This year's 9/11 thoughts and some thoughts on anxiety... aka... fuck anxiety...

The past month or so has been pretty damn heavy (there’s that word again, Marty. “Heavy.” Why are things so heavy in the future?) for a couple of reasons. First, the anniversary of 9/11 for me, like a lot of people out there, is always a time of deep reflection upon the sadness of that tragic event. I can’t help but go back and watch all the documentaries and relive that day. And, with this being the 20th anniversary, everybody had to make some new ones, so that process certainly took more than just the one day. Second, I finally decided it was time to get on some anti-anxiety medication after struggling through anxiety/panic attacks that have been growing more and more frequent over the past six months. They started about a year ago, coincidentally or possibly not coincidentally, right after I got Covid for the first time. It has just become too much and I am definitely not managing it well at all anymore. Natural rememedies like CBD (the good stuff from Colorado) and magnesium drinks just weren’t cutting it. I had let it get way out of hand for way too long.

9/11

But, I’ll start with some thoughts about 9/11. My last post went into some of the things I reflect upon when it comes around. Today, I wanted to kinda dive into why it’s so important to me to take time each year to reflect upon what happened that day. We all know and will indeed never forget what took place in New York City on that day now twenty years ago. So today, I’d like to explore why this day so specifically affected this teenage boy from a rural Southeastern Wisconsin farming town of 3000 who had no connections to New York City. I mean, it’s affected everyone who lived through it and we collectively share some PTSD from it but I’ve never really understood why it affected me so much, as it’s basically the most consequential date for me on the calendar each year. I’m sure my wife might take offense to that but our anniversary is a date that we chose to be significant and is a happy reminder when it comes around. It’s not an emotional and mental drain on me the way 9/11 is. I don’t have to mentally prepare myself for our anniversary. I can just make a reservation, you know, because I’m half Native American (bu dump chh… but that is actually just a true statement, not just a sad attempt at a joke…), maybe buy a gift if we can afford it and then show up and enjoy the day with my wonderful wife. The worst that can happen is that I forget to make a reservation and we have to settle for our second choice when it comes to restaurants, hardly a punishment. This year, with the 20th anniversary of 9/11 upon us, it shook me for basically a whole week. In fact, it’s taken me three weeks to even begin to put together my thoughts for this blog. That might also be due to the anxiety/panic that I will be writing about in a bit, but I’m like this every year to some degree, just much worse this year.

I’ve had sort of a mini-revelation as I spent hours and hours thinking about that day. Like most, I’ll never forget where I was or what I was doing. I was in the library getting my internet permission slip verified. Not sure if kids still have to do this, but we needed parental consent for us to use the internet. Of course, I had waited until the last day to turn it in and was now late for my next class. Someone said a plane, a “Cessna” they kept saying, had hit one of the World Trade Towers. A buddy of mine had also waited until the last minute to turn in his internet permission slip and was standing beside me. “Guess that’s why they shouldn’t let women fly planes…” he quipped, in an extremely inappropriate attempt at a joke. No one laughed, and I’m pretty sure everyone made the same “come on, what the fuck” face I had made towards him.

After watching the second plane hit live, we all knew what was happening. So did the school. There was now a crowd in the library, as it was the only place with a TV in the school. We were told to go to class and not to talk about what was going on. After arguing my case with the principal for a good five minutes, I was sent to class. Luckily, the teacher had a radio and she allowed us to tune into the news so we could try and find out what the fuck was going on and if there were going to be more attacks. Soon enough, there were more attacks. Something had struck the Pentagon and a plane believed to be hijacked crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, apparently on its way to the White House or the Capitol. The principal came in and ordered us to turn off the radio and get back to work. I may have used some choice four-letter words, it may or may not have been “fuck this shit, I’m out of here,” and then left school and walked home. Then, like the rest of America, I sat in front of my TV for most of the next week. I don’t believe I went back to school the rest of that week I was so shaken.

Sorry, I was going to mention the revelation. Well, this year I figured out that 9/11 was the single most emotional day of my life. Again, that may sound mean to my wife and our wedding day but I’ve explained this to her and she understands my reasoning. So, here goes.

For those who don’t know, I am on the autism spectrum. I used to be considered “high-functioning,” meaning I was able to go to school with the rest of kids, excel in my classes, played sports, showed little to no signs of social awkwardness (though I felt a great deal), was able to graduate, hold down and excel at jobs, etc.; but, I guess that term, “high-functioning,” is not to be used anymore as it degrades people further out on the spectrum or something. Sorry if I’m misstating any of that, but I don’t really keep up with autistic Twitter, which is totally a thing, and it’s they who determine what is acceptable or not these days. But I digress…

Having autism, even on the lower end of the spectrum, or the higher end, I’m not sure exactly how that works, but being the way that I am, I still deal with (or, more accurately, mostly my wife deals with) a lot of the same deficiencies as those further out on the spectrum. I still struggle massively with emotions, both mine and those of others. It’s not that I, along with other autistic people, don’t experience emotions, it’s just that we typically have a hard time understanding or recognizing them. Even with my growing anxiety, it was my wife who would constantly tell me how and why I was feeling a certain way before I had any clue as to what was going on.

I also have the ability to compartmentalize things a bit better than a “normal” or neurotypical person. So, I’ve experienced a lot of emotions over the years but I don’t always know it or remember how they felt. But, 9/11 changed that. Every emotion that I, along with the rest of the country and world, felt that day; confusion, sadness, helplessness, despair, anger, vengeance, terror, panic, etc.; were never more acute for me than on that day. As an autistic man now in his thirties, I have never once experienced the same level of emotion as I did that day, and I know I’m not the only one. And all those feelings were cranked up to eleven. It actually broke my brain, and I’m sure many other people’s as well, as I had no way of coping with that barrage of emotions and feelings. I have never experienced that before or since. My wedding day was close, but that was more of an overwhelmed with emotion kind of thing and not like someone dumped a truckload of feelings on my head.

And that’s why I say it was the most consequential and emotional day of my life. And, after twenty fucking years, I’ve finally figured out why 9/11 is so emotionally and mentally draining on me each year. Watching the documentaries, hearing the stories, seeing the pictures or footage, all of that triggers my PTSD and I have to relive that barrage of emotions all over again. And I know this is obviously much, much worse for those directly involved in the horrific events of that day and I’m not trying to compare my story at all because it doesn’t in the least, but I’ve always just wondered why that day was the most, I don’t know, most everything day in the life of some random autistic kid from a rural Southeastern Wisconsin farming town of 3000.

Fuck Anxiety

So, one of the worst developments of the past year and a half has been a gradual onset of anxiety which has culminated into regular panic attacks. Anxiety and panic have not only never been in my life before last spring, but I’ve actually had whatever the fuck you would call the opposite of anxiety and panic. I’ve moved across the country, like all the fucking way across, six times and with little to no money each time. No problem. Didn’t break a sweat. I’ve had a gun and multiple knives pulled on me over the years. Easy peasy. I’ve been chased by a crackhead who was trying to stab me with a shiv. Was a little out of breath when I got home as some of those guys can really move, but more or less unscathed. I’ve witnessed/lived through tornadoes and…nothing. I’ve never registered a high blood pressure or high heart rate at any doctors appointment in my life; in fact, they would always comment on how remarkably low they were, in a good way. I’ve never dealt with stage fright or anything like that. Sure, I’ve had some slightly nervous butterflies before a show here or there, but that’s to be expected and, in fact, I generally feel more comfortable on stage than anywhere else in the world. So, I was woefully unprepared for dealing with anxiety and panic when it hit and started to get worse and worse over the past year and a half. I had never truly felt anxious or panicked apart from one other time which was caused by a bad combination of chemicals and alcohol that I had put into my body. That one was on me.

Now, I have dealt with other mental health issues like depression, daily suicidal thoughts, addiction, etc. but none of those, for me, and I’m only talking about my personal experience just like with the 9/11 stuff, and I can’t stress that enough, were anywhere near as debilitating as the anxiety and panic. I’ve dealt with depression in one form or another for most of my life. It’s hard to remember what I felt like before middle school, but I’ve definitely had it ever since then. And while I don’t have great coping mechanisms in place for that (I’m getting into therapy soon now that I finally have insurance again, thanks Obamacare!), I can handle it well enough by now. I’ve made a few semi-legitimate attempts on my life; once via driving into a tree at a high rate of speed (this was back in Wisconsin and it was super snowy/icy and I missed), once via opioids and booze and once via Tylenol. Yep, Tylenol. That regular-ass-you-can-buy-it-anywhere Tylenol. If you didn’t know, Tylenol can be very dangerous, causes liver damage, is known to cause birth defects and, personally, is not a medicine I think people should have super easy access to. I’ve known two people personally who died from Tylenol overdoses, one on purpose and one on accident. I’ve also known multiple people who died of opioid overdoses. But weed is still illegal in most of the country. A “drug” that works wonders on pain, anxiety, depression, vertigo, nausea, etc. A “drug” that zero people have OD’d on. That makes sense. Right…

All that being said, this anxiety and panic has both come out of nowhere and completely leveled me. It started last year, a little after I got Covid for the first time. From what I’ve read and been told, is that when Covid attacks your body, your body responds by sending out cytokines, epinephrine and cortisol, telling the body there’s an emergency and it needs help fighting this thing off. That’s normally a good thing. Your body activates its army and goes into battle with the virus. But in some people, Covid attacks the nervous system and their bodies respond the way they would respond to a traumatic experience, essentially giving them PTSD. Then comes the anxiety and then comes the panic. Fun…

Again, this started last year but I didn’t really take notice until a few months ago. My wife could tell something was going on all the way back to last year but I just kept blowing it off. What made this strange was the fact that she’s remarked so many times over the years about how nothing seems to ever make me anxious and she wishes she could know what that feels like. But since she has dealt with anxiety, PTSD and panic for most of her life, she could see the signs. I started getting really agitated about the littlest things. I started to get really sweaty and out of breath while packing up to go to shows. Sometimes my brain would shut down and I couldn’t focus on anything but the one task I was doing. Sometimes I’d pace and start to shake a little. But it wasn’t consistent and wasn’t too bad. Worst case scenario was if it happened before a gig I’d have to change my shirt before I left the house. But there didn’t seem to be any connection to anything in particular so we just chalked it up to 2020 being a shitty, stressful ass year.

But this year, things changed quite a bit. Once the vaccines became widely available, the band and I got ‘em and started booking as many shows as possible again. We were so excited to get back out there and start playing again. We rehearsed some during the pandemic but it’s hard to stay motivated when there’s nothing you’re working towards. So by the time May rolled around, we were back at it pretty steadily. Suddenly, the anxiety started getting stronger and more frequent. I kept downplaying it. “Well, it is 95 degrees outside, and you just carried 300 lbs of gear down to your car and then up onto a stage, that’s why you’re sweating so much and your heart rate is high right now.” And it kept getting worse. The one saving grace was that as soon as the show would start and I’d start jumping around a little, it would go away and I could play the show just fine.

But, in late May, I had a panic attack on stage. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. My heart was going like crazy. My fingers stopped working properly and were locking up when I would try to play a guitar solo. I struggled to take the breaths needed to sing. My legs got tight like they were prepared to leap over a car. I couldn’t focus on anything, not the crowd, not the song I was playing, nothing. I felt numb. I felt like I either wanted to curl up into a ball and hide or drop my guitar and sprint home as fast as I could (the show was about a mile and a half from my apartment).

Like I mentioned earlier, being on stage usually calms me down and relaxes me. I get to exist in what I feel is my natural environment. I get to express myself artistically and as I truly am, and people watch me, listen to me and accept me, which is not something that always happens in “real life.” I get to feel “normal” for a while. And, since I’m often awkward in real-life conversations, I enjoy the mostly one way communication. It’s easier for me. Performing is one of the few things that can actually get my brain to stop working overtime, which is a welcome respite from the other 21 or 22 hours of the day where it’s racing like it’s in a fucking Fast and Furious movie. It takes almost a miracle to quiet my inner dialogue, which is quite brutal towards me, and getting up on a stage in front of people does that. I get to just be me with the burden of myself ruining it.

Thankfully, the panic went away after the one set and with the help of a glass of wine. And, according to my wife who was there, it wasn’t actually a total disaster like it was in my head. She said she could tell I wasn’t as talkative or energetic during that set but played and sounded fine. So I got that going for me, which is nice… But after that panic attack, it started happening anytime I did anything music-related. Pack up the car? Panic attack. Rehearse for a show? Panic attack. Even just writing out a setlist or signing a check from a show made my heart race and my hands start to shake. And remember, I had filled the band’s calendar for the whole summer. We playing basically every Friday and Saturday night and I was picking up some solo shows during the week. This meant that at least two or three times a week I was experiencing anxiety/panic attacks; and they were getting worse and worse each time. Last year, I could take a dropper full of CBD oil and it would calm me down. Or, I could drink a glass of this stuff that’s actually just called fucking “Calm” which is a magnesium drink that could sometimes start to reverse the anxiety symptoms. But this year, none of that helped. It got to the point where I’d have to load all my stuff into the car, do a quick vocal/guitar warmup and then jump into the shower before I left for the show because I was so sweaty, and also because showers help me to decrease my anxiety.

Once things got that bad, I started to think back on the past year and really started to notice the other ways that the anxiety was affecting me. I could no longer get out of bed before 11:00 or 11:30am. Why? Because before all this got so bad, the morning was when I did the majority of my music booking, and since music was causing my panic, my body/brain was trying to shut down music booking so I wouldn’t have to go through that whole experience. Running errands would cause me to break out in sweats and experience shortness of breath. Why? Because one of the most common errands I ran was to deposit the cash or checks I collected from shows. I realized that I hadn’t even listened to music in months because even that would get my brain going into an anxiety spiral about my next show or the next rehearsal or whatever. I even got anxiety when I pooped. Yep, even pooping caused anxiety because, and this is very weird but very true, I would make sure to poop before going to band rehearsals because the toilets at the rehearsal space are disgusting as fuck so I always wanted to make sure and take care of that shit, literally in this case, before I went. So, pooping became associated with music which means it caused me panic. As Metallica once said, sad but truuuue-ahh.

But, I was prepared to just keep on keeping on until I noticed how my anxiety was affecting my wife. As someone who has suffered from it for basically her entire life, she began getting triggered by my anxiety. She is an extremely empathetic person, and in this case, it was to her detriment. She would feel my anxiety which would then trigger hers, so she was then holding mine and her own. On show days, she was anxious before I was because she knew mine was coming soon. I talked to her about it and she confirmed that yes, my anxiety and panic were causing her issues. We made the decision to get me on some anti-anxiety medication for the first time in my life. Luckily, our Obamacare had kicked in a couple months before so I could actually afford to go to a doctor and get some medication. The problem was that because I have autism, medications often don’t work as intended on me. My brain is wired differently due to the autism, so it stands to reason that medications, especially those targeting the brain or chemicals that affect the brain, which are clearly not designed for the autistic brain, just don’t do what doctors think they will do. The other problem is that I have never met a doctor that seems to understand this. When I tell the doctor I have autism and have had horrible reactions to medications in the past because of it, they often look at me like I’m a fucking idiot. Like those two things, autism and medication, are not related at all and why the fuck would I think that and how dare I try and tell the doctor something. But, more often than not, I am right and they are wrong, as has been the case since I was a kid.

The first doctor I saw, a white man, which I only say because I’ve never had a good experience with a white male doctor, came into the room with his prescription already written. He very briefly threw out a few drug names which I had never heard of, did not ask me hardly any questions, scoffed when I objected to some of the recommendations and brought up my autism, basically concluded that I just had stage fright when I told him how it was affecting me and then wrote the prescription and left. I was given an anti-histamine that was supposed to make me sleepy for the panic and a serotonin booster for the anxiety. He also prescribed a blood pressure medication which I explicitly told him I could not take because I had taken it in the past (to try and prevent Meniere’s attacks. Meniere’s disease, for those who don’t know, is an inner ear disorder that causes vertigo, hearing loss and a bunch of other unpleasant symptoms. I got it after being rear-ended twice within a year but doctors refuse to acknowledge that getting whiplash and monthslong concussions could possibly be related to a disease that can be affected by the nerves around the upper spine…) and it had caused severe side affects. Of course, I didn’t find that out what any of these drugs were until after I had taken the pills, gotten really sick, felt like I was about to bleed out internally (a feeling I know well as it has happened multiple times to me), was up all night shaking from the pain and had migraines and brain fog for a week after taking the medication for two days. So, back to the doctor’s office, but with a different doctor, of course.

On the second visit, the doctor again just stared at me like my skin was green when I told her about my autism and the adverse affects it has when I take medication. She said the medicine I was given is pretty standard procedure for anxiety/panic and that very few people had side effects and she’s never heard of anything as bad as what I had. When I was suffering I made a list of what I was feeling so I could show my next doctor the list. I had a list of 16 side effects. She doubted some of them but at least acknowledged that we definitely needed to make a change. She too alluded to the fact that she thought I might just have stage fright, even though I did say that I had been performing for over ten years without ever experiencing what I was going through currently and that it was affecting more than just my music, though that was main concern since it’s what I do for a living. Getting a little sweaty, shaky and out of breath when I went to the bank was not the cause for coming in. I asked what other options I had. She reiterated that the pills I had taken were the safest and most effective option I had. “OK, so what about something that isn’t the safest or most effective?” I asked slightly sarcastically but also earnestly. She said there’s a drug that doesn’t work for very well for most people and usually causes significant side effects. I said “well, that sounds like the opposite of the other drug, so I’ll take it.”

I also found out that in North Carolina (and possibly in the whole U.S.) Xanax is considered a controlled substance so she could only prescribe me five fucking pills. Great. So I can have as many as I want for the daily pill but I only get five pills a month for the acute panic. Good thing I often play 2-3 shows per week, so that math totally works out. I explained this to her and she said it wasn’t really possible to play a show on Xanax, which made me laugh a little as I have played dozens of shows on Xanax, including two the week prior; again, never for panic until the two the week prior. My wife had some old pills for her panic and she let me take a couple before the shows to help calm me down. I don’t know if it’s the autism or just my internal makeup but it takes usually double or triple the doctor’s recommendation for medicine to truly work for me. So the regular ass human dose of Xanax just slightly calms me down. I’ve seen it knock my wife out within twenty minutes so I get what the doc was saying but whenever I try to explain my tolerance for meds, the doctors assume I’m an addict trying to score more pills. It’s annoying, so I’ve given up.

And, of course, the pills that don’t work for normal people and make them sick are working great for me. My wife noticed that within hours there was a distinct change in my demeanor. I’ve had multiple instances when I started to feel the panic creep in only for it to level out at like 20-25% of what it has been for the past year. The downside is that the pills cause me store water rather than process it so I get bloated and dehydrated, which really fucks with my voice; so I can’t take them the day before or day of a show. Which is kind of fucked up. The thing I was trying to fix was my ability to feel normal again at shows and those are now the only days I feel the anxiety and panic. But, my voice would never last the three hours on multiple nights per week with those pills. I found I can take a Xanax and still sing, though my voice is usually pretty wrecked after back to back shows so I can’t do those very often. I mean, I only get five a month anyway so whatever…

But, it is making things drastically better on those other days, which has been a huge relief and a huge help for both my wife and I. She’s able to get more done during the week and so am I. The biggest thing for me was just feeling normal again, most days at least. I had gotten to the point where I didn’t think that was even possible anymore. I thought that maybe constant anxiety and panic were just going to be my new normal. I’m glad it’s not.

(UPDATE: the pills now make me sick and their effectiveness has waned. Shit…)

Anyways, I’ve rambled far too long, so I’ll cut it off there and keep you updated as I progress. Next up is trying to find a therapist who is accepting new patients AND believes that autism is a real thing. Covid has caused them to be overrun with clients and hardly anyone is taking on new patients right now. Apparently, I’m too late to the game. And it’s weird. I get that the world has been a particularly anxiety-inducing place the last couple years with Covid, the stupid election, the insurrection, etc., but maybe, just maybe, I might be right about there being some connection between Covid and anxiety. I’m right about the connection between medication and autism. I’m right about the connection between my car accidents and my Meniere’s, as evidenced by the fact that when I get regular chiropractic work done on my upper neck (again, thanks Obamacare!) my Meniere’s symptoms go away and stay away. Maybe I’m right about Covid causing my anxiety. Doctors, please be open to the fact that maybe you don’t know everything and maybe sometimes, probably not every time, you should listen to your patients as they may have insight into their own physical and mental health. Maybe don’t listen to everyone, as some people think vaccines make you infertile, cause you be magnetic or contain microchips, but maybe listen to those who present rational, science-based claims that cite actual NIH medical trials about things you don’t understand or didn’t bother learning about, like autism. Maybe… Just kidding, most doctors don’t seem to give a fuck about people’s health. They just want kickbacks from drug companies for pushing pills. That’s why most doctors only treat the symptoms and not the causes of issues. That’s why we devalue the prevention of health issues, as there’s less money in that. That’s why our country has decided to barely regulate big pharmaceutical companies so they can charge whatever they want for life-saving or life-changing medications with no regard to the human costs of doing so. That’s why we have little to no oversight over the approval of generic medications, you know, the ones people can actually afford; because who gives a shit about the working-class people. Capitalism, isn’t it great?

(dictated but not read)

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!

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 #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-

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…

Random thoughts from an Aspergian Mind... aka this is what it's like to think like me

As I sit here in my room at a hotel near the Denver airport, I've been hard at work mulling over a few things that I probably shouldn't waste so much time and brain energy on:

1) How come the Brewers can take 2 of 3 from the Dodgers but go 0-3 against the Angels, who were mostly sans-Mike Trout?

2) As someone who is outspoken about his struggles with Asperger's/Autism, who enjoys researching/reading articles to help me (and probably moreso those around me) understand myself and my actions, and who is hoping to soon volunteer to help Autistic kids, how the fuck have I never heard of April being Autism Awareness Month until a week ago?!

Not doing so well with the awareness piece, ladies and gentleman... I have a vague memory of watching a Jon Stewart benefit but don't recall the specifics or a mention of an "Autism Awareness Month." But if we could get people to start seeing this in their children/students/etc. we could help a lot of kids (and parents/teachers/etc.) have a much easier go of it. I'm not full of regret or anything but I can't help but think of how different my life would've been if I had known I had Asperger's before 3-4 years ago.

3) Why the fuck did anyone listen to fun.?

Sorry, they came on an airport bar recently and jesus fuck... I don't think I've ever drank a $22 bourbon so fast... Of course, that was for a Knob Creek (double, but still a weak pour. Don't think it even filled up the measuring cup thingy all the way), so, yeah, airport pricing can go fuck itself...

4) How the fuck is there a band worse than fun.?

(Hint: they're called Grouplove, but take my word for it and don't look them up... Well, I guess that's not really a hint, it's just giving the answer but I didn't want you all to waste time, energy and your poor fucking ears trying to figure out/guess who it is...)

5) Buffalo Trace bourbon is delicious. OK, so this isn't a question, but still.

If this stuff cost $50 a bottle, I'd still splurge on some every now and again. At $25, it's a steal. I mean, I would never pay a penny more (wink. Just in case Buffalo Trace is listening... Then they would've seen the "wink." Damnit!). Though, full disclosure, my "house" bourbon is still Elijah Craig.

6) Is "Barbara Allen" my favorite traditional folk song?

My intro to this song is from the Bob Dylan Gaslight 1962 bootleg, which is hard as fuck to find something to link to online. But, there is a decent version on Youtube, which for some reason is cut off prematurely:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkOH7Rdfnkg

I can't believe a time existed (and a version of me) who played this tune at almost every show. Good times... I used to know hundreds of old folk songs. I wish I still did...

 7) I'm going to hate the upcoming Star Wars "The Rise of Skywalker" movie... Why will I still go see it?

I didn't like episodes 7 or 8 and the Solo movie was fucking dreadful (though "Solo" is immortalized by the marquee in my "LET'S GO OUT TONIGHT" MUSIC VIDEO) so I didn't have high hopes for it to begin with. But, after seeing the trailer, I'm out. Instead of moving forward with the new characters (Rey and Poe are both pretty fucking awesome, objectively), they are pulling dead people (literally and figuratively/in the Star Wars universe) back into the movie. Just let Rey and Poe be kickass and move on.

To be fair to episode 7, it was a fun watch despite the unimaginative script. And "Rogue One" is just a good movie. I wish we could've seen the rated-R cut as I have to imagine that was a fucking even more incredible movie.

8) Speaking of movies, when does "Hobbs and Shaw" come out?

This I could find easily on that ol' interwebs thing, but I'll just dream about how awesome it's gonna be instead. Fuck, Fast and Furious is awesome but these guys are seriously best in show when it comes to that world.

9) How do I make better drum sounds on my Moog Sub 37?

Again, something I could just look up but is more fun to spend hours fucking around with the knobs. So many knobs... I've lost entire days playing with sounds for literally no reason other than I like them and they sound cool. Now if only I could learn how to play a fucking keyboard. Not sure what the fuck the holdup is but for some reason keyboards make no sense to my brain. I think of things in terms of guitars since that's how I learned to play music so maybe that's it. Maybe my brain is like "fuck, this isn't anything like what we know. It's stupid and I hate it." Which sounds like pretty Aspergers-y and how I react to a lot of things, so probably.

10) When was the last time I sat and listened to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5? And has anyone articulated more of the human experience in a musical piece ever? Maybe "Bold as Love" but that's probably it...

I once made the mistake of putting ol' No. 5 on before bed to try and help relax my brain (you can see why going through this inane/insane list of questions I pose to myself and have to answer before moving on to the next one). I ended up spending the next 50 or so minutes getting so emotionally involved that I couldn't fall asleep for another 3 hours. Good times...

11) In this day and age of internets and things, why is NewsRadio not available online and more popular than it is (i.e. not at all)?

Holy shit! It is available on a thing called Crackle, whatever the fuck that is. They also have "The Critic" and "Bewitched." Oh, happy day!

Well, I now have some TV watching to get to, so fuck off. We'll talk next week.

(dictated but not read) 

Millennials are annoying as fuck... aka Millennials choose to be Millennials (at my age, anyways)...

Bradley vents about Millennials vs. Millennials by choice

Childhood Asperger's aka... We don't lose a fight, no matter how stupid...

Bradley discusses having Asperger's as a child and the symptoms to look for in others.

Why the Good Doctor is Autism-racist (if that's a thing) and why House is much more realistic portrayal of Autism... aka Help an Aspy muthafucker out...

Bradley talks about being Injun Brad, Portland, OR, but mostly about what he thinks of the way people with Asperger's and Autism are portrayed in movies and television.  Bradley also gives some of his favorite (non-diagnosed) Asperger's/Autistic characters in TV and Film and explains why Rick and Morty may be the most important show on television for people with Asperger's and/or Autism.  Any reason to promote Rick and Morty is one Bradley will take, not that the show needs any advertisement at this point.  But, it does need to be recognized for its bravery in the field of Autism.  Thank you Rick for being a (semi) positive role model for us Aspy muthafuckers.  Thanks also to Dr. House and Han Solo, we are forever in your debt...

The worst of sports and religion... aka Soccer and Televangelists...

Perhaps I should not be allowed to watch TV...  I'm not sure if it's the Asperger's or just me being a lazy fuck, but there's something absurdly comforting about watching television for me.  It's not just entertainment or a way to pass time for me.  It's something much more meaningful.  Movies don't do the same thing.  They don't calm my brain in the same way.  TV is like weed, which is probably why they go so well together (not that I'd know... or, would I?  I'll never tell...  *whispers* "they do...").  It stops my brain from being so Asperger's and allows it to relax and become more like a "normal" brain.  I think this is a common occurrence amongst people with mental health issues.  Kanye obviously loves "Rick and Morty" since THIS HAPPENED.  Yeah, so we have that in common, which is nice...

Anyway, here's the fuckin' video:

Video Blog #2... aka Haha! Like Poop! Anyways, it's about Meniere's Disease and Asperger's... Big surprise...

Holy shit, Batman!  I actually came through on my promise to make videos more of a priority and make them on schedule.  Phew, thought I lied to your asses once again, but nope, I did it y'all!  I really am as awesome as I think I am.  OK, maybe enough self-congratulating for now.  Well, one more, look how handsome I am.  And for the record, although it appears my shirt says "Leto," I assure you I am neither a Jared Leto nor Thirty Seconds to Mars fan.  My shirt, in fact, says "Titletown," in reference to Green Bay, WI and my beloved Green Bay Packers' 13 (and counting...) World Championships.  I left in just a hint of green for y'all as a hint (but, shit I just spoiled it anyways...).

Watch the damn video either by CLICKING HERE or just look below these very words.

I highly encourage you to comment, ask questions (this is my "Ask an Asperger's" segment, like Dave Chappelle's famous "Ask a Black Dude" with Paul Mooney) as I promise I won't get offended by any questions and love to help people understand (and humanize) Asperger's and other mental health disorders like depression, addiction, insomnia, etc. which I, unfortunately, know too much about.  Let me help you ask the hard questions, and if you suffer from any of these things, know that you are not alone and it's not something to be ashamed of.  There are many like you and knowing and feeling that is what helped me to be more open about it; that, and my Asperger's...

Finally... my video blog is alive... aka I'm able to stand up without vertigo and record this shit...

This week, Bradley discusses his struggles with Asperger's, why he thinks people have a hard time accepting mental health issues, Kanye West and his bipolar disorder and wraps on his latest theory regarding cats (hint:  hashbrown catspergers, or #catspergers, as the kids say).

same shit, different week...

Remember last week when I felt like shit due to my inner ear issue?  Well, take that and add headaches, slight vision blurriness, a lack of energy and increased nausea...  Going to see a specialist in a couple days.  Hopefully, they will have something for me that can help with this bullshit...

Who's tired? Just me? Fuck you... aka I'm glad Rick and Morty only has 30 episodes...

My favorite thing this week is WATCHING THIS (from :19-:24).  I know, I know, late to the party.  I've dabbled in Rick and Morty over the years but never had the time or energy or want or really even cared enough to start another fucking TV show.  Fucking Netflix and shit, there's too goddamn much to catch up on.  But, I relented, and the only winner here is me.  Of course I love it.  I always knew I would.  Luckily, if you don't care about sleep you can plow through the 30 episodes goddamn quick, like in a week (yes, I do other shit during the day and only really watch TV between midnight and 3am.  Healthy, right?  Probably explains my love for goddamn infomericals and my obsession with the clinically insane Cathy Mitchell and her RED COPPER 5 MINUTE CHEF.  Or, some of my all-time favorites in THE MAGIC BULLET, the long form infomercial which I've watched on repeat for hours, literally, and I mean "literally" in the literal sense, not the hipster "literally" type of way, and the granddaddy of them all, the 28 minute masterpiece, THE RONCO ROTISSERIE.  Seriously, 28 minutes?!  I know I've wasted at least 20 hours of my life as I've seen this shit at least 40 or 50 times.  Sad...  Well, it would be if I hadn't wasted an equal amount of time WATCHING THIS and actually ended up getting a power pressure cooker; though not the one in the infomercial.  It was Christmas gift and it is truly amazing.  The tenderest chicken and pork I've ever eaten has come out of this thing, in a fraction of the time it would take in a crockpot.  It's fucking so soft it's goddamn falling apart as you're pulling it out of the pressure cooker.  And if you throw in some onions and peppers and tomatillos, and OH MY GOD.  Wait, am I selling pressure cookers or writing a blog?  Seriously, what should I be doing right now?  Apparently, after a few bourbons I can't tell the difference.  Is there a difference?  What am I talking about?  Jesus...).

It's weird but this past week has been good.  No Asperger's meltdowns.  No random obsessions to sidetrack me (apart from catching up on Rick and Morty, but that is just smart.  Just fucking smart).  And, no setbacks in my musical career like the ones which have basically defined the last two years of my life.  It's good.  Like really fucking good.  It was so good, in fact, that I accidentally watched "Get Him to the Greek," one of my all-time favorite movies, and immediately was sad.  I used to be Aldous.  I still am sometimes.  It's not always fun (in fact, it's mostly depressing) but it was/sometimes is so fucking exciting.  I STILL SAY THIS ALL THE FUCKING TIME (though I usually substitute "Bradley Wik" for "Aldous Snow").  It's also weird but I cannot, abso-fucking-lutely cannot do accents (except for my New York accent, but that was hard-earned in the years I spent there) but I can mimic lines, like a parrot with Asperger's.  I once even learned a shitload of lines from the movie so I could mimic his British accent enough to convince an entire group of strangers at a bar that I was from England, only to reveal that I'm not and they must be fucking idiots to not know.  It went over so well.  I almost got punched in the face by a girl who was ready to to go home with me only seconds earlier (she swung and I was not too drunk to dodge).  It was a blast.  Good times...  I mean, how many times have we all DONE INTERVIEWS LIKE THIS...  If you answered never, I would concur as I've not been on the Today Show either.  But, the content rings true, in a completely not true kind of way, if that makes sense.  Hopefully, it doesn't but perhaps you understand the deeper inner turmoil that haunts you daily and tries, unsuccessfully, yet forcefully, to undermine your purest intentions and your dreams and your relationships and your "normal" life as you search endlessly for a respite, however momentary, from the damage it's already inflicted which is growing inward and spreading with each passing hour as you dwell deeper and harder on your own insecurities and faults... Wait, that last one sounded sexual and was quite funny.  "Deeper and harder" made me giggle.  At last, a benefit of being an immature man.  Take that world.  "WHO'S RETARDED NOW?"

It's nice being at home while writing this for once and not in some crappy to mediocre hotel room.  So nice, in fact (which I've said too many times tonight), that I'm going to call it a night earlier than normal (read:  midnight) and sleep in my own fucking bed as long as I possibly can.  Sorry for the short post, but fuck it, I don't care.  Love all y'all.  Goodnight muthafuckers!