MORE About JOE
I was first introduced to mindfulness meditation in the mid 1990’s from my dear friends that started Dharma Punx and Against The Stream Meditation Society. Though there was some appeal, I had grander plans than finding peace and inner freedom. While my friends pursued the path of growth and healing, I decided to keep chasing my dreams and the high of becoming a big star, touring the states in a popular punk band throughout the 1990’s. As my dreams faded, the high of stardom slowly wore off and relapse on drugs started creeping in. Amidst all of this there was always a desire in me to help others.
I took to the simple teachings of “sit, feel, heal” learning to embrace my thoughts, emotions, feelings and sensitives. Continuing my journey to recovery I followed my desire to give back and helped create outreach programs in Santa Cruz CA for Refuge Recovery, a Buddhist-inspired path to recovery from addiction.
I continued my own healing and service work by training in Mindfulness Meditation Group Facilitation with Joanna Hardy and Vinny Ferraro, Secular Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence training with Mind Body Awareness Project, Mindfulness and Attachment Theory Courses,
Hakomi Trauma to Dharma Training as well as continuing my own meditation practice through countless silent meditation retreats.
I have spent the last 9 years facilitating Mindulfness-Based Recovery and emotional awareness groups in various drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers; work with at-risk youth in detention programs through the Mind Body Awareness Project, have mentored and co-taught 2 meditation retreats for teens through IBme and lead weekly meditation groups on line and in person throughout the bay area.
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I grew up on the East Side of Santa Cruz, CA in the 1980’s. My dad was a commercial fisherman and in the off season he worked at the fish counter on the wharf. My mom worked in a frozen food packaging plant. So, my dad smelled like fish and my mom smelled like brussel sprouts. I had two little brothers and we lived in a house on 26th Avenue two blocks from the ocean.
Every weekend our house would be filled with people, marijuana smoke and Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin and Lynrd Skynrd blasting from the record player. My dad and his friends passed around joints and I’d feel a surge of excitement when some stoned adult would accidentally pass it to me. I never took a hit because my mom was so vocal about her disgust for anyone who did drugs. She wanted me to play sports and do well in school and not be like my dad.
When things would get rowdy in the house I’d get as close as I could to the mesh covered speakers and feel them vibrate around me in the air and rumble the floor beneath me. It made me feel connected to the party around me and separate enough to feel safe. Music, from the beginning, has always reminded me of community and ease, especially when it’s loud and just a little aggressive. I think that’s why I am so drawn to Metal, Punk and hardcore music.
When I was 12 shit started going down in my house. My Dad went to jail and then rehab. My maternal grandma died suddenly and my mom, in her grief, came down harder on me to be “good”. Looking back, I see that Mom lost all control in her life and focused her fear on me, wanting me to live up to an example she set of success that her brother “the successful one” and his kids set. She thought the only way I could make it in this world was to do well in school and exceed at sports and every time I didn’t she retracted her approval of me.
Weed, booze and laughter disappeared from my home along with Black Sabbath, Lynrd Skynard, and Led Zepplin. I never felt good enough in my mom’s world and so why not try my dad’s?
My dad called the lagoon at the end of our block “Bunga Bunga Land”. His favorite movie when he was a kid was Tarzan and the lagoon reminded him of that movie. When I was small he’d take me to “Bunga” and we’d spend hours swinging on the rope swings. He’d make mounds for me to jump my bike and we’d make forts out of fallen branches of the eucalyptus trees. My dad was like a kid when we were in Bunga Bunga Land and I loved it.
It seems only fitting that I chose Bunga Bunga Land to get high for the first time. A group of my friends stole some weed from one of their parents. We raced down the hill on our BMX bikes toward the shallow stagnant lagoon. There weren’t parents at the lagoon telling us “NO”. We didn’t have to worry about our dads, if they were going to make it home or not. There weren’t little brothers we were not being good examples for there. We were just a few kids with a joint and a plan. Bunga Bunga Land was the place we would enter into another dimension, another world. In this world we could be free.
Throwing our bikes down in front of one of our forts, Rudy pulled out a perfectly rolled joint out his sweatshirt pocket. It was tight and fatter at one end so it looked like a baseball bat. Rudy lit it, took a hit and passed to me. I took a big hit, swallowed the smoke and coughed until I gagged. Everyone laughed hysterically. I caught my breath, looked up and joined in the hysterics. All the worries and fears from home where gone, The fort, the lagoon, the ocean, the bird shit and eucalyptus, had a new magic. I felt like I was a universe away from all the stress at home. I fit in and didn’t have a worry in this new world. We hung out for hours, laughing, acting like wild monkeys in the trees and life was perfect until I realized it was getting time to go home.
My mom had a keen eye for people who were stoned. That day, I stood at my front door. I could barely open my eyes. My heart raced but the rest of my body felt numb. I was high as fuck and knew when I opened the door I was going to be faced with my mom. I took a deep breath and tried to gain my composure. I’d planned to walk through the house and go directly to my room but I heard her footsteps coming toward me. She opened the door with a smile on her face and when she looked at my face it disappeared. She gasped and covered her mouth. Then, in her next deep breath, she yelled, “You’re high!” She threw her hands up in exasperation and I pushed past her into the house.
“You’re going to end up just like your father.”
I headed toward the bathroom hoping she wouldn’t follow me in there.
“Do you want to die?” She said. “Do you want to mess up your whole life like your dad?”
I closed the door of the bathroom and splashed water on my face. I was in a storm of her disappointment in me. Mom stood on the other side of the door and cried and yelled about her fears of me being a failure. I believe her intentions came from love but the impact it left on me was that I was flawed. The shame smothered me like a thick fog. All hope that I could be smart enough, athletic enough, good enough was gone. After that day, I stayed away from home as much as possible. By the time I was fourteen I was sleeping anywhere I could so I didn’t have to face my mom.
I found family and freedom with my crew of skate punks.
I found family and freedom with my crew of skate punks. We didn’t have to live up to any standards set by society or our parents. I was on a steady diet of weed, booze and LSD. I met Noah at a friend’s house and thought “oh shit this is a real punk kid”. He had a huge mohawk, leather jacket with patches of punk bands all over it. Noah handed out flyers for Club Culture, (the only club to see punk bands during that time). He said if I helped I could get into the show for free with him. So, Noah and I skateboarded to 7-11, threw the stack of flyers in the trash and shoulder-taped a couple 40 ouncers of malt liquor. We drank and laughed while we stumbled down the railroad tracks to the club. Noah’s been in my life ever since.
That became our weekly routine, shoulder tap a 40 oz bottle of the cheapest beer from 7-11 on Portola Ave, drink it while we walked the tracks to downtown Santa Cruz, head to San Lorenzo Park to grab a hit of LSD and then to Club Culture across the street from the bus station. These were some of the best times of my life. I saw JFA, The Faction, Caustic Notions, Samhain, and Bl’ast. Even if there wasn’t a band playing, there was always a swarm of punks to stand around with and talk about our favorite bands. I fit in and It didn’t matter if anyone else approved of me.
By the late 1980’s I was nineteen and living in a crash pad/squat on the lower point of what we called “the Devil’s Triangle” on the East Side of Santa Cruz. Our house was where those truly committed to their addiction would end up. The place was filthy. Garbage covered every surface and the carpet was so beer soaked your feet would stick to the floor on each step. The place was filled with punks, skaters and musicians. People would play music at the house and on a few occasions I’d grab the mic. I loved it and knew it was what I wanted to do but I could never get it together to join a band. Getting high was more of a priority. I still felt like I fit in but whenever I was sober or slowed down on anything the “I’m not cool enough/good enough” thoughts would creep in. The dugs got harder and I fell in love with heroin in that house.
There’s a treatment program in Santa Cruz called Janus Recovery Services. Us locals call their seven day detox program the “Spin Dry”. By 1992 I had frequent flyer miles to The Spin Dry. The techs knew my name and seemed happy to see me every time I came back in. I’d been there three times in one year but was strung out again, slamming heroin every day. I was sick desperate and broken. I’d destroyed every relationship in my life, even my bottom dwelling punk friends. When I called The Spin Dry this time they had a bed waiting for me.
When I “graduated” detox that last time I did one major thing differently, I called somebody that I had met at meetings from my previous attempts at sobriety. Sobriety and the group of sober friends I surrounded myself with gave me a new confidence in myself, a sense of strength, and pride, that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Sobriety felt good and I ran with it. I wasn’t the sidekick of one of my cooler friends anymore. I wasn’t just the “nice” Goofy guy that the girls just wanted to be friends with. I was liked and respected. I thought it was because I was cooler than other people. I had a cooler story, style, attitude of indifference. The reality was I was super scared that at any minute all of that would be taken away from me. So I kept up a front and searched for ways to feel that power of ego even more.
I had a taste of what I’d been seeking and I wanted more, at any cost.
Bio Bob was an older skater that I met when he was the manager of Go Skate, the local skate shop. He had thick Buddy Holly glasses and a big, welcoming smile. He was always super friendly and supportive of the skateboarding and underground music scene in Santa Cruz. He let people hang out at his house, skate the ramp he’d built in his garage and listen to music. In the early months of being clean and sober Bio’s house was one of the few places from my past that I felt safe. I spent almost every day skating his half-pipe, and listening to his band practice.
I don’t remember how it came about but one day hanging out at Bobs after a skate session I ended up with a mic in my hand. I don’t remember what I sang but I remember fear rushing from the soles of my feet, up my legs, through my spine and into my hands. I gripped the mic harder and just went for it. The heaviness of self-doubt that I carried in my stomach my whole life rose to my chest. It felt like a thousand butterflies hatched out of their cocoons and they were heading north to my throat.
Words exploded out of my mouth and the fear, doubt and anger I’d held so long seemed to swirl around in front of me. It seems strange to equate punk music to butterflies but looking back, those butterflies came to life and filled the room. I saw the look of approval on the other musicians faces. In that moment I was “good enough”. I had a taste of what I’d been seeking and I wanted more, at any cost.
That’s when the band, Schlep, was born. Our first gig was at a place called The Tree House, a tiny coffeeshop up in the Santa Cruz mountains. Before we went on I was super nervous. When we got on stage all I heard was feedback from the guitar but I felt that energy like the first time, then words came out and my shirt came off. The shirt coming off kind of became a thing for me. I gave the best show for all 10 people in the audience. After that first performance I felt peace, ease, and connection. I felt validation. It was everything I’d been looking for my whole life. It felt like scoring dope. That performance high became my new drug of choice.
Schlep did ok. We played local shows and more and more people were showing up to our shows. Bio and the other friends in Schlep seemed happy to just play music and have a good time but I wanted more. In the summer of 1993 I was contacted by some local musicians that were starting a band that included a local hero of mine Russ Rankin from Good Riddance. Russ was playing guitar and they needed a singer. These guys talked about getting signed by a record label, recording albums, and going on tour. I wanted in. We named the band Fury 66 after a car my ex girlfriend had that I would crash out in once in a while when I was strung out on dope.
FURY 66
SANTA CRUZ
1993-1999
Fury 66 got popular quick.
Fury 66 got popular quick. Our music was fast, aggressive and pissed. We recorded a demo and landed our first real show opening for NOFX at the Vet’s Hall in Santa Cruz (the largest venue a punk bank could play in our town at the time). Our demo got heavy rotation on the local college radio station. I started getting “rockanized” on the streets, which pumped up my ego. When Russ’ other band Good Riddance got signed to a record deal with Fat Wreckchords envy creeped into my veins like a parasite. In my mind Russ had to go. I wanted Fury 66 to be the priority and if Russ was in another more successful band he was a liability. Looking back, I acted like a jerk to a friend because I was so focused on getting my own fix of attention and approval.
After rearranging our line up a few more times, Fury 66 was back in action with an even stronger drive to make it. Our concerts kept getting bigger but they weren’t big enough. I wanted a record deal. I wanted fame.
Fury got a small record deal from Half Pint Records, a local label. Half Pint was willing to fund and distribute a record and help set up a US tour. It wasn’t Fat Wrekchords or Epitaph, the two biggest punk labels at the time, but it was something. Our local shows were becoming legendary. We regularly headlined and sold out the venue we’d opened up for NOFX at. It seemed like everyone in town knew the words to our songs and would scream them along with me when we played. I was strung out on the validation. I felt loved when I was on stage.
Going on tour was a huge reality check. The fame and praise we got in Santa Cruz didn’t follow us far. It definitely didn’t show up in Boise Idaho, Where ten people stood around just waiting for the headliner while we played. It was just like my first show at The Tree House but now I was bummed at the small crowds. It felt like scoring a bunk bag of dope.
That first tour though, I lived off the praise and recognition I got from my family. My mom saw how popular we were in Santa Cruz and thought I was living the high life touring with a popular band and making records. I didn’t want her to know that the reality was me living off Subway sandwiches and sleeping most nights in a van with five other guys.
The hardest part was watching Russ’ band, Good Riddance, get more popular. The competitiveness harmed our relationship. The daily narrative in my mind was that if I was more like him I would be famous by now. Fury wasn’t hitting it big because I wasn’t good enough. I tried to outrun those feelings by working harder, and touring more. I craved validation and I was willing to do what it took to get it.
Fury 66 put out our second record with Sessions Records. We caught the attention from bigger booking agents and we started being asked to tour with successful bands like AFI, 88 Fingers Louie, US Bombs and even Good Riddance. Russ and I’d become close friends again but I still had the jealousy but I tried my best not to let it show. All our work was paying off and larger record labels were beginning to pay attention to us. One of those labels was Nitro Records (Dexter Holland’s from the band The Offsprings’s company). Dexter asked us to open for The Offspring at The Catalyst, a large venue in Santa Cruz, but Fury refused to play there as a way to take a stand against The Catalyst for not supporting the local punk scene. The Nitro deal fell through after that. That was the beginning of the end for Fury 66. The band started to fall apart, core members quit to go to school, or start other bands. I was left on the verge of having everything I ever wanted and couldn’t keep the band together.
The praise, the love from fans and the validation from my family slowly faded after Fury 66 dissolved. The thing that was filling the I’m-not-good-enough-pit in my gut was soon gone.
Right about the time Fury broke up a band from Chicago called and asked me to be their new singer. I was deep in my funk and disbelief that Fury 66 was really over. I guess I still had a little hope that we’d figure our shit out and keep the ball rolling. I was also getting married and Mikala wasn’t going to move to Chicago. I turned down that band. They later became Rise Against. Within a year they signed with Fat Wrechords, then went on to sign with Geffin, Interscope and Virgin.
I got a job working A&R and marketing for Sessions Records. I was excited to still be in the music industry but I let my jealousy of the bands we were signing get in my way of doing a good job. I lacked enthusiasm for the work and always felt like I should be the guy on stage and not the one working behind the scenes. I wanted the notoriety and respect that I didn’t feel like I could get without being in a successful band.
I was invited to sing back ups on AFI’s album. I was in the studio with Lars Fredickson from Rancid and a choir of heavy hitting musicians from the punk rock music scene. I left that session with an even stronger thirst for stardom. The session was like being at a party searching for the person with the bag. All these guys seemed like they were holding the bag. I wanted to be the person with the bag.
One of the bands that we signed on Sessions, Turnedown, where having a rough time with their signer and they asked me to join their band. Turnedown was from LA, had a couple members from other successful hardcore punk bands (Strife, Downset and Cypress Hill). I jumped at the chance, at the hope of maybe this could bring me the success I was searching for. I thought maybe Turnedown was my second chance and I wasn’t going to miss a second, second chance. Even if that meant driving 6-9 hours each way to rehearse.
Turnedown were a bunch of old friends who wanted to hang out and play good music. I had a different agenda. I wanted us to make it. I became the biggest asshole in Turnedown. The more laid back they were the more controlling I became.
My friends in Turnedown had something in them that I lost. The fire and desire to create music with friends, have fun and be inspired. I’d had that spark once but the flame was smothered by my ambition.
My whole life felt like it had become a big joke and I wasn’t laughing anymore.
I don’t really remember how it all went down but at about ten years sober I found myself faking back injuries to get pain pills. It’s all a blur really. I started my own record label, if I couldn’t be a famous singer maybe I could be a big shot producer. In 2005 I opened my recording studio, Compound Recordings. The Compound was awesome and a dream come true, but right around that time I took a nose dive into substance abuse again. I was sneaking around buying pills from friends and started drinking again. I even remember consciously deciding to go for it with my addiction because I didn’t feel good being sober so why not feel the way I wanted to.
There where long hours in the studio and they were mostly fueled by pills and booze. Even the recordings that I was producing never felt good enough. I always thought if I was only smarter I could be a better engineer. It wasn’t a very rewarding job as far as mainstream recognition goes but I did look cool in the family’s eyes. It wasn’t enough and soon the drugs weren’t even enough.
I was buying large amounts of oxycontin from a dealer but just swallowing the pills wasn’t getting me high enough so I started snorting them and when that didn’t work I started smoking them off tinfoil and when that stopped working I added a hit of aerosol to my regime. I was the super glamorous music guy sucking on cans of Dust Off to get high.
In 2010 I found myself copping heroin. I’d promised myself I’d never end up there again but I owed my pill dealer too much money and I ended up calling an old friend and heading to the street to score black tar. I smoked that and the fucking pit in in my gut was still there mixed in with a heavy dose of shame. That day continued with me trying to drink it away and then going to practice with my band… Nothing worked. My whole life felt like it had become a big joke and I wasn’t laughing anymore. I woke up the next morning with what the gift of desperation. I was desperate enough to haul my ass to a 12-step meeting up the street from my house in the Santa Cruz mountains. The meeting hall was in an old house nestled in the redwoods. When I got there that morning I remembered going to meetings there with my grandma and my dad. I come from a long lineage of drunks, junkies and codependents. With a mix of that nostalgia and the feeling of being lost I plopped myself down in one of the old couches. The tears
MINDFULNESS
With practice I was able to calm myself enough to see beneath the anger and see sadness, beneath the frustration and see fear and worry.
My life was back on track my marriage was good, the studio was doing well and my wife and I had our son Echo. On paper things looked great but inside I was falling apart. The longing to be successful was still waking me up at night. I was irritable and angry. I didn’t want to use drugs or drink anymore. I was convinced they wouldn’t give me the relief I wanted. I was never really suicidal but thoughts like ”they’d be better off without me” were getting louder and louder.
I’d tried meditation when I’d first gotten sober in the early 1990’s but I’d written it off as something that wasn’t for me. I couldn’t stop my thoughts or tie my legs in a knot. I thought it was a bunch of hippy shit. This time around, I was clean and sober and desperate so I reached out to my long time friend Noah. He had been sober for decades, found a path with mindfulness meditation and was teaching meditation groups. He’d invited me to his groups before but this time I was finally willing. At a year and a half sober I signed up for a weekend workshop at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. This time around I asked for help. I told Noah how loud my mind got when I closed my eyes and he told me to just keep them open and focus on the in and out of the breath. I took it one breath at a time and got some relief from the relentless voices in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough, cool enough, or smart enough. Like a good junkie I wanted more.
In the beginning meditation helped me to ignore the thoughts. I could steer my attention away from anger, stress and frustration. By focusing on the breath, feeling my feet on the ground, I started letting go just a little. With practice I was able to calm myself enough to see beneath the anger and see sadness, beneath the frustration and see fear and worry. I started meeting these internal experiences with some wisdom and understanding, kindness and compassion. I got in touch with the younger part of me that never felt good enough. That kid who felt alone and unseen. I sat with this part of me and sent it kindness, compassion and forgiveness. I learned to sit in the fire of fear, watch the anger wash away in the sadness of my tears and found freedom in the ashes of my suffering. I slowly loosened my grip on self-doubt and the need for approval. I realized that approval was what I’d been strung out on all along. In turn, I became less reactive, I didn’t feel the need to run.
Most of the time. I’m at peace with who I am, right where I am.
My relationships at home and with family were getting better I was enjoying recording bands again and some ease was settling back into my being. I started being of service to the community, Offering meditation groups at local rehabs and doing weekly meditation groups at an insight meditation center. I’m slowly finding my own voice, my own truth no matter the conditions. I recently started a podcast with a dear friend Roxan McDonald called Spiritual AF… Or Whatever. My life has become something more than I could ever imagine. And Self doubt still comes to visit but it no longer stops me in my tracks or feeds the longing for approval. At the most, these days it pauses me and I can sit with the emotion, the sensation, watch the thoughts and respond wisely…. Most of the time. I’m at peace with who I am, right where I am… with room to grow. I still dance with the thoughts and feelings of not being good enough. But it’s just that, a dance. it is no longer a battle where I always felt defeated. I know these feelings I know these thoughts and I know that they’re not who I truly am. And after we dance, I can rest in good enough.
I have a new relationship with music as well. I started a music project called The Deathless. The Deathless is a Buddhist term for liberated beings. Beings that have fully reached liberation and no longer experience the suffering of birth and death. The Deathless’ music is fast and loud but the lyrics are all about meditation, compassion and liberation. I started off writing and recording all the instruments (except for drums) myself. Musicians have come and gone from the project. We have played live and released a couple singles but none of that really matters to me much anymore. Most of the time I play the songs on my acoustic guitar and feel a sense of ease and connection.
I realized how far I’ve come on a rainy evening in February.
I found myself schlepping my acoustic guitar and small PA into a little coffee shop in downtown Santa Cruz. I remembered all the times I’d loaded in for a big show and found myself longing for the rush I used to get from crowds screaming along with me.
Once I set myself up in the corner of the room, one chair, one mic, one guitar. I looked up to the audience. There were maybe fifteen people in the room, mostly friends, my family members and some regulars at the coffee shop that seemed disgruntled at the thought of having to bare whatever I was about to lay down.
I took a deep breath pulled the mic a little closer and adjusted my guitar. Doubt came to party. These songs were so personal. If they don’t like the songs will they still like me? I’d forgotten that Echo, my eight year old son, was even in the room until I glanced down and there he was asking if he could sit next to me on stage. “Of course, Yo Yo.” I said and pulled up a chair for him. I began to strum my guitar. The words seemed to shake their way out of me. I tried my best to bring my attention back to this moment, and be ok with me and the music I had to share. It didn’t matter that there were only a few people here. It didn’t matter that they were here because they were my family and friends. I was here. I was present for me but then something extraordinary happened. I looked down at my son and he was singing along with me. He’d heard me sing these songs every morning before he went to school. I knew I belonged here. I accepted myself and I had all the fans I needed. I was finally in recovery.
