The Best Damn Dog Catcher That Ever Lived

There wasn’t much else to do but go to school as a kid growing up in the suburbs of Somerset, NJ. I didn’t like being at home much because my parents didn’t have the healthiest relationship. Then again, what couple with three kids under the age of thirty does? To their credit, they made a concerted effort to provide us with an education and morals that would help us succeed later in life. If your experience is similar I’m sure you are as grateful as I am for that.

Nevertheless, main goal at age thirteen was to stay away from my arguing parents as much as possible.  I got a job as a paper boy to make a little cash. I joined the Boy Scouts, CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) Basketball League, Pop Warner Football, and even tried my hand as a center fielder for the locally sponsored Little League team. Tall, uncoordinated and generally uninspired, I was terrible at everything I tried. Except music, this came naturally to me.

I wanted to be like Theodore Huxdible from the Cosby Show.  I had a high top fade like Theo and many friends like Cock Roach, but that was about the extent of my similarities to TV’s first financially independent black family. My dad thought he was Bill Cosby too. He was a Structural Engineer and Real Estate agent that worked around the clock. He would say things to me like,

“Son, I don’t care if you want to be a Dog Catcher when you grow up. Just be the best damn Dog Catcher that ever lived!”

I would say to myself, “Dog Catcher?” “Why in the world would I want to be a Dog Catcher?” At the time I was deathly afraid of dogs because of an altercation in which a little mutt chased me on my bike for five blocks, nipping at my ankles the whole way. I was traumatized and confused not only because I couldn’t seem to pedal fast enough to get away, but that Dear Old Dad expected me to somehow catch it and rope him up or something. My Dad is gone now, but I still think back to that one expression. It was something that I didn’t really understand until his passing a few years back.

I’m 33 now. Married to a beautiful woman named Robyn for ten years this June. Have a nice house, two cars, no kids, two cats [no dogs] and two jobs, like my father did.  During the day I am a Brand Manager for a multibillion dollar organization, headquartered fifteen miles from where I grew up. I market the latest and greatest technology to business to business customers throughout North America. I’m personally responsible managing, developing and integrating marketing plans to help raise the awareness of Panasonic and Toshiba laptops, projectors, flat panel Televisions, HD video equipment as well as memory for Kingston Technology. Sounds fun right? No? Well keep reading…

When I come home from the office around six o’clock every day, I kiss my wife as she and I make dinner, but before long I start my next job. Fortunately for me we are living in age of rapidly advancing technology and I can work from my laptop at my own kitchen table. Here I wear many hats. I’m a blogger who gives advice about music business planning and marketing digital music, Regional Manager for a Swiss music tech start up called Fairtilizer and also write monthly review columns for both Stay Thirsty Magazine and Virgin.com. I love my life at the moment, but that wasn’t always the case.

In 2004 I was working as a bouncer and doorman at all the hottest night clubs and lounges in Manhattan when I suddenly became very sick. I woke up one morning and wasn’t able to speak. I couldn’t say more than 3 words at a time before my lungs would get so fatigued that I’d have to take a break from talking. I was too tired to chew my food after a few bites and my right foot would drag behind me as I walked from room to room. The doctor diagnosed me about a year later with a rare muscle disorder called Myasthenia Gravis. Flash forward two years and I’m on the operating table getting the equivalent of open heart surgery while my dad lay dying of cancer in a hospital a few towns away. It was then I realized that once I got better, I would do everything in my power to be the very best at everything I did, no matter how menial the task.

Bed ridden for two years gave me more than enough time to focus on the man in the mirror. During the latter part of my illness and beginning stages of my recovery I was strong enough to manage the first artist Jay Z signed to Def Jam from my bedroom. Even with a four million dollar budget we couldn’t seem to get the artist off the ground. His impeccably written and produced album was eventually shelved but I was determined to rebound from yet another “failure” and began to write this blog. I stopped smoking, eat better and vowed to hit the gym as soon as I could walk properly. In the meantime, I read and experimented with every new music industry topic, trend and technological advance I could find online. This is what led me to the wonderful lot in life that I enjoy to this day.

When I finally understood that my circumstances were never going to change until I worked on myself, everything else became crystal clear. I stopped blaming outside forces and took a long hard at who I was as a person. It’s only now that I get what my father was trying to tell me all those years. I can hear him right now saying from heaven down, “Work on yourself son”, “Because if you suck as a person, your work will suck too”.

-an excerpt from a Career Day presentation I’m giving to Qubbletown Middle School on 4/23/10