The weather this evening was much the same as the weather yesterday evening, with perhaps a slight increase in the humidity. So rather than sit around listening to crickets, I decided to make the half hour drive to the college town nearby. For a time, I strolled about downtown, just watching the strange people that gather thereabouts. Teenagers on scooters and skateboards, punks with spiky hair, dudes in khakis, birkenstocks and ponytails, women in long patterned dresses and sandals.

Now move to the downtown library. With our camera at eye level we enter through the sliding front doors, past the security guard, and the bulletin board, past the check-in counter and to the new fiction section to peruse for a bit. No wait, lets go back to the large bulletin board behind the security guard. He nods and smiles as we pass. Now narrow our focus to a white sheet of paper in the upper right hand corner. The message - "Bongo player/vocalist seeks band. Rock or folk music best".

Although I have never seen this message before, nor have I been warned of its posting, I instantly recognized the likely source must be 6 of 12 - bongo player, vocalist, librarian, and my brother. My mission tonight is to entice him to consume adult beverages at a local tavern and then go watch a movie.

Alas, this is not to be. 6 of 12 is tired after a long day of shelving books, checking materials in and out, and collecting overdue fines. So instead, we grab a couple of bottles from the local convenience store and head over to his place.

Now change scenes. Follow us up a rickety staircase to the second floor apartment of a Victorian age home. There are water stains on the wall of the staircase from where the pipes broke several months earlier. Now, we head into the apartment. Upon a ragged floor sits a mattress with a disheveled pile of blankets. Above the mattress, on the wall, hangs a record cover from a Black Sabbath album. The members of the band are shown, and in small paper balloons pasted next to their heads each band member says something wonderful about 6 of 12. Besides the mattress which dominates most of this room, there is also a keyboard, a set of bongos, an electric guitar with amp, and a very large record collection, none of the music more recent than 1982.

We move into the small adjacent kitchen. We sit upon folding chairs next to a table that we are careful not to lean on. We open our adult beverages and talk for a while. Among the topics of conversation are our respective jobs, my daughter, his most recent girlfriend, the latest news on brother 7 of 12's new child, and how 12 of 12 is doing in his Ph.D. program.

And of course we talk about music. At a recent work party 6 of 12 made up a song about being a librarian that combined Elmer Fudd, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Harry Belafonte, and a few others I can't recall. At the party he dressed up as Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series with a white wig, a fake beard, and wizard's robes. He hasn't found another band yet, but he has a few people he plays with now and again.

I try to entice 6 of 12 into seeing the movie I was interested in, but he is tired, and from the description he doesn't think he would be interested. When I leave he gives me a 'Kiss' CD. He has the remastered version now and he doesn't need this one. On the way out I pet 6 of 12's cat, named Blackmore for Ritchie Blackmore, founder of an obscure seventies band called 'Rainbow'. Remember 'Smoke on the Water'?

I head on to see the movie by myself. As usual, I find myself incensed at the insane price of concessions, and I stuff a bottle of soda in my pants, covering it up with my pulled out shirt tail. I quickly think up an excuse for the bulge in my pants: colostomy bag. They see the bulge but they don't ask.

The movie is 'School of Rock' with Jack Black. The music is my music. It is Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. It is AC/DC, Yes, Rush, and Pink Floyd. It is the music that was never talked about on TV or played on the radio when I was growing up. It is the stuff my brother 12 of 12, with his salutatorian, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa brain, turned into a Master's thesis on music theory, and that he may be working into a Ph.D.

Jack Black has more manic energy than 6 of 12, but probably less musical creativity. This movie is about people like 6 of 12, who got caught up in that time and that music and never let it go. It is a fucking blast and hilarious as all get out. Kids half my age sat there through all the credits while Jack Black and a bunch of ten-year-olds did an AC/DC tune.

In my family I was on the periphery of the music thing. I was science fiction geeky dude. My apartment is not that different from 6 of 12s. A bit larger and less rickety, with books all over the place instead of records, and a big computer instead of a stereo (I play my few CDs on the computer sound system).

I was in a bit of a rush to get out of there this evening when I got a phone call from a client. I have this new portable phone which was kind of neat, because I discovered I could talk this person through some concerns they were having while changing out of my suit. So here I am talking to this person and changing clothes, with the changing clothes sort of on automatic pilot. Without thinking, I wander into the bathroom and umm well I umm I lift up the toilet seat and, with 90% of my thoughts devoted to giving my client some advice, do what comes natural. Not thinking for some reason until it is far too late HOW LOUD the whole damn process is going to be.

So here I am a goddamned, licensed professional, a fucking representative of our justice system, audibly taking a whiz while on the phone with a client. Then to make it worse I try to apologize, and, in an even more brilliant move, on the odd chance that my client doesn't quite have the picture, I flush.

What does the topic at the top of the entry say? What does it say? Why are you reading this when I told you not to?

Let me clarify something from my last entry. My daughter - Asperger's disease. Me - screwed up parents. Her - clearly an internal situation that has nothing to do with anyone else. Me - a product of having messed up adults around me. Totally different.

Questions?

Questions?

No?

Excellent.

Thank you for your attention.