The Day The Music Died

Marcellus Wiley and Ben Lyons doing the Afternoon show

It was January 8, 2017 when my personal life turned completely upside down. At the time, the only thing I could do was just run from my problems by overworking myself and medically inducing myself to try and sleep for 11-12 hours a night just to keep the demons out my head. I had no escape, the more trouble I got in to, the more I would rely on those bad habits. Like everyone, I have to commute to work whether it be across town to the office or down the interstate to New Orleans for whatever photo booth events were in place. To help survive these miles and miles on the road, I'd listen to music to help time pass. But with everything going on, music + demons didn't fare too well with my mental state of mind. Almost every lyric could be twisted into some negative memory that just put my emotions in a whirlwind. It got so bad to a point where I just tweeted out that I hated music. For anyone that knows me, it was a pretty bold statement. It was then that I decided to stop listening to music completely which made me unsure of how it'd affect me but I knew that it couldn't be worse than what it was during that time.

Then came podcasts. The Lakers were doing pretty terrible at the time so I started to use twitter more to find out rumors on how they were going to move forward with the draft and free agency etc which eventually led me to some Los Angeles-based podcasts to just get a bit of local opinions on what was really going on in La La Land. It started off with 'The Jump' podcast and then 'Afternoons with Marcellus and Kelvin' which I really enjoyed after watching Marcellus on SportsNation. I also saw LZ from SportsNation had his own show on ESPNLA as well which was 'Mornings with Keyshawn, Jorge, and LZ'. There'd be a crossover segment with 'Thompson and Trudell' who are Lakers guys and basically everything in my listening schedule for the day would be covered with all these shows. 3 hours of Mornings, an hour of Thompson and Trudell, and 3 hours of afternoons. Then I'd have the national shows like The Jump, PTI, and Mike & Mike to fill in all the other time that I had. It's radio but it was great radio. I was focused on topics I liked and most importantly it gave me something to look forward to. Even to this day I look forward to 9 AM every weekday when the first podcast would be posted for me to download and listen to.

A few weeks ago, I was in Los Angeles for Kobe's jersey retirement and got to catch 'Afternoons with Marcellus' in Kobe-land outside Staples center and just embraced the moment. It was just surreal. Here I am, a Louisiana kid listening to L.A. radio every day and to just be able to bask in the moment and appreciate this radio station that's given me so much hope and happiness for the past 9 months. I even got to chat with a station worker and he knew the love for ESPN710 was real that he gave me some swag on the side just to solidify my experience that late afternoon.

2018 is here and I'll still continue to listen to my podcasts as I travel to and from work and every chance that I get. It's become a part of me and filled the void in my soul where music used to be. I'll get back to music soon enough because there will be a point in time when I just have to face my demons and sadness completely but that's a post to be written later.