Every week “The Top Twenty” brings you the first 20 minutes – give or take – of “The Hard Rock Lunchbox”.
This week, DJ discusses finding the beauty in everyday spaces.
Also on today’s show: walking with ticks and mosquitoes, no memo for Kaz, the weight struggle is real, doing your band homework and MORE!
Music from: @TheTallestTrees
This ain’t your mom’s lunch box. #onthebox
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What is up everybody? Welcome to another edition of the hard rock lunch box and of course if you're watching this on YouTube, welcome to the top 20. It is an absolutely beautiful, what is it? September 5th, 2024, we've had a really just amazing stretch of good weather here in the northeast. I don't know if that bodes well for what's coming in the fall and winter, but I personally will take it and I've been enjoying being outside whenever I can. I had our second hurricanes practice last night. It was actually like chilly, like the girls were in hoodies and stuff, I mean for a little while they scrimmaged for about an hour. So by the end of it they were not. I mean even I was sweating, like I had sweat stains all over my shirt. This girl has definitely pushed me past my physical limits, they're just much better athletes than I am and will be in the remaining years of my lifetime so it is good. I did a lot of physical activity yesterday, I was outside a lot. I clocked at least five miles just walking because I had two errands, I had to run so I did that, actually three kind of putting out your look at it and then proceeded to train the girls. That's soccer practice for an hour so I assume that I'm upwards around half a million steps for yesterday which is great. I didn't lose any weight in case you were wondering, thank you for not asking. I will say I got reprimanded by my guitar player the other day because he was mad at me for losing weight without sending out a ban memo because he had gained weight. I thought that was kind of funny actually because that's not how that works. So I'm surprising nobody, I should be surprising nobody. I've been steadily losing weight since roughly October last year when I really started, well even August I had started walking last year so it's like my walk aversary really. We just sort of passed it but September and October I really kind of got into making it a priority. September I probably was ramping up to where I was going to end up being. I do remember the trails that I walk to in the fall and sometimes I've done it recently too. I haven't been there since I hurt my calf because there's really no, well there's a good reason but I'll get to it in a second. But the trails that I used to walk to were too far, too far when I first started walking and I just kind of find it amusing at this point and it makes sense but it's kind of amusing at this point where it's like I'll walk to the trails and it's not even enough. Like if I walk to the trails and walk back, like it's not enough of a walk, like I really do try and get between 50 minutes to an hour which is usually about three miles whenever I'm out walking. It seems to be the right amount of time for me but once I get the reason I can't go to the trails, well there's two reasons, right? So the main trails I walk to over by James Hill in the West Hills Preserve, I could walk if I wanted to like really bundle up and do some tick prevention because there's a lot of, we have a big tick problem and we also have a kind of a mosquito problem in online and we tear and I think it's because since they haven't really, I mean they've detected West Nile once or twice but until they really start seeing some sort of outbreak, they just don't spray. Which is from a health perspective is a good thing, right, like the sprays really aren't so great for you as you can probably imagine but they do, like we have a pretty significant mosquito problem, certainly even just where I live which is just annoying. It basically ruins most of the summer trying to be outside so we have that but also the ticks are really bad, like we have Lyme disease, infected ticks here constantly because the Northeast is just home to that and I just don't really want to bother and I don't like bundling up, I don't like being in like long pants when I'm walking especially in the summer as it gets cooler and I can wear like sweats, I can bundle in my socks and it's fine but once you get to like a certain point, the ticks really aren't much of an issue anyway so I'll be over there but what's really the biggest problem right now is since I pulled my cap muscle which is getting much better, I felt it last night as I was chasing down soccer balls for the girls, I felt it like it's still there and I really do not want to pull it or tear anything because all it's going to do is set me back, like I really lost several days of walking which is not only just a physical kind of workout sort of thing for me, it's more like a mental just break in space so it's important for me to have that time and I really couldn't do that for a few days after I pulled my cap last time so I just don't want to do it again so I'm still at the point where I really can't be really jogging and the reason that's important is when I go to the far trails, it's a horse trail so it's a little bit wider so I don't and it's sand based so I don't really have to worry about ticks over there as long as I just stay away from the ground foliage but the bugs are absolutely incredible and they just they fly into your eyes, they fly up your nose, they try and fly in your mouth like it's just crazy so the only way you can really go up there without constantly being tested is if you're jogging it kind of like a good clip like over four miles an hour and stuff like that like the bugs, I mean I feel like they could catch you if they wanted to but I feel like it's just not worth it to them so they don't really bother you or you run past them so fast they can't zero in on your nostril, whatever it is as long as I can't do that I'm not going there because it's just so disgusting to just have bugs like all over you as I'm sure you can imagine but I don't even know why I started talking about that and probably doesn't much matter oh yeah I was talking about calves and stuff yeah it was funny so like he was mad at me for losing way and what's funny is like I'm not I'm not back to the weight that I should be at like I'm back to pre-COVID weight like I'm beyond that but the weight that I really you know was kind of targeting was in my opinion still a heavy weight but at least I looked and felt a lot better it was the last time I was at that target weight was kind of a lot of the touring we were doing just after the reality crush came out so a lot of 2013 well that's pretty sorry like 2013 2014 the touring before reality crush came out because that came out in 2015 so it was like when I was reorganizing the band with the new guys like we were doing a lot of shows and just naturally because of that and the fact that I just don't eat before shows and of course doing shows is like a good way to burn 10,000 calories and I was just generally a little happier and more physically fit back then but like I just carried things a little bit better and that's kind of the target weight mentally that I've been wanting to get back to and I'm still not there I think what's alarming to or not alarming but I think what people are seeing is that in my face my face tends to be a little bit thinner than it was but the whole reason I even bring that up is because I know what my number is currently and I'm still not happy with it so I'm still trying to lose a little bit more and I do have like a far target I'd like to get to that I just may or may not even be possible to be perfectly honest especially heading into winter where most human beings tend to add a little bit of weight to plus I'm on new medications unfortunately that are prone to add weight which just sucks I mean it's like almost literally shooting yourself in the foot because I probably end up gaining that kind of weight so I don't know how I'm going to combat that it doesn't look like situationally I'm going to be able to get off them right away so that sort of sucks but that's you know I do still want to keep losing the weight but like I said like I feel like I am thinner in the face thing that's what people keep telling me and that is why it looks like I don't see it I see myself every day I feel like I'm just as bloated and chubby cheek as I always was so I don't know what they're seeing exactly I do know that I think the compliment that is like you hey wow you've lost a lot of weight really just highlights just how heavy I was and it's you know I do get to look back at some of these videos and stuff and what I always notice is just how like my how far my guitar would stick out on my belly and it's like it's just so under attractive like I really got a you know I got I feel like I've made some peace with it because you know it is it is really what it is you know I it happened like I can't unhappen it you know I mean so like it just it just it just is what it is so like I'll just I'll accept it or I won't but it did happen and that's kind of what it was and I you know I definitely I've struggled with weight my entire life with the exception of my last couple years of high school my first couple years of college really was the only the time where my male young adult metabolism that most people get was just just totally killing it but after that like as soon as I had a sedentary job that was kind of over but as long as I was doing something physical for work then I was just fine because I have no problem doing the work I never had a problem doing the work I like doing physical work I was just saying a couple weeks ago like how much I do sort of enjoy that kind of thing because it just feels like I you accomplish stuff so I like doing that but you know I don't work in IT now when I'm not performing or rehearsing or playing soccer I'm basically sitting since I stand I do have trouble standing at work though because I have concentration issues thank you antidepressants from 2012 or 15 or whatever I was on them the gift that keeps on giving the ADHD I picked up from that so I have concentration issues so I end up just like kind of just walking around instead of actually working at my desk so that's not very practical what I'm trying to get stuff done it is fine what I'm trying to kill time so that's great but it is just it's funny because the whole belly thing like with the belly being a little bit smaller now like my guitar does sit differently and I actually had to struggle with kind of relearning how to you know fret different chords and stuff like that which is not something you consider when you're about to embark on weight loss anyway so it's good it's good for me personally to have lost some of the weight that I wanted to lose because I do feel a little bit better I am disappointed at the method at which I had to do like as much as I like walking and you know light exercise and stuff like that the fact that like my calorie restrictions in order to do that is anywhere from 700 to 1200 calories a day is just it's bananas hard to sort of maintain and it's also not likely that I'll be able to maintain that for the rest of my life so and already like you know I definitely have days where I go over that the upside is that there tends to be a limit of what I can eat like I can't just keep pushing food in I will get actually kind of sick from it which is good like I'm glad to have that and I'll retrain my body and my my internal mechanisms to sort of figure that out but it doesn't mean like I really just don't have a lot of things that I enjoy anymore and there's only so many times I can have and enjoy chicken you know basic chicken cutlets with you know steamed broccoli I mean it's not it's not great you know I mean it's not a slice of Brooklyn pizza and stuff like that so but I'd rather be skinny than that for right now so I'll just I have to find a place for all that and you know my life and stuff like and as everybody knows and everybody says for years like it's really all about moderation and I kind of have to learn that my advanced age I have to relearn what moderation looks and feels and tastes like and that sucks and can suck but again as long as I'm motivated on the goal hopefully I can kind of keep continuing but that was funny that the kind of guitar just sort of sits differently on me that was not something I was going to be expecting at all so we got some basic lighthouse keeping here there's a new top 20 out sharing in hindsight where I talk about the Arlington Cemetery incident with Donald Trump and the Trump campaign that effectively just lied because they did something wrong they went out and lied and it actually caused the army the United States army to actually like take the unprecedented action and release a statement correcting the national discourse it just goes to show just how absolutely disgusting the Trump campaign can be at times because they just don't care and they just they lie all the time and if you still don't think they lie well I'll take the the secretary of the army's word over what happened over the Trump's campaign manager any day any day every day so f those guys there are a bunch of liars and if you still don't think so like then you're either just a moron or you know just not I guess you're just not smart enough to put it together so we don't need you but we we don't need you we have enough dumb people in this country we do not anymore we have we have plenty we are full so thank you but no thank you also it talks about the beeping tire sensor which I have not gotten fixed I almost scheduled an appointment today for next week but I just don't know my weekly schedule anymore so I'm going to wait not that anybody cares because nobody's in the van and I was talking about unplugging for mental health which reminds me I was actually going to read this whole thing or not this whole thing but just bits and pieces of it I was going to talk about what is now being classified as major depressive disorder because I think I think it's important to talk about those kinds of things in terms of how they affect people how they how they kind of manifest themselves in people especially especially so major depressive disorder is what they used to call clinical depression and just talks about definitions and symptoms and you know as you get more and more versed in that kind of stuff like I've already had my I've already been diagnosed with clinical depression something I've battled for years so once you were kind of in that headspace you really do start seeing it in people around you all the time and it's it's super like it's super simple to sort of walk away with that diagnosis it really is like a two week stint of like these low sort of depressive things and like boom there you go you have a you have a diagnosis now I'm less concerned about people that have it off and on for a couple weeks because at least there's light in there I am way more concerned about people like myself that fall into that and can be there for months sometimes as long as years because that is what gets really detrimental I mean there's always the risk of like getting worse you know and and they talk about like your lifespan is severely decreased when you are when you do struggle with major depressive disorder a lot of that is because of the incredibly high suicide rate over the average and that does tend to skew that I am not in any way in that sort of boat so I'm fine there but because of the depressive nature of depression like it really keeps you from being alive and feeling alive and acting alive and doing all those other things that kind of nurse the soul the more concerning part for me is always the loss of pleasure in doing things that you normally take pleasure in I've been talking about that off and on for months on this show my sort of loss of desire and drive to even perform and write and you know play music and stuff like it's and it's literally the thing that I believe to have been put on this earth for and to do like it really feels like my special purpose to quote Steve Martin and the jerk and I can't even take any semblance of joy out of it anymore which is just which sucks right like that is literally one of the the keynote kind of symptoms of major depressive disorder which just blows and I know a lot of people that like kind of dance with that often but I am happy that they are able to sort of find pleasure in things like that beauty in everyday spaces which if you needed another hint as to when I was dealing with my my first diagnosis my first clinical diagnosis of major depressive disorder was when I was writing do no harm and the working title as I said a couple weeks ago was beauty in everyday spaces and that really was a sort of nod to like if you can just do that and you can find those things and find some pleasures in the everyday existence then at least there's a look there's a way out with it's really when you get to that flat point you just don't see those things anymore where it becomes a little bit more serious so but we can talk about that at another time I don't feel like talking about it anymore today because it's just feels like stuff I get to deal with every single day and I just don't feel like dealing with it anymore today so I'm not gonna I will say I'm one of the things though that does tend to happen when I am in those spaces and again I'm not talking about depression specifically one of the things that happens to me in those spaces is because I don't find the pleasure in the stuff that I normally do I end up in a great level of dissatisfaction with songs I've written and that doesn't it doesn't really do anything for songs that I've already written and recorded I mean sometimes I mean anybody that's seen me live knows that I will add like variances here and there songs certainly vocal melodies they evolve over time absolutely changed up up for acoustic and unplug shows because I feel like there's some interesting stuff to explore when you sort of change the format with which you do songs but I for the most part I'm not really changing any of that but the songs that are kind of like still on the drawing board or older songs that just really haven't hit their mark yet they become like a real high focus for me in those in those spaces I did I've done several rewrites with scars over the years one of the ones we're recording right now so I'm called Andesal I have rewritten that so many times I don't even remember the initial I didn't remember the initial I actually dug up the demo because I wanted to send it to Kajano before we started tracking vocals for that because I still wasn't sold on the way and I'm still not sold on the vocal line we're actually we've done the main vocal line we've done the dual vocal it's not even a harmony it's the dual it's a secondary vocal in the song all we really have left to do are the backing vocals I'm still not 100% salt on it so it kind of shows you where we're at but the dissatisfaction I have with those other songs that are just on the chopping block or on the drawing board not even the chopping block like it just becomes so readily apparent like we have a song called As You Run which was actually something I was pushing for this batch of songs and we just didn't select it I don't even remember the reasons why I know I know we picked it's alright because it's one of the original four I guess that we were working on and it's like it's a good song and everybody likes it and I think it's gonna come out really good Kajano has a real knack for kind of fine tuning those things that I'm not completely sold on and I usually I will defer to his judgment on songs like that because he'll hear something that I don't and that interests me and I'm willing to take that journey but it was also in the same batch as scars and the only reason we didn't go with scars this time is because we were in the middle of a rewrite for it so that'll probably be in the next batch simply because of its age even if it's I mean it's a good song anyway but like I think because of its age like we got to get it out otherwise it's just going to sit there and kind of language and I don't want to do that but so this song as you run was definitely one that was pushing for mainly because I just really really liked the course but for whatever reason over the past couple months I've just become so disillusioned with the verses that I ended up rewriting it finally again I have a new vocal melody for it I've changed some of the words the meaning of the song is sort of just change from what it was I mean the song was always kind of like a hard look at you know it kind of like a hard look at the way people speak you know about who they are and what they are and what they believe and of course the way that they act which I just as a student of psychology have just always found to be incredibly interesting and fascinating and it's not something that any of us are immune to like I you know I have definitely done it where I've said that I you know this is the way that I want to be and this and I still can revert back to old really bad habits like I have I have tendencies to be incredibly selfish and self centered that I just I spent I feel like most of my adult life trying to just eradicate in my in my ability but like you know when you're in lower spaces sometimes or in quiet non like really thinking spaces and it's really just your small brain that's sort of just taking over like it's super easy to fall back into those patterns that you've done from childhood and a lot of people will talk about certain you know PTSD from childhood that you just sort of revert back to these traumas especially like me if you haven't done the work to sort of excise them it's super easy to fall back into those patterns so that's what the song was kind of always about anyway and it was just the whole as you run it was like as you continue on in your world believing all your nonsense that you're talking about it's you know like maybe just once you just check yourself so that's kind of what it's always been but I've really refined it over the past couple months it's just sort of be more about you know you think you like you think you treat people one way and like you can just talk about it like how you think you treat people and like how you treat people but then there's just the difference between how you actually treat people and just how how horrendously you can treat people sometimes whether or not you believe it is irrelevant because it's really about the other person like you may not like it but the effect that you're having on other people is is it can be catastrophic to them but also like it's the discrepancy like what you think you're doing and and how that manifests itself into what you actually do and now that's really what the you know this this song is about like one of the lines is like you know like I don't even remember I can't like I can't do it unless I sing the whole song doesn't matter I am I am tasking the band with playing that at our next show which is October 4th at Buries I'm also tasking the band with to play this brand new song we have called the one that we've been working on over a month now which I find to be just absolutely ridiculous and offensive because all it really says to me is the band is not doing their homework which I don't think that's an opinion at this point I think it's a demonstrable fact I think if I hand a song out I'm like hey learn it and they don't that means they're not doing the work and I talk to people in bands all the time they deal with band members that refuse to do their homework despite how grandiose they think that they are are doing in the band but the reality is if you don't do the work like it shows like it's not it's not something that I wouldn't notice right like here's a song I now to be fair I mean people that know me and have heard like demos of what I do when I release it like most of the time like 90 to 95 percent of the time I release a complete song drums bass guitars sometimes I put solos on sometimes I don't sometimes I could just tell Cas hey put a solo on here if I'm gonna play solo I'll just record it and of course I do vocals a lot of times I have backing vocal ideas now that's not to say that these songs don't evolve because of course they do and I always encourage the band to bring in their parts bring in their ideas to their parts because 90% of the time they're gonna make a song better very very few times am I like this has to be this way but usually there's a reason for sometimes like on bass like they'll be like well the bass goes down while the guitar goes up and I like that particular dichotomy so I'll say to Tony like you have to do this like say the noodle like the chorus has to be this way like you have to double here and you have to you know single or halftime here because the guitars and the vocals are doing this there's a lot to songwriting that at this point I can say to the band and I don't necessarily have to explain it anymore but as the songwriter I say this is important to the song and as a songwriter I get to call out when it trumps whatever you want to do I'll still listen to whatever idea because sometimes they're just really great ideas sometimes the ideas are so good it changes the way the song works like there's a in the song the new one like I had a stop before we went into the last chorus but at this point noodles just doing this really cool around the drum fill and I'm like I think I like that better it really just brings us right into the this last chorus so I think that that's gonna end up happening and be and sticking around for a little while but the reality is like I brought this song to the band I think like right after our last show like nostalgia like and or even before that because I'd consider trying to get it ready for nostalgia which is just not happening so think about how long ago that was and then think about where we're at and it's still not done and like I said like I'll hand out this demo like the band should sound like the demo in my opinion within two weeks like I feel like that's long enough and I feel like any cover band musicians out there will kind of just agree with me on that because it's it really is about like how long does it take you to just learn something basic not write something just learn something and I feel like you know we're past that point so I'm gonna test the band with making sure that we're playing this song by October because if I don't give them a deadline they just won't do it and that's unfortunate but anyway I feel like I've talked enough, I've talked about Rubble Line songwriting, I've talked about depression, I've talked about the new episode and all that other stuff and I'll talk about more as we go because it's time for us to head into the local local music rock block like we start every hard rock lunch box so we'll get started we're gonna I'm gonna open with tallest trees in the universe I do miss that band terribly they only put out one AP they were very short-lived band around here played with them a couple times super nice guys really good band and I just highlighting once again how sometimes even the best bands can't make it work so I think the ones that are in bands that are currently working should sort of take note because it's not as easy as it seems and it's not as easy as it would seem to kind of keep these great projects together it does take work and maybe you should take it less for granted as you go just offering up a suggestion on this beautiful September morning. [Music]
