I THOUGHT I WAS ASTOUNDED, UNTIL NOW.

Part one:
We had our dinner with Kyle and Brandy tonight...The first sign of trouble was the church bus from Arkansas in the parking lot and the thirty members of that church seated inside all hailing jesus and shit before scarfing down the mexican plate (is it made out of real mexicans?).
I, of course, was wearing a Jesus lizard shirt.
This turned out to not be an issue as the busload of god fearing christians were more interested in the enchiladas/fellowship thing than a guy in a blasphemous shirt.
Dinner went well, the visit went well, they came by to see the remodel after and we ended up hanging out just talking about stuff. It was quite comfortable, really.
I saw flashes of brilliance from both of them and I am OK with the plan.
They are doing it right and I respect them for that.
Part two:
Ann and I decided to skip the CLUTCH show until we had dinner with the kids tonight. We were all focused on missing Mark and that threw a pall on the thought of going. Kyle reminded us that he had seen them everytime with us and the chance to see them again with us was important to him. He was UP for it, which got us up for it again, and reminded us that there are more memories associated with this band than we had been focused on during the last week.
I may have contaminated my son, but the contaminants rock, he knows,we know...so he scored tickets on the way home...turns out it's 2 sets by the maryland boys with no opening act...yessssss.
Part three:
Some folks need to get the fuck over themselves. The passing of a friend is not a competition to gauge who grieves better, or who remembers better, or who cries more,emotes more or any of that shit. I was not directly involved in any of the shenanigans that culminated after Marks wake. Friendships were tested, rocked and possibly destroyed over his death by an emotional richter scale balanced by equal parts drugs and ego.
Petty shit that has NO place in the scheme of things, unless you function at a 13 year old level
where you're performance has more to do with it than the reality of the loss.
To turn this into spectacle is fucking pathetic. I'm sure Mark would feel the same way and I bet he's laughing his ass off at you all...I'm sure of it, in fact.
Goodnight and have a pleasant tomorrow........