It seems I have been teased a lot about not writing much anymore. With email, facebook, twitter, and texting it seems like I do nothing but writing. Well here is a new old topic. I thought I had written about this before, but I don't think I have. Parents - we suck.

Now I have two parents and have had 4 in laws and am a parent and most people I know are parents. Yeah I'm a parent too. and we suck.

Now don't get me wrong, overall we are pretty good. We care and shelter our kids and get them through high school and safely into a career. Most kids turn out ok because we do a good job overall. i have yet to meet a parent who doesn't love their kids and wish the best for them. and we suck.

How do we suck? We don't let them make mistakes. we are over protective. we put ourself into situations where they should be alone and grow. we do too much for them. we suck

We make decisions for them they should make for themselves. we give them too much when they should earn it. we love them so much we don't want them to fail. So when they start to fail, we save them. and we suck.

I believe this stems from the fact that we feel guilty for not spending enough time with them by putting them in daycare or babysitting or nowadays, shipping them to our parents to be raised. It is completely socially acceptable to out source parenting. and we suck.

We also suck by getting divorced and giving them joint custody. You know what, a home is just like a starting quarterback - if you have two you have none. and we suck. joint custody is a terrible thing. Then they have two sets of rules, two different bed times, two separate sets of morals, and two people who hate each other raising them. and we suck.

We suck by picking their boy friends and girl friends. I always think of the change from the Godfather where Talia shire (sic) are fighting and the mother says don't interfere. We have gone full 180 to being Michael Corleone whacking him. So many relationships get sabotaged by parents. I had a friend turn down a promotion rather than be near his wife's parents - smart guy and still married. he doesn't suck but we suck.

It's not our job as parents to make our kids think they are perfect. We are not supposed to be their friends. We are supposed to raise them to be self sufficient humans who in turn create or help make more self sufficient humans. Instead we are busy trying to teach them - make yourself happy first. You need to be happy first no matter who you hurt. Put yourself first like I did when I should have put you first. and we suck.

I don't mean to say that there aren't good parents even good divorce parents. I am blessed by some many good examples in my life (including my parents). I see people who let their kids know they love them and they are not perfect. They love them when they make mistakes and when they are adults they will be loved but on their own. My mom said to me recently, I feel so guilty that I can't come and clean your house for you. What kind of world do we live where it is acceptable for a middle aged man's older mother to feel this. She mentioned that so many of her friends are doing that for their kids.

and we suck!

closer to the edge

So far this year, my wife has left me, I had a dog I lived with for two years die, both cars break down, my mom almost died, I'm having financial trouble for the first time since I was in my 20's, I'm having family troubles that are multiple and ongoing, I had a furnace die, tenants move out, my blood pressure almost landed me in the hospital, the Steelers lost to Tim Tebow, FACEBOOK WENT TIMELINE.


wow what else could happen next?


I said that earlier this year before half this shit happened. I learned several lessons this year. The great part about my life is I'm always getting smarter, the bad part is it's by learning how dumb I am. I started out thinking I was pretty smart. Now I'm beginning to think I should sign all my decision making rights away. I have made some terrible decisions lately and now am ready to give this away.


Therefore, I would like to hire someone to make all my decisions for me. Maybe I could appoint a team of trustees to clear every decision for me. "No not jean shorts again," "get rid of that earring, 1993 called and wants it back" "get a new job asap"


Of course I'm kidding. Like the song says, "half my mistakes I would run to over again" seriously how can you decide if something is a mistake. I was talking to a fatalist who believes in pre-determination. In other words God figured this all out and everything happens exactly the way he wants it. there is nothing we can do to influence the earth and no matter what it's gonna happen the same way it was planned.


While I understand the thoughts behind this, I completely disagree. how is that even possible. so nothing we do matter? why not just sit on the couch, run up the credit cards, drink, sleep around, and do nothing. This sounds like those people who think aliens are coming to get them.


Here is my thought, I do believe in God and he does have a plan for us but the devil and people with Free Will can get in his way. He can push us and hint, but sometimes people don't follow the plan and that's why suffering and bad stuff happens.


so do I think all the bad stuff that has happened to me is God's will and was going to happen no matter what? absolutely not! Facebook Timeline is proof enough that the Devil exists and does disrupt the plan. I am certain that evil people are doing the Devil's bidding and disrupting the plan and hurting people. I'm pretty sure I'm one of those people.

I'm just thinking this through without a plan here writing this btw :)

Good bye

So maybe you know and maybe you don’t but Amy and I are a great story of the past. She’s been gone for about three weeks. I’m sure the first question you have is why and thinking how terrible and what an awful thing and so on and so forth.

The Truth of the matter is the why doesn’t matter. Being in my world is hard for many reasons and, ultimately it was too hard. I know it seems like we were only together briefly but we always did things at super speed. Instead of being upset and mad, I am grateful for an amazing 27 months.

Yes I’m sad, but I got to experience the best 27 months of my life (and my life hasn’t been empty up till then). Every day was filled with wonder, excitement, love, passion, and … magic. I got to live a dream …a 24 hour waking dream for over two years. I got to wake up with the most beautiful woman in the world smiling at me. It’s seriously hard to have a bad day with that start and it always got better from there.

And what days we had. Everything Amy and I did together was fun. My life was like a constant cheesy romance novel. I honestly never fully believed in soul mate and true love and that kind of stuff till 28 months ago. Amy is as much fun at home as she is out in public. She makes the boring fun, the mundane exciting, and the tedious new. I can’t even begin to tell you what she does to fun things except make them the greatest.

Amy’s biggest skills are with kids. I often said I dated her cause she is beautiful, she became my girlfriend because of her personality, and I married her because of her parenting ability. I never imagined someone would take such an interest in my kids. Her gift of time, interest, money, and love to them melted my heart on a daily basis. I hope she gets to be a step mom or better yet a mom in the future. The kids and the world will benefit – she’s that damn good with them.

In all honesty I will be ok. Right now I need a new job, a new car, and a new heart. While this is by far the worst thing that ever happened to me, I’m no stranger to bad things happening to me, and I will soldier on. The people I wish you to have in your thoughts are my kids. The loss to them is immeasurably large and irreplaceable. I so worry for Robbie who is living through his second divorce in advance of his seventh birthday. I hope the kids will forgive me for putting them through this adversity. I honestly thought this one would last forever: a sloppy move this late in my career.

Someone told me that most people never get to experience a 27 month run like I had and I believe it. If I knew 28 months later it would be over and I’d be crushed and devastated, I’d sign up again and again.

“Don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened.” Dr. Seuss

songs played

In no particular order, here are the songs that I think will be played to start the tour.


1. We Take Care of Our Own
2. Wrecking Ball
3. Death to My Hometown
4. Jack of All Trades
5. Shackled and Drawn
6. Land of Hope and Dreams
7. We Are Alive
8. Spare Parts
9. Seeds
10. Born In the USA
11. The River
12. E Street Shuffle
13. Long Walk Home
14. The Promise
15. Dancing in the Dark
16. Born to Run
17. 10th Ave.
18. Promised Land
19. Badlands
20. Youngstown
21. Atlantic City
22. Meeting Across the River.
23. Working on A Dream
24. Talk to Me
25. Devils and Dust
26. Sherry Darling
27. This Land is Your Land
28. American Land

Busy week

Despite the entire staff of Dr. Z Presents being in Vegas for a wedding, we are still working. There are three great shows this week! 5 of our favorite local singer/songwriters are playing! Please support them and these great venues!



This Thursday August 11 at 9:00pm

The Pump Fakes with special guest The Buffalo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Thunderbird Cafe
4023 Butler Street
Lawrenceville, PA





This Saturday high noon
Brewers Row (full band)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Leaf and Bean
2200 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222





This Saturday night

Bill Toms and Hard Rain “The Tom Breiding Birthday Celebration”

Bill Toms and Hard Rain w/ Tom Breiding opening

Moondogs Pub
378 Freeport Road
Blawnox, Pennsylvania

I'm done

I know I've written about my previous time choices. While I have loved teaching, counseling, being a stay at home dad, promoting, being a laborer, and even watiting tables, I think it is time to pick a new one.

I recall writing about Going Back to the Ashgrove and will expand on that. I am becoming a shepard. Effective imediately I will be looking for grassy knolls in which to set up my flock. I understand there is a dearth of those qualified to heard sheep. I think this is the next logical step.

The only real drawback was being out of touch with music and news, but with technology this is no longer a problem.

I know some of you will want to join me, but part of the reason I'm leaving is to avoid the current society. I'm tired of man's inhmainity to each other, the lack of good people, and also auto tune.

any suggestions for knolls are welcomed.

Bill Toms at club cafe

somewhere on the Southside are my exhaustive notes detailing the epic Bill Toms and Band show this past Friday at the Club Cafe in the Historic south side of Pittsburgh.

The band consisted of the unorthodox line up of Bill Toms and Mark O on acoustic and electric guitars, Phil Brontz on sax and percussion and Bernie Herr (who turned 65 that day!) on Percussion and Drums. There was understandably some trepidation at this set up. I have seen thousands of concerts in my life and have NEVER sees such a line up except for maybe a one off here and there. The band was augmented at times by up and comer and opening act Olga Watkins and Tom Breiding on vocals. So we all settled in and waited.

The opener let us know that we were in for something special as Bill opened with Hard Times a slow BURNING version of the old gem from his catalog that really focused the attention on the ensemble - which was tight. The first thing I noticed was that Phil played damn near as much percussion as sax. Secondly that these guys were on a mission. This was not just a unique sound but a powerful and compelling one as well.

The entire set list is in the ether. However with the second song (Lord Don't take me Now) the audience found out that this was not a slow acoustic strumming evening. It burned. Great forceful drumming and screaming slide guitar rocked the joint. You could feel the protagonist holding on.

The show featured much of the forthcoming record but also featured Bill's ever growing impressive career gems. With every new song, anticipation grew for the new record. I know Bill is holding back some of the songs for the cd release so wow this is gonna be something.

And they just kept coming new and old.

The highlight was the full band acoustic version of the west end kid. This songs is great acoustic, full band and now in between. The video has already gone viral and rightfully so. This just proves that a great song can be done any way.

Sadly the show was over and every one's appetite was wet ted for more. We'll just have to wait. In the mean time check out the video from the show (which is on my facebook, youtube and everywhere).