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Music reviews, editorials, gear reviews for the guitarist/bass player, journal entries, advice, funny crazy stuff and more. Updated roughly 2-3 times a week.
Bazooka-Joe's Incoherent Ramblings

Sunday, February 06, 2005

The Naivety of My Youth

“What’s Love Got to Do With It?” It may seem odd, but the first memory I can recall having is hearing that song by Tina Turner. I must have been about 3. I don’t really know why this is my first memory that I can still recall (and actually understand it), but it’s only fitting that it has to do with music. Music has become a fairly big part of my life. Not the biggest, but I definitely couldn’t write a paper without mentioning it. For the sake of this blog, I’m going to remain anonymous. But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that my name’s Joe.
I was born in Jacksonville, FL on September 28, 1979 in Orange County Hospital just a few minutes before September 29th. My dad, was in the Navy at the time and my had just been medically discharged due to foot problems that she still has to this day. Because I was a military brat, we moved around a lot from Naval base to Naval base. I have lived in Jacksonville, FL; Norfolk, VA; MD; Long Island, NY; San Antonio & Corpus Christi, TX; Louisville, KY; New Orleans, LA; Vancouver, WA and came very close to living in Anchorage, AK and Buffalo, NY. My dad later transferred to the Coast Guard when his term with the Navy was up.
My love life consists of inconsistencies. When I was 6 years old my best friend was Nicole. We called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, but really had no clue. When I was 9 I thought I was in love for the first time with Michelle, a curly headed girl in my third grade class. We were as serious as 2nd graders get for awhile, until she found a cuter guy in the 3rd grade, then suddenly the feeling was not mutual with her. In 5th grade my infatuation was with Jennifer, 6th grade it was Tiffany (only lasted a few months and don’t remember her last name). Hang on, I’m almost done, there is a point here. When I was in 7th grade, 13 years old, I met my future wife. We started dating at a Christian Music festival with our youth group. We attend the same church. On June 21st of this year in Astoria during a gorgeous sunset on the beach and fireworks in the background, I did the whole down-on-one-knee thing and proposed to fiancé. Her first father who died when she was 5 years. She’s the most wonderful person in my life. I don’t know where I’d be, or what I’d do without her. I just can’t imagine my life without loving her. Anyway, she is a missionary’s daughter and after we had been dating for about 9 months she moved to Budapest, Hungary and was there on and off for 5+ years. She came back to the states roughly once every year for about a month or two each visit. And we Emailed daily and phoned monthly so we kept in touch pretty well. She came back for good last May and I am glad she did. Many people react quite surprised when I explain we’ve been dating for 5 years since we were 13 and 14 years old and that it has been a long-distance relationship for over half of the 5 years. Our marriage date is set for October 23rd, 1999 (a week and a half after my college graduation).

When she first left for Budapest, I needed something to fill this enormous void in my life. I took up the guitar that summer. I spent all my time, energy and efforts on learning how to play and spent all my money on new and better equipment. I now have quite an array of guitars and guitar-related toys. It has become the ultimate form of expression for me. My creativity comes out in my song-writing. Through it I reveal my feelings for my fiancée, project my desires, complaints, aspirations, share my religious beliefs and let out my frustrations. If I could do all my writing assignments in the form of a song, I’d enjoy writing that much more.
My belief system is a very big part of who I am. I am a Christian and strongly devoted to the gospel of Christ. However, I realize that projecting this view on people many times just frustrates and annoys them more than convinces them to think as I do. However, if asked, I can go on and on about it. And my political beliefs follow my religious beliefs as well. I’m a conservative. Not a radical one, and I do not claim to be a Republican. But I am very conservative and it may show in some of my writings.

The most exciting thing that has ever happened to me was when I was 14 years old. I played hooky from the 8th grade one day and wasn’t the least bit prepared for the consequences of this action. I told my mother I felt sick and after much arguing she allowed me to stay home. Around 10:30AM that day I was still in bed when a knocking at the door woke me up. The dog was barking like crazy at the door and I have no doubt that Rocky was actually what awoke me. I lugged myself out of bed and waddled my way to the door of my room, roughly 10 ft. from the front door where a balding man was knocking at the door. I just stood there, suffering from “not-a-morning-person” hair. Suddenly he opened the screen door and checked the door handle to see if it was locked, which it was. I remember thinking “This guy’s got a lot of nerve!” But I just stood there with a stupid looking “Chuck Norstadt” kind of blank stare. Right about then Albert Finley began bashing his shoulder into the door. Now, the dog’s going nuts. After 3 attempts, he does not open the door, but breaks the door jam and it flies off the hinges of the house and falls to my mother’s kitchen floor sending my fearless dog whimpering to the back room. He made it about 3 feet in the house when he saw me just standing there bad hair, morning breath and all! Then he looked at me. Terror became a glaze over my eyes. Would he come after me? Could he have a gun? Should I say something? It was a bit like a first date. I kept waiting for him to say something. But what? Sorry??? After about 4 whole seconds that seemed to have lasted hours, I swallowed my fear and yelled at the top of my lungs…”Get the hell out of my house!!!” I was bluffing. “Please run away” I thought to myself. The gamble worked. As he stumbled to his ’78 Mustang II (ugly cars) I ran to the window and jotted down the license plate number. The police came and we arrested the guy about 2 hours later. I refer to that story as the worst wake-up call I ever had.

Bazooka-Joe made it so at 8:28 PM

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