When the time is right, this will all make sense.

When I saw my Grandfather laying on what I knew was his deathbed in January I cried for the first time since I can remember. I could barely look at my grandmother. I couldn't imagine what she was going through as she watched her husband dying. It was terrible. And so I closed my eyes and let the tears roll out. When I opened my eyes again, though, I saw something I hadn't noticed when I first walked in - My family was all standing in the same room for the first time in years. It was that day that I really realized how much I take my family for granted. I lost my grandfather a few days later and since then I feel like I've gained a new appreciation for the family that I've shit on and taken for granted for so many years.

This week The Is decided to open my eyes in a similar way. Sunday was my birthday. It was a great day. The best birthday I can remember, spent with people I love. Then around 6 I got the call. My mom told me between sobs that there had been a car accident. Deb is in the hospital. Jack is dead. She'd call later. Click.

Since then I've been existing in this haze of disbelief and random floods of emotion. Between random outbursts of anger or sadness and at times fear, sleeplessness, restlessness and trying to pretend everything is ok; Between conversations that all end up with the same conclusion that "this just doesn't make sense" and "I can't believe this is happening"; Between visits to my heavily sedated step-sister in the hospital who is doing a bad job of hiding the fact that she was pinned under a pickup truck 4 days ago and calling hours for her husband that she hasn't yet been told is dead; Between tearful conversations with my mother and confused discussions about what happens next I've found myself trying to make some sense out of this.

Today as the minister was speaking I couldn't help but think about how the God he was bringing word of didn't exist. I listened to his words and tried to picture the phantom for whom he was speaking. I just kept wishing that all of his years in seminary school could have provided him with the answer that Jack's son needed to feel like the world was still ok. But the world is not still ok. Everything is a mess and it will be a long while before any of us sees it any other way.

As I was cursing the minister in my head for being a fraud it slowly dawned on me that everyone in that room had to come to terms with what happened. We need our answers direct from God. Anything else is just fortune cookies and bible scripture. As with everything else, the truth will make itself apparent. When the time is right we will hear it. When the time is right this will all make sense.


Yesterday I felt the truth running down my cheeks as I stared into the face of God. God said, "I work in mysterious ways" and I responded , "I've noticed." But I'd still be lying if I said this made sense.


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"Bill Me"

If you want, you could easily tell your life story as a series of great tragedies. Everyone experiences disaster and misfortune. Unfortunately, some personal autobiographies end up being a laundry list of what went wrong as if to say "Why does my life suck when everyone else's seems to get along just fine?"


Despite the path that we've all supposedly laid out for ourselves, the world goes on and nature takes its course. Call it fate. Call it a car wreck. It's going to happen. Something will go wrong. Standing around staring adds insult to injury. Take a look and move on. Unless you want your life to be the perpetual car wreck that you couldn't manage to just turn around and walk away from.

Disaster strikes despite your plans. Stop whining and start winning.

(This was a song I was working on a year ago. Just found my old notebook and figured I'd post it here instead of wasting it.)


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I am the Messiah

I'm reading through some of my recent posts and realizing that I haven't really been writing much about the actual songs we're working on. That's the whole point of this blog isn't it? Not to talk about getting some lame job or tell dumbass stories. Whatever, I guess that stuff is fun for a little while but it's time to get back to business. I've had one of the songs Jon wrote stuck in my head for a couple of months and every time I sat down to write it just wasn't working the way I wanted it to. But the other night I sat down and suddenly the words just hit the page the way I wanted them to.

See, when I write I don't just sit down and write something down - I write it in my head first and that process usually takes a month or two. I'll pick a song to work on and I'll listen to it a bunch. I'll sing it to myself in the car. I'll think about it a ton in the shower (everything good that I've ever done has been dreamed up in the shower by the way). Eventually when I sit down with my notebook it will all be there just waiting for me to vomit everything I've been thinking about onto paper. So that's why it's been so long. For me it was worth the wait because it came out just how I wanted it to and I think it's my new favorite AB song. oh yeah, I've never dedicated a song to anyone. But this one is for Kelley. Enough BS... here's what I've got...

I AM THE MESSIAH

I am alive for the very first time
Conscious and pondering all of the ways that I've died -
Thousands of times
Hung for the truth while I choke on my lies

I am nothing
I am everything
I am fallen from grace
I was hopeless until the day that I learned
I am God and I work in mysterious ways

Yeah. I work in mysterious ways. We all work in mysterious ways.

I've been calling this place Hell for so long but it's strangely divine
Maybe this was Heaven all along but I just never noticed the signs

This is THIS.
I AM.
I am the Messiah
I am the Devil in disguise
I AM.
I AM.

When I stopped searching I found a man and he said to me:
"God is Everything. You are Everything"





Fuck. I love this song. Somehow it says absolutely everything that I want to say. It sums up pretty much every theme I'm trying to lay down with this record. And somehow it still probably seems like a bunch of jibberish. To me it's perfect.

Every idea that was floating through my head while I wrote this song was pretty much stolen from one of two places. The first is a book called "Illusions" and it's by a guy called Richard Bach. The second is called "Hardcore Zen" and it's by a guy named Brad Warner. In their own ways they are both about the nature of the universe.

In "Illusions" Bach lumps the universe, time, space, and everything that occupies it together and calls it "the Is". I love that. I don't know exactly what it was in particular that first struck me when I read that but it just hit me in the right place. I guess the simple answer is that aside from all of the meaning we're trying to find in everything, everything just is. Look at it. There it is. Just being itself. Same goes for people. Aside from all the labels we put on ourselves we just kind of are. Without all the bullshit and the posturing and the trying to get laid we just are. I've been trying to write a song called I AM for the longest time that would get that point across and it never worked. It just seemed to fit in this context which is why I like the idea of shouting I AM a bunch of times.




I think I'd spoil this song if I picked it apart and told you exactly what it meant to me. It would kind of undo everything the song is about... instead I'm going to tell a long winded story about some shit I said the other day and how it bummed people out. You can put together how these things are related on your own time.

So we played this show in Providence, RI last week and just before we played Orange I made a little speech. I'm not going to get this verbatim but it will be close enough to work with. It wasn't received well and I should probably leave it in the past but what I said was important and I think it deserves a shot at being properly understood. Here goes.

=> I want to get something off my chest. There's been some dispute about this lately and I want to make sure to set the record straight so I guess I'll just say it: I'm not a hardcore kid. I don't own any cool vinyl and if I do then you can be sure that I only have one copy. I don't really give a shit about Earth Crisis. I think Ian MacKaye had some funny shit to say. I'm not going to be around forever and I would never claim to be. Right now this place does something important for me and when that is done I will part ways with it. I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm here because, for whatever reason, screaming into this stupid microphone is the only way I know how to deal with the rocks and tar and other garbage that exist in the pit of my stomach and feel somewhat ok from day to day. So when I say that this means the world to me I want you to know that I'm not talking about how stoked I am about how many girls want to fuck me because I'm in a fucking hardcore band. I'm talking about how, if not for this, my face would have been painted on my bedroom wall years ago and how grateful I am that things didn't go that way. This song is called Orange and it's for the kids here who understand what I'm talking about. <=

I'm not really concerned with who I annoyed or pissed of by saying this. It was worded specifically to piss the people off who have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about and connect with the people who absolutely got it. The fact that I can remember this pretty much exactly is a testament to the fact that I thought about this little speech for hours before we played. I am bummed out however that despite the fact that I thought I was being crystal clear in my message, some of the guys in Another Breath really took offense to it. We haven't really talked about it at all. I've just heard murmurs. But if they didn't get it the possibility exists that I said something completely different than what I mean and I just want to try to clear that up for a second. So any accusations of backpedaling or spinning things can be saved. If you're not in my band and you were or are offended I hope you stay offended.

First off. I will say that I regret saying that 'Ian MacKaye had some funny shit to say'. It wasn't meant to mock the dude. What I mean is that he's not one of my personal heroes as he seems to be to a lot of kids around me. I only worded it like that as kind of a botched inside joke for one of my friends that was at the show. Oh and I felt bad afterward because I found out there was a kid there wearing an Earth Crisis shirt. What I said was in no way shape or form directed at that dude and if you know who he is please apologize for me. Everything else - meant it.

OK with that stuff out of the way let me give you a quick run down of why I said what I said. First off, I am not a "hardcore kid". I am a dude and I like hardcore. That's the point. I AM. I like a lot of things. Hardcore happens to be on of them. I just am. A "hardcore kid" collects vinyl, gets low, hangs out on the B9, has status for being in a band, gets scene points for being straight edge or vegan, sometimes has an ironic haircut... This is much in the same way that a "fratboy jock" plays a lot of beer pong, fucks a bunch of girls, listens to John Mayer, wears one of those corny letterman jackets, dodged rape charges once or twice, and yells 'college' all the time. They are labels and they conjure up stereotypes that are and should be considered bullshit. So what am I saying here? Well simply put, I don't get into things that the "typical hardcore kid" is "supposed" to be into. And SOMEHOW at the same time hardcore is still one of the most important things in my life. Wait... wait... wait... Hold the fuck up... This sounds like I'm saying that something can be important to you without turning you into a walking cliche. That CAN'T be right. But you know what? It's EXACTLY what I'm saying... and what's crazy is that I've been trying to say it all along. Weird.

If you're into vinyl. Cool. You like Earth Crisis? Awesome. You're straight edge? I'm psyched. I'm not talking shit on any of that stuff. I'm saying that I'm not into it and going a step further to let other kids that aren't into signing up for all of that stuff that it's still ok for them to be around. This music, these bands, and these songs are important to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I guess my show and tell about things that are important to me wasn't ok for a lot of people - that made my point much better than any of my words could have.

Oh and as a side note, when I said that I'm not going to be here forever I meant it. I'm not saying hardcore is a stepping stone for me and I honestly don't even understand how it could have ben construed that way unless the Ian MacKaye talk got you on that train of thought. I'm saying that things change and that's OK. If you want to come to one show, fine. Five shows, great. Want to stay forever? That's ok too. No commitment necessary up front. If it's right for you I'm sure you'll stay. If at some point it's not I hope you won't lie to yourself and stick around when you could be doing other more productive things.



I'm going to close this one up by banging out one last thought that should hopefully tie everything together. I was having a conversation with my friend Adam the other day and we were joking around about how a band will do well if it has a "shtick" and he kidded me by saying that sincerity is Another Breath's shtick. I laughed. At the same time though, I'm not trying to have honesty be a gimmick for this band. I think for a long time I said what was on my mind and tried to spin it in a way that I knew would get the claps. I censored myself because somewhere I knew and knew that people don't want honesty. They want honesty that coincides with what they think already. When you tell people something that shakes them or makes them feel they are doing something wrong they don't want to change how they live. They want to shut you up (I know.. it's happened to me a couple of times). If you're going to tell the truth you have to accept that fact. That's why this song is called I am the Messiah. It's not about my ego. It's about my microphone. More so it's about my life in general and yours too.







*PS - I also want to offer a public apology to my band mates for past and future instances where I say things at our shows, songs, or in the context of talking about this band that they don't agree with. I offer the disclaimer that I'm not ever speaking for them. How could I? I'm speaking for me. It just so happens that they have to stand behind whatever I say - literally. I won't however apologize for anything I've said. I mean every word.


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Dear Prospective Employer

Nowadays the internet isn't just for looking at porn and talking shit on message boards. As it turns out, when you go to get a job, many times your prospective employer will Google your name and see if they come up with anything incriminating.

Fuck.

Anyone that knows me personally knows that I lead a pretty successful double-life. One the one hand I'm a 24 year old professional with a master's degree in mental health. I've been a substance abuse counselor in one form or another for the last year. Sometimes I wear a tie to work. I am damn good at what I do. I play my adult role well.

But when I'm not at work I might as well be Mr. fucking Hyde. I've been out of school for two weeks and have been living in my car for most of that time as I travel around having so much fun that I actually feel guilty. I sing in a hardcore band. I cause trouble with 18 year old kids. I've set myself on fire twice.... the list goes on.

So when you Google me, Mr. or Mrs. Future Employer, I can only imagine the surprise on your face when you find pictures of what you thought was wholesome, polite, well-educated white bread traipsing around half naked, tattooed, and punching kids in the face with a microphone. I cringe at what will almost certainly be your terrified reaction to the deep-bellied screaming that yours truly contributes to the Another Breath songs you may find yourself listening to. Oh and my blog. Man, if this isn't incriminating in some way I don't know what is. I can only hope you aren't offended by the word fuck - as I'm sure you've noticed, it's one of my favorites.

See usually I moderate that kind of thing. Whenever I first get a job I'll wear long sleeves. I don't talk too much and just do my job. I make it a point to impress the right people with the work that I'm doing. I know exactly how to say really intelligent and insightful things at just the right moments without overdoing it. If not for this Google business I would be able to paint you a really good picture of a model employee and human being. After enough time went by and I was satisfied that I had made the right impression I would start to kid around a little and make friends. Eventually I would find someone that I trust and enjoy talking to at work and let it slip that I'm in a band. The rest of the office would have Googled my name by then anyway since they're usually dicking around on their computers for most of the day anyway. They would know all of my nasty little secrets. Eventually it would get out and become the office gossip for a minute that I scream on the weekends and that I have tattoos. It wouldn't really matter though because I would have secured that crucial first impression. See if I strategically show myself to you like that then you see me as the well rounded white bread yadda yadda who's a little edgy. This view is much different than the tattooed screaming weirdo who happens to have a degree.

So now I'm in a rough spot Mr/Mrs Future Employer. If you're sitting here reading this you've effectively fucked up my game plan. At first I was pretty upset about that. I considered deleting this blog. I figured I could play down the Another Breath thing. But the thing is that I don't want to do that and I shouldn't have to. I don't want to have to put on some face to go to work. Because I get sick of that face really damn quick. At some point I should just be allowed to be me.

If you're here my cover is blown. You know I'm in a band. You know how I feel about suicide. You know I hang out with weirdos that eat acid and talk to each other with sock puppets. You know that today is the best day of my life. For as worried as I've been about you knowing that, today I feel strangely liberated and I only have this to say: take it or leave it. I'm getting sicker by the day of having to be somebody I'm not. As I accept the fact that I'm an adult I'm accepting the fact that part of being an adult is taking responsibility for yourself (and every little piece that makes up who you are). I'm not completely there yet but like with most things I'm a late bloomer. What I do know is that what I do isn't bad or wrong as so many people have tried to convince me. I have nothing to be ashamed of. This is who I am and I'm not sorry. If that doesn't work for you then I'd rather find out now than be miserable trying to keep pieces of myself shoved into a box. I've been doing that for too long anyway.


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