Thunderbolt

This weekend I'm driving up to Ventura to see the Gaslight Anthem perform live at the Ventura Theater. The Gaslight Anthem are a Jersey band whose influences range from Stax soul to the Clash, as well as a guy named Bruce Springsteen. It was because of Springsteen that I was initially interested in their music, but I soon became a huge fan of their work. The '59 Sound was the album that put them on the map in 2008, and they've release two others, American Slang in 2010 and Handwritten which came out last year. The latter is particularly strong . In honor or seeing the band this weekend, here is the Basement Songs column I wrote about "The '59 Sound" back in November of 2008. Back in January, I wrote a special Basement Song column dedicated to my daughter, Sophie, on her birthday.  Tomorrow, November 14, is my son Jacob's birthday, and I now I want to dedicate something to him. When it came time to choose a song to focus on, I couldn't help but re...

I have run two marathons and many half marathons. Each race ended with a feeling of triumph and accomplishment. Here in Santa Clarita, the people of our community come together to volunteer and cheer on runners of all ages and skill. One of my proudest moments was crossing the finish line with Jacob when we ran the SC 5K two years ago in a freezing rain. Race days are a time of celebration, a time to embrace our differences and root for your fellow man. I have seen the carnage from the bombings today and I want to cry. I have read about the dead (including a child) and I want to cry. I think about the fear that has been gripped so many tonight and I want to cry. I think about the families whose lives are shattered thanks to some asshole(s) and I want to cry. But I see how the volunteers and the people of Boston came together as a community to help one another and, well, I want to cry. Dear Monster who decided to detonate a bomb in a crowded area in the middle of the day, this afternoon...

Jacob has been sick all week fighting a nasty cold. He missed several days of school, but went on Friday when he seemed to turn a corner. Waiting around that corner seems to have been a wall. Yesterday and today he has had a squeaky cough that keeps him hacking all day long and into the night. Not sure how he's getting any sleep. Right now I can hear him coughing away. He complains that his chest hurts and I can only imagine how it must feel. When I get sick with a cold I actually get nauseous from the pain in my chest when there's nothing left to spit up, yet my body keeps fighting and making me cough. "Everybody gets a cold," Julie reminded me the other day, but I still worry. Hearing him like this makes me feel useless, the worst feeling any parent can have.  I just want to wrap him up and squeeze the germs out of him. I wish I had super powers to do that. Jake would really get a kick out of that. Last year Jacob seemed to be fighting the same damn cold for half th...

One of the downfalls of my writing nature is that the moment I get caught up in a project something else gets neglected. I began writing two new scripts in the past month and the blog took the hit. Sorry! However, I left with a strong post for people to mull over. Great Strides is less than a months away and I hope those of you reading this book blog will take the time to consider donating. Exactly what have I been up to? Glad you asked. First of all, on the book front, I've entered Basement Songs into a couple of indie book contests. Not sure how it will do, but I hope that those who read it might pass it along to a friend. I also continue to query about reviews for music magazines and blogs. Elsewhere, I've started the work on a new series for Popdose. It doesn't have anything to do with basements, but there is music involved. When it gets closer to the premiere I'll let everyone know. The scripts I'm working on have nothing to do with each other. One is a teen d...

Each year around this time, our family comes together to begin raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Great Strides Walk. This is the annual 5K walk that serves as our big fundraiser to help find a cure for cystic fibrosis (CF). Our family has lived with disease for 11 years, ever since that December afternoon when my son Jacob was diagnosed with CF. When I say “family,” I don’t just mean my wife, Julie, our daughter, Sophie, and Jacob. I mean my parents, siblings and their respective families, Julie parents, siblings and their families, plus the hundreds of aunts and uncles, cousins, 2 nd cousins, best friends and distant acquaintances from years past who have all given what they can to help us in our battle. These people, all of them, are family in some way. How else can you describe these people who have shown so much love and support for Jacob and our family? With every new Great Strides campaign comes the task of writing a new letter asking people for money. Some year...

In the next day or two, I will begin my fundraising campaign for this year's Great Strides Walk in Valencia. We tried to come up with a new song for the Malchus family video, but each one chosen was either inappropriate, or Jacob nixed because he didn't want to "ruin" the song by having it become associated with CF. As Sophie will attest, these songs become reminders of what we're fighting for when we ask for donations. Because of past videos, Sophie can no longer listen to "Here Comes the Sun" or Springsteen's "Workin' On a Dream" because they make her heart hurt too much. For that same reason, we didn't use the perfectly suitable Bruno Mars song, "Count On Me." Jacob loves that track, thanks in part to its use in the animated film, A Turtle's Tale (a movie that his dad just happened to work on), and also because it's just a wonderful song. So, we chose to tweak last year's video (with the One Republic song ...

I've been a reader of the L.A. Times since we moved here in 1994. The ritual of waking up and reading the newspaper over a bowl of cereal is something I've done since childhood. With baseball season upon us, I love the idea of reading the box scores and reviewing how my favorite teams did the night before. Additionally, the Times arts and entertainment section is top notch. Since this is an industry town, I guess that's what you'd expect. Anything you want to know about movies, music, theater and television waits for you at the end of the driveway every morning. Well, not everything. Yesterday I discovered that the Times is no longer listing the daily TV grid in their arts section. Thus, if I want to know what's on TV that day I'll need to go online or scroll through my Directv guide after I turn on the television. I know, it's not that big of a deal. Most cities around the country stopped printing the TV grid years ago. Heck, some cities in the country ...