dammit damian!!
Dammit Damian is:
*A Concert Promoter in Napa Valley & Sonoma County & MUSIC VENUE VETERAN of 25+ years!
*a Freelance music / pop culture writer
*The Host of Mostly Harmless Podcast
* an enigma wrapped in a riddle, wrapped up in a piece of bacon.
The latest adventures of Dammit Damian:
Happy Birthday to Claire!
Today is Claire Helme day! June 22nd! Happy 37th to my lover and Paramore! Claire, This last year has been rough on us both. We had been fighting a whole lot more, but the other night I wrote down this thought, “The pain we have been going through is the pain that comes with birth.” We are birthing a new life here in Napa, and it’s not supposed to be easy. This thing we are doing is supposed to be hard. I think we knew that, but we’ve both been surprised at just how hard things can be, while also feeling so damned easy. Moving feels a lot like building a house on quicksand, and that quicksand under our feet feels like I’m mixing too many metaphors. Since we sat down and REALLY talked about all of our fights and what’s fueling them, things have gotten so much better. The ground has started to feel so much more solid again. We feel connected once again. Before that talk, I had been looking for signs that we’re on the right path here in this place. I found that sign this last week when you frantically called me out onto the patio to see something fantastic! I was annoyed when I wandered away from whatever project I had been “working” on, but was so happy and surprised by what you had to show me. I can’t stop thinking about it. There it was, the plant that we had dropped on the hotel parking lot ground in Reno, Nevada. The planter shattered and we assumed the Spider plant was dead forever. Still, you listened to me when I wanted to replant the plant and see what would happen. I wanted to mix the dirt from our old life with our new life. I had faith in that plant. I had faith in us. And then the damned thing died anyway. It was dead, dead, dead. And then we were fighting, fighting, fighting. Nothing was going right in this new life and we were both so incredibly frustrated. I’ve been thinking a lot about garden metaphors, and when you called me out to the patio, I saw that the plant your mother had given us for our first home together, the one that we killed in Reno, had somehow magically sprung to life once again. I had been looking for a sign that we were on the right path, and once again the universe answered with a metaphor. We chose to come to this place with the clippings of our old lives. We replanted them here and panicked when it didn’t feel like they were growing. We forgot that growing things and life takes time. We forgot that pain comes with rebirth. We forgot how to tend our metaphorical garden. We just need to learn some more damned patience. We have to learn how to plant these seeds, and help them grow. And sometimes, we have to just plant the plant and then ignore it, only to be surprised months later that it’s not only alive, but looks to be thriving. It’s not as easy as some people make it look, and for us it’s mostly been easy. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to make your own garden grow, and that doesn’t even include all the work to grow that garden, together. Things are not going to just happen overnight for us. We have to till the garden and work to make things go. I’ve been watching more youtube videos late at night about gardening. I’ve been looking for more very real lessons and metaphors on how to continue to grow this life with you here in California. I love you so much and there is no place else I would rather be than on the couch, sipping wine, dancing in the kitchen and watching RuPaul. I can’t wait for us to figure out what we are planting here in Napa, and I can’t wait for us to help it grow.. Together.
Full moon madness
Who else is feeling this FULL MOON juju? Claire says I’m feeling it extra hard because it’s a full moon in Leo and I’m one of the most Leo ever, but that’s magic and malarkey… isn’t it?I’m sitting here tonight in my living room in Napa with the Full moon floating right outside our patio door. It’s moonlight is the only thing lighting this living room, other than the glow of this laptop. I’m sitting here soaking in the night and I’m sitting here doing what I always do in these late evenings, thinking about life, the universe and everything. Claire and I sat back tonight and under the moonlight, we talked about our future.
“Here’s Your Future” or “We’re gonna move to Northern California.”
YOU GUYS!!!! Claire and I are going to do the dang old, dang thing! Ha! No we’re not getting married or having kids….We are moving out of Colorado at the end of January! I have been here for 20 years, and while I feel like Colorado is my home and I will one day die here; Claire has lived in Colorado all her life and wants a taste of something different! So we are going to go off and have an adventure. We have no clue where we will land, or awaits us, and it doesn’t matter as long as we have each other and our Dick… the tabby cat. Claire has a passion for fine wine and has always wanted to live near the water. After talking her out of moving to Florida, we are currently looking towards Northern California. But we’re also looking at Burlington, Vermont after she had a dream about it a few weeks ago. So it feels like anywhere is on the table right now. I don’t really care where we go. I’ll go anywhere with her, as long as it is not Florida. I have no doubt that one day we will be back in Colorado one day, but for now, we’re going to go see where the roads take us. Life is too short. I’m already 40 and maybe we’ll get 40 years together… So why not get out there and see what is happening in the world? Plus, for the last two years I have sat here on the couch and “worked on myself,” and worked on my growth, while she has been sitting here feeling stagnant. It’s time for me to be the supportive partner and it’s Claire’s time to grow now! You know, but with a nice ocean breeze in her hair. We might land on our asses. It might be a disaster, but as long as we are doing it together… We’re going to have one hell of an adventure to tell you all about. I could end it there, but before I go I want to thank the Graf brothers for taking a chance on me at Music City Hot Chicken – Denver. I was ready to do something stupid. I was ready to stay here, while Claire went off to California without me. We would try the long distance thing and see where our roads lead us. But the brothers and owners of Music City, Sam and Jordan heard of my predicament and my own special version of “Should I stay or should I go now,” rambling through my head. I had been telling them that I wanted to stay here and build something with them here in Denver. I just wanted to be a part of something special. We sat down and they each told me it would be okay for me to leave and things would work out just fine. A few weeks ago, I was cleaning the fryers for the umpteenth time, “Here’s Your Future” by The Thermals, played unprompted in my head. That week, Claire had been in California exploring and looking for her future home. There was no one home waiting for me and I was probably going to fall asleep on the couch again that night, after drinking too many beers. I was sad and lonely and in mourning for the life I thought I was going to have to lose. “Here’s Your Future.” And I know it’s obvious to many of you, but remember I’m not that fast and on more than one occasion someone has asked me if I was on the spectrum…. I’m scraping the flour out of the bottom of the fryers, and then it dawns on me… It took me long enough to get there, but I figured it out. I was already building something special. I was building a life with this wonderful woman. I would be a fool to let her go on alone without me. I want to go on this journey with her. I decided to commit to her and us. Had the brothers not sat me down and told me everything would be alright if I left, I probably would have stayed and kept pushing through. I would have made a bonehead decision to stay here and potentially miss out on a great adventure with these women I love, oh so much. Also, if I’m being completely honest, I always felt in over my head in my job at MCHC. I wasn’t cutting it, and didn’t know how to communicate what I needed to make things work. Cleaning those fryers, I thought a lot about Eric Stoltz and his time on Back To The Future. Stoltz was originally cast in Back To The Future as Marty McFly, when Michael J Fox was not originally available. Fast forward seven weeks of filming and it just wasn’t working out. On paper Stoltz seemed like a great idea. It could have worked and it could have been great, but the chemistry just wasn’t there and during those seven weeks, Michael J Fox became available and the film would of course go on to become a classic. I’m excited for the young man who is taking my spot. He’s got way more knowledge, experience and the back of house skills needed to take the restaurant to where it needs to go. He’s younger, hungrier and incredibly positive. He’s what that place needs and I can’t wait to watch it become a runaway success… much like Michael J Fox and Back to The Future. So “Here’s You Future:” We’re going to go off and have some adventures. We are going to hunt for that simple, happy, healthy life. We’re going to do it together. We’re not leaving until the end of January. I’m going to be with MCHC till mid-January and we will be leaving heading somewhere the first week of February. We’re going to be looking for recommendations on where to go. She wants
Breckinridge Bourbon Interview Hour With Dammit Damian
Dammit Damian! I’m sorry guys, but I did it again.I’m going to do another series of Mostly Harmless interviews.I did the first one today, and I have a couple more scheduled for the next few days.I’m sorry for what is to come…I’m going to be constantly asking you guys to listen to interviews with people you’ve never heard of and couldn’t care less.I’m going to work hard to introduce a handful of you to movies, comedians, records, comics, ect… that I love, and that I see potential in.In these next few weeks, I’ll want to reach through this electronic screen and grab you in by the collar and yell, “CAN’T YOU SEE THE POTENTIAL TOO?!?!” I’ve been writing about art since I was a very little boy.I don’t think I can ever stop.I keep going and I keep doing it and I keep doing it and I keep quitting, but it keeps coming back. It’s that itch I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop. Or wait, is that just the eczema on my hands?Because I can not stop, here on this holiest of holidays, the day of birth of Mr. Kurt Vonnegut Jr….I pledge to you that I will only try to bring you the best of the best. I’m going to bring you the things I believe in. The people I believe in and the stories I want to tell.I don’t care about how many subscribers I have on YouTube. I just want the right subscribers. I’m not going to beg you to contribute to my Patreon, because I love this shit so much I do it for free.I just can’t stop thinking up questions. I just can’t stop wanting to share my love of art with the world, while also learning how to make my own art.I just want to create, it doesn’t matter how I do it. I just have to fucking annoy artists with my microphone, and then annoy all you to listen. But in the end, I love it. I love it all. It scratches so many itches I didn’t know it needed scratched.I just have to remember what’s important….Having fun. Being Weird. Being Damian.Shit, what was this post originally about?Oh yeah. Thank you. Thank you to all who have supported my ridiculousness.Thank You to those who saw this shy, awkward quiet kid and saw his potential. Thank you to those who let me know they saw any kind of potential.I’ve been very blessed with a number of friends who have supported this damned addiction of mine for all these years and helped me turn it into a real strange artform that I can never really stop experimenting within.I’m just going to create. It doesn’t matter how I do it.PS. Breckenridge Bourbon, you make a superior product. If you ever want to sponsor a lowly podcast about creativity in your 40’s and the adventure that is life… Give me a buzz.
Wide Right is the most punk rock bar in all of Denver in the year of 2021.
The lady is out of town tonight, so I had a hall pass to do whatever I wanted… So I went to the Paramount Theatre and watched one of my favorite writers/npr personalities speak! Super exciting! But before and after the show, I stopped at the best gosh darn bar in downtown Denver, WIDE RIGHT. It’s a magical place of cheap drinks, great bar food that doesn’t feel hoity toity, and just a great vibe. When I’m there it reminds me of the clubhouse feel that the Triple Nickel Tavern in Colorado Springs had when I worked there…. and that was just the daytime.I came back after standing in line for two hours to meet David Sedaris. (more on that tomorrow, probably?) I was debating going home, but instead I flipped the Toys for Tots coin that was sent to me in the mail to entice me to donate money.It has a teddy bear on one side and the United State Marine Corps logo on the other. It seems as good a coin as any to flip and help you decide fate. Obviously the Teddy bear is the HEADS and with HEADS I would go home, and tails, I go into the clubhouse for adventures and open mic night. I had never been so damned happy to see a Marine in my life as I opened my palm to the USMC logo staring back at me. I went in and found chaos. It was open mic night, just after a huge show at Ratio just down the street. It was open mic night alright, but tonight in the full moon it felt oh so much more like a party. It felt anarchic. It felt alive. Wide Right might be the most punk rock bar in all of Denver right now. They didn’t need to have bands playing here or people dressed a certain way! Wide Right is a divey, welcoming, performance arts space. It’s full of crazy drugged out artists just looking to make strange, weird art. I sat in the back and watched open micer after open micer eat shit. I watched a kid meltdown on stage, and I watched a bunch of really crazy, excited and scared people try to make art in a room full of people who don’t much give a shit. It was wonderful. It was electric. It was home. You could feel this creative desperation in the air and it was almost as intoxicating as the house made cocktails ($3 everyday during happy hour)!Maybe it’s the David Sedaris stories running around in my head, but I came home and felt compelled to write about this magic that I witnessed tonight in “downtown Denver.” It may not look the same, or feel the same… but there are places in this city where magic still happens. There are places here where people can still go chase those dreams, and not be judged. There are places still here in Denver, where you can go and feel like you’re still in your small hometown. Wide Right is a magical place. It’s a place I want to go to and visit when I have the almighty Hall Pass from the GF. It’s the place I want to try eating shit at stand up again (the few times I tried stand up in the past I was just thrown on shows by a guy with initials for a name who just used me for connections, but that’s a whole other story as well…), and it makes me want to surround myself with people who just want to fucking MAKE STUFF. I promise, I only had like 3 of those “Spicy” shots. They were good. Meghan makes some mean fucking drink recipes. ($3 during happy hour. 4-6pm every day. That spicy Mango marg was soooo fucking gooooood.) Congratulations to Meghan and Jeremy. You’re magical people and You’ve made a magical place. Thank you for sharing that magic with us all.xoxo