Without a Candle, Onward

Prologue: Corral the Maniacs

Any drummer knows that holding a drumstick is nothing like holding a knife. Laying down a fat quarter beat on the floor tom is not like stabbing a dead carcass, let alone one live and squirming. Splashing on loose hi-hats is not the same as slashing at an opponent or a victim. Twirling a pair of sticks for a bit of flash has nothing to do with flashing blade. Cracking that snare drum crisp and right does not produce screams of agony. Tossing a stick in the air to catch it on the way down will not sever a finger, and launching a stick into an expectant crowd will not result in a manslaughter charge.

Sticks and knives are two totally different skill sets.

That's not to say a drummer could not also master knifesmanship, or a knifesman master drumming. They're as much learned skills as rope walking, ship building, free diving, lying, bringing a woman to orgasm, or public speaking. You don't leap head first into any of these activities without some prior experience. You can try. But I wouldn't recommend it.

Shame is a bitch.

What a drummer does have, though, when he holds something like a knife in his hands, is confidence. Particularly if it's his dominant hand. The mechanics, after all, are not all that dissimilar. Closing your fingers round a long slender object (masturbatory metaphors aside, for now). The weight distribution of knives and drumsticks is comparable. The muscle memory of swinging an extension of your hand, absorbing the shock with relaxed elbows and shoulders, controlling the rebound like a three-eyed billiard hustler. Knowing to never grasp too tightly, but rather allowing it to float between your fingers. Accuracy is imperative for proper results, as is being aware of chips, splinters, cracks, and defects.

I'm a righty.

For many years I tried like hell to build the strength in my left hand to match the strength in my right hand, but I could never get it there.

That's probably why I prefer to masturbate with my left hand. The more delicate touch, you know?

But too much confidence can get you into trouble. That's true of any situation, whether driving a motorcycle or talking to your boss, taking a test or fixing the plumbing, picking up women or buying drugs. Public speaking. But then again, you can't accomplish much in life without some degree of confidence, can you? Sometimes it takes confidence just to get out of bed, or pick up the phone, or look someone in the eyes.

Of course, you can do major damage with drumsticks. Catch yourself good on the fingertip and it'll sting for a week. A good shot to the cheek will leave an embarrassing bruise. Fat lip, check. Sore knees, check. I've got blisters on my fingers! Me too, Ringo, me too. I have grabbed blindly at sticks and been greeted with inch-long splinters speared underneath my fingernail. You want to break that guitar player's fingers? Have a whack. That groupie likes it rough? Spank her with a drumstick.

Sticks and stones may break your bones.

Words will never hurt you.

But it's the cymbals and drum rims that will cut you.

Drummers are well known for bleeding on the job. Hitting things is a risk-laden career. Sometimes it's a drum rim, when you rap your knuckle against the hoop and lose, like in those games of bloody knuckles when you were a reckless, careless, fearless, mindless teenager. Blood will spray as you continue to batter those traps. But more often than not it's a cymbal. Cymbals don't seem sharp around the edges, but when your hands are streaming past in a fill at lightning speed those cymbals will lash into you. A clean cut that will not clot, and your blood will pour.

Metal is just too effective a substance for slicing, dicing, and piercing human flesh. Wood is a natural element. Wood originates from living things of this earth, as do we. Long ago our ancestors gathered aged, fallen trees from the forest floor. But when man mastered metalwork, when saws and axes and machetes and swords were born into being, what was the first thing he used them for? Cutting down trees? Or slaying his fellow men?