Moments.

As I've said before, the world is not perfect, and no one is going to absolve you of loneliness or stand between you and death. Life can be cruel and unfair and disputatious, but still, there are spaces for unfathomable beauty. There are these really good moments that happen in a life; moments of profound connection, moments of considerable gratitude, moments of feeling completely at home in this bulging, lopsided, high-tech, low-touch world.

It’s in that first kiss or that rolling landscape out of the car window or in the last three seconds of your favorite song. Even in a time of elephantine greed, where tribal differences and sanguinary rhetoric seem to create an insurmountable chasm between us, there are daily triumphs, moments where human kindness seems like the strongest force in the universe; where magic seems to permeate the veil and the glowing light of human potential spills through all the cracks and bridges that all too painful distance between fear and love.

I guess what I'm trying to say this morning, is if you have something, anything, to hold on to in this word; a dream, a hope, a goal, the joy and laughter of your children or the arms of someone who is brave enough to love you for exactly who you are.. hold the f*ck on and don’t let go. This ride ends, y’all.

Go out and be Amazing today. I Love You somethin' fierce..

Find Your People, Take The Ride..

One of the most melancholic realizations I’ve come to with advancing age is that you can’t make old friends. I’m sure a lot of people are meant to drift in-and-out of your life, but some of them leave a mark that stays with you: it gets in your clothes and your soul and it stains, like coffee or blood.

Throughout this blessed banquet of life, I’ve been lucky enough, at various intervals, to meet the kind of people who could use the power of art and love and language to describe world’s beyond my own internal humdrum suburbia (I won't name names here, because I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable). The kind of people who, when you hear them passionately converse, or when you exchange ideas, it’s like they're singing private arias to you about the beauty and mystery and immensity of life. The connection is so Real, they feel like a travel guide for your soul.

When you were younger and idealistic about possibilities, being with these kinds of people was like sitting next to a movie trailer for your future – if you could somehow summon the courage to buy the ticket and take the ride. There were cultural and poetic and spiritual exchanges with them that you can recall in their entirety. They awakened you. They challenged you. They inspired you. They excited you. It felt like Promethean fire. These are the kind of people that Handed you things that could change your life- books and records and films – things that you knew from the second you held them in your hand were gonna blow your freaky mind.

For me, these were also the same kind of people who stuck around after my bands played shows and helped me come down and drift into a sacred space and rechannel my crazy stage energy. You know who I’m talking about.. The 2 A.M. people (holler if you here me.. but not too loud, you might wake somebody up!). You’d go back to each other’s places, and after all that noise, they’d sit you down and play Captain Beefheart or Marie Queenie Lyons or Ornette Coleman or Townes Van Zandt for you for the first time. Quiet moments of sharing and discovery, like love notes being passed back and forth. Records just sound different and more magical in the wee small hours. These are the people you’d see a Godard film with for the first time and then talk about it over coffee for four hours. The people you'd pour the contents of your soul out to. The guy who wasn’t afraid to be a loud, drunken romantic poet. Or the girl who you had a crush on who told you that Nine Stories was just as important as Catcher In The Rye and then launched into a passionate dissertation.

I guess, if we’re being real, people like them run the gamut from deep momentary connections to rabble-rousing real deal soulmates, but whatever you want to call them, they had (and still have) the power to change the way you looked at everything. They were the ones you could tell out loud all the jokes you’d been laughing to in your head your entire life.

I've always secretly hoped I've been that person to someone along their journey. But, either way, if you find that connection, I beg you: just dive into it, baby. Go all in. Take the ride. And then write about it or sing about it or make a film about it. Because we all need to feel a little less lonely, and we all want to believe that there’s still a little magic out there in the realm of human connection..

Don't Take The Red Pill -- It's Bullshit.

I'd like to say otherwise, but I found “The Red Pill” to be rather insulting. I tried hard to put my confirmation bias aside and strive to accept something I couldn’t understand, but, as the film progressed, I continued to grow more and more angry at how effortlessly these men were able to blame complex communication problems in our societal structure directly on women. In my mind’s rigidity, I began to liken most of these people to American Islamists. What they were espousing, though veiled in transparently false notions of equality and compassion, seemed to represent moral cowardice of the highest order. Over and over, the film featured men griping about losing power and control. What these men failed to acknowledge, at all, was the fact that before the war on drugs or the war on terror, there had long been a protracted war waged against female empowerment and sexual desire. The number of victims is impossible to calculate: suffice to say it is in the Billions. And like every other stupid thing we continue to wage war on, it’s a war that won’t be won because it’s a misguided war against nature itself. Yet, there was no acknowledgement of this fact from the Men’s Right’s Advocates featured. At all.

What I’d like to tell these “Red Pill-ers” is: Contrary to your beliefs, women Are sexual creatures and they Are Not property. For thousands of years, men around the world have gone to ludicrous lengths to attempt to control the female libido; everything from witch burning to genital mutilation to suffocating corsets to paternalistic insults about “insatiable” sluts and whores. For hundreds of years, the amount of debilitating scorn heaped upon any woman who had chosen to be more generous or free or open with her sexuality was met with absolute male resistance and, more often than not, dominance and control. This paradigm remains intact in many parts of the world, as anyone who has seen what cruel and repressive Islamic Theocracies have done to woman living under their control (which often includes rape, torture, and murder, among other unmentionable things), knows full well.

Look, I understand that the comparison may be offensive. I’m not really trying to say you’re a member of the Taliban or something, but I do hope you’re at least willing to consider that your unhappiness is not the fault of women, whether it be a particular woman, societal customs and norms, or the female population in general (you really frighten me if you think like that).

But here’s an alternative idea, fellas - If you find yourself disgruntled and depressed about the amount, or the lack of sexual/romantic opportunity in your life, stop blaming women. Instead, you could perhaps work to insure that women have Full Equal Access to power, wealth, status, respect, dignity, opportunity, etc. Make that happen.. and then watch the magic. Your communication and your circumstances are likely to greatly improve.

So, This Is What I Wanted To Tell You This Morning..

I know it hurts sometimes, but perhaps, just for today, you’d be willing consider the idea that your heart aching (and maybe even breaking) is actually the beginning of something beautiful happening: Maybe it’s your ego cracking and your heart is about to burst open.

What I want to say to you now is if you’re stuck in the darkness; wallowing in this viciously depressive state, incanting numerous negative things to yourself and latching onto every possible limiting belief you can conjure, there is another way. I know it feels lonely and you probably feel pissed off and swindled and misunderstood and broken, but I promise you: There is a glowing light inside you that can never be dimmed. There is, even right now, a beaming joyful life force more radiant than a thousand suns capable of making you see who you really are.

You, My Beloved Friend, are a Cosmic Happening rooted in local event. You are a way for this gorgeous Universe to see itself. In fact, whether you believe it or not, every damn fiber of your damn being is gorgeous and holy and forged in the furnace of a thousand suns. And guess what? You’re not Broken. Not by a damn long shot.

And Look - Just so we’re clear.. I’m a mess, too. And I realize this 5am rant makes very little sense to most of you. I can accept that and I still love you because you're Rad. But, if you glean nothing else from this emotive madness, please just know that I’m trying to tell you that you’re f*cking Beautiful and you are Loved more than you could possibly imagine.

And I’ll go even further. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter what you can’t let go of. It doesn’t matter what you’re afraid to admit out loud. You Deserve To Be Loved.

Change starts in one moment, in one day. Why not make it today? What a day to learn to love the mess you are and embrace every bit of it. Because I do. I freaking Love you and, let me reaffirm: you deserve to be loved. So, come on.. Just try for it today. Just stand up and Be Loved. And, if you have the energy to move it on down the line, love the f*ck out of someone else, too.

Ode To The Bird..

Few things make me as embarrassingly sentimental as the game of Baseball. I could wax on the mythopoetics and strange superstitions of the game I love for days. But if you want to ever see me get teary-eyed, ask me about Mark "The Bird" Fidrych. He represented everything I love about Baseball, joy and the resiliency of the human spirit.

Fidrych had one unforgettable breakout rookie season before injuries quickly derailed the most promising of careers. He went from being a household name, playing the one game he loved with all his heart, to never being able to recover that groove again. The fleeting joy “The Bird” had authored over one beautiful Bicentennial summer would slip from his fingers within four injury-riddled years after that remarkable rookie campaign.

Not that he didn’t try. He labored in the minors for a couple seasons before finally hanging up his glove.

I can only imagine how hard that must have been; being forced to leave it all behind. I can imagine him clinging to the hope, desperately hanging on to the margins, believing he could somehow still Will that ball to do the magical things it used to and baffle hitters the way he did in ‘76. I can see him in my mind: working hard to get back, trying to throw a few decent pitches without wincing in pain, pitches that might allow you to move back across that chalk line and back onto that beautiful major league mound, back into the only world you ever really loved.

But, like most pie-in-the-sky dreams, his great comeback would never come to fruition. He faded away from Baseball (though he is still beloved by die-hard fans of the Detroit Tigers) and, sadly, died in a tragic accident on his Northborough, Mass. farm in April of 2009.

But in my heart, he stands there forever: cleaning the mound, talking to the ball, high-fiving his teammates after every play. Mark Fidrych played the game like a Little Leaguer, with as much joy as a grown man can possibly display on a major league diamond.

In my heart, "The Bird" is still warming up on the mound at Tiger Stadium, with forty thousand rapturously joyous fans ready to cheer his every move like it was the 7th game of the World Series. So, if you're so inclined, familiarize yourself with my hero: Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, who left both the game he loved and this world, far too soon. Behold, Fidrych: the all-time single season leader in childlike joy..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS8tIOQD1cQ

"Is A Dream A Lie If It Don't Come True, Or Is It Something Worse?"

When I was probably 12 years old, I started to spend the money I earned doing little odd jobs on records. I had memories of growing up listening to the "Born In The USA" record in my Dad's truck a few years earlier. It was the one thing, besides Baseball, that we could always agree on and talk about.

That summer, over the course of two days, I brought home two used records by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band: "The River" and "Darkness On The Edge Of Town." I probably bought them, in a way, to try desperately to somehow be closer to my Dad, who was drifting further and further away. The kicker is: It brought me closer to Knowing Myself than anything else I'd ever come across. Both records were an absolute game changer for me. I sat there, headphones on, mesmerized by the vivid imagery of an America I longed for in my heart; a place where men found meaning through faith and work and wore their hearts on their sleeves.

Springsteen's music whispered "strap on your boots, keep fighting for what you believe in, the magic is gonna find you, you're gonna be alright." It made me realize that you could strip away the layers of the fashion show and be vulnerable and honest, that you could pour your own heart and story into the music and it would be better for it. It was like a sonic salvation or a rock n' roll baptism, peppered with acoustic heartache and the kind of raw sincerity that was so lacking in the pop music I heard on the radio. It sounds ridiculous, but those records were also a revelation because they helped me to begin to understand that it was possible to use music to navigate through the dark spaces of my own life until that sacred light emerged emerge and the healing waters soothed me. It was church for me.

There were many years after that, listening to punk rock or God Knows what else, that I was too cool to admit to liking the E Street Band. But no matter where I've been in my life, no matter what I was struggling with or evolving into becoming, I could always throw my headphones on and find my way back to Church to Feel The Real.

And the older I get, the more it means..

The Boogie Man.

Listen, the Boogie Man we've been collectively calling "2016" is more properly called "Addiction" and/or "Under-Treated Mental Illness." It's as Real as can be, and it's keeping a great many of us from not only reaching our fullest potential, but from actually growing old.

We can eulogize the genius of the creative people we've loved and lost to "2016", but let us not fail to absorb the bracing reality that undercuts their tragic passing.

What I want to say is This: If you need Help - If you need a friend or an ear or someone to help push you in the direction of getting some sort of treatment, to take you to a meeting, to connect you with people that can help: I'm here. And I hope you are there, too, for the people you love struggling with these demons in and around your life. Listen to them. Encourage them. Love them. Let them know you care about them so damn much. Love them until it hurts.

And perhaps we should consider honoring the people we've already lost, both in the world of the arts and in our own lives, by demanding better access to quality Mental Health Care from our elected leaders. Perhaps we should be more careful and judicious about criminalizing addiction and destroying the lives of young people who are struggling through an Unimaginable Hell.

Baby Steps. One day at a time. Unfortunately, one of the melancholic lessons we reluctantly absorb as we move through this life is that Wisdom and Grace come on slowly, while pain, anger and longing hit the heart and brain with electrical speed.

Maybe this is the time to be radically compassionate. The only chance we have of beating these things is by Loving Each Other.



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"We are not cured. What we have is a daily reprieve, contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."