Number 3 my friends.
What ever shall I rant or praise this time. Perhaps I should just keep this as a weekly installment of my weekly experiences. I don't want to always rant and sound like some aging bastard, or do I? Or do I want to invoke my self created optimism. That brighter side, that notion of this life on the uphill battle to a better stature. Or should I start developing my ideas on mortality, and how this all ends in death and what are we doing with it now, it being life, obviously, or not so obvious to some. What are we doing with it now?
I can tell you that I made a venture to Austin Texas this weekend. My hometown, the place where I grew up. Not the place I was born, but the place I grew up. The town I learned my lessons in. The city that primarily made me who I am today. It developed my mindsets, my attitude, my dreams. It built my manners and sometimes lack there of. It is the town where I made lifelong friends. It is also the town I ran away from as soon as I fancied the notion.
I love Austin. I will never say anything different. There is so much to love about it. All anybody has to do to understand that, is visit it. There is actually something for everyone there, everyone of any mindset, of any hobby, of any culture, creed, sexual preference. Any, and everyone can and will find something they like about Austin Texas. I challenge them not to find one thing.
All praise aside, I cannot currently reside there. It seems weird. It seems weird to some. I have a slew of friends in Austin. I have friends that I see every time I visit, some that I see most times I visit, and some that talk of seeing me every time I visit, but never have. In fact I have visited Austin from other new homes more than some of my Austin friends have ever left there hometown. I have been going back to visit once or twice a year for over 7 years. In that time I have seen less than 5 (give or take the accuracy on that number) Austin friends in other areas of the country. I won't worry on that point too much. I am sure various people have various reasons, and it isn't fair to talk badly to any points I don't have intimate knowledge with. It just seems odd to me, and I'll leave it at that. Maybe it isn't odd. Maybe lots of people don't leave their homes. I just can't really understand why. There is so much world out there.
The sad part is, I am always excited to visit. I can never wait to get there and hangout with people. Almost every time I leave saddened. I leave saddened by the people I didn't see, saddened by the people that didn't make an effort. Saddened by the folks that couldn't fit it in their schedule. My sadness could very well be self-fish though. I mean, lives go on. People have events happen, some of them, life changing, and if you are not around, you are not part of them. When you are not part of major events in friends lives, you become less a part of their life, you become less relevant. You become someone they use to know, back in the day. I'm sure that is the way it is for most of us. We all have a number of friends we have had over the years, friends that we would talk to if we saw, friends that we hold in dear regards, but not the friends we call when the shit goes down.
I suppose some of this is my self imposed illusion. Every time I go back to Austin it seems the same. It seems like the same town it was that I grew up in, even people seem the same. That just can't be true though. It isn't the same. The people are not the same. We have all grown. Together, or apart, we have all grown. Life has happened. Times have changed. Even when some instances seem nostalgic, they are never the same.
I guess that I try to stay connected, at least I feel like I try. Perhaps I am kidding myself in both the possibility and the actuality of that. I will have to become more smart in that regard. I do plan on continuing to change my life and surroundings. It is just the person I started to become years ago. I enjoy being that way, it has helped to make me who I am today. I cannot expect my past to want to keep up with me as much as I'd like to keep up with it. Such is life, I suppose. That's what some say, isn't it? With a wider eye, I'll keep walking, and while I am mostly open to the doors of days gone by, I can never expect them to still be open to me. There is nothing wrong or hurtful in that, it's just the way this circle spins.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Number 2
Okay. Number 2, as in poopy. I mean, that's basically what a blog is. Random nonsense. I write whatever I think, you read it, disagree, agree, waste time, purpose served. It's silliness and I am not sure exactly why I started. I think it makes me feel productive. I think it's suppose to help me connect with an audience. However, I am not sure that I believe either of those things. What exactly is creative about writing random thoughts? How is typing those thoughts and posting them on the internet connecting? All of that is beside the point I suppose. I'm doing it. I'm writing, you're reading, so here we are.
I have had an equally interesting and eventful week. It was as interesting and eventful as it wasn't. Obviously this needs explaining. I'll start with the good bits. My birthday was this past Sunday. I feel no need to tell you my age, but let's just say I have been around a few blocks more than a few times. It was a wonderful day. I drank. After I drank I changed locations and drank some more. This continued for the entire day. Needless to say I had fun. I challenge anyone to not have fun during a day where all you primarily do is drink. I ate and drank and ate and drank. I had cocktails for breakfast, beer during my phone conversations with family, cocktails in the early evening, a bottle of wine with dinner and beer and shots for desert. It was a nice jolly day. This is who I have turned into. I don't completely agree with myself becoming this way, but when my job became serving people alcohol, I started to consume more. I also garnered a healthy tolerance, so I can do things like drink all day and function. This isn't the best way to be, but people do worse as much as they do better. Besides, I'm not admitting to being an alcoholic, I'm saying it was my birthday and I drank a ton. The majority of friends I have do the same, birthday or not. I personally save the binge for special occasions.
Next.
I played a show in Atlanta this past week. It was one of the worst formulated shows I have ever played in my 10+ years of performance. I played in a venue that not only didn't promote our show, but in one that keep us (me and my fellow performer) hidden from any potential audience we could have had. Question; you own a club. You have musicians come to you're club with the intention of entertaining. You easily have 100 to 200 folks wondering about your establishment. What do you think you would do with the performance? Let people know it was there? Invite folks in? Understanding that the acts drove 4 hours to be there, wouldn't you want to make it worth the trip? Wouldn't you want something good to come from even bothering with that? Or would you hide the performers in a little room and keep the doors closed so any wondering patrons would assume an employee of the bar was having a practice session? If you answered the later, open a bar/venue in Atlanta. Open a bar and then take road shows that you will conceal. Seriously, this show was one of the biggest wastes of time I have ever had the pleasure to waste time on. Nobody won on this, and there was nothing I could have done differently.
Now I have to wonder. What comes next? How long do I put myself out there to be ignored and abused. The answer has always been for as long as it takes. That was before the answer was taking too long. It has gotten to the point where sometimes I don't even enjoy music. I don't really listen to it as much as I use to. It has become background, atmosphere, a silence killer. My ears have been bombed with senseless emotionless crap that fills the airwaves. Party music that fuels peoples soulless frenzies, music that is forgotten 6 months later. That goes for music across the board. Mindless rap is just as numbing as apathetic indie rock. People are making music for dollars, but not for the sense of quality, of being timeless. Songs that can touch this generation as much as the next aren't being pushed out there. I have no doubt they are being written and performed, but they are rarely becoming part of the culture anymore. Somewhere along the line having a heart became uncool, while constantly singing about getting your freak on with horrible if not completely absent metaphors became accepted and common.
What happened to us? Who are we? Why is music becoming candy that we shove down, forget about, shit out and get fat on?
Number 2.
I have had an equally interesting and eventful week. It was as interesting and eventful as it wasn't. Obviously this needs explaining. I'll start with the good bits. My birthday was this past Sunday. I feel no need to tell you my age, but let's just say I have been around a few blocks more than a few times. It was a wonderful day. I drank. After I drank I changed locations and drank some more. This continued for the entire day. Needless to say I had fun. I challenge anyone to not have fun during a day where all you primarily do is drink. I ate and drank and ate and drank. I had cocktails for breakfast, beer during my phone conversations with family, cocktails in the early evening, a bottle of wine with dinner and beer and shots for desert. It was a nice jolly day. This is who I have turned into. I don't completely agree with myself becoming this way, but when my job became serving people alcohol, I started to consume more. I also garnered a healthy tolerance, so I can do things like drink all day and function. This isn't the best way to be, but people do worse as much as they do better. Besides, I'm not admitting to being an alcoholic, I'm saying it was my birthday and I drank a ton. The majority of friends I have do the same, birthday or not. I personally save the binge for special occasions.
Next.
I played a show in Atlanta this past week. It was one of the worst formulated shows I have ever played in my 10+ years of performance. I played in a venue that not only didn't promote our show, but in one that keep us (me and my fellow performer) hidden from any potential audience we could have had. Question; you own a club. You have musicians come to you're club with the intention of entertaining. You easily have 100 to 200 folks wondering about your establishment. What do you think you would do with the performance? Let people know it was there? Invite folks in? Understanding that the acts drove 4 hours to be there, wouldn't you want to make it worth the trip? Wouldn't you want something good to come from even bothering with that? Or would you hide the performers in a little room and keep the doors closed so any wondering patrons would assume an employee of the bar was having a practice session? If you answered the later, open a bar/venue in Atlanta. Open a bar and then take road shows that you will conceal. Seriously, this show was one of the biggest wastes of time I have ever had the pleasure to waste time on. Nobody won on this, and there was nothing I could have done differently.
Now I have to wonder. What comes next? How long do I put myself out there to be ignored and abused. The answer has always been for as long as it takes. That was before the answer was taking too long. It has gotten to the point where sometimes I don't even enjoy music. I don't really listen to it as much as I use to. It has become background, atmosphere, a silence killer. My ears have been bombed with senseless emotionless crap that fills the airwaves. Party music that fuels peoples soulless frenzies, music that is forgotten 6 months later. That goes for music across the board. Mindless rap is just as numbing as apathetic indie rock. People are making music for dollars, but not for the sense of quality, of being timeless. Songs that can touch this generation as much as the next aren't being pushed out there. I have no doubt they are being written and performed, but they are rarely becoming part of the culture anymore. Somewhere along the line having a heart became uncool, while constantly singing about getting your freak on with horrible if not completely absent metaphors became accepted and common.
What happened to us? Who are we? Why is music becoming candy that we shove down, forget about, shit out and get fat on?
Number 2.
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