6.15.7

Wow. It's been a while. Six weeks since I last stepped on the helm of the binnall report. Six weeks !?! Wow.

Let me start by first thanking everyone who contacted me during the hiatus, with your thoughts, prayers, and condolences regarding the passing of my father. I hope to be able to get back to all of you at some point soon, but, for now, know that it meant so much more to me than I can put to proverbial paper here in this dingy little column. It was simply heartwarming and gave me strength at a time when I need it most, so thank you.

I also want to give a big thanks to the BoA staff, who were my rock throughout all of this. My eyes are getting misty as I write this, so I'll just leave it at "thanks". May we stand together again, soon, during better days.

Also a huge tip of the hat and thanks to Ian Punnett, who literally called my house while my dad was in the hospital, just to see how I was doing. Hopefully he doesn't mind me telling you, but I thought it deserved recognition. He's a bonafide class act and a truly good person, which is refreshing a change of pace in this day and age.

My dad was a great guy. He influenced me a lot. So much of what you read from me and find @ BoA comes from a personality that was shaped by years of learning from him. He stood for making the world a better place, being brutally honest despite the consequences, and providing just the right anecdote or turn of phrase, no matter what the occasion. His legacy lives on @ BoA, no doubt. You can learn more about my dad HERE.

Since the last binnall report, my life has completely changed in so many ways, some obvious and some much more nebulous. Some of you have experienced what I am going through, others dread the day they will, to explain it would be futile and damn near impossible.

Thankfully, those initial, painful days are growing more distant as the time has gone by since my father's death. Everyday, I wake up feeling a little better than I did the day before and that's always a nice feeling. Knowing that my father was sick and dying and watching the cancer destroy him was a tremendous strain on my entire family for the last few years. Knowing that we need not worry about him any more, that he is out of pain, and that he is in a better place, has been tremendously cathartic.

I miss him every single day, but I'll see him again, for sure.

And while I have always done a pretty good job of keeping BoA separate from my "real life", there is certainly a junction that has been reached here. In essence, and to be honest, I haven't listened to more than 2 minutes of Coast to Coast AM since 5.5.7, an astounding six weeks. The funny thing about C2C is that it is kind of a habitual program. And once I got knocked out of the loop of listening, I've found it tremendously hard to get back into it.

A large part of it is, of course, the changes that have happened here at home. For the last year or so, I spent my nights both listening to C2C and listening for my father, in the event that he needed my help. At the end of the week, I'd write the binnall report, which served as an escape, of sorts, to the sad scene around me. Listening to C2C and, in turn, writing this column, as it was, bring me back "there" and that's not really someplace I want to be right now.

The other part of it all is that I've felt this column become stagnant in the last year or so. It's not hard to see how that could happen, given that I've been writing it for over 2 and a half years. What had started as a daring experiment turned into something routine and rather pedestrian.

And, really, life is too short to spend countless hours listening to mediocre (at best) episodes of Coast to Coast, simply because I "have" to write a couple of smarmy paragraphs in the binnall report. Additionally, life's too short to spend 4 or 5 hours cribbing it all together on a Friday, simply because the life of the column has grown to such length.

Is this the end of the binnall report ? No, of course not. But, it is the end of the binnall report, as you knew it.

theusofe.com members will recognize the shortened version of the following quote, which comes from Bob Dylan, and has served a guiding light throughout much of the last few weeks as I struggled to see where things go next ...

"An artist has got to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he "at" somewhere. You always have to realize that you're constantly in a state of becoming. And as long as you can stay in that realm, you'll sorta be alright."

the binnall report has been "at" somewhere for a long time and it's time to re-enter that "state of becoming".

Hopefully, you'll stick around for the ride ...