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.