You know those friends that can read your thoughts, and have similar thoughts? You know, the person who you really shouldn’t be left unsupervised with because neither of you can adult correctly while you’re together. Well meet Parker.
Parker is an audio guy from Colorado who now claims to live in The City, yet he has spent about the same amount of time away from there as there since “moving”. He and I are on the same wavelength of refusing to grow up and since my last post we have proven it… repeatedly…
It all began while I was stumbling through the land of bourbon last week. I mentioned something about a “heels” challenge during load in. The conversation quickly escalated to “I bet I can last longer in 3 inch heels than you” and rapidly went down hill from there.
Fast forward a few days and Parker and I are stumbling around a Payless trying to find closed toe 3″ heels that we can actually work in…
So, through my “day one” load in I learned several things.
1. There is no ankle support in those wedges.
2. It is possible to run, jump and climb in wedges.
3. Parker is stubborn.
In reference to the last lesson, the wager was that the first person to take off their heels lost. Parker was limping around, tears in his eyes (ok maybe no real tears, but his soul was crying), and trash talking the entire day. We both lasted to the end of the day. Parker claims I took mine off first, but we were off the clock and the agreement only covered while at work. That being said we reached a gentlemen’s agreement that we would not continue the bet on day two of the load in. Parker spends most of his day two in the orchestra pit and he had some safety concerns about all the cable and heels. In his defense he does bite it down there in regular shoes and he’d probably have broken his ankle if we tried to continue the bet.
So we had a rather well behaved day two of load in and opening night of the show here in Dallas.
Wednesday however Parker and I decided to stumble down to the famous Elm Street Tattoo. We really should have adult supervision… we talked to the guys down there and both got some work done.
Parker got two semicolons. One to represent the vibes he gives out and one to represent the vibes he receives.
I got 525,600 tattooed on my left forearm. This is a reference to Rent, but it means a bit more to me as well. I left Finding Neverland about a year ago. I left the road lifestyle and began a journey of figuring things out. I was burnt out, I was unhappy, I really just needed to go home and figure things out. In that year I got a lot of pet projects done around the farm. I spent months building the new Falcons stadium in Atlanta. I converted the garage in my condo into a wood shop…. above all else, I distressed and I more comfortable with who I am. Measuring that journey is something that can only be done through music. To quote the song from Rent that my tattoo is referencing:
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles
In laughter, in strife
In closing I would like to go on record as saying that Parker is a bad influence and I throughly enjoy every minute of it. So Parker, what’s the next bad idea?