Episode 6: "Holler FREEBIRD again, I DARE you!!!!"

Standing in the subway station, I see an advertisement for the movie Hall Pass, and I think I'm beginning to understand why Owen Wilson attempted suicide... he glimpsed his future. There he is, forever frozen with that moronic expression on his face, in a dumb Hawaiian shirt, and the guys standing behind him are two of the most boring-looking actors I've never seen. And we are able to determine through inductive reasoning, based on not only the marketing methods being utilized to promote this particular golden nugget of American cinema, but also upon studious observations of Owen Wilson's previous body of work, that this film is absolute garbage. Trash. Refuse. Predictable buddy-plot, contrived laughs, one-dimensional character has trite moral self-reconciliation towards the end. And gets (or keeps) the Hot Chick (usually either Jennifer Aniston, or some girl who we will see next year in Scary Movie 9, and after that never again).
Across the track, there's Matt Damon's gaze-of-steel piercing me from the 2-D confines of the poster for intellectual thriller The Adjustment Bureau, which he and his cool black suit share with the stunning British ingenue Emily Blunt. If Damon's professional track-record is an indicator, we already know that Adjustment Bureau is gonna kickass. I mean, dude's films just keep getting better and better. Should Matt Damon ever attempt suicide, we can be certain that it will not have anything to do with his career.
In this scenario, Damon gets to be "that guy." Poor Owen Wilson. Starring in yet another asinine Hollywood comedy. If only you'd chosen acting over film stardom, this never would have happened.
Now I haven't met Owen Wilson personally. There's no way I can possibly know anything about his personal character, or how it's driven his career boat into such shallow and choppy commercial waters. What I do know, or am slowly beginning to realize, is that as creative people, we have choices to make. Big ones. We have the power of the Grand Veto... we declare "yea" or "nay" over any project that comes our way. We are literally the captains of our own ships, and we steer heavy-handed in the direction towards which we are most inclined. We forsake our horses, and boldly sail the dark turquoise waters towards a golden windmill horizon.
Who are you? And what are you after? Why are you doing this, what is your motivation? I believe we can learn a lesson from our friends Mr. Wilson and Mr. Damon here. You can pursue notoriety, or you can pursue excellence. You can pursue both- but the excellence must come first, and the notoriety may (or may not) be in shorter supply because of that choice.
I am totally facing that dilemma right now. This whole artist's integrity thing is getting me nowhere. People can be all like, Hey, I really like your songs, man, all they want, but their intention to look you up again and seek out another one of your shows lasts about until the end of whatever drink they're holding at that moment. Cut that in half if they're past their fourth (third is actually a pretty good number to hit 'em on- they're all amped and buzzy and loving everything, but not in deep enough for the alcohol's mind-eraser properties to kick in just yet).
No, people want covers. *sigh. Of course they do. Never mind that I've spent years of my life being continually pierced through by a whole quiver of emotional arrows, only to gruelingly extract the points from my chest (via my head, similar to the way ancient Egyptian embalmers might extract organs via the nasal cavity of a corpse) and surgically piece them back together outside of myself in the form of a "song" just so. Never mind that. You want "Simple Man?" Ok. I will Google the lyrics the day of my show, download the track off iTunes, run through it twice at home, and then get up on stage and kill it. All in one day. You will hoot and holler and cheer your asses off, raise your glass and sing along, and then as soon as I conclude my next original piece, you will give me a distracted applause over your shoulder while you make convenient use of this interval between Skynrd and Danzig to order more beer. Because my music sounds better when you're drinking. Acoustic set? Let's add some percussion- how bout rhythmic guzzling and glasses hitting the bar!
I cannot tell a lie, it absolutely hurts when people go crazy for the covers, and barely react to the pieces I've worked so hard on. But there's nothing I can do. I can't get angry, I can't blame people for being moved by what's familiar. Those songs are timeless classics for a reason. It can take time for a new piece of music to really imprint itself on someone's brain- gotta let it grow on people. But that's not an easy thing to wait for, and I find that the only thing "growing" is my impatience. So that puts one at a crossroads. What am I going for here? How important is it to me to get my music to people? Is it about getting the songs I write out there, or is it about receiving that instant gratification from the crowd? Is this blog just a self-serving forum to keep asking as many stupid rhetorical questions as I want without ever having to think about the answers? This really seems to boil down to a choice between taking the Wilson Road, and taking the Damon Road.
I guess the only answer here is persistence, and full acceptance of the understanding that I did indeed come here to get hurt. Broken. So I can build back up into something better. Always look the ugliest parts of yourself right in the face and fight them. Don't be afraid. I am a masochist, but one with a purpose. I am a glutton for self-punishment- mainly because I have an addiction to continually transcending the layers of myself that constitute the failure of a human that I perceive in the mirror. I didn't show up to my first open mic with the expectation that anyone was going to enjoy my nervous drunken caterwauling. Didn't walk in with my head held high, planning to perform and get a positive reaction with lots of compliments and adulation. Nope. I am an onion. I am constructed of layers. Deep down at my core, I have such a rock-solid confidence in my abilities as a musician that it almost borders on hubris. I love my voice, I love my ear, I love my songs. And I love these things more than I love almost everyone else's. I believe that the gift of music is the One Thing above all that I have really been given by God to utilize fully. That being said, I look at myself as having a crippling inability to DO anything. I have seen myself as a loser my entire life, for various reasons. It's part of the reason why I'm a drunk- when I self-medicate, it's very easy for me to forget all of those feelings. (Am I being too honest here?) So I guess for me, my "motivation" to be a musical performer comes from two places- incredibly, unbelievably overblown ego and a distorted perception of my own talent as practically transcendent, and a gi-normous inferiority-complex sandwich stuffed between two thick, fluffy slices of self-loathing. In other words- I look at my Self, independently of my music, as a complete degenerate who is entirely incompetent at life. But my LOVE and devotion to my musical ability- the only piece of myself that I perceive from beginning to end as NOT being a let-down- leaves me no choice but to continually soldier through these insecurities and prove them WRONG. I have to fight through my self-hatred so that I can get my music out there, and it really hurts. I've developed a numbness, I think. I'm starting to be able to project pain onstage, while hiding behind dry humour. I breathe heavy and my voice becomes ragged during some of my songs. I beat on my guitar like a drum. I LET IT OUT. It's getting to the point where there is no longer that dead space around me when I play- my emotions are beginning to cut through the notes and syllables, my pieces are being fleshed out as I become a real human within their walls.
The more I push through and play MY songs, I think, the more people are starting to hear them. Some of my friends are even able to quote lyric lines here and there. I have a loooong way to go before the first time anyone drives down the highway singing along to my tunes, cries to them at night, or puts one on a mix tape for a friend. But every time I play I get closer to the reality that it might happen. It might not- but I've already made the decision to pursue creative credibility rather than ensure that somebody someday rocks out to my empty product.
I'm not taking the Wilson road. I can knock out some covers buddy, let me tell ya. People clap for 'em, they does. I get tons of compliments all the time on this version of so and so, and told that I should really go for this one, and blah blah blah. It would be pretty easy for me to just develop a rock-solid cover set, go get a Tuesday night residency at a nice lounge, make some steady $$. And let the applause keep rolling in. Just like it was easy for Owen Wilson to make quick money and cheap laughs by doing jackass comedies.
Instead, I plan on continuing to play tiny bars and heckling my buddies to come support me, because that's the only crowd I can draw with originals right now. But I believe in what I write... I BELIEVE in it. I do not believe in mySELF. But I believe in my songs, my voice and my playing. And I BELIEVE that eventually, by playing the same songs over and over again, that they will indeed become "imprinted," if you will, on the psychological walls of the people who hear them. They will develop gradually in the minds of the listeners, like a slow-growing Anise garden. I am young and still idealistic enough to possess this kind of innocent faith, which will probably serve me ill in the long run when I find myself at 34 years old answering the phone with, "Anonymous Financial..."
But it's better than being on the subway poster for Hall Pass.