PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Pop Music

So sorry to hear that, Eddie.

My father didn't think music was a good career either, encouraging me to 'get a trade' or 'work for the Post Office, those guys have it made'.

He was a printer by trade.

But he accepted my choice as my choice, and came to be comfortable with it when he saw me making a living at it.

He and my mom would come out to our gigs when Mrs. Notes and I decided to target the retirement audience.

Bob

I've been trying to think of what to say to this since you've posted it. I'm in Wisconsin. It gets cold enough here that people go fishing on the ice. I'm sure you already knew that. But, do you recognize and ice hole when you see one? I do. The truth in what he said wasn't about you. It was about himself.



You don't truly instill someone with great work ethic. You can try, but it just doesn't work that way. Ultimately it is their own choice. Disappointed in you? Heads up, there was NO WAY you would please someone like that. Man, he FAILED YOU as a father. You may feel the need to defend him or say some great attributes about him; but nothing excuses any of this. He didn't expose any short comings you have. He made all of his glaringly obvious to anyone not in the situation.

Sorry you went through that...or are still living with it.

I hope this doesn't come across wrong. I don't mean it as a "who needs a hug?" kind of way. I mean it as a "F him!" kind of way.

Not your style of music at all, but the bridge may give you a bit of perspective... 52 million views on a lyric video that the band didn't even put out, I'm thinking you're not alone.

Numb

My dad told the hospice people how mean and hateful I was. (He was a work of art my whole life.) The hospice rep told him to stop that we were all here to help him.

The last thing he said to to was "what happened to us?" I told him "life happened."

I found out later that he was that way with my brothers. The worse was my oldest brother - he went though his whole life couch surfing. He was on the street. I got him the help he needed after a carbon monoxide accident. Just homeless - not abusing any drugs or booze. When I got him on disability because of the brain injury from the CO, he received $500.00 a month. My brother had no idea what to do with that kind of money. I told him "you need winter boots?" He said "I can buy them?" I said "sure if you want." That broke my heart.

I do check on my brother to be sure he is doing ok with his money. He is doing fine.

Sometimes parents really don't know how to parent. This does not make things right - it just is.

...Deb

I'm no doctor, but I played doctor with the girl next door... a lot, and I agree 100% with what Caaron is saying here...
Eddie, get some professional therapy and lose that poisonous baggage... Life is too short, and "this ain't no trial run".
(sorry Mr. Mad-Duh-Sn, I couldn't hep-ma-self)

Little More Time

Hi Eddie,

I have been to sick to type. I been reading this thread. You know I care about you and I understand better than most what you are going throuth.

I am taking enough pain meds that it is a bit hard to think well.

I was seriouslly abused by my father and left home when I was 13. That set me up for PTSD. The PTSD set me up for drug addection which I recovered from.

None of this crap is easy Eddie. There is no cure for all the pain people have put you through. It does help to talk to someone who actually has been there. I am here for you man. You can PM me anytime. I will give you my telephone number. I will get in my damn car and drive to Ohio if need be. Perhaps not this week. I need all these tubes and stiches out before I can drive. Plus I would scare hell out of you if I showed looking like this....lol

PLease take care of yourself and call me anytime you need to talk.

Brothers in arms!


Billy

Glad you're doing well Billy, hope you're back on your feet soon!



This has come up a few times recently in some of my musical circles (many of which involve musical education). The typical classical/western/colonial music system revolves around perfection and hierarchy, which in turn makes people think they aren't "good enough" to make music.

Here's an example of something a teacher friend shared recently.

There's the old saying "good enough for rock and roll" - I firmly believe that it's the imperfections that make music interesting and more human. And of course that's why you're all here - because RealTracks recorded from real musicians sound more interesting than any perfectly quantized computer-generated alternative.



Excuse me, I seem to have something in my eye

I learned the hard way that the best family is the one you choose. We here at the forums are a family of sorts, and not even a dysfunctional one given some of the responses here.



Agreed. Mental health is too easy to lose, and too difficult to recover. It is never a bad time to seek some professional help.

We all love you Eddie - hell, I love all you guys! You make this job worth getting up for!

Thanks to everybody for the kind and supportive words. Oddly there are things I took from my upbringing that I wouldn't change. Part of it came from family values, and was enhanced by the time in the military. Like, I am NEVER late. NEVER. I'd rather be 20 minutes early than 1 minute late. Veterans in general share that punctuality. When I was still working, I NEVER took days off. I can't give you a better example that Friday, Jan 25th, 2013. A car crossed a slippery highway during a snow storm and hit me broadside. I had some broken ribs on the left side, some bruised on the right, a bruised sternum from the air bag, small cuts all over my face from the shattered driver's side window, and a concussion from my head striking the passenger side window when the car hit the guard rail and careened back out into the second lane of traffic, spun around 180 degrees. The impact was so hard it knocked both shoes off and somehow I was "squirted" out of my seat belt.

Despite all of that, and given that it was a Friday, I took exactly 2 days off work the next week. As soon as the concussion (and it was a bad one) subsided to where I could drive, I went back to work. My logic was "I can be in pain at home or at the office. The office needs me because nobody will have to pick up my slack." The bosses worked with me to make sure I could sit all day, including bringing me lunch at noon and making sure I had water all day long. That is the work ethic I learned from observing my father. He never took a day off.

I made his disdain for music as a career path a positive. When you factor in how stubborn I am, that drove me to work harder, practice more, and drive band members to get every bit out of all of us that I could. I was going to show him that being in a band was a job like working in a factory, which he did his whole working life. The disconnect first came to a head when I told him, in these words, "You did fine by us. You worked hard to make sure we had a comfortable place to live, food and clothes, as well as finding ways to fund our hobbies. But I am the next generation, and blue collar is not for me. I don't want to be what you were. I have talents you didn't have and you must have known that because you sent me to lessons. Now that I am using that talent to forge out a career you are fighting me."

Then he got sick. His work as a finish buffer of musical instruments exposed him to lacquers and various other chemical compounds, and he ended up with asthma, emphysema, and as a result of smoking WAY too much for 45 years on top of the other stuff, lung cancer. When that happened, he checked out. He gave up and became mad at the world for things that were the result of his conscious choices. I am now 70, just 3 years younger than he was when he died, and never found the urge or desire to even try smoking. I have never touched a drug, even weed, despite being in a place where it grew wild for 18 months. And I am now 28 years beyond the years I drank way too much. Dec 31, 1993 was the last time I had a drink. He blamed everybody for his eventuality, and initially I bought into it. I have come to terms with it for the most part. As I near the end of my own life's journey and have a grasp on what deflection is, I understand why he was like he was. (That was HIS "why". To blame everybody else for his troubles.)

Part of his disdain for me was that I divorced the mother of my children and that was just not something his generation did. Compounding the felony was that I was on the road so much that 2 of his 6 grandchildren, who lived out of state, never came up to visit. Apparently I was supposed to stay with that horrible woman because he wanted me to. Then factor in that I quit the post office, something he thought was a dream job (it wasn't), to pursue music, and that was the next cog in his hate machine.

So yeah, I understand that his not being supportive of my choice or career to the point where he tried to undermine me at every turn was on him and not me. It's just hard to put to rest, and the competitive nature in me has made my inability to write the next White Christmas seem like another failure, like baseball when I was a kid, like relationships in my whole life... when I know in my heart that I am striving
for something that is extremely unlikely if only from a purely statistical perspective. Even if I DID write the next White Christmas it would never get any further than my hard drive because I have no clue how to get it out of my house and on the way to my Grammy Award.

As far as therapy, I have spent my share of time with shrinks and it helped some, but ultimately I am such a competitive person that I even find myself in a competition between the angel on my right shoulder and the devil on my left.

My best friend once told me "You are so stubborn you'd bury yourself alive to prove you know how to use a shovel." And she was right.

You've all seen that come out here from time to time. I am really a good guy with a great sense of humor and a huge heart. It just doesn't always show through.

But I digress, in this thread that largely due to me has gone WAY off track. Thank you all again for your kind words.

So just to appear to be on topic, I like pop music that was pop music when I was in my musically formative years. In the Motown, AWB, EW&F, TOP years.