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It’s All Fun and Games Till Someone Breaks an Elbow

Duncan is sporting a pink cast on his right arm again, the result of a tumble off my bed last week. He was horsing around with Sean and took a spill over the side, landing on his elbow and fracturing it.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4A065x9kJt955eGVqf813g]

Duncan went flying when Sean put up his hands to keep his brother from landing on top of him. Now every time someone asks what happened, Duncan points an accusing finger in Sean’s direction. Call it what you will — brothers being brothers, parental fail (I was on the other side of the bed reading, oblivious to the accident about to happen), Duncan being accident prone.

When Duncan came home in another cast, Sean felt terrible about it. He doesn’t like to see his little brother in pain and was equally upset last fall after Duncan fell off a set of monkey bars and broke his right wrist bones.

In addition, there’s a fair amount of guilt swirling around the Brenner house. Sean feels guilty because his reflexive action during a moment of horsing around caused Duncan’s spill. I feel guilty because I should have stopped the horseplay sooner. Erin feels guilty because she was a floor above us during the incident, talking on the phone.

There are teachable moments in all this.

The first is that feeling guilty is pointless; nobody conspired for this to happen. But we can be a little more alert in the future. For my part, the second horseplay starts, I can lay down the law and stop it.

The second lesson is that beating yourself up won’t change the outcome. Bad luck will always show itself in a split-second, before you’re fully able to process what’s about to happen. The tumble off the bed happened faster than the blink of an eye, and that’s the way life is sometimes — fast and sloppy.

As an OCD case, I’ve had to work at that last one. Those of us with clinical OCD are masters at second-guessing ourselves and everyone around us. We’ll replay the event in our heads repeatedly, looking for that quick moment when someone screwed up. But it never helps. In fact, it just makes matters worse because we let the obsession incapacitate us.

The best I can do now — the best all of us can do — is be there for Duncan and help him through it.

Fortunately, Duncan isn’t letting it get him down. He’s still every bit as active as he usually is, and yesterday he even enjoyed a string of bowling.

Despite the cast and sling, he won.

On to the next thing, which will hopefully be a lot less eventful.

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Former FNX DJs Get Second Chance on Boston.com

In a recent post about WFNX being sold and gutted by Clear Channel, I predicted that this would not be the end of the story. It turns out I was right. Boston.com announced this morning that it’s launching a live streaming radio station featuring alternative music and well-known personalities from WFNX-FM.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:6x7B9cDXyH4X7lCwH6B40o]

In a Facebook exchange this morning, longtime DJ Henry Santoro told me: “All I can say right now is that they came to us, and the magic started happening from the very first meeting.”

“The Boston.com station will have a presence on the website’s homepage,” reported Boston.com, “and it will feature a variety of live programming: music, commentary, contests, interviews, and exclusive online content.”

Effective today, the following former WFNX employees will become Boston.com employees: DJs Henry Santoro, Julie Kramer, and Adam 12; former program director Paul Driscoll; former sales rep Johnny L. Lavasseur; and former operations and promotions director Mike Snow.

The launch date for the new streaming radio station will be announced later this summer, according to Boston.com.

As a kid who received a lot of solace from the music these DJs played during the darker periods of my life, this is great news to wake up to on a Monday morning.

Raise your coffee mugs, and toast a second chances.

WFNX Logo

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Death Etiquette: Pay Your Respects, Even If They Hate You

Someone I know just learned that her ex’s maternal grandfather died. Though this man was like a grandfather to her, she’s getting pressure to stay away from the wake and funeral because her ex-mother-in-law doesn’t want her around.

Some of you might say she should stay away, that her ex-mother-in-law’s wishes should come before other considerations. After all, it’s her father who died, and she needs all the comforting loved ones could give her. She shouldn’t have to see people she can’t handle.

I can appreciate that sentiment. But I don’t agree.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2HYFNTVeK1PZsHgqo8YHr5]

I recently went through a similar experience. The dad of one of my best friends passed away last fall. Nobody told me to stay away, and they wouldn’t have done so. But various members of the family have been angry with me in the last decade and a half, so I felt some pressure to stay away all the same.

In the end I attended the wake and the funeral. Some of the family were as cold to me as I had expected. But the deceased was a great man who played an important role in my life, so I’m glad I did it.

And that’s the point, really: When someone you care about dies, you have to do what you feel is right to honor that person’s memory. If that person was special to you, then your presence will honor them. The desires of other mourners — no matter how close they were to the dead — are secondary.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you flaunt your presence in front of those who may not want you there. Go in, quickly offer them condolences, say a prayer in front of the casket and go find a corner where you don’t have to see certain people. There will always be someone there to talk to, and they won’t care if you get along with the family or not.

If you stay away because someone can’t handle you, it’ll haunt you forever. That would be a damn shame.

 

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Will E-Cigs Get Me Over Smoking?

Update: July 26, 2012: I’ve been leaning on my crutch like a motherfucker during a trip to Las Vegas. But I haven’t touched the real thing or drank, which is progress.

I’ve been using electronic cigarettes lately. Why, you ask? Let me try to explain.

When I’m in the mood to feel sorry for myself because I can’t do things I’m addicted to, I’ll throw up my hands and ask myself, “What else is there if I can’t drink, smoke, eat flour and sugar and all that other shit?” I’m particularly prone to getting this way when life pushes me outside my comfort zone.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:1wPhx62DRpvULqckrdWlIt]

Life of late has been very good, but it’s also been very fast and exhausting. One big event after the next, lots of mileage on the car plus all the typical pressures we all experience as parents and spouses. A few weeks ago, I started feeling the pressure to the point where I seriously considered resuming the smoking habit.

Why would I do something so stupid, especially after all the trouble I got into with my wife the last time I was busted?

A question like that ignores the most fundamental truth about addictive behavior: When the urge builds up, it becomes a relentless, physical ache. At that point, the brain’s wiring gets all coiled and tangled, and it tightens until you find a way to untangle it. In moments like that, consequences don’t compute.

But as I get older, I refuse to give in so easily. Especially with the smoking, because as bad habits go, it’s probably the worst. That said, the most recent urges got so bad that I turned to e-cigs.

Here’s how they work:

  • The white part that looks like tobacco rolled in white paper is actually a battery.
  • The “flavor cartridge” looks like a filter and is filled with water and flavoring (tobacco, cherry, coffee, chocolate, etc.). You can purchase them with various amounts of nicotine, from the full amount found in a cigarette down to nothing. I’m using them with no nicotine.
  • When you drag off it and inhale, it feels just like smoking, only you’re inhaling water vapor. No smoke, no tar, no cancer-causing carcinogens. And no odor or ashes.
  • The batteries recharge when you screw ’em onto a charger that plugs into the USB port of your laptop, car charger or plug adapter.
  • Each “filter” lasts for about 200 puffs, roughly the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes.

Costs vary. I bought the standard starter kit for $75, which included two batteries, a charger and a couple boxes of cartridges, which seem to be lasting me a long time. I was never a pack-a-day smoker. In fact, I was probably a five-a-day smoker at my worst, which probably has you pack-a-day addicts laughing your heads off. Thing is, I had to have those five. Anyway, my cartridge refills should last a long while.

The hope is that once I’ve inhaled vapor sans nicotine for a while, I will grow bored with it and stop. That’s always been the good thing with me and smoking. When I start back up, I get bored after a while and stop. And that’s with the nicotine.

When I’m done with this experiment, I’ll probably keep one battery in a drawer and give away the other along with what’s left of the cartridges.

Wish me luck, and stay tuned for updates.

For those who want to try it as an alternative to cigarettes, there are a lot of places to find them. Most gas stations with mini marts sell the disposable kind, and most malls have them for sale at kiosks along the main walkways. Online, there are tons of options. Here’s a pretty good list of different brands.

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Grief Management Put to Music

Weeks after a loved one dies and we’ve allowed ourselves to fall apart, we have to make a choice: Stay in a fetal position, hidden from the world, or stand up and move forward. This is a little tribute to someone who made the latter choice.

Mood music:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/48842027″ iframe=”true” /]

I don’t know Ian Clark very well. We’re connected on Facebook, and I’m very fond of his mom’s band, The 360s (he plays drums in that band and is guitarist/vocalist in a band called Razors in the Night). But I sure as hell know what he’s going through.

A few weeks ago, he lost his best friend and cousin, James Morrill. I’ve watched his family grieve in their Facebook posts, and I can’t help but remember when my brother died unexpectedly in 1984 and my best friend followed suit nearly 13 years later. My friend’s death had a particularly damaging effect on me because that was a suicide. After he passed, I spent the next two years viciously binge-eating my way to 280 pounds of uselessness. Badly depressed, I hid from the world, staying indoors watching Star Trek reruns instead of staying connected with other friends.

You could say I chose to stay in the fetal position.

Since his moment of heartbreak, Ian has plowed ahead with his music and has honored his cousin by writing a song — the one featured as today’s mood music.

So far, I’d say he’s decided to move forward. It inspires me.

I hope he keeps doing what he’s doing — channeling his feelings into the music. Music is one of the best therapies in times of grief. And when you’re writing it, you have the chance to help others make it through their own trials.

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Why Reports of WFNX’s Death Are Premature

During this blog’s hiatus a terrible thing happened: Boston’s Phoenix Media/Communications Group sold WFNX 101.7 FM to Clear Channel Communications, essentially killing another bastion of Boston rock.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2SUqPdYx8dh1s1yjqeGszW]

It saddened me on many levels. Through Facebook I’m connected with some of the DJs, and I’ve enjoyed their posts, but I could see and feel their pain on that social networking site after the sale was announced. I was also reminded of how WFNX was there for me during many difficult times in the late 1980s and 1990s. I felt equally bad when WBCN met the same fate a few years ago.

Some will argue that these stations lost their way in recent years — and their points are valid. But that’s not the point. These stations are still living, breathing entities and should be treated as such. We humans often lose our way. Sometimes we stay lost until we’re forgotten or we turn up dead. Other times we find our way again and people love us all the more for it.

For the latter reason, this post is no eulogy. It’s about things in life going away and coming back, always different but usually better.

The signs of life after FNX are already evident. Sunday, the day The Boston Globe ran an article about FNX and the precarious state of Boston rock radio, DJ Julie Kramer announced on Facebook that she was engaged. Her job at FNX may be over, but her life goes on. You can’t keep the strong ones down.

Meanwhile, a petition drive to save FNX is gaining steam, and there’s always the opportunity to bring the station back via the Internet. BCN has been reborn online, though the message hasn’t gotten through to enough listeners to call it a success story yet.

Much of my music listening has shifted to the Internet. I like Pandora, though I like Spotify a lot better because I’m able to find most of my favorite albums there. One could argue these newer choices are what’s killing traditional rock radio, but I think we’re simply in the middle of a transitional period. As terrible as it is to see revered radio stations die, the story has a long way to go. In the years to come, I think we’ll see a more complete marriage between traditional radio and the Internet. We’re merely traveling through the fog right now, lost and disoriented. It sucks, but the fog always burns away eventually.

Saturday Erin and I went to a charity concert that was teeming with mourning FNX fans. My friends Pop Gun opened the show and did a blistering, satisfying set. They were followed by New Wave legends The Psychedelic Furs. The latter band was never my cup of tea, but I enjoyed them and was amazed that I knew as many of their songs as I did. They can thank FNX for that. People still hunger for alternative rock in this town. FNX’s sale leaves a vacuum, and we know by now that nature never allows a vacuum to go unfilled. Who better to fill it than the former DJs of WFX?

The possibilities are endless. And even if FNX doesn’t come back, the station will always live on in our memories. Allow me to share some of mine.

As a kid from Revere with a boulder-sized chip on my shoulder, I turned to heavy metal to sooth me after my brother’s death, family rancor and too many Crohn’s Disease flare-ups to count. In the 1980s, a good Boston metal station was hard to come by. There was WAAF, but their DJs were always too juvenile for my tastes. I loved BCN, but they never played enough of the heavy stuff to keep me satisfied.

I turned to WFNX not because it was playing metal. It wasn’t, obviously. I gave them a try because my late friend Sean Marley was a fan and back then I copied everything he did. In doing so, my musical horizons were broadened in wonderful ways. I discovered bands like The Ramones, REM (I don’t listen to REM these days, but I liked them back then), The Pixies and Nirvana and DJs like Kramer, Angie C. and Duane Bruce, who could play kick-ass music and conduct themselves with class instead of going for the shock value. In the first years of my relationship with Erin, we both enjoyed FNX. And when Sean Marley died, I turned to FNX for the comfort of bands like Weezer.

In more recent years the metalhead in me has re-asserted itself, but I’ve continued to love the bands FNX introduced me to. I’ve also come to enjoy the Facebook presence of its current and former DJs.

Clear Channel can never take that from me. And it can’t kill a powerful musical movement as long as there are people around to pluck the torch from the ground and re-ignite it.

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Parental Overload: No Big Deal

Nothing like a week of screaming kids to realize OCD aint what it used to be.

Mood music for this post: “Mama Weer all Crazee Now” by The Runaways:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0nKcHaQowY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

A week like the one I’ve just had would have been impossible just a couple years ago.

The kids were on school vacation, the same week as Sean’s 9th birthday and some very big security events in Boston. I did a lot of speeding back and forth between the Seaport Hotel and home for a kids’ birthday party, daycare duty, an evening trip to the N.E. Aquarium, etc.

Funny thing is, everything was fine. It was a fantastic week, actually.

Not even the house full of third graders rampaging through every room was enough to take me down. I enjoyed it.

I managed to bust out 11 articles and podcasts during the week, despite all the mayhem. It was fun. Hopefully, some security folks get something out of them.

Yesterday I mixed work with parenting and took Sean and Duncan to the Security B-Sides event in Boston. The venue was perfect for them:

Security BSides Boston by jack_a_daniel.

The security crowd seemed to enjoy their company. No one seemed to mind as Sean shoved Lego toys in their faces and gave detailed descriptions of each one. Heck, a couple of people came with more Legos for Sean, knowing he’d be there.

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, the kids are something close to famous among my business associates.

As for me: No anxiety attacks. No fear or panic about getting articles written. And no worries as to what other people think.

Nothing more to say about it, really.

Just a few words to drive home my surprise and gratitude for this turn of events.

Happy Sunday.

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MomDay Monday – School Daze

Every school has its issues.

Issues with teachers. Issues with other parents. Miscommunication. Problems with other students.

Every school.

There’s no getting around it. We’re all human. We all have failings. And a school is, after all, made up of us imperfect humans.

But at what point does a school have so many issues it becomes dysfunctional?

Is it when the faculty talks out of turn to your child about their parents’ divorce?

Or perhaps it’s when other parents refuse to accept that their child is the school bully & consistently puts the blame for their child’s behavior on the very kids he’s bullying.

Is it when there are arbitrary punishments meted out at whim? One day a behavior is punishable by making the child sit out of recess. The next day, the same behavior is overlooked. One day, uniform infractions are barely mentioned. The next day, a student loses privileges for wearing the wrong uniform piece.

Perhaps….

But I believe it’s when a school & its principal are so afraid of criticism that they close off lines of communication to keep others from hearing it.

I believe it’s when a principal is more concerned with who saw a comment on the school Facebook page than she is with addressing the issues brought to her attention.

I believe it is when a student receives retaliation for the actions of their parent.

And I believe it is when anti-bullying rallies are held for the students but parents & staff are seemingly the biggest offenders.

The Kids attend a private, Catholic school. They have been there since they were each 3 years old, starting in the youngest Pre-K group. They have known their classmates for most of their lives & we have made good friends with some of the families of these kids. When The Ex & I decided to divorce, we quietly told The Kids’ teachers so they were aware of the situation at home & on the lookout for any kind of behavioral issues that might occur because of it. This school had an opportunity to show The Kids an example of what it means to be a Christian & support my children during a particularly tough time.

They failed.

Within weeks, it seemed as if everyone knew what was happening in our family. The rumor mill was in full force until people I hardly knew & rarely spoke to had an opinion on my divorce & The Kids’ reaction to it. I had been blind to the dysfunction in the past, believing my kids were in the best possible place for the best possible education. There were two things I hoped to keep consistent throughout the divorce as the kids lives were being uprooted. Their school & their house. I was determined to keep them in that school & in the house they had been in for the past 4 years even if it meant having to ask my dad for money. But little by little, my eyes were opened & I saw that there were issues with this school far beyond anything I ever realized. There certainly have been people on the faculty as well as other parents who have been more than supportive & I can’t thank those people enough for the kindness & support they’ve shown, especially to The Kids. But they have unfortunately been too few & too far between. It is school dysfunction at its best. Or worst.

I’ve stopped my insistence that The Kids stay in that school. It’s part of my letting go. And it’s okay. I am aware that any school will have issues, dysfunction, intolerant people & parents who violate the school drop off & pick up rules. At this point, I’m willing to take my chances.

But I’m keeping the house.

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Happy and Productive in the Debris Field

The author used to come unglued around chaos. Now it floats past him.

Mood music for this post: “Sons and Daughters” by The Decemberists:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5H8DwJI0uA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Looking at the week ahead, it’s amazing I’m not hiding in a foxhole right now.

I’m working from home the first part of the week while the kids are on vacation. Call it half a vacation, though I’m tackling a full plate of work each day.

Sean’s birthday is this week, so the house needs a scrubbing before party guests arrive Thursday.

I have a conference in Boston to cover the latter half of the week into the weekend.

And oh yeah — with two vacationing kids comes a lot of clutter.

I’ve always hated clutter. It’s one of the biggest OCD triggers I have. And you can’t have kids around without accepting a certain degree of clutter. There’s no eating without dumping stuff on the floor. There’s no Lego activities without getting Legos everywhere.

But something strange has happened in more recent years. I’ve found that these things don’t rattle me the way they used to.

I chalk it up to all the progress I’ve made managing my OCD and putting down the worst of my addictions.

Now I can peacefully co-exist among the chaos and clutter. If I have work, I can do it  and do it well sitting among the debris, like I did yesterday when Duncan decided to make a blanket/pillow fort right where I was writing a couple CSO articles:

Hell, I even helped him build the thing.

Then I sat in my half-covered chair and got working. And guess what? I got plenty done.

I feel better about zigzagging from the conference to Haverhill for birthday activities because I’ve already written and posted four stories and two podcasts about things that will be going on at the event.

It’s all good.

One more thing about the clutter, though: If you know someone with OCD that’s not under control, keep them as far away from chaos as possible.

For the chaotic mind, clutter is the worst.

It amplifies the crazy in your head.

That I can now exist in the clutter is pretty wild when I stop to think about it.

Oddly enough, I’ve probably swung a bit too far to the other side of the spectrum.

My wife pointed out to be recently that I’m more of a slob since cleaning up my act.

Sounds weird, doesn’t it?


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Clean Living Things You Can Do: Part 1

Former Guns ‘N Roses guitarist Slash spent much of his early career drunk and stoned. He has since cleaned up, and his stunning new album is proof.

This post is for those who want to hear the new Slash album. If you’re not interested, come back later.

Slash just put out a most brilliant album with such guest vocalists as Ian Astbury, Chris Cornell, Kid Rock, Lemmy from Motorhead and even Fergie.

It’s the most cohesive, focused, soul-shaking album he’s done in years, and I think it reflects what he — what anyone — can do in recovery. Have a listen…

Ghost, with Ian Astbury on vocals

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

Crucify the Dead, with Ozzy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ps0bQONjys&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I Hold On, with Kid Rock:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_n3662vgJw&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Beautiful Dangerous with Fergie

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWQQYgacS98&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Promise, with Chris Cornell

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyM0ojzUMH4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Dr. Alibi, with Lemmy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFsOwnZkIm8&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Watch This with Dave Grohl and Duff McKagan

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlutFN7AyIQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

By the Sword, with Andrew Stockdale from Wolfmother

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yajU0oeMJo4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]