Hey everybody,

Okay, I slept for the first time in ages last night and ate a meal for the first time since Saturday. My head is a little clearer. So let me let ya know what is up…

Still no confirmation on what started the fire. But here is the word that is going around. Apparantly, the woman who died in the fire had a long history of violence and schizophrenia. I guess she had violent attacks on people including someone who worked for the apartment complex. I know that the cops had been called on her several times for various differnt things. I think she might have been getting evicted. The fire started in her apartment and she died of smoke inhalation. It's kind of crazy, because we were all standing right in front of her apartment after I climbed out of the window. Had no idea that someone was dead in there…

Yeah, I was dicking around on my four track and had my headset on and really had no idea what was happening. If someone hadn't been pounding on my downstairs neighbors door, I wouldn't have noticed anything. I happened to look up and saw flames pass by my window.

I went to the front door and felt the door knob. "Backdraft" was flashing through my mind and since the handle was cold, I opened the door. Big mistake! I was faced with a solid wall of smoke. It was so dense I couldn't even see the ground in front of me.

So, I close the door and for some reason I locked the deadbolt (you know, like that would keep the fire out. I'm a moron.) I went out on the balcony and for the first time noticed that 40 or 50 people were on the sidewalk watching my building burn down. They told me that I had to jump and that the fire had totally consumed the stairway. For a split second I thought that maybe I could run through the fire and, you know, drop and roll or something. Luckily, I came to my senses and decided to try to climb down. Yes, I did somehow scale down the side of the building from the third floor and looking back at the apartment today, that was crazy high. I mean, it was really high.

I managed to make it to the ground in one piece and after standing in front of the fire looking up like a moron, I joined my neighbors on the sidewalk as we watched the flames slowly consume my apartment even before the fire department arrived.

I wandered around asking if anyone had a cell phone I could use. I called information who connected me to Vulcan Video which is where I work. I just told the guy working "Call Jenn! Call Kelly! My house is on fire! Tell them to get over here ASAP!" They're both pals of mine and were the first people I thought to call with the crisis happening and Liberty out of the country.

Thankfully, they showed up, so I at least have a place to stay and everybody is helping me sort stuff out. The hardest part was that Liberty's phone number in China burned up in the fire. So all I could do was go to Kelly's house and send her a brief e-mail. I didn't want to freak her out, so I was a little vague about what happened and told her to call as soon as possible.

I basically couldn't sleep at all and just tried to imagine a floor plan of the apartment to figure out what exactly I had lost. It was the first time I started to feel overcome by anxiety. Up until then I was still sort of dealing with everything kind of laughing in the face of adversity. I mean, I'm like the bad luck guy. Heart problems. House burning. Any number of J Church tour disasters. What will happen next year to make people feel sorry for me?

Anyway, I finally got to talk to Liberty the next night which seemed like forever and it led to my second anxiety attack, heart palpitations and everything.

That sort of brings us up to the present. They started pulling stuff out of my apartment today. They pulled out a lot of our electronic stuff (computers, stereo, amps, etc.) but I really doubt any of it works. A lot of it got burned. All of it got soaked. 99% of my albums have at least water damage and are now worthless. Almost none of my singles and 7"s survived. No clothes. No furniture. 300 fucking Storm the Tower 7"s gone. All the label stuff is gone. All my photos and Cringer and J Church stuff is pretty much gone. Year books. Phone numbers. Stuff for my now on hiatus book on anarhco punk… Still, it's a bit of a relief to at least know where I stand. I dunno. I guess I'm still in denial.

I wanted to thank everyone who has written kind words and offered help. Really, it's all so overwhelming that I really don't know how to reply. I really appreciate it and when I checked my e-mail today there were 100 new messages. I'm sorry that I have to send this blanket e-mail as I really can't reply to everyone individually.

Everyone is asking how to help and I really don't know how to reply to that. I'm very flattered that people have offered to do benefits and send money. But I feel a little weird taking peoples money. Here are the things we are trying to replace if for some strange reason you have extras:
Computer
Stereo
Records? If you are at a record label and are on my list, I probably love your label and would love to get whatever promos you've got lying around.

I don't know. I still don't know what is going on. I want to assure everyone that I plan to carry on with the band and the label and whatever other things I was planning to do. As much as is financially possible, I'm gonna be working the DFI and J Church records coming out this Fall on Honey Bear…

The main thing that would help would be if you could get the info out about what happened. I'm still getting people trying to order stuff and I REALLY don't want people to get any misinformation about what happened. I mean, TWICE in the last decade there have been rumors that I died and that created huge problems for me as you can imagine.

Okay, I'll try to have a normal newsletter next time around. Hopefully, life will start to get back to normal the weekend after next when I at least move into my new apartment.

Lance