Author of the memoir, "Where Did My Life Go?"

Author of the memoir, "Where Did My Life Go?"
My FREE short story Memoir Available Worldwide on Amazon and iBooks (Click the Picture Above)

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Happy Father's Day !!



To all the Fathers that are there for the kids, thank you!! I never had a chance to know my real father, he was shot and killed with a gun after a drinking binge when I was 6 months old in Miami, Florida and the court ruled it as a justified homicide. After that my Mom decided to move down to Marathon where she worked as a nurse at Fisherman's hospital and married my step father, Donald "Doc" MacDonald when I was 5 years old and he raised me until high school graduation in 1987. He was a tough as nails, no nonsense kind of a guy but he taught me well. After retiring from the Veterans Affairs in Marathon, my step dad passed away in 2002. So for all of you that still have a father living, please don't let them forget or not know that you love them, even if you don't get along, it's a chance I never had and never will have until I see my biological father in Heaven. Thank you Dad for doing the job my Father never could..R.I.P.
Love,
Kevin

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Unemployed Book Publisher Seeks Work

Hello Cyberworld, I'm Johnny Cash.
Not really!! I am currently SOBER you can believe that. I am at yet another halfway house but at least this time I am not stuck in the middle of miserable Mesa, the desert SUCKS!! I am in the paradise of the Florida Keys, 50 miles south from where I grew up, in Key West. I want to take this opportunity to thank FKOC, the coalition that helps the local homeless. I have a place where I can clean my clothes and receive phone calls. I recently, to add insult to injury, lost my cell phone and I am STILL looking for a job and without a phone for some potential employer to call you back is damn near impossible. So the "Patterson" house has a phone so I can at least get a message on the answering machine. I see a lot of signs in store windows that say "Now Hiring" but NOBODY is calling me back. I had a great interview with K-Mart(they actually told me they like me, they really really like me) and they said they were hiring 30 people and that I had a good chance of getting the job. They just had to do a background check (I have NEVER been to jail)and told me they would call me in a couple of days, it's been 2 WEEKS now, c'mon!!!I know we are on "Keys Time" but I'm gonna starve to death before my first day of work.
On a positive note, at least I am out of KOTS, the temporary homeless shelter that I am grateful for and I am sure I will be back in the future, I have written a short poem in the interim in honor of the UNGRATEFUL bastards that cry and complain about KOTS being like a jail.

If You Ain't Gots KOTS
You Ain'ts Got A Pots
To Piss In
Quit Your Bitchin
Be Thankful
For What
You Have Been Given

I forgot what I wrote down and I can't find the piece of paper I wrote the initial words down on, but that is the just of it. I need a new notebook my pages are filled.

Anyway, you can now download my new poetry book, "Content Within A Tent" at lulu.com for FREE!! Damn what more do you WANT!??! BLOOD?! Please leave your honest opinion (I can handle the truth)about my 1ST book so I can make my 2nd Book better. P.S. I know the pages are in fucked up order, I blame it on lulu, damn it. I need to get my netbook out of the pawn shop to continue finishing my 2nd book which will be more of a memoir of adventures throughout my life. BUT I NEED A F*CKING JOB FIRST!!!!

May the force be with you
Love the ones still in your life
Never forget the ones you have lost
Live everyday like it was your last on Earth
Tomorrow may never come

Kevin Dale Sanders
Key West, Florida
Marathon Conch

Friday, April 23, 2010

Facebook Pictures

Here's a link to my facebook pictures,These are some pictures when I was a kid growing up in the Keys. I was the hockey team mascot when I broke my right femur, (not by roller skating) and I broke it again about 6 years later almost in the same spot, I spent about 2 months at Fisherman's hospital both times. www.bitly.com/MyFacebookPictureshttp://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2556&id=100000623356685&l=efd225042f

Walking Key West

Yesterday, I walked the entire island of Key West. I have no money for a bus pass. It was exhausting but at least I have a place to sleep. I want to give props and thanks to K.O.T.S. in Key West for putting me up every night and for putting up with the over 40 year old idiots that act like they are 8 years old. I don't know how they do it. I need at least a beer to deal with it. Anyways, see ya later.

Kevin Sanders
Marathon Conch

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Evolution Of Living In A Van


Evolution Of Living In A Van… Here it goes…Are you ready?? (clicks the drumsticks) One…two…three…four

San Francisco - I had been working for FedEx since 1997 when I was fired on September 8th, 2001. Without a job it was dark but the bright side was I still had the band I joined in 2000. The band was a 3 piece called milk tooth. We had played various venues throughout the Bay area. We recorded a demo at a professional San Francisco studio. It was so nice, we had to wait for Neil Young to finish his recording before we could start our recording. We recorded and mixed 8 songs in 2 days. The rough mix sounded great to me, I was excited until I heard the final mix and told everybody that it sucked and the energy was not there. Of course, the drums were too low, they didn’t have the “punch” they once had. But the other band members assured me that the final product would be fixed in the mastering. I was naïve and didn’t really know about the whole recording process. When the mastered CD came back and we listened to it, I was very disappointed. I thought we had a masterpiece while we were recording and the end result sounded like a master piece of shit!!
I was pissed!! This CD was supposed to represent the band and ultimately get us signed to a recording contract. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t change what was already done.

In early 2002, I went to see the Donnas play the Fillmore. I was outside smoking a cigarette when I started talking to this guy about a band he had and they were looking for a drummer. He was in the same kind of music I was into and I agreed to audition. After the audition they asked me to join. It was another 3 piece called Poisin Jett Gunz. We played gigs around San Francisco and recorded a 5 song demo on a reel to reel 4 track at our band rehearsal studio. I came up with calling the CD “Sloppy Sessions” a play on words for “sloppy seconds”. I had T-shirts printed up through Café Press. We used my digital camera to take all the photos for the cover art and flyers. I mention this because they claim I didn’t pay studio rent or contribute in any way on their myspace page, so they claim and wouldn’t mention my last name for myspace fame. Give me a break!! I don’t care about credit, just don’t say I didn’t do anything but play drums. We also recorded a live CD at the Tempest in San Francisco, that was my last gig with Poisin Jett Gunz. milk tooth asked me to move with them to L.A. and I reluctantly agreed. Poisin Jett Gunz knew I was leaving before the last gig. They wished me well and I left amicably. But they might have been upset when I moved to Los Angeles with milk tooth. It was a hard decision for me to make. On one hand, I had more fun and got along better with the guys (no name fame game) in Poisin Jett Gunz and on the other hand, milk tooth had a more up to date sound and I thought that I had a better chance of “making it” with them. So I went with milk tooth. But I knew from being a former road manager and seeing L.A., I knew I needed a car. In fact, I needed a VAN to load my drum set up to take down there.

Part 2...coming soon…to a blog near you…stay tuned!!

Here are some links for you to listen to both bands I recorded with:
http://www.garageband.com/artist/milktooth

http://www.garageband.com/artist/poisinjettguns


For the record: I recorded the drums on all of the tracks without a click track and did them in one or two takes with no overdubs or punch ins. Thanks for listening!!

Above newspaper article from CORSAIR, a Santa Monica College newspaper 2005
Credit: Jillian Sorkin- Photo Essay www.jilliansorkin.com

EVOLUTION OF LIVING IN A VAN-PART 2

EVOLUTION OF LIVING IN A VAN-PART 2


I found a 1973 orange Volkswagen Westfalia camper van in San Jose and bought it for 600 dollars. I drove it back up to San Francisco, loaded my drums and drove down to Los Angeles. My band mates had already moved into an apartment complex in Los Felix on Normandie. They told me I could stay with them until I got a job and found a place to live. I was sleeping on the couch and everything was great. We were in L.A. together to make it big in a band. I felt we had a great secret, that L.A. had no idea how big of a band we were or were going to be. I felt like a rock star and we haven’t even played a gig there yet. We managed to play a few gigs at the Garage that went over really well. About 2 weeks later, all hell broke loose, the guitar player and bass player had a job. But I was still unemployed. I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t have a computer and I didn’t know L.A. at all. I was lost without direction. I thought we would be overnight sensations and live happily ever after. The guitar player was getting on me about not going out and looking for a job. He would get on my case for always being at the apartment when he got home from work. He said he was going to set up his computer for me so I could look for job leads online, but he never did. He was from L.A., so he knew where he was and where he was going. I was like a fish out of water, I had no clue. I just wanted to make it. So one night after a huge hissy fit from the guitar player I said, Fuck it, I don’t need to live in this environment and went out to my van and went to sleep. The first time I did it I thought, if somebody sees me get into my van and if they don’t see me come out after a period of time, they might call the cops on me. That was my biggest concern. I didn’t have a problem with sleeping in my van. In fact, I was quite comfortable. As I pulled the couch in the back out to make a bed, I thought I could sleep in my van as long as nobody else would say anything and my van was paid for.
About 2 weeks passed and I had found a job as a meter reader for the power company. They had a 1 month training program you had to pass before they would offer you a job. I didn’t have to pay for anything, in fact, I was getting paid while in training. The job entailed reading power meters at residences. Sounds easy but let me tell you, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, believe me. The meters had 5 dials on them like a clock but numbered 0-9. One dial went clockwise the next went counterclockwise and so forth. Without teaching you how to read a electric meter, let me assure you it is hard and a pain in the ass. Long story short, after the month of training you had to pass the final exam in order to remain employed and I failed it. The power company terminated me but the good news was I was now able to collect unemployment insurance. I qualified to get 600 dollars every two weeks. I didn’t have a physical address to receive the checks so I opened up a mailbox at a local postal service place. I was happy living in my van and now I had money to buy food, cigarettes and BEER !! I was a happy camper!! While I was living in my van, collecting checks, I would play an occasional gig with the band whenever the bass player would book a show. We had a gig coming up at a club that was a showcase for some major label executives and this could be a big break into the business and shoot us into mega stardom, at least that’s what I thought in my mind. About a month before the showcase gig I received a phone call from my brother in San Francisco and he informed me that our step father was not doing too well health wise and that he was in the hospital. He told me he would arrange a plane ticket for me to fly to the Florida Keys where our step father was. My brother, who is a doctor, told me that it didn’t look too good and that our step father was probably on his death bed. I really wanted to say goodbye to our step father before he passed away. My brother had set up the plane ticket and I was leaving the next day when I got a call from my brother telling me that our step father had just passed away. I expressed my feelings to my brother telling him I wish I could of said goodbye to our step father before he went away. I flew to Florida the next day. I attended the funeral which was held at the American Legion and buried my step father at the Big Pine cemetery. Now I was faced with dealing with the attorneys and the estate. My step father left almost everything to me including the mobile home trailer I grew up in which was on a rented trailer park lot. It took awhile to settle everything going through the court and dealing with all the legal red tape. I kept in touch with my band mates back in L.A. and explained the situation. I told them that I was trying to get back to make the showcase gig but I had no idea how long it was going to take to settle the estate. It took a long time and I missed the showcase gig and the band hired another drummer to fill my place to play the gig. By the time I got back to L.A. the band had fired the new drummer and one of the founding guitar players. So it was just the bass player and the other guitar player. They needed a drummer and wanted me to join and they changed the band name to the Millionheirs. Not my idea, I thought the name was stupid and just like all my other ideas they ignored my input. I figured, I would join because I had nothing else to do. The guitar player had set up recording time in Joshua Tree (the fired guitar player was named Joshua) to record a new demo. We recorded 3 songs at Rancho De La Luna under the band name, the millionheirs http://www.themillionheirs.com/music.html
The other members had jobs to go back to in L.A. So they went back and I stayed at Rancho, it was a recording studio in a house. The guy who owned it was Ted Quinn and he had some songs he wanted to record and needed a drummer and asked me if I would play on the tracks and I was honored to. Ted and I recorded over 10 tracks and he produced a CD entitled “Help Wanted” http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tedquinn . About 2 years later, Ted stopped in at Tower records when I was working, not knowing that I worked there, we never kept in touch since the recording. Ted signed, “This CD belongs to Kevin, cause he played drums on it” and gave me a copy of the CD. I had forgot about the recording and I didn’t know he had made a CD, it was a pleasant surprise.
When I returned from Joshua Tree, I think I played 3 gigs with the band and then they decided to move back up to San Francisco and I decided to stay in L.A. So now I was unemployed and I didn’t have a band. What does one do? Well you get drunk everyday, all day and all night, every waking moment, listen to music, write poetry and collect unemployment checks to support your habit. At least, that’s what I did. I mean the only reason I was in L.A. was because my band wanted to move there to make it as a band and now I had no band, I didn’t know anybody and I was living in my van, what in the hell was I going to do? I continued to drink alone in my own world and found a few homeless friends and would hang out with them and get drunk and shoot the shit without a care in the world without direction. I would hang out at the local bars and fall in love with various female bartenders who could give a shit about me but it was somebody to look at and talk to. From the second I woke up until I passed out in my van, I had a beer in my hand. In between the time I would manage to write a few poems in my notebook. I had no idea what I would do with them but at the time they were very therapeutic for me and I would fantasize that one day I would use them as lyrics to a song. It was something nobody could take away. They were MY ideas. I wasn’t dictated by somebody else. It gave me a sense of freedom and ownership. At one point I bought a power converter so I could plug in a portable 5 inch T.V. I also had purchased a keyboard, a DVD burner and VCR so I could preserve all the VHS tapes of music interviews and shows I had in my van. I played on the keyboard to make some music to record a song. At night I would use a little flashlight to write my poems during the darkness and of course to find another beer. I would listen to the radio to keep up with what was going on in the world outside my van. The funniest thing I remember was when L.A. was experiencing a “blackout” and everybody was freaking out about not having any power and I was laughing to myself thinking, I haven’t had power for over a year, let alone running water and all the other amenities people take for granted until it goes away. I observed a lot of greed in L.A. that left a bad taste in my mouth. People so oblivious to what else is going on other than themselves. It seemed everybody was me, me, me and fuck everybody else. As soon as the traffic light would turn green, you would hear horns honking out of control and I just thought, slow down, stop and smell the roses. You’ll get to your audition or your job or to the store. Don’t go into road rage and kill somebody just to get to your latte or whatever. It was crazy to me. A lack of concern for a fellow human being blinded by GREED!!!

Sorry for going off on a tangent, I had to get that off my chest. Now back to the van adventure. After a year of doing the same thing over and over, not expecting a different result as I had no goal, I found out that my unemployment checks were about to run out and stop, so I had to find a job. I went to a place where I would feel comfortable and knew I would enjoy the environment which was music. So I applied at Tower records on Sunset Blvd. A place I knew well, growing up listening to the bands and fantasizing becoming a rock star like my idols on the Sunset strip. I waited for about a week and my cell phone was silent. I went back and applied again knowing I would love working there. About 2 weeks passed and I was desperate to find a job having only 20 dollars left to my name and my phone rang and it was the manager for Tower records asking me if I was still looking for a job and I replied enthusiastically, YES! She asked when I could come in for an interview and I told her I was available anytime and was scheduled to go in for an interview the next day at 1pm. I arrived about 2 hours early securing a spot in the parking lot. I went in and asked for the manager and proceeded to the back for the interview. The interview was going great as I had mentioned my past experience at other record stores and being a road manager for a band. The interviewer asked me when I could start and I told him, today if you want, he then asked me to wait for him as he went to talk to the manager and came back and asked if I could come back at 4pm and I said sure, I’ll be here. I started the job the same day as the interview. As I was walking back to my van in the parking lot, I glanced down to see a green piece of paper. It was a 100 dollar bill!! I couldn’t believe it!! I looked around to see if somebody was looking like they lost a hundred dollar bill and saw no one. I bent down and swooped up the bill and clutched in in my hand and waited to get into my van before inspecting the green piece of paper again and sure enough it was a one hundred dollar bill. Wow, I still don’t believe it, especially with my luck. That just NEVER happens to me. So I had a job which was great, I would soon get a paycheck but more importantly it occupied my time which took away my opportunity to drink. At this point I was in serious bad shape. I had lost my appetite for food when I wasn’t drinking because I was drinking so much. I would have to drink a few beers in order to become hungry. During my first few days of working when it was time to go to “lunch” I didn’t eat anything as I wasn’t hungry but I knew I had to eat. My fellow co workers would ask me why I wasn’t eating and I told them I had ate something earlier. I tried eating a hard boiled egg and threw half of it away. It took about 2 weeks to get back to “normal”. I would still drink when I got “home” after work but I didn’t drink as much because I had a job to take away some of my drinking time. I never liked the idea of drinking on the job and never have. For me, if I’m going to drink, I’m going to drink to escape and not worry about any responsibilities and that would definitely jeopardize my job and I particularly liked this job and was grateful to have it.