Karl's Corner - 12/09/2009

12/09/09 a birthday, and a birthday wish

...People, in all the chaos and confusion of the accident, lettuce not forget our distinguished guitar player Brian Bell, who has a birthday today. Happy Birthday to Brian!

Brian's biggest birthday wish is for Rivers and Sarah to have a speedy recovery. And so far, it appears he is getting his wish. Both are fighting a lot of pain, and will be for weeks - but both are making strides every day. Yesterday (Tuesday) Rivers finally made it onto his feet for the first time since the crash, going on 2 hospital hallway walks with the aid of a walker. This is a great sign, and will only lead to increased mobility and more flexability as the days proceed.

Meanwhile the docs say his insides are continuing to improve, but they have told him that while he will likely be released in the next few days, He aint getting on a plane anytime soon - too risky to his lung. So when the time comes that he is discharged, getting him back to L.A. will be an interesting adventure!

Another addendum to the crash news, in response to various comments and questions that have cropped up: The driver of the bus, Johnny Cox was not injured in the crash - I forgot to include that in the original story. And contrary to some skeptical comments Ive seen, Mr. Cox's actions really did make a difference - specifically, he was faced with a bus that was sliding leftward into the median of the highway, which was a fairly steep incline, and at the angle the bus was sliding, in Johnny's words it "would have meant flipping for sure - so i wasn't gonna let it go that way, no sir". He put everything into getting the bus back on to the roadway, and succeeded. At that point, the bus's momentum then took it over to the right side of the road, and JC was unable to stop it from leaving that side of the road. But the deep muddy ditch, while a dangerous place to land a bus, was definitely a safer choice than the median for sure - it was sort of a channel that grabbed the bus like a slot car and held it and stopped it once it fell in. In other words, there was no room for the bus to flip there due to the walls of the ravine holding it in place. Plus its soft base quickly stopped the bus from moving. Back over on the slanted median however, things would have been much less possible to control.

...the December Raditude Tour shows (that actually happened) will indeed be added to the Official Bootleg Series. Not sure when yet, but they will be added!

...coming up this weekend! Mtv Subterranean, hosted by Weezer! Air date: Sunday Night (Monday Morning) December 13th 2:00 A.M. E.S.T.