Hall of the Monkey King

However, and for whatever reason, the sausage liberated itself is still unclear. Word came to me that a friend of mine, had upon returning home from the festivities, discovered the sausage in his pocket. Then as anyone who finds a strange sausage upon their person would do, he sliced it up and began to enjoy the last familial connection my father had given me. In fact, another friend who was his roommate saw him eating it and yelled "That's Shin's sausage! It's the only thing his dad ever gave him!"  Shortly thereafter, I had a conversation about this with my brother, still away at school. He had never received his sausage, one can only imagine the psychological implications of this packaged meat slight. He lamented the loss of mine in empathy. To ease the pain of loss, he gave me a replacement sausage as a gift for the holidays.This is the point at which the sausage began to take on the aspect of "tradition". If we fast forward a year, we find ourse...

Years ago, when I was still able to see youth if I turned around fast enough, I found myself at my parents house for reasons long washed bare by memory. The relationship between my father and I could best be described as granite rubbing against rocks, crumbling loose detritus about us. They were the clenched years. I had been away at school learning about bureaucracy and disappointment. My allergies, at the time, ravaged me and would often leave my eyes so swollen I would skip classes.  For whatever reason, I chose to tell Dad about this.  Which led to our inevitable clash. "Why aren't you getting allergy shots then?!" "Are you kidding me? I've been bugging you guys to get me allergy shots since I was 12 and your response has always been 'You'll get used to it'!" I've always found my guitar to be a salve for moments like this and I made use of the Charvette I had left up there. Several hard riffs later my father returned, perhaps realiz...