On Purpose

This week I'll turn 54.
SHIT!
That ain't good,
but I guess I'm still here and that's a good thing.
Lot's of people aren't.
I feel okay, I'm writing songs and making up stories, creating stuff,

"practicing my purpose," as they say.

That's what my purpose seems to be. (among others)

Who's to say what your purpose is?

YOU.

That's who.

No one else is qualified.

Ask yourself this question;

"What am I here for?"

If the answer is, "I don't know," keep asking the question.

But don't look for someone else to answer it.

The Dead Parakeet

I remember we had a parakeet when I was a kid.
His name was Pete.
Pete The Parakeet.

He talked a little, and flew around the house all the time.
He'd land on your shoulder, sometimes without any warning, and scare the hell out of ya.
He'd fly into mirrors and windows and knock himself silly quite often.

One day we found him dead on the kitchen table next to a bowl of sugar.
There was sugar all over the place.
Looked like he sugared himself to death.

So we dug a grave and buried poor Pete out back.

...Many years later, at Thanksgiving, one of my brothers told us the truth;

He said he came home on his lunch break, and went into the bathroom with the Herald, to take a dump...

"The friggin' bird flew in, and tried to land on me, and I sez Get the hell outta here! ...and I swatted the bastard with Herald and killed him.

Then I threw him onto the kitchen table and sprinkled the sugar all over him to make it look like an accident,
...and then I went back to work.

I hated that friggin' bird!"

True story.

The Famous Camper Story

In honor of Father's Day I'm re-posting this old story:
When I was sixteen, my father bought a camper...
Not just any camper, - a super deluxe motor-home.
An immense road ship and loaded with features.
It had a full kitchen, a nice stereo system. It slept six, and it had a bathroom.
You could even take a shower if you wanted to.
My father beamed with pride as he showed it off to the neighbors, coloring his sentences with flourishing adjectives that would make a salesman blush, as he gave extended tours to friends.

The camper was the pride of the neighborhood that first week we had it.
Dad's plan was to retire soon, and take his wife and his two youngest kids on a three month tour of the USA. ...but first, he decided that we would spend a long weekend up at Sebego Lake to test it out.
The four of us spent three days in it, cooking and washing dishes, eating and using the bathroom, getting dirty and using the shower.

It had a 35 gallon holding tank.

We awoke on the third morning and gradually, we detected a very unpleasant odor.
"Jesus! See a doctor, will ya?" My father huffed, blaming my mother,my brother, or possibly me for the gastric outrage. "

Which one of you just died? God! Open a window!"
We protested and explained that it wasn't us. We certainly did smell it though!

He went to the bathroom door and opened it. Suddenly the entire camper smelled like Big foot's ass!
An overpowering sickening sour cloud of stench bombarded the air, the smell of ten nursing homes.
"The waste tank is full. It has to be emptied." my father announced, holding his nose.
The smell was so overpowering that we were forced to evacuate as we gasped for air.

Outside the camper ,the four of us discussed what to do. We were new at this camper business, and we had no idea how to empty the friggin' waste tank.

There was a hose that went from the camper into the ground. We needed to find out how to open the tank to release the sewage. We had no clue how to do it.

"Look around for a lever or something!" my father barked to my older brother.
"Find me the manual to this thing," We each took a deep breath and went back into the rolling porta-potty to find the manual.
Mom checked the glove compartment in the stinky cab and I went deep into methane hell to open the windows and look for the manual there. My dad scratched his bald head, looking high and low for the lever or button that would release the sewage.

There were other motor homes near us arranged in neat little rows . A very nice gentleman appeared from the camper next to ours, saw us all wandering around looking for something and offered to help.

The two men shook hands and introduced themselves. I think his name was Ted.

His motor home was even bigger than ours, so he had to know what he was doing.
They walked around the camper looking for buttons and levers, discussing the problem. It smelled like sh*t all around the area. Ted suggested that maybe because it was new, there might be some sort of factory seal keeping the tank from emptying.
He unclamped the hose from the bottom of the camper.
He examined the outlet pipe carefully.
He layed on his back with a screwdriver in his hand and looked up into the pipe.

...Meanwhile, on the other side of the camper, my father announced, "Wait a minute! I think I found it!"

There was a low rumble, a loud gurgle, followed by an erupting splash.

An explosion of filth gushed from the pipe like a firehose directly into poor Ted's face.
He rolled to escape as a flood of toxic waste. Three days of voided leavings, toilet paper, Lincoln logs, and ripe whiz juice, thirty five gallons of indescribably disgusting nastiness washed over his body.
He was almost swept away by it.
He scrambled to his feet, soaked in pee and made a sound halfway between a moan and a retch and then ran to the lake and dove in.
He splashed around washing himself for a while, then put his hands on his knees and hurled.

My brother and I couldn't believe how this could happen. We simply turned to rubber with laughter.
My father, seeing what he had done to poor Ted, was in shock, horrified at the disaster he had caused.

He alternated between apologizing to Ted in a crying voice, "I'm so sorry! Oh my God! I'm sorry!" to barking at my brother and I, "Shut up! God-Dammit! This isn't funny!"
...But it was!

I went into the camper to hide, and roll on the floor with my brother, laughing hysterically with tears running down our faces, but trying not to be loud about it, so Dad wouldn't kill us.

In the front of the cab was my Mother. Head in her hands ducking down. For a second, I thought she was crying, but I saw her shoulders rocking.
She was trying so hard not to laugh, but she was falling apart, laughing her ass off, slapping her knees, tears rolling down her cheeks, helplessly convulsing in laughter.

The three of us were inside the camper flopping around like fish, gasping for air, while my poor father, riddled with guilt was pleading with Ted to please forgive him.


Later that night the two men sat by the campfire drinking Crown Royal, My father continuously apologizing for what he's done to poor Ted.

My father said, "Ted in my life I've given a lot of shit to people, but I never gave anyone the amount of shit I gave you tonight!"Ted laughed like hell.

He really was good at taking shit from people.

Stoneham native releases new album By Ben Swasey/Correspondent Stoneham

- For Kenny Hogan, the memories linger vividly: rides down Route 1, listening to the AM radio; his father, a tireless worker, devotedly polishing fenders; the 17-foot beast of an automobile, a 1967 Chrysler Imperial. “That car was his pride and joy,” said Hogan. And so it is fitting that Hogan, a lifelong musician, pays homage to his father after completing his own multi-year labor of love, a solo album named “Frank’s Imperial.”

“After 30 years of playing in cover bands, it occurred to me that I had nothing really to show for it,” said Hogan, “so I wanted to sit down and record on my own.” For the Stoneham resident of nearly two decades, “on his own” is an understatement. Everything on the album is Hogan’s doing – the writing, singing, instrumentation, engineering and recording.

For the song, “Heaven,” he recorded and layered all 19 vocal parts. The instruments include Hogan’s first, the guitar, and his latest, the ukulele, among others. “That was the toughest part, when I hit a wall, and a part wouldn’t come, and I’d have to say, ‘what would a drummer do here?’” said Hogan.

And although the individualistic album took 3 1/2 years to complete, its creator speaks absorbingly of the process and the freedom, after so long with bandmates, to have complete ownership of a song. “Things just kind of pop into your head,” said Hogan, “and your job is to get it out of your head and into the real world. Some people do crosswords of Sudoku, but for me, putting a song together is a puzzle.”
The beginning
The musical pieces began for Hogan when he was 10 and his older brother was given a guitar, spurring jealously. He then describes how his entire Medford neighborhood was inspired by the Beatles iconic performance on the “Ed Sullivan Show.” Soon after, his friends formed bands, securing barbecue gigs and school dance performances.

Until his mid-30s, Hogan was a full-time musician, traveling, often on an old school bus, through the East Coast and Canada, playing most nights, Tuesdays through Sundays. He has played in bands covering the musical spectrum of the times, from rock, disco and soul to 80s high energy and 90s unplugged.

Now off the road, Hogan made it his New Year’s resolution at the start of 2006 to create a song a month and to record an album. “Well, that year lasted three and a half years,” said Hogan. “It just didn’t happen that fast.”

Consciously, “Frank’s Imperial” is varied in terms of musical styles, paying homage additionally to his breadth of performances and his early days of AM radio, when genres weren’t separated so distinctly and there was only one Top-40 countdown. The songs themselves also originated from varied sources.

According to Hogan, the album’s final track, “Startin’ All Over Again,” is 35 years old. Another, titled “Real Good Day,” comes from Hogan’s cancer-stricken brother offering a dose of perspective. And although Hogan bemoans a music scene that he believes has “really changed” in terms of energy and attention towards performers, he is considering ways in which his jack-of-all-trades album can be converted live.

In the meantime, however, Hogan is expanding into yet another genre, and trying his hand at recording a novelty album. But at least now, the musician, far removed from the AM radio in the Imperial, has his first solo album in the books. “It took a long time,” said Hogan, simply.

For information, visit www.kennyhogan.com. “Frank’s Imperial” is available on iTunes, CD Baby, Amazon.com and at Book Oasis in Stoneham.

My Influences

Ask me about my influences

I was recently asked in a couple of interviews who my influences are.
I didn't know what the hell to say. I wasn't used to that.

I made up a bunch of stuff to say in case someone asks me that again:

"So Ken, Who are your influences?"

Well I'll tell ya...
When I was 10 years old, I saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
Ed didn't seem to mind, so I closed the door and let the five of them go at it.

Before you know it, I was watching all those Elvis movies,and acting just like Elvis. I remember getting all pissed off at the beach, because nobody else would sing along or do the choreography . That made me want to die on the toilet, just like him.

(I have come close several times)

Davey Jones, of The Monkees made me consider becoming a homosexual, but that didn't work out for me, because I couldn't stop thinking of Annette Funicello.

Soon I began watching Wild Kingdom and learned to imitate a rhino by farting in a short pipe. Soon I bought a harmonica. Still, I was not allowed in the school band!

I saw Myron Sherman on Lawrence Welk, but I promised not to tell.

That lead to a horrible accident involving getting naked and playing an accordion, where I almost became Jewish.
To this day when I hear the song "Squeezebox" I cross my legs involuntarily.

My high pitched screams caused me to discover my stunning falsetto and that finally catapulted me toward the fame, success, and filthy wealth I have yet to achieve in the scum-filled shitholes and booze-pits where I've wasted my valuable youth.

Being totally ignored by staggering drunks who look like Mannix, watching them soil themselves as they gape up at the keno machine, being underpaid and lugging heavy gear over snowbanks has inspired me to someday become greatest songwriter in the nursing home.

And don't ask me again.

Max

Max was our band mascot (Guinea Pig) who traveled extensively with the band.
He spent most of his sweet short life in guitar cases.

He died in the tragic "Radiator Incident," in Schenectady, New York.

He crawled up inside the heater in our hotel room, and refused to come out.
I suppose that living in a guitar case and being with musicians on the road all the time might make you want to hide too.

After his death (inside the radiator) he smelled up the room so badly that we had to move to a new room.
The next band to come through was "The Lords."

I later joined The Lords, who told me what they heard about my previous band,

"We heard you was all crazy. The maids told us. We heard about you cookin' a pig in your room."

They actually believed that we roasted a pig in our room.
That's what the maids told them. (explaining the smell)
I had to convince them that we didn't.
They hired me!

S(p)itting In With The Band

S(p)itting In With The Band

A while back I let a guy sit in.
I never met him before, but I could tell by the way he talked that he's been around, and he was respectful when he asked if he could get up on one of our breaks and play my acoustic.
So I told him he could do two songs, and he did, and he was good too.
I got to enjoy the guy's playing and see what my guitar and PA sounded like out in the crowd. So after being convinced that he didn't suck, I let him play out the rest of my break. Why not?

He was a big fat hairy guy and he began sweating like a pig as he played.

When break was over I thanked him, he thanked me, and then he handed me my guitar.

It felt like he'd sprayed Pam on the friggin thing!
It was all buttery and greasy on the fret-board and sticky on the pick guard like he'd just pleasured a mule or something.
So I took a huck-towel and wiped it off.

Luckily, I keep several huck-towels around on stage.

What's a huck towel? I'll explain...

I go to the auto parts store and buy a big pack of those towels you wash your car with. They're perfect for when you're singing and you have to huck one up.
I've seen BB King do this for years. He's always hawking and hucking between and even during songs into these towels.
He may be the King of the blues, but he's also the Headmaster Of Hucking.
He's great at pretending he's just wiping up sweat with them, but one time at Lowell Auditorium I saw him cough up a lizard or something. Then he looked at it, and it moved and it called him Papa.

Anyways... I wiped the sticky excretions off my $2000 Gibson and went back to work.
THEN in the middle of the first song my lips brushed up against the foam windscreen on my microphone... And I felt something gooey!

I pulled my head back and looked.
The bastard had spewed up a clam! Right there on my microphone! EEeewww!
It looked like a cross between some sort of chowder or lab specimen from a sick ostrich or something you'd expect to see sliding down the inside of an aquarium.

I knew that I must have got some of that slime on my lip, and it made my stomach curdle and my skin shrink.
I forgot where I was in the song, flubbed up the chords, I forgot the lyrics, and spazzed out.
I retched, and then I ripped the foam wind screen off of the mike and threw it on the floor.
I had to resist the urge to stamp on it like a cockroach.

Grabbing my trusty huck-towel, I gave my mouth a good scrubbing and sucked down an entire scotch and soda with one gulp to kill any bugs. I had to finish the set worrying about where that fat bastard's mouth had been.
It was horrifying!
It was almost like I had been making out with the guy!!!
God knows what kind of hoof and mouth disease he might have given me!
Maybe he was married to Sasquatch.

During the next break I took the wind screen into the men's room and washed it in hot water and some of that squeezy soap for about five minutes.

When I got back that hairy sweaty spooge-mouthed hippo asked if he could sit in again.

I told him there was a booking agent in the room checking us out, "Sorry."
I didn't need any more of his Jurassic lung-butter.

So, if you're a musician, remember to be careful who you let sit in, and bring a spare microphone and some Lysol to every gig.