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Rethinking Jani Lane Upon His Death

Former Warrant singer Jani Lane was found dead last night in a Comfort Inn in L.A. at age 47. It’s unclear at this point what the cause is, but his death is making me re-think a few things about my attitude.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/cSdvxocgbAg

I remember when Warrant came out in the late 1980s. I couldn’t stand them. Sure, they sounded good. Crunchy guitar sound. Good vocals. But it all sounded so fake. I thought “Cherry Pie” was the dumbest song I’d ever heard. Again, the sound was good. But the lyrics were stupid and the feel wasn’t real to me. Admittedly, though, I liked “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and hated the fact that I liked it.

The band also came out at a point in the late 80s when every band was starting to sound and look alike. I decided I was too cool for it all.

I did what a lot of other metal heads did in the early 90s when the metal scene imploded under the weight of all the copycats: I started listening to so-called grunge: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains. My own band, Skeptic Slang, sounded a lot like the grunge we were listening to, with hints of old-school metal here and there.

I still listen to all those bands, but in recent years I’ve returned to my 80s hard rock roots. Warrant has not been part of my playlist.

I’ve seen interviews with Jani Lane over the years where he lamented writing “Cherry Pie” and took a crack at reality TV. He looked and sounded like a troubled man in those clips, and he did indeed wrestle some demons. He was recently sentenced to serve 120 days in jail after pleading no contest to a 2010 DUI charge — his second in two years.

As for his death, no one really knows what happened. We can speculate, but I won’t. I’ll just wait for the follow-up news reports.

Instead, I’m examining my own reaction to his death and what it says about me and human nature in general.

When I first saw the news an hour ago, I felt bad. I went on Youtube and started playing Warrant songs. I was thinking that they sounded much better with age, then I had a “what the fuck?” moment.

Here I am, thinking these songs sound pretty good. And I’m sneering at all the nasty comments people make about being glad he’s dead. Then I catch myself, because in my self-righteous anger I quickly remember that I used to say things about how bands like this sucked and needed to be destroyed. I’m pretty sure I’ve joked from time to time about how it would be nice for bands like this to go down in a flaming plane wreck.

That’s not nice. It’s certainly not a good fit with my Christian beliefs. But there it is.

It’s funny how we get when musicians and celebrities we don’t think much of die. I found it amusing that people were tearing Michael Jackson down in the last decade of his life because of his alleged pedophilia, yet, when he died, everyone magically forgot that stuff and acted as if Jesus Himself had been crucified again.

When Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx opined about Jackson being a “child rapist” and I wrote about it, the comments section of this blog descended into all kinds of name calling. Most of it came from people who love Michael Jackson’s music.

More then one person noted that Jackson was never found guilty of such things. When he was still alive, people were not defending him so ardently.

We do this stuff a lot when famous, tarnished figures die. We play up the good stuff they did and conveniently forget the bad stuff. Or, at least, we minimize the latter as some unfortunate little interlude between the acts of greatness. Richard Nixon comes to mind.

And now we’re remembering the good stuff Jani Lane contributed to the world in his 47 years.

You know what? That’s how it should be.

Everyone deserves a shot at redemption, and making music I personally didn’t care for doesn’t mean there was something wrong with Jani Lane. He wrote the music he wanted to write. It spoke to him, and it spoke to others, even if I wasn’t one of them.

The band’s success in the late 80s and early 90s happened because the music made a lot of kids happy, just as Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil” and Def Leppard’s “Pyromania” gave me moments of happiness during a troubled youth.

We all have our tastes and opinions. We all tend to think our opinions are better than everyone else’s.

That’s part of the human condition. We don’t just do it to celebrities. We do it to everyone. We are judgmental savages sometimes.

Rest in Peace, Jani Lane. I apologize for any of the bad stuff I said about you over the years.

OCD Diaries

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Hitting Bottom and Staying There

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about hitting bottom. Specifically, after I hit bottom, how long did it take for things to start looking up? I got bad news for those craving the quick fix.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/yUSn0u2GIjE

The first point worth making is that I didn’t hit one bottom like you usually see in the movies, where the addict falls so low that the clouds part and they see the light in huge, dramatic fashion. Reality is slower than that — and more boring.

I didn’t just hit one bottom. I hit a series of bottoms. And I stayed down there for a while each time before I even considered pulling myself up.

One crash was a couple months after my best friend took his life. I was binge eating with more zeal than ever, and I don’t think I cared at that point if my heart gave out. I was too crushed to care much about anything.

I had just been handed the job of editor for the Lynn Sunday Post, a paper that was already dying. I would be its pallbearer. The job included double duty as a writer for North Shore Sunday. I worked 16-hour days, six days a week.

Work was all I had at that point. Erin and I were engaged (realizing life is too short, I proposed a month after Sean died), but I was still trying to please my masters, so work came first. On Sundays, my only day off, I was sleeping through the entire day.

By the summer of 1997, I realized I had to push back or end up in an institution somewhere. Fortunately, my boss at the time saw that I was physically deteriorating and stepped in.

In December 1998, I was 285 pounds and collapsing under the weight. My father was too, and wound up getting quadruple bypass surgery. That was another slap in the face to warn me that I had to clean up. I lost 100 pounds, though I did it through unhealthy means that would blow up in my face several years later.

In late 2001 I realized that I was never going to please the managing editor I worked for at The Eagle-Tribune. He was forcing me to be the type of manager I didn’t want to be — an asshole. So I told him I was going higher up the food chain to get reassigned. And that’s what I did. They put me back in the night editor’s chair, which helped for a short time.

By late 2004 I was out of The Eagle-Tribune and in a job I loved. But I was putting enormous pressure on myself and the physical toll was showing. All my personality ticks were in overdrive: the obsession with cleanliness. The paranoia over my kids’ safety. A growing sense of fear that kept me indoors a lot.

That was probably the deepest bottom to date, the one that made me realize I needed to get help from a therapist; help that led to my OCD diagnosis.

The next bottom was in late 2006, when I had developed many of the mental health tools I use today. But my brain chemistry was such a mess I couldn’t get past the fear and anxiety attacks. That’s when I decided to try medication, which has worked far better than I ever thought possible.

The last bottom was in the summer of 2008. I was finally finding some mental stability, but I surrendered to the binge eating during therapy and was back up to 260 pounds. And it was hurting my health in a big way. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, choking on stomach acid. I couldn’t find clothes that would fit me. I was getting depressed again.

And so I started checking out OA and by October was headlong into my 12-Step Program of Recovery.

All these events were bottoms. And I lingered there for weeks and months at a time.

There are reasons the bottoming-out process takes a long time:

1. You usually fall to the bottom slowly, so slowly that you don’t notice the movement.

2. Once you crash to the floor, you become so out of sorts that you don’t realize you’re in hell. It’s just another shitty day, followed by another, and then another, and then another.

3. It’s usually those around you who realize you’ve arrived in a bad place. But you’ve been causing them so much pain for so long that they don’t even realize it immediately.

Once you hit the bottom, the depression and self-destructive behavior intensifies.

http://youtu.be/zBEo5ZGGsO4

Then you wake up one morning and decide you’re so sick of life that something has to change. And you start making changes.

The changes end up taking a long time, too.

That’s probably not what you wanted to hear. But it does get better.

OCD Diaries

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Facebook Changed My Social Dysfunction

Going to see The 360s last night drove home an interesting point for me: The Facebook world and the real world are indeed two different places. And it may have made my social dysfunction worse.

Mood music:

First, I want to thank The 360s for a great show last night. When I leave a show with my ears ringing, feeling like I’ve been kicked in the gut, I know I’ve had a good, healthy dose of rock n roll. I need that sort of thing every day.

Here’s what was weird for me, and it’s nobody’s fault, really. Heck, it’s not even necessarily a bad thing: I’m connected with all the band members on Facebook. Seeing their status updates every day makes me feel like I really know them. But in person, we’re strangers.

I approached the band members, who looked at me puzzled, trying to figure out who I was. Once I introduced myself, they knew who the strange guy in front of them was and they were very friendly. Some of them read this blog, but in real life, in a dark club, I don’t really resemble the cartoon logo people associate me with. And outside of Facebook, we’ve never really talked to each other in a room.

And so I come off as the typical hanger-on at rock shows, the guy in the room who sucks up to the band so he can tell people he knows them. That’s not my goal, but I can see how I might come off that way. I can be a real train wreck sometimes.

In a way it’s kind of cool, because it goes to show that you can’t replace the real world with something found in cyberspace.

That’s actually a relief, because I sometimes worry that if I get too good at the social media thing, I’ll forget how to function when face-to-face with someone.

Actually, let me correct that: I’ve never really understood how to function when face to face. And that brings me to the main point of this post.

Even though I can comfortably give a talk in front of an audience and share my most embarrassing truths in writing, I remain socially dysfunctional.

I lose the ability to distinguish what I see in the people I share a room with from people I share a Facebook page with. So, once off Facebook and back in the real world, I forget how I should act around people.

I’ve gotten better at this stuff since crawling out of the black hole that is OCD and addiction. But I suppose I’ll always be fighting the battle at some level. And that’s OK.

My social awkwardness didn’t get in the way of what was a great night out with my wife. I had fun, and look forward to the next concert. I also didn’t need to feed my addictive side with binge eating or booze to get through the night. That’s some pretty good progress.

I just need to work on my real-world people skills. But then doesn’t everybody?

OCD Diaries

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Up Your Bucket

I’ve been enjoying a local band called Up Your Bucket of late. For someone who uses hard rock and metal as a coping tool, this stuff hits me where I live. The raw, loud, dirty nature of it goes to show — once again — that Boston’s music scene is among the best.

I won’t attempt to describe them. I’ll just show you a couple videos from a show they did July 4.

I’m a fan of the guitarist on the right, Eric Russell, who is in another local band I like called The 360s. Erin and I are going to see the latter band Friday night.

I first saw Up Your Bucket in January, during the Joe “Zippo” Kelley benefit show. Truth be told, I didn’t think much of them that night. I liked the sound, but I was impatiently waiting for Pop Gun and The Neighborhoods.

I can’t even remember when I started to listen. I think I was curious because I’ve since gotten familiar with the individual band members on Facebook. I’m also always looking for fresh, local rock to put in this blog.

I can no longer deny it: They are growing on me like a cancer. And I’m perfectly happy about it.

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The Heaviest Rock, The Mightiest Recovery Tool

Something about the Fourth of July really gives me a craving for heavy metal music. Of course, not a day goes by where I don’t need to listen to some of it. It’s one of the major tools of my recovery from OCD and addiction.

Allow me to explain…

1984

This is the year my older brother died. But even without that, life was pretty miserable. I wasn’t exactly popular in school. I was overweight and the subject of ridicule. Home was no sanctuary. My parents were understandably all over the emotional map, especially my mother. Bitter feelings from their divorce four years earlier still sucked the air from the room. The Chron’s Disease continued to smolder.

But that was also the year I began listening to heavy metal music.

It allowed me to escape the pain around me. The aggressiveness of the music gave me an outlet to process all the rage I was feeling. Without it, drugs and violence toward others might have been next.

My closest friend at the time, who lived two doors down, got me into the music — introducing me to the likes of Motley Crue and Thin Lizzy. When that friend died 12 years later, the music would again help me process my rage and keep me steady.

I’d be angry, hurt or scared, and I needed something to absorb my aggression. Heavy metal was the punching bag.

One of my favorite songs in 1984 was “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid” from Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil” album. The lyrics go something like this:

Heard a star-spangled fight/A steel-belted scream

Now I’m black/I’m black/I’m black

Another sidewalk’s bloody dream

I heard the sirens wine/My blood turned to freeze

You’ll see the red in my eyes/as you take my disease

I wanted to be surrounded by this stuff so badly that I got a job in a record store.

1993

Though I was still many years away from a diagnosis, the year I worked in that cramped little dive was one of the best therapy sessions ever. It was a particularly perfect place to get exposed to some of the best Boston bands at the time.

When I was an angst-filled teenager bent on self-absorbed periods of depression — and before I became an angst-filled grownup bent on self-absorbed periods of depression — it was a place where I could escape.

Located off of Route 1 northbound, Rockit Records was literally a hole in the wall, not much bigger than a walk-in closet. It later expanded in size, but even then it seemed small. But the sounds booming from speakers above were always big.

It was the perfect safe house.

To this day, I’m grateful as hell for Al Quint for helping me get in there.

Al is still going strong, producing the Sonic Overload radio show and publishing his Suburban Voice magazine in blog form.

The store was crammed with cassettes, vinyl and eventually CDs. You could sell and buy used music. You could buy all the hard-to-get metal fanzines.

True story: On Aug. 3, 1987, I was the first kid in the store to buy Def Leppard’s just-released and long-awaited “Hysteria” album. The band was already spinning in a downward spiral toward candy-coated pop. I just didn’t realize it at the time. And in those days, I was a BIG Def Leppard fan.

A year later, I believe I was the second or third kid to buy Metallica’s “And Justice for All” album.

The owner eventually sold the place and that essentially meant I was out of the job. I wasn’t exactly in the new owner’s good graces. But by then, it was time for me to move on.

There’s now a Subway sandwich shop where Rockit Records once stood. A pity, really. But a lot of music stores suffered the same fate as the iTunes age dawned.

For me, it served its purpose. A jewel of an escape closet from a world of hurt.

2003

I was going through a rough patch at work (my own shortcomings at the time more than anything else), that therapy took the form of Metallica’s “St. Anger” album. The album itself is far from their best, but the opening song tore a path straight into my soul.

2011

Today, I listen to the music more for simple enjoyment than as an anger-management device. The anger went away some time ago.

The nostalgia is a big attraction for me, too. It takes me back to a time when I was in pieces; to a time when the music literally saved me. It has become something of a security blanket.

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Music To Play When Blowing Stuff Up

This being Independence Day, I thought I’d do something different and make a little soundtrack for ya. When blowing up those illegal Chinese fireworks, play this.

http://youtu.be/irskrVvKR1E

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I’m Getting Too Old For This, But It’s Worth it

Erin and I drove 90 minutes north yesterday to see The Avett Brothers perform in Portland, Maine. By the end of the night, we realized we just don’t have the concert-going energy we had in our early 20s.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/2L6XJOjCaAE

The band didn’t begin until 9, and we were surrounded by people in their 20s and early 30s. The smell of pot hung in the air, giving us headaches. It used to be the smell didn’t bother me, especially when I was using the stuff. But then I stopped smoking it in the early 1990s.

The Avett Brothers is a folk rock act, one of those middle-of-the-road sounds both of us like (Erin likes mostly folk and bluegrass, while I’m a metal head.) I used to go to metal concerts all the time, seeing Metallica five times in 1988-89 alone. I’d get home at 3 in the morning, then be up and at ’em by 6 a.m. as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Back then, I guess that was normal for a 20-year-old.

Now, getting by on three hours of sleep destroys me. But there’s no sleeping in when there’s a job to do and two kids to get off to school. I’ll pay for this for days. But it was worth it. I’d also do it again.

But now that I’m in this 40-year-old body, maybe I’ll take a long afternoon nap beforehand.

Some people look at getting older with dread. Not me. After my childhood illness and the craziness of my young adulthood, it’s a blessing that I’m here at all. So even when my knees ache and my back is about to collapse, I still feel every inch of the good life.

Erin doesn’t seem to mind getting older, either. Aches and pains aside, she remains healthy, knock on wood.

As we watched the young pups party it up last night, we both chuckled, because we were in the seats section with other older folks, and we weren’t bothered by that one bit.

Despite being tired and not as full of pep as we used to be, we still showed up for the concert and drove 90 minutes to boot.

Since the goal for someone like me, with a history of depression and addictive behavior, is to show up for life, it’s hard to see it as anything other than a victory.

We came. We enjoyed. We went home.

We may need a couple bottles of ibuprofen and a bath tub full of caffeine to reach the finish line, but we have plenty of that stuff lying around. That’s how we roll.

We just roll a little more slowly than we used to.

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Soundtrack For The Pissed Off

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m in an uneasy state. Fortunately for me, music is the perfect coping drug. Since my uneasiness is mixed with a feeling of being pissed off, I’m turning to my prescription of heavier, louder fare:

http://youtu.be/Yxa3li_Zjgk

http://youtu.be/TP06kxW_M3I

This stuff won’t send me to a happy, shiny place, but it will keep me from punching someone in the face.

For now, that’s all I need.

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About The Mood Music…

Some readers have asked why I put mood music in my posts, and how I go about choosing the daily selection.

I use them because in my mind, music and writing go hand in hand. I used to require absolute silence in the room to do my writing. Now I can’t write without some noise.

Some days, the music will fit the theme of what I’m writing about that day. Other times I use music that has nothing to do with the subject matter. I put it on there simply because I’m digging the song that morning.

I also like to use this forum to promote local musicians I admire.

I do consider the music to be a soundtrack for the blog. I also like to use the blog as a music player while I work. I’ll open the blog and just play all the mood music selections of the past weeks.

The music is mostly the metal I grew up with and love to this day, but not always. I also mix in non-metal acts like The Decemberists, The Avett Brothers, The Beatles and U2.

Life is full of ups and downs, and this blog is all about how I confront it. Why not have a soundtrack to go with it?

With that, here are some of the songs I’m listening to this week:

http://youtu.be/bg8MIapwuAc

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What’s YOUR Insanity?

“Paint a garbage can platinum and underneath, it’s still a garbage can.” Nikki Sixx

In Chapter 3 of the AA Big Book, we’re introduced to an alcoholic named Jim. He has a successful business until he starts drinking at age 35 in an attempt to dull a nervous tick, and everything goes to hell.

From pages 35-36:

“In a few years he became so violent when intoxicated that he had to be committed. On leaving the asylum he came into contact with us.

“We told him what we knew of alcoholism and the answer we had found. He made a beginning. His family was re-assembled, and he began to work as a salesman for the business he had lost through drinking. All went well for a time, but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life. To his consternation, he found himself drunk half a dozen times in rapid succession. On each of these occasions we worked with him, reviewing carefully what had happened. He agreed he was a real alcoholic and in a serious condition. He knew he faced another trip to the asylum if he kept on. Moreover, he would lose his family for whom he had a deep affection.

“Yet he got drunk again. We asked him to tell us exactly how it happened. This is his story: “I came to work on Tuesday morning. I remember I felt irritated that I had to be a salesman for a concern I once owned. I had a few words with the boss, but nothing serious. Then I decided to drive into the country and see one of my prospects for a car. On the way I felt hungry so I stopped at a roadside place where they have a bar. I had no intention of drinking. I just thought I would get a sandwich. I also had the notion that I might find a customer for a car at this place, which was familiar for I had been going to it for years. I had eaten there many times during the months I was sober. I sat down at a table and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk. Still no thought of drinking. I ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk.

“Suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk it couldn’t hurt me on a full stomach. I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk. I vaguely sensed I was not being any too smart, but felt reassured as I was taking the whiskey on a full stomach. The experiment went so well that I ordered another whiskey and poured it into more milk. That didn’t seem to bother me so I tried another.”

—

This is what we addicts call insanity. We get into this stupid idea that we can drink, eat or do drugs in perfect moderation like so-called normal people. That might mean trying to moderate drinking by ditching the hard stuff for just beer, or ditching red meat.

In the former case, you’re still getting smashed on a daily basis on beer. In the latter case — my case — you binge on everything that isn’t red meat until you explode.

At one point in my time as an out-of-control food addict, I decided to starve myself during the week and allow myself crazy binges Thursdays through Sundays. I looked forward to Thursdays because I could go into the Ground Round and order one of those colossal plates of nachos with every kind of junk dumped on top. That’s an appetizer meant to be shared between three or more people, but I would eat that myself, then chase it down with something healthy like a salad.

I’d carry on that way until the end of the weekend, and work out an hour-plus each day to balance it out.

It was but one variation of the insanity I had always practiced. As a teen and early 20-something I would binge on fast food for weeks and then starve myself for one or two weeks.

I usually binged in the car, trying to drive as I stuffed one arm into the bag of grease, flour, sugar and salt. That’s insanity too, because it doesn’t exactly promote safe driving.

It’s all about as crazy as putting whiskey in your milk and carrying on like you’re just drinking milk.

In the big picture, the problem isn’t the food, or the booze, or the drugs. It’s not necessarily the insanity of engaging in the binge.

Instead, the real problem — ground zero — is a deeper insanity that takes up residence in our souls, causing us the nervous ticks that make us do the stupid things we do. In the TV show “The West Wing,” recovered alcoholic Leo McGarry describes the nervous condition nicely:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUwm6WJRPIQ&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

We all have some form of insanity within us. Some learn to manage it without substances. Many more don’t.

Which leaves me with the question:

What’s your insanity, and what does it make you do?