My First Post-Divorce Christmas

So, here's another fine addition to my lame blog.

Instead of talking about anything pop culture or music related (which I never really do anyway), I'll open up and be a little bit personal. After all, my life has always been an open book, much to my risk and chagrin, so why change now?

This year marks the first holiday season that was spent as a single man, after my ex-wife and I split up last spring. In summary, what can I say? It's been an interesting "journey". Did I miss her? At times, yes. The past two months have become increasingly hectic for me. It's as if life has been "ramping up" to what equates to an overmodulation of junk that hit the redline in December. My ex's birthday came and went November 1st, and I didn't even realize it until after the fact - a sign of both being over her, and of being so absorbed by life stuff.

Thanksgiving changed all of that. All of the sudden, I was smacked in the face with the harsh realization that I was spending my favorite holiday without someone who had become one of my best friends. This sort of experience has a tendency to inject a hard dose of 'WTF' into your bloodstream.

Divorce is like a nasty bad breakup, without the ease of making a "break-up box", de-friending someone on facebook, and drinking away your misery the night before Thanksgiving (which I did, btw, and it doesn't really get you anywhere except hungover). You have to realize, that by the time a family gets to that point, the venom is so deep in your veins that it doesn't just go away overnight.

To be frank, December has been a lot of back and forth. I've honestly entertained the idea of trying to rekindle a friendship with my ex, something which many people have warned me is a bad idea. And to be truthful, part of the divorce was about me refusing to hide who I was as a person any longer. I've reclaimed my personality and my lifestyle, and I seriously doubt she would "approve". Regardless, the holidays just seemed to remind me of what I'd lost, rather than what I've gained. Stupid, I know.

So, I had a damn good cry on Christmas night. Cried myself to sleep, in fact, and let it be that. It had been a while, after all, and emotional boys like me need a good cry every so often or else we'll go insane and get jobs at financial institutions. You know it feels good to have a good cry, you get that shit out of you and then you feel free again. You should try it some time.

At any rate. Christmas has come and gone. It had its good times (getting my cousin in trouble with his girlfriend for playing drunken rock band at 4am, chasing my 6-year old cousin Alex around the house with a nerf gun, seeing the looks on my family's faces when they got uber-cool gifts from IKEA, having a fire at my dad's place), and its bad times (being hung-over, having a fight with my mom about life in general, wondering whether I'm a fuck-up for leaving my ex, etc.). But now, it's gone, and who the hell knows what's next.

Oh, that's right. New Years Eve. Oh joy, I can't wait to spend the evening wondering whether I'm going to get a kiss at midnight. Bah. Dick Clark doesn't know how lucky he is!!!

Signing off.

The Minor Leagues

So, I was fortunate enough to be able to see The Minor Leagues' release party at Mayday in Northside. They put on such a great show! They have a lot of members and so they are able to do quite a bit musically, and just... they're fun! A fun group of people making music you can really enjoy life with.

I bought their CD, and the one critique I have to deliver is in the mastering. It's just a bit too smashed. Aside from that, every second of it is entirely enjoyable! Great songwriting, a fantastic recording, and just an all around turn it up and sing along good time.

My friend Amanda Lee, who plays keyboards for the band, is going to write a blog about the show. I'll link it here when it's up. I'll also be throwing some pics on Facebook and perhaps some videos on youtube.

Cheers!

Maelstrom

Life can be a maelstrom of unpredictable events. You don't know when the waves of torment or the unexpected typhoon of change is going to strike. The season of murder sneaks upon you when the skies are sunny and bright, like the flash of red venom. I am thankful for my friends, for my family, for the faith that has managed to persevere through some severe attacks. Without these things I would be a shell of a person.

Within me is a storm, raging, good and evil wrestling each other for some resemblance of control. Above this storm is the passive me, trying so much to hide the storm; like some veil of energy or power designed to block out all reality from existence. Within me is the peace that passes understanding, set right next to the untamed fire of betrayal and rebellion. Within me is a man with strength, with knowledge, with zeal and will; being wrestled by a child marred by the torment of abuse, lies, and discontent.

It is the soul that yearns to give, to see, to experience, to love, and to be loved. To rise above, to scream and shout, to stand in the wind and cry, "God! I feel you in the way my hair blows, the way my spine crawls, the way the colors flash in the back of my mind!"

While I trudge through life, while my life is reorganized around me; while I drive forward like a madman piloting his craft through a maelstrom at sea; I find but one place where I can rest and know that my life is not in my own hands. And this is an encouraging thought.

Staying in Cincinnati

Yep. I officially turned down a job offer in Columbus. This is actually the first serious job offer I have ever turned down. It felt empowering to some degree, though I was apologetic for having taken up their time only to change my mind. But, they understood personal dilemma's. So that's cool.

Now that I have decided to stay in Cincinnati, I have also decided something else. I am going to pursue my passions. Music and audio engineering and all things that revolve around sound in the marketing world. I'll still keep my career at National City - "making it" in the marketing industry as an audio guy is a bitch, to put it lightly. So, in that regard, I am going to look at moving closer to the city. There are some job postings at branches near downtown, and I have good leads on places in Northside and Lower Price Hill.

So. That's the next stage of my personal evolution. You can't live your dream if you don't go chasing it.

Concerts, concerts, concerts

Seen a ton of concerts lately. In fact, so many I am getting backlogged on sending pics and reviews. Is this a problem? Could be, though I'm more for the enjoyment of it myself than the sharing with others, which makes me somewhat selfish. Regardless, here's a list of bands I have seen recently..

Mission to Burma & Faust in Lexington

Sundresses & random others at the 6 feet under party in OTR

Good stuff, good stuff. Will write more later to be sure, but right now I am obsessing over the Google Wave invite I received from Amanda Lee. There's like, nothing for me to do in it, and I'm still sitting here drooling over it's cool factor. Can't wait for the bloggie app to be released so I can test creating a wave and plugging it into this site.

Leash

Don't let your heart jump ahead of your feet unless there's a leash attached to something you trust.

I dunno. That came out of nowhere. What is trust, really? A lot of people might come up with snazzy answers, or truths they think are all-encompassing, but trust is a choice. Trust is something that is within us. It's a choice we make, it's a choice others make. Sometimes we can make ourselves trust something. Sometimes others force us to lose our trust. In those rare beautiful moments, trust just exists.

Snowbound

Today, I officially began a company called "Snowbound Production". I have now joined the ranks of the American Small Business owner. What's primarily exciting about this is that it creates an engine whereby I can track all of the extra income I make in all things audio. Remixes, voiceovers, original songs, scoring, copywriting/editing, mixing/mastering, anything. Any income I make as a "creative" freelancer I can throw into this business, and then there are obvious tax breaks and what have you for business-related expenses.

Now I am up super late trying to organize my remarkably hectic life and put things in an order so that I can tackle the next three months with some resemblance of sanity.

Here's to trusting that this will all work out.

Prost!

Upside Down and Inside Out

Being a rebel... blogging from work. Won't take up much company time.

Have you ever been in that place where nothing makes sense? Well, that's a bit overdramatic. Many things make sense, but some of the big things don't. Like, do I stay in Cincinnati, or do I move back home to Columbus?

It had been an easy choice. Family was in Columbus, and most things had fallen apart down here. I was very lonely. However, I have recently found some motivation to which I can only accredit to God, because I do not have this stuff inside of me naturally. I have gone out and made some new friends, and forged some new avenues for myself. I've even finally collected a paycheck for doing voiceover services and plan on starting a small business for tax reasons.

So now the big question comes. I have spent almost 4 years building into networking in Cincinnati. Do I throw that all away and move to Columbus, only to start over and be near family? Or do I stay in town and capitalize on what I have built, and seems to be prospering, here? It's not really a question that can be answered easily by myself, and not without some guidance from heaven. But I do know that I'll figure things out and make life work. I always have.

Just gotta work on these jitters. :P

Tour-De-Nati

Today was one of those days that you just remember. This morning, I figured it would just be a normal Monday at National City. Go to work, take care of morning affairs, do lunch, rock the afternoon on an unhealthy caffeine high selling products and serving people, then home for some hulu, journaling, music and chill.

Nope.

Instead, I had to schedule around a very cool afternoon roundtable discussion with our new PNC comrades, along with covering another branch's office for an hour. Slipping within all of this are some emails traded with an agency that wanted me to do some voiceover work, which would have been my first paid voiceover work as a freelancer here in Cincinnati.

Let me say I thank God for my blackberry.

While I despise the fact that it is not an iPhone, and thus is not as smooth and sexy, I still love it. Yes, you have to click the screen. Yes, they were stupid in separating the app memory from the media memory, so you CAN'T install a crapton of apps like you thought you could when you bought it in the store. But, when you get a rather sizeable corporate discount with a certain carrier who is NOT AT&T, you just have to turn your nose up at the apple snobs and remain thankful for your macbook pro while sinking to the level of blackberry.

However, being able to snag emails like this while I am at work is incredibly helpful. It makes me mobile and flexible where I otherwise would not be. Since I had to be in Pleasant Ridge for the afternoon roundtable, I was able to slip downtown on my lunch break and do the session. Thus, I am now a professional voiceover artist, if barely.

So, all in all, a very good, energetic, and spicy day to follow up a fantastic weekend at MPMF. And if you ever get a phone call from some Wakeboarding company, it might be me. Rawr.

Fresh Slate

Yes. I have deleted most of my old posts. Multiple reasons, most of which might not be what you expect. This was my first blog, and I like the name, so instead of building a new one, I cleared out all of the old posts. I am going for a new vibe now. I'm more blog savvy now. So, yeah. Expect more. And yes. I am going public!

MPMF

For those of you who are unfortunate enough not to know, Cincinnati hosts an event called the Midpoint Music Festival. Apparently this happens every year. Not being a native Cincinnatiian (sp?), I did not know about this event until a friend of mine (@redkatblonde) made me aware of it. A label she is involved with (@allnightparty) was hosting one of the venues and told me about it.

Now as you may know, over the last few months I have been taking stock of my life. There are a lot of things that have happened over the last ten years that have molded me, some of them good, some of them bad. Of course, the bad can always be made good, right? That is what they say; and reflection shines on my own history a sense that this is indeed true, if not at times grueling and painful.

I left a lot of my dreams and passions to die for many years.

I am igniting those passions once more.

Music has always been my language. It's been inside of me since I was a baby. My love of it has been stretched, abused, blessed, diseased, empowered and occasionally, if I am fortunate enough, enjoyed. Everything that breathes inside of me and holds any worth at all is surrounded around that melody, the rhythm, the pace and emotion that words simply fail on. It is like trying to describe the beauty of a galaxy, or sex, or the bliss that comes in that rare, difficult place where everything simply is.

So why is it that music is such a fickle lover? I have wrecked myself. I have killed, whether willingly or unwillingly, that secret place inside of me that longs to craft a majestic, inglorious, messy and heartfelt soundscape; the one that words try to capture and yet fail so sadly. I've done a great injustice to myself, and now, I finally believe that this injustice may be coming to an end.

Am I a strong man? Do I have something worthwhile to give? Am I more than an abused, divorced, lost and wandering shell of what I once breathed to be? There's a glimpse of pink and sapphire on the horizon. Am I to ever taste it, or will it always be so many miles out of reach, taunting me like some bitch of a whore who teases to give and yet takes without shame? Or will I take hold of it and ride it into the oblivion that all of God's creation so desperately wants to disappear into?

Yeah, this isn't really about MPMF at all. But it is a testament to what power lingers within the collective that is music; the language that most can at least understand, but few ever truly master.

I hope to write about the shows I saw. There wasn't a single group or performance that was disappointing. This was a truly magical year, and many of the people I were with definitely felt that same thing. Something is growing here. It deserves to be remembered and reflected.

I may open the blog to the public. Though, there are a lot of intense personal notes in my history here. Sadly, I may feel it necessary to erase them. But I have something inside of me, and it wants to be shared.