Sometimes you get a really silly idea. Then you go to execute that idea and it’s way harder and more involved than you thought, but you’re committed and make it happen. I commit to my absurdity. Music written by Foreigner (Jukebox Hero).
I feel like things that I learned during my younger years are more “sticky.” Songs I haven’t played in 30 years will come right back while on the other hand stuff I’ve learned more recently I have to refresh far more often if I want to remember it.
From the moment this song came out, I loved this band, the guitarist, Vito Bratta, and specifically this song and this solo. It was another major landmark in my guitar journey. Much to my surprise, when I decided on a whim to play this tonight, it took no refreshing. A few passes through it and it was right there, still permanently stored in the mental archives.
For a long time now I’ve battled with the dichotomy of my chosen careers, specifically the acting world. Acting is one of the things that fulfills me like little else. I feel completely in my element, satiated on the deepest spiritual level, and like it is one of my prime purposes for existence. I can’t imagine ever being completely happy without it in my life.
And yet, the reality is that it also causes me great unhappiness for what may be a majority of the time. It fairly constantly makes me feel “not enough,” “not as good as,” and makes me wonder what is wrong with me that I can’t see that keeps people from loving me more.
Luckily, I am a very self-aware person who has traveled far on my perpetual spiritual journey, and I know that those feelings are all ego-based. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I have a solution or am able to not feel them. Every day I have the internal argument of thinking that if something causes that much internal strife, then maybe it’s something you should remove from your life, and yet I just can’t imagine doing that and being even remotely happy. It’s a quandary.
So I just try to take my own advice of “Keep your head down and do good work,” and continue working on myself, being present, letting go of ego, and just trying to better tomorrow than I am today. It’s just strange that something can feel so a part of me, so necessary to feed my soul, and yet make me so happy and unhappy simultaneously. She’s a strange mistress, the muse.
Vox Populi, The fun power pop cover trio I formed with David Houston and Matt Patterson put out our latest quarantine cover collaboration, “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” by The Rubinoos. A really fun, boppy, tasty power pop treat!
In this dream I had secured a dream of a gig for me (no pun intended). I was going to play guitar for Butch Walker, one of my biggest musical influences and inspirations, for a gig. We had convened for a couple of rehearsals at his rehearsal space, and on the second (and last) day of rehearsals, I thought a couple of my guitars might be missing. In this dream logic, I couldn’t quite be sure because there were so many guitars hanging from racks, that going through them was like going through lots of tightly packed shirts in a closet, so I wasn’t positive that my guitars were missing, but I was pretty sure.
Continue reading…A long time ago, there was someone who decided it was best for us to cut all contact. Since that time, we have been in contact a handful of times, but always regarding a specific logistical detail or such and always initiated by them. In my mind, I was like a vampire who had been “Uninvited.” I recently had need to get some details from them and even though I knew they would be fine with that, at first I refused to contact them. Because I felt it was “against the rule” that they set forth so long ago and that has not explicitly been rescinded. Eventually, I decided to contact them anyway as I knew they would understand. I kept it very formal, neutral and simply asked for the information I needed. They responded, equally neutrally and formally with the relevant information.
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I just learned from my ex’s brother that Kaylee, the dog that I shared while I was together with my ex, Elly, had to be euthanized about a month ago. I still vividly remember the first time I ever met Kaylee. Before Elly and I were dating, I went to pick her up from her house so she could help me with some back up vocals on a song and was greeted with Kaylee’s boundless, puppy-like love and enthusiasm, which I would learn over time was one of her signature traits. After Elly and I started dating, since I was a freelancer and therefore home a lot more than Elly, Kaylee and I really bonded. I can still see her signature butt waggle whenever one or both of us would get home. Whenever I would walk Kaylee past the Starbucks by our place, she would always pull toward it, thinking that Elly would be coming out of the door since she often stopped there when all 3 of us walked together.
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Today thoughts of Raegan D’Ann Hunt drifted in to my head, as they occasionally have for the last 25 years or so. I have had the incredible luck and pleasure of dating some magnificently amazing women, and she was one of them for a couple of years (I think) in the mid-nineties. I say “I think” because it’s strange how my memory fades and becomes altered and corrupted over time and often I actually can’t remember exactly how long I dated someone, exactly how it ended, or other such details.
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I’ll never understand the human tendency to purposefully poke our own emotional sore spots. I definitely do it a lot and it fascinates me. It goes against my strongest core beliefs (being present) and yet I willfully choose to spend so much time walking like a ghost through my own past. I often wonder if it’s just because those like me love to *feel*. The stronger, more powerfully and passionately the better. I am so incredibly self-aware and yet still so often an enigma even to myself.
In this dream I was feeling anxious. You see, for some reason I and a fictional dream woman named Misty had agreed to marry each other even though we’d never met. We had lots of mutual friends in the music scene and she too was a singer and musician. Justifiably, I was now having extreme second thoughts about this. I’m not even sure why we had made this agreement and I’m not sure that dream me was clear on that either. It wasn’t an immigration thing, I know that much. I was trying to be optimistic and thought “Well some people go into ‘arranged marriages’ so maybe this will turn out okay.” I had seen pictures of her on Facebook and knew that I found her at least moderately attractive, and maybe we could play music and sing together or form a duo or something. Never the less, to quote many a Star Wars character, I had a bad feeling about this. Why had we agreed to this? It couldn’t possibly be a good idea to marry someone you had never met.
And that was it really. The dream had no resolution. Like a show canceled without a finale.