Shannon’s Perspective:
“And I know that next time, ain't always gonna happen
I gotta say, "I love you" while we're here”
So many emotions when I listen to this song. The first time I heard it was last year on our way to a family weekend to honor Shane for what would have been his 50th birthday. And what an amazing weekend it was, Shane most definitely would have been proud. Larry has mentioned on several occasions that the reason we moved west was to be closer to my siblings and their families and we try to do as much with them as life will allow and whenever possible. Because……
“I don't wanna act like there's tomorrow
I don't wanna wait to do this one more time”
It's funny how when you're young, you think the friendships you form will last the rest of your life. I think for most of us, that's just not the case. I know there are some instances where someone from your youth remains in your orbit, but they may not be as close as you may both want. Or who they grew into is not at all the kind of person you want to surround yourself with.
I think it goes without saying that Shannon is my best friend. But this post isn't really about her.
This post is about the friendships and relationships I built during my career.
This song is off of the ONE MORE TIME album that was released in late October 2023. It marks the true return of Tom DeLonge to the band - see my sadness in Rebel Girl. This was so great because it truly felt like they "got the band back together". They had pulled it together a few times between 2005 and 2021, but it just wasn't the blink I knew and "grew up" with.
During that '05-'21 timeframe, two significant things happened.
In September 2008, the drummer Travis Barker was in a plane crash where four people were killed and only he and Adam Goldstein survived. As you can imagine, this affected him pretty tremendously.
In June 2021, Mark Hoppus announced he had been diagnosed with cancer. It's my understanding that he, Travis and Tom got together pretty quickly and just put everything behind them - it just wasn't worth hanging onto all the bullshit anymore. They had lived a lifetime together and it wasn't worth pissing it away over petty stuff.
And so this album, and more importantly, this song, was born.
"I wish they told us, it shouldn't take a sickness - Or airplanes falling out the sky"
In my life, there have been a few songs that came out at exactly the right time. I discovered it in real time as something was happening in my life. This is one of those songs.
For you see, in October 2023, when this song first came out, I was heading to Ohio to swap cars with Connor. And although he is my son and he owes me for all the things in life I have provided for him, I wasn't going to impose on him and his wife. Plus they have cats, and I am extremely allergic to them.
So I had arranged to stay with what I would say is one of my best friends of my adult life. And I met him at work. Right after Shannon and I were married.
And this is the friend that I mentioned in Landing In London that had cancer (still in remission!)
I had a lot of time to think about this song as I was driving to Ohio, and I could not help but draw a parallel between their experiences and ours. So I decided we should try to meet up with another one of our former co-workers, who I have known since before Shannon and I married.
I'll pause and clarify - since I met Shannon at work along with Jon and Bryan, Shannon has just as deep a relationship with these guys as I do.
The three of us were able to meet up and it was just like no time had passed. Of course over the 30+ years we have known each other we didn't always see eye to eye on everything, and there were extended periods of time where there was little to no communication (plus, we're dudes - that's what's expected of us). It did me good to see them again, and I know it did for them as well. Hell, they just live across town from one another and hadn't seen each other for years. It took the guy from 1,100 miles away to get us all together.
At the end of the day, I do love those guys and I do miss them. We had some pretty great times - that I actually can remember (see Afire Love and The Dark Of The Sun re: my shitty memory). It is just like reliving "Glory Days" every time we're together - except we're all nerds, not jocks. Which is so much cooler. I'm thankful we had this time together to reconnect.
P.S. Ok - I can't not tell at least one story. When we were young in our careers and still hourly morons, Lbrands of course had an attendance policy. The thing is, whether you were ten minutes late or three hours fifty-nine minutes late, it was half an occurrence. One of my two friends took full advantage of that loophole. He would wake up enough to call in late, and you knew damn well you weren't seeing him until the day was almost half over. It used to drive our Supervisor Brad nuts. The other loophole that was exploited quite a bit was whether you called off one day, or 4 successive days, it was just one occurence. At five days you needed to have a Doctors note. So if he called off on Tuesday, you weren't seeing him until the following Monday.
Eventually, Lbrands got tired of everyone abusing their "well thought out" policies and made some very, very unpopular changes. But I think by that time we had all advanced into salaried roles, so a different kind of abuse was in order - the kind where "The Man" took advantage of us...
Ghost of a Chance 