Throw Your Arms Around Me

NOTE TO READERS: if I write something in italics and parenthesis... please imagine me looking around to make sure no one's paying attention to me before whispering the thing I'm saying in parenthesis as you read it.

Neil Finn then

Are you familiar with Neil Finn? Maybe you know of his name because he recently joined Fleetwood Mac. Maybe you're familiar with his solo career or one of his more well known bands, Crowded House or Split Enz.

In the early to mid 80's I had an awakening to music... I went from being a more or less vapid listener of whatever was the cool thing based on the folks with whom I surrounded myself to discovering a combination of sound and content. I needed something other than dance music. I needed something other than rhythm and melody. I needed poetry. I needed content. And I needed something that I could imagine myself singing in front of an audience as they admired me and my cool band. Oh don't pretend you didn't do the same thing with whatever your musical choice was.

If you follow my blog at all then you've already heard about this when I talked about "the The" and if you recall that was 1986. Two other bands I had discovered in 1986 was "Hunter's & Collectors" and "Crowded House". So while my peers were listening to Eddie Murphy... yes that Eddie Murphy, sing my girl wants to "Party All The Time" or Prince singing "Kiss" or maybe even Steve Winwood singing "Higher Love", I was listening to something else.

Neil Finn now

Not to single out these two bands that I had mentioned... there were some great tunes out there that crossed genres like "Sledge Hammer" by Peter Gabriel or "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys and a whole slew of others.

With myriad hits like "World Where You Live", "Don't Dream It's Over" and "Something So Strong"... Crowded House was an instant Success. It didn't hurt that they had the street cred of Neil Finn from the already successful Split Enz, New Zealand's most famous and successful band ever... well at least in 1986. But a lesser known member of the band was Nick Seymour. We'll come back to him in a little bit.

Hunters & Collectors

Hunters & Collectors, another band from down and under hit me from out of the blue with a song that punched me in the gut, made me want to sing and made me want to do that weird thing I called dancing and most people probably called "Bil having some kind of seizure again" and it made me feel a little... (dirty). The song... introduced to me as "The Slab" was originally titled "Betty's Worry" and had a specific lyric that if one thinks about it... tells you what the song is about.

(Here we go)
Oh yeah
Better get my head down there
Oh, where?
Down there in that cavern where heaven grows

Okay, I'm leaving that there for you all to figure out for yourselves. But man does that video reek of the type of male behavior that's been rampant in the news of late.

Back to Hunters & Collectors for a moment. The lead singer was Mark Seymour... older brother to Nick Seymour mentioned earlier as a member of Crowded House. Mark had this great song, originally released as a single and played a little harder and faster, it was re-released in 1986 on their "Human Frailty" album and then again in 1990 as a slightly better produced version. The song was called "Throw Your Arms Around Me" and while I imagine it was probably well known in Australia and possibly throughout the UK and Canada... it was a much lessor known song here in the States... that is until it was covered by Neil Finn.

Neil Finn essentially covers the mellower version and it's also been covered by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam as well as several others... usually from Australia or New Zealand where the song is more of a national classic despite never having been a hit by it's original performer.

These days I hear it a lot while listening to 92.5 the river and its been on my mind that I'd like to get the Hunters & Collectors version out there again. I know that won't happen... but at least you now know it exists and if it's a song you dig.... maybe you'll go check out the original(s).

In Autumn

I meant to write this earlier this week... or even within the week prior. Specifically so I could post it no later than yesterday, October 8th 2018. This is not a day without significance, this is not a week without significance. This is not a month without significance.

I have a love hate relationship with fall and particularly the September October stretch. As autumn rolls in and the summer fades away I always feel a certain melancholy or the feeling of love lost, as if I had spent the spring falling in love, the summer adoring my love and early autumn finds my love's full potential as the foliage bursts into fiery reds, orange and yellows. But as the leaves fall away bare tree branches seem to be pointing to the oncoming cold and lonely winter sky. Hibernation is nigh. Time to gather... gather my thoughts, harvest my emotions, process them for the winter pondering while I await the spring and with it, my new love.

That's probably far more revealing than I should ever be... you're welcome.

Thirteen years ago, as Meg was spending countless winter and spring hours with her mom, who had a stroke just before Christmas, I was working on the bits and pieces of a dream. As Meg spent the spring-summer stretch losing her mom, we were in the throes of construction... in more ways than one. As autumn approached and Meg's body was building a baby we were assembling the final components of our small business and on October 8th of 2005 we opened a little tea house called Licorice & Sloe Company. One of the finest endeavors I would ever undertake. The baby was pretty cool too.

Ten years and a week ago we closed the doors to said small business. I could talk about all of the reasons why, but they don't matter anymore... only the memories matter, only the friendships I still maintain from that period of my life matter, only the people who found each other in that tea house and are still connected or eventually married matter. To this day I walk around town or at the grocery store and former customers, familiar but still virtual strangers, approach me to tell me they miss the tea house. Some times they just walk up to me and say... "hey, you're the tea guy." I think that's my personal favorite... it's not a bad thing to be known as the tea guy. The kids that used to work for me would call me Teadog. It became my trail name whenever I hiked. They're grown up and living lives across the united states but they still visit us when they get the chance and we consider ourselves lucky to know them, they are just wonderful people... all of them.

Just prior to ending the Licorice & Sloe Company Tea House, I began to get these severe headaches. I tried dealing with them on my own, but eventually saw a doctor. They never quite figured out what caused the headaches though I have my own theories, but during the doctor visit they discovered I had kidney disease (that's an oversimplification... but let's keep it simple today, ok?). Upon official diagnosis they told me I'd be fine, that they'd give me some blood pressure pills and that would prevent me from needing to even consider dialysis until I was in my late 60's or early 70's. Four years later I was on dialysis and another four plus years later, a year ago this month, I had a kidney transplant.

As this year anniversary approaches and I ponder my last 10-15 years, defined by myriad springs of falling in love, summers of loving, autumns of brilliant colors and winters that run the gamut from frigid cold and deep snow to unseasonably warm and all the ups and downs that filled those years... I feel a little lost for direction. There is this potential for a "reasonably normal life" post transplant, but a wall in front of me of my own making that I can't seem to climb. I want to go do... but do what? I want to not waste this time, but the time I spend not wanting to waste it is wasting that time. I don't know where to begin. I feel stuck in the muck and the mire of my own comfort. I'm incapable of breaking away from this stagnant place. I feel bound and cemented to the earth of my life... like a tree... whose leaves have flashed their brightest colors and are falling away... with winter at my door.

Maybe I'll find answers in the spring.

Daughter

For full effect play this while reading:

To all the boys I've loved before... I'm watching "to all the boys I've loved before". Oh no... I'm not sitting next to Annie while she's watching "to all the boys I've loved before"... it's Saturday morning... my time... the girls are (were) sleeping. I made myself breakfast... really good breakfast... then I Netflixed and chilled alone (what?... it's a thing)... and I chose "to all the boys I've loved before"... it looked cute.... wait, what? Did I just say it looked cute... I.. I.. I meant to say funny... it looked funny.

Last night we went to Mamma Mia, not Mamma Mia 2, Here We Go Again at the movie theater... we did that over a month ago. We went to the live performance of Mamma Mia at the North Shore Music Theater. Not because I was dragged out to see it... because I secretly bought tickets then told Meg & Annie we're going to see it. And just like I do every time... I got teary eyed at any scene that involved the potential fathers and Sophie. While watching Mamma Mia 2, I got weepy at the Donna scene in the church, if you don't know what I mean then you'll need to go see it.

There are times I half expect to die too young, because of my kidney disease, and not see my little girl grow up and fall in love or maybe not but instead become someone who does things that make me so proud that the only possible expression of that pride is through tears. I hope that's never the case... the dying young I mean... not the proud dad thing.

What is it about a daughter that turns a man into a sack of goo, a weepy sentimentalist, and a watcher of Hughsesqueian teenage chick flick romcoms? I wasn't there for Amber's youth, so I never experienced this with her. Charly made me feel the emotions of pride for his achievements through those early years... the preschool drawings and father's day cards. The kindergarten performances.  The excitement in his eyes over things he never saw before. But I didn't turn into goo until Annie. Now I can get weepy at the silliest things. I have to keep tissues in my pocket in case.

I remember the first time Annie saw me get weepy at a movie... she was only about  four or five years old. She asked me what was wrong? I told her the movie made me sad. She came in close as if to hug me with her whole little body, she stroked my cheek as she looked me in the eye and said "oh daddy, it's okay, don't be sad, it's just a movie." Then she followed that up with the best hug I think she ever gave me.

Play this for full effect while reading this part

Then she was in that play where she was a mother mouse who had lost her son, and there's this song playing, you probably know it or at least heard it once or twice if not several dozens of times. Rise Up,by Andra Day. And there's that part where she's not singing words, but that kind of ghostly wooing between the words "and I rise up". Annie's character along with another mother mouse are calling out for their missing sons during that wooing and it just kills me... even thinking about it... I'm a wreck. This is something only a daughter can do to her father.

It probably helps that she's so sensitive. She used to cry when she was so happy that she didn't know what else to do. These days it's a rare occurrence, probably because she's so much more aware of the cynicism of the world we live in and worries about how she might be seen by others. But oh when her heart breaks the only thing that matters is her mothers arms while she cries so hard you can't understand a word she says.

Anyway... I'm a better man for Annie in my life, even if she's turned me into a weepy sack of goo.

Bad Superheroes - a lengthy undertaking

Alia Shawkat as my vision of Wysteria

June 13th, 6:15 AM... I sat in front of my computer as I do several mornings, while drinking my tea and eating my toast, and I began to write about a dream I had earlier that morning.

In the dream, young Humans With Abilities (HWA) are on the rise and there is general concern about knowing who has abilities and what those abilities are. It’s a natural concern that one can see would literally take place in a real world scenario of this nature. So there is a branch of the government created that tries to monitor these HWA and furthermore make determinations on which of these are of a quality that is potentially dangerous.

In my dream there was a “superhero” named Wysteria (I don’t know why), who wanted to make more of these young “superheroes” active. There was this committee within the above mentioned branch of the government that determined whom among the people with special abilities qualified as a hero and who didn’t. One woman within the committee said “these young people with abilities aren’t superheroes, they are special and therefore have special needs. These are young people with special needs.”

Awake, but with that dream very much on my mind I thought to myself... In a world of superheroes, they can't all have amazing talents. I like the idea of lesser talented humans with abilities forming a superhero team, where they need to rely on each other in order to get the job done.

Because of the dream I started to create this list of “bad superheroes”, heroes that weren’t particularly useful, but had the desire to do good and when paired up with other superheroes of a similar caliber could actually make a difference.

For example:

Earlier today I was walking and talking with Annie and she told me a story about a mega hop scotch game she was setting up for the kids to play at her summer camp. I hear Hop Scotch and I think... Hop Scott, a human named Scott with the special ability to hop like nobody's business, and loves to draw with chalk on pavement. Side note, he was born with an unusual speech impediment that makes his letter Ts, especially at the end of words, sound like the letters "tch" so when he introduces himself as Scott it sounds like Scotch... "I'm Scotch and I like to hop, some people call me Hop Scotch."

Occasionally I come up with only part of an idea, the name but no well defined skill set.

Al Fresco - (nickname - Al) Not sure which way to go with this one. Is he a superhero who’s kryptonite is the indoors? And then what are his super powers? Or does he have an alter ego whose name has something to do with being indoors (Hank Hermit). Or is he a superhero whose powers specifically relate to being outdoors? And then are his powers contingent upon the conditions of his outdoor surroundings?

Sometimes I even have golden nuggets of pure genius.... at least in my own mind.

Naomi Naive - Her superpower is that her belief in things that probably just aren’t true and couldn’t possibly happen seem to be true or to actually happen simply because she believes it’s true. Often these things seem to be just coincidental happenings and highly improbable things that occur, but have nothing to do with Naomi. Still she always seems to be present when they happen, so no one can prove that it wasn’t her belief that enabled the very thing to occur. Dr. Void - Believed to be only a rumor, no one has ever seen Dr. Void and most (perhaps all) superheroes just don’t believe he even exists. But Naomi Naive is a true believer and sure enough, whenever she brings up his name, “Don’t worry… Dr Void is coming, he’ll save us.” something always seems to happen that saves the day.

These of course are just a few examples of some of my superheroes, and I've also created non superhero characters and villains. I've even created a timeline that begins in the 1970's and is currently up to 2041. In my timeline all of our real presidents are presidents in this universe and our current president is not only elected a second time, but during his second term he changes our system of presidential term limits so he can remain president until he either dies or decides to no longer be president and he holds the office until 2029. I haven't decided if he's defeated or killed off yet.

The thing is, while this started off as a goofy joke.. I'm kind of getting into it and the jokes are becoming less frequent and this is turning into something that I'm personally finding quite interesting. I've got twenty two different characters, one that's actually two characters and another that's actually five characters... so you could say I have twenty seven characters. On top of that I have six other characters who exist in theory, but have yet to be named and defined. And as I've mentioned, my time line begins with "Three Mile Island" in the 1970's and runs through 2041 before my main set of characters... a team of gals I refer to as Girl Team Six (GTS), begin their lives as superheroes.

Now if only I had the skill to draw comic book superheroes I'd be all set.

Pizza 101... an idea in the making... of pizza

The meet up to buy ingredients

Recently a friend had asked me to teach him and his girlfriend how to make pizza. Of course I had to do this, not because he was a friend but because I love to teach people anything that I know how to do. I've professionally taught AutoCAD at Wentworth Institute of Technology between 1998 and 2005 and briefly between 2009 & 2010 at both Wentworth and Whittier Vocational High School.  For many years of my career I've held the position of being the guy who knows all of the answers about AutoCAD and how to use it to do (enter any task here) as it relates to what we did at the myriad companies where I've worked.

Prep work

Also during our run of owning a Tea House, I hosted many educational events around making and drinking tea. And of course I have several years of parenting under my belt which often includes teaching my children random things that I know. There's joy in this kind of work because it's not work... it's purposeful socializing and the reward is never the money that I might get paid but the look in a person's eye when they feel a moment of success or perhaps because they just took a bite of some food that they made and didn't believe they could, as was the case with my friend and his girlfriend.

The socializing during the making of and the eating of the pizza included a conversation about teaching people to make pizza. And I'm sure this sounds a bit conceded but I don't mean for it to, the thing is, I've yet to find a pizza at any pizza shop or restaurant that's as good as the pizza I make. And while that might sound conceded, I know in fact that its part and parcel to the success in the pizzas that I make.

More prep

See... I heard myself saying to my students "the most important ingredient in making any good food is confidence." And that was the first time I ever made such a statement. Now confidence alone doesn't make a good pizza, but without it you're relying on pure luck to give you the thing you desire and if you get that once in three times that you try, that would be pretty impressive. But knowing the end result will be great if you apply yourself at this moment will greatly increase the odds that every time you make a pizza it will be at least decent.

Of course I told them the second ingredient was love, or actually they told me because I really said, "Do you know what the second most important ingredient is?" and they all answered including my daughter who was standing by watching and the one thing I know I've taught her is that when I cook for her the first ingredient is always love.

Getting started

So back to teaching people how to make pizza... I think this could be a brilliant idea. I just don't know if there would be any takers. So if you're local to me, want to know how to make a great pizza, and are willing to pay for the ingredients (I'll take care of the confidence but you'll need to meet me half way on the love) let me know. I need to try this a couple of times before I can decide if it's worth making a greater effort to make it an actual thing.

By the way... no one ever taught me to make pizza... I learned through several years of trial and error. My first pizza was made for my girlfriend Sandra when I was 18 years old as a means to not only feed us, but to impress her. It was made with a Pillsbury dough, jarred sauce, pre-grated cheese and some pepperoni. I've come a long way... and you'd be a fool to not take me up on this. To quote one of my students from the other night... "Oh my god, how come this tastes so good?" I told her it was the love.

Unfortunately, we were so busy eating that pizza, we forgot to take pictures of the finished product. If the students share theirs I'll update. (UPDATE: These next five pictures are courtesy of Kyle's GF Erika.)




A little dough tossing



Finishing the margherita pizza



Building the veggie pizza, the organized part



Building the veggie pizza, the sloppy part



The finished margherita pizza



The Students

Assembling ingredients

Pizza 101 with Annie about 8 years ago

The Promise

Promises...

Pocket change in the penny jar of life. Invitations to hold yourself to a level of trust or faith beyond the human condition. Temptations from the Faustian beasties that chase us all throughout our lives. Daughter of commitment, cousin to secret, nemesis to gossip. Loathsome promise. Catalyst of myriad a woeful tale.

I consider myself a cynical man, but I wasn't always. As a lad I found comfort in the ever present arms of my parents, safety in the watchful eye of my lord, companionship with the boys of my village. As a young man I became learned through the guidance of my teachers and found love in my own heart when I promised it to my betrothed.

But as a learned man I discovered truths and developed beliefs that differed from those of my father. I came to believe that my lord was nothing more than a tale taught to those weak of mind. I tried to share this belief with my family, but debate was not as welcome at home as it was in the hallways and auditoriums of my Alma mater.

Thrown to the wolves for my transgressions, I made plea to the families of my village chums for nourishment, but their sons made more than quarrel and left me broken and bruised and alone beyond our village walls.

Rage ran hot through my blood and poisoned my mind with resentment towards my teachers for their twisted truths that tore me from the bosom of all I had known as comfort, safety and companionship. But surely my lover would not fail me. She with whom I made commitment of my companionship. She would welcome the secrets of my knowledge. For I had made promise to share with her the comforts of my hearth, my bed, my kettle and my home.

Alas, bad news travels faster than a man with no horse. I spent too many days in search of a master to serve and too many cold nights without food or drink. Weak and disheveled, I had but a cup to fill with water from unsavory sources and with which I employed many a darkened doorway with outreached hand, reduced to beggar. Finally I arrived at the gilded entry to my lover's family home, but she did not recognize the man who stood before her, only the name she swore to her father that I must have stolen for I was not the man with whom she made promise.

Now wet, cold, unshaven, mud in my beard, cup in hand, in beggars clothes, all my promises broken at my feet and all my dreams beside them. I made one final promise and only to myself, to never put trust or faith in another again. Twenty-five years on and I am master of all that I see and nothing at all. I have two cups now, one for drink and one for tokens. But I stand here before you my dear, knowing your story parallels my own, that you too are broken. I see the mud in your hair and the missing tooth in your far too infrequent smile and break my own promise to myself as I offer you my second cup, this empty doorway and this torn blanket in exchange for the comfort of your arms, for you are the love I have waited for all of my days.

Hair today... gone tomorrow?

Me, 35

Eighteen years ago I shaved my head bald. Not for any particular reason other than I wanted to. Maybe it was some kind of fresh start. The four years leading into this time of my life were actually quite tumultuous, starting with the end of my first marriage and through the greatest mistake of my life, my second marriage, which ended after about 18 months and left me so broken that even today I don't consider myself the same man I was prior to those four years.

There was nothing about that second marriage that mattered to me at all except my son Charly. He was everything to me and was the only real reason I had for living. There's a good story in all of that, but this isn't that story. I suppose it's not a story at all... it's more of a contemplative moment about, of all things, my hair.

I'm not sure if my willingness to discuss my hair is a matter of vanity or more of a coming to jesus moment... whoa... don't get so excited all ye christians, and wipe that drool of your chin. Your numbers didn't just increase by one, I'm still a hardfast atheist, unwavering in my non belief. No... I'm talking about a matter of acceptance of the inevitable... baldness.

Me, first grade

I grew up with a mostly bald father and two mostly bald grandfathers. It's always been an expectation that I will eventually go bald. Although the gift my mother gave me was thick luxurious dark hair. I exaggerate a little.. it was always less than thick... not in the thin and balding way, but in the thin straight strands that used to swoosh around my head if I turned it quick enough. My sister Maryjane ruined that in the summer between my ninth and tenth grade years of school when she convinced me to get a body perm. She was a cosmetologist. That sounds like a lyric to a song, or the opening line to a short story...

"She was a cosmetologist... which led most people to believe she studied the cosmos, especially because of the way she often stared at the stars at night, but that was because she was always hoping the only man she had ever loved would return from his planet soon to whisk her away. In the meantime she whiled away the hours as a cosmetologist... cutting hair... a skill she had learned from her aunt who raised her after her mother had died."

Aren't you just dying to know how the rest of that story goes now? Ya, me too.. alas, I digress.

Me, high school

So my sister gave me a perm, which was supposed to give my straight thin swooshy hair some body, but gave me curls instead... stupid ridiculous curls. That combined with the fact that I grew nine inches between leaving ninth grade and starting tenth grade and literally none of my friends recognized me at first in September when school started.

Did I ever mention that I grew nine inches in just two months and that my feet went flat? It's a mostly boring story consisting of that one sentence that I just wrote. So there's another story for you.

So back to my hair. Eventually I grew out of the perm but my thin straight swooshy hair was never quite the same after that. There's always been an unwillingness for my hair to swoosh, which seems so unnatural to me, but lemons often make the best lemonade and less than swooshy hair seemed to make a better impression on girls than my former swooshy hair, so I moved on.

Me, 19 thru 34

In general I always had a bowl shaped haircut, or perhaps a somewhat football helmet shaped hair cut. But shortly after high school I discovered this amazing product called mousse and I began using it to shape my somewhat flatish hair into something not so flat. Suddenly the whole girl thing stepped up a notch.

My hair was working for me... it could almost  be called good hair, and I used it for every advantage that I could... what with the girls and all. But even at work while I was often surrounded by bald older men and guys my own age with truly bad hair (I worked in engineering and engineers back then always had bad hair) I was often the envy of  many. From those who recalled longingly the days of their youth when they had good hair to those who plotted in quiet evil circles against me out of pure jealousy for my mane.

But I knew this would not last forever and even by the age of 26 I had that thing going on where your hair starts to recede at the sides of your forehead into little inverted V's. My sister Maureen would tease me about balding just from that occurrence, but truth be told all men as they ahem... mature, will get those little V's. After that it's been a long slow road to hair that went from bad to worse. It was actually pretty good for an older guy even about 18 months ago, but then the real thinning began.

Me, last year

A year ago I got a haircut and I noticed it just wasn't coming back in the same. There seemed to be a lot less hair and more glimpses of my shiny scalp through the blades.

I've always told myself that when I start going bald I'm going to go all in. That being said, there was still plenty of hair up there and I wasn't doing a comb-over just to hide the approaching baldness. So I wasn't quite there yet.

Then in October, the transplant, and then the meds that follow the transplant, then the symptoms that come from the meds that follow the transplant, then the realization that one of these symptoms is hair loss.

Now I'm staring at a head with far more shiny spots than a year ago and its starting to feel like I'm dancing around the truth.  I hide it pretty well most of the time, but my hair almost has to be a little dirty to appear thick and so I only shampoo every other day and just get it barely wet the next so I can shape it. Sometimes I skip an extra day of shampooing and just rinse it in the shower to extend the clean but dirty thing a little longer.

Me, this morning

I'm fully aware that I'm in denial, but this is bigger than me. First there's the girls... no not those girls... they stopped checking me out years ago, I mean my girls... Meg and Annie, who both just don't want me to shave my head bald. But then I think back to all of those men who envied me. I almost feel like I have to work at this for them... to give them someone to look longingly at... and of course to give them someone to focus their plots against in their quiet evil circles. I'm serving a purpose by attempting to keep what little hint of decent hair that I have left.

So I ask you my six readers... what do you think? To quote the clash, circa 1982, the year I entered my senior year of high school... the year I ruled the high school... no really, I was the senior class president, so essentially I literally ruled the school, should I stay or should I go now? To milk what limited strands I have for as long as I can, or to accept my fate and shave my head bald?

what What am Am i I talking Talking about About?

I didn't get music. I understood what music was and I got the whole musical instruments and singing thing and music certainly made me feel like getting my groove on, but I didn't connect to it on an emotional level. I didn't become invested in a specific sound or band.

In 6th grade I did find one band that I enjoyed over any other. Electric Light Orchestra... ELO. Now other boys were into The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Eagles, The Doors or locally, Boston, Aerosmith, J. Geils and The Cars. But the closest experience to connecting to music for me was this weird synth-pop, symphonic, chamber musician band that performed songs that sounded like scenes from a movie. They were thought of as "the English guys with big fiddles."

 ELO was no small time, fluff piece, nuthin' of a band. They were as serious as any of those other bands I mentioned, but nobody else that I knew at the time were into them. I was alone in my admiration of their sound. Letting anyone else in middle school know that I was into them could have gotten me laughed out of school. We would had to have moved to another town. I exaggerate of course, but more or less that was how it was. Once again I just didn't get it. I picked the wrong band. I was alone with my Evil Woman, Strange Magic, Telephone Line and I Can't Get It Out Of My Head.

I survived into high school, where I just pretended to like what everyone else liked because I didn't have a better plan. I finished up my senior year in May of 1983 and that same month a new song hit the air waves. "In a Big Country" by Big Country. The very first time I heard it I froze... wait what is this? The hair on my skin stood up. My heart beat changed. I was on drugs. I mean I wasn't but certainly this experience I was having could only come from being on drugs, right? It couldn't be a song that's making me feel this way. I didn't know half the lyrics and still don't today but I would sing at the top of my lungs as I drove my 1973 Chevy Vega down the highway:

So take that look out of here it doesn't fit you
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered

My truest connection to music was born. From there I found my way to Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, The Smiths and many lesser known bands that filled that former emptiness in me that I didn't even know existed until I heard these bands, but it was the summer of 1986 when I first took notice of a song that was very catchy and seemed to align with the way I viewed the world.

"Heartland" by a band with the strangest name of "the The." More of a concept than an actual band "the The" a.k.a. Matt Johnson wrote songs with a socio-political message and love songs that could never be confused with the kind of "Silly Love Songs" Paul McCartney sang about.

Once again I found myself in a small and exclusive group of people who actually knew about "the The" or even got their music. You could dance to it, but it also spoke to you about serious issues if you were willing to listen. Heartland came off the 1986 album Infected, which also included an amazingly introspective love song gone wrong called "Out of the blue (and into the fire)". You can't find the official video on Youtube, but you can certainly hear the song and the lyrics speak volumes about the state of mind of the character in the song who's taking ownership of his dark passenger in the first part of the song, then describes his night of twisted love with a stranger in a strange place as a means of satisfying a need within himself, as a baptism of sorts or perhaps an exorcism.  I feel like I know that guy, like I've always known that guy. I often refer to him as Bob Kluge.  Infected was an amazing album and it made me a true "the The" fan. Listen to some of these reviews that I've stolen from the pages of Wikipedia (thank you Wikipedia):

Sounds claimed that "there's self-controlled passion and strength seeping out all over this thing" while Q described the album as "grim stuff, with the lyrical tension well-matched by the music. Imagine a bizarre collision between Soft Cell and Tom Waits and you might get some idea of the disparate elements sloshing around in each of these songs." Record Mirror opined that "coming to any judgment about this new record is quite daunting. What becomes clear, however, is that we are dealing with something special.

From that point I had to back track to the prior album(s) "Blue Burning Soul" & "Soul Mining". Blue Burning Soul was actually a Matt Johnson Album from before he became "the The" and I'm choosing to leave it there because it's so very different than where he went starting with "Soul Mining" where I recognized the song "Uncertain Smile" from the air play it had received in the previous few years, but it was the song "Giant" That I fell in love with on that album. Approximately nine and half minutes long at about four and a half minutes in the lyrics end and a lead in to a drum solo begins. The drum solo lasts about a minute before the other instruments join back in and the song plays out from there with a repetitive beat and the band members  or back up singers almost chanting a pattern of yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Then "Mind Bomb" came out in 1989 and a mind bomb it was because it blew my mind. By this point I was a full on atheist and I had nothing but contempt for organized religion as a whole, but I specifically despised Catholicism and still do. It felt like Matt Johnson was reading my mind sometimes. Although the first song released was a damaged love song duet with Sinead O'conner called "Kingdom of Rain", the first song I was drawn to was "Armageddon Days Are Here" with this simple but important lyric in it:

The world is on its elbows and knees
It's forgotten the message and worships the creeds

Mind Bomb starts off with three deep and questioning songs about god, the devil, evil, love, truth, beauty, religion, racism, violence, lust, war and social injustice in general. The remaining five songs include an upbeat little diddy about oppression, and then four of the Matt Johnson style love songs that I truly appreciate because they tend to look at the hard side of love. Love can break you, love involves pain, love can be a mind fuck, and Matt doesn't mince words when he sings about love.

What kind of man was I?
Who would sacrifice your happiness to satisfy his pride?
What kind of man was I?
Who would delay your destiny to appease his tiny mind?
______________________________________________________________________

But we couldn't deny it
Because we could not admit it
If our love was too strong to die
Or we were just too weak to kill it
Was our love too strong to die?
Or were we just to weak to kill it?

______________________________________________________________________

Through the ether & the mists of the mind. 

You will come to me, to lay by me side.
To stroke my hair. To cuddle my flesh.
And to quell the torrents in my subterranean depths.

This world ain't strong enough to keep us from each other.
For, we are kindred spirits. Born to become earthly lovers.

______________________________________________________________________

Take me beyond love
Up to something above
Upon this bed
Between these sheets
Take me to a happiness
Beyond human reach

______________________________________________________________________

The force of life
Is rushing though our veins
In and out like the tide
It comes in waves
The drops of semen
And the clots of blood
Which may, one day
Become like us
With outstretched hands
Reaching beyond love
And up to something above

______________________________________________________________________

In 1991 They released a four song EP called "Shades of Blue" with one of my all time fave "the The" songs "Jealous of Youth." This doesn't deserve the level of attention I'm giving to their full albums and they've released other EPs, but this one is important because of "Jealous of Youth".


In 1993 they released "Dusk." Probably their most commercially successful album, they toured this album by opening up for Depeche Mode at the height of Depeche Mode's success. I lived in Seattle at the time and saw that concert in the largest stadium I've ever seen them in. Typically I saw them in places like the Orpheum or the club AXIS. Dusk delivered fewer of Matt's dark observations about the world we live in and offers more of the songs of love he specializes in. These songs tend to see the darker side of love but definitely have moments of hope, as can be heard in "Love is Stronger Than Death."

But, awoken by grief, our spirits speak
"How could you believe that the life within the seed
that grew arms that reached
And a heart that beat.
And lips that smiled
And eyes that cried.
Could ever die?"

Here come the blue skies Here comes springtime.
When the rivers run high & the tears run dry.
When everything that dies.
Shall rise.

LoveLoveLove is stronger than death.
LoveLoveLove is stronger than death.

The whole album is great but my favorites are the aforementioned "Love is Stronger Than Death", "True Happiness This Way Lies" and "Lonely Planet"

A couple of years later they released a cover album of Hank Williams songs called "Hanky Panky." It's a special gift if you ask me but I won't linger on it because it's a covers album. You should absolutely give it a listen.

Then seven years after "Dusk", "the The" released their final album (to date), "Naked Self", which was a hit and miss collection of moody and somewhat droney observations on life, which is pretty much what all of his stuff is, except this one had so few gems compared to the earlier stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love this album, but I can see that it wasn't the genius of "Mind Bomb" or "Infected" and it certainly wasn't the commercial success of "Dusk".

It's been eighteen years since "the The" have toured in the states. Yesterday tickets went on sale at noon. I watched my screen for the two minute countdown and picked out four seats in a relatively decent location. I pressed the button to purchase and got a message that those seats had already been purchased. My screen refreshed and there were about 100 seats left. That whole action took less than a minute, how could there only be 100 tickets left. I tried two more times and failed both times. Finally I picked four seats in four different rows, but each directly behind the other and all four at the aisle. Success. I was nervous for a bit there that I wasn't going to see "the The" this time around. But I'll be there on September 14th at the Orpheum Theater, and I'll drag Meg, Charly & Annie with me.

To Jump or Stay... Enter the Closer.

The other day I mentioned on Facebook that I had turned down a job and that wasn't exactly true... I had never officially been offered the job but all the pieces were lining up when I had decided to pull myself out of the running. But lets back up a bit so I can bring us up to the point that I made the decision and then I'll bring us forward to this morning.

I'm not officially looking for work right now, I'm just constantly aware of opportunities through online search agents that send me notifications on a daily basis of jobs out there that align with my specific skill set. Not to mention a constant barrage of phone calls and email from job shops looking to fill positions with warm bodies, whether they fit the position or not.

It's unusual for jobs in my specific industry to show up on the north shore of Boston, but recently a daily search agent email had a job listed a few miles up the road from my current job and it mentioned many of the right keywords... AutoCAD, Revit, 3D, Navisworks... these are the tools of a coordinator. Curious, I inquired with the agency advertising the position. As we spoke about the position I immediately became aware of what company it was and knew that it wasn't exactly what I did. The agent asked if I would consider the position anyway and I said why not.

A week later I was sitting down with the Engineering Manager for a one hour interview that turned into two and a half hours. I knew walking out that door that he was going to offer me that job. If it wasn't through an agency he would already have made the offer.

At home that weekend I replayed the interview in my head and a little nugget jumped to the front of my brain... "the hours are Monday through Friday, 7:30 to 5:00."  The Monday through Friday part was fine, but what did he mean by 7:30 to 5:00? Were those the hours within which you could do your 8 hour day, or was he saying that literally you were expected to show up at 7:30 and work until 5:00? That's a nine and a half hour work day minus the half hour for lunch and it was a nine hour day, a 45 hour week.

I haven't worked less than 45 hours a week in the past two plus months, but that's because I have too much work on my plate to do less and since my bosses refuse to bring in help, even in the form of an every other week high school co-op student from the local vocational high school I'm stuck doing 45 to 50 hours until we get through this heavy work load patch. Also, if I come in at four or five in the morning I can leave anytime after I put in my 8 hours.

Back on the phone with the agent who sent me to the interview we began discussing salary. Although we discussed this prior to the interview, the agency now felt that because this company picks up the cost of the benefit package, that I should probably drop my salary a bit. That was a little unsettling to me, even though I knew that because they pick up that cost I would literally see an extra 10 to 12 thousand in my hands. I guess I felt like "why should I be punished, to only take home the same money I did last year, because this company decided to pick up the cost of the benefits package for everyone?" Basically that would make the very fact that they do that, no longer a benefit... either way I gave up the 10 to 12 thousand for the benefit. This topic made the hours of the work week fall away from my mind and I needed to think about what I was being asked to do.

I went home that night and reached out to two people with whom I believed I could get some decent feedback and they both helped significantly. I decided that meeting them halfway would be reasonable. I'd drop 5-6K  and hope they'd see that as fair. That settled, I drifted off to sleep... (sound of screeching brakes). Except when I'm asleep the worries of my world find a way to wake me up and now that 45 hour week thing was looming. I needed to know how to read that.

First thing in the morning I sent an email to the agent asking her to clarify the hours I was expected to be there. They knew I often come in early and sometimes leave work early... well after my 8 hours are in, but earlier in the day. They asked the company about the hours and we spoke later that day. As I had suspected you were expected to show up at 7:30 and work until 5:00. Also, you could come in earlier than 7:30, but you were still expected to work until 5:00.

I don't want to seem like a primadonna, but especially after this past decade of long work hours while dealing with health issues and eventually dialysis, after the transplant I made a decision for myself that I was going to do more for me. I have no problem working a 40 hour a week job. I have no problem with working extra hours to meet deadlines and stay on top of the workload as required. But those things should be the exception, not the rule.

It was pretty much at this point I knew I would pull myself out of the running. but the conversation continued and I was reminded that my first 3 to 6 months would be with the agency, and so they started to discuss their salary and benefits. They were officially only offering me a rate that was 86 cents less per hour than my current salary works out to be if you divide the annual by 52 weeks of 40 hours. Then they topped that off with a reminder that after 90 days you could join their health plan. So... i'll make about a thousand dollars less over the six months I work for you than I would just to stay where I am ANNNNNDDDDDDD... you need me to pay for my own health insurance for the first 90 days, which will cost twice as much as I pay now because  my company picks up half the cost. Then I'll transition to the company's payroll, where I'll spend another three months without insurance so I'll be picking up the bill there too... but you've asked me to drop my salary by 5 to 6K so the company will hire me in the first place. So where's the money coming from that's going to pay for my insurance?

OK... I'm out!

I wrote a very kind and apologetic email bowing out, and thanked them for all of their hard work in trying to make this happen. I was honest about my need for 40 hours as opposed to 45. I had also written them a prior email explaining why I had been struggling with some of this relative to my history. They emailed back to make sure that was really what I wanted. I told them yes, and that was it. I then made mention of it on Facebook and though I felt a little unsettled about pulling out, I ultimately felt that it was the right decision. But the job seemed like it would have been great and it seems like a really good company.

Last night my phone rang. I let it go to message. I listened afterwards and it was a new agent from the same company, apparently a "closer"... someone who makes things happen. It sounded like he wanted me to let him take my concerns to the company to see if they would accommodate me. I'm not sure if they just really want me in there to line their own pockets or if the Engineering Manager of the company really wants to see if he can get me to reconsider. Either way... I now have to decide if this is something I want to do again... the thing is.. I don't want to be the guy at the company that has his own set of rules... everybody hates that guy. So of course I have to say no. But then why am I  even considering it at all?