Crazy Drummer Stuff

Older is relative; our house in San Clemente was built in 1988, young by New England and European standards, where homes were and are built to last centuries.  Not so much in the Wild West; a 50-year-old house in Orange County is OOOOOLD!   Our homes in California were and are built fast (translation; cheap); most of them are resting on a flat concrete slab that can float, and built with a wooden frame, that can bend and buckle in an earthquake, hopefully with minimal damage.   So, if you move into a house in SoCal, don’t be surprised if you need to do a bunch of repairs, just to make it livable!            So, a few months ago, we had a leak in the garage, which turned out to be an old and cracked gasket between the bathtub overflow and the overflow pipe.  That time, it was pretty obvious that it was coming from our front bathroom, which we also call “Matt’s bathroom”, since it is attached to his room.  That time, we had drops...

Smack Dab is Lloyd Brown, lead vocals and guitar; Allison Friedman, lead vocals and guitar; Marc Repaire, lead guitar and vocals; Kent Richards, bass and vocals and myself on drums.  You can reach us at SmackDabGroup@gmail.com.     Smack Dab had the pleasure of playing a blues gig at the BlasMo (Billiards Lounge Artist Sanctuary Music Oasis) Club, aka The Mo, on Sunday the 16 of November, 2025.   Just so you know, the Mo is (according to their Facebook page): ““The Mo" is a private member supported musicians and artist club playhouse and audio/video recording studio. Home of the Orange County Musicians Network, Laguna Jam Troupe, OC Jam Club and Laguna Records, The Mo is a safe haven for artists to hone in their crafts, relax & hang out and jam with peers. With the best back-line sound stage, Mo will be featuring live stream web/pod casts and performances featuring the OC's top bands, singer/songwriters, comic's, magicians as well providing a ve...

  As I’m writing this on Friday the 21 st of November, 2025, we got quite a bit of rain this week, so it was time to get new raincoats for our two huskies, Lars and Misha.   The old dog raincoats that we have had for over a decade had finally got tattered and pretty much lost all of their waterproofing, so off to the Walmart website we went!      Lars’ old raincoat, complete with a trash bag for waterproofing, held in place with duct tape!   It works, but not very attractive!       Misha and her old raincoat; pretty much all the elastic straps are gone, and it is not very waterproof anymore…     Even though we probably only use the dog raincoats some 10 days per year (gotta love that wonderful Mediterranean San Clemente weather), you don’t want a wet husky in the house!   Because of the long, dense husky fur, it usually takes hours for a husky to dry, and ev...

  As I now enter into my seventies, I’m well aware that for me and my contemporaries, there will be some “normal” age-related cognitive decline; I myself experience situations where I can’t think of the right word, can’t remember somebody’s name, or I lose stuff that I seemingly had right in front of my eyes just a few seconds ago.   All of this is annoying to say the least, but I’m thinking that maybe we can slow this “normal” state of affairs a little bit, maybe with some new ways of thinking, and maybe doing!   Caveat; I’m not a neuroscientist, I’m not an MD, I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, I’m just a guy that’s been alive on the planet for seventy years, and I’m hoping to be on this side of the grass for as long as possible! So, as I’ve been “slowly” (ha, ha, ha) thinking about this, I’m going to share some of the things that I’m planning to do (or have recently done) in order to keep as mentally sharp as possible, for as long as possible, even though I may no...