NSFW LANGUAGE/CONTENT ALERT

FROM: Ronan

Quick reminder: What’s mentioned on this mailing list stays on this mailing list.

So here’s what happened this morning …

As you may have guessed from the last email, I woke up in the apartment of Lacey Morgan, best known as a provocative right-wing commentator on the far-right Free America Channel.

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FROM: Ronan

Yes, I’ve recovered, but this media blitz is exhausting.

An agent made contact with me even before I got out of the hospital. If I were smarter, I’d have said no, but this guy has experience in TV media and the music business, so maybe he’ll be able to put Consternated Ostrich on the map.

The first few stops were just mildly uncomfortable. I had to work on my interview skills in law school, but those questions didn’t include, “How did you get to be so awesome?” One producer had insisted on getting my number … you know, in case they had any more questions … and then texted five minutes later to ask if I needed anyone to drop by my apartment that night.

By the last stop, I hardly knew where I was. I didn’t even notice the signage saying where I was.

FAC.

Free American Channel.

Yes, the channel that is all too aptly described if you add “-ist” to the end. (Technically, you should also add an “s” after “fa.”)

By the time reality hit, the host’s voice was booming.

“WELCOME TO PRIME TIME WITH TIM RHYME!”

Tim Rhyme is like every other male anchor at FAC — white, middle-aged, distrustful of “liberals” (and unable to tell them apart from progressives), dark hair that looks like it’s squeezing the brains out of his head.

“Good evening, free thinkers!”

“Yeah, right,” I thought.

He went on …

“Ronan Shirazi is a throwback to World War II, when soldiers would smother grenades with their own bodies to save their buddies.”

In case you forgot: Rhyme was kicked out of Army boot camp for excessive drinking.

So should I just go along with this as if I’m on any other news outlet, or should I have some fun with this and make a few points? I chose the latter.

Take a look …

Lacey is an expert in verbal judo, isn’t she? I don’t subject myself to watching FAC very often, but I know she generally stirs the pot rather than taking it off the heat. But the opportunity to look like the voice of reason, however disingenuous it was, was too good to pass up.

Maybe I was a little noncombative. But I meant what I said about dialing back the conflict, right?

Which might explain what happened next. Well, that and the fact that I recently had a horrible breakup.

I was going back to the green room when Lacey came up to me.

“Ronan!” she exclaimed as she gently put a hand on my chest. “You did REALLY well!”

Green screens are a fact of life, of course, but I had no idea she was in the studio.

“The producers really like you. You’ll get to be around here a lot! We’re going to have so much fun together.”

I finally summoned up enough presence of mind to say something.

“Fun? Weren’t you just … I mean … don’t you generally hate people like me?”

Lacey laughed, moving her hand to his arm.

“Oh, Ronan, you sweet thing. It’s all part of the show.”

“The show?”

“Yes!” Lacey insisted. “We argue, we disagree, but it’s nothing personal. Everybody wins!”

“Everybody?”

“Yes!” Lacey said with a teasing lilt in her voice. “Come on, let’s go get a drink!”

I would’ve been less surprised if Pink Floyd reunited. Or The Beatles, including John and George.

“What?”

“Come on! I know a place that caters to celebrities like you and gets us out of the way so people aren’t hassling us.”

“You … want to have a drink … with me?”

“Yes!”

She was only getting more insistent. “Come ON!” she said for the third time, with a smile but with a hint of emphatic impatience. “You’ll see we FAC people aren’t all mean and nasty and all that.”

Whatever. Right? Maybe? Where am I? Was she serious?

“Hey, you said you wanted to end conflicts! What better way to do that than to have the new American hero hang out for a drink with the top attack dog of the right-wing news outlet.”

“I thought you all got both sides.”

Lacey winked and turned toward the door to the elevators. “Come on,” she said in a seductive whisper.

I shrugged and followed.

That was last night. This morning, the first rays of the sun broke through the late summer sky around 7 a.m.

“What the … did I forget to close the blind or something?” I thought. “What time is it?”

I turned to look at the nightstand.

“Where’s the clock?” I thought.

My head was pounding. If you know me at all, you know I rarely drink more than one beer.

“I’m … not in my apartment. Where …?”

Reality set in.

“Oh … no …”

“Good morning!” a playful voice said.

“Oh, SHIT!”

Video is from KEXP, the same radio station that made Angine de Poitrine famous

FROM: Maya first, then Kerri

I have to be honest. I never really liked Christina.

I saw her this afternoon for what I’m guessing is the last time. We were both in the hospital just outside Ronan’s door with a security guard standing in the way — he said he had been placed there just in case the group responsible for the bomb wanted to avenge its failure by doing something to Ronan, which feels unlikely to me, but I’m not going to complain that someone’s trying to keep Ronan safe. I could tell something was off with Christina. She and I have never really clicked — maybe she didn’t like the idea of her boyfriend cavorting onstage with riff-raff like me, maybe she didn’t like my boyfriend — but her smile seemed more nervous than usual.

We were close enough to the door to hear the conversation.

“You’re a lucky man, Ronan,” a nurse said.

“I’m … OK?” Ronan asked. He was just waking up from anesthesia.

“Even better,” the nurse said. “The first responders saved your life.”

“Reggie and Noah,” Ronan said. “They seemed intense.”

“Yeah, we see them a lot,” the nurse said. “They’ve always had a hero complex. They’re thrilled that they got you here in one piece. And then the surgeons saved your foot.”

“I nearly lost my foot?”

“You had a lot of shrapnel in your ankle,” she said. “But like I said, you’re a lucky guy!”

Another nurse joined in. “Looks like you’re always a lucky guy — your girlfriend is here and waiting to see you.”

What I heard next was a shock. I could just barely hear Ronan whisper back.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Say what now? Ronan and Christina have been together for years. They had fallen in lust when they were at Georgia and built a solid relationship. He had been talking about proposing. I hadn’t picked up on anything wrong. Was Ronan just groggy from the anesthesia?

Apparently not, judging from Christina’s hysterical reaction.

“Ronan! Please let me in!”

The nurse asked Ronan, “You don’t want her to come in?”

“Please … no,” he said.

Christina burst into tears. “I’m sorry … I’m so sorry,” she said between sobs.

“There’s someone else in the hall with her,” the nurse said. “Says she’s the lead singer of your band?”

“Maya.”

“That’s her,” the nurse said. “Would it be OK to let her in?”

“Absolutely.”

Good. I wanted to see Ronan, and I wanted to get away from Christina. She was blubbering something about “a big mistake” while I slowly walked into the room.

Ronan smiled. That was a relief. I walked up and put my hand gently on his arm.

“I have sooooo many questions!” I said.

“Pick one,” Ronan said with a smile.

“OK. First, how do you feel?”

“I must be on good pain meds,” he said. “I feel as relaxed as I did when I had my wisdom teeth out.”

“Yay, Big Pharma.”

“God bless America.”

“OK, question two — what’s up with Christina?”

Ronan sighed. “She was cheating on me.”

Whoa. I knew something was up, but I wasn’t expecting that?

“What the hell?!” I asked.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Christina … Christina Graham, distant relative of Billy Graham, someone combining the best of Christian theology and bleeding-heart liberal political philosophy -”

“Was banging a right-wing congressman’s chief of staff.”

Had to gasp at that one. “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“You have proof?”

“She was in the other room when I saw a text with an eggplant emoji. I figured it was a joke of some kind, but she came racing into the room. Then she confessed.”

“Christina … that Christina.”

“That’s the one.”

“Fucking a guy who’s stupid enough to send an eggplant emoji.”

“Hey, guys are known to exaggerate,” Ronan said.

I rolled my eyes. “You know, in a weird way, I -”

“You never liked her.”

“Well … I mean …”

“Hey, it’s OK. You hid it well.”

“We bonded a little. You, me, David, her. All ex-evangelicals.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to break the news to David that we won’t be double-dating any more.”

“Our bar trivia team may suffer a bit.”

I looked out the window. A couple of news trucks were on the street. I figured it wasn’t worth mentioning that to Ronan at the moment.

“The guy who dropped the bomb that you smothered — he’s also evangelical.”

“Figures,” Ronan snorted. “Warped a lot of minds.”

“But they made you a decent person, right?”

“Too decent for Christina, apparently.”

I peeked toward the hallway. All was quiet. Christina was gone.

“I still worry a little about David’s beliefs,” Maya said. “I don’t mind going to church — the band is pretty good, at least — but they sometimes have a view of women that’s a little …”

“Traditional?” Ronan said.

“Yeah, I -”

“Backwards?”

“Well …”

“Straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale?”

Had to laugh at that one. “OK, Mr. Old-School Church.”

“Hey, I give to international relief efforts and go to church on Christmas and Easter like every good Episcopalian.”

“So what church are you going to go to now?”

Ronan winced. “Maybe I can get them to kick out Christina.”

“It’s the Episcopal Church, Ronan. They don’t do excommunication.”

A nurse rushed breathlessly into the room.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Shirazi,” she said. “But we have a woman here who claims she’s your drummer. And your bodyguard.”

Ronan laughed, then immediately grimaced.

“You OK, Ronan?” I asked.

“Yeah, I guess I just hit a nerve when I laughed. So is she about 6-foot-2, and does she say ‘Dude’ a lot?”

“Yes, she does.”

Ronan smiled. “Send her in.”

Kerri was already halfway through the door.

“DUDE!” she said as she took long strides toward Ronan’s bed, covering the distance in about half as many strides as a smaller person would take.

With that, I’ll hand off to Kerri …

What’s up? Kerri here, checking in to our little mailing list after checking in with Ronan in this hospital …

“Hey, if you’re my bodyguard, where were you when I got shot?” he said.

“No, I’m just starting as your bodyguard. Apparently, I can’t let you out of my sight, though I’ll back off when you’re fucking your girlfriend.”

Maya cleared her throat loudly.

“What?” I asked.

Ronan sighed.

I knew what that meant. And I was pissed off!

“Ohhhhh no. Uh uh. That girl isn’t going to mess with my man like that.”

Ronan laughed. “Your man?”

“Well … the closest I’m ever going to come to having a man. I mean, we’re in a band, so isn’t that the next-closest thing to dating?”

“So you’re saying we’re in a three-way?” Maya interjected.

Maya’s funny. Like Ronan, she doesn’t have a ton of sexual experience on account of the whole “evangelicals say sex bad until they get caught being naughty” thing. But she turns heads. She’s a tall, willowy woman with brown hair that flows halfway down her back. She studiously avoids playing up her sex appeal on stage, but men — and certainly a handful of women — routinely swoon at Consternated Ostrich shows.

“You should ask David,” Ronan said.

I turned back to Ronan and smiled.

“OK, dude. I’m not going to ask what happened with Christina. We can talk when you like. But you know, after what happened today, you’re not going to have any trouble getting laid ever again.”

I couldn’t help but notice Maya frowning ever so slightly. Though she and Ronan have both rejected a lot of the narrow theology with which they’d been raised, and though our music has delved into Tori Amos “she’s not really talking about an icicle” territory, Maya still wasn’t into casual encounters.

“Oh good,” Ronan said. “I won’t have to start a Tinder profile.”

“You realize,” I said, “that the band is going to be huge now.”

Ronan seemed surprised.

“Because I stopped a bomb from killing a bunch of people?”

“Also, that thing you said about stopping the cycle of violence. Dude, people on social media are going apeshit.”

Maya chimed in. “Yeah, you’re the biggest national hero since … I don’t know …”

“Taylor Swift?” Ronan said.

“Even bigger.”

Ronan wriggled into a more comfortable position in the bed.

“Well,” he said. “I guess I won’t need to look for a day job.”

FROM: Ronan

Want to know one of many reasons I didn’t like the film Reality Bites?

Yes, it’s the terrible scene in which someone at the Houston Chronicle asks Winona Ryder’s book-smart character, who’s applying for a job, to define “irony.” She fails. Then her slacker friend, a reprehensible character apparently redeemed by the fact that Ethan Hawke is apparently just too pretty not to end up with the lead woman, says it’s “when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning.”

Which is literally bullshit. (Fine, not literally.)

Why people still gripe about Alanis Morissette’s Ironic without dumping on Reality Bites is beyond my comprehension. They’re both wrong, sure, but Ironic never really pretends to be right.

So is it ironic that on the day in which I expected to be celebrating my engagement, I was shot, some bomb shrapnel sliced into my foot, and I wound up single?

No. It just sucked.

Was it ironic that the right-wing numbskulls at FAC thought I was a terrorist because my skin is a little too dark for their litmus tests? No, that also sucked, though I plan to turn that into a source of hilarity for the rest of my life.

OK, OK — you’re all waiting to hear from me that I’m OK. Obviously, I’m well enough to type and to complain about Reality Bites, though that’s a low bar.

Seriously, I’m fine. The bullet didn’t do any damage that some stitches and a couple of blood transfusions couldn’t fix, and the shrapnel missed all my tendons and bones somehow, so I’ll be able to hop around with relative ease.

(Is that ironic? Hopping? No? I’ll stop with that line of thinking now.)

I’ll move on to everyone’s next question: What happened with Christina? And did I say “engagement”?

I went over to her apartment that morning with a ring in my pocket. I was going to keep things simple. We were going to walk along the river. When the time seemed right, I was going to kneel and ask her to marry me.

That plan hit the shredder while I was in her apartment. She was getting ready to go in another room. Her phone buzzed. Instinctively, I looked at it and saw a surprising name. Not going to say who it was, but it was someone I vaguely knew who bumped into us a few months ago and tediously bragged about how he had just become chief of staff for a Republican congressman. That’s not a good way to impress me. And I didn’t think it was a good way to impress Christina. She’s always been the true progressive in our relationship. She’s smart. She’s agnostic and isn’t interested in joining the modern-day right-wing cult.

I could see a preview of the message. Something about seeing you tonight and an eggplant emoji.

“Surely, this guy’s harassing her,” I thought. But Christina came racing out of her room in a panic, practically falling out of her jeans as she stumbled to grab the phone.

“Um … everything OK?” I asked.

“What did you see?!” she asked. I asked the first question, but she asked more emphatically than I did.

“Something about tonight and an eggplant emoji. I know that’s supposed to be an exaggeration of someone’s dick size, but he couldn’t —”

I could tell by the look on her face that this was not an unsolicited text from some obnoxious stalker.

“You’re not …”

She looked away.

I don’t know how much time passed while I was in shock. The next word I remember saying was “Why?”

She sighed. She said something about how I’m drifting in my career. (Just like Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, maybe? I’d love to purge that film from my head. Little wonder I never go to movies any more.) And this guy who still uses eggplant emoji (at age 50!) to suggest his dick making a virtual appearance is going somewhere.

But proximity to power never mattered to her. Right? And she had always said she didn’t have a problem with the fact that I was not yet using my law degree while I focused on playing in Consternated Ostrich and teaching music on the side.

Apparently, it mattered. (Yes, Christina’s tune changed after I was beamed into millions of homes while lying on top of a bomb, but that’ll be in the next missive from me.)

In case you don’t know the history of me and Christina — I grew up evangelical and didn’t date much. Someone once bet me that they had slept with fewer people than I had. That person had slept with four people. I won the bet.

After college at USC (majored in law, history and culture with a minor in popular music studies), I spent a gap year that stretched into a year and a half working at a hotel in Ireland. When I came back, I went to law school at Georgia, hoping to immerse myself in the Athens music scene. I did — that’s how I met Maya, the freakishly talented singer/keyboardist/guitarist in Consternated Ostrich. It’s also how I met Christina, a journalism grad student who was headed to DC to work for a trade publication. Maya also was going to the DMV to take care of her ailing father. Two of the most important people in my life, and they were both going from Athens to the DMV. How could I not go?

I don’t want to go through the rest of the conversation in Christina’s apartment. It was brief. I left, feeling as nauseated as I felt after watching Reality Bites.

(Fine, I’ll let it go.)

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I took the Metro to the Mall and started wandering. There were a few protesters and counterprotesters around the WWII Memorial for some reason. I didn’t think WWII was particularly controversial at this point in history. Was someone protesting the USA’s involvement in the war?

“He dropped a bomb!” someone yelled.

I saw the backpack right away. I know what happened next transpired in a matter of seconds. But everything flashed through my head in no logical order. Was I so despondent that I felt expendable, not someone living a life worth preserving? Was I trying to win back Christina with some wild act of heroism? Honestly, I don’t know. But the math somehow clicked. I could stand there, frozen, and die in a bomb explosion. Or I could jump on top of the bomb, and if I didn’t miraculously interrupt the timer, I’d still die in a bomb explosion but would’ve saved a couple dozen people in close range.

So I threw my body on top of it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy who had drawn a small gun. I guess he was desperate to be a “good guy with a gun” somehow and hadn’t noticed that the burly dude who had dropped the backpack had tried to run away but was clotheslined by a big Black guy — I mention his race only because it’s wonderfully appropriate that a white supremacist scumbag was brought down by a Black guy. So the guy with the gun was still looking for someone to shoot, and somehow, his thought process landed on me.

Bang.

Ow!!

Someone immediately tackled him. “You IDIOT!” they yelled. “You shot the good guy!”

“But … but … I’m the good guy with the gun!” he whimpered.

“Great job, Wyatt Earp,” someone snarked nearby.

(Wyatt Earp probably shot his share of innocent people, too, but this isn’t the time to look it up.)

Someone sensible finally yelled at everyone to clear the scene. And they did.

Just like that, it was quiet. I could hear shouting around the Mall, but it was progressively farther and farther away.

Somehow, I found a sense of serenity. At one point, I thought about Christina and figured it wouldn’t really matter if I didn’t make it out of this. Then I thought about Maya. And Kerri. Our band. Sure, we haven’t played for a crowd of more than a couple hundred people, but there’s something magical about the three of us together. For that reason alone, I had to try to survive.

Then the drone showed up.

In case you didn’t catch what happened next, check the video:

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate cable “news”? Sure, FAC is evil, but BSBC isn’t exactly essential viewing. I suppose it’s flattering that the person writing the chyron for BSBC thinks I’m cute. Hey, I’m single now.

Jody Rhyme was at least trying to do a decent job. Yes, as Maya said in her email, I’m the one who yelled out “Shit!!” after the explosion.

You may have heard two first responders in the background of the conversation between me and Sgt. Sanchez. The one guy, Reggie James, got there up to me within a couple of seconds of the explosion. He had to have been more than 50 yards away behind a concrete barrier, and yet I had barely blinked by the time he got here. He must have been a menace playing D3 college soccer. He was also an Army medic. As great as he is with an ambulance crew, he’s moving into the DC police department. The other guy, Noah Williams, was his teammate in college. I could tell this wasn’t the first time he had been the calming influence on Reggie. I couldn’t have been in better hands.

Here’s how it played out:

“I’m Reggie James. I’m going to get you stabilized and get you to the hospital.”

“Cool.” (I probably grunted. I was in a bit of pain.)

“Why are you holding your ankle?”

“I made it to a safe place and left my fucking ankle exposed. How stupid am I?”

He took a quick look. “Yeah, I see some shrapnel. But I need to deal with that gunshot wound first.”

Noah arrived on the scene. “Speaking of the gunshot wound, I need to get a needle in you,” he stuttered out between heaving breaths. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“B-positive.”

“Yeah, we heard you.”

“I think everyone heard you,” Reggie said. “The news networks were broadcasting our radio transmissions.”

“Congratulations,” Noah said. “You’re probably the most popular person in the country right now.”

Great. Wonder if Christina was watching.

Before I knew it, I was in an ambulance.

“I don’t like this blood pressure reading,” Reggie said.

“Working on it,” Noah replied.

I had a chance to look out the door before it closed. I often forget how deceptively tranquil Washington can be on a sunny day. Stately memorials on the Mall. A river that rarely threatened the capital with flooding.

And yet, I’ve never seen the cherry blossoms, as I mentioned to Reggie.

“Why not?” he said.

“Traffic’s a bitch.”

Reggie is a super-serious guy, but this got a half-laugh, half-snort. “Yeah, that’s true.”

Noah seemed more worried.

“Come on, Ronan. Stay with us …”

“Still here,” I said.

That’s all I remember before I woke up in the hospital.

Then it got really interesting.

FROM: Maya

Hey folks. Maya here. Thank you for signing up for this chat, and remember, please keep everything here private.

So you all saw what happened with Ronan. He was walking around on the National Mall, he saw a small protest and some counterprotesters, and while he was arriving on the scene, someone dropped a bomb on the ground and tried to race away.

The racist scumbag who dropped the bomb didn’t get very far. Plenty of people saw him do it, and they tackled him before he got 20 yards away.

And as you all saw, Ronan threw himself on top of the bomb.

Kerri made a roundup of the news reports and threw them up on YouTube. It’s always hilarious to see the cable channels try to figure out what’s happening in real time, and it’s especially hilarious when it involves someone you know. (At least, it’s hilarious now because we know he’s OK. I’ve seen him in the hospital, and he’s resting comfortably.)

Check out the video:

See the About page for more about this story, how to follow it, and what’s coming up next.

Yes, the chyron on BSBC really did say he’s cute. And he’s single now, but I’ll let him address that. He’ll be back online in a day or so. He lost a couple of pints of blood and passed out in the ambulance, but he’s been stabilized.

In case you’re wondering why BSBC’s Jody Rhyme (pretty funny that FAC’s Tim Rhyme has a daughter who went to work for the “enemy,” isn’t it?) mentioned hearing an unbroadcastable word soon after the bomb exploded — Ronan got most of his body behind cover but didn’t get his entire leg behind the concrete, so he caught a bit of shrapnel is his ankle. He yelled out, “Shit!!” But he’s fine. He was mostly pissed off at himself for doing all the hard work of dragging his bloody body to safety and then carelessly leaving his ankle out. Good thing he’s our bassist and not our drummer. (Kerri, your job is safe.)

It’s all funny now, but wasn’t that terrifying? David texted to tell me to turn on the news because Ronan was in danger, and I couldn’t even process what he was saying. The Mall? A bomb?

So when I tuned in and realized what was going on, I said the clumsiest prayer I’ve ever said …

Oh … Lord? I guess …

Lord, I know I haven’t been to church as much these days. I go with David every now and then. I got frustrated, you know. …

Three years. Three years at Georgia. With my AP credits, I was just a semester away from a music theory degree. But Dad’s dementia got so much worse — I know he was 55 when I was born, and that can be risky, but still, why then? I had to come back up to Falls Church to take care of him after Mom died. Yeah, I know, lifelong smoker, but how much were we expected to take? …

Sorry. Sorry. I know you don’t intervene in everything. I finally figured it out when Tom Brady won his fifth Super Bowl. You’re clearly not up there intervening in everything. If you were … seriously, would it have been so bad to let the Falcons have that one?

(Yes, I did realize I was digressing. Dumping everything at God’s feet right now seemed a bit counterproductive.)

OK … look. If you’ve ever intervened in anything in my life …

(I glanced at the TV, though you couldn’t see much. News helicopters can’t just fly over the Mall.)

Ronan is down there. He means everything to me. He’s not just my bandmate. He has talked me through everything. So many shared beliefs. Growing up evangelical, growing up with the Prosperity Gospel — I mean, how obviously wrong is that? Are we all supposed to be camels in the eye of the needle? How badly can millions of people misread —

(Digressed again. I think I was trying to distract myself. I was staring at the floor because I was scared to look at the TV again.)

But we both still believe in something. We don’t follow all the rules any more — I mean, neither one of us is a virgin now. Seemed counterproductive to follow a bunch of admonitions against harmless sex while so many people in your church are out stirring up hate and forgiving fraud.

Dear Lord, the man on top of the backpack is so important. To me, to so many people. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever met. He’s the most important person in my …

(Caught myself here — David is the most important person in my life.)

Well … Ronan is one of the most important people in my life. I was finally starting to feel like things were right. I’m making enough money from tutoring to keep playing music with Ronan and Kerri. You don’t mind that Kerri’s gay, right? I mean — again, aren’t we supposed to be OK with loving our neighbor?

Do you ever intervene? I mean … why would let the last election happen? Why would you allow so many utter assholes to claim your name and claim to be working to glorify you when they’re so consumed by hate they’ve learned in your churches for …

(Deep breath.)

I’m sorry, Lord. I don’t know what to say. But I can’t lose Ronan. I just can’t.

And I suppose Christina can’t lose him, either. I still don’t think Christina’s right for him — he can’t see it yet, but she’s determined to be a D.C. social climber and power broker, and he just wants to be on stage playing A Little Respect with me and Kerri.

I obviously didn’t know at the time that something happened with Christina. I must be going ADHD under stress, because I started digressing again and thinking about the band. He frets about his voice sometimes, but he’s such a good bassist. And he can hop over to guitar or even keyboards to let me play other instruments. It’s always nice to put on a guitar and pretend I’m Nancy Wilson or Joan Jett. We need him on backup vocals, anyway, because Kerri’s too busy playing drums like a freaking maniac.

Speaking of Kerri, my phone suddenly buzzed. Right on cue.

Kerri’s text: “WTF??! Ronan!”

“I know. I’m trying to pray for him.”

“OK. Me too.”

“YOU? Really? You’re still agnostic, aren’t you?”

“I’m covering my bases. It’s Ronan. He’s our guy. If any person or thing or all-powerful whatever can do something …”

That’s when I decided I should actually wrap up this prayer.

Lord … look, if you ever do one thing for me, just one, get Ronan out of this safely. Is that too much to ask?

Please?

I guess the prayer was answered. That, or the EMTs who got to him so quickly did an awesome job. I met them at the hospital — an intense guy named Reggie (the one who calls Ronan “a fucking hero” on the radio traffic early in the video above) and a down-to-earth guy named Noah. You can tell Noah rolls his eyes a lot at Reggie’s impulsiveness, but they work well together.

Glad I was able to meet them and thank them. Christina was there, too, but she was too nervous to say much. Again, I’ll let Ronan say what happened, but I’ll just say that Ronan welcomed me and Kerri into his hospital room but not her.

We’ve canceled Friday’s gig in Falls Church. Hate to miss it, but Consternated Ostrich will be back and better than ever. Maybe we’ll have a massive crowd now that Ronan’s a celebrity like Sully after he landed on the Hudson. Talk shows are already working to get him lined up for interviews.

More soon. Probably from Ronan himself.