The Song Remains The Same

After is week like this, I realize again how important music is to me. It's been one hell of a week... a hell of a good week, a hell of a bad week. I have flown atop the clouds; I have wallowed in the filth. I cursed my friends and drank to my enemies. I took counsel from someone who will break my heart, and betrayed someone who will dress my wounds. This week, I have said things I never imagined I would say (good AND bad), and likewise, I have heard things I never imagined I would hear. And I lived. Smiles and tears, alert and afraid, I LIVED! Truly, this was the textbook example week for the concept of the duality of the Southern thing

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The week began with an abnormal fixation. My father died over 30 years ago. usually, I'm fine on Fathers Day. This year, on the spur of the moment, I took almost half of my show talking about my dad, sharing memories and talking about his love of music. The next day, as I was on the air, I seemed to see a reminder of Roxanne at every turn, even hearing her voice as I imagined the things she would say to me. I had multiple technical and protocol problems at work -- not my fault, but within my control -- causing me to have an atypical complaint session with my bosses. Moments after arriving for a planned evening with friends, I bailed (at the request of my superiors) to cover a repetitive SNAFU at my job, only to get my car stuck on an embankment as I tried to leave. Moments later, I got a "never mind" phone call. The words which spilled from my mouth over the ensuing five minutes would be familiar to any sailor or stable boy.

Back in the non-radio world, I did one of the bravest things I've done since Rox's death.... so brave and personal that I'm not ready to blog about it yet. My daughter brought me distressing, tragic news from within her husband's family. I got to spend wonderful time with a dear friend I'd not seen in months. I clawed and circled with the one person who's always there for me, right or wrong. I caught another person whom I considered a friend in a bare-faced lie... a lie which cost me a chunk of money. I capped off this noteworthy week by oversleeping and missing a birthday party for one of the few non-radio friends that I have.

After a week like this, I need music. I need to listen to something which grips my heart and my mind. I need to honor my pain. I need to know that the pain will bring forth something precious and beautiful. I listen to Jackson Browne, and think about how his most poignant work came as he was coming to terms with the suicide of his wife.

I listen to John Lennon, to Jim Croce, to Harry Chapin, and to Bob Marley, and wonder how they must feel -- wherever they are -- that in our world, we are denied all the unwritten songs and untold stories a full lifetime would have borne. I listen to the symphonies and operas of Mozart, and I know that grace and beauty have no limits. I listen to Warren Zevon, and I see how that same grace and beauty can be personified in the way a man chooses to face his own imminent death.

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I do not remember a time in my life when I did not retreat into music. I should have known all along that I would end up on the radio, serving a daily helping of love songs, party songs, rebel songs, desperate, triumphant, futile, celebratory... there is no end to the moods they evoke. Music is God's most perfect form of communication. You can hide from spoken words. You can hide from printed words. You can hide from pictures, preaching, and philosophy.

But a song.... The right song, at the right time, rushes into your soul, past all your walls and defenses, and instantly strikes at your heart. This flood of emotion is something from which you can not hide. It binds itself to you. Tightly. Each of us can remember one unfamiliar, unknown song which we heard one day by chance. The thought behind the music strikes us so deeply that our mind refuses to let it go until we hear it again and can identify it. Months, sometimes years pass, but it stays there, imprinted on our soul.

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So after a week like this, I return to music. And as always, the music awaits me. The song, as Led Zeppelin says, remains the same. It is essential, probably more so in 2012, The year Of Essentials. From the beginning, it is the song of my life, and now, it remains the song of LIFE 4.0.

Today's Lesson? Maybe there is none, except the lesson we learn whenever music comforts us... that all life is weaved in communion with its surroundings. No matter how threadbare it becomes, we still can find song after song after song to ignite the things we feel in our soul. And when we rise, or we fall, or we die trying, there will be a song we will then sing.

StevenK

The Phone's Dead, Not Me

I threw quite a scare into some people yesterday. In addition, I received a strong reminder about how much I mean to one special person. It reinforces to me that even though I sometimes don't know where I'm heading, I am far from lost.

I did not come in to work on time. I did not answer the phone. My absence prompted some caution and some fear. For all my personal quirks, professionally, I am a rock. My responsibilities at WABX and our partner station WIKY are paramount in my life. For me to be missing, and unreachable... that's a scary scenario.

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What happened was this: I managed to fall into such a deep sleep that I not only overslept work, but did not hear either the alarm or phone. This never happens. I have sleep apnea. Also, I take diuretics to expel the excess fluid which my heart produces. So I seldom sleep more than three or four hours without interruption. Yesterday I did. I went to bed at seven o'clock, and was still out of it at 5:30. Not to brag, but I'm very dependable. When I did not show up for work, it caused more than small bit of anxiety. Especially for my best friend Cathy. It fell to her to get the "we can't reach Steven" phone call. It's a call she's long dreaded.

Cathy and I talk about death more than most friends do. As I have frequently mentioned, I never expected Roxanne to die before me. Likewise, Cathy's father had not planned on having to carry on without her mother. Cathy's first husband died before he turned 40. The one good thing about the circumstances of my wife Roxanne's death is that I was not there when it happened. Had I been, I might have never been able to deal with it as calmly as I did.

What with my bad heart and significant obesity, Cathy knows she may well be the one to find me when my time comes. Add to this my fascination with death, along with the knowledge that I have spoken and blogged about thoughts of suicide. I know how Cathy must have worried while speeding to my house. I know she felt a great sense of relief when I sat up in bed with a shocked look. And I know, from the tight hug she greeted me with, how scared she had been. An hour later, her heart was still racing. Fear is a devastating emotion.

Today's lesson? It's nice to be loved. I have often mentioned my lack of success at romance. But that doesn't mean I'm unlucky in love. There are many degrees of affection. For all my complaining, and my contempt at being alone. I know as long as I have Cathy, I'll never be unloved. I am often luckier than I realize.

StevenK

Fire Is My Deadly Friend

My mind is rambling tonight, which is not unusual. 12 years at WABX today. Great ride, sometimes bumpy, with a sixteen-month interruption. But with all the changes in radio and in me, I'm looking tonight for a focus of direction in my personal life. The past months have found me spending too much time amidst the ashes of my dreams, licking my wounds. They needed it; that's for damn sure.

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As I began emerging from the shell last year, I foud it most intoxicating to dream. Dreaming fed my inner fire. It gave me inspiration, and a target at which to aim. My dreams, one dream in particular, became oh, so personal, and oh, so embedded as to become part of my psyche.

Dumb idea.

There's no other to say it, my dream was met with ridicule. Blame no one but me. As I was told often, by more than one person, I grabbed at every teasing glipse of sunshine, determined to find the warmth and heat of its promise. I turned a deaf ear to anyone who dared say that I was chasing the wind.

Everyone but me seemed to know there was nothing there. Finally, for my own good, they put me in my place with such ferocity and frigidity that I shrank back into my coccoon. What a familiar place this was to me, with no energy for anything beyond mourning my dreams, and reminding myself how much I despise it when people do things for my own good.

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I often wonder of I am one of those people who needs an imposssible dream, a shining, unreachable goal on which to focus. The one I had is now in ruins. I'm told that the fire that fueled its pursuit came terribly close to incinerating me. I think that's bullshit. But people who refuse to face their fatal flaws always think that any criticism is bullshit.

It's no exaggeration to say I am an addicted to the fire. I need that fire to excel. It's likely that I need it just to survive, if only because I've learned to use it as a reason to go on. I also know it can turn on me, with deadly consequences. It's already come close.

Today's lesson? As with all things in life, I must keep my pasions in moderation. This time last year, I was dreaming high and mighty, and damn, I accomplished miracles. But I also burned bridges -- of which I have few -- and scared away my best and possibly last chance at happily ever after. I know I'll ride the rocket again. I know how to ride; I know how to steer. Now I must learn to govern the throttle.

StevenK

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Champions

I know my Roxanne is smiling tonight, and not alone. As with the rest of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, I know that somewhere, she is taking note of the NCAA basketball championship won a few hours ago by her beloved Wildcats. I smile to think of how, with blustering enthusiasm, she is regaling anyone who will listen with tales of her love for the program. I know this, because this is how she lived. And even in death, the things that matter endure.

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In the statement I posted at her death, I described Rox as a proud Kentuckian, by way of New Jersey. She loved her adopted state of Kentucky. In lockstep with most other Kentuckians, basketball -- and the fate of the University of Kentucky team -- was one of her passions. You can credit me, or blame me, for that. In 1980, as we watched (at my insistence) UK facing Louisiana State in the final game of the season with the Southeastern Conference championship on the line, Rox looked at me sternly, and in all seriousness, growled, "I'm missing The Love Boat."

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This is Roxanne's one and only tweet. She joined Twitter only for the specific purpose of welcoming Coach John Calipari to the Big Blue Nation. She missed the official start of practice by just under three weeks.

My duty was clear. I had to bring her into the fold. It took a few years, but eventually, she found a taste for the Big Blue Kool-Aid. In time, she became more stricken with Cat Fever then even I was. She even once changed doctors, because hers wanted to refer her to a specialist educated at Duke University. Her death, on the brink of the John Calipari era at Kentucky, was cruel in its timing. On her last day of life, she joined CoachCal.com, the coach's website. She signed up for Twitter only so she could sent a tweet to Cal. She did (see photo). It was the only one she ever sent.

But sadness be damned. I know if Earthly perceptions continue in whatever lies next, her smile today will be as bright as ever.

Me, I'm happy. The team I love, the team I've passionately followed all my life, sits atop the world. And understandably I'm also sad. This championship, like the first two of my lifetime, came without her at my side. But in her way, she never leaves me, because, as I've said so often on LIFE 4.0, she is such a part of who I am, that we are inseperable.

Today's Lesson? Joy and triumph may only be felt in this existence. No one knows. But if they can span the gap between here and wherever she now calls home, my Roxanne is having the time of her afterlife today. And why shouldn't she? God knows she's earned it.

StevenK

The Next Great Passion

Sometimes when I miss Roxanne more than usual, I break out the DVD's and watch something we shared, or something of hers. Tonight, it's Egypt.

Roxanne made it a habit to seek out new fascinations. She believed -- and there is considerable scientific research to back this up -- that continuing to learn new things kept her mind sharp and slowed the mental effects of aging.

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Rox developed a passion for the ancient Egyptian civilizatiion, a passsion which she never fully succeeded in spreading to me. We had planned to see the King Tutankhamun exhibit in Chicago, but never worked out the specifics of getting away from work at the same time. I shall always regret that. It would have been a grand sight, one which would have set her ecstatic.

In examining who I am now, I realize that I did take much from her. She was consumed by what she learned, and eager to share it with me. In typical Roxanne fashion, she clung on to her new knowledge. Every tidbit made her appetite more voracious. And as she told me of the magical things she discovered, her eyes danced, and her spirit rose like the dawn. It is this dedication, this determination to learn, that I turn to when I need an example of how to live.

Todays Lesson? One never knows when the next great passion will reveal itself, or from where it will come. Sometimes I need to remind myself that life after Roxanne is not just about dealing with the things in my path, and overtaking the things that lie in the way. It's also about keeping that path open and unencumbered, in order to welcome the things which I meet coming toward me. It has talken me over two years to realize this. It seems so elementary. And it seems so right that I would come to realize it in the Year Of Essentials

StevenK

Useless Beauty

Regular listeners -- and I hope that's you -- know that I mercilessly trash Valentine's Day every year. This year was no exception. It's not the day itself I object to. It's the general feeling that only pathetic losers are unattached, coupled with the nonstop flow of syrupy sweet emotion, which only serves to remind us of what we're missing.

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As you may or may not know, one of my tasks in the rock penthouse is to supervise the Love Songs With Delilah show on our partner station. The nonstop flow of Valentine's love doesn't help when it comes to feeling less alone. It's my job, so I usually insulate myself from the sentiment, much as a bank teller gets no particular thrill from grasping hundreds of dollars in her fist. Sometimes, though, it adds up, and the cynic in me takes over. That's when I start thinking that there has to be more to life than wandering day to day and making sure people get their proper quota of classic rock that really rocks.

This evening, I saw something so beautiful that it made me cry. My tears brought into focus the reason that I hate being alone. Those tears, and the powerful rush of emotion that brought them on, will die with me. Their story will never be told because I have no one to share my beauty and tears. I hope to love again someday, if only so beauty and tears will be something more than just my sad companions.

Today's Lesson? I may feel better tomorrow. I probably will feel better tomorrow. I may even do something positive to help myself deal with my fatalistic attitude. Tonight, though, I'm going to cry. It's what I do

StevenK

The Year Of Essentials

One of my radio mentors would ritually strip his station bare every January 1. He would remove the recorded promotional announcements, and the liner cards that act as reminders of things the DJ's are supposed to mention (events, contests, sponsors, etc) Announcers were left with only the music, and their own creativity. Why? His thinking was that leaving the DJ's with a bare canvas would give him the chance to objectively evaluate everyone's priorities. If you have freedom to do anything, what you choose to do will say a lot about how you perceive yourself as a personality, and about how you endeavor to entertain and serve your listeners.

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Just the basics, Just the primal, just the facts, ma''am (does anyone else even remember "Dragnet?" ) This programmer was one of the most intelligent people I've ever worked with. So, in the grand radio tradition of swiping someone else's good idea, I hereby wecome the new year, which I christen:

2012: The Year Of Essentials.

I want to dedicate this next year of my journey to making certain that LIFE 4.0 will support whatever lies ahead. Insuring that my house is in order will not be particularly exciting. It will be hard, boring work, which is why I've left it till now. I have needed the excitement and a sense of velocity in order to to keep me motivated.

But we all reach a point when it's time to eliminate the distractions and fix things from the bottom up. That is my loosely scripted goal for the year. Looking back at 2011, I get breathless. My expectations were far surpassed by my achievements.

Our achievements, really. Cathy deserves at least half of the credit for what I've done. She has been there with me every step of the way, except of course for my fumbled try at romance. Maybe not having Cathy at my side was the reason I fucked that up. Do you suppose I should take her along next time I have a date ( or a "was it a date or not") Granted, it might be a little awkward. It also might make a hell of a blog post.

Today's Lesson? Building on a good thing. In setting my course of action for 2012, I'm keeping alive the spirit of The Year Of Rule Six. Why give up a good thing, especially when it's successful? I plan to continue practicing continuing to practice brutal honesty, and circling the wagons. It's worked pretty well so far. I hope 2012 will be as special as 2011, but as for specific goals? I'd rather just fly as hard and fast as I can, and see where I land. It should be a bountiful year. If, as the saying goes, the fun is found not in the destination, but in the journey, it doesn't matter where I end up on December 31.

But I'll betcha it will be somewhere terrific.

StevenK