family

English is for Everyone

by

or

In Defense of Hoarders

The past week or so, I have been pretending to be a computer repairman (I guess in this gender-sensitive age it’s okay for me to say repairman instead of something vanilla (is it okay for me to say vanilla? does it matter that I’m white?) like repair person or repair representative, since I am, in fact, despite all the chemo’s and other drugs’s long-lasting emasculating attempts, a man). It’s funny how, no matter how useless they become, old computers, along with old video games, and old phones, and old power packs, and old chargers, and don’t even get me started on unidentifiable old CDs, kind of just hang around in a corner of the basement as if it were a technological sarcophagus — lifeless computers stacked forlornly, purposeless cables and chords twisted madly into an untwistable balled bunch… Yeah.

Anyway, the past week or so I have been Dr. Frankengeek: attempting to restore ancient operating systems, rooting around in old files, deleting an old this, saving an old that.

So, so much stuff tucked away within those old computers. Who really knows how much stuff is really on them? Of course we never should throw them away until the day a gadget is made that possesses unlimited memory and a magical ability to instantaneously copy old files onto it without any user prompting, whatsoever. And not just any old file, no, certainly not those intransigent .dll files or any other annoying and undeletable ones like them, only important old files. And not to worry, this gadget will know what’s what, believe me. Oh, and of course the gadget will be cordless and will have an infinite battery life.

Coming soon to an Amazon store near you…

Until I can get my hands one of those suckers, I promise all my old computers will stay unneatly stacked in my basement and conveniently out of your landfill.

Most of the past week or so has certainly been less than fun. It’s a good thing I’m jobless and have a lot of time on my hands because most of the past week or so has been nothing more than an intimate study of the Ctrl, Alt, Del keys.

If this is what the world is coming to, then I say, go ahead and let the geeks inherit it.

Geek salvation…boring.

However, every once in a while I did dig my way into a stash of old photos, or old school papers, or some other ancient gem that reminded me of how cool it has been to live with my wife and kids these past twenty-five years or so.

Take, for instance, the picture found at the beginning of this rambling post. I found it in a folder of old English lessons.

Back in the last century, I used to live in Japan, and for a time when I lived in Japan, I used to teach English on the side to some very wonderful Japanese folks. To find and attract those wonderful Japanese folks, I used to advertise my lessons as “English is for Everyone.” Quaint, ain’t it?

Those of you who know my family, know how talented my children are. My daughter is an especially talented artist. She always has been, as is evident by the drawing she made when she was, oh, I don’t know…ten? twelve?…and which is found at the top of this rambling post, and which became the logo for those old lessons. I believe we even made iron-ons out of that logo and pressed them on to tee-shirts. At any rate, we truly made a good time out of it, that’s for sure.

Within that old stash, I also found many of my old English lessons, and old worksheets, and old handouts. They all bring back fond and funny and fortunate memories. I miss all my — I hesitate to call them students because it seemed as if I ended up learning more from them than they did from me, so I’ll simply say, I miss all my friends from that period of my life.

What follows is a copy of one of the old handouts I put together to, well, handout to my friends during those old English lessons. It is a list of heteronyms (thank god for google (is that redundant?)) that exemplifies just how crazy and fun the English language is.

Come to think of it, this might be a stretch, but, English is kind of like my old computers… It’s a communication system and storage system and retrieval system, all coded and operated by a language that rarely deletes anything but continually accumulates and assumes bits and bytes of other languages into its own as it constantly and forever evolves and adapts its system to the demands of the times.

Yeah, I said it was a bit of a stretch, but still…

No wonder the English language is so difficult to learn

We polish the Polish furniture.
He could be in the lead if he would just get the lead out.
A farm can produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
At the Army base, a bass fish was painted on the head of a bass drum.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his fat sow to sow the seeds.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of Novocaine injections, my jaw became number.
I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my pants.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JULY 2012

Let’s Pretend

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Let's Pretend

Let’s pretend
That the world is new
And all decisions to make
Are up to you.
You can make your world
How you want it to be.
Where will you begin?
I can’t wait to see.

The world is yours. What will you do?

Let’s pretend
That math is zoo.
And monkey = 1
And tiger = 2.
Giraffe = 3
And llama = 4.
Subtract lion from bear
And you’ll get zebras galore.

What’s your answer for leopard + π

Let’s pretend
That ground is sky,
And we no longer walk–
All we do is fly.
Better keep your head down–
Looking up might hurt.
Cuz when it rains
It’s raining dirt.

If ground is sky, then what is Neptune?

Let’s pretend
That the man on the moon,
Was not a guy named Neil
But a gal named Soon.
She went to the moon
To prove her brothers wrong:
They said the moon is just for men
And that women don’t belong!

If you were Soon, would you make a stand?

Let’s pretend for real
That peace is at hand,
And that the Golden Rule
Is the rule throughout the land.
If we all pretend
Then the angels might sing.
If the whole world pretends
Is it still pretending?
 
From Poem Man

Sons of Anarchy: Hollywood’s Shakespearean Expression of the American Way of Life

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FILM | TELEVISION | DRAMA | ACTION
SONS OF ANARCHY
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★

Sons Of Anarchy

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and since I am American I must, like all Americans are doing across the nation and all over facebook, offer my thanks.

There are many things for which I am thankful: my family, my health, my freedom, football (football, the real kind, not soccer), you know, all the standard things a standard American is standardly thankful for.

But in addition to those standards, I am also thankful for the miracle of technology, for it allows me to experience right from my easy chair such wonderful, and cheap, mind melting joys like this and this and Netflix.

And I am especially thankful for Netflix, for it allows me to watch movies and television shows and documentaries and even some cartoons “on demand” (which is a very American way of putting it, no?).

And, of course I’m thankful for Hollywood, too, for without Hollywood, how else would I and the rest of the world know what it truly means to be an American?

And because of Hollywood, and Netflix, and technology, and my health (and all the free time it affords me), I just spent the past three or fours days (I’m not exactly sure how many it was because by the second day it all became a blur) watching a delightful, family show called Sons of Anarchy.

Well, it may not necessarily be a show you would want to watch as a family, but it is undeniably a show about family and the many challenges a typical — and non-typical — family faces.

Yeah, I know, as usual I’m late to the party. Four seasons late, to be exact. Season Five is already close to a wrap. Unfortunately, I will not be able to see it until sometime next year, probably right before Season Six kicks off; that is, if Netflix graciously makes it available for me to watch.

So much for “on demand” I guess.

Anyway, now, after that marathon of anarchy and mayhem I willingly subjected myself to, I can’t stop thinking, “What the hell just happened?”

You know, I’m not really sure. After four straight days of watching four straight seasons of head bangin’, rock n’ rollin’, face tattin’ motorcycle clubbin’, gun runnin’, drug slingin’, porn flickin’, bombs explodin’, race baitin’, back stabbin’ drama, I’m not sure of anything right now.

Except that the show is good.

Really good.

Once again, Hollywood did what it does best: exploiting, romanticizing, and glamorizing the most extreme of man’s deviant nature.

Hollywood did its job so well and the show is so good I gave it a Netflix rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

I briefly considered giving it 5 of 5, but it does have a few superficial flaws; however, over the entire well thought out and executed arc of the show, those flaws mostly become forgotten.

But for the curious, here are a few of the annoyances I noticed:

— A bizarre Irish Republican Army connection that put a bit of a drag on the pace and feel of the show for one of the seasons, season two, I think.

— A couple of cheezy reveals, especially at the end of season four, that pissed me off.

— Chuck Hunnam’s British accent. Mostly it goes unnoticed, but it is noticeable. It especially gets thick when he is talking with/screaming at Irish dudes.

But other than those minor flaws, the show is a masterpiece, as in Masterpiece Theatre.

Well, perhaps not but speaking of theatre — dammit, I’m American! — speaking of theater, Kurt Sutter, the show’s genius creator, is in no way shy about the show’s obvious draw off of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. For example, we have our conflicted prince (or Motor Cycle Club Vice President), we have our surrogate father king (or MC President and step-father of the VP), we have our ghost of the dead former king and father of the prince (or a manifesto written by the dead former MC President, which is found and read by the son/VP of said dead former MC President, and which conflicts said son/VP even more).

There are more parallels but I think you get the point.

Hey, if you’re gonna rip off someone’s storyline, who’s better to rip off than the Great Bard himself (who, by the way, is also accused of being a first class storyline ripper-offer in his own right).

Yeah indeed, it’s a raunchy, guns/drugs/sex-laden American version of Hamlet (heck, to make sure we slow on the uptake Americans didn’t miss the Hamlet connexion, Mr Sutter even titled the last two episodes of Season Four as “To Be – Act I” and “To Be – Act II” for us).

I haven’t watched such a deviantly fine contemporary adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s plays since My Own Private Idaho (yeah, I know — Keanu Reeves. But hey, his “style” of acting works in this flick and, besides, it also has River Phoenix (MHRIP)).

Yes sir (that would be a non-gender specific “sir”), Sons of Anarchy just about has it all; all, that is, except…anarchy.

Sure there’s all the killing and all the other subversion of societal “norms” one could imagine, but all that is done within the context of maintaining a structured and orderly, albeit somewhat illicit, motorcycle club. And clubs, especially those that are guided via vote and majority rule like the SAMCRO is (if you aren’t an SOA fan, you’re probably just as confused about the meaning of SAMCRO as I initially was when I first started watching the show…if you want to know what it means, ask Mr Google like I had to), represent anything but anarchistic ideals.

Clubs, especially those of the motorcycle variety, do not represent anarchy, they represent democracy and freedom.

And democracy and freedom, damn it, represent America!

Yes, the Sons of Anarchy, with its British leading man, and its British-owned storyline, and its Irish Republican Army and Mexican Drug Cartela dependencies and connexions–er, connections, is about as American as any television series could ever strive to be…

Or not to be.

Uhm, yeah…

Oh well, I tried.

While my dubious and corny conclusion may be in question, there is no question that, with Sons of Anarchy, Hollywood has served up yet another feast of a show for us turkeys to feed upon in our unending quest to fill our insatiable viewing appetites.

And for that, I also am thankful.

~~~~

Rating System:
★ = Unwatchable
★ ★ = Poor Show
★ ★ ★ = Average Show
★ ★ ★ ★ = Outstanding Show
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ = Exceptional Show

Toward the Happy End of Legislating Morality

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You may be happy or sad over the reelection of Barack Obama.

I, for one, am happy.

You may be happy or sad over the reelection of the Congressional Incumbents.

I, for one, am sad.

And, you may be happy or sad over the historic legalization of gay marriage in Maryland and other states and the legalization of the limited recreational use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington.

I, for one, am beyond happy; in fact, I am completely and blissfully ecstatic.

Now, since I am happily married and have been so for over two score, and since my lung disease prevents me from inhaling any kind of smoke and my high liver counts discourage me from introducing THC into my system by any other means, I do not foresee me benefiting physically in the least because of the legalization of gay marriage and the decriminalization of marijuana use.

But I do benefit from it.

All Americans benefit from it because it represents a new mind set in our country.

A new hope.

Millions of Americans voted in this election to begin the end of legislating morality.

Yes, there will be legal challenges and set backs to these recent advancements toward the protection of our basic human right to live a life as we choose to live it.

Yes, we still have many states to go and many votes to cast before all Americans’s have the right to be human as each sees fit.

But we have just made a significant advancement, an advancement which sets the momentum toward even further advancement, and which minimizes the chance for significant setback.

And I, for one, am very happy about that.

Insurance Insures Ensures My Frustration

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Back in February of this year, I posted the following gripe to my personal facebook page (as opposed to my public facebook page):

I am fortunate to have a rather decent long-term disability policy with Mutual of Omaha, which I, thankfully, purchased through my former employer prior to the diagnosis of my cancer.

One of my frustrations (of several) with the policy is, though, that Mutual of Omaha required/forced me to apply for federal Social Security disability compensation at the onset of my claim. Once approved, Mutual of Omaha then began deducting the amount the federal government pays me from what they pay me.

That seems like such a scam to me; however, from what I have been able to find out, it appears to be a legitimate scam.

Legitimate does not always equate to being right.

Regardless, since the American federal tax payer is providing nearly 33% of my disability compensation, I suppose it is incumbent upon me to say thank you to them for their support.

Thank you, American federal tax payer.

I would like to add an update to that gripe:

Back in May of this year I found out that, because I had been collecting Social Security disability payments for two years (which I was forced to apply for—see above), I would now be forced to apply for Medicare health insurance. Well, technically, I wasn’t forced to apply for the government-sponsored program, however, if I had chosen not to, I would have been dis-enrolled from my primary insurance program, Tricare, which is administered by the US Family Health Plan.

So, of course I applied for Medicare.

The fun part is, not only do I have to pay an additional $100.00 a month (well, technically I am not paying out the funds; they are automatically deducted from my monthly Social Security Disability payments—six in one, glass half empty in the other) for the government program on top of the premiums I still have to pay for Tricare, I am not allowed to use the government benefits which I am forced to purchase.

Ah yes. I must always remember…pain is just a loving reminder that I’m still alive.

Consider Yourself Warned!

Okay, I’ll admit—maybe Medicare will come in handy some day as a backup for Tricare.

But still…it’s all a little too hokie and borderline scam for my taste…

From Poem Man – Petey Peter the Garlic Eater

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Petey Petey the Garlic Eater
Petey Petey the Garlic Eater

My review of W. Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece OF HUMAN BONDAGE reminded me of “Petey Peter the Garlic Eater,” a poem I wrote and which was included in POEM MAN, a children’s poetry book my family and I published back at the turn of the century.

Maugham’s classic novel and my less-than-classic poem both discuss, in their one ways, the important matter of addiction and dependency. In Maugham’s story, we find that, because of the protagonist Philip Carey’s love for Mildred, a love so strong she becomes his addiction (his bondage), he nearly destroys his own life. In my poem, we find that both Peter Peter’s excessive love for pumpkins and Petey Peter’s excessive love for garlic, addictions in their own rights, destroy, if not their own lives, then the lives of those around them.

Petey Peter the Garlic Eater

Petey Peter the garlic eater
Sat right behind me in class.
And if he wasn’t busy boisterously burpin’,
He was busy passin’ poisonous gas.

I couldn’t concentrate on my studies
Because of the stink he emitted.
As a result I failed all my classes.
As for graduation, I wasn’t permitted.

Now, if you’re a lover of riddles and rhymes
You might just remember his name.
Cuz his great, great, great, great, great, grandfather
Is famous for a name just the same.

But their names are their only sim’larities,
For they both liked to eat different treats.
Old Peter Peter preferred to eat pumpkins,
While it was garlic young Petey did eat.

Though I can’t imagine eating pumpkins
Unless smashed and baked as sweet pies.
But I do wish young Petey had eaten them,
Cuz his garlic breath always drew flies.

But pumpkins, too, can bring trouble.
It’s cuz of pumpkins old Peter lost a wife.
I guess if you do too much of anything
There’s a chance it could ruin a life.

It’s cuz of Petey’s stinky garlic breath
That every single class I did fail.
And it’s cuz I dropped out of grade school
That I eventually landed in jail.

But as for Petey, he invented a breath mint.
And it earned him a million or two.
And he married the great, great, great, great, great, granddaughter
Of the old lady who lived in the shoe.

Exploiting the Crisis

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Rahm Emaneul, President Obama’s first Chief of Staff, was famously quoted as saying, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste” in response to the financial meltdown of 2008.

I imagine most would regard that quote disdainfully—a little too Machiavellian for their pleasant palates, perhaps.

But you know what? It is that exact mentality towards life in general that I have tried to apply to my life over the years, and I have been trying even harder ever since I was diagnosed with cancer and lung disease.

Because let’s face it, regardless whether your palate prefers pleasantries or not, the saying that we all know, every single one of us, that expresses so well about the horrible inevitables that life sometimes trips us up with is not “Flowers Happen!” or “Perfume Happens!” No, the saying we all know and have probably even declared from time to time in our sometimes horribly inevitable lives is:

“SHIT Happens!”

And do you want to know why we say it?

That is a rhetorical question because I know you all ready know.

We all know the answer because no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we study to get good grades, no matter how many hours we put in at work to make the money that we use to build our little nests for which to lay in our little eggs, no matter how well we plan and believe we are prepared for all the horrible inevitables we find in our paths, sometimes life can really stink.

And sometimes it can really, really stink. Sometimes life can be so smelly our noses cannot even become desensitized to it. Sometimes the smell is so bad it seems like it has become our permanent atmosphere. And in order to survive, we have to breathe it in no matter what, knowing that each breath we take is poison and will make us gag, or even kill us.

Now that is one stinky life, in my blurry view.

Fortunately for me, one of the side effects from all of the shit that has been happening in my life lately is that I lost both my sense of smell and taste.

Pretty handy when life smells so badly that you can almost taste it.

Shit happens. Yes it does.

Another less offensive way to those whose sensitivities are easily offended, and less poetic, too, of saying the same thing would be to say that life is nothing more than moving from one crisis to the next.

I guess how we manage life, then, is dependent upon how we define and deal with crises.

I am not sure how you define and deal with yours, but I define my crises as “inevitable opportunities” and, like I all ready more than alluded to with the title of this article, I deal with them by exploiting the hell out of them.

For instance, this blog is nothing but a pure and simple exploitation of the biggest crises that I have ever faced in my life.

I have been exploiting the hell out of my cancer and lung disease as much as I can. Hell, I tell you exactly as much in my cheeky, self-infatuated, hand-written blurb about me under my obviously intentionally depressing looking picture of me, used only to get you to feel sorrow for me so that you will be more compelled to read my exploitative writings.

But, there’s more to the exploitation than that.

I may sarcastically say I am exploiting my disabilities by trying to get you to feel sorry for me, but what I am really doing by all that nonsense is attempting to cope with my insecure feeling of trying step out in my new life as a writer and an author. It’s all pretty scary for me.

What I really mean when I say I am exploiting my disabilities is that I am trying as best I can to take advantage of the opportunities my crises have provided.

And the opportunities are many.

Do you think I really would have been able to pursue my life-long love of writing as aggressively as I am doing now had I not become stricken with cancer and then a chronic, debilitating lung disease?

I think not, so I am exploiting the hell out of my disabilities to blog and to facebook and to tweet and to finally publish the novel and poetry collection that I had never been able to finish before because life had always gotten in the way.

Do you think I really would have had the time to share each day and grow in partnership and friendship and love with my wife and children had I not become stricken with my diseases?

I think not, so I am exploiting the hell out of my disabilities by waking each day looking for new ways to love more and to be more loving and to continually grow as an individual.

I could give many other examples of how exploitative I am and how I am not letting my crises go to waste, but these will do for now.

And sure, sometimes the smell of the crises in my life are so overwhelming to me that I become numb and despondent from the smell, but those days, too, are nothing more than smaller crises that must be dealt with in the same manner as all the others: by realizing that no matter how hard I try to be positive and productive, sometimes it—my life—will just hurt too much and I am going to become deeply depressed and I am going to feel so sorry myself for being so unlucky and I am going to feel so resentful towards you for being so lucky and I am going to sit in my cocoon-like chair and let myself sink into a almost inescapable (so far) black hole of depression.

It happens. I get depressed. And I realize it will continue to happen to me from time to time until a cure is found for my lung disease.

But I accept that it will happen.

And when it does, I will deal with it by exploiting the hell out of it.

~~~~

Oh, by the way.

Now that I got you feeling sorry for me…

How about reading [download id=”7″] and letting me know what you think of it? 😉

Seiko

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In Japan, today is the forty-ninth day since the death of my mother-in-law, “Mother,” “Okaa-san,” “Obaa-chan,” Seiko. Today is a special day where, in Buddhist ceremony and belief that on the forty-ninth day after passing the soul is no longer bound by karma, Seiko’s ashes can now be permanently interred. Unlike her funeral ceremony where many of Seiko’s family and friends and admirers attended to show their love and respect for her, today’s ceremony is a smaller, family-focused occasion.

How I wish I could be there with the family today to also show my love and respect for her, and to be closely surrounded by them all during this time.

But I cannot. So I think fondly of her and I pray for her and I pray that the pain of her passing will quickly ease for those of us who love and miss her so.

Seiko embodied and lived the values and qualities in character and of action that I wish I possessed as an individual and that I wish I had been able to live throughout my life.

I would have liked to have drawn a picture of her to include here, however, no matter how hard I try, I find that my eyes are too bad now and my hands shake too much that my efforts to capture her beauty, not just her physical beauty, for that she certainly had, and for which her daughter, my wife, also possesses in a very close likeness of her mother, but mostly it is Seiko’s spiritual beauty, which was profound and deep, that, regardless how well my eyes can focus or how steady my hands can draw, I am unable to, nor would ever be able to, capture in one of my feeble drawings.

So I share my loving memory of Seiko in a poem, a poem that falls well short of capturing the good and positive life that she lived, a life which touched and comforted so many in so many different, known and unknown, ways, but a poem which, nonetheless, comes closet to expressing my feelings and my love for her.

Seiko, may God continue to, and forever bless you with Eternal Peace, Happiness, and Love.

Like Incense, You Burned

 
Like incense, you burned
true, steady, reliably,
patiently purifying the world around you
with a bright, burning intensity and passion
and unending purpose
that only the gods could comprehend.

Like incense, you burned,
not for yourself but for life,
all of it.
You burned with love for each of us,
for everyone.
You burned with a love that transcended all boundaries
and all languages,
a love that transcended space and time.

Like incense, you burned,
and as you did
your presence permeated its surroundings
and filled it with your sweet soothing sensitive balm,
a healing balm,
a mystical balm,
a beautifully fragrant balm that will last and linger deep within the senses
and the soul of the universe
for all eternity.

About a Fanboy

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I am fortunate to have many interests and loves in my life.

One of them is Music.

I love music like it’s nobody’s business.

At least that’s what it says on my About page, anyway.

And it’s true. I love all kinds of music. I especially love Rock music—particularly of the Indie variety—and Bluegrass music—particularly of the Traditional variety—and Classical music—particularly of the Baroque variety—and Rap music—particularly of the Gangster variety. I prefer my music new as opposed to old and live as opposed to recorded. And I’m always a sucker for musical street performers—anyone who has the stones to put themselves out there in front of the unsuspecting and merciless public like that, regardless of what they are playing, regardless of how good or bad it sounds, will always get a grateful round of applause and a sympathetic buck or two out of me.

But when it comes down to it, I’m not really that picky at all about my music. In fact, I regard my relationship to music just as I do my relationship to food: It is absolutely critical for my survival and, if I am given the choice, I will always choose that which pleases my palate the most; however, when I don’t have the choice, I will thankfully eat whatever is on my plate and I will often ask for seconds.

In regards to music, my eyes are rarely, if ever, bigger than my stomach.

*

I have a decade or so worth of pleasant memories from my early youth of cheesy Top 40 Seventies music playing (streaming?) constantly on my family’s kitchen radio. The station on the dial back then was always on an AM station (the early Seventies was in the pre-FM era don’t forget) called CKLW, which was broadcast all the way out of Windsor Ontario, Canada.

That’s right, I said Canada. For those of you younguns who know nothing about the power of the AM signal and its history in shaping America’s musical soul, you might want to take the time to learn a little bit about it.

While an AM signal may be powerful, if you’re picking it up after it has skipped and reflected and refracted its way over long distances, like say from Canada across Lake Erie to Ashtabula Ohio, it sometimes—okay, it mostly—tunes in a little garbled sounding, a little shaky sounding, a little like these-crazy-Canadian-DJs-warble-like-they’re-aliens-from-outer-space sounding.

However, to me, that was part of its appeal.

It was pretty cool as a kid to listen to a radio station beaming in from a foreign country, crappy signal and all. It was as if I was the Repressed Underaged Dissident secretly tuning in to Radio Free Canada to listen for the songs with the secret instructive codes as I worked to fight and overthrow the Repressive Parental Establishment.

Okay…you’re right…as a kid I didn’t think about that kind of stuff at all.

That was just me as an adult projecting a somewhat skewed romantic idealism back on my very normal youth. It was more like that was the only station there was to listen to so that’s what we listened to. No romance there but when that’s all you got, then that’s all you know, and that’s all you expect, so I was perfectly content with the quality of the sound that I was listening to at the time.

I still can hear the station’s jingle as clear as ever (or as clear as an AM radio signal can be): “C-K-L-W, The Motor Cit-eeee…”

And let’s not forget those goofball schticky commercials they used to play: “…that Merollis what a great great guuuy!”

Good times.

But I guess you had to be there to understand.

*

Listening to crazy silly Top 40 Seventies music non-stop between the ages of five and thirteen (I was 13 in 1978 and, if I remember correctly, 1978 was about the time that FM radio and a station called K104 out of Erie PA entered my life) had to have done some kind of permanent brain damage, no?

Yes, I suspect it was those crazy silly Top 40 Seventies songs pouring non-stop out of that tin-can-sounding kitchen radio that set the foundation for my love of music.

And I also suspect it was my mother.

My mother was always singing songs of her generation—partial clips of songs from Bobby Vinton – “Roses are red my love, violets are blue…” or Frankie Valli – “Dawn, go away I’m no good for you…” or Neil Sedaka – “They say that breaking up is hard to do…” or many other singers of the Golden Oldies era whose songs are forever embedded in my brain.

And she liked to listen to the radio and sing along and dance and happily shuffle and scoot around the kitchen as she cooked and cleaned.

When she sang along with the contemporary songs on the radio, she always would get the lyrics wrong and it would always drive my sisters and me crazy.

But in a good way.

I have to laugh now because I am completely guilty of driving my kids crazy for the same kind of reasons.

What is it about parents that make us so embarrassing to our children?

Speaking of embarrassing your children, not only did my mother like to dance around the kitchen by herself, she also liked to far too frequently haul me out onto the living room dance floor to dance the jitterbug with her. In retrospect, I suppose I actually enjoyed it…at least up until I hit puberty and transformed into one of those unbearable passive aggressive teenage turds. But by that time, the damage had been done: I was well on my way to becoming a music junkie.

And speaking of dancing, ask my sisters about our Saturday Night Fever living room dance floor moves.

Awkward.

*

As a teenager, I was pretty agnostic about music. For the most part, whatever was on the radio was good enough for me. But I did collect a few albums that I pretty much wore out, which, I guess, is indicative of where my musical preferences were first defined, and from which they were developed.

The first album I can remember really latching on to was my parents’ eight-track tape of The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits. That album was an epiphany to me. Little Deuce Coupe, 409, I Get Around, California Girls…pure musical bliss.

As for eight-track tapes—what an unfortunate but necessary period in the evolution of music, I suppose.

In vinyl, my favorites were Queen’s “The Game,” Alice Cooper’s “Billion Dollar Babies,” and Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” albums.

I had many cassette tapes, but my favorites were anything by ACDC with Bon Scott as the lead, especially their “Highway to Hell” album, Van Halen’s self-titled first album, The Cars’ self-titled first album, and Rush’s 2112 and “Moving Pictures” albums.

All very much in the mainstream, I admit; but hey, in my view it doesn’t matter what stream you’re fishin’ your music out of as long as the fishin’ is good.

*

As an adult, many singers have left an impression upon me over the years, but there are three who were able to leave more than just an impression—with their voices and artistry, they were able to weave themselves and their music into the very fabric of my soul. A dorky-clichey thing to say, I know, but true, nonetheless.

The three singers are:

  • Morrissey – the depressingly uplifting androgynous punk pop rock seething soul singer
  • Tom Waits – the harsh-voiced hobo of haunting harmony
  • and, of course, Kurt Cobain – the king of pain…excruciatingly painful and pleasurably addictive pain.

I could have almost just as easily listed Tupac and Beck and several singers who mean so much to me, but it is Morrisey, Waits, and Cobain who have made the biggest musical impact on my life and who most deserve my public recognition and admiration.

I am sure their publicists have called them all ready to let them know the unique and distinctive honor I have just bestowed upon them.

Well, perhaps Kurt has yet to receive the call.

You never know.

Okay, not a very original list, I concede. Probably a good chunk of folks from my generation would come up with the exact same three. However, I don’t so much see that as a knock on my originality as it is an affirmation of their power and influence on a critical, sometimes cynically so, and scarred generation that had to endure the unbelievably bizarre and oftentimes downright embarrassing pop music of both The Seventies (Bay City Rollers anyone?) and The Eighties (A Flock of Seagulls anyone?).

Back in the late eighties and early nineties when I first began listening to Morrissey, Waits, and Cobain, their individual styles were completely unique and their influence was at their greatest (Waits began his career began in the early Seventies as a jazzy cool piano crooner, but it wasn’t until the Eighties and his release of Swordfishtrombones when he began transforming his sound and really began hitting his stride; one could argue that Waits is still just as influential now, if not more, as he has ever been).

It was when I had just recently been promoted to adulthood status and was still learning the ropes of life when I became a devoted fan of each of the three singers. To me, back then, they were the most original mind twisting turning embarrassingly revealing artists I had ever heard.

Their indelible stain on my life is obvious and distinct.

*

My transformation from a passive listener of whatever pop crap corporate America shoved at me on format radio to an active seeker of new and visionary sounds began when I joined the navy in 1983:

– While attending my navy service school in Pensacola Florida, my first roommate, after a long, persuasive campaign, turned me on to such groups as Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and Yes.

– A lifelong buddy who I met at my first duty station in Washington DC and who I am so thankful to have recently reconnected with online turned me on to the likes of Steely Dan and Supertramp and Led Zeppelin and insisted, and still does I am certain, on nothing but the highest artistic and technical standards in his music.

– But it was while assigned to my second duty station in Kami Seya Japan sometime in 1986 that my musical interests really began to, paradoxically, both broaden and refine. Again, it was another roommate who deserves much of the credit, and who also happened to be a “Cleveland kid” like myself (he understood all of my regional cultural references and even did a great impersonation of those ubiquitously annoying Rick Case commercials–“HI! THIS IS RICK CASE!”). I credit him for turning me on to two out of the three most influential musical acts in my life: The Smiths/Morrisey and Tom Waits. I never was able to be as demanding of my music or its sound as he was—I was and continue to be way too lazy for all that effort. Consequently, he once accused me of having a “barbaric ear” when I told him I couldn’t tell the difference in sound quality between his old stereo and his upgraded and very expensive, new stereo system (I assume I “developed” my barbaric ear by listening to and being content with that wonderfully crappy Canadian AM signal for so many of my formative years). Boy, was that a mistake. I don’t think I ever regained my credibility with him after that. But I definitely did learn to be more musically discerning from him, and for that, I thank him, as I thank all of you who have guided me and instructed me all throughout my musical evolution.

– It was during my last duty station in the navy that another enduring buddy of mine (surprisingly he endures even though he’s from Michigan—Aaaach! Spit!—sorry, had to get that nasty southern canadian taste out of my mouth after saying the “M” word) who, with his deadpan spot-on humor and hilarious outlook on life and (begrudgingly, and somewhat enviously, I admit) deep and broad and understated intellect, was always turning me on to some of that new and good stuff. Among other musical groups and singers, I give him credit and especially thanks for introducing me to a group called Cake (I also “blame” him for addicting me to a couple of my now can’t-live-without-authors, two of whom are David Sedaris and Tom Robbins…but we’ll save that discussion for another day and another overbearingly long and boring article about my literary reminiscences).

*

Since I don’t get around too much anymore and I do not have too many opportunities to make new friends who can expose me to new sounds, I am very fortunate to have such an intelligent and creative and gifted family. It is my wife and three children, each with their own unique tastes and deep love for exceptional music from whatever genre it may be found, who are now my constant goto sources for the new and the different and the good.

It is my wife who has instilled in me a love for all of the finer and refined things in life, and music is no exception. It is from her that I have become a classical music junkie. I can get lost for hours with the headphones on listening to Bach and Vivaldi and Mendelssohn and all of the other universal geniuses whose names I can never remember. And when I am not listening to them in isolation, it soothes me to hear my wife’s stereo, forever fixed on the local NPR Classical Music station, constantly floating out wonderfully timeless melodies into the atmosphere of our home.

And it is from my children’s influence and advice that I have grown to love and depend upon the likes of Bright Eyes and Modest Mouse and Blink 182 and Boxcar Racer and most recently Sun Kil Moon and Jose Gonzalez and I cannot wait to find out what they will turn me on to next.

And if I never discover any new music for the rest of my life, I will alway have my boys’ band The Northcoast to listen and groove to and to be thankful for.

*

Some say that rock is dead.

That is debatable.

But the possibility of discovering that next fresh new sound that will take my life in new directions is not debatable. That possibility will never die, at least not within me.

For it is those kinds of possibilities in life, musical and otherwise, that I live for.

Because I have so many interests and loves in life, life affords me so many possibilities.

Because I have so many possibilities, I have so much to live for.

And, since I have so much to live for, I am very aware of how fortunate I am.

Sure, I have had my share of ups and downs and I will continue to have them, but I have always been a fortunate man.

Just take one look at my beautiful family and my comfortable home and my supportive friends and my interesting work experience and and my enduring educational experiences and my distant travels and even my goofy dogs and so many other things that I call mine and that are priceless to me, and you will see my fortune and you will understand just how fortunate I am.

If you think I am talking about money, then you have yet to build your fortune.

I feel sorry that some people live such unfortunate lives.

If it didn’t make me feel so happy and lucky and, in all honesty, a little cocky, I could almost feel guilty for how fortunate I am and for how good life has always seemed to treat me.

But I feel no guilt because it takes hard work and commitment to build a fortune.

Yet I do feel thankful. Very thankful.

And I am especially thankful that Music is one of the many valuable shares within that vast and forever-inflating fortune called my life.

Yes, I am a fortunate man, indeed.

And yeah, I do love music like it’s nobody’s business…