Seriously, Why Don't They Play More Social Disortion?

Last year I got myself a new (to me) GMC Envoy with enough room to hold my entire family. I LOVE this vehicle. Talk about loaded, this thing even has washers for the headlights, I shit you not.

My favorite feature, however, is easily the satellite radio. The fine folks at SiriusXM were kind enough to give me a free preview month and then offered my a six month deal at just five bucks per month. This is quite possibly the best $30 I have ever spent.

Those who know me well, or at least those who knew me in college or before are no doubt aware of my musical interestes. I often wondered when I was growing up how my dad could listen to all those oldies stations playing nothing but stuff from the 60s and 70s. I guess you kind of never really evolve after a certain age, because it's now better than 20 years since the Seattle sound exploded into the mainstream, but I am still very much stuck in the Grunge era.

Granted, there are no more chain wallets, no more flannels, no more Doc Martens, but I still cannot get enough of bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden. I was never a huge Nirvana fan, but I feel like they have to be mentioned here as well. Bands like Candlebox and Blind Melon were, in my opinion, far better to listen to.

And while the early to mid 1990s were certainly defined by the bands I listed above, there were many others who came to prominence during that time who were wonderful in their own rights. That's why, when I tuned in my free XM radio this past summer, I was so overjoyed at finding channel 34 - Lithium - I channel dedicated to, in their words, "90s alternative and grunge." What could be better?

Unfortunately, I have noticed a very disturbing trend over the past month or so. It seems whomever is creating the playlists for this channel has a bit of a thing for three bands in particular, as their music comes up a disproportionate amount of time. The Smashing Pumpkins, Jane's Addiction, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers all see heavy rotation on Lithium while bands like Nirvana get relatively little airplay, especially their earlier songs. I find that particularly odd since Lithium is, in fact, a song title from Nirvana's iconic Nevermind album, an album that, along with Pearl Jam's Ten, ushered in the Grunge era and announced Seattle's presence as the new Mecca of alternative rock.

Now, I never loved the Pumpkins, but I did like a good number of their songs and while Billy Corgan's voice annoys the hell out of me sometimes, I can appreciate the music. I wish they didn't play the Pumpkins quite so often, but I can deal with it and I rarely wander off to a different channel when they come on the air.

Seriously though, there is zero excuse for the other two bands to be seeing anywhere near this much airtime. I mean, is Flea of the board of directors for SiriusXM or something?

Jane's Addictions was a short-lived, but talented band that featured guitarist Dave Navarro and frontman Perry Ferrell. I don't love Ferrell's vocals, but the he and the band had a unique sound.

Bassist Flea was a brief member of Jane's Addiction, though not a member of the original lineup. JA's success came as headliners of the first Lalapalooza Tour in 1991, years before Flea became involved. Unfortunately for the music-loving world (or at least me, as I recognize I may be alone in this opinion), Flea had gotten "big" (in quotations because he's actually very short) with the Chili Peppers, who, as best I can tell, did all of the exact same things Jane's Addiction did only not nearly so well as Jane's Addiction did them. This includes, but is not limited to, songwriting.

I mean honestly, is there a Chili Peppers song in which Anthony Kiedis does not spend at least one verse simply making incoherent mouth sounds instead of singing actual words? It's as if he wrote the song and realized he only had enough to cover about two-and-a-half minutes and needed to stretch it out to four. Instead of writing another verse, he decided just to throw in some ba-dinga-dong-dangs for a minute and a half.

If you've seen the Big Lebowski, and I assume all of you have or else we are very likely not friends -- or at least shouldn't be, there is the scene where The Dude catches a cab home from Jackie Treehorn's pad and winds up getting tossed by the cabbie for overzealous complaining about the Eagles, that's pretty much me when it comes to the Chili Peppers. I mean, I hate the effing Chili Peppers, man.

They are easily the most overrated, and over-played, band of all-time.

Which is why it pains me so much that the greatest musical discovery of the past 10 years of my life is so often tainted by not only the presence of the Chili Peppers, but the ridiculous number of times they are played. I even took into consideration that I may be overreacting a bit. Surely, it only seems like they are played too often because I despise them so much that I notice it more than the number of times Filter hits the airwaves, for example. Not so. I actually predict with a fair amount of accuracy when the next Chili Peppers or Jane's Addiction song will be played. I pretty much just guess they are mandated to play one of those two bands, in particular, in every five song block at least once. I'm rarely wrong. And I hate it each time.

There is not a single Chili Peppers song I like enough to not change the station when it comes on.

So, my six month deal is up in just five short weeks and I'm sure they'll try raising the price on me. I'm totally in love with the product excepting that whole playing-my-least-favorite-band-far-too-often thing. I just hope they give the Chili Peppers their own station like they did with Pearl Jam and Jimmy Buffet and Bruce Springsteen.

I mean, the Grateful Dead have their own station and they only ever had one radio "hit." The Chili Peppers, regretfully, had many, though all of them sucked. If they get their own station, maybe I'll get to hear some occasional Lithium on Lithium. What a novel idea.

He Is Who We Thought He Was

Yeah, about that...

So, in my last post, I extolled the virtues of Bio-dad and how he had seemingly turned a corner. Not shockingly, he has reverted to old form. I've delved into the gory details far too often on these virtual pages already and frankly, this guy isn't worth the time to devote to writing about him.

Suffice to say that we'd all (Bio-dad included) be much happier and much better off if he'd simply renounce his rights so Valerie, the kids, and I can move on as the family we already are, but with matching last names.

That's really the only way this ends well for the kids.

Credit Where It's Due

I have spent a decent amount of time on these virtual pages pointing out the flaws of Bio-Dad. In the near five years that Valerie and I have been together, he has shown himself to be pretty darn close to worthless. If he's breathing, he's lying and he has made a habit out of telling the kids he's be there to pick them up, only to go days or weeks without so much as a phone call.

In fact, it's far more frequent that he doesn't show than he does. It's well past the point where we expect him to disappear; it's damn near shocking when he actually spends more than six hours a month with his kids. That is not an exaggeration.

So last week he contacted my wife and told her that he was really going to try to see the kids and spend time with them. As if it's some kind of chore. Of course, this is the same guy who also said, the last time he was going to try, that he would "give them a chance." The guy has a lot of nerve. I'm not sure what a seven and six year old have to do to be worthy of his time, but I can't imagine thinking something like that, let alone saying it. This guy is a winner.

Anyhow, so he tells her that he's planning to pick the kids up from school to spend an hour with them before he goes into work. Sure enough, to my shock, the kids didn't come home from school on Monday because he actually showed up to get them. Then Tuesday came and the same thing happened. And Wednesday. Thursday the kids came home, but he called immediately apologizing to them saying he had some errands to run and didn't make it back in time. The next day, he got them from school again.

Of course, the weekend would be different. This is a guy who actually brought them home at 1 am on a Saturday one weekend. He has prioritized his social life (drinking mostly) over his kids and he's flat out told Valerie that he has no intention of making any sacrifices in his personal life to accommodate them.

But he did, in fact, show up on Saturday and he didn't call saying he needed to go jam with his band or anything silly like that. Instead, he kept them overnight and then did the same on Sunday, taking them to school, on time, on Monday morning. If that wasn't enough, the kids spent an hour after school with him before he went to work again.

It has been just a week, but he has finally followed through on something he said he would do. I know Sebastian couldn't be happier. He idolizes that man, and I will never come close. That's not his fault and I'm not mad about it. It's just something I have to accept. The fact is that I am not the biological father of those two kids and no matter how much Bio-Dad lies or disappoints the kids, he'll always be number one.

I doubt this little phase of his will last. If he's shown anything in five years it's that he isn't terribly interested in being a dad. I hope, for Sebastian and for Lillian, that this phase becomes habit.

I just have a lot of trouble believing it will.

Here We Go Again

It wasn't all that long ago, now that I think about it, but it seems like a lifetime has passed between then and now.

I have written previously about what Dr. Suess referred to as the most useless of places: the waiting place. For a full year I was stuck there, waiting for a job at Proctor and Gamble to come through. I filled out their application and completed their online questionnaire. I waited two months to hear back from them, then went to and passed their two hours worth of tests. Another month or two passed and I was interviewed. A week later, I was informed that I'd be placed in the hiring pool, where my name would stay for up to one year. If a need was there, I would be called.

A year passed. That call never came.

It was a year that I wasted, personally and professionally speaking. I was maniacal about checking my email, badgering others in the pool (I knew of two in my same predicament) if they had heard anything. Rumors floated around about the company adding 40 jobs within a month or 60 within a year.

Nobody actually knew anything.

All I knew was that P&G was my lottery ticket. People who work there retire in their fifties. It's the kind of money that can change a life, especially for the patriarch of a struggling family of seven.

My year was up last April. In June, I lost my job at the car dealership I had worked at for the past six years. Since then I have raised my kids and looked for work that hasn't been found.

A month ago, I got an email.

Proctor and Gamble was hiring again, it said, and they had extended a special early offer to those of us who had run out of time in their pool. We would be the first group invited to apply again.

So, once again, I applied and then I completed their online questionnaire. I heard nothing back from them, not even a confirmation that they received my assessment. Not even a thanks but no thanks letter. Days into weeks into a month passed. P&G is great at leaving you twisting in wind, it would appear.

At quarter past seven tonight, I got another email. It didn't even talk about the process to this point; only directed me to see the attachment for instructions on how to schedule the test.

Once again, I'll chase the job. It's not that I necessarily even want the job at all. I love being able to raise my own kids instead of trying to find a sitter and having them raised by a stranger. But I also like the idea of getting siding on the house, getting new windows, maybe even renovating the kitchen. I like the idea of being a family that has enough money to tell my children "yes" instead of "maybe someday."

At the same time, I'm ever hopeful that my role with the network will become something more than a hobby. There are several indicators that such a dream could be reality within a matter of months, if all goes well. Imagine being able to work from home and make a decent living without having to waste a 30 minute commute or drop the kids at the sitter's house.

So, of course what will happen is that I'll wind up having to choose one over the other; it's always the way these things happen. It's like when you're single and no woman will give you the time of day, then, as soon as you're seeing someone, there are suddenly three hotties that are trying to catch your eye.

The situation will hopefully resolve itself and I'll wind up landing a job with one of the two companies. Given the speed with which P&G has moved in the past, we are still months away from anything happening there, if it ever does. Unfortunately, it's the same timetable for the network, I think.

Until then, I'll make myself comfortable, enjoy my kids, and try not to drive myself crazy wondering when, or if, I'll land one of my two potential life-changing jobs.

Sooner or later it has to be my turn to win, right?