitar today.