Nashville Knucklehead

Lordy Lordy

Fifteen years ago, more or less, I met the Veternarian. He wasn't a vet then, he was a bartender at O'Charley's and I had just moved to Nashville from Texas and got a job there. He found out I was a musician, and asked if I wanted to be in his band. The other guitar player in the band was CeeElCee.

So I have also known CeeElCee for 15 years. He is the smartest guy in the room, no matter what room he is in. Look, I'm a pretty smart guy, my friends are all pretty smart guys and it is common knowledge that he is always the smartest guy in the room, whatever room he is in. Just take my word for it, I have all the test scores and GPAs you can ask for, and he still kicks my ass. He went to Stanford, for God's sake. The reason we have remained friends for so long is that he is the good kind of really smart. He can converse on any subject, from art and architecture and history to wine and fine cigars to NASCAR and weed and strippers.

So the whole time we were playing together back then, he was holding down his day job. What I couldn't understand was how he could do the same things I was doing, like drive up to Bowling Green to play a frat party on a weeknight and get drunker than the frat boys, (didn't one of us take a piss in their sacred chalice one night? Surely that must have been me.) and still get up the next morning and go to work. But he did. Then, way back at an age when nobody I knew had any business buying a house, he bought one. It wasn't until this very year that I found out that all those nights of playing for fifty bucks, when I would spend my money on beer and electricity bills and lap dances, he was putting his money away. Fifteen years later, I am stunned that our little band provided him back then with enough money to put a substantial downpayment on a house. See, he's always been smarter than me.

I don't have a before and after picture. I wish I did. The before picture would show us both skinny and with all our hair. Now, he's skinny (I'm catching up dude. I've lost 20 lbs. since this picture was taken), but who still has all his hair, motherfucker?!

So he turns 40 today. Go wish him a happy birthday.

posted by Nashville Knucklehead @ 6:20 PM