From my sixth
residence in the span of the previous four years, an extremely modest, dimly
lit, over-priced one-bedroom apartment in the Yorkville section of the Upper East
Side of Manhattan, between eking out a living with my voice and guitar, between
drunk and stoned nights of moral debauchery and late night philosophical
discussions with my actor/writer/bartender roommate, I began to write what lies
ahead in these pages. I did this almost in spite of myself and my mediocre
typing abilities, staring into the faces of an onslaught of my demons who
proceeded to assault me with Hell’s litany of excuses why I shouldn’t bother,
but more so out of an inexplicable sense of obligation that I have felt in my
gut for nearly my entire life.
I’m certainly
not the only man in the course of human history to feel that the times in which
he lived were perilous and pivotal to the future of mankind, but I consider the
current state of affairs in the world and especially in our country as some of
the most monumental in our history as a species, and I fear that the path we
are on is creating a great and dangerous divide in both our nation and in all
of mankind. I consider this a great time of crisis, however I also consider
this a great time of opportunity, an opportunity for a tremendous and worldwide
shift in human consciousness. I believe it is an opportunity for us to shed the
antiquated and destructive paradigms that have ruled us for so long.
Long before September 11, 2001, I had felt
as if there was no one out there who sees things as I do. I felt eerily alone
while standing amongst the crowd. It was as if I had a clear line of sight
through a furious torrent of white noise and confusion, where I had taken post,
pointing at the source of all the carnage and pleading for help to contain it.
I watched the United States waste the goodwill of the entire world, squandering
an opportunity to unite the world in an effort to rid ourselves of the use of
violence to solve our differences. Instead, we lashed out like an angry giant
swatting at a gnat.
In the days, months, years, and decade
since 9/11, I found few people willing to talk about “serious” matters, and
when I did, I found few people who didn’t regurgitate some form of the 24 hour
mainstream news cycle spin or partisan talking point. I watched as our
political discourse shed intelligence, logic, civility, and credibility. I saw
more and more of my fellow citizens have their increasingly limited attention
spans distracted by the exponential growth in technological gadgetry, material
concerns, propaganda, and disinformation. I saw more and more of our “rights”
and “freedoms” systematically disappear from the laws that govern us. I saw
fewer and fewer of us willing to say anything about it. I stood pointing at
war, at outright lies, to the looting of this nation’s wealth and goodwill, to
an impending economic collapse, at injustice, genocide, rape, torture, human
trafficking, the demise of the American middle class, the takeover of our
government by the corporatocracy, and the continuing destruction of our
ecosystem. For a very long time, I stood there alone. The recent political upheavals
in the world, as well as the Occupy Wall Street movement here in the U.S., have
helped me to realize that I am not alone in my observations and concerns, that
I am not alone in my outrage, and that I am not another version of “Chicken
Little” yelling that the sky is about to fall.
I
had a newly found spark of hope when I walked through the streets of Harlem in
the hours after we elected Barack Obama in 2008. I had never in my life seen
such elation, sensed such an atmosphere of relief, optimism, and possibility.
It was truly uplifting and will forever be among my most memorable New York
moments, but it wasn’t long before the forces were aligned to squelch that
election day elation, optimism, and opportunity and to return us to business as
usual. I, for one, have decided to draw my line in the dirt. I will battle
anyone who would have us continue forward on this path of destruction, war,
poverty, human suffering, and starvation- a path where so few have so much, and
billions have so little.
I’ve been telling people that I’m
writing a book for the past 8 years. Those aforementioned demons have proved a
formidable force, and I’ve been locked in a masochistic routine of
self-criticism and censorship, fueled by doubt in myself and doubt that anyone
would care what I had to say. It has ultimately been the specter of my own
mortality which has ignited the proverbial fire under my ass to finish what I
started in that shitty one-bedroom apartment. I simply want what most people
want: to feel that mine was a life well lived, that I contributed something
worthwhile to the human story, and that I might live on in the memories of
those I've left behind.
I’ve lived two equal but separate lives
thus far. In the first one, I was a brooding, headstrong, independent,
passionate, hopeless romantic who would fight, kill, and die for what he
believed. If you had told that kid that he couldn’t do that thing he wanted to
do, he would have run through a brick wall to prove you wrong. Although he
was not gifted with great size, strength, or speed, he saw the game of football
as his way out of the central and eastern Pennsylvania steel and coal country,
the Catholic, blue-collar, lower middle-class struggles toward the
"American Dream," and the influence of a mindset that sought to cut
one down at the knees for thinking he could be more. It was the same
mindset that maintained that the way it had always been done was the way it was
always going to be done.
Football became his outlet for the pain,
anger, and frustration he felt as he was moved to a new town, home, and school
at a near constant pace as a child, attending 13 schools before graduating high
school, too many first day playground beatings for being the new kid the girls
were talking about or just the smallest kid in the class, all the while at home
witnessing his young parents' mundane financial struggles and arguments over
money, the one paycheck away balancing act between middle class status and
bankruptcy, the incessant calls from bill collectors, the times with no
telephone, no electricity, no heat. Two parents working. Four children. No
health care. No college fund.
Not wanting
that same life of uncertainty of the future, the one with which he had
witnessed his parents contend for his first 17 years, he saw football as his
chance to go to college, to get a quality education, to perhaps provide a shot
at the NFL, and to later become a successful businessman. He would marry his
first love, have loving and wonderful children, a beautiful home in the
suburbs, a secure and travel filled retirement, and die in his bed a very old
and happy man surrounded by his adoring wife, children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren.
I played that game of football with passion and reckless abandon like a human
battering ram for 16 seasons, from Pop Warner, through high school, college,
and two years professionally until one hit damaged two knees. I was 23.
In my second life, I was a brooding, headstrong, independent, passionate,
hopeless romantic who would fight, kill, and die for what he believed. If you
had told that twenty-something kid that he couldn’t do that thing he
wanted to do, he would have run through a brick wall to prove you wrong.
Although he had abandoned his musical training as a young man to dedicate his
efforts to football, his passion for music re-emerged in time to literally save
his life. He saw music as his way out of the debilitating depression and loss
he felt over simultaneously losing both his ability to play the game he loved
and the woman he loved. He saw music as his catharsis, his chance to share his
passion, to share his pain, to help other people to forget their own pains and
concerns, if only for a little while. He saw music as a way out of the mundane
climb up the corporate ladder, the petty things people do to one another and
the petty reasons they do them. He saw an opportunity to change his world with
music.
It’s been 23 years, and that second life of mine has been quite a journey. The
short stories, essays, poems, and lyrics that fill the pages to come are
inspired by that journey, and they are my attempt at taking you on a
metamorphosis of thought from who I thought I was, what I thought I wanted, and
of what I was certain that I believed in that first life of mine. I wish to
share with you the experiences, mistakes, and lessons learned in the chrysalis
of my second life, telling the surreal but true stories of how I got to where I
reside now, to what I believe now, to what I now hold dear, to what I now hold
sacred.
I began with
the most romantic of ideals and intentions, but I didn't marry my first love.
She broke things off after nearly three years, two days before I got
accepted to transfer to her college, adding insult to injury when I had
to witness her new boyfriend leading the cheerleading squad at my football
games. It was more than my broken heart and fragile ego could handle. I
wallowed in depression, seeking solace in alcohol and eventually in the comfort
of the female persuasion. For the better part of my twenties, I waxed and waned
between playboy and one woman man, passionate and tragic relationships
with wonderful girls for whom I would have given my life, interspersed by
periods of male whoredom and too many women to remember.
At 27, two months before my 10th high school
class reunion, the girl I had always wanted but thought I could never
have came back into my life after 10 years. Two weeks before the reunion, we
eloped and got married. The day after our honeymoon, we filed divorce
papers. I've been somewhat "gun shy" since. There's a lot more
to this story, obviously. Perhaps later in these pages I'll tell it to you (the
way I remember it) over some Jack Daniel's, with Jeff Buckley's album,
"Grace," playing in the background.
I've somehow managed to dodge the slings and arrows of outrageous
fatherhood as well, making my original plan of great-grandfatherhood extremely
unlikely. I attribute my unscathed, childless status to having many years ago
taught my sperm to head toward the light. That, and having impeccable timing.
To this day, I'm still like a Frisbee dog whenever I see someone throwing a
football around. I'll quite happily join in, run, throw, and catch until
my arm aches, my knees, my back, or whatever other random body part, which
unilaterally decided to remind me that I'm not 22 anymore, aches. However, I
have come to learn that heaving my body headfirst and full-speed into immovable
objects nearly twice my size...well, quite frankly, HURTS! Luckily, I have come
to find as true something I can always remember feeling, but not truly
comprehending- that music is a far more powerful tool to break
through those immovable objects.
Through it all, music was there to get me through whatever life threw at me.
Music became the one lady I could always turn to. I poured my emotions into my
songs, my lyrics, and my performances. I traveled hundreds of thousands
of miles, made music, affected people everywhere I went, built worldwide
relationships and friendships, living without healthcare or a 401K, foregoing
marriage and children and stability for an uncertain future on the road
less traveled.
I've lived the life of the warrior poet, taken risks, confronted
and conquered fears, loved women, drank, smoked, tripped, and danced. I've
done things that I had never dreamed of doing in my earlier life, and I am
grateful to the universe that I've experienced what I have. I've lived
these last 23 years with the same reckless abandon with which I approached
the first. Ironically, it is the reckless abandon with which I approached my
first life that may likely end my second.
I recently watched a PBS Frontline documentary called “Football High” which focused on the severity of brain injuries and
football. Although I cannot be tested while still alive, there is little doubt
that the countless concussions I had incurred over 16 years of playing
football, several of which had left me unconscious, have left me with a
progressive degenerative brain disease called CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. This can lead to memory loss, confusion,
paranoia, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression,
suicidal thoughts, Parkinson’s Disease, and eventually progressive dementia.
The tragic effects of brain injuries are just now coming to the forefront in
the NFL and NCAA.
Having done more extensive research into this and wanting desperately to
contribute to further research and to the efforts to inform young men who play
football of the dangers of permanent brain damage, I have donated my brain and
spinal column (upon my death, of course) to Boston University School of
Medicine’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.
In the meantime, while I’m still lucid and since the Mayans have proved not to be prescient, I have vowed to fight the
proverbial good fight, the fight for the truth, the fight for peace, equality,
freedom, democracy, and a shared humanity. I will fight against greed,
plutocracy, corporatism, fascism, and any other “ism” that maintains war as a means
of conflict resolution, that allows genocide, slavery, rape, torture,
starvation, and human suffering to continue as a natural state in our human
existence, or anyone who says one human life is more or less significant than
another or that one people are somehow “chosen” over the rest of us.
Before I set out on such a noble quest, I must admit, ashamedly, that I’ve been
a fucking hypocrite! Pardon my language. I know it’s awfully early in our
introduction to one another to be using such expletives, but allow me to come
clean about a few things right from the start. I’ve bitched, complained, and
criticized other people for lying, concealing the truth, and not holding
themselves responsible for their actions, decisions, and own happiness. I haven’t
exactly always led by example where those things are concerned. I haven’t put
the proverbial, “walk to the talk,” as I remember Robert Blake as “Baretta” saying it when I sneaked onto the top of the stairs after
bedtime as a kid to catch a few glimpses of one of the shows too “grown-up” for
me to see.
I’ve done a lot of talking about what I think is wrong with a lot of things.
I’ve stood on the all too familiar soap box and preached. I’ve frustrated
family, friends, people in the crowds at my performances, and many
ex-girlfriends with my ranting. I’ve managed to alienate quite a few people,
some of whom I thought were friends, with my impassioned and vociferous views
on politics, religion, ethics, philosophy, social issues, and human
relationships. You see, when you hold nothing sacred, you find it far too easy
to tear down what others hold sacred. It really pisses people off! Nobody wants
to be around someone who challenges everything they believe.
I’ve had an opinion about everything. Still do, I guess. Yet that opinion has
changed over the years as I’ve gained more and more information. I haven’t
always been consistent in that opinion. I guess in our times, that makes me a
“flip-flopper,” but I think we give far too much respect to people who never
change their minds. We have been led for far too long by the unyielding, the
arrogant, and the cocksure, who, even after being given overwhelming evidence
to change course, would have us continue on the path toward the iceberg.
I’ve always thought that the simple definition of a fool was someone who, when
given the truth, refuses to believe it. So, I guess I’ve also been a fool.
Hell, some of the shit I’ve believed and the things I’ve done because of what
I’ve believed could qualify me as mentally disabled, but I also know that I am
surrounded by fools. We all are. Most of the very people we all look up to as
leaders, teachers, preachers, and holders of truth and knowledge are fools as
well.
But considering where I’ve come from and the information that I was given to
start, I’d say I’ve come lifetimes closer, within the life I‘ve already lived,
to knowing what is true and what is complete bullshit. The things I was taught
by my parents, teachers, preachers, government, idols, and friends, while
given, for the most part, with love and good intentions, were basically
compost, with randomly dispersed pearls of wisdom buried within. I’ve had to
sift through, disseminate, and wash myself clean from some pretty heavy shit to
get to those pearls, but mine has always been a journey in search of the truth-
the truth about it all. I don’t really have an explanation as to why, but since
the earliest recollections of my childhood, I’ve always felt it in the pains of
my heart that I would have to find the truth on my own, on my own path, and for
myself. I also knew early on that it would not be an easy road for me. I would
have to fight for what I wanted. I would have to believe in myself.
If you are like me, you don’t want to get your advice from someone who hasn’t
gone through what you are going through. You don’t want to be taught to do
something by someone who can’t do it himself. You don’t want your preacher
telling you to do something he isn’t willing to do. You won’t follow a man into
battle who isn’t willing to fight and possibly die for the cause himself. You
don’t want to be told how you are supposed to live your all too brief moment on
this planet, as long as how you live it truly harms no one else.
I say these things to begin from a place of humility and a level playing field
of sorts. I have sinned in the eyes of the church of my upbringing. I have
wronged others. I have lied, stolen, dishonored, coveted, not kept holy the
Sabbath…all of it. I’ve not always played nicely with others. I’ve been a
real………..human being.
There are more than a few women in this world who, when asked about me, will
have less than flattering things to say. I want to apologize to them, and say
that I do take full responsibility for my actions and can only attribute them
to an overdose of testosterone that took over my bloodstream at 17 and which
lasted throughout my twenties…..with a few flashbacks into my thirties.
I’ve also spent some time in prison. Not like Johnny Cash or James Brown...God
bless them. There will be no movie about my hard time, but I did enough time to
know that prison is not a pretty place. Enough time to know the accommodations
are lousy, and there aren’t a lot of nice people on either side of the bars.
Enough time to know that I would rather die than have my freedom taken from me
ever again, for any amount of time spent behind bars like a caged animal. I
guess you could say the system rehabilitated me in that regard.
I say these things because I have seen this world from an unusually curious
array of vantage points. It’s much easier to discover the truth when you
examine all the vantage points and interview all of the witnesses. I’ve never
taken anyone’s word for gospel.
I’ve run with the herd, but prefer to run outside, charting a path of my own.
I’m the lone wolf with the abilities of a chameleon to blend into his
surroundings long enough to get a good look around and even be considered, “one
of us.” I am the life of the party on one occasion and the wallpaper on the
next. I’ve been saddled by those who need to define me with countless labels,
but none of them fits. I refuse to be a stereotypical anything. I prefer to be
an enigma. I prefer to live my life freely, to experience all I want to
experience, and to be all I want to be. I will not be saddled and bridled,
broken and ridden, fitted with blinders and led along the same monotonous path,
day in and day out. That is not the life of my dreams.
I say these things because I have witnessed a growing divide in our country,
both within itself and with the rest of the world. Both divides have been
fueled by fear, paranoia, misinformation, vengeance, greed, and religion. These
divides have concerned me so deeply and passionately that I could no longer
stand on the outside looking in and not act in some way to affect them. I could
no longer remain silent. I could no longer allow my fears to silence me. That
is why I have chosen to put my experience and my words to task.
I will no longer allow myself to be a hypocrite. I will put the walk to the
talk. I will put my life on the line for what I believe, because frankly, if
you are not willing to do that, you should shut the hell up. I will lead by
example. Hopefully, my lead will be one considered worthy of support, and I
won’t run full speed into the raging battle without backup.
But then not having backup has never kept me from doing what I thought was
right, although it would be nice to know that I’m not alone.
