Queers in Love! [Art of Survival]

"Queers in Love," Craig Bidiman
this story originally appeared in The Art of Survival.

I came out as bisexual in June of 2010, to much celebration among my friends, and many jeers among my family. Since this initial coming out, I have revisited what queerness means to me.

I had always felt an attraction to men, an attraction to women, an attraction to really anyone that intrigued me or made me swoon. But I never really spoke of anything outside of the assumed/the heteronormative – so I internalized my attractions to men/masculine-assumed folks. However, college changed this for me. I became more comfortable showing affection toward really anyone but still didn’t really know what it meant for me.

My exploration of sexual fluidity over the last few years has led me to understand this a little bit more. At first, I thought of coming out as this permanent thing. Once I said I was “bi,” that was it.

But nope!
I realized that coming out is a process.
Coming out can be fluid.
Sexualities are fluid.
Gender is fluid.
All of this shit blew my mind.

Because while I initially felt my attractions were toward two genders, I found that my attractions were much more broad and inclusive. Yet, I didn’t know what to call this feeling. I’ve always been a little effeminate for a dude, and my dad used to say that I “walk like a queer,” which at the time was funny to me and even slightly contributed to why I didn’t feel comfortable coming out. So I reclaimed this term, “queer,” and I started to think about it more.

I realized that I am queer. I am a queer.

And for me, being queer transcends my sexual orientation. Being queer is my personal/overall identity. Queer is how I perform my gender (which I do identify as a man); queer is the lens by which I interpret the world around me; queer is how I exist in the world.

Now, insert Katy Hamm (Ken, Kenny) – my best friend and the greatest human being who has ever lived. I often use that phrase when I introduce people to Katy for the first time.

Here we are going to the bathroom together at the amazing gender-less
bathrooms at Optimism Brewery in Seattle, Washington!

Last year, Katy wrote this amazing piece coming out as being both agender and panromantic – on the asexual spectrum. While Katy’s identities might appear more complicated than mine, it’s been so important to me as their partner to recognize the significance of what this sort of coming out meant for them. It took a lot of unlearning of norms for Katy – I watched them and helped them process years of repressed sexual frustrations and anxieties about intimacy and sex. It was wonderful to hear them explain to me that they felt comfortable identifying on the asexual spectrum—because they were so happy to have finally figured it out! And for me, as someone with an active libido, it also meant reckoning with the reality that I love this human being more than I love sex.

We don’t hold hands too often in public, and we hardly express much affection in public – simply because 1. neither of us are big fans of PDA to begin with and 2. we are so keenly aware of our privilege in society as a couple that at least APPEARS straight. I dress and appear pretty masculine, and while Katy doesn’t necessarily dress femme very often, they still appear femme. So we get how that looks.

We talk about this all the time with each other.
We know that we are a queer couple that appears straight.
We’re just two queers that happened to fall in love.

It does get convoluted because when I refer to Katy, I use the term, “partner,” which throws some people off. It’s a term we prefer to use. We have never used the terms, boyfriend, or girlfriend, partly because Katy doesn’t identify as a “girl,” or even a “woman,” so it wouldn’t make sense. But it also doesn’t feel right to us. Boyfriend and girlfriend have always felt very temporary to me. Partner feels more attached, more comfortable, less childish – I mean, we are adults after all. Might not act like it all the time, but we are adults – and “partner” just feels right to us. We also reject heteronormative relationship troupes like those titles and the roles by which we are "supposed" to occupy within our relationship.

Nope. Not for us!

Yet, it’s disarming for some folks when I call Katy my partner because that term is often associated with couples that are same-sex or appear same-sex. So it especially disarms people when they hear me use it without any knowledge of who my partner is or how they identify because I almost always see their expression changed—seeking out if I might be gay—and I often use Katy’s pronouns (they/them), so I can tell it might confuse them. And then if I refer to Katy by name, the person tends to ease up a little. As if they are piecing it all together.

I know that this stuff isn’t always easy for folks who don’t live with a queer identity or in a queer relationship. But I try to be as normative with how I refer to our relationship and the queer community because that’s a form of resistance. I refuse to accept heteronormativity, so I’ll queer this shit up at any chance I get.

I’ve even had people say things like, “you’re gay? but I thought Katy was your girlfriend.” In this example, queer is inexplicably synonymous with gay.

Nope! That’s not how that works.

At no point do Katy or I feel like we need to justify our queerness to each other. We have helped each other become more and more comfortable with our identities through the three years of our relationship.

Yet, within the queer community, it can feel sort of disengaging to feel forced into proving and acknowledging our queerness just to feel as though we belong.

Honestly, I’m not always comfortable in overtly queer spaces because of our relationship presenting so hetero—and that sucks! It’s an internalized stigma that I haven’t gotten over and am still unsure of how to get over it. Because when alone, I am very comfortable in these spaces. Even within the queer community, there are still a lot of unnecessary stigmas and prejudices that exist toward certain identities—especially toward the bi- population and the Trans- population. There is identity erasure within the queer community – sadly, the same as in many communities – that shouldn’t exist, but it is rampant.

And I think a major contributor to my frustration and apprehension toward our relationship being present in some of these spaces stems from having felt his erasure firsthand from fellow members of the queer community who make assumptions—when the crux of our community’s inclusivity is predicated on not making assumptions of anyone’s identity.

One particular experience stands out like a sore thumb to me and Katy and it’s a circumstance that happened early in our relationship – and has sadly stuck with me ever since.

I brought Katy to a meeting with a colleague (who I was meeting for the first time) who worked in the queer resource center at the campus in which I worked at the time, and I introduced Katy as my best friend and partner (to which this colleague laughed—which I thought the timing was odd), shook our hands, and we began chatting. At one point in the conversation, this colleague, a queer woman, said, “well, we over here in the queer community have specific support and resource needs” - which is obviously very true and I agreed with them completely. However, I transfixed on the emphasis my colleague put on we — “we over here in the queer community.” It hit me real hard because in that moment I didn’t feel comfortable in calling myself a queer — years after I have owned the identity and the label that accompanies it.

Again, we are very aware that our relationship presents very hetero – so I’m not saying this colleague wasn’t in the wrong to assume – but again, these assumptions are hazardous to the queer community. And I was fairly confident that I had informed this colleague that identified as a queer through email correspondence, but they might’ve forgotten. Because as the conversation continued, this colleague continued to refer to a separate “we” in reference to the queer community, as though Katy nor I were included and spoke down to our knowledge of queer issues in society – again, as though we hadn’t lived it.

I recognize that every queer experience is different and our exclusion might not have been intentional – nor did we attempt to correct this colleague because we were made so uncomfortable that making a correction would feel like overcompensation of some sort. Which, in hindsight is a stupid thing to think – we likely could have made some sort of comment about our identities in order to relate and to connect, but we did not.

It made me think back to those times when I wouldn’t confront my queerness out of fear of persecution or confusion, or that no one would believe me because I don’t necessarily look or act stereotypically queer. It’s internalized shit like this that made me contemplate suicide in high school because I couldn’t figure out my sexuality. It fucking sucks.

Almost immediately when we left the conversation, Katy and I turned to each other and said, “was that weird?” “yeah, that was weird!” “are we not queer?”

It sucked to ask that question after I had spent YEARS questioning this shit.
Are we not queer enough?
Am I not queer enough?
Is our relationship not queer?

Fuck, this sucked.
Feeling as though your identity was invalidated sucks.

But it's not just this example. This sort of stuff happens quite often in the queer community.

During college is when I realized I was queer.
And it was when I started being an activist for queer rights and awareness.
I even started an organization while at Oregon State University called
the Campaign for Understanding, which did awareness campaigns,
actions, and spread the message of intersectional inclusivity. 

This is a reminder that even in the queer community, we are capable of micro-aggressions toward each other – and I’m not innocent in this regard, it’s something I know I am still working on. But this is an example where it can feel pretty erasing. It sucks – and you may even think it’s a little overdramatic to feel that way – but after you spend years working on your identities and you are finally comfortable with your body, gender, and sexuality, it can hit hard.

As though, my queer credibility, Katy's queer credibility, and our relationship's credibility was in question. It's a frustration we live with and reconcile every day.

It goes to show that there is still a lot of work to be done. There are still problematic performative expectations of queerness. I’ve legitimately had people say to me, “oh, but you don’t look queer,” or, “you don’t act queer.” I hate that these types of comments exist because it’s the same reason why so many members of the queer community are afraid to come out – because of these unnecessary expectations of what it means to be or act according to a certain identity. These connections are harmful and can make our community unsafe.

There is no right or wrong way to perform or present your gender, and/or demonstrate your sexuality/preferences/or lack thereof.

Even now, as a sexual health educator, I work with college students to understand their bodies, their attractions, and how to be safe sexual beings. I talk with male students who have sex with men but don’t consider themselves gay – and I tell them that’s fine! I talk with nonbinary students who identify as lesbians and ask me if that’s how they “should” identify, and I tell them that I cannot tell them how to self-identify.

How you identify is a process of learning and unlearning, as well as an evolutionary personal understanding of who you are attracted to and who you aren’t attracted to—either romantically or sexually. Or, again, if you have no interest in any of those things! And that’s okay!

This process is not easy – trust me, I know.

Yet, we gotta help people become more and more comfortable processing their identities publicly. Even within today’s political landscape, we need to resist the politics of hate and self-hate that keep us from living authentically.

Happy Pride month!
Let’s be queer together.

Coheed and Cambria’s “Neverender” tour hits Boston

Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria.
All photos by me!

It has been nearly 12 years since Coheed and Cambria released its landmark major-label debut with the brilliant, Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear through the Eyes of Madness.

To celebrate the success and impact of Good Apollo, the band embarked on a national tour to perform the album in its 75-minute entirety every night. And last week, the tour came through Boston and the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion. Despite the overwhelming chill of an outdoor venue in early May, the crowd was electric.

Opening the evening was The Dear Hunter, fronted by musical savant, Casey Crescenzo—a man wrote, performed, and recorded his own symphony, “Amour & Attrition,” back in 2014. But with his full-time project, The Dear Hunter, Crescenzo has spent the last ten years or so telling a story of his own through five albums titled with “Act 1,” “Act 2,” and so on—with the recent being, “Act 5, “With the Devil in Confessional,” which was released last year on Equal Vision Recorss.

The Dear Hunter!

The Dear Hunter has also released two standalone projects, “The Color Spectrum,” which is comprised of nine 4-song EPs that represent the color spectrum, and an LP titled, “Migrant.” Essentially, there is not stopping Crescenzo's creativity or ability to construct rock music that packs so much into the form, constantly reinventing itself.

After a brief intermission, Coheed and Cambria began its set with the recording of the intro track, “Keeping the Blade,” playing to visuals on screens to entice and excite the crowd. And then out walks singer and mastermind, Claudio Sanchez, with an acoustic guitar to play the next track, “Always & Never,” which has such a lullaby feel to it before breaking into the band’s biggest hit to this date, “Welcome Home.”

“Welcome Home” has become a standard within the modern prog rock lexicon. Brandishing a double-neck guitar, first seen in the video for the song, Sanchez and company rocked out on stage as the crowd let loose.

As the album progressed, the band seamlessly went track-by-track, speaking very little, to just give the crowd their money’s worth and a kick-ass rock performance.  Having seen the band a few times, it a hard to find a more tight, solid, and composed set of performers.

The beloved ballad, “Wake Up,” brought out the lighters as the crowd got a chance to breathe and hold their loved ones, as well as investors along to some of the band’s more popular lyrics—”I'd do anything for you, kill anyone for you.” It's sweet in a dark, sinister, gothic kind of way—which is perfect for Coheed fans.

Then the band really kicked into overdrive with another successful single, “The Suffering,” a song that brought many fans to the band thanks to its catchy chorus, amazing riffs, and lively drums—as perfectly performed by the flamboyant and charismatic, Josh Eppard. Eppard carried much of the excitement of the gig through his hilarious facial expressions and intoxicating energy as elaborate and psychotropic images repeatedly flashed behind him as the band played.

Josh Eppard drumming real hard.

The aptly titled finale track, “The Final Cut,” ended the set with what I consider the best closing track to a concept album, ever. It's everything a finale track should be—dramatic, epic, and truly feels like a conclusion.

This wasn't the first time, however, that the band had performed this album on special occasion. Only a few years, Coheed toured select cities, in which the band played four consecutive nights—each night featuring a different album from the band’s discography to the point, with the third night being “Good Apollo.”

These strings of shows were called the “Neverender,” and this year’s “Good Apollo” tour was also given the “Neverender” tag—which elated fans who were eager to hear the entire album performed once again.

For a slight history lesson, fresh off the acclaim the band received from its triumphant sophomore album, “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3,” which was released by Equal Vision Records in 2003, the band came out with a virtually untouchable follow-up that has transfixed its fans for well over a decade. And throughout the career of Coheed, fans have followed along with the seven-album epic concept storyline called “The Amory Wars.”

What makes this album, and this tour, more special is that the mind behind the band, Sanchez, has been crafting a series of graphic novels to coincide the first three albums/sagas of “The Amory Wars.” However, a series for “Good Apollo” wasn't announced or released until this tour was announced, which brought much rejoicing to the legions of fans and collectors of the band's projects.

Another perk of the tour announcement was that for the first time since its release there was to finally be a vinyl pressing of “Good Apollo”—not even just one, but three! Something that made me incredibly happy as a vinyl collector and lover of this album.

Twelve years later, “Good Apollo” is still one of the strongest prog rock albums in the modern era and Coheed and Cambria are truly living legends for having written it and given so much to its fans for supporting it so much over the years.

Healthy Dose 011: Let’s keep the air clean, please.

This piece appears in the UMass Boston publication, the Mass Media.


I get it, smoking looks cool. And I understand that smoking cigarettes can be a very serious addiction for many people who get hooked. But there are real health dangers involved with smoking that have been well-documented over the last six decades or so.

In January 2016, the UMass Boston campus became smoke-free—this move was made to join the hundreds of campuses in the country that have shifted to a smoke-free campus. Campuses have made this shift over the last few years because they are recognizing the immense health risks of cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke.

A student survey conducted in the fall by the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) revealed many interesting perceptions and behaviors regarding the campus tobacco ban. Over 700 students responded to the survey, 95% of whom responding being aware of the smoking ban on campus.

So awareness isn’t the issue.

Yet, amid the myriad of No Smoking signs and smoking ban notices spread across campus, there seems to be some confusion and/or apathy toward the ban. 96% of students surveyed reported either sometimes, frequently, or almost always seeing someone smoking on campus. That’s a problem. However, 83% of those surveyed said they do not personally smoke on campus, while 11% said that they do smoke on campus.

So perhaps there is a lot of apathy about this ban—I understand that. I’m not a fan of people telling me what to do with my body, or judging me for the choices I make, either. However, that apathy needs to end when decisions we make impact the lives of those around us. We are not insular human beings when on this campus—we are a community that should feel safe and comfortable to breathe clean while here.

Especially with the weather (hopefully) turning into Spring soon, more and more folks will be outside, which is all the more reason to discuss this issue. The USG survey also found that numerous students independently reported having asthma attacks as a result to smoking on campus, which contributes to the 12% of students who reported that smoking significantly impacts in their life.

Two interested correlations found in the USG survey were the 11% of students stated they smoke on campus, while coincidentally, 11% also stated they have no desire to quit smoking. Then there is the 5% of those surveyed who said they smoke but not on campus, when coincidentally, 5% of those surveyed would like to quit smoking. The connections here may have some overlap in reporting, but those numbers are truly too important to excuse.

The campus administration is very much aware of high-traffic smoking areas on campus, and this issue is being taken very seriously, for the sake of those of us who do not like breathing in any sort of smoke. Yes, this ban also vaping and e-cigarettes—of which, I’m annoyingly aware are not tobacco, but still include chemicals that people who have made the choice not to smoke would also not like going into their lungs.

I’m very comfortable asking people to stop smoking or vaping on campus, and maybe I’ve asked you to do so—perhaps in a fun, upbeat tone that bothered you, or in a more forceful I’m-not-in-the-mood-for-cigarette-smoke-in-my-face kind of tone. And if you complied in any of these moments, thank you. Trust me, there is plenty of resistance. However, I’m not afraid to ask someone to put out their cigarette on campus, and I encourage other bystanders who wish to breathe clean air to kindly ask your fellow community members to cognizant of the clean air and tobacco ban policy.

With the recent decriminalization of marijuana in Massachusetts, the campus has maintained that use of the substance is still prohibited from campus grounds.

As someone who last a father to lung cancer in 2015, I have very much dealt with the harsh reality of the detrimental impacts that smoking has on the human body. Watching my dad die a very slow and painful death was very difficult and I never want any of you to ever have to experience what he went through in his finals years of life.

We, over at University Health Services, offer cessation therapy for quitting smoking, as well as nicotine gum for those who wish to quit. We want to see all of our community members thrive on our campus, and this means we all need to be able to cleanly breathe the air that surrounds us.

So, let’s keep the air clean, please—for yourself, for your peers, and for our future.

The Healthy Dose 010: Eating Disorder Awareness

Note: parts of this piece appear in this story at The Art of Survival.


With Eating Disorder Awareness week coming up from February 28-March 3, I wanted to share a pretty personal story with my experiences as a person that lives with an eating disorder and body dysmorphia.

A very common phrase I utter is some variation on, "I'm gonna have to run a lot if I eat this." Sometimes it can refer to a large meal with lots of sodium, a dessert, some fast food, or a massive brunch.

I run so that I don't feel guilty about eating. Anything. Almost any time I eat, my brain tells me, "you need to run now. You need to burn off whatever you just dumped into your body. You need to go now. Leave. Run! NOW!"

That sort of internal narrative can be pretty frustrating to live with on a daily basis. This has been my reality for the last eight years or so, when I really started to develop a distorted vision of my body, a condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Essentially, I don't view my body the others may view my body. I am hypercritical of every perceived curve, roll, stretch mark, even if they aren't really there. My mind often exaggerates these aspects of my body, and it makes me overcompensate by running. Or by under-eating, fasting, or harming myself when I don't feel good about my body.

My history with fasting is long, and certainly connected to how I was medicated as a child. It fucked me up. I was (and still am) a typical case of ADHD. Always running around, lots of energy, mind going a mile-a-minute, and lots of projects to keep me busy. Being medicated gave me a weird relationship with food—I hated it. I was scrawny until college, when I realized that food was great! So I started to eat a lot. And I began to gain weight for the first time in my life.

Slowly, I began to notice that I wasn’t really taking care of myself—I wasn’t eating food that was necessarily “good” for me. It was a lot of meat, fast food (Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr.), sugar (candy, soda), and sunflower seeds (which are just drenched in salt). I tried to balance a lot of my crappy eating habits with running. I ran a lot. I was able to consistently run about 35 miles/week, with an average long run of 10 miles.

I have a love/hate relationship with running.
I don’t actually like running that much.
But the endorphins I get from running have always helped with my depression and anxiety—some of which is caused by my eating habits.

Thus, I’ve also used running to make up for the way I ate.
Which also means I have used guilt to motivate myself to run.
And that sucks.

However, my early complicated relationship with running doesn’t mean I changed the way I ate in college. The complicated relationship led to me hating how stubborn I was being with food. I would do all of this running—great exercise, wonderful for my heart and mind—but ultimately, I wasn’t returning the love to myself. It sucked. I wasn’t losing weight; I wasn’t necessarily “fit.” I was just going through motions of somewhat self-destructive behaviors, and the running became how I masked my insecurities.

One day, I had just come returned from a run, and a very good friend of mine said, “with all the running you do, I figured you would be in much better shape.” One of the worst things I could’ve ever heard. It sent me directly to food. And I ate a lot.

Those words have echoed in my brain.

During college, it got to the point where I would start fasting intermittently—sometimes for a day here and there, sometimes for multiple days, often for a week at a time. Fasting does have some benefits—restarting your system, flushing out crap from your body. But I wasn’t doing it for necessarily the best reasons.

I did it because I genuinely thought I was fat. And it hurt a lot.
It hurt my body, and it hurt my mind.

I know I’ve never been “fat,” but my anxiety about my body kept convincing my brain otherwise. It was an endless cycle of comparing myself to my other male friends, not feeling “fit” enough, not feeling JACKED enough. I’ve never really been a huge person, or one to pack on muscle, but I kept convincing myself that I was a complete mess.

I know much of this critique is due to a severe concern for my health, but it's also very much influenced by the way I interact with other men. Growing up in a hypermasculine society has been pretty detrimental to my mental health—constantly being in locker rooms with muscular dudes checking themselves out in the mirror. Me, wondering why muscles won’t appear on my body, resenting them as they flex and brag about their delts or tris or whatever muscle group they were working on that day. While I repress the urge to yell in their bro faces for being more attractive, stronger, and cooler than me.

Only within the last few years have I figured out what’s been going on with my brain and body—it’s all about insecurity.

I am, and perhaps, always have been pretty insecure about my body. Either I felt I was too skinny (especially when medicated, and during high school), or I was “too fat.” Again, my brain had a wonderful way of tricking me into believing both were the end of the world. I don’t feel there are many times where I’ve held a “comfort” weight. But I know where it is, and finding that level has been a constant struggle for me.

These insecurities have led me to unnecessarily project onto others—friends, colleagues, my partners. When I don’t feel comfortable about my body, I find myself being hypercritical and judgmental of those around me. And I think/say terrible things that I know are only my own projections of issues that I feel about myself. Hell, I say them to myself all the time as well.

Emotional self-harm is still self-harm.

The only true way I’ve found to cope with my body image issues, outside of running, is to get tattooed. I have many tattoos—a full sleeve, and another in progress. But I consciously and unconsciously use these tattoos to give me SOMETHING to appreciate about my body. It sucks that it needs to be tattoos, but there aren't many days when I feel good about my body

And on the days I do feel good about myself, my confidence is untouchable. And when I look in the mirror, I think to myself, “I’m a badass.” The tattoos help me feel that. The tattoos help me feel anything. Even the action of being tattooed is enjoyable to me. The pain, the reality of it all, the experience—it’s all to capture a moment in my life and to add something new to my imperfect canvas.

A year ago today, I weighed the most I have ever weighed—after a year-long job search, months of depression, soda, sugar, and anger led me away from taking care of myself as I should have been.

Today, I eat much better. I pay attention to virtually everything I put into my body. Now that I am a health educator, I have really doubled-down on my wellness. I haven’t eaten meat in over four years, I’ve cut caffeine almost completely from my diet, I avoid unnecessary processed sugars—fruits are always gonna be my jam. I’m even back down to my goal “comfort” weight, and I feel great.

Yet, recently while visiting home, another friend of mine uttered virtually the exact same words that stung me a few years ago—with all the running you do, I figured you would be in much better shape. It sucked because I know I am doing great right now.

So I chose to not care this time and I didn’t dive into food.

I am the healthiest I have ever been, and I still don’t really like running (even though I’m marathon training again), but I do it to keep myself sane. I use running as motivation to keep myself on the right path of mental and emotional wellness, as well as physical. Granted, I still find myself justifying the things I eat with how much I will need to run, but at least I am giving some sort of consideration to how what I put into my body these days.

I’m not sure I will ever conquer this disorder, but I have plans to start seeing a therapist about it and I cannot wait to see how and if it helps me. So here goes nothing!

For UMass Boston students: Finally, with this story, I also want to make a plug for a fantastic talk that my office will host on March 1 in Campus Center 2545 at 1pm. At this talk, we will be bringing in Dr. Ebrahimi from the Cambridge Eating Disorder Center to discuss how to recognize when you or a friend may be struggling with an eating disorder and how to support them. See you there!

Runner's Guilt [Art of Survival]

Content warning: The following story makes references to a survivor's experiences with an eating disorder, and body dysmorphic disorder, which may be triggering for some readers.

"Runner's Guilt," Craig Bidiman
this story originally appeared in The Art of Survival.

A very common phrase I utter is some variation on, "I'm gonna have to run a lot if I eat this." Sometimes it can refer to a large meal with lots of sodium, a dessert, some fast food, or a massive brunch.

I run so that I don't feel guilty about eating. Anything. Almost any time I eat, my brain tells me, "you need to run now. You need to burn off whatever you just dumped into your body. You need to go now. Leave. Run! NOW!"

That sort of internal narrative can be pretty frustrating to live with on a daily basis. This has been my reality for the last eight years or so, when I really started to develop a distorted vision of my body, a condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Essentially, I don't view my body the others may view my body. I am hypercritical of every perceived curve, roll, stretch mark, even if they aren't really there. My mind often exaggerates these aspects of my body, and it makes me overcompensate by running. Or by under-eating, fasting, or harming myself when I don't feel good about my body.

My history with fasting is long, and certainly connected to how I was medicated as a child. It fucked me up. I was (and still am) a typical case of ADHD. Always running around, lots of energy, mind going a mile-a-minute, and lots of projects to keep me busy. Being medicated gave me a weird relationship with food—I hated it. I was scrawny until college, when I realized that food was great! So I started to eat a lot. And I began to gain weight for the first time in my life.

Me, after a recent 14 mile run.

Slowly, I began to notice that I wasn’t really taking care of myself—I wasn’t eating food that was necessarily “good” for me. It was a lot of meat, fast food (Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr.), sugar (candy, soda), and sunflower seeds (which are just drenched in salt). I tried to balance a lot of my crappy eating habits with running. I ran a lot. I was able to consistently run about 35 miles/week, with an average long run of 10 miles.

I have a love/hate relationship with running.
I don’t actually like running that much.
But the endorphins I get from running have always helped with my depression and anxiety—some of which is caused by my eating habits.

Thus, I’ve also used running to make up for the way I eat/ate. I also use running to "allow" myself to eat certain foods or certain amounts of food. And the constant mental gymnastics I put myself through can be incredibly exhausting.
Which means I also use guilt to motivate myself to run.
And that sucks.

However, my early complicated relationship with running doesn’t mean I changed the way I ate in college. The complicated relationship led to me hating how stubborn I was being with food. I would do all of this running—great exercise, wonderful for my heart and mind—but ultimately, I wasn’t returning the love to myself. It sucked. I wasn’t losing weight; I wasn’t necessarily “fit.” I was just going through motions of somewhat self-destructive behaviors, and the running became how I masked my insecurities.

One day, I had just come returned from a run, and a very good friend of mine said, “with all the running you do, I figured you would be in much better shape.” One of the worst things I could’ve ever heard. It sent me directly to food. And I ate a lot.

Those words have echoed in my brain.

During college, it got to the point where I would start fasting intermittently—sometimes for a day here and there, sometimes for multiple days, often for a week at a time. Fasting does have some benefits—restarting your system, flushing out crap from your body. But I wasn’t doing it for necessarily the best reasons.

I did it because I genuinely thought I was fat. And it hurt a lot.
It hurt my body, and it hurt my mind.

I don't like sharing images of myself without a shirt on,
but this happens from time to time after I run.

I know I’ve never been “fat,” but my anxiety about my body kept convincing my brain otherwise. It was an endless cycle of comparing myself to my other male friends, not feeling “fit” enough, not feeling JACKED enough. I’ve never really been a huge person, or one to pack on muscle, but I kept convincing myself that I was a complete mess.

I know much of this critique is due to a severe concern for my health, but it's also very much influenced by the way I interact with other men. Growing up in a hypermasculine society has been pretty detrimental to my mental health—constantly being in locker rooms with muscular dudes checking themselves out in the mirror. Me, wondering why muscles won’t appear on my body, resenting them as they flex and brag about their delts or tris or whatever muscle group they were working on that day. While I repress the urge to yell in their bro faces for being more attractive, stronger, and cooler than me.

Only within the last few years have I figured out what’s been going on with my brain and body—it’s all about insecurity.

I am, and perhaps, always have been pretty insecure about my body. Either I felt I was too skinny (especially when medicated, and during high school), or I was “too fat.” Again, my brain had a wonderful way of tricking me into believing both were the end of the world. I don’t feel there are many times where I’ve held a “comfort” weight. But I know where it is, and finding that level has been a constant struggle for me.

These insecurities have led me to unnecessarily project onto others—friends, colleagues, my partners. When I don’t feel comfortable about my body, I find myself being hypercritical and judgmental of those around me. And I think/say terrible things that I know are only my own projections of issues that I feel about myself. Hell, I say them to myself all the time as well.

Emotional self-harm is still self-harm.

The only true way I’ve found to cope with my body image issues, outside of running, is to get tattooed. I have many tattoos—a full sleeve, and another in progress. But I consciously and unconsciously use these tattoos to give me SOMETHING to appreciate about my body. It sucks that it needs to be tattoos, but there aren't many days when I feel good about my body

And on the days I do feel good about myself, my confidence is unfuckwithable. And when I look in the mirror, I think to myself, “I’m a badass.” The tattoos help me feel that. The tattoos help me feel anything. Even the action of being tattooed is enjoyable to me. The pain, the reality of it all, the experience—it’s all to capture a moment in my life and to add something new to my imperfect canvas.

I recently ran a half marathon in a snow storm.
Very fun, but very stupid.

A year ago today, I weighed the most I have ever weighed—after a year-long job search, months of depression, soda, sugar, and anger led me away from taking care of myself as I should have been.

Today, I eat much better. I pay attention to virtually everything I put into my body. Now that I am a health educator, I have really doubled-down on my wellness. I haven’t eaten meat in over four years, I’ve cut caffeine almost completely from my diet, I avoid unnecessary processed sugars—fruits are always gonna be my jam. I’m even back down to my goal “comfort” weight, and I feel great.

Yet, recently while visiting home, another friend of mine uttered virtually the exact same words that stung me a few years ago—with all the running you do, I figured you would be in much better shape. It sucked because I know I am doing great right now.

So I chose to not care this time and I didn’t dive into food.

I am the healthiest I have ever been, and I still don’t really like running (even though I’m marathon training again), but I do it to keep myself sane. I use running as motivation to keep myself on the right path of mental and emotional wellness, as well as physical. Granted, I still find myself justifying the things I eat with how much I will need to run, but at least I am giving some sort of consideration to how what I put into my body these days.

I’m not sure I will ever conquer this disorder, but I have plans to start seeing a therapist about it and I cannot wait to see how and if it helps me. So here goes nothing!

- Craig.

NOTE: If you would like to read more stories from The Art of Survival, check out our website by CLICKING HERE!

Copeland career-spanning NOW/THEN rebirth tour hits Boston

Florida natives, Copeland, have been sharing their brand of soothing piano rock for nearly two decades. While the band recently came off of an extensive hiatus and released their latest album, Ixora, in 2014, there hasn’t been much in the way of touring for the band. Until now.

On December 5, the band makes its headlining return to Boston to play the Middle East upstairs. The tour is called the NOW/THEN tour, and shows the band accompanied by a three-piece string section, performing 27 songs from its five-album, and 15-year career.

“This is the most ambitious set we’ve ever done,” said guitarist, Bryan Laurenson, “also probably the longest we’ve ever done.” Laurenson explained that the drive to make a return to touring came out of the process of working on Ixora, when the band had a bit of a reawakening.

Copeland spent the majority of its career signed to Tooth & Nail Records, but when its contract was due to expire, the band decided to call it a day and break up. For Laurenson, this was the end of the band.

“When we broke up, it was a real break up,” Laurenson said. “It was amicable, but we had no plans to do anything together again.”

Laurenson explains that after his new project, States, found great success with a crowdfunding effort in 2013, he realized there might be interest in a new Copeland album. So Laurenson approached the rest of the band, which consists of Aaron Marsh on vocals and piano, his brother, Stephen Laurenson, on guitars, Bobby Walker on bass, and Jonathan Bucklew on drums.

Arguably, the trademark of Copeland’s sound is Aaron Marsh’s calming and beautiful vocals. Marsh always finds a way to meet the chaos and corruption of the world with his unique sense of positivity and repose. This came through perfectly on Ixora, which was Copeland’s first album in six years. The album was also announced on April Fool’s Day in 2014, much to the bewilderment of many fans, but fans who were simply excited to heat their favorite band had reformed.

“It may be the coolest thing about being in a band—knowing that something we create is making an emotional connection with its listeners,” Laurenson said. “Aaron is a man of hope, so that’s a major constant in our music.”

Ixora is a flower found in some Asian cultures and Marsh, who took to horticulture a great deal during the band’s hiatus, became enamored with the flower and it soon became the genesis for the band’s rebirth.

“Coming back from the dead, there were no expectations,” Laurenson said, “we just wanted to make the music we wanted to make.” Laurenson explained how the band took two months to write and record Ixora, and then took two weeks to make a companion piece called, Twin.

Twin, when played alongside Ixora creates a quadrophonic listening experience for the album. The two listens are possible independently, yet, this dual experience makes for one of the most dynamic ways to experience Copeland.

“It was liberating,” Laurenson said of the marathon-like experience of creating both Ixora and Twin. “It was the smoothest record we ever made, no restrictions, and lots of freedom—it changed our mindset on how to make a record.”

But even with the record, the band had no other plans beyond self-releasing Ixora.

“We weren’t going to be a band,” Laurenson said, “we were just going to make an album. But we were slowly thinking of shows, and then Anberlin asked us to their last two shows. So we did them and it was a lot of fun.”

Copeland was back—to a degree.

And then the band received an offer that was too good to turn down—open for Paramore’s 2015 spring tour. Laurenson explained that Paramore’s first-ever gig was opening for Copeland back in 2003 at a dive bar in Florida, while Haley Williams was still only 13 years old. This tour was a way for Copeland to reach a different audience and to play more seated venues, which perfectly fits their vibe.

“Slowly we realized that this was snowballing into something we weren’t anticipating,” Laurenson said, as the band eventually had to have the relationship talk of ‘so, what is this?’ Copeland has already started the writing process for a new album, and Laurenson assured that the band plans on moving forward together as a creative unit.

“We’ve talked about 2017 being more intentional and having more of a game plan, having goals, forecasting the future more than just rolling down a hill.”

For the NOW/THEN tour, Copeland has chosen a number of tracks from their entire catalog, which includes 2003’s Beneath Medicine Tree, 2005’s In Motion, 2006’s Eat, Sleep, Repeat, 2008’s You are my Sunshine, and 2014’s Ixora.

“This is as nostalgic as we’ll get,” Laurenson said, “it’s a tip of the hat to our history as a band. We wanted to celebrate each record as a whole and do a tour that was more progressive and expansive.”
“We didn’t want to do a money-grab and just play an old record.”

Laurenson gave the caveat that this might be the last time for many fans to hear some songs because the band plans on retiring a number of the older tracks as the band moves into the future.

Make sure to check out Copeland on Monday, December 5 at The Middle East. Tickets are $20 in advance and at the door. And check out Ixora, as well as the rest of the band’s catalog on Spotify, and through the band’s website, thecopelandsite.com.

The Healthy Dose, 009: Eat well and cheap!

Eating well is hard. Eating well while on a budget is perhaps much harder.

However, it doesn’t need to be this way.

During my college years, I found ways to eat well and save money at the same time. Some of this took a lot of discipline, but most of it took finding what types of foods I preferred when I listened to my body and realized that some foods weren’t good for me.

And let’s face it, a lot of the foods we prefer aren’t always the best for us. BUT tastes can be acquired and change over time. So I hope sharing some of my suggestions for eating better will help you all.

Let’s start with the eating well side of this article.

Some easy snacks

The following is a list of quick and easy snacks that can give you energy throughout your day.

- Rice cakes

- KIND bars

- Clif Bars

- Baby carrots

- Bananas

- Granola and yogurt

- Bagels

- Grapes

- Mixed nuts

- Watermelon

- Apples

Prioritize fruits and veggies

Yes, I’m a health and wellness specialist. So yes, I’m supposed to say this to you. But also yes, I live this aspect of my advice. I love fruits and I love veggies. I eat them every day. They truly are very good for you. They’re also very accessible as snacks! So load up a baggy of baby carrots, an apple, some grapes, some celery sticks, and hummus to dip them in, and you have some easy snacks for your day.

Stay away from Top Ramen packets

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. It’s cheap, it’s accessible, and it’s pretty tasty. BUT those packets are loaded with sodium. So if you aren’t exercising regularly, you run the risk of doing some damage to your heart by prioritizing ramen in your diet. Instead, buy a bag of potatoes and make some baked potatoes, or homemade mashed potatoes. Much healthier, less sodium, still cost-effective.

Now, for the cheap side of this article.

Food stamps

If you are a working college student, apply for food stamps. These are also known as SNAP benefits, and a quick online search will get you on your way to receiving them.

I was on food stamps two times during college and they helped me out tremendously when I needed them. All I can suggest is at least applying for them. The minimum requirements often request that you work at least 20 hours per week, confirm your employment, and be enrolled in college full-time. You will need

With food stamps, you can get up to $200 per month, depending on your situation (i.e. family, children, roommates), to put towards the food and beverages that you

Pro-tip: when applying, make sure to make it clear that you do not share food with your roommates, but instead that you buy your own food for yourself. This is important. Also, if you even try to alcohol with food stamps, they can get revoked.

Pack your lunch/snacks

You will be able to save much more money in the long run if you make the effort to pack your food/snacks for the day ahead of time. Even if it’s something you will need to microwave once you get to campus, you can find microwaves in most of the dining centers on campus.

I pack my fruits, rice cakes, granola bars, and an occasional sandwich every morning and it helps me refrain from spending money that I don’t need to spend on campus. The best part about fruits and veggies as snacks is that they’re cheap. Instead of paying $2 for a candy bar, you’re paying $2 for a two-pound bag of baby carrots that can last you a week! It’s like magic.

There you go! I wish you the best of luck in taking this step into eating better and saving money along the way!

The Healthy Dose, 008: Get Better Sleep

In which I give some tips on how to achieve some better sleep during college

I’ve been lucky to meet a lot of students since starting my job in February—many of which have a common response when I ask, “how are you doing?” They, “I’m tired.” Or, “I didn’t sleep well last night.” Or, “it’s too early—please stop talking to me.”

That last one is a personal favorite of mine.

At many of my campus talks, I ask every student in attendance how much sleep they get in an average night—the recommended amount is of course 7-8 hours per night. Yet, not many students claim coming close to that amount—which is very understandable, given the workload many students have.

However, it’s no secret that I’m a morning person. But I did not used to be this way. It took lots of effort to recognize that I function much better first thing in the morning, well-rested, and eager for the day—instead of exhausted from the day, and pushing myself to stay awake even though I was ready for bed hours ago.

When I made the switch to being a morning person, I knew I had to make some other changes in my life as well. These changes transformed the way I eat, function, and thrive throughout the day. Granted, many of these changes are gradual and cannot be done all at once. So I suggest seeing what can work for you.

Put the coffee down:

At least as the day drags on, begin lessening your caffeine intake. If you can limit yourself to one cup in the morning, or early afternoon—that should be enough. Believe it or not, the energy boost you can get is from fresh fruits and water. Caffeine has a 6-hour half-life, so if you’re drinking it later in the evening, it can stay in your system and disrupt any chance of sleep you might have had. Transition to tea in the midday, or focus solely on water to make this transition possible.

Exercise during the day:

I suggest starting your day with some form of exercise—biking, walking, running, lifting weights. Something that will get your body moving. This will kick-start your endorphins and give you some solid energy for your day, and slowly you will need less and less caffeine, and you’ll come home ready for rest after a long day.

Turn off your screens:

Many students I talk with claim that the last thing they do before bed has something to do with looking at some sort of screen—TV, phone, iPad, etc. Again, understandable. Netflix is a hot commodity these days—even though I remember the days when it wasn’t a streaming platform. Yet, many studies have shown that looking at screens before bed is greatly decreasing the quality of good REM sleep—so it’s important to supplement something else if you need stimulation before bed.

I suggest either reading a book (traditional Kindle readers are okay for this since many have dimmed displays), listening to music, or, if you’re feeling frisky, even having sex before bed is a pretty good way to ensure some comfortable rest. Sex often reduces stress because it also releases endorphins, which are comforting for the brain. The Berman Center in Michigan found that sex before bed can often lead to less chances for insomnia and offers deeper sleep.

Early to bed, early to rise:

Creating a routine of getting to be before midnight is a good way to transition yourself into becoming a morning person. And then work to 11pm, or even 10pm if you feel the need to do so. And start waking up earlier—7am, or 6:30am, or 5:30am. When you train your body in these ways, your resetting your internal clock, which allows you to function better in those early morning hours instead of having to stay up late cramming for a test. Or, having to stay up late writing—with a tired brain that may not be creating your best work.

None of this stuff is easy—but I can strongly suggest that if better sleep is a priority for you, please take these lifestyle changes into consideration and give it a shot! Making some of these changes will take finding out what works for you, your body, and your schedule. But it’s all totally doable.

I’m always available to chat about how to initiate these changes into your life in a comfortable and desirable manner, so let me know if you need a little extra support! 

The Healthy Dose 007: Creating a Mental Health Support Network

In which I discuss a major aspect of social wellness and mental health on college campuses.

Note: This article originally appeared in the Mass Media at UMass Boston.



Stress is a natural aspect of college. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but there are many ways to balance your stress to make sure you take care of everything on your plate.

However, our mental health is one aspect of our lives that often gets ignored when we get stressed. And to me, there is no excuse for not taking care of your mental health—no matter how busy you get, this should be a major priority for you.

Making your mental health a priority is important because if you let it slip for even a few weeks, you may find yourself in an irreversible struggle to reclaim control.

While discussing mental health is pretty taboo in some cultures—and still pretty stigmatized here in America—I argue that we must be willing to discuss what is going on with our brains in order to find some form of relief from the grief our brains can cause us.

Stress tends to complicate our mental health when we aren’t taking the best care of ourselves. So getting busy means we often leave the things that are important to us behind for the sake of simply trying to complete an assignment, a paper, or to study for an exam.

It’s okay to ask for help if you are struggling with depression, anxiety, and/or stress. And I’m going to explain some simple ways to create a mental health support network.

The easiest way to ask for help is to reach out to your friends—those closest to you. Your friend group is the best way to create your own support network. Be willing to say, “Hey, I just need to talk with someone right now. I’m not feeling great about myself right now.” If your friend is a good friend, they will listen.

Now, if you’re a friend who is being confided in, please listen.

Listen to the needs of your friends. Do not write off their struggles or desire for support as an annoyance or prying into your life. Do not make your friend seem like an inconvenience. Sure, mental health issues do tend to arise at inconvenient times, but that’s no reason to treat your friends—those who trust you—as if they are an inconvenience to you.

If you know any of the coping strategies of your friend in need, suggest those things! Offer to make your friend some tea, or dinner, or simply watch some Netflix. Try anything that will help a friend relax during periods when their depression or stress might be acting up.

If many of your friends are in another state or country, utilize social media! Skype with friends and family and maintain those relationships that bring you joy. These little moments of connection can mean the world to folks who live a stressful life. I know it helps me to Skype with my best friends back in Oregon, or those who have moved all over the country. It’s always nice to escape my reality for a moment and relax with a familiar face or voice.

If you are a writer, use a blog, Twitter, or Facebook, and share your struggles. This is something I do regularly just so that I can lend a face to what it looks like when people live with depression and anxiety. I’m a pretty enthusiastic and fun-loving dude, but sometimes my brain likes to trick me into thinking otherwise.

So I share these moments.

I do this so that others know they aren’t alone if they struggle with these issues as well. And it opens the door for folks to reach out to me if they need someone to talk with about what’s going on in their lives.

Being willing to open up about what’s going on in your life can help you tremendously and it can help those in your life to know that none of us are alone in this struggle with mental health.

Reach out to your friends when you need a break from studying or writing a paper. Do something creative together, go to a concert, or find an exercise buddy! Or just talk it out.

Don’t have any available friends? Well, this is where I come in! I’m available to chat with you anytime you need some support or a bit of affirmation amid your chaotic days. My office is in the third floor of the Campus Center, suite 3407.

Feel free to drop in any time if you just want to talk.

Keep You - Tattoosday Memorial

This post originally appeared on the Art of Survival.

My dad died one year ago today.

Exactly one year ago yesterday, I was in Portland, Oregon, digging through records at Everyday Music and Music Millennium because that morning, my father, Wayne Bidiman, told me to go have some fun on my last day in Oregon.

See, I had just flown out to Oregon from Boston a week earlier because my mom told me that dad's health had taken a turn for the worst. I was unemployed, depressed, and struggling to find work. So I didn't have the money to drop on a cross country plane ticket to get home. Luckily, I have some amazing friends and family members who fronted the money for me.

The trip was weird. I hadn’t been home in 10 months, so to go home with the purpose of saying goodbye to my father felt odd. I showed up, he seemed fine, and we laughed a lot.

He still felt immortal to me.

For those who don’t know my father, he was a train of a man. Wayne the Train—that’s what me and some of my friends call him. He survived lung cancer two times before this, 4 heart attacks, a stroke (or two?), diastolic heart failure, deep vein thrombosis in his legs, sleep apnea, diabetes, and whatever else was thrown his way.

I actually have no real memories of my father being healthy.

But the dude never complained. Not that I ever heard.

I would ask him, “how you doing today, Wayne?”
He’d often respond, “I’m surviving.”

So that’s how I respond to people when they ask me how I’m doing.
It’s something that has stuck with me over the years.

He never complained but we could tell he was in pain.

As the days went by, I watched him slowly deteriorate. I would spend chunks of the day asking him about mortality, and what it felt like to be on the way out. And he was very honest with me. Then again, that was never anything new. He was a quiet man, but when he spoke, we listened.

He told me, "don't worry about death, sweetheart. Worry about living a good life." Dude lived a good life—he was on the cusp of his 74th birthday, and had no regrets.

We tried to keep him comfortable, but as a large man with weak legs, it was hard for him to get around those final days. He kept telling me I didn’t need to worry about him—which was ridiculous. But I always listened to my father, so I tried my best not to worry.

But those final days were definitely filled with doubt about how long he’d truly be around.

Music has always been present in my family—granted, it wasn’t necessarily the punk, hardcore, post-rock, etc. that I listen to today. BUT I was exposed to a lot of Beach Boys, Elvis, Conway Twitty, and my dad’s favorite, Marty Robbins.

Dad used to spin his old records when I was growing up, but that’d before I really cared about vinyl or really knew what they meant. Yet, for the last three years or so, I’ve become quite the vinyl collector. One of my dad’s favorite records is Gunfight Ballads, by Marty Robbins. It’s an old one—somewhat uncommon in the used shops, where most of the Marty Robbins pieces are those missing his crowning accomplishment, “El Paso.” But Gunfighter Ballads is full of songs that I remember because dad always played the album for me and used to tell me the stories behind all of the songs.

I grew up listening to Marty Robbins. He was a storyteller in his music. And I am also a storyteller in my music. Strange how that works!

So, back my last day in Oregon during that final week with my dad when he told me to go have some fun with my friends. So I went up to Portland and had brunch with a few friends and went record shopping at Music Millennium and Everyday Music. In a stroke of brilliant serendipity, I came across a used copy of Gunfighter Ballads for $1. I was stoked! I knew this would put a smile on dad’s face on my last day with him.

I also came across the album, Destrier, by Agent Fresco—which was one of my favorite albums of last year, and it is actually album about losing someone—so stumbling upon it was pretty cool, and it’s still the ONLY TIME I have ever seen it in the wild. So I bought it as well.

And as I left Music Millennium, where I apparently had no cell phone reception, I was flooded with text messages and missed calls from my siblings.

I knew what they were going to say without even checking them.
So I immediately drove back to Salem to be with the family.

When I got back home, I walked in with the records in my hand and showed the Marty Robbins piece to my dad—he was pretty lethargic at this point, but when he saw the cover, he immediately knew what it was. I saw a smile form on his mouth and he told me it was “a good one.” Always one to downplay how he really felt.

After that, he didn’t say much for the rest of the night. Just a few nods. Some creaky smiles. And eventually, he quietly, and without complaint, passed away.

Now, to the tattoo—I got this specific picture of my dad tattooed (in neo-traditional style) on my calf because it is an image of my father that was always on our wall when I was growing up.

The image is of my father’s 1959 Army enlistment photo. It’s old. Dude was old.

It’s one of those images that has been cemented in my brain since childhood. So I wanted to immortalize this on my skin. I got the tattoo while in Massachusetts almost a year before he died, so he was able to see it the couple times I flew home before he died.

He said it was his favorite tattoo of mine. I have many of them. And clearly he was biased!

The banner reads, “KEEP YOU,” which is an homage to the Pianos Become the Teeth album of the same name. The album is the third in a trilogy of the band’s lead singer processing the loss of his own father. Keep You is the absolution from the loss. A light at the end of the grief experience.

This album features a track titled, “Repine” (video above). And in the song, there is a line that repeats, “Your wick won’t burn away, your wick won’t burn away.” This line has stuck with me ever since I first heard it. And at this point, my partner has even gotten sick of me singing it.

But the line is so important to me. It’s the idea that the memory of my father’s life will never fade away. No matter how much I grow up now that he’s gone, he will always live on with me and I will continue to burn on in his memory.

Check out the original version of the song, "Farewell, My Father,"
by clicking this image of my first album, Into the Fire.

Music has always given me a release. I'm a pretty outgoing and fun-loving guy, but my music is where things get a little more serious, real, and sad. But I need that release.

Six years ago, I wrote a song for my dad. It is called, “Farewell, My Father.” It’s an instrumental song. For someone that loves words and uses LOTS of them, I had no words for this song. I wrote it shortly after dad’s lung cancer appeared the second time and I had no idea what to write. So I kept it void of words. Ever since writing the song, it became one of my favorites to start off my live sets.

The song structure mirrors the progression of my emotions regarding the news of my dad’s condition. Give it a listen above!

I titled it, “Farewell, My Father” all those years ago because it felt like my farewell to him—even though he was still there with me. But over all the years he struggled with his health, I felt like I was slowly losing him and this song was there with me to keep me somewhat comforted in those fleeting times.

It wasn’t until that final week with my dad that I finally had to say farewell to my father.

The album art for my new EP, Farewell.

Photo: Katy Weaver. Art direction: Nevan Doyle

So, I’ve written an EP for my father.
It is called, Farewell.

Farewell was successfully crowdfunded by over 150 people and we raised over $6,000 to make sure that we could press this album on vinyl, which has sort of been a dream of mine.

The overwhelming support has made me feel pretty great about releasing this new project as an homage to his memory. This will be another form of creating a permanent fixture of my memory of my father. The music will live on even after I’ve died. Weird to think about, but valid and somewhat enlivening.

Farewell will feature five tracks.

It will include the first song I was able to write about my father that actually contained words. This song is called, "Active Ghosts," (you can see a live video of me performing it above), and it focuses on my regrets with my relationship with my father. It also centers on his strength as a man who never gave up, and what I learned from being around that strength.

There is also a pretty personal spoken word piece that focuses on a number of aspects of my relationship with my father. I wrote it rather quickly, but made some edits along the way, and it serves to connect all of the other songs together.

Another song encompasses my struggles with depression and suicidality, explicitly through the lens of dealing with the loss of my father. This song serves as an interlude for the EP, in which I ask the listener to be proud of your survival in life. A lyric in this song is represented on the shirt you can snag!

The final track on the album will be a remake of “Farewell, My Father,” which I’m simply retitling, “Farewell,” for this release. I always had the vision that this song would be bigger and more expansive. But I never had the abilities or wherewithal until now. Adding multiple elements to the song has made it completely come alive to me. And I am so glad that we decided to end the EP with it.

The Farewell EP actually features a spoken word cover of “Enamor Me,” by Pianos Become the Teeth. I am covering this track because it is the track on the Keep You album that most reminds me of my relationship with my father. It's full of minor details that fill up memories, many that I try to reflect in my own writing. It also carries a weight of reflection that feels both jovial and tragic.

The repetition of the line, “I don’t feel any closer to you here,” stands out to me so much because it’s a tragic line—it’s a line that reminds me that even though I continue to live with the memories of my father, I will never be any closer to him. I may be able to feel his existence in my life, but I will never see him again.

Losing someone is never easy and it feels even harder when it's someone that has given you a home and a family and brought you into the world. Granted, I am adopted, but my father never treated me like anything less than his own son and for that, I am eternally grateful.

All in all, music has been an integral part of how I process grief, and tattoos are how I mark that grief into permanence. Tattoos are essential to my identity. They tell my story, and I love sharing these stories with people because why else would I put them into my skin? If you aren’t willing to share your ink stories, then why do you have them?

At least, that’s my perspective. I know some people are much more reserved than me when it comes to sharing personal information, but I figure if I’m willing to share, perhaps more people will be willing to do so in the future.

I’m in a much different place than I was a year ago when my dad was deteriorating. I am no longer unemployed. My depression still comes and goes, but it’s incredibly manageable—especially because of the artistic ventures I’ve been busy with lately. The music helps, the painting helps. Work helps. It’s helped me pass the time.

While I haven’t been back home since dad died, there are moments when I deeply miss him. And I’m genuinely unsure what it will be like when I go home for the first time. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Chances are, I will struggle with the true reality of him being gone. But through this tattoo, and through my music, I can keep him as close to me as possible.

Thanks for reading, friends.

Someone You Love is Gone

a Review of Touché Amoré’s new album, “Stage Four”

Over the last decade, the realm of punk and post-hardcore has been carried on the shoulders of the scene’s champions of spastic riffs and drilling blast beats.

The band is fresh off a multi-year hiatus after touring the release of their previous 2013 triumph, the atmospheric and vibrant, …Is Survived By.

In chatting with one of the band’s guitarists, Clayton Stevens, he explained how the time off was exactly what the band needed.

“Personally, it was a really good thing to do,” Stevens said, “We grew up on the road together so it was nice to settle down a little bit and grow a little bit.”

There was a time where the band was seemingly touring nonstop, so it was clear that group made a point to take some time off before hitting the studio again.

“It was nice to establish a home life and grow as people,” Stevens said, “so making music again was incredibly refreshing and fun—the time flew by and we were just excited to be together doing it again.”

Stevens explained how early on in the band’s career, being on the road was their inspiration, but life got very real during the band’s brief hiatus.

Lead singer and scene-god, Jeremy Bolm, lost his mother to cancer on the night of Halloween in 2014. Bolm has a penchant for being confessional in his lyrics—so the only expectation for the new album, Stage Four, was that the vulnerability would turn up to 11.

The opening track, “Flowers and You,” starts the album with a wash of clean guitars reminiscent of “Ripple Water Shine” on Pianos Become the Teeth’s Keep You album, which is also about the loss of a parent. But quickly thereafter, the distortion and comforting chaos of guitarists, Stevens and Nick Steinhardt, welcome us to another vibrant Touché Amoré record.

This is an important first track because it sets the stage for how Bolm presents the processing of his grief—lines like, “I am heartsick and well-rehearsed—highly decorated with a badge that reads, ‘it could be worse,’” “I am homesick and living in the past,” and “I took inventory of what I took for granted and I ended up with more than I imagined.”

Bolm doesn’t relent in terms of his unbridled honesty, which is a common thread throughout Stage Four—not only lyrically, but also musically, as the band presents an evolved sound ripe with experimentation and maturation.

Those familiar with Touché were accustomed to a band that released 20-minute albums, and rarely approached the 3-minute mark for a song. Until …Is Survived By, the band had only hit the 3-minute mark once. Stage Four is over 35-minutes in length and features six of eleven songs that are well-over 3 minutes—so this is truly a remarkable exploration for the band.

This is a new Touché Amoré—a well-rested Touché Amoré. And beyond all expectations, it is a more restrained Touché Amoré.

“I really do feel [this album] is a natural evolution,” Stevens said, “not a lot of it was a conscious thing—our main goal was just to make a dynamic record.” Stevens went on to explain how the members of the band listen to very different kinds of music. He said this makes their creative process more interesting because a lot of their writing is created in the moment—so experimenting with a riff or structure is fun for them.

“New Halloween” starts with the powerful line, “somehow it’s already been a year,” a line that resonates with me specifically because exactly a year ago, I lost my father to cancer—so this album was certainly released at a serendipitous time. But that’s the reality of losing a loved one—life does have to continue, and often time passes faster than you realize.

One vibrant moment on the album is something that often goes hand in hand with any music lover who experiences trauma—the act of skipping songs because they’re too hard to hear.

On “New Halloween,” Bolm references “What Sarah Said,” by Death Cab for Cutie, and “I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love,” by Sun Kil Moon—two tracks about losing a loved one that are understandably hard for anyone having lived that sort of loss. But most understandably so for Bolm. This is the sort of detail that makes this album so necessary for those in grief.

Losing a loved one makes you think of the littlest things—flashbacks to the moments you took for granted, immortalizing the things you could’ve said, or simply appreciating the idiosyncrasies of the person you love.

These details make an album live forever. Stage Four is full of these details.

You can order the deluxe vinyl package of "Stage Four,"
complete with a 36-page booklet and 4 kiss-cut sticker sheets
to create your own album art. The deluxe also comes with a
blue 7" of the "Palm Dreams" single with the b-side,
"Gather." It's an incredible deal.

You can order the deluxe vinyl package of "Stage Four," complete with a 36-page booklet and 4 kiss-cut sticker sheets to create your own album art. The deluxe also comes with a blue 7" of the "Palm Dreams" single with the b-side, "Gather." It's an incredible deal.

The band erupts into “Rapture,” which carries perhaps the bands catchiest chorus to date—one that carries the remorse of feeling selfish for the comfort we can feel when things are going well in our lives amid the struggles of our loved ones.

Yet, the beckoning of the lines, “Like a wave, like the rapture—something you love is gone, someone you love is gone and leaves you fractured.” This was the first moment in the album where I welled up a few tears. It’s this sort of brutal honesty that makes Bolm such an important voice in music today. The reality of loss is universal and yet, we live so much in our heads that we don’t think to share the struggle of such a loss.

But Bolm brandishes vulnerability as his weapon of choice in a battle that may never end.

“Displacement” presents another aspect of the album that finds Bolm’s lyrical approach to the album was to take a deep look at his relationship with his mother’s Christian faith—something he often undercuts with lines like, “You died at 69 with a body full of cancer. I asked your god, ‘how could you?’ But never got an answer.”

Bolm then soon follows up with contemplation on how his mother looking out for him is perhaps her plea for him to keep his faith in something higher—if it even truly exists, something he later quips.

But on “Benediction,” we hear Bolm reckoning with the faith that was clearly very important to his mother. The chorus of the song is an actual benediction, “May the Lord mighty God bless and keep you forever—grant you peace, perfect peace, courage in every endeavor.”

“Benediction" also marks the first moment we hear a Bolm sing in his lower register—a post punk vibe with a hint of Matt Berninger of the National.

Stevens explains that Bolm made the decision to sing on a number of tracks on the album because he simply didn’t feel like yelling over certain parts. Again, this is the sort of detail that shows the band has made many creative strides over the years.

“We’re gonna keep trying to experiment with these sounds,” Stevens said, “doing the same old thing can get boring.”

The most “traditional” Touché track on the album is “Eight Seconds,” which logs in at merely 92 seconds long, and feels as if it would fit comfortably on Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me. The song tells the story of Bolm getting the phone call that his mother had died—it happened while he was performing on stage. This track is perhaps the most heart-breaking for long-time listeners of the band, who know that Bolm lives for the stage, but to realize that he was amid losing his mother at such a powerful moment in his life makes this yet another detail that makes this album so essential.

Touché Amoré is (L to R): Jeremy Bolm (vocals), Clayton Stevens (guitar),
Elliot Babin (drums), Tyler Kirby (bass), Nick Steinhardt (guitar).
Photo: Christian Cordon.

“The band exists as a family together, so we are very involved with each other’s lives,” Stevens said in response to the loss of Bolm’s mother, “so we knew that this was going to be a central topic for this album, and we all wanted to put our best foot forward for how he wants to grieve.”

Since the album centered on the loss of Bolm’s mother, there was a clear concerted effort to support him throughout the process.

“We were doing it all together,” Stevens said, “and [Bolm] was being honest with what he wanted to get out of it.” It is obvious that the process of writing and creating Stage Four was incredibly cathartic for everyone in the band.

“We just approached the album being completely honest with ourselves in the moment.”

This honesty is blatant throughout “Palm Dreams,” which was the lead single from Stage Four, which focuses on Bolm digging through the things in his mother’s home—which, for those of us who follow Bolm on Instagram, he was very open throughout the process of cleaning through his mother’s home—sharing pictures, trinkets, and stories with his followers. It was powerful and eye opening to watch the grieving process in what felt like real time.

The next two tracks, “Softer Spoken” and “Posing Holy” are reminiscent of that traditional relentless hardcore sound of which the band gained its acclaim. “Softer Spoken” finds Bolm searching for some form of peace or absolution from a feeling of being broken. While “Posing Holy” rips through Bolm’s frustrations of faith once again—and trying to reason with the inevitability of loss and despair.

Both of these tracks are pivotal to dictating the emotions that truly connect with loyal listeners of the band. It’s refreshing to hear someone the people we admire validate our struggles and experiences with multiple forms of depression, anxiety and insecurity. It humanizes them and us. It makes us all feel a little less alone in our discomfort. And in that common ground, we are able to find comfort.

We find Bolm’s post-punk croon once again in “Water Damage,” which is a dark horse for my personal favorite track—one that replays a frightful memory of a night when Bolm’s mother took the wrong dose of medication. Having been around a dying parent who has done something similar, it is terrifying to see someone you love in such a disoriented state. The track is gloomy, tragic, and absolutely beautiful and perfect for this album.

The finale of the album is “Skyscraper,” a track that features the fast-rising acclaimed singer songwriter, Julien Baker. “Skyscraper” in its minimalist lyrical approach recounts Bolm’s mother’s dream of visiting New York City one day—something he was able to make happen for her. He wheeled her around the city (something the band re-enacted for the above video). The lines, “you live there—under the lights” echo throughout the track, creating this silo effect of noise and elegance, a phenomenon made possible with the airy teeming of Baker’s vocals with Bolm’s guttural exploit.

Stevens, a fan of Baker’s music, said that the band was virtually determined to find a place for her on the album.

“We were hoping there was a spot for her to be on the album and there was,” Stevens said of the collaboration.

The album is a true triumph of post-hardcore, furthering the genre beyond the landscape that once existed. Stage Four is the banner album for loss, discomfort, anger, frustration, and absolution. The band blends atmospheric and chaotic noise for a well-balanced listen that trumps any of the band’s previous works—an unexpected, but very welcome feat.

Note: Having lost my father exactly a year ago, this album came into my life at what could be considered the perfect time. Much of the commentary of surviving loss and grief is connected to my struggles with losing my own father. He fought lung cancer for 12 years and there were moments—much like those Jeremy references on this album—where we thought we were in the clear in terms of his health. But he never truly recovered. Watching a parent deteriorate is one of the hardest things a person can experience. With this, I hope Jeremy knows he isn't alone in his grieving process. And I thank him for this incredibly important and emotional album.

Touché Amoré is about to hit the road with their old friends in Culture Abuse—a band that released a great new album this year called, Peach, on 6131 records. Peach is an album about resistance and living a chill life in the face of a society that is anything but chill. Culture Abuse embodies the counter culture in their brand of lively punk tunes. Their inclusion on the tour is incredibly apt and will certainly recruit a number of new fans.

The spastic and lively math-rock trio, Tiny Moving Parts, which released its outstanding new album, Celebrate, in May on Triple Crown Records, will also support the tour. Celebrate is certainly an album of the year contender from these Minnesotan party-boys, as it combines mathy grooves with pop punk energy. Tiny Moving Parts puts on one helluva show and sandwiched between Culture Abuse and Touché, this will be a tour full of nonstop action and amazing tunes.

“I am really looking forward to this tour,” Stevens said, “I’m excited to play some new songs out there. Making an album takes so long that by the time an album is completed we are ready to get out there and play some shows.”

Get your tickets fast because you will not want to miss this tour.