Last Run

 I’m not a superstitious guy, generally speaking, but I also don’t like to flout that shit either-because you just never know. Like, when I see a penny I do pick it up in the often vain hopes that I will all that day have good luck. That said, have you ever heard about that whole ‘last run’ jinx? If you’re a skateboarder you know exactly what I’m talking about, but in case you’re still among the great unwashed who haven’t yet converted (and seriously, what are you waiting for? Skateboarding is the BEST.), there exists in our shared subculture a superstition that one should never say that they are taking their last run, because that is the run they will inevitably get injured on. True? I don’t know, but I do not remember finding any pennies on the ground on the day in question...

 I’m in Las Vegas on the first Fastplants tour out west. Me and Joel were hanging out with our friend Rob, who had relocated out there a couple years previously. It was the night after a killer show at The Dive Bar with Agent Orange and a skate contest-one of those shows you play that you know while you’re still playing it that you’re gonna remember this show for a long-ass time and we’d separated from the other dudes and gone out for lunch or something and we’re going to meet back up with the van for the next grueling death march of a drive (seriously the drives when touring out west are nuts, how the fuck did Lewis and Clark do it??) when Rob mentioned that there was a rad ditch along the way to the rendezvous point. Sounds great, I say, we’ve got time for one run.

If I had an echo effect that I could somehow put on those previous two words to truly impart their importance I would’ve turned it to eleven. Because, as I’m sure you’ve surmised, saying ‘one run’ is essentially the same thing as saying ‘last run’.

 So, we park and walk up to this ditch and I’m on tour with my band and things are going great and I’m skating this ditch in the desert with literally two of my best, oldest friends and it just can’t get no righter.

 It’s not just the distances that are bigger out west, it’s everything. When we crested the hill and this ditch came into view, it seemed to stretch out forever. It was big, steep, long, and scary as fuck, but also glassy smooth and had tons of flat to power slide yourself back under control, if ya start going too fast, so I was cautious but not intimidated, I’ve skated tons of ditches, man, I’m from the fucken Midwest! The land of serious water drainage issues. Plus, we don’t really have too many skateable backyard pools, so ditches are sort of our thing, right?

 Yeah, well, our Midwest ditches don’t go down the sides of mountains and send you hurtling along at literally eye-watering speed within two walls. I was headed into my third wall, a backside hit, and I was fucking FLYING but backside is super easy even at high speeds so I figured I’d carve this wall and power slide these fucken wheels down to the bearings and get shit back under control.

 I saw the rock for a split second before I hit it. A nice, round, little white one. Perfectly placed about a foot from the wall. My front heel wheel hit it and screamed and stopped and I didn’t and I hit that wall seemingly instantly. I had no time to react or prepare for the slam, it was like getting blindsided by a car. I went sideways into the wall and my body hitting the pavement made an unfortunate flopping, thuddy, slapping sound that I will never forget.

  I hit on my left side, knocking the wind out of myself, and immediately lost all feeling in my left side, and slid down the wall, unable to move. I could barely even breathe at first and tried to pull myself up but things were kinda misfiring all over my body. My head, left elbow, left knee, and left hip we’re on fire but the scariest thing I found as I was taking that post-slam injury inventory we all do was that it felt like I’d somehow broken my whole chest. I caught my breath as I stumbled around and my limbs regained feeling (dude, I slammed myself NUMB), but my chest HURT. Bad. Like, hospital bad. But, I’m on tour! And, fuck, I gotta meet the van and get back on the road, in like TWENTY MINUTES! FUCK!!

 I’d felt the ribs on my left side pop and I knew they were broken. I’ve always been super terrified about my appendix bursting (are there any superstitions to avoid this?), and it happened to a friend of mine and when I asked how he knew his appendix was gonna burst he said, ‘you’ll know’ and it was exactly the same with my ribs. There was no questioning that they were broken but since I could breathe relatively ok, they likely hadn’t popped my lungs, so it wasn’t gonna be life threatening. We did a little more phone research and realized that unless your broken ribs had pierced your lung, there’s not much a hospital is gonna do for you. We had seven shows left on this tour, I had two broken ribs and zero choice. We went to meet the van.

 Our drummer, Marc, is an EMT and all-around lifesaving kinda dude, so I knew I was in good hands. He said i should ‘tape up those ribs’ but i didn’t really know what he meant and figured he was just being overly cautious, so I just took a bunch of ibuprofen and tried to get somewhat comfortable for the long drive to Tempe. I was miserable but no longer worried about dying. That show in Tempe was this weird all-ages thing in this super dingy basement of a super dingy club with no air conditioning. In Tempe. In August. We all pounded as much water as we could to prepare but we knew this one was gonna be rough. The dudes helped me set my guitar stuff up and got me ready to rock and we were about to start when Marc looked at me across the top of his drums and said, “Did you tape up your ribs?” I’ll be fine, I told him, I’m just sore. He looked at me quizzically, like he didn’t understand what I was saying.

 And I did think I’d be fine. Soreness is no biggie, I’ve played shows in way worse shape than this. I had neglected to take into account the impact doing things that involve taking deep breathes has on broken ribs. Things like singing in a rock band.  I literally inhaled to start the first song and knew I was screwed. Pain TORE through my left side and I swooned and the edges of my vision got black and fuzzy. I tried to squeak out some lyrics as I looked at Abe, he saw the panic on my face, and immediately took over lead vocals-it was a totes pro move on his part.

 We finished the set. Abe sang every song by himself and tore it up but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him more gassed after a set. We all were spent. But-the show did go on.

 And, following Marc’s advice, we wrapped Ace bandages around my chest super tight every night backstage before we played and you’re goddamned right that show went on-that show went on six more fucken times and we all got home in one piece.  More or less. Fuck yeah.


 (I’ve been skateboarding since I was 12 and that injury at that time at that age should be my worst skate injury story, but THAT story wouldn’t happen for another seven or so months-right around the time my ribs finally felt healed. But that’s a blog post for another time.)