A few years ago, I lived with a good friend of mine who had an extra room in his house. For him it was like having a musician for a pet. Feed it, house it, watch it grow.
I had a sleeping mat/bag and some recording equipment. It was comical.
The window of my room faced our neighbor's house and in that house lived our neighbor Brady.
Brady liked to drink beer in his backyard while listening to music.
But while doing so he would practice throwing his knife into a tree stump target while wearing his pet boa constrictor around his neck. It was something.
Sometimes he would come over for a friendly pow wow and we would hang in the garage.
Our garage had a couch and ping pong table so that's where we would hang out.
For Brady, just to sit down he would have to take off at least ten knives that he had strapped to him in some form or another. Intimidating if you didn't know that he was the sweetest guy ever.
It was our little ritual, I would prepare our pow wow and he would open his back pack's contents. Out would roll his beer/snack buffet.
Our pow wows were colorful, but sometimes in between our shenanigans we'd get to talking about his life, work, and things that would be going on with his family.
Things were tough at the time for him, he had some work stuff falling apart and he was also in the middle of a custody battle for his daughter.
I tried my best to hear him out, and offer him what I could, but it was difficult. I thought, we all of such high hopes, no matter what state you're in. I thought about hope for a long time and how it looks so different for so many people.
So this is the story of Airport Ranger.
What's funny is that some nights, the recording equipment would get so hot I would have to open the window for ventilation. And Brady would be outside completely pissed at 3 am, and would yell requests for which song he'd like to hear next while walking to the tree stump to pull out his throwing knife.
Hard to argue with someone who looks like a giant while standing next to you.
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