Damien at the Speed of Life

Lorelle made a blog challenge a couple years ago to blog about a time when you felt “big.” I thought it was a perfect opportunity to write a memoir here on when I met two of my all-time life heroes.

The first one was Dave Sharp, ex-guitarist of the eighties neo-punk arena band: “The Alarm.” If you’re age 30 and above, you might recall some of their radio hits: “Sold Me Down the River,” “Rain in the Summertime,” “68 Guns,” “The Stand,” and a few others.

I had every album memorized. I started listening to his music when I was 13 or 14 and learned all his guitar work by ear. When I joined my own band at age 16, I was throwing out chords and riffs I’d either stolen from him or adapted to my own style. But he was more than a guitar model to me, I identified with what he said in interviews and I tried to model much of my life after things he said either in the media or live in concert (I saw them live about 10-15 times).At age 23, I saw in the paper Dave was coming to town to do an acoustic show. I wanted to meet him personally. Not only because he was so cool, but because I wanted to hire him to play guitar on a single we were recording.

After the show I waited outside a while and soon, Dave emerged with a security guy. He had come out to talk to a few fans and sign some autographs. I met him then, gave him a tape of my music with the proposal inside and within a few weeks, his agent called me accepting my offer.Well, you can imagine the blissful events that followed. I worked with him several days in the studio that year and a couple years later we did another song together. Nothing much became of my music in the mainstream, but the experiences forever changed me. Rock n Roll means more to me than it ever did before.

The second connection I had with a hero was a while back. I am a school teacher and as a result, I work to increase my students’ scores on the California Standards Test every year. Countless times since I started teaching I have gone to the CDE.ca.gov website and seen the Superintendent of Instruction, Jack OConnell, on the front page. Here’s picture of Jack in my classroom. To the right is Herb Fischer, Superintendent of San Bernardino County.

My Principal told me he wanted to see “EDI” which is a style of teaching we have started doing and that I am a certified coach for. He came in and watched a lesson along with the local paper and all the Principals in the district. I got to meet him and we discovered we both went to the same college, California State University, Fullerton. Wow. It was truly a “big” moment for me and I will never forget the power of working hard for something and then getting recognized in that way.

Apart from the births of my children, those are 2 of my most biggest moments: “XXL.”

I challenge you to blog about a time when you felt “big?”