The View From The Drey

The Squirrel

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
Since I joined last year I’ve lurked on this sub-forum. I’ve found all of the threads interesting. I’ve thought about starting one of my own, but I’ve had a bit of apprehension. First, I’m sort of new around here and still making my way around. Second, I’m just not sure I have the stamina to keep it up. Last, do people really want to read stories from another cyclist? What do I have to add to the collective voice of this site?


So what changed my mind? I like it here. I’m on this site every day. Sometimes more than I should. I currently don’t ride mtb, and CX is basically over for the year, so how do I stay engaged at mtbnj? Not only that, I’m the Squirrel, I’m an interesting guy…I guess. Even though I bore myself, others might find my stories interesting.

So, here’s what I have to offer:

· Riding, training and racing. Nothing crazy, only little asides and race reports. This is all in preparation for the next CX season. The goal is to suck less.

· Health. I have major coronary issues. What stopped me from starting cross sooner was the revelation that I have complete occlusions in 2 of the 5 main coronary arteries. The other 3 have multiple blockages and my heart runs at about 60% capacity. What keeps me alive is a vast array of collateral vessels (thank you cycling!) Instead of the quintuple bypass, I’ve decided to try to reverse this disease using other methods, such as nutritional intake, exercise and stress reduction. It’s working. Slowly.

· Food. Needless to say, my view on food is very different than others. Some may find my whole food/plant based diet interesting.

· My work. I work in the music business. I get paid to listen to music AND give my opinion directly to the artist on a daily basis. There’s a good chance that you have music in your collection with my name on it (not The Squirrel). I’ve worked with a wide range of artists in all genres. I’m currently nominated for a Grammy (10th nomination). I got stories.


So there you go. I swear there’ll be images and such. I just threw this together on the bus this morning and didn’t have anything to offer. Besides, my fone is “no so smart” so I have to carry my old skool Sony camera for images. Also, I’m not going to bore you with crap you don’t want to read. Why waste the bytes? So all of this is flexible.


lo scoiattolo
 
Pearl

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
first

edit: the blog is what you make of it, when i started, i felt like it made me accountable for things, whether me riding, staying focused on a long term goal, that kind of thing. plus looking back years from now, if you do a good job keeping up with it, makes it enjoyable to read and remember "those days".

looking forward to da stories.
 
Last edited:
The Squirrel

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
Dood..Dre's strictly west coast. I'm east coast.

But the whole staff was trapped in the studio with 50 cent when he had the death threats. Police locked down the building. Snipers and all. For a while I worked in a large complex on the west side of Manhattan. At night, there were often rival posse's in the building making records at the same time. We had off duty police at the front door with wands and also patrolling the building. A lot of great second hand stories from those sessions.

Now if you'd like to know what Wu Tang Clan likes for dinner...I got that.
 
Pearl

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
The Squirrel said:
Now if you'd like to know what Wu Tang Clan likes for dinner...I got that.
Click to expand...

raw
 
The Squirrel

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
chik'n brocklee. RaeKwon says "order me some Chicken Broccoli". So I ask if anyone wants anything and they say no. The food comes, ODB says, "that smells good, I want Chicken Broccoli". I ask if anyone wants anything and they say no. The food comes...you get the idea.

Mastering engineers don't get assistants in session, so I have to do it all.
 
The Squirrel

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
I have over 35 years of work stories in a rather crazy business. These stories get old for me, but others like them a lot. I've been finding the past few years interesting outside of work. My health and it's pursuit have been interesting. Deciding not to go through with surgery, walking out on Dr's who I feel are not there for my best interest. I finally had to take my blinders off and take control. It's liberating. The human body is amazing.
 
The Squirrel

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
I should add, that my CX antics were Dr. approved this year. I'm not right in the head, but I'm not crazy. I only pulled out of Marty's because I felt like I was on overload. And since I had the car and my wife was home, she would have been pissed if I died on that hill.
 
ChrisG

ChrisG

Unapologetic Lifer for Rock and Roll
The Squirrel said:
· Health. I have major coronary issues. What stopped me from starting cross sooner was the revelation that I have complete occlusions in 2 of the 5 main coronary arteries. The other 3 have multiple blockages and my heart runs at about 60% capacity. What keeps me alive is a vast array of collateral vessels (thank you cycling!) Instead of the quintuple bypass, I’ve decided to try to reverse this disease using other methods, such as nutritional intake, exercise and stress reduction. It’s working. Slowly.
Click to expand...
I'm interested in your blog for a bunch of reasons, starting with having worked a little with you this past August at the Cognition Cross Clinic and then seeing you get fully stoked on racing cross. That's always cool.

The coronary/vascular thing has recently come onto my radar as my primary climbing gym partner is going through occlusion/dissection issues with his front left carotid artery and has been wrestling with the choice "leave it alone and try to heal it" vs. "surgical procedure". So I've gotten a crash course in this stuff over the last few weeks.
 
The Squirrel

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
Funny Studio Story #1

It's 1982 and my internship turns into a real gig as an assistant engineer at a record label studio on 23rd st. in NY. My uncle helped get me this gig. He raced sailboats out of Brooklyn and the chief engineer lived on a boat in the marina and often crewed for my uncle. They had small editing/mix rooms in the offices, which were next to the Grand Masonic Lodge. We often ran lines into this lodge to do classical recordings. There was another studio a block away. This was a gigantic studio. It was an old ballroom in the back of what was an old hotel and was now apartments. I was the lowly guy there so I got all the crap jobs. The classic crap job is cleaning the bathrooms. The bathrooms were all the way in the back of the studio, down a hall and then down the stairs in the basement. God they were awful. Sometimes if a client was pissing off the engineer I'd get the nod...When the client needed the bathroom I'd hand him a cowbell and a drum stick with the instructions to bang the cowbell at the top of the stairs. This way all the rats would hid and they could go down without issue. Once we heard the cowbell, let about a minute pass and BAM! kill the lights. A real attitude readjustment.

So, I come in one day and the mix engineer is screaming at me to clean the bathrooms. I run to the bodega and I buy every cleaning product I can grab, comet, windex, 409, that pine stuff for the floor, bleach...everything. I drag it down to the basement and get at it. I got the pine stuff on the floor and I'm scrubbing and bleach in each toilet, comet in the sink, you get the picture. Then I hear "Sluggs (my old nickname), get up here and align the machine". I run up and start on the machine, then I get a call to run an errand for the president. When I get back everyone is telling me that I'm in big trouble down at the big studio.

So I go down to the studio. Now this engineer was the king of Dance Music in this "error" and he dressed the part, tight jeans and t-shirt, custom boots and sunglasses in a dark studio. I walk in and he's standing (he never stood) and he looks over and just starts screaming incoherently, but he's not moving. After I had left to run the errand he had to go downstairs for his morning ritual. He sat on the freshly cleaned toilet, opened his newspaper and started to urinate. Well, smoke started rising up from between his legs, he jumps up with his jeans around his ankles and starts shuffling for the stairs! I forgot to flush the bleach...

This day I learned about combining ammonia and bleach. It burned him from behind his knees to the top of his ass. He had to take the subway for two weeks while it healed and mix standing for at least as long.

He finally started talking to me again, but it took a while.
 
The Squirrel

The Squirrel

Well-Known Member
ChrisG said:
I'm interested in your blog for a bunch of reasons, starting with having worked a little with you this past August at the Cognition Cross Clinic and then seeing you get fully stoked on racing cross. That's always cool.

The coronary/vascular thing has recently come onto my radar as my primary climbing gym partner is going through occlusion/dissection issues with his front left carotid artery and has been wrestling with the choice "leave it alone and try to heal it" vs. "surgical procedure". So I've gotten a crash course in this stuff over the last few weeks.
Click to expand...

HA! I used to climb quite a bit in the 90's into early the early 2000's. I used to frequent a gym just off of rt 18 in New Brunswick that was inside of a gymnastics academy. I think they eventually moved farther down 18. I used to do the Gunks, Adirondacks, PA, New River.

In May of 2013 my wife tells me she has a new Cardio and I should see her. I might not need to be on statins, even though I was the poster child for statins. Something about fluffy particles and small sharp particles. So I go and tell this Dr my story. One of which was my crazy readings on my Garmin. I ride the 9W area and often I'd do Bradley Hill, Causland, etc.. and I'd get this whacky readings, 250 bpm +, then it would come back down. The Dr. thought I was crazy and asked if I ever passed out while riding, which I didn't. Now I was doing a few thousand miles a year and when she said time for a stress, I thought it was ridiculous. Well, I failed it miserably. The tests after only got worse. One day I'm sitting on the couch and flip to PBS and there's this guy talking about reversing heart disease. And diabetes. and other diseases. Holy shit! I didn't want anyone cracking my chest open (I hadn't had my Cath yet). So I made an appointment with this guy, Dr. Fuhrman. He's in Flemington. Bought his book, and the rest is history. My Cardio (who's now in Pt. Pleasant), was starting a program with Dr. Ornish at Beth Israel. Basically the same philosophy. I went through that program as well. There are a few Dr's who follow the Whole Food/Plant Based thing. I had amazing changes in my life besides my lipid panels. I stopped snoring. I sleep better, I wake more refreshed, I'm more vivid. I lost 40 lbs. Sadly, my back is still hairy and my head is not, but I don't expect miracles.

I would have started CX in 2013. I had watched Scott Sugent, my good friend from childhood, race Bubblecross (at Wawayanda) the year before and I was hooked. After the surgeon told me quintuple bypass and I should get it done ASAP, my goal was to get better and race. In that order. I may be back of pack, but I'm out there and having fun doing it.
 
pooriggy

pooriggy

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
It's all fun and games until someone gets a bleach burn on the ass.

I'm not sure what studio you work for but do you know anything about the Fleet Foxes new album recording recently in Electric Lady Studio and Sear Sound in the city?
 
ChrisG

ChrisG

Unapologetic Lifer for Rock and Roll
The Squirrel said:
HA! I used to climb quite a bit in the 90's into early the early 2000's. I used to frequent a gym just off of rt 18 in New Brunswick that was inside of a gymnastics academy. I think they eventually moved farther down 18.
Click to expand...
I started climbing in the same gym, in the late 90's. It was called "Up The Wall". We had a blast there.

Howard, the owner, also owned the NJ Rock Gym and eventually opened Garden State Rocks in Marlboro after they stopped having public climbing at UTW.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom