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AN INTRODUCTION TO DrT
I've lived with a DICHOTOMY my whole life.
My heart wants to perform.
My mind wants to explore all things intellectually challenging.
THE FORMATIVE YEARS
I was born in Cadillac, Michigan in 1957. Parents are Donald and Ella Telgenhoff. I have one sister, Judy (Ward). My father worked hard as a Michigan Bell Telephone Man. My mother worked hard as a house wife with occasional part time jobs. We lived a comfortable lower middle class life style. We weren't rich but we always had everything we really needed and a little left over for some simple pleasures. My parents are two very wonderful people and have supported all my efforts, even when they didn't necessarily approve of my choices.
I have been attention-starved since the day my sister entered the world. My mother remembers me running and jumping into my newborn sister's crib. I guess I never recovered from that and with my Astrologic Sign Leo I definitely am not happy unless I get way more than my share of attention. It also turned me into a very strange young kid.
GRADE SCHOOL
I was quite shy early on in grade school. I quickly learned that mischief and inappropriate behavior got a lot of attention. In fact by the 5th grade, I had a permanent seat in the corner at the front of the class. This set me "apart" from others and only served to nurture my delusions of self-importance. These trends continue to this day.
I developed a very strong will early in life and basically didn't do anything I didn't want to do. Another trend that continues. I took years off the lives of those who encountered me in those young years.
I was very interested in science at a very young age. While other kids were playing baseball, I was borrowing college biology books from much older kids. I tried to copy the drawings and memorized the labels. I knew all of my basic anatomy by the time I was in the 6th grade. I also taught myself much of the physiology.
I had a church friend (older man) who worked as a meat inspector. He used to bring me eyeballs, ears, baby pigs ... just about anything you could imagine. I meticulously dissected them and tried to understand how all the parts worked together. I was doing this as early as the 4th grade.
I never killed anything out of curiosity or for fun, though and still won't. I respect animal life. People usually "get what they deserve" and so I don't feel as emotional toward human death in general. The animals are innocent. I'll still eat them though.
In grade school, I was obsessed by the only band that I was aware of ... The Beatles. I had heard of others but did not care to venture. The Beatles were Gods to me.
Being raised in a Baptist Home and going to church three to four times a week for one thing or another, rock and roll was not welcome in the house.
Through lots of pleading and tears, my mother bought me my first Beatles Record ... Yesterday and Today. I had a lot of catching up to do. I played those tracts until they were worn flat.
I got a cardboard box and carved out a pair of drumsticks from a wooden dowel. I listened for everything Ringo was doing. I copied the licks the best I could. I had them all memorized. I went through many a cardboard box.
Finally, my begging got me my first cheap snare drum. Then followed a cymbal on a stand. I went as far as I could with them, but the rest of the kit wasn't there.
More begging finally got a cheap set of drums. I spent hours and hours on my own with my drums. I couldn't wait for the family to leave the house so I could turn up the stereo full and play along.
I never had any lessons. I'm glad that I didn't. It would have killed my enthusiasm.
I did the same, but to lesser degree, with the guitar and piano. I never became very proficient on them. I pretty much 'kept up with the traffic on the drums.'
JUNIOR AND SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
During junior and senior high school I was quite the loner and had schizoid tendencies (delayed self-diagnosis). Although I had friends, I preferred to be alone most of the time. That is until I started to play drums in a serious way.
I only "tried" in my science classes. I had poor grades in everything else. In fact I think I graduated in the bottom 10 to 15 % of my class. It didn't mean anything to me.
My 'scientific curiosity' blew the piss out of our basement on one very memorable day. This I accomplished while fermenting wine. The broken glass and pieces of fruit are still embedded in the cement walls. My dad chose to just put paneling over the whole thing. My chemistry set and 'still' went into the trash that very same day.
I was also very active in creating my own fireworks and explosives.
None of this I did to be destructive; it just turned out that way. I was genuinely curious about how things went together and what made them work.
One time I got an old pinball machine from an arcade vender. It was broken and they were going to trash it. I took it home. I stripped all the wires off it. I then took the wiring diagram and over about a year rewired it until it worked. And mind you this was the 'old fashioned kind' with moving motor parts and a gazillion copper wires.
As I went through my junior and senior high years, I found that my ability on the drums got attention. I seemed to get some respect for my ability for drumming, if for nothing else.
I formed a band with some High School buds. For our age we weren't too bad. We did copy tunes of our favorite bands. We played many of our school dances. We traveled around our small part of Michigan and played for a variety of occasions. We made a little money, actually good money for our age.
I was hooked. Nothing has ever replaced the feeling you get from an audience that likes what you're doing. Even if it's a couple of old drunks.
I did most of the "forbidden" things that young kids do during their formative years, and these were the '70s. I believe that I am truly a more rounded and better person for it. However, there were some that did not survive the test of adolescence well. For this reason I am neutral on my opinions concerning adolescence, it's recklessness it's experimental behaviors, etc. I choose to educate whenever possible. Free will is "everything" providing you know what you are doing, what the risks are and what your limits should be. Unfortunately these things are often absent in the "young mind." Today's risks are considerably higher than those of my youth.
COLLEGE
After high school I had to do something. I had no particular direction. All I wanted to do was play drums.
I decided to follow my high school sweet heart to a Christian College in Michigan (Spring Arbor College).
I picked up my interest in science and majored in Biology, Chemistry.
I immediately sought opportunity to play with other musicians. There were a handful of really great players on campus. I pushed until I got noticed by them. I played with many of the best musicians on that small campus and continued my obsession with the drums. It was at this time that I knew that all I wanted to do was music for a living.
I graduated in 1979 with a B.A. in Biology and Chemistry (magna cum laude).
About graduation time (1978, 1979), I got a small group of guys together and we had a dream of "breaking in" and who doesn't at that age. We called ourselves Stiltskin. I began my first attempts at writing songs. We were a combo of Jethro Tull, Kansas, Styx, Pink Floyd and Blue Oyster Cult, our heroes of the day.
After some starving and some very miserable jobs in a saw mill and restaurant scrubbing toilets, the dream melted like ice cream on a desert rock.
I played in a few small lounge acts.
THE ROCK YEARS
Then, I got the call. A former college buddy had been playing with this rock guitarist from a previously nationally successful band, The Frost. I packed all my stuff and split on a moment's notice for Alpena, Michigan.
I considered this a "big break" at the time. The Frost was one of Michigan's premier acts in the 60s. It's lead guitarist and leader later played with Lou Reed and was bandleader, lead guitarist and background vocalist for Alice Cooper. He wrote most of Alice's hits. More on him later.
While in this band, I met and played with a number of music celebrities including Robbyn Robbins (of Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band), Bob Seger himself and Dick Wagner (then recording with Peter Gabriel). I made steady money (more than I needed) and was quite content.
I had nothing but the biggest of dreams until the night I was on Bob Seger's boat Lone Wind." Of course I brought my girlfriend. We drank some beers and talked about a lot of "stuff." Meanwhile my devoted girl friend forgot that I had come too and was hanging all over my new pal "Bob." Then I realized ... this guy is everything I want to be. But ... he's met me now. He knows I'm a drummer. Yet we might just as well be on separate continents. What else could I do? Give him a business card?
It was at that moment that I saw the chasm between us and I had no idea how to bridge it. I had a great big hole cut out of my soul that night. It's still there.
As most things go, the band made changes and I was one of them. This led to a few lean years where I traveled around the state checking out bands to join. A few came and went. I was 24.
I went back to my home town for a while. I joined up with some local musicians who were playing steady and making good money. The band was Nickel Plate (no, not Nickleback). The leader was John Springberg, from whom I learned a great deal about "business," contracts, agents, finances. He's since bought up half of Cadillac, just like in the Monopoly game. We played Holiday Inns and small concerts all over the Midwest.
I joined another band (hard rock), right up my alley. The name was Skamm, back in Alpena. I loved this band. I was very proud of the product. By now I owned a shit-load of lighting gear. The only light show bigger than this was those seen in the big concerts.
Well of course this ran its course.
GRADUATE SCHOOL
I decided I'd had enough. I never intended to be 50 and a vagabond. So I picked up what was left of me and moved to Ann Abor, Michigan and started graduate school (age 27) at Eastern Michigan University.
I was a graduate teaching assistant. to nursing students. I loved my life!! However, I didn't know the subject matter that I was to teach them until about a week ahead of time. The course was Anatomy. Human Anatomy. Well I had learned most of the basics on my own when I was kid. I filled in a lot of the detail on my own with a Cadaver. I'd learn the stuff the week before and lay it on the students the next week. I was spending most of my free time with a stiff.
The first time I saw a cadaver, I didn't think that I wanted to get involved. But my curiosity took over which led me to where I am now.
My professor asked if I had ever considered med school. Of course I hadn't. I said "only geniuses go to med school." He replied, "You obviously haven't met any."
So, I applied. I got in (two places). I chose Michigan State University.
I never actually wanted to be "a doctor," but I was in and I thought, "I'd better go." I was 30.
During this whole grad school thing I was also playing in one of Michigan's more popular, known bands, The Whiz Kids. I played with them all the way up through my first med school year. I finished my graduate thesis during my first year of med school, as well as playing with the band. I received my M.S. in 1989 in Biology and Physiology (GPA 4.00)
MEDICAL SCHOOL
The first two years of medical school were a breeze to me. I had all of the difficult first year courses in grad school. I already knew very well my anatomy, cell biology, biochemistry, neuroanatomy, etc. In fact I was a teaching assistant to my peers during med school. I also tutored quite a bit.
The third year of med school absolutely sucked!! I hated sick people. I didn't want to learn how to take care of them. It was true ... I had never wanted to be a "doctor."
I liked taking things apart and figuring out how they worked. I didn't care if I ever fixed anything. I certainly didn't want to get woken at four in the morning for anything. After all I was really a musician, and usually just getting in about 4.
I had to go through it all though. I delivered babies, assisted in surgery, looked in the little screamin kid's ear. I got coughed on, spit on, peed on and shit on (and most of this was from the other doctors over me). This wasn't the kind of attention that I had been seeking all of my life.
I was still as good a student as most. In fact I graduated in the top 5th percentile of my medical school class.
Pathology was the only thing that I was ever interested in.
INTERNSHIP
Before I could do something I was interested in, I had to complete an intern year. This is hell year where you are left mostly on your own to care for the patients on your service.
Everyone calls you doctor, but you don't know shit and realize that you never will.
You get to stay up 36 hours in one stroke and actually try to think. You're about as functional as Ozzy Osbourne on a bad day. Drug abuse becomes a serious consideration during this part of your long road. Suicide comes up now and again, also.
Mind you, no one has ever really taught you how to do any of this stuff. You learn by making mistakes on people and then getting a BIG chunk of your ass bitten out the next morning by the attending physician.
You learn your position in the hierarchy immediately.
There is you, the intern akin to "a praying lowly sinner."
There is then the resident akin to "Mother Mary, the intercessor."
There is then the chief resident akin to "Jesus" who may or may not acknowledge you before the father which art in heaven.
And then, the attending physician, "the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent keeper of all knowledge."
Your life sucks. You know it. You hate your miserable life.
BOARD EXAMS
By now you've taken three board exams, each one a day to remember. I managed to pass all of them without any trouble. But I did know a number of folks who had to take them more than once. And these were the people who really loved this stuff?!?!
RESIDENCY
By now I can count the few remaining brown hairs I have left, and I'm still considered a "young man." I'm spent. Of course, I had to start school at 30 because I was too busy Loving my Rock and Roll life.
I realized that I had gone from a world in which people loved me, told me how great I was, wanted to buy me drinks and take me home to daily scorn and ridicule. Somewhere I had derailed from the initial objective to be recognized and adored.
I started pathology residency at the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio. I'd also been accepted at Mayo [Clinic] and Johns Hopkins [University] to name a few.
Well Cleveland sucked and the Clinic was worse.
Cleveland Clinic is one of the "top ten hospitals in the US." Or so they toot. They are pioneers in open heart techniques and cardiology.
There's a sign just outside the surgery suite (80 + rooms last I knew):
"THROUGH THESE DOORS PASS THE WORLD'S GREATEST HEART SURGEONS."
Get the picture. Primadonnaville.
I didn't fit in too well, needless to say. They wanted way more out of me than what I was willing to give them (like my whole life).
The long hair, rock and roll and general 'common' aura that I emanated were not well accepted. In fact I'm sure there were many who were baffled as to how I got into Medicine to begin with.
I think that I was particularly irritating to them because I was an ever-present reminder that anyone could do this doctor thing. It wasn't special. And I finally realized my Professor had been correct. I had finally met many med students, residents and attending physicians and I could count the truly 'brilliant' people that I had met on one hand.
I know one thing about medical types though. If you get enough of em in the same room, you could start an Asylum.
Medical schools actually screen for neurotic individuals. Who else would go through it all. You've at least got to be obsessive/compulsive to survive not to mention the Narcissism and Delusions of Grandeur that pervade every aspect of the field. You have to be quite Ego-bent to cut parts out of living persons and think everything is going to be okay.
Well, I wasn't too good at playing the game. And I didn't care.
It was at this time that I bought a keyboard, guitar and eventually a small studio to keep me from self destructing. I had entertained killing a few co-workers, but this was just a passing silly thought ... . really.
Well I transferred out to Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, Ohio. I finished up the residency there in a much more hospitable environment. I also started to play out "live" as a one man band called Badd Medisin.
It was at this time that I started to write songs. They just came from nowhere and kept coming. It's still going on. I have enough anger reserved for many more albums to come.
I did a lot of extra time at the coroner's office and found my niche. I guess the people at the Lucas County Coroner's Office in Toledo, Ohio saw 'some' potential in me. I spent as much time there as I could. I liked the combination of the medicine, pathology, mystery, challenge and the brand new world of the courtroom. This required some street smarts, common sense and performance ability. This is the combination of all things I was interested in, science, performance and a life left at the end of the day.
FELLOWSHIP
As if this weren't enough school and torture, I had one more year to go. I wanted the hell out of the hospital and away from doctors.
I did a final fellowship year in forensic pathology at the Montgomery County Crime Lab in Dayton, Ohio.
Up till now I functioned primarily in mainstream medicine in a hospital setting.
Now I was learning all about unnatural death. Gunshot wounds, drug ODs murders, suicides, etc. Interesting as hell. I knew where I belonged.
LAS VEGAS
When I appeared in court the first time it was like "playing in a bar to a few old drunks." No one applauded, but "it was my room!!!"
And you know what?!? There aren't very many 'brilliant' lawyers out there either. In the time I've been doing this, I've only had one that had me sweating, but only I knew it. Most of the rest of em I can shut down in pretty short order. This isn't because I am 'so good.' It's because they are sooooo bad. You really do get the justice you can afford.
After graduating from the fellowship in Dayton, Ohio I'd had enough of the conservative, republican Buckeye State and took my first real job in Las Vegas. Talk about being "home." It was me. I plan to stay.
Lights, neon, swimming pools, movie stars and lots of shrimp cocktail. I'm in heaven.
During my first few years here, I met a guy named Anthony Zuiker.
He said he was writing a script for television, but no takers yet.
He said it was about CSAs (Crime Scene Analysts). These are the guys that I work with everyday on murders. He wanted to see my end of it. So I took him under my wing.
Next thing I know, he gives me the pilot to CSI to be aired on CBS.
My jaw dropped. Anthony was a trolly driver down at the Mirage and barely scrapping it.
I've met a lot of people trying to "do something," myself included. I didn't think that it really happened.
Well we've been friends ever since. I consult for them about three or four times a week. And they used one of my songs that I wrote for the show - Speak for You.
The relationship continues and now my life has come full circle. I'm back to what I love, but also have a damned good job. It took 16 years to get here. But I made it (in a small way…. so far) to where I always wanted to be.
Of course, I won't really be ready to die until I get my 'cameo' appearance on the show.
Continue to Part 2
Introduction
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Part 3 |
Part 4
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