Hey Kids,

Some of you may have noticed that I've been silent on tribe.com and myspace.com and No Alternative has not played recently. I have remained silent about my personal health because I am a private man. However, it is not fair to those people who I have had to put projects off with to simply say I've been ill. Therefore, I am choosing today to announce that at the beginning of the year I was diagnosed with cancer.

The type of cancer I was diagnosed with gives a 20 to 40 percent survival rate. While I have full insurance, the medical bills to date would have been close to a half million dollars, I am still in the poor house. There is good news to this story, so read on.

I have had to go through two months of radiation and chemotherapy which, until recently, has left me barely able to walk. The cancer was in the head and neck so radiation to the throat has been extremely painful. I was able to finish recording the Jah Genocide Dub/Reggae CD prior to becoming too weak to do anything that required moving from the bed or couch.

Last Tuesday, I beat the odds and was given a semi clean bill of health. The primary tumor, which was the size of a softball, has shrunk down to nothing. Even though radiation has stopped, the tumor area still gets smaller. I am on the road to recovery.

While we have had to cancel shows and recording time at Sun Studios, we will be back in full force by years end. I decided not to tell anyone, other than immediately family, because there was nothing anyone could do, other than worry.

These days, you can find me on Chess.com spending my days with the rest of the chess slackers and devotees to the game. I managed to save my sanity by playing chess for up to four hours daily through this great website. In case you didn't know, I am an avid chess player, actually a bit of a fanatic.

So I leave you with the news that the storm has passed and I'll be back to playing shows soon. I afraid I am going to have to organize a benefit for myself to try and deal with the debt Jennifer and I have built up, since I've been unable to work. I'll keep you posted. On a side note of good news, I managed not to loose my hair which is a miracle of modern medicine. I decided that I would survive this from the get go and all that positive thinking worked. Thanks for reading this.

Johnny