It’s been really quiet around here. Not necessarily because I’ve been busy with the day job. I just don’t really have the want to do really anything. I don’t want to get on social media because it’s stupid and full of narcissistic people who think the world revolves around them and their personal views.
About the only “socializing” I can stand online anymore is hanging out in a couple of Matrix chat rooms. I used to love Twitter. But anymore its just a bastion of ads intertwined with click baity stolen content from other content creators whose sole purpose is to divide and instigate arguments. All hoping to get those impressions from Elon’s advertising revenue share. I have no problems with people making money. I’m just tired of the shitty ass advertising. Literally everything is a fucking advertisement online.
I’ve been in mourning. You will be too when I say it. Some of you already know. Most of you don’t. My best friend of 30+ yrs, John Sisler Jr died last Tuesday April 9th. You knew him as Johnny Gearjammer. He was my musical soul mate and muse. We went trucking together, we got drunk together, we got high together. We were the epitome of brothers. He named his son after me. That is an honor I will always cherish. I would have reciprocated and named my child after him but no form of John or Jonathon works very well with a daughter. And he was fine with that. The man had a heart of gold even though he looked like he would rather throw you in a wood chipper most of the time.
But the man loved life and he loved to laugh. He was involved in nearly every podcast, live stream or radio station I ever did. Whether he was behind the scenes giving music suggestions and topics for shows or actually on air hosting them.
I’ve never had more creativity come out of my brain and my heart than I did when I was jamming with him. We wrote and recorded hundreds of songs that were never released. They are all on tapes and cd’s in a nondescript storage unit somewhere and I am dying to get my hands on them.
He had checked himself into the hospital over a month prior complaining of stomach pain. He never left. They could tell it was cancer along with a perforated stomach. They ran daily tests looking for the cancer and they couldn’t fix his perforated stomach without knowing the cancer. So they were running a circle. His blood pressure kept dropping because of the perforated stomach and he finally crashed super hard on April 5th. They flew him to another better equipped hospital while in a coma and on life support. On the 9th his family had to make the tough decision to pull the plug. John passed a couple of hours later.
There was no service and no memorial. So how do we move on with our lives? By that question I guess I’m meaning more about how do I move on with my life, lol. I really don’t know. Now I’m sitting here with this hole left empty in my life. I’ve got literally no creative drive. All I can do is sit and think about the fun we had. I’ve got some of his older solo music that he released out into the ether and all the stuff from Slight Case of Death still rolls around in my head all day and night long. Plus all the jams he and I did still ring in my ears like it was yesterday. But there is no drive to create something new. All I want is to jam with one more time. But that wont happen. At least not in this life.
Whatever you want to call it. All 3 are pretty much the exact same show. Im thinking that Radioman and I are going to do a tribute/memorial stream soon on Rumble, YouTube and CastGarden. I would also like to do one in the old Palnet discord server so that all the old listeners can come and join in and talk about their favorite things about John. Might just do that all at once so everybody can attend.
In IRL there is a service planned once everyone has had time to process and grieve in their own way. John knew and was friends with a lot of people who loved him as much as he did them. Because of this we are planning a big memorial service once the weather here in mid Michigan gets back to being stable warm. We are inviting anybody who ever knew or played music with John to bring their instruments and just having a big ass jam session/concert for an entire day of remembrance of him. I plan on sticking his number one favorite guitar “Peggy” on a stand on stage left. The side he always stood on. “Peggy” is the black LTD Explorer with the skull on it. He named it after his grand mother. It’s a beautiful guitar and the one he played the most on stage.
If I can pull it off and get some resources together I will see if I can get someone to either stream it live or at the very least record it.
The giant jam session/memorial isnt going to happen for a couple of months. The live stream from Radioman and I will be soon. I will keep you all posted.
I will continue to post videos and blogs on things that I find interesting. Probably mostly about Linux and bitching about the over abundance of idiots in the world today.
I've had a recent rekindling of wanting to do more music stuff again. But I'm not really sure if thats because all these memories of making music with John came flooding back or if it's really something that I want to do. Maybe I will share me figuring out things in music creation. Who really knows. The future is an unkown.
I love and miss you my little brother from another mother, Johnny G. May you rest in peace and keep those strings in tune. Cause I cant wait to jam with you again.