WestCoast Daze

As I sit here, staring blankly at the computer screen in front of me; the cursor blinking, waiting for my fingers to punch the keys and initiate its journey across the page, I realized that there are so many different ways to tell the story of the band that is now known as Westcoast Daze. I also realized that not many people actually want to hear that story, however sexy, action-packed and genuinely epic it may be. So instead I shall recount another tale. A tale of delight and disappoint. A tale of loving and loathing. A tale of maturation and misadventure. A tale, that goes like this: The year was 1998 and I was but a young lad, just 3 weeks shy of my 11th birthday. I remember the day very well. It was a sunny Thursday afternoon in May and for my gym period that day we were playing the age old game of dodge ball. But on this Thursday gym class an event transpired. The ripples of the aforementioned event can still be felt today. I was towards the back of the gym, taking cover behind some of the larger, slower children to escape from the relentless fury of red rubber balls being tossed my way. After my shields of pimples, lard and self-loathing had served their purpose and been eliminated, I was forced to turn to the offensive. Ducking, diving and dodging my way across the gym, I finally reached one of my friends and teammates. We will call him “Wes”. In his hand, Wes held a ball, but not one of the standard rubber balls commonly associated with the game of dodge ball. Somehow, someway, Wes had managed to obtain a basketball. In case you, the reader, are not familiar with basketballs, here is a brief introduction: They are really hard and hurt like a sonofabitch when hit with one. Wes and I continued to duck, dive and dodge until only the two of us remained on our team. Now, at that moment, two things happened. The first was that a player from the opposing team, a rather tubby kid who we will refer to as “Max”, made a dash to collect a stray ball that had come to rest on the dividing line between the different teams. The second to happen was Wes, seeing Max running in the hilarious manner that fat people do, wound back his arm and let fly his basketball of excruciating pain. Max made it about half way to the ball he was attempting to retrieve when the basketball collided with his groin. Letting out an extremely loud grunt, Max collapsed to the gym floor. Then a dark wet spot began to spread across the crotch and down the leg of Max’s gym shorts. Till this day, I have never laughed as hard nor as long as I did on that fateful Thursday afternoon. And that’s the story of how a kid got hit in the nuts and wet his pants. And if you really want to know about the band, we like to play music and do other stuff too.