Final Draft (I think)

Completely detox for a month or so. (no drinking, drugs, tobacco)


Completely give up tobacco products(ouch.)



Drink less. When i am drinking, also drink less.


Make enough money not just to get by. (hah. sounds easy.)


complete one song a day (wow.)


record at least 2 albums.


Go on a rather long trip. (either a tour or a road trip. hopefully a tour.)


Read a book every two weeks.


Stop eating meat. (I'll miss wings the most.)


Eat a healthy diet. No exceptions. (I've eaten like shit for long enough, i can bear being healthy for a year.)


Go to the gym, get in shape. (The classic new year's resolution. Get on to a plan that will get me the results i want.)


Only buy things like clothes, furniture, etc. second hand. (goodwill, salvation army, tag sales)


Necessary new products, purchase them ethically. (if possible buy from locally owned stores, try to bring shopping at big box stores to a minimum)


Become more politically active outside of my recliner.


Stay in closer Contact with people. (sorry.)


Stick to my principles, always.







I'm biting off more than i can chew. It's kind of my thing.

notes nearing the end of the decade.

Well, all i can say is that this decade was much like a lot of decades. In most individual's lives, they grew, did things, had ups and downs etc. On a larger scale, it blew and was full of misery. Maybe there was some type of social progress, but i can't think of any right now. Some places legalized gay marriage. that's a good thing.

The thing I'm realizing more and more is that there isn't a rewind button in life. It just keeps moving forward. You won't ever be younger and you never stay the same age. I'm never going to be a teenager or a child again. It sounds like an obvious thing, but somehow my mind has trouble with it. My mind has a habit of living in a different place than me.

Another thing i have noticed over the last decade is that the majority of people don't give a shit about music, much less my music. I am happy with my music and it isnt a matter of confidence in my craft. It's just an observation. You might as well write what you feel and write whatever you want to. Search for that personal connection with an audience that understands you, not the other way around.

I am relatively happy, in my semi-melancholy way. I'm rather at peace. As i get older i understand why older people always looked so angry to me when i was younger. I'm not that guy, i just am sometimes.

Resolutions

Eat Healthy.

Go to the gym.

Write a song every day.

Get a band started.

Go vegetarian.

Get involved as an activist.

Make mad loot.

Following my life guidelines (in an earlier post)


I'll be adding more to this most likely. It's all a work in progress.

It's always important than after you learn and decide something, you let it sink in to your true self. Everyone needs to stop being an anything-ist. See and experience.

There is no authority but yourself.

I watched a documentary on the band Crass recently. They seemed to be some of the most free thinking pissed off individuals i've ever heard of. The ideas that they support are ones that have meant a lot to me in recent years.

As humans, we like to put things into categories. To give things names. Countries, states, cities, streets, political parties and ideologies, people; All put neatly together, so we can say "I like it.", or "I don't like it."

It's all bullshit.

They do nothing for anyone or anything. Ideas are the only truth. Our individual thoughts communicated to the word through words or music or fighting is hard enough. To get it out there. To have other people experience a slice of that idea. And there comes the label, the category, the dichotomy, the polarization. Fuck that. Stop thinking so damn much and just experience. Just. Do. Things.

I had a conversation with a friend once and we realized that art is like crying. You can relate and understand the pain, but never through their filter.

So next time you're bored. stop traffic by sitting naked in the intersection. They don't got shit on you. Just sit there and fucking meditate. This is your experience. You're the one crying. And no one will ever get it.

snowyness

it snowed a lot last night.

i woke up at 5:30 in the morning to find my car covered by a 4 foot tall snow drift. I got to work. My shovel broke. I think it snowed about 18 inches. Typically on the coast, we get less snow or no snow at all. In this storm, it was pretty much the opposite. I got to work a half hour early and chatted a bit with Mark, the porter. Starbucks and dunkin donuts were closed, so i went across the street to find coffee at the citgo station. caffeine is caffeine.

it was really slow. I put the sunday papers, and a stayed a bit longer because not many people showed up to work. now i'm home ,but i don't feel like doing much. maybe i'll write some. I kinda want to write a song a day. see if that helps me get my ass in gear in terms of writing. we'll see.


I wrote this the other day. just jotting down notes on band promotion. i write notes on everything.


Keys to successful band

1. good original music
2. practice: having a tight band
3. playing as many shows as possible
4. having a good internet presence and good recordings for after the shows.
5. Having appealing visual art and graphics.


strategy for band

1. write music

2. record demo

3. set up Myspace. add 300 people a day from local area

4. Set up Facebook, Purevolume, last.fm and ilike

5. Find message boards for local artists; join them and become a

regular.

6. Frequent local shows of artists like you. Flyer and talk to people.

Maybe give out free CDs.

7. After 4-6 months of this promotion. start playing shows in this area

as much as possible. flyer and get people to sign up for your mailing

list.

8. Once there is a decent following, only play in the area every 1-2

months, repeat the same promotion steps for a new area.

9. once areas you want to reach aren't easily reachable on the

regular, start setting up small tours.



I mean it's not perfect, but if you're starting off in terms of band promotion, it's a good start.



Here's my list for life.


1. Honesty
-being honest with myself.
-being honest about what i do and do not know.
-being open and honest with others


2. Integrity
-Keeping promises and obligations to the best of my ability.





*utility
-using your time to accomplish constructive goals.
-using positive and negative emotion as fuel for achieving goals.


*tension and release; mainly hedonistic non-productive activity.

-the more you do something, the less satisfying it is;the opposite is true for the less you do something.


*avoiding divisiveness.
-labeling groups, relationships, individuals.
-avoiding assumptions


*avoiding coercion
-becoming a leader by example.
-respecting other people enough to let them live their own life
-only step in if coercion is warranted, which is a limited basis.
-not allowing myself to be coerced by others


*there is no 100% proof of anything.


It's a much more practical set of guidelines than i usually make, but put to the test it can be extraordinary. Enjoy.

it's raining. again.

I'm pretty sure that groton is the only place in New England to constantly get rain, while everyone else has seen snow. I at least would like to see a little bit.

Saturday i worked from 10 until 2 and then went up to newington to practice. One of the main issues with practicing on saturdays as opposed to sunday is that liquor stores are closed on sunday. hah. i still enjoyed myself, and practiced some covers. I guess we may be playing at a bar in hamden sometime in late January. I'll keep everyone posted.

Today i worked from 7:30 until 1:30 this morning. I was exhausted and not in the best mood. Customers were really getting to me. Amber kept waking me up and telling me i had to get up for work. At 3AM. I started second guessing myself during night and responded with asking what time it was every 1/2 hour or so. I have no idea why.

I got out of work, passed out for a while, and then sat on the computer until now. It's 8pm now. The time stamp on my blog is wrong. I haven't figured out how to change it yet. I'm still working on music promotion online. I need to figure out a strategy. I need to become more active. I need to eat healthier. I need to do a lot of things. I'll get there. I hope.

nearing solstice.

Yesterday i had the day off, but i still woke up at 6:15. I half of the day doing music promotion online, and the other half cleaning my apartment. Today i worked from 7-1 and I've been doing the same thing sense. Promoting music online has always given me a sense of accomplishment, but a deeper type of accomplishment. It feels like it is what i should be doing.
It's really a difficult thing to live in the present, and not without fear. Fear only exists from outside of the present. You can see yourself accomplishing goals and fufilling your life's ambitions, but then you don't. Mainly the reason is that you need to do something else, to hedge yourself from some possible tragedy 30 years in the future. Usually the responsible the thing to do is the one that makes you feel safe, not the one that allows you to live, love or create. I feel that is a modern tragedy.
So i sit online, i think of ways to make money to travel around the country and sing to people, regardless of what they think of the idea. And maybe, just maybe, I'll win them over. But for now, i just write.

Rainy and cold.

It is a very rainy and cold day. I guess we have a flash flood warning down here.

I worked 7-11 this morning. If you're going to get me up at 6AM, please give me more than 4 hours. Thanks. Amber took thecar because she had to work 10-2. I had brought my umbrella prepared to walk home, but Brittany picked me up, which was great.

I was searching around on the internet, and i stumbled across this :

http://janetrenoburger.livejournal.com/

I had a livejournal. I forgot i had a livejournal.

I posted in it from May-October 2004. This goes along with my not-sticking-to-things-ness. It's really interesting to read, and it's almost embarrassing how open i was to the world about myself. Compared to then i am so much more guarded. Its gotten me to think about what has changed. I honestly don't know. I wish i could be that open again. I guess i just saw it to be not socially acceptable. I didn't want to be vulnerable, or at least be honest with being vulnerable. Maybe i thought that that's not how a male should act. Maybe i just lost myself somewhere along the way. Either way, I'm happy i found this.


For all of you out there embracing the cold and the shitty weather, don't fret; it will get better.

some thoughts on religion

I just finished watching the first half of the god delusion. its an interesting movie written and starring a devout atheist.

I've never been able to categorically call myself an atheist. Tops i am a defacto-atheist. I feel that it is entirely possible that there are parts of existance that are beyond our perception, but the fact that they are beyond our perception means that we should focus on what we can see to be real and spend less time speculating about what maybe outside the realm of our understanding. I can understand the romanticism of it, and i sometimes think what could be out there that i can't percieve. But i realize what not being able to percieve it means, and within a few minutes i move on.

excuse the punctuation, rambing and mis-spellings. i have gotten into the carlo rossi.

in terms of my religious experiences, i was brought up roman catholic. i went to st. theresa's in good old north agawam. my mom and grandparents went to this church, and so it was a family tradition. it has since closed like many catholic churches, and i'm guessing some type of russian church will take it over. so it goes. thank you kurt vonnegut. i will foreve use that term now.

i think i stopped truly believing in god when i stopped believing in the easter bunny and santa claus. i remember in second-grade ccd they thought i would end up being a priest. hah.

i kind of had a born-again era when i was 15, shortly after my father passed away. i ended up going to a catholic youth retreat when in the summer of 2001 in attleboro. there was a shrine there. and tents. and a lot of kind of inspirational music. i remember feeling very holy after that. i think i even brought home a bible and started reading it. i remember there was this deacon on the trip. A nice fellow with a moustache that was trying to help me out with my confusion. i remember talking to him on the bus ride home. i remembered talking to him about my doubts about the existance of a god. but i remember the comradery(not spelled right). i think that is what i got out of it. it felt like i was a part of something. plus there were a decent amount of girls on the trip that were gorgeous. and i was 15.

i would have to say the feeling of being close to god lasted about 3 weeks. then i started my first punk band. so it goes.

i kind of had a revalation when i moved back home last fall. i had watched a series of videos that made me feel a certain way about the world. the feeling lasted about a month. a lot of my consistancy lasts about a month. though the resonance of that experience has stayed with me.

in terms of the movie, the main idea i got out of watching that movie is that the main problem in the world is ignorance, both voluntary and involuntary. like i said earlier, there may be things outside of our ability to sense or understand, but these things should not trump things that we can see actually exist. I feel uncomfortable electnig leaders that believe in fundamentalist christianity. I believe that a decent amount of the presidents in the past have faked being overly christian because it is the only way to get elected.

Clinton was probably as religious as i am, and reagan probably didnt remember his own name but had charisma. That being said i dont feel comfortable having politicians believing that god talks to them, or that the world is 10,000 years old, or that it prophesy that there will be a last large war. the latter scares me the most.

blog blog blog.

so i have a blog now. i'm not sure why. the Facebook notes just werent doing it for me.

I am still in Groton, at the big Y. it is awesome.

I just finished reading Slaughterhouse Five. It was good.

I'm not very talkative right now.

Bye.