Tales of a Malevolent Pumpkin

Most of you probably know what I mean by the title. But for those of you who don't, here's that story.

In mid-October, as I unloaded the Halloween pumpkin we had just bought at Costco from the floor of my truck, I lost control. The pumpkin, all 25 pounds of it, slipped from my right hand and landed on the fingers of my left hand, which was lower. It hyper extended my ring finger toward the palm. How far, I'm happy to say, I couldn't see. There was a pumpkin in the way! I heard a pop, but nothing hurt immediately. Still, I figured I must have done something, so I put ice on my finger. After all, we had a gig in six days.

I played that gig, as I had played others before in my life, with what I thought was a sprained finger. I couldn't play some chords, and some positions hurt (that barre A chord especially!). But I managed. I had a scheduled appointment with my doctor the following Monday, so I mentioned the finger, He looked, frowned. Said, "I think you need to get that X-rayed, TODAY!" So I did. And low and behold, I had a chip broken of my last joint. See the extensor tendon. . . well, you don't need the gory details.

I played the next gig three days later, with grudging permission from the medical folks. They told me if I had told them I had a gig in two weeks they would have said, "ABSOLUTELY NOT!" But starting the immobilization three days later seemed acceptable enough to them, and I didn't want to cancel our gig at The Fenix. So I played. If you look at the videos on YouTube, you can see the kinesio tape on my finger: a small gesture of additional support. It was again difficult to play some chords and some positions, but I made it through and we played quite well.

Now I'm in my seventh week of mandatory splinting. Hoping to get into rehab in about another week. Then full throttle again in 2016. The good news is that I've been recovering some of my slide guitar chops that I hadn't used in over a decade. And I've been working on some right hand chops in some new tunes, including a couple originals, a couple of slide tunes, including Big Love— a John Hiatt/Ry Cooder tune from their Little Village era. Some of which you can hear at our next show, which right now is January 31 in the Beer Garden at Hopmonk Tavern, Novato. Nice there, with heat lamps in case it's chilly. Hope to see you there!