Donate to Feel Great
There’s an expression that I’ve been seeing more of in the past few years as decency becomes a thing of the past: All I really need to know, I learned in kindergarten. Having a son who attended kindergarten just a few years ago made me realize that so many of the things we learned back then, back when we were little sponges, would serve us well to carry on into adulthood; things like kindness, respect, sharing, and to help others.
As a teenager I was a part of a scene like no other: the underground hardcore scene of the nineties. For this I’ll feel forever fortunate as it’s where I received my education; all the things that school didn’t teach. Subconsciously I was absorbing my morals and values from my parents but through the bands, fanzines, and other participants of the hardcore scene is where I picked up my ethics. I learned about animal rights and protecting the environment from Earth Crisis, to believe in myself from Snapcase, to never trust a word a politician says (either party) from Propagandhi, and that we alone are responsible for creating our own worlds, both within our minds and within our immediate surroundings, from the scene as a whole. The hardcore scene of the nineties embraced and embodied the DIY spirit, long before the acronym was co-opted by the masses. Major record labels had no interest in the abrasive music coming out of the scene, so kids started their own labels. The media ignored the records these indie labels were putting out, so kids created their own fanzines to cover the bands, records, and regional scenes. Promoters wouldn’t think about booking hardcore bands so kids rented out VFW halls and booked their own shows. At many of these shows the entry fee would be reduced if one brought along a can of food which would later be donated to a local food bank. These were the ethics imprinted on my impressionable teenage mind.
The do it yourself spirit that I learned from the hardcore scene is what gave me the confidence to write a novel. For years I’d go to shows, watch my favorite bands play, and then get the opportunity to hang out with them after they finished as they would walk off the stage (if there was one) and become part of the crowd. This showed me that the people up on stage were no different than me, that they were simply people who had something to say and gathered the courage to get up there and say it. They weren’t getting rich and the majority of them weren’t doing this for a living. It was a fun, healthy outlet for them that fed their soul. It took me many years to gather the courage to try my hand at writing fiction and when I finally did it was with the spirit of the hardcore scene in mind. I had no delusions of becoming a full-time writer and highly doubted my work would ever get noticed by the big publishers but I still recognized that if I did the work and wrote a book, there were other ways to get it out into the world. Once I found an indie publisher who believed in my book enough to put it out, it was the thrill of my creative life to hold a paperback filled with my own words in my hands. It didn’t matter how many were sold- it’s that I did the damn thing. Yet still, something bugged me…how many trees were being used to create these books of mine? That’s when my hardcore ethics kicked in.
When my son was in kindergarten one of his favorite books for me and my wife to read to him was The Lorax. Remember that little orange fellow that spoke for the trees? Each time I finished reading it to him I would lay in bed later thinking that if all these corporate bigwigs with dollar signs in their eyes would just think back to the things they learned in kindergarten, if they’d have heeded the words of The Lorax, the world would be a better place. At times it was depressing thinking of all the lessons people have forgotten. But just because something is depressing doesn’t mean we should give up. The Lorax himself told us that “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
One Tree Planted is a non-profit organization whose vision is as follows: We want to make it simple for anyone to help the environment by planting trees. Together we can restore forests, create habitat for biodiversity, and make a positive social impact around the world. We plant one tree with every dollar donated.
On Friday November 18th I will be doing a reading from my novel Nimrod at Twin Elephant Brewing Company in Chatham, NJ along with acoustic sets by two of my favorite people/musicians: Jeff Caudill, solo artist and former frontman for the band Gameface, and Heath Saraceno guitarist/vocalist of Midtown. All involved have come together to take part in a raffle where $1 gets you a ticket (and you can purchase as many tickets as you’d like) in which you’ll be entered to win an amazing bag of donated merch/goodies from Jeff Caudill, Heath Saraceno, Twin Elephant Brewery, a copy of Nimrod, and even some stuff from our buddy The Lorax. Every single dollar raised that night will be donated to One Tree Planted in which a tree will be planted with every dollar received. The more money raised, the more trees get put back into the Earth.
Everyone involved in making this show and this donation to One Tree Planted happen are far removed from kindergarten but I like to think we all remember what we were taught way back then; values and ethics that were reaffirmed in the scene we all fell into during our formative years. We may be getting older, we may play our songs on acoustic guitars now but we can still come together to show these adults who forgot what they learned in kindergarten that you can take the kid out of the scene but you can’t take the scene out of the kid.
If you aren’t in NJ or can’t make it to the show but would still like to pitch in to have some trees planted here is where you can do so: One Tree Planted
I might be an adult, I’m a minor at heart.
