Piano Man by Billy Joel

All iconic artists have a signature song.  Elton John has “Your Song,” Springsteen has “Born To Run,” and Billy Joel has “Piano Man.”

One of the things that many American, and some artists whoa re not American have done with a their music is to define the American experience. Billy Joel does this in a similar way that Springsteen does with working-class characters and deep nostalgia from times that came before while also acknowledging the flaws of the past, like Joel sings in “Keeping The Faith,” “the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”



Joel’s music has always had a harsher edge and a more cynical almost punk rock aesthetic. “It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me,” sounds bitter and “She’s Always A Woman,” has a strange almost sarcastic feeling to it (which I wrote about in this earlier post).

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Joel’s signature song has a similar feel. “Piano Man,” is a song about dreams unfulfilled. It’s about people dealing with regret and trying to escape their the reality of their lives. When described this way, “Piano Man,” seems like a bleak and joyless song, but when you listen to it, you realize that it is something very different.

I’ve never been to a bar that had a piano man like Joel playing at it, but he paints such a vivid picture of the bar that you feel like you are part of that world. There’s depth in all of the descriptions of his characters that help you imagine deeper stories like in a good fantasy story.

The whole song swirls and rallies around the song itself. The chorus is the chorus of the people in the song and as we sing along to this song we become one more person sitting in that bar, with all of our own worries and fears, simply wanting to be lost in a song.

In many ways this is what Joel has done his entire career.  When I watched him perform in Wrigley Field last summer, I could feel how much he wanted his music to be a participatory event and how much that he wanted to take the audience away.

Joel is much more of a realist and his bitterness and anger reflects the “angry young man” in all of us in ways that pop music from previous generations did not. He worked through the pessimism of the 1970s and the cynicism of the 1980s with a song in his heart.

We demand the piano man to sing for us, because we need him to forget about life a while. He put into song the desire we all have for escape and provides that escape at the same time. “Piano Man” is the definition of great pop song. It’s specific enough to relate to our own lives but ambiguous enough to appeal to mass audiences. It melds styles of music together in subtle and unexpected ways and as good as it feels to listen to, it reaches a higher level of meaning when you let go and sing along.

Parenthood: Week 6 – The Puppy And The Baby

Last night, instead of leaving when Ollie started crying, Buffy followed him into the nursery as Diana prepared to nurse Ollie in the middle of the night.

This was a big change from the way Buffy reacted to Ollie weeks earlier.

After Ollie came home, Buffy didn't seem interested in Ollie. She went over to sniff him in his car seat when we set it down on the floor but that was it. Diana's mom brought home one of Ollie's little hospital hats for Buffy to sniff a couple days earlier. She was interested in that but when it came to finally meeting Ollie, there wasn't much of a response.

Buffy has been around babies and kids all her life. One of the things we love about is that she is very tolerant of small humans. She doesn't act like a crazy puppy around sleeping babies and she lets little kids carry her around her as if she was a doll. But it's a different thing to visit a kid than having one become part of your everyday life.

You know that type of dog that jumps on your bed in the morning to wake you up? Buffy isn't that kind of dog. Usually I have to get her up in the morning for her walk.  Also, if you get up in the middle of the night and you will probably hear Buffy groan at you as you disturb her sleep.

Buffy usually sleeps in our bedroom on her bed on the floor. Initially, she didn't take very well to her new roommate. As Ollie cried and got up multiple times through the night those first couple weeks, Buffy would groan at the disturbance. Usually, after the first crying fit, she would leave our bedroom and sleep in the living room or the bathroom.

As the weeks passed it seemed that Buffy was satisfied to settling down for the night in a room other than our bedroom. At first this made me and Diana a little sad. We love our puppy and having her sleep in our room provides a sense of family and companionship. So we would put her to bed in her bed in our room but would inevitably find her somewhere else in the house by the next morning.

I don't know if Buffy is getting used to the crying or is more willing to stay in the bedroom because Ollie is sleeping for longer periods, but now we are finding Buffy in our bedroom in the mornings.

Last night, this puppy that I have to literally drag out of bed followed Diana out of our bedroom as sounds of Ollie's cries filled our house. When I got up to check on Ollie and Diana, I expected that Buffy had found a quiet spot in some corner of the house, but instead Buffy was in the nursery sitting in the corner watching Ollie and Diana.

Many people have asked me how Buffy is doing with her new little brother. She is not running up and licking him with excited greetings nor she's cuddling with him. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because Buffy is doing exactly what we she need her to. She's not up in Ollie's face and she gives him space. Ollie doesn't seem interested in her, so Buffy, as she usually does with people, is matching Ollie's interest and energy.

Buffy and Ollie's relationship is going to continue to evolve displayed by little gestures and cute moments. You don't know what a dog is thinking but I think that Buffy is growing used to Ollie. She's feeling what we are feeling and wants to  be with us through it all. There's power in her presence and her choice to stay with us and not turn away from Ollie's cries is a reminder from our puppy what it means to be a family.

Summer Camp: Week 1 – Mr. Kingsley

So why am I working at a summer camp? Well, the money is nice and also because as much as I enjoy not working during the summer, I do love kids and teaching is something that I really do enjoy.

I proposed to my school to do a summer music camp but it didn’t run because not enough people signed up. While I was working up proposals for this camp and hoping that people would sign-up, I was also talking to one of my friends about working at the camp at the school that she worked at during the school year.

This other school is also an independent private school that embraces the progressive teaching philosophy. When my friend connected me with the summer camp coordinator they were really excited about the school that I taught at and got me in to teach two forty-five minute morning sessions Monday through Thursday.

These sessions would have a variety of ages from students entering second grade to students entering sixth grade. This last week I taught as session of second graders as well as mixed group of fifth and sixth graders.

Now I’ve actually never taught summer camp, been a camp counselor or gone to camp. The closest I ever got to camp was going to band camp at college. I have plenty experiences as a teacher so I figured I’d be fine. All I’d have to do is extenuate the Barney and Friends part of what I do and I’d be set.

While the week went well, there was a lot of adjustments that I had to make. These were kids that I was only working with one week so it wasn’t possible for me to really get to know them well. I did some name stuff but moved on from that  quickly since I had so little time to spend with them.

Classroom rules: I was sillier about them but I tried to make a point. The one rule was “don’t be a poo,” which did  them laugh but also drove home the point about being nice to each other.

I ended up doing a lot of screaming. Not angry, aggressive screaming, more jokingly frustrated screaming. It shook some kids up but they understood quickly that I was partially joking and being silly as part of the shtick that I was creating.

I wasn’t Mr. Tang their music teacher. I introduced myself as Mr. Kingsley, their musical guide as we had fun with music.

We started each session with a camp song, and did activities that I regularly do with my kids but simplified them for the context and didn’t explain learning connections. I also wasn’t as concerned with teaching them long-term organization skills and how to behave in a classroom. We are in camp. While I needed order, the last thing I wanted was for my kids to feel like we were in a music class.

With the silly camp songs, screaming, random youtube.com clips and my manic energy, we had a lot of fun. Some kids left thinking I was really weird, which was fine since most of the kids left with smiles.

I got summer a full of camp coming up, so its going to be an interesting ride. Next week it’s a short week, but then I’m starting to work with the musical theater camp. 

This is going to be interesting.

Parenthood: Week 5 – Celebrating The Small Things

Being the parent of a newborn kind of sucks.

There’s the lack of sleep, the endless diaper changing, feeding him like every two hours (which Diana takes care of almost all of the time) and the fact that your schedule, and your life is no longer under your control.

You do all of these things for a little baby that doesn’t smile at you, barely acknowledges you when you come in the room and doesn’t even know his or her name. While you can’t describe the enormous amount of love you feel for your child, he or she has no real way of showing that love back to you.

So how do you handle all of this? You got to celebrate the small things.

When I taught special education, one of the things I learned was to get really excited about small accomplishments, not only for the students case, but also for your own happiness. In teaching, the accolades are rare so you have to celebrate the small accomplishments because that’s all you got to get you through the day.

The same thing goes for being the parent of a newborn. Graduation is a long ways away, college or preschool. So what do we have so far to be excited about?

There was the moment after we got home from the hospital and could see Ollie’s eyes tracking a book full of black and white high contrast images. As we watched his eyes dart around the image we saw him taking early steps to explore the wonderful world around him.

There was the moment when he grabbed my shirt for the first time. Ollie had held my hand (well more like my finger) from the first day he was born, but when I held him and tried to put him down and realized that he had grabbed my shirt it felt like for a moment that he needed me.

Then there was his one-month doctor visit.

We have been truly blessed with Ollie’s health this past month. While we didn’t have anything specific to be concerned about before this visit, I still worried. I was happy to hear that his weight was good and that everything looked great. But it was when the doctor showed us a couple exercises to do with Ollie that I’ll never forget.

Our doctor showed us an exercise where he held Ollie’s torso and let his legs try to take the weight of his body. Ollie had no problem doing this and the doctor told us, “Wow, he’s doing great, he has really strong legs.”

From the first time I heard Ollie’s heartbeat, I knew that he was strong, but to hear this confirmed by the doctor and to see him working at supporting his weight, I felt a mixture of relief, pride and overwhelming joy.

You don’t have to love everything about being a parent to love being a parent. And yes, being of a parent of newborn isn’t fun sometimes, but I love this experience. Like I tell Ollie, every day is a new adventure.

Amazing moments happen every day; you just have to take the time to celebrate them.

6/26/13

Ok, I'm going to try to do an entire blog post on my iPhone. Since we moved I haven't had Internet except for on my cell phone.  We did the whole sit at Starbucks thing which is how I got my last post up but I felt like a hypocrite because of my rants is about people who work on their computers at Starbucks.  Do you really think that you are cool because you are doing work in a coffee shop? That was SO ten years ago.

Prop 8 and DOMA: unconstitutional.  I can't believe it. One of the first posts on this blog was about "Under Pressure" which was an letter I wrote to my future child about my friend Jen's homosexuality and the validity of her love.  Now, here we are a couple years later in a country divided on this issue but making important steps forward.  

Unlike the Brown Vs. Board of Education case that struck down segregation, both of these decision were not unanimous.  Much will be written and analyzed about how this votes played out, but in my book a win is a win.

While all of this was happening I was teaching my third day of summer camp (which I will write about at a later time).  I spent last night trying to comfort Buffy as a apocalyptic thunder storm freaked out my puppy while Ollie cried as most babies his age at certain times in the night.  

This morning I struggled to get Buffy outside to go to be bathroom, which I did in the dumping rain (I followed her around with an umbrella like a golf caddy).  Even through she got fed, she was tired and nervous and right after I left for camp, her whining woke up Ollie.

The to-do list in my head has been ridiculous since we moved and it has only gotten worse, but knowing that this decision was coming filled me with excitement and hope.

Sometimes we think what happens in Washington D.C. doesn't effect us. It's like all the arguing and debate on the bill is the surface of an ocean in a hurricane while the rest of us are on the bottom of the ocean in the calm waters going about our business just trying to survive.

Things trickle down to the bottom and sometimes on way down they completely change the context in which we are living.  The writing on the wall is now the decision of the highest court of the land and this itself hasn't changed the way we as a country feel about marriage for most individual, but it's an important step.

There will be those who will continues to misuse God's word to argue against marriage equality the same way that people used the Bible to argue for slavery and segregation. And a generation from now there will still be many people who feel that gay marriage is wrong just like how many Americans still live with racism in their hearts today.  For some reason, people's fears and insecurities will continue to keep people from living and letting others love.

With all of battles left to fight I am proud to be an American today.  The march to protect rights is progressing as it has throughout American history.  It's in the fight that Wendy Davis refused to give up in Texas and the decisions by the Supreme Court today. Like Harvey Milk said so many years ago, you got to give them hope, and today that is exactly what the Supreme Court did today.  This hope is beam of light that shines through the darkness of the ocean to touch all of our lives.

Man, do my thumbs hurt . . .

Moving Day - Finding Home

If there’s anything that makes you feel like an adult, and not in the fun way, it’s selling a house, applying for a mortgage, buying a house and then finally moving.

We did all of these things last week.

Owning your own house seems like an integral part of the American Dream. From the pioneers to Terra in Gone With The Wind and the sprawling suburbs, the pursuit of happiness seems tied up in the ownership of land and a house. Things seemed simpler in my parents’ generation. A house was something that even with high interest rates you could afford, especially knowing that you could very likely sell the house with a profit a couple years later. Through different markets changes and adjustments, buying a house seemed like a safe investment. Then the housing market went bust and the mortgages became something that instead of enabling people to have more purchasing power were used by some banks into manipulating people into signing up for a ride that they could not handle.

The vast majority of the houses that Diana and I looked at in the past year were overpriced, many of them significantly so. I had sympathy for people who bought a house thinking that it would be an long term retirement investment who had to face the reality that their house wasn’t even at 70% of the price they purchased the house. My generation is left with a different paradigm. We can’t lean on a house to grow in value. We have to get a different kind of value out of a house. The enjoyment of living in the house is almost as important as the price. It can’t just be about the bottom line anymore. The world has changed.

At the same time, I have to be able to pay the monthly mortgage and I can’t buy a house that I know has fundamental problems, which will inevitably lead to it being sold at a loss.

One of the most frustrating things about the house buying process is that things are only worth what people are willing to pay for a house. Yes, I’m aware that’s how most things in our economy are priced out but with houses there’s such volatility and that it’s difficult to get a feel for what something is worth day to day. This is the world we live in and we got to do the best with the cards that we are dealt. Everyone is part of the real estate industry. You don’t have a choice; you need to live somewhere and the choices you make actively influence the price of houses around you.

Within the frustrations, the stress and the compromises there’s a sense that all of this will be worth it and even though you are stepping into a seemingly convoluted mess of price fluctuations and paper work all of that stuff is somehow worth it because the goal is so worthy.

Diana and I spent a year looking for a new home for our family, to be safe and happy and to make a more beautiful life together. It was a difficult process but as I lay in bed on our first night in our new house, surrounded by boxes and listening to the chorus of Diana, Ollie and Buffy softly breathing, I felt like I was home.

Parenthood: Week 4 – Sleep?!?

In the months leading up to Ollie’s birth many people talked to me about sleep, more accurately the lack of sleep associated with a having a newborn baby. People said to “bank” sleep by sleeping more before the baby came and to really enjoy the sleep you can get. So how are we doing with sleep?

Well, it’s kind of an adventure.

First off, it’s not like you can actually “bank” sleep. I found that even if the human body worked in a way that you could bank sleep, getting a lot of sleep the month before your baby is born doesn’t really happen. Between the ridiculous amount of things that you need to get done, most woman who are nine months pregnant do not sleep soundly and when Diana would get up, I would sometimes wake up. Also there’s the whole “it could happen any minute now,” which makes the sleep less relaxed.

The first three nights of Ollie’s life I slept in the hospital room. There was this big blue recliner chair. The top part reclined all the way flat and combined with the foot rest created a mostly flat sleeping surface. It’s was kind of like one of those seats on international flights that flatten all the way down. It worked as a sleeping surface but let’s just say by the third night, my back wasn’t very happy.

When we finally got home, it was nice to get some sleep in our own bed but newborn parent sleep is a unique feeling. I wanted to sleep but I was also worried about Ollie. I probably got up to check on him twenty times the first night he was home. While I don’t do this anymore, I find myself getting up in the middle of the night sometimes just to watch him sleep.

This wouldn’t be such a crazy thing to do besides that fact that we are getting up every couple hours to feed Ollie, correction: Diana is getting up every couple hours to feed him.

I don’t need to get up with Diana but the first couple nights I tried to. It takes time for babies to get in the swing of feedings and there’s a lot of little things that are a challenge when dealing with a newborn during the night. And honestly, it’s hard to ignore a newborn crying and sleep through it . . . or at least that's what I initially thought.

This past week I haven’t been getting up for the middle of the night feeding. If I hear that he’s being especially fussy, I’ll get up to help Diana out. Most mornings I’ve been getting up around 5am to help change diapers and settle Ollie after his early breakfast.

It’s working out pretty well, and it gives Ollie and I a chance to bond in the early morning when Diana goes to sleep for a couple hours. We watch television, I sing songs to him and we talk about life.

Yes, I feel sleep deprived. While I feel ok in the early morning, the late morning and afternoon can be brutal. We’ve learned to sleep when Ollie sleeps and family nap time is a great idea. Buffy is really good at helping us all get some shut-eye. She’s always in the mood for a good nap.

I miss getting a good night’s rest. While things are tough for me, It’s even rougher for Diana and she’s doing a great and powering through these last couple weeks without whining about not getting sleep.

Sleep feels different now. I’m listening for Ollie and for Diana when I sleep and I never know what kind of night it’s going to be. Maybe Ollie will get up many times or only once. Maybe Ollie will cry and it will not get me up or maybe I’ll sleep through it.  It’s different every night. 

So to expectant parents:

1. You can't bank sleep, so don't bother trying. 
2. Brace yourself: the first couple nights will be rough.
3. Sleep when the baby sleeps.  This is much easier said than done, but try.
4. Sometimes the sleep seems like a small price to pay for being a parent and other times it feels like a huge sacrifice.  Dig deep, you have a bigger reservoir inside of you than you think.  It's part "suck it up and deal," part "make it happen" and part "your baby is totally worth it."