Tag Archives: universe

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.

Better to Give Than to Receive

Friday’s show at Actual Cafe in Oakland was great; It was amazing how it all came together.

I played with two new musician friends of mine who came through for me at the last minute and was blown away: They were both stellar performers. A lot of people I have recently met and think are neat showed up at the cafe; we had a good audience that ebbed and flowed throughout the night.

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In other news, my sister drew a picture of the Jinxes I was talking about the other day.

Image

Like I said in my last post, jinxes are mystical weasel cat creatures who love to trip you up when you decide to invest in any particular plan. I rue the day the jinxes pop up…they’ve been all over the place recently. But they have an upside. When they arrive, I have to check in with my gut. They make me pay attention to what’s going on, consider if I’m on the right path.

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It’s all speeding up right now, the shift from old life to new, the change in living circumstances.

Somehow, even though everything is up in the air, I feel pretty steady. I truly believe everything is going to come together just right. My old life that wasn’t working, by some grace I can’t even fathom, is completely falling apart while a new life where I have friends who blow my mind, am in the center of a hub and can work on my art and be understood and not forced to change my very nature are coming together at the exact same time. It’s hard to straddle these two worlds: One that wasn’t working for me and was causing me duress, and one that seems so perfect I doubt it can even be real because I feel I don’t deserve it. And it still feels terrible, on a visceral level, to be leaving the familiarity of my previous life.

I  lost about 15 pounds in a month from stress and lack of appetite, but at the same time, in spite of the anxieties and fears of not being taken care of I’ve felt peace beyond peace. I can’t wait to find a good healing space where I can get settled and start to process all of this upheaval.

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Another update: A reading I did for Lip Service West in January is now viewable online. I think it turned out well…it’s better to make a story about relapsing on Nyquil funny. Because it is funny. You’ll see. (Raaawr). I hate watching myself on video…it reminds me at 31, I look like I’m still 18. I guess that’s not a bad thing…

I’ll also be reading for Lip Service West again (a story about my life as a teenage gutter punk and the importance of my crusty hoodie) at Beast Crawl in two weeks. You won’t be disappointed.

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It’s all a waiting game at this point. Where I’ll live, where I’ll put all my stuff, how I’ll get my stuff at the apartment cleaned and moved (one day at a time).

I’m working hard today on letting go and trusting the universe.

I’ve been very sad and twisted (it’s only natural), but also very happy and feeling tapped into the slipstream again, which is great. If I trust that calm centered feeling inside that says I am doing all the right things and meeting all the right people, I feel OK. It’s those late night hours when my stomach’s all screwy and I’m facing my transitional reality that’s physically and mentally hard…those night hours when I question how everything is going to play out and start losing my faith.

Truth is, I just don’t know how things are going to turn out, but I believe the best possible outcome for me will transpire. Life is for learning, you stop learning when you’re dead and for so many months there I just couldn’t get out of my head. I’ve been reaching out to people struggling with issues I’ve faced in the past (i.e., trying to find support for their art, or trying to get clean and sober) and that seems to be helping a lot. The universe is suddenly sending them to me because I’m taking the steps to make myself available. Even simple stuff like saying the St. Francis prayer, which talks about making myself a person seeking to comfort rather than be comforted, give rather than to receive, is helpful to do every morning.

This blog is one thing I do for other people, and it’s paid back in spades, so I am going to pay more attention to it this week, and please, if you have any topics or struggles as an artist, writer or musician and you want me to approach those topics from my point of view, do share in the comments and I will use that for a blog subject.

Documenting the Universes Minutiae

Everything is rotating in crazy circles these days. Frenetic times, these. I’m working hard to get back to the freedom of working for myself on my own schedule, and I will succeed, but temporarily I am working a side gig that really took a lot of my time during the holidays.

I have some goals I need to keep in mind, that I’ve been working on. Submitting my creative prose to publications (I bookmarked a list of viable options). Finding new freelance projects. Perpetuating my musical endeavors. Continuing to write for my local newspaper. I’m loving the journalism work I do in my own town. I meet the most exotic and interesting people. My favorite being an 85-year-old man named Art who’s just hilarious. He gets a bran muffin “that looks like an atomic mushroom cloud” every morning at a donut shop in town.

My next-door neighbor is 95. His house is notable for its architecture – it was built directly on rocks on a hillside. It’s been featured in a number of articles and books over the years. He likes to talk about his grandsons and his wife – a beauty all her years – who just passed away.

Who will keep these things in memory? I think that’s why I’m a partial journalist. I just take it to mean I’ve been observing things my whole life, and it’s my duty for some unknown reason, to document what I see and learn from other people.

It’s not really about my stories right now. It’s about theirs. Their stories keep me afloat through turbulent times.

My neighbor, the 95 year-old, mentioned that he’s torn because his wife passed away and he loves his house. He’s lived in it for 40-some years. It was built for him by local architect friends. But he’s lonely at the top of the hill.

Talking to him made me realize that nothing is ever secure. Here he’s lived the American dream. He served in the Navy. He bought property in a great neighborhood. His assets increased in value over the years. But now the love of his life is gone. His daughter and grandsons live far away. He may have to leave the home he’s known for so many years. All of the times I’ve envied those who “have” property, money and children. Yet nothing is ever certain. To have to surrender your freedom and autonomy after such a long life, to have no family watching over you and keeping you company: that is a tragedy.

One of my coworkers at my part-time gig is Tibetan. He was telling me that when you grow old in India, where he’s from – his people were exiled from Tibet when Communist China occupied in the ’50s – family and community serve the elderly. They treat them kindly, defer to them, make sure that they are comfortable, ask if they need anything, sleep in the same house or room with them.

Not here. So many things are backwards in our wayward land of freedom and indentured servitude. We send our old away to be taken care of by strangers we know little about. Out of sight, out of mind. Sure, people repeat things over and over when they get old and need constant care. But isn’t that part of the circle of life? Someone brought you into this world and took care of you for many years until you could hang on your own. Is it impossible to return the favor?

I’m still picking up bits of life here and there, churning it into words and feeding it back into the collective universe for consumption and regurgitation.