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To Those Who Lost Their Newspaper Jobs

Sad to hear that some old friends lost their jobs at the local daily newspapers they labored at for years. People I know at The Eagle-Tribune, Salem News, Newburyport Daily News and Gloucester Daily Times were hit.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B–3cId-YE&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

A few years ago, I would have seen this as an evil company sticking it to good people who gave their best years and efforts to the machine. I don’t see it that way anymore.

I’m lucky because, so far, I haven’t been cut by the layoff buzz saw. But I’ve seen it happen to others. It’s easy to be angry with the people who do the laying off, but I know enough managers at this point to know that this is brutally hard for them, too. I have friends at different companies who had to decide who to let go of, and the process cut them to the core. No one wants to kick good talent out the door, and there’s a lot of survivor’s guilt.

Of course, there are big corporations that are much more heartless about layoffs, but for the smaller guys it’s hell.

So I’m not angry. I have no right to be anyway, because I haven’t worked for these newspapers for years. I have no clue about  what went into the decision to let people go.

I’m just sad for those affected.

But I’m hopeful for them at the same time.

This sort of thing is hell, but it’s never the end. For some, it’s the start of something much, much better. I’ve been in jobs that depleted me body and soul. There were days at one company where getting laid off would have come as a relief — until it came time to figure out how to put food on the table. It’s complicated, though, because I was coming apart at the seams in those jobs and it was nobody’s fault but mine.

I only know that back then I couldn’t imagine ever finding a new job, especially a job I’d be happy in. So I stayed with it and carried on like an asshole.

Today, I have a job that I love, so things do change.

To my friends who lost their jobs, I pray it’ll be the same for you.

The good news is that one way or another, these things have a way of working themselves out. We just have to keep a cool head along the way. Of course, that’s a lot easier said than done, and it’s never been one of my better skills.

I’ve also learned that there’s life after newspapers for a journalist. Most of what I do is online, and most of the newer publications emphasize online content over print. My own news consumption is now exclusively online. Print may be a dying product, but editing and journalism is alive and well. It’s just different now. If you’re willing to embrace the change, good things can follow.

That’s my personal observation, anyway. 

Knowing some of the newly laid off people as I do, I know they’re going to land on their feet, because that’s who they are.

I also know that some of the people who did the laying off can become valuable allies as you search for the next thing. They want you to be OK. Most of them do, anyway.

I wish you all the very best. Good luck.

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Get the Funk Out

I’ve been in one hell of a funk in recent days. I explain why here and here. Getting sick didn’t help matters. But I’m just about ready to come back out.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL4qYwJjnCY&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

See, I believe in the words a friend recently scrawled on her Facebook page:

“If you’re going through Hell, keep going.”

I’ve always believed in that. And while I backslide in spectacularly pathetic fashion at times, I never stay down for long. True, it used to take me longer to recover. But I’ve always gotten back up. Even when I was at my absolute worst.

Sometimes I get back on my feet and screw everything up in an instant, only to hit the ground harder than the last time.

But I can’t stay down. I have responsibilities. I have a family I love that does a lot better when I’m standing. I have a Faith that pushes me forward.

All that took a beating last week.

And I think when I came home from San Francisco with an illness, that illness mixed with depression. Never a good combination. It used to happen a lot more often, and in much more severe fashion.

As bad as this most recent bout of sickness and moodiness was, I’m thankful that at about a week, it was much shorter than in the old days. I’m still not 100 percent better. But I can see the way through the fog now.

One thing that’s helped and that I’m grateful for: Being around the house a lot with Erin and the children, who are on vacation.  

Talking things through with Erin and watching the kids’ antics is always the best medicine. Music is the extra bit of medicine for the extra push to wellness.

I’ll be hacking up a lung and will probably have sore muscles come 4 a.m., when I’ll wake up for work.

But I’ll be standing.

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Face the Music

No, not THAT music. I’ve done plenty of that in recent days. I’ve done the best I can to right some wrongs, and now the healing process continues with some of my favorite medicine.

Allow me to share some with you:

The Stooges is a good place to start. I looove these guys. Such a collection of misfits. Such raw power:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSN-Y1W4Jm4&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Winter’s been getting to me and I’ve been thinking of warm places lately. The Dead Kennedy’s always take me someplace warm:

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

Having been ill for a few days, I’ve been feeling much like I have during the dark days of breaking away from my worst addictions. The cold sweats. A stomach mangled like a sock caught in a meat grinder. The shakes. Cheap Trick’s cover of John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey” describes the feeling pretty well:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm7KUQ_uXK0&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

I’ve been big into Smashing Pumpkins the last few months and just recently tripped across a rare acoustic version of  “Mayonaise” — I love the opening lines: “Fool enough to almost be it/Cool enough to not quite see it…”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vV5ckFqIsY&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Finally, there’s my rekindled interest in the Doors, which I wrote about a little over a week ago. It’s hard not to use the “Apocalypse Now” version of the following song. But instead of the one I used last week I give you this end-of-film reprise version, which is equally creepy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0kbC0hQHRg&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Music isn’t always pretty. But it heals.

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When The Music’s Over…

Twenty years ago, as a student at North Shore Community College, I was obsessed with The Doors. My ambition was to be Jim Morrison. I’m glad I got over it.

Mood music:

Back then, I fancied myself a poet. I joined the Poet’s Society. I grew my hair long and started wearing a pair of leather pants I had borrowed from Sean Marley (back then, I could actually fit into them). I wore a suit jacket and leather boots to complete the look.

I didn’t like who I was, so it made perfect sense to try being someone else. It was a habit I would indulge in many times over.

It was also a side-effect of the fear I used to carry around. The first Gulf War was about to begin and there were a lot of kids worried about getting drafted, including me. So we tried to relive the lives of Baby Boomers from the 1960s as a bizarre comfort ritual.

One guy from Lynn took it further than me. He wore tie-dye t-shirts with fringe boots. He was a big guy and looked more comical than anything else. He would tell anyone in the smoking room who would listen that John Lennon was something close to the Second Coming of Christ.

Me and Sean took a bus ride with this guy down to Washington D.C. for a peace rally in front of the White House a couple days after the war started.  That was quite a sight: Me trying to look like Jim Morrison, the other guy trying to look like Jerry Garcia. Sean was the most normal looking of the three of us. Those who knew Sean and his frequent hair-color changes will appreciate the absurdity of the sight.

The war ended quickly, but then Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” came out, with Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison. I latched on to Morrison’s rejection of his family. I wasn’t getting along with various family members, so there was another easy out from dealing with life.

I started drinking harder alcohol and fasting because that’s what Morrison did. When I would shift from fasting to binge eating I would grow a beard and just carry on like I was the Morrison of later years, when he got bloated from drinking and grew facial hair.

The dean of students at N.S.C.C. brought me in a copy of Rolling Stone from 1971 — the issue covering Morrison’s death. He let me keep it, and wrote a note across the bottom right side of the cover about how Morrison was an interesting figure, but that I needed to find my own path.

I also started singing in a band called Skeptic Slang, where I started trying to perfect the grunge version of Morrison.

Then I started to really get out of shape and lost the ability to keep up with the hours musicians typically kept. I turned my attention to journalism, and that’s where I made my career.

Of course, I developed a lot of the bad habits that fit the stereotypical image of a reporter in the 1970s and 80s — bad eating habits, drinking and smoking and other things a person can rarely afford on a reporter’s salary.

I stopped listening to The Doors for a long, long time. But the other day, for whatever reason, I started listening again.

But it’s not the same as it was back then.

I have a real life now, and it’s easier to be me than somebody else.

Besides, I’ve tried to be other people at other points of my life.

It didn’t work out.

I do still have the facial hair, but I found it easier to maintain a bald head than maintain the hair style.

To be me is much simpler in that respect — even if being me is hopelessly complicated in other areas.

Jim-Morrison-Rolling-Stone-543709

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Who Was Joe “Zippo” Kelley?

I’ve written about how Joe Kelley and I were friends in college and how I dropped out of site as he was tearing up the Boston punk scene. But I don’t think I’ve given you enough of a picture of who he was.

To help me do that, I reached out to some friends. I’m especially happy that I got two members of Pop Gun to share some memories, because their music was part of that wider array of hard rock I depended on to maintain my sanity back in the day.

First, some mood music in the form of vintage Neighborhoods, one of Boston’s great bands, who will play Saturday’s benefit show for Joe:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqLjLSbuPMk&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

Now for some memories:

Greg Walsh, drummer for Pop Gun and Zippo Raid, who once worked with the author in a dingy little weekly newspaper office in Marblehead:

“When Zippo Raid first started out I was studying a lot of the drummers we played with because I really needed to get up to speed – so to speak – with punk rock drumming. I was seeing what worked and didn’t work – and what I noticed was a lot of bands did breakdowns where they’d be playing fast and then suddenly cut the tempo in half – it was like pushing moshers off a cliff and they gladly went along for the ride. 

“So I begged Joe to find some spots in our songs for breakdowns, but anything we tried sounded forced and honestly kind of trite, and we took pride in not doing punk rock “by the numbers.”

“Then one day Joe came to rehearsal and said he wrote a song with breakdowns in it – called “Work.” But we always referred to it as “The Breakdown Song.”

“I have a recording of that rehearsal where he says he wrote that song for me. Probably just to shut me up, but the sentiment was still there.”

Harry Zarkades, singer and bassist for Pop Gun:
“Joe Kelley, when I first met him, was a DJ at WMWM Salem State College Radio 91.7 FM when Pop Gun was in it’s hey day. Well, if we ever had one.
“Anyhow, we used to goof around and play a version of Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever” for kicks (a song which we all secretly like but didn’t actually fit our musical motif). Se we decide to play it live in the studio at WMWM when we’re in there one day, and Joe, with his terrific sense of humor, decides to get revenge on us for playing it on his show. So we play about 10 Pop Gun songs and then, for a less than Grand Finale, we break into Cat Scratch. Joe is miffed, amused, but quickly acts. At the end of our show he tees up the actual Ted Nugent live recording of Cat Scratch complete with stadium crowd noise which he blares into the studio as we finish our tune.
“We were totally confused, but eventually got the joke. Joe was sitting in the booth very pleased with himself. The guy had a great sense of humor, like I said.
“I miss that most about him.”
Stu Ginsburg, owner, Platorum Entertainment, one of the planners for this Saturday’s benefit show:

“His first appearance  on WMWM was when he came back to school and found the radio station during my show. He rang the buzzer and asked me if I was f—ing his girlfriend, then he thought it was cool anad came back wth me a few times and became a DJ and so on.

“Prior to WMWM, he and his girlfriend were going to many Grateful Dead shows and other hippy events. Joe never played gutair at that time, but WMWM changed him into Joe Zippo. He was a rightous dude. I miss him.”

If anyone else wants to share a story, I’ll keep adding to this post.

In the meantime, be sure to attend the show Saturday night. Details here:

Earlier in the day there will be a memorial service. Details here:

Friends and family are welcome to the religious interment of Joseph Kelley Jr. A time for quiet prayer and meditation. We hope you can attend.

Saturday, January 15 · 12:00pm – 3:00pm

Grave side service with Rev. Msgr. Stanislaw Parfienczyk
Saturday at noon
57 Orne Street
Salem, MA 01970
plot #1198

Thanks to all those who helped me put this post together.

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Ballad of Joe Zippo, Part 2

This is the second post on my old friend Joe “Zippo” Kelley, who died last summer. Specifically, this is about the lives he made better just by being who he was. A benefit show in his honor is next week.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkDNjMLgrFk&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

As I said before, my friendship with Joe played out when we were both attending Salem State College (it’s a university, now). He was a friend I would smoke cigarettes with outside the commuter cafeteria. We’d talk about everything from politics to Nirvana, his favorite band at the time. This was back when Kurt Cobain was still alive.

He eventually picked up a guitar and teamed up with my friend and fellow journalist Greg Walsh, forming the band Zippo Raid. When life gets me down, I think of guys like Joe, who plow through life’s challenges and show others how to live. That’s one way I find the strength to forge ahead.

I didn’t see Joe much in the last decade. I spent many of those years isolating myself from old friends because I was ashamed of the shape I was in. I was too busy trying to destroy myself to make time for old friends.

In what may or may not be a case of irony, I find myself in a deepening friendship with Joe’s parents, who I never met when he was alive. They are sweet people, and I can see now where Joe got his big heart.

As you’d expect, Joe’s death has been hard on them. That, in fact, is a brutal understatement. As Joe Sr. told me in a note he dropped in one of my earlier posts, “The death of my son has cut me to pieces.”

Grief does things to you.

Fortunately, Joe left behind a lot to remember him by. There are the Zippo Raid CDs, the photos, and the people who are better for having known him.

If you want to know more about him and support a good cause at the same time, you should check out a benefit show that’s taking place next week.

Details here:

1st annual Joe Zippo Kelley Memorial scholorship fund show

Saturday, January 15 · 6:00pm – 11:00pm

Salem, Mass.

St. Peter Street

Further details on this Facebook events page.

My next post on Joe will include memories shared by his friends and bandmates. If you want to share a story about Joe, you can e-mail me at bbrenner@cxo.com.

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Saturday Punk Songs

This Saturday, I share some of my favorite punk songs. Some of it may not be punk from a technical standpoint, but to me it’s all about the vibe.

NOTE: I’ve noticed a crackdown on what you can embed from YouTube, so for now just click the “watch on YouTube” link and the music will play in a separate tab while you read. I’m trying to select videos that are in the clear, but at this point it’s a luck of the draw. I’ll come up with a solution soon.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSih4o2YfmA&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvxrYm4nxXY&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKYALsp-sIg&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJNMnBhf-Ds&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSTT3eVbzv4&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eyROvw6zbY&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gsad-kiveU&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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Saturday Soundtrack: Mood Swing Edition

Been having some mood swings the last 24 hours, and my musical selections reflect that. These are songs to listen to when frustrated.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGhZ6mH7P-g&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGSw9zNw8Y8&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8SUqzB94lQ&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukHqzqZOe7g&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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Soundtrack of the Week: 10-30

Since music — especially metal — has been a vital tool in my recovery from OCD and addiction, I celebrate each Saturday by sharing songs that got me through the week. I must be getting into the Halloween spirit or something, as you’re about to see.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6pRJhP4Lrw&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU6iP0WLsU8&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKYALsp-sIg&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xcwt9mSbYE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awi14wDTxNw&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rC3l3niTaE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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Soundtrack of the Week

I’m starting a Saturday tradition. Since music — especially metal — has been a vital tool in my recovery from OCD and addiction, I’m going to celebrate each Saturday by sharing songs that got me through the week. Welcome to my party.

Songs that pulled me through this week:

Let’s start with Zippo Raid. I got a copy of their “Punk is in Season” album at the benefit for Joe Zippo last week and can’t stop playing it. Joe’s lyrics were brilliantly simple — and, in many spots, funny as hell. At least funny to my brand of humor. I went looking for footage of these songs being performed on Youtube but no dice. I did, however, find this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq-EeudVGVM&fs=1&hl=en_US]

For some strange reason, going to that show last weekend gave me a craving for Sonic Youth, which I listened to constantly during my Rockit Records days. This is one of my faves:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dubt7roEtSM&fs=1&hl=en_US]

As a teenager I loved Def Leppard, probably because my brother loved them. And when he died, I started listening to all the music he listened to. In more recent years I’ve found their music to be pretty hit or miss, but this week I came across this, which captures the essence of the Def Leppard I remember:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjW2DB4jIf4&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Not a week goes by where I don’t listen to Sixx A.M. I simply identify with the music too much not to listen at least weekly:

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

I’ve been listening to Guns N Roses a lot lately, and this song is particularly useful during my more contemplative moments:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FPBi9N9hNc&fs=1&hl=en_US]

And while we’re on the subject, I tripped across this most excellent cover of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” performed by Velvet Revolver:

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

Thanks to my friend Donna Swift, I found a few minutes of rapture in this acoustic version of Soundgarden’s “Like a Suicide,” which seemed perfect for yesterday’s “Thank You, Joy” post:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcOXrYXj69I&fs=1&hl=en_US]

And with that, my week is complete.