For those about to rock...

'What do you want to do?'

I used to host a campus radio show called, The Cheeseburger Deathstar Radio Network. It featured gags, bizarre radio plays and various record-store rummagings.

As a tribute to a certain eggplant-based Middle Eastern dish, I took the on-air name Bob Ganoush. Listeners who tuned in on Friday nights were hardcore, with my mother and sister among the most devoted.

I’m reminded of it often these days. On my way to class, I pass the old house where the show used to broadcast from. My co-host, Jimmy Janga, and I would spend hours rehearsing scripts and inventing the most offensive characters you could imagine.

As undergrads, we used to party pretty hard there too. We were, after all, radio gods. The future spread before us, a great glittering prize. And this little house was our cradle of dreams.

I’m not sure what happened to Jimmy. Things probably worked out for him. He was always so grounded.

And me? Over the years, I lost the signal, getting high on my own supply. Of hubris. Only to crash and move back in with my mother. As a recovering crack addict.

This week, I went back to school — the same university where I once imagined I ruled the airwaves. Here, no one has heard the legend of Bob Ganoush. I’m a book-lugging, exam-fearing student like everyone else. And I’ve been given the same gift — one that I thought I had squandered long ago. A future.

Today, a kid chatted me up before class. It was my first interaction with another student. I was actually kind of nervous. He didn’t notice because he was too excited about his own life. He rattled off what he was studying — and what he wanted to be one day. A journalist!

At last, he drew a breath and asked me, “What do you want to do?”

Do?

If he had asked me that a year ago, I would have replied with something like: Kid, I’ve already done. And now, I am done.

But recovery has given me a chance to switch stations in life.

“I’m not sure yet,” I offered, at last. “Something good, I hope.”

Bob Ganoush may have left the building. But it’s never too late to turn the lights back on.