A shepherd looking guy, if you can imagine what a shepherd looking guy would look like, walked into our new and improved NYs Finest in Vernon the other night and rattled me with wisdom and riddles. I think he was trying to impress the female next to me but, nonetheless some things he said were striking and almost poetic for the kind of growth Breakneck Road has had in the last 12 months.

“For every stimulus there is a response. Between that stimulus and response is a space and in that space is your freedom and power to choose your response. Your response demonstrates your growth and happiness.” Putting it bluntly: forget the small stuff be hands on your balls tough.
2009 taught us that forcing the game can only get you so far, and by learning to let the game come to us has positioned us for an incredible 2010. This will for most, be a year that will go down as one would like to forget. Au contraire mo fraire, don’t you even go there, instead we are making the case for placing it upon the mantel as a reminder that no matter what you do baby, you must face the moment of truth.

Your response demonstrates your growth…and your happiness.

2009 began with us starting the second season of the 3rd Rail, in a time when most were running for cover we took the ball up the middle. Expanding the tour from one to three stops. Here is the promo video that resulted from the Mountain Creek event in January…

And in February we went to Ski Beech North Carolina and were greeted with some incredible southern hospitality.


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Then in March, we ventured out West to Lake Tahoe for the final stop on the tour, while we were out there we filmed the video for “Fight to the Top” the first single off the LAM & Grins Project. It was cold on that mountaintop.

Then in April, we were asked to run for Mayor of Annapolis, Maryland. We were told “to be Mayor, you need 3 things: time, talent, and money. We have the money, we believe you have the talent but, do you have the time?” This culminated after this speech surfaced online:

We declined. We didn’t have the time. We had a mini golf course to open, a new Italian ice shop to open, and an outdoor stage to book. Did we ever book it: Mondays were open mics, Tuesdays were cooking classes, Wednesdays were dance classes, and Thursdays were movie nights, Fridays were Rock and Roll, Saturdays we were clubbing.

June, July, August, September, October, November, and December we ran into old man winter and his bitch of a sister Mother Nature. They rained on us, and rained on us, and rained on us, and snowed on us, and snowed on us…have you seen Forrest Gump? You know the line from Lt Dan “you call this a storm?” That’s exactly how we felt. We received 72% more rain than normal.

We learned that no matter what you do, no matter how prepared you are to execute, no matter how dedicated you are to the cause, there are always circumstances that you cannot control or that you may not expect. The ability to withstand these blows and continue to grow is the strength of the space between the stimulus and the response.
2010 will bring:
-3rd Rail expanding to 5 stops in the US with Slick Rick the Ruler. This was goal that myself and my biz partner Pat Hession had since we saw Rick a year ago in Virginia
-Tree City Mini Golf will start it s own league
-We will tour all of the High Schools in Sussex County promoting alcohol awareness and performing “Last Call”. This is a goal we have had since the words to “Last Call” matrerialized
-We will run a marathon and raise money for Alzheimer’s Association
-We will release a new collection of music dedicated to this time in our lives
-We will continue to develop Cobblestone Village into an entertainment district

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