Asperger's and ADHD... aka... Actually a very helpful combo, sometimes...

This week, I would like to talk (well, write) about how my Asperger’s affected me as a child and how it helped me become a musician. I’ve written before about how having Asperger’s always made me feel “different” and like I was an outsider or somehow broken, and how music was my bridge back to that missing sense of human connection. In a long blog post entitled WHY I PLAY MUSIC, I detail how I felt as a kid, how I got into music in the first place, how the song “Born to Run” changed my life and other takeaways from growing up with Asperger’s. It’s probably the most heartfelt and interesting thing I’ve written on this blog, so if you haven’t read it, it’s probably worth your time.

But, today, I want to focus on a different aspect of having Asperger’s, which, for those who don’t know, is on the autism spectrum towards the milder end. It used to be referred to as high-functioning autism, but they don’t really use that term, or even Asperger’s, much anymore. Another thing I will clarify right off the top is that I am only speaking to my own experiences. When they say autism is a spectrum, they fucking mean it. So, I don’t want people to think my experiences represent everyone who has Asperger’s, because just like all humans, we are all different.

The aspect of having Asperger’s I am focusing on in this blog post is my attention span. It’s well documented that people with autism or Asperger’s are more prone to having ADHD then the general population. In fact, I believe I’ve read that ADHD is the most common comorbidity with regards to autism spectrum disorder. But, the first thing I think really needs to be addressed is how often ADHD is mischaracterized. We typically only talk about ADHD in the way it most commonly presents in young boys, who are, not coincidentally, also the most diagnosed group. People tend to think of those 10 year old boys running around a classroom while the teacher does everything they can to calm them down before sending them to the nurse’s office so he can take his Adderall for the day. And yes, those kids do exist. I knew a lot of them growing up. But, mine presented in completely the opposite way: I was hyperfocused and could spend hour after hour researching dinosaurs in the library until they told me I had to go home. Often, the reason I would get in trouble wasn’t because I wasn’t doing my school work but because I had finished the week’s work on Tuesday so I would be bored and act out the rest of the week. I always thought it was funny that teachers thought it was a punishment to kick me out of the class I clearly didn’t want to be in. My work was done so I didn’t want to be there listening to them blather on anymore so kicking me out of class felt more like a reward for my hard work. Those poor teachers who had to deal with my shenanigans… But because of this, clearly I didn’t have ADHD (or ADD, as we called it at the time), right? Wrong. I probably had it worse than most of those other boys but no one knew because of our narrow view of it as a condition.

I read recently there has been a push to rename the condition to more accurately describe how it affects people. This is the new name they chose: “Variable Attention Stimulus Trait” or VAST. That is far more accurate and would help so many kids, and adults, get the help they need. Because, and I’m sure not alone here, that describes me to a T. Just last week, I was mixing some new songs when I suddenly realized it was 9 hours later and I hadn’t eaten anything that day. Or, there are days when I can’t even send out booking emails (which are like half copy-paste anyways) because I keep opening new tabs to look up some random thing that just popped into my head, and now I’ve got 14 tabs open, haven’t sent out 1 email yet and 4 or 5 hours have gone by. Yep, my ADHD is so fucked that sometimes I can get hyperfocused on my attention deficit. It’s fun…

Anyways, here’s part of the DSM 5’s signs to look for with regards to autism or Asperger’s:

Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g, strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interest).

Another website listed examples like if a kid collects bottle caps or rocks or memorizes baseball statistics or the Latin names of animals, things like that. I’d like to add one that I’ve personally seen more than any other one: dinosaurs. And again, everyone’s experience is different but I have seen an obsession with dinosaurs pop up in at least 5-6 kids who have autism or Asperger’s. In fact, I even remember dinosaurs being a reason I met and befriended a kid who we now know to also be on the spectrum. I’m not saying every kid that is obsessed with dinosaurs is on the spectrum but if a seven year old can name not only the name the dinosaur but also tell you their size, the region they inhabited, their population and the time period they were alive, then maybe think about looking into some of the other signs and symptoms of autism spectrum disorder with your doctor.

So, the attention span fluctuation is basically baked into just the Asperger’s part of my brain and then you add in the ADHD on top of it. In other words, I had a fucking shitload of attention to put towards something, and as a kid, sports were my “perseverative interests.” My whole childhood was consumed by sports. Baseball in the summer, football in the fall, basketball in the winter, short break and then back to baseball. I studied the backs of baseball and football cards and memorized statistics. I knew every player on every team of the three major sports (I do not and will never count soccer as a major sport. It is terrible game created by Satan himself to punish us. Soccer is so boring I’d rather watch a Senate subcommittee discuss infrastructure funding…). I watched Sportscenter in the morning and at night so as to never miss a highlight. The only video games I played were sports games like Madden, NBA 2K or NHL ‘94 (still the only hockey game I ever played). You get the picture.

So, when I tore my achilles in high school and wasn’t able to play sports anymore, that attention needed to go somewhere. Eventually, after some very unhelpful personality tests (which is kind of a funny story, you can read it HERE), my favorite teacher ever helped me land on music as the thing to take up an inordinate amount of my time and brainpower. Only one problem, I couldn’t play the guitar or sing a note to save my life. I had purchased a guitar a couple years earlier which was collecting dust in my closet; which, somewhat ironically, sat right next to my giant plastic bins full of baseball cards and sports memorabilia that I went through all the time. It’s almost like it knew its time would come but just had to wait until the sports stuff got shoved to the side. Or they sat next to each other because I had a tiny fucking closet. Either way.

I wanted to play music but it felt even more unattainable since I had tried and failed just a couple years earlier. The teacher said if I really wanted to be a musician then I would just do it. “But how?” I asked. “I can’t sing to save my life and the only instrument I can kinda play is the trombone. I wish I could play guitar…”

“Then figure it out. I thought you were a smart kid…”

I loved this. It hit on a few things in my personality, not all of which are Asperger’s related but are probably affected by it somehow. It hit on my ego, which has always been overinflated. I love being challenged and proving people wrong. In fact, I think that might be the thing that motivates me more than anything else. And I love doing things that are difficult and require a long process to achieve a goal. And because of that crazy Asperger’s/ADHD attention span I have, doing something like learning an instrument which requires long hours of practice and attention is just what I needed to suck up all those hours that previously went to sports.

My first attempt at learning the guitar had failed since it wasn’t my obsession. Now, with sports out of the way, guitar was definitely my obsession. If I wasn’t at school or reading Kurt Vonnegut novels (something else I was unnecessarily obsessed with, which ended with me eventually owning every book he’s ever written, some with multiple copies as I got the books in bulk via ebay back when you could actually get deals on ebay, like getting ten of his books from someone for like $15 plus shipping…), I was playing guitar. I felt bad for my mom, my sister and especially my brother, who I shared a room with. The hours they had to spend listening to me caterwaul and invent new chords and sounds by accident, aka keep fucking up the guitar, are too many to count. But, because of that boundless attention, I spent hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month and then finally…I could play the rhythm parts for two songs: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “The Jack” by AC/DC. Yep, that was my reward for all that hard work. I could play “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which is probably the easiest song in the world to play and “The Jack,” which is about as basic as a 12-bar blues song in E can be. In other words, I still stunk. I figured this might be the universe telling me that music is just not for me. “Try something else, idiot,” it kept saying. I thought a lot about giving it up, again.

But, because of my inherent stubbornness and the fact that I love doing the same thing over and over (thanks Asperger’s! These are traits that are definitely attributable to you), I just kept going. It probably would’ve been helpful if I could’ve afforded lessons, but the only “lessons” I had were a chord sheet someone had printed out for me and a giant AC/DC guitar tab book that I got from the Sam Goody in the Beaver Dam (WI) mall. I studied them harder than anything school ever threw at me. After maybe a year or so, I finally could start doing things on the guitar that sounded like actual music. Since I still struggled to learn other people’s songs, I started writing my own, ones that I could actually play. This is a strategy I would employ the rest of my music career. It’s often easier for me to write a song rather than learn an existing one. I’m not a naturally talented musician or singer, so trying to emulate someone else and the things they do doesn’t come easily to me. To learn a cover, I have to spend hour after hour playing the same song over and over and over. I’m sure my wife fucking hates every cover I do since she’s heard them all so much. My cat, she doesn’t seem to actually care. She’ll just sleep on the bed while I practice, apparently unaffected by me and my noise making. It’s probably the biggest confidence boost you can get when a cat is like “you’re doing a good job and I don’t find this offensive at all. I’ll just chill hear while you play. Wake me up when it’s dinner time...”

I don’t know if it’s related to the Asperger’s or not, but my brain just doesn’t seem to retain information well when I try to learn covers. I can quote every word of The Big Lebowski, a two hour movie, but struggle to the remember words to a fucking four minute song I’ve heard a million times. My Asperger’s brain is just so weird when it comes to these things. But, it’s the same thing that happens when I try to learn how to play the piano. When I picked up a guitar, the chords and theory just made sense to me; I just had to wait for my stupid fingers to catch up to actually be able to play anything. But it is very different with the piano. My brain has just decided that no matter how hard I try pianos just won’t really make sense to me. Calculus, no problem, aced it. A piano, get the fuck out of here. I don’t get it.

But, that’s what started my journey into music and songwriting. Thousands upon thousands of hours that could no longer be devoted to sports and my Asperger’s-related attention span, stubbornness and love of routines, with a little bit of ego shaming that helped push me over the finish line. Without those things, I can pretty much guarantee that I would have given up a second time and would probably be a math or history teacher. Which, for as shitty as many of them get paid, it would still be a pay rise for me. Maybe I should have given up. Shit, is it too late to quit? I feel like it is at this point. My closet is packed floor to ceiling with guitars, amps, PA speakers and all the unsold vinyl records and CD’s which mock me daily. My poor wife only gets like three feet of space to hang her clothes. The rest is all this shit I’ve accumulated over the years to serve this musical lifestyle. There’s no choice but to continue on this path until the stress or the booze or a car crash kills me. It’s been a hell of a ride so far and we’ll see what the future holds…

Who am I kidding, I love this shit…

This is the actual book I learned from all those years ago. Shit, I’ve been playing guitar a long time, I should be fucking better than I am. I suck…

Umm, where's all the new music, Bradley... aka... a lot of shit, that's why...

Today (or whenever you read this. Well, I guess that would also be “today” for you so it works fine. I didn’t need to tell you that or write any of this but yet, here I am doing it anyways. Get on with it!), I’d like to talk about one of the cruel ironies of Covid. There’s been many terrible things about it but I’d like to talk, or more accurately, write, about one that has been of particular bother to me as a musician. Obviously, I’ve missed playing live shows, which are starting to return since the weather here in North Carolina is already starting to turn. It’s one of the nice things about living in the South; outdoor show season is basically mid-March until November, which is insane. Growing up in Wisconsin, we basically had six months of winter, one month each of Spring and Fall which were still kind of shitty and roughly four months of Summer which were suitable to plan outdoor activities; unless the mayflies were particularly horrible, then it was down to three months. So, I’m loving this. I don’t always love it when it’s 99 degrees and I’m chugging Gatorades between sets to get through a three-hour outdoor show, but I’ll take it over not being able to play because it’s -15 degrees outside. But, I’m not here to talk about the weather. Small talk over.

No, I wanted to talk about how cruel it was for Covid to both give me so much time but also viciously snatch it away. Covid giveth and Covid taketh away. What I’m referring to is the fact that I was given all this extra time to do some of the recording projects I had long hoped to accomplish but never made the time for, but was simultaneously in a constant state of anxiety, depression and fatigue so as to render that extra time useless. The hours and minutes were there but I had no energy to use it productively. Yes, I am still close to finishing a couple projects, but I thought both of these would come out sometime in 2020; and yet, here we are. My second Asperger’s/autism record was originally planned for this April, which is autism awareness month if you didn’t know, but will now be delayed until next year. A second EP is in the works and probably 85% done but I haven’t the energy to finish it yet. I’m hoping to wrap that up and release it this summer, but who knows…

So, why haven’t you released more music during this time?

Having most of 2020 to work with, you’d think I’d have been able to get out a couple solo EP’s fairly easily. Being solo projects, I wasn’t bound by having to postpone due to quarantining or anything like that. Also, I write, play all the parts, produce, engineer and mix/master the projects myself, so I wasn’t bound by anyone else’s ability or time constraints. No, the only thing that could stop me was me. Oh, and the fact that my bedroom window faces a dog park. That, too.

So, what has been stopping me? Lack of energy. Like I mentioned above, and like many others during these trying times, I’ve struggled with anxiety, depression and fatigue, likely from the constant anxiety and depression. Those things turn into a cycle that just keeps cranking and cranking and wrecking my mental health, which then affects my physical health, which then affects my mental health, and so on and so forth. I couldn’t tell you, literally (and by “literally” I mean “literally” in the literal sense), how many days over the past year have gone exactly like this:

• wake up 10am

• lay in bed and read the news until like 11am

• finally get up and make coffee

• read more news while I drink my coffee

• do some podcast editing work (which I’ve taken up to help supplement income. I didn’t know what to expect when I started doing it, but I’ve come to find it pretty enjoyable. It’s not the same rush you get when building a beautiful song, but I really enjoy the process of getting that perfect, invisible edit or getting the outro music to line up with the words in a way that probably only I think is cool. But, I digress…)

• work out

• eat a late lunch; usually two eggs, each on one half of an english muffin with a few tortilla chips on the side

• do some more podcast editing or, if I’m all caught up, I’ll try to do some recording for a few hours

• cook dinner

• eat a late dinner

• have a few bourbons, plan out my next day (which is always the same anyways) and watch TV

• go to bed sometime around 2:30am after the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia reruns on FXX are over unless I still can’t get tired because my brain is still going a hundred miles an hour. Then, I’ll switch over and watch Frasier reruns for a while while I continue to wind down

That’s most of my days this past year. There’s the occasional show and typically a band rehearsal sometime during the week, but apart from those, it’s just that same routine, over and over and over again. Which is both good and bad. It’s good in that it allows the Asperger’s part of my brain to hunker down and just get through it by adhering to routines. But, it’s bad in that it allows me to just continually perpetuate this weird feeling which falls somewhere between being completely lost and completely overwhelmed. It feels like there’s simultaneously a million things happening and nothing at all. I guess, technically, both are true. But somehow, that dichotomy is extremely taxing on me, and, I’m sure, many others.

So, based on that daily itinerary, there’s roughly 20 hours per week I could be using to create wonderful new music. It’s insanely frustrating to think of all that time wasted. And then, here comes the second incredibly unhealthy cycle that pairs up well, like a nice wine with a beautiful charcuterie plate, with that anxiety/depression cycle: the shame cycle. Just as the anxiety/depression cycle gets going, it’s almost like the shame cycle gets jealous. It wants in on the action. “But how?” you may ask. Well, it gets picking at your anxiety/depression and starts making you feel bad about it.

“What’s your excuse for not recording today? You didn’t have anything else to do, you lazy piece of shit.”

“How come you still haven’t finished writing that song you started two months ago? What else you got going for you? Can’t even finish one song during quarantine can you, you stupid piece of shit.”

“You’ve wasted so much of your life, you stupid piece of shit. You should just give up music and go back to working in the paint industry. I’m sure Sherwin Williams is hiring, though why would they want a lazy piece of shit like you?”

“Why don’t you just lay around, get drunk and watch TV again? Haven’t seen this rerun of Rick and Morty in a couple months, you stupid, lazy piece of shit.”

I could go on but things are best in fours, since that’s my favorite number. Once those two shitty cycles converge, it’s game over, for a while. But eventually, and this could be after a few weeks or months, those voices in my head start to work against themselves. Slowly, I will start to use them for motivation.

“Suck a dick, I’m gonna fucking record for nine hours straight before realizing I haven’t eaten yet, my fingers are killing me and I haven’t pooped yet today.” (ADHD can be a bitch sometimes, but sometimes it can be extremely helpful. I have read that some doctors are pushing for it to become “variable attention disorder” which is much more fitting to the actual symptoms as I’m either the “squirrel!” guy or like I mentioned, I’ll go nine hours without using the bathroom since I’m just in the zone.)

“Ha! I didn’t just finish the song, I wrote two different versions of the lyrics and a second song from one of the discarded lyrics from the first one.” (This is often how I write songs. They tend to come in small groups with interconnected themes, characters, etc. since I so often want to say more than is possible in one song, lest all my songs become eight minute opuses like “JUST LIKE JON FICKES.”)

“Give up music? I’m a fucking golden god. You haven’t even heard the new songs I’m working on with the band, they’re some of the best I’ve ever written and are gonna blow your fucking socks off.” (This is, in fact, just a statement of truth.)

“And yes, I will get drunk and watch Rick and Morty…as a reward for my hard work today.”

It’s weird. My wife likes to tell me that I’m such a pessimist but in reality it’s more of that weird Asperger’s thing my brain does where it takes diametrically opposite things and makes them true simultaneously. Yes, when I look at a situation I immediately thing of all the things that could wrong so I can figure out how, to the best of my ability, to mitigate those outcomes. However, the other half of brain is an eternal optimist, never once thinking any of those things will actually happen.

The reason I bring this up is this all collides when I record, which is why I’ve been pseudo-avoiding it for much of the past year. The anxiety/depression cycle, the shame cylce and the optimistic/pessimistic conundrum all come out to play whenever I click that “Pro Tools” icon. With every flawed vocal take, every flubbed guitar note, every bad synth part, etc., it turns into a giant tornado mixed with a hurricane of inner voices. First is the anxiety and pessimism of remembering all my bad recording sessions and saying “here we go again.” Second is the optimistic “yeah, but this next take is going to be amazing,” which I truly believe every time. Third is the “why aren’t you better at this? You’ve hit your 10,000 hours and you still can’t sing or play guitar for shit…” Fourth is the “holy shit! This is starting to sound like the best thing I’ve ever recorded!” Fifth is “yeah, it’s good but you can do better.” Sixth is the “OK, one more take. This is gonna be the perfect one.” Seventh is the “yeah, that sucked. Go again,” and the cycle starts over.

Oh, is that all?

Well, no. Apart from all that emotional/mental/physical baggage, there are the many logistical issues that have cropped up since this mess started. One is not having the physical space to feel like doing something creative. I live in a fairly small one-bedroom apartment with my wife and cat. I’m grateful to have a nice apartment to spend this time in, but since the start of this Covid thing, now one year ago, I’ve had exactly FIVE HOURS of alone time in my apartment. That’s it for THE ENTIRE YEAR. For an introvert like me, that is extremely trying. As my wife has been writing a book recently, I’ve been trying to give her little pockets of time here and there. I’ll run the errands for the week to give her a few hours. My band rehearsals typically give her like six hours a week or so alone in the apartment. Normally, my wife would go on coffee dates with friends or to conferences, maybe go shopping for the afternoon. But since things were either shut down, not safe or we didn’t have the money, I haven’t really had time when my wife isn’t just on the other side of the wall when I’m trying to record. Or I’ll get going and my cat decides that’s play time and starts running around and banging into things (she’s a very clumsy and dog-like cat. Her favorite game is to play fetch with this little sparkly, blue cottonball thing that was probably a Christmas tree decoration at some point. I’ll throw it or flick it across the room and she’ll sprint over and try to hit it under the bathroom door before picking it up and trotting back with it. It’s weird but cute.). Then, I also have to plan around the dogpark outside my window. No recording of vocals or acoustic guitars from 12-1:30pm or from 5-6pm or so or Benji’s got the background vocals covered.

I know these things sound trivial, and compared to what’s going on, they are. But they all feed on each other. If it’s not my own depression stopping me, it’s my shame from feeling depressed all the time. If I actually am motivated, I can only record at certain hours to avoid the dogs or being too loud for my wife to also work. When I finally do get to work, I have to avoid beating myself up too badly to keep going. If things are going well, I have to try and not get too excited or the next session will most certainly be a disappointment and then the cycle starts over.

Anyways, sorry for the downer post but it’s what’s been on my mind the last few weeks as I’ve actually been recording somewhat frequently. I’ll definitely have something to show for this sooner than later. I will say it’s been exponentially easier to get to work since that entire year of election nonsense is behind us and the end of this Covid nightmare is in sight. We’re almost there people, see you on the other side…

How my Asperger's ruins personality tests and shows up in my music... aka... this title is already too long...

OK, so after that ridiculous but very specific title, I feel like I need to deliver the goods. Well, this week, as indicated, I wanted to talk about how having Asperger’s (Asperger’s, if you haven’t heard of it, is on the autism spectrum and was formerly called high-functioning autism to give you an idea of what it is) has shown up in my life and music in some weird ways. I’ve written a few times about how it affects my songwriting (you can read my most recent blog about that HERE), music career and life, but it came back up recently as I’ve been working on a new solo EP for Autism Awareness Month in April (hopefully this April…). For those who missed my last solo EP, music for depressed alcoholic autistic people which came out last April, you can read about it, listen to it and even download it for free HERE (it’s also on all your favorite streaming services like Spotify, etc. too. It’s listed under “Bradley Wik” which is separate from my “Bradley Wik and the Charlatans” accounts). It is an intensely personal four song EP that is vast departure from my usual rock ‘n’ roll. It features sad bastard acoustic songs drowned in a whole heap of synth sounds and weirdness. If that sounds bizarre and incongruous, it’s because it kind of is. As I’m recording this second EP, tentatively titled more music for depressed alcoholic autistic people, I’ve noticed just how influenced these songs are, and this was kind of the goal, by my Asperger’s. I wanted these songs to be a direct reflection of my life with Asperger’s. I needed these types of songs when I was younger and I still do to this day. I didn’t feel like these types of songs existed in a way that could have reached someone like me, so I made them. So, let’s dive into what was going through my mind this past week as I’ve been recording the next set of tunes.

Asperger’s and the yin/yang theory

One of the most prevalent ways my Asperger’s shows up, and how I should have known about having it before five years ago, is when I have to take a personality test. My Asperger’s has been fucking up personality tests since I was little kid. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to redo personality tests because they always come back broken. What do I mean by that? Well, one thing I’ve noticed is it seems like my Asperger’s (I can’t speak for anyone else’s experience so I’m not sure if this is true for all autistics or just me) loves to show up in diametrically opposite ways, hence the yin and yang theory reference. For example, I am an intensely private introvert…who loves to share his most personal thoughts and experiences with the world through song and this blog. I have social anxiety…but I play live music for (relatively small, but still) crowds of people at busy bars, venues, etc. for a living. I have a very difficult time understanding my own emotions…but can vividly tell stories that include other people’s feelings. I could go on, but you get the point. Yin and yang. I feel like this exact thing is what Alanis was singing about in Hand in My Pocket and Billy Joel in I Go to Extremes. There’s so many diametrically opposed things that live inside me and make me who I am. And personality tests hate, hate, hate this. These types of tests were clearly not designed to work for neurodiverse individuals like myself.

Here’s a fun, little story about how I first learned this: when I was in middle school, so maybe 12 years old or thereabouts, they had us all take a personality test to see what jobs we might be best suited for in the future. I think most kids take these types of tests at some point, so you might remember it. It had questions like: do you like parties or quiet nights with a book? Do you like public speaking or does it make you nervous? Do you favor manual labor or school/book work? Are you good at fixing things or not? And on and on. And I remember it was one of those fill in the dot types that they would run through those scanners to give you your results. So, like the rest of the kids, I dutifully filled in my dots and turned in my test, excitedly and nervously awaiting the results. The next day, they passed out the results sheets to everyone. They had your top three recommended jobs based on the test. One buddy was supposed to be a mechanic, construction worker or engineer. My other friend was going to be a teacher, politician or lawyer. I waited and waited. I was the second last person to receive their results, the curse of having a last name that starts with “W.” Finally! I unfolded the paper and…nothing. Not a single job recommendation. Just:

1) n/a

2) n/a

3) n/a

I asked the teacher what happened. I was told that I had probably not filled in my dots properly so the scanner couldn’t read it. Bullshit. I’m an excellent dot-filler-inner. That’s even why I prefer absentee ballots when voting. I get to fill in dots. But whatever.

The teacher gave me a second test and told me to be extra careful about filling in the dots. I took the test again and had her look it over to make sure my dot-filling-in skills were to her standards. She said it looked great and they ran it back through the scanner. The next day, I got my results from this second test. I unfolded the paper and…

1) n/a

2) n/a

3) n/a

“My dots were great, you even said so yourself,” I said.

“I know. Maybe you weren’t being truthful with your answers.” So, this is my fault again? Fuck that.

“Why would I lie on a bullshit personality test?”

“Brad! Language!” They used to call me “Brad” when I was younger. Now, it sounds weird.

“Sorry, but what now?”

“You can take it again, but pick a teacher who knows you well and I’ll have them make sure your answers are correct to the best of your ability.”

“Fine, let’s go, again, but if I get “n/a,” again, your test is broken.”

“The test is not broken. It was fine for everyone else.”

So, once again, I dutifully filled in the test, but had to verify each answer with my favorite teacher. He knew me well so I trusted him to help. I had to stay after school to do this third test. We walked through question by question and had to agree on each answer before filling it in. About an hour later, we finally finished. The test went back through the scanner and we had to wait until tomorrow for the results. I came in early just to see what some dumb fucking test was going to tell me I should be when I grow up.

“Well,” he said, “you finally got an answer.” He handed me the sheet. I looked down and he was right. At first, I didn’t know what to say. After a minute or so, I just shook my head, threw the paper out and started walking to class.

“Stupid fucking test.”

“Language.”

The results:

1) n/a

2) n/a

3) clown

Apparently, the only job it could muster, after three attempts no less, for an introvert with social anxiety who likes to perform in front of people and loves attention was that of a clown. This is the problem with being so yin and yang. These tests cannot get a proper bead on me. I once applied for a job where they made me take a personality test three times (again?!) because they too thought I was lying, though this time to actually get a job. After they got the same results three times they agreed they had to interview me to understand how I did this to their precious little test. I ended up getting the job but their trainer told me I broke the test and it would be harder to train me since I didn’t fit into one of their four distinct training groups. Lucky me. Since I didn’t know I had Asperger’s at the time, I just thought I was such an enigma that no test could hold me down. Which, I guess, was/is technically true. But, I also learned I’m not as cool as I once thought. Thanks Asperger’s for providing a logical explanation and ruining my fun…

So, what the hell does any of that have to do with songs about having autism? Do you sing about this long-winded story that was mildly amusing but stole a few precious minutes of my life, minutes I will never get back? No, but good question.

These songs are very yin and yang-y. They were meant to be. I thought about making music like this for years and years but didn’t know how. I knew I needed a synth to make all the crazy, fucked up sounds I wanted but I held off since I never could figure out how they work. There’s like nine thousand knobs and buttons and wheels plus I can’t even play a piano much less this beast. I mean, look at this thing:

She’s so pretty, isn’t she? But I had to spend countless hours testing each knob to figure out what it did.

After I got that job I mentioned before, I had some extra money coming in. I didn’t make crazy money (and I found out later they paid me less than all my coworkers, so fuck them), but it was way more than I was used to. Finally, I said “fuck it” and just bought one. I got a Moog Sub 37. There’s some synth-nerdy reasons why that particular one but I won’t bore you with them. The main reasons I got this one:

A) It has a super warm analog sound which was perfect to pair with my super mellow/woody acoustic guitar

B) It has a programmable arpeggiator, meaning I can plug in the notes and it will play them in time for me so I didn’t have to be proficient at a keyed instrument to use it. Yay!

As I was recording last night, I thought back to the yin and yang. Pretty sounding songs that are terrifically sad. Very simple acoustic sad bastard chord progressions but with tons of additional melodies and production. Then, the next song is just me on an acoustic guitar. But, the acoustic guitar is all fucked up and weird sounding. These are my most personal recordings to date but I intentionally made them a little hard to listen to and to feel like they’re disconnected from the Earth. It’s me, on a single track, playing guitar and singing into one mic with 20 tracks of noise and melody all rushing around me like I’m lost in my own song. There’s beautiful melodies played with noisy and sometimes out of tune synth sounds (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. Apparently, analog synths can get all fucked up sometimes and screwy with tuning. That was not a fun night of panicking when I thought I had broken my expensive synth…) These autism records are all about taking two diametrically opposed ideas and jamming them together. Which apparently is how I truly am on the inside; at least according to those bullshit personality tests. (Side note: the only test/personality thing that seems to actually majorily hold up is the enneagram; which, I know, is so hot right now, just like Hansel. But that one is fairly accurate to me. My wife says I’m a four, if anyone gives a shit, though I don’t really know what that means. I just knew I wanted four because it’s my favorite number because it was Brett Favre’s number and somehow it worked out that way…) It was cool to see that this idea actually worked. The reactions to the first EP are exactly how I had hoped they would be: diametrically opposed. Some have said it’s by far the best thing I’ve ever done and some say it’s garbage. So, obviously, it’s working.

Well, that’s it for this week. I know, a little rambly and weird at times, but that’s me. If you have any questions for a real, live autistic or would like me to write more about something in this blog, feel free to reach out via the comments section or contact me directly via our ABOUT/PRESS PAGE or Instagram (@bradleywikmusic). I’m on the other socials but that’s really the only one I check semi-regularly. I’m obviously a pretty damn open book and am really hard to offend, so feel free to reach out with questions. See you next week!

Asperger's, my music and me... aka... it's not all bad...

Today, I wanted to talk about something very near and dear to my heart: Asperger’s. Specifically, I would like to talk about how it affects my music. There’s a lot to unpack there, so I likely won’t cover it all in one blog. It’s also an evolving situation as I still early on in my journey to learn more about my Asperger’s and how it affects me in all aspects of my life. It’s only been four years since I found out I was an Aspie, so I’m regularly having “a-ha” moments as certain behaviors, issues, etc. suddenly make a lot more sense than they used to. Also, since Asperger’s is just a part of the autism spectrum, there are vast amounts of variance in how, and how much, it affects individuals. I cannot claim to speak for anyone’s experiences besides my own.

I was inspired by something I saw on Twitter (yes, now that the election is over, I have finally joined Twitter. Like ten years after it was cool, but still. Look me up @BradleyWikmusic or just search for “Bradley Wik” and I’ll be there), which I had to share:

For me, #aspergers is like a lot of things in life, there's things that are better and things that are worse because of it. For the work I do (musician/songwriter), I find it to be very advantageous. https://t.co/gMoveuQEwd

— Bradley Wik (@BradleyWikmusic) November 12, 2020

So, the question is: how has this affected my music and my songwriting? Asperger’s, in some way, affects everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it also would alter my songwriting in some way. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot in the past four years. I can’t say I have a definitive answer, but I do have some running theories. Let’s explore them.

Theory #1 - I am a professional studier of humans

One of the biggest drawbacks of Asperger’s is how hard it can make understanding human behavior. And I’m not talking about the Bjork song; we all know that shit is amazing, case closed. My whole life, I’ve struggled not only to understand others but also myself. Even just trying to decipher what it is that I am feeling at any given moment is difficult. Case in point, when I was first learning I was lactose-intolerant, my brain kept telling me I was hungry when, in fact, I was about to be sick to my stomach. My morning routine was to have a cup of coffee, with a little milk, feel “hungry,” eat something and then immediately spend the next half hour in the bathroom. It literally took almost two years of this before I put the two together and realized what I was feeling was not hunger at all. True story. That’s how out of tune I am with my own feelings. How the fuck am I supposed to understand other people’s?

Well, as it turns out, I can’t. Just ask my wife. But what I can do is associate actions and behaviors with personality traits and learn a great deal about people; just not what they’re feeling. Why? Because since I couldn’t understand other people from a very young age, I had no choice but to study them so I could try and fit in. I have memories of being in kindergarten and wondering why these people were so damn mysterious to me. What did they talk about? Why is it so easy to interact in groups? Why don’t I feel at home amongst them? That’s how long I’ve been studying humans. It sounds weird to say but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

The other thing I’ve learned about my Aspie brain is that it works very literally. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand sarcasm or anything like that. What it means is that everything must function according to a mathematical type formula. That’s how I process information. The reason, I believe, is that it allows me to build patterns, which we all know people with autism love. But, trying to apply mathematical formulas to human beings is very difficult because humans are inherently complex beings. So, I began to look for the patterns first and reverse engineer the formula to fit that particular person. For instance, let’s take someone who seemingly confidently walks into a room and starts talking your ear off. They could be an asshole know-it-all who is trying to assert dominance in a social situation. They could be someone who talks a lot to mask their insecurities. They could just be a plain ol’ friendly extrovert. Or, they could be an introvert who is putting on a confident performance and has Asperger’s so he talks way too much about certain topics no matter how much people might wish he shut up about them. (Hint: that last one might be me in certain situations…). How would I know which category a person falls into?

I had to start to learn about all the tricks people do and what to look for. For that example above, what were their eyes doing while they were talking? What about their hands? How were they standing? How are they holding their shoulders? How were they phrasing the things they were saying? How is their face reacting to my part of the conversation? And on and on. And these are things everyone is doing when they meet people but the trick is learning to interpret and accept the information in real-time. It’s that Malcolm Gladwell Blink theory. I had to learn how to tap into my unconscious mind and trust what I was hearing. I’ve found over the years that I’m a pretty good judge of character. After a couple minutes of conversation, I can usually get a pretty complete view of who that person is. My wife, Brianne, can confirm this. I can’t count how many times, after only a brief encounter, I was able to know more about a person than Brianne would learn in a year. And that’s not a knock on her, she’s actually pretty damn good at assessing the character of others, but can occasionally be misled by the tricks people do to get people to think they are or aren’t a certain way.

So, why the hell did I just describe all that and what does it have to do with music? Well, since I’ve spent so much time over the years studying humans, I believe I can do a great job of recreating them in my songs. One of the biggest compliments I’ve received from album reviewers which I’ve received a number of times, is how well I write female characters. Historically, men have not been great when it comes to writing about women in music, especially when it’s the standard falling in love/breakup type stuff, which is most of it. I’m not saying all men, but, let’s face it, it’s a lot of them. Especially in the country genre. Here’s like half of the country songs on the radio: see hot girl, get hot girl drunk enough to sleep with you. Ummm… But, I think the reason it comes a little more naturally to me is because I’m not thinking of my characters as male or female, per se, but as their character’s mathematical formula and their actual actions. The numbers are just the numbers, and the actions are just the actions; and you present them as such. Lots of people sing about emotions and intentions, things I have little knowledge of, frankly, so I tend to stay away from those. I also don’t believe that gender dictates formula or action. People are just people, whether male, female or non-binary. All people experience the same things like feeling insecure or confident, falling in and out of love, drinking, partying, sex, etc. How they feel about them and how they react can change, but again, that’s person to person and is not dictated by sex. Personally, I don’t find writing about women any different than writing about men. It’s character formula plus their actions. Next.

Theory #2 - My memory is fucking weird

Here’s where my Asperger’s can actually a hindrance. The other reason my stories and characters feel so real is because, well, they are. I rarely write about things that I haven’t actually experienced. I always say my music is 50% things I’ve done, 50% things I’ve seen and 10% shit that I make up so it rhymes. And you better believe I give 110% with my music.

Yes, I often rearrange the pieces to tell new stories. I might take experience “A” pair it with character “B” in city “C” but “A,” “B” and “C” are all reality-based and came from somewhere in my past. This does allow me to paint more three-dimensional characters and stories since all people and stories are inherently three-dimensional so all I have to do is write it honestly, which is easier to do since I have Asperger’s. That’s the positive side of this theory.

It’s actually fairly bizarre how my memory works. I feel very disconnected to my past. I objectively know I did, said, wrote, etc. whatever thing, but it doesn’t feel like it was done by me. It seems more like it was done by a past version of me, a person I no longer am. I feel like there has been five different Bradley’s over the years:

1. Wisconsin Brad (that’s what I went by back then) - WI Brad was the one who grew up; went to school in Horicon, WI, a city famous for claiming an enormous marsh (the Horicon Marsh) that is mostly in the neighboring town; and moved to Madison to live with his friends and play music. He wrote songs about nonsense, often waxing poetic about his recent loss of faith in God, because he was only 18 and didn’t have much life experience to draw from. He often had a general structure/story for a song but made up the details as he was playing each time. Titles like “Childish Love and the Forever Queen,” “Dead Flowers and Make Out Parties” and “Heavenly Whispers and Prayers Before Supper” sum it up well. He died when he left Wisconsin. He then became…

2. Seattle/San Francisco Bradley - This one changed his name to “Bradley,” moved to San Francisco and then moved up to Seattle. This one decided he wanted to become a folk singer but still couldn’t really sing so instead vacillated between speak-singing Bob Dylan style and yelling to make sure you knew he was really into what he was saying. He wrote about things that sounded important, but really meant very little. Titles like “Sixteen White Horses,” “Going to Italy” (a reference to his love of the Mountain Goats) and “Song for God” are pretty representative of his time on this Earth. There were also lots of songs about “ramblin’” written around this time. He met a girl who agreed to move to New York City, where he wanted to follow in ol’ Robert Zimmerman’s footsteps. He packed his bags and promptly died…

3. New York City Bradley - This is the Bradley that felt the most “Bradley.” New York City, the people there, the energy; it all just felt right. The City welcomed him with open arms and he fell in love. He was out at least five or six nights a week, if not all seven. He would play open mics with his music friends then go clubbing with his other friends. After a while, the open mics turned into shows (it seemed like lots of venues followed what a friend and I used to call “the nine month rule.” They would make you sweat it out and earn it for about nine months before they starting offering decent shows, read: not the 2am slot, to someone as they knew so many people would come to NYC, flame out and head back home after like six or seven months. We watched it happen time after time. “What happened to so-and-so?” “Must’ve hit their nine months…”) and Bradley actually got pretty fucking good at the whole folk singer thing with tunes like “Mona Lisa’s Blues,” “The Undertaker’s Poem” and “Shooting Stars.” He even started his very first rock ‘n’ roll band with his good buddy, the one and only Mr. Jon Fickes. Things were the best…until they weren’t. His friend/roommate had already moved away and now his girlfriend wanted to as well. Things were suddenly not going great. He packed his bags and sealed his fate…

4. Portland Bradley - This Bradley is probably my least favorite Bradley. He was miserable most of the time. He was in the hospital twice when ulcers in his stomach and intestines bled out. He developed severe depression, a drinking/drug problem, and despite having a band and friends, never felt more alone in his life. He hated Portland and couldn’t wait to leave. To him, Portland epitomized everything he hated in life. It was full of entitled, exclusionary people and was almost completely white. He never fit in and knew he never could. He did some good shit though. He made two records with his band, the Charlatans. He played a bunch of shows and learned how to lead a rock ‘n’ roll band. You know some of the titles like “This Old House,” “Friday Night is for the Drinkers,” “Just Like Jon Fickes,” “Lookin’ at Luckey” and “Let’s Go Out Tonight.” He met his future wife and got married. Once they were married, he packed his bags and moved on to whatever awaits us after death…

5. Charlotte Bradley - Hi. This is Charlotte Bradley. I quit my good paying sales job (sales is not a great job for an Aspie…) to become a full-time musician. In my first year here, I was on pace to play around 110-120 shows. But then, you know… As weeks stretched into months, I drifted back towards some of my worst tendencies. I’m OK but could be better. I did put together a great new band and we have a new sound that I think you’re going to love. It’s so much fun to work on some newer material which I’m hoping to record soon, though we know “soon” is relative these days…

Do I know I grew up in WI and that I moved to NYC? Sure, but it just doesn’t feel like I did. It’s sort of like I read it in a book sometime a while back but can’t remember which one so I just sort of hold onto those memories loosely in my brain. I can’t quite describe it but that’s close.

I feel this disconnect is extremely helpful when writing songs. Since I’m not immediately connected to the stories, I believe I can tell the more accurately and without the emotional baggage that typically comes with memories, good or bad. My Asperger’s allows me to be more factual and honest in my storytelling. I feel more like a reporter than someone wistfully remembering days gone by. Is it a bummer sometimes to feel no emotional connection to your memories? Sure. If I wasn’t writing music about them, I would likely lament the loss of their meaning and significance to my life. But, since I do write about them, I feel this strange process in my brain is at least going towards a worthwhile cause. Again, like most things in life, being an Aspie is both good and bad, and you have to make the best of it. Lean into it where it’s good, try to minimize where it’s bad.

Theory #3 - I kinda don’t give a shit about other people’s opinions

I kinda do, we all do, but I mostly kinda don’t. This is a very helpful skill in being an artist. It frees me from an artistic constraints or trying to do something for the sake of it being liked. When I put out my latest EP (which was 27 years ago, or back in April, who knows…), music for depressed alcoholic autistic people, I wasn’t worried that it didn’t sound anything like any of other music I had ever created. I wasn’t worried that perhaps no one would like it, and the three weeks I spent emailing blogs, newspapers, etc. to try and promote it would be a pointless endeavor. I wasn’t worried that I had spent months working on it and perhaps no one would ever hear it. I kinda just didn’t a shit. It’s freeing. And wonderful. I believe it to be the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve recorded a rock ‘n’ roll album live to tape in an amazing studio, which I then had pressed on VINYL (and yes, the vinyl sounds substantially different/better than the CD or the streaming product since we did it that way) so, you know. It was a sound I heard in my head for years but struggled to figure out how to create it until I finally just bought a Moog synth even though I cannot play anything with keys and didn’t know how it worked. Even my buddy was like “why the hell did you buy that? Do you even know how to use it?” But, again, I don’t give a shit and (cue Cartman voice) I do what I want.

The other part of this theory is there are so many things that can sidetrack a musician, like worrying about:

• what other people think of them

• what other people think of their music/art/writing/etc.

• what other people might say if they do x/y/z

• how other people might feel if they do x/y/z

• how many people clicked on their whatever on social media

• how many people streamed their song/music video/etc.

• how many people showed up to their show/event/etc.

• whether people might like their new music/art/writing/etc.

• whether they might look stupid by doing or saying something

And worrying about those things can cause you to do things in ways that aren’t always in your best interests. It can affect the quality and type of work you are doing because you’re starting with an end goal like “I want people to click on this a lot” instead of “what’s the best I can do and where does this project take itself?” And look, we all want people to like us and our art, click on our social media whatever, come to the show, think we’re cool, etc., I do too. I just refuse to let it dictate what I do, which is possible because of my Asperger’s.

As far as songwriting, it’s been very liberating. You can see it manifest pretty starkly from my first album, Burn What You Can, Bury the Rest…, to my second, “In My Youth, I’m Getting Old…” On BWYCBTR (my fucking album titles are too long…), most of the songs were symmetrical and followed pretty established structures like: intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, repeat all, then bridge, usually going to the minor 6th, 3rd chorus, outro with solo. I just felt like that is the rock ‘n’ roll structure and that’s what people want/expect. I was also just a younger songwriter who was still finding his way. Unsurprisingly, two of the ones that didn’t exactly follow that structure, “This Old House” and “Just Like Jon Fickes,” are the two people tell me they love the most. Go figure.

For the second record, IMYIGO, I decided not to follow the rules so rigidly. I would just let the song come out the way it came out, instead of piecing it together in a regimented way. Suddenly, the lengths of verses and choruses fluctuated throughout the song. A song might have bridge after the first verse and then a middle 8 later. Maybe the chorus didn’t come in until the end of the song. Maybe it had two choruses and no prechorus. Who knows. It was more fun for me to write this way, and it’s something I’m exploring even more these days.

A great example of how my songwriting changed is how long it took the new band to learn each record. The first one, easy breezy. The songs are linear and make sense after a couple listens. The second, with all the irregular verses and choruses, songs with multiple bridges, a pause here and here but not there, etc., took quite a bit longer. And the new stuff we’re working on is even more detailed, we hardly play two verses the same now. It’s fun. I know that people tend to prefer the more straightforward stuff, but I’m an Aspie and I do what I do, usually to my own detriment. People have been asking for “This Old House pt. II” for years and I just can’t do it. I know it would sell (or stream, since hardly anyone buys music these days), but it’s just not something I’ve been interested in making up until now. Though, I have been starting to work on a side project with my duet partner from that song/my now wife, so who knows. Maybe we will finally do that.

Anyways, I hope this helps you understand a little bit more about what it’s like to be a musician with Asperger’s, like me. Again, my experiences are unique to me and the above theories are just that, theories. But, I truly believe being an Aspie has helped me more than it has hurt me. I will always consider it a gift and not a disorder to try and overcome. That’s why I still use the term “Asperger’s” despite the official diagnosis being called “autism spectrum disorder.” It most definitely is a spectrum, but I can’t get on board with the “d” word. I realize that I am not as far out on the spectrum as others so that likely plays a role in my saying that, and I’m not diminishing the individuals and families struggling with it by saying it’s a “gift.” But, for me, it is, and I’m proud to say that.

It makes no sense. It never will... aka... Racism and senseless murders...

I don’t really know how to get started today, so I’m just going to go for it. Obviously, there’s so much happening right now and I’m really struggling to process the accompanying emotions, as I think a lot of people are right now. I have a very difficult time with processing emotions in normal circumstances, but here we are in extraordinary circumstances. I’m literally shaking as I type right now. My body tends to get all jittery and my ADHD kicks into hyperdrive when I’m feeling what my wife, Brianne, calls “all the feelings.” I remember feeling this last on March 13th, which happened to be Friday the 13th as well. It was the day I played my last public show as a musician. I spent the day pacing the house feeling like I drank like 10 cups of coffee. Brianne kept asking “why are you so anxious about the show tonight?” But, it had nothing to do with that. Only hours before, the president declared a national state of emergency. My brain knew something big was coming. I still wasn’t aware of all that would ensue but my body was reacting to what my brain was already telling it, that shit was about to hit the fan. That’s how I’ve felt for the past week as I’ve tried to process the news of yet another senseless, heinous killing of a black man by a white police officer.

The news came in when we were still busy being pissed off about that white girl who threatened a black man in a New York City park because he dared to ask her to obey the signs all around her and leash up her dog. And we were all still pissed off about what happened to Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. Apparently, quarantine can slow down a deadly virus but not the deadly actions of some racists around this country. Somehow, that is quarantine-proof. Somehow, no matter how many times something appalling and tragic happens, nothing changes. There’s apparently no amount of mass shootings that can cause any change in gun laws. And there’s apparently no amount of deaths via racist police officers that will cause anyone to be held accountable for those easily preventable deaths.

In trying to figure out how I feel about this, it’s likely the same mixture lots of people are feeling: sadness for the victims and their families, friends and loved ones, anger that those police officers are never held accountable, and frustration that even though this continues to happen nothing ever seems to change. I know there’s more happening inside but I’m not quite sure what the rest of those feelings are yet. Events like this do bring out “all the feelings” but those are the three most prominent right now.

When I was a young child, I remember trying to understand the concept of racism. I don’t remember how it came up, it might have been a news clip about the Rodney King beating/L.A. riots, but it made no sense to me then. It still makes no sense to me now. I remember asking why people care about skin color? Do people care about hair color? Or eye color? What’s the difference? Do blonde people hate brunettes for having darker hair? It’s not really any different. And it isn’t. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. But, I was about to have my first real life encounter with racism soon after. And no, I’m obviously not trying to compare the little that I’ve experienced to anything that’s going on, that’s not my point, and there is no comparison. My only interactions with police come via me doing dumb teenage boy things and when I was blamed for another car crashing into me because the man who hit me was old and rich and I was young and poor. That’s it. My point is that racism is such a pervasive issue that even a little mostly-white kid growing up in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin can’t escape seeing it and experiencing it. I just want to try and explain what’s going through my head currently and why I, like so many others, am so fucking angry right now.

I must have been like 5 or 6 the first time I saw and felt racism. It was on a Native American reservation. I’m half Native American. My dad’s side of the family came from the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican tribe. They have a tiny little reservation that was graciously given to them when they left the larger Mohican tribe and somehow decided to settle in Wisconsin, probably for those awesomely humid and insect-filled summers and the terrible winters. But, we weren’t active members of the tribe and it didn’t really mean much to us on a daily basis. We didn’t practice any rituals, celebrate any Native holidays, etc. It was basically just an historical fact. My mom’s German background meant more to us as our grandpa was constantly playing polka music, we ate all sorts of fried foods and we even celebrated St. Nick’s day, which I didn’t realize until recently was a very German thing that not many people do.

I don’t remember much from back then seeing as I was child, but I remember at one point visiting the reservation with my dad and sister. Probably on the premise of learning about our culture but likely because my dad wanted to collect some money from the tribe and/or buy drugs. He was a piece of shit and would soon be out of my life completely after my mom kicked him out for doing some blow in front of me and my sister when he was supposed to be taking care of us. Anyways, I have this distinct memory of not feeling welcome. As my sister and I walked alongside our dad, people would glare as we passed. I’m not sure who asked why, my sister or I, but we were told it was because we were half-white, which was looked down upon. We were probably told some short version of the history between whites and Natives to explain the animosity but I didn’t understand. I was too young. But, I could feel it, and I could see it in people’s eyes. I remember being angry that people didn’t like me before they even knew me. It made no sense to me. It still doesn’t.

Fast forward some years and now I’m school-aged. In history class, I’m being taught that Native Americans, like me and my ancestors, are savages, rapists, murderers, etc. that needed to be educated by the white people. The Natives should adopt their version of religion or risk being murdered. Some do, but most fight for their land and way of life. Manifest Destiny becomes the excuse which allows the white people to take over and justifies the murder of millions. To illustrate, Wikipedia has this astounding fact:

According to geographers from University College London, the colonization of the Americas by Europeans killed so many people it resulted in climate change and global cooling.

That’s fucking insane. Our country is literally founded on racism and the dehumanization of others. Why should we expect anything less? Maybe because that was 500 fucking years ago and people should generally be more highly evolved and intelligent than they were back then. Which, to be fair, a lot are. But, some are not, which is fucking baffling.

Again, I’m not trying to say any of this is even in the same ballpark of what Black Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, etc., hell, all women for that matter, experience, I just want to give some context as to why I’m currently so pissed off. Racism is something I’ve known about for most of my life, yet I still feel like that five year old kid who doesn’t understand it. It still doesn’t make sense. It never will.

Growing up in rural Wisconsin, I can’t say we had a lot of diversity around. I knew some Mexican families who ended up moving there to work the farm fields but that was about it. It wasn’t until my freshman year of High School that the school welcomed a black student. Well, “welcomed” is the wrong word, unfortunately.

At first, it was business as usual. Nothing was any different, because after all, why should it be? We got new students all the time. Usually, it was because their parent got a job at the local John Deere factory, which employed most of the town. The new kid would be the “new kid” for a while, find others with similar interests and/or join a sports team and become part of the fabric of the school. But, I should have known a tiny town of 3000 in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin wouldn’t work like that. I guess I had too much faith in my fellow students.

After a while, the comments and “jokes” started. Some people who were once my close friends started in. These were the kids I had spent years playing sports with, rollerblading with (yes, I’m over 30), talking about our girl crushes with, dreaming about our futures with, spending summers at the local pool with, etc. We were pretty damn close. But, an offhanded comment here and a name there and I found myself drawing away from them. At first, I tried to play it off. Maybe they were repeating a joke I didn’t know or didn’t really feel that way. But, that was stupid of me. One kid would privately tell me he didn’t like the way the others talked but had known these guys since he was like 6 years old and wasn’t going to bail on them. He asked me to do the same. They’re not really bad guys, he would say. But, I couldn’t. I’ll always remember the day they all got together to put Confederate flags on their trucks and took a couple laps through the school parking lot. I hoped the school would put an end to it but even that proved too optimistic of me. I don’t remember what I said to them that day, only that it was probably a jumble of fuck you’s, you dumbasses, rednecks, or something along those lines. Little did I know that was only the beginning of their plan for that day. My former friend, who secretly disagreed with the others but acted complicity, let me know they were planning on fighting the black kid after lunch that day. I went to the kid to let him know. He told me he knew already and wasn’t afraid of them. I remember the principal or whoever was in the office that day had heard about it and said they would do what they could to prevent it, i.e. not really anything. And, just as my former friend had said, after lunch, in the hallway, a skirmish broke out. Like ten boys against the only two students of color, one black, one Hispanic, at the school. I remember yelling and trying to hold my old friends back. I punched one of them. Luckily, since it was right in front of the office, the fight was over quickly and was mostly just yelling, pushing and some terrible, off-target punches. But, I’ve never been able to shake the evil that was said and displayed by those ignorant, racist kids. I was 14 and still trying to figure out who I was. But, even then I knew I wasn’t like those other kids. That was clear. I couldn’t and wouldn’t tolerate that behavior. No one should. But, the school did. I know the racist offenders were “disciplined” but it wasn’t much. I remember being angry they weren’t outright expelled. It made no sense then. It still makes no sense.

After that incident, I knew I would be leaving that town and never coming back. I had to wait until I graduated and those last few years were a little rough. I felt no connection to that town or the people. I felt like the odd man out. I didn’t get to, and didn’t want to, fit in anymore. I left within the month after graduating to move to Madison, WI. I had friends down there and I couldn’t have been more excited. Ever since then, I kept moving from major city to major city. San Francisco, Seattle, New York, etc. I felt more comfortable in cities. I realized part of that was because of the diversity of people. Then, I moved to Portland, OR on a whim. I hated Portland, OR and never felt at home there. I think it had something to do with a lack of diversity and culture. There was even common joke out there. When people would ask if there were black people in Portland, the response was “are the Blazers in town tonight?” That’s how bad it was.

As an adult, I would hear stories from my friends of color, be it African, Asian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Mexican, etc. Stories about people coming out of their house with shotguns drawn because my friends had made a wrong turn and dared to turn around in their driveway. Stories of running out of gas on road trips because they didn’t feel safe stopping in certain rural areas. Stories of not getting job opportunities or promotions because of the color of their skin. Stories of people being mad that their son or daughter was dating them. Stories of cab drivers refusing to pick them up. Stories of getting into shouting matches, sometimes even with people they knew, who would then pull out racial slurs to demean them. And on and on.

But, the one story everyone seemed to have was an incident involving harassment by the police. For some, it was one or two things over the years. For some, it was a fairly common occurrence. I heard stories of constant harassment at apartment buildings. Sometimes it was from just walking down the street and “looking suspicious” according to a cop. Many felt they weren’t able to call the police even if they needed help. It always made me so fucking angry that the people who should be protecting people were doing the opposite.

And look, I realize that most cops do a fine job. But, the problem is that there doesn’t seem to be mechanism to remove and punish the bad ones. Yes, racism as a whole is the bigger enemy, but if at the very least cops would be held accountable for literally murdering people, there would be some semblance of trust towards law enforcement. I’m sure most cops would support this. Instead, George Floyd was murdered by a cop who had at least 17 prior complaints against him, including at least one for police brutality, had drawn and fired his weapon at least 3 times (a recent study said ONLY ABOUT 27% OF OFFICERS EVER FIRE THEIR WEAPON), once even drawing it on an unarmed teenage boy; all over a fucking lousy counterfeit $20 bill. It’s all in the video. Cops come up guns drawn and basically start harassing the man, again, over a $20 bill. You can hear him start to talk about not being able to breathe and being claustrophobic pretty early on. It sounds to me, and this is just speculation, that he may have been having a panic attack. And he would have been right to have a panic attack. He was about to murdered, slowly, intentionally and painfully, over a fucking $20 bill.

But, we know that’s not the real reason. The real reason is the reason why people all across this country are protesting. It’s the history of racism by police and the lack of accountability. It’s because yet another racist white cop killed yet another unarmed black man. And we all know there’s likely little recourse for this cop’s reprehensible, unimaginably cruel actions. Until they actually send one of these murderers to jail, this will continue to be a huge fucking issue. It’s literally that simple: start holding them accountable. Are we going to completely eradicate racism from the world? I wish but that’s unlikely any time soon. So, punishing those who murder someone just because of the color of skin is a good place to start. That should be a wildly attainable goal but, for some reason, even that is too much to ask.

Maybe this will be the one. Maybe things will finally start to shift. But, sadly, I doubt it. Maybe if we had a some actual leadership in this country and president who had human emotions and wasn’t trying to incite more violence by inviting white supremacists to counter these protests, telling people the old racist adage of “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” typing gleefully that Secret Service is itching for someone to jump the fence at the White House so they can “see some action” and once again recalling racist images by saying he will sick dogs on the protestors, which he also calls by the racist term “Thugs.” But, we don’t have a competent president. We have a man who sympathizes with and defends those white supremacists, is trying to blame this all on “the Democrats” despite it being caused by the actions of racist cops, vigilantes, etc., is actively undermining our democracy by trying to keep people from voting so he can remain in office, has been accused of sexual harassment, assault and/or rape by over 20 women, has made literally the wrong move every step of the way regarding the Coronavirus costing tens of thousands of people their lives which could have been saved had he acted responsibly at all, is touting the drug hydroxychloroquine, which the EU and the World Heath Organization say causes more harm than help and was found to increase chance of death in Coronavirus patients in a trial here at home by a VA hospital, because he and his friends and family stand to make money off of it, has inspired countless mass shootings across the country because of the way he emboldens racists with his carelessly reckless words, and, shit, I could go on and on but that’s not what this is about.

This is about trying to reconcile how yet another black person has been senselessly murdered by yet another racist white man, who will likely escape punishment for his crime just like so many others before him. It’s me trying to figure out how someone whose job is to serve and protect could suffocate a man to death over a fucking fake $20 bill. How anyone could continue choking the life out of someone as they said these words (transcribed by THIS SLATE ARTICLE):

“God
It’s my face man
I didn’t do nothing serious man
please
please
please I can’t breathe
please man
please somebody
please man
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
please
(inaudible)
man can’t breathe my face
just get up
I can’t breathe
please (inaudible)
I can’t breath shit
I will
I can’t move
mama
mama
I can’t
my knee
my nuts
I’m through
I’m through
I’m claustrophobic
my stomach hurt
my neck hurts
everything hurts
some water or something
please
please
I can’t breath officer
don’t kill me
they gon kill me man
come on man
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
they gon kill me
they gon kill me
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
please sir
please
please
please I can’t breathe”
-George Floyd

I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense. It never will.

Mural in Minneapolis at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue South, the spot where Floyd was arrested, by Niko Alexander, Cadex Herrera, Greta McLain, Xena Goldman, Pablo Helm Hernandez.

The Gunslinger and my shitty attempt at Bob Dylan lyrics aka... random shit I love... pt. II

Like many people these days, I’m spending hours each day trying to get unemployment. It’s like trying to win the lottery just to get through on the line. Yesterday, I finally got through! Only to be told I filed my initial claim incorrectly, though I followed the websites instruction to a t, and I had to be transferred to someone else to cancel that claim their own website told me to create. Of course, the transfer went nowhere and I was once again back to playing the phone lottery. Which is nicer than the real lottery as it costs me nothing to “play” as it is just a once every ten or fifteen minutes phone call that ultimately is disconnected because of high call volumes. I get it. There’s millions of people like me trying to make this thing work. But, it seems like offering assistance that many aren’t able to get is such a fucking tease. Plus, with North Carolina’s rich history of trying to keep people from getting unemployment in the first place, I figured this would be a long shot to begin with. But, as I’ve never had to do anything like this before, I had no idea what to expect. My sister, who was eligible since the beginning of the pandemic, told me it took her over a month to finally get through and get it all figured out, and she’s back in Wisconsin where they are much more liberal in providing assistance.

I feel bad for the customer service reps as I’m sure people are frustrated and pissed off when they finally get through. I hope people are excited and thankful when they finally hear that voice on the line but given the news these days that people are marching around with fucking grenade launchers (true story from here in North Carolina) to protest God-knows-what because a virus has nothing to do with guns (or grenade launchers, for that matter), I somehow doubt gratitude is the main thing being expressed. Again, I say this fully realizing there are millions just like me, wanting for a lifeline that exists but we still aren’t allowed to have. Hold on a sec, time for another call… Nope, nothing. Disconnected again…

But, fuck that shit. I’m tired of bad news. So, let’s do something else. Last week, I announced that MY MUSIC IS GOING TO BE IN A VIDEO GAME and I professed my love for NASCAR and WWE wrestling. That’s some random shit for a “sensitive musician,” I realize. Well, here’s some more of my favorite things that maybe you already know or maybe you wouldn’t expect (or maybe didn’t really care to know). Here’s a couple people that changed my life in a very meaningful way. I wanted to really give some insight into ol’ Bradley Wik. So, here we go…

#1 - Brett Favre

So, I know he’s been back in the news for a not great reason lately. Reportedly, he took some money from the state of Mississippi for some appearances that got cancelled or were never made and now he has to pay the money back. He says he didn’t do anything wrong but who knows. I don’t really care and that’s not why we’re talking about him right now.

As I’VE TALKED ABOUT PREVIOUSLY, sports was a savior of sorts for me. Back when I was a kid, I had some trouble fitting in and always felt like I didn’t quite belong with the other kids. I had issues with my teachers and fellow students, which I was usually able to get out of due to my good grades, my ability to talk my way out of things, which, really means talking until the other person can’t take it anymore and gives up, and because of my supportive mom, who always had my back. Those issues included being highly disruptive in class (usually because I was bored, as it was easier for me to just learn the material from reading ahead so I could then tune out the teachers as they went on and on. Some teachers really didn’t like this, apparently), fighting (including one epic fight that included over twenty boys and had been organized/negotiated days in advance), refusing to go to class with certain teachers, and on and on; you know, the usual. I realize now, much of this was due to the Asperger’s. School, for me, was too easy and boring and the social aspects of my Asperger’s were hard to identify. I had plenty of friends but sometimes was super awkward around other kids/teachers. I wasn’t hard to talk to, but often had nothing to say to people. Or, I had way too much to say to people. Unlike the other kids who, looking back, likely had Asperger’s as well (thinking of my two mates who also jumped up a couple grades in math and science with me…), I wasn’t clumsy or bad at sports. In fact, it was the opposite. I was actually pretty good.

So, sports became my safe space. It was OK for me to get super intense and competitive and release too much energy on those around me. It was OK for me to be hyper-obsessive about the sports I played. I didn’t need to be able to talk about feelings or life to those around me. It was OK to just talk about sports ad nauseam. It was a (semi) healthy way to experience those things that are often too extreme in regards to the other areas of my life. Yes, I was still told to tone it down sometimes but mostly I was able to be myself and no one judged me for it. Plus, for some reason, again, possibly the Asperger’s, I have to be obsessively passionate about something and sports were that thing for a long time.

OK, so where does Brett Favre fit in? Well, he was my first sports hero; and still my greatest sports hero to this day (second greatest overall as The Boss has taken over the top spot, which was also once held by Bob Dylan, see below). One of my earliest memories is of that fateful Packers-Bengals game back in ‘92, Favre’s first extended action and his first official comeback victory. It was a hot summer day back in Oconomowoc, WI. Our living room ceiling fan wasn’t working (or had to be replaced, I can’t remember which) but it was all in pieces and it was in the process of being repaired (or installed). We regularly watched the games on Sunday, but the Pack was generally lousy and it was usually just to wait to see how they blew another game. Majkowski had his one great season back in ‘89 (which was before my time) but otherwise just couldn’t stay healthy. So, I remember a collective groan when he got injured, again, during this Bengals game. In comes this baby-faced kid we had heard a lot about but hadn’t really done anything yet. In true Favre form, he came out swinging… and it was a disaster. A fumble, a near interception straight to a linebacker, another fumble, maybe even a third fumble. He couldn’t get out of his own way. Quickly, the game was over. It was like 20-3 or something. Then suddenly, the fourth quarter came around and we found ourselves in the endzone. How did that happen? Sterling Sharpe caught one of the TD’s from Favre and cracked a rib on the play, I believe, but kept playing. Then, Favre had two of the most amazing throws ever. First to Sharpe down the right sideline, who immediately rolled off because he HAD A FUCKING CRACKED RIB (which I’m sure the announcers called “getting the wind knocked out of him” or “had his bell rung” or something similarly idiotic because that’s just what we used to say for every injury/concussion) and then to some random guy named “Taylor” (who I don’t know for sure ever caught another pass in the NFL) for the game winning TD. It was incredible. At that moment, the entire state of Wisconsin was instantly energized. It was a new era for us and, most of all, we finally had our hope back. Hope is a very powerful thing.

So, why did I tell you all of that? Most of you probably didn’t care and, if you did, you can watch the game on YouTube or buy it from iTunes, like I have. But all that above was just my memory from before I rewatched the game, which only confirmed that somehow I still recalled it vividly after 28 years. If you’re old enough and from Wisconsin, that moment is seared into your memory like the moon landing (which wasn’t real in 1969, sorry to tell you. But they did do a great job making it look good) or 9/11. You’ll never forget where you were, what happened and how it felt.

But, again, why did I tell you all of that? Because everything I love about Brett Favre is in that first comeback win. He was never afraid to take chances or to make mistakes. He never let his mistakes get him down. He was always ready to take the big shot. He was always having fun regardless of whether he was winning or losing. When the game was on the line, he wanted the ball in his hands and he was going to make the throw that either won or lost the game. He relished that responsibility. And he was never going to go down without a fight, no matter the odds.

I wanted to be like that. I still strive to be like that. I don’t always maintain my composure when things go awry and I can’t say I’m always having fun when things are going sideways, but I want to. In many ways, that game is like an allegory for my musical career. It started off rough. I had some natural talent with music, but no actual skills. I was shit at playing guitar and worse at singing (just ask my mom who had to endure hundreds of hours of terrible, a-dying-cat-trying-to-yodel type sounds, I’m sure). But, I kept fighting. Soon, I had stopped making so many mistakes but still wasn’t very effective. So, I took a few big shots. I moved to San Francisco, Seattle, New York City. I kept playing music in each city, learning so much and getting exponentially better. I had been the guitar player/backup in other bands but wanted my chance to start/put together my own band. So, I took another big shot and did. Some more rough spots but I always wanted that responsibility of being the one to win or lose the game/show. Then, I finally made a couple big throws/records and things started turning around. Soon, I was coming back for the win/hearing my songs on the radio and playing shows all over. Then, finally, after another long shot/moving to North Carolina, I was able to secure the win/become a full-time musician. Then, a worldwide pandemic broke out and negated that. But, fuck that part of the story, the rest is the good stuff. And, just like Favre, when this starts to subside, I’m ready for another comeback, baby.

And sure, we both have regrets. Me, I have parts/performances on my records I wish I could redo, shows I could replay, etc. Brett has not winning back to back Super Bowls after losing that Super Bowl they never should have lost and of which we do not speak of. OK, fine.. For those who don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, it was Super Bowl XXXII back in the 1997-98 season… Ewww, even just saying those words makes me sick. We’ve both struggled with addictions. We’ve both had other moments we wish to forget over the years but never let ‘em get us too down. I’ve always had the gunslinger inside me. Whether that’s been shown by never being afraid to go all out with my music even though I might stink it up sometimes or never being afraid to move across the country (I’m on move across the country #6, which should be the last…). Or, whether that’s shown by MAKING A RECORD THAT SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE ANYTHING I’VE EVER DONE, which required using a Moog synthesizer (which I did not know how to play when I bought it and had never touched before I started recording with it). A record that many people seem to not know what to do with yet. But, it’s really good, I assure you. Just give it some time. It even took Brianne a while to warm up to it. (Also, go back and read all the blogs, labeled NEW MUSIC, TRACK #1, TRACK #2, TRACK #3, TRACK #4, about the album and each track to see how much care and love went into it)

That’s why I love Brett Favre. Sure, I love the Super Bowl and all the other games he won for us. But mostly, I love the man and his spirit and what he represented to me. He is what I aspire to be. Maybe someday I’ll get there…

#2 - Bob Dylan

For #1, I listed my biggest sports hero of all-time. For #2, I actually went with the second most important musical figure in my life. As any reader of this blog knows, Bruce Springsteen is my biggest musical influence by far and his status towers over all others. In fact, as I wrote about before, the Boss is THE MAIN REASON I EVEN PLAY MUSIC. But, Bob Dylan is my sentimental choice because of when his music came into my life and why I fell in love with it so much. And probably also a little bit because Bruce himself wanted to be Dylan when he was younger. So, you know, we have that in common.

I was already in High School by the time I first listened to an actual Bob Dylan record. Sure, I had heard “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” on the radio but that was probably my only exposure to Dylan previously; unless you count the horrible/silly impressions they would often do on “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” Much like “Born to Run,” “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” unlocked something in my brain that I didn’t even know existed. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” was like nothing I had ever heard before. It was like poetry with some music thrown in for good measure. But, the interesting thing, and the thing I couldn’t figure out, was how he managed to take that poetry, which was steeped in seemingly random imagery that even he himself said didn’t always mean anything, and make it “feel” like emotions. It was baffling. It was magic.

Part of this fascination was definitely related to my own Asperger’s. I was/am mostly unable to understand or express my own emotions. Dylan showed me, without me even knowing it, a new way to do that. But, it was a way to do it subconsciously. I wasn’t actively exploring my emotions and thinking through them outwardly, but his music was allowing me to do that for me behind the scenes. I didn’t know it yet, but he was slowly teaching me how to express my feelings through music. Bruce had opened up that channel but Dylan was the first to really start to pull things out of me.

Slowly, I worked my way through his catalog in chronological order. Shortly after, I got to “Another Side of Bob Dylan” and my mind was officially blown. “Chimes of Freedom,” “My Back Pages” and “To Ramona” took that idea of poetry and imagery with a side of music to a whole other level. But, you could tell the man was just getting started. Even he had a laugh with himself on the record. He knew what he was doing was brilliant.

His “big three” run was up next and about to take over my life. “Bringing It All Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde” brought a band into the mix (I still don’t understand why people were so angry about this. Fucking folk purists…) which turned everything up to eleven. The songwriting, somehow, got even better too. It was like watching Michael Jordan turn it on even more during a game just because he could. (side note: “The Last Dance” was really a good watch, though very obviously had to cater a ton to Michael to get him to do it in the first place. But, one of the things that irked me is how everyone talked about how he gave it 100% during each game but could always go up a notch if he felt slighted or wanted to prove something, which literally means he didn’t give 100% every night. I’m not saying he dogged it the other nights but despite hearing it at least a million times, no one can actually give 110%…) I remember the first time I listened to “Blonde on Blonde” I almost had a anxiety attack. It was actually too much for me to take in in one sitting. I had to listen to it like I was listening to the vinyl version, I had to take a break after “Just Like a Woman” and come back to the second record in a bit (it’s a double album on vinyl, with side D being just the epic, 11+ minute opus “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” Such a badass way to close it out).

After hearing all this, I knew I wanted to start writing. I still didn’t really play much music but I started writing poetry, very ripped-off-from-Dylan type poetry, aka shitty Dylan lyrics. I was basically repurposing his songs to try and say something about myself. I stole all the imagery, the “night watchmen” (from “Visions of Johanna”), “Sweet Marie” (from “Absolutely Sweet Marie”), “John the Baptist” and “Gypsy Davey” (from “Tombstone Blues”), the “Fortune Telling Lady” (from “Desolation Row”), and on and on. I probably thought I was being so clever, knowing most people didn’t know Dylan lyrics like the back of their hand. I remember getting some really good praise in my creative writing/poetry class, which probably wasn’t quite deserved looking back on it.

But, the most important thing was that I felt like I was finally communicating something to the outside world. I took offense to any and all critiques (like most teenagers do) because the words I wrote weren’t just words. Like most teenager’s poetry, it was me trying to express something I didn’t quite understand myself. But, instead of the typical Emily Dickinson style sadness, mine came out through “motorcycle black madonnas,” and “ceremonies of the horsemen.” I couldn’t understand or articulate when I was feeling anxious, sad, fearful, joyful, in love, etc., but I did know how I felt when I heard words like:

And Madonna, she still has not showed

We see this empty cage now corrode

Where her cape of the stage once had flowed

The fiddler, he now steps to the road

He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed

On the back of the fish truck that loads

While my conscience explodes

The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain

And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

That I could feel. That made sense to me. Without knowing exactly what he was trying to say, I felt I understood this better than when my friends would tell me how they were feeling. That made no sense. I couldn’t figure out the simplicity of a 14 year old boy pining the loss of “the love of his life,” aka a 14 year old girl, but

Across the street they've nailed the curtains

They're getting ready for the feast

The Phantom of the Opera A perfect image of a priest

They're spoonfeeding Casanova

To get him to feel more assured

Then they'll kill him with self-confidence

After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls "Get Outa Here If You Don't Know

Casanova is just being punished for going To Desolation Row"

made perfect sense to my brain. I could feel that. I could empathize with those fictional characters. Those were not things I could do in real life. I remember times when I would get all teary at the end of “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” That’s how impactful Dylan’s words were on me. Half (or more) of them seemingly made no sense but meant more to me than almost any real life words I could hear.

I think it’s pretty common for people’s art and culture intake to influence them in a very meaningful way because, especially when we’re younger, we don’t know how to feel what we’re feeling. Art gives us the ability to use someone else’s revelation to inform ourselves. Like a lot of things though, I feel this is ramped up in people with Asperger’s/autism, like me. Dylan allowed me a space to begin to feel things in a meaningful way. I had read other poetry and it just didn’t do what Dylan could do. Even though I started by just writing shitty, ripped off versions of Dylan lyrics, I knew that adding music would amplify this effect. I needed to finally learn how to play the damn guitar and Dylan was a great motivating factor in that. Shit, some of his early work would just have a few repetitive chords. I thought I could manage that. Springsteen was still a god, but there was no way I could pick up a guitar I could barely play and pen “Jungleland.” But, I could learn the G, C, D and Em chords and speak sing some (terrible) poetry over the top. That seemed achievable to me.

The Boss may have been the original reason I wanted to play music, but his music seemed like too lofty a goal. Where was I gonna find a pianist AND an organist AND a saxophone player in my tiny town of 3000 in rural Wisconsin? But, I did have that old acoustic guitar in the closet (a Harmony I bought out of the JcPenney’s catalog with the lawn mowing money I saved up) and bunches of this poetry just waiting for those few simple chords to really take ‘em to the next level. That I could do. So, I was off and running (well, stumbling and falling but getting back up again each time). I think I still have some recordings somewhere on old cassettes as I had a small recorder I used to carry around with me all the time. I wish I could post one for y’all but I don’t have anything to play cassettes with currently. You’d probably get a laugh at it so maybe I’ll hunt down an old boombox or something so I can post something someday.

But, Dylan eventually convinced me I had to move to New York City, which I’m also grateful for. Like I said, if Springsteen did it, then I needed to do it too. New York turned out to be my favorite place in the world and those were some of my happiest years. And I even got to play folk music at the Cafe Wha? with my good buddy Mr. Jon Fickes. Probably the first time folk music had been played there in like 40 years. It’s a funny story of how that happened but that’s for another day. There’s even proof of this:

Singer / Songwriter Bradley Wik performs with R.I.S.E. @ Cafe Wha. Monday May 19th 2008

I sort of regret, though not really, that I had decided to play everything in an alternate guitar tuning I barely knew how to use. I was really into Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” album at that time, which is my favorite album of his, and he used this open-D tuning on there, so I had to as well. I think I remember fucking up a few chords since I had just learned them like a week before this. But, you can hear me doing my best Bob Dylan impression with some very Bob Dylan influenced lyrics (see photo below). Enjoy!

For the record, the last Dylanesque song I ever wrote/recorded was on my first album (“Burn What You Can, Bury the Rest…”). If you somehow missed it, take a close listen to the lyrics of “She Will Never Return to Me” (video below) and you’ll hear references to painting “a silver ghost on a broken window sill,” ” “poets with bells in their shoes,” and other very Dylan-y type imagery.

"She Will Never Return to Me" from "Burn What You Can, Bury the Rest..." performed LIVE by Bradley Wik

Until next time… Keep a good head and always carry a lightbulb…

(dictated but not read)

The lyrics to the song, “The Undertaker’s Poem,” from the video above, typed out on my trusty Royal Quiet DeLuxe…

New article/interview about music for depressed alcoholic autistic people!

Many thanks to Shannon and Encore for writing about the new record and helping me spread the word on Autism Awareness. I know April is over, but that doesn’t mean Autism and Asperger’s don’t matter as much anymore. I want all year to be Autism Awareness. I also want to say a few things that I’ll keep repeating until I’m blue in the face:

1. I believe my Asperger’s to be a positive in my life. My Asperger’s has allowed me to do the things I’ve wanted to do like live in different cities all over the country, make music and release albums, solve a Sunday New York Times Crossword puzzle in under 25 minutes; you know, all the stuff people want to do but usually don’t or can’t. I honestly believe I would have given up playing music by now if it wasn’t for the Asperger’s. You can read more about why I think Asperger’s can be a good thing HERE.

2. There are lots of people who have Asperger’s/Autism but may be unaware. For the first 25 years of my life, I didn’t know I had it either. I was a pain in the ass when I was a kid, didn’t know how much it affected my relationships, my views of the world and how I processed, or rather, didn’t process so many events, emotions, etc. I’m not saying finding out suddenly cured anything, but it’s easier for my wife and I to see when I’m doing something too “Asperger’s-y” and need to reassess my actions, words, etc. Just having some understanding around it has changed a lot for me. I hope all the people out there who are struggling like I did can find a voice (maybe even mine) who can help them, and those around them, start to understand their thoughts, words, actions, etc. a little better. It’ll make a huge difference, trust me.

3. If you are struggling and/or think you maybe be on the spectrum, please, please, please know that you are not broken and you’re not alone. I know it may feel like it. That’s how I felt for so long. I didn’t act, react or think like other people did, so I thought I was damaged. But, I wasn’t. I just needed to know why.

   To point #2, I’m so grateful I found the Man vs. Radio podcast whose host, Christian James Hand, was so open in talking about his own Asperger’s. He said so many things I’d never heard someone articulate before, and that I couldn’t articulate about myself. He made it seem more “normal” by talking about it so bluntly and without judgement. He talked about having Asperger’s like it was no different than having a tattoo. It was just something he had that was a part of him. Everything I’d ever heard about it was that it was some crippling disability. People with Autism couldn’t go to the same schools or play sports or hold down jobs, etc. We need to stop making Asperger’s/Autism so negative that people won’t want to find out whether or not they have it, or their kids have it, or whomever might have it. People will not want to be associated with Autism until they stop thinking about it like it’s fucking leprosy.

I also say all of this fully recognizing that I am not as far out on the spectrum as others. I’ve seen the struggle parents go through (from both my own experience and in neighbors, friends, etc.) when they care for a child with Asperger’s/Autism. It’s not easy. Those mothers and fathers are saints.

Anyhow, I was talking about the article/interview. So, here it is. Click below to be magically whisked away, across the vast internet to lands hitherto unknown. Or, just click on the picture below to read the damn article.

Click to read the article/interview

Track #4 - what are we supposed to do now that we've wasted our youth?

OK folks, here is the final blog about this record. I promise I won’t keep talking about it. Well, I will but it won’t be the only thing I talk about. There’s a lot going on these days in ol’ Bradley Wik’s head, especially since there isn’t a lot going on anywhere else. Hell, this might not even be the only EP I record during these coronavirus times. Not announcing anything yet, but we’ll see. Not playing shows and not leaving the house is starting to wear on me. Like all of you, I’m starting to go stir crazy but if staying home is the worst this gets for me, I’ll feel pretty damn good about that. Besides, I found one of my new favorite TV shows (“What We Do in the Shadows”) and am finally catching up on another (“Killing Eve”). So, swings and roundabouts. Also, I made a delicious chicken and artichokes with cream sauce the other night, so yay for getting creative in the kitchen. Wait, what the hell am I talking about? Oh yeah, music. Read below, I’m tired…

“what are we supposed to do now that we’ve wasted our youth?”

we traded our bodies for stories

that we could tell our friends

every night might have been a journey

but we always knew just how it would end

what are we supposed to do now that we’ve wasted our youth?

there’s no need for goodbyes

we never really met

moments of truth flashed in your eyes

but we both knew better than to believe any words we said

what are we supposed to do now that we’ve wasted our youth?

there was no great reward

no revelations to find

so we poisoned our bodies

to forget the best years of our lives

what are we supposed to do now that we’ve wasted our youth?

Music Notes:

The longest song on this record still only has like ⅓ the amount of lyrics as a typical song of mine. This song is last on the album but was the first song written for the record. Some of the parts on this song were recorded two years ago. As this song is the final piece, it had to be grand enough to close the record but still be intimate and ruminative amongst the chaos. This noise (which can happen when you combine too much alcohol and Meniere’s disease. Meniere’s, which I have, is an inner ear disorder which can cause hearing loss, vertigo, tinnitus, nausea depending on the severity of the attack. This type of noise would come from a really bad one...), though it still contains various melodies, is a type of sound bed (if that makes sense) that I’ve long wanted to build upon. I weaved together up to 5 different melodies/harmonies at one point to create the foundation for this song. I also wanted to put myself and the simple, plaintive beauty of the song at odds with the noise. It’s why the vocal and guitar are recorded together through one mic. I did this for each song, to present myself alone, fighting against the music/chaos/noise coming from my own head and/or the outside world, which my Asperger’s wouldn’t allow me to be a part of. I’m always on the outside looking in. Recording that way makes it a little harder, but it was the only way I could get it to sound how I wanted it. I want you to feel like you are sitting across from me as I sing. You don't hear guitars and vocals separately in real life, you hear them all together. If you focus solely on the guitar/vocal in this song, at least for me, it’s almost like those old Magic Eye books where the chaos slowly disappears and the picture comes into focus. There’s beauty in the struggle. Sometimes, at least.

Anyways, a whole record like this song would be tough to swallow and would lessen the effect. A couple of the other tracks (and one of the tracks that did not make the cut for this record) had a similar sound/noise which I removed. It didn’t build the record the way the songs should, culminating with the beautiful chaos of this song. The record, as alcohol is referenced in the title, is supposed to simulate getting fucked up throughout. The first song has little accompaniment and sounds very clean and open. The second song has a bigger sound, let’s say this is after two drinks, and a driving energy. The sound is full and constant. Things are feeling good at this point. You needed a couple to really get things going. The third song, we’ll say after four or five drinks, is a bit more sparse. It still has a good rhythm but you’re starting to go down into the backside of the night. You alternate between getting quiet and yell-talking to people. The alcohol is starting to make that turn from fun to making you sad. You’re glad your friends are still out and you tell them how much they mean to you. The last song is the end of the night, however many drinks is way too many for you. It is meant to sound chaotic, ears buzzing from the alcohol and the noise (and the Meniere’s, if you’re like me), vision blurred after stumbling home. It’s quiet in your lonely apartment but it’s not quiet in your head. You’re at that sentimental, way-too-drunk part of the night and you wonder why you do this to yourself all the time. You don’t want to anymore but you know you still will. You have one more, why not at this point, and put on some music to fall asleep to. You know the words by heart but it sounds all distorted and angry. It doesn’t matter, the alcohol has taken over and your eyes get heavy. There’s a strange comfort in this moment, as the music softly fades while you slowly fade off to sleep.

Story Notes:

As I mentioned above, this song was the first one written for this record and contains all the themes I would explore throughout the other three songs. Thematically/lyrically, I wanted to build towards this one so I told smaller, vignette-like stories in some of the other songs. They all collide in these 4 minutes and 44 seconds (4 is my favorite number thanks to Brett Favre, but it actually is coincidental that this album ended with a song that was 4:44. I always close my eyes when I mark the fade outs and that’s just where it landed. That there are 4 songs on this record is also coincidental. I started with 6 and narrowed it down based on fit, function and story. The way I put together records is very intentional. Each song has to have a purpose, move the story forward and fit sonically into what I’m trying to achieve. I could talk about my reasons/theories behind putting albums together for hours but this is about this song and this parenthetical notation is already too long…). This song is meant to sort of reflect on the events of the prior three songs. Both the song and the title are the longest on the record. As in a lot of my songs, there is no conclusion to this song, it’s just an open ended, semi-rhetorical question. Life doesn’t often offer closure, and rarely offers guidance. And when I was going through the thick of what made its way into these songs, I wouldn’t have heeded any advice anyways. All I wanted was to be understood and not feel alone. I wanted to know I wasn’t alone in wasting so many of my “good” years. It’s a very specific brand of hopelessness that you feel when you're 24 years old. You’re ostensibly too young to feel hopeless and that makes it all the worse. It’s a weird cycle to get into and a very hard one to get out of, since you feel like shit all the time. “What’s the point? You’re a stupid piece of shit anyways…” is what you tell yourself every day. And, part of you feels like Rob in High Fidelity, “it’s brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.” Which is terrible advice as that just feeds back into the whole monster once again.

There’s also a lot of Asperger’s in this song. In addition to the hopelessness and apathy, there’s the distinct notion that this is all temporary and it’s best to save our emotions for another adventure. I remember having this feeling more than a couple times throughout my life. I can’t speak for the other person in the “relationship” but I would venture to guess they felt the same based on their actions. Having Asperger’s, I was never really the Tinder meet up-type. I felt more at home in comfort/routine of long term relationships so it was hard for me to pretend I cared much about these types of things. I sort of fell backwards into these sexual interactions being the (cliched) hard-partying-and-troubled-but-with-a-sensitive-side singer of a Rock N’ Roll band. Although, I seriously doubt many found my shenanigans charming once the hangover hit the next morning. Sometimes, it didn’t even take that long. I have a pretty clear memory (surprising for that time in my life) of sitting in a hot tub next to a girl who went on and on about how much she hated the awful guy who was the singer from the band they saw earlier, too drunk to realize that was me. I listened, got up, left, and thought it was funny at the time, not realizing how much of a dick I had become. I think some people are attracted to that don’t-give-a-fuck mentality (which was sometimes the Asperger’s and sometimes me just being an asshole) but, unfortunately for me, that just made me not care even more, even about myself. I don’t really regret any of it (I don’t feel like wasting energy on things I can’t change), but I definitely could have been kinder to myself, my liver and those around me during that time, that’s for sure.

You see, I’ve always sort of had that writer’s spirit and wanted to dive in headfirst to most things in life. I came to rethink that years later after realizing that was also a great way to drink away your depression for as long as possible before blowing your head off with a shotgun. There was nothing to be gained from diving into drinking, drugs and depression. But, I was young and thought it might be “cool.” I wanted the scars, and I got ‘em. Both literally and figuratively. Making this record has been kind of tough on me as I’ve had to revisit this older version of myself. I had to climb back into this fucked up brain. I had to picture myself going through these things all over again. Once the songs were done, I could use my Asperger’s to just tell myself it was another person, a different chapter, it’s not me anymore and all that, but while I was writing and recording, I had to live in that world. I had to be them once again.

While I was beginning to mix the record, I noticed an issue and was going to have to re-record one of the guitar/vocal parts (since, as I mentioned, they were recorded together). Redoing a synth part, no problem, just focus on the task at hand, hit the right notes and get it done. But, the vocals require performance. I have to feel everything (and sing/play guitar to a click track since the synths were programmed/played right, or very close to, on time, also not my favorite). Since mentally I thought I was done tracking, I almost had an anxiety attack and shut down for an entire day. I just did crossword puzzles and compulsively read about coronavirus. I didn’t want to do it. I felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to sing anymore. Obviously, I did it and it all turned out alright, but that’s what it was like making this record.

So, if what you’ve read about above has interested you and you’d like to purchase/donate to the cause, there are a few options:

1. Go to https://bradleywik.bandcamp.com/. You can stream the record for free or purchase (hint: you can also donate a little extra past the $4, if you like)

2. As I know these are trying times and people could use some entertainment, you can also download the record for FREE (CLICK HERE to access the google drive link with mp3’s of the record) with optional donation to: https://www.paypal.me/bradleywik

-30-

Track #3 - we are not alone

Happy Monday! Well, at least as happy as Monday’s can be these days. Never anyone’s favorite day before, they somehow found a way to be even shittier. So, I guess I take that back and will just say “Fucking Mondays...” But, here is a new post about the song “we are not alone” from my recently released 4 song EP entitled “music for depressed alcoholic autistic people.” If you’re new to the blog, I've been writing about each song off the new record (I also wrote about the record as a whole and why I made it, which you can READ HERE. Spoiler: it’s because I’m a depressed, sometimes alcoholic person who has Asperger’s… But, there is so much more to it, so read it. Also, I’m still not sure why it felt better to write it all lowercase but it did. I have talked to a couple other Asperger’s people and they also have an affinity for lowercase typing, while subsequently hand writing in all uppercase letters like an engineer. I don’t get it either but that’s the way it goes…) . This record has been the most rewarding, challenging, fun yet hardest to listen to project I’ve ever worked on. As I mentioned in the aforementioned blog about the entire record, it’s the only project I’ve made that I still listen to. Again, it’s only been finished for about three weeks, so we’ll see if that development continues, but usually I make it about a week. It’s also the only thing that I’ve done completely by myself, so it literally sounds (almost) exactly how I want it to. Normally, I like to do as little as possible with my records once they’ve been recorded. I’m super hands on when creating, arranging, etc. but once it’s on tape (literally on tape with “In My Youth, I’m Getting Old…”) I try to be as hands off as possible. I never wanted to make myself crazy obsessing over the smallest details until I break my hand punching a wall Tom Petty-style (true story, look it up). I try and let the people I’m paying do their thing and usually only offer one piece of advice, often to my dismay as my singing abilities are limited, especially when recording live takes, which is “turn the vocal up a bit.” Probably should have avoided that on the last album, but when final mix approval comes down to the singer, that’s what you’re gonna get…

Also, if you haven’t checked out one of the Facebook live shows (every Thursday at 8pm EST at: https://www.facebook.com/BradleyWikMusic/), you should. This week’s topic (all shows feature live performances plus a deep dive into a topic related to my music) is: how Asperger’s affects my songwriting and storytelling. Also, to do even more online shows, I have signed up for Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bradleywikmusic/ or search @bradleywikmusic or however the fuck that works) as some venues are hosting online shows via Instagram live. I know, it’s fucking weird to see ol’ Bradley on the social medias but these are fucking weird times we live in and I hate not performing. So, even if it’s to my limited online audience, as the Facebook and Instagram are still new to me, I’d rather be on there playing than not. I’ll probably also be popping on to make some (not) funny jokes, some (actually good) music recommendations, amongst other things.

But, enough of that shit, let’s listen to and talk about some depressing ass music!

“we are not alone”

“wait” was the last word i heard you say

before i locked the door and walked away

i drank til i was numb

that’s when i felt the blood

“love” is just a broken word for both of us

and “hope” was just never quite enough

i drank til i was numb

that’s when i felt the blood

i can’t tell if i am real

this is the only thing i can feel

but i am not alone

you are not alone

we are not alone

we are not alone…

Music Notes:

This song, to me, always sounded like a depressed people’s anthem so I wanted the production to follow that line of thinking. I just loved the idea of a crowd full of people screaming “we are not alone” at full throat. Although, that line does always make me think of the movie “Airheads” with Adam Sandler, Steve Buscemi and Brendan Fraser. In the movie, their band name is “the Lone Rangers.” After they break into a radio station demanding they get some airplay, the DJ makes fun of them for pluralizing “the Lone Ranger.” They can’t be “lone” if there’s more than one. Maybe “we” can’t technically be alone but I know there are people out there who feel alone and don’t know that there are so many other people feeling the exact same things they are. We are together in our alone-ness, and even more so these days. I wanted this song to be one that people would play for and with each other, so I wanted to make this one a little more “fun” to listen to. Or, at least more “fun” than your typical song about depersonalization. I wanted it to have a sort of groove, which is why it has a very steady bass line and the “snare” on the 2’s and 4’s the entire song. When I play it live, I usually play it quicker and a little more manic, with the tempo and volume shifting as I feel that night. But here, it felt better to be a little more steady and something you could nod your head to. Or dance to, if you’re a little masochistic, like me.

Story Notes:

So, here’s the-grocery-store-was-closed-so-I-had-to-stab-my-arms-to-know-that-I-was-real-song. What? I know… Here’s a little more context.

I’ve read a few articles recently which finally connected some dots for me. Medication has always been a strange thing for me. It never seems to do the thing it’s supposed to do. Now, I know that is likely caused by my Asperger’s, which makes sense. My brain is not wired the same as most people’s, so it makes sense that chemicals would also affect me in different ways as well. When my Meniere’s Disease (an inner-ear disorder affecting hearing, balance, vision, etc.) was first starting to get bad, I was traveling and at a hotel about four hours from home. After a sleepless night, I finally made my way to an urgent care. They looked at me for about three minutes and determined (guessed, don’t even get me started on how much doctors have fucked me up over the years… Thank you for not getting me started…) it was bad congestion, possible ear infection. They prescribed Robitussin for the congestion and seasick patches to help with the dizziness and nausea. I put one of the patches on and within about twenty minutes the vertigo was beginning to subside. Not completely, but to the point where I could actually suck down some Gatorade and eat a few pieces of peanut butter bread. About an hour later I was starting to fall asleep. Awesome, I hadn’t slept for about 40 hours so this was good. I took out my contacts, laid down and grabbed my phone. BUT, I soon realized I had lost my near-sightedness. When my phone was within six inches of my face, I couldn’t read a thing; which was terrifying. You see, I’m near-sighted. I wear contacts because I usually can’t read anything that’s six inches or more from my face. I put my glasses on, no change. I ripped the patch off and about three or four hours later my vision returned. I checked the box, no mention of loss of vision as a side effect. They also stuck me on blood pressure pills to lower the blood flow to the ear so it wouldn’t trap fluid so the congestion could dissipate. These pills also caused some very strange side effects not listed on the packaging so I stopped taking all the medication. The problem turned out to be nerve related and some chiropractic work has mostly gotten rid of the issue. Since I have Asperger’s, I’ve learned I should take the doctor’s advice and then do the opposite. That usually works best. I wish that was a joke, but it’s not. I literally do the opposite of whatever they say and that is always what provides me the best relief. Fucking Asperger’s…

So, why am I telling you all this? What the hell does Meniere’s medication have to do with “we are not alone?”

Well, be patient, young padawan, and I’ll tell you. Early in my life, around age 14, I found out that pain medication didn’t affect me in the right way. I didn’t know why yet, but I was well aware it wasn’t quite right. When I went to get my wisdom teeth removed, it took a small horse’s amount of gas to knock me out (I kept rambling about baseball, they tell me). Afterwards, they gave me some vicodin or something similar for the pain. I’d wake up in pain, take a couple pills, then feel sick to my stomach, and still be in the same amount of pain as before. But slowly over the next thirty minutes, I’d realize that even though I still felt the pain acutely, I didn’t care as much. It started to feel like it wasn’t my pain anymore. I didn’t like it so I stopped taking the pills.

Years later, I found out it was true that taking those vicodins (and many other prescription-grade pain pills) with alcohol increased that effect greatly. Take a couple pills with a bottle of wine, and voila, all my physical and mental pain was no longer mine. I was free, unburdened. The problem, of course, is two pills and a bottle of wine turns into two bottles of wine and four or five pills. Which turns into three and six or eight. Suddenly, not only am I not “feeling” my pain and misery, I’m not feeling anything. Some nights, I would sit alone in my apartment and try and figure out whether or not I was actually still real. This is when the depersonalization would kick in. At first, it felt as though my brain was watching my physical body on those lonely nights. My thoughts, feelings, and other cognitive skills were retreating from the physical world but I was still aware of my actual presence. As it progressed, I felt my body slowly disappear as well and suddenly I wasn’t alone in my apartment at all. I wasn’t anything. I was only my thoughts. I felt as if I could go anywhere and do anything. My thoughts alone could take me into other people’s thoughts, where they were usually saying terrible things about me. I heard people say they wish I would give up pretending I could play music, my life was a such fucking waste, that I’m a stupid piece of shit who’s ruining their lives, that I should just hurry up and die already.

Obviously, I doubt I could travel into and through people’s inner thoughts. Likely, those were just my inner voices telling me those things. But, when this would start up, I’d realize I could just go confirm my existence and then I’d start to calm down. I usually did this by going to the grocery store that was a block away from my apartment. I’d go buy a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine and some cheese (I am from Wisconsin, after all…), someone would acknowledge me at the store, ask me if I needed help (I was usually pretty fucked up at this point so I probably looked like I did, in more ways than one) and then I’d head home assured to live another day as a normal, regular old human.

But, one night, and I don’t remember why, I started my night-before-a-day-off drinking routine (which was much more involved than the normal work night routine) a little later. So, by the time I hit that point in the night, the grocery store was already closed. Panicked, I walked to the bodega down the street. Also closed. Not much is open at 2am on a Sunday night (I guess, Monday morning). I returned home, having seen no one on the street. Back at the apartment, I tried to pinch myself. You pinch yourself and you wake up, right? Well, not after wine and pain pills. I punched myself. Better, but not quite enough to jolt me out of this state. So, I resorted to stronger measures…

Someone I used to know would get tattoos to cover up the scars. Mine aren’t nearly as bad, most of the time you can’t really see them; it was just a pocket knife, after all. I actually have another one right next to them which looks similar that I got when I worked at the paint store. I was pulling out some five gallon buckets from under a shelf, didn’t realize the screw holding the shelf together was sticking out the bottom end which ripped a good one into my arm. I thought about covering them up but, most of the time, I’m glad they’re there. Sometimes, I need the reminder.

Another sidenote: I actually smashed the phone I had during this time. I didn’t do it on purpose (well, I did but not to destroy it. I was just mad about something unrelated), but I know that subconsciously I didn’t want any more reminders. Sure, there are nights I’d be interested to go back through the photos and see what life looked like back then. But, I know that would be stupid. It’s over for a reason and I’m glad it is. The memories are more than enough… These songs are more than enough…

So, if what you’ve read about above has interested you and you’d like to purchase/donate to the cause, there are a few options:

1. Go to https://bradleywik.bandcamp.com/. You can stream for free or purchase (hint: you can also donate a little extra past the $4, if you like)

2. As I know these are trying times and people could use some entertainment, you can also download the record for FREE (CLICK HERE to access the google drive link with mp3’s of the record) with optional donation to: https://www.paypal.me/bradleywik

Thanks for reading and listening. I’ll be back soon with more info on track #4 - “what are we supposed to do now that we’ve wasted our youth?”

-30-

Track #2 - the promise (please don't die tonight)

As a reminder, every Thursday (for the foreseeable, quarantined future) at 8pm EST, I will be going LIVE on Facebook to play music, talk, and deep dive into various topics like how/why I write songs (up on replay now), how Asperger’s affects my songwriting and storytelling (next week, on 4/23), how to write a Rock N’ Roll song like Bradley Wik, and more. Go follow the Facebook page, or however that works, at: https://www.facebook.com/BradleyWikMusic/

I’ll also be doing some music recommendations and other short videos on there. So, if you’d like that, be sure to follow along. There also may be a video series about songwriting in the not too distant future… Stay tuned.

But, today, I would like to introduce track #2 - the promise (please don’t die tonight). Below is a short synopsis (trust me, I could write way more if you’d like but I think the below covers it pretty well), of that song. I wrote about the recording/production and about why it’s on this album. The story behind it, if you were. I know, I’ve said a few times I’m not really interested in back story but I thought some context might be helpful. Again, I don’t want people to think I’m writing depressing, fucked up stories to sound “cool” but to expose how stupid and asshole-y I was back in the day (I’ve gotten way better, though not totally “better.” Sort of like that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry and the acupuncturist. Better, but not “better.”). It’s one of the things I really wanted to do with this record, make sure that I don’t try to abdicate responsibility for my actions. Depression, drugs, alcohol, etc. don’t exempt you from blame and I try to allow myself to be the villain of my own piece with these songs. “I started killing myself…,” “I drank til I was numb…,” “WE were too fucked up to care…,” “What are WE gonna do now that WE’VE wasted OUR youth?,” “WE poisoned OUR bodies…,” etc. It’s either my fault or at worst there was someone joining me. I never wanted to blame anyone for my stupid actions. At best, I was aided and abetted but no one forced me to do stupid, shitty things; I chose to. My hope is that after hearing these tunes, people might choose not to do shitty things to each other…

Also, just random note: this song is the exact same length as “i started killing myself years ago…” Not sure how that happens, but it did. I initially thought I had mislabeled the file since it was exactly the same size so I panicked after I uploaded it to BANDCAMP. But, just another weird thing that happened with this album.

Anyways, enough of my blathering. On to the song!

“the promise (please don’t die tonight)”

“i might love you” she said, with tears in her eyes

“so, promise me that you won’t die tonight”

Music Notes:

This song is so basic in both structure and story that I really wanted to keep it that way so nothing would overpower the simple yet powerful message. Everything in this song is super repetitive (that’s the Asperger’s in me) and I love it. I wanted to make it sort of trance-y to really let you live in the world for a bit. It’s a very full, rich sounding song. There’s very few gaps in the frequencies on the instrumentation so that the song will fully envelope your senses. I always try to break my songs down into highs, mids and lows and see what’s filling out those spaces. Normally, that was lead guitar in the highs, snare/toms and rhythm guitars in the mids, kick drum and bass in the lows. It’s so different for this type of music and it was fun to play around with a totally different sound palette. Adding in highs, like the harmonica, make the song feel like it’s opening up into something grander. Taking away bass makes it feel less intense. Removing some mid frequency parts make it feel more naked and like it’s missing something if you’d like to build anticipation. There’s so much more I can do in this realm, which was very overwhelming at first but eventually helped me get to where I wanted to be with these songs.

I tried to make this song fairly driving in the rhythms and production to simulate how it would sound to hear these words while being under the influence. You know, that sort of tunnel-vision, fuzzy-sounding thing that happens after a few too many where sounds sort of overwhelm your senses. And there was probably more to the story and more words that were spoken but the only ones to cut through the din were those two, simple lines. The rest drowned out in your drunkenness, exemplifying the immediacy of those words.

I actually considered making this song just the one verse which was like a minute and a half long and just leaving it at that, but that didn’t feel as impactful somehow. Made it feel more like a vignette than a story. It felt unfinished, which sort of makes sense given the context, but I wasn’t sold. It’s almost as if I was too drunk to understand the words the first time so I needed them repeated so I’d remember them. So, you get second verse same as the first. 

Story Notes:

So, after the first song (“i started killing myself years ago…”), this felt like the most logical continuation of the story. The songs weren’t written too far apart, maybe a week or so, and the same characters and thoughts were likely occupying my mind. In the first song, the characters were “too fucked up to care,” but here is the introduction of the female character which would reappear in “what are we supposed to do now that we’ve wasted our youth?” She did care (at least a little), though I still did not. And, by not caring about myself, it meant I didn’t care about her since she was invested enough in me to at least care whether I lived or died. Wow, what a great couple. That’s true romance...

But, these are words I’ve heard before, in various forms, over the years. I feel like such an asshole that someone had to say these words to me. Back then, I thought “why do you care? I don’t even care…” But now I realize how selfish that was. I made them care because I couldn’t muster up the courage to care at least a little bit about myself. I had grown used to others doing that for me. I’m sure part of it was the extra attention. I’ve always loved attention, whether I was playing sports, trying to get the best scores/grades in school and now in performing my music. Luckily, however, I’ve never become dependent on the attention. I love it, but it’s one of the few addictions I’ve never had...

I thought a lot about those words a couple years later when I started writing this record. As I mentioned, this song was written second for the record (would’ve been cool to write them all in order… But, not sure if you noticed the tracks are in alphabetical order on the record, which was actually just a happy accident. I didn’t plan it that way, it just felt the best in this order.) and I wanted to go back in time (Back to the Future Huey Lewis style) to before when “what are we supposed to do now that we’ve wasted our youth?” took place. Did these people have any sort of real connection? Did they truly not care at all like in “i started killing myself years ago…?” Was there a time they weren’t just wasting away their days/months/years together?

And, the answer is: kind of, but not really. Key word in the song (all two lines of it) is “might.” “‘i might love you’ she said, with tears in her eyes.” Turns out she probably didn’t actually care that much. And I probably would have said the same thing had the roles been reversed. Maybe I had at some point and just forgotten, whether by drink, drug or just the passage of time. So, I guess we both cared, at least a little, but, likely, only a little.

Which brings me to another tenet of my songwriting: I try to never write how I “feel” and never try to speculate on how someone else might “feel.” I try to just tell the story. I can’t even pretend to understand how I actually feel most of the time (thank you, Asperger’s) so I wouldn’t try to pretend what someone else is feeling. So, I try to stick to the facts and let other people fill in the blanks. If there are feelings or emotions involved in a song they’re always ones that were explicitly told to me. One of the (Asperger’s?) triggers I have is being blamed for something I didn’t do or told that I meant or felt something I did not (just ask my wife, Brianne...). So, I would hate to characterize someone or assume they were thinking/feeling/etc. something they were not. It would drive me crazy and I try to respect that in others.

After I wrote those two lines, I struggled with what else to go with it. The lines were so powerful and painted such a story that everything I tried to add paled in comparison and didn’t really add much, if anything, to the story. But, surely the song couldn’t be just two lines? This is Bradley Wik we’re talking about. Writer of epics like “Just Like Jon Fickes.” The same man whose words are more important than singing the same vocal melody for each line, who sings over all his bridges to get more story in, and whose favorite songwriting trick (crutch?) for fitting in more lyrics is the double verse/double chorus. Eventually though, I gave up trying and just left the song as is. It said everything I wanted it to. Those simple words were all I needed and all this song did too.

But, again, like I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t sit down thinking all that and then poop out a song. All that was milling around in my subconscious until it came out on paper. It feels like magic when it happens, but that probably also shows you how out of touch with my thoughts/emotions/etc. I am due to the Asperger’s. No, this is me trying to reverse engineer all these tunes and hopefully put them in context on the record.

So, if what you’ve read about above has interested you and you’d like to purchase/donate to the cause, there are a few options:

1. Go to https://bradleywik.bandcamp.com/. You can stream for free or purchase (hint: you can also donate a little extra past the $4, if you like)

2. As I know these are trying times and people could use some entertainment, you can also download the record for FREE (CLICK HERE to access the google drive link with mp3’s of the record) with optional donation to: https://www.paypal.me/bradleywik

Thanks for reading and listening. I’ll be back soon with more info on track #3 - “we are not alone”

-30-

Track #1 - i started killing myself years ago...

As I mentioned in my album introduction blog (which you READ HERE) which talks about the album as a whole, why I made it, why it’s called “music for depressed alcoholic autistic people,” amongst other things, I am going to be writing about each individual song as well. Each of these songs is tied to my having depression, alocholism and/or Asperger’s, and was either a traumatic experience I needed help in understanding myself or something I wanted other people to know they’re not alone in experiencing. It’s been an exhaustive process of diving back into this world and reliving these events while recording these tunes but I felt it was important for me to make this record. Both for me personally, and for those who might need to hear something like this, especially in these uncertain times when I know there is a strain on people’s mental health.

I will be talking about the songs both from a story/inspiration standpoint and also a musical standpoint (i.e. why it sounds like it does, choices that I made that represent other things like being alone, my Meniere’s disease, being drunk, etc.) and any other things I think are relevant/interesting. I wanted to give a little peek behind the curtain of what goes on in my mind when I make a record, especially one this honest and personal. If you do have questions/comments that I do not address, feel free to comment below and I will do my best to answer them. When it comes to my music, there are some things that I think about way too much and some things I never really think about, so I may or may not have a great answer, but I’ll do my best to be as honest and straightforward as possible. Anyhow, on to the song!

“i started killing myself years ago…”

i sing these songs for you though i’ve sang them for others

and every word rang true, at least for a moment

we were too fucked up to care

we were too fucked up to care, anyhow

most nights, i wish we never met

i started killing myself years ago, i just haven’t finished yet…

some nights I still dream, though i’m always dying

before i can save you but i’ll never stop trying

we were too fucked up to care

we were too fucked up to care, anyhow

most nights, i wish we never met

i started killing myself years ago, i just haven’t finished yet…

Music Notes:

This is the only song on the album that features none of the Moog synth featured on the other three songs. This is sort of how all the songs sounded when I did the initial demos. Since I can’t actually play keyboards/synths, I would write and quickly record all the different parts on my guitar and then clumsily notate and translate them to the Moog synth to replace the scratch guitar tracks one at a time. It was a tedious process where I’d come up with a part, record it, figure out what notes it is, then figure out how to play those notes on the synth, then figure out how I wanted them to sound and, finally, record what you hear on the album. I have pages of notes from these songs that have every note scribbled out, e.g. VERSE: A, B, C, B, A, D, etc. and on and on. But, no matter what I did with this song, the original demo always sounded better. Something always got lost in the translation. I finally gave up trying to rebuild the song and what you hear in the naked, original demo version of the song, with the original scratch lead vocal and the guitar parts that I recorded almost two years ago. For those who don’t know, a “scratch” track (vocal, guitar, bass, etc.) is a hastily recorded part that is mostly for timing of the song. You don’t really focus on levels, how it sounds, how you performed, etc., you just record it so you can play the other parts along to it and then re-record it later. This song is all “scratch” tracks that never got replaced. That seemed kind of fitting for a song like this. It felt right, like I didn’t care enough to go through the process of making it sound like the other songs, it just is what it is. I like that about this song. The song doesn’t care, both from a lyrical and musical standpoint. It’s very Asperger’s/Autistic in that way. The more you try to change it, the more it’ll fight to stay the same.

Story notes:

One of the things I’ve noticed about myself over the years is I don’t look at my past like most people. Once I’ve moved, had a breakup or any other big life change, I feel like a new person. I don’t feel a connection to the previous versions of me. They feel more like chapters in a book that I’ve read dozens of times, so I know all the beats but I’m just recounting their stories, not my story. I don’t know if that’s an Asperger’s thing or not, I suspect it is, but it’s certainly a strange feeling. And, because of that, I tend to do the same things over and over (definitely an Asperger’s thing) throughout my life, which, also means I make the same mistakes over and over, like, say, getting into bad relationships. Not necessarily with people who are bad but with people who are bad for me. Like people who accentuate my worst tendencies. People who like the worst aspects of me. For me, that’s people who enjoy chaos. I love living in chaos, but in the worst way. It’s a very destructive place for me to dwell in. I also enjoy drugs and alcohol. So, when someone pushes me to stay in that chaotic, drug-filled world, they don’t have to push hard. Over the years, I learned how to go into that world enough to fill my darker desires, but how to also avoid going there each and every day. But, it doesn’t take much to get me to want to live there. and a pretty girl is more than enough motivation.

One of the side effects of living in that world, for me at least, is night terrors. The deeper down the hole I go, the worse they get. I’ve woken up with bruised or bleeding hands and feet, black eyes, hell, even a broken ankle once because of night terrors. The worst part of the night terrors was that each time I died in the dream (usually very viscerally, I might add), the dream just started over. And, even when I thought I’d woken up, I was often still in the dream. I’d awake in my bed and everything looked normal. But, then I’d notice something is off, like the clock said it was 8:10am but it was still dark out, and I’d be magically whisked away back to the beginning of the dream to die a few more times. Then, I’d finally wake up again and get up to pee, but the bathroom light switch didn’t work and… back to the beginning of the dream, again. It was like a cruel video game. I got to remember my progress so I could get a little further each time or try new strategies. But, in the end, it just keeps going and going. It's why I love the movies "Happy Death Day" and "Inception" so much. For once, I thought maybe it wasn't just me who experienced dreams like this.

Here’s an example of a recurring dream I have: I’m standing outside a 5 story brick apartment building that is likely located in New York City, even though I’ve been having this dream long before I lived in New York City so I’m just now realizing it’s probably based on April O’Neil’s apartment from the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, and the building is on fire (again, probably from the TMNT movie) and it’s my job to save as many people as possible. I race into the first floor and help the 2-3 people who are trapped on this floor. Then, I move to the second floor, there’s a family of three, mom, young son and younger daughter, which I help out of the building. The fire is growing and spreading and some of the ceiling starts to fall around me. I know it’s getting worse. The girl I’m trying to save is on the fourth floor (this probably because 4 is my favorite number). If I go to the third floor, I might not make it up to her, so I go straight to the fourth. I race past a few screams for help on the third floor and I find her and couple other stragglers. We head for the stairs (it’s a walk-up, not that we would opt for the elevator). The fire is now crazy out of control and debris is falling everywhere. As we get down to the second story landing, a large piece of debris falls on us and kills us all.

Back to the beginning. I’m outside the building again. This time, I’ll try working top down as the top floors seem less stable than the bottom floors plus I’ll get to the girl sooner. So, up to the fifth floor. I find and help a few people all the way down. Because this takes longer, the fire is already spreading further than before it seems. I find my girl on the fourth floor, but this time there’s more people in the apartments around her. Apparently, the first time they either died before I could get there or a few others managed to escape on their own. So, now we have a larger group headed down the stairs. As we pass the second floor, the girl sees the family and races to help them. I decide to take the group I have downstairs and come back for her. It’s on the second floor and I think I still have time. After assisting the group outside, I race back into the building but the fire is out of control now. I can see the girl on the second floor stairwell with the family but some debris has damaged the stairs and the landing is on fire. She lowers the kids down the side of stairwell to me and I race them out of the building. By the time I get back, she and the mother are gone and the building is falling apart all around me. With her gone, I just stand there and await my fate. Back to the beginning…

Wait, maybe not. I wake up sweaty and a little sore in my bed. But, for some reason I can’t fully open my eyes. I only get fleeting glances at the room around me as I struggle to wake myself up and get out of this dream so I don’t have to play again. After struggling for a few minutes, I realize I’m not really awake and I slowly drift back into dreamland. Back to the beginning…

That could go on all night, and because of all that, it was easier for me to drink until I passed out than to risk dreaming at night. If I drank enough, I wouldn’t dream. Seemed like a simple choice: risk injuring myself while also torturing myself with dreams where I continually experience painful deaths OR just get fucked up, black out and come to the next morning not remembering anything. So, I chose the latter most nights. I knew the things I was doing to my body were unhealthy but I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. I knew I was putting myself on a path that would eventually kill me but I was OK with that. That would take years and I wasn’t worried about years from now, I was worried about being able to sleep for a few hours each night. If all this ended up killing me years from now, I could accept that trade off. I had to get to work the next morning and I was still only 24. There was still plenty of time...

Of course, I wasn’t thinking about any of that when I wrote the song. Those are all things I’ve come to realize afterwards. I’m going to talk about my songwriting process in a short video this week, but the songs typically come out quickly (I think the longest I’ve ever worked on a song is about forty five minutes), usually come in sets of 2-3, and they just flow out naturally. It’s like an out of body experience. So, I don’t sit down and think “I’ll write one about night terrors.” I’ll just find a few chords I like and a couple songs will pop out. There’s actually a sister song to this one which is completely about the night terrors that will be on the next “music for depressed alcoholic autistic people” record. Yes, I already have written the next record, but let’s enjoy this one for a while first, shall we.

So, if what you’ve read about above has interested you and you’d like to purchase/donate to the cause, there are a few options:

1. Go to https://bradleywik.bandcamp.com/. You can stream for free or purchase (hint: you can also donate a little extra past the $4, if you like)

2. As I know these are trying times and people could use some entertainment, you can also download the record for FREE (CLICK HERE to access the google drive link with mp3’s of the record) with optional donation to: https://www.paypal.me/bradleywik

Thanks for reading and listening. I’ll be back soon with more info on track #2 - “the promise (please don’t die tonight).”

-30-

NEW MUSIC (for free)! "music for depressed alcoholic autistic people" is out now!

so, you’re probably wondering where ol bradley wik has been the last couple weeks. i mean, no one can leave the house so shouldn’t you be writing more often? valid question, but i’ve been quickly finishing up my latest ep/record entitled “music for depressed alcoholic autistic people” so i could get it out to you as soon as possible. it’s four brand new songs and a pretty stark departure from my typical two guitars, bass and drums approach. it’s finally ready (or as close as i will likely get it as i had to record, mix and master myself at my apartment. the latter two skills are not ones that come easily to me…) and i’m not even waiting until the traditional friday release day. it’s wednesday and that’s good enough for me.

you’re also probably wondering why i made a record called “music for depressed alcoholic autistic people.” well, it’s both extremely simple and very complicated, which is pretty much how everything is for me. you see, i have asperger’s. or autism spectrum disorder. call it what you like. i prefer asperger’s since it doesn’t have the word “disorder” in it, which implies something negative. personally, i prefer to see my asperger’s as a positive thing. it’s why i play music in the first place (which is a story unto itself, which YOU CAN READ HERE). my asperger’s is the reason i was able to make this record. which, again, is both good and bad. the songs are good but terrifically depressing if you listen to the lyrics. or, even if you just glance at the song titles (you can click on the titles to read about each song individually):

“i started killing myself years ago…”

“the promise (please don’t die tonight)”

“we are not alone”

“what are we supposed to do now that we’ve wasted our youth?”

two about death, one about contemplating it and one about the night i stabbed both my arms to prove to myself that i was still real because the grocery store was closed (i’ll explain that sentence more when i write about “we are not alone”).

so, again, why is the album called “music for depressed alcoholic autistic people?”

here’s the simple answer: that’s what i am and these were the types of songs i needed over the years but couldn’t find.

here’s the complicated answer (my wife likes to constantly tell me how much i tend to complicate things…): i’ve spent years trying to get in touch with myself and my emotions. that’s not something that asperger’s people do well. it wasn’t until recently that i can finally say with confidence that i can tell the difference between feeling hungry and feeling sick to my stomach. this is true. you can ask my wife. it once led to me pooping my pants on a christmas eve drive down to see my wife’s family. i didn’t know back then that i was becoming lactose-intolerant and was enjoying some (already questionable based on the “best by” date) eggnog in my morning coffee. i actually yelled “why am i so hungry all the sudden?!” right before a little poo came out as i sprinted towards the rest stop toilet... wait, that’s not what i’m supposed to be talking about right now. dammit! only a few hundred words in and i’m already way off topic.

but, over the years, i’ve never really understood myself. i could understand other people much better. not their emotions and feelings, but their stories, their shortcomings, their strengths, etc. i could learn about what made them tick and why they did the things they did. i became an astute observer of human beings. i started to realize the reason i did this was because i wanted to be able to figure myself out, which i couldn’t. i didn’t seem to act and think linearly like the people i watched. why was i always the one that didn’t do what he was supposed to in a given circumstance? why did i struggle to react to things the way others do? why did i always seem to say or do the wrong thing given the situation? why couldn’t i just be “normal?” i wanted answers but found none.

once i became a musician, i saw this reflected in my songwriting. for most of my songwriting career, i wrote songs about other people. i watched the world around me and recorded the stories of people who passed through my life. sure, i was a part of many of the stories and always put a little of myself into them so i could tell the story better, but i was mostly telling my stories through other people. some of it was because i was young and i hadn’t experienced a lot yet, but mostly it was because it was easier for me to do it that way. i did write some pretty straightforward autobiographical songs like “midwest winters” or “i am not afraid,” but many of my songs are not directly about me and my stories. songs like “lookin’ at luckey,” “just like jon fickes,” “some girls (still love rock n’ roll),” “this old house,” “friday night is for the drinkers,” etc. are all examples of that. those songs have little (if anything) to do with me. they’re mostly observations and recollections, usually of women i know or once knew. 

with this record, i didn’t want to write about others. i wanted to write things that were intensely personal and write about them as simply and honestly as possible (these songs have the least amount of lyrics of anything i’ve ever written. one song is literally just two lines). i wanted to focus on some of the darkest moments in my life and try to write for that person. what did that version of myself need from a song? what could he have heard that might make him feel more connected to the world and less alone in his depression? what thoughts could he have understood better if he had heard them articulated and set to music (his preferred way of understanding himself)?

that’s what “music for depressed alcoholic autistic people” is. it’s me telling myself it’s ok to have these dark thoughts. it’s me telling myself that what i’m feeling is not singular to me. it’s me telling myself (literally in one song) that i am not alone in the world, other people understand what i’m going through, which somehow makes it a little easier. it’s me explaining these feelings and thoughts to myself in a way that allows me to understand them better. and by doing that, it’s me telling others the same. if i needed to hear these things, i know others need to as well. i’m not saying that to sound arrogant, but to imply that i realize i’m not some unique snowflake. i’m not the only one who has been depressed for long periods of time. i’m not the only one who thinks about death on a regular basis. i’m not the only one who dies in almost all their dreams. i’m not the only one who has done things they’re ashamed to talk about. i’m not the only one people called the police on because they were worried they might kill themselves.

i am not alone. you are not alone. we are not alone… i want to help you understand yourself a little better the way i learned to understand myself a little better, through song. i want to tell you that you can get through this, i did.

there’s another thing i’d like to impress upon you as well. i’m not writing about depressing things to glorify them, to make you depressed or to fetishize my depression in any way. as someone who struggles with, or has struggled with, mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, ill-advised sexual activities, etc., i don’t appreciate when people make being fucked up sound cool. i’m not advocating for people to use drugs, alcohol, depression, etc. as an excuse to do fucked up shit to others either. i just want to talk about my experiences so maybe someone out there won’t go down the path i did or can start to pull themselves out of a bad place after hearing my stories. if you’re going through something, i hope these songs will make you feel better in some small way, or, at least, less alone.

i also wanted to make something that talks about and normalizes (well, in some ways) asperger’s/autism. please know that these songs were written and made by someone who has asperger’s: me. i can do anything other people can (except properly react to emotions), and i can do many things, like music and math and the new york times spelling bee game, better than most. i’m not weird (well, i guess i am but in the ways you might think). i don’t look funny. i don’t talk funny (seriously, wait til i’m playing shows again and come hear my terrible attempts at jokes…). in fact, i’ve never had anyone be able to tell that i have asperger’s until i told them. i realize i’m not as far out on the spectrum as others, but i’ve done most things in life just like others. i went to school, got straight a’s, played sports, was in the high school band as a trombone player (so i could make the “bwwwooommp” sad trombone/fart sound at inopportune times), held down and excelled at jobs. yes, i’ve also done a lot of fucked things over the years but who’s to say i wouldn’t have done those things anyways even if i didn’t have asperger’s?

anyhow, over the next week or so, i’m also going to write about each song, post the lyrics, tell the stories and explain why i chose them for this record. each song has special meaning to me and i’ve been wanting to make this record for a long time. there are sounds on this album i’ve been dreaming about making for over ten years. i didn’t know how to make them until recently. a couple of the songs were written almost three years ago but i didn’t know what to do with them yet. my yearslong journey of trying to understand myself (for the record, i still mostly don’t) also coincided with my yearslong journey to find the sounds i’ve been hearing in my head but couldn’t articulate. it’s a record i’ve wanted to make forever but didn’t understand myself or my music enough to do it until now.

all sounds on this record were recorded in my various apartments (a few parts date back to my time in portland, or which is where these stories mostly take place. i fucking hate portland, or… don’t get me started… thank you for not getting me started...) with a very simple setup:

• my trusty martin d-15 acoustic guitar

• an audio-technica at4040 condenser mic

• a shure bullet mic

• and a moog sub37 synth

this album plays around a lot with melody (some parts have up to a dozen separate melodies happening all at once), with noise as an instrument, with putting acoustic guitar and voice over the top of synth chaos (literally, at some points), with taking small, sad-bastard type songs and blowing them out (while keeping one of them small and intimate, it just always sounded better than any other version i tried), and other things i’ve wanted to try ever since i heard bands like radiohead, wilco, the jesus and mary chain and my bloody valentine play around with noise and chaos. i always wanted to make this version of it. some sort of hybrid between noisy synth pop and sad-bastard acoustic music. i’m happy i finally have something to present to you. it’s the first music i’ve made that i actually still listen to. after spending so much time writing, recording, editing, mixing, etc., it still somehow sounds new to me. it’s an interesting development and we’ll see if that lasts…

this record will be available via itunes, spotify, etc. soon but i wanted to get this to you as soon as possible so i am making it available on my website (for free, but also feel “free” to donate via venmo or paypal unless you’re one of the generous souls who have already donated to the cause; looking at you hal, anne, matt, and, of course, mom) and ON BANDCAMP (with a suggested donation for download but you can stream for free).

as this sounds nothing like anything i’ve ever released, i recommend taking a listen before deciding whether to purchase/donate in case this isn’t your cup of tea. there are no drums, guitar solos or songs about cars and rock n’ roll, you know, my usual fare, on here. but, if you want something that is sonically unique, extremely heartfelt and honest, at times (intentionally) hard to listen to (both lyrically and literally) and something that is the most bradley wik thing i’ve ever made, click, download, listen, and then, i’ll ask this small favor of you, share.

if someone you know is going through a tough time and could use music like this, share it with them. if someone you know likes weird, fucked-up-but-in-beautiful-way-type music, share it with them. if someone you know is in the music business and would like to pay me to make more music like this, please, and i can’t stress this enough, share it with them.

anyways, enough of my ramblings, go listen to my new music!!

So, if what you’ve read about above has interested you and you’d like to purchase/donate to the cause, there are a few options:

1. Go to https://bradleywik.bandcamp.com/. You can stream for free or purchase (hint: you can also donate a little extra past the $4, if you like)

2. As I know these are trying times and people could use some entertainment, you can also download the record for FREE (CLICK HERE to access the google drive link with mp3’s of the record) with optional donation to: https://www.paypal.me/bradleywik or through Venmo (@bradleywik)

-30-

Music is amazing... aka... Sometimes life reminds you that you're doing the right things...

I just finished up a mini-run of shows and I’m going through a bit of show withdrawal, which is likely more of an adrenaline withdrawal, I suppose. I got to see some new towns out here in North Carolina over the past week and I can’t wait to get back out to them. Greensboro, Fayetteville, Pinehurst, you were awesome and we’ll definitely be back sooner than later. Keep an eye out for those return dates…

Something else amazing happened over the past week or so that I would like to talk about today. I got some awesome reminders about the power of music, specifically, my music. As an artist, especially a struggling artist like myself, it’s easy to lose yourself in the daily grind. I suppose that’s probably true for most people. It’s easy to get sucked into tasks, to-do lists, the things that you’ve been putting off but want to focus on someday, the things you need to do right now to make sure you’ll make that rent money, etc., etc. But, when you’re making art, it’s easy to always be thinking about the next thing, the next show, the next new song, the next album, and on and on. Maybe it’s not like that for everyone, but from my talks with my musical friends, it seems like that’s always the deal. Part of it is so you don’t dwell on everything you wish you could change on the last album (and there’s always more things than you can count) but part of it is the reason we make music to begin with, that mysterious energy that forces a normal person to live in a different world where they feel responsible to bring new sounds and new stories to the world they feel no other person can. Sure, some people just make music because it’s fun, but a lot of the people I know feel like they HAVE to do it or cosmically something won’t be right in the world. It sounds egotistical, and to a certain degree, it is. But, for me, and I’m sure lots of others out there, it feels like you’re trying to help others. Others, who like me, maybe feel like they don’t fit into the world like everyone else, who don’t feel very understood or like they understand others, who want to understand themselves a little better, who need something to help them understand and process their emotions a little better, who maybe just want to feel a little less alone in the world, who maybe need something to help turn their mind off or to forget about something they’d rather not think about. That’s why I make music.

I’ll never forget being the kid (and, I guess I still am) who felt all those things. I was 16 and had just torn my achilles. Up until that point, all I did was sports. All I watched on TV was sports. All I talked about was sports. All I did in my free time was play sports. That’s all I knew. I knew that time was ending soon as I was a 5’8”, 150lb white kid from a podunk town in rural Wisconsin, but I wanted to hold onto it as long as I could. It was how I connected to the world around me. School was difficult (not academically as I was a straight-A student but socially and being told what to do and when to do it all day). Conversations with other people were difficult. Relationships and friendships were difficult. But sports was easy. I just had to show up and work my ass off. It made me stop thinking so much, which I desperately needed. Everything was simple and tangible. If I wanted to bench press more weight, I worked out each day and accomplished it. If I wanted to get better at shooting free throws, I shot an extra 100 free throws every day after practice. If I wanted to increase my endurance, I ran wind sprints and hills after football practice and on the weekends. Everything was going smoothly. So, when that all went away when my teammate accidentally stepped on my ankle as I went up for a layup on a breakaway, I didn’t know what to do. I was angry but didn’t know why or what to do with that anger. I was lonely. I was used to spending my free time with my teammates. But, mostly I was lost. I didn’t have a purpose anymore and I didn’t have a goal. I had nothing to chase anymore. The voices in my head grew louder each day.

“What are you doing with your life?”

“You’re a 5’8” white kid from a town of 3000 people, you have no future in sports, you stupid piece of shit.”

“You have no real friends, they were all just teammates.”

“You have 50 or so more years on this planet, what are you gonna do with them? Nothing.”

“You’re a waste of space, you useless, stupid piece of shit.”

“Why don’t you just go get a job at the factory and start running out the clock?”

(By the way, if you haven’t watched the “Stupid Piece of Shit” episode of BoJack Horesman, please do so as it’s fucking uncanny how his internal voices sound so much like mine. Probably not a good thing for me… But, it’ll help you understand the voices in my head better, which you may or may not want to do…)

So, once my injury was mostly healed, I did. I got a job at the local factory sweeping floors, making boxes, stacking products onto pallets, cleaning the bathrooms, basically all the stuff no one else wanted to do. I was 16 and I was grateful to not be working at McDonald’s for minimum wage. I made pretty good money for a high school kid. But, I didn’t know what to do with that money. I briefly got into video games as it was something I could do that wasn’t too physical and it was something my brother and I could share. We had some fucking epic Mario Tennis matches, I’ll tell you what. I bought a sweet/shitty car for $800, a Crown Vic which would later explode on the freeway like it was in a fucking Fast & Furious movie, nearly sending me careening off an overpass. Apparently, the exhaust was a little fucked up and a piece broke off and got lodged in the catalytic converter which continued to build pressure/heat until the entire exhaust and transmission violently burst into flames, spewing car parts all over Highway 151 North. Of course, this happened in the winter, so I was also freezing my ass off while I waited for the tow and a ride home. I also almost got arrested because I was standing next to a car that was still a little on fire, was filled with smoke, I was freezing cold and not in a good mood, so the small town cop decided I was being uncooperative and briefly searched/cuffed me until he realized that that was insane and I was probably not in a good mood since my car just fucking exploded in flames and I nearly died. He promptly left me to stand there in the cold (I couldn’t go back in the car as it was filled with smoke still) and drove off. Good times…

But, none of that replaced that “thing” that sports gave me until I found music (you can read about the specifics of how I came to find music, HERE). Music gave me so much that I felt like it was my duty to give some of that back however I could. If I could help just one person out there with my music, I’d feel like a true success. No amount of money can replicate the feeling I get when someone tells me that my music has affected their life in some way. It’s why I still make music. It’s why I feel like what I do matters, even for the relatively small-ish audience I have. It’s the only external validation I’ll ever need.

I’ve known a lot of musicians who’ve thrown in the towel, or only do music every once in a while, and it’s usually because the goal is money, success, notoriety, etc. If that’s why I made music, I would’ve given up a long time ago. Yes, I’ve achieved at least a little of all those things, but probably not enough to still be going. Music, for me, is much bigger. Music has helped me through the dark times, the happy times and the in-between times (which is the majority of the time), and it has never asked me for anything in return. Music helped me understand myself and my emotions (as a person with Asperger’s, this is no small feat). Music has literally saved my life (I’ll probably tell a couple stories about this soon). And I know that I’m not alone in that. Music can do that for anyone, and does for a lot of people out there. I know because you’ve told me. And the fact that I can be even a small part of that is incredible and something 16 year old me would have never thought possible.

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, I had some people reach out to me over the past couple weeks and I wanted to let everyone know how grateful I am for that, and how grateful I am for every single person out there who has listened and supported me over the years. To hear the stories of how one of my songs (often “This Old House”) has helped them through a breakup, divorce, personal tragedy, depression, death of a family member or friend, or other life-altering moment, is so humbling and I feel so honored that I could give something back to those people. One of the people I heard about recently was someone who was integral in my becoming a musician in the first place. He and his wife were so generous to me when I was that 16 and 17 year old kid who didn’t know what he was doing with his life and I can’t say for certain I’d even be making music if it wasn’t for them. At one point, I think it was just my mom and them as my only fans. So, to hear I was able to give back to him in some way brought back a lot of memories and I got a little misty-eyed. Kind of like right now as I’m writing this.

Also this past week, I got to meet up with someone who wrote some very kind words about my first album all those years ago. You can READ THEM HERE. He lives in North Carolina, looked me up after the album popped back up on a playlist of his and reached out to see if I’d be coming anywhere nearby. I was lucky enough to meet him and his wife at our show in Greensboro, which was awesome. And I have lots of stories like this over the years with people reaching out from places as far away as Spain or the Netherlands or wherever to talk music. I love it. If you’ve been thinking about reaching out but didn’t want to bother me, trust me, it’s no bother at all. I would love it. There are so many times when it seems like I’m just throwing things into the abyss, and it’s moments like those that remind me it’s not true. And I’m so grateful for it. I am grateful for every one of you out there who gives a shit about what I do. And I really mean that. I got one of the nicest compliments this week in Pinehurst. It was one of those shows at a brewery where people kind of come in and out, sort of paying attention, and a man came up to me during a set break and said (I’m paraphrasing here) “I wanted you to know that I told my sons to pay attention to you as there’s a room full of people ignoring more talent on that stage then they’ll likely see again.” Being a musician, or any artist/entrepreneur/athlete/etc. you have to be self-motivated and have the utmost belief in yourself, but I’ll tell you what, it doesn’t hurt to have a week full of reminders that what you are doing matters.

I still remember the first time someone told me my music helped them. I was 19 and living in Seattle. Back then I was a folk singer. And I mean, a folk singer. I’m talking harmonica solos on every song, 2-3 Carter Family and Woody Guthrie tunes per set, as many Dylan-esque turns of phrase as I could muster, the whole gambit. I was playing in the cafe below my building, Caffe Bella (not sure if it’s still there on 5th Ave. under the monorail) and someone came up to me after a show. She was a little misty-eyed when she said “that last song you played was perfect. Like you got me and I’ve been struggling to express why I’ve been so sad lately but that was it.” And that was from a line in a song I wrote because it sounded pretty and rhymed. I don’t remember the exact lyric but it was something along the lines of “My love sleeps by the ocean, on a pillow made of sand.” She went on to tell me that her husband was in the military and was deployed in Iraq and that line just hit her really hard. It made her think about something she hadn’t want to think about and she thanked me for it. All these years later, I don’t remember the song (I might have a recording of it somewhere) but I will always remember that moment. Like I’ve said before, my goal was that if I could help one person with my music, I’d feel like a success. I feel like I’ve been in the bonus ever since that night.

One of my other favorite moments, which I think I’ve written about before, was a show in Eugene, OR. It was our third or fourth show in as many nights and we were a little on edge. I’m sure we had a fight earlier about something stupid like a setlist or where to eat lunch that day. But I remember we weren’t in the best of spirits. It was also one of those classic Northwest days with some pissing rain, wind and just cold enough to be annoying. So the crowd that did come out wasn’t very big. There was maybe 12-15 people tops, most sitting in the back by the bar. But three people sat right near the front and I noticed they were sitting there with their eyes closed, not talking but also not watching us. They were just listening. At first I thought they might be on something but after a few songs they just seemed really into the music. We started the show a little lackluster but got to a more upbeat tune (“Friday Night is for the Drinkers,” I believe) and they stood up and started dancing. I gave the boys in the band the “keep this one going” look so I could walk out. I took the hand of one of the girls and invited them to come up onto the stage. The other two sheepishly stayed near the table but the one girl came up and we danced for the remainder of the song. When it was done, I asked her name. She didn’t seem to notice. I asked again. She saw me talking this time and told me that she and her two friends were deaf but love going to Rock n’ Roll shows because they can feel the music. They were excited to come out tonight as they saw the “Throwback Rock n’ Roll” on the show poster. Every ounce of frustration the band had with each other instantly melted away. It put the whole show in a new perspective. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about me or us anymore. It was our job once again to put on the best show we possibly could for these folks. And ever since then, that has been my mentality. Every song at every show is an opportunity. I don’t want to waste them. If I can make one person’s night better at that instant, I need to do it. Even if there are only three people in the audience (true story, more times than I can count) I’m gonna play as hard as I would to three thousand. With everything music has done for me, I owe it to music to always give it my all. Even this past week, the last show of the run was a noon show after a three-hour show that ended the previous night at midnight. I knew I would only have twelve hours to pack up, get back to the hotel, shower, sleep, wake up, drive to next venue, set up and then be ready to play for three more hours. I was tempted to cool it off a little, maybe give 85% instead of 100%. But, that voice in my head told me “No. Every night is blessing, you always give it your all.” So, I did. And I did the same thing the next day at noon. And I’ll do the same thing every night.

Anyways, I’m getting super rambly right now and my laptop is about to die so I need to finish this and find an outlet. I know I was all over the place today, but it’s been a week since I had a good night’s sleep. I’m not complaining as that’s been because of shows but just wanted to throw that out there in case this blog sounds like the ramblings of a crazy person. I’m not crazy, I’m just tired. Well, I am crazy, and I’m tired. So, I guess no matter what it sounds like it’s supposed to sound…

(dictated but not read)

New T-Shirts and New Music! aka... Bradley's finally getting shit done, son...

I’d like to give a quick update regarding:

A) Why I’ve skipped two weeks of blogging

and

B) What the hell I’ve been up to in the meantime

So, for those who don’t subscribe to my monthly newsletter (if you want to, go to my HOME page or the SHOWS page and put your email into the form so you can also be in the know of what’s going on in the Wonderful World of Bradley Wik), here’s the latest and greatest.

1) NEW T-SHIRTS!!!

I’ve designed a few new t-shirts that I’ve been wanting to make for a while. Finally had the time to get them done and ready for you. The badass thing is that these designs are made to order through TeePublic, which means you can select your shirt style, color, etc. You can even order the designs on hoodies, mugs, cell phone cases, notebooks and a bunch of other shit. Click on one of the designs to see all the options. It’s a fucking awesome platform that allows you to custom order shit however you want it. I love it and I think you will too.

And, I know, the first design (the one that’s not one of my songs) doesn’t make a whole lot of sense until you read the description on the site. So, if you want to know what inspired this shirt, click on it to find out.

2) NEW MUSIC!!!

In case you aren’t an avid reader of this blog, I'd like to inform you that Bradley has Asperger's. For those who aren't quite sure what that is, Asperger's is basically high-functioning Autism. Or not-quite-as-far-out-on-the-spectrum Autism. If you'd like to read more about my journey in learning about and growing up with Asperger's, CLICK HERE.

Why am I telling you this, you might ask? Well, because April is Autism Awareness Month and, in honor of that, I will be releasing an EP of songs (if you're wondering, an EP is an "extended play" music single, which means it has usually 3-6 songs but isn't a full-length album) I wrote about having/dealing with Asperger's.

I've spent the past couple years really learning about my Asperger's, how it's affected my life and relationships, and how it has been both a positive and a negative in my life (read more about that HERE). In doing so, I've written a number of songs about it, about the accompanying depression, my struggles with drugs and alcohol that may or may not be related, my recurring nightmares, etc. I haven't decided yet which songs will be on the initial EP, but there will likely be more than a couple of music releases about this topic as it's something near and dear to my heart, and I really hope to help educate people about this so they can better understand those in their lives who may be affected by it. Asperger's affects both the individual and those around them (just ask my wife). Hopefully, this music will help those affected by making them feel less alone in their struggles and by helping those around them hear what it's like to deal with Asperger's.

So, in April (haven't locked in a date yet, but it's coming) there will be some new music for y'all to check out. It will likely be a digital-only release, so, I'll be sending out links and where/how to listen once I have the details, launch date, etc. Stay tuned as this will likely be the first of 2-3 EP’s I will be releasing this year.

Since recording the last album with the band, I’ve been recording at my home studio (read: my “studio” in my bedroom so my wife can work/watch TV/etc. in the living room) and I have a number of songs that I’d like to put out in the near future. They range from folky/sad bastard/singer-songwriter type stuff to acoustic synth pop to noise pop to noise folk. Some of it is pretty fucking weird, but beautiful. As I also have Meniere’s disease (an inner ear disorder affecting hearing, balance, sight, etc.), I wanted to capture how music can sometimes sound to me and how disorienting the Meniere’s induced vertigo, hearing loss, headaches and nausea can be; but musically, if that makes any sense. It’ll make more sense once you hear the songs. But, suffice to say, I’ve been busy and I’m fucking sick of just sitting on these songs. There’s nearly 30 songs I’ll be releasing over the next year or so in different iterations that all are sonically unique. There’s even a new band/project I’ve been working on that actually makes fun, poppy music. You might not see that one until next year but who knows. But, I was going back through all the recordings I’ve done over the past two years and I realized there were too many of them that I really like to just keep them on a hard drive at home. The music is mostly somewhere between Elliott Smith, Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painters, Wilco, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Cocteau Twins, with some old folk thrown in for good measure. Some of the songs I don’t even remember writing/recording (likely a mix of the depression, alcohol, and the fact that I write/record in clusters so I usually forget about a few of the tunes here and there) but they’re fucking fun to hear back.

I’ll keep you updated as I get these tunes ready for release over the coming year or so. Rest assured, it’ll be a barrage of sad songs. But, like I mentioned, if anyone is wondering what it’s like to be a depressed, kind of alcoholic, Asperger’s and Meniere’s disease affected person, than these records will be for you…

3) SOMETIMES I FEEL THE WORLD IS CONSPIRING AGAINST ME

Look, I know that I’m (probably) not in the Truman Show, but sometimes it really feels like it. Sometimes the dumbest shit comes up just to fuck with me, I feel like. The latest thing that seems so stupid but has take up way more of my time that it should is Pandora. My music is on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody, Tidal and a bunch of other digital sites but for some reason was not on Pandora though they were sent my music years ago. Apparently, they use a different reporting platform so even though my music is sort of on there, I haven’t been getting paid for it. I’ve been working with them for over three weeks to resolve this and am still no closer to getting my music available to stream on their services and being able to get paid from them. Why the fuck does every music platform work so hard to not pay artists? It’s not like it would be some enormous amount. I’m sure Pandora owes me like $10 but they still make me spend hours and hours to get it. It’s not even worth it apart from the principle of the thing. I’d be better off designing new t-shirts, releasing new music, booking new shows, etc. but instead I’m fighting their dumbass customer service who is now blaming someone else as to why I still am not getting paid for my music. It’s not like musicians are fucking rolling and don’t need the money. I’m currently waiting for the stock market to turn around (fucking Coronavirus and Trump pretending it’s not a real crisis) so I can cash in my 401K from my last job so I can pay fucking rent. So, even if it’s $10, I fucking want that shit. We already only make like a 1/10th of a penny per stream or whatever, so why can’t we at least get paid that?

But, this is like the twentieth thing that has gone wrong with the release of my latest album. Someday, I might tell the whole story but for now I’ll say there were nearly lawsuits, phantom mix issues, the band breaking up, misprinted CDs, faulty vinyl test pressings, etc. I could go on but it isn’t worth my time. Needless to say, I feel like God/Karma and the world have been telling me to give up music for years now. But, fuck that. If there’s one thing you should know about people with Asperger’s, it’s that we always do the opposite of what we’re told. If you haven’t watched “The Grinder” you should as Rob Lowe’s character is the epitome of Asperger’s. He can only complete a task if he’s told he can’t or it’s impossible. It’s hilarious and sad as I felt so akin to his made up character. I feel like all of this has been either the universe telling me to quit making music or a challenge to see if I will keep going. Since I have Asperger’s, I see everything as a challenge and will likely never give up. It’s crazy how many things have tried to conspire against me but I’ll never give in. I got too much shit that the world needs to hear to give up now. Just the amount of love that “This Old House” has gotten over the years is enough to keep me going. Who knows… Now, I feel like I’m just rambling and I should probably eat dinner tonight eventually. Anyways…

(dictated but not read)

My Muddy Creek show, Melissa Villasenor, Music Journalism and Taylor Swift... aka... those things all go together, right? I'm not ADHD, right? Shit...

First off, amazing show on Saturday up in Sparta, NC at the Muddy Creek Cafe & Music Hall. Bill and Shana are so welcoming and wonderful, and it was great to be able to spend some time with them at the end. It’s such an amazing thing they’ve put together up there in basically the middle of nowhere. And the audience hung out and stayed with us on a cold, pretty-crappy-otherwise night. We had so much fun playing and cannot wait to get back up there. Many thanks to all who came out and listened, and special thanks to Bill and Shana for having us out. Sparta, we’ll be back… (hint: check the calendar in May…)

Random Thought #1: Why doesn’t SNL utilize Melissa Villasenor’s crazy awesome impression skills very often?

There almost seems to be an avoidance of her doing impressions, which is so fucking weird. She is probably their most impressive impressionist since… I don’t know, maybe Jimmy Fallon (who I hated as a cast member, and still hate as a late night host, but damn I could watch him do his Bob Dylan, Neil Young and French Stewart impressions all day…). Even that Pete Holmes (kind of funny) HBO show worked in more impression work for her than SNL typically does, and that was just in the one episode she was in. I know it’s not really what SNL seems to value these days but I don’t know why that came to be. It’s always been one of my favorite parts of the show and the reason I still watch old Celebrity Jeopardy clips on YouTube when I get drunk on a Friday night; which then usually turns into watching old Norm Macdonald bits, which then turns into having to watch the old Conan/moth joke bit for the 1000th time… Good times… Anyways, SNL, get your shit together and don’t give us yet another cameo-ridden, lukewarm political sketch and write some shit for Melissa that allows her to show why she’s the best non-Kate McKinnon (how is she still on SNL? She’s way too talented for this mediocre SNL cast…) cast member. Please? See, I even said please. Look what you made me do… (which lead me to thought #3)

Random Thought #2: Why do music sites (and music journalism pretty much as a whole) suck nowadays?

Believe it or not, there was once a time where I would spend hours scouring the internet to read thoughtful, well-researched and well-written articles about music. I had my trusted sources (even Pitchfork was once great, if you’re old enough to remember when it was the fresh-faced upstart pitchforkmedia.com. Sure their articles/reviews were distinctly over-written, like those music reviewers were ordained by God to be the one true light to guide you through the vast forest of indie music, but it was how I came to find artists like Bonnie “Prince” Billy/Will Oldham/Palace/Palace Brothers, Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, etc.) and I devoured their every word, bought records I’d never even heard of based on their recommendations and couldn’t wait for them to tell me what I should buy next. It was great. I got to know the guys at B-Side Records in Madison, WI pretty well as they special ordered me more than a few CD’s from obscure indie bands.

Then, something changed. I’m not sure quite when, but I remember being less and less interested in any of the major music publications/sites, whether it be Pitchfork, Paste, NME, Rolling Stone, etc. I found them to be more and more unhelpful in my search for new music. Part of that is natural, I think, as it’s harder and harder for a band/album to impress me as it’s being compared to the thousands of bands/albums I’ve already listened to and determined I like. It’s not easy to make something I’ve not heard some version of over the years. Or to create something that can tell a story still untold after roughly 70 or so years of popular music and over the 100’s of years of folk/blues. But, it still can be done. I just don’t have an easy way to find this music anymore. It seems the internet, which has made it “easier” to find, listen to, discuss, etc. music has lost it’s tastemakers, which in turn makes it so much harder to find new music. The internet has actually over-democratized the industry, and whereas before there were maybe too few gatekeepers, there’s now none. The gates have been thrown open and the music is pouring out at a pace never before seen. Before, music fans had only a handful of faucets to drink from and now we’re being doused with a fire hose. It’s swung too far, in my opinion. Now, I have no other choice than to sift through countless lists, poorly written/researched articles, Spotify playlists, YouTube recommendations, etc. to try an find new, exciting music. I probably listen to about 100 new bands/albums per month and maybe like 1 or 2, if that. It’s time-consuming, mostly boring and it sometimes feels like work. Most of my friends have mostly given up trying to find new artists. It isn’t worth their time. And I get that. I wish I could give it up. The other day I went to go shoot hoops for a bit (because it was 70 degrees and sunny, in February. God, I love North Carolina) and spent the first 15-20 minutes skipping tracks, jumping playlists, etc. trying to find something new to listen to. I eventually gave up and just put on the trusty old Bill Simmons podcast and went along with my shootaround. That makes me sad. I like finding new bands, new music, etc., it’s just become so difficult.

I know part of all this is the industry itself. Most of the music journalists have been laid off, moved on to more lucrative writing opportunities or their sites/magazines have died. That’s why we get stupid slideshow-type lists to generate clicks (like a recent Paste list brought to my attention by my Taylor Swift-loving wife which ranked “Shake it Off,” the biggest hit of her career and maybe the biggest pop song of the decade, as one of her top-ten worst songs… Cool. If even I know a Taylor Swift song, it must be at least a good pop song…), places that only review major releases, places that open post reviews written for free by “contributors,” some of which are good, but mostly you get what you paid for, etc. But, I don’t understand why music writing (and music as a whole) has been so devalued in our society. You’d think with music being easier to make/release than ever, we’d need more people to sift through the shit, rather than essentially none. But, what do I know…

Searching for new music is now harder than searching for the Krull. At least with the Krull, after hiking through the plains and forests and up the mountains, it was just sitting there in the water waiting for you. With my search for new music, I feel like I’ll definitely be killed by Liam Neeson and his pirates before I find anything. And if those sentences don’t make any sense to you, then you aren’t one of the (very few) people who’ve seen this masterpiece of a movie called “Krull.” It’s not quite “The Room” in terms of bad movies, but it is a great “bad movie,” at least I think so. My wife is still mad at me for making her watch it four years ago… so, I could be wrong…

Random Thought #3: Who is Taylor Swift?

I know, why am I writing about Taylor Swift? Well, I recently watched that Taylor Swift documentary on Netflix. As I said, my wife is a fan, and I was curious as to what would be in it and if I’d finally see her have any personality. I think she might be the most blank canvas of a person I’ve ever seen. Knowing how Taylor carefully controls every aspect of her life, I figured this would be more or less a long commercial for herself, which, it more or less was. So, I had low expectations for the doc, and was really just hoping against hope that she wouldn’t fucking bring up the Kanye MTV awards thing for the 10,000th time, which, of course she did. She said it was the turning point in her career, that everything was like living in a dream world until that happened. Which, to me, seems like possibly the most melodramatic way to describe a relatively innocuous thing that happened (go back and watch it. It’s way more tame than you probably remember) while she was being given a completely irrelevant award. But, then again, this is a girl who is either a billionaire or well on her way, who wanted to become a pop star and is, and who is one of the few musicians who can dictate everything about her career; who still wants us to constantly feel bad for her. She complains about being famous but then makes a documentary about herself. She talks about how her biggest asset as an artist is her storytelling, then shows us clips of her and her producers/songwriters hastily and haphazardly making up lyrics on the spot to fit whatever melody. She plays us a clip of her eating dinner with a friend and chatting to show us how relatable she is, then compares having kids to training puppies before we see her on her private jet shocked that she has to hold onto her salad because of some light turbulence. Hard knock life…

But, two things really stood out to me: her overbearing father and how open she was about her sexual assault. Was I mad that she dedicated like 10-15 minutes to rehashing Kanye? Of course. But, I was glad she took the same amount of time to talk about her sexual assault case. Unfortunately, it’s something that is still far too commonplace in our society, and there’s so much pressure on women to not make a big deal out of something that really is a big deal. Between the public and personal shaming that can occur, the court fees (if it even goes to court), having to face the accuser, having that accuser lie and call you a liar, having to relive the moment over and over as you tell the police then the courts, the inner voice which can sometimes try to convince you it didn’t happen so it doesn’t have to believe it itself, and on and on. It seems like the whole thing is designed to keep women down and feeling helpless about these events. It’s horrible. Which is why I’m glad she did what she did, taking him to court, bravely standing up and then talking about it in the doc, as Taylor is a huge role model for lots of young women. Hearing that the biggest pop star in the world dealt with something like that and stood up for herself can really impact others and make people feel less alone when dealing with issues like sexual assault, harassment, and the like. Taylor might not be able to stop the predators out there, but if she can provide some comfort, however small, to the victims, and be a role model in dealing with it, showing that she’s still the strong, amazing pop star she always was, I’d say the documentary was worth it just for that.

And then there’s her dad, the man who basically created the Taylor Swift popstar machine. The only scene in the documentary he is in (which is telling on how she feels about him), is the one where Taylor tells her inner circle she wants to get involved in a couple Tennessee elections by supporting the Democratic House and Senate candidates via a social media post. She sits on the couch with her mom as three old white men, one of them being her dad, sit across from her and try to talk her out of it. It’s weird and a little hard to watch. Here’s the biggest pop star on the planet almost begging to voice her opinion on something she cares about but is being told she can’t have an opinion on. She should be able to say whatever she wants, she’s fucking Taylor Swift. But, the three old white guys just sit there and basically tell her she’s dumb for wanting to voice an opinion on politics. Look, I get that it could and probably did alienate some red state fans, but moreso it made me wonder why she doesn’t just fire them and hire not-three-old-white-guys to give her better advice. I know it’s her dad, but it sure didn’t seem like he was supportive or helpful in any way. I got the feeling she would be much better off without him at this point. She surely doesn’t need his help anymore, and she surely doesn’t need him trying to make her feel small and not worthy of is approval.

But, apart from those two things, I watched 90 minutes of footage and I still can’t answer the question: who is Taylor Swift? She seems like she intentionally has kept herself void of personality for fear of alienating even a single person in her enormous fan base, which means her personality is that she has no personality. I’m sure some of her fans would say otherwise, but, hey, I guess it’s working for her. She sells a hell of a lot more albums than I do. Her last show was played to about 50,000 more people than were at my last show. She has like five houses or something, I have none. So, it’s clear she knows what she’s doing. Hell, I even play “Shake it Off” from time to time at my shows. I can guarantee Taylor isn’t busting out one of my tunes like “Lookin’ at Luckey” or “This Old House” onstage anytime soon…

But, there is one thing I have going for me that Taylor Swift doesn’t, AT LEAST I DIDN’T SLEEP WITH JOHN MAYER…

(dictated but not read)

The band's debut doubleheader, Super Bowl and Random Thoughts... aka... well, I guess that actually sums it up pretty damn well...

Hell of a week last week. The band and I had our debut doubleheader; Thursday at Summit Coffee in Davidson (which could barely contain the Rock N’ Roll as our merch kept rockin’ off the table we set up) and then Friday at Earl’s in Winston-Salem (which was a blast and has such an amazing stage setup, see pic below). 5 hours of Rock N’ Roll over two days was… awesome and exhausting. It’s been like a year since I put on a full on Rock show and Saturday morning I could definitely feel it some, but I love it. I didn’t quite realize how much I missed playing with a band until this past week. It was so re-energizing. I’m really looking forward to Saturday’s show with the boys up in Sparta at the Muddy Creek Cafe & Music Hall. Thanks to everyone who came out last week. It was great to see some familiar faces and be able to give them something new with the full band experience. I’m so grateful for how supportive Summit, Davidson and the great state of North Carolina have been since I’ve moved here. Definitely feels like we’ll be here for a long, long time…

I don’t have a great story for y’all today so here are some of Bradley’s patented random thoughts…

Random thought #1: The Super Bowl

It’s amazing that the Chiefs only needed 6-7 minutes (of game time) of Patrick Mahomes magic to win a Super Bowl. He’s incredible. 3 straight touchdown drives in the 4th quarter was more than the 49ers could muster over the entire game. Credit the Chiefs defense for 3 straight stops too but man, is Pat Mahomes unreal and so much fun to root for. The Chiefs’ fans deserve every bit of joy they are experiencing right now after some horrible, horrible, horrible playoff losses over the years; most of which were in KC which makes them even worse. So, drink this in. You have the best and most fun player in the league, who at 24 is just beginning his journey. As a Packers fan, I can tell you there will be times when you get frustrated that you’re not winning even more but remember to enjoy having a magician as a QB. After 25+ years of amazing QB play like we’ve had with the Packers, you can easily get used to winning, but fight against that. Winning should be exciting and never taken for granted. The 2017 and 2018 Packers’ seasons reinforced that for me. Have fun, Chiefs’ fans, these coming years will be exciting to watch.

Mahomes really reminds me of Brett Favre; unafraid, fun but fiery at times, unaffected by his mistakes, never out of a football game, can turn games in a matter of minutes, cannon arms, beloved by teammates, beloved by all football fans (unless you’re playing against him, but even then you still mostly love him), once in a generation type talent, plays a very fun style of football, is coached by Andy Reid, really trusts his receivers to make plays, maybe takes a few too many hits during a game but always bounces right back up and you love him for it, will make some mistakes because he thinks he can do anything (and usually can), wants to put the team and game on his shoulders (has a “we’re gonna win or lose because of me but I’m gonna go down fighting” type feel to some games), etc. I could go on but you get the point. I’m not sure there has been a universally-liked player like Favre until now. Like Favre did, Mahomes could create an entire generation of Chiefs fans who gravitated to the team just because of him. St. Louis fans need someone to cheer for these days. There’s more than a couple neighboring states that don’t have a team who could easily be talked into the Chiefs. We’ll see. But, he’s the first guy in a long time that could pull that off.

Random Thought #2: The Halftime Show

I rarely say this these days, but I was actually quite entertained by the Halftime show. I think it’s due to the fact that I have been a Shakira supporter since she put out “Laundry Service” back in the early 2000’s and talked about how AC/DC was one of her favorite bands growing up. She’s likely the hottest girl to say that ever and she still is insanely sexy. She doesn’t look like she’s aged at all since then. I’m not sure how that works. J. Lo was, fine, but that’s all I expected from her. I will say I think she wore the legally lowest amount of clothing for live TV. But, congrats to them both as I normally hate everything Halftime related nowadays.

Top Super Bowl Halftime moment that no one will ever top: Bruce Springsteen running full speed, knee-sliding and slamming his dick right into all of America’s face in full HD back in ‘09. Good times…

Random Thought #3: My Love for Female Singers

I’m not sure why this is, it could perhaps even be Asperger’s related as I’ve heard a couple other Aspies say the same thing, but I much prefer the sound of women singing as compared to men. Outside of a couple notable examples like Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, Jeff Buckley, Bruce, etc., I find I tend to lean towards bands/singers who are female. It just sounds better to me. Like the female voice was made for singing and most men are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole to do so. It’s not that I hate men’s voices, they’re just usually not as good, at least to my ear.

Two things made this abundantly clear this past week: a Spotify playlist and an acoustic show I just played. The playlist was all my “newer” music (some is not exactly new, but new-ish to me) that I’ve been loving over the past couple years. It included:

• Dead Sara

• Land of Talk

• Courtney Marie Andrews

• Joan Shelley

• Oshwa

• The Jezabels

• Makthaverskan

All are more or less rock-ish type bands and they all have female lead singers. If you don’t know these artists look ‘em up. Dead Sara was one of the best balls-to-the-wall Rock N’ Roll shows I’ve ever seen and Land of Talk rocked way harder live than I anticipated. Courtney Marie Andrews once helped me get home during a terrible snow storm. OK, not literally, but I once was snowed in for two days in Eastern Oregon. On the third day, they finally reopened the highways but it was still coming down like crazy. I decided to brave it and make the (what was normally a 5-6 hour) drive back across the state. But, since this was the first day of the highways being back open there was still over a foot of snow on them. The only way I could drive was to be behind a snow plow which I followed for the first 4-5 hours of my trip. Even then, the road was so treacherous that I was sliding all over like crazy which was super nerve-racking as the only other vehicles on the road were semi trucks, and they were all driving like there wasn’t a foot of snow on the ground and it wasn’t a super windy mountain pass we were going through. With a semi behind me who couldn’t slow down at all coming down the hills and the semis on the other side of the highway driving mostly all over the roads as they slid around the sharp corners, not to mention we were on a fucking mountain with lots of places you could easily slide over the edge, I figured it was 50/50 that I was going to die that day. If something happened it could take hours for an ambulance to get up there. As I white-knuckled it for almost 10 hours on that trip (it got better as we got out of the mountains), the CD in the player was Courtney Marie Andrews’ “Honest Life.” I tried a couple times to change it but each time the car started to slide out of control or I had to try and avoid getting hit by a semi that had drifted over into our side of the highway, so I just left it in on repeat and listened to that album for 10 hours straight. Luckily, it’s a great album…

As for the acoustic show, I was going back over the setlist to see what I liked/didn’t like/etc. for the next one when I realized all but 1 of the cover songs I played were originally sung by women. Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” was the only male cover I did that night. The other covers were all from women: “Landslide,” “Jolene,” “Shake it Off,” “Strong Enough.” Most of the time, I just prefer listening to women’s voices so it’s no wonder that trickled into the songs I chose to play. It’s not always that way, I’ll usually throw in a Bruce or Ryan Adams or Tom Petty or Rolling Stones song somewhere in there, but not that night. Wasn’t feeling those ones. Even on our upcoming project, I’m trying to get my wife, Brianne, to sing more lead than me. Songs I wrote for me to sing still sound better to me when sung by a woman. Sometimes, I feel like I was supposed to be a female Rock N’ Roll singer and they had a screw up at the body factory when I was born and I came out male, but I still have that female rock singer inside me. Or, I just like the sound of women’s voices better. Who knows…

Random Thought #4: THIS EXISTS?!

Yep, Peanut Butter flavored whiskey. AND… it’s pretty good.

Random Thought #5: What People Give for our Entertainment

While watching the Super Bowl, WWE, and the final episodes of BoJack Horseman this week, I was struck by how much people give of themselves for our entertainment. In wrestling and football, it’s their bodies, potentially their brains, years off the end of their lives, years spent away from their families, etc. So many of these men and women end up as a wreck physically. How could they not? In football, all the hits are like getting into dozens of car crashes on the same day, all in row. Those add up over time. I was working out today and one of the virtual trainers mentioned how one of his shoulders and one of his hips don’t move the way should from his years of playing. In wrestling, it’s not quite as violent (at least these days. The Attitude Era got pretty extreme towards the end…), but it’s 3-4 nights a week. Oh, and you’re considered a contractor so there’s no health insurance for the beating your body takes on those 3-4 nights per week. It’s hard to hear some of the stories where ex-WWEers can’t walk straight, can’t move without pain, move their bodies in any normal way, etc. after their careers are over. Or the stories of guys who have to keep wrestling well into their fifties (and sometimes beyond) or they won’t be able to afford to take care of their bodies, even though it’s the wrestling that’s doing it to them.

And sure, I know some of you out there are saying “well, they choose to do that and make millions from it.” True, in some cases. But, think of all the athletes and entertainers who aren’t making millions. There’s far more of them and they’re still doing the same damn thing for our viewing pleasure.

So why did I mention BoJack, the cartoon horse from an animated television show? He doesn’t really exist and therefore hasn’t sacrificed anything for us. Well, someone did. And there are lots of people out there who are sacrificing right now. Hell, even the voice himself, Will Arnett himself struggled with alcoholism and depression, possibly more, just like BoJack. To make that character so real, the writers must have struggled or seen the struggles of those out there so they could put it all together in BoJack. All for our entertainment.

Closer to home, think of musicians, like me. I have struggled with, or am still struggling with, drugs, alcohol, depression, suicidal thoughts and the like over the years. Part of that was bound to happen anyways, but part of it is because of the music. The same can probably be said for any performer, but it takes so much from you and you need to find a way to replace that. You’re giving so much of yourself, your time, your energy, your life, really.

It’s funny that some of my friends think I make really good money (I don’t. I’m so fucking grateful that I actually get paid to play music, but my last sales job paid about 4-5 times more) because they hear I’ll make $X amount for a two-hour show. “That much for two hours? That’s amazing!” Until you explain how much time went into researching venues, sending out countless booking emails, the band rehearsals, the travel, etc. and then you realize what that roughly comes out to per hour and it’s not so enticing to them anymore.

Think of everything that goes into the last song you just played on Spotify. By the time you hear a song from one of my records, these are the things that likely have already happened:

• I’ve spent multiple hours writing, arranging and finishing the words and music

• I then spend some more time recording a demo to send to the band

• The bands spends hours listening to, writing/finalizing their parts

• The band and I spend hours rehearsing said song over and over trying to find the perfect feel, parts, adding in accents, little tweaks, etc. along the way

• We’ll travel for hours to shows, playing that song live to get a better feel of what we like, what we need to change, etc.

• We’ll spend more hours changing, tweaking parts, trying new things to see what makes it better, what makes it worse and what makes it different from the other songs we have

• Then we’ll spend more hours in the studio recording the song

• Then we’ll spend more hours listening to the mixes of those recordings and tweaking those

• We’ll spend more hours going over the recorded song as a whole figuring out how and where it best fits on the album, or it should be on the album at all

• We’ll spend more hours listening to the mastered versions to make sure the track order is correct, every song lives and breathes the way it should, and that the final product is what we want

• We’ll spend hours coming up with and designing the album art

• More hours will be spent taking promo photos for the upcoming record

• Then we’ll spend hours finding the right publicist/company to promote the album

• Then we’ll spend hours planning and prepping the release of the album and a release show/tour

• THEN FINALLY, you can open up Spotify, click on the song and listen to the damn thing; where we make almost no money from it…

That’s just off the top of my head. There’s certainly steps that I’ve missed but that’s a pretty fucking good idea of what we’re doing and how long it takes to get this music to you. I’m not complaining, but just want people to know. Music has been so devalued as of late, that it’s hard for me to not rant about it. For most people, music is something that you play in the background while you do laundry or workout. Or something that’s on at the bar (possibly it’s even a live band) that you can ignore while you talk with your friends. A song is plucked from an album that took hundreds of hours to build. Look, I get it. Not every piece of music is for everyone. A lot of people make music to be background sound, or just have a song or two they want you to hear and the rest is filler. But, some people, like me, still regard music-making as a work of art. I consider it to be a noble undertaking. So, when it’s relegated to sound for sound’s sake, it’s tough. To me, music is like a beautiful painting or an amazing novel or a delicious meal from a restaurant, it’s meant to have time devoted to it. It’s meant to be savored. It’s meant to be your sole focus when your ingesting it. Maybe I’m just old (I’m not, but I feel like it sometimes), but I still think listening to music is an activity unto itself. When I fire up the turntable, I play ‘em start to finish. It’s my own weird house rule, once that needle touches down, the album will be played in its entirety, both sides, every time.

I still even struggle to have conversations with people when music is playing. Some of that is the Asperger’s, as my mind goes all over the place and I struggle to focus enough to talk with someone longer than a sentence or two. So, I don’t need another distraction to further throw me off. I have no clue how people listen to music and read. Both require 100% of my focus, and last I checked, I still only have 100% to divvy up.

But, the other part of me is thinking there’s millions of albums out there to listen to, so I do actually appreciate it when someone chooses one of mine, no matter what the circumstance. I’d rather play a show where half the audience is drunk and not paying attention than sit at home and play to myself. So, I see both sides. Again, I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to write, record and play music, and, on top of that, I get paid to do it. That is special. I’m a lucky man. I do understand that, that’s not what I’m talking about here. I just wanted to give a glimpse into what we give of ourselves for your listening pleasure.

Wow, I’ll get down off my soap box now. That certainly stirred something in me.

Anyways, Monday Night Raw is about to come on, so I have to go…

(dictated but not read)

I think this was the only picture we had from Summit where I’m actually in focus AND not making a weird face. I move too much and make lots of weird faces when I sing/play…

What did I tell you? Earl’s stage is pretty and the show was a lot of fun. Here’s the boys setting up…

Deja vu and "Weld" aka... how I learned to love Neil Young...

OK, I know I’ve been a little distant lately, but I really wanted to make sure those last two posts got some time to marinate. If you haven’t already read WHY I PLAY MUSIC, then click that link and do so. Hint: Bruce Springsteen is involved. Also, I’ve just been really fucking busy. So, there’s that too. But, that’s no excuse as I definitely have a couple hours a week to sit down and write, but haven’t really been inspired to do so. I feel like I’ve been living in the past for the last couple months, and it’s a strange feeling when everything in the past six months has felt so future-forward. I don’t particularly mind revisiting my past, despite some pretty strange and dark times, but I’m feeling very deja vu-ish these days. Allow me to explain (or don’t, but then why the hell are you reading this in the first place?).

It’s been almost six months since I moved to Charlotte, NC. I started playing acoustic shows around the area, and for a while that was fun. Then, I got the hankering to get a band together so I could play my songs the way they were meant to be heard. I first met a drummer, who I feel a strong musical kinship with. He just gets what I’m trying to accomplish and knows how to get us there. We soon added a bassist and will be doing some shows as a power trio in the near future (this week, in fact). We found another guitar player to round out the group after realizing there were just some additional guitar parts that we couldn’t live without. We’ve been spending the past month and a half getting up to speed, so it’s almost like I’ve been relearning my songs for the second time. Some of the songs feel new again, as they have an energy that only a fresh set of ears can bring to them. Some of the songs feel like we’re aspiring to recreate something from past that doesn’t quite fit right anymore. That’s not a dig on the new players, but more about the way I feel about the tunes. Just like some of the old Bradley Wik and the Charlatans t-shirts that have been through the washer/drier a few too many times, they’ve shrunk a little and I’ve sort of outgrown them. They still fit, but not the way they used to. That’s life. It’s also weird to worry about how a show will go again. The last band was together for years. Those years worth of rehearsals, shows, etc. makes a band pretty damn tight. When a good chunk of your shows are of the two to three hour variety, you get a wide swath of material down so you don’t have to play the same 20-30 songs each time. But, that takes time. And the only place to start is at the beginning, which is where we are at. I feel good about where we’re at, but it’ll be a little while until we’re battle-tested and ready for anything.

So, why does that feel strange? Well, replace “Charlotte, NC” with “Portland, OR” and I could’ve written that exact same thing eight years ago…

I had just moved from New York City (greatest city in the world) to Portland, OR and was putting together a band for the second time. In NYC, we were Bradley Wik and the Crooks (maybe you were there and were one of the like 30 people total that saw us there…) but that band disbanded in 2009 after we realized we were all too broke to record, tour, hell, too broke to even rehearse as rehearsal rooms were like $25-30/hour. And then, on top of that, my guitar player, the venerable Jon Fickes, returned back to his home state of Washington to get his old high school band back together. After that, I played a few more shows in NYC by myself (including one final show at the Sidewalk Cafe where I played my last song at 2am to literally no one, as the sound man had stepped out for a smoke. So, I played “Mr. Tambourine Man,” complete with a three-minute harmonica solo just for kicks…) then decided to pack it up and try someplace new. From there on out, that paragraph above is exactly my first six months in Portland, OR. It’s fucking uncanny. It’s fucking eerie. It’s fucking… a third thing that I can’t think of right now.

I’m not someone who likes to live in the past. So, although this is an entirely new adventure, I can’t help but feel like I’ve gone back in time for a spell. It’ll be OK soon enough though. Once we get through our little run as a power trio, we’ll have a little time to start learning some new songs. That will undoubtedly snap me out of this deja vu and I couldn’t be more excited as it’s been years since I’ve introduced new band songs. Not sure when we’ll be recording them but there’s definitely another band album that will be coming out sometime in the not too distant future. I’m fucking thrilled I get to write new band songs. Not sure if it’s because of the Asperger’s I have or what, but I typically only write songs when I need to. So, now that there’s finally a new need for Rock N’ Roll tunes, I’ll start putting pen to paper on those soon. Since I was playing solo for a couple years, I only wrote sad bastard, acoustic tunes. Again, not sure why that is, but I love putting my Rock N’ Roll pants back on and living in that world again. I have a few tunes already ready and the themes/ideas/sounds are starting to develop in my brain. It’s energizing.

Random interjection: I think some people don’t understand how important the drummer position is in a band. I guess, for some bands, they’re more interchangeable. They’re there to keep time and hold everything together. But, for me, that’s not really the case. If I, as the singer and songwriter, am the quarterback, then the drummer is the center. Every play starts with him. The center can set the tone for the game. You can get by with a decent one, but a great one can be a game changer. They’ll help call out the protections, recognize blitzes and make sure the other lineman are all moving in sync. Some are more pass blockers, they let the play develop a little and react to it. Some are more run blockers and want to dictate the action to the defense. It’s weird that for me to understand something I usually have to relate it to sports, but that’s what I do. Also, not sure why I felt compelled to say this but it’s what came into my brain at that moment.

Anyways, the main thing I wanted to talk about today was how much our musical tastes, inspirations, playing style, sounds, etc. are constantly evolving. I know, duh, right? But, it’s strange to me (maybe that’s the Asperger’s and since I likely change less than most people) how people evolve so much throughout their lives and careers and it’s especially strange the way it manifests with music, art, books, movies, etc. Since I love music, I’m gonna talk about that.

Here’s a fun fact about ol’ Bradley Wik: he initially hated pretty much everything Neil Young recorded outside of his live album “Weld.”

The one exception to that was the song I have mentioned in previous posts, “Helpless” which hit me in a very specific way. I too was from the country. The town I grew up in had a population of 3000. We were near an enormous marsh (the Horicon Marsh) which was a huge bird sanctuary. As a kid, I felt like I was helpless to change so much in my life. So when I heard the verses:

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind
I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us Helpless

They just killed me. I thought it was written for me. But, apart from that song and “Weld,” I found Neil Young to be quite dull. Now, he’s one of my favorite artists and one of his records (“Tonight’s the Night”) is my fourth favorite record of all-time. For the record:

1. “Born to Run” - Bruce Springsteen

2. “Blood on the Tracks” - Bob Dylan

3. “Darkness on the Edge of Town” - Bruce Springsteen

4. “Tonight’s the Night” - Neil Young

5. This spot used to fluctuate week to week. But currently, and likely forever going forward, it is: “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” - Kanye West

   Past #5’s include: Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde,” Johnny Cash’s “Live at San Quentin,” Damien Rice’s “O,” Jeff Buckley’s “Grace,” Stars’ “Set Yourself on Fire,” Tom Petty’s “Damn the Torpedoes,” The Hold Steady’s “Boys and Girls in America,” and the Gaslight Anthem’s “‘59 Sound”

So, what changed? Obviously, I haven’t changed that much. I mean, I have; I’m older, have listened to much, much more music, had new experiences that help me understand some records better, etc. But I haven’t changed in a hugely significant way. But, what has changed in a big way is two-fold: context and what I want from an album.

Context:

When I first listened to Neil Young, it was because I was going through my obsessing-over-folk-music phase. To me, there were only three artists that really mattered: Bob Dylan (first and foremost times a thousand), Woody Guthrie and the Carter Family. So, when I first heard Neil Young, I thought “well, he’s not as good as Bob Dylan,” and that was that. No reason to spend hours upon hours going through his enormous back catalog when I thought he had nothing to rival “Blood on the Tracks,” “Blonde on Blonde,” “Bringing it all Back Home,” etc. I was judging these things on a "Bob Dylan equals 100, where do you come in?” type scale. If Dylan is the scale, then obviously no one is going to out-Dylan Mr. Dylan himself. Duh… Bradley was so dumb back then…

The second time I tried to get back into Neil Young was when I was going through my Rock N’ Roll phase. Neil rocks pretty fucking hard on some of those records, especially on “Weld.” Hmm. Let’s give it another shot. BUT, again my scale was fucked up. I cared about two bands FAR above all else: Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin. Neil Young didn’t tell stories better than Bruce or rock out harder than Led Zep (I don’t think anyone does. Rage Against the Machine came the closest, probably…). So, once again, back on the shelf he went.

I was confused. Everyone kept telling me how much I should love Neil Young and kept recommending me listen to this album or that album of his but I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t know why he had almost god-like status to a lot of music lovers. And these were people I greatly respected and had turned me on to countless other artists I adored. But, in Mr. Young’s case, I was just missing something they were hearing.

But, it was my fault for playing the comparison game. I’m not sure if it’s an Asperger’s thing (I love lists and to rank things) but I do it with almost everything. It’s the reason I only own four guitars. My Martin D-15 is my favorite acoustic guitar ever, my Fender Strat is my favorite electric to play and my Fender Tele is my favorite sounding guitar. The fourth is a cheapo 3/4 sized Martin that is the campfire, travel, just sits out so I can grab whenever, kind of guitar. But, I’ve had the other three for well over ten years each and have no immediate plans to introduce anything new to the family. If I have a favorite, why do I need another? That’s what I was doing with music early on in my listening career. If Bob Dylan is the greatest thing ever, why do I need to listen to anything else? It didn’t make sense to intentionally play worse records to me.

The third time I tried to get in Neil Young’s music was the one that held. So, what changed to make me suddenly do a 180 on the same music I’d heard so many times already and so readily dismissed? The second point here: what I want from an album.

What I Want from an Album

The context of the third try was through my love for Pearl Jam. I was going through a “is Pearl Jam the greatest rock band of that generation?” type of phase. I devoured their live “official bootlegs” like a maniac. Of course, they played a few Young tunes like “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Fuckin Up.” If I loved their versions, why wouldn’t I now like the originals? I decided to give Mr. Young one more chance.

But, what I didn’t know at the time was what I was wanting from music was changing drastically. Early on, I would gobble up music at an alarming rate because it was all new to me. So, I loved everything that sounded different or interesting in some way. But, since I was a kid with very limited income, I had to prioritize and cherish the CD’s I actually bought. So, it was a question of Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” OR Young’s “Harvest.” Led Zeppelin’s “IV” OR Young’s “Everybody Knows this is Nowhere.” I couldn’t get both so I had to choose the best one and that was that.

Once I had a little more money and I was growing my record collection, then suddenly I was after every record that told stories no other record told. It then became “can this record give me something that no other record can?” That’s when I could truly appreciate Neil Young’s songwriting and albums. It didn’t need to be better than “Born to Run” it just needed to scratch an itch that I couldn’t get to otherwise. Neil’s albums didn’t quite sound like other records. They felt different too. They were looser. They didn’t try so hard. He wasn’t trying to be anyone other than himself and had no urge to change in any way. He was uncompromisingly honest in both the songs and recordings. It was refreshing. Their was off-key singing and missed notes playing. Tempos hemmed and hawed but it felt so human. It felt more Rock N’ Roll than most other Rock N’ Roll records. It had a sort of punk feel almost. Instead of being a project, the albums felt more like artifacts. That is just the way he sounded on those three days. Like if he had recorded a month later, it could’ve sounded drastically different.

That approach is what I wanted to recreate with my album “In My Youth, I’m Getting Old…” We had done the tracking in separate rooms, all solos/vocals overdubbed, songs with multiple bass tracks and up to six guitars at once, etc. album the first time for “Burn What You Can, Bury the Rest…” And I love that album too. But, we got a lot of comments on how the album didn’t sound like we did live. It’s hard to recreate that energy when you're alone in a room with a guitar and headphones on listening to a click. So, I thought of Neil and his who gives a shit this is what we sound like approach to making albums. They didn’t have to be sacred works of art, they just needed to be real and honest and tell a story people can’t get from another record. I go back and forth. Part of me wants to obsess over each piece, make sure it’s exactly as it should be before moving on. But, the other part of me loves albums that have rough edges. It’s Rock N’ Roll for fuck’s sake. Smooth stones skip right over the water but the jagged ones get grabbed and pulled in. That’s what I wanted. Are there things I wish I could change? Of course. I don’t think anyone has ever made a record and said “it’s perfect. It’s exactly as I heard it in my head. I’m 100% satisfied.” But, I wanted to recapture that human element that a lot of music lacks these days. I have a friend who can sing so well you could tune a piano to him, but every song on his records still have auto-tune. There’s something lost in that. Sure, technically, it sounds “better” but does it?

The biggest thing Neil Young could give me that no one else quite could was: Neil Young, in all his ragged glory (see what I did there?). And by putting it out there so raw and real and human, no one could ever match that same energy since it was so wonderful and unique to him. No one will ever “out-Neil Young” Neil Young and I’m so glad that in some ways I did change enough to be able to appreciate him fully.

(dictated but not read)

Why I play music... aka... how a kid with Asperger's learned to connect with the world... Part 2

In PART 1, I wrote about how I’ve always felt “different,” even as a child, but didn’t know why; how I struggled with interpersonal relationships (well, I still do) and felt a general sense of isolation from the world around me; and how Brett Favre and Bruce Springsteen became my conduits to other humans. But, what I didn’t talk about a ton, despite it being in the title, was Asperger’s. Well, there’s a simple reason for that: Asperger’s wasn’t a part of my life then. Well, yes, I know technically it was, but I was completely unaware that I had it, what it actually was, and how much harm/good it was doing to/for me. Now that I know, I want to talk about how it’s affected my life and my relationships, how it’s helped me, how it’s hurt me, and, how through it all, music has been the steadying force in my life since that “Born to Run” moment. That sentiment is simultaneously not true, as music has completely fucked my life up in numerous ways. So, the two go hand in hand. Everything about my journeys with both music and Asperger’s seems to be contradictory and very polarized. They’re both the best/worst things that could ever happen to a guy, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world…

It’s recently become a popular sentiment, first by Kanye and then later by Greta, the climate change icon, that mental health “issues” or “diagnoses” can actually be a positive thing. I think they’ve both gone on record as calling it a “superpower,” which is awesome. But that also makes me feel like I’m in the Truman Show (I know, a common trait amongst serial killers, but I can’t even count how many things I’ve willed into existence anymore…) as it’s something I’ve been saying for years to anyone that would listen and now suddenly I’m reading about it all over the place. Hell, even Jerry Seinfeld said he probably was on the Autism/Asperger’s spectrum and said it isn’t “dysfunctional” but just “an alternate mindset.” I like that. I have an “alternate mindset.” Makes me sound more like a genius… (wait, isn’t that also a serial killer attribute? Being a self-proclaimed genius? Well, at least my love for animals is a big strike against me being a serial killer. Why am I talking about the traits of serial killers? Damn you, Netflix, for recommending so many murder documentaries!)

My wife was actually the first person to bring this up and tell me how lucky I am to have Asperger’s. More times than I can count, she’s mentioned how she wishes she could do and say some of the things that come so naturally for me. Over the years, I’ve also had many a musician friend comment on how they wish they could be more like me; in certain regards, that is. I’ve talked about the many positives of having Asperger’s over the years (having routines that save time/energy, decisions that should be hard aren’t for me, big life changes don’t really phase me, extreme persistence in pursuing things I need/want, unswayable morals, etc.), but I think the main thing that people wish they could do is not care so much. I keep hearing from others how they really wish they could not care as much about things like:

• what other people think of them

• what other people think of their music/art/writing/etc.

• what other people might say if they do x/y/z

• how other people might feel if they do x/y/z

• how many people clicked on their whatever on social media

• how many people streamed their song/music video/etc.

• how many people showed up to their show/event/etc.

• whether people will like their new music/art/writing/etc.

• whether they might look stupid by doing or saying something

I could go on, but you get the point. I know many a person affected by George McFly syndrome. You know, the what if I’m not good enough? What if no one likes it? I just don’t think I could take that kind of rejection thing. It can be paralyzing. I’ve known more than a few artists/musicians who’ve given up because the stress of putting their worth into others’ approval is too much. It can suck the joy out of things very quickly. One of my best friends, and the most talented musician I’ve ever known, goes years between albums and shows because of George McFly syndrome. My wife quit playing her music altogether because of it. One bad show can send them spiraling in self-doubt, draining them of their confidence and making them question their indisputable talent. I wish that I could do something about it. I wish I could give them a little Asperger’s the way Jedis in the latest Star Wars movie can now magically give others life (don’t even get me started on the latest Star Wars… Thank you for not getting me started…). But, I can’t. They can’t have what I have, unfortunately. I just wish they could not care, like me.

All those things on the list up there, I don’t give a damn about a single one. And I’m not just saying that to sound cool or something, I really don’t. I’m not sure I have the ability to. Sure, it still feels good when things go well, when a show is packed, when people say they love your music, etc.; everyone likes a compliment, even me. But, and this may sound mean, I don’t really care. If no one told me “good show tonight” or “I love that song” I’d still be fine. I judge my music, performances, etc. against how I think I should write, perform, etc. That’s the only criteria that matters to me. I’ve played countless shows where I’ve received the nicest compliments from people but still came away with a list of things ready for myself to work on and improve for the next show. I think it’s why I was good at sports. I always wanted to improve, never felt comfortable, and didn’t need a coach or someone else to inspire me. I’m all the inspiration I’ll ever need. Again, which is great for a musician.

In the music world, and, unfortunately, even more so for female musicians, there are so many things and people that will try to beat you down. The system is almost designed to do so, especially if you are tying up your worth into other peoples’ judgments of you. Since I don’t really care, I’m able to move more freely around the music world without the anxiety that plagues a lot of the musicians I know. Since you can’t actually control other people’s actions, thoughts, words, likes, dislikes, etc., it’s a huge mental burden to try and then also to worry about it. Trying to make sure a room full of people are having a good time is exhausting. I’d rather put all my energy into performing the best I can and let them all do whatever the hell they’re going to do. I can’t do a damn thing about it either way, so I want to have the most fun I can whilst performing.

I think the other part of “not caring” that is very beneficial, again, especially to a musician, is that I don’t worry about results. It’s something I constantly remind my wife (and friends, colleagues, etc.) to do. She spends so much time worrying about how things might end up that she can paralyze herself fretting the possibilities. I know a lot of people who do this. When I play a show, all I can do is promote it, prepare myself and the band, and then go have fun. Everything else is out of my control. The things people worry the most about are things they can’t do anything about anyways like: how many people will show up, will they like it, will I or someone make a mistake while playing, etc. It’s wasted energy, and it’s something my Asperger’s allows me to not care about. I’ve had some of my favorite shows in front of almost nobody. And, one time, to literally nobody as the sound guy went out for a smoke and no one had stayed around for my 2am set at some random bar in NYC, not even my girlfriend. I played a three minute harmonica solo as I covered “Mr. Tambourine Man.” I played two or three Carter Family songs and a Hank Williams tune. I love that memory. It was so much fun. One of my favorite quotes is from former Green Bay Packers (and Jaguar and Steelers) writer Vic Ketchman. He often says “memories make us rich.” That memory of the empty show is worth more than many other hundreds of shows to me. But it never would have had happened if I cared about those things listed above. And there are plenty more memories I wouldn’t have if I didn’t have Asperger’s; like the “Born to Run” moment I wrote about in part 1.

There are many days I curse my Asperger’s (or more accurately, my wife curses it) but overall I’d say the positives outweigh the negatives. Is it hard for me to do simple things like making small talk with a barista while I’m getting coffee or chat with the bartender while he makes my drink? Sure, but are those really things that are categorically life-changing? No. Do I sometimes get overwhelmed when in public places with lots of other people? Yes, but those situations can also mostly be avoided. Do I have trouble making and keeping friends since it’s hard for me to make connections and even harder to find the time/energy to want to go hang out with people when I really just want/need to stay home and recharge? Yes. But, planning in advance and also planning downtime for myself can alleviate a lot of that. Does my Asperger’s also increase my depression? Probably, as I’ve read a lot of compelling evidence linking the two, but who knows. Is it difficult to sometimes perform simple tasks as I get overwhelmed when I overcomplicate things? Sure, but making task lists and breaking them down helps my brain focus. Is it difficult for me to understand metaphors or when people are trying to be polite by saying one thing but meaning something else? Yes, and I know I’ve alienated some people because I took them at their word or said something too bluntly or completely misread a situation and, therefore, acted inappropriately. I know, a songwriter who struggles with metaphors. Weird, right? That’s why I’m always amazed when I stumble across one when writing. Further proves my theory that music is ethereal and we are merely conduits for it, each with our own storytelling skill set which is why we receive the songs we do. But, I digress…

I’d say the toughest thing about having Asperger’s is my relationship with my wife. She’s a very emotional woman and that’s difficult for me. Seems like at least once a month I do or say something that unintentionally causes her to get angry, hurt, sad, etc. I don’t mean to and very rarely do I realize what it is that I’ve done. We’re getting better at communicating these things but I struggle badly at it. I wish I didn’t do and say stupid things and I’m trying to learn what they are so I can stop myself in the future, but even that is proving very tricky for me. It’s also difficult because we have disparate needs when we occasionally do have a fight. She needs comforting and touch, and I need to be left alone. Obviously, we both can’t have what we need at the same time. I’m also really bad at pretending to care. It’s written all over my face and body language so I can’t really hide it. It comes in handy when someone you don’t like approaches you at a party and you’d like to leave, but it’s very un-handy when your wife needs you to at least pretend to care. This is the evil side of “not caring.”

Anyways, I’m surely a bit off-topic here, but I’m trying to give a fuller picture as I don’t feel like I’ve adequately described things in the past. It’s always been more anecdotal. And, in the spirit of this post, I’d like to move on to how music has affected my life in eerily similar ways. Just as Asperger’s has helped me through some tough times, both personally and professionally, music has done much the same. Music has also taken a lot from me, just as my Asperger’s has.

I’m a big believer in karma and balance. Not necessarily in the spiritual sense, but more in a literal sense. The same way that in nature everything comes to balance. Steel will eventually rust and return to the earth as iron. Rain will eventually evaporate, reform clouds and then fall back to earth. But also, just like in science, every action has an opposite and equal reaction. Which stands to reason but is a tough pill to swallow some days. For every moment of, oh, say hearing your songs on a radio station halfway around the world, playing in front of hundreds of people, meeting my wife at a show I was playing back in Portland, OR; there has to be the opposite too. The years of depression. The hours spent fighting with the band over the dumbest things (I now realize that in all likelihood we had three people in that group who had Asperger’s, including me. That helped us forge our sound and some amazing music, but could also be the worst situation imaginable. Our drummer was kicked out of the recording sessions for both albums we did together…). The drinking and the drugs. We’d make a record (great) and immediately spend hours, days, weeks hating each other and break up (bad).

As I mentioned in part 1, my friends and I spend hours discussing how much we hate/love music. I think the best way to describe it to others who say “why don’t you just stop then?” is that it’s an addiction. For me, there’s a part of my brain that only gets its juice from writing and performing music. I don’t know what it is but I don’t think I’d survive if I stopped. It’s probably the same reason Springsteen is still out doing three hour shows. I used to hate that. I always thought “why don’t the old guys just hang it up?” But, the more I played music, the more I realized that I couldn’t stop either. I feel like music has physiologically altered my brain in some way and now I can’t function without it. And, normally I’m pretty good at quitting things once my mind is made up on something. That’s probably the Asperger’s, but once I quit sports, I had no desire to play ever again. Once I decided to move out of my hometown, I had no desire to go back. Once I decided to quit smoking, I stopped that day. But music is a whole different beast.

It’s strange, but I feel the most comfortable as a person when I’m on-stage performing. It’s hard to describe, but that’s when I feel the most “me.” Like I can take a breath and relax for once. I say weird things that are sometimes funny. I lose track of time and just have fun for those two or whatever hours. It’s definitely weird to say out loud (or, write out loud, as it were…) as that is most certainly not healthy. To feel the most me, I have to be playing music that I’ve written in front of other people. Trust me, I don’t get it either. I remember the first time I told my wife this, she said it was merely attention-seeking behavior. It’s true, I do love attention and that’s probably why I act out sometimes and/or get bored when people aren’t paying attention to me. I’m like a cat in that way. But, I think she finally believes me when I say that isn’t the whole truth. Yes, I want attention but being on stage is probably what it’s like when someone has a religious experience or prays to God. It’s personal and singular to them. They don’t have to “be” anything other than their true selves. Some people go to confession, I like to do mine in front of an audience. It’s the same thing; except I get paid to do mine.

The other benefit of performing is that it turns my brain off, which is awesome. I don’t think much at all when I’m on stage. I just be. It’s wonderful. I can’t tell you how much of my life is spent in my own head. I’ll often laugh or say something really fucking random because in my head it’s all connected. For example, a week ago my wife and I were going to see the latest Star Wars (again, don’t get me started…) and I casually mentioned that it can’t be as bad as some of the prequels. Then, without missing a beat, I said “just like Alanis Morissette.” Of course, my wife was like “what the hell?” I then had to explain that after I said that, I went back on that sentiment because, if I’m being honest, I actually kinda like “Phantom Menace.” Jar-Jar aside, I got to experience that movie through my brother’s eyes. It was his first Star Wars in the theatre experience (mine too) and it blew his mind. He was probably five or six at the time so he could relate to young Anakin. His excitement was contagious and I grew to love that movie. We played the pod racing video game and watched Episode 1 many a time. But the only reason I like that movie at all is because of the experience of taking it in as, and with, a child. I valued the experience more than the actual movie. In my brain, the logical step was to ask myself “what else did you have to be there for that wouldn’t make as much sense now?” I arrived on 90’s music. Much of the 90’s has come back around in culture but a lot of the music hasn’t. Wu-Tang has because of their recent documentary, Ms. Lauryn Hill has because she’s just one of the most talented people ever, Rage Against the Machine has because they are such icons and reunite to play shows only every 5-10 years, and the Foo Fighters and Sheryl Crow just never went away. But bands like the Wallflowers, Everclear, New Radicals, Semisonic, Goo Goo Dolls, Lisa Loeb, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, etc., etc., never really stayed relevant and haven’t enjoyed a comeback. The one that surprised me though, since she was the fucking queen of being awesome and weird and super talented, was Alanis Morissette. She’s back on tour but her music hasn’t really made a comeback and you really had to be there to know just how huge she was back in the day. She had hit after hit and was everywhere. But, I don’t think the kids nowadays know her as the musical mastermind she once was. It’s almost like how everyone’s forgotten that Mike Ditka was better as a player than he was as a coach. But, I digress. So, that’s how we arrived at “just like Alanis Morissette.” If you didn’t live through her reign as a pop/rock music icon, you probably see her much differently than I do. That’s how my brain works and it’s doing that all in milliseconds and doing it all day, every day. That’s why I value things that can shut off my brain.

But, there’s something inherently wrong with anything that makes you constantly need more of it to feel good about yourself, but that’s how music is. Everything that I’ve already written is the past and it’s on to the next song, the next hit of endorphins or whatever it is that floods my brain when I write a new song that I love. But, it’s also a helpful guide as it keeps me moving forward instead of moving in circles in my mind. Not sure if that makes sense, but it’s the way I feel many days. Like my life is a flat circle and I just keep repeating the same things over and over; which, to some extent, I do. I do wake up at almost the same time each day, eat the same thing for lunch almost every day, have my week planned out where I do mostly the same things on the same days each week, etc. But, for my creativity to spur, I need chaos (that’s healthy, right?). I need change. I need new environments and new stimuli. I have enough stories to tell (I’ve lived quite a life) but sometimes need something to jar me out of my routines so I can focus on telling them. I often only write songs when I feel the need to. When I’m prepping a new album or want something new for a string of shows or whatever. But, when I get the bug, I often write songs in clusters. I’ll write three or four at a time then move on to the next three or four. It’s why groups of songs will often share similar themes, characters, places, etc. I’ll also often pull a piece from this song to put into that song or tear down three to build one that’s the best parts of each. But, the most important piece of this is that I feel a purpose when I have to write new music. It gives me a reason to exist and a reason to keep existing despite whatever bullshit is going on in my life. I might be depressed for a time, but if I can write a song that might make someone else feel OK in their own state of depression, then it is worth it for me to experience that. It circles back to my reason for playing music, to help others like me, who need a companion in a tough time. Or just to feel the comfort of knowing that they are not the only ones going through whatever the hell they are going through. It may sound narcissistic but I truly feel like I’m in a position to help others and it’s my duty (ha! doody…) to do so. But, again, I’m not trying to be some large scale saviour but just want to help a few people who experienced the loneliness that I did. Those who felt disconnected from the world around them. Music helped me, it can help others. I write to try and tell the stories I needed to hear. That’s all I can do. I don’t know what others need. I only know what I needed and that’s all I can give. And I have. And I will continue to do so.

Anyways, I’ve rambled long enough. Music giveth and music taketh away. Asperger’s giveth and Asperger’s taketh away. Music gives me a reason to exist and a reason to keep fighting, and Asperger’s gives me the strength to fight and the mental fortitude to do so unrestricted. They both make me depressed and make relationships difficult but I wouldn’t trade them for the world. I don’t think I would’ve found music if not for my Asperger’s and I certainly wouldn’t keep playing music without it. And without music, I wouldn’t have a purpose to exist and probably would have ended my life long ago, so I’m grateful for both music and Asperger’s. They team up for good sometimes too.

Not sure if any of this means anything to anyone but I hope it does. And, if you have Asperger’s/Autism, I hope you feel like you have a brother out there who gets you and who can hopefully inspire others to pursue their passions and maybe someday they’ll return the favor to their fellow Aspies.

Why I play music... aka... how a kid with Asperger's learned to connect with the world... Part 1

I was recently asked one of my favorite questions: why do I play music?

I’ll answer that in a second, but it is funny that when talking about music with others, it usually falls into one of two categories:

1) Why I love music and why being a musician is awesome

OR

2) Why I hate music and why being a musician sucks

When talking about number one, I extol the virtues and many gifts music has given me. The stories, the emotions, the connections to other humans (more on this in a bit), the comfort I receive from hearing a familiar album, the way it allows me to process my own emotions, the way music connects me to my past (I have terrible recall for my past, so I use music as my historical checkpoints. For instance, if someone asked me what I was up to in 2003-2004, I could probably muster up a few things but it would hardly be a complete answer. But, if you asked me about the time when I was obsessed with Arcade Fire’s “Funeral,” Sun Kil Moon’s “Ghosts of the Great Highway” and Death Cab for Cutie’s “Transatlanticism,” I could run you through a huge list of connected memories from that time in my life. I know there’s more than a few of you out there who can relate.), how music saved my life and gave me a purpose when I desperately needed a reason to stop thinking about killing myself, and on and on. Music has given me everything. It’s given me so many wonderful memories. It is the reason I met the friends I have. It is the reason I met my wife It’s literally the reason I’m writing this right now.

Being a musician allows me to live the lifestyle that feels most natural to me. No one criticizes me anymore for having longer, messy hair or not showering every day or waking up at 10:30am or spending too much time playing guitar/singing or RANTING ABOUT RANDOM THINGS or any of the other reasons people used to think I was weird. Now, people accept those things because I’m an “artist.” It’s great.

BUT, when talking about number two (ha! Insert poop joke here), which is usually with other musicians, I talk about the false promises music has made to me, how the industry has changed so drastically, and for the worse, in my lifetime, how I wish I could go back in time and tell myself everything I know now, and maybe persuade my younger self to choose something else to obsessively pursue, how I wish I could separate my self-identity from music but it’s tentacles have wrapped and swallowed up most of my insides, in both a good and bad way, how thinking about my future with music makes me so hopeful-yet-depressed, and all the other reasons my fellow musicians and I usually throw out as to why we should quit music (but, ultimately, never will).

As I stated before, being a musician allows me to live the lifestyle that feels most natural to me. Unfortunately, that also includes lots of bad habits and has lead to a number of terrible decisions over the years. Drinking too much, drugs, ill-advised sexual adventures, deep and cyclical depression, the disintegration of relationships, the inability to stay in one place for very long, etc., etc. Music giveth and music taketh away. Everything in life always comes to balance. The higher the highs, the lower the lows, and so it goes…

Usually, when talking about number two (ha! Bet you didn’t think I’d say it again but now you’re thinking about poop for a second time!), it will slowly morph back into number one. I don’t know for sure whether this is because at the root of it all we really do love music unconditionally or if it’s because we are trying to justify our commitment to music and all the years/time/energy/money we have already invested in it. I’d like to say the former but I don’t know if I can say that unequivocally…

Which brings us back to the original premise: why do I play music?

As far back as I can remember (which usually goes back to about age 5-6, when I would spend all day either trying to recreate Michael Jackson’s dance moves from “Bad” in the living room or running around the backyard all day with a plastic ninja sword pretending to be Leonardo, the leader of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…), I always felt a little different from other kids. Obviously, at that time, I was unable to articulate those feelings or thoughts in any meaningful way. When I started going to school, I remember starting to become more aware of it. So did others. But, remember, this was way before anyone was really thinking about how kids acted in a clinical way. It was either they were smart, dumb, hyperactive, disruptive, lazy, etc. and the kids who did receive any special attention were the ones who were severely learning disabled. Even our tiny town had a learning disabilities class, which is incredible (and so was the woman who ran it) given that our entire K-8 school housed maybe 400-500 students. But, any other kid that displayed “not normal” behavior was usually labeled slow, was told they had ADD (attention deficit disorder, before they added that “H” to it) and moved to the redundant class. I was also lumped into this group, at least for a bit.

Soon, after some additional testing and the incredible support from my mom, they concluded I should actually be taking advanced classes instead of being moved to the slower class. They landed on the fact that I was disruptive because I was bored and I didn’t understand why everyone wasn’t done with their work as quickly as I was. I’m not saying this brag, but to illustrate the beginning of my disconnect from the “normal” people around me which I’ve felt for a long time.

In Middle School, and especially in High School, these “outsider” type feelings really started to grow. Again, I had no way to verbalize this to anyone so they could maybe offer some suggestions or help; so, instead I retreated inward. I used to study people having conversations and try and figure out the mechanism behind it. It didn’t quite make sense to me. It was like an impossible math problem. I could talk at people but not with people. For some reason, it was hard, or almost impossible, for me to care about what anyone else was saying most of the time. Despite this, it wasn’t like I was a loner. I had plenty of friends. I was invited to parties and sleepovers and whatnot. People generally liked me. But, that was always centered around one thing: sports. Sports were my conduit and connection with others. I lived and breathed sports (Packers, Brewers and Bucks fan for life! In that order.), spent hours pouring over stats, collected massive amounts of baseball and football cards, and drew up plays in all my school notebooks. My friends and I would play sports all day, every day. Baseball season turned into Football season which turned into Basketball season which turned back in Baseball season. I could talk sports with anyone and for hours. I’m sure some people were likely sick of me talking about my beloved Green Bay Packers, and how Brett Favre was the greatest football player ever and my eternal hero (which he still is to this day). I didn’t need other hobbies or interests as sports consumed every waking moment. I was convinced I would either:

A) Become the starting shortstop for the Brewers

Or, if that didn’t work out, I’d fall back on:

B) Become a starting wide receiver for the Packers

Simple, right?

(I know, you’re probably wondering why I’m blathering about all this when the question was about music. Well, hold on to your butts, I’m almost there.)

Well, not exactly. First off, it would have been highly unlikely that a 5’7”, 120lb white kid from the sticks would be able to crack either of those major sports leagues. Not impossible per se, but not entirely possible either. Second, I had an Achilles’ tear when I was a Sophmore in High School. It wasn’t a complete tear, but it wasn’t far off. Coupled with my ongoing knee issues and my flat feet, I began to realize that sports were not likely in my future. It was a devastating blow for someone who didn’t really know much else. What would I do now? I briefly dabbled in nihilism, like a lot of High School-aged kids do, I’m sure. I had nothing left to look forward to. Things weren’t going great for ‘ol Bradley (or Brad, at the time).

When I stopped playing sports, suddenly most of my “friends” were no longer my friends. I wasn’t part of a group or team or anything. I had lost my connection to other people. Depression set in. Suddenly, that was my identity and I was really good at it. I started working at a factory so I had something to do after school. It was mostly mindless but passed the time and paid pretty damn well, especially for an unexperienced 16 year old in a small town. My coworkers became my new friends. Maybe this is what I’d do going forward. They all seemed to be doing OK. Until I started to see through that more and more. Some were. Some were not. Some were just as depressed as I was pretending not to be. There was a lot of drinking the nights away; and sometimes, the harder stuff would come out. I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted something more. And still, through all that, I never felt like I fit in. Even with other depressed, aimless people, I was still the outsider. I told myself it was because I was destined for greater things, which turned out to be somewhat true. But, mostly, I just couldn’t feel any real connection to most of those around me. I didn’t know why and I didn’t know if anyone else felt like this. It was lonely.

It was around this time we had to take one of those stupid aptitude tests that supposedly tells you what you should be when you grow up. Most kids were already scouting out colleges at this time and I’m sure the school was trying to help them towards picking their major. (I had no path for my future, and thus, no desire to go to college. I viewed it as a waste of time. And, it would have been had I gone.) But, as is often the case with standardized personality/trait tests like that, my answers were so erratic and diametrically opposed that it could not reasonably spit out an answer as I was seemingly two separate people. There was the loud, boisterous Brad who thought speech class was the best because everyone had to shut up, give me all their attention, and listen to me talk. There was also the Brad who preferred to hole up and read Kurt Vonnegut Jr. books, play NFL 2K (or Madden when the NFL/EA killed 2K. Sega Dreamcast for life!) for hours, and hang out with my little brother in our bedroom and not interact at all with the outside world. There was the Brad who would cut class with a small group and go get high outside the Taco Bell and devour double-decker tacos like they were going out of style. But, there was also the Brad who spent his study halls alone, practicing pep band songs on his trombone. There was the Brad that thought Metallica and AC/DC were the greatest bands in the world. But, there was also the Brad who loved Tchaikovsky and Outkast with equal vigor. So, how was this stupid test supposed to know which to choose? Which was the real Brad?

There was always one teacher who I greatly respected, had become friends with and rarely argued with (which, is a miracle, as I rarely got along with my teachers). He sat me down and said this test doesn’t work for people like me. He said the Brad he knew would never let a damn piece of paper choose his direction in life. “What are you passionate about? What do you love to do?” he asked.

The only things that came to mind were reading and listening to music, but never at the same time. I don’t know how people do that. If music is on, I can’t concentrate on other things. “Aha!" he said. “Then music it is.”

“But how?” I asked. “I can’t sing to save my life and the only instrument I can kinda play is the trombone. I wish I could play guitar…”

“Then figure it out.”

He knew what motivated me and how much I loved to be challenged. Years before, my first foray into music was short-lived. I had saved up my lawn mowing and snow shoveling money and bought myself one of those $99 specials out of the JCPenney’s catalog. Kids over the age of 30 probably remember how awesome that fucking catalog was. It would come like two or three months before Christmas so you could start dreaming of all the stuff you couldn’t have. My sister and I would earmark dozens of its 1000 pages, hoping to get at least a few of the treasures inside. But, in this case, I could finally get it on my own. I ordered it through the mail and patiently waited for it to arrive. When it finally did, I was beside myself with excitement. I was on a path to a new world! Except, I didn’t know what to do with it. We couldn’t afford lessons and I didn’t even know how to get it in tune. Eventually, I figured out that I needed to spend another $15 on a tuner. I learned how to strum a few chords but it was much harder to play than I anticipated. Both literally, as my fingers ached, and sometimes bled, each day after only a short while, and generally as I struggled to remember where my fingers were supposed to go. I gave up after only a short while. He knew that. He knew I hated struggling at things but if someone challenged me, then I had to prove them wrong at all costs. I had to go home, pick up that damn guitar and get to work.

He also played guitar and would stay after school to show me some simple things to go practice. He showed me how to play a few very basic blues and folk songs. I spent hours practicing each night. Eventually, I graduated to strumming along to Bob Dylan songs. I learned how to play “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison and would host singalongs at the few parties I was still invited to. But, this all still felt like work. I wasn’t having much fun. I still sucked, still couldn’t play anything but a few basic chords, and had no idea how I would ever turn this into a career. Then, just like what had happened back in ‘92, when Brett Favre was introduced into my life after Majkowski went down during that Bengals game, as he seemingly always did, and he brought me sports as my connection to the world around me; I would be introduced to a hero who would show me a new path to connecting to people. Going forward, that connection would be music; and that hero’s name was Bruce Springsteen.

To give you the full experience, I’ll give you the full scene. When I was 16, my grandma was getting rid of a bunch of stuff, and one of those things was her old console sized record/8-track player. It was the kind that is about four feet long and three feet high, is all made of light colored wood and closes to be like a bar top. It was so heavy, I’m still surprised we were able to get it upstairs. The wooden monstrosity took up most of one whole wall when we finally finagled it into my (and my brother’s) bedroom. I was so excited to have my own record player but didn’t own any records myself. I started going through my mom’s collection and pulled a few to try out the player with. There was Neil Young’s “Decade” collection, Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumors” and Bruce Sprinsteen’s “Born to Run.” I had heard hits from all three artists, but never really dove into their records on the whole. Once I got the record player set up and working, I put on “Decade.” It was better than I had hoped. I loved his seemingly reckless and wild style when he played with the band and I remember the song “Helpless” really hit me hard.

I got ready to fire up a second album. I chose “Born to Run.” I had heard the song “Born to Run” on the radio a few times and I liked it, but thought Springsteen was mostly for the older crowd, not 16 year olds. I was so used to CD’s where the side you play is down that I put the record on upside down (B-side up). I pushed the button to start the automatic needle drop and found a spot across the room. I sat down on the floor next to my bed, back against my dresser. I closed my eyes. The Neil Young record had felt so alive and so real, I hoped this one would feel the same way. I had heard vinyl sounded different and so far it was 1 for 1 in my real life test. The needle finally touched down and made its silent loop around the outside groove, with a few cracks and pops so you knew it had found its mark. THEN… the intro to “Born to Run” kicked in (as it’s track one on side-B) with that drum fill and then that simple yet iconic guitar riff. I got shivers. By the time the vocal kicked in, I was already in another world. I couldn’t open my eyes. My heart began to beat faster. My whole body clenched up. My brain raced. What was this I was hearing? What was this I was feeling? It felt like it was all happening in slow motion, and suddenly, I was watching myself as I sat there paralyzed by the beauty and majesty of the sound coming from those old speakers. I could feel every drum fill in my stomach. Every word was perfect, every note necessary. Elation and anxiety washed over me. I searched my mind for a comparison to this moment. I tried to figure out the math behind this feeling while the physical version of me sat, eyes closed, on the floor taking in the this wondrous music. I wanted to be like him and just let this newfound glory wash over me but something was stopping me. I couldn’t stop trying to figure out what was happening. My brain kept spinning in circles and I tried to find something, anything to help me understand. I was panicked. But, looking down, that version of me was in heaven. Why don’t I get to enjoy this as he is? It wasn’t fair. I was having a meltdown and he was calm as could be. Finally, I gave up. I closed my eyes. And then something incredible happened. I slowly felt myself rejoin my physical body. In stressful moments like this, I’ve always felt a disconnect between my brain and body. But, suddenly, int that moment, they were reconnected and my brain switched off. There was no time for thoughts when this magical music is playing. For the first time in a long time, I stopped thinking. I was just being. I was just accepting. I was just being happy in a beautiful moment. It was something I had forgotten how to do.

“Born to Run” paused my thoughts and gave me the momentary peace of mind I had been longing for. It was the thing that used to happen when I would play sports. I could just be. I didn’t have the voices constantly chattering away as I tried to figure everything out like the world was one big math problem that I needed to solve. “Born to Run” allowed me to just be me for a while. It felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders, if only for those four and a half minutes. It was the greatest feeling in the world. Or so I thought. But, music had an even greater gift and was just waiting for me to find it.

I started the song over. Partly because I needed that feeling again. And, if I’m being honest, partly because I thought there was a skip on the record in the bridge when they do the descending line just before they all pause and wait for Bruce’s famous “1, 2, 3, 4” to storm back into the final verse. There wasn’t of course but the band hits those notes so perfectly at the end of the run, that I swore it was the same one skipping, what seven times, before resolving. This time I focused all my attention on the words. By the time he said “Baby, this town rips the bones from your back. It’s a death trap…” I felt like he was singing about me, but me in the future; and, somehow he was doing it from the past. Somehow, back in 1975, he knew exactly what 16 year old Bradley would need to hear about 20 year old Bradley 30-some years later (hopefully that makes sense). I felt everything that he felt as he sang those words with all his heart. I felt like I knew him and he knew me. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who thought and felt the way I did. Maybe someone else understood my thoughts and feelings even better than I did. I finally felt like I wasn’t alone anymore. I cried as that song played for the second time. I felt like I had found my way back home after wandering aimlessly for the past year or two after losing sports. Bruce unlocked that part of my brain and my heart that allowed me to be myself again. I owe him everything for that.

That’s what music gave to me. It made me feel “human” in a way nothing else could. I finally felt “normal.” The more music I really listened to, the more I felt like I was part of a larger world of people who knew exactly who I was. I could learn from them. They were teaching me it was OK to be myself, no matter how fucked up I felt most of the time. And whenever I was feeling bad, they gave me a place where I could leave that at the door, put on a record, and escape; even if just for a while. I knew this was what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to give the gift of music to others. I wanted others to feel OK about being themselves because someone else out there knew exactly what they were feeling. There’s a comfort in that. It’s why people listen to sad songs to feel better. Music gives people permission to be who they are and lets them know they are not alone. I may not know Bruce Springsteen personally, but he’s given me the best friend I’ve ever had in “Born to Run.” I thought it was my duty to pay it forward. If I could make music and help one person feel less alone and less fucked up in the world, then I’ve done my life’s work.

This is why I play music: to help people, especially those who’ve lost, or still haven’t found, their connection to the world around them.

That is what music gave to me that day so many years ago. That is what I hope to give back to others.

I know a lot people who have Asperger’s/Autism might feel that same disconnect I did (and still do sometimes). But, I want them to know it’s OK and they’re not broken. And, there’s a place where you can feel at peace and at home. It’s music. And maybe for some, it isn’t music. TV also does a lesser version of this for me. TV still allows me to shut my brain off for a while so I can relax a bit (Rick & Morty for life!). It doesn’t provide the same life-giving energy that music does, but everyone is different. Maybe it’s books or movies, but these stories can help us understand ourselves better than we can alone.

OK, so I’ve just now mentioned Asperger’s in a long post about playing music and having Asperger’s. Well, there’s lots more of that coming in part 2. You see, the whole time I’ve been feeling disconnected from the world, it was really just a product of the Asperger’s. I didn’t know it then. I don’t know how I could have. No one was really talking about it much back when I was kid. They still don’t, really. I don’t think doctors, teachers, parents, etc. are given much information on Asperger’s and what to look for in identifying it early on. I don’t know what would’ve been different, if anything, had I known sooner. I, myself, have only recently found out and started learning about it. It’s been a crazy three year journey since I started learning about it and how it affects me, but my life has already changed for the better by just knowing I have it. Just as it helps me understand myself better, it also helps those around me (like my wife, friends, etc.) understand a little better why I am the way I am. I don’t think younger Brad would have been able to do much with this information. I feel like I found out at the right time in my life.

I also really want to impart that I don’t think of Asperger’s as a disability in any way. In fact, it has helped me in numerous ways in the pursuit of my musical career. I’ll talk more about this in part 2 but I don’t think I’d even have gotten into music in the first place had it not been for my Asperger’s; so I definitely think of it as a blessing. I think people will start to be able to better identify Asperger’s in kids once we stop thinking about it as a negative. Now that I understand Asperger’s (and myself) better, there’s been at least a handful of times where I wish I could tell a parent that their child is likely on the spectrum. But, even the one time I brought it up (when it was even about someone else’s kid) they were quite offended by the mere suggestion. Maybe I should just not care (as I’m good at that) and just say it anyways. But I don’t want people to think it’s an insult and then never seriously consider it for their child. They should realized it can be a good thing. It is for me. As with anything in nature, there’s always a balance. So, there will always be negatives to balance out those positives but I still think I’m much better off on the whole because I have Asperger’s. But, more on that in part 2. Stay posted…

Asperger's, politics and one weird night... aka... any given Thursday...

I know, I’m on a weird blogging schedule these days. In my defense, I rarely know what day it is anymore. I guess that’s not really a defense but I’m going with it. Sort of how those who are somehow still opposing impeachment are going with “Trump is openly promoting Russian propaganda and compromising American elections and national security, again, by asking a foreign government, again, to smear a U.S. citizen? Well, something, something, Hunter Biden. Something, something, Adam Schiff. Something, something, FISA warrants.” Aah, that’s fun, isn’t it? One side says something backed up by evidence and research and the other just says something random and nonsensical and unrelated. Just like they’ve done on climate change (or the climate crisis, as I like to say; whichever you prefer), gay rights (or, as I like to call it, plain old human rights as it’s absurd to marginalize people based on sexual preferences. Some people like blondes, some brunettes or whatever, some like blondes or brunettes or whatever but with their own gender. Oooh, scary. But, I’d like to remind everyone that we have real issues to worry about here. Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe how our current President is literally a sexual predator who has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, including non-consensual kissing or groping, by at least 23 women; which means the actual number is likely higher as many assaults go unreported. And that’s not even including his connection to Jeffrey Epstein where Trump is quoted as saying: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Somehow all that seems a bit more prescient than worrying about others’ sexual preferences…), women’s rights (like abortion, access to birth control, etc.) and on and on, usually by hiding behind the veil of “religion” despite Jesus’ main message being acceptance of all. Whatever…

These impeachment hearings are driving me nuts. It’s becoming harder and harder to understand why angry, ignorant, privileged, old white guys are deciding the future of this country. It makes no sense. Finland just elected a 34 year old woman as their Prime Minister. That makes more sense to me. One can dream…

Anyway, when I get all worked up, my wife usually tells me to go play guitar or listen to music. So, I’m going to do that. Want to take a journey with me? Let’s go!

1) Genesis - “Mama”

I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t know there was a music video for this until tonight. I don’t know how this eluded me and I feel ashamed as a huge Genesis/Phil Collins fan. But, “Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha-oeww.” I think that’s the proper onomatopoeia for that ridiculous thing Phil does in this song. It makes me happy every time. I can’t even remember why I was so angry earlier. I just want to “Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha-oeww” for the next few days. Maybe that’s just the weird, obsessive Asperger’s side of me, but my poor wife is gonna hear “Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha-oeww” at least another 50 times. Pray for her… And for me. She might kill me if I don’t stop “Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha-oeww”-ing, which I won’t be able to…

2) Billy Joel - “We Didn’t Start the Fire”

Does this song have the dumbest song lyrics of all-time? Maybe, but it’s also awesome. It’s my life’s goal to learn all those nonsensical lyrics someday. #lifegoals (that’s a thing I’ve heard people say in real life, so it’s likely an interwebs thing. I don’t know…)

William Joel is one of the preeminent songwriters in the history of our great country but these are two of the actual verses in this song:

“Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore”

Yep. The same man who wrote “The Stranger,” “Glass Houses,” “52nd Street,” and “An Innocent Man” wrote those words.

Speaking of Asperger’s, if you haven’t listened to perhaps the greatest recounting of Asperger’s/Autism in song, stop everything you’re doing and listen to “I Go to Extremes” now if you want to understand how we work. Don’t think this is what Joel was aiming for when writing this tune but my wife constantly makes fun of me about this song. It’s always, “I can’t believe Billy wrote a song about you” or something like that.

3) Alanis Morissette - “Hand in my Pocket”

Man, did Alanis fucking rock the 90’s. Sure, her harmonica playing leaves something to be desired but so many hits and she’s such a fucking badass. Speaking of contradictions and possibly Asperger’s-y songs, this one is right there. It’s weird how disparate and diametrically opposed Asperger’s can be. I’ve literally had companies make me take personality tests 2 or 3 times because the answers didn’t align with their predetermined personality types so they thought I was lying, not qualified, etc. but in reality it’s just how my Asperger’s manifests and how I can be more than one thing at once. I’m an extroverted introvert. I’m a loquacious thinker. I’m outwardly confident but inwardly focused. I’m a terrible listener but an excellent observer of humans. I feel more myself while performing music in front of a crowd than I do at home in my underwear. I’m an adventurous person who simultaneously would rather be at home. I love trying new foods but eat the same thing every day for lunch. I’m a spontaneous creature of habit. I think that’s enough examples; you get the point. Not sure what Alanis’ intent was with this song but it’s strangely an Asperger’s anthem.

4) Umm, whatever this is…

OK, so it’s Bad Brains but this is ridiculously funny. I don’t know why I get such a kick out of this but I do. Long live Bad Brains and Charlie Brown!

5) Sesame Street cameos that somehow happened…

Like JOHNNY CASH and PAUL SIMON.

6) Norm Macdonald creates one of my favorite Conan memories of all-time

Yep. I guess I’m officially off-topic right now. Things just got weird. A fourth bourbon will do that. But, we all feel like Conan after that rambling, weird, and ultimately hilarious joke/non-joke. Norm is my favorite. One of the best standup shows I’ve ever seen live. At the show he made an audience member storm out in protest by asking genuine questions about their religion. Nothing offensive or condescending, just why they believed something they did. They got so defensive but had no rational answers and got up and left in anger. It was strange to see someone, who supposedly held their beliefs so strongly, unable to answer basic questions as to why they believed so strongly in something and get so angry so quickly when someone honestly asked them to defend it. Wish that wasn’t how most people are these days, but unfortunately it is. Trying to have an honest debate is nearly impossible nowadays. It’s sad people are so insecure that they instantly get angry/defensive whenever someone doesn’t agree with them. It’s such a sad thing that we can’t have educated and civil disagreements anymore…

7) Battle of the Network Stars

Sorry folks, we’re way out in the sticks now. But, this is a thing that used to happen. I remember being on vacation in Wisconsin a few years back (vacation in Wisconsin?! I know. But we were visiting family and then taking some time for ourselves) and it was one of those truly Midwest Winter days, you know, -5 degrees with a -25 windchill, so there wasn’t much to do/open. We stayed at the hotel and watched an entire rerun of one of the Battle of the Network Stars, much to my wife’s dismay. But, she eventually got into it and was rooting for Tom Selleck, as we all were, as he proved his former collegiate sports skills. Man, I could watch BotNS reruns all day, every day…

8) Peter and Quagmire Sing!

Maybe this isn’t going to get any better tonight so I think we’ll end it here. I often wake up with these songs stuck in my head. I also love how well MacFarlane harmonizes with himself in different voices. He’s so fucking talented. Crazy to think he went to music school with Frank Sinatra Jr. and is equally talented vocally, but is also one of the funniest people in the history of the world. Long live Seth MacFarlane…

(dictated but not read)