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JON ZAL

Your front-row seat to my nervous breakdown

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R.I.P. E.V.H.

October 11, 2020 6 Comments

Almost one year to the day before Edward Van Halen died, I texted a friend whom I was pretty sure would know the answer to a question that had been troubling me for some time.

Is Eddie sick?

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Filed Under: Music, Personal, Van Halen

50

January 17, 2020 14 Comments

Jon Zal @ 50

Half a century. Yikes.

Listen, I’m optimistic about how much time I have left, but even if all of this working out and healthy eating pays off, an objective reading of the actuarial chart still suggests that I’d have to squint pretty hard to see the halfway point in my rearview mirror right now. Add to that the fact that each year now passes more quickly than the one that came before it and it’s easy to imagine that whatever time I do have left is going to feel exponentially more brief than the previous five decades.

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Filed Under: Life, Personal

Remembering 9/11

September 11, 2017 Leave a Comment

I took that photo back in August of 1995 from the bow of the Staten Island Ferry during my first-ever visit to Manhattan. Despite having grown up just a couple hundred miles away, I somehow managed to not go there until I was 25. I guess I just assumed that it couldn’t be much different than Boston, so why bother?

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Filed Under: Personal

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FEATURED POSTS

Daddy Vader

If not for The Force, Darth Vader would have totally gotten his ass kicked, because that suit? Not very practical.

Is it November yet?

Gene Simmons on stage

Dear Gene Simmons of KISS, a.k.a. My Childhood Hero: I think there’s been a terrible misunderstanding. Either that, or you’re an overly sensitive dick.

Hell hath no fury like white-male privilege threatened

Turns out I have a bright future ahead of me ... in a field about which I know nothing

Man, this finding-a-new-job thing is going to be easier than I thought

No, really: This job-search thing is like shooting fish in a barrel

There must be a reckoning

Van Halen (or, The Band That Ate My Life)

Take Me Out to the Therapist… Take Me Out to the Shrink…

Zombie Dinner Party … with your chef, Dr. Hannibal Lector

ABOUT ME

Jon Zal @ The Massachusetts State House, Boston

I was born in 1970, raised just outside of Boston, and now live near Philadelphia. As a child, I thought I was going to be…
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