Ahhh Stew

Timothy Pepper’s Ahhh Stew Recipe

Into a large Crock Pot (or other slow stewing device) place the following items:

1. One package of Hillshire Farms Lit’l Smokies Sausages. (Other forms of sausage may be substituted but they should be a rather hardy sausage)

2. 3 normal sized carrots pre-chopped into bite sized pieces (I dare say a 4th or even 5th carrot would not have gone astray)

3. 4 pre-chopped organic celery stalks (I’m certain that non-organic celery will result in an inferior stew)

4. 2 diced tomatoes (I’m aware that there is a vast array of tomato varieties in your local supermarket. You’re on your own here but I imagine any tomato that is good for making sauces would do the job nicely)

5. 5 to 7 small-medium white potatoes and 5 to 7 small-medium red potatoes. (If you are using large potatoes cut them into large pieces or you will end up with a pulpy mess on your hands. If using small potatoes stab them to allow for increased flavor absorption through the skin.)

6. ¾ large diced onion. If you are an onion freak (I’m not) you may wish to use the entire onion.
7. 1 halved jalapeno pepper with the seeds. (You may wish to alter the chili pepper variety and/or number to suit your taste.)

8. 1 pinch of cinnamon or if you have it a cinnamon stick (but then you have to fish out the barky bits when you eat the stew.

9. 3 chopped cloves of garlic.

10. 1 pinch of cayenne pepper. (You may prefer to add a dash but certainly a dollop would be right out of the question)

11. 1 sniff of All Spice (actually I may have used a pinch here as well)

12. 1 can of vegetable soup (mine had alphabet noodles in it which I could have done without…stewing makes them mushy)

13. Top with water until the potatoes are partially submerged.

Turn the stewing device on then leave the house until the stewing process is well under way. Doing so means you get to be pleasantly blasted by the aroma of Tim Pepper’s Ahhh Stew upon your return. When stewing is done stir the contents of the stewing device, spoon some into a bowl and eat with glee. What better way to enjoy your stew than hunkering down in your favorite chair and listening to Tim Pepper’s album Beautiful Frustration (available on iTunes and CD Baby…preview the cd at www.myspace.com/pepperhouse).

Addendum: I forgot to mention there's a can of beans in there somewhere...

Eagles Wings

I must be a little slow or stubborn or both. I’ve been spewing forth ‘wisdoms’ concerning happiness and positivity lately as if I’ve only recently made this discovery. But seriously, this is kindergarten philosophy. This is stuff everyone knows because it’s something our moms and dads teach us.

I spent some time going over my accounts on CD Baby this morning. This year I’ve earned a whopping $34 and change from online sales of my music. I have to admit that although the number is small it still feels good. I noticed though that a lot of people were streaming and/or purchasing the song Eagle’s Wings. That struck me as a little odd because although I like that song a lot, it isn’t the one that I thought would be a standout ‘single’, mainly because it’s under-produced compared to some of the other songs on the album.

It got me thinking about the song though. I wrote it before most of the other songs on the album during my first year of teaching high school Biology. Teaching was the job I fell into after failing to find a job in my chosen field of study. I was hoping to get an awesome, well paid, research job at Merck, Monsanto, Johnson and Johnson or Unilever. I don’t mind telling you I was a little pissed off that after 3 degrees and 7 years in University I got stuck teaching.

If you’ve never been a teacher of any kind I’d like to recommend that you volunteer as a substitute for a week at your local high school. If every adult person did this, salaries for teachers would skyrocket. It’s not fun. There are a few blessed people on this planet who love to teach but I’m not one of them and so my job was a bit like a punishment of some kind. I hope you’re getting the picture I’m painting for you…It’s a self portrait of a miserable man. That was me.

I couldn’t help but notice though, from the bottom of the pit I’d dug for myself, that the young people who I was teaching were vibrant, excited, full of smiles and laughter and joy. I also knew that a lot of them were less fortunate than I, to say the least. Looking back, I realize that writing Eagle’s Wings may have been the point at which I started building myself a ladder to climb out of my hole of despair. Let me tell you it’s been a journey.

The song is about rising above the troubles and woes of life. I figured if my students could do it then I could too. Some five years later I finally start to really get what I was writing about back then. So yes…I think I’m a little slow and a lot stubborn.

Life Is Beautiful

People talk about the sound of raindrops on the roof as a soothing, wonderful sound. Standing on my back porch, drinking a cup of coffee I discovered something better…

Winter’s cold blue fingers have laid hold on my part of the world recently. They haven’t yet gotten a good grip but Winter is certainly winning her arm-wrestle with Autumn. I’m not a fan of Winter. The cold creeps into my bones and makes me a little bit miserable. But here on my porch I’m noticing that when the wintery wind blows and a gentle rain falls it makes a wonderful noise. The dry, dead, brown leaves, recently fallen from their trees rustle against each other and the rain taps them a thousand times every second. It’s one of those noises that you can only hear if it happens to be early winter and a gentle rain is falling near your back porch. It’s a beautiful thing that could be easily overlooked if you weren’t paying attention or if perhaps you were more focused on the coldness of the cold.

In the past few weeks I’ve been somehow gifted with the awareness that life is ok. A while ago I started reading the book, “The Secret” just to see what all of the stink was about. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t buy into everything the book says. My reading of it though coincided with my realization that I had been rather “down in the dumps” for a long time. I wasn’t happy and I was tired of not being happy.

After a lot of reading and reflection this idea planted itself in my head and it’s been growing ever since. It’s not original at all. In fact it’s something I’ve been told my whole life. It’s simply the idea that it’s better to be positive than negative. It’s better to search for the treasure in every situation. Opportunity knocks when you’re looking for it.

If you work hard and keep your head up and are looking for good things then you’re more likely to find them than if you allow your default setting to be negative.
So I bought a new guitar for Christmas and promptly put it to work on writing some new songs. This one is called “Life Is Beautiful”. It’s a demo. It’s rough around the edges. But I like it and I hope you do too. Go here to listen www.myspace.com/timpeppersideb

Getting Happy

You find life in the paper-cuts that happen while you’re filing all your ‘important’ information. You find it happening to you when your eyes are on the horizon. Life is right now. It’s whatever situation you find yourself in. It’s current. It’s relevant. It’s contemporary. Life is not what you will do or become. It’s not your job or your money or your relationships. It’s what you decide to do with everything you have or don’t have right this very second.

As for me…I’m getting happy. I’ve been depressed. I’ve been let down. I’ve been disappointed. I’ve looked for life in the days and years ahead of me. I don’t know how it happened but somehow I realized that all I have is right now. The past is six feet under. The future is anyone’s guess. If this moment were my last I would want people to remember me as a happy person who was a joy to know. So I’m getting happy.

My mother, who is a wonderful person, used to tell me that I could “get glad in the same pants I got mad in”. I used to get madder in my same pants every time she said it. But she was and is right. Sure, life isn’t perfect. I’m not everything I want to be. I don’t have everything I want. There are circumstances I can’t control. But, no matter what is going on in and around my life, I can choose to see the joy and the beauty that is happening everywhere.

If you see me on the street some day and notice that I’m a little down. Remind me of these words that I’m writing by telling me to get glad in the same pants I got mad in.

Attitude is Everything

It still seems a little ridiculous to me but I’m beginning to think it’s absolutely, one hundred percent true. What I’m referring to is the idea that a person can change their own circumstances simply by changing their attitude. I feel like some sort of little league coach telling my bright eyed boys and girls that, “Attitude is Everything!”.

If you’re like me you are thinking something like this, “Attitude schmattitude. You can’t change things with your mind.” Well I’m beginning to think that you can and that you have to if you want to survive and be happy in this life.

Life is pretty random I think. It doesn’t care more for one person than another but it also doesn’t care whether one person is successful and another isn’t. Life just happens. It happens to all of us. You can’t escape it…ok, you can but it’s not recommended. So that means maybe there isn’t some driving force that’s going to lift you up and carry you on golden wings to your ultimate success. But it also means that there’s nothing stopping me or you or anyone else from doing exactly what we want to do.

You generally see what you’re looking for. If you look for hindrances you will find them. I’ve done that a lot in my life and I pre-empted a lot of failures by having a negative attitude at the outset. So why shouldn’t the opposite be true? If I look for opportunities I’ll find them. If I look for pathways or stepping stones to success I’ll find them. If my attitude at the outset is positive and hopeful I’m more likely to get that result.

A continuous positive attitude means a better chance of attaining success in the things I set out to achieve and that in turn will transform my life and my circumstances.

Below is a video and my wish for Christmas is that it will get 1 million views on YouTube. There was a time when such an audacious scheme would have entered my brain and been beaten down by 1 million negative thoughts about why that's not going to happen. You wouldn't be reading this because I never would have gotten this far. Instead I've decided to believe in the possibility and give it a try. So it's working already.

Watch this video and copy the URL to your facebook page. E-mail it to your friends and tell them to do the same.

1 Million Views For Christmas

Here are some fun facts for you:
1. There are over 60 million FaceBook users worldwide.
2. In the US alone there are over 100 million YouTube users.
3. Videos go ‘viral’ every day (ok that last one might not be true..I made it up. But I’m sure it happens a lot.)

Given these fun facts I decided to set myself a goal:
I decided to attempt to generate 1 million views on my YouTube video “Close My Eyes” by Christmas. If I succeed I think I will have given myself a wonderful present this year.
So if you’re reading this and you’d like to help then do the following:
1. Watch the video
2. Copy the URL (located on the right hand side of the video if you go to YouTube. I’ve also included it below) and paste it into your status bar on your FaceBook profile. You can also copy the embed code and paste it into your myspace pages and blogs if you have them.
3. Send this message to friends.

Here’s the code: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jfZ5vXjXYs

Hopeful Thinking

Everything that I didn’t do all the days I thought about doing them but didn’t…I can still do.

I know there are a lot of problems with that sentence. I know that some of the problems with that sentence have to do with the incorrect application of the English language. But the real problem with that sentence is that it’s just what every procrastinator on the planet wants to hear. Whether or not it gives people with a tendency to put things off one more excuse to do just that though is not why I wrote that sentence.

Here’s why I wrote that sentence:

I still want to sell songs. I still want to write songs. I still want to record them and play them for people and I want to get signed to some label that will help me make some money from this thing I’ve dedicated the latter portion of my life to. That hasn’t changed.

I think there are good reasons why I haven’t done a lot of what I want to do in music. But the reasons why are not the point here. The point here is that sentence at the top of this page: I’m still going to do all of that because it’s not too late.

I saw a t.v. show featuring Sylvester Stalone a few weeks ago. He’s in the gym, grimacing through a set of some monster-lift. He’s looking huge and ripped and awful. But he’s looking awful because that’s what he wants to look like. He’s 63. He’s not a young man anymore. And that’s the point: It’s never too late to do everything you ever wanted to do.

Lately I’ve been waking up with this weird sense of hopefulness. I don’t know where it came from but its here and I’m hanging on to it.

All of this has nothing to do with the video at the top of this post. I just like the song and I hope you will too.

A Seven Hour Pursuit

Last year I moved from my sunny, warm home in South Africa to Nashville, Tennessee in pursuit of something. I thought I was pursuing a dream, and I suppose I am but it turns out that I’m in pursuit of something much larger too.

People talk of dreams as if they are specific things. The little kid who dreams of becoming an NFL football player knows exactly what position he (or she?) will play and for which team and which plays are going to make him (or her) the most awesome player that ever existed past, present or future. But grown-ups dreams are not so much about a specific job or thing as they are about quality of life.

My own dream has always been a little hazy. Industry people like to ask the question, “Tim, what exactly are you trying to do with your music?”. I understand the reason they ask that but what they don’t realize is that I don’t give a crap. How about this for an answer: “I want to wake up every day and look forward to playing some music. Maybe I’ll play for some people. Maybe I’ll just sit in my studio and write some new songs and fiddle with some new gear. Maybe I’ll play some music with my good friends who are also in my band and we’ll get a ‘new direction’ for our music. All of this will be happening in a comfortable house somewhere where it’s warm outside most of the time. Of course if I get tired of that day to day routine there will be some touring and when that’s not happening I still want to visit Europe (I’ve seen so little of it you know). My wife, who is awesome, will accompany me a lot of the time because although she is highly motivated and intelligent she doesn’t have to work and she kind of digs spending time with me. This comfy arrangement is made possible because my music pays for it. I don’t care how it pays for it. That’s not the important bit, Industry Person. The important bit is that people all over the world are listening to it and I don’t have to serve sushi anymore.”

Sometimes I think music sucks. I think this because I wish more people were listening to mine and because I know I’m better than some people who are living my dream. But I’ve done a few things in my life and here’s what I know…There’s absolutely nothing else I want to do with my life. It’s been the constant through all the ups and downs. Even when I hate it, I hate it with a passion and that’s more than I can say for most of the things I’ve done in my life.

The song “7 Hours” was written when I was newly rolled out onto the tarmac in Nashville. I was cold and missing home and my surrounds were dull and grey.

Hard to Keep Believing

Some nights it’s really, really depressing to b e where I’m at doing what I’m doing. It’s hard to keep on doing things that seem to lead nowhere. On nights like those I write songs like this and I write essays something like what’s written below. It’s kind of funny if you think about the state of mind I must have been in to write this...

“The music is too loud and the lights are too dim. I’m dealing with another difficult customer. The atmosphere in this place is hard to get around in sometimes. It ‘feels’ if you know what I mean. Atmosphere shouldn’t ‘feel’. You shouldn’t really notice it but in this place on some nights I can’t get away from it.
The computer lights glare into my eyes, contrasting with the dimness of the rest of the room. The carpet, despite being swept and vacuumed every night, is full of embedded soy sauce, wasabi, soy beans and fish. In my mind these pieces of food are intermingling and festering and becoming something like that large amorphous glob of goop from that movie, “The Blob” that eats everything in its path. If they took a sample of the carpet from here and analyzed it, like they do in CSI, they would find large amounts of organic foodstuff residue along with all sorts of air fresheners like Febreeze.
I’m leaning in again trying to hear what ‘sushi eater’ is saying. I apologize, blaming the music for my inability to hear, so as to put ‘sushi eater’ at ease.”


I stopped writing there because I figured it was an exercise that wasn’t positive or helpful to my soul.
This is my life and my dream. I do this for a reason. I do this so I can pursue a career in music. And telling myself that over and over again is what keeps me going. Sometimes it helps to write it out too…which is why I decided to let you read it.

I don't think Darius Rucker would mind me saying that I shook his hand and said, "Hi. Nice to meet you." last night. I also met John Daly and I'm pretty sure my dad will be a little bit jealous about that. I think he might also roll his eyes at the fact that I didn't know who he was until someone told me later. I kept thinking, "Why does this guy look so familiar?".

So in the past 5 days I've met three famous people and went to the Grand Ole Opry for the first time. My friend Drew Davis got me a backstage pass which was pretty cool of him.

I was a pretty big fan of Hootie and the Blowfish back in the day so it was a cool experience to meet Darius.

All of that has nothing to do with the video that I've posted here. The video is a couple of my songs. That couch I'm sitting on was given to me by my aunt TJ. Please feel free to comment on both the video and the couch.

Famous

So I bumped into “famous person” (FP) last night at the restaurant. Actually I didn’t so much bump into FP as serve them sushi and green tea and call them a cab. They asked where the bathroom was and I feel like I did a pretty decent job of directing them.

Here’s the thing about meeting famous people; They are really just the same as you and me but it’s hard not to get excited about it at the time. It really was the highlight of my working night. I like to think I handled myself with a certain amount of grace and poise but I probably didn’t. I gave FP my card and they very graciously acted like that was a cool thing to do.

I’m having visions of FP sitting in a hotel room, bored and clicking on over to my website and listening to my music. It would be pretty cool if FP bought my album from iTunes and listened to it while they were jogging on the treadmill at gym.

The weird thing about meeting famous people is that you feel like you know something about this person even though you really don’t. You’ve seen them on t.v. and heard their songs on the radio and so this person feels somewhat familiar even though they’re a complete stranger. In their minds they must unconsciously have a scale on which they measure their fans. The scale goes from “mouth-frothing idiot” at the bottom to “pretty cool and potentially memorable” at the top. I think most people would rate somewhere in the middle which is “non-descript, harmless person”.

I used to think about raindrops hitting a car speeding along a highway. If you traced the journeys of the car and the raindrop backwards to their respective points of origin would you ever guess that a particular drop of rain would fall on a particular car at a particular point on the highway? If the car sat in the driveway for a second longer, or if a light had been red instead of green things may have turned out differently. I think that’s why it’s so cool to meet famous people; at least one of you leaves the encounter thinking, “What are the chances? Sweet!” Hopefully the other one leaves thinking, “Pretty cool and potentially memorable.”

Strong Week

Monday: $400 to ‘fix’ my car. I got pulled over last week with expired registration. So I had to get my car tuned up so that I could get the emissions test done so that I could get my registration done. Waiting in line at the emissions testing grounds smoke starts pouring out of my exhaust pipe. One of the guys operating the grounds points a finger at me and tells me to get my car out of there. So I go back to the ‘mechanic’ and he says maybe I need to drive the car on the highway to get rid of the smoke before I go back.

Tuesday: Today I leave for Louisville, KY. I need to rent a car now because I’m not convinced my car is fixed at all and it’s not registered and I don’t have time to go back to the mechanic so I can get the test done. $413 to rent the only car available at Access. The other places had no cars available and I need to leave in the next 30 minutes to get to Louisville on time.
I love this car. I’m being spoiled by driving this Chevy Trailblazer with a Bose sound system. I’m fantasizing about actually owning one of these and driving it all the time. The open road makes me feel good about life. I’m relaxed and enjoying my drive to Louisville.
I arrive in Louisville and meet Heather Davis (who I still think of as Heather Askelson) who I haven’t seen in about 15+ years. We drive over to her friend, Natalie’s house and then drive to the country club to get some supper. They want to know about my music and about my ex-fiancé and why that didn’t work out. Natalie pays and I thank her and I feel a little awkward because I’m not sure she intended to pay for my food.
We head back to Natalie’s house and get ready for the party at which I’m playing. People start arriving and I eventually start playing music for a bunch of minglers. People buy my CD and I play some more music and end the night playing pool with Bob who beats me very soundly.
Back at Heather’s we talk until 3am about people we both know. I feel like Heather and I might have been good friends if we hadn’t lived across the ocean from each other.

Wednesday: My eyes pop open at 8:00 am. I have to be in Beaver, WV at 5pm so after a shower and a quick breakfast during which I get to know Heather’s little ones and in-laws a bit I hit the road.
I’m enjoying the road again and looking forward to playing again tonight. Get to town with an hour to spare and Sam drives us to the venue, Cultural Delight, a little international café. It’s Wednesday night so there aren’t any customers in the place but I play a set for Sam and Josiah and the owners of the café.
The owners invite me back to play for lunch tomorrow. They hope they’ll have a crowd for me.

Thursday: Lunchtime crowd is 5 strong and there’s a couple of stragglers getting take-out orders towards the end. I’m having fun playing and not really concerned about the numbers right now.
6pm finds us making our way towards the As You Like It Café, which turns out to be a great place to play an unplugged gig. Fifteen or so people show up and I enjoy the set because everyone is listening intently. I take a break and mingle and then do another set. CDs are sold and signed and more mingling happens.
Back at Sam’s we start discussing ‘life and stuff’ until about 12pm. My alarm is set for 3:30 am.

Friday: 3:30 am came and went with barely a nod from me. I open my eyes at 4:20 am and run around getting ready to go. My rental car has to be back in Nashville by 12:15 am and I have 444 miles to drive to get there.
I stop twice along the way and make it back to Nashville at 12:25 am. Dance for joy at not being charged for an extra day.
I go home and take a nap and head to work at 5 pm. Not dancing for joy at the prospect of working tonight but I need the money so…

This is the dream apparently and I love it. I decide I need a lot more weeks like this one.

West Virginia is Delightful

West Virginia is mountains and trees and lots of trucks on the highway. Of course I haven’t experienced much of it. I’ve been here for about 20 hours and I spent some of those asleep.

I’m sitting in the Cultural Delight Café, located in Beckley, WV. The owners seem to like my music. I played here last night for a crowd of about 9 people which included the owners and Sam D. Smith (www.sdsmith.net). They said I should play again here today and hit the lunch crowd. So here I am. My set is over and there were a few people here. Now I’m waiting for a burger (how very culturally extravagant of me) and attempting to catch up on blogging.

Sam filmed a little bit of my performance last night, which you can watch here.

Over and out for now but stay tuned.

Sometimes I wonder if the things I wonder about are normal things. I mean it doesn’t seem strange to me to but I wonder if everyone thinks about the same kinds of things:

I have a friend named Kevin. He was my best friend when I was around 9 years old. When you’re 9 years old your best friend might as well be your brother. There’s an acceptance and innocence in friendships when you’re young that doesn’t exist when you get older. My brother will always be my brother and I’m fortunate to have a great one. But even if he was a crap brother he’d still be my brother. That’s the kind of friendship I had with Kevin. I haven’t seen Kevin much in the past 23 years but I still think of him as a friend.

My family moved overseas when I was young and I used to wonder how different Kevin and I would be if our families had reversed roles. What if I’d stayed in America and he had gone to South Africa? How significant was that one big move in my life? How has it shaped my reality? I wonder.

I wonder sometimes about how people’s lives turn out so differently than they imagined. Mine has anyway. There’s a homeless person who cycles by the restaurant sometimes and I’ve talked to him a few times. His name is Harley. The last time I saw Harley, he had a huge gash in his head that was all stitched up. He’d fallen off his bike apparently. I gave him some money so he could get his prescriptions filled. I don’t know if he used it for that but I felt like maybe he would and if I didn’t give it to him maybe he wouldn’t get it.

I wonder what Harley dreamed about when he was a younger man and I wonder why he was never able to follow that dream. For me to follow mine took more than just my own will. I had a lot of encouragement and help and sometimes a bit of pushing and shoving. I had guidance and wisdom from other sources. I am like one of those little trees; tied to a piece of wood so that it will grow straight until it becomes thick enough to stand on its own. I guess Harley never had a good straight stick to grow against. But the thing I wonder about is whether Harley thinks about that at all.

There are bombs of a nuclear nature being made and tested in North Korea. I can’t begin to know how to think about that. Isn’t there enough shit in the world that countries should stop spending so much money on guns and bombs and implements of war? But then shouldn’t we prepare to defend ourselves in case some stupid thing leads to another and we find ourselves in need of defense? I wonder if I was a North Korean if I would feel the same way. I’d probably be scared that America might decide to bomb my country even though as an American I feel like that’s a bit ridiculous. But then again we are one of the most war-involved countries of all time. I wonder how it’s possible that any government anywhere doesn’t get that a modern nuclear war anywhere in the world would be devastating to the entire planet. Even if you’re the aggressor and you get yours off first you’re still just shooting yourself in the foot.

I wonder if it’s normal to wonder about normality.

Rain Drops, Hot Dogs, Wisdom

It’s raining…very, very hard. Lightning. The sky lights up in blue flashes. It’s seems close but I can’t hear any thunder. The rain on the roof is very loud. I’m trying to decide if I should wait a few minutes inside or just make a run for it. More lightning. This rain isn’t letting up anytime soon and I’m locked out of the restaurant. More blue flashes. So if I wait I have to wait in the back foyer which is covered but not really pleasant. Lightning.

I’m running across the parking lot towards my car. I’m soaked in no more than ten seconds and I have a good way to go to get my car. I’m nervous about the lightning and it all strikes me as incredibly funny. I have a huge smile on my face and I’m laughing out loud running through a soaking rain. It feels good to run. I’m really stretching my legs out fully and jumping puddles and running hard. I haven’t run like this in a long time. The rain is cold and feels good after such a hot day.

The weather in Nashville is whimsical and extreme. I’ve never experienced so much weather in all my life as I have in 6 months in Nashville. I’m in the Red Door Saloon in East Nashville. I love this place. It’s loud with people talking, the sandwiches are good (read: cheap) and it’s a good place to watch. There is a tornado watch in effect until midnight. I decided while driving home that if a tornado comes through I want to be around people and not in my apartment (I’m afraid it might fall down around me).

There’s a barmaid with an interesting hairstyle. She looks a little like Reece Witherspoon in the face and of course she sounds a little like her since this is Nashville. I think she’s older than me but she’s kind of pretty. I have my Chicago Dog in front of me. I have my PBR. My hair and clothes are soaked. The rain has driven a lot of people here tonight and they are mostly around my age (give or take 10 years). Age doesn’t matter in Nashville. Tattoos matter. Piercings matter. Hairstyles matter. Isn’t that what matters everywhere? When they named this place “music city” did they ever imagine it would become such a wonderfully vibrant mix of people? I imagine some guy in a cowboy hat came up with the name. He had no idea.

The rain has subsided. My dog and my PBR are finished. There’s a sign on top of the t.v. in the corner that says “I’m not bashful. I’m from Nashville.” It says a lot about the atmosphere in this place. I’m reserved by nature. That sign is kind of like an instruction to me. I look at it every time I come in here. If a wise old woman were going to give me advice about how to get by in Nashville, in America, in life; they could do far worse than to say; “Don’t be shy!”

Right Here. Right Now.

I’m in my car driving north on I-65 listening to this, “I found God, on the corner of First and Amistad, where the West was all but won, all alone, smoking His last cigarette. I said, “Where you been?” He said, “Ask anything?” I’m thinking that whatever I’m experiencing I should experience to the full and whatever emotions go along with that I should feel completely.

I’ve been writing a lot about loneliness lately. In fact, I’ve been writing about it so much that I think I need to stop. No-one likes a party pooper and that’s kind of what I feel like. But in the same moment I also think that I absolutely must write about it because it’s where I am. Suddenly Miley Cirus is singing about moving mountains and trying to enjoy the climb and I totally know what she, or whoever wrote the song, means. Suddenly I realize that most people probably get that but I never knew it before.

In the lane next to me is a woman driving an SUV and I think she gets it. She knows what this feels like and maybe even more than I do. I am an island but only because I forget that everyone essentially goes through a lot of the same stuff in life. We wouldn’t have words like “lonely” or “happy” or “love” or “awesome” if we all didn’t get what those words were about. We’ve all got associative pictures in our minds that flash like bulbs, brilliantly when words like that are spoken.

A few years ago I spent a few days in one of the most beautiful places in South Africa. I walked along a beach that wasn’t like most beaches. Where the land meets the water is a mass of rocks and boulders. In places the boulders are small enough to be moved by every wave that comes and goes and as the water moves over them a thousand rocks knock against each other and make a wonderful sound that I’ve never heard before or since. There are pathways through the forest and rope bridges connecting one side of a gorge to another. One evening the sun set and the sky turned purple and orange and red. Whenever I think of beauty I get that picture flashing in my head.

Two nights ago I held a girl in my sleep. She wasn’t there and if she had been I wouldn’t have held her. But I want to hold someone and everyone knows what that feels like. The funny thing is that it’s not comforting in any way to know that everyone knows what that feels like. Because I still have to feel it now. And I should because it’s where I am.

Difficult

Apparently America is “fireflies in June” amongst other things. Those other things include, “kids selling lemonade in a front yard, farms and cities, high school proms.” The list goes on if you are Rodney Adkins.

I’m drinking red wine at Rumors on 12th Ave in Nashville. The wine is good and free and there’s pizza and scallops and asparagus involved. Somehow I got myself invited to join a private party. This is America; sitting on a patio with people I hardly know drinking good red wine.

They tell me that being married is difficult. I wonder if it’s more difficult than being single in a new town. They tell me that relationships are difficult. I can’t disagree with that because I’ve been in a couple and sometimes they were exactly difficult. But I’m telling them that being single is difficult too. Perhaps it’s being single as well as not knowing too many people as well as being in a new environment concurrently that is difficult.

Earlier tonight I sat in church and the preacher was trying to answer the question of why there is so much pain and suffering and difficulty and tragedy in this world. His answer was that he didn’t have an answer. I don’t hold that against him because I can’t answer that either.

Lately everything seems difficult. I meet a lot of people and the one thing I have in common with all of them is that none of us are where we want to be. We’re all striving and straining and digging and reaching for something else. If happiness could be bottled, one of the ingredients would surely be ‘presence’. What I mean is that every now and again I feel happy and it’s usually when I forget about my dreams for a minute or two and enjoy the moment. There’s a lot of good things happening to me and around me and it’s possible sometimes to be present, in the moment, totally ‘there’, instead of wondering how it could be better.

I’m a single guy in a new place and that’s hard. I’m in America; a place I don’t understand yet, and that’s hard. I’m reaching for a dream and that’s hard. But tonight I’m sitting on this porch, laughing at jokes and enjoying this moment.

Maybe this happens in other places. I don't know. But it seems that for me this happens only in America. So if I was a country singer I wouldn't write about lemonade and fireflies. I'd have to write about strangers and scallops and red wine on porches. For me, that's America.

The Look

Human experience is vast. I cannot relate to anyone. I can relate to everyone. I am a stranger. I enter interstate I-65 every day and head south to get to work. I live in a ‘not so great’ part of town. There are shifty ladies looking through my car window as I drive by them on my way home at night. There’s always someone who needs some change at the gas station. Having no teeth seems to be normal. There are large 18-wheel trucks passing by on the highway every minute of every day. I feel homeless.

With such thoughts on my mind I get up from my table at Bongo Java and I’m walking towards the stairs that lead off the porch and towards my car when I get the look. I can’t interpret this look. I’ve never been able to as long as been alive despite the fact that I’ve gotten this look a lot. It’s neither a look of obvious interest nor is it one of distaste. It’s quite possible that a woman could give me this look and in the next moment a man could. It’s asexual in nature. It’s mildly inquisitive but not necessarily inviting. It’s obvious that ‘something’ is going through the mind of the looker. That’s the look.

I’m sort of minding my own business, as I tend to do, walking off the porch and if I hadn’t turned my head in that moment I wouldn’t have seen it. This 20-something couple is chatting away over coffees and the girl is clearly staring at me; giving me the look.

Of course my immediate response to this is, “oh yeah..she digs me.”. This response doesn’t mean that I am an ego-centric male person. This is the normal male response. Men are generally resilient creatures and mostly we like ourselves quite a bit so when we catch someone giving us attention we assume they are admiring us. Actually I am merely attempting to be humorous. I was an awkward teenager so most of my high school years were spent interpreting the look negatively. Everyone was an awkward teenager.

Nevertheless I am prone to further analyze these types of situations so later in my car I start to wonder what it all means; Do people in general get this look? Does this happen with great frequency? If I were someone else would I be more or less likely to act upon these situations? Should I talk to these “lookers”? Am I inept at reading social cues? Am I picking up on social cues that everyone else misses?

Like this song? Grab it and post it to your blogs or your social neworking sites. Shot.

Luke was the second artist I "interviewed" for a story. I didn't really know what kind of questions to ask so we ended up talking about stuff more than doing an interview which is kind of what I was going for anyway. I think this picture says says a lot about Luke's character.

Listen to Luke here: www.myspace.com/lukesiedle

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As I take the first foamy sip of my cappuccino I’m thinking about Luke Siedle’s surname which is pronounced Seed-Lee. The name got me thinking about a certain John ‘Johnny Appleseed’ Chapmon renowned for wandering around North America in the seventeen hundreds planting apple tree nurseries as he went. He’d return occasionally to collect any money, old clothes or corn as payment for trees purchased. The story is something of a legend that I remember hearing about as a kid. This shoeless, humble man wandering around being kind to people and collecting very little in return somehow built something worth remembering. That’s his story and I’m seeing some parallels with him and the world of musicians out there on the road spewing forth their art into a world that sometimes gives very little back. The thing that keeps them going might be the idea that they are building for themselves some kind of legend; that maybe one day they’ll be remembered and thought of with the same fondness and affection we reserve for the likes of the Johnny Appleseeds of the world.

Luke’s strolling across the street in my direction now and he’s got his own story to tell. Indeed, if his new album titled, “Our Stories” is anything to go by Luke has more than one story to tell. If comparisons must be made then Luke’s album is something like a South African Fionn Regan or Bob Dylan. The difference being that Luke has a better voice and is already a far more accomplished guitarist that Bob ever was. This is an intellectual, songwriter’s album full of great guitar driven, melodic, soulful stuff.

Sitting down at the table we exchange greetings and order another cappuccino. I’m trying to play the part of the interviewer and asking Luke a lot of questions. It seems we’re both new to this situation but we nevertheless manage to get bite out of an interview-type-thing. On his beginnings Luke shares that he’s been playing the guitar since age 14 and had the good fortune to be taught a few things by Durban legend, Guy Buttery. “It was a bit intimidating playing with someone like him but he was always very chilled about it. We’d mostly just share our ideas.” On his goals for the future I find we share the dream of doing this ‘music thing’ for a living. Luke’s ambition is to keep challenging himself and not become like so many prolific young songwriters who seem to lose it as they age. When it comes to songwriting we also seem to share the habit of writing words and music at the same time, “It needs to happen all at once. If I force one on the other I usually end up getting rid of it.”

If you can picture a couple of songwriters sitting and chatting over a cappuccino; If you can picture them parting ways and going home to pick up their guitars; If you can picture them feeling a little awkward about their place in an industry that seems to swallow up so many people like them; If you can picture a man walking barefoot across a country planting seeds hoping the sun will shine and the rains will fall; If you can hear a guitar and a warm voice somewhere behind those pictures then you’re starting to see this story more clearly. It’s not much perhaps but it’s a story and it ours so far. As Luke says, “We’ve got the rest of our lives” to finish this one.

Folk On!!!

“It’s sort of acoustic-indie-folky-rock.” I say. California-guy looks at me and says, “Well folk on then.” I think this is kind of funny. We are standing on the balcony (which is really just a very tall porch) of an establishment on Belmont Rd in Nashville, TN called PM. This restaurant stays open until 3 am and I initially assumed that the name PM was a reference to that fact. I now know that that’s not the case but I can’t remember what the name actually does mean. That and the fact that this place has excellent burgers that you can buy late at night are a little off the point though.

California-guy is a songwriter and I’m talking to him and his wife, a female friend of theirs (whose name escapes me) and one of the waiters at PM. This is Nashville so we are talking about music and bands and songwriting. Actually it’s mostly California-guy and the waiter and me doing the talking. I get the impression that California-wife is a little bored by yet another conversation about songwriting. But that’s also a little off the point.

The thing that California-guy said; “folk on” is the point here. People have referred to me as “rock star” and on occasion people have said to me, “you rock man”. I’m always mildly flattered by these sentiments because I get that this is a show of support and encouragement (mostly from friends who would say “you rock, man” even if I really didn’t at all, in any sense of the word, at any time because they like me and care about how I feel). However I’ve often wondered if I really do “rock”. I wonder if I am perhaps more of a “folker” than a “rocker”.

Sometime during 2008 I did a gig at a place in Durban, South Africa called Boogie’s Rock n’ Roll Diner. The place is sort of a white elephant; the manifestation of one man’s rock n’ roll dreams. Every inch of the walls are covered with guitars in glass cases signed by various famous rock bands. Gibson Les Pauls and Fender Stratocasters abound. There’s even a few really nice Telecasters and I think a Gretsch. The collection must be worth as much as the restaurant itself. Again this is a little off the point.

I finished my set on the night in question and this guy and his wife came up to me and asked me if they could buy my shirt. I don’t sell t-shirts as part of my merchandise. They wanted to by the shirt off my back. This was my favorite t-shirt. I bought it for $5.00 in Knoxville, TN in 2005. It was green and said “IRELAND” in orange letters across the chest. It had deodorant caked in the armpits and on the night in question was soaked in my sweat.

Of course I thought they were kidding. They weren’t kidding. They said they would give me money and the husband’s t-shirt and they wanted me to sign the shirt. I knew that this would make for a good story so I agreed to this exchange. The couple were really nice and they bought a CD. I still get e-mails from them every so often.

Until last night, I think that may have been my only real “rock n roll” moment. No matter who you are or what you do for a living, if someone asks to buy the t-shirt you are wearing (not because they like the t-shirt but because they like you or something you just did) then you are in that moment a “rock star”. This kind of thing happens to rock stars on a regular basis. It doesn’t happen to me on a regular basis and that’s why I still don’t think I am in general a “rocker”.

Last night was another “rock n’ roll” moment for me though. I played a gig at Café Coco with two other solo artists, Andy Elwell (www.myspace.com/andyelwell) and Adam Burrows (www.myspace.com/adamburrows). After some discussion we decided it would be best if we each did a couple of short sets instead doing one long set each. Now it’s been a while since I played a real gig so I was a little nervous. My first two sets didn’t go without hitches as a result but were still decent. By the end of the night the people who’d come to see us play had gone home and a new crowd of young punk rockers had arrived for the show that was after ours. This was a good thing because we each got to play to a full room of people who’d never heard our music before.

For some reason I was really relaxed during my third set and played two songs just because they were the songs I wanted to play. I nailed them both. Most performers are either naturally gifted with a sense of empathy or they develop it the more they perform. This means we can read a crowd and we can usually tell the difference between polite applause and genuine applause. After my last set last night I got the latter and as soon as I got off stage this guy came up to me and asked to buy a CD.

While I was packing up my guitar, Adam came up to do his last set and he said he really liked those two songs. I said something like, “yeah, I always play better when I don’t care what the crowd thinks.” To which he responded, “Exactly. That’s how you should always play.”

I think that’s what makes a real “rocker” though; a person who lives genuinely all the time. A real “rocker” plays what they want to play because that’s what they want to play. Even though they want to be liked (because why else do you get up on stage and play music) they don’t play that way. They just play and they play better because of that. So in that sense it’s possible for a classical pianist or a ballet dancer or a sculptor or, I suppose, an accountant to be a “rocker” sometimes.

Lately I’ve been trying hard to be the person that I am all the time. I tend to be a “politician” in that I sometimes say things I don’t really mean just to be polite. I agree with points of view that I don’t really agree with because it’s easier than arguing the point. I realize that’s no way to be so I’ve been trying to tame my natural tendency and just be who I am and think what I think and play what I want to play. I think that will make me a better person and a better “folker” and probably more of a “rocker” too.

Nibs Van Der Spuy

When I started taking the whole music career seriously a few years ago and began performing on a regular basis in South Africa a lot of people kept asking me the same question; “Have you met Nibs?”. Everyone agreed I needed to meet Nibs and talk to Nibs. “What the heck is Nibs?” I thought. I was vaguely aware that someone named Nibs Van Der Spuy had been in a band called “Landscape Prayers” that had been pretty popular in South Africa when I was in high school or maybe university, but I wasn’t certain that the Nibs everyone was asking me about was the same guy. It seemed like everyone had met Nibs but me. Finally someone gave me his number and I called him up. We arranged to meet for coffee and a few days later I wrote this piece. Since our first meeting I’ve bumped into Nibs a few times and he really is a genuinely good guy.

One of the things Nibs told me to do was to record an album. I had done demos and demos and demos and had even released an EP but had never done a full album in studio. In a strange way he made it seem very important and at the same time managed to convey that I should relax and just get the thing done. I think he was probably instrumental in getting me to that place where I believed an album was the ‘essential’ next step.

SNAPSHOT: NIBS VAN DER SPUY

According to John Mayer, “Belief is a beautiful armor”. What makes belief so beautiful is that it cuts through all the ‘stuff’ of life that makes you feel like you’re nothing or wrong or worthless; the ‘stuff’ that just leaves you tired, sick to your stomach and wanting to run away. Sitting on a black pleather couch at some little coffee shop somewhere I’m feeling fairly hopeful that my life and my career could be looking up.

Much like the rather orange cushion I placed to one side when I sat down, my anxiety over the music industry and my place in it has momentarily been shelved. “You’ve got to get out there and take the music to the people, Tim. In the beginning they won’t always come to you. But if you believe in what you’re doing then you’ve just got to do it.” Nibs’ eyes are bright as he speaks to me from across the coffee table amidst orange cushions and black pleather. Enthusiastically bobbing its agreement, his braided, beaded goatee nicely punctuates this wisdom like a flashing exclamation point. Belief practically oozes from this easy-going, but clearly energetic man; a quiet confidence that he’s on the right path and that everything will be o.k.

Cars need petrol. Cows need grass. Belief needs feeding just the same. That powerful force that enabled men to walk on the moon and build churches in the jungle and sometimes just ‘keep on trucking’ is the same thing that got me here talking to Nibs. Certainly it wasn’t a direct route. It all started in a Biology lab a few years ago, sometime between teaching Sexual Reproduction to my Grade 9s and The Digestive System to my Grade 12s, with the seeds of belief.

Those seeds have names like; “I can”, “I have something unique to share”, “If they can do it, so can I”, I really want this more than anything”, “I will try”, “I won’t give up until I’ve done this”. With seeds such as those great journeys begin. But as the days turn to weeks and months and years the seeds are sometimes forgotten, buried in muck and dirt from too many frustrations and too many unrewarded efforts.

Suddenly though, while sharing a coffee with Nibs amidst the orange and black, I’m reminded of my seeds. Nibs’ belief in what he’s doing stirs something in me and I realize that while my seeds of belief may have been battered and bruised they haven’t gone anywhere. They’ve begun to sprout and are soaking up the good energy that seems to be a part of Nibs. My belief in myself, so hard-won, so tired and fading, is being fed by the belief of another.

Consuming our coffees we talk about integrity and sound engineers and the perils of being pigeon-holed as an artist. Our CDs have been exchanged and we’ve each discovered a new thing and it’s time to head our separate ways. Belief is a beautiful armor and with guys like Nibs around that armor will stay polished and gleaming and the journey will continue. Thanks Nibs.

Please do check out Nibs for yourself here: http://www.nibs.co.za/site/home

Tis The Season For Porches

Sitting on porches is something I’ve done a bit of in my life. Something about a porch makes sense. Porches are sturdy and elevated. It’s important I think that they’re elevated because it gives whoever is standing or sitting on them a sense that they are overseeing something. That’s a good feeling in general as long as it doesn’t involve a lot of pressure and most porch experiences I’ve had were fairly scant of pressure. The porch is a place to sit and think and smoke and drink coffee. It’s a place to be with a friend and talk about good times. It’s a place people in the movies go when they’ve just been given bad news and the great thing about that is they always seem to be rescued by someone while they’re on the porch and then everything seems like it’s going to be ok.

It’s springtime in Nashville and porches are in fashion. In the past week I’ve sat on three porches. Here’s a few glimpses of my fairly ‘porchy’ week:
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There are two women sitting at a table on the porch at the 12th South Tap Room. The brunette with long hair keeps getting up to fill her glass with water and I notice she’s wearing green camouflage pants with cowboy boots. It looks wrong but somehow o.k. at the same time. None of the guys who keep chatting to her seem to mind anyway so it must be o.k.

From where I’m standing on this particular porch I can see two more young women playing guitars and a cello and a ukulele (not all at the same time of course) on the stage located inside the bar. These young women are beautiful. They’re singing songs that have obscure meanings I think but which I love. These young women are smart. I know this because I spent a couple of evenings talking to them and their respective boyfriends about music, which I like to think I know a little about, and politics, which I know almost nothing about, and songwriting and America. There were no porches involved but the conversations were still pretty good.

If they weren’t already spoken for I’d probably fall in love with one of them. These are not average girls. These are music-playing, opinionated, independent girls. The high school I attended in South Africa had class rankings. The A class was the really smart people. The B class was the nearly, really smart people and so on. After the D class or so everyone was lumped into ‘mixed ability’ classes which was really just a euphemism for ‘not conventionally bright’. Tristan and Larissa are A class girls. When they play it’s all smiles and passion and swaying hips and head shakes. The head shakes are from the cello player, Larrisa, who does that very cello-esque head shake at particularly intense musical moments. It’s very attractive. The hip sways are from Tristen who sings and sways just so. It’s likewise very attractive. If these two girls aren’t famous in a few years then the world is truly a dorky place.

From where I’m standing on the porch I’m suddenly thinking that Nashville is a pretty cool place and that this is some of the best music I’ve heard since I’ve been here.

you can listen to Tristen and Larissa here:

www.myspace.com/larissamaestro

www.myspace.com/tristentristen

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I’m on another porch about a stone’s throw away from where camo-cowgirl sat last night. I’m drinking a glass of Pig’s Head merlot, writing a very long letter. The letter is a relationship post-mortem addressed to a woman who I was engaged to only a few weeks ago. I don’t think I’ll be sending this letter but I need to write it as much as anything I’ve ever done.

The view on this porch is stunning. It’s full of girls drinking wine and wearing their spring wardrobes. Something about the post-relationship haze combined with the change in weather and accompanying shift in the clothing Nashville is wearing makes every woman I see seem strikingly gorgeous. It’s not so much that the ladies are wearing less, even though they are wearing less. I grew up in a town where it’s always hot. The ladies there wear bikinis a lot and that’s very awesome but you get used to it eventually and don’t think much about it. This winter I appreciated all the ladies wearing their cool coats and bum-hugging jeans and scarves very much. They looked lovely and stunning and chic and cute. Now the seasons are changing and a metamorphosis is taking place. I’m seeing legs again. I must say there are a lot of runners in this town and that makes for a lot of good legs. But I think it’s the change more than anything that’s made me suddenly aware of all the ‘amazingness’ surrounding me. I can’t compare it to butterflies emerging from a cocoon because cocoons are ugly and that’s not what’s happening here. It’s a bit like all the lovely, bum-hugging jeans wearing camp were packed up along with their cool scarves and coats and beanies and shipped off to a colder climate and they’ve been replaced with a whole new set of summer-dress wearing, wine-sipping joggers.

Again I’m struck by the thought that this town is looking quite attractive at present.
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The expansive porch I’m sitting on is full of metal chairs and tables. There’s a not-quite-awesome cappuccino in front of me and I’m reading a book by Chuck Klosterman. The cappuccino is at least in a ceramic coffee cup and I like that a lot. The contents are too milky and more like a latte than a cappuccino. I think a place called Café Coco should know the difference. But I’m not all that upset by the average jo because I’m sitting in the sunshine and there are people chatting quietly around me and I’m reading a book about rock music, musicians and other famous people and I like that a lot.

I think I need to instruct the barrister next time to please make sure my cappuccino is what it’s meant to be, i.e., 3 equal volumes of espresso, steamed milk and foam. Actually I probably won’t instruct the barrister about anything because she seemed nice and I work in the service industry too and I’ve served ‘that guy’ before; the obnoxious, know-it-all who likes exactly half a slice of lemon in his water and absolutely nothing on the plate except the sandwich. I think that guy should relax a little and I probably shouldn’t care so much that my coffee is a little milky today. I still get to sit here and appreciate the day and its wonderment and read this excellent book and that’s all pretty great.

So Nashville, when it’s not freezing my too-small-for-bum-hugging-jeans-that-even-the-guys-are-wearing-these-days bum off, in the springtime, is a pretty cool place for porches and lovers of music and jogger legs and wine sipping…. Oh, and coffee.

That Worky Me

So I have a facebook and a MySpace and a website and this blog and several other micro-sites around the internet that I established mainly for the purposes of promoting my music. Lately though I’ve noticed that the internet has started encroaching into my real life and into the lives of the people I meet.
I’m at work talking to a customer and I’m dropping the phrase, “you should check out my website” into the conversation, “I was just writing a blog about that the other day..ha ha ha.”. Now when people casually ask that old party favorite, “so what do you do?” I find myself wondering how I can work an URL into the answer.
I noticed during my years of teaching Biology to high school students that my colleagues had two personalities. They had the “teacher” persona which was strict and stern and conscious of the rules of the school and in very many ways this persona was very much like a jerk. I don’t say this to be derogatory to my colleagues because in general I liked most of them. I liked them a lot. But I knew the other “normal, average-joe or –jane as the case may be, every-day” persona because I hung out in the staff room with them and listened to their jokes and drank coffee with them.
I think that’s a pretty common fact of human life though. People tend to separate their job and their personal life. But it goes deeper than just a division of labor. It affects our personalities. Weekday dad is not weekend dad. Power-suit mom is worlds apart from sweatshirt-n-jeans, soccer mom. One of the reasons I couldn’t be a teacher was that I knew to be a really great teacher I needed to embrace the “teacher” persona and basically be an asshole for 8 hours a day, five days a week. I’m not saying all great teachers are assholes. I think the ones who get it right without being an asshole are amazing people though. I was the ‘nice guy’ teacher. I had a hard time enforcing rules and being strict so for me to do those things I felt like I was being an asshole. In any case I wasn’t being me.
I had a hard time being someone I wasn’t for the sake of the job. I know I can’t be the only one and that brings me back to facebook and other such social networking sites. I wonder how real our profiles actually are and I wonder how much thought people put into the candid pictures and comments they post. I wonder how many companies Google potential candidates to find out what the person is really like. I wonder if what they find out is really worthwhile information or not.
I could be the biggest jerk on the planet and still be good at my job. Would a ‘jerky’ facebook profile cost me a job or a career? I could be a totally different monster at work than I am during my free time. Should it matter either way? More importantly, will it matter and does it already matter? Maybe switching personas is a natural part of humanity and it’s ok. Maybe we should be allowed to be a jerk, or a nice guy when we’re not at work and whoever that ‘work’ persona is should be judged strictly on the merit of their ‘workiness’. Actually I suspect I have it backwards. Perhaps we are in a dangerous place in society when it has become so common to do the personality switcheroo every Monday morning. Maybe we need to be aiming for a more balanced equilibrium between ‘workiness’ and normality.

I’m imagining a time when the facebook profile (or its equivalent) becomes as closely guarded and masked as the work personas we now portray. Maybe this is some kind of golden age where everyone is using social networking as its creators intended, i.e. to connect with people, exchange information and generally show off to the world and be ridiculous in a fairly public but controlled manner. Are social networking profiles doomed to become just another résumé which only tell people what we really want them to know about our achievements and experience and leave the personality at the door?

Fearful - Defining Moments

I’m afraid of just about everything. I am the guy who never raised his hand in class. I never talked to girls who I thought were pretty. I never tried so many of the things I wanted to try. I didn’t dance because I didn’t want to look stupid. I didn’t take the game winning shot…I passed the ball to someone else. I didn’t say what was on my mind because of that little voice in me that told me I would fail. “You will look stupid.”, it said. “You will miss.”, it said. “She will think you’re a doofus.”, it said. “You will sound like an oaf.”, it said.
A habit of behavior becomes our very personality. Maybe I’m not cautious by nature. I just learned to be that way. That old familiar feeling of excitement that comes when some new opportunity presents itself is something I learned to dismiss so much so that my demeanor has been molded by it. I play it safe. I stay in the background. I’m the “strong silent type”. But really I know I’m just scared.
There is some truth in the voice. I do look insanely stupid on the dance floor. But in those moments when I did venture out and shove a sock in the throat of that voice and I did dance…I had fun. I had fun. Let me say it again. I had fun. It could be the fear itself that makes the experience all the more enjoyable.
So I wonder sometimes why I still listen to the voice. I wonder why I still accept the fear. I am convinced that successful people hear the same voice that I do but somehow they learn when to listen and when to disregard that voice. They’ve learned that sometimes failing is not so bad as it might have seemed. They’ve learned that certain, “must fail” situations turn out to be brilliant success.
In the movie, “Tin Cup”, Kevin Costner’s character talks about ‘defining moments’ explaining that at certain moments in life, either you define the moment or the moment defines you. I know that in my own life I’ve let the moment define me far too often. I’ve listened to the thundering sky and decided not to go out of my cave. I’ve heeded the call to safety. I’ve missed a lot of opportunities. I’ve missed a lot of fun.
I don’t know who said it but I am beginning to understand that famous statement, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” Was it Churchill? It doesn’t matter. It’s true beyond belief. I hope and yes even pray that instead of listening to the voice I might start to understand that the moments when the voice is calling at its loudest and clearest are the very moments that I must act. Those are the moments that lead to greatness perhaps. At the very least I won’t spend my life sitting in the back of the class, never speaking out, only ever being noticed for the fact that I don’t say much.

ER

I’m in the backseat of a black Volvo with a bumber-sticker that says, “Ithaca is Gorges!”. My feet inside my shoes are swollen and painful and burning and itching. I’ve got red bumps all over my body…
Saturday night after work I go out with a few of the guys from RuSan’s. My left shoe feels like it has a stone in it. I keep taking it off and trying to find the troublesome titbit that I’m convinced must be in there somewhere. It’s late and I finally decide to leave the partying to the pros and go home and get some sleep.
I’m home now and my left foot is really giving me trouble. I have to walk on the side of my foot. I shower and go to bed. At some point Sunday morning I wake up and get up to go to the bathroom. Both feet are sore. I’m walking on the sides of both feet and the pain is getting worse. I sit down on the bed again and a burning stinging sensation shoots through both feet. I’m freaked out now.
What the bejeezus is wrong with my feet? I’m sitting on the bed staring at them and notice that both balls are really swollen. I can’t touch them because it hurts and itches and burns. I stand up again and can hardly walk. There’s a lump in my throat and I keep drinking water. It feels like a vitamin got stuck and won’t move. I’m not sure if I smoked too many cigarettes last night or if this is related to what’s wrong with my feet. I start looking at my body and notice the red spots which have started to appear all over me. They itch. I count the spots starting with my legs. I stop counting on the right leg at 20-something. There’s more on my hands and arms.
What the bejeezus is wrong with me? I need to eat food. I have oatmeal in the kitchen. I limp to the kitchen and am very concerned that the pain isn’t getting any better. I put water on the boil and then sit down in the middle of the kitchen floor. I’m freaking a little bit now but not too much. I stand up and finish stirring the oatmeal and grope around to find a clean bowl.
Sitting on my bed eating oatmeal I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. What did I eat? What did I touch? I think I might be reacting to too many bags of trailmix which I’ve been snacking on a lot lately. I had a bag of trailmix for supper last night. And the night before. Maybe I should ease up on the nuts. Is this shingles? I just had the flu and got off antibiotics. Maybe my immune system is weak and this is shingles. My dad wrote an article about giving blood after he’d had shingles so I’ve got shingles on the brain. Maybe I’m reacting to the antibiotics.
I limp to the computer and Google medical clinics in Nashville. Everything’s closed because it’s Sunday night. I decide to go first thing in the morning. I read my book and go back to sleep. I wake up to go pee and I still can’t walk. I’m limping really badly now. The balls of my feet feel like grapefruits.
I give Tim a call and get no answer. I call Larissa and get no answer. She sends me a text a few minutes later and I send one back asking if she knows of a medical centre I can go to on a Sunday night. She calls and speaking to her I start to freak out good and proper because now I’m explaining my situation to someone and thinking how weird it sounds and we decide she and her boyfriend will drive me to the ER.
So I’m in the back seat of her Volvo smoking a cigarette and looking at Nashville and wondering what my body is doing. Jonathan (Larissa’s very cool boyfriend) is making jokes about how he was planning to go to the ER later anyway, trying to make me feel better about dragging them both out on a Sunday night.
I talk to a bunch of doctors and nurses at the ER and the consensus seems to be that I’ve had an allergic reaction to Amoxycillin which I had been taking because of a cold/flu type thing that I’d had a couple of weeks previously. They give me drugs and I go home.
I’m thinking about how something I put into my body made me sick and so I have to put something else into my body to make me better. We do very little taking out and a whole lot of putting in and I’m wondering why we don’t do more taking out or at least less taking in. There’s a constant stream of food and drink and medication and vitamins and nicotine and caffeine and ‘stuff’ going into me. All of it affects my body and my attitude and my behavior. I’m wondering if any of that means anything or if that’s just the way we are.

ESJAY (JONES?)

Note: this was the first interview-type-thing I ever did with an artist. Esjay is one of the coolest people I know and she's always been a good friend. Her life and sacrifice for her music were one of the reasons I eventually decided to pursue my own dreams. I wish her all the success in the world. This article was written in 2008......

Taking a meanderous route through the winding streets of Westville, past the prison, round the bend and down the lane I arrive at Face Studios to meet up with Esjay, lead singer and front person for the Durban-band Stealing Love Jones. The band has been recording a new album with American producer Bjorn Thorsrud, who’s done work with the likes of The Smashing Pumpkins, Shania Twain and The Dandy Worhols, tentatively titled “Bleed To Bloom” and due for release in South Africa and North America in late September.

Sitting on my fuzzy, studio stool, I’m doing my best to stay in the background as Esjay does some tra-la-las, warming up in the vocal booth in the background and Bjorn fiddles with buttons and knobs in the control room. “Can, can you here me? Awright, one for level…”. Cue music and there’s Esjay, suddenly in the zone, feeling her way through “Hospital”. Outside in the garage-come-foyer, Jason Every, guitarist for Stealing Love Jones, is napping on the sofa. He’s waiting to record the final guitar tracks for the album.

“Take a break.” Says Bjorn and with that Esjay makes us a cuppa. Two sugars and milk for me. Honey and Jack Daniels for her. “It helps the vocals.” She says. Over a steaming cup, Esjay offers a little inside info on the recent Stealing Love Jones tour of North America. “In the first 11 days we did the equivalent of the Durban to Cape Town drive 6 times. We all got a wake-up call over there. We were paying 8 dollars to sleep and shower in truck-stops along the way. Emotionally and physically it was very hard and made us all feel so blessed to have come from a place (South Africa) where we are loved and supported.” Jason, still sleepy-eyed on the couch, says they were driving a senior-citizens van and pulling a trailer. He elaborates, surprisingly talkative for having just woken up, “Six hours of driving, an hour to unpack and set up the rig, an hour of sound check and rehearsals, then waiting for 4 or 5 hours for the show. We’d do the gig and then pack up and hit the road again to haul anywhere between six and thirty hours in one go! It was work. Fun, but hard work.”

Esjay, speaking of the album name says, “We’ve all been through so much. I’m thinking of calling the album “Bleed to Bloom”. Taken aback, I confess to Esjay that I think any artist will know exactly what that name means. “Sometimes it’s just the vision of so many people believing in you and your dream that keeps you going.”, she says.

I ask Esjay what it’s been like returning home. She tells me the pace hasn’t eased much. After a quick tour of S.A. with Sarah Bettens (K’s Choice) the band hit the studio again. “Bjorn has been working from 7am-7pm for the past three weeks… we’ve been working until 1am for the past three days to finish vocals and all the quirky stuff. He’s leaving in two days so we’re pushing to finish the guitars and vocals on the last three songs of the album. We have a benefit concert in Zimbabwe on the 4th July in support of the community of Bulawayo. It’s a bold and pioneering move in the current climate of political uncertainty there. We wanted to go against the grain and do the opposite of what everyone else is doing. After that we hope to return to North America and gain some more ground there. It’s scary because I’m leaving everything that’s comfortable. I know there are thousands of others out there trying to do what we’re trying to do but I’m comfortable with it. I can’t see myself doing anything else. Jason and I wrote a song together called “99” and it describes that feeling in the lyrics, “I SEE THIS AS DESTINY… I SEE THIS WRITTEN ALL OVER ME.”

As I sit on my fuzzy chair sipping my tea I listen to Esjay, now singing again from the vocal booth. A couple of lines keep repeating in my head, “Days turn to night…to the echo..to the echo..to the echo…forever…forever.” It seems to me that this life of touring and studios, singing the sun down and long into the night, the endlessly repeating cycle of writing, recording, gigging and touring is Esjay… forever.
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For information on Stealing Love Jones, including music, tour dates, management and booking info, check out http://www.lovejonesband.com/ or WWW.MYSPACE.COM/LOVEJONESBAND

Lonely

The art of being lonely is a shrewd one. It’s cool to be free and all that. My time and my money belong to no-one but me. But tonight I went to a concert and then ate supper alone. Standing in a room full of people or eating at the bar (because that’s where they put you when you are a party of one) falls a little short of the full experience.

That ultra-stupid song, “Lonely. I’m so lonely. I’ve got nobody for my own.” keeps popping into my head. I’m the guy that hums the McDonalds tune until another song or t.v. commercial replaces it so it’s unavoidable really. Whatever happens to be on my mind works its way through the neurons and synapses in my brain and somewhere along the way gets turned into the tune that most closely matches the message.

The trick is to make sure that when you’re in a crowded room you hum quietly in your head and not so anyone else can hear you. Occasionally I do slip and that always draws looks of suspicion from whoever happens to be close enough to hear. There’s no coming back from that either because people generally avoid conversation with those deemed to be “not right”.

Gone are the romantic images in my mind’s eye of the cool loner that everyone secretly admires and wants to be like. I used to want to be Brad Pitt’s character from that movie, “Legends of The Fall”. But now I realize that he wasn’t cool. He was just lonely.

At my last count I had 507 friends on Facebook. Many of them are genuine friends and not just Facebook ‘friend’ friends. But tonight as I stood in the Cannery Ballroom on 8th street in Nashville, watching James Morrison I sort of wished that one or two of those friends were with me.