This is me, age 18. With my first Fender Jaguar. I bought it in Memphis while my band was doing a small tour. The other guys in the band hated the guitar and blame it for our eventual break up. You can’t see it, but I was wearing a gold leotard. I wore them a bunch back then, don’t know why. I guess I’ve always had an affinity for super hero costumes, mostly I collected tee shirts with super hero emblems on them but I thought there was something really really funny about wearing a “costume” beneath my clothes.
Note: my hair was usually very very flat, but in school girls liked braiding it, I’d take the braids out when I got home and my hair would look wavy for an hour or so.
This sketch was done by my friend Merideth. I met her at the first National Yo-Yo contest I attended. At the time she lived in Chico. We’ve stayed in contact throughout the years and now she lives in San Francisco and is one of my oldest bestest friends.
The sketch is of Steve Brown and myself, circa 2000. It really happened.
Here is a pic from the very first World Yo-Yo Contest. To help me with stage anxiety, I often like to start off with something fun, if it goes well I can relax. So when I took the stage for my X Division freestyle I asked everybody to smile for a picture. Then, after looking into my viewfinder, I said “I need you guys to squish in a little bit”. The X Division was peer judged, so all the guys in the front row were both judges and competitors. I’m not sure who all is missing, but I think Steve is off to the right of the stage getting ready for his freestyle.
My favorite thing about this picture was the look of the Japanese players. Either they were just confused or they were offended. Considering how seriously most of them took the contest, I think they were pissed that some jackass was on stage wasting their time taking a photo instead of starting his routine. Neff thought it was funny though.
This is a pic from the second Yomega World Yo-Yo contest. Every year Brett Outchcunnis made the event more entertainment based. He brought his electronic drum kit to the event and asked Rick and myself to rap during parts of the show. He was just learning to play the drums, but that’s okay ’cause I was just learning to rap.
I don’t know the kids name, but he was hitting the drums as I freestyled. That’s way too cute isn’t it? The kid was somewhat cute too.
This is another pic from that same year. Since the Yomega World Yo-Yo contest was only a week away from the other World Yo-Yo Contest, we had a very large international contingent.
These guys are on a team called Team Others. They liked to play the circle game with me. Left to right we see Shingo “Terry” Terada, Kohta Watanabe, Daisuke Shimada, and Shinji Saito. A year or two later I became the only US player on the team. I’m one proud cracker.
Here is a pic of my pa and me. It’s taken in his garage in Lewisburg TN. We had just pulled the Model T into the place and paused for a picture before we began removing the motor.
The picture is dated May 2001.
Here is a picture of me in Shannon’s apartment on March 10th 2007, the morning of my 30th birthday. Same old Nine Inch Nails tour shirt, but a new favorite drink (Bibcafe!).
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