Looking back, it all seemed to happen so naturally --- playing Rock n' Roll,
R n' B and Soul --- back in the day --- then landing the gig as regular full-time drummer in the House Band at Rand's Rock n' Roll Club (14th & I St. NW DC), 7 nights a week, with Sonny Gordon's "Original Outcasts" -Sonny, Chuck, Vince, Bill, and Roy Buchanan.

Besides bristling with An Exuberant Rock n' Roll Spirit -----a constant generous feeling of acceptance, respect, and supportiveness pervaded "the street." The music was played and the musicians interacted with A Spirit of Good-Natured Fun.

Then, at some point, Shufflemonster left it all that behind and went away to school, in an attempt to acquire "legitimacy" - achieve "serious musician" status - to climb the career ladder to "society gigs" and beyond. What followed is mostly a blur - of elevator music, bad coffee, and stale tuxedos - so many thousands of wedding gigs that Shufflemonster developed an allergy to egg rolls. [In truth, there were also very many cherished moments of diverse, eclectic, upscale, spiritually enriching human/musical experiences along the way.]

With the passage of time (quarter of a century +/-), came the reemergence of A DESIRE to once again PLAY ROCK n' ROLL (R&B, Soul, Roots, et all). What followed was a rude awakening - "The (music) Scene" as Shufflemonster had experienced and remembered it, had EVAPORATED!!! The Spirit was gone. What stood in its place was a horrific, bizarre mockery of what once was. An army of egocentric, pedagogical, neoconformist oxymorons---with big amps, small minds, and no soul, was dominating the scene, creating a Hostle Environment, while providing a Brick Wall of disincentives and obstacles, a major "Gross Out" to anyone with any musical sensibilties or class or who had experienced the Glory Days and better times.

Shufflemonster was all but demoralized, about to 'throw in the towel'---give up---when--- he began to see something ----In The GROOVE ----at first nearly imperceptible, illusive - An encounter of a strange presence. This was not merely the sensation of power and momentum of a well-executed Groove Pattern-- More of a strange, yet delightful Aura -which elicited and unleashed heightened powers of consciousness - a feeling of entering an Alternate Reality of a Groove - within the Groove - an Inner Groove.

This, then, was Inspirational in the Extreme-- thereby rejuvinating and motivating enough to give Shufflemonster a second wind - to steel himself and deal head-on with the Exigencies of the Sitch - to play drums his way, free-spirited, good-naturedly, spontaneously, interactively, passionately, on the scene - for the duration.