7:59 A.M. EDT

On the Thursday of my recent beach bummery bumnation bummification relaxation/work, I played a mighty fine round of golf with my dad and brother. Around the ninth hole, I realized that I had left my cell phone at the condominium and wondered to myself whether the absence of its distraction had contributed to my relative success (120 was the score, and yes... to me that is success). I decided that it had and I continued to play as though I hadn't a care in the world, though I was truthfully worried about what awful things might be going on without my knowledge.

When I returned to the condo, I raced to my cell phone in typical me fashion to find that I had missed five phone calls, one of which was from the 615 area code. At this point in my life and career, an unrecognized call from 615 either means something very good or very bad. Voicemail revealed that this was probably not a pleasant ocassion, as my apartment management company called and needed to speak to me the same day.

I already knew why.

When I reached the office, the property manager reported that my apartment had apparently been burglarized overnight. A resident had noticed a hole and broken blinds in a window. The manager and a maintenance worker entered the apartment and said that it appeared that nothing had been taken, though my Kurzweil keyboard was on the floor which she "thought was odd." I asked if there was still a television in the den. "Yes." Was there still a computer in the den? "Yes." It couldn't possibly be that bad if that was the case.

After leaving Myrtle Beach, I headed to Athens for the balance of the weekend. When I arrived in Nashville early this afternoon, I entered my apartment to survey the damage. Here is what I found.


This is the rock that someone threw thru through my window, reportedly somewhere around 4am Thursday morning. That thing that looks like a piano in the background is supposed to sit on that thing that looks like a keyboard stand in the background. The rock on the floor seems to indicate that this was probably not the result of unnoticed activity in the New Madrid Fault.


This was apparently where the rock struck the coffee table that sits in my den. Also, someone who matters is this very second saying, "Know how I know you're gay? Your real couch pattern would strike Charles Nelson Reilly as 'flamboyant.'"


This is what my closet looked like when I arrived home. You don't have to believe me when I say that it didn't look like this when I left, but you should. It was apparent that the intruders were looking for something.


This is what they found... family silver, given to me by my grandmother. I thought surely it was hidden well enough, but it apparently wasn't.


This is my computer desk. There is a monitor, my Jack Daniel's thermometer, my RCB Christmas ornament, my "Go Dawgz" Chick-fil-a cow from the '98 Peach, and my prized "We Are The Champions" photo from '03 Tennessee. But something is missing from that computer desk. If you guessed "computer," you guessed right.

All told, it appears that I have lost my computer, my PS2, and possibly some silver. After two phone calls and a four-hour-and-thirty-minute wait on a stormy Monday afternoon, I still haven't seen the police. I haven't touched a thing in my apartment. I am hungry and ready to unpack and get to work, and I can't.

I wish I could be entirely peachy about this and write it off as "just stuff." I was not conscientious about backing up every single idea I ever had, and so some are lost with the computer. Some demos will have to be re-recorded from scratch, and some lyrics recreated from memory. Some previously written show material that has already been sold but is undelivered will have to be re-written. And most unfortunately, some potential seeds of something great and some moments of someone else's semi-sober whimsy that were secretly captured on disc will simply have to be remembered.

I don't like this. Life was infinitely better at 7:59 this morning.