the long awaited drumbeat

meet the new addition to my drum family



this is a native frame drum. my friend stan "the drum man" finally finished it. stan is great. he has been traveling the country for over a decade teaching people and helping people make their own drum at his drum workshops. they usually last 2 days. you can decorate your drum shells, and that's the easy part. it's the stringing the can shread the skin off your hands.
if any of you are interested in having a workshop check out the website. buildadrum.com or you could email stan at stan@buildadrum.com

ashiko's, djembe's, djundjun's these are all african drums. but for the longest time i have been wanting a tribal drum or the native frame drum. and now i have it.
the skin is elk, the frame is cedar. the back handle (if you can see it) is deer antler. i'm thrilled and i am still waiting for the skin to dry so i can hear her tone.

i do confess that i don't play as much as i use to. i guess when the opportunities reduce the playing does to. i'm not one to play at home by myself.

the itsy bitsy spider

the itsy bitsy spider just fucking bit me. and wasn’t so itsty bitsy at all. it was as big as the palm of my hand...well a good couple of inches. on saturday evening i went outside to push mow my side yard since all the scrap metal from the shed is gone, gone, gone. and i though hey at the same time i will move the concrete diverter? that diverts the water from the downspout a different way. so there i was, rocking it back and forth when all of a sudden a sharp hot piercing pain came from my top knuckle on my thumb. i think the little fucker even stayed attached cause when i shook my hand something slung off it.
at this point many things went through my mind. i was pissed, scared that i would have to go to the hospital (which i don’t want to do at all) and how this all fits into my way of thinking with animal totems. but mainly i was pissed. how dare this spider bite me.
i ran inside and soaked my thumb in alcohol, which took away the initial burn. then i started freaking out. my body had just been bitten and adrenaline had just been dumped into said body. was i having a reaction to the bite? or just over-saturated with adrenaline? the thumb started to swell and i knew i needed to go onto the internet to see what i could see. all in all i treated it like an insect bite and put ice on it.
and then i called brad. i needed someone to talk me down from my freaking out high. and it worked.
i was still pissed. i wanted to start mowing and i wasn’t about to let the little fucker defeat me. so i went out and mowed. all the while thinking what the hell was that all about? when i have encounters with creatures i believe that spirit is trying to tell me something but even now i haven’t figured it out. the next day my thumb was stiff and sore and a little red but today it just feels like i bruised it.
if you haven’t figured it out by now i have never been bit by a spider, or where i recognized it as a full out assault from the 8 legged creature. and i find it very confusing. bee stings? no problem. wasp? no problem. sweat bees? no problem but a spider? iiiii don’t get it. i feel personally attacked.

but i’ll live. and sometime in the future i will see what spirit is trying to tell me other than wear gloves. but you see i do wear gloves...usually.
and i will still remove the little fuckers from my house instead of killing them.