So, this blog is probably going to be like my brain is most days: cluttered and all over the place. I can’t say that I particularly enjoy that feeling, but so it goes. Also, the fact that brain fog and fatigue are symptoms of Covid makes me think I’ve had Covid for…at least a few years now. Maybe that’s just how it goes when you’re not 22 anymore and yet you still enjoy living a predominantly nocturnal life. Who knows? When I was 22 (why am I talking about the seemingly random age of 22? Simple, my dear Watson: the song “Lost Highway” by Hank Williams. “I was just a lad, nearly 22. Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you…” I used to play that song a lot back in my folk days. So, whenever I think of being a “kid” or “lad” I think of age 22), I was living in New York City over on the Brooklyn side, and was playing shows or open mics until like 3am then getting up for work at 5:30am. But, something about the energy of the City just keeps you going. I have no doubt I could return to that lifestyle if I moved back; although I could never afford to be a full-time musician in NYC. Or even just to live there again. My rent at the time was $1100 and I thought that was outrageous for a cockroach-filled flat where the landlords never turned on the steam heat for the building on since they almost always had a bottle of vodka in them and were never cold. They also spoke only Polish. So, to get the heat on, we had to call the broker who got us the place and she would have to call them to ask if they would turn on the heat. Eventually, we learned how to say “heat” in polish and learned way too much about how to get rid of cockroaches (boric acid and flour seemed to work best). Come to think of it, $1100 might have been too much for that place…
Though, it did get me access to my favorite pizza in the city over at Russ Pizza on Manhattan Ave. They didn’t deliver outside the 11222. We ordered so often they eventually learned our phone number and order (regular pie and an order of garlic knots) so when we’d call they would just pick up and say “it’ll be there soon” or “it’s on the way.” I think the first time we ordered from them it took around an hour and a half to get our pizza. By the end, it was like 15 minutes. It’s strange, I ended up going up a pants size or two while living there despite walking like five or six miles a day. Good times…
But, we’re not here to talk about pizza. That’s just that cluttered and random brain of mine. Gets on a kick and runs with it. Which is kind of the point of this blog today. You see, April is Autism Awareness Month and if you didn’t know already, I am on the spectrum. I have Asperger’s, or what is sometimes referred to as high-functioning autism, which is generally on the milder end of the spectrum. It’s something I didn’t learn about until later in life. I was around 27, I believe, when I first learned about it. It just wasn’t something ever thought of for me because:
1) I grew up in a tiny town in rural Wisconsin. Things like autism weren’t really something we talked or thought much about back then.
2) I never really seemed to have much trouble with social situations. Looking back on it, I did struggle quite a bit but it was nothing that couldn’t be seen as the actions of an overly rambunctious, highly opinionated boy, which I definitely was/am.
Back then, most of my time went to playing sports, which also “disqualified” me from having something like Asperger’s. I was athletic, had friends and was great at my school work. On my report cards, I think I only ever got 2 B’s, and one was intentional as our high school valedictorian got a pretty good sized scholarship that would’ve been wasted on me since I had already decided to skip college. If I remember correctly, the other one was because a teacher wanted to teach me a lesson and gave me some bullshit extra project that I refused to do. If there’s one thing to know about my Asperger’s (everyone’s experience is different, hence the spectrum, so I don’t speak for anyone but myself), it’s don’t try win a war of wills with me. I had a friend bet me I’d go see the movie Titanic at some point since all the girls wanted to go and eventually I’d cave for a date. I have never and will never see Titanic. I told him I’d die before I saw it and I still stand by it. If my wife gave me an ultimatum, I’d choose my word over watching it. That’s how strong my convictions are.
All that being said, it’s very easy to understand how my Asperger’s went undetected for so many years. I mean, not every disobedient child has something like autism or ADHD (I’m lucky enough to have both), but it’s probably a much higher number than people realize. Now that I’ve learned about how to see it in myself, I see similarities in people fairly frequently; at least more frequently than I would’ve imagined. The CDC estimates that 1 in 54 children are being diagnosed as on the autism spectrum. In 2000, they estimated that number was closer to 1 in 150. So, 20 years ago when I was in school they were only diagnosing basically 1/3 the amount of children they are today. And it’s not that the number of kids with autism tripled in that time span, they just are finally looking for and diagnosing it much more efficiently. There’s certainly still a ways to go and that’s one of the reasons I like to talk about it on this blog. Because I will say that knowing I have it has been one of the most transformational pieces of information in my life. I can’t tell you how many girlfriends, bandmates and friends I’ve run off because I didn’t know. For most of my life, I was kinda considered an asshole by many, and they wouldn’t be totally wrong. But, now I can start to see those more asocial or harmful tendencies and understand why they are happening, which helps me decide whether I should act, speak or behave differently in those situations. It also helps the people around me adjust expectations and understand me better. All of which is to say, I don’t want people to always look at autism as a disability. Again, everyone’s experience is different and I know of people who really do struggle with autism or a family member with autism, so I’m not trying to say it’s a walk in the park all the time. On the other hand, someone you know may be struggling by not knowing. I know I did. For years, I’ve battled depression, addiction and the constant feeling that I was somehow broken since I didn’t seem to function like those around me. Do I still struggle with those things? Well, I can at least knock off the last one since finding out I have Asperger’s, which is a huge weight off my shoulders. The feeling of relief was overwhelming when I learned that I wasn’t “broken” just set up a little different.
If you’d like to hear what some of the bad parts of Asperger’s can sound like, you’re in luck. Last April, I made a 4 song EP entitled “music for depressed alcoholic autistic people.” It was a group of songs quite unlike the rest of what I do. There are no guitar solos and the songs aren’t all about cars, girls, drinking and Rock ‘n’ Roll, though all those things do make an appearance. It’s basically sad-synth-folk, or at least that’s how I’ve been referring to it. So, it may not be your speed, but if that sounds weird or interesting you can stream it on SPOTIFY or BANDCAMP. Or, if you want to read about it and download the sucker for FREE, yes free, I wrote an entire blog about why I made it and why it was important for me to do so. You can read that HERE.
I am currently working on a follow-up/second edition for next April’s autism awareness month (I had the thing almost ready for this year but scrapped a couple of the tunes and started over on them which kind of ruined that idea). I think it’s even better but I would probably say that about most things I do. It would be a sad day if I thought something new I was working on was worse than the previous version. It may well be but the day I think that is the day I stop writing music.
If you are curious to read more about Asperger’s and how it affects my life, my music, etc., here’s a few more blog posts on that very topic:
Why I play music… aka… how a guy with Asperger’s connects to the world pt. I
Why I play music… aka… how a guy with Asperger’s connects to the world pt. II
Asperger’s, my music and me… aka… it’s not all bad
I’m gonna quit now because my brain is getting a little tired and I actually have some booking to do, which is nice. I don’t know for sure but this brain fog is probably somehow related to when I had Covid, seems like everything is and I did struggle for months with it last year. I had heart issues, lung issues and loss of smell for quite a while. So, please, if you have not already, get the vaccine. Yes, it does kinda suck afterwards, especially after dose #2, but having months of issues that may or may not yet be resolved because of getting Covid is much worse; trust me. Plus, selfishly, I want to get back to playing live shows like I was pre-pandemic. Yes, some places are doing outdoor shows which we are going to be doing some here and there now that the band is all vaxxed up, but there are so many places I’ve been talking to that are still holding off on bringing back music either out of safety concerns or because they can’t afford to until everything is back or closer to 100% capacity; which won’t happen until we either get the numbers down or more people get the shot. So please, for the sake of the music industry, and as John Travolta so appropriately put it in Pulp Fiction, “get the shot!”
(dictated but not read)
