What Would Nana Do?

When I moved into my new place, I put Nana in my kitchen. In a frame, on the counter above the sink. A photo of my maternal grandmother, Paula Celi, shoveling snow and smiling.  She looks like she might even be enjoying herself. Nana always worked hard, that's what Nanas do.


Nana's up on the wall too - above my kitchen table. Alongside her mother and her kids, Sal and Mary Lyn.  She's beautiful.  I look at Nana every day when I'm in the kitchen, making her tomato sauce or watering my Nana plant.

Mostly, Nana is inside my head and my heart. She's somehow still a part of me - even if just a little part - even after all this time.

When I was a teenage soon-to-be bald freak, Nana would get upset when I listened to heavy metal and watched horror flicks. Nanas don't scold. They rarely yell. But they always get upset.

Nana could sew. She sewed all the Metallica patches onto my heavy-metal denim jacket. Nana didn't approve of "those devil worshipers." But she sewed the patches on anyway, because Nana loved me.

Nana liked music. Like most proper fans, she was passionate - and a critic, too. She loved Julio Iglesias and Paul McCartney. She hated Willie Nelson and Billy Idol. She favored the Mets and I forgive her. The only thing Nana did more religiously than go to church each week was watch Dynasty.


Nana was a world-champ worrywort. She was absent-minded and funny. I found all her infectious Nana quirks endearing.

Nana doted. Oh, did she dote. Nana was our second mother, usually our greatest ally when our first mother cracked the whip. She doled out hugs in large amounts. She handed out dollar bills and introduced us to capitalism.

Nana's house was my house. Two working-class parents meant lots of after school time at Nana's, a ten minute drive away. Inside, an ancient out-of-tune piano. The mandatory plastic-covered furniture. Lots of tchotchkes. Lots of yellow.

Nana was my first funeral. My first uncontrollable sob. My first 'There Is No God.'  The first songs I ever wrote were about losing Nana. An unfathomable tragedy.

I had chicken pox at Nana's wake - a teenage monster, a mourning leper. Losing Nana was my first real loss, my first test of strength.

For a close-knit Italian-American family from Bensonhurst, losing Nana seemed like everyone's first everything. We've all had a lot of years to get over Nana's departure. But you never really get over it.

Nana wasn't there to see me get my diploma. She wasn't there when I got my first job, when I bought my first house. Wasn't there when I fell in and out of love. She never met any of my ladies, never heard any of my albums, never saw me perform on a stage.

I feel Nana most when I'm careening off life's slippery slope. That smile. That snow shovel. Working hard and not complaining. She reminds me to never take things for granted. She reminds me to water the plants and make more tomato sauce. That bad things can happen to good people, that they happen all the time, and that there is never a convenient time for those things to happen.

You just have to live.

These days, my Mom is Nana. She's a pro. Born for the role. She's got the title now, and she's gonna hold it for a long time. She reminds everyone in our family that we're all still blessed even tho we lost something so precious.

The Nana I knew would be so proud of the Nana my mother has become.

Happy Birthday Nana.
Even tho you're gone, I'm glad you're still with me.

The Flight Of The Butterfly

He left on Labor Day Weekend.

I was taking out the trash when I got the call that Uncle Sal was gone.  It was my father who told me.  I don't think I had ever heard my father cry before that moment. His voice trembled on the other end of the phone as I returned from dumping recyclables outside my Brooklyn apartment.  "Uncle Sal died."

Then I was the one crying.  Collapsing. Overtaken.  My life has never been the same.  None of ours are.  Because you never get over it. You never forget.  This piece of you that can never be replaced.

Two days later, I'm in Tucson.  In the desert, saying a final goodbye to my uncle -- the guy who left the concrete jungle for cacti and coyotes when I was just a little kid.  I sat at a hotel room desk and wrote Uncle Sal's obituary. I cried some more. I shaved, I put on a tie. At the funeral home, I handed my cousin a CD-R -- the soundtrack to my uncle's funeral, a death mix tape.  Jimi's "Red House" kicked it off. By the second verse of The Beatles' "In My Life," I was a sobbing mess all over again.

My uncle and his younger sister (aka 'Mom') - were my middle class hippie heroes. They had seen Hendrix live. I would eventually borrow (steal) all the 45 rpm records that Mom had stored in the junk room of my parents' basement. Dad's and Uncle Sal's were down there too - Steppenwolf, The Stones. The Doors and Fleetwood Mac.  Treasure.   

Uncle Sal was an explorer. He drove cross country more than once.  He loved to go camping, he loved to cook (he hated to clean), and -- especially in his later years -- he really seemed to love his life.

He moved to Arizona when I was 7, the first in a close-knit Italian-American family to give up the spoils of city life.  By 'spoils', I mean he worked in a candy store under the el train just a few blocks from where they filmed the show open to Welcome Back, Kotter.

Uncle Sal broke up the band, and I loved him even more after that.  His annual Brooklyn visits were calendar-clearing events, beginning with the traditional pizza devouring contest, our dining room table covered with "squares" from L&B Spumoni Gardens. We would go to Coney Island, The Museum Of Natural History.  Uncle Sal would take Mom and I to Chumley's, a West Village speakeasy frequented by writers like e.e. cummings and John Steinbeck during The Prohibition. Even as an out-of-towner, Uncle Sal was my tour guide. He taught me that you could love New York without living in it.

In the desert, Uncle Sal played host, his new life forcing his reluctant family to step outside the door and actually see the world.  The house he had built with his own hands in the middle of nowhere was filled with junk, vinyl records, musical instruments, animals, and more junk. A proud hoarder was he.

He saw wonder in the mundane, and in doing so, made it seem more valuable.

I returned home after the funeral, back to 'Real Life'... whatever that was now.  Feeling robbed.  That is still the predominant feeling today.  I've been cheated.  The feeling we get when someone we truly love departs.  What about all that stuff we were gonna do?

I think about Uncle Sal every day -- a man I sometimes never saw nor spoke to for weeks, or even months, when he was alive.  He is still the coolest, he is still so special.  But he is something more.

He is my constant reminder that things can get better.

That's what a butterfly is.  It's the caterpillar that crawled through the mud, then emerged from a cocoon, soaring through the skies.  It is transformation. It is magnificence. It is rebirth.

I was crawling through the mud in the years after my uncle's death, then my world was washed away by Mother Nature.  I wasn't baptized by those dirty ocean waters, but I was awakened. All at once, I had to deal with all this hard shit, and it was just mine this time - mine and my dog's.  Buttons, the lovable nut whose own comeback from those dark and homeless days has strongly reflected my own.

You don't get through the toughest times overnight, but it happens.  Because life is an uphill battle, always.  Growth is evolution, it's a constant thing, otherwise it's not anything at all.  You can take that adversity and use it as fuel -- a commitment to do better, to live better, to be better. To become braver, tougher.... more grateful for what you have. But there are always higher mountains to climb.  

I went back to the desert after Uncle Sal left.  I was there last Labor Day weekend, making music with his son, Cousin Mike. Growing another inch on my wings.  Later the same year, I traveled to Europe with Uncle Sal on my mind. Making new memories, making a new album.  



The life span of a butterfly is only a few months, sometimes even a few weeks. Only so much time to experience the wonders of the world, the magic in this life.  Uncle Sal did that, too - rafting down The Nile, trekking to Egypt, traveling to Italy to trace our family ancestry.

But Uncle Sal's greatest transformation was borne from love -- someone who put a twinkle in his eye, who renewed his lust for life. He crawled out of the mud and this romance was his reward.  It's not until we get ourselves right that we can truly be right for anyone else. That we've earned the chance to get more than we deserve.

Uncle Sal loved outwardly in his later years. With gusto. Big bear hugs. Always an "I love you."  He seemed at ease - with himself, with the universe.  He was a hippie jester with strong opinions and a soothing tone to his voice. He told great bad jokes, could fix anything you put in front of him.  He was a flawed human being who made good choices and bad ones, who seemed to have learned something from them all.

In his final chapter, my mother's brother seemed larger than life - gracious, happy. I was only getting a brief glimpse of that life - a snapshot of it - but it felt genuine. Uncle Sal wasn't a rock star, he was not rich nor famous. He was a science teacher. He loved his job and was admired by his students, his peers and of course, his family.

Uncle Sal's motto was Carpe Diem. He seemed to have truly seized the day, figured it all out - and then *poof*....he was gone.

He left on Labor Day Weekend but he has never really left.   He is still every slice of L&B pizza, every trip to Coney Island. He is still -- and will always be -- the desert.  He is always there, and he is not the only one.  There are butterflies everywhere, reminding us that we have to crawl before we can soar, even if for just a little while.  That we should do our best to enjoy the journey.  That we have to lose before we can appreciate what winning is.  That we can always do better, can always reach higher.

Thanks, Uncle Sal.  For taking me on the path.
All these years later and you're still showing me how to fly.

Landscape Calrissian - Songs From The Last Q*Ball Album

She loved Star Wars.

She had a framed Empire Strikes Back poster in her apartment, her passion for movies and music surely rivaled my own.  She was the real deal.

We sat on her couch, finally next to each other.  Finally - and fleetingly - close.  It would be the only time.  The last time.

She clutched the remote, scanning through the seemingly endless stream of saved media in her Netflix Queue.  She wanted to watch a movie but I just wanted to watch her do anything.  It would be the only time.  The last time.

We knew a lot about each other but we had only met in person once before. We both loved a lot of the same things - Star Wars and Jim Henson, Halloween and Led Zeppelin.  We developed a rapport based on a similar work ethic in a cutthroat industry, surrounded by idiots and tyrants, yet plowing through with integrity.  We both cared about doing a good job even when we hated what we did.  We respected each other.

I asked her to shut the TV off.  We needed to talk.  It was already well past midnight.  Her roommate had mercifully gone to sleep.  I would be on a plane the next morning, flying back to reality.  Harsh reality.  I had been waiting for this moment for months and this would be my only chance.  My last chance.

Music brought us together, another familiar tale.  I didn't orchestrate any of it, the universe did.  The fates blew us into each others world even though we were thousands of miles apart.  We don't ask to get hit with the love sledgehammer any more than we ask for cancer or for a hurricane to destroy our house.  It just happens.  Life has a way of constantly reminding us that what we want and what we get are often miles apart, over the hills and far away.

She put the remote down and turned to me.  Finally, I had her full attention.  I could feel the weight in the air.  We were inches apart.  She was in shorts and a t-shirt, no makeup.  She wasn't glamorous at all, but she was beautiful.  We only had one day together, and this was the first time we would have alone.  The only time.  The last time.

She had a pretty, paper-thin smile, her voice was a lullaby.  We had talked on the phone only a few times, once into the wee hours of the night, one of those long-distance convos that stay with you long after you hang up the phone.  Hearing that voice now seemed a gift.  Being here next to her seemed surreal.

"Are we okay?," I asked.

I didn't have a speech prepared, I barely had a plan.  She had orchestrated this moment in her own way, had helped me book my flight, had invited me to crash on her couch.  She did her part to put me exactly where I was in this moment.  It's possible that her intentions were entirely professional, but I'd like to believe that we both knew better, that this was something more.

"Of course," she replied.

I had already made a few mistakes.  I was nervous as fuck, and my slip was showing.  Before lunch, she caught me staring at her boobs.  Before dinner, she caught me blowing up her bathroom.  Unspoken transgressions, but transgressions all the same.  In my own back yard, I wasn't this careless.  I was in control.  Here in La-La Land, in just one day, I was not.  I was a pile of melted goo in a Karate Kid t-shirt.

She could sense me prying that door open - taking it from casual convo into the confessional.  She resisted as best she could, but once it all came pouring out, she had no choice but to engage.  She read off a short list of reasons explaining her own stance.  It seemed like a list she kept in her back pocket for moments like these, moments a woman in her position had likely experienced before.  All her reasons for keeping things platonic made sense.  Practical sense.  We already knew what we had was impractical, but only one of us was willing to take the leap.

I challenged her.  It would be my only chance.  My last chance.  "I considered it," she admitted, only slightly defensively.  Was she placating me?  The monkey was finally off my back and had landed firmly in her lap, and I sat there watching her wrestle with it.

Was she letting me down gently, stroking my ego on my way out the door?  I don't believe she was.  She was being honest.  I asked what prompted this 'consideration'.  "Similar interests," she said.  No admission of physical chemistry or emotional longing.  Similar Interests.  Purely clinical.  Star Wars and Jim Henson and Halloween and Led Zeppelin.  But who doesn't love all these things, or things just like them?  Liking the same shit isn't enough, there has to be electricity and magic and - a yearning - otherwise, you're just spinning your wheels.  I've seen enough online dating profiles in my day to validate this.

Surely I knew the difference.  Because my wheels were already spinning.   Back home, I was with someone else.  This wasn't a secret, not to her or to anyone.  My real life relationship was deep in the shit box and she knew it.  She had bonded with me over this fact, sharing stories of her own romantic folly.  Encouraging me to be brave.  She was providing all the things I wasn't getting at home, encouragement included.  She complimented my music and eventually inspired it.  We complemented each other in a lot of ways, and sometimes found ourselves admitting this aloud - even tho the timing was all wrong, the obstacles great.

I wasn't withholding information nor stretching the truth.  I had done that when I was young and dumb - embellishing things to further my own selfish desires.  It's a lecherous practice, any way you slice it.  I dated someone recently who made that sort of behavior an art.  Seeing her in action gave me a new appreciation of how wrong and shitty it is.  We paint pictures of ourselves that make us seem much less ugly than we can often be.  

So I kept it real.  She could have let me in, but that would have been a mistake.  I was with someone else.  It didn't matter that my heart wasn't in it anymore.  It didn't matter that the store was closed and practically abandoned - I still owned the property.  I still had some unfinished business to attend to.

I didn't kiss her.  I wanted to, of course.  I wanted to do a lot more.  Maybe she did too.  But she was built differently.  Most women are.  Not all, but most.  Anything more than a conversation would have been unfair to all parties involved.  The burning in my chest and my loins was already unfair enough.  Why now?  Why her?  I didn't pick her out of a catalog or off a website, I didn't ask for any of it.  It was all laid out in front of me, another one of life's shitty morality tests.  The only reason I passed was by failing, and you never really pass when you fail.

We talked some more, then hugged each other goodnight and retreated to separate rooms.  She turned out to be smarter than me, more sensible.  If she would have let her defenses down that night, I would have turned my whole life upside down, and all that weight would have been on her shoulders.  I was ready to burst, and she knew it, and so the shields were already up.  

After returning home, I wrote her a long, heartfelt letter.  I made her a mix.  I was a lovelorn 17 year-old again, only 17 was well in the rear view mirror as I typed typed typed my feelings.  I don't remember what was in the letter, but I'm sure the more practical Ron typing this blog would have slapped the guy who wrote that letter right upside the head immediately upon reading it.  I'm sure there were good intentions attached to my words but they probably reeked of desperation, one final plea from an infatuated idiot.  I was in deep, as deep as I've ever been.

I don't remember what songs were on the mix, either, but I do remember the last song on the playlist - "The Rose," by Bette Midler.  If closing a mix with a Bette Midler song isn't a sign of how far gone a dude truly is, I don't know what is.  At least it wasn't "Wind Beneath My Wings."

I put the mix and the letter in an envelope and brought it to the post office with my heart in my throat.  It wasn't the first time I had done something like this - the guy leaving a note for a woman he has never met, surprising a girl he likes with flowers, showing up at the supermarket and buying ice cream just to talk to the girl behind the counter.  Sure, I was much younger when orchestrating these encounters.  And sure, some girls actually find little missives like that romantic, but others equate them with the words "creep" and "stalker."

The common thread here, at least for me, is that none of those moments have ended in a victory.  All of the loves in my life have been presented to me - in college, at my job, playing a show in a club.  I, of course, still had to make the first move in those situations, but it was always easy.  I didn't have to chase any of those girls.  Sometimes they even chased me.

It's only when I have played the bumbling fool, the obsessed idiot, that I have crash landed.  Nowadays, I find myself putting up walls and employing radio silence quickly, secretly wondering if I'll ever feel a spark like this again.  Crash landing hurts no matter your age, your gender, or where you are in your life.

Landscape Calrissian is about that spark, and the short-circuit that followed in the wake of one unfortunate late-night encounter.  I say unfortunate because, given a little more time or opportunity to communicate, I could have come down from Cloud City and handled things in a more mature, sensible way.  I say unfortunate because I only had one shot, and it's pretty hard to convince someone you're The One in less than 2 hours.  In 2 hours, you can decide that you love Star Wars, but deciding that you want to take a chance with a dude with baggage and a price on his head usually takes at least one sequel, sometimes two.

Those are the worst type of defeats, never knowing what could have been and choosing to turn off instead - forcing yourself to do something that doesn't seem inherently 'right' just to protect yourself.  Getting hit by lightning is never a choice, but turning off the power always is.  It has taken on new meaning in an online world.  We Unfollow and we Block, our passive aggressive way of relaying that we're angry or wounded.  We stop Liking photos, we cease sending e-mails and Instant Messages.  Just a bunch of dummies deleting contact information and text messages from our smartphones.  Ghosting.  Out of sight, out of mind, or at least that's what we like to believe in our simple little minds.

It is such nonsense, the harsh reality of 21st century interaction.  But that's what it is - reality, a practice reserved not only for romantic disconnections, but also for band mates, friends, and sometimes even family.  There is little sense of longing when it's so easy to connect, disconnect, and even reconnect.

That doesn't mean our brains have stopped working or our hearts have stopped humming.  That doesn't mean the memories of what existed, even for a fleeting moment, have faded.  The world finds a way of reminding us of what we once had, or worse, couldn't have.  Do we ignore these signs?  Can we?  Do we just take another punch to the gut and keep on truckin'?  Are we meant to resurrect relationships with zombies who were once dead and buried from our everyday lives, if not our own consciousness?

We're made to believe that Love Conquers All, that whatever hard journey that you took to get to the top of the mountain was worth the price because the reward seems so great.  But the deeper you dive, the more you stand to lose when it all comes to an end.  Life is just a series of chapters, of moments, good and bad, and love surrounds the best ones but also the worst ones too, suffocating you with joy one day and squeezing the tears out of you the next.

Landscape Calrissian is one of those moments put to music.  It's a beautiful scar.  I bear a few.  I bet the girl who loves Star Wars has a few of her own.  I bet you do too.  Each scar tells a different story, but ultimately they're all the same, borne by our belief that we are meant to be part of something bigger than ourselves, that we aren't meant to be alone, rather destined to stay connected.

However fleeting the moment is, however poorly it might end - be it in the form of an untimely death after years together or an awkward hug after hours together - it is a real, tangible thing, as honest as anything you'll ever experience in your life.  What's a few scars compared to that feeling?

Love in all its forms reminds you that you're alive, that you're significant.

There is no greater gift.

***
The Last Q*Ball Album by Ron Scalzo
Available now on iTunes and Amazon

LANDSCAPE CALRISSIAN

We're almost there
We were almost there
We don't talk anymore
We don't talk about the things
That should have mattered so much more
It's so easy to ignore
Now that we're stuck in this cold war
We're suffering
Sure we say a word
But not one that's heard
And those empty clicks are just a wall between us
That's the problem with me
I keep on trusting my feelings
The best way of dealing with it
Is to tell it like it is
But people always need convincing
And my blood's already splattered on the wall
And you're just like me
Yeah you're just like me
How can I make you believe
That we're almost there?

We're almost there

***
 

Ron Scalzo - vocals
Chris Pennie - synths, loops
Brett Aveni - guitars

Music by Chris Pennie
Words by Ron Scalzo
Copyright 2014 Bald Freak Music (ASCAP)

Recorded at The Boiler Room, Princeton, NJ
Engineered by Fight Mannequins
Mixed by Fight Mannequins
Artwork by Joseph Milazzo
Mastered by Michael Judeh at Dubway Studios

You Deserve The Best

 

I ran my own record label for 7 years.

It was a constant source of anxiety - wanting to "succeed" on my own terms, to control my own destiny.  I could have spent those 7 years becoming a superior piano player, a better vocalist, a more refined songwriter.  Advancing my somewhat limited production skills.  Learning how to play a new instrument.  Doing more pull-ups.

Instead I chose to run a business.

I bit off way more than I could chew and my art suffered for it.  So did a few relationships.

Then a hurricane destroyed it all.

I became a musician again. 

I got into shape. Healthy body, healthy mind.  I started writing.  For therapy, for fun.  Friends and family encouraged me to continue.  "You should write a book."  We'll see.  But it was nice to hear those compliments, to hear the word "talented" from peers, from strangers.  It still is.  Most of all, it's nice to hear that people are affected by my words, my experiences.  

I released an album.  

First one of my own in 7 years.  First one since the storm.  No shows, no tour.  No press, no radio play.  No licensing deals, no favors.  No expectations.  I don't have an agent.  No manager, no PR company.  No assistant, no interns.  No one is out there peddling Ronnie Scalzo door-to-door while I continue to refine my art.  No one is teaching me synchronized dance moves or doing my makeup or setting up a tour.  No one is packing my CD into envelopes, filling out customs labels and waiting on long post office lines while I practice playing grace notes.

So it didn't matter that barely anyone cared.  I did it for me.  To close the door on the batshit crazy chapter of my life.  To exorcise a few demons.  To travel to new cities and make new adventures with new people.  To prove to myself that I could do it without someone else's money or someone else's help.

I made an album to see if I still cared about making music. 

And I do. 

I moved my piano into my apartment and practiced my balls off.  I learned how to play other songs besides my own.  I do my vocal exercises every day.   I wrote two new songs and finished two more.

Did I "succeed"?

I'm still up in the air on that.  I still feel like I'm not where I'm supposed to be - if that makes any sense.  Lots of things have happened in my life these past few years that don't make much sense.  Those events have taught me temperance, patience.  Acceptance.  I have been knocked the fuck down but not the fuck out.  I have rolled with the punches.  I have learned some hard lessons.  I have taken my lumps and become more resilient.  Braver.  Stronger.  Smarter.

I'm at my best.  I deserve this.  I hear someone I look up to say it all the time, to hundreds of thousands of people every day.  "You deserve happiness."

"You deserve the best."

So here we go again.  Four new songs - new babies.  No plan, no expectations.  Just pride.

I explored Seattle, I ventured to Tucson.  I played beautiful pianos in beautiful studios, I sang into vocal microphones more expensive than my car.  I ran through the desert listening to rough mixes and working on harmony lines.  I broke bread and shared a drink and a smoke with some music making dudes I had never met before and reunited with others I now call my friends.  I made love to analog synths.  I got to hear a trumpet player make my songs better.

I wrote two songs with my talented cousin Michael Celi, and strengthened a long-distance relationship that could have easily faded if not for a mutual admiration of each other's talent.  Cousin Mike and I share an empathy based on our unique and interesting journeys in the wake of our respective failures.

The music industry is not what it was when I began this journey.  But the passion still exists - to create, to collaborate, to share what you've made with the world and just let things happen.  I've seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears.  I still want to be part of that world.  I'm proud to say that I still am.

This new solo release will be out on iTunes and Amazon and all that jazz before the holidays.  No firm release date because what's the point?  Maybe you'll buy it, maybe you won't.  Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't.  Maybe you'll send it to your friend who likes punk rock, or your cousin who likes Faith No More or your sister who likes Radiohead or your co-worker who loves Beck.

Maybe you'll listen again and again, maybe you won't listen at all.  Maybe you'll be too busy listening to the new Justin Bieber, Adele and Coldplay albums.  

It doesn't matter what happens next.  The most important part has already happened.

I'll be performing live - for the first time in over 5 years - sometime soon on a stage somewhere, and with some good friends in support.  Maybe I'll go on a short tour next year instead of into a recording studio.  Maybe I'll learn how to play the trumpet.  I can open any door and walk through it and go exploring.

For now, it's time to get down to business.  Copyrights and ISRC codes and digital distro and publishing info.  Artwork and mixes and website and social networking updates.  I'll write some more about the making of these new songs, in this space and elsewhere.  I'll send the music out to all my friends in the radio biz and secretly hope that someone will get behind it.

I'll send it to Pitchfork and NPR and KEXP and KCRW and the few "tastemakers" out there who matter to me.  I'll get it on Spotify and make .0003 cents every time you give me a spin.  I'll do all the things I did for myself - and for others - for 7 years, but with no sense of urgency this time around.

I loved making these songs and I'm proud of the progress I've made.

Life is good.  Bald Freak Music still exists, it has just been transformed.  Just as I have.  For all of you who have been along for the ride since the beginning - or maybe jumped on along the way - the best I can do now that life is better is give you my best.  

These new tunes are it.  They represent my resurgence.  I can't wait for you to hear them.

Say A Little Prayer For Uncle Sethie

I hope there are movies in Heaven. 

I love you Seth.  I love you, man.  I can't believe you're gone.

I'm sorry.  I'm sorry I didn't write this sooner, so you could read it while you were still here with the rest of us.  Why do we always wait until waiting is no longer an option?  In the hospital, I asked you if it was okay to write about you - about your plight - and I never ask anyone if it's okay to write about them before I actually go and do it.  Just ask all my ex'es.  You said 'Yes' and I didn't write anything until now, and I'm sorry.

Yesterday, I got the call that you were gone and it wasn't a surprise.  LaSala broke the news.  He left me a voicemail while I was playing the piano in the other room.  When I saw that LaSala had called, I knew you were gone before I even called him back.  Anthony LaSala never calls anyone, as you well know.  Sicilian pirates rarely use cell phones.

Anthony called us all, just as he called us all a year ago when you got sick.  Lloyd and Jay.  Tween.  Skeery Jones, the Tuccillos and Pablo.  We all know each other forever, "The Brooklyn Crew."  We still wear our eternal friendship like a badge of honor, as if it were something special.  And it was always just that.  It still is, now more than ever.  Now that you're gone.

I was going through my latest romantic misadventure a year ago when I got the word that you were in the hospital.  You could barely talk when I paid my first visit.  I told you that I was being two-timed and you rolled your eyes and sighed, just like the old days.  Your sudden illness made my problems seem like a pittance, it put everything into perspective and actually helped me navigate through another tough time.

Back in the day, a Seth Kushner malady was like football on a Sunday.  It was almost always on the schedule, one of many running jokes that friends like ours perpetuate over the years.  But things were serious this time.  Leukemia.

I hope it didn't take one of my stoopid blogs for you to understand how proud of you I am.  How you fought to stick around, to regain that normalcy to your life that we all take for granted until things start to go haywire.  You were doing it til the very end, against all odds - sharing your opinions about various TV shows and movies on Facebook, taking in as much of it as you could in those final days.  You were in the home you had created with the family that you created - your son and your courageous wife - where you were always most comfortable, even before the sickness crept in.

The last time I saw you at the hospital, the prognosis was bad.  I expected to walk in and say goodbye for the last time.  I expected to see a battered man taking in his last breaths.  But you were a spitfire that day, you were optimistic.  "I'm not ready to say goodbye to you sonofabitches," you growled determinedly.  You were being strong, stronger than I had ever seen you.

Then a man neither of us knew walked in.  He told you he was sent by someone you knew, but you could not figure out who that person was, nor could he verify it.  Instead, he prayed aloud and sang a hymn as we sat there quietly in your hospital room, and then he was gone, some mysterious angel sent to give you more strength.

You were in a coma a few hours after I left, with a swift death sentence attached to it.  Then you woke up.  Weeks later, you were released from the hospital, declared leukemia-free.  You got to hang with your Hang Dai crowd, to spend time with your great friends Carlos and Marty and Dean, three dudes who got to know you better than I ever did and who loved you just as much.  You made peace with your Mom.  You got to spend your last days in Brooklyn like the tried-and-true Brooklynite you were.  You were a dead man walking, a temporary miracle, and so when I returned Anthony's call, I knew what was coming before he even uttered a word.

I still don't know what to believe, Seth.  I stayed positive, we all did.  You were never totally out of the woods, and now you're out of our lives.  Are you on Tatooine right now?  Are you anywhere?  Last night, I sat out on my back porch, poured out a bottle of wine and looked up at the stars.  "Are you up there, Uncle Sethie?" I asked to no one at all.  And then the fireworks started.  Lots of them.  Last I checked, it wasn't the 4th of July.  And yeah, I'm pretty big on signs.

I'll never forget the look on your face the first time I saw you after Superstorm Sandy.  It's etched in my brain, one of those snapshot moments that stick with you forever.  My house had been destroyed and you walked into a Bay Ridge restaurant while I was hugging the rest of the gang, and I caught the look on your face as you walked in, waiting your turn to hug me too.

You looked at me as if someone had died.

In that moment, even tho I had been the one numbed by Mother Nature's wrath, I felt bad for you.  You were always concerned, even affected, by the misfortune of others.  When your friends were suffering, you were suffering too.  And in that moment, I felt lucky to have you as my friend.  Just as I do in this moment, now that your suffering is over even if the void you've left will be forever felt.

You were one of the staunchest supporters of my music - you came to all the shows, the good ones and the shitty ones.  You created the album artwork for all my Q*Ball albums.  You were an incredibly talented photographer, and I still feel like that was always your truest calling.  You co-directed my one and only music video.  You put me in a spaceship, you put me in a bathtub, you put me in a swimming pool with a powder blue suit on.  You put colored star stickers and Christmas lights all over my skull.  We were young kids trying to figure out how to convey an image, and then we were middle aged dudes still trying to figure it out.  Your hard work and creativity were always an inspiration, even when we got it all wrong.

We had a quarter century together, my friend.  Something to be grateful for.

Our primary language was cinema.  TV and books and girls.  You never forgave me for shitting all over Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull after we saw it together in Battery Park City.  We huddled down together in Brooklyn after 9/11.  You drove me home after I played a showcase at Virgin Megastore, then pulled over on Independence Avenue so I could go piss in someone's driveway because I couldn't hold it in any longer.  We bought you a lightsaber for your 30th birthday.  You got me home after I had a bad pot brownie experience at The Frying Pan the summer after the worst breakup of my life.  We interviewed Chuck Klosterman at his apartment in Brooklyn Heights and I almost erased the whole thing.  Calamity was always our second language.

We called you Chief Yenta because you liked to gossip.  We playfully made fun of your pale complexion, of your propensity for speed talking, and you always took it in stride.  You were there for me after my divorce, after the hurricane.  I got stood up on an online date in Bay Ridge one night, and you and Terra met me out for dinner, salvaging the evening.  You bonded with all my girlfriends - you were always rooting for my romantic victories and you listened intently and patiently after all the defeats.

You were a great friend, Seth.

And then it was your turn to taste victory.  It remains the fondest memory of our friendship, that fateful night in Boston when you met Terra.  Some slug got up from his seat in a basement bar in Beantown and Anthony and I nudged you into it, and there she was and there you were, and we hung back and left the rest up to you.  You sealed the deal that night and we were all proud of you.  Thrilled for you.  The Schmuck was finally victorious.

Your life was forever changed, and I'm sure you realized in the end that you had hit the jackpot with this woman.  I'm proud to have played my small part in all that, to see you become a loving husband and father.

Soon after you and I first met, you lost your Dad in a tragic accident.  He was riding his bicycle on Ocean Parkway and was struck and killed by a motorist.  Joel Kushner was a guidance counselor at my high school, Edward R. Murrow, and he knew me before you did.  And then he was gone and I remember hugging you at the funeral, thinking of how your Dad had left you too soon just as I think about you being gone way too soon now.

We became good friends after that, bound by a mutual love of geek culture, music and movies.  I had been to your house a time or two, inside the rubble you called a room, piles of comics, Rolling Stone magazines and action figures dominating every corner.  I met a lot of cool creative people thanks to our friendship, and even as our lives took divergent paths as we both aged and found new creative outlets, I still felt a closeness to you that distance and lifestyles could not tarnish.

And now you're gone, Sethie, and I don't know what to believe - but if I get to choose, I wanna believe that you and Joel are at the movies right now.  You're watching Star Wars (not the prequels, sorry).  Maybe you're 41, maybe you're Jackson's age.  Maybe you're not any age at all, maybe you're a butterfly or a Jawa.  Whatever you are and wherever you are, I like to think that you're with Dad.  You're reunited, and it feels so good.

That's what I have always hoped the afterlife is - a reunion.  We hurt so much for the people that are gone - seemingly forever - left to pick up the pieces, to try to keep the faith and make sense of it all.  I still hold out hope that Nana and Nicky and Uncle Sal will be there on the other side.  Uncle John, Grandma & Grandpa.  Blanche and The Big Cookie and Seth and Joel.  What we would give to spend just a little more time with those who have left us behind.

There's a whole world of people out there right now who feel cheated out of more Seth Kushner time, and isn't that the truest testimony of a person's vitality?  You mattered to us, Seth.  I hope you knew that.  Now it's up to the rest of us to keep your memory alive while we keep the faith that you are in a better place.

So keep a seat open for me, my man.  Just don't eat all the popcorn.  We'll watch all the Scorsese movies, Hitchcock and Kubrick.  Lost, Breaking Bad.  Seinfeld and The Honeymooners and Batman Begins.  We'll hoist some brews and have another Ronversation, reminiscing and rejoicing over one of life's great friendships.

Say a little prayer for Uncle Sethie tonight, for his wife Terra, his young son Jackson and his mother, Linda.  For all of his family and for everyone who he has touched.  

Say a prayer for one of life's true good guys.

10 Holiday Specials To Keep You Sane This Season

Joy to the world.

When I think of Christmas, I think of Nana and Nicky's house, the smell of seafood frying in the kitchen. I think of getting misty-eyed every time I watch the last half hour of It's A Wonderful Life. The battle with the bogeymen in March of the Wooden Soldiers on Christmas morning. A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, and A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim as Scrooge. These are as essential to my annual Decembers as pine needles and wrapping paper.

But my love for short-form holiday specials rolls even deeper. Whether its the memorable music, quotable dialogue, unique animation, iconic characters, or best of all - a message - these gems have warmed my heart and opened my mind. They make me wax nostalgic for my childhood and a time where "appointment television" was a thing.

Disney, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers have all made memorable shorts that should be hung by the chimney with care.  Ren & Stimpy's 'Son of Stimpy', in which a traumatized Stimpy searches for his lost fart during the holiday, is so oddly touching, beautifully animated, and yet so absolutely ludicrous in its subject matter that I could not find a way to include it.  It's my #11, but sadly this list doesn't go to 11.

So crack some chestnuts, pour some egg nog and read on for ten holiday specials that are sure to make your season brighter:

• 10. Tales From The Darkside - "Seasons of Belief"

Tales From The Darkside is not exactly the pinnacle of anthology horror/sci-fi series. Even when it originally aired in the 1980s, it was typically outclassed by Steven Spielberg's big-budget Amazing Stories on NBC (which, incidentally, has a pretty decent Christmas episode entitled "Santa '85").  

Tales was produced by zombie movie god George Romero, ran for about 5-6 years and aired mostly in the wee hours of the night.  The creepiest and coolest things about Darkside were the opening and closing credits, all spooky analog synths, haunting stills of large trees and eerie bridges, and seemingly narrated by Satan himself.

In "Seasons of Belief," veteran character actor E.G. Marshall -- who appears in two of my all-time favorite movies, 12 Angry Men and Creepshow -- spins a yarn about a mythical creature named The Grither with "fists the size of basketballs" to scare his bratty kids on Christmas Eve. This one isn't for your 5 year-old, but if you're a bit warped and twisted, it comes highly recommended.

• 9. South Park - "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics

Besides being one of the sharpest satirical series on television, South Park wins major points for its timely holiday specials that air every October & December.  Season 3's Christmas-themed episode features insane-yet-catchy musical numbers featuring Hitler, Satan, Michael Landon, and one of TV's most ingeniously written characters, Mr. Hankey, a cute talking turd who visits South Park every holiday season.

The musical numbers include the celebrity-skewering "Christmastime In Hell" and a Jesus & Santa duet that finds a way to incorporate Duran Duran's "Rio."  Wrapped around all of the songs, a live action nod to the obscure and infamously terrible Star Wars Holiday Special.  

Show composer and pianist Marc Shaiman -- once Saturday Night Live's resident musical director, -- provides the soundtrack, which spawned a top-selling album that was critically acclaimed -- all inspired by a singing dookie.

• 8. The Snowman

Oscar-nominated for Best Animated Short in 1982, this tale of a boy who builds a snowman that comes to life is far superior to Rankin/Bass' more popular Frosty The Snowman.  Based on the Raymond Briggs book, beautifully and uniquely animated, and carried by a great Howard Blake score, The Snowman contains only a few lines of dialogue - all uttered within the first 30 seconds of the special - and remains engrossing in spite of it.  

The UK production's realistic denoument is not all tinsel and magic, rather a sudden sadness that just might melt your heart (spoiler alert: that's not all that melts).

Incidentally, this snowman rides a motorcycle, knows Santa Claus personally -- and he can f*cking fly.  Eat your heart out, Frosty.

• 7. The Twilight Zone - "Night of the Meek"

This is not the greatest episode of the seminal Twilight Zone, not by a long shot. But it does star Art Carney as a boozy back alley St. Nick. Carney was one of the great actors of television's Golden Age, thanks mostly to his work as Jackie Gleason's best pal Ed Norton on The Honeymoners. A solid dramatic actor in his own right, Carney was a great physical comedian to whom the Barney Rubbles and Cosmo Kramers owe a debt of gratitude.  

Here, as a soused Santa who finds some purpose thanks to a little Rod Serling-aided Christmas magic, Carney shines, showcasing his wide range.  The episode's commentary on poverty and the religious undertones of "the meek shall inherit the Earth" add weight to the story.   

"Night of the Meek" is neither spooky nor scary, it has corny moments, and some off-putting cinematography. Season 3 of TZ was filmed on video instead of film (budget cuts!), and many of those episodes suffer because of it. But it's got more Carney than corny, and that makes it a holiday must-see.

• 6. Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

The Children's Television Workshop pulls out all the stops in this PBS staple from 1978, one of the rare holiday-themed specials to actually air on Christmas Eve.  

The main plot: Oscar The Grouch tells Big Bird that Santa can't possibly deliver all the presents to kids around the world all in one night, never mind fit down skinny chimneys.  Big Bird spends the episode doggedly determined to prove Oscar wrong, yet The Grouch's logic addresses an issue that many kids growing up on Santa eventually have to deal with - a suspension of disbelief, and an inevitable loss of innocence.

A secondary story features Bert, Ernie, and Mr. Hooper in a clever retelling of O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi.  The hour-long episode features a Kermit crossover cameo, a very funny (if somewhat disturbing) sidebar involving Cookie Monster eating everything in sight while fantasizing about the cookies he hopes Santa will bring, and a first act featuring adult-size Sesame Street characters ice skating in New York City.

Even tho Santa is never actually seen (he's represented only via shadows and voiceover), I firmly believed that the real Santa was involved in this production.  Of course, back then, I also believed that Sesame Street was a real street instead of a sound stage, and that Big Bird was really a big bird and not really an old white dude with whiskers who actually looked like Santa in real life.

• 5. Mickey's Christmas Carol

Screened in theaters alongside the forgettable Disney feature The Rescuers in 1983, Mickey's Christmas Carol was a full-on event, with some inspired "casting": Goofy as Jacob Marley and the odd, yet interesting choices of Jiminy Cricket, Willie the Giant, and Black Pete as the three spirits who visit the duck who was born to play Ebenezer Scrooge, Scrooge McDuck.

Millennials around the world were surely turned on to the classic Charles Dickens tale thanks to this Disney short. You have to give the filmmakers credit for their brave choice of placing Mickey & Donald in secondary roles, and staying true to the story rather than shoving the more popular characters down our throats.

When MCC made its way onto network television a few years later, it was accompanied by other great Disney shorts, including The Art of Skiing. Disney was the pinnacle of animation for so many years, and this was as good as they got.

• 4. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

This holiday classic based on the Johnny Marks song of the same name features inspired characters with inspired names. Yukon Cornelius? A flying lion named King Moonracer who lords over an island of misfit toys? What were these guys smoking and where can I get some?

Then there's the story, about "fitting in."  Rudolph faces the pressures that almost all kids face during their formative school years - bullying, puberty, and independence. Rankin/Bass' pioneering stop motion animation has some minor flaws that are impossible to squabble over considering how insanely difficult and time-consuming it must have been to film this in the 1960s.  

A minor gripe: most of the adult characters in Rudolph are major pricks, most notably Santa, who is completely out of character as a grousing, pompous douchebag, at least until the special's final minutes.  The Abominable Snow Monster (or the affectionately dubbed 'Bumble'), on the other hand, is a revelation and was a truly scary sight when kids first watched Rudolph.

The musical numbers are heightened by the unlikely presence and golden throat of Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman.  Hard to believe the guy who played Grade A asshole Big Daddy in Cat On A Hit Tin Roof could add so much warmth to the proceedings, but Big Burl pulls it off.  Great Bouncing Icebergs!

• 3. Ziggy's Gift

Ziggy is a long-running one-gag comic strip that featured a short bald dude whose only friend was his dog Fuzz, a character constantly living under life's cruel thumb.  Ziggy doesn't talk - in the strip or in this special - but here, he is mesmerizing, a lone nice guy in a world filled with selfish, stubborn folks and petty crooks.

When Ziggy answers an ad to become a street corner Santa, he crosses paths with a vile thief and a stereotypical Irish policeman dwho is after the crooked Santa scheme that Ziggy has unwittingly involved himself in.

The special's supporting characters - the cop, the thief, the crooked Santas, their ringleader, and a hilarious turkey salesman - are a voice acting master class, and creator Tom Wilson's animation is original and gorgeous.

The bow on top of this little-seen Christmas gift is the music - an uplifting jazz score and title theme composed and performed by one of my heroes - the late, fantastically great Harry Nilsson.  

Ziggy's Gift won a well-deserved Emmy award in 1982.

• 2. Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Top-of-Mount Crumpit animation from Chuck Jones, one of the men responsible for making Bugs Bunny a household name, the colorful songbook by Albert Hague and Seuss, the classic theme sung by Tony the Tiger -- they all make Grinch iconic.  But the cherry atop it all is Boris Karloff as The Grinch, perhaps the single most inspired bit of voice casting ever.

The Grinch has become as iconic as Scrooge and Santa Claus at this time of year, and the character embodies his Dickensian predecessor as he turns from anti-establishment sourpuss to Who-loving roast beast carver upon discovering that the true meaning of Christmas is being with each other.  

There is no greater holiday special than this.  Except...

• 1. A Charlie Brown Christmas

I've always related to Charlie Brown (I've had the haircut for awhile) - hopeful one moment, apathetic and depressed the next, never able to truly grab that brass ring. I am not alone in those feelings, and it turns out Charles Schulz, himself, in spite of all his many successes, was the ultimate Charlie Brown (tho apparently he had a little Snoopy in him, as well).

A Charlie Brown Christmas is not perfect, although the iconic jazz soundtrack from the maestro Vince Guaraldi is.  It's rife with flawed characters.  Lucy is a bitch, Pig Pen is a slob, Schroeder is a snob. Snoopy is obnoxious, Sally is materialistic. Even Linus - the "voice of reason" and the most sensitive of the bunch - has major security issues and a serious blanket addiction.  Then there's ol' Chuck, whose problems are too long to list, and the focus of nearly the entire episode.  "Everything I touch gets ruined," he bemoans.

But therein lies the true perfection of the special - we all feel down about something at some point in our lives, we've all had Christmases marred by some tragedy, bad feelings, or circumstance that didn't make it live up to how Christmas is represented on celluloid - candy canes and mistletoe and presents for pretty girls. But like the blanket addict says, Christmas is about something else -- Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men. It's supposed to be about the birth of Jesus.

This was a very strong message half a century ago. If commercialism was rampant in 1965, imagine what Schulz would think of the present day. It's ironic that you still see Snoopy, Charlie and friends plastered everywhere this time of year, and it was the success of this special that opened the floodgates for a billion-dollar merchandising empire that still exists today.

The fact that A Charlie Brown Christmas is still one of the most beloved - if not the most beloved holiday special ever - is testimony to the distinct message it sends even after all these years: Be Nice To Each Other.

In the end, Charlie's friends practice what Linus so eloquently preaches by decorating his sad little tree and 'Oooo-ooo'ing him into the closing credits.  I'm sure on December 26th, they reverted back to treating Chuck like garbage, but for one magical night of 'Oooo-ooo'ing, the message sank in.

We could all use some more 'Oooo-ooo'ing in our short time on this planet together.