Yes, 2021 was a challenging shitshow in so many respects, filled with stress and loss and portents of doom... But as I rang in the New Year watching old music videos with Mrs. Epstein and the above-pictured Otis and Angus, I had the opportunity to reflect upon all the good stuff that happened to me this past year.
Thanks to the Covid vaccines, I was able to see my parents, sister, aunts and cousins for the first time in nearly two years, and I was able to go back to LA for the first time since 2018 to spend some precious hours with my beloved uncle John Padgett before he left this earthly realm. As 2020 came to a close, I wasn't sure I would be able to see any of these folks in the coming year, so 2021 was a real winner in that respect. Thank you, science...
Additionally, I got to hang out with some really dear friends during my visits to LA and NYC, as well as a few here in NC — like over at Ziggy's Refuge — something that was likewise pretty much out of the question in 2020. Here's to seeing all y'all (and many more of my wonderful pals) again in 2022...
Oh yeah — The Captain & Me, my collaboration with Ron Blomberg about his beautiful friendship with Thurman Munson, came out in April and made it all the way to the #1 spot on Amazon's Baseball Books chart at one point. Huge thanks to everyone who read it, reviewed it, bought it and enjoyed it. Yes, it was disappointing and frustrating to not be able to promote it with a real book tour and in-person signing events; but hey, the book's coming out in paperback this May via Triumph Books, so maybe we'll have a chance to "do it right" this time.
I'd also like to thank all my editors and colleagues who assigned or hooked me up with work this past year. Freelancing is always a rollercoaster ride, but I got to do some really fun and satisfying stuff in 2021, ranging from writing three episodes of AXS-TV's "If These Walls Could Rock" to interviewing the great Sérgio Mendes for FLOOD magazine to having a marathon three-hour chat with the ever-voluble Dave Wyndorf of Monster Magnet for Revolver. Special thanks to Adam Langer, who has been my editor in various incarnations going back to my freshman year in college, and who trusted me to write about everything from the Marx Brothers to T.Rex to Jaws for him at the Forward this past year.
I made it through the painful horror of a kidney stone and dodged a bullet on a prostate cancer scare — both of which caused me to change my diet for the better. Speaking of food, Mrs. Epstein says I really took it to the next level with my cooking this past year, and I'm hoping to expand my repertoire even further this next one, beginning with today's shrimp-and-veggie sausage gumbo.
I got back — gingerly dipping a toe at first, and then diving in headlong — into making, writing and recording music in 2021, finally laying waste to a creativity/confidence block that had dogged me for the entire 21st century. I even formed a one-man "band," dubbed The Corinthian Columns in a nod to my four-decade fascination with classical architecture, and put several tracks up on Bandcamp with more to come. (And thanks again to everyone who dug and downloaded "Jingle Jangle Christmas"!)
So yeah, I'm pretty stoked on the prospect of being able to spend another year in this existence, even with all the massive challenges we face as a people and a planet. As my friend Jeremy Scott (whose band The Toy Trucks delivered my favorite track of 2021, a cover of The Corvettes’ appropriately-titled "Beware of Time") sagely noted this morning, this next year can be better than the last one, "but you gotta want it, not hope for it. Work is required." But I'm making room for hope, too — as my father told me in an email last night, "Hope is the only viable option and love the only route to finding hope. Laughter is good too."
Wishing all of you fine folks unlimited hope, love and laughter in 2022. Don't waste it.