Episode 4: Musicians vs. Rock Stars, Part I

Ok, so I'm going to end up going back to Guns 'N Roses with pretty much everything, so get used to it.

I couldn't have been older than five... My biological parents were still together, and we were all sitting in our basement "family room" in lovely little Ligonier, Pennsylvania. Don't remember what we were doing- board game or something- but we had the TV playing in the background. This was probably in 1989 or '90... I don't want to date myself here, but it's safe to say that GN'R and I were born around the same time. They imprinted themselves on the public psyche at about exactly the same time that my psyche was awakened to its own existence.
This was back in the days when MTV (Music TeleVision- yes "Teen Mom" watchers, sorry but that is what the acronym stands for) was still a music channel. I know, that era is so far gone... I am really feeling like a dinosaur here. Anyways, so to reconstruct the scenario, I am five years old, sitting with my parents, engaged in some recreational activity, not paying any attention to the boring parade of dancing monkeys jumping and jiving all around the TV screen. Pretty soon I catch my mother staring at the tube. I followed her gaze... and there they were. In all their badass-ness. And I am a life forever changed.
It was the video for "Welcome To The Jungle." When I allow myself to fictionalize (not fabricate mind you, more like make a movie out of) my life story a little, I kind of love the fact that one of the very first things I remember about the world I live in is this moment. What an appropriate introduction to being- "Welcome To The Jungle." And if this was the world I lived in, these were its inhabitants? Yes please.
So my ultra-conservative Chief of Police of a father got up to change the channel.
Me (wide-eyed with wonder):"Who's that?"
Father (ashamed that his young daughter just observed such wretched filth on his watch): "That's Guns 'N Roses. They're very dirty people."
Mom (eyes fixed on the screen with kind of a zombie thing going): "But they're very talented."

And that was it.

Next thing I knew it was 2nd grade, the video premier for "November Rain" was literally a scheduled cultural event, like the State of the Union Address, and the world stopped. There are probably lots of people just like me who remember where they were when it happened, like 9/11. Am I aggrandizing my favorite band a little too much? Well get over it, that's why they're rock stars. They get aggrandized. And that's really what the content of this episode is going to be dealing with, this is not some hyper-exaggerated soliloquy on why I think Axl Rose is the coolest person who has ever been. Ok maybe a little.
I was at a birthday party. And about forty snot-nosed second-graders, who didn't know a darn thing about life, or pain, or struggle or rebellion, or anything rock 'n roll stands for, put down the whiffle ball bats and left the pinatas dangling full of candy to gather around the tube and watch it. We were totally transfixed, and we didn't even know why. For those ten minutes, Bobby forgot that Billy had stolen his candy bar, nobody cried or wet their pants, and no one cared that Jenny smelled. Now of course as soon as it was over, Bobby gave Billy an 8-year-old slug in the jaw, Billy cried, Susie wet her pants and we all ran away from Jenny as fast as humanly possible. But for ten minutes...
You know, if I recall correctly, I think I even went so far as to sit next to Brian. He had cooties. But I did it for Axl.

That's power.

That's what "rock stars" do. They can take a moment when something might be going on that is actually important, and make it all about them. The question is, once the moment is theirs, what do they do with it? Once they've grabbed your attention, what are they filling your brain space with? In the case of Guns 'N Roses, it was sheer brilliance. Not only was the band visually arresting, but sonically as well. Each individual band member was beyond proficient at his craft, there was substance to the song lyrics, the arrangements were spectacular and elaborate. And their bad behavior was legendary. In short, these guys were the real deal, onstage and off. There was an authenticity to Guns N'Roses that can't be replicated, though many have tried and will continue to do so until music itself no longer exists.


There have really only been a few, and most of them are dead. We all know all about the 27 Club- Jim, Jimi, Janis, Kurt(5 whole big whopping cool points to those of you who actually know the fifth member without Google)... The mythical pantheon in the sky for five genuine souls who truly lived and died for their craft. Well theylived for it- most of them died for the love of reality-altering substances. But the world mourned these deaths differently than others, not only because of the untimely nature of their passings, but because we lost something genuine.
These young people are listed among the few, the proud, the entirely dysfunctional... The Artists. The ones who actually straddled the fence between creative spirit and public figure. The ones who "made it" on the strength and beauty of their spirits, and the pain that drove them over the edge. They were "Out there on the Perimeter where there are no stars," so to speak, forging new pathways through the emotional landscape of a new era, seeing, thinking, FEELING things the rest of the world was afraid to see, afraid to think, afraid to feel. They were real.
What disappoints me today is, well, everything. If I want something real, I am completely out of luck if I turn on MTV. And completely out of my mind if I think that could yield me results. Today, the record industry and media giants, with their vice grip on the cojones of public opinion, won't give it to us. I'll save the tirade about empty pop stars and the "values" they promote, I won't launch into a drawn-out diatribe about how most of them are picked out of a model casting-call and CAN'T SING. If you've tuned in to this blog, and have read this far, chances are you are a music lover and already get what I am saying.
I have a bit of a conspiracy theory. It is my personal opinion that the labels are literally afraid to release anything else- it's the immense risk-factor involved with dealing with the personality types who really embody rock'n roll. Guns'N Roses broke up (ok, imploded) after about 6 years of grand success and in the end probably cost David Geffen a pretty penny. Jimi, Kurt and Janis died young because of their self-abuse, usually common to the deeply creative types. And as for the Doors, look at the number of times Jim Morrison got his band and his record label sued just by being Jim. So you can imagine why the powers that be who stand on the blazing corporate battlefield between profit and loss might regard these personality profiles as something of a liability.
It's so much easier for them to just pick up an actor and MAKE them into a pop star. Think about it... every act that comes out these days is "the new so-and-so". Every rock band with a guitar player in a leather jacket is the new G'nR. Every big-voiced, big-haired, female vocalist is the new Joplin (although without exception prettier and much more delicate of manner). But there's always just that something missing. Usually you can just look at these types and just tell how much they CARE. They CARE what you think. Yeah, I think that's it. They are more than willing to put on the outfit, the sneer, the smile, whatever it takes just to keep your attention and please you. They will sing the songs they're told to sing. Dance, monkey, dance. Just for the fame, and the fame alone. They will promote any message they're told to promote, even if it leads to the demoralization of a generation of youth. Not that Jim Morrison and Axl Rose were promoters of traditional family values. But at least they weren't posturing themselves as anti-heroes because that's what they were told to be.

So we've gone on in abstractions long enough. Who are They? It's a fine line I'm walking here with this "blog." Don't want to get too incredibly personal, but want to keep it personal enough that it's relevant. However, I'm kind of easing into the heart of the topic, as it would be a very easy thing for me to speak and hit too close to home for some and I don't want to do that.
But this does bring me to the real meat of this discussion...

US.


Where does this leave us struggling musicians at the bottom of the barrel? How does the public, private and corporate blueprint of our heroes affect how we forge our own identities? Or should it affect us at all? How do we see the difference in ourselves- how are we able to answer honestly, completely honestly, if we really have it burning deeply within our beings to create and share our art and our hearts, or if we're just a bunch of wanna-be Axls?

Come back in next time to continue this discussion, and we will delve a little further into the real world.

Tune in tomorrow — same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Songwriting

It's uncomfortably late. I have a lot of stuff to do tomorrow, stuff I really need to be asleep for. I don't have a whole lot of free time lately. That's one of the beautiful things about New York, is that you never have to sit at home. To reiterate a point from earlier, there is always something that needs to be done. Some event to attend, be it an open mic or an unpaid feature slot in one, a friend's show or your own (we discussed those earlier), or some entirely unrelated activity during which you will inevitably find yourself pitching your "music career" to strangers.
Like I said, it's really late and I'm exhausted. I am listening to a song called "I Will Never Be Untrue" by The Doors. There's only one version of this song that really counts, although Big Jim & Co. attempted it several different times and felt compelled to put each take on iTunes. The real deal is on Essential Rarities. It's this fantastically so-laid-back-it's-in-your-face blues progression. Paradoxical in nature, in that it is aggressively passive. Like that slow driver in the fast lane, who figures it's Sunday afternoon, and they don't have anywhere to be, so f**k it. You can pass when there's a break in traffic on the right.
After it ends I allow myself to listen to a recording of a song from my last show. I don't hate it quite as much as I feel like I should... It's a very fine line as a new musician... To what degree are you permitted to objectify your own material, see it as a real and valid piece of art that deserves to be put up for consideration alongside those elaborate creations of others which you hold so dear?
Am I ever allowed to enjoy the material I create as much as I enjoy that of my heroes? Do I have the right to treasure "Winter In June" as much as "Don't Cry?" Or are we under a certain obligation to be endlessly self-critical- to the point where complacency and self-satisfaction are equivalent to death?
I for one enjoy my music, and if I didn't, I wouldn't play it in public. I'd save it for the privacy of my living room when my roommates were out of town and my neighbors were out. But the things I write make me feel something, and the things I feel from my music are usually the feelings I find I have in common with other people once we actually engage in conversation. I don't think it makes me a bad person or an arrogant human being to say that I enjoy my own art. And I think that's why I continue to write.
Writing a song is not an easy thing to do... it's a very confusing process. It makes you question yourself a lot. Makes you question your validity as a person. What could I possibly have to say that would matter to anyone other than me? What have I experienced in life that hasn't been endured to the nth degree by someone else? Why should anyone listen to me at all?
And I don't have an easy answer for how it comes together. How your creative audio portfolio ends up congealing into something you can present to those around you. I suppose time is an enormous factor- most of the songs that I've written have taken about a year or so to evolve into what I would accept as their current incarnation. A song can begin its life as one thing, and evolve into something that in the end doesn't even resemble what it was upon starting out.
Call me crazy, but I feel like most of the original songs I carry around in my pocket were not directly written by yours truly. I really love most of my original songs, but... I do not feel as if I myself actually wrote them. An almost unreasonably "healthy" percentage of my original material just sort of... well, materialized in my head out of nowhere, like, while I was stocking the beer cooler at Merchant's Grocery in New Bern, North Carolina (I mean, what can I say- it was an inspirational, secluded, plentiful environment). What do I do if that doesn't happen again? Where do I go if I don't actually have the ability to sit down and deliberately craft a viable piece of music, if I was somehow supernaturally gifted with a passel of lovely sound bytes that never fully blossom into anything beyond a rough track, as some cruel, ironic cosmic prank?
Maybe we all feel this way... When you write something amazing (and believe it or not, it's ok to admit that something you've personally penned is above average), it almost puts you into shock for a second; at least that's what it does to me. Sometimes it's still so hard to accept "the Gift." To believe that you actually hold it in your hands. Sometimes I frantically grab my turquoise suede journal and hurriedly scribble in future choruses and turns of phrase that will mystify me in the morning- but that in itself is half the fun. Decoding your own convoluted rhymes from the night before, written in a rush when you so intensely felt something all of a sudden... Hoping upon hope that your personal expression of what must be a universal sentiment isn't as mediocre as you perceive your own fabric of character to be.
I've got a few things in the works. I find myself playing a lot of my same songs live lately, which means it's time to write new ones and perfect the ones I've been stalling on. I don't know if my next attempts at writing will yield me another piece that makes me as proud as some of the pieces that I already have, but i have to try. I have to know the difference between talent and fluke.

In short- Has He only given me the songs themselves, or has He actually given me the ability to write them?

Episode 2: "Shows." Ugh.

Hey there, thanks for tuning in! We're glad you're listening to 66.6, W-FML. We are back on the air, same bad time, same bad place...

Aah, wake up. You are NOT on the air... and you ain't gonna be any time soon.

I promised a journal, sometimes daily, sometimes not, of the life and times of a struggling musician who happens to possess the gift of Grand Delusion in proportions large enough to stand up to Objective Reality and put up a good fight. To continue pressing through with this bulls**t.

I have been booking "shows" for months. Only thing is, unless you are a musician yourself (or a TOTAL newb), you don't realize that the word "show" means that some dive bar somewhere, probably some really undesirable location on some slimy, out-of-the-way street on the Lower East Side, is going to be so courteous as to allow you to haul in your equipment and pull your hair out trying to literally drag in as many of your unwilling friends as possible. They will then extend you the grace of playing for about 30 mins, half of which is burned in setup 'cause the sound guy couldn't set a monitor right if Colombian Guerrilla warriors had machine gun barrels shoved up against his pregnant wife's stomach. But the very best part is, after every single person that YOU tirelessly prodded, begged, heck even threatened to PLEASE come see you 'cause you're a real musician now you promise, has paid $10, yes, ten whole American dollars, and THEN they ALL bought LOTS of beer, in the end netting the establishment hundreds of dollars that they never ever would have made otherwise, you get... nothing.

Nope, not a dime. Not even free beer. I do however find that last part somewhat helpful- in a very bitter and ironic kind of way- in my quest to maintain sobriety on and off stage. Even if I WANT to drink, which of course I do, I am so filled with righteous indignation at this point that I'll be damned if I give these people a minute fraction of my hard-earned cash for the cheap Barton vodka they discreetly poured into the Ketel One bottle. That's right, cheap sleazy venues. You all do it. Every last one of you. I bartended... I KNOW.

My good pal Woody, frontman, guitarist and singer/songwriter for BADA** NYC band the Ne're Do Wells (Woody, you can pay me for that plug later) and I had a discussion on this very topic just this morning. And we determined that it's all a matter of perspective. Sure, you can get pissed about it, we all do after being hoodwinked several times. The first time somebody puts you onstage, for an allotted time that is actually YOURS, you feel like you've made it. Found the Golden Ticket, broken on through to the other side, etc. You feel like you are the one privileged to be occupying the club's stage time and taking up their oxygen. Until one day, you don't. The trick is to wise up and look at it as a free public practice session. Just clench your jaw, set it in your mind that it's ok that you're not "there" yet, and grimly determine that you will be. Accept your circumstance, so that you can formulate a real game-plan to find your way out of it. Hey, like Woody said- it's cheaper than renting a studio to rehearse, and while you're up there sharpening your craft, you're getting a little bit of exposure while veeerrrryyy gradually convincing your friends that you don't suck. Or at least showing them that you suck less and less every time.

And one more thing- your friends will never be your fans. Your mom will, but don't expect anything else. Aunts, cousins, nada. In Luke 4:24, Jesus tells us that no prophet is accepted in his home town. Now- we aspiring minstrels and court jesters are neither healing the sick, casting out demons (often it's the opposite), nor sacrificing ourselves to redeem humanity. But we are attempting a particular sort of miracle. We are, in a sense, trying to transcend our own humanity. Music is a GIFT, it is an actual magical power, and anyone who has ever been reduced to tears, inspired to dance, or incited to riot by a simple invisible sound byte is without grounds for denial of that fact. But your friends and coworkers still see you as that goofy person who just wants to be something so bad that they'll try anything. I had a really hard time with this at first- in the past two and a half years that I've lived in New York, I've decided (proclaimed publicly) that I was going to do or be several different things, none of which I ever really pursued. So I already have a strong built-in contingency of people who don't take me seriously at anything and think I am full of it. Which, in a lot of cases, is a pretty accurate assessment. However, when you do find yourself just naturally sliding into that niche that is to be your home, at least prospectively, you just know it, and no amount of opposition, embarassment or lack of faith on the part of others can do anything to shake that comfort and assurance. There are lots of people to whom I will always be that f**k-up waitress from the pool hall who got drunk and stayed that way, went on really psychotic tangents about God and government, always thought I looked so cool playing really bad pool (song?), lost my temper over everything and was all-but pre-packaged, signed, stamped and destined for failure. And that's ok. It's very important to accept that this is their perception, while cultivating a different image for yourself in the eyes of strangers. Woody and I also discussed our frustrations with the fact that most of the people coming out to our shows right now are our buddies- and we're still forced to doggedly self-promote. As of right now, we don't have a "fan" base. We're not nationally or even locally renowned (well, I speak for myself here- like I said, the Ne're Do Wells are BAD-A**). We have to learn to see ourselves from the outside, almost objectifying ourselves as something of a creative project that we're trying to pitch.
And it's ok... Like I said, do not expect your friends to believe in you at first. You are going to have to prove yourself for quite sometime- I know I sure as heck am. However- if in fact your mother does not
jump on board immediately- THEN you can feel free to get discouraged.

The Musical Grind: Installment 1

One should probably never begin a piece of writing by saying, "Where should I begin," but that's where I'm at now.
I've decided that it might be an interesting exercise to keep up a blog chronicling the trials and tribulations of a new musician grinding it out in New York, trying to build from the ground up. DIY, the old-fashioned way.
So back to my opening statement, I suppose I should begin with a brief background.
The indirect inspiration for this series will henceforth be named Randall. Be forewarned that at the time of this entry I am at my pathetic, lovelorn best, and if that seems to be projected a bit too strong- don't worry, I'm not suicidal, just an artist.

Always heartbreak, right? I know, I know. But when your heart is broken, it's time to reassemble it into a new thing, and hopefully in my case said new thing shall be barely recognizable from its original format. He left me for multiple reasons, not least of which being my awful immaturity. And my descent into musical Never-Never Land only served to exacerbate every latent childish tendency within my juvenile little soul and place it flagrantly on display. You see, musicians are a funny bunch- every last one of us trying to escape something. Trying our level best to evade old-age, yet aggressively chasing the Reaper. A lot of us are just messed up people with nowhere to turn but the stage. Therefore a running theme in this saga will be my character's struggle to develop and maintain a mature, adult, functional existence while cavorting with the Lost Boys.

And so, dear reader, you are tuning in to the ramblings of a hero destroyed before the tale has even begun. But our hopes for our hero lie in her ability to take the cold iron of bitter Retribution with which she was rightfully served, and through the use of her Magical Alchemistic Powers, transform it into strong steel, which, forged in the Fiery Furnace of Suffering and Repentance, can become the sharpened two-edged Sword of Redemption that shall cut through the binding Ropes of Failure, Inadequacy and Abject Despair. And maybe someday win back the love of the Fair Randall (but our hero's gonna need some sort of a SUPER weapon for that battle, like a laser beam, 'cause it's an almost impossibly, unreasonably long shot).
Ok, so My Chemical Romance just released an awesome concept album in which they are all super anti-heroes that have special powers and laser beams and wear a lot of neon colors and belong in a 1960's science fiction movie and I just got it last night. So forgive me that last part.

Truth be told, music IS saving my life right now, super-hero style. Losing Randall is not the only heartbreak I've had recently- it was a HECK of a holiday kids, let me tell ya. He ripped my little black heart out on December 10. On December 16th, I woke up in deep mourning around 4am, jolted awake by sorrowful chest pains and emptiness. I was lying there picturing his face as if it could materialize in the black, ruminating on the sound of his breath and the warmth that should have been beside me, thinking life couldn't get any worse. Then at about 5:30am, my mother calls, frantic. "Marron I need you to pray, your dad just went into cardiac arrest." 6:15. "Marron, your dad didn't make it."

...

WTF?

And then it was my birthday.

...

My Love and my real-life super hero. Just GONE. The Bible says that the LORD will not give us more to bear than we can carry. Maybe He's finally calling me out on all the times I'd been fibbing about hitting the gym.

Without music right now, we just might find our hero falling through the cracks. Here in New York City, I have no one. To be fair, there are plenty of people who are happy to call themselves friend, and kindly offer their services as professional Listening Ears and Crying Shoulders. But none of them are Randall. And none of them are Dad. It would take too much time and too many superlative adjectives to describe my relationship with Pop. Suffice it to say he was my rock. And when he rolled away, it really left me hanging. My earthly source of wisdom and guidance are gone. Time to rely on God and Self now. And music has become my life's breath again in different ways than it has before- you see, I am not a "crier." Never have been. In fact, I'm getting a little nervous, because I haven't really cried yet at all. Little squalls here and there, but I feel like I am just waiting for the storm. That will be a rough day. Until then, music is carrying me through... lending validity to a life laid low partially by its own design. Music is the precious blood and living water that is, as we speak, reanimating my dry bones and supplying nourishment to my sunken spiritual flesh.

I am juggling two different musical projects, and they both cost time and money. As I am writing, the other guitar player in my all-female 80's metal tribute band is text messaging me and the others about costs for studio time. Yup, that's right- I play lead guitar in an all-girl Ratt tribute. And it is FUN. The girls in the band are great- nothing like what I expected before our first meeting after we found each other on Craigslist. :) (I will be attempting to refrain from using emoticons, but I believe that within the context of this segment, that one was rightfully placed.) However- my main focus is my solo act, and the band costs time and money that should MAYBE be going towards my individual efforts. But I signed up for this of my own free will, so whaddaya do?

There is an enormous difference between trying to make it happen with my own music, by myself, and what I'm doing with the girls. With the band, it's a structured thing. The ladies are all very professionally-minded, and while it's supposed to be a blast (it IS a Ratt cover-band after all), they take what we're doing veeeerrrry seriously. Which means there is absolutely no room for my usual rock star behavior (and by "rock star" I mean alcoholic, egocentric, childish, inconsiderate, selfish, irresponsible, narcissistic, reckless, oblivious, and the list keeps going) behavior. Let's not go into detail, but I SO almost got fired last week. We practice once or twice a week, shell out mad $$ for studio time, have actual musical cues, set endings, and have to be SUPER tight as a unit. It's interdependent. And even though this is my side project, I'm quickly learning that in a band, everyone has to be responsible for everyone else's sake. There ain't no I in team, kids. No, really. If only I'd reached this full awareness of that concept before I alienated and subsequently lost my Love. Some people don't understand why I joined a Ratt cover band. I don't really even LIKE Ratt (a sentiment that generally applies to anything that came out after 1987 and does not involve W. Axl Rose). But being a part of this band is teaching me discipline and responsibility. It's teaching me how to stop running and put down the scissors. It's also helping me put a halt to eating paste and sniffing glue, as my bandmates seem to actually have the audacity to expect me to show up to rehearsal bright-eyed, clear-headed, and sharp of mind. Egregious. Not only that, but Warren DeMartini is a baaaaad mother trucker on guitar, and I've gotta learn to play his parts. Not easy, but what a fantastic technical exercise as a guitar player.

As for my own stuff, well... Perhaps the reason I so enjoy the metaphor of the ship is that I SO enjoy being Captain. I have been (falsely? Who can say) accused of... megalomania. Not arrogance, big-headedness, or plain ol' big ego- MEGALOMANIA. While I find said accusation slightly humorous, I still have to take into account the implications. Maybe I AM a megalomaniac. After all, my beloved Axl Rose is THE Megalomaniac, and what with me being the next great inheritor to his almighty throne of rock 'n roll glory and power and world-dominance, well... Wow listen to me, maybe Randall was right.

Kidding. A bit. But I do love being in a position where I have full creative control, and when it comes to my material and the performance and promotion thereof, it's absolutely necessary. Not only that, but sometimes it's best for all parties involved when I am accountable to no one but me. This is the best illustration I could possibly come up with to explain the most glaring difference between playing by myself and being in a band: when I play a solo gig, I can get away with, and even recover from, getting WASTED before my show, which I didn't promote enough so none of my friends came, forgetting lyrics, slurring the ones I do remember, stopping songs halfway through, apologizing on stage in between EVERY "song" for how terrible I am, and then standing up at the end of it and... falling on my face. On stage. Drunk. In front of everybody. All strangers. In heels.

But that was then... It's time for a more professional approach, and I'm taking it. Alcohol is being systematically removed from all of my activities, one by one. It's not easy, because like music, drinking is something I have always crutched myself on to mask my insecurities instead of facing them head on. Like if I don't see them, they're not there. I have a problem. But when Randall left me (the man impacted my entire existence, I am TELLING you), it was the slap in the face I needed. My drinking and bad behavior had never cost me anything obvious before, never cost me anything I LOVED. Before my dad died, the last conversation we had was about this particular subject. Actually I was crying to him about Randall and the fact that I was not doing ok. I was seeking reinforcement, which I never got, that people forgive and that I could recover and Randall could love me again. Which was childish and unrealistic, but my efforts facilitated the fateful conversation in which my dad FINALLY got through to me. I'll NEVER forget... "Mick [my pet name- derisive slang for Irish immigrants, i.e. "You filthy Mick"], you CAN'T drink. You need to just WALK AWAY, not even ONE. Just WALK AWAY, I did."
And if my dad, the man who kept Crown Royal in business all through his twenties and thirties, was able to do it- I could too. I am his daughter, and he will be proud.

Let's backtrack a little- I'm doing the Pulp Fiction thing and recounting history out of order. I picked up the guitar when I was 12, fiddled with it all through high school, but had neither the confidence or the outside encouragement to take it anywhere. Playing guitar was just something I did, it wasn't a PART of me like it is now. And there were times when I let it go. This is not the forum to recount every dramatic season in my life, but suffice it to say there were a few in which the daily task of basic survival took precedence over any potential artistic undertakings and guitar fell by the wayside. Such as the United States Army, several trips back and forth around the country on a Greyhound Bus, and a crazy, abusive drug-addled relationship with a boy who for the life of him just WOULD not stay out of jail (however I don't want to put this out there as a slam, in case he reads this, as we are still friendly- no Cody, you are not relegated to an awful footnote in my story).

The first time music really saved me was when John broke my soul. I sat high in my $8,000/mo. Wall Street penthouse tower (again folks, another story for another over-extended web rant), composing rhapsodies of utter despair and solitary heartache, and was purified by singing in the flames. Now, it's happening again. This time, the cross is the circumstances which are forcing me to carry on life without Randall and without my Dad, and my Simon would be my black Epiphone Les Paul. Not that I'm comparing myself to LORD Jesus... look, there's that megalo- thingy again. Anyways, when Randall and I met, I was still just dabbling. Pretending, even. Using my ability to sing and play the instrument as a scaffold to fortify my crumbling self-perception, I still wasn't really... DOING it. Randall didn't take my music seriously, and neither did anyone else. But I wrote and I practiced, and then I wrote and I practiced some more. And it pulled me through.

Ever so very slightly over a year ago, several months into dating Randall and already starting to feel like I was losing him, I worked up the guts to play my first open microphone night. He didn't go. I'm so glad, because I might have never gone back. It was absolutely terrifying. I knew I could sing, I knew I could play, I knew I could do both at the same time- but could I do these things in front of people? And more importantly, would the people tolerate me doing these things in front of them? Well, I tried. And failed absolutely miserably, I was so nervous. But I kept going back, I kept trying harder and doing better. I never quit, even after the bad nights. After everyone I knew looked at me and said, "Yeah ok, kid. Good luck." Even- no, especially- Randall. After a time I started to develop a sense that this is what I was meant to do. Here we are a year later and I have no less than four gigs lined up over the next 5 weeks. Hard work really does pay off...

Every day there is something to do. I have been told, and this has been confirmed by multiple sources, that if one has any aspirations of sustaining a level of functionality in their field of choice (particularly the creative world), one must put ALL of their energy into it. The phrase "You have to eat, drink, and sleep [music, football, creative writing, underwater basket-weaving, etc.]" is a commonly abused one, but it's accurate. In other words, if you have ten seconds of extra time in your day, you had best find some use for it that pertains to reaching your goal. Sometimes said activity's intended effect is more indirect than not, but even if you THINK it's a waste of time, from some angle somewhere it probably isn't.

Like tonight... all I want to do after work (I totally have a 9 to 5, by the way) is GO. HOME. Eat, read, play guitar, relax. But instead, I am going to make a pilgrimage to that Unholy Mecca of Music... the grand NEXUS of Good and Evil... that gorgeously contradictory intersection where all-encompassing, soul-sucking corporate depravity collides like cold fusion with the most vast cornucopia of creative resources this side of... well, the SUN-

Guitar Center.

And to Guitar Center I must go, for two reasons. One, I've got to fix a busted pickup in my electric guitar, which I could probably get away with, IF I wasn't in a band. Two, my completely crazy-yet-VERY-gifted dearest buddy Justin needs help picking out a piano, which, if we ever do start playing as a unit like we've talked about (musicians really like to TALK about collaborating), I might find myself stuck using. Actually I totally plan on being "stuck" using it, because I think J-Freddy and myself might really make a decent musical team in functional reality.
Not only that, but any free time spent with fellow musicians counts as "networking." Justin and I attend each others' shows, bring friends, critique performances, salvage each others' shows entirely (like last week when he got two lines into "Sympathy For the Devil", realized he didn't know the lyrics and had to bring me on stage. Which made it all REALLY great, because I myself totally Googled the lyrics on my outdated iPhone and held them right up to my face. And sang. Gazing into my iPhone), and the like. See, ten seconds of free time, and when music calls- in ANY capacity, be it directly involved with you or be it a peripheral detail that may end up having some effect on your own endeavors- you'd better freakin' answer.