Blog – Billy Power

I work at night in New York City. Since the advent of the coronavirus I’ve been calling it another night in the abandoned city because it’s a ghost town. Keep up the good work, NYC!

I was listening to a massive 80’s music Spotify playlist I made a while back with hundreds of songs set to shuffle. So, we’re driving around block by block, street by street when “Rebel Yell” by Billy Idol comes on. It made me laugh because right now in New York there is a campaign to stop people from idling their cars. There are billboards everywhere with Billy Idol on them with the slogan “Billy Never Idles.” Of course, it’s already a really bad Dad joke, and it feels like a message because my name is Billy.

Don’t be idle Billy.

Right about the time we hit the chorus, I see a big orange and pink graffitti on the wall along my side of the truck. What does it say?

It says REBEL. OK, that’s weird timing. Is this a sign? Is this some kind of message? Should I be rebelling against something?!

We keep working. The song “West End Girls” by Pet Shop Boys comes on. We go a few more blocks and round the corner by Madison Square Garden. We are confronted with the brightest LED billboard that is awash in white with bold black lettering. It’s announcing a concert tour that will make a stop at MSG. What tour, you ask?

Pet Shop Boys and New Order. OK, WTF. This is getting weird.

This kind of stuff used to happen to me all the time. I don’t know what it is. Some kind of weird magic. Does it mean something? Am I supposed to put this all together? Strange coincidences. I don’t know what to make of it. It’s probably nothing.

After work this morning I had to stop by my old place and pick up some bins of my stuff. It had been pouring rain for about 3-4 hours. Pouring. Hard rain and wind. I knew I had to pick up my stuff and I was thinking to myself that this was poor timing for the weather to be acting up. Maybe it was symbolic too? I don’t know.

At the exact moment I pulled up to the old house it stopped raining. It completely stopped. Is this some kind of Easter Monday miracle? What is going on?

I have been struggling during this whole pandemic like I’m sure many of you are. I’ve been in college now for over four years. I’m eight months away from finishing my degree. It’s hard to be optimistic about the future with the lockdowns and the layoffs and the world in disarray.

But I know how it goes. So much of what is wrong and right in the world depends on me and my perspective. I can give in to the idea that there is no future and everything is meaningless and I’m wasting my time and a lot of other unhelpful thoughts. Or I can choose positivity. I can choose optimism. I can choose to believe that no matter what happens everything will work out ok. I got my ass kicked in the attitude department the last few weeks and I feel myself turning a corner.

Yesterday morning I listened in to the Easter service from Midtown Fellowship, a Church I attended in Nashville in 2005 when I first moved there. I had been through a particularly difficult period prior to moving and I had not been to Church in a really long time. I’m not prone to being emotional in Church because I grew up Presbyterian and everybody knows they call us the “frozen chosen.” Maybe you didn’t know that. It’s reserved. You don’t clap. You don’t jump up. You sit down and shut up and recite a bunch of stuff in unison.

I don’t know what this was about, but I cried every Sunday in those services for WEEKS. Nothing in particular. I think I was just moved by the spirit or my emotions or something.

Partway through the service that I was listening to while folding my laundry, they sang a song and I remembered that time back in ’05 and I started crying.

I lived in Nashville for about 7 years. I don’t think I really appreciated it at all. There’s a lot of things I don’t like about hick culture, country music, the expression “y’all”, etc. I’m being nit-picky, I know. There’s more than that, of course. Statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and a sticker on a neighbors car that said, “If I’d known this would have happened I’d have picked my own cotton.” Yikes. But there was also family there and friends and really good people too.

I remembered during the flood there how people came together. And this year, after a round of really bad tornadoes hit the north side of town I was impressed again with the community there. At one point they had so many volunteers they were turning relief agencies away.

My plan after graduation, God willing and the creek don’t rise, is to move back to Nashville. This will be the third time I have moved away from somewhere and then moved back. I’m so tired of moving. I’m so tired of starting over.

My whole life I have been a city person. I think New York has cured me. I cannot wait to get out of here.

After I picked up my bins, I came home and ate some breakfast. I picked up my phone and opened Instagram. This was the first post.

I Need You.

Hello, Friend.

I have a confession to make.

I am not a people person.

If you know me casually at all, it was probably surprising for you to read that. It was equally astonishing for me to discover it about myself nearly four decades into my life,

I have lived my life up to this point as an unintentionally superficial social person. That is to say, I have been involved in activities such as performing music that appear inherently social. What I have discovered, however, is that when I take tests about introversion and extroversion I typically skew introverted. I guess it’s not entirely surprising, as I was an only child until I was 17 and then I was out of the house at 18. I spent a lot of time alone when I was young.

I have typically prided myself on being a somewhat fierce individualist. I have the clearest memory of my grandmother asking me, when back to school shopping, “what other kids are wearing.” I fiercely shot back “I don’t care what other kids are doing!” That memory has really stuck with me. I look up to people like Henry Rollins and Ian Mackaye who are known for having a strong individual worldview. I am not a club, team or organization person. I’ll support your cause, but don’t ask me to join your group.

Something helpful was when I discovered that I am really closest to (we all fall on a spectrum) what is called an “extroverted introvert.” When I go down the list in this excellent article, 10 Signs That You’re an ‘Extroverted Introvert’, I check almost all of these boxes. On the surface, I am the life of the party but I need a break from people.

At the same time, what I have also learned (in what seems like some kind of paradox) is that I absolutely need people. My circle of trust is small and tight and involves decades of friendship and support. But I absolutely need these people in my life. Unfortunately, they live in different places. And in our already disconnected world, it makes my alienation sometimes unbearable.

2019 was one of the toughest of my life. Divorce, the death of my father, the loss of my cousin and other traumas made it a banner year for suffering. But it also was one of the best years, being that I learned just how important it was to be in community with other people. This community of friends delivered for me in spades.

So, there I sat on New Year’s Eve 2019 wishing good riddance to a terrible year and expectantly looking forward to what friends were calling “my year.” Hello, coronavirus aka COVID-19 or as I like to call it The WuTang.

So, here we are, quarantining ourselves the best we can while we try to manage our collective anxieties about what the future may hold for all of us.

Many people are struggling right now. As somebody who has been in and around music for the past three decades, it’s been very heartbreaking to see tour after tour cancel. I worked event staffing to make ends meet for many years and I also think of the concessions, bartenders, security and other staff affected. I think of the struggling small businesses, the elderly, the immune-compromised and the side-hustle dependent. Life is fragile.

I know it’s tempting in the current social and political climate to blame, to accuse, to panic, etc. Please don’t do that. We need each other more than ever at this moment. If you just need somebody to vent to, or I can help some way, please feel free to hit me up.

I was really heartened by the amazing response in Nashville to devastating tornados a few weeks back. At one point they had so many volunteers, aid organizations were sending people home. It really cemented my decision to return (at the end of this year) to a place that I woefully took for granted during the previous seven years that I lived there.

So, here we are, binge-watching, stock-piling, worrying about what we will do with our kids, nervous our jobs will still be there and so many things. We need each other to get through this.

I need you.

In the meantime, may your spirit be lifted (as mine was) by these wonderful Italians singing their way through the quarantine…

Coronavirus quarantined Italians come together in singing!