Left of the Dial

Merry X-mas and Happy Holidays to all. What'd you get??? Seems that was the big question when I was a kid. X-mas would end in a blur of giftwrapping and food and then it was time to call your friends and find out who scored what. X-mas then dies for you from about the time you're 17 or 18 until you have kids of your own.

So Cooper has been through his first one and so far he's unscathed. He got lots of cool stuff (his hippo walker and his little people truck seem to be the favorites for now) and lot's of clothes too (thank god). His Aunt Chris and Uncle Matt got him this really cool velour track suit so he can live up to his Italian heritage.

As for me, I got a gift I'm already really enjoying. Rhino Records "Left of the Dial" compilation of Alternative music from the 80's. It's a great collection of stuff that was put on the map by college radio. Artists range from REM, to The Sugercubes (Bjork) and The Cure among others.

My favorites represented in the collection?

The Jam
The Dead Kennedys
The Replacements
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Black Flag (Henry Rollins)
The Pretenders
The English Beat
The Smithereens
XTC
The Dead Milkman (maybe the funniest band ever)
Concrete Blonde
Violent Femmes
Sonic Youth
They Might Be Giants
Pschedelic Furs
The Pixies
Suicidal Tendencies
The Pogues
The Butthole Surfers

It's truly a great lineup. If you're into 80's nostalgia like I am, you'll love what Rhino has been doing for the last couple of years. Check out their website you'll love it. They also put out a killer punk compilation last year.

My favorite thing that they've done is the re-release of most of Elvis Costello's old albums. Let me start by admitting that Elvis is my favorite all-time artist. The man is amazing. One minute he rocks out, the next he writes a great ballad. He works with the best of his generation from all genres including Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris on his latest album. He produced the Pogues best work (Rum, Sodomy and the Lash), has recently worked with his wife of an Album (Diana Krall) and written music with people like T-Bone Burnett (Cold Mountain soundtrack) and Burt Bacharach among others. He's up for 4 grammy's for his work on 3 different albums (Delivery Man, Cold Mountain and the Delovely Soundtrack).

I've seen him live 3 tmes in the last few year and I must say he puts on a great show too. Unlike many artists he's not afraid of the work he's done in the past, but he doesn't rely on it. He pulls stuff in from his entire 25 year career and his backing band kicks ass.

Anyway, I listened to the entire 4 disc set as we were driving to different relatives houses and it brought back lots of memories. On many of the tracks, my wife and I were trying to guess who the band was but all of it brought us back to a time that we feel is much like what we are living through now.

In the 80's many people were blinded by our presidents charm into thinking things were fine. That blindness still exists as Reagan was celebrated after his death as if he had been this great unifying force. Do people forget that the 80's saw a huge rise in poverty, homelessness, AIDS, Teen pregnancy and crime across the board? I fear that people will also be fooled by our current presidents false charm and down home style. The guy was born to one of the most powerfull families in the country. He went to Philips Andover and Yale, he was a member of the Skull and Bones society. This is not a down home guy, he is a member of the elite yet people forget that.

So this group of music somehow feels very appropriate right about now, and it still sounds great too.

Long Distance Dedication

Ok, I've had a request so I'll postpone part II of my life story (such as it is) and tell you the story of going to a jr. HS dance drunk. Let me start off with this, it seems everyone in the 80's fit neatly into a little click such as "Jock", "Geek" ,"Burnout", etc. For some reason that just didn't seem to be the case for me. I hung out with some nerds, played a little D&D, smoked cigarettes and played a little baseball and soccer and was in drama club. So as you can see I was all over the place. In HS I spent alot of time hanging out in the school's smoking area (yes it was even sanctioned) playing hacky sack with the metal heads but I didn't listen to enough metal to be a real part of that group. I'll probably blog more about this later, but for now back to the story. I was in 8th or 9th grade (our Jr HS went through 9th grade) when it happened. Me and my friend Chance (yes, his real name) thought it might be fun to get a buzz going for the dance coming up that weekend. He stole 4 beers from his older brother's fridge and stashed them in the woods near the school a few days before the dance. The day of the dance we met at my house, chance convinced me that 4 beers wasn't likely to do the job (we were teenagers in NH, drinking started early) so we decided to rifle through my Mom's liquor cabinet. Now my Mom has never been much of a drinker so I probably could have swiped a bottle of anything besides the Bailey's and been safe, but I was trying to be cautious when I came up with an idea. I grabbed a large thermos bottle and Chance and I started adding a little bit of everything in the cabinet. Now let's just say my Mom had ecclectic taste in alcohol, we had a little rum, a little vodka, a little vermouth, a little midori, a little bailey's, a little Johnny Walker...just thinking about it makes me a little bit queasy. We grabbed a couple of plastic cups, stashed our rocket fuel in Chance's backpack and off we went making the walk to the dance. We got to the woods by the school about an hour or so before the dance and off we went on our misadventure.

We started off easy slugging back a couple of beers (something lovely I'm sure like Knickerbocker or Hamm's) and once we dealt with those it was on to the hard stuff. I opened the top of the thermos and heard a mild hiss as the vacuum seal was broken...I swear I must have seen a bit of gentle steam in the form of a skull and crossbones rise from the open mouth of the container...the smell of what was inside was pungent to say the least and I think both Chance and I understood the gravity of what we were about to undertake.

We poured ourselves a nice full cup of this concoction which was so vile it could easily be used on an episode of Fear Factor. Wasting no time we treated it like nasty medicine and slugged it down...ugghh...gross...looking into the thermos we saw there was still more in the container. We poured ourselves another dose...looked each other in the eye to work up the courage and BAM...down the hatch. We sat there for a moment and tried to get our barings. Before we left Chance served up the Coup de Grace, he pulled out a tube of Auquafresh from his backpack, "Here, eat some of this, it'll mask your breath" Damn, it's a wonder I didn't hurl right then and there. I think our timing must have been impeccable because nobody at the ticket table noticed anything wrong as we paid and entered. My guess is nothing really kicked in until we got inside into the dark gymnasium where we could fade into the darkness.

Imagine, 13 years old, drunk and being subjected to "C'Mon Eileen" and "Land Down Under"...it wasn't long before our heads were spinning.

I don't know how we got away with it, but we did. I was swaying pretty hard before long and I must have smelled like a minty distillery. At one point Chance even talked to the principal of the school.

We spent the night at Chance's house and managed to avoid adult contact while there. The next morning we woke up late but really none the worse for wear. I think faced with the same amount of liqour today I would probably pass out (I've become a lightweight in my post college days) but somehow neither one of us got sick or drew enough attention to ourselves to get caught. And to be honest I never showed up to another school function in that condition again, even in HS. I guess I just got it out of the way early.

I was born a poor black child part II

Where was I?? O yeah, off to college. I had a great time in college, made a lot of good friends and met my wife. As I said I was a horrible student in HS, but when I got to college something clicked when I found my major. During one of my years off I did a program of internships in Worcester, MA called Dynamy. One of my interships was at a radio station and when I finished I got my broadcasting license and did some overnight shifts (mainly on saturdays). It was while doing this that I decided I wanted to get into sports broadcasting.

When I got to KSC I found they had no broadcasting major, but the did have a minor under the dept of Theatre Arts, Speech and Film. Now I had done theatre as a kid so this wasn't a completely new world to me. My Dad had been heavily involved in community theatre and had also done some in college so I even got support on the home front for my major (which I would find was rare among my friends).

As part of my plan I got involved with campus radio (WKNH) and I must admit I had a bit of an attitude about it, I mean afterall I had worked in commercial radio, I was a pro. Well I got my shift (10am-1pm on Saturday, yuk) and started doing my thing, I likely violated a couple of FCC rules in regards to profanity, but considering the station was powered with a 75w antenna, no one was listening, least of all the feds. During one of the station meetings the GM of the station announced that the Athletic Director and Bball coach wanted to see if we were interested in broadcasting the games, the GM asked anyone interested to see him after the meeting. I jumped at the chance, funny though, I was the only one. So for the better part of a year I was the voice of the KSC Owls. The team won something like 3 games that year and it wasn't too many more years before the school dropped from NCAA Div. II to Div. III. I had fun though and got to travel to some of the great hot spots in the lower NH, MA and CT area, like Newhaven, and Manchester and Bridgeport.

At the same time that this was going on I was also taking my first of many theatre courses (intro to theatre), it was a great intro to the department as it was team taught by 4 of the faculty so we got to know all of them a little bit. A funny side note, there were 3 other Josh's in the class (an even funnier side note, I've never personally met someone named Josh who is older than me). I had a great time in this class and it culminated in me playing the role of tom Wingfield in a scene from "The Glass Menagerie". I screamed alot so it must have been good right? Looking back on it, it must have been horrible but it got me pumped about theatre again.

While this was going on I was also cast in my first KSC production "Laudomia" It was an original script and I must say it was pretty bad, but again it got me meeting and working with the people that would be my friends for the next few years.

After Laudomia I passed on theatre for the rest of the year as it was Bball season and I was getting busy. I did take an acting class so I was at least keeping touch with people but I was definately not "In" the crowd yet. I guess there's actually a reason for this, two people heavily involved in the program, Bill Whelan and Christine Byliski (not even close on the spelling) were also involved and two be honest they were both part of the percieved reason I stopped doing theatre in HS. They always seemed to be trying to percieve themselves as "Artistes"...whatever, it was all kid stuff anyway.

My sophomore year was when I really got involved and when I also started my transformation into being a techie. I auditioned for and was cast in "The Ghost Sonata" as Bengtsonn and The Dead Man (I had to walk down a 10ft. flight of stairs mostly blindfolded). I had fun in the play, likely did a poor acting Job, but more importantly this is when I met my wife Christina. Apparently we had been in the same Geology class, but I don't honestly recall. She was serving as a props person on the show and had to help me with my costume change. We got friendly and teased a flirted in a very HS way, it would be a month or so before I got up the courage to ask her out.

Maybe this is a good place to admit what must be painfully obvious, I have always been horrible when it came to girls. Prior to meeting Christina, the longest romantic relationship I had had was a grand total of 4 months (I've now been with Christina for more than 13 years). I was shy, always a bit overweight and had no ability to read signals from women.

After "The Ghost Sonata" I worked as a sound guy on a student production of "True West". This was an eyeopener. It wasn't the best production, but I loved the script. It was so gritty and modern and real. Not stilted or old fashioned like most of what I had been exposed to up to that point. I believe this is the point where I really started to think of myself as a theatre person. After that show I found myself involved in all but one of the 9 productions done at the school that year. And I really began to identify myself more as a techie than an actor. I took stagecraft and was constantly in the shop (over 100hrs for my 40hr requirement) and I met my best friend in school, Glenn. Glenn and I clicked quickly as we were both about the same age and were in the same class. Both of us had taken time between HS and college (him for the military, me because I was an idiot) and we were both probably a little bit left of center mentally. Glenn and I got into the habit of going to the local watering hole (Penuche's) after tech class got out around 3pm on Thursdays. We hung out alot with the seniors and juniors and quickly became part of the "in" crowd (as much as you can be "in" in a theatre group).

So I was really finding my way, I had a girlfriend, good friends and things to occupy my time. It was at this point I started to notice I was doing better in school. My first year I had a 2.25 avg, but my second year I really started to pick it up and ended the year with a 3.0 for the year. After that I spent every semester on the Dean's List and pulled my overall gpa for four years up to 3.18. Needless to say I was pretty happy with the turnaround and you wanna know what the cause was? I was staying busy. I was doing shows all the time, and taking between 16 and 18 credits a term (I ended up graduating with 10 more than I needed). It turns out I work best under pressure. And it wasn't just the artsy or teche courses I was doing well in, I aced my Lit class and did the same in my Theatre History, Dramatic Lit and a couple of seminar classes, one was on The Group Theatre (were you in that one Shane?) and the other was on O'Neill. As a result of the latter, I would become an O'Neill devotee to the point were I guest lecture on him in some of the 10th grade English classes at my current job.

During this time I had become passionate about many things, Christina, theatre and lastly, lighting. It was probably around my junior year that I decided I was going to be a Lighting Designer and I started thinking about graduate school.

Damn, writing a novel here. Gotta take a break, part III soon.

I was born a poor black child...

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

I was born in Boston, MA at Beth Israel Hospital (no, I'm not Jewish. Not that there's anything wrong with that) in the late summer of 1969 when my parents were living in Arlington, MA (just outside of Cambridge). My Mother was and is, a Psych Nurse. My Dad was a recent Harvard grad (more about that later) who had and has worked a variety of jobs from Ice Cream Scooper at Brighams, to college professor to book reviewer for the Globe to a variety of management/HR jobs mainly in the technology industry. I have an older brother, Ian, who is working for IBM in Colorado. He and I could not be more different. I am a flaming liberal, he is a goosestepping facist conservative. I am an athiest (or at best a backsliding Unitarian) he is a born again, Anglican Catholic (I don't really know what that is either othert than it menas they get to hate the Pope).

My parents moved from MA when I was about 1 to Warner, NH. Warner is a small town at the base of Mt. Kearsarge and, as far as I know, it has know legitmate claim to fame. Warner was a nice town to grow up in and we lived there until I was about 7. I remember being allowed to wonder far and wide at a very young age. I was able to go to the local ponds, streams, etc and wander through the woods to my hearts content. Either my parents were trying to get rid of me, or it was a different era.

I got as far as the 1st grade in Warner and then we moved all the way across the state to Durham when my Dad got a teaching job in the business school at UNH. Durham was ok, the best part about it was that it was the place I got introduced to soccer. I'd never even heard of it until then. It ended up being the sport I competed in the longest (besides golf, but that comes later). We were only in Durham a couple of years when my Dad moved onto a position at Boston University. Rather than move to Boston, we moved to Bow, NH which is right next to Concord (or at the intersection of Rt. 89 & 93). My mother had been working at the state hospital since we had moved to NH and the commute from Durham to Concord was beginning to get to her so we settled in Bow and my Dad commuted.

I lived in Bow from the time I was 10 until I left home for college so this is what I thik of when I think of my childhood. Bow was an ok town, but there's nothing in it for kids. Lots of trees and not a down town in site. From my house it was about 7 or 8 miles to Concord so all there was available for an adolescent to do was get into adolescent trouble. Both my parents smoked, so I started the habit by the time I was 13 (and continued for about 18yrs before I quit). Of course there were other things I did along the way (I had my first drink by the time I was 12 and if you ask nice I'll tell you the story of going to a Jr. high dance drunk).

I also achieved the honor of being, ppossibly the worst student to ever manage t graduate from Concord HS. In 1988 I graduated with the stellar avg. of 69.7. Obviously colleges weren't beating down my door so I took a couple of years off. Eventually I "found myself" and took a couple night classes, got some decent grades and applied to college. I got accepted to both state colleges in NH (Plymouth and Keene), as I had a couple friends going to KSC I opted to become an Owl.

That's all for now. I just looked at the clock and realized I need to go pick up my Son Cooper at daycare. I'll finish this up later.

Welcome!!!

Ok, this is my new blog as I'm moving over from Xanga. What I'll probably do over the next couple of posts is introduce myself and tell you all (not y'all) a little bit about me. Be prepared for lots of sarcasm if not lots of writing talent. I am an artist of sorts but that doesn't always extend to my written work (though you should at least be able to understand what I'm saying. More later today.