Archive for the 'personal failure' Category
(Working) Poverty
I finally gave my newly repaired van the chance to get on the highway this morning, and I am VERY glad I didn’t use it to pick up Sam. The distributor cap/rotor, coil, plugs, and wires have all been replaced, but when it gets up to about 50 mph, the entire chassis shakes so [...]
Read More..>>On Putting It Down
I’ve been playing music and performing live for more than 20 years now, beginning with punk rock and hardcore bands when I was a teenager, a series of entirely unsuccessful (but lots of fun) hippy bands in college, and then some professional successes with Jim and Jennie and the Pinetops, The Essex Green, and UncleFucker. [...]
Read More..>>How to do It
Read the book with the kiddo and tell him to read along with you. A little encouragement goes a long way: I play guitar and sing for Sam when he goes to sleep, after we read stories. When i told Sam he could sing along with me if he liked, I found it [...]
Read More..>>Seething. Simmering. Coming to a Full Boil
One of my greatest worries when I found out I was going to be a father, and one of the most difficult to accept, has been the restriction of my career as a musician. I knew, especially after Sam’s mom chose to stay in Canada, that touring would be difficult. With child support [...]
Read More..>>Suitcase
“Hello?”
It was Sam’s mom. “Sorry for calling back so quick, but when you were just talking to Sam, were you talking about his upcoming visit?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I was telling him how much fun we were going have.”
“That’s really funny,” she said, “because you know what he’s doing?
“He’s going through the apartment looking for his [...]
Ghost Truck World
Moving to Philadelphia in January 1999 was the culmination of a really difficult year. I’d been with the same woman since 1992: both of us wildly dissatisfied with New Haven, Connecticut and the hole of crack, illy, and murder it was sinking into, we’d moved to Northampton Massachusetts together where I was enrolled at [...]
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