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What possesses a young musician to move to L.A.? It's The Big Dream: the idea that a living and a whole lot more could be made by "playing the banjo" as my grandparents called it.

Moving to Hollywood in the mid-80’s was very similar to the migration made in the 1920’s by those hoping to make it big in the movie biz. The same pitfalls that smothered the aspirations of nice kids from the Midwest 60 years before awaited those of us who had longer hair and only slightly sillier clothes: drug addiction, crime, giving up, and the ever-popular being ripped off by someone "guiding" your career. I saw a bunch of bands get bogged down with "managers" that either wasted their time or legally sodomized them once a record deal looked promising.

Upon arriving in L.A., I was to meet up with the guys from SGT. FRIDAY. I was a few weeks behind them, because I wanted to see the USA during the drive out. That idea got boring halfway through Nebraska. For those of you who have never ventured onto our Great Plains, here's an eyewitness report: It is hypnotizing. Like a big watch swinging back and forth above the horizon, Nebraska put me into a deep trance. It seemed like I wasn’t moving towards anything except complete insanity.

After a week of highway gallivanting, I arrived in L.A. just in time for two things: A brutal heat wave and Richard Ramirez. The first I had dealt with before. The latter was new. Not many big city newcomers could be ready for serial killers. On top of this my SGT. FRIDAY bandmates decided that we should take a different course to our success. The new idea was to join separate bands and get really big independently, then reform and be monstrous together. Impractical, I thought. And when they slowly reformed without me, I was more than a little paranoid. And freaked out. Why would they want to reform? Why without me? What the hell did I do en route to enrage them so much that they didn’t want me in the band?

The simple answer is that they arrived there first and the idea came to them, and hey, wouldn’t it work great? You can’t blame them, and I would have done the same thing. In hindsight, it was the effort of a bunch of guys who arrived in L.A. and got a rude slap in the face from the Grand Dame of Reality. She can be a heartless bitch.

During the whole trip across the country my subconscious was reminding me of the risk I was taking. Traveling alone in a packed-to-the-gills Ford Van, my only mental activity was dwelling on what was waiting for me in L.A. The caravan stopped in Denver, where my radiator complained loudly and needed to be replaced before trying to get over the Rockies.

Once over the mountains, I stopped in St. George, Utah. There I met my new roomie, Panic. Realization of what the hell I was doing had slowly started once I left Madison. Then, it gathered amazing speed across the Great Divide. Finally it snowballed down the Rockies and slammed into me full force in a Utah hotel room.

The preparation and journey were a distraction for awhile, but now reality had arrived.

I was afraid I couldn’t sleep, I was afraid my new radiator would blow up in the furnace of Palm Springs, I was afraid I would lose it and going running in to the desert, I was afraid I would fail. I was afraid. Instead of heading towards California, I was stuck in the land of "What If?", a place where my mind was able to roam free and terrified until I put a fence up.

Or cross the California border.

Once I got my panicking ass out of the dark hotel bed, stepped into the bright sun, and sat down in my van it dawned on me: the only thing that was going to get me into California was will, otherwise I would pace at the state line and stall for time.

Thanks to the clarity that hindsight brings, I now see that the physical act of crossing the border symbolized the finality of my decision. I was committing to this, and no one would be able to help me. The future was too far away from home, and I had been awfully cocky about my inevitable success when I left. If bravado was a color, I had certainly painted myself into a corner, with about four or five thick coats.

The van droned westward, and I found myself getting more excited about the final destination as the east shrunk behind me. When I saw the sign that said "Welcome to California" fear had been tossed out of the window like those solitary sneakers that litter highways. Apprehension had been replaced with optimism, and the closer I got to L.A., the more I wanted to get on with it.