nicky vegas

10:26 am: disgust
naively, i've had tremendous faith in the hope that the American people are not as stupid as I think they are. unfortunately, this is proving to be an exercise in futility. when george w. mccain made his vice-presidential pick, i said to myself, the people will see right through this shell game. wrong! i'm hoping that his surge in the polls will wane as soon as they get into the debates and that ticket is exposed for what it is...more of the same old washington/republican bull.

i've been listening a lot to the election coverage lately, and unlike the nicky_the_fish of old, i've been listening to both sides to better educate myself. i'll admit, in the past, i've only wrapped myself in the bastions of liberal intelligentsia; however, i find this unwavering urge to torture myself with conservative talk-radio. i think it stems from the fact that those bastions of liberalness have been over-run by small minded conservatism. the myth of the liberal media is so untrue that it should be the lead story for Weekly World News magazine. conservative media dominates this country. if you don't believe me turn on Fox news for ten minutes and see for yourself. and it's amazing to me the spin that they consistently placed on the news. we no longer have objective news outlets; we only have right-wing spin machines, and they are steering this country in a dangerous direction. where reason and facts once ruled, knee-jerk religiosity and lies are the norm. it is amazing to me how these pundits manage to distort the facts to their advantage, and the american public is sopping it up like toilet paper to caca. i actually heard a gentleman on the radio this morning talk about how he voted for shrub in 04, but he feels this country needs fresh blood, that washington is ruining this country; therefore, he's voting for mccain this time around. either he's too stupid to know that shrub is not running this election,is not aware that the republicans have held power for the last eight years, or believes what he hears on Fox news. i'm thinking it's the latter. saddening.

when palin was announced i thought to myself, women in this country are smarter than that. they'll never accept this woman. well, polls are showing women are overwhelmingly in favor of this big-oil-send-your-boys-to-iraq-and-strip-me-of-my-choice-gun-toting-bible-thumping shill. and speaking of bibles, when did being a christian become the only requirement for holding political office, or living in the u.s.? when did this country turn into a theocracy? when did it become ok for politicians to openly invoke the name of the lord in policy decisions and when did those policies become slanted to a christian minority? when did jesus become a military advisor? do you think "the lord" would really want us to invade another country and murder hundreds of thousands of people? not the jesus i know that's for sure. the jesus i know would call for peace and not justice at the end of an inter-ballistic missile.

i'm disgusted to the point where i don't know what i'll do if george w. mccain gets elected. when are the american people going to wake up and see through his fake oswald peppercorn smile and she him for what he is: just another multi-millionaire republican looking to fatten his wallet even further. this is not the america i grew up with. this is not the america that i remember. divisive partisan politics needs to stop. i knew shrub, cheney, et. al. would fuck up this country, i just didn't think the "great uniter" would create a chasm of biblical proportions. it's disheartening.

i'll keep a glimmer of hope, but i'm losing it fast. i can only hope people come to their senses before all this is over. i don't think they will, but maybe, just maybe, america has some good left in her.

01:33 pm: hell
do you know what hell is? or what your vision of hell is? i've been living mine. this summer has been my version of hell. i haven't posted in a while. a lot of shit going down. some extremely happy. some incredibly sad. first the good news, and really the only good news, i got married. yes indeedy i did. lovely japanese girl i met here at school. we just up and eloped one friday last october. didn't tell anyone until a month after that. i dunno why, guess that's just how we roll. We had a lovely reception in april. her folks and her brother came from japan for it. It was a great party. got drunk. had a jazz quartet play, some friends of mine. they rocked the house.

as it turns out, this would be the last fun time my mother would have. she looked forward to it so much. we really made her happy. at the time, i was so caught up in not doing the traditional wedding stuff. everyone was bugging me to do the whole "dance with mom" and "first dance with bride" thing. I didn't want to. but I relented. as it turns out, that would be the last time i'd ever dance with my mom. those of you that know me, know my mom has been ill for a while. she's had heart and lung problems for about 6 years now. about a year and a half ago, she had a procedure to repair a faulty valve in her heart. it went great. at the time though, the doctors knew it wouldn't last that long. well it didn't. right after the wedding, she started having fainting episodes. turns out the valve wasn't working right. they would try and repair it again, but they knew the odds were slim that it would work. she really needed surgery, but was too weak to survive it. so she goes in to the hospital for the procedure. all goes well except for the fact that she contracted an infection of the colon. they feared her colon would rupture, so they performed emergency surgery to remove it. she bounced back after the surgery, but then developed another infection. she was in surgical ICU for almost a month.

now, while all this is going on, i have additional stress being piled on. Namely, that my in-laws had planned a wedding for us in June in Japan. I had a three week trip all planned out. I was taking my niece with me as well. We were going to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nagano, Tokyo. on top of all that, my wife left before me to go to a a family event that she needed to attend. she left when my mom was still doing ok. However, the friday before i'm supposed to leave, the doctors call my family in for a meeting. they don't think my mother is going to live. they don't know if she'll last the weekend or not. i consult with one of her doctors and ask if i should go on my trio. well, you can imagine her answer. I knew the answer, I was trying too hard to make everybody happy. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go. And like my in-laws said, it was no time for a wedding celebration. They told me to stay and be with my mom. so i canceled my whole trip. the wedding. everything. It was all gone. hell. at that point in time, it was the worst moment of my life. my mother was dying. my wedding was canceled. i would spend my vacation in the mass general hospital.

but wait. it gets better; or, rather it gets worse. the day before i'm supposed to leave, june 18th, my mom starts turning around. she actually bounces back. i was in shock. the doctors were amazed. they couldn't believe it. i was partly aggravated because i canceled everything and here she was turning around. i was so conflicted, i didn't know how to feel. but deep down, i was happy. i didn't want her to die. she stays in ICU for another couple of weeks. then she gets strong enough to move to a regular floor. eventually, after a couple of weeks, they decide she's strong enough to go to rehab. she goes to rehab in cambridge. she doesn't seem to improve much though. she builds up a lot of fluid, and can’t seem to be able to release any. they try everything. nothing works. then one night, July 22nd to be exact, she has an episode with her heart. they send her back to MGH. they stabilize her, and everything looks ok. they keep an eye on her and run a bunch of tests. after about a week, the doctors make another appointment with startling news. the procedure that they knew might not work, didn't in fact work. they did a cat scan and found that her valve was damaged further. Fluid was leaking back into her lungs. the only thing that would work would be open heart surgery, but they knew she would never survive. They made the decision to keep her comfortable and let her go. they couldn't do anything else. they moved from medical treatment to hospice care. we were devastated. there would be no more comebacks.

she held on for a few days, but she knew she didn't have long. she developed another infection, which the doctor told me she might not be able to fight. one night my wife and i visited. i left to get my mom some ice. she looked at my wife and told her, "i don't have much longer." i came back in and my wife was so sad. she couldn't bring herself to tell me about it until after we left. i cherished what little time i had left with my mom. i was at the hospital for hours everyday.

a week ago sat, i went in to visit her while my wife worked. i stayed for a few hours with her and my dad. watching them together was incredible. i know my parents loved each other, but when you see that love being shown so openly it touches you deep within. my dad couldn't hold her enough. he couldn't kiss her enough. it was bittersweet to watch. i kissed her cheek and told her I'd see her in the morning. she nodded her head. "i love you," i said. "i love you too," she said, winded from the task of saying those simple words we sometimes take for granted. i left with tears in my eyes.

about 5:30 that afternoon, i got the call. the antibiotics were making things work and the doctors wanted to know if we should continue them, or stop all meds and make her comfortable. continuing them might actually speed up her death. stopping them could actually buy her more time. but nothing would save her. we decided to stop them all. they thought she would last until morning and that there was an outside chance she might get a little better. i told them to call if things changed. i tried telling myself things would be ok. that we would get a few more days with her. deep down, though, i knew the phone would ring. i placed it near my bed and left the volume on, which i never do. sure enough, i heard the sweet sounds of my jimi hendrix ringtone around 11:30. only this time instead of making me smile, my heart dropped. she took a turn for the worse, and they didn't know if she would last until morning. I woke up my dad, my wife and i drove and got him, we woke up my sister, i called my brother, who just left the hospital, and we all headed in. about 2:30 am on sunday Aug 3, my mom passed away surrounded by her family. we were all there for her, which is what she always wanted. She always wanted us to be together and our lives sometimes made it difficult, but there we were together again for her.

the aftermath is a blur. the wake, the funeral nothing more than surreal movies in which i was cast. i can't tell you the amount of people who came out, but there were hundreds. at one point, the line was solid for about an hour and a half and moving fairly rapidly. i was overwhelmed.

now, as I sit in my office writing all this, i realize the gravity of all that's happened. it sinks in. i can't call her and ask her what Auntie Lola’s maiden name was, or who starred in what movie. i keep thinking i'll drive in to the hospital today to see her, but then i stop and remember she's not there. I won’t see her trudging in to my gigs, oxygen mask in tow, me getting upset because she’s staying out too late. i don't have to worry about the phone next to my bed ringing with bad news; that's already happened. she's at peace now. i have her memory buried deep in my heart. she's gone, but she'll always be there. my dad would always ask her how he would get through all this. she would tell him to just turn and walk away. that they would be together again someday. i can hear her now telling me to get on with my life and not to look back. i'm trying ma, but it's all so very hard.

so that's what my life has been like for the past three years. i feel so much for my wife in all of this. i don't think newlyweds are meant to deal with the things we've had to deal with. She chose to be there and support me through all of this. She held my hand, and let me cry. but maybe it's all for the better. it's made us closer. it's made our bond stronger. since i've met her, it's been an endless stream of ER visits, 911 calls, extended hospital stays, and predictions of my mom's death. and we've survived it all. now it's all over. i told her in the car the other day as we were driving to my dad's house that we won't have 54 years together like my folks did, but that i am determined to pack 54 years of love into however much time we do have together. she agreed with me. "we owe it to them."

i don't know what to do with myself. i want to start living my life again, but i can't quite seem to get going. i know time is inexorable, so i'm hoping that will be the healing i need. i just wish it would hurry up. I'm going to try and post more now that things have calmed down. and i hope some of my old friends are still around. it'd be nice to hear from you.

03:25 pm: emptying out the closet of my mind
man, it's been a while. i've been a bad ljer, but life's been too busy and too fun. Japan was absolutely incredible. I still wake up depressed that I"m not still there. This passed week I went to LA. Ahhh LA. I love LA. Yea, the people are weird, and it's noisy and smelly and congested, but it's still pretty cool. There's so much to do. and the weather just can't be beat. anyhow, just a few things on my mind, in no particular order:

i love a sport where you are rewarded for failing every 7 out 10 attempts. thank god baseball's back.

I'll root against Barry Bonds to reach his home run record going so far, in fact, as to hope for a career ending injury. I know it's awful, but I can't help it. and it has nothing to do with the whole steroid business. yes, he took them, but they weren't illegal at the time, and baseball is just as at fault for not being stricter. the reason i root against him is because he has to be the biggest flaming asshole on the planet. he plays the race card and thinks people hate him because of his skin tone. EARTH TO BARRY: PEOPLE HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE! fuck him.

anyone else disgusted by the fact that the iraq war has now outlasted WWI, WWII, and the Civil War in terms of length and shows no sign of ending anytime soon? I hope the dems can grow some balls and do something soon. quick!

funny how the president calls on the demcorats to halt their "partisan fishing trip," or what sane people call an investigation, into the "partisan" firing of 8 attorneys general. hmmmmmmmmmmm

is american idol done with yet? the good thing about a new season is that hopefully Taylor Hicks', or whatever his name is, fifteen minutes of fame is up. I wouldn't buy a ford just because of his stupid commercial.

well that's all for now, or all that I feel like sharing.

11:14 am: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
i'm so friggin beat right now. we had a show yesterday with an early call, so i stayed right through instead of going home for a spell. i was here from 10 am until 11 pm. I'm whipped. guess i'm getting old.

emtpying the junk drwaer of my mind:

how long do you think it'll be before the democrats shoot themselves in the foot? i'm thinking 8 months.


$51.1 million just for the rights to negotiate? I wish I stuck with my pitching career in Little League!


Funny, now that the Dems have control of Congress, the Republicans are all about bi-partisan governing. Hmmmm Republicans hadn't done anything "bi" since they've had control of the gov't. Oh wait, judging from their sex scandals they've had some "bi" experience, or at least some bisexual "cock"ausing.


Fox has already begun the scare tactic/smear campaign to rev up for '08. Big headline the other day:"Dem Finance boss calls for tax raise." OF course the story had as much substance as a dandelion in a wind storm.

I bought the crystal meth, but I immediately threw it out! Does sucking it into your lungs count as throwing it out?


hmmm let's see, two people, who happen to be the same sex, who love each other marrying will undermine the sanctity of marriage, but the drunken, wife-beating assholes of the world preserve its integrity? Will someone explain to me how this works?

How long before the Republicans begin calls to change the constitution so that immigrants can be allowed to run for President? The Governator would make a fine president!

09:16 am: Just a few thoughts
It's incredulous to me to hear a loathsome individual as Dennis Hastert whining about the Democrats politicizing the whole Foley scandal for their own benefit. Hello?!?!? The Republican hate machine has operated on this principal for years! Just once, I'd love to hear a political leader come out and say, "Yea, I knew the Democrats would pounce all over this. We'd do the same thing." but honesty is too much to ask from our elected officials.


Does anybody else find it comically ironic when a hard-core right-winger is exposed as a homosexual pedophile? I mean, think about it. The Republicans always have it tough with their scandals, because they're so fucking holier-than-thou! Condemn homosexuals when in reality you love cock yourself. Go figure. At least if your'e a democrat and you get exposed, you can blame it on the immorality of the left! LOL To me it's just poetic justice that an asshole like this will be removed. It's even more humourous to see the right scrambling now to change the laws in Florida so they have a chance of not losing their seat. Wonder what Jeb's got up his sleeve this time.

Funny Dan Wasserman cartoon in the Globe yesterday:



oh well, that's all for now. please remember to vote against any and all republicans this november!

08:47 pm: ok, ok i know
i've been a terrible ljer lately. i apologize. it's just been really busy lately. the semester started with a bang. i got roped into doing sound for a big event we had on campus. then we had a huge program in the recital hall, which was my idea, hence my program. the event was a panel discussion featuring a guy who owned a legendary jazz club on the north shore of boston. we got press in all the local papers, plus some choice press in the globe. therefore the thign was enourmous. we had about 200 people attend. then to top it all off, the guy who was being honored managed to get jay leno to call in and offer congrats. he gave leno one of his first gigs ever and he and leno have remained friends ever since. all in all it was pretty cool, but very tiring. i love doing event planning, but it is tiresome. so many details to pay attention to.

the other great thing that's happened to me is that the president of the college approved a $5000 salary adjustment for me! woo hooo. I had applied last year and got rejected. people told me i needed to raise my profile and be more activie in the college community. i hate doing that shit, but i sucked it up anyway and lo and behold...it worked! it would've been nice to be a $10 grand raise, but hey, I'll take what i can get.

my mom's still in the rehab center. she's still not strong enough to go home. my dad's doing much better, but tired from running back and forth. i'm still on track for japan. trying to save some dough. donations are gladly accepted ;) giggin a little and just having fun. oh well. guess that's all i can think of. hope everyone out there is well!

12:28 pm: 日本、私は来ている!
I just bought my ticket to Nippon! Wooo hoooooo! I'm so pscyhed. The only drawback is that I'm leaving Xmas morning, but I don't care. My brother and his familly are going to be in Europe for Xmas so I figure it'll be a bust anyway. But I leave on the 25th and get to Tokyo the afternoon of the 26th! I spend a couple of days in Tokyo, where S-san will meet me, and then we'll go to Nagano to spend New Year's with her family. Then, depending on how wiped out I am, I'm going to try and get to Osaka to visit my friend K. While I'm there I think we can squeeze in Kyoto. I'd like to see Hiroshima too, but it might be too much. I can't friggin wait!!!!!!

11:09 am: new year's
well if all goes as planned i will be going to Japan for new year's!!!!! The plan is to take off Christmas morning and arrive in Tokyo on the afternoon of the 26th. Then we'll spend a few days in Tokyo before heading to Nagano. After New Year's in Nagano, I'll head to Osaka for a few days to visti my friend K and see Kyoto, Osaka, and whatever else we can fit in. Then it's back to Nagano for a couple, on to Tokyo again and fly out on the 10th. I'm psyched!

01:17 pm: too funny
check this out it's hysterical

09:50 am: another f'd up gig
man, I hate outdoor gigs. They're usually run by city workers who have no clue how to run an event, which makes them especially difficult. We had one outdoors Fri night. The weather was iffy, but after conferring with everyone, we decided to go for it. The guy running it was so wishy washy about things I finally said "Look, we're gonna show up and go for it, but if it rains we still expect to get paid. Even if we don't play a note." He said ok. So we get to the venue, and, sure enough, as soon as I pull upthe clouds darken like something out of a mad max movie. I didn't even get out of the car when the skies burst open. It poured for about 30 - 40 minutes. Finally it stops and the weather clears. The friggin sun came out! So we were all pumped thinking we were out of the woods. WRONG! As soon as we finished setting up, the clouds rolled in again, this time from a different direction. So we scrunched everything into a pile and covered it with the plastic I brought. And it fucking poured! It was raining sideways it was so hard. Seitu's pedals were floating because he left them on the ground on the stage. It rained for about 75 minutes. Finally it stopped, but, of course, at that point there was no way were playing. So we packed up, got our check, and split. Of course, the sn came back out and it was a pretty clear night after that! It sucked too becasue we were all stoked to play. From now on, no more outdoor gigs unless they have a tent, or an alternate venue!!