It’s “New Music Monday” again. I once used to be on top of my game knowing when new releases of my favorite artists were going to drop. It seems as time passes in the hour glass of life, I’ve become more preoccupied by other details and obligations like children and employment. However, my unwavering hunger for new music hasn’t faded. Once again, I missed a vital piece of information that an old favorite, an old friend if you will, released a new album. But again, as fate would have it, I was alerted to its existence only days after the release by the wonders of the internet and all of its glowing informational fruitfulness.


The godfather of emo music, Chris Carrabba, and those ‘three other guys’ of Dashboard Confessional have released their latest studio album “Alter the Ending.” I have adamantly denied the value of mainstream emo in previous posts. Now that ‘emo’ is the whiney, mascara wearing, ‘my parents-don’t-understand-me’ variant. Dashboard Confessional is alternative rock but is absolutely soul-bearing and the pouring of heart felt emotion. And because I am an emotional train wreck, this resonates with me. I was looking for something deeper and wrenching rather than my typical ‘I hate the Man’ music.

Get it here at Lala.com

In a digressional moment, I owe thanks to my cousin and his family for the iTunes gift card which afforded the purchase of “Alter the Ending.” I’m pretty anti-Apple, specifically iTunes and its Gestapo-like DRM. It’s like visiting the Matrix. But with a gift card, I was all about taking advantage of economically risk free music. Unfortunately, iTunes had “Alter the Ending” for $12.49 when it was only $9.49 at my secret love, Lala.com. This further supports my stance against the evils of iTunes.

Onward. If I’m counting correctly, this is the sixth studio release from Carrabba as the front of Dashboard Confessional. In honesty, the record is a little more overproduced than past releases. Now, that could have killed the record, because what makes Dashboard Confessional truly intimate is Carrabba’s songwriting, earnest voice, and minimal acoustic guitar work. This record is almost a polar opposite of that. Lots of echoes, string arrangements and layering. But all of the production suits many of the songs. Let it be known that true purists will blast this level of ‘poppiness’ and yearn for the old days of Dashboard Confessional. In that case, I would recommend buying the Deluxe version which is two discs. The first disc is all of the material in glorious Technicolor and full production sound. The second disc is all of the same tunes in naked acoustic pleasantries. That bares Dashboard Confessional down to the underground emo-heartbreak phenomenon they once were.

“Alter the Ending” is a very deep record emotionally. For me, it is what I needed right now. Less about the music and more about the message. Less about destruction of the institutional constructs of the ‘Man’ and more of about the dive into feelings about the world around me and the struggles inside me. Okay, so I may be a little biased but I will say that the songwriting on this album is truly intimate, and beautiful. Carrabba is a master at capturing hurt and joy in an audible format that you ‘get.’ Despite my favoritism of the band and my connections to the messages swirling around from listening to the album, this is truly a special record of beautiful tunes. Typically, Dashboard Confessional albums were more about darker feelings and retrospective but “Alter the Ending” is much more upbeat and the lyrics lift and are hopeful.

All of the songs are near-epic on this album but there are three marquee songs which make it purchase-worthy:

Belle of the Boulevard – When I first heard this song, I had the vision of sitting in my garage with my sons reflecting on life and passing on advice about persevering through disappointments but knowing they both aren’t listening and would rather draw with sidewalk chalk. The beauty of the song is in the message and how it is delivered. Uplifting and lyrically soaring. In brief, it’s pretty much about rubbing dirt on your emotional wounds and moving on.

Hell on the Throat – If I had to pick one song that typified the sound of early Dashboard Confessional, this song is it. It’s delicate and intimately sung over an acoustic guitar and piano. The tale is an analogy of the harshness of the cold of winter being equated to the long road of life and roadblocks along the journey. This is Dashboard Confessional at its best.

Everybody Learns from Disaster – The title of this song is fairly self explanatory. Lyrically, it wonders through lessons learned through the years of growing up in a highly metaphorical story. It is very vivid and you can almost see the story visually playing out in your mind as you listen. It harkens back to the those long warm summers while you were in high school and felt indestructible but are now old enough the appreciate the lessons.



“Alter the Ending” is a lyrical adventure. The songwriting and musicianship are top shelf but the true beauty of the work is in its message and its delivery. This is what makes Dashboard Confessional a great group. It’s their ability to channel emotional feelings in a way that the listener can relate. Most of the songs are very metaphorical requiring the listener to digest what is being said. The cerebral nature of the lyrics creates a visualization that adds to the ambiance and the experience. Music that makes you see a vignette of a short story of life is what you will hear on “Alter the Ending.”

I’ve taken the opportunity to glance back on a few of my last posts recently and see a trend starting to continue through many of the entries. This blog has become a medium to disseminate family news as well as an emotional platform for deeper discussions. At times it’s become my diary or a thoroughfare to my heart. I’m writing this paragraph after the entry below almost in an effort to qualify its existence and its meaning. It’s a finger waving, you better listen to what I say article edited to fit here.

“A line of strands to mark the trail; No one said it would be easy. I must admit I thought the risk was better waged in younger seasons.”

The well-worn traveled path of life has been broad and well lit at times. But more often then I care to count; it’s been cold and winding through a dark dead wintery forest. Maybe it’s the current weather pattern or maybe it’s precisely the way I feel it. Despair. On dark, stormy nights like tonight, I can’t help but think of the blatant metaphorical imagery represented in the wind and rain ravaging the trees like my hurt tearing through the fabric of my being. I have to wonder and question whether or not I am capable.


Writing my feelings here, I’m praying that I don’t come across as preaching or telling you what to do. That’s really the last thing I want to be portrayed in this scribbling. I hope that you both can take what I’ve written here and know the depth of my feelings and the honest hope I have in the both of you. My life has been less than perfect and is blemished with poor decisions and indiscretions. There have been a fair share of disappointments and failures along the way. I just hope you both know how much you mean to me despite my inability to effectively communicate my love.

My heart and health have deteriorated over the years. There will be a day that my creative, emotional edge will be gone and I’ll be nothing more than a fragile pile of bones. It just seems like so much has been lost over the years. So much so, that the incremental positive additions sometimes get passed over in lieu of focusing on the painful regret. Two gleaming positive examples are the both of you. Too much time and emotion has worn me down over the years to dull off my once knife-edged personality. The both of you are pillars of purity that I can turn to when I’m lost or confused. I can hang my hat on the coat rack of your existence knowing success has come my way twice in life.


Please don’t let the horrible acts of people morph you into something different. My faith has been worn and my hands have been tied over the years. I feel like I’ve lost an important part of me along the way. Almost as if it is that one item a person forgets to pack after so many blurry nights in a hotel after long business travel. The days and nights blur into each other and time is lost. Packing for the next stage becomes tedious and details are lost. More importantly, personal essence is lost. Just like the cell phone charger you leave in the Motel 6, I forgot to pack my resilience.

Both of you are what I will leave behind; an incomplete legacy, unwritten for you to develop and partially conclude until you pass it on to your children. I pray that you discover that I’ve given you all the tools you need to handle the mistakes and heartache in front of you. No matter the how isolated either of your feel, you must always remember that there’s no one more dedicated to you than your brother. It’s easy to feel like you’re trapped in a dream or alone in a world of million of souls where you are without hope. When there is no one else, there is each other. I don’t know how I can empress how important this point is for the both of you. Lack of recognition wasted years of hope.


It’s very easy to ignore the signs as they’re revealed but you must keep an eye on the winding road ahead of you. The vast majority of the time, there’s very little time to react to the curves that come up blindly. I’d imagine that my words here are going to be viewed as preaching. Knowing that you both are aware of your father’s inability to be succinct or my inability to NOT discuss my opinions, I hope you both are open to hearing my heartfelt words. Thinking back, I can unfortunately not remember much of the encouraging advice from your grandparents. I know it was there, but all the changes in direction along the path have affected the line of sight I can see through the rear view mirror. So you tend to forget all with time.

I am finally coming to grips with the obscure point that the sun is setting for me. Now I pass on the incomplete legacy to you for your generation to continue. Know that no matter the redirection of the path or the obstacles that pre-empt your travels, I am with you and more proud than any father could be. You both are better.

With all that I can give, your dad.

“And when the path I have made from the grass to the grave, I will love you still. And when the sand turns to glass and all that’s left is the past, I will love still.”

In honor of the first birthday of Son #2, I’ve decided to discuss the childhood development of this aforementioned child (or maybe it’s the lack of development). Don’t get me wrong here; he’s a fantastic, but defiant kid. He seems to have his own schedule on when and how things are accomplished. I can only wait to see what he’s like in high school and college with this “I’ll do it when I’m ready” view on life.


While I’m not a believer in the second child phenomenon, I think that some of Son #2’s development has been a result of my wife and me not artificially coercing him. Son #1 was in daycare at the current age of Son #2. Because all of the kids were mobile, he wasted no time in figuring out that there was Darwinist stimuli in the classroom. A lack of mobility meant he was late to the snack table and snacks were a huge motivator. Likewise, food is a huge motivator for Son #2. However, the difference is that Son #2 is at home and not in daycare. There’s no “Ya, I took your snack. So what are you going to do about it?” I like to pretend that Son #1 had to fight to survive. It’s much easier for Son #2.

Son #2 has an interesting position on mobility. “Why move when you will move me?” He’ll crawl when it’s a matter of urgency. Crawling in a classical sense doesn’t apply. It’s really more of a ‘dragging’ activity with the occasional erratic kick of a leg to propel him further. In all of this, I don’t know why this really comes as a surprise to me and my wife. The damn kid has pretty much set his own pace since he was born. As a matter of fact, he was born on his own schedule and not his due date. This should’ve been a shot across the proverbial bow that Son #2 was doing things his way.

Another example of Son #2’s self-fashioned schedule of development is the manner in which he eats. Now I hesitate to say that my wife and I may be culpable for the preference of method which he consumes sustenance. It seemed like in the early months we could’ve been more deliberate about making Son #2 take a bottle. In his relatively short existence, he has successfully ingested two complete bottles of milk. Two. He decided early on, with our lack of bottle delivery emphasis, that he’d only feed in two ways; by his mother or by his hand. The first is obvious and has taken months to untie this insatiable need to connect with his mother. The second, which is more interesting, is his need to use his prehensile extremities in an unorthodox method of feeding.

Son #2 did not only skip (read: refuse) the bottle phase, but he also skipped (read: refused) the baby food phase. Admittedly, we tried harder with baby food than the bottle. But ultimately, He vetoed our actions with defiance. Not only did he not like eating baby food, he disapproved of eating from the spoon. This resulted in a scream, a spasmodic head movement, and the infantile plastic ware toss. So Mommy and Daddy had to learn; let Son #2 eat with his hands. The interesting thing was that it was not only about the method of nourishment delivery but also the nourishment itself. He didn’t want baby food, he wanted our food. For the last six months, we make meals in accordance with what Son #2 can eat with his hands. He enjoys bananas, meat, pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta of any variety, bananas, waffles, tortillas, toast, eggs, fruit, crackers, avocado, and bananas. Did I mention he likes bananas?

Never show a banana to Son #2 unless you’re ready to let him devour it. Otherwise, his air raid siren like howl will sound in displeasure. If there’s a banana in the room, house, neighborhood, or city, he’ll find it. There are infrared and heat seeking weapons manufactured by my employer, but I’m certain that if we could channel his banana-sensing abilities in a smart technology format, we could license it the U.S. Government, develop a new homing technology, and find the latest terror cell, or at least find a banana crop in South America. We have learned that if you give him the whole thing, he will put the entire banana in his mouth. He’s like a human banana blender. But to successfully forego choking on the mushiness, we give him half at a time.


Today is Son #2’s first birthday. Unfortunately, no celebrating for me as I get to enjoy the consumption of the finest beverage in the form of chilled PEG-3350. That’s pretty much antifreeze. Son #2 was a miracle child that we were never expected to have. Psychologically, we began to accept that there wouldn’t be a second child. It took me well over a year to get it through my thick skull. At the point of acceptance, my wife had an appointment to begin medical improvements on her health only to find out she was pregnant. I can vividly remember the tears of that day. Son #1 and I sat in the waiting room of the women’s clinic playing cars, when my wife emerged crying. Son #1 asked at the top of his lungs the reasons for her tears. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out but we had to remove ourselves from the public eye so the information could be fully disclosed. Although unexpected and unfounded, Son #2 was miraculously growing in my wife.

Unexpected and difficult, that’s Son #2’s modus operandi. Adjusting to the surprise news, having another little boy, dealing with the demanding new mouth to feed, and handling all of the changes has led us through a new chapter of lessons. This year has been a journey. Happy birthday!

There’s always some sort of angst and competition between the two largest institutes of higher education in our state. That can be in the athletic arena, the education arena, and more often than not, in the familial arena. In the state of Washington, you pick sides, play favorites, and ultimately, talk shit. Families are divided and curse words are thrown. I have had the fortunately and unfortunately dubious honor of attending both for each one of my degrees.

In my humble opinion, which is always correct here, is that you declare your allegiance to the institute where you earned your undergraduate degree. Why? You spent the most time on campus and in the classroom for that milestone in your life. You are a part of the culture and the fabric of the university. My second degree, while arguably harder due to time commitments and personal/professional obligations, came by taking night classes on a branch campus in one-third the amount of time as my undergraduate degree. Proud of this advanced degree I am, but ashamed that I had to ‘slum’ at the other university to achieve its accolades.

All competitiveness aside, both universities do much for the local and the global community. It would be hard to deny the immense value that the Medical Sciences colleges at University of Washington has created with its relentless pursuit of medical and life science breakthroughs. But inarguably, one of the greatest innovators across multiple sciences and a diverse cross section of industries is Washington State University. Of course, I am somewhat biased in this regard but I would strongly suggest that before you cast my assertions aside that you research and do your homework on both schools. The resumes of community involvement and technological innovation at both are world renowned. However, WSU has a pride and tradition in pushing the boundaries and raising the bar of expectation in a diverse set of researches that are well recorded.

Equally so, Washington State University is extremely creative in their branding and promotions. Their work is classic in design and efficient in communication. The creative marketing group at WSU works extremely hard to deliver the key messages of the University in all of its collateral and at all touch points. The brand identity of the university should be that of the classical topics addressed by HBS. Below are the Ad Spots which play on television to illustrate many of the projects in which the university is currently involved. Each succinct, very relevant, and poignant:

ORIGINAL AD SPOTS

Economies of Developing Countries


Bioremediation of Water Resources


Bone Replacement


NEW AD SPOTS

Drought-Tolerant Crops


Antimatter


Animal/Human Health


Biofuels


I am very proud that my undergraduate alma mater is heavily involved in the betterment of societies around the globe. The university is truly focused on leaving this planet better than it found it. I applaud my fellow alumni, the classes of students in all of the colleges, the world-class faculty and facilities, and the donors and sponsors who provide the means to execute on the fundamental goals of the university. While I’ve had the opportunity to attend both major educational institutions in this state, my heart and passion still lie with the university where I spent my most collegiate days, learned life lessons, studied extremely hard, developed life-long friendships, built a brotherhood of men, and bled crimson over every related activity. There is something indescribable and indisputable about the culture and atmosphere of the university and its surroundings. This can not be duplicated easily, or even worse, described accurately to do it any justice or explain to the uninitiated. Go Cougs!