For 30 years I was involved with legendary New Jersey freeform radio station WFMU, mostly hosting my phone-in talkshow Aerial View (which is still around and can be heard Friday nights, 6 pm Eastern Time, on thehoundnyc.com). I’ve slowly been digitizing hundreds of Aerial View airchecks on cassette, DAT (Digital Audio Tape) and MiniDisc and recently stumbled on the one I’m highlighting here: a conversation with my father, Mario Tsakis (RIP). I’m posting it on NIHILISTIC because there’s a lengthy passage concerning the Nihilistics and what my dad thought of the band and my so-called music career. How I managed to talk my father (below, with me in his antiques store “Memories” circa 1987) into joining me on air is lost to time but he was, apparently, game and hung in there for almost the entire show. I’d love to tell you we had the type of cordial father/son relationship you hear on this aircheck but I’d be lying. I’ve written about “My Old Man” (that’s the title of this show because he hated that phrase, BTW) here previously but a refresher: he was more-or-less absent from my life even before my parents divorced when I was 11 or 12. After that, I rarely saw him. He also gave off a near-constant whiff of disapproval, unable or unwilling to accept me as I was (fat, flailing, lost until I discovered guitar). “Unconditional Love” was not a concept he endorsed. Though we reconciled in later years, due to my outreach, it wasn’t to last. When he died, suddenly, of a heart attack, we were not on speaking terms. We’d fallen out a year earlier when he called to yell and scream at me about supposedly tricking him into giving my wife and I wedding gift money to add to a down payment on our house. Ultimately, he’d sent half of what he promised, then–in a move that left us stunned–tried to claw back even that from the grave, claiming it was a “loan.” If my sister hadn’t been executrix of his will we might’ve been forced to pay back his estate. Of the many ingredients that led to my playing hardcore, my dad and our terrible relationship was paramount.
