STOP! THIEF!

I met some people I've known for 12 years for the first time on Friday. This is the wonder of the internet - that you can forge lasting friendships with people you've never seen face to face. Some complain that these aren't real relationships. I've endured this assertion from people who think they really know their next door neighbor because they've borrowed milk from them or talked over the fence. I confess to not really getting to know many of my neighbors. Given some of the places we've lived there's a high probability they were serial killers anyway.

I've found that internet friendships tend to go way deeper than that because at first, there's an anonymity to them, where you can simply be yourself and not worry about the consequences. But then, someone in that group of friends has a crisis and everyone else rallies around. Or it's simply the weight of the years bearing down in which you've discussed one another's marriages, divorces, children, losses, joys and pains, and that creates a bond much deeper than those you share with co-workers or neighbors.You are friends because of shared interests and shared experiences, rather than proximity.

I discovered the internet after being diagnosed with HCM. We had moved in with my in-laws in Searcy, a little town north of Little Rock, AR. I was very isolated every day, and feeling horribly cut off from our past life. A friend loaned me a bunch of game demos since I suddenly had plenty of time on my hands. I wasn't really big on games, as they all seemed to consist of running around shooting people, which seemed boring since it wasn't real and wasn't taking place inside a Wal-Mart or the DMV.

Then I discovered Thief. It rewarded me for NOT killing anyone. I got to sneak around, hide in the dark, become invisible. I won't digress into the many parallels between the game and my own psychological state at the time. Thief is the ultimate example of what happens when painting, sculpting, poetry, prose, architecture, music, and story all come together in harmony, and ironically, it's only in a video game that all of these art forms can be married with technology to produce an interactive experience with them. I was hooked.

Even better, I discovered a network of people who also like this game. A whole forum full of them at TTLG (Through the Looking Glass). Like-minded people who not only appreciated intelligent games, but all manner of intelligent art, music, TV, and movies. I spent countless hours discussing these things with other "TTLGers" and eventually, we also began to talk about Real Life stuff too. That's how internet friendships happen.

Then the company that made the Thief games (Looking Glass) went belly-up before finishing the series. After mourning the loss of this highly artistic group of creators, the TTLG community decided we would finish the series ourselves. Easier said than done, but we did it. It took us five years and thousands of hours of creating, drawing, mapping, recording, playtesting, fixing, arguing, writing, stress, and frustration. We came together as a group of un-tested artists, writers, designers, musicians, and organizers to make it happen. We called ourselves The Dark Engineering Guild. Our number was about 50 when we started, about 12 when we finished. We had no idea what the heck we were getting into.

The finished product was called T2X (Thief 2 Expansion): Shadows of the Metal Age. It was a labor of love for the Thief community, as well as an homage to Looking Glass Studios. The expansion has been played by hundreds of thousands, received wild critical acclaim from all the important Gaming magazines, including being called, "one of the most impressive achievements of any fan community for any game," by the biggest of those, PC Gamer. The month it was released, it was featured on the cover and demo disc of every Gaming magazine that matters, both in the states and overseas. I'm going on and on about it because I'm very proud of the work we did in the name of honoring Good Art. We didn't do it for money, or to get famous - in fact, the most that's come of it is a few of the guys landed jobs in the industry on the basis of their work on T2X. But we mainly did it to affirm that Good Art is valuable, and should be preserved, in the face of a culture that values reality television and games like Halo and Call of Duty. It also bears mentioning that a fan-made game such as this has never been completed without the team members meeting in real life, and to my knowledge, it hasn't been done since. Other accolades for T2X can be seen HERE if you're interested, and I'll stop blowing our horn.

After 12 years, I finally got to meet some of the other developers face-to-face. I'd actually met David Reigel before when we recorded the 12 hour long commentary for the game on its 5th anniversary (which was also featured on the cover and discs of the aforementioned magazines). But this was the first time more than two of us were all together in the same room.

It's no stretch to say that during the many dark days early in my diagnosis, it was the relationship with some of these people, and our common mission that gave me something to get up for on those mornings, in the house, by myself, fearing I could drop dead at any moment. Of course, since those days, we've all gone on to become friends on another level, with a great deal of respect for one another, and an abiding attention to what happens in each other's lives. These are relationships I would trade in a second for many of the "real" relationships people compare them to.

In the next post, I'll talk about my other Dallas experience - finally seeing Dream Theater after being a fan for 20 years. No, it's fine if you don't want to hold your breath until then.

TTLGers - Leatherman, Broken Arts, Mrs. Raen, Raen/Sledge,
DeC/The Deciever, fett

Members of the Dark Engineering Guild:
Duncan Cooke (coding/mission design), Dave Johnson (admin/writer/
audio/design), David Reigel (design lead/sound), Suzy Madden (art design)

The Seductive Power of the La-Z-Boy

We didn't own one for the longest time. And when we did, I didn't even sit in it much. I prefer a desk chair, the couch, or the floor. Until my late 20's, most of my sitting was either in my truck between jobs, or behind a drum set.

Many of you didn't know me then. I was very active - by which I mean, I played and recorded with three different bands as a drummer/vocalist (Ground Zero, Assembly of Odd, and King's Dominion), fronted my own band on guitar (No Man's Band), played lay-pastor for most of the Christian metal bands in Little Rock, led worship twice a week at my church, taught a Bible study twice every week (sometimes thrice), owned and operated my own 100K floor service company, subcontracted other floor work from several Little Rock construction companies, and watched X-Files religiously every Sunday night. This was all fueled mostly by Taco Bell, Mountain Dew, and Rush's Moving Pictures album.

The single biggest change for me over the last twelve years has been the loss of my ability to just go do the things I want to do. I want to play music. I want to work. I want to wrestle with my boys. I want to cook and paint and coach soccer and swim and do a hundred other things that I used to take for granted.

It's one of the things that gets all over my left side - when so called disability recipients were lumped together with illegals, welfare moms, and lazy people during the Obamacare debates. When people with pre-existing medical conditions were compared to "burned-down houses" by Mike Huckabee (who is otherwise a very compassionate person in real life). Generalizations like these cut to the bone because the injury, shame, and frustration of not being able to work, and consequently not being able to afford the astronomical co-pays for expensive tests is bad enough. Being compared to such leeches on the system adds considerable insult. I guarantee that I worked harder in the 18 years that I was able, than most politicians will work in their whole lives. I doubt many of them tossed around 50lb grain sacks or cleaned diarrhea off the ceiling of a Barnes and Nobles ladies room (in that, I AM the 1%. And while we're on the topic, ladies: WHY?). I wish I were making that up.

So Laz-E-Boys, to me, have become a bit of an enemy. Nothing against anyone who loves their recliner - there's one sitting in our apartment right now, and I use it occasionally. Some days all I can do is try to be comfortable on the outside because the medications don't do much for the inside anymore. But I feel a sense of lethargy when I sit in one. Shouldn't I be working on my novel, blogging, doing something with the boys, cooking, cleaning, whatever? Not out of some misguided notion of equating productivity to personal worth. It's more of a time thing. Time is the one thing that can never be retrieved. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy an extended session of XBox or Netflix like everyone else. But that La-Z-Boy - something about it beckons to me in my moments of despair and pain, the voice both alluring and sinister. "You deserve to lay around. You don't feel good. Here, have an entire box of Double-Stuffed Oreos."

Sitting in it feels like giving in to the whole thing. There will come a time when I, like my friend John - an HCM transplant candidate - will be confined to a chair, hoping that my name comes up soon on the list. He can't leave the chair - just the effort of changing from a sitting to a standing position completely knocks the wind out of him. I feel that creeping up on me when I bend to tie Brennan's shoe, or walk from the handicap spot into Target when it's too cold or hot and I'm a little more hurried. Or when it takes me twenty minutes to convince myself that I really can push myself out of bed, from lying to sitting on the edge without throwing up.

See, I hope you don't read that and think, "Poor Dave, it must be so hard." It is hard. It's damn hard, and it's going to get harder. Hey, I've had to force a smile, take the $20 and say, "Why yes sir, the Doors were a great band," and play Break On Through. Believe me, the pain of heart failure is NOTHING compared to that. But a time is coming when there will be no shoe tying, going to Target, or getting out of bed. Period. It's going to have to drag me kicking and screaming, but the La-Z-Boy will eventually get me. For now, it can go hungry, but I suspect it knows a feast is coming.

John said to me recently, "That guy, the one that used to sail every weekend and babied his boat every second it wasn't on the water? That guy is long gone. He disappeared. My boat's rotting out in the driveway." Tough for an old hippie from Cape Cod who lives for the wind in his ever-thinning hair. He's full of hope, but he's also been reduced to a man in a La-Z-Boy.

My Tama drumset, the one Christie and I scraped and saved for, the one I sold in '98 because I couldn't play anymore - I crave it. I still feel phantom Vic Firth drumsticks in my hands every time I hear Iron Maiden or Van Halen because I used to be part of that in my own small way. I don't want to wonder where that guy went. He's also now a father, a homeschooling dad, a writer - many things I really couldn't have been before, but I don't want to lose that part because then I have to admit that HCM robbed me and I've been ripped off enough, thank you very much.

Do you get it? Do what you love and do it hard and do it a lot. Maybe it's not even so much about losing yourself to a heart problem, maybe it's just about growing up and letting some of those silly things go. Fine. But once I get a new heart and go home to my family, I'm buying a pair of drumsticks, even if I can't yet afford the drumset to go with them.

I plan on beating the hell out of a La-Z-Boy.

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

So if you failed to heed my warning and came here anyway, you're probably one of those that won't be put off by the morbidity of the blog title. But look, I didn't say "news of my DEATH," I said "news of my DEMISE," and there's a big difference because "demise" doesn't sound as harsh as "death" even though as you can imagine, I've pondered death quite a lot these last few years. Also, as much as I enjoy ripping off popular writers to appear more profound, I didn't have the heart to diminish Mr. Twain's famous quote with my ramblings. God knows his writing is terrible enough without me piling on.

Thing is, after answering the question, "So how are you feeling?" and "So, what's happening now?" until I fear I will vomit on the next person who asks, I just need a place to post updates and share my thoughts. There's too much to tell and I need a place where it won't get lost between people requesting pig jewelry in Wastemytimeville on Facebook, and tweeting about taking their lizard to the vet (okay, that last one was me, but have you HEARD that story?)

I've also noticed that very few actually ask the more pointed question, "How do you feel about all this?" I can't tell if it's because they think that's too personal, or maybe because they are under the false notion that as long as I'm feeling okay today, then things must be okay.

I know the question comes from concern. The unspoken sentiment that everyone wishes there was something they could do. It's why I indulge the question and try to keep the answer as simple as possible. But the truth is, there is no simple answer. Do you mean "how am I feeling today," or "how am I feeling in general" or "how am I feeling about you"? You may not want the answer to one of those.

SO HOW ARE YOU FEELING?

I've felt better, to tell you the truth. The last two years have been a steady stream of feeling less than peachy. My disease, HCM (Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy) generally has this effect, but usually over the course of a lifetime rather than two years. There's no question I'm headed for a heart transplant, but the logistics and details are less than simple. I'll address them in future posts. I'm sure that whoever you are, wherever you are, I did a really crappy job of explaining HCM to you, so here's my doc from Tufts in Boston. He actually knows what he's talking about.

Dr. Maron is why we're trying to relocate to the Boston area for the time being. He's the guy that has the experience and knowledge to walk an HCM patient through the transplant process (a rare event), but more importantly, can keep me alive until I can actually get a new organ. He's the rock star of HCM, and the most humble doctor I've ever met. His whole team is on top of this thing and I really believe they're the best shot I have of making it through this.

HCM (Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy), is above all things a sneaky bastard. It rarely plays the same hand twice, and often switches decks entirely. It's what makes ERs a relatively dangerous place for me, and causes general cardiologists to scratch their heads a lot (either that or they all have lice).

So that's where we're headed, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I mean, we're talking about a pretty bizarre scenario here, where someone else is going to die, and part of their body is going to be put into mine. How do I feel? My knee-jerk answer is, "Like I'm in an X-Files episodes. And not one of the good ones where Mulder finds out where Smoking Man is hiding the UFO. More like one of those "monster of the week" episodes where Mulder discovers a mad scientist sewing people's heads onto their pets.

Thing is, I've been a business owner, pastor, and stay at home, homeschooling dad, so I'm fresh out of tact and political correctness at this point. I need a place to vent my brain, and all kinds of strange stuff was flying around in there way before this transplant thing. Maybe my honesty can help someone else in a similar situation, or answer some of the questions. Maybe it'll just reveal what a nutjob I can be sometimes.

Either way, here it is. My blog about HCM, life, death, music, politics, and inevitably, Star Wars.

Off we go.