A Long December

A long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last. - Counting Crows

Walt Whitman once said, "Re-examine all you have been told... Dismiss what insults your Soul". I am an introspective person, and I have done this more times than I can count. As the year comes to a close I feel I should share what has insulted my soul the most.You guessed it, it has something to do with music. Lots of unknown people on the internet told me this year that I will never make it.

I never got the call I was promised. I never ended up on MTV Europe like I was promised. I sank (and my parents did also because they helped) too much money for empty promises. I know the industry is hard to get into these days, but it should never be this hard. If what I am doing today was out there in the late 80s, early 90s I wouldn't have a reason to write. I would have been signed years ago.

Now, before you laugh, let me explain. Today's music conditions, whatever you want to blame them on, internet, economy, technology, have made it so that you have to be perfect or you get overlooked. Not just by the industry but by the consumer as well. Few people care about originality anymore. They might say otherwise, but they prove it with their paychecks every week. Some of you might say, "what about Justin Bieber? He made it. So it must be your voice."

I'll be the first to admit that my voice sucks. But it's better than a lot of famous artists. The difference between me and them is the recording studio, equipment, and engineer. I barely have something that qualifies as a studio, almost no equipment, and I am not an engineer though I try my best.The other difference is they had the benefit of getting a record deal in a time when a perfect recording wasn't expected. Here are just a few examples of bands and/or artists who vocally sound comparably equal to or worse than me:

Husker Du
Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices)
The Pixies
Beck
Thom Yorke (Radiohead)
PJ Harvey
Sonic Youth
Butthole Surfers
Archers of Loaf
Built To Spill
Smashing Pumpkins
Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)
The Cranberries

If you said, "But they sound better than you," well of course they do! It is a grave injustice to me to compare my lo-fi home recordings to hi-fi studio recordings of equally lo-fi bands! Just listen to their raw un-produced tracks if you don't believe me. In some cases I sound perfect compared to them. Oh, and the same argument goes for my "sound".

DON'T WRITE ME OFF JUST BECAUSE I DON'T SOUND PERFECT! ...[sigh]... This is what insults my Soul, and I dismiss it.

Joy #4

You Will Be On MTV Europe

It's 12:59 in the a.m. and I can't sleep. I got a little restless wondering what was going on with my album so I called "Scoe" one last time and left a message. I say one last time because I don't see any reason to continue calling if my calls aren't getting returned. ...Maybe he'll call back this time.

Nothing I'm writing right now is meant to be a downer, I'm just writing. In fact, I am in high spirits! I really believe that my life is finally making a turning point for the better! I'm not even worried about what might happen because I know that what is best is what's going to happen. We have the power to change the universe around us and it comes down to our thoughts, words, and emotions.

My thoughts are of a successful music career. That thought alone, of being able to do what I love the most for a living, brings me great joy. I can't help but smile! I think that if you want something to come to pass you need to have faith and act as if you already have it. But that doesn't mean pretending. I think it means you need to imagine yourself where you want to be and imagine what it would feel like if you were already there. It takes a lot of emotional control because you have to put aside all the negative emotions that tell you it will never happen. My words (though I'm not always good at this) reflect my thoughts and emotions.

I was told by "Scoe" last year that I will be on MTV Europe this year, and that I needed to believe it. I told him I did, and I still do. We are getting close to the last quarter of the year to release new music. So unless we go on a crash course to release my album (or at least a single) and shoot a music video so that it makes sense that I'm on MTV Europe, unless you want me to stand in a room waving at the camera for three minutes, we are too late.

But you know what? I believe in God and He is never late. NEVER. I have had that proven to me more times than I can count, and I have witnesses who can testify to that. Some of them have even wished that God would not come through so that they could prove to me once and for all that He didn't exist. Guess what. He came through at the last possible minute and proved to them that He did exist. I see my current situation as being no different. God is never late so I am confident in saying right now that I will be on MTV Europe before the year is through! Don't believe me? Just watch. I'll be announcing it as soon as it happens.

Update, June 02, 2012: I was never on MTV Europe before the year was through. So what does this mean? I can't say God doesn't exist, because this is the first time I've experienced Him not coming through when I thought He would. I do believe He is never late, so when things do happen, it will all make sense. But it doesn't right now. Some could say that my confidence is misplaced or I'm misguided, but I would say that I have always silently prayed that above all else, God's Will was done in my life. Maybe it's not God's Will. Maybe it is, but not the appointed time yet. Whatever the case may be, my faith is still strong and unwavering. If that makes me seem more foolish to some of you, then so be it. I make no apologies.