So. Phish broke up. I actually had no idea until Shannon mentioned it in comments, and at first it didn’t really hit me. As far as I’m concerned, they never really came off of their 2001 hiatus. Their last show I saw was 09-24-2000 at the Target Center, which was fairly lousy. I never checked out Round Room because people were saying nasty things about it. I felt that Phish had run their course, and I was okay with that.

Then I thought about it. A world without Phish. My life without Phish. In 1999 when my enthusiasm was at its peak, such a thought would have been unfathomable. So much of my youth is so closely intertwined with the band that I can’t even make sense of my past without them.

My first live Phish show (actually, my first live concert ever) was 10-25-95 at the St. Paul Civic Center. I liked their song Bouncing Around The Room that was playing on the radio and I had heard that they were coming to town, so I called up my friend Willie and asked him if he wanted to go to a concert. He said yeah, so I got tickets and picked up A Live One and listened to the first disc over and over again, because I was convinced that they would play exactly what was on their latest CD, because that’s what bands do, right?

Well. They opened with Ya Mar, which fazed me for five seconds until I started completely digging it. I knew I was hooked right then and there. At set break I signed up for the Schvice and bought an eggplant t-shirt. During second set a guy sat right next to us in the aisle smoking pot, and I thought that was the absolute neatest thing. This show is so ALIVE! My shirt smelled like marijuana and I didn’t wash it for months, with the that fear it would lose that concert appeal. Years later, an actor at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival would rail me for wearing a faded pink shirt.

Throughout high school I played in a number of combos that played Phish covers, or attempted to play Phish covers, or were composed of musicians that worshipped Phish but didn’t play Phish covers. I remember sitting in Chris Hubach’s basement and listening to Junta at the first rehearsal for Pamplemousse. We weren’t really called Pamplemousse then; after numerous attempts we finally admitted that no one knew how to spell it. At Pamplemousse’s first gig at the Depot Coffee House, we played Gumbo. It was an ambitious undertaking for a high school jazz combo, what with lyrics and individual horn lines and everything.

Matt played trombone. David played keyboards. Together, the three of us started accumulating and trading Phish tapes with other fans. Matt and Dave had never heard Phish before, and they got way deeper into trading than I did, having been a spoiled rotten brat with my first Phish experience at the young age of 15. That summer the three of us caught their first (and my second) show on 06-30-99 at the Sandstone Amphitheatre in Bonner Springs, Kansas.

Before leaving Minnesota we got into a stiff argument over what time we should head for Kansas the next morning. We resolved it by leaving that very night, and we pulled up in front of Matt’s uncle’s house in Missouri at 3:00 in the morning. We slept in their living room until noon, and then ate Frosted Flakes while watching Blues Clues. We whittled away the rest of the day tooling around rural Missouri, buying fireworks and throwing pennies at toll booths.

Bonner Springs was an outdoor concert and it rained hard. Really hard. I was wearing sandals, but Matt and Dave were wearing shoes that got so totally soaked that the drive home was going to be miserable if we didn’t do something. The morning after the show we went to a Walgreen’s where Matt and Dave walked in barefoot and bought $5 pastel flip-flops.

The concert itself wasn’t anything special, but it was our first experience road tripping and it made an excellent dry-run for our next Phish show later that summer. In July we left for Wisconsin to see 07-24-99 at Alpine Valley, which was an absolutely amazing show.

Back in the Twin Cities we saw a few more shows at the Target Center, but those all kind of blend together. I know 10-02-99 was a great show, with an encore of While My Guitar Gently Weeps and everything. It wasn’t until the summer of 2000 that Dave, Matt and I went big, hitting up three Phish shows in a row: 07-08-00 at Alpine Valley, 07-10-00 at Deer Creek in Noblesville, Indiana, and finally 07-11-00 at Deer Creek. The last show at Deer Creek was the best Phish concert I’ve ever seen, with a vacuum solo, Chalkdust Torture ‘Reprise’, Hold Your Head Up, every song segueing into Moby Dick, etc. We also sold grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to drunk college students, made friends with a couple of carneys and saw a cowboy statue come to life at a KOA Kampground.

Other stuff pops in there, too. On 7-21-01 , during a hot summer of working as essay graders, Dave, Matt and I hit up Trey Anastasio (with his solo tour band and Jon Medeski!) at Alpine Valley, and we spent the night at Greta and Tyler’s new house in Madison. We saw lots of interesting things on that road trip, including a road called Cannibal Crest, the Nutting Doctor, Mr. Yuk stickers on everything, and a giant water tower with a happy face painted on it.

After the last song of the encore we literally ran out of the venue, as last time at Alpine Valley we got caught in a traffic jam for three hours and we had no desire to repeat that. As we were hoofin’ it back to the car we ran into two guys stumbling around the lot looking for whippets. We asked them if they had been at the concert, when was freakin’ RAD, and they said, “Nah, we weren’t in that Mexican fiesta!” We were the first car out of the lot.

When you tell me that Phish is breaking up, you’re not telling me that my favorite band is evaporating back into the ether. When you tell me that Phish is breaking up, you’re not telling me that they had a good run and they’re leaving on a high note. No, when you tell me that Phish is breaking up, you’re telling me that a chapter of my life is coming to a close. I have so many memories wrapped up in listening to that band, in seeing that band, in touring with that band, that the thought of them leaving is absolutely painful.

Phish was always one of those constants in my life. No matter what the world, Phish would always be in Kansas in June, in Wisconsin in July, in Minneapolis in September. Like the rising and setting of the sun these were all things I could count on. Their tours always started and ended with the phases of the moon. Even when I wasn’t eagerly holding tickets to an upcoming show, it was comforting just to know that Phish was touring. They were like the soothing hum of the city. You don’t notice it while it’s there, not until it’s gone, but when it leaves it wrenches open a hole in your gut.

Alas, all things come to pass, and I’m glad that Phish mutually chose to close it earlier rather than later. Nevertheless, 21 years of anything isn’t a bad run by any means. Thanks for everything, Phish. To everyone on the crew I send my best, and I wish you luck on whatever endeavors await you.

And thanks for the kind postcard. Though the need for roadies may fade, the passion for music lives on.

Today was definitely mail day. I swear those sorting ogres sit on this stuff in their post office caves, and every fortnight a band of elves has to be dispatched to slay their filthy hides and retrieve my subscription renewals to Outside, Smithsonian and Euro Trash Monthly.

It was all good stuff this time around, though. I received a magazine from my auto insurance company, which is always comforting. It had a child on the front cover, no doubt a ploy to make me think of my own children and buy insurance for them, too. Like I’d ever do something like that. I mean, if I had kids I’d probably get them caught in my garage door, or hit them with my car, and then my insurance company would be all trying to get money from my insurance company and that’d be a huge mess with me caught in the middle with a garage door knocked off its track. Too much hassle.

My credit card bill arrived as well, with the charge for my electric bass and amplifier. I also got my tax return today (more than 1,100 smackers), which was a welcome windfall as I need to pay for food, bass, amp, car insurance, utilities, cell, and my rental company’s own incompetency. They lost my rent check last month (this is the second time they’ve done something of the sort and they deny it wholeheartedly, of course) and posted a strongly worded resolution that resembled an eviction notice.

I had to stop payment on the old check (which cost me $25) and issue them a new one, which they greedily snapped from my roommate’s hands with their slimy tentacles. They were kind enough to waive their $xx.xx “late payment” fee, but were not kind enough to waive the $75 “non-compliance” fee. Thanks for the love, guys. If this happens again, you can be sure that you’ll receive more checks with skulls scribbled in the memo area.

I also received a letter from my best friend Mark, who will be moving out to Washington for the summer to work at an internship building biodegradable nuclear reactors, or radioactive windmills, or something cool like that. We’re going to the String Cheese Incident festival at Horning’s Hideout next month, and we’re totally stoked. As it turns out, the fellow who is living in my old room up in Hood River is a huge jam music fan as well, and with his crew he’ll be hosting a few shindigs at Horning’s that weekend. Rock.

Most importantly, today I received an invitation to my friend Chris’ wedding, who will be married to the lovely Barbara this July in Iowa. Chris was the svelte Apple geek of our Nerd Herd, a biology genius and a fellow champion of the bastu, and he’s the first person among my misfit group of friends to go ahead and tie the knot. I’m excited for their wedding, for the reception, for the drunken spastic dancing that is bound to occur when we spin all the Nerds back together again. I’m also looking forward to seeing my old stomping grounds, kickin’ around in Minnesota, catching up with old friends, diving into Lake Superior, sipping a brew at Sir Ben’s, making a cameo appearance at Camp Ihduhapi, etc. Time to get on that ol’ jetliner, again.

I haven’t seen home since September, and while I miss just about everything about it, Oregon has been seeping deep into my soul for the last eight months. There is so much of me still back in the Midwest, and there always will be. At the same time I find my West Coast existence slowly fleshing out, synchronizing itself with my previous lives.

In the Midwest I played the roles of camp counselor, Kentucky essay grader, windsurfing director, photographer, humor writer, jazz monger and Phish tourist. I’m still finding my place out here, but so far it has involved windsurfing gearhead, webmaster, Sambaist, kiteboarder, mountaineer, snowboard instructor, cripple, web designer, blogger, rock climber and mountain biker. That, and so much more that can’t even be categorized.

I do know this, though: Give me some crayons and I can draw a mean Tyrannosaurus Rex with a chainsaw.

I need to rest up for my big excursion this weekend. I’ll be ditching out of work early on Friday to zip on up to Hood River, pick up a few friends and roll over to Portland to catch Cowboy Curtis at The Tonic Lounge. This is their first trek out of the warm Wisconsin/Minnesota music-breeding cocoon, and we want to make sure they feel hot and welcome out here on the West Coast.

With any luck I’ll be spending Saturday and Sunday in Hood River, and I travel armed with my kiteboard, mountain bike and climbing gear. I’m ready for anything… that is, anything but whatever happened in the crash I took off my bike three minutes ago. I was practicing wheelies, and I’m to the point where I can get about three cranks on the pedals until I need to drop down again. I’m also to the point where I can flip off my bike backwards and catch myself with my bum leg. I jammed ol’ righty hard and the pain came back, though definitely not as sharp as before.

It dawns in the familiar way, with the sudden jam of limb against the earth, the instant mental realization, and the agonizing wait as the pain receptors struggle to register in the brain. Then the wave of pain slowly overtakes the body, travelling up the spine from the leg, rattling the skull, and flowing down again. The slight dizziness, the taste of bile in the back of the throat, the panicked apologies to the guy in charge.

Everything should be fine; I probably just stressed it. This body has knit itself back together numerous times before. One occasionally wishes that the spirit wasn’t quite so demanding on it, but then, where would be the fun in living like that?

So. The First Ever Bend Bloggers Bash was a rolicking success. If one is to take Doug’s Axiom, which states that “The loudest one is always the leader,” Jake (Utterly Boring) and I spent most of the evening sparring for domination of the group. I won out eventually, though, thanks to my cutting wit and lack of genetic descendants. What can I say? Buying diapers from Wal-Mart at 10:00 in the evening just siphons the life out of a man.

Props definitely go to Shannon (There’s Always Something) for plannin’ up ‘dis whole shindig. Hopefully she can free Jake from his hide-a-bed before I find it and huck eggs at it. Barney (Bend.com) was kind enough to launch a press release (more like a Declaration of Intent if you ask me), but I didn’t get nearly enough time to shout at Barney so I don’t know Barney half as well as I should.

Simone (On The Bright Side) showed off her professional freelance photography abilities by climbing up the wall to take everyone’s picture. She must have touched up the pic in Photoshop, though, cuz I know I never looked like that much of a moron. Never ever. I was a suave dude all evening, and any report you hear of my being a spaz or something is a FILTHY LIE. It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya! Someone get Roger (High Desert Skeptic) on the horn!

I believe it was Jon (Chuggnutt) who decided that Bend needs shirts that say, “You don’t go to the D&D… You end up at the D&D.” I have since decided we all need t-shirts. They’ll say something lame like “Bend Blogging – Better Than Logging.” Understand that these t-shirts are only meant to hold over until we get black leather jackets emblazoned with our lame-ass slogan and flaming skulls.

Jesse (Bring Back the 80’s) has one of the most unfortunately named weblogs out there, but luckily the fellow is a huge fan of Homestar Runner, so in the universe there is always balance.

Kerry (Bend Buzz) and I made great progress in unravelling the mystery of The Kids on the Hill, mostly by labeling them as The Kids on the Hill so we will be able to discuss them further.

There were lots of other things, too. Most people were kind enough to link to each other’s blog entries for the evening, but I’m a jerk when it comes to that sort of thing and my wrists hurt too much to write more hyperlinks and I’m tired and cranky and YOU ALL KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU WHEN I GET CRANKY. I’ll conveniently sum up the rest of the evening with a list of quotes:

“I’m married to fruit salad!”

“IP that motherfucker!”

“I’m expanding my social circle.”

“And now you are trapped in our clutches!”

“You’re gonna spam my weblog and them I’m gonna have to kick your ass.”

“I’m blogging this.”

…and the classic…

“SOMEBODY’S GETTIN’ EGGED!”