The Path of Thorns

It’s never fair when you’re given the world, and are expected to live up to it.

A year ago now, we lost a King, a leader, a sensation and most importantly, a seemingly wonderful human being.  I can’t imagine being the center of the world’s attention, and then on top of it going through such trouble, despair and confusion.  While still being all of that, for earth to see.  We all like to jump to conclusions, judge as soon as possible, and with that judgment tear people down like moldy old wallpaper.  The second something isn’t what we imagine it to be, when it’s something we can’t understand without tearing down our own walls of perfect image, we condemn and destroy it.

I may be wrong.  This man may have been a sexual deviant, a double-crosser and a disgrace to generations worldwide.  We’ll never really, truly know if he was.  What we do truly know is that he showed the world nothing but love, dedication and endless talent that we ate up and later chewed out when it tasted a little funky.  I myself have dealt with emotional issues, heartache and awful depression.  Letting the world see not only that, but how I’d deal with that, is a trauma none of us could ever begin to imagine.  He dealt with his issues with physical changes, interactions none of us gave any time to listen to or understand (including myself, absolutely), and decisions that were questionable at best.

I was having a panic attack once.  I was in financial distress, dealing with more uncertainty than I’ve ever experienced, and dealing with losses I never thought I’d have to.  If the world saw my reactions to that, and knew nearly every last detail of it, I might have changed myself and made bizarre relations as well.  I nearly lost my world; and when you want that world back, and you don’t know how to, you don’t always know your own reason.  All you know is, you lost something and you want it back.  But you don’t want to be hurtful to anyone, and you don’t want to make a fool of yourself either.  Well, to err is human, and there’s no margin of error when the scale is that large.

This man gave us every last drop of all he had to give.  His talent, his creativity, his ecologic intelligence and passion, and even a good deal of his sanity.  Yes, as we’ve all violently pointed out, he had his mistakes and character decisions that made him far, far from perfect.  But are you?  Am I?

He pleaded with us, with so many of his songs and lyrics within them.  He tried to get us to listen.  And of course we didn’t, myself included; he practically lived in obscurity and financial demise for years before he gave his final breath.  The same market of journalists, TV hosts and press that glorified his imperfect mistakes and actions all of a sudden felt compassion and loss, and gave their best words.  In the world’s best example of not knowing what you have until it’s gone, we lost the Polaris of the entertainment world.  Had we heard him out a little better when he begged us to, maybe he wouldn’t have led such a life of inner misery and with such a lack of self-understanding.

He had everything there was to have, absolutely everything – and I can’t imagine he realized much of any of it.  He paid dearly for trying to go back in time within his own life, with his home, with choices he made, and he knew it.  Still, he died wondering if the world ever even gave a damn about him beyond what he gave and gave until he literally no longer could.

…I take that back.  I saw his final documentary that hit theaters last year, and he had all the heart and talent he ever did, and it made it that much sadder to know that never got a chance to develop again.  While he should have known better in some way, he paid the price of being cast off too soon.

Do we owe his spirit an apology?  Who knows.  Should he have shown remorse for his own trouble?  Yes, and he did plenty of times.  It’s an altogether tragic, sad and confusing loss of one of the best entertainers and activists we’ll ever witness.  And if you scoffed at that last statement, I certainly can’t blame you, but I can’t help but understand and even relate a little to someone as in need of help as they were profitable in their deserved success.

He said it best in his own words, which is cryptic and even more melancholy to listen to now:

Like A Comet
Blazing ‘Cross The Evening Sky
Gone Too Soon

Like A Rainbow
Fading In The Twinkling Of An Eye
Gone Too Soon

Shiny And Sparkly
And Splendidly Bright
Here One Day
Gone One Night

Like The Loss Of Sunlight
On A Cloudy Afternoon
Gone Too Soon

Like A Castle
Built Upon A Sandy Beach
Gone Too Soon

Like A Perfect Flower
That Is Just Beyond Your Reach
Gone Too Soon

Born To Amuse, To Inspire, To Delight
Here One Day
Gone One Night

Like A Sunset
Dying With The Rising Of The Moon
Gone Too Soon

When his sunlight began to dim, we shut our blinds well too soon.  I absolutely hope the anguish you felt in this lifetime is long gone wherever you are now.  Rest in peace and quiet, Michael Jackson.

I wrote in my last post how inspired, original, captivating music is hard to find.  How most newer music doesn’t capture the essence of its ancestral rock and pop originators.  It’s hard, after so much music in this genre has been written over the past several decades, to find a crisp new sound.  Eight out of ten people I know gave up on new music fifteen or twenty years ago.

Stellar Road is not such a band.  It’s a strong and solid argument that they’re just a branch of Dave Matthews, Ben Harper or Jack Johnson.  I can’t stand the last two artists, and I only like Dave a little.  But that’s mostly because most people I grew up with listened to only those few artists for the most part, and most of those people were like James Spader in Pretty in Pink.  So, bad connotation there.

I digress.  Stellar Road’s new self-titled effort is phenomenal.  It’s acoustic rock for the most part, with additional horns and strings as needed.  The songwriting is brilliant, though; their melodies and harmonies are, well, stellar.  They have passion that a lot of newer music lacks; you can hear it loud and clear in tunes like “Try to Be” and “Amazing.”  They’re catchy, but also intelligent; I can imagine an entire amphitheater singing loudly to the chorus of “Shipwrecked” and “Believe.”

They’re bluesier than those in their genre, and you can even hear a little jazz.  Each song is put together carefully with just enough construction and layering to make it strong and brilliant, without overdoing it.  An entire room could dance and lose their minds to their perfected jams in many of their songs, but it’s the intense passion when they let it rip that really captures me.   Daly can croon as well as he can belt out, and the band meshes so well together that you’d think they’ve been doing this for thirty years.

Songs like “Before We Dance” and “Goddamakaway”, on the other hand, put me to ease as well as anything else soothing that I’ve ever heard.  You can imagine them being played on a beach after sunset, after a long and exhausting day.  They sing of love and fun, of the future and the past; never trying to be something they’re not.  I think that stands for something.

Stellar Road is for anyone who enjoys a good rock or pop song.  What’s amazing is that the world doesn’t know them, yet; for now, I’ll enjoy seeing them at Chicagoland bars until some major label realizes these songs have to be truly heard.

Before I critique another album, I’m taking this time to make a point, or statement, whatever it is.  My thoughts are so jumbled and layered that I don’t know if I’ll make more sense to myself than I might right now.  It’s an exhausted argument and a very narrow one as well, but one I feel will always be addressed.

You know who the biggest bands in the world are right now?  That’s right, the same damn ones that have been on top for three, four, five, SIX decades now.  U2.  The Rolling Stones.  AC/DC.  Metallica.  Madonna.  The Who.  Iron Maiden.  Can Phoenix sell out 100,000 seat arenas?  No, but Edward The Great can.  They’re the biggest draws live, and they’re just as big now as they ever were.  These artists and the scores more at their level have sealed their legacies and legends, and have inspired masses and generations, and always will.

Now, granted, they’ve had the time to keep it together, stay together and stay inspired enough to stay relevant.  Time to create these legacies.  But these artists defined their generation, revolutionized music, whether they wanted to or not.  There’s no way to know if something you did will be groundbreaking and a worldwide favorite, but there’s always something magical that happens when it’s made.

These artists are the master at what they do.  Whether it’s brilliant lyrics, defining entertainment, groundbreaking musical talent, they mastered it.  You see them live, they define your own lifetime, they move you, they become a part of your own dreams and loves.

Kings of Leon?  They’re as marginally forgettable as Kingdom Come.  Rihanna?  Incredibly talented, but is the millionth R&B singer to shout out songs about relationships.  Lil Wayne?  I’ll admit that hip-hop has had many brilliant talents in their innovative and culture-defining uprising, people like Russell Simmons, Grandmaster Flash and Dr. Dre, but at what point does it begin to sound like self-obsessed noise?

I don’t write this blog to attack people who live their dreams and make great careers for themselves, and I’m trying to pick my words wisely now.  But there’s a point where you just have to take a leap and say “Will this inspire?  Will this song live on?  What is the point here?”

I’ll also say that artists, many of them, don’t want to lead the pack.  They’re not looking for infamy, or an avant-garde musical lifeline, and that’s fine.  But there’s got to be someone who can take the torch from the artists that have held it for generations.  It’s going to have to happen sometime.  The Rolling Stones are nearing their mortal end.  So is Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page and Roger Daltrey.  Rock n’ roll isn’t old enough to see its direct originators play it through their 80′s, but it’s far from easily possible.

Music isn’t defining anymore.  If it is, I consider myself dated.  Music’s movement has been technological; vocoders and auto-tuners are “in.”  Bands like The Postal Service, Owl City, VNV Nation and Shiny Toy Guns are successful due to their computerized sounds that stem as far back as Nine Inch Nails and before that, 80′s synth pop.

In that, music a continuance.  Maybe that’s all it is.  I don’t know if music is going to define our lives like it did our parents and grandparents.  I think we’re forced to grow up too fast in a harsher reality, and music doesn’t always have the sway it used to.  With more ways to get music out there, with more media and with so much created in an always-corrupt recording industry, maybe there will be no one to step up to the likes of The Beatles.  Then again, we’ve never been able to see what’s to come in music, so why start now?

I’m rambling.  I knew I would.  I guess my bottom line is that I’m bummed I missed Woodstock, missed the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, missed the foundation of bands like Aerosmith, Cream,  Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.  Those bands changed the world.  They’re honored and worshiped today and will be forever.

Is there anyone else coming?  Will my generation and those after have such incredibly earth-shattering swarms of talent that would overcome any dry spell in popular music?  I don’t know, and I don’t see it, and that worries me.

In an age of advanced electronic music, that stems from techno to house to jungle, it’s all too easy to get caught up in gadgets and vocoders, and miss out on the whole purpose of music, which is of course to reflect emotion, thought and personality.  Key word; person.

Owl City’s ‘Ocean Eyes’ is a remarkable and respectable take on emotional electronic music.  “Fireflies” is their biggest hit, discussing the rotation of our world, the colorful symphony of millions of fireflies and how he’s kept them before.  Its music video and lyrics combined paint the image of the imagination of what used to thrill us as children.  I will argue that it is damn hard to bring a refreshing take to nostalgia in a song, but they pulled it off this time.

To me, that’s just one of the many peaks of this album.  The album continues to show an exciting, visual take on the world that we take for granted, and again one that hasn’t been done over and over again.  You would think these guys lay under a skyline all night every night, and let their minds explode.  “I am floating away in a silent ballet” is one of the several brilliant lyrics on the album that just provide an excellent summation of the scenery they show such passion for.   Meteors, stars, the whole non-luminescence we all take for granted.  They connect such nature to love in one of my favorites, “Vanilla Twilight”, as well as on “If My Heart Was A House”, where he dances and embraces under a sun held from a string. Adam Young, the sole member, makes his voice almost as visual as the words sung out of it, as he allows it to travel and echo and carry with the many harmonies he creates on each song, in a perfect order.

I won’t dissect albums track-by-track, because it makes an album all to microscopic.  The best albums are defined as a whole scope, and this album fits that bill when it comes to electronic music.  Again, what makes Own City so unique and outstanding is that they take the largest departure from ‘natural’ sounds in my opinion, that being synthesizers/keyboards, and combine that with the most natural things in the world; our sky, daisies, islands, and insecurity coming down like a tidal wave that myself and many others understand all too well.

It’s music that has very much to do with personal taste more than the quality of the music, so I could see how Owl City could be hated; the bizarreness of their band name, the whole electronic sound, the lack of machismo.  Who knows.  But in my opinion, the album creates a scene that envisions a combat to my anxiety, and brings me to a place where I actually feel relaxed.

I, too, got lost in this silent ballet.

It’s been hard for me to find my words on here.  I’ve spread the word – I fear I’ve lost what little steam I had on here.  It’s so funny how you can have as many interests as I do, and as many opinions as I do, but when given a blank page to write on in recent times, neither come to form.

I’ve done writing exercises.  I’ve spoken to writers I believe in and admire, and I do what they say; just write.  Write, write, and write some more.  Who cares, just write.  It’s fun, but also aggravating, because no matter how much I try not to worry about the substance and stick to just the idea of writing, I want to make the words perfect.   And nothing is perfect.  Everything has its limits.

I’ve been using baseball on here to serve as a segway to a lot of emotions, feelings and psyches.  Honestly, my love of the game is the only sensible reason I have for doing so.  Baseball is a simple game played for simple reasons.  I almost get uncomfortable when a baseball player or coach is grilled on some sort of “mindset” when going up to the plate, or catching a ball, or throwing a pitch.  It’s simple; hit the damn ball, catch the damn ball, throw whatever pitch you know the batter won’t like.  It’s all about whether you can simply achieve that simple success or not.

Maybe that’s why I used baseball, come to think of it; nothing is more complex than human emotion; nothing to me is more simple than a baseball game.  Using something simple to relate something complex makes the task quite easy.

But I’m defining more, and I’m toning up this site more.  It’s not going to be just baseball.  Life can be defined through lots of methods, and I will be using this site to open every door I’d like to.

Stay tuned.

I’ve been watching a lot of Mad Men.  I’m nearly done with the second season.  The show takes place in the early 1960′s Manhattan, at an advertising firm called Stanley Cooper.  It follows an executive there by the name of Don Draper, and the life he leads and the past he fights.

I can’t help but compare myself to characters I watch in my favorite shows.  There are qualities in each character I’ve come to love in each favorite series; I love the living-to-die, gung-ho ferocity of Jack Bauer, I love the power of Tony Soprano, I love the intelligence and leadership of President Josiah Bartlet, and I love how Hawkeye Pierce can turn dark days into light and sarcastic humor.  Each character has taken a lot of pain, and in rising from it, has developed some sort of unique strength and intrigue that keeps me watching them.  Events and life-changing experiences these characters have that you just don’t get to see in this society where everyone shuns their problems away from others.

Don Draper is different.  I like him less than most characters I’ve gotten to know, and I’ll even include all the characters in the thousands of books I’ve read over the years as well.  On the surface, if I knew the man, I’d consider him just another suit.  He’s gritty, he’s tough as nails to be around if you like to be goofy like me, and he cheats on his loving wife with several women that I can hardly stand to watch.  Maybe it’s because my own dad couldn’t stay loyal, and thus it’s hard for me to swallow, but at the very least watching unfaithfulness is tough, and hearing about it makes me subconsciously make a fist.  Not a character you can see me enjoying, clearly; yet, I’m deeply interested in him and what he does and how he lives.

I realized this is for one main reason, at least the only one I’ve thought of; unlike every other character I’ve come to love, I have a connection to him that I don’t with anyone else I’ve watched or read about.  He has no family.  He changed his identity, started fresh after coming home from the Korean War, after a childhood and adolescence where he never found his niche or real home.  So he remade himself that on one hand is a success, and in another is this mysterious and empty darkness that he probably had to assume when he shut his old life away.  After all, you can’t shun the first couple decades of your life completely without either realizing and emptiness, forming an emptiness, or even risking your own emotionality.  I do have more family than Don did, but I know that emptiness he feels.  The same things that haunt him haunt me as well.  The only difference is, I deal with mine by talking about it and making sure I surround myself with great friends and my dream of a girlfriend, and he deals with his by masking himself from everything and fighting his battles alone to the point where no one gets him.

Every emotion is a crossroads; each story is told with each decision made.  Sometimes we deal with it by throwing ourselves into the fires of war, or by making our own army to max out our power, or by joking all the way through until a fifth of liquor becomes a truth serum.  Either way, when someone you’re close to mistreats you, it brings you to this crossroads where you either uniquely build yourself back up from its frayed ends, or you end up mistreating others and never letting anyone know who you really are.  Sometimes the war doesn’t end in your head or your heart until you end the battle for good.

Life feels different when certain people in your life aren’t around.  Not everything has the same feel – the days don’t have the same routine, and it all makes you miss the person more.  Even if it’s just for a brief while.

I haven’t been able to wake up and hear her outside babysitting.  I don’t wake up to the almost-empty coffee pot keeping warm just outside the bedroom.  I don’t hear that pretty laugh, I don’t walk in a room to see her head-over-heels enthralled in her Stephanie Meyer books.  The house doesn’t feel as warm, and many things around the house remind me of her.

It sounds silly – she’s only been gone a short time, and many couples actually get excited about this – but while I’m happy with myself, I’m a whole lot happier in my daily life when I get to see that pretty face on a good day or bad day.  When someone brings that much life and spark into your own, it’s sorely missed when it’s not physically there.

People need personal time, days and nights to themselves, to decompress and gather their thoughts and work on themselves if need be.  Or to just sit and not have to talk or worry about our expressions, or to let a bad mood pass through.

But on a rainy day, or multiple rainy days in a row for that matter, when you’re not working – you wish more than ever that her pillow was back on the bed, her clothes back in the closet and her smile lighting up your day all over again.  It makes you realize how lucky you are and how much that person means to you, and it makes you realize how much loving someone can make you feel that much lonelier when they’re not there for a long time.

I’m a lucky man, and I can’t wait to have my girl home.  I’ll cherish her all the more when she returns.

For twenty-three seasons, X has been a major league baseball player.  A star for many seasons, always reliable, always professional.  Always came to batting practice early, always doing the extra infield drills, always talking to each coach thoroughly, with the eagerness of a rookie, year after passing year.

That’s what made X such a wonderful player, and such a perfect role model.  It doesn’t take a baseball fan to understand the love he had for his craft, for his brethren, for those that loved him as much as he loved them back.  It’s may be talent that allowed him to work his magic with his glove and his bat, but it took character to turn that into the respect and devotion he’s put into his entire carer.

X was finishing up work on his glove one Spring morning, in the clubhouse.  He always used the same mitt; that same old trusty mitt, that’s caught over 10,000 balls in its lifeline.  X was beckoned into the manager’s office, where the door was shut gently behind him.  X stood up and smiled, and put the mitt inside of his duffle bag.  He knew.

“What’s going on, Mr. Coach?” X asked, knowing the conversation that was about to begin.  Yet still respectful, as always.

“X, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m going to try anyway.  The staff and I just put together the 25-man roster, and I just spoke to (General Manager).  This is killing me…but you didn’t have a good Spring, X.  We both know that.  you hit under .100 and could barely chase any fly balls.  If we kept you on this year, everyone would see it would hurt the team, and neither of us want that.  I know you’ve been on this team since half our lineup was born…you know what I’m saying, X.”

X blinked a few times, and looked down, noddling slowly.  “I know, Mr. Coach.  I lost count of how many hours I ice my shoulders and knees these days.  The desire’s still there, so is the passion…but my body isn’t.  You don’t need to say anything else.  I’ll clean out my locker for the kid and fly back to Chicago.  Thanks for letting me play the Spring out, Mr. Coach.”

The coach smiled, with faint tears forming on the sides of both eyes.  He stood up and shook X’s hand gratefully.  “We could have put you on the 40-man roster and sent you down to the minors, but you looked like you were saying goodbye every day already.  You and I go back a lot of years, X, no one will miss you more than I do.  Thank you…thank you.”  The coach took his hat off, holding it in front of his stomach, and let the tears flow.

X was speechless.  He nodded and smiled, and went to open the office door.  As he did, he looked back one more time.  “It’s been a great run, Mr. Coach.  I’m going to go on the field one more time, if it’s alright, and I’ll be on my way.  Give the new kid my regards.”  The coach humbly nodded and smiled back, and X shut the door.

Getting back to his locker, he went through each memory he had as he packed up.  The first cap he got when he signed his first contract two and a half decades ago, pictures of him friends long since retired or deceased, and a sticker he got on the first day of spring training twenty-three years ago that said “Baseball is your music; sing your finest tune.”  A token from one of the best players of his lifetime.

X’s eyes watered to match his lightly quivering cheeks as he carefully peeled the sticker off the locker and put it outside of the locker door.  “Best of luck, kid” X said as he gathered his things.  He took one last look at the old and small clubhouse, still as can be.  All of the other players went on that old familiar plane right back to the major league city, preparing for the 162 game season ahead.

X walked slowly out of the clubhouse, down the long and low hallway leading to the field.  He walked up to the plate and took out his bat.  Seeing the groundskeeper, also a dear friend, he called out to him “Hey Z, can you do me a favor?”

Z didn’t need to ask what he was doing there, but wasn’t sure what the request was.  An old high school friend of X’s, he felt the goodbyes of the Spring with everyone else.  He shook his head and laughed, and walked over from where he was in the visitors bullpen, where he was fertilizing the grass.

“Yeah X, you old lug, what do you want?”

“Do me a favor and walk over in front of the mound and pitch one like you used to.  Just one.”

“I’m not even going to ask.  Whatever floats your boat, X.”

Z walked up in front of the mound, about fifty feet from home plate.  He picked up a nearby ball and got his grip.  Smiling through his focus, he threw one straight and true in front of X.

X pushed his right foot back, flexed his arms, quickly raised them and swung through his aching bones and muscles.  He flinched in pain as he connected with the ball, and swung through before dropping the bat immediately.  The ball sailed, almost looking as if it was enjoying its moment in the air, before finding its home past the center field fence in the accompanying lawn.

X stood there, with the numb pain lingering throughout his upper body, with his throbbing fingers.  He looked at where the ball landed for what felt like eternity, and looked back at Z, who looked back at him quixotically.

“No worries, Z, just had to do that one more time.  I’ll see you around.”

Without another word, X walked through the field, taking it all in after his self-produced last hurrah, and let himself out through the right field gate.  He didn’t look back that time; he let the hit speak for itself, as he always had before.

I write my best when I write either autobiographically, or when it’s about something I love, but always when it’s without fear.  I have topics in my head I want to go further about – and more of it will include baseball – but I wanted to erase the rest of the fear I have inside me to write without looking back.

I wrote the following piece when I was 16.  I wrote it before I’d forget it, and I’ve never been more grateful of my own writing than I am of this piece.  It’s allowed me to remember what I knew I wouldn’t otherwise.  It’s a personal story, and it’s about the day I died.  It’s not for the faint of heart, but I’m proud of the way I wrote it as a high schooler, and posting it publicly will allow me to prove to myself that writing without fear is a task I really am going to defeat.  Some things have changed – I don’t go to Children’s Memorial Hospital anymore due to lack of insurance, and their desire for me to go to Northwestern when I get a PPO again, and the health of my body has greatly improved, though now I have diabetes.

Nevertheless, the experience changed me more than I ever thought anything could.  And I’m thankful for that.  On this day, I’m not sure I saw Heaven, but I saw something that keeps me agnostic and not atheist.

Enjoy.

I looked at the clock with fearful eyes.  8:30 a.m.  Sitting on the uncomfortable hospital bed, with my mother, father, aunt and maternal grandfather, a moment seemed equivalent to a lifetime, and a time that would determine my future.  The coldness that crept up my back from the open hospital gown upon my shoulders matched with the sheer terror running through my veins.  As I continue to sit and wish that I’d live through the day, my name is called.

I gaze up at the nurse, as the Anesthesiologist and two other nurses take the bed and, as I am slowly wheeled away towards the room of Fate, I wave goodbye with one hand and wipe my tears with the other.  Minutes later, I would be unconscious, unaware of the instruments that would hopefully save my life.  My organs were getting eaten up by clogged toxins and my digestive tract was destroyed.  As a result, my liver is that of a sixty-five year-old alcoholic, and my pancreas, of which only two-thirds exists now, was the worst my surgeon, Dr. Superina, had ever seen, and took out my gall bladder because it was so destroyed.  A piece of my small intestine is now my digestive tract.  My Fate was uncertain and anything would have been amazed, for this has never happened before.

The next day, I gained full consciousness and was laying in a small room with about five other kids and teenagers (I was being taken care of at a children’s hospital downtown) with my family by my side.  I was told how frail and pale I was, and the IV’s and machines in me kept me from comfort along with my weaknesses.  My mother and sister fainted at my poor sight, for it was quite depressing.  I was quickly regaining my strength and got moved out of critical care, and was starting to walk and get my strength back, I probably would have gotten out in a week.

However, Fate had other plans in store for me.  The morning of October 2nd, during the usual 4:00 am X-ray, the X-ray showed that there was a black liquid in my lungs and it was causing me to breathe unevenly.  I was rushed down to intensive care, as the liquid began to come up.  Three emergency nurses shoved a large oxygen mask upon my pale face, and as it went up against the liquid, it got caught halfway in my throat and I could not breathe for about two minutes, when I finally got a rush of strength and shoved the nurses away, as I allowed myself to breathe once again.  Anger and fear overcame me and I caught myself screaming vulgar things at the resident in charge of putting the mask on me, and my father, who was there that night/morning, had no idea and tried to rationalize everything.  After about five minutes, a middle-aged woman who appeared to be a nurse calmed me down and told me to breathe into a smaller, softer mask, and within seconds I was unconscious once again, which, as I found out later, was a drug-induced coma.

Later I was told of everything that happened to me when I was in the coma, though some of the things are now mental blocks because if I was ever to repeat them, both me and the listeners would just be thrown back way too much.  Just to give a few examples, my fever hit a deathly-high 106 degrees, I had a ventilator to do my breathing for me and my body was entirely infiltrated with IV’s, pick lines and other contraptions to keep me going.  From what I have been told, it was like something you’d see in a horrific movie.  Doctors, nurses and residents alike would stand there twenty-four hours a day, in shifts of course, watching me like a stopwatch.  Days would pass, and I would not budge, or get any better at all.  In fact, for weeks I got worse every day without the success of the medical staff.  At one point my only hope was the prayers and thoughts of many throughout the country, awaiting the day where I’d wake up and be a normal teenage kid again.  Fate was cruel throughout that whole month of October.  You hear about such frightening things happening to children and adults everywhere, and you’re just lucky it isn’t you, and you figure it never will be.  The next thing you know, Fate has you on His waiting list.

Those long nights when I was on my deathbed got even longer and colder, and the days, though sunny, did not shine on us.  My entire family flew in from all over, and though it was the first time in many years they were all in the same place, the reason for this was all that was on their minds.  My uncle would hound the doctors and strongly attempt to get answers, the answers no one would ever know.  No one knew what would happen to me, or even if I would live through the hour.  It was a living nightmare for everyone, and the shock of it all evenly matched with the throbbing, hasty beats of their hearts, bleeding for my agony.  God, along with the cruelty of Fate, was all that we could all look to for a miracle.

One day, in the last week of October, that miracle came.  My parents, along with my paternal grandfather and his second wife, were all in my little ICU room, which only had two curtains as walls.  My father and grandfather were reading the paper, my grandma’s second wife was watching TV and my mother was washing my feet.  It was early in the morning, and the sun was out, doing its usual attempts to cheer my family up.  This morning the sun could take the day off and relax, for that morning, I had done more than it ever could have.  I opened my eyes, and slowly, yet fearfully, gazed around the depressing scene around me, unaware of what happened and what was presently going on.  My mom felt the strength begin to surge through me and screamed with delight, and relief at the same time.  Fate lost the fight, and Death was cheated greatly, and looking back on it, it’s amazing my family, especially me, all went through such agony and suffering to be as healthy as I am now.  It’s as if it were one horribly bad dream.

One thing will never leave me, however, and that is the one sight I saw during my coma.  Only for an instant, I remember a light.  It was a bright white light, and I am convinced it was Heaven.  Robert Plant would be let down, there was no stairway . . . there was no direction whatsoever, just a warm white light, it was very comforting and entrancing.  It was as if it were a drug; it was almost irresistible but in a good way, like something you cannot get enough of but a welcoming emotion . . . it’s out of this world, in multiple definitions.  It’s something that I’ll have with me for the rest of my life, and it’s something that changes your whole perspective of life and how you live . . . ever since then I’ve been happier, stronger and friendlier than ever, for now I know how precious life really is.  It’s a story for the ages.

That last week of October, for me because I was then conscious, were the darkest days by far.  Though the morphine numbed the agonizing pain I would otherwise feel, it kept you up all night.  The machines going off, telling you that one other thing is wrong with my already novel-long list of disabilities.  I’d lay there and watch the young residents relax and try to have a good time mingling, despite the deathly ill kids around them.  The residents couldn’t have been above thirty, and they seemed to be very good friends, maybe more.  I remember just blankly gazing at them, with weary eyes, wishing I could be just as alive and happy as them.  They were smiling and looked so colored and healthy, yet at the same time efficiently doing their jobs.  There were those few residents who just wanted to get the job done and go home, but for the most part they were great.  They didn’t talk to me, for they did not want to disturb me, though little did they know I couldn’t get more disturbed.  The ventilator covering my pale, tired face made me unable to talk anyway.

Another amazing this about all of this, was how I was completely in the hands of the doctors, nurses and residents.  Just a couple months before, I was able to walk, talk, breathe and be a normal kid.  I had everything going well for me; a good, well-paying job at the Village Market, a longtime girlfriend I loved dearly, and a group of friends who always knew how to have a good time.  Now, as I slowly looked at myself, I realize all that could be gone forever, and I could give away at any given moment.  Life can take away all your worldly possessions and your God-given abilities in an instant, without being able to do anything about it.  It makes you wonder if you’re next.

As yet another prayer had been answered, I very quickly regained my strength, and floored the doctors once more.  Just days after I woke up from my coma, Dr. Superina ordered my ventilator to be taken off, for I was able to breathe quite well on my own.  That black liquid I had the moment was disappearing just as quickly as it entered my lungs.  I was once again able to slowly feel the life in my arms and legs, and move them from the spots they would be at days at a time.  My voice, my singing voice I cherish so much, was becoming less and less hoarse and got stronger and more powerful with the rest of me.  Straining physical therapy got my blood fueling through my body like the healthy kid I was once destined never to be.  My physical trainer just happened to be a young, beautiful woman with a sweet personality and determination to get me back on my feet, which helped me all the more.

I recall walking in a circle along my entire floor, and getting the cheers from the residents and nurses, which just made my day and made me even tougher.  A day or two later, I’d be walking down to the basement to eat at McDonalds or sit in the cafeteria and talk to everyone I knew, smiling constantly, knowing how blessed I was.  I’d laugh if I saw someone I knew from ICU that would pick their jaw up from off the floor, seeing me walking and talking again.  It made me feel on top of the world, getting that warm feeling of life back in my veins and bones.  Machines and IV’s disappeared, including morphine, and I felt more of a human than a guinea pig.  Like they say, the best things in life aren’t things.

Once November came, the doctors basically said they had no use to keep me anymore, and on the 3rd of the month, I was discharged.  The anticipation and pure glee from knowing I could go home after five long, dark weeks was too much.  My mom and I would chase down doctors and residents so we could get cleared and go home, and the delighted looks on their faces to see me better again gave me the strength to continue fighting to normality again.  It is a life-changing experience to know, and see, dozens of people strive to do all they can for you, and make sure you’re alright.  I got attached to them and vice-versa, and it was hard to say goodbye and the “thank you”‘s I gave could never add up to the caring everyone had for me.

I continue to go to Children’s every couple of months for checkups from everyone, and the responses I get are better and better, for my health continues to progress.  To know that at one time they were working overtime because of me, and now just sitting back and talking to me most of the time, amazes me at how sick I really was, and how well I’m going now.  The relief is more than words, and those days last fall will never leave me.  The affection I received, blended with the white light I felt in my coma and the trauma I saw and felt in ICU, changed me forever.  I am a totally different person nowadays; I’m much happier and more social, my esteem is boosted because the gut I once had from my organs is gone, and people know how strong-willed I really am.  These days are the best I’ve ever had, and may ever have, and I’ll never forget the days where it was all almost over.

I don’t know what will end the human race first; our own greed for power, or our ability to let music be as pathetic as it is today.

Fifty years ago, music didn’t even have the ability to screw up.  Music that was considered garbage back then is held close to the hearts of most of the world; Buddy Holly and Elvis being the best examples of that.  After that, the Beatles, the Byrds, the Stones and the rest of the British invasion, that continued through Black Sabbath and the ultimate band the critics LOVED to hate, Led Zeppelin.  I can’t begin to tell you how many sources I’ve red, those of credible journalists and writers and critics, that called that music garbage, crap and a waste of studio space.  Can you believe that?  Can you believe those same artists that were considered the dregs of American music are heralded as the brilliant young musicians of a generation?

Music today, for the most part, makes you want to scream “IS THIS ALL YOU’VE GOT?!?!?!”  It’s unbelievable.  We have enough people who are celebrities that shouldn’t be – Kim Kardashian, John & Kate, Paris Hilton, to name a few – but there are as many, or more, people in music that don’t deserve what’s usually only given to the very best, the ones who fight tooth and nail to sign the dotted line.  Who?  Lady Gaga.  Jamie Foxx.  Pitbull.  Diddy.  Kanye West.  Lil Wayne.  People who are making millions because their fans don’t know any better.  People who make $80 million a year for talking into  a microphone with music a friend of mine can make in an hour on his Mac.  You’re being fooled, people.

Before there was Amy Winehouse, there was Janis Joplin.  Before there was The Jonas Brothers, there was the Osmonds or the Monkees.  Before there were Fergie and Diddy there was, oh, I don’t know, no one because no one flaunted themselves like buffoons to their level of self-important magnitude.  Kanye West calls himself the ‘King of Pop’ like an idiot – and yes, to give him credit, so did Michael Jackson – but at least Jackson backed it up with a decade’s worth of some of the best pop music in history.  Kanye walks around with sunglasses the size of his forearm, a faux-hawk and I ask myself if he even DOES music.  I can’t name a single song of his, ten years into his career.

My blog’s dealt with human emotion, understanding and trials thus far.  To reflect that, I will not entirely blame the people I’ve named, and those similar to them, for their careers.  They make piss-poor music and troll around like fools because we let them.  If we didn’t want to see these people, they wouldn’t be so well seen.  If we didn’t want them making music, the record companies would have no reason to invest in them.

The purpose of music, the sole purpose, is to better the soul, heal the soul, make us think, make us feel, make use use the words and sounds of music to help us illustrate and explain our hearts and minds.  It’s the universal language, and the only language that doesn’t need its own slang to explain itself.  And that’s where we get fooled.

Life is very serious, and very dark these days.  When you come home, you don’t see sitcoms or comedians working their tails off to make you laugh and breathe  a little bit.  You see overly dramatic mumbo jumbo like ‘Lost’, ‘Heroes’ and the trillion cop shows where you can basically see what the deepest, darkest parts of human action is.  If I want to hear about a woman’s rape, or someone overdosing on heroin, I can turn to most of the major networks.  If I want to laugh, or watch something that’s easier to swallow at the end of a long day, I have to channel surf.

Perhaps its that darkness we let ourselves take in that, combined with how hard so many of us work and how many of us are struggling, we allow garbage music to be played like it is.  So many of us are counting the hours until we get our direct deposits that we don’t listen around us anymore, and we accept how poor music is today – we have enough to worry about, why would we care if Lil Wayne’s sneering with his big platinum teeth like he’s a human trophy?  We’re all living paycheck to paycheck, counting our pennies and not our CD’s.

I’m not saying that all of today’s music is crap, either – Imogen Heap, ADELE, Bon Iver, John Mayer, Ray LaMontagne are all brilliant and well beloved to those that know them.  They’re few of many, however, who don’t rely on charts and big numbers anymore – because they can’t.  Because art is all too hard to find.

However, it’s mind-blowing that those who were successful 20, 3o, 40 years ago are still topping the charts and the venues today – Elton John, Aerosmith, Metallica, The ROLLING STONES are still light years more successful and talented than most anything that’s come since.  It’s like they’re waiting to hand the torch down, with no one there to reach it.  No one’s blowing our minds anymore.  Jim Morrison isn’t here to test our minds, Jerry Garcia isn’t here to teach us all how to relax, and Jimi Hendrix isn’t here to show us just how a show’s supposed to be done.  And if they were, they’d be here to pass the torch too.

Music is doing one thing well that it always has, though; it’s defining our generation where we like it or not.  In a world where we’re all fighting, struggling, letting ourselves be overly sensitive while tapping such small amounts of our own dignity and humanity, music is defining that.  It’s defining it by being as crappy as too many of us feel.

Once we let ourselves heal, and if we ever stand up and let ourselves take in a little more life, music should hopefully be back to the brilliance it can be.  Because right now, music isn’t the work of art it used to be considered to the masses; it’s merely flash-in-the-pan entertainment.  And that’s the darkest aspect of all.