Fringeville #212: I’ve got my music back! ...and don’t be a bunch of wusses!

I finally have my new cochlear implant processors!

They are N7’s by Cochlear, and these puppies offer some pretty impressive iPhone compatibility via wireless technology. In addition to controlling the processors right from my iPhone instead of with a separate remote, I can take phone calls or listen to music via Bluetooth. It’s private. It’s awesome. It was worth the long fight with insurance to finally get these replacements.

Whether I’m using my iPhone for calls or to stream music, the clarity is phenomenal. It’s like having my ugly brother from New England right in my head when he calls or being in the studio with The Beatles while they seemingly knock out a tune just for me.

And the coolest thing? When I’m listening to anything over wireless, I’m the only one hearing it. Unless I sing along (which frightens animals and small children) one would never know I’m listening to Harry Nilsson singing Coconut, Mark Williams performing Out Past the Moon, or Clapton wailing his guitar on Motherless Children.

Listening to music is my once again my greatest joy.

That’s no small thing.

Music, you see, is by far the biggest challenge for many folks with cochlear implants. With this processor, listening to much of my favorite music is approaching (for me at least) a quality close to what I remember before my hearing loss began as a teenager.

I understand lyrics better than I can ever remember doing so. Even before losing my hearing entirely, I struggled with that. Back when I used to play in bands, I often deliberately slurred words I didn’t know simply because I couldn’t make them out. (There was no Google in those days, and most albums …yes, those vinyl things that we put on turntables back in the stone age …didn’t include printed lyrics. Did anyone notice I was fudging? Probably not. We played in noisy bars, most of the audience was drinking, and it was loud rock-n-roll.)

It's not perfect. There may never be a perfect replacement for natural hearing. Some musical artists remain more challenging for me to listen to than others. Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street wall of pure sound is still somewhat overwhelming. The same with ELO. But Springsteen’s bare-bones Nebraska, always my personal favorite by Bruce, is something I love even more.

Neatest of all, I hear things in the background I never even knew were there. Instruments I never noticed before on a track. Crosstalk in the background. Sometimes, even the clash of a pick against a guitar string.

Before this upgrade, my brain sometimes had trouble identifying songs on my iPhone that I’d listened to countless times before. If I knew the song was coming, there was no problem. But if I was shuffling songs on my phone and didn’t look at the screen to see what track was playing, it might take anywhere from ten to thirty seconds to recognize the song …even if I’d heard the song a thousand times before.

This issue has been virtually eliminated. I either know what the song is the moment it starts, or within a few seconds. It’s because, I believe, that the quality of sound is so much better that my brain recognizes the song immediately, or very nearly so. I haven’t had a chance to see what happens if I catch a song already underway. I suspect that I’ll recognize songs faster than I used to because the clarity is so superior to my previous processor technology. I also haven’t really listened to any music that wasn’t delivered by Bluetooth, so radio and live music are still untested, but they will certainly be superior to what I had before.

One problem I don’t any more have is an inability to listen to new music. That was an annoyance for the first few years after my implants were done in 2009/2010.  I’ve been blessed that I am one of the fortunate CI recipients who can experience and enjoy new music (or at least new to me). Carlene Carter and Jill Hennessey were artists I’d never heard before and all their music was previously unknown to me. (Carlene Carter was also the first performer I heard live after my implants. She opened for John Mellencamp in Hershey and I fell in love with her work. She’s a hard-working gal, too. She performed a magnificent solo set then hustled right out to the lobby to talk with fans and sell her CD’s. As to Jill …can someone ask her to perform here in Da Valley? I’ll buy her wings if she does 4 Small Hands and Edmonton. Oh, hell, if she does ANYTHING. I love her work.)

And it is a special treat when I get the opportunity to listen to Mark Williams, who has become one helluva songwriter. Perhaps it was all those practices we had in his family’s garage in West Pittston or in that hillside tilted shack just off Route 92 in Harding, but my brain seems almost pre-wired to anything he does. I am thankful for that.

Long and short, I went from being single-sided deaf with one barely functional processor on my left ear to being fully bilateral again with the latest and greatest technology. I still have at least one more visit to my audiologist to tweak the mapping for the right ear a bit. My brain must adjust to the right implant working again. (The right side used to be dominant, but now the left side is strongest after carrying the load alone for nearly a year.)

As I’ve said before, we live in an age of miracles. It remains to be seen if I can write music again or sing on key, but I think there is an open door there that was previously shut tight.

* * *

I am writing fiction again, though it is most definitely not like riding a bike. There’s been an erosion of skills, and that can be a tad overwhelming. I have lot of self-doubt and some trouble concentrating. I think the only solution is just to write every second that I can. Just keep at it, and perhaps I can get back on track.

I’m also doing “car chats” which are short little posts on Instagram. They are generally humorous. I get to let my hair down. What hair I have left, that is. I might do more with that because it’s a good pressure-release for me. I’m also fairly certain I’m entering my second childhood (assuming I ever left the first one) so I make no excuses for my behavior.

When I did a car chat on Sunday, my wife asked why I would post about the topic (erectile dysfunction commercials -OR- the great wussification of the American male, whatever you believe my point was). Hey, I’m a recurrent prostate cancer survivor. If want to spit in cancer’s eye, I’m qualified.

Here is the post. Think whatever you wish. If you don’t like what I said tell me. Don’t be a bunch of wusses.

You bunch of wusses! 

 * * *

JUST SAYING.

* * *

Finally, I’m pouring y'all a double shot.

First up, a song of great social and political import:

Next, a song of hope and inspiration. After all, if life’s been good for this guy maybe it can be good for all of us:

* * *

…and now a message of perhaps the greatest social and political import of all:

...Be good to each other.

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Fringeville #179: Summer’s Midpoint

The randomness continues…

***

I have been writing snippets of things for probably two months now, intending to post them and never having the time. I am finally posting some of this backlog. It is in no particular order.

Enjoy. Or gag. Your call.

***

I am at that point in my life where I want to see things more clearly. I try to strip things down to their core to see what makes them tick. To see if they are the right or wrong things to do. To see if I have the courage to speak against that which I believe to be wrong.

Being politically unaffiliated helps me. When looking at an issue, I take the politics out of things and simply ask myself, “…is this the right thing to do?” 

Sometimes the answers are unsettling.

***

I figured out what I am. A mystery, wrapped in an enigma, deep fried in peanut oil, slathered with chicken wing sauce and coated with ranch dressing.

Or I am composed entirely of bacon.

Either is a possibility.

***

I started writing a song earlier in the summer. I know, big whoop, but I haven’t written a song in decades. I had to stop right around the time I started to get half-decent at it because my hearing loss was too severe. I sold my 4-track and turned the page.

When I got my cochlear implants, I began to enjoy music again. It wasn't and still isn't the same as my natural hearing, but sometimes it is very, very close. Every piece of music I listen to is a voyage of discovery. This is true even with songs I knew prior to being engulfed by deafness.

Before my implants, I read somewhere that I would never be able to enjoy music my brain didn’t already know. This was true at first. But a funny thing has happened since 2009, when I got my first implant. I can enjoy new music (which for me is anything I haven’t heard before). It takes a little work at first, but every time I listen to a new song I “hear” more of it. I have artists on my iPhone that I never dreamed I’d have because I never thought I’d enjoy new musical frontiers: Carlene Carter, Jill Hennessy, Joan Osborne and many more. I also have old favorites, including a whole mess of Linda Ronstadt (who I’ve always loved). Yes, there is a trend here. I spend a lot of time with the women on my iPhone.

I’ve also done a very tiny bit of performing, generally one song a year when The Last Surviving Buffalo Band does their summer reunion show.


I can also enjoy live concerts again.

Carlene Carter was the first artist I heard live after my cochlear implants. She was opening for John Mellencamp in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I had never heard her work before, and I was powerfully affected. Carter is a hard-working artist. As soon as she finished her set, she hoofed it to the lobby to sell and sign her CD’s. I did something I never do at a concert: I bought her CD and asked her to autograph it. I also told her she was the first artist I’d heard since regaining my hearing. I could tell she was moved. She asked me what I wanted her to write on the CD. I told her: “Anything you want.” So that’s exactly what she wrote, and it was a hoot for both of us.

Where was I? Oh, yes...

I was listening to music again and dabbling with my guitar, but I didn’t have the courage to attempt to write.

That changed in May of this year, when I read the story of Claudia Patricia Gómez González. She was shot dead in Rio Bravo, Texas by a Border Patrol agent after she and a group of others entered the United States illegally. The Border Patrol’s account of the shooting morphed from a tale of a group of assailants armed with ‘blunt objects’ attacking the agent to a group rushing the agent. In the later account the blunt objects were not mentioned. In any case, a shot rang out and a young woman was killed.

Claudia Patricia Gómez González was a forensic accountant (a dangerous bunch, those bean counters). She died near Laredo, and her story has been largely in the rear view with the emergence of the news of families being broken apart after entering America illegally.

Her death haunted me, and in my brain a long-locked door began to crack open. I began to write music for the first time in damned near forever.

I finished that song recently. It is not performed very well, because performing is still extremely challenging for me. It takes a lot of work just to make sure I am singing in the same key I’m playing on the guitar, and I am extremely rusty on guitar. I am also an old fart, and that doesn’t help either. I get winded tying my shoes, let alone singing and playing a guitar.

I put the song up on YouTube, and asked my best friend and professional musician, Mark Williams, to listen to it. If the song wasn’t good, he’d tell me. That’s the way it’s always been with us. If it sucks, we say so. (The ones that sucked were overwhelmingly mine.)

He said what I'd written gave him chills.

The song is called “This is not America.” You can find it by clicking here.

I may upset some people with it. Others may embrace it. That doesn’t matter to me. What matters is the message.

I do worry no one will hear that message.

I’m just a 60-year old guy schlepping along from day-to-day, trying just to tread water like many other Americans. I realize that even if I have managed to write something powerful, it will probably fall through the cracks. I don't have a massive social media following to push it along. But if one person …just one person …hears it and is moved to address injustice, I’ve done my job.

In the end, it’s not what just what you do now, it’s what you leave behind.

***

The universe may be conspiring against me again.

It’s too early to be sure, but I have been in a bit of a decline the last several months. I am still a full-functioning idiot, but I am slowing down drastically. My wife convinced me to go through my symptoms with my doctor during my recent regular visit. This led to a test a few days later. My doctor called me three hours after the test was performed to tell me he was referring me to a specialist.

In my experience, we usually have to chase down doctors for test results. A quick call from the doc after testing is a bit ominous. It has been several days and no call from the specialist’s office. My calls to either my doc or the specialist hits their answering services.

I hate answering services, especially in the hot-damned middle of the frigging day when I have very few opportunities to call.

I am in a holding pattern until I either get that call or I decide to just pop in unannounced at one or more doctor’s office. I probably fell through the cracks. (Wrong phone number given to the specialist, a sticky note with my info fell into a half-eaten box of Lo Mein, cosmic rays killed a hard drive…whatever. I'm used to it. It's always something.)

Bottom line: It may be nothing. Maybe I’m just in lousy shape. Hey, this is me we’re talking about, what could possibly go wrong?

All I know for sure is that if something happens to me, there will be layoffs at Perdue Farms, specifically in the chicken wing processing plant. There may also be a lot of one-winged chickens at Perdue, because they won’t need both wings at once when I'm out of the picture.

The impact of my demise on Frank’s RedHot Sauce production is unknown. Ditto whether there will be layoffs or possible closings of any Ken’s dressings plants. The celery market will be fine. That’s green stuff. I limit my intake of that because it fills me and reduces my wing intake.

***

I wish I could draw. I don't need the skills of an expert artist, just enough "stuff" to draw rudimentary cartoons. I imagine them all the time, and simply can't execute.

Today I envisioned a young hen strolling down a path lined with chicken coops. Lipsticked beak. A purse. A necklace.

Three roosters, cigarettes dangling from their beaks, are leering as she passes, and each shouts a comment:

"Hey, Henny...do those legs go all the way up?"

"Flap those wings, baby!"

"What you got under those feathers, Henny!"

The caption underneath: Fresh Young Chickens

This probably even isn't original. I must have seen this somewhere. The Far Side. Herman. 

Even if it is original, I suspect it's for the best that I can't even draw a straight line.

***

Some months back, Ben Bradlee Jr. did a phone interview with me for a book he is writing on Luzerne County and the 2016 Election. I’m not sure what he expected to hear when we talked, but there was a brief pause when I told him I’d left politics and was unaffiliated.

One thing I will say is that Bradlee is a reporter who does his homework before an interview. He knew I chaired two GOP districts in the county. He asked hard questions about one of them. I’ve no idea if anything I said will make it into his book. If it does, I may lose some friends. So be it. I simply spoke the truth as I saw it on that particular day.

I understand why he called. Luzerne county was pivotal. I was one of six district GOP chairs in Luzerne County. I was a loyal Republican and worked hard for my party and its candidates. Depending on who you are, I share either a smidge more of the credit or blame for the 2016 Election than the average voter.

Yet I have abandoned all party politics.

Why? 

Both major parties seem hell-bent on pitting one half of America against the other. Frankly, we’ve had enough of that, and I am fairly certain it is only going to get worse.

I will vote in the General Elections. I can’t vote in Pennsylvania’s closed Primaries. At this point in my life, I do not see myself registering under a party banner again. I’d rather focus on people. All people.

A related side note: I have also found that the farther I drift from politics, the closer I get to God. I think that tells me I’m moving in the right direction.

***

I have lost many people over six decades, but the losses that hurt the most are the people I’ve lost who are still here.

***

Recently the following songs played on my iPhone as I drove to work: Norwegian Wood by The Beatles, Now That You’re Gone, by my dear friend Mark Williams, and Oh Mother by Jill Hennessey. All I will say is WOW. This is why I can’t ever lose my hearing again. I can’t live without music. Especially the great stuff.

***

I don’t know when my next post will come. It might be tomorrow, it might be in months. Until I do post again, be good to each other. (And if anything should happen to me, short sell Perdue, Frank's and Ken's.)

***

Fringeville #178: 60 years in the rearview…and a Double-Shot

The randomness continues…

I’ve lived 60 years. A lot of stuffed happened over the decades, and today I’ll just review a tiny bit of it from my perspective. Feel free to agree, disagree or question my sanity. As I’ve grown fond of saying, I’m cantankerous and don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks. (That poor little rat…it seems everyone belittles his ass.)

* * *

In elementary school I remember the nuns at St. Bernard’s in Riverdale, Maryland, teaching us to dive under our desks if we saw “a flash bright as the sun” outside the classroom windows. These were the fun Cuban missile crisis days, and we lived in the DC suburbs. The good sisters never said what would be causing the flash, but even at that young age I sort of figured it wasn’t God arriving on a cloud to pass out marshmallows and hard candy. As I said, fun days, those. But if something happened, I knew we would bounce back. Armageddon didn’t come, thank God, because a nuclear explosion trumps a little boy’s optimism every single time.

I watched as a teenager as we struggled in Vietnam. I lost a cousin in that war, and though I was just a young pup I never supported those who took their anger at their government out on the poor bastards who were sent to fight, willingly or unwillingly. They were doing their duty, like a long line of Americans before them, and I was appalled they were disrespected by certain elements of our society. But I always knew America would bounce back from Vietnam, and it did. Less innocent, scarred for certain, but we bounced back.

I remember clearly the first space shuttle disaster. I was an aide at an elementary school as part of my failed attempt to get a degree in education (I ran out of moolah). As I left the classroom for the day, the children were all excited about the first teacher going into space. I got in my car and turned on the radio and heard the breaking news. The shuttle was gone. A terrible blow, but I knew America would bounce back, and it did.

I hung a flag on my front porch on 9/11 with the help of my son. I’d been in a mini-mart parking lot that morning, on my way to work, and I was trying to get my radio working. It had funky wiring and I had to jiggle it, like a toilet handle, to get it to work. The radio came to life and brought me once more terrible, breaking news. I knew immediately we were at war, the course of American history had changed, and we’d been dealt a terrible blow. I also knew America would bounce back, and it did, but it has been a rocky damned road for sure.

During all those times, and so very many others, I’ve always had a deep-seated belief that America would overcome anything in its path. We might get bloodied, we might get knocked down a time or two, but we always bounced back.

These days I worry. I worry a lot.

I worry we’ve either stepped into the abyss already or we are at the very edge, looking down and dangling one foot over the void. There’s a stiff breeze is at our backs and darkness beckons.

Ah, the crop reaped from instability sown.

One could successfully argue that I helped plant that seed. It is one of the reasons (there are many) I left politics. I can sum it up nicely like this: I’ve done enough damage.

That was never my intent, of course. I got involved with politics because I wanted to make a positive difference. There were things I perhaps did very well, but in the end the damage was more than I could have ever believed possible. How’s that for a legacy folks? It weighs on me heavily, one of a growing list of personal failures as I begin to run out of road.*

I hope America gets its shit together. She can, if the will is mustered, but mostly these days we’re mustering “wont’s” not “will.” Everything, every issue, big and small, is a tribal clash. Every crisis is seized by the blue or red as another arrow in an ideological war many Americans are disgusted with.

Yes, I’ve abandoned the religion of politics. I believe, and suspect I always have, in the innate goodness of people. When they plant me, I can only hope I leave something good behind me. I can only hope I’ve touched a life for the better somewhere and that little bit of positive difference rolls forward to someone else, and someone after that, and after that, until no one remembers the stone but still feels the ripples.

* Running out road doesn’t mean they’re sticking a fork in me just yet. I’m going to be around a while. Hopefully quite a while. It is just simple math: there’s a lot more miles behind me than lay ahead, and the road I’m left with has more potholes and fewer decent exits. As I am also fond of saying, the Universe always wins, just not today.

* * *

Next, I’m going to do something I'll call Double-Shots. Will this be a regular thing? Will I remember to do this every week. Who the hell knows? These days, I forget to pull my zipper up at least three times a week. And what’s depressing is that no one notices except my wife. It’s like it is accepted old-fart behavior.

What the hell was I talking about? Ah, yes... Double-Shots. For the inaugural posting, I present two of my very favorite artists, Mark Williams (my dear friend since 10th grade) and Jill Hennessy (who I’ve never met but I think I make smile every so often. And I’m pretty sure she loves chicken wings, so there’s that.)

For both artists, I went with live performances.

First up alphabetically, is Jill. I discovered her music quite by accident. I was always a Law & Order fan, and I also loved her on Crossing Jordan. When I learned she had released some music, my first thought was “…great, another actor/actress who thinks they are musicians.”

I had that all wrong. Jill was busking up north in Canada since leaving home as a young pup to make her way in the world. On her website, she says, “…My guitar was my friend, my family, the one constant in my life.”

She’s a helluva songwriter. The piece I’ve posted is a "live" studio version of 4 Small Hands from Ghost in My Head one of Jill's two album releases (the other being the equally charming I Do). I hope you enjoy listening to Jill as much as I do. (Note: Yes, I switched out the videos from the initial post. Grabbed the wrong one. I'm old. This stuff bewilders me at times. Sadly, Jill's sister isn't on this clip.But the cello is there, and I am a sucker for the cello.)

Next up, Mark Williams.

I met Mark in high school. We were brothers in music, and brothers of the soul as well. He has become a marvelous songwriter and performer. I have his entire “Out Past The Moon” album on my iPhone, and every time one of the songs plays, it is like hearing it for the first time. So many textures, so many surprises. It’s like a perfect dessert that somehow reveals a new flavor with every spoonful. If you don’t have his work, download it. You’ll enjoy it immensely.

I think the common thread that links both of these folks together for me is they started as kids with a guitar and a couple of chords and never looked back. And the world is better for that.

Here's a write-up on Mark at MoonStalker,  and it includes a link to CD-Baby for his Out Past the Moon release.You can also visit this YouTube channel.


Mark is coming back to NEPA this summer to perform at Bartolai Winery on July 14. More on that in an upcoming post. It will be, as always, a wonderful evening with friends and terrific music.

Enjoy!

* * *

Some last minute thoughts that have been going through my head:

These days, I know so many angry people. Are you running your anger or is it running you?

A society that cannot protect its children has failed.

Is there anything we Americans won't fight with each other about? We probably can't even agree on if we agree to disagree.

I saw something on social media that I can't quite get over: Chicken wings coated with real gold. Edible. $1000 a pop. Might be a good time to be Ed Norton.

"Hey Ralph, you won't believe what I found in the sewer. Bowling's on me tonight!"

* * *

Be good to each other.

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