Look, you know, I came here to talk about a thing. It was the name of the lecture and everything.

But given the subject matter, you know as well as I do that we can't just jump right into this stuff.

You can't jump right into the deep water. You have to wade your way out slowly.

I know some of you guys already, but if we've yet to meet, here's at least one thing about me.

Before I found my way to you guys this evening, once upon a time actually years ago now I was an itinerant musician.

Like some of you guys, I'm sure.

Musicians of the touring variety tend to carry around a lot of weird, unrelatable stories.

But maybe you can relate to this one. Let's find out.

If you're anything like me, then maybe you know about the occasional head injury.

Maybe like me, you have pressed a towel to your bleeding forehead in the dark and back seat of a 15 passenger van.

The sky beyond your window, you know, star speckled canopy of velvety blue black, so beautiful with scenery.

And maybe like me, you couldn't keep the pressure properly applied either because you're bouncing around on the bench seat as your van capers over the craggy,

pockmarked asphalt of another corn belt highway somewhere in America's rural Midwest, I think.

See, you spend months on the road at a time, the days and weeks blur together.

Where were we? Illinois or Indiana? Aren't there corn fields in Iowa, I think?

And the headache probably wasn't helping.

I had somehow struck myself on the forehead with a microphone during the particular evening's performance.

You don't plan injuries like these. They just sort of happen.

The show, you show up to another local dive.

You unload all sorts of guitars and drums and amplifiers and massive wires and glowing tubes and circuit boards and you wait around all afternoon and evening.

You play music for a little while and then you pack it all up and you head to the next city.

But, if you're anything like me, maybe you're also consistently low on cash because you survive on the sum total of $5 a day.

...