My father died five years ago

 

I usually don't get too personal with my blog entries and I especially don't talk that much about my family.  Not that my family is bad or anything, it's a wee bit too personal.  Today's blog entry is different and perhaps I may write more blog entries about my family in the future.  On this day five years ago, I lost my father Carlo "Carl" Palladino.  Born on September 12, 1944, the youngest of 3 children.  My dad was a hard working man and all around good person.  He owned his own garage door business that he had since the mid-1960's.  I don't know much as else about his childhood or anything like that since he rarely talked about that.  I do know that my uncle (my dad's 2nd oldest brother) has shed some light about the Palladino family.  Unfortunately, I'm not in touch with my uncle anymore and I'll probably not get more information about the Palladino family.

As I said, he was a hard worker and I believe he also enjoyed installing garage doors, repairing garage doors and installing electric garage door openers.  His line of work was difficult and dangerous, so he didn't want me to get into it.  Besides work, he also enjoyed watching sports (baseball, football and tennis were his favorites if I remember correctly), spending time with his family and investing money on the stock market.  He was also a little bit of gamer too (my mother is a little bit of a gamer as well), he had an Atari in the 1980's.  I have fond memories of my dad such as playing video games with him, learning how to drive with his car and even working for his garage door company during the last years of his life.

I also have memories of him and I attending sports games at arenas and stadiums.  We attended games that had New York and New Jersey sports teams playing such as the New York Yankees and the New Jersey Nets (now the Brooklyn Nets).  He was a big fan of the New York Yankees.  I believe we also went to a New York Mets game.  Thanks to him I got to see one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century, Wayne Gretzky.  That was during Gretzky's last years in the NHL, he played for the New York Rangers.  We attended two New York Rangers games at Madison Square Garden.  Interestingly, the first time was the New York Rangers vs. Edmonton Oilers and the second and final time we attended a game together was the New York Rangers vs. Edmonton Oilers.

We also attended music shows too.  I went to Youthfest at RCC in the late 1990's, I went to my first live music show.  I saw Civil Descent (who later became Close My Eyes) perform live and that was awesome.  In 2001, we attended the G3 concert at the Beacon Theatre.  I saw Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and John Petrucci perform live.  He was quite cool with it, but he thought it was too loud if I'm not mistaken.  My dad had somewhat of an eclectic taste in music.  He liked The Beatles, Queen, Dion, Bob Dylan, Pat Benetar, Blondie and Cyndi Lauper.  He mostly listened to oldies, his favorite radio station was WCBS-FM 101.1.  He was a bit open to other kinds of music as well.  Here's why I say he had an eclectic taste in music,  I remember I made him listen to Metallica's Master of Puppets on the beach in the 1990's or 2000's and he shockingly liked it.  He liked the first track or the title track, I don't remember.  One time Slayer was blasting at Hot Topic and he even liked that!  True story!

My dad died of prostate cancer.  He also happened to die on his birthday.  He would have been 77 years old on this day.  Since he unfortunately died of prostate cancer, take a look at Prostate Cancer Foundation website.  Educate yourself about it and even donate to the foundation.  One day and hopefully soon, people will not have to put up with prostate cancer or cancer in general.  It's a shame that my dad had to go through that and I don't wish anyone to get it.  My dad got diagnosed with in 2012 and then it got progressively got worse in early 2016.  His brother was also diagnosed with prostate cancer as well, however they got to it in time and he's still alive.  If you suspect you might have it or know someone else that might have it, of course let your doctors know and also please visit the website for more information.

I did mention about his death in an early blog entry I created in 2019.  I originally wasn't going to write a blog entry about the passing of my father, however I figured since it's 5th anniversary... why not?  I also wrote this blog entry to spread more awareness of prostate cancer as well.  It's sad that people nowadays are against the patriarchy and fathers nowadays set a bad example for people.  My dad was a one of kind father, he did his best to provide for his family.  He wasn't a deadbeat dad, alcoholic, womanizer, etc.  He was loved by many and he was a good person.  Sure, he wasn't perfect like most people in the world.  Whenever he was present, he brought good vibes with him.  People who know him still say good things about him and they remember him well.

In case you want to read it, here is his obituary page.  The photo I used above comes from that obituary page and there's also a couple more photos of him as well.  Technically those photos originate from my personal archive of photos.  R.I.P. dad, I miss you and so does everyone else who knew and loved you do as well.

I don't do the horns gesture

 

I've been a metalhead since my single digits.  I loved it every time I heard it, I didn't know records of metal existed.  I was not exposed to it since I grew up in a conservative household.  I'm not rightist/conservative/Republican nor leftist/liberal/Democrat, I'm more independent in case y'all are wondering.  I didn't get an actual physical copy of a metal record until my 10th birthday.  I received Metallica's Master of Puppets on CD as a gift from my twin cousins Brett & Christopher.  They also gave me Pearl Jam's Ten.  I disliked that album majorly, I was happy to give that away to my brother's friend Mike. Anyhow, why I am against horns?  Now I will say this, I personally do not do the horns ever.  If you do the horns, I'm not gonna stop you from doing that.  Go right ahead, do the metal horns gesture.  There's actually only one known picture of me doing the horns (see below) and that was when my close friend Kevin Monahan was passed out.

Now why don't I do the metal horns gesture anymore?  I feel it is used way too much and it looks super cringey when I do it.  I will do the peace sign out of shear rebellion.  I'm a peaceful person and I'm at peace.  Here's one huge major secret that I need to confess to you all.  I am a hippie.  I happen to be a hippie who loves heavy metal (especially the more extreme side of metal).  There ya go!  I know in a past life I was a hippie since I remember being so attracted to hippies back when I was around 4 or so.  Amazingly my hair was a bit long when I was around the ages 3-5, my mother simply loved my hair a lot and didn't want me to get it cut.  I did get it sadly cut over time.  Remember, I grew up in a conservative household.  I also happen to have very curly/frizzy hair.  Now of course, you are still metal if you have short-medium length hair.  I know older metalheads with no hair at all or a little hair due their genetics not allowing them to have hair due to balding.  I'm sort of balding now as I'm getting older, my hair is getting thinner.  My mom used to cut my hair to make it look good.  I'll have to share those pictures if I can find them.  They're in boxes somewhere in my garage.

Of course, you might call me the biggest poseur in the whole entire universe for admitting/confessing the stuff I said above.  Oh well, too bad.  You are most likely calling yourself a poseur while are you calling me a poseur.  I guess I'm highly based person.  Sorry, but there was a point in time where metal didn't have this horns gesture.  I do know that Geezer Butler is one of the first, if not the first metal musician/figure to use the devil horns.  However, it didn't catch on.  Then it got popularized by a certain singer us metalheads know and love.  For some weird reason, this hand gesture blew up and become the universal sign of metal & rock.  I know it was due to Mr. Ronnie James Dio (R.I.P.).  He would use this hand gesture on stage at his live performances.  The audience noticed this and then they started doing this hand gesture.  I think he told his audience do it.  I dunno, I'm not a Dio expert.  He rocks, love his music.  However, he started something that spiraled out of control.  I know he learned this gesture from his grandmother and he thought it was cool if I'm not mistaken.  That's nice.

When I viewed a photo of Justin Bieber throwing the "rock sign", this majorly influenced me not to throw the so-called "rock sign" anymore.  Of course in the metal world, he would be called a poseur.  Bieber is a poseur, definitely a poseur for doing that since he's not actually a metalhead.  I don't know Bieber personally, but maybe he's a metalhead.  I have no idea.  If he is a metalhead, cool.   Now I'm Italian and I do know it is an Italian thing.  I'm not 100% sure, but it wards off evil spirits or something?  I forgot exactly.  I was told never knew to do this wicked hand gesture by mother and I guess I listened to her too much to the point where I didn't do it.  I did do it out of rebellion though.  She grew up with Italians since her family married into Italians.  Then she wound up marrying an Italian man (my father).  I'm not sure if the devil horns is a good thing with Italians or is it a bad thing with Italians?  Someone please let me know in the comments.  Thank you.  I would say nowadays it has become a positive thing.  It lets other metalheads know you're a metalhead.  I'll simply wear a metal shirt or something else that will identify myself as a metalhead.

Now here's where it gets strange for me.  I'm a Satanist.  I'm actually a spiritual Satanist if you wanna be precise.  Satanists (in most branches of Satanism?) do throw the horns.  I know they do this in the LaVey  branch, which I have very little to no respect for, to me it's atheism with extra steps and it's lame.  I think that weird wacky Satanism branch that caused some controversy years ago with their statue also throw the horns.  I dunno, whatever.  There's other contexts with this horns gesture.  Like I know the "Illuminati" (which I don't believe in) does this.  I have a circle of friends that are against "the illuminati".  I look absolutely ridiculous throwing the horns.  Texas Longhorn fans throw it up at games to show support for the Longhorn players.

Here's the thing.  You can still be a metalhead and not do the horns.  There is an alternative hand gesture which is called "the claw".  Very little documentation exists of the claw hand gesture.  I do that instead of the horns gesture and I encourage all metalheads to use this as an alternative.  It looks much cooler to me.  In the very deep dark depths of the underground metal scene, they would do this instead of the devil horns.  The devil horns is more of mainstream thing.  The underground metal listeners did/do the devil horns, but then I would guess there's others who don't.  I have to be in a small minority of metalheads who do not throw the metal horns at all.  I know the last time I did was at an Atheist concert back in 2009.  It was due to the energy and so many other people doing it at that concert.  I did not do it too much though.  I have zero intentions on throwing the horns from now on.  I recall my friend Marshall in the late 2010's back in the late 2010's sort of forcing me to do the metal horns gesture outside of a bar we frequented, but thankfully it was never capture on film.  Hah!

I have a feeling a lot of so-called metalheads do this hand gesture that makes think they are metal.  Then in their hearts, they are not.  I'm ultra based for not doing this gesture.  If you are a true metalhead, make sure it comes from the heart and stuff.  Throw those horns.  I have zero problems with people using this gesture.  It easily lets me know they are into metal.

That's pretty much everything I wanted to say on this topic.  I might have to edit some things since the grammar and spelling might not be good.  Do you do the devil horns?  Why?  How come?  I have nothing against you if you do.  Got a story you wanna share?  Please comment, thanks!  I love feedback!  Have a rad day/night!