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:
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…