My Story
Excuse Me, I Have To Fall Down Now
Right after college, I had three roommates in their first year of medical school. Once a week, one of them would run up from the mailbox shouting, “MMWR is here! MMWR is here!” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the newsletter from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), chronicles every known malady afflicting the populace, providing graphic details of the latest horrific diseases and extensive weekly documentation of Who and How Many are Dying from What and Why. Read more
So How Does “The World’s Greatest Communicator” Communicate When He Can’t Even Hear?
On paper, at least, I am one of the world’s great communicators. I was CEO of one of the world’s largest public relations firms. Before that I was co-founder of one of the fastest growing high-tech marketing communications firms in Silicon Valley. And before that I was a successful journalist. I haven’t counseled kings, but I have whispered in the ears of some of the world’s most important business executives. When I lost most of my hearing, being the world’s greatest communicator got a lot more complicated. What I’ve discovered, though, is that communication involves a lot more than using your ears, and that you can still be one of the world’s greatest listeners even when you can’t hear. Read more
A Night at the Theater
Usually a trip to the theater is frustrating because getting any of the dialogue is such a challenge. Even the headphones available in larger theaters most often don’t do the job for me. But last weekend I went to see my friend Steve Cooper play a leading role in Blinders, a political satire put on by the Out of the Blue Theater Company at the Boston Playwrights’ Theater. The company is staffed by both veteran and up-and-coming actors in a small, intimate theater next to the campus of Boston University. And this time, I had two things going for me that made going to the theater enjoyable again. Read more
The Noises That Inhabit My Head
Sometimes I still hear the insistent screeching, like an angry flock of birds or the screaming of the wind in a hurricane. It’s the same unearthly noise that millions of bat-like creatures made as they swarmed out of the open gates of hell in a horror movie I saw once. But now the noise only creeps in at the edges of my consciousness during quiet moments, like a barely remembered bad dream. It’s one of the many strange sounds in my head that have come and gone since the day I woke up with severe hearing loss several years ago. Read more
My Story: The Day the Music Died
Until I lost much of my hearing overnight two years ago, I had excellent pitch. My brother and I grew up around music, and both of us could always carry a tune. My dad is a gifted, self-taught piano player whose range spans from Chopin Sonatas to Ragtime to English Music Hall favorites. I took piano lessons, played in the school band and sang in the school chorus. I had enough formal and informal education to appreciate all kinds of music and at different stages of my life was enamored of many different forms — rock and roll, classical, Top 40, jazz, you name it. But on the day of my sudden hearing loss, I discovered that music had become completely unintelligible to me. Read more
