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.