Life is always the most humbling when it spins something your way that you didn’t expect. Last week, Son #2 was fighting some sort of illness that made him cough and be inconsolable at times. This is an interesting point because I’ve been thinking that I haven’t written too much about him. Well, the culmination of his personality, sickness, and a trip to the ER warrant this latest entry.

Let me just say that Son #2 is NOTHING like Son #1. I mean, they both have similar attributes as they come from the same gene pool. But when it comes down to brass tacks, these two require a different style of parenting. The most basic need: Eating. Son #1 never had an issue taking a bottle. Whatever liquid you loaded in it, he would drink. There was a day where he even wanted to sip on some corn-squeezins. Son #2 on the other hand. Where’s the boob? He needs to have a boob in his face to eat, sleep, and relax. I guess at the lowest common denominator of genetics, all males want this. The point is, Son #2 wants the boob. When he refuses it, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. That’s a Shakespearean reference.

The other night, Son #2 didn’t want to eat, sleep or be held. This went on throughout the dead of the night, or so I was told by my wife. I don’t sleep much but when I do, you can easily drive an M1 Abrams through my bedroom and I wouldn’t budge. Strangely, I woke up for the show that night. The screaming had been going on for hours and my wife was at wits end. I took him and headed downstairs for a change of scenery. We wandered around in the dark while he screamed his little lungs out. My wife came down after gathering up the little composure she had left and decided to take him for a ride in the car. Driving around the neighborhood, he didn’t make a peep but was wide awake staring in the vast darkness of the early morning hours. My wife brought him back home and he started up again. At this point, as a parent you start to worry about your kid. A second child usually has to take the process much further than the first to get a rise out of his parents. We got to that place with Son #2 and my wife decided to take him to the emergency room. I stayed at home with Son #1 who was pleasantly sleeping through the entire episode.

Hours past and Son #1 woke up. I explained that his brother was sick and had to go to the hospital. We sat watching TV on a day I should have been at work and waited for that text message from my wife that said Son #2 was doing fine. Instead, I got a phone call telling me otherwise. While in the ER, Son #2 began vomiting. He hadn’t eaten much but there was enough projectile puke to concern the resident physician in the ER to place him on IV and take blood. My wife was frantic. She hadn’t slept in 24 hours, had been puked on by her baby, and was now in the ER with her youngest son with an IV in his foot. I guess I am not going to work. We made some emergency phone calls to get a friend to watch Ryan until my father could get there. I took new clothes, water, and husbandly support to my wife.

It’s humbling to see your 6 month old son on an IV and your wife completely disheveled in the ER. Suddenly work looked much more appealing. But Son #2 was now calm and sleeping. I took the opportunity to hold him while my wife changed in to fresh clothes not covered in baby vomit. We waited for hours in that tiny little room taking turns holding the baby while the other stepped out to call family and friends.

Neither of us had a chance to eat so a friend brought us comfort food from McDonald’s. One of the nurses in the ER nearly shit herself when she saw us devouring our fries. Apparently, bringing food into your room in the ER is evil. Nurse Ratchet went on to bemoan us by saying that McDonald’s is the worst offender because the smell of the food alone will cause a peristaltic chain reaction amongst patients launching an epic puke-fest. The smell of McDonald’s upsets other patients? Has this genius nurse not smelled the excrement slathered on plates being shoveled out of the hospital kitchen?

Eventually the blood work came back. All results were negative which were both a good and a bad thing. At least you know he doesn’t have swine flu. But then again, what’s wrong with him? After everything was said and done, we were told by the ER doctor that if a baby won’t take a boob that’s a bad thing. No shit. Son #1 was happy to see his brother when we got home. I felt bad because I was so short with him earlier in the morning. But Son #1 was a trooper through it all. The next day, our pediatrician looked over Son #2 and the blood work results. He found nothing of concern and reiterated that if the symptoms reoccur to take our little one to the ER at Children’s Hospital.

So there was nothing wrong with Son #2, he was just sick. While this is only a small blip on the radar of all the maladies both Son #1 and #2 will see in their lives, the whole episode remains hugely humbling. For one, it’s never cool to see an IV in your kid. It may be necessary given the state of affairs, but you always want to protect them. Second, you can’t eat McDonald’s hamburgers in the ER no matter how hungry you are. And lastly, you never like to see your little one suffer and not be able to calm them down. You want to be their sanctuary.

The flip side is this: Son #2 got our attention. There’s always a concern of the dreaded ‘Second Kid Syndrome.’ Interestingly enough, Son #2 never lets us forget that he’s around. He’s loud and makes his presence known.

I have always prided myself in being in front of the latest musical releases from bands and artists that I follow. Whether it is by word of mouth, blogs, band websites, friends, a little bird, the Goodyear blimp, or periodical, I felt like I have my ear to the street. I eagerly anticipated new releases like a giddy little school girl waiting to get her newest ‘Dress me like a Tramp – Barbie.’ Let me cut to the chase here. Green Day and Eminem released new albums that I didn’t know about. I must be losing my touch and I am humbled.

This leads me into the third stanza of my musical blog entries. Over the years, we have accumulated mass amounts of entertaining and not-so-entertaining music in different ways. In this entry, I hope to give you direction to where to go next if you have an insatiate need for new music.

(3) Where to go to find more
Today, I find myself searching for more new and interesting music. Therefore, I have some experience in summarizing techniques that can be employed to enhance your listening repertoire. There are many great sources out there that can expose you to new, not-so-new, and interesting music. But there some hurdles to continual refreshment of one's music catalog. Life events like marriages, births and new jobs sometimes get in the way. But as I said in the past entry, these are great ways to find inspiration and continue your search. I am not an expert in life’s catastrophe or how the search should be executed. But, because of the times I've had and, more importantly, because of my music addiction, I can speak to the growth rate of one's musical catalog. Moreover, I am pretty happy with my findings.

1. People (Carbon-based Lifeforms)
Sometimes it’s necessary to put down the iPod, back away from the computer, call in sick to work, and actually talk to people around you. To be honest, it really doesn’t matter who you talk to. Most people have opinions on everything. They should be able to give you something. And if they do, most of the time, we’re smart enough to realize what’s value added from the conversation and take that little dollop away and use it.

For me, I have friends for just about every genre. You just need to be open to seeing a new perspective. On one of many occasions, a close friend handed me a burned CD of music. There was and indie hip-hop artist on it called the Grouch. It was so good that I used it in our Wedding CD we gave as a gift at our ceremony. I am honest about my distaste for some forms of music. But the important message here is that alternate perspectives and differences are the threads of a great fabric of existence. All you have to do is open up to other influences. Most music dorks would love to burn for you an extensive CD of their greatest hits. Take advantage of people with more time than you.

2. Live Shows
I know that most of you might be thinking, ‘You have two sons and a wife. How do you have time to go to live shows?’ With life’s obligations, it’s an epic task to organize a trip to a concert or a show. The great thing I have is a supporting spouse who is not afraid to go to a Classic Crime show and listen to a bunch of screaming emo kids just so I can stumble on to a band like Quietdrive.

There's a reason people have been listening to live music for thousands of years. The reason is the unquantifiable volume of fun you can have. Give in to it and enjoy, the results are definitely worth it. And for the most part, seeing bands like Staind and Pennywise are known commodities. But discovering new stuff requires going to the show early enough to watch the opening act. There's usually a reason why bands are paired together. Take advantage of that pairing. I remember stumbling on to a Canadian hip-hop duo called Swollen Members who opened for De La Soul at the House of Blues in LA. These guys had more energy than Son #1 geeked out on a man-size bowl of chocolate ice cream topped with jelly beans.

3. Media Outlets (Radio, TV, Film)
So the radio sucks. But sometimes it pays to listen and see what is spewed from your speakers. It’s still music. I mentioned in the last entry about trying to determine what you are hearing. Before you needed a DJ to tell you and now, just get on the radio station’s website and see what they just played. Slam dunk.

Television has come a long way in the past few years. In the past, music used in shows was lame. Usually it reminded me of a really bad advertising jingle. I am not just talking about the theme song, but the music used during the show. Example: The Brady Bunch when they go to Hawaii. Every time you see that damn Tiki doll that stupid music would play. But things are different now, popular culture demands to be entertained and networks know it. To gain market share they pump shows full of gratuitous sexual innuendos, popular culture references, and interesting music. A few years back, my wife and I were watching some ubiquitous cop show. Wasn’t a fan of the show, but at the end of the episode, I was captivated by a catchy punk tune. Subsequently, I got on the internet, searched out forums for the show, and found that it was Authority Zero. To date, this is one of my favorite bands.

My wife and kids couldn’t survive without the TV in our house. Don’t get me wrong, I love the boob tube but can live without The Man telling me what to watch. We have new fangled digital cable and that gives us 1 billion different channels. About 100 of them are digital music channels. I’ve found that these channels work great for background noise. But more importantly, they’ve been the source of much new music. Just pick a channel and sit and listen. This is how I discovered The Duke Spirit and LeRoy Bell. These channels make it easy too. They display the artist, song, and album on the screen (along with useless facts about when the second lead singer of the band last had an enema or was convicted of possession of child porn).

4. Brick and Mortar Retail (Amoeba Music, Easy Street Records, Sonic Boom)
As I mentioned in the last entry, I love wondering aimlessly through record stores. This experience will open you up to so much more than just ‘listening’ to music. To that end, record stores can help you uncover a gem that just might change your life. This leads me to one of my most important lessons. It’s not the album that you uncover at a record store. It’s that this album could be responsible for another 100 other bands you might like. Not because any of them sound like the first, but because one led to the next, which led to the next, and so on.

Much of my inspiration comes from this quote from a fellow blog author:

“As I wandered the aisles at Amoeba Music, I remembered why I like to do my music shopping like a bipedal organism. It's fun to be at record stores. I like the posters. I like the clacking sound the CDs make as people bang them together. I like watching the nerdy girl's eyes light up when she finds an old PJ Harvey album. It's all tangible; it's real reality, as opposed to the virtual kind offered up by a computer, a mouse and a credit card.”

This is why I recommend record stores. Music takes us places, not only because of the sounds we hear but because of the circumstances surrounding our experience with them. That includes the purchase. We might remember the store, the setbacks in life, the girl standing next to us when we unwrapped the CD, or the sex we had when we listened to it for the first time. Or, more likely with the music in my collection, the sex we didn't have when we listened to it. It doesn't matter if the music is awful. That's not the point. The point is that a voyage around a record store will lead you to something unexpected. That unexpected thing might lead to something great or to something terrible, or it might lead nowhere. A download doesn't have the same potential for sensory overload. There is no shared experience and life is about shared experiences.

5. The Internet (Amazon, iTunes, CDBaby)
We are now in an instant gratification era where everything you want can be obtained at your finger tips. Music. Check. Pizza. Check. Beer. Damn…we need an iPhone app for this. Anyway, the internet is a great source for music. No matter when or where I hear a new band, I end up on the web googling them or checking them out on Wikipedia. Then, there is a decision to be made; procurement. Legal or illegal, you make the call. For people who don’t like to pay for music to support struggling artists, there are tools like Limewire and BitTorrent where each month brings new, faster ways to download music and viruses for free.

More ethically permissible options of musical procurement include Amazon which is a great place to buy music in an MP3 format. I love the artificial intelligence deployed by Amazon.com. It’s one of the smartest search algorithms on the planet. Type in a band's name on Amazon.com and the site will recommend similar artists. The process is remarkably accurate and can lead you to your next big find. Sure, there are other options out there for your downloading needs. iTunes, Rhapsody, and Napster are examples. But when it comes to linking me to my next big find, Amazon.com has me hooked.

Another great tool is CDBaby.com. I went through a phase a few years back where I swore off listening to major label releases. It didn’t make sense that some jack ass in a suit was telling me who the next big thing in punk was. I found CDBaby.com out of this exercise in defiance. Back in the day, its search algorithm wasn’t as cool as it is now. There was less to search for on the system. Now, the system is bigger and the searches are deeper and more relevant. Your visit CDBaby.com is pretty intuitive. The search line on the top of the page says, ‘Let’s find you some music…’ Come on, it doesn’t get any more leading that this. But the greatness of this site is in its artist search association. Follow the ‘Discover Music’ link to get to the real deal. I recommend using the ‘Sounds like’ search field. Throw your favorite band’s name in this and CDBaby.com will scratch its electronic cranium and list back indie artists which can be compared to your favorites. Literally dozens of albums in our catalog came from CDBaby.com

Like I said, you can tell a lot about a person by examining their music collection. My wife and I pride ourselves on our diversity in music and our backgrounds. People have often asked me what type of music I listen to. A lot of times I respond with punk or some sort of specific interest stuck in my head that day. But really, there’s only one type of music I listen to and that is good music. Anything that inspires you, connects with you, pushes you, entertains you, and makes you a better human, or at least helps you make better decisions in your life, is what art is all about.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program...