March 30, 2009
The ceiling lights of the ambulance looked vaguely familiar, but the oxygen mask fogged my glasses, blurring out everything. I felt my heart beat quicken as the driver hit the siren. The attendant leaned over me and said, "The last time we did this you had no pulse and no heartbeat."

I knew one thing: it was D J View, all over again.

I heard the sliding doors rake open as the gurney jiggled and then lurched onto cement. I could hear gasps and then clapping—then major Kingman style hooting. We turned a corner then slid to a stop.

A paramedic on my left side yelled out, "We have a 61-year-old male heart attack patient. What do you want us to do with him?"

I heard Charlie Waters say over the microphone, "Is there a doctor in the house?" Several voices in the crowd yelled out for Dr. Michael Ward.

More hooting.

I felt a stethoscope on my chest and a finger on my eyelid, arching it up.

"He's good to go!" the doctor said loudly.

One of the firemen took off my oxygen mask and another took off the IV. I stood up and put on my glasses. The firemen removed my hospital gown to reveal my freshly ironed Exits jacket which we bought in Vegas in 1964. In front of me I saw every pretty girl I ever had a crush on in high school, standing not fifteen feet from me and they all had that look that said, "If I was thirty years younger I'd have your baby!"

I thought to myself, "Yes, and if I was thirty years younger, I'd have an erection."

From there I tried to get up on the stage but I couldn't, so Wayne Rutschman held out his hand and helped me up. As I hobbled to the microphone, Charlie Waters said, "Glad you could make it." And Steve Burford said snidely, "Yeh, but you're late."

The assembled Exit bandmates, 13 in all, then slammed into "Route 66" and we brought down the house, raising some $20,000 (after expenses) for Kingman Regional Hospital to buy more defibrillators in order to save more wretches just like me.

"Deja vu is when you think you have already experienced a present situation, but D J View is reliving an experience you had no business surviving the first time."
—Old Drummer Saying