I Got Laid Off. Our House Burned Down. And Then I...

Life's A Great Balancing Act

My family lost our home in the Eaton Fire two months after I got laid off from my long time sales and marketing job.

To say it has been a challenging year would be a huge understatement. At times, it has felt more like being stuck on a grueling, non-stop obstacle course since the moment I hung up the phone on that fateful morning in early November.

Happy holidays, Steve! You better believe I rage watched It’s A Wonderful Life.

The countdown clock was loudly ticking away in my head, especially in the middle of the night when I should have been sleeping in the comfort of our house THAT I AM ABSOLUTELY GOING TO LOSE BECAUSE I’M JUST ANOTHER 55-YEAR-OLD IN A SEA OF OUT-OF-WORK GENXERS WHO ARE ALL LOOKING FOR WORK IN THE SAME COLLAPSING WHITE COLLAR JOB MARKET.

There were daunting new challenges around every corner:

• Barbed Wire Fences: “How the hell do I explain this to our kids?”

• Flaming Rope Bridges: “It costs how much to personally insure a family?”

• Shark-Infested Waters: “AI/machine learning has made the hiring process positively colds and inhuman—Guess I’ll let the LinkedIn Premium bot write a cover letter for me since I’m not fluent in heartless robotese!”

You get the idea. I’m a very lucky guy that, by most global and historical standards, has led a privileged life, but I’m also a fragile-ass human with bills to pay and an ego to feed. I’ve been working pretty much nonstop since starting a tween paper route, but this was the first time I remember getting the axe and it validated every feeling of self-doubt constantly swirling around my head.

Even with the support of friends, family, former co-workers, and mentors who all stepped up, it was hard to shake the dark clouds. I should have taken all of their advice and valuable words of encouragement as the first sign that things might possibly, eventually work out, but I couldn’t quite see it yet.

After a few promising interviews in early December (that led nowhere), I paused the job search for the holidays.

My family and I made it through Christmas by mostly hunkering down in our comfy little foothills home. We made tamales on Dec. 24, spent a week with my wife’s family along the Northern California coast, and enjoyed a relaxing New Year’s party at a friend’s house around the corner from ours in Altadena.

In the interim, I made use of my experience, time, and ample nervous energy by joining the board of an LA-based food equity non-profit. I also took on some consulting work with a production company, and later an indie publishing house. Through it all I remained compulsively committed to this Substack.

I secretly hoped one of those purpose-driven/arts/hobby situations would magically lead to full-time employment (maybe I can be the

Ted Gioia

of power pop!), but it was just a complicated series of self-deceiving pipe dreams. The kind of magical thinking that has always soothed my rattled brain.

I was back on the job hunt with renewed vigor on that first Monday of 2025.

Our house burned down in the Eaton Fire that erupted on Tuesday, January 7.

That tiny “farmhouse in the foothills”—the place where our two kids did most of their growing up, creating so many wonderful memories—was among 9,000 structures destroyed in Altadena and the surrounding communities. At the same time, an equally devastating disaster was happening across LA in Pacific Palisades.

Our house was a fixer-upper when we moved there in December 2013, but we always saw its potential. We continually worked on improvements for the 12 years that we owned the place including repiping, new windows, two bathroom remodels, fully native landscaping, a deck, writing studio/office, and an all new custom kitchen that was just repainted the last week of December.

All that time, effort and money went up in flames along with most of our possessions and the countless irreplaceable mementos we’d accumulated over a lifetime. Family photos? Ash. Vinyl collection? Melted. Musical instruments? Rubble.

That cherished copy of Oh! The Places You’ll Go given to me by a mentor? Smoke.

It was all gone in the blink of an eye.

I put my job search on hold again.

Our days filled up attending countless donation events, navigating insurance claims and mortgage forbearance, consulting with lawyers, weighing (and endlessly reconsidering) our rebuild options, and otherwise becoming experts in the very thing that had devastated our community and traumatized our family.

We’ve been in a long-term rental since mid-March after moving eight times in those first two months after the fire. It still doesn’t feel like “home,” but we’re also not living out of suitcases any longer. I’m constantly telling myself to celebrate the small victories these days, while remaining aware of our relative comfort and safety. It’s all a great reminder that homeownership is a privilege.

I suppose this is what the sage philosopher Dr. Seuss called the “The Waiting Place” in Oh! The Places You’ll Go:

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Nice as this apartment is, and despite our efforts to remain thankful, we’re really just waiting for our new house to get built. But that’s an extremely involved journey with many potential twists and turns along the way, one that we’ve really only just begun. Truth is, like many of our neighbors, we’re still unsure if we can truly afford to rebuild.

Uncertainty rules most days, but that hasn’t stopped us from getting surveys done, speaking with contractors and engineers, working closely with an architect on countless tiny tweaks, holding floor plans in our hands, and staking off the shape of the proposed new structure on the empty lot. It’s exciting in those moments, but beneath it all is the grief-riddled reality that when and if we do finally move in—most likely a couple of years from now—it will still be a new house and not our old one.

I got a job offer in early April and started later that month.

It’s with a public media group I’ve had my eye on for a few years now. (I’m being vague on purpose because this is about my personal journey and not the specific places I have worked.) This new gig is related to my previous experience but it’s still a mid-career pivot, so there’s a learning curve. I’m enjoying the challenges so far, and welcome the day-to-day distractions from everything else going on in my life.

One side benefit of the new job, despite currently living on the outskirts of LA, is that I can take the Metro to work some days. I’ve been careening down SoCal freeways since my teens, but my tolerance for slow moving traffic has turned dark in recent years. Sitting on a train checking my email, snapping pictures, or editing my next Substack post instead of white-knuckling my steering wheel is a small silver lining.

I even started collaging again, something I’ve done as a hobby on and off for many years (I got started making gig flyers for my high school/college bands). The few pieces I held onto over the years were consumed by flames. The first new collage I completed is an homage to our old house (the header image for this post).

Music is also slowly creeping back in.

After dithering about whether or not I should replace some portion of the drum gear I lost in the Eaton Fire, I’ve slowly amassed the basic necessary elements to start playing again (I even booked an August show for my ‘90s band Ridel High).

An old acquaintance from the neighborhood where I grew up generously offered me a drum set in the weeks after the fire, but I still needed to gather all the Erector Set stuff (hardware, cymbals, etc.). I did that through friends and an incredible new music instrument non-profit called Altadena Musicians. (Our youngest has also benefitted from Altadena Musicians, and another incredible non-profit called Altadena Girls.)

Altadena Musicians was started by Brandon Jay, an old Hollywood rocker friend of mine whose family also lost everything in the fires. I’ve volunteered with that organization and benefitted from their generosity. It is a shining example of the human kindness I have witnessed in many different ways over these last few months.

Here’s another example: I recently received a package in the mail from the UK. It was a vinyl copy of 2nd Grade’s Hit to Hit, a replacement for one of the many albums I lost in the fire. I’d never directly interacted with the person who sent it to me before they reached out on Instagram. The package also contained a very touching, hand-written letter that reminded me how lucky I am to be part of the global music community.

The list of kind acts of all shapes and sizes is too long to detail here, but I am humbled and forever thankful for the support and love my family has received.

An empty lot. A blank canvas. Hope for the future.

So, here I am. And here we are.

In many ways, I personally feel like the full impact of the trauma from all of this is still lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce. Until that happens—I’ve lived long enough to know it will happen—I’m just going to keep trying the best I can.

I really wanted this to be a “turning the corner on that part of my life” post, but I’ve realized this isn’t the kind of thing you move on from. Much as I don’t want it to be true, this is part of me now—a bleak chapter in my personal narrative.

The dark clouds may pass, if we remain lucky, but it forever changes who we are. My heart goes out to the thousands of neighbors and fellow Angelenos dealing with similar, life-altering challenges.

With that, I’m closing out the Vodka Sauce series.

These posts have been extremely cathartic for me, but Remember The Lightning was never meant to be a wildfire recovery blog. I sincerely appreciate all of the support readers and subscribers—old and new—have given me as I chronicled these trying circumstances over that last few months.

Now it’s time to get back to our regularly scheduled “Music. Books. Music Books.” programming.

I hope some new subscribers stick around, but I get it if you aren’t here for endless love letters to Big Star, The Nerves, The Go-Go’s, The Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, Fountains of Wayne, The Whiffs, The Speedways, Ryan Allen, Kate Clover, The Beths, Hurry, Strange Magic, Best Bets, Young Guv, 2nd Grade, and many others.

If you still want to keep track of our Eaton Fire recovery, connect with the non-pen name me on Instagram.

I can’t wait to hang this in our new home.

I got laid off. Our house burned down. And then I…

Just kept moving forward, one step at a time. Along the way I’ve tripped, stumbled, stubbed my toe, (insert other foot-based metaphor here), but we’re making progress in this game of inches. Sometimes that’s the best we can do.

Here’s what that looks like for me: focusing on my family; trying to remain patient and present; accepting help from friends and strangers; reading and writing; doing meaningful (to me) public media and non-profit work; playing, discovering and supporting music; making art—and otherwise trying to remain hopeful.

All of it reminds me that, despite the many challenges we all face, life still has the potential to be a wonderful adventure. Or, as Dr. Seuss so eloquently sums it up:

So be sure when you step, step with care and great tact.
And remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed? Yes! You, will indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

Thank you all for the kindness, generosity, encouragement, and support. Onward…

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