My issues are similar to my fellow Vietnam Vet. I have arthritis across all the knuckles in both hands. Particularly in the top knuckle that makes fretting very difficult. It's not so bad playing keyboards because of the type of force I ask my knuckles to do when pressing downward. I can still play the sax but long runs (not that I ever played long, fluid lines like Coltrane) are a challenge. Fortunately the muscle memory comes quickly so when I need to do a specific line I can get the muscles to cooperate in 5-7 passes through it and then slowly get it up to speed.

Add in diabetes issues... but as recently as this year I played live. We only did 5 shows but this year was places ramping back up from Covid blackouts. That uncertainty early in the year kept places in the dark, thus no booking went on and we were glad to get 5. In face one of them we actually built ourselves.


I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.