Tag Archives: musicians

Oaklandia

“Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well. To what do I owe the extreme pleasure of this surprising visit?” -Alex/A Clockwork Orange

There are so many topics to write about here. Collaboration. Anxiety. Taking on a plethora of music projects. Learning to work with other artists on a daily basis. I’m sure I will cover all of these topics in the upcoming weeks. I took a hiatus from the last posted entry on April 8, due to suddenly being consumed with activities music and writing related.

My life isn’t much different from the other musicians I am surrounded by in Oakland. Most of us are in two or more bands. Most of us have a calendar clogged with work and shows and practices. Most of us spend a significant portion of our time crammed into tiny practice spaces.

Yesterday, I was chilling in the sun out on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland with a bunch of peers, all of who are musicians. Our conversation was like an episode of Portlandia.

“Soft Cell only has one good song. Tainted Love.”
“What? Soft Cell has the best lyrics ever! Tainted Love is their worst song!”

“Have you heard of The Monks?”
“Yea, I introduced them to you, remember?”
“I thought that was your roommate who introduced them to me.”
“No! He’s always stealing my musical taste and pawning it off as his own.”

“There’s a point where you just get oversaturated with Depeche Mode.”
“What? There’s no such thing as too much Depeche Mode!”

“All I listen to is Krautrock.”
“Krautrock! I love Can!”
“I like Ammon Duul and Neu!”
“I’m into proto-kraut. Haha, just kidding, does such a thing exist?”

***
It’s ironic that a few years ago I was begging to be surrounded by artists and musicians, back in an urban hub. Now that I am, I’m grateful, but also kind of inured to the over abundance of artists I am surrounded by. Add to that the fact that most of us are sensitive and neurotic and slightly psycho and you’ve got a basket full of booby traps at times.

I wouldn’t go back to where I was a year ago for the world. Sometimes, I get down. Focusing so much on music and art and work makes me feel like I might be missing out on something, like family or relationships or love. But…I don’t know. It’s good to be free.

I’ve been practicing with one of my bands, the Krautrock-influenced experimental band, for an upcoming show at the Oakland Metro. Sometimes, our practices feel like Real World: Band Practice, especially when we were trying to determine who the core players in the band were, and had different musicians at every practice. But…I’m sure that’s true of most band practices. Most bands never get off the ground due to not having enough players or personality conflicts. Artistic people tend to be a bit odd. It’s not just a cliche. Sometimes the most creative and interesting people are just…weird. OK, most of the time. Myself included. I know I’m totally sensitive and psychotic and weird and over intelligent and every other thing you can pin on a musician/writer nutcase who came from a musician/artist nutcase family.

So there you go. Busy. Still trying to find the meaning of life, balance frugal living with working on art, doing music constantly and working a day job to fund it. Balking at the dynamics of single people in my age group–ugh. Insanity anyone? Modern life is just wack.

So what is the meaning of life? What you make of it, I suppose. And the only thing I’ve found to assuage my existential angst and anxiety so far is music. The more projects I’m involved in, the more projects I get asked to be involved in. The more I play out, the more musicians I meet and more I am asked to play out. So. All is well. Pretty much.

What’s Next?

A writing group serendipitously sprung up on Facebook the other day. It includes a few of my writer friends, each from a different strata of a past or current life. A friend from childhood whom I met when I was 11 years old in the church parking lot when we both were ditching church. A friend I met at age 19 when I was obsessed, in a musician envy sort of way, with the band her boyfriend was creator of. A writer dude who used to be in a cult-popular local punk band and lived on my street briefly before moving away. A dude who reads in the same literary circles I read in and is friends with a number of mutual friends: writers and punks and musicians. A Russian friend who is a total female rock star writer blowing up the literary scene in the Bay Area. A friend who I met when we read at Lip Service West together, and who I often bump into while loitering at an Oakland coffee shop seemingly everyone we know either hangs out at or works at.

The group started when one of these friends tagged me in one of those posts where you tag a number of people, you know, those posts you usually ignore. The game was that you had to look on page 7 of your manuscript and transcribe 7 sentences to post on Facebook, and then tag 7 other writers.

I was bored, and sick, so I pored through a bunch of my crappy writing to find a story that was actually seven pages long. I had to go back to my early twenties, when I was going to San Francisco State and studying Creative Writing. I tagged some of my writer friends, and the thread became super entertaining as they all posted excerpts of random stories that were either tragic or hilarious in a disturbing way. Then one of my friends said the thread, which got to over 90 comments long, was making her want to start a writing group.

So we did.

I went off about the ebils of Facebook a few weeks ago. I had decided to disconnect from it for a while, went all crazy on it in my rants. It helped. A couple of guy friends asked me if I had deleted it because of some dude. Wouldn’t they like to know.

Anyhow, I got a necessary pause and when I came back to it, I learned to let go of the outcome, to use it like a tool. I now observe everyone’s awesomeness without getting caught up so much in comparison and envy. I have given up (mostly) on expectations of any specific result from others, instead focusing on what is cool about it for me. If I share things with people without making it too personal, writer and musician discussions abound. Connecting to friends of friends, learning more about family, finding awesome music and bands…the pros outweigh the cons for me right now. Who gives a who who thinks what about who.

My whole philosophy on this upcoming year is, instead of trying to find out the purpose of MY WHOLE LIFE, to ask myself, “What’s next?”

I was talking to a musician who had just gotten back from tour. She was floundering a bit, because the tour had been her goal forever and now it was over. “I don’t know what to do with my life!” She said.

“What’s next?” I asked her. Baby steps.

Instead of comparing myself to others seemingly further along the path than me, the myriad of friends I have who are currently touring or have multiple books published, instead of letting the green-eyed monster consume me…just bloody DO something already. Take action. Don’t stew. Move along. There’s no time to be jealous unless it propels me along on my path, spurs me to action. If I want something I feel I can’t have, what can I do to obtain that thing, if it’s possible for me to obtain? Can I at least try?

There is no room anymore for being grouchy or sulking, playing a victim or blaming anyone else for my success or failure. There is only room for growth.

So…

What’s next?

write

The Universe Makes Plans Behind Our Backs

I was talking with a musician friend who is helping me record some songs for a project yesterday, in between recording tracks. He told me the best advice he got, ever, was to not give up.

The musician was lamenting the fact that he and his band were about to put out a 7” LP when his car got stolen, two of his band mates got evicted, one got fired and he lost a bunch of shifts at work due to lack of car, setting them back a few months on their project.

“Sometimes the universe really fucks with musicians,” I said. “It’s like it doesn’t want us to succeed. Everything falls apart all at once.”

“It tests us to see if we’re really committed,” he said, and I nodded. Then he told me he had learned to never give up, because if you give up, you’ve already lost, and most people do give up. If you don’t give up, you’re already farther along than all of the people who do. I told him I’d had a similar sentiment recently, where I recommitted to myself to never give up. If four musicians don’t work out, try 100. I have to be that determined.

Every step of this process I’ve been in for the past two years, which is simply working to record a good demo of my songs, something I would want to listen to, so that I can show it to other musicians and collaborate on forming a band, I’ve learned something. There’s no good or bad in the bands I’ve tried out for that didn’t work out, the friends I’ve worked with on projects I’ve put on hold because I had other ideas, the musicians I’ve met up and jammed with (and it’s been a slew) in the past year who ended up drifting off due to me or them not feeling it.

I used to take that shit so personally, when things didn’t work out, but now I think about it and go, “There will be other different opportunities.”

The universe watches out for us, and it hell of tests us to make sure we are willing to go to any lengths to achieve our goals. It was so easy for me when I was twenty to just give up and decide no one GOT me, oh, I’m so sad and it’s just tragic and I’m going to play guitar in my closet from now on.

This time, I’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Sure, I’ve had my times of wanting to give up, and I’ve been jealous, comparing myself to others, but usually I’m comparing skills I haven’t even worked on.

It’s not right for me to be jealous of someone who has practiced piano their whole life and is amazing at it (like my father) when I’ve not practiced piano consistently for years. We all can’t be good at EVERYTHING, and you have to prioritize what really matters to you. To me, I have a killer voice, and I love to sing and write lyrics and play rhythm guitar, so that is what I have focused on for the past number of years.

I always beat myself up for not being an amazing lead guitarist, drummer and pianist as well as a rhythm guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist, but then I realize that a lot of people can’t even play guitar and sing at the same time. We take for granted our gifts, always comparing, always looking at other people’s highlight reels when they’re got a million behind-the-scenes failures and challenges we will never learn about because they don’t really want to remember it.

I met the musician dude I’m working on some songs with right now randomly one day when I was bummed a potential collaboration didn’t work out. I was sitting outside my friend’s house talking about wanting to give up on music, it’s too hard, waah. Then I heard this amazing doom metal music coming out of a house across the street.

“Who is that?” I asked her.

“Oh, that’s my neighbor! He records bands in his house. Want to meet him?” She introduced me and I asked if he would help me record some songs and he said yes and here were are. I had a great day working on songs, he played drums for me and got some good, dark, dissonant rough recordings down. And then the doom metal musicians, all guys in their early twenties, came in to rehearse and complimented my vocals as I complimented their drumming, guitar playing and shredding styles, and I realized, “Wow. I’m in a room full of talented musicians.”

It made me feel grateful.

Universe is trippy. While I’m over here searching for what I think is best and craving the people who I want to pick from the limited pool of people and experiences I’m aware of, the universe is over there procuring an even better scenario, probably laughing at me a bit for tripping out so much that the people and ideas I want to work with aren’t working out, chuckling to itself as I get all emo and sullen trying to fit myself into a doorway that is too small, dunking myself in a tiny kiddie pool when there’s an entire ocean of possibility out there.

It’s all about trust, and it’s hard to trust a force you don’t know personally but can feel sometimes when the stars and planets align or whatever random thing controls where destiny meets hard work. But when you’re tapped in, BOOM. If you pay attention—and paying attention is the key–all of a sudden people and things come into your life you never could have imagined for yourself. All your best laid plans and desires didn’t even compare. Usually, for whatever reason, this only happens after a long test of patience, some darkness and many failed attempts.

Music and Drugs

*This post actually made a musician not want to work with me. Go figure. I’m an opinionated gal. But…to be honest, I have lots of good pals who use substances and do just fine with their music, this is just a typical stifled artist blog rant, so take it with a grain of salt, will ya kids? I am not officially straight-edge, nor am I a believer in 12-step programs, though I have many friends who are. I am simply a girl who decided years ago to not drink or use drugs because they had given me harsh consequences. If that threatens you, I don’t know what to say. To each their own. I’m not judging you for snorting coke, don’t judge me for not wanting to hang out at a bar, right?

You’re looking forward to the Thursday post, I’m sure.

I thought, since I am beat and I promised a post every Monday and Thursday (and I am a woman of my word), that I would speak briefly to the subject of music and drugs.

Playing music puts me in circles that sometimes I don’t want to be in–namely those that involve a lot of pot smoking and drinking and possibly dope and ketamine and ecstasy and cocaine and acid and god knows what else. These things don’t tempt me, per say, but being around constant lushness is surely annoying to those who don’t imbibe, only because you’ve got one person over there with glossy eyes and a slight (or slightly more intense) escape from reality, and another person over here with not-glossy eyes and complete presence in reality.

I am not against people drinking or doing what they’re gonna do. Let me be the first to say that there were times in my life that I really enjoyed those things. The problems came, though, and pretty soon the substances became more important to me than the things that really were important to me, like music.

There is nothing like playing music with people who you gel with.

Today, for example, a person I met about a month ago asked me if I wanted to jam with him and his friends. It was awesome. There was a drummer, four of us are guitar players, and we all had similar musical influences.

(For one, I asked one of the guys if he’d heard of this band my friend recently turned me onto called The Mob (UK), a band no one else I know has ever heard of (and I hang around with some very eclectic people) and he was like, “Of all the bands you could mention. Look at this, this is the only vinyl I have purchased recently,” and he pulled out a vinyl of the very same band.)

That was the beginning. Hours later, we had all played a series of really fun songs we made up on the spot, and three of us switched off playing drums.

In all of that time, I was nowhere but in the music.

I didn’t think about my current situation and recent drama, I didn’t think about loneliness and the point of human existence. I simply played music. It was transcendental. It’s what music is about for me. When the time in the practice space was up, none of us wanted to stop, and two of us continued to play guitar and two of us banged on the drum kit, me going completely ape shit nuts, all of us totally bouncing around and into what we were doing, no self-conscious brainiac bullshit. Pure high.

Now, this isn’t an argument complete with statistics and examples, but did I need any sort of substance during that time? No. Some of the other musicians had smoked pot, but it didn’t bother me. We all had a good time.

Why we need to get loaded to play music is beyond me. I don’t know why the worlds of music and drugs are so tightly intertwined, and frankly, it’s frustrating and hard to escape. On craigslist or when meeting new musicians you have to ask questions like, “Can you show up on time? Do you have instruments and equipment? A car? Do you have a substance problem?”

Granted, many musicians handle a copious amount of substances while still playing amazing music, but the annals of rock history are strewn with the memory of amazing musicians who died before they even hit 30, due to their habit gone out of control.

You could argue that musicians are sensitive folk and can’t “handle” the world, especially success and the machine of the grind that making music can become if you get some success, but hell, I’m a sensitive folk and I’ve managed to not drink or smoke pot or consume nefarious other illegal substances for ten years now. Ten years. Since I was 21 years old.

I spent almost my entire twenties NOT partying with substances. I didn’t miss anything. I got my BA degree, I worked a bunch of day jobs, and now I’ve entered my thirties totally focused on art, because I got all of that other stuff out of the way and figured out who I am in that regard. (Though subtle and not-so-subtle tweaks are often necessary).

I have plenty of friends who did spend their twenties (and even thirties) indulging and are now sober in their thirties and forties. They have some stupendous war stories of the things they did that I can listen to and be glad I did not have to do myself. The fact of the matter is, your body gets wiped after a while. It doesn’t recuperate like it used to. People start complaining about their livers and kidneys and stomach aches and switching one drug for another in an attempt to moderate. I decided to skip all that (to be honest, I was complaining about some of those things when I was only 15 years old, due to my love of substances).

There will always be drugs in the music world. And I can’t convince anyone of what to do with their own life. But I’ve found that as my own personal choice, all of the energy spent consuming, popping, seeking, purchasing is just wasted energy that could be better used actually playing music. And because of this, I am present when I play music and I enjoy playing music.

I’ve reframed my thinking over the years to be along the lines of drugs interfere with my music. They don’t help it. They actually distract me from it, by taking away portions of my basic motor skills.

Don’t give me that mumbo-jumbo about psychedelics opening up your mind to new things. For that, you have the Grateful Dead, and that’s fine, but it’s not my bag. Ok, and Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin and all those trippy, jammy bands who I do appreciate, but sober. I appreciate them sober. Some people love psychedelics and that’s fine. Even the founder of AA was on a psychedelic combo called the “Belladonna Cure” when he had his epiphany about starting AA (Overcoming Your Drug and Alcohol Habits, Desena). Yea. For real. So…to each their own. These are only my personal opinions on my own experience.

I know my way of life isn’t for everyone, and those that can drink or pop pills or smoke pot without letting it become an obsession, go for it. Whatever. I don’t really care. But for me, the obsession I used to cheaply focus on substances is now channeled into music. I’ve replaced drugs with music. Art is perfect for crazy neurotic people like me–we can channel our insanity into something beautiful.

Music IS my drug. I don’t need drugs to do my drug.

It’s Enough. Or Is It?

I was reading an article (The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women) about Imposter Syndrome and remembering again that it totally applies to me.

No matter how much I do, I feel like it’s not enough. I’ve done six performances in the past two or so months, more than I did last year. I’ve been meeting tons of artists, and just a bunch of cool peeps in general. But yet, I sit there thinking, “I haven’t done enough. I’m bored. There’s not enough going on.”

It’s been a little over two months since my life completely changed and I became a person on my own again. Freedom comes at a price–in this case, it’s the price of ten years of hard work and dedication to one person.

It sucks, making choices. No one can ever give you a road map that circles right and wrong and points in the exact direction you need to go.

But what does this mean for art? I was talking to a friend who is going through the exact same thing and we were talking about how in the beginning of the transition from married to single it’s excitement and shock and stress and who knows what. Then that settles down. She said, “It’s back to boring life. No more excitement. But you have your music, that’s your life line. I have my book. That’s mine.”

It’s true, music, and especially writing, continue to be my lifeline. But I can’t quantify them. I don’t measure myself on the societal scale everyone else seems to measure themselves on, i.e., if I have x amount of readings/performances, that means that I’m that amount closer to y. Who knows what I’m closer to or farther from. Who knows what will take place in the next couple of years.

I spent my twenties in the life of a more grown up person. Married, settled, pretty stable, going from one job to the next. I feel like I just came out of a tunnel into…my twenties again, take two, but now I’m 31. Only I look like I’m twenty-something, so that’s a plus, I guess.

I always pictured more…something in my life. More travel, more shows, more musicians, more excitement. But don’t we all? Is this all something we’ve grown to expect through media? Probably. Our brains have been blitzed out by the tube from childhood on. We overlook subtle every day beauty and life, as some random guy was telling me outside a coffee shop this morning, once we turn into teenagers. But you look at a child and they’re like, “Ooo, butterfly!”

***

I was napping today to the tune of someone hammering on the roof, children laughing and a BBQ outside. My room is in the middle of this cluster of Victorians that meet in their backyards. Naps are good. This nap was one of those ones where everything runs through your head, like a shuffle of the week’s events being put into file boxes in your brain.

I thought about how this week I talked with two different people about awesome music I’d never heard of before, and about the way we write our own music. I went to the lake with a new girlfriend, watched a meteorite shower, had crappy diner food with people two nights in a row, performed an hour set at a bar in front of a bunch of people I don’t know, finished my tattoo, worked on a new song, spoke at a meeting about being sober, got some poetry and a non-fiction story accepted to an online magazine I’m the contributing editor for, fixed my road bike and rode it everywhere I could, even around Lake Merritt with a girl friend, walked with another girl friend partially around the lake…on top of my normal library shifts, etc. I even went to Lip Service West to hear my friend Josh read, and saw a bunch of writer friends and heard some awesome stories.

And here I was, feeling sorry for myself because I felt lonely and bored and like I didn’t do enough.

***

It is so hard to practice positivity instead of negativity for me, but somehow I keep swinging back to positivity, even if I spend two weeks mired in the gloom. Who the hell knows what will happen for me in the next couple months or years. Nothing has been easy, but sometimes, like I said before, it’s the hardest times that are the best times. And the hardest times shake us up so we have to change.

I wanted freedom, I got it. Be careful what you wish for. I should change the No Regrets tattoo on my wrist to No Expectations. Because I still have a lot of regrets, but I’m learning to let go of expectations for how my life will pan out and what/who will be there on the stage with me.

More on Sobriety and Art

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Once again, I am in a place where I am looking for something I cannot seem to find. It seems that Buddhist philosophies speak a lot to the human condition. Find a middle ground between the highs and lows, detach from expectations, accept what is. Suffering is an inevitable part of life. Acceptance is key.

I found a temporary solace in going to support groups, but now I am back to my reality, mainly, what steps do I need to take to get to where I want to go with my art, and where exactly do I want to go with my art. This is something I need to take action on myself, no one else can do it for me.

I ranted a little bit about AA in a previous post on Sobriety and Art. I haven’t really changed my mind about much of that, but I have found that I missed something key in that post. AA is really about alcoholics and addicts sharing their experience with others. The cornerstone of the whole program is one addict helping another. Where the hell else can people down and out go and find a group of people willing to just listen? Not many places. In this, the group is a great resource for people seeking recovery, support and friendship.

But, like with any group of people who are not well, you can get lost in those rooms. You can find yourself avoiding action in your real life, sequestering yourself away from making new friendships.

AA is good because it is inclusive, but bad because it can be very insular. As a whole, the friendships you make in AA tend to be incumbent on your participation in the program, just like any church. And a lot of times, people get rid of the drink or drug and continue to just act like assholes. But as long as they keep sober, they encourage staying in the same old behavior.

Humans, in groups, tend to act the same, no matter what the group.

No religion or support group, unfortunately, can assuage the reality that I am here, responsible for my own actions. I decided a long time ago not to pick up a drink. I am not powerless over whether or not I choose to take a drink. If, however, I choose to take a drink, I do not know what will happen from then on out, and I decided a long time ago that I am a purist and not willing to take that chance. I am questioned a lot by normal people and recreational users who ask why I had to quit completely. That’s why. I don’t know what will happen, and the last few times, it wasn’t fun, exciting, life-enhancing or pretty when I did decide to use substances as a coping mechanism. For some people it works. Not for me so far.

That being said, it is hard to find sober artists, writers and musicians to hang with, and I am truly struggling with that again. It’s important I don’t spend a lot of time around substances, because then I feel left out and bored by the people I’m with. It’s not fun for me to watch someone leave the vacancy behind their eyes while I am sitting right there, due to a chemical rush. It’s not jealousy, more like, “Dude, you just left the building while I’m sitting right here. Could you be present for a little while at least?”

I wanted to speak again to art and sobriety, because that seems to be an important topic for me on this blog. I attract a lot of people here who are sober or in recovery, etc. I do recommend AA or rehab to anyone trying to get out of their dysfunctional behavior with drugs and alcohol, but I can’t fully endorse BIll W’s program of action. I’ve done it myself, and I’ve had sponsers and sponsees, in fact, I’m currently doing that whole thing just because I don’t know how the hell else to fill up my time, but there’s something in my heart that says, “Don’t linger long.”

I need to get out and see the world. I believe, for me, quitting substances was a personal decision. AA gave me a support group and built-in instant friends, and exposure to people who were willing to let me hash out my problems, but there is such a thing as AA overkill, and getting annoyed by the shaky logic of AA dogma.

There is a lot of good in those rooms, and a lot of good in those books, if you take them all with a grain of salt and never stop trusting your own gut and intuition. It seems a lot of people in AA believe that relationships are a bad and addictive thing too. Relationships are a human desire, and they are fun. There’s a program for everything these days. Relationships, sex, marijuana, gambling…the problem we all have is life.

I was moaning and kvetching about AA once and a friend talked to her sober writer friend about my laments. This writer friend told her that AA is awesome, and it’s one of the last fully functional anarchist groups in the US.

I’m not sure I would classify AA as anarchist. There are definitely rules to follow, and you really aren’t accepted into the group until you follow these rules. I haven’t seen the rules really hurt anyone…looking inward and reflecting seems to be a good thing. The problem I have is when people stop trusting their own selves and decide that the group should decide for them what to do.

I don’t know, argue against me on this, tell me why you’re sold on the program as more than a short-term solution where people rush to your aid when you’re down in it and need quick help. I’ve always had conflicts with the actual steps and the book, a lot of it I read and I’m just like, “WTF. This is dated.”

I also know that I become like who I spend time with, so it’s important for me to not spend much time around people using drugs or alcohol, unless it’s a structured event where I’m playing a show or know sober people in attendance at a party. I don’t keep alcohol or pills in my home, I don’t keep many friends who would encourage me to use a pill to escape my problems. AA is a good place to meet other sober and crazy people.

Like anything, there’s good and bad, and no one can tell us the answers. Mainly, I stay sober because, as I’ve talked to other sober and not sober creative people about, when I use, I get off my path and lose my art. So it’s a personal choice. Knowing my art is a big part of why I exist, the meaning I have ascribed to my existence so to speak, I can’t in good faith allow myself to experiment with things I’ve already proven don’t help my life in any way.

Sobriety and Art

Plan for the best, expect nothing. – Me

Can’t people pursue writing and music and fun and intensity without drugs? Isn’t it more punk rock to do music for music sake? Why have drugs and art become so intertwined?

I’ve been asking myself this question a lot in the past few days, while the universe is hitting me right to left across the face with messages (stepped in dog shit two days in a row, I mean STEPPED in it, saw a sign emblazoned across the side of a trash can that stated “Forgive Yourself” just when I was about to buy a cigarette for the first time in over two years).

People assume because I’m an artist and I’m heavily tattooed that I like to partay.

I don’t fucking like to party. I like to spend time in nature and I like to hike and I like to work hard for things that I know will be rewarding in the future.

I am a recovered addict  because I made a conscious decision to not use any substance that distracts me from reality. Should I ever make the decision to use again, you can just call me ADDICT.

I indulged in all sorts of alcohol and pills, at three separate points in my life. The first time, when I was 12, led to being sent to juvenile hall twice, a mental institution once, and locked up in another country for ten months by the time I was 15. At THAT point, I should have stopped, but no, after four years sober I let other people (musicians, believe it or not) teach me some hard, hard lessons I don’t ever want to have to learn again.

An engineer I was working with on my songs the other day joked about loosening me up with some whiskey. Me, ever the skirter around issues, said, “I’ve taken that road as far as it will go for me. It’s not a pretty place.”

I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the second I casually imbibe a substance, it is GAME ON. That substance, and other of its kind, will be all I care about from there on out. You will not be making music with me or reading my eloquent writing or going on great nature hikes. I will be raiding cabinets. I will be in a doorway with a 40 in a paper bag.

It’s been years of sobriety, and I’ve had a (more) consistently stable life internally and externally because of it. The drama has been dialed down exponentially. I’ve outgrown the need to indulge to avoid my reality. I generally like my reality, in spite of the trappings that frustrate me. And as much as I love music and art shows and all that, I hate that alcohol (and often drugs) have to be so prominent at both. I don’t want to be around it. I do myself a service by surrounding myself with people who get me, all sides.

At the same time, I am not a biggie on going to meetings. I like finding other sober people, sure, but I’ve been around meetings for many, many years and have found that they don’t make me feel much better, usually. I’m sure many people who go to meetings will get all up in arms and tell me, “You’re not really sober if you don’t go to meetings, and that’s why you’re unhappy if you don’t go.”

Believe it or not, I am pretty happy in individual moments. I know what I want and a lot of who I am and how I operate. I know which people make me feel good and which people don’t. I know how to read energy. I have meet some lifelong friends through meetings, but usually we continue our friendship outside of the meetings.

What about the fearless and thorough inventory, you say. I do daily inventories. I clean up my side of the street if something’s not working. I’m honest and I work out my resentments.

Meetings are a tool, not the end-all be-all. I’ve been told before that if I don’t do something I’m going to end up going to hell (or in this case, relapsing) and that was in the Mormon church and the behavior modification program I went to in Jamaica. Not much difference between those two places and meetings where people are asking me to chant and be superstitious and follow rules that were made up by a guy in the 1930′s. Before you worship Bill as an idol, take a look at his life. He was fallible, just like you and me. He was not god. He was speaking truths, yes, and we can take what works and leave the rest. I have.

So, I’ll go to meetings if I’m really feeling like getting loaded, but usually, the thing that helps more is simply calling up a sober friend who is healthy emotionally and saying, “I feel like getting loaded, let’s go on a hike.

Seems a lot of the dogma in substance abuse programs and AA is similar to societal dogma in that they encourage you to “buck up” and “get a real job” and “stop fighting everyone and everything,” “just surrender.”

Surrender to a lifestyle you don’t want in a system you don’t believe in working jobs you despise so that you can keep buying stuff you don’t need and checking out in front of the television night after night stuffing your face with shitty food and wondering why you don’t feel alive? Been there, done that.

I have never cared about trappings and traditions. Not unless you really know why you are doing them, have investigated what they mean to you and are OK with it and don’t need to push it on me. I do not push my life on other people.

I’m a strong believer in prayer and meditation and nature walks, and I do all three. I also do believe in utilizing support groups when you need them, and many people get a lot of good out of them. But you can get lost in those rooms, avoiding your daily life, waiting for people to help you out.

Prayer, meditation, walking, talking to people: These things all help me through some rough times. I also believe in good, clean, honest friendships, or friendships with people who, though they may drink or do other stuff occassionally, know me well enough to never encourage me to “just have one.” That would just be stupid.

I believe in writing and music, that if you use it–either as your lifelong passion or a hobby outlet–you will find your truth looking back at you through your own creations. My art reveals my heart to me.

A lot of people are afraid to put pen to paper because of this very reason. Don’t be afraid. There is nothing to be lost by following your heart. Nothing that will last forever, that is. A lot can be surrendered and let go in the process and it all hurts. I accept that, like the Buddha said, life is suffering. When I accept that, I find that the happy moments (eating watermelon, being with good friends, being heard, picking flowers, writing, playing music) are more accessible, because I am living in the moment, not expecting things to be any different than what they are at this current moment. Accept, yes, this is something they teach in AA. Yes, surrender…I agree…to an extent.

Just don’t surrender your spirit to a life that makes you just want to go pick up a drink and white knuckle it every single day of your life. Not worth it. There is good and bad in many things, and life is one big lesson. You stop learning when you’re dead.

Any Song Requests?

I started this blog a long time ago, because I wanted to practice my writing every day, but also because back then, I was reading blogs like Dooce and Demon Baby and feeling like maybe I could do that same thing they did: be humorous by talking about my own life and get a bunch of cool followers who pined away for my witty banter.

I’ve grown up a bit, realizing that I’m kind of an average person, at least to the world at large, and I’m not as funny as those two. And maybe, back then, I didn’t really have that much to say, anyway.

blogging so many so little

Continue reading →

Musicians and Depression

(photo credit: bleu man)

An article in the Guardian put it best: “Often, what makes an artist great is the fact that they’re born with a skin too few.” Many artistic people are born with too little protective barrier between them and the world. Depression, whether in passing or ongoing, is a problem for many.

When I was around 23, I had just gotten out of a dark period of my life. I stopped playing music, not knowing where to go with it anymore. I gave up for a few years, as I worked at a call center for a legal company, earning and spending money, getting through the days one at a time.

When I started playing again in my apartment in the Inner Richmond of San Francisco, I literally played my guitar in the closet, so that the neighbors wouldn’t hear me. Sometimes I just played a little piece of a song I was writing over and over again, some three-chord progression coupled with a wistful lament.

As time went on, I got back to playing in much of my spare time, but I still didn’t play for many other people in person. I couldn’t stand sharing what I was writing about live, in front of someone who might judge me, or worse, talk over.

I kept thinking about sitting in the park with a group of ruffian friends when I was 15. I decided to break out my guitar. “I’m going to play a few songs,” I said. “She plays guitar?” they said. And when I played, they kept talking. It’s funny how a trivial event like this can become your excuse to not ever try. I did play for other people in the years up until I was 20, giving people demos and playing at house parties, coffee shops and in music classes at a college I attended. But at some point, I just gave up.

You can say I have a thin skin. Sometimes I think I’m just a bundle of raw nerves walking around.

Pretty soon, after starting to play in my closet, my husband came home from work and saw our neighbor sitting on the steps in the hallway, listening.

“I love your wife’s music,” he said. “What kind of music is she playing?” My husband was flummoxed. He hadn’t even known I wrote music. He knew my dad was a pianist, that I had dated some musician once. He knew I had a couple of guitars. We had been married for over a year, and I had simply excised one of the most important parts of who I was from my personality and failed to share it with him. Before the dark times, music had been my very modus operandi. Now it was something I did in the closet.

I still struggle with depression when it comes to music in the form of where am I going to go with it. The music industry is definitely changed, and something new is emerging, but I’m not sure where I fit in the scheme, or if I have to create something new myself.

I set up some studio time, for two weeks from now, and I’m going to record four songs I’ve been working on.

Mental Health counselor, Deborah Legge, PhD, said in Digital Music News, “Depression is not uncommon to those who are drawn to work in the arts, and then the lifestyle contributes to it.” When I think of all of the musicians who offed themselves because the lifestyle that came with the music (drugs, touring, sycophants, lack of money, too much money) was just too much, I get bummed too.

What I love is recording. I love to give my music to other people to listen to in their own quiet moments, on headphones or in the car. That’s where I listen to music. Alone.

I am also afraid of success. I don’t like putting myself out there, in person, in front of people, whether through my writing or through my music. I’m still getting used to this part. When I get up on stage these days, just me, no drugs, no barriers, I have these odd quirks that happen. Suddenly I can’t tune my guitar, though I’ve been doing it for 17 years. Then my leg starts twitching. My voice gets wonky. I mean, what the hell?

On the flip side, though, if there is anything that I feel like I am here to do with this life, music is one of those things. When I create music, I am in the moment. Everything else fades away and I feel like maybe I do have a purpose. It’s the semantics of getting my music out there that makes me balk. Collaborating with other musicians freaks me out, based on past experience.

In “Janis Joplin: Rise up Singing,” Sam Andrew of Big Brother and the Holding Company said, “Janis was one of the most powerful people I have ever known, and yet she was completely insecure at the same time. She was the Queen of the Scene and the chambermaid, simultaneously.”

He goes on to describe how she constantly questioned whether she was good or not after performances, wondered always if people liked her, if he liked her, even. “From a person as talented as Janis was, such questions could be unnerving. Her talent was so obvious, but often she couldn’t see it herself.”

And then he says what I feel is the most important part, “People discount what they do best, because they think, ‘Well hey, this is easy, anybody can do this, so what’s so special?’ Janis made me realize that what we do best, all of us, is natural to us, and easy to take for granted. This is completely understandable, and yet it is important for each of us to appreciate our natural gifts, and take pride in them.”

That inspires me. I think I’m alright. I like what I’m doing. I subscribe to a happiness-is-where-you-are mentality, knowing full well that the mountain I am climbing now is probably no better than the mountain I will be climbing later. Something else, something better, never really comes. Everyone, everywhere, is just where they are.

Said Brad Warner in his book “Hardcore Zen: “Every single human being in the world thinks that ‘if only’ this or that one of our conditions could be met than we’d be happy. ‘If only I had a girlfriend/boyfriend/million bucks, then I’d be happy,’ … An old Chinese Zen master once said, ‘From birth to death, it’s just like this!’ Wherever you go in the world, it’s pretty much the same. Only the details are different … We always want to believe that somewhere there’s a perfect situation, if only we weren’t barred from it. But that’s not the reality.”

The reality is that we can always look back and say, “It was better then.” We can always look ahead and say, “It will be better when I’m more successful with my music/writing/relationships etc.” But in the end, what you do right now is probably the most important thing thing you’ll ever do, whether it’s cooking dinner or playing your guitar for your friends.

Whether depression comes with the turf or not, I’ll take it for what it is. It’s definitely not going to stop me from enjoying creating music and learning to share it more with others, even to the point of collaboration. It may just be part and parcel. With great blessings come greater responsibilities. Facing my giant bunny fears, one by one.

New Weekly Feature: Creative People Who Rock

I’ve been working on a new aspect of this blog, one which will launch shortly.

Once a week, I will feature the writing, artwork or music of someone whose work I admire.

I never wanted this blog to be all about me and my rants and laments about the writing and music creating life. My intention has always been
to reach out to the people who are doing the same thing I’m doing: creating awesome things for the sake of creating, because it’s just who they are.

I will be featuring guest posts, with pictures and artwork chosen by the guest, by people whose work is, in my humble opinion, unique and essentially them. People who have an interesting story behind their art or people who just do awesome work in general.

As this thing grows, I am hoping you reading this will start to submit your work, too. I am going to be a bit selective in my features, I want work that has quality and depth, not the doodle you made on a napkin in the restaurant that looks like crap. Unless it doesn’t look like crap. Then maybe I do want it, who knows. And I’m not limiting this to musicians, writers and artists. Tattoo artists, jewelry makers, builders…people who make something inspiring out of nothing.

But there will be sort of a screening process. For now, I have the next two months lined up. After that, depending on how this catches, I would love to see your work and I will post a call for links to your website, blog or story. That way, a third party is vouching for you and we have created a hub of sorts for people who have never met to meet and start a dialogue and also just a place where you can come, lurk and get a broader scope of what other creative people are creating. I wish for this to inspire not just myself, but others to do what I think helps in every aspect of our lives, and that is to simply create things that make you happy to create, that tap you into that place where time means nothing.

This is my intention, anyhow. Let’s start this thing!