Music is life to me. I have meticulously soundtracked specific years, months, and events in my memory palace. My personal music collection holds over one thousand compact discs and over three hundred vinyl albums. I have attended over two hundred concerts, and I have the physical ticket stubs to prove it.

My collection and tastes run the gamut of genres and some of what I listened to as a kid on my path to self-discovery frightened me as much as it may have frightened my parents but for different reasons. I loved new wave, punk, and goth. I loved the music and the emotions that all three styles were able to capture, even though I was shy about allowing myself to take part in the fashion of it all. My mom loved the music, but her and my dad could not help but to point out how these bands I admired were all antisemites. I did not understand it at the time, but they were referring to the names of some of the most popular bands of the time like Joy Division/New Order and Spandau Ballet, and while they didn’t know much about David Bowie’s fascist Thin White Duke persona, they weren’t too thrilled hearing about the “visions of swastikas” in his head and his “plans for everyone” whenever “China........

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