You keep moving

More than likely because I never did like talking about myself.  Awards, accolades, praise, comments, ahh the parade around the art that I was always somewhat defiant about.  My dream was born in a basement.  Not a furnished rehabbed basement with a plasma screen TV and an Xbox, but a cold drippy under-lit dungeon of sorts where one builds on a foundation of isolation and practicing, maybe to someday move “upstairs.”  

These were the days of “Rocky” cinema, where the idea was that accepting the harshness of enduring long hours of training was the way to win the match (choose your metaphorical path).   And remember, Luke learned the ways of the force in swamp, and not in a formalized school.  You endure, right?

The entertainment world had it’s pollution of over-promised talent (fictitious marketing), false starts and quick endings to bright careers.  I never wanted any of it.  I wanted (and still do) to make art.  Music that made peoples lives better.  

And so began a quest that included the guitar, the voice, and the song.  Write a better one.  Then play and sing it better.  Despite the shaky self managing and the constant disappointments of learning by failing, saying the wrong the thing at the wrong time, trying out the already failed strategy, I learned to consistently pick myself up over and over again.   Perhaps the real thrill of the music world for people like me is: packing all your gear into your car at 2:30am at a roadhouse bar where the patrons seem to only care about you playing “freebird” and can’t be bothered from their dart games to hear a song that you wrote, and after being paid $50 you set out on your 2 hour car ride home.  Of course you then you blow $10 of it on 3 day old gas station food because your stomach won’t leave you alone. 

You endure.  You press on.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget why.  And you keep practicing.  You keep writing.  You keep moving.