Last week, Darwin had a “full team evaluation” at The Children’s Hospital Of Philadelphia. He met with 4 different therapists and doctors who led him through various tests, engaging him in different ways to evaluate his behavior as it relates to the Autism Spectrum. Today, his mother and I met with the team again to discuss their observations, the diagnosis, and the recommended treatment.

The diagnosis is autism. Point blank, no bones about it. Does an atomic bomb do just as much damage if you see it coming? Yes it does.

We talked a good bit about specific parts of Darwin’s behavior, his strengths and weaknesses. I suppose the bulk of the conversation focused on the services and treatment we need to get for him. Let me tell you, it is an overwhelming mountain of shit. Schools, therapists, doctors, insurance, and an endless amount of red tape and bullshit to cut through. And at the end of the day, it’s pretty damn likely that Darwin’s life will always be harder, which is exactly what I never wanted. Since the day I knew of his existence, I was sure that I would do everything I could to make his life feel better, and a bit easier than mine has been. All of the awkwardness that the average child feels will potentially be amplified for him. There’s a very good chance that Darwin will always be “different”. The degree of that difference will only become clear with the passing of time, but I’m pretty damned sure that kids along the way will notice him being a bit different, and many of them won’t be kind. I was on the receiving end of plenty of bullying, and senseless pestering during my childhood and adolescence, and that was mostly just because of my appearance and taste in music. If I had some real, tangible “issue” to be pointed out… I can only imagine.

Trust me when I say I will do absolutely everything I can for this boy. But this sucks. =(

PS. Jenny McCarthy is an idiot, and vaccinations do not cause autism.

Before Darwin, I’d never spent any considerable time around young children. So once he was born, every day proved to be a new experience, which is still the case. Because of that, I didn’t have a great basis for comparison between him and any other “normal” kid. But once he became slightly more mobile and I started to see him in the context of playing with or near other children, I started to notice differences. Subtle differences maybe, but I saw them. I was told that I was being paranoid, and that he was totally fine.

I also started to feel concerned about his speech development. Lack of speech development, actually. At one point early on I even had Early Intervention come to my apartment to evaluate him. Three women came and spent some time with Darwin, playing, talking, taking notes. At the end it was determined that he was “fine”, and there was no considerable delay in his speech development. I felt relieved to have some official person tell me that, but I couldn’t shake the feelings I was having. I saw the way other kids acted, and how they spoke, and to me it just didn’t match up with what I was seeing from Darwin.

I kept digging and had him evaluated again, somewhere else. This time around they said yes, he does have enough of a speech delay to warrant speech therapy. So, for over six months now I’ve taken him to speech therapy twice a week. Is his speech better than it was? Sure, but the passing of time will do that with or without his speech therapy in my opinion. Is it where it should be? Not even close. And still, speech is only one part of what I see. I’ve asked his doctors and speech therapists if they thought there was any possibility of autism. I searched around a bit and i found some things that matched up enough to give me some concern, so I asked. One by one, every doctor and therapist looked at me and almost chuckled, “Noo, no, not at all.” I even set him up for a specific Autism Evaluation at one point, but I had to cancel the appointment when I was told that his insurance wouldn’t cover it, and it would be $1,500 just for the evaluation. Meanwhile, Darwin is nearly three years old and he has never once asked me “Why?”. It kills me.

I hounded his therapists enough that they gave me a list of people to contact. I hit up some people at C.H.O.P. and filled out a huge stack of forms with all kinds of questions about Darwin and his behavior. This was several months ago, and I still do not have an appointment. They even called us more recently to say that his behaviors are considered a “red flag” and that he would be getting a “full team evaluation”, which is the big mother, all-in kind of evaluation they give to the kids they think need that kind of attention. But still, no appointment. It really is unbelievable that it takes this long. A considerable fraction of his life is passing by while we have to just sit and wait.

I have no idea how all this will play out, but I do know that I’m sort of scared shitless about it. I want this boy to have a normal life, and I want so badly to sit and have a meaningful conversation with him. Every day I look for some sort of change in the right direction. I hope it comes.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my art lately. And by lately, I mean since this past October or so. I spent a really long time working on the last DDC album and live performances, and I was just really starting to feel the itch to work on my printmaking again. I hadn’t touched any of it since my show in December 2008. It was time.

To become motivated enough to ensure output, I generally like to have a show scheduled so that there’s a real deadline to be met. When possible, I give myself several months so that the show is populated with as much new work as possible. There was already a vague theme in mind for the new work, and a few specific printing methods that I wanted to focus on. A few sketches, and a bunch of notes and lists were being compiled. That’s how it all starts. Then my Mother died, which caused some of my attention to shift elsewhere. Then my Grandmother died, which immediately caused just about all attention to shift elsewhere. All of a sudden I was thrown into dealing with funeral shit, family shit, moving out of my apartment, and the still-unfolding bullshit saga of taking actual ownership of the house I grew up in. Not to mention having portions of it rebuilt. All the while I’ve been playing a large role in building up and working in a recording studio that I hope brings in some consistent income at some point. My goal of a solo show in August or September is no longer an option.

As of now, I’m back to the thinking, sketching, and writing that will eventually lead to new prints. I’ve also been taking steps toward finding and securing a suitable venue for my next show, which, if I have my way, will be in May 2011. As this time has passed, I’ve occasionally looked back over my past work, especially the prints that made up my last show. In doing so, I’ve been able to see which things most represent what I want my art to be. For better or worse, those things that I like the best seem to be the most far away from what I see so much of around Philadelphia. I’m not sure if that will come to help me or hurt me in the long run, but the cynical majority of my brain tends to think that it will probably work against my chances of showing in more significant spaces.

Come to think of it, what does “significant spaces” even mean? My big illegal posters of Mike Tyson, Sade, and Pete Townshend have surely been seen by more people than any of the stuff I’ve had hanging in shows. While I’ve had what I considered respectable headcounts at my openings, it’s never been anything that resembles the mob scene that happens at the Crane Arts building or the fancy pants Old City galleries, just like the cash generated at my shows probably doesn’t resemble what’s going on over there either. Now I’m rambling on about headcounts and cash like some greedy corporate executive… is that what it’s about? Money? The easy, and honest-to-a-point answer is no. Of course not. I make my art (and music) because I feel compelled to express myself using the images and sounds that appear in my mind as I trudge through life. And on top of that, I truly enjoy the processes used to create these things, and the feeling I get when I accomplish an artistic goal. But at the end of the day, after I’ve spent a year or more making an album or a bunch of new artwork, just showing it to myself doesn’t feel quite good enough. Part of me needs people to see it. The more the merrier. And when creating what I create costs me money, I feel some pressure to try and make that money back or, dare I say it, make some profit.

So far I’ve mentioned spaces to show art, and money. They come together in a big way in Philadelphia (and other cities too I’m sure) in the form of co-op galleries. This is a gallery that has a group of artist members who pay to be a part of the group. In exchange for your money you get to say you’re part of that group and you get to hang your work there at specified intervals. The cost is pretty steep, but first you need to be voted in. The example I’ll use is Nexus. I choose that one because it’s the main co-op that I’ve ever considered applying to. I’ve been there many times when it lived in Old City as well as its current home in the Crane Arts building. My good friend Rebecca Gilbert is a member there, and aside from being my printmaking Yoda, she’s an all-around awesome artist and teacher who is incredibly dedicated to her craft. If she thinks it’s good to be a member there, the idea is worth at least looking into. Here are the benefits and responsibilities as listed on the Nexus web site:

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS
• Solo exhibition every two years
• Group member exhibitions
• Exchange exhibitions with other galleries
• Curatorial opportunities
• 0% commission on sales
• Access to exhibition opportunities and calls for entry
• Gain experience with gallery preparation and arts administration
• Access to funding

MEMBERSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES
• $100 initiation fee
• $50 monthly dues
• One day a month of gallery staffing
• Four hours of gallery-related work each calendar quarter
• Attendance at membership meetings
• Attendance at artist membership reviews
• Two year membership contract

Since the contract is for two years, you are guaranteed to pay $1,300 and have one solo show. And I’m not 100% certain, but the “solo” show may actually be split with another person. Maybe not a big deal since the space is pretty big, but worth mentioning. So, for it to make good financial sense, you have to believe that the one show you are guaranteed to have will generate at least $1,300 is sales. And that’s assuming the art in that show costs nothing to make, which is impossible. Now, it’s not a purely financial decision either. Aside from the show, you get to make connections, surround yourself with artist peers, and have a nice line on your résumé.

This is all quite a lot to think about. My goal for my next show is simply to have it be a significant improvement over my last one. I have no idea where or when it will take place, but I’m certain that it will be my best work to date.

For the most part, the introduction of the iPad has created three main groups.
1. Those who love it.
2. Those who don’t get it.
3. Those who wish it did more.

The people who wish it did more, want it to use Adobe’s crashy Flash plug-in, have USB ports, and a slew of other features that people see on laptop and desktop computers. This is akin to wishing your sports car would toast your bagel. There have been tons of “iPad killers” announced already, and they all boast a long list of hardware features that read like a traditional laptop spec-sheet. What this group of people don’t yet understand is that the iPad is very clearly not a laptop or traditional computer of any kind. Even comparing one of these Tablet Computers to an iPad is comparing apples to oranges to say the very least. Almost every single one of those wish list features brings with it the potential to cloud the impressive new vision that the iPad has created, and lessen the overall experience.

The people that still just don’t “get it” are people that are perfectly happy with their flip-phones, renting movies from the local Blockbuster, and might not know what Torrent files are. The fact that they can look at Facebook while watching a reality show on a flat-screen TV is all the technology they really need. And that’s fine. What these people don’t know, is that the iPad is even more well suited to them than the group of tech nerds that I mentioned previously. To oversimplify, the iPad could be viewed as a computer, with all the computing taken away. Apple calls the device “magical”, and while that may seem like silly marketing, I really kinda feel that way sometimes. The fact that it “just works” is huge. A person can carry around some flat little thing that is smaller and thinner than a regular paper notebook, and use their finger to access the web, get email, watch video, and countless other things that used to require a computer to do. The device is always on, and you don’t need to know anything about what’s in it, or how it works. To me, it is the perfect anti-technology. It’s so high tech, that anyone can use it.

I was well aware that Apple was going to debut some sort of tablet-like device, and I was curious to see exactly what it would be. When it was finally announced, I thought it was cool. Cool, but certainly not something I “needed”. Slowly but surely, I started noticing situations in my daily routine where the iPad would fit in well. My main computer at that point was my MacBook. The whole idea behind a laptop computer is that it’s portable and doesn’t require you to be tethered to a desk while using it. In practice however, using the MacBook on my lap was pretty uncomfortable. It has to be positioned in a very specific way due to the limited range of the screen hinge and relative position of the keyboard. Worse than that is the fact that it gets hot enough to fry an egg, or my groin, which is part of that general LAP area that it is designed to sit on TOP of. Add in the much shorter battery life, considerable weight, start up time, etc., and the iPad started looking like a viable replacement as my main content-consumption appliance.

Once I laid my hands on one at the local Best Buy, I was sold. It felt amazing to me. I knew I wanted the always-connected possibility offered by the 3G version, so when it was released, I got one. So far, I have not been disappointed by a single aspect of the device. There’s always room for improvement, and the main things I would choose to improve upon are already scheduled to be part of the next software update (multitasking, unified inbox). Since taking ownership of my iPad, I have not used my MacBook at all. Not one single time. It’s been sitting on a shelf with many other books, right next to a Clapper.

As I’m sitting on my couch (or in my chair, on the porch, in the backyard, or laying in bed) it’s become easier and more comfortable than ever to reach over and immediately get what I’m looking for on this amazing little… thing. The web, games, movies, all of it. In no way does it feel like using a computer. I mean, just look at it. I dunno about you, but it’s nothing like any computer I’ve ever seen. The beautiful thin hardware, coupled with the ever-growing list of custom made apps is really proving to be as close to “magical” as any little electronic device has ever been. To nitpick which features or old school ports it doesn’t have is missing the point completely. I’m barely touching on the many specific ways that I’ve been using the device, but I can’t recommend it enough. Obviously it isn’t something that everyone needs, but if you enjoy spending time on the web, playing games, and amazing futuristic technology in general, you should really spend some time with one. The only group that’s stayed silent through all this are the people that have an iPad and don’t like it. Hmmm.

It sucks to even have to think about money when someone dies, but it’s a reality. In my case, I’m inheriting full responsibility for a shitty, run-down old house that I need to maintain from here on out. You would expect that when a persons whole family dies over the course of 5 years or so, including an accidental death (re: double indemnity) that the beneficiary would be left with some considerable money. I know people who have had just one family member die, and been left with some seriously life altering amounts of cash. Well, it comes as no surprise to me that when the dust clears I will be left with little more than some new bills to pay. The money I’ll be left with from the insurance policies isn’t enough to improve even one room of this fucked up old house. It won’t be enough to clear my old debts and repair my credit, and it sure as shit won’t begin to do anything that involves “a new life”.

Like I said, it’s pretty much what I expected. But it really would have been nice to have just one pleasant surprise in this wretched existence, especially during such a fucked up time.

I was planning to write a post just pointing out the new design of this site and some other casual shit like that. And then someone else died.

As I sit here, it’s after midnight on the morning of February 3, which is my grandmother’s 86th birthday. She died a few hours ago. Late last week I came in the house from some lame appointment I had, to find that she had fallen down the stairs to the basement. Actually, the first thing I saw was Darwin crying his eyes out in the living room. I knew something was up. Apparently she had gone downstairs to get something, and lost her balance on the way back up. She fell straight back and hit the deck pretty hard. Now, even by your average 85 year old person standards, this woman was in pretty bad shape. She can barely move around on flat ground, let alone stairs. She always uses a cane to prop her up, and sometimes a walker. She absolutely knew better than to even make an attempt at these stairs. ESPECIALLY while watching my son.

I walked in just shortly after it happened, and I called 911 right away. That was the last time I saw her. She was conscious, in some pain, but it surely didn’t appear to be critical condition. I made several calls to speak with a doctor or nurse about her condition, but as usual, the staff over at the ol’ Crozer-Chester Medical Center proved to be less than helpful. The only update I got was “She had some MRI’s and she’ll be fine”. A little over 24 hours later she was dead.

She and I couldn’t have been more different. Having said that, she was my primary care-giver/guardian from birth through my teen years. She was super old fashioned, relatively closed-minded, and extremely giving despite the fact that her decades as a factory worker left her on the wrong side of middle class. And now her pain is over.

• MOST IMPROVED •

The Mars Volta / Octahedron

I’ve always tried to like The Mars Volta. Each album has had some interesting, memorable moments, but as a whole I found each of them to be damn near impossible to sit through. And don’t even get me started on the bullshit jam-session live performances. But Octahedron finally sees the band craft more focused pieces that can actually be called songs. The lyrics are still artsy-fartsy stoner baloney, but that’s fine in this case. I can sit all the way through this album, and I did so pretty often this year.

• WASTED HYPE •

Them Crooked Vultures / self-titled

If this was a debut album made by three guys that you’ve never heard of, it would not be getting anywhere near the kind of reviews or hype it has gotten. It’s a decent album at best, with a fairly dull lead singer. Everyone that loves this band loved it before they ever heard a single song.

• BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS •

Chris Cornell / Scream

This was simply the biggest wrong turn that a great artist could have made. What the fuck Chris was thinking here is completely beyond me. I just hope it was a very short-lived phase that never rears its head again. I hesitated to even put it on this list because I want to just forget about it and pretend it never existed. Horrendous.

Green Day / 21st Century Breakdown

I loved American Idiot, so I was eager to get into this album. Unfortunately I never could. It sounded weak from the first time I listened to it, and nothing grabbed me. Fail.

• HONORABLE MENTIONS •

Alice In Chains / Black Gives Way To Blue

There’s a certain faction of people that just aren’t willing to get over the whole “It’s not Layne so I don’t like it” bullshit. And trust me, I was skeptical coming in. Layne was special, and can’t be replaced. Luckily William Duvall never pretends to be Layne. He fits the aesthetic of the music, and he does it with skill and class. Does this rank up there with ‘Dirt’? No. But neither did the last album with Layne. This is a very good Alice In Chains album, powered mainly by Jerry Cantrell, just like all Alice In Chains albums.

Pearl Jam / Backspacer

Pearl Jam can do no wrong in my eyes, so admittedly, they have an easy ride onto any list that I create. Despite being the shortest album of the bands long career, Backspacer never disappoints. The band managed to pull out maybe the most hard rocking PJ song ever, “Gonna See My Friend” and one of their sweetest ballads, “Just Breathe”. Yet another great album from our finest living Classic Rock band.

AFI / Crash Love

It took AFI some time to settle into being a great rock band, which is what they are now. Crash Love is a timeless rock album. I don’t know that it can touch ‘Sing The Sorrow’ as the pinnacle of the bands creativity, but it far surpasses ‘Decemberunderground’. AFI have grown up and found their true voice. Great album.

• ALBUM OF THE YEAR •

dredg / The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion

Not only is this the album of the year, and very possibly the decade, but it will likely go down as one of my favorite albums of all time. It really is just about as perfect as an album can be. The production is absolutely flawless. Every nuance of every instrument is crystal clear, and mixed beautifully. The songs are all well-crafted, intelligent, and touching. This is very possibly the highlight of one of America’s finest, most creative bands ever. If you haven’t given this album your undivided attention for at least a few spins, you are really missing out on something special.

I have to wonder, just how often do most people think about dying? I guess it varies depending on a person’s age and infinite combinations of life situations. An 85 year old woman with cancer probably thinks about it more often than your average 31 year old man with no obvious health issues. But I suppose that means I’m not your average 31 year old man.

I think about it a lot. Like, a lot. I wonder how I’ll die, how it will feel, who (if anyone) will be near me. And I always give lots of thought about the idea of taking my own life. Again, this is no suicide note or anything, I’m just saying it’s a thing that happens, and it’s something I think about. I like to be in control of things in my own life, and frankly, I would like to be in control of my own death as well. I think that is my right.

How would I do it? Hmm. I guess you have your standards; cutting, hanging, and the good ol’ “self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head”. I can never imagine me sitting in a bathtub cutting my own arms, legs or throat and just waiting to bleed out. I think that would induce so much panic and anxiety. It just doesn’t seem pleasant at all. Hanging is not my style at all, I would surely just fall on the floor with god knows what tied around my neck and sprain my ankle or hurt my back. Fuck that. And the gun thing? I don’t know. It’s relatively simple and quick, with a romantic air of violence to it. But there are always those stories about the people that tried that and lived through it, only to endure more suffering in life. Not to mention they end up looking like an asshole for not even being able to kill themselves properly. Plus, guns are expensive right? Money is a huge contributor to most suicides, so adding to the cost is just silly.

I would want something that happens fast, and leaves little or no chance of accidental survival. Something free of monetary cost. I’ve also never wanted any kind of bullshit funeral for phony people to come to and pretend that they ever liked or understood me. So whatever it is shouldn’t leave much behind for any kind of viewing or debate about what to do with the body. What would do that? I know, a bomb! Duh, who the fuck has a bomb? Not me. Jumping out of a plane or off a huge building? Ehh, too involved. Oooohh, I think I know.

Whenever I’m waiting for the R2, or at the park near the Norwood train station, those super fast Acela/Amtrak trains fly by at up to 150 mph, and I just always think “Wow, what if someone was standing right there?”. What must it feel like to be the man standing there, knowing that train is coming. Feeling the end of everything bear down on you, creeping closer by the second as the ground vibrates harder and harder. Surely your jaw and fists would be clenched harder than ever before. Your heart racing. What an inconceivable rush that must be. By the time that train is close enough to notice, you surely wouldn’t have time to even carry out whatever final thoughts your brain would initiate. And all of a sudden, gone. No pain, no stress. No more fights, no more threats, no more bills to pay, no more people to disappoint. And in this case, I would imagine no body left behind. It seems so scary and violent, but at the same time, so very simple and liberating.

How much of your daily life can be described as “simple and liberating”? For me, about 0.0% of it. There’s not a single fucking moment that goes by that feels anything like simple and/or liberating in any way. I can’t seem to make a single move without it having some strings or a price tag attached to it. I want to do “the right thing”, but there is no such thing. What’s right in one direction, causes wrong in the other direction. The perfect balance doesn’t exist. Not for me anyway, and it makes life seem unbearable most of the time.

That’s a photo of my Mother holding me up by my crotch in 1978, the year I was born.

She died early Sunday morning (September 6), sometime shortly after midnight or so. She was 51 years old. How did she die? Well, I’m sure official medical records will show something involving complications from cirrhosis, or something like that. I would call it suicide. Slow, reckless suicide. She started abusing her body at age 9, and (aside from hospital stays) never went a day without intentionally ingesting some form of poison into herself. Cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, “medication”, whatever it was, it was always something.

Like so many people I know, she just liked to party. Consistently. She wasn’t some dark junkie laying a corner, unable to function. Well, not until much later, anyway. She liked to go out, and she liked to have fun. Luckily for her, having a child didn’t have to slow her down too much, thanks to her adopted parents, otherwise known as my “grandparents”. If it weren’t for them, I have no idea what my life would have been like. I spent the vast majority of my childhood and adolescence living with them, with my mom also living there on and off. Mostly on. She would disappear for hours, and sometimes days or longer with not so much as a mention as to where she might be going or what she might be doing. Of course, at a certain age that part became more clear to me.

It was this fucked up behavior, combined with her young age (she had me at age 20) that made her so obviously the “cool mom” to all of my friends and trouble-making teenagers in my neighborhood. She took us to the drive-in, the mall, concerts, and there wasn’t much that was off-limits. You could smoke, drink, curse, and puff on some joints all under the watchful eye of my mother. As a rebellious kid who thrived on dirty rock n roll and heavy metal, I knew that it was my job to be nothing like my parents. So my path was clear from pretty early on; I had to be straight edge. Thanks, Mom.

Speaking of music, I have to thank her for that one as well. As a kid, my mom had music playing constantly. Too many to name, but the list was as diverse as my current music library. Black Sabbath and Teena Marie were among her first gifts to me, along with the first Mötley Crüe album. Queen, Dio, W.A.S.P., AC/DC… she was a rocker. She took me to my first concert (Michael Jackson/The Jacksons) on September 2, 1984, my second concert (Iron Maiden) on July 22, 1988, and countless others after that. When I was a teenager, it was more like her just going to the same show I was going to because we dug the same bands. Like White Zombie for example. I can’t tell you how often my Mom had on a fucking White Zombie t-shirt. She bought me my first bass when I was in high school, and was always very supportive of my musical endeavors.

In the end, she was stubborn. As medical issues started to appear, she could have altered her behavior. She knew what she was doing, and chose to continue on her path. And make no mistake, the vice that did the most damage to my mother, without question, was cigarette smoking. Yeah she fucked with some hard drugs in her day, and she had some periods of frequent drinking, but those cigarettes were constant.

My relationship with her was up and down for sure. I’ve felt close to her at times, but also extremely angry and resentful. I hated the fact that she did so much wrong, but seemed to be given such an easy ride. Constantly forgiven and bailed out of everything she got herself into. I’ve also made it clear that those people, mainly my grandmother, contributed greatly to her untimely demise by never forcing her to do things right. My Mom knew that no matter how much of a fuck-up she was, that she had a free house to live in, with virtually no responsibilities whatsoever. I was very vocal about the fact that she should be thrown out of the house and forced to be an adult, for her own good. That never happened, she never learned to be responsible, and she’s dead at 51 because of it.

Darwin will grow up without grandparents from my side, which is very sad to me. My dad is technically still alive, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s as dead as my mother is. This was the final step in taking away everything that I can call family, aside from Darwin.

Despite my hesitance to express it in recent years, I did love my Mother. I’m sad that she’s gone, especially for Darwin’s sake, and I’m sorry that it had to happen the way it did. Peace out, Mom.

It took a long time to actually get on a focused path for this new album. The future of DDC was pretty uncertain after the Human Condition version of the band ended. I wanted some new challenges, but I also wasn’t feeling overly confident. Eventually, I got collaborating with some folks (Anthony Orsino, John Bozzuto, Tom Roller) and the new music started to take shape.

Aside from the staggered start to the making of the album, the biggest issue was the decision to do all the vocals myself. There were a few potential singers in the mix, but none really hit the spot. It was just time to step up and take a shot at using my own voice to convey my ideas for what Dark Disco Club is right now. That also meant I was responsible for all of the lyrics as well. Yikes!

Now that the new album (EP, whatever) is about 96% complete, I can start to get an idea of what we’ve created. And it is surely something I’m proud of. Until an album is complete; mixed, mastered, packaged, etc. you can’t really get the full picture. But it’s moving along well and should be in peoples ears on schedule.

The inspiration for this album came from real life, as usual. I’m not the kind of person that writes elaborate fictional stories or invents characters to populate my songs. I’m also not a person that gets inspired to write much about happiness, joy, or anything positive really. Now, this album does have a bit of… I dunno, cautious optimism, maybe. For example, the song “One Blood” is about a true love and finding a real bond that lasts (hopefully) forever. And while it’s lyrical content is pretty sparse, “Sonrise and the Fall of Man” is just about noticing that one speck of positivity in the midst of a whole world of shit. The other songs touch on sex, hatred, regret, and placing blame for all kinds of good stuff.

Musically, it actually sounds like what I wanted The End to sound like. It’s more “live” and hard rocking than The Human Condition was, but way more diverse and interesting than The End. I’m sure I’ll write more about it when the time gets closer.