{"id":114,"date":"2008-12-18T00:33:51","date_gmt":"2008-12-18T04:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healingmusicenterprises.com\/blog\/?p=114"},"modified":"2008-12-18T00:35:03","modified_gmt":"2008-12-18T04:35:03","slug":"music-an-prostate-cancer-one-mans-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healingmusicenterprises.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/music-an-prostate-cancer-one-mans-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Music and Prostate Cancer: One Man’s Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music and Prostate Cancer: One Man’s Story<\/a><\/h3>\n
By Dana Jennings
\nI have prostate cancer, and sometimes I get mad. Not upset. Not annoyed. Not nettled. Mad. This isn\u2019t mere \u201cwhy me\u201d moaning. My rage is pure and primal, like that of a wolf caught in a steel trap.
\nDana Jennings. (Lonnie Schlein\/The New York Times)
\nMy anger, though, doesn\u2019t arrive when and where you\u2019d think it would. Gliding into the radiation machine, getting a hormone shot and wearing mini-man-pads don\u2019t set me off. It\u2019s smaller, less expected, things, like a fellow customer being mean and rude to the server behind the counter at Starbucks, or a car busting a red light as I walk to my New York office.
\nThat kind of behavior has always bothered me on some level. But since I learned that I have cancer, I react differently. I\u2019ve walked the streets of New York for decades, and not thought twice about the cars that run red lights and nearly nail me and other pedestrians. It\u2019s a fact of life in the big city, like rats on the subway tracks. I used to shrug and keep walking.
\nProstate Cancer Journal
\nOne Man\u2019s Story<\/span>
\nDana Jennings blogs about his experience with prostate cancer.
\nAfter Cancer, the Echo of Desire<\/span><\/a>
\n10 Lessons of Prostate Cancer<\/span><\/a>
\nReal Men Get Prostate Cancer<\/span><\/a>
\nSince my diagnosis last April, though, and especially since my prostatectomy last July, it has not been so easy for me to shrug it off. Perhaps it\u2019s because prostate cancer and its treatment have left me feeling vulnerable. Now, it\u2019s as if a heedless speeding car pulls some small biological trigger of agitation that too quickly metastasizes into rage. Suddenly, I\u2019m howling at the traffic. If I could, I\u2019d turn green and bellow: \u201cHulk smash!!!\u201d
\nIn utter mortification, I admit that I have shocked at least a couple of drivers with a quick thump to the rear-ends of their cars. I\u2019m not proud of this. But it\u2019s almost as if, in certain situations, my cancer is granting me permission to tap a dark and ugly passion. My tolerance for bad behavior has vanished, and I have trouble keeping my mouth shut. And anger, no matter how bitter, still tastes good, at least for a moment.
\nBut I hate it. It\u2019s bad enough having a cancer of the body without having a cancer of the spirit, too. It\u2019s all part of the emotional Tilt-a-Whirl that arrives with cancer \u2014 not just anger, but the occasional sighs and tears, the despair and depression. Doctors do a good job of treating the physical aspects of prostate cancer, but what about the psyche that\u2019s been scraped red and raw?
\nI work hard not to let my cancer get me down. I believe in the power of kindness and gratitude, and my good cheer is not a pose. But we all have our weaknesses. I\u2019m haunted by the uncertainty caused by my aggressive cancer. And when I see people plowing through this world, self-centered and unaware, their obliviousness strikes me as a deadly sin. I can\u2019t lash out at my cancer \u2026 but I can lash out at them.
\nI am trying to cope, trying to damp those flash fires. Spending time with my wife and family helps; so does writing in my journal. But in scanning my large collection of CDs a few months ago, I noticed a few heavy-metal albums I hadn\u2019t listened to in a long time. It struck me as the right music for my mood, and the result has been my own unorthodox form of music therapy. I\u2019ve learned that heavy-metal music leaches away my fury the way a poultice draws poison from a wound.
\nI crave heavy bands like Slayer and Meshuggah, Pantera and Sepultera, Isis and Neurosis. Prostate cancer seems especially suited for heavy-metal music therapy. According to Dan Nelson\u2019s book \u201cAll Known Metal Bands,\u201d I could let my ears pound and bleed to such disease-specific headbangers as Cancer and Metastasis, Scars of Chaos and Scars of Suffering, and Surgikill Incision.
\nSo you know, I don\u2019t fit the music\u2019s clich\u00e9d demographic. I have no piercings (my 25 surgical staples are long gone) or tattoos (except for the four black microdots used in my radiation treatment), I do not scrawl hexagrams on my walls, and I like goat cheese but not goat sacrifice.
\nBut music has always been one of the ways I understand myself, interpret myself and this world. I\u2019ve written about bluegrass, Cajun music and the Grand Ole Opry for The Times, and I wrote a book about classic country \u2014 \u201cSing Me Back Home: Love, Death and Country Music\u201d \u2014 that was published last spring around the time of my diagnosis.
\nDifferent kinds of music say different things to me. Country retells my story of growing up poor and rural, reminds me that I come from a small town in New Hampshire where my relations lived their lives through the songs of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. Jazz, especially the slowest, the bluest notes and tones of Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley, settle me down before I fall asleep, can soften the edges of my melancholy. But it\u2019s metal that helps see me through when my temper tumbles over the edge. Its anger blunts my anger, in the same way that a backfire can be used to fight a forest fire.
\nI rasp and roar along with System of a Down on the song \u201cToxicity.\u201d As I sing the lyrics, \u201cHow do you own disorder, disorder?\u201d I\u2019m also hurling that question at the health-industrial complex and the bureaucracy that has nothing to do with making people well. As I listen to Metallica\u2019s album \u201cMaster of Puppets\u201d or Mastodon\u2019s \u201cLeviathan\u201d (wearing the black System of a Down hoodie that my sons gave me), I grit my teeth and perform air-guitar exorcisms. Songs like Metallica\u2019s \u201cDamage Inc.\u201d and Mastodon\u2019s \u201cBlood and Thunder\u201d resonate in my gut and feel like heavy-metal radiation therapy.
\nNever mind scalpels or robots, the squall of those razor-wire notes seems sharp enough to cut out any cancer.
\nIt seems to be helping. All my fear, anger and alienation are vented in those bands\u2019 savage, guitar-driven engines. Heavy-metal inoculation talks me down from the ledge of my rage, lets me take a deep breath, then shrug \u2014 even at a car running a red light.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Music and Prostate Cancer: One Man’s Story By Dana Jennings I have prostate cancer, and sometimes I get mad. Not upset. Not annoyed. Not nettled. Mad. This isn\u2019t mere \u201cwhy me\u201d moaning. My rage is pure and primal, like that of a wolf caught in a steel trap. Dana Jennings. (Lonnie Schlein\/The New York Times) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[108],"yoast_head":"\nMusic and Prostate Cancer: One Man's Story - Healing Music Enterprises Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/healingmusicenterprises.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/music-an-prostate-cancer-one-mans-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Music and Prostate Cancer: One Man's Story - Healing Music Enterprises Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Music and Prostate Cancer: One Man’s Story By Dana Jennings I have prostate cancer, and sometimes I get mad. Not upset. Not annoyed. Not nettled. Mad. This isn\u2019t mere \u201cwhy me\u201d moaning. My rage is pure and primal, like that of a wolf caught in a steel trap. Dana Jennings. 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