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Gary Schooley: Publisher & Editor of Future-Link  - re-educating his long lost electric bass playing skills. - Paraplegic

The Past: My claim to fame as a musician Paraplegic was a three year stint as a drummer with the Mad Dog Drummers of Mu, (dis-banded over 14years & more a go) We were a 11 to 14 person percussion orchestra led by Fulbright Award winning Tabla Drummer Daniel Paul, graduate of the Ali Akbar College of Music. I played metal and ceramic Doumbeks and fame drums. The music genre: East Indian compositions, both traditional and original, using Persian/Mid-East notation and drumming techniques. Drumming rehearsals & classes two days a week for almost three years were a blessing for me. The pulse and beat slipped into my body, and in some ways made up for not being able to feel 50% of it! When drumming, there is feeling deeper than skin deep. The performances were so charged, that even when down with UTI I showed up and did my part. Before becoming a Paraplegic I played bass guitar with a half dozen rock bands in the San Francisco area in the late 60's early 70's. I sold it all years before becoming a paraplegic (and didn’t pick up a bass again for over 25 years) Went 'back to the land' with some great folks on 50 acres plus several hundred BLM acres behind our land in North Eastern Washington State. The years passed as they do...

The Mad Dog Drummers of Mu circa 1992

Me: lower right corner; that was then...

Now & The Future Now, October 2008 - Things change - we change - our dreams our intentions our perceptions even, plans/ideas, all change - and more change is in what was a breeze and is now a wind... soon to be a storm...  Me myself & I... a hobbyist leaning towards being a half ways proficient bass player. My mind is slow to adjust... my ideas are larger than my facts... the low deep sounds of the bass do something with my insides that is akin to the rumble of a freight train at dawn - there is an opening for other sounds to enter, like the wild/natural cawing of Ravens, Wolves howling in the distance, the barking of the wolf's cousin the Coyote (prairie wolf) and pounding raindrops on the roofs and cement sidewalks deep in the San Francisco night - fog horns in the distance, the horn of a tug boat, I'm a city boy born & raised, a mountain man by choice, nurtured  by many years in the West Coast Forests of California, Oregon & Washington.

So much BS! Blabbering... Forgive me... Indulge me... You know the 'In and Out Burger'? I sometimes see my life as 'In and Out'. By no means feeling sorry for myself... In and Out out of the mind No Mind is my way

Most of my hand drum collection has been sold, kept two favorite drums that get played for maybe an hour a week... the beat goes on; the years pass, and the bass is what's doing for me now what the drums did. Playing music is a spiritual exercise; a healing process; as long as the heart beats bass riffs will be sounding and vibrating through my mind and body releasing stress, keeping the internal fire going, keeping the body in balance.  Keeping the low note, the root, the anchor  that is the earth itself in position swaying in a holding pattern. The heart beat; follow it... Stay close stay low stay learn stay open stay curious stay well stay high...

First Bass: Fender American Deluxe Jazz bass with Turnstyle custom switching system giving the bass 5 sound selections; Metal - Rickenbacker - Precision bass - J bass neck - J bass both pups - and J bass bridge pup. Second Bass: Lakland Skyline  44-02 4 string bass. Power: Mark Bass 250/500 watt two channel head and a 2X10 Traveler cab - Boss 880 DR Rhythm drum machine, a Markbass Chorus/flanger effects box that with the two channel input on the head gives me a stereo option that  I use with pleasure. & a Markbass CMD 300/500W Tilt-Back Bass Combo Amplifier with 2x10" speakers (From Italy) in the closet...