Hello. As promised, here is the second half of the Thunder Pie Q&A!!! Thanks again to everyone who wrote me with so many thoughtfully crafted questions or kind words of support. If I didn’t get to your question, I’ll save it for next time.
Enjoy.
*****
Hi Serge. I know this has been asked before – have you ever considered reading and recording some of your pieces?
Marko
That has come up from time to time and I get why. More and more people on the go/ commuting/ etc/ means more time for earbuds than dedicated reading time. Nothing wrong with that either. I’m the same way. I devour way more podcasts at work than I do books at home these days. It’s the nature of the beast, I’d say.
So the short answer is yes. I have most def considered doing this in some capacity. But I’m not sure how I would have the time. Recording a usable version of a mistake-free edited reading actually takes longer than I wish it did. Especially if you make a lot of hiccups like I know I do. If I can get up to 250- 275 paid subscribers, I think I could take a bit more time from my other jobs each week to put more time into this idea and others like it. It’s something to shoot for and I’m really glad at least a few others are thinking about recordings of my writing too.
*****
If you could do anything all day without having to worry about earning a living, what would your days look like?
Meghan
Oh hell yes. Now we’re talking. And this is easy for me because, just like everyone else, I have given this a LOT of thought. I’d want to create. Make art. Writing one day, working with wood old boxes the next. Maybe one thing in the morning and one in the afternoon. I’d also have a lot of time for hitting thrift stores and flea markets so I could accumulate more junk that Arle and my kids will hate me for when I die.
I would hike a lot. I would grab Arle and tell her we are going bluelining (finding little blue streams on topo maps) and we’d hike back miles into the forests to see if there’s any little native brook trout there. I’d sit and watch nature more. Just out in the yard or in any old woodlot anywhere by the side of the road. You don’t have to be in the wilderness. I’d want to get to know some local squirrels and groundhogs a lot better/ watch them on summer mornings and autumn afternoons/ see if I could tell them apart and when I can, I’d imagine them as understanding me/ wanting to be my friend.
I know that sounds like I smoke a lot of weed but I don’t at all, I swear. It’s just that I wish I could spend my days being creative and looking at wild things. And having afternoon delights with my lady. And going to the ATM and not having my heart climb up in my throat every time because I’m afraid there’s nothing in there and I’m overdrafted and FTW.
I love this question. But now I’m sad it isn’t true.
*****
What was the greatest gig Marah ever played? You guys were certainly on fire in Chicago one night. Abby Pub I think. You guys were way late because your brother had gotten arrested in Indianapolis earlier that morning (or something).
Tom
The greatest Marah gig ever? Jesus. I don’t know. It’s subjective, of course. I forget way more than I recall, which is natural, I think. And my biases are different than yours and the next person’s, but still: I like the question even if I reserve the right to change my answer 10 minutes from now, OK?! But I’d have to say that playing the Khyber in Philly for a few nights straight back in the day was something very meaningful to me. That was our home turf and our proving grounds and it honestly felt as if we were headlining a sold-out Veteran’s Stadium for a week. There was so much excitement inside of me then. I was effervescent, lit up from my insides by the fire of rock/roll and the idea that we had done something I once only ever dreamed of. You know, no matter what we accomplished in music, there was always more to grab for, always someone else who had done better and someone else still who was doing better right then. Early on in the life of the band, I believe I began to dissociate from a lot of the world around me precisely because of that. It felt as if the music business was designed to always keep you feeling unfulfilled/ like you weren’t enough. People you absolutely adored and who loved you so much were always saying things like: “You guys should be so much bigger!” And they meant well, but it hurt a lot too. And so I began to understand, exponentially over time and through experience: That there was never ever ever going to be another weekend in my lifetime that was as lovely and raw and sublime as the one where we played for a small hot crowd of people who really understood and cared and wanted in on being a part of whatever it was we were dealing in.
Sorry. Got carried away. Short Answer: Khyber Pass three-night stand.
*****
What a fun idea! Here goes: Where do you see yourself as a writer in five years? What are your hopes as a writer?
Taryn
Thanks, Taryn. That’s a good one. As a writer, I just want to be able to keep writing for a living (more and more hopefully). And in true Serge style I am embarking on that journey here as most of humanity winds down with the whole reading thing and turns to TikTok tidbits insetad! So I guess I’m fucked, huh?
Whatever. I still want to keep writing and maybe pick up new subscribers here and there by word of mouth. What else is there? I don’t know. I don’t want anything else. I want to be totally DIY and that’s that.
Mostly though, I want to get better and better. More subs would mean more time that I could focus on writing. But I also know that this is a hard world and I have had such a wonderful existence with bands and music and writing that I can’t complain at all. If I can just keep up exactly what I have now, I’m a happy man, I swear.
In five years I’d like to still be doing what I’m doing with writing right now.
We’ll see, I guess.
*****
What drew you to move to small-town Pennsylvania?
Miriam
I began coming to central Pennsylvania (which is largely rural or small-town) when I was 16. My mom met a fella who was a part of a hunting camp up here and he invited us along. Now he’s my stepdad. He and my mom moved here when his job disappeared in SE Pennsylvania. Years later my brother moved here and then eventually I followed suit. It was a grand experiment, I suppose, in hauling your whole adult family to a new location far from where you were all from. And it failed in some ways, but not in others.
I love it here so much. I love the land and the sky and I love the feeling of being part trout and part whitetail deer because…guess what?….that’s what I think I am! Just by osmosis I am more alive here/ more removed from more static/ and better in executing my never-ending attempts at a better version of myself because I am surrounded by crows and wild turkey and horse shit and the Appalachian mountains worn down by time and wind and snow.
If I could live anywhere in the world, I’d pick here. Maybe a few miles as the eagle flies in one direction or the other, but it would be here. I found my place. Blow my ashes into a muddy deer track and keep on going/ never worry about me.
*****
What have you learned in your marriages/fatherhood that has helped you build a successful blended family? I was in one and I was from one… and I feel like I did a pretty good job as a dad/stepdad, but not so great as a son… which taught me a lot. Just wondered what your perspective looks like. Thanks, I’ll hang up and listen on the radio.
Brooks
This one is a real galaxy crosser of a question, isn’t it. I mean: It is vast and forever undefined by the property lines of our own feeble definition. I think I should write about this more in a larger piece just focusing on the heart of the matter how I see it, but let me riff on it just a bit here since you asked.
I think the parenting thing is more important than the kid thing. And by that, I mean I personally believe that you push the world more in the right direction when you find your groove as an honorable loving true parent or step-parent than you ever could as a son or daughter or kid or a stepson or stepdaughter or stepkid. Even later on when you are an adult stepkid, there are limits to how you can interweave your feelings with reality if things are damaged or hurting you. The obligations are questionable for either side (parent or “kid’“), I think, because who the hell is the person in this world who has the right to tell anyone what they should feel or how they should act, you know? Especially if things went wrong somewhere along the line. Which is often the case.
For me, the older person (the parent or stepparent) is the sky and the kid is just a bird flying around up there. If the sky folds up with a devastating storm or conjures up a wind that never lets up, then the bird will fuck off and find some other sky to be in. But the bird can’t change the sky because the sky is bigger and wiser and so much more expansive and it is never the bird’s job to have to take care of the sky, like it or not. It is the sky’s job to take care of the bird. I really believe that in my heart. And it has helped me so much in finding a way forward with the real love for all of my kids. I don’t really think of them biologically much anymore. Science schmience. Fuck that noise. I am a man and I am finding my way so I can have them know that I will always be there for them even when I don’t quite understand things.
Many parents cannot do that and so they don’t. They are lost in their inability to process reality outside of their own paradigm and so they believe that the world of their kids (or stepkids) ought to fall into cadence with their own personal wants and desires.
And that is such tragic bullshit. But so it goes.
Be the best. Fail. Be the best again. Fail. Be the best some more, never giving up on love even if it means you have to give up on it completely. In the end, if you keep it up, you will die either trying to be the best or you’ll die failing between bouts of being the best. Both are noble as fuck.
*****
Great idea btw. Favorite venues: To go see a band play and to have played in yourself?
Neil
Fave venue to see other bands would probably be some podunk bar with a stage on the floor and a crowd of drunk friendlies and it’s Friday night. And I’m 25 again. Where is that club? I think it might be in Birmingham, Alabama? Or somewhere in Mississippi? Damn. I used to know it.
The coolest venue I think we ever played in was this tiny bar in Denver where we only played once. It was so small and it was crowded and nuts. I walked on the bar with my guitar. There were homeless people dancing out in the street. Thats when you realize you are playing in the best venue you’ll ever play in. Then the next day it’s over and it’s gone forever. I fucking love that. The sweet ephemeral everything lives and dies upon such hills.
*****
Hi Serge. congrats on three years of Thunder Pie! here’s to 30 more. So many thoughts on questions but here’s (one) to chew on. If Bruce called you up and commissioned you to take one of his lyrics as starting point for a short story, which would you choose? Can’t wait to read this Friday’s Thunder Pie!
sincerely,
M
Well, let’s see. I think I’d go with Land Of Hope And Dreams because I’d want to be able to move in and out of a lot of people and possibilities in my story. And that song has both. Plus it’s Arle’s favorite and so that makes it very important and I like to have a lot on the line when I’m doing a paid favor for my boy, Bruce!
*****
Serge. I am an English northerner. I love ale and pubs and the joy of a pint on Friday. Where/what do you drink and where?
Marc
Hot damn. I love an English pub and I am missing that maybe more than most anything else I miss from the band days. I sure did drink in some fine ones. You sure do have a lot of magic pubs over there, Marc.
As for me: I mostly drink red wine from Spain known as Rioja. It’s one you’ve heard of, I’m sure. Nothing fancy, just right down the middle the best fucking wine ever made in the world/ bar none. I might be biased towards that because I also don’t have a big budget for drinking, man. But I learned to love Rioja when I was over there in Spain and it stuck with me. Most of them taste like the windy dust on Don Quixote’s chapped lips. I guess that’s a flavor I dig?
I like to drink at home, especially out around our fire pit. It’s a place to end the day. It’s our place to sigh and smile and watch the bats come out above us.
*****
What song are you most proud of lyrically that you wrote?
John
Maybe My Heart Is The Bums On The Street. I set out to write a Smokey Robinson song and I ended up with something close enough for me. It pulls no fancy punches but it’s honest and true and it all came alive before me as I wrote it.
*****
I will leave the deep questions to deeper thinkers. Favorite fishing fly? Why? This is a great project mate.
Mark
Finally a fishing question! Thank you, my friend. I needed the digression. My favorite fly is probably the WD-40 nymph. I don’t have any explanation for it, but I have caught way more trout on that little thing (usually size 16 or 18, usually natural grays and browns) than any other fly. Mostly I think it had a lot to do with the fact that the WD-40 just felt fishy to me. Like whenever I looked at it next to almost any other flies in my box, it simply seemed to show itself as a real bug in my eyes as opposed to an imposter like all the others. And confidence, as you know, is everything on the water, right? If you feel like you are using a sure thing… you will probably be using a sure thing. It’s weird!
Anyways, great question. I need to get out on a trout stream soon. Hope you can too, Mark.
*****
Serge, Congrats on third anniversary of TPie. Knowing you love jazz my question is jazz related.Keep in mind, I believe I know the answer to this question… Is jazz good music for romance and or sex? I look forward to your answer…
Matt
Jazz music is good for romance AND sex. And cooking. And contemplation. Jazz music is a key to a portal that is located just beneath your feet and right above your head. If you listen to jazz and you are uncertain how to feel: that is a very very good start. That is jazz trying you on just like you are trying it on. You need to stay with it.
Kiss your person with jazz music on. Be a comet. Be timeless. Listen to the music tell you how to be the night.
*****
Do you feel like it’s possible to be a rock ’n’ roller and also a good Dad and good partner? Or is the lifestyle just destined to be a lonely and selfish endeavor?
Meghan
My stars, you people have some electrifying questions. Thank you for that.
In my humble opinion, I think it is possible to be a good rock-n-roller and also a good dad/ partner. BUT. (There had to be a but, right?) BUT, I believe that you have to make heavy heavy choices along the way that will always favor the seemingly small world that you have with the people you love versus the seemingly vast world that you have given yourself over to in so many ways with rock-n-roll.
And that is just the first step. You know why? Because the more you wrestle with family vs rock-n-roll the more confused you become with the wrestling in and of itself. Rock-n-Roll is a wonderful thing. It is a medium that allows for fantastical expression splattered all over a canvas made out of stone cold reality. And as such, the very thing that makes it potentially magic (its power to lift and transport) is also the very thing that makes it potentially tragic (its penchant for promising you things it can never ever deliver on).
Some of the greatest rock/rollers of all time were hideous people. They were shitty parents and terrible spouses and partners. They wrapped themselves in so many layers of the music and the life that when it came time to shedding some of those skins in order to be naked/vulnerable/in touch with their loved ones they simply don’t know how to do it. I’m not even sure it’s a choice at that point. Too far gone is too far gone. Believing that you are married to the music is the Devil in your ear. Who benefits from that? People buying your records, I guess. People in the crowd.
But at what price to your people at home?
And at what price to yourself?
I don’t think I have any idea what the right answer is here. I just know what I’ve seen and experienced. Some people believe that music is more important than everything else. I think the world is lucky to have those people. But you might want to avoid them at all costs too. Especially when kids are involved. Because kids today don’t even give a fuck about that old-ass music. They just want you to love them right.
To read the rest of this essay and more from Serge Bielanko, subscribe to his Substack feed HERE.
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Serge Bielanko lives in small-town Pennsylvania with an amazing wife who’s out of his league and a passel of exceptional kids who still love him even when he’s a lot. Every week, he shares his thoughts on life, relationships, parenting, baseball, music, mental health, the Civil War and whatever else is rattling around his noggin.
