By: Ken Boone After last week’s blog post, I sat down to write another one listing more examples of things for which I’m grateful. But, there’s a problem with most self-help tools out there: Many of us tend to quickly minimize the negatives (grievances) and move toward pleasure (gratitude). There will be other gratitude lists in the future. They are fun to do and are never exhaustive. I’d like to take this time to thank Celia and her support system for keeping that recovery tool front of mind. I remember when I was a 15-year-old struggling student and fledgling musician. I would race home on Fridays because my family observed the high holy part of our religion from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. I used to enter “the Sabbath” with great resentment, but by the time I was 15, I had about 10 years of it under my belt and had developed a few coping skills. Sure, I couldn’t watch TV on Saturdays until sunset, but my need for television entertainment was replaced by Family Radio. What’s that? It’s a small network of Christian radio stations modeled after NPR. They featured several local and syndicated DJs spinning all types of Christian music, from choir to contemporary. I wanted to own my own Family Radio network! I also longed to own a record label equivalent to Ralph Carmichael’s Light Records. I dreamed of producing dramatic content in the mold of “Unshackled,” a syndicated show styled after soap operas from the 1940s, which told the stories of people who turned their lives around. It was like an AA discussion meeting on super steroids. I was a teenager, so I wasn’t consumed by blind jealousy. However, I knew that those dreams were quite ambitious, so I only shared them with a small number of people. My mom and stepfather weren’t too dismissive of my ideas because they had a lot to do with church. As my godmother so eloquently put it, “at least it beats selling drugs on the street corner.” You had to know Aunt Rose to see that what she said was funny. As time marched on, I got more involved in the performance aspects of Christian music. While I enjoyed that, I still had a secret plan to make the switch from artist to executive. The plan didn’t work out at the time. You know, the old barrier of entry thing. Also, I was a little weak on the planning and execution back then. I found out that there wasn’t a Family Radio outlet near Celia’s childhood home. I think she would have really enjoyed it, and had she experienced those shows, it could have helped our musical shorthand. As we move to current times, a lot of cool things are happening. The costs for doing things, like recording (podcasts) and music production have fallen drastically. In fact, they’re free, if you get creative. Celia and I are at a very comfortable at our price point. We just published our 50th podcast episode! Before you know it, we will have produced over 100 episodes, 50 music tracks, and whatever else we feel called to do. Our latest, and most complexed podcast show to date, “Songs from the Journey,” has two episodes published and is receiving positive feedback. It reminds me a lot of the old Family Radio show “Unshackled.” We don’t use actor portrayals or the classic soap opera organ soundtrack, but we embrace the energy of those shows. We’ve made sure of that! To my delight, the “Unshackled” producers still record live episodes every Saturday at 4:30pm at the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, IL. To date, they have nearly 3,600 episodes in the can! But wait... there's more!
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By: Ken Boone It’s hard to believe that this marks the 25th weekly “From Grievance to Gratitude” blog post. That’s a half of a year on your typical business calendar. To tell the truth, I would have been happy with ten weekly posts. So to mark the occasion, I’ll 25 things for which I’m grateful. Any grievances will take the form of a gratitude for this week only. Whenever I hit a predetermined milestone, I treat myself to a celebratory hot dog from the Quick Trip convenience store near our local Concord Mills Mall. That’s not so strange coming from someone who prefers his premium cup of coffee from the corner Circle K gas station. Hey, don’t knock it until you try it. I’ll have to pick someplace really special to mark this event.
Take gentle care, Ken But wait... there's more!
By: Ken Boone It’s Wednesday, September 19, 2001 and I’m sitting at my desk after a week of terror and uncertainty. The nation was still numb from the tragic events of 09/11, so we were literally going through the motions. I happened to be living in New York City, commuting to work in Central New Jersey by bus. I can still remember the audible gasps coming from the passengers each we approached the Lincoln Tunnel toll booths. You see, that’s about where we’d typically get our first glance of the Twin Towers. Now, it appears as though someone took a giant eraser and made them go away. Back at my desk, I started reading my emails when I noticed one from the Edison Midtown Little League. The message said that President George W. Bush wanted the youth baseball players of America to help lead the country back to normalcy. He wanted us to resume playing Fall Ball on Saturday, September 22, 2001! As the coach of one of the teams in the Edison league, all that was required of me was to be there ready to coach anyone they put in my dugout. There were still a number of parents who were not willing to allow their sons and/or daughters to socialize just yet. I was fortunate in that all of my parents and players were chomping at the bit to get back on the field. We arrived at the complex at 8:30am Saturday morning to find the outfield fences draped in red, white, and blue buntings. The dugouts had American flags on each end. And if I’m not mistaken, everything at the snack stand was free! The resonant voice coming from the P.A. system kept welcoming us to America’s pastime. All that was missing was the apple pie. I’m sure there were dozens of Chevrolets in the parking lot, and the hot dogs were free. A sense of excitement took over the complex as we stood to sing the National Anthem. And I think just about everyone there sang the hearts out! We played four games that day. I had the honor of coaching more than half of the kids that showed up. Those kids were gung ho to play. Most of them were on the rosters of teams that needed a bit more recovery time. Who could blame them. Our guys welcomed them with open arms and a lot of new friendships were formed. Coaching those kids that day was the second most important event of my marginally successful youth coaching career. Number one, by far, was when I signed my son up to play baseball in the first place. My reason wasn’t because I thought I had the next kid who one day would grace a Wheaties box. I was in desperate need of putting him in an environment that would help socialize him. A little over two years earlier, I was sitting in yet another emergency parent-teacher conference. Once more, I had to take time off from work to hear that my son, my name-sake, was suffering from oppositional defiance disorder. While he was, and is, extremely stubborn, didn’t they have enough experience to realize that this kid was a pawn in a nasty game of tug-of-war between his parents? The “professionals” at the table all chimed in with different possible remedies for this situation. One suggested putting him in a special school, while another suggested medicating him. While being forced to face the fact that they deemed him more trouble than it was worth, I’d been to enough of these sessions to know that, by law, I would be offered a chance to rebut. I had to think of something really fast, or they were going to railroad him into “the system.” “So, Mr. Boone, what would you suggest we do with your son?” The woman who asked me that question was a well-meaning, but overworked public servant who seemed to generally care about her students. Not trying to be a smartass, I adjusted my tone and said that they didn’t have to do anything with my son. I stuck my chest out and said, “I got this. I’m signing him up for Little League”! That bought me a little time, and boy did it pay off. He took to the sport like a duck to water! His fierce competitive streak was fine tuned there. He learned all of the life lessons that are buried in the rules of baseball. And he had fun. Even though his first team had a record of 1 win and 15 losses, he was ready to get out on the field for another game. Even though he was a victim of Daddy Ball, he kept practicing, playing, and leaving rivals in his rear view mirror. By the time we played that quadruple-header on Saturday, September 22, 2001, Kenny was one of the elite 11-year-old players in Central New Jersey. What’s more important is he was one of the most popular kids as well. To this day, many of those players are Facebook friends with him! I know that because from time to time, I get a friend request from one of them, asking “How’s it going, Coach Ken? I'm now coaching myself. Thanks for the life lessons and teaching me that winning isn't everything, but it's not a bad thing either!” But wait... there's more!
By: Ken Boone In many of my earlier blog posts, I referenced my time in musical purgatory. That was the period between 1987 and 2010. Neither I nor my music was welcome in the places that I used to call home. I couldn’t get near a stage to perform any of my stuff. In other words, I was toxic! As lonely and isolated as I felt during those 20+ years, I came out of it realizing that I was living a lie. It dawned on me that I was really an introvert whose external gregarious behavior was part of an act. I’m not a shy person, but more often than not, I prefer to keep my own counsel. My son was born in 1990, changing the trajectory of my life. I’d always been considered a fantastic uncle, but now the complete task of rearing a child fell on my shoulders. So I taught him everything I knew. There were things I didn’t know that should be passed down, so I had to learn that stuff. By the time the bulk of the training was done, it seemed like the only things I taught him how to do was tie his shoes, eat with a fork, and play baseball. I felt like a complete failure. Sure, I exposed my son to music along the way. I bought him a couple of guitars that are still playable today. I even arranged for him to get a couple of private lessons from my brother. However, the music fundamentals he was taught didn’t appear to stick. Why couldn’t I teach him anything? It made me feel that I wasn’t even a good musician. Using hindsight to assess the extended period I was away from music, I realized I was using the time to enter a monk-like, deep study period of musical immersion. It was like my initial studies, only much more intense. Although my musical journey started when I was seven years old, I was 15 when music played in an endless loop in my brain. That was when my friend and earliest partner in crime, Fred Odom let me hear the “Andrae’ Crouch and the Disciples Live at Carnegie Hall” album. It literally changed my life! I, like thousands of wannabes said… “hey, I can do that!” What attracted me to his style of gospel music was the fact that he didn’t shove the elements of that genre down your throat. The music I attempted to do prior to Andrae’s was pure, unadulterated gospel. I prefer my musical seasonings to be more subtle. If Fred hadn’t played that Crouch album for me when he did, I might have lasted maybe five more years, and I never would have played keyboards at all. So, thanks Fred, for extending this thing another 45+ years! Although I didn’t play any music during that 1987 – 2010 period, I sure as hell listened to a lot of it. And more than you would expect from someone who hails from East Harlem, NY, if you get my drift. I also took a couple of music electives when I finally decided to complete my college studies. I emerged from that perceived period of darkness knowing two facts: 1. I am and always was a musician 2. If I can’t pick up a subtle taste of gospel in the music I hear, I’ll keep moving on. My son no longer plays baseball, but music is now an integral part of his life. His interests fall more on the production side of things. He can engineer and mix tracks. He creates beats, and knows enough theory to be dangerous. And if you ask him nicely, he can DJ your next event. I couldn’t be prouder of him. He doesn’t do gospel, but he can pick out the elements with great ease. He’s a really good father and is raising my granddaughter by himself. His daughter has a passion for ballet, so it looks like we are adding another ingredient to the gumbo! But wait... there's more!
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About the AuthorAs owner of the Descant Music & Media Group, Ken is a creator and producer of several podcast shows. He is also a music producer, as well as a writer and an accountant for small businesses and nonprofits. Archives
June 2020
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