Blackouts Remind us to count your bruises

So this past week the Southern Western United States and Mexico experienced its 2nd biggest major blackout in the past 30 years and it was all due to one person, one man, .....

Who's identity is still unknown

Being without power you tend to think/hear about things like: damn there goes my xbox, I cant charge my phone, or , hey, why is mom taking all the batteries in the house to her bedroom and locking the door?

but looking at it from a point of view that I had to sit here all day without a/c or anything was kinda shitty for the simple fact I've grown up in very cold areas at night

& Also have known to be "Coooold Bloooooded"

and the fact I had to sit in the dark with my room mates and sit talking in a circle about life and things made me realize one thing that helped fuel the thought in my mind the whole night....

I fucking hate every single one of you


So to kill the boredom one of my room mates, Alex, and myself headed out around the town at night to see what was going on.

(Pictured belowAlex)

(Pictured below myself)

and as we seen all the places closed or trying to stay open for business you saw how life really was outside of technology. On the good side you have families walking and biking with each other up and down all the trails and giving themselves a chance to really spend time with each other, also there were others walking around or simply having a picnic in the front yard .....it was pretty gay but on the other side you see the people who bitch about people not knowing how to drive; you know the ones im talking about the ones who bitch for people for driving too slow as their going 110 in a 70 zone, that couldn't figure out a simple four-way stop. The only super market that was open switched out their normal Red Cross collectors for 4 Sheriffs with badass shotguns and a dog named Kujo.

 Dont let it fool you, It's heart is as black as night

You go inside and see there are absolutely no shopping carts, no meats or deli, all milk and dairy half off and a line that literally was a 2 hour wait to get from the back of the store to the check-out stands which mind you all were open......oh and no ice.....tooootalllll bullshit. You go to all gas stations and so forth everyones either freaking out about the apocalypse and family and look quick to ran-sack a place or even worse grab a shotgun to just protect what they have with their hasty mindset.

So by this time I got back to the house and realized we don't have much food or much of anything but we have cell phones to remind us that life sucks and seeing as Verizon was the only working it was worse because people tend to forget, everyone and their mother is trying to use the network even police, new casters, and the guy who got screwed out of a 7.99$/per min sex session digital call. So the more and more everyone and everything is trying to add and push harder the more clutter there is. Then we get the last point of this for now, We think damn no microwave, No Tv, no Ipod charger. But do you think of the other thing that has happened to everyone else?

you jackass...

People were in the middle of getting surgery done
A baby was being born
Someone was washing sky scraper windows 150 stories up in a basket
People were in elevators trapped
Someone was in the middle of a tattoo being outlined
Kids are at amusement parks on rides
etc....

all run on power and need it to keep like roll'in, so to speak, and before you get all uppity and so forth on me remember, generators dont just kick in right away, for as many situations that they can and are needed how many times is it being used. You can have your computer on sleep mode but it still has to boot up and get those few moments till its running at full capacity.

All this is caused by one persons choice, decision & action

then at 1:4-somethin in the morning after the whole day of missing the 'Friends Marathon',  I was sitting on the phone and the power came on and at first I didnt really notice it but then it had hit me that although I could feel so low to a point in the complete dark of night, A light came on then once that one did many more came to follow. And then you know me I go and take everything I observe and make it into a life lesson for myself.


The Pledge 
The situation of power will be our metaphor for what keeps us going, the Power Line could be anything you choose it to be, your heart, your emotions, your bitchin' Cadillac? and then the prestige shall be described in the aftermath.

So you live life thinking to yourself that theres good and bad, great days and shitty ones, Black and white.

 No not that kinda of black and white

And although you have days were you look were you have everything you want or nothing at all theres always someone or something there to be there for you. Now realize this, this whole blackout situation occurred cause of one simple person. Now apply it to yourself, your whole day could be going great and then one simple person makes it into something that doesnt seem to fit or feel right. You have feelings of fear, hurt, doubt, anxiety, etc..... or your having a bad day and you have that one person who turns it right around and you feel lifted, happy, excited, smitten, etc.... So going out on a limb to say thats not true because you "depend on yourself" or "have many people who make you feel those ways" would be acceptable but dont single out all areas it could be posed towards: A parent, lover, friend, enemy, ex, adult, child. And what ever the case take the one person in your life right now you know has the biggest effect on you, then put them in a good and bad decision then think of how it would affect you.

If bad: You let it ruin your days, sometimes get you down to where you cant think straight and puts you in that funk that only as much as you wanna try an laugh its really kinda sad

 like other things in life

Or good: you take it for the small things and move forward with all you know you do and do have and take it for what it is to find the better part of it and roll with it.

The Turn


Now you look at how your going to take it and roll with the punches. Do you panic feel or good about it?
Thats entirely up to you, that power system has now been effected and the point if you let it affect you is completely a thin set of lines that cross over.

Example: Lets just say you loose all the motivation and "power" with someone and or something, You have nothing  you can do to bring it back on or have it work since obviously the spark (pun intended) to light it is gone. Now you could either A) use it as something to productively move on and forward to better yourself and the situation B) Take it the other way and assume whatever your doing is better, more like making you feel better for the moment and end up like Robert D. Jr in the 90s

So what do you do if its productive how can you go without power you say? Well the honest truth is like remembering the days of having to run in school or even now-a-days. Your thinking with your side burning like crazy " I can go on any further im dying, I cant breath, bitch bitch bitch"
yet...... Your still running, moving forward, and trucking along (as your bitching) to get back to where you need to go so you dont just get stuck in the middle of no where. Or maybe you did pass out and die, I dont know but i highly doubt that your reading this. Well the same goes on with life, when the power is gone we are quick to say that it doesnt work as a form of phrase. But is it broken? no, it just doesnt have the means to preform its task at the moment, then when the moment is right it goes right back on again,

 There are too many ways to use this joke.

It took one person to make the entire lives of 50 million change for a moment and it took much more to clean up the aftermath and get things back on track.


Life is the same way, it only takes one person to ruin a moment or a day and sometimes that can be someone close, anonymous, or worse ourselves but because it happens doesn't mean that it cant be fixed sometimes it just takes alot of effort and others to make that happen positively and have that power line connect back to what it once was.

The Prestige 
So we see that alot of what people do and go through can be scary, shitty, and unexpected but thats what life is, no assurance. But thats how we learn, grow and start pimpin

commercially or privately 

The Cellphone part is like your heart and mind, you cant let yourself try to run it with a ton of others trying to as well at the same time as yourself, but you need to allow yourself to shut it off and let you yourself collect thoughts and actions before letting the network back in, or its just a giant cluster fuck to be stalled, lost and frustrated in. People with guns and rash decisions? thats simple to say that when your in a panic or worried about anything you tend to put this wall up for you and maybe others but with defense for alot of people comes haste and with haste comes bad decisions. The not having food part? well we always have food, people who have nothing in the house not even a can of beans, have no food. We just choose to half ass our way of life and thinking to where a little is never enough and that straight in turn fucks you over. We as people tend to get caught up in convenience that we tend to forget what comfort and life is really about and it sucks because in the end when it you look at what is around you, the potential and possibilities and sometimes it takes just the power to go out and loose all function to really see how much you can do with and without things, it s just the hardest part sometimes, but well worth it in the end. The lights will come on at the most of random of times and remind you although the lights are gone and your down and out, its coming back on sooner than later

it just depends on you....








"Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"."

I wanna join a band and see the world!.........dumbass

So today Ive realized that I could write alot about many things and people and in due time I plan to ruin each and everyone one of your lives.

One by one

But for now Ill write about my current conversations with a new great friend I have that has toured and known many of the bands that I have as well, and we both came up to the funny things people seem to ask us and how the touring/band life is on the real.


Perception.
The the perception of being in a band and touring and how glorious it is to travel the world and play in front of hundreds/thousands of people receiving love and fame where ever you go getting the big bucks and recognition.

Truth: If you were to tell that to any touring musician that isnt oh idk ......drawing 5000 people in then im sure that life insurance your wife/husband is looking forward to is coming in alot sooner than expected.

yes i miss my husband so much, but did you see how nice this car is?

First off lets start off at the beginning
There are Major label bands, Indie bands, Unsigned bands, Jam Bands, Session Bands, Garage Bands and the famous "Lets start a band and go fucking nowhere with this shit!"

By now you can guess which ones my favorite

In the big picture of things Major label bands are paid pretty well and get alot of push but that doesnt really mean they have it all. Many rappers prove the point of singing about having: Money,sex, drugs, alcohol and soo maaaaaaannnnnnny women, or men we dont discriminate against anyone here, except you melissa i know your reading this. Truth is, 90% of the music you hear from alot of these people is not written or composed by them. How many times have you seen a great movie with the main character being a complete badass and then look at the director and writers and realize these people look and seem nothing remotely to a badass....more to just an ass.

 Could you imagine this guy as Darth Vader? Saaaaad trombone.

They grab someone like Brad Pitt, Natalie Portman, James Franco for the simple fact its marketable and not to say these people they hire are nowhere near talented its just a image to push the idea and what we as people will buy and feed into. Now there are many artists who write their own stuff that are big but unfortunately its like watching Terantino write, direct and act..........fucking horrible. So as they sing about much of these items and life styles they dont really have too much to go off of unless your  Lil' Wayne or Jay-Z, whom in most cases own their own establishments.

You ever why you see Crunk Juice, Rocka wear and all that crap everywhere ? because besides the fact its horrible crap and were stupid enough to buy it, its really the only way to make money. When you tour for a label they send you over seas, in a bus, then have to pay you, your band, your techs, production crew, sound crew, promotion, travel: Air fare, gas, maintenance etc...
So by the end of most tours if your J. Tim you'll just enough for that gun youll need to shoot yourself with after all the fine print.

So really your asking me, Hey Steeeeve what does this have to do with touring ?
well before your open your mouth........shut your mouth. This is my blog.

This ties into most bands of today, with the invention of social networking and file sharing it has become even harder than ever to sell music due to piracy and the fact most cassette tapes are non existent and burning cds last i check was pretty gay,

Thaaaaaaannnnnkkkks Ipoooooooooood!

So you have bands who even till today draw great crowds and play events like: The Vans Warped Tour, Taste of Chaos, The All-Stars tour, so on and so forth. But aside from those events alot of the time its not all that flashy you play with bands that have a huge lineup and think, "wow theres so many people here were gonna get so much exposure" but in reality after all is said and done you've sold a few cds and moved on back to reality and really your chances of exposure would have gone to greater heights if you would have been a little less day day dreamy

 and a little more "Im going to get arrested for this for sure, but Ill be in the papers"

majority of bands playing these days, with how horrible the music scene, if any, is go back to 9 - 5 jobs or to live at home with mom and dad because your really playing alot of small venues,bars or places that require you to hustle promotion even if you do have an agent. So by the end of the night you have to think about it, you get ready to go see this band play and so forth and have your whole day ready and planned out then you go, watch and then leave and hit up a Dennys.........dont act like you never have.

Thats your point of view and mode that you go through. Now look at what a band goes through

This is why we DONT leave the Easy-Bake Oven ON!

Driving state to state, town to town lets say an example of one venue/show I had to play and my friend came to watch and lets compare how our days panned out.

Her Day:
6am:   Woke up,Got ready went to work,
12pm: had lunch,
5pm:   finished work,
5:30    drove to store to get dinner for that night for band,
6pm    went home, showered, got ready
9pm    headed to venue.
typical day for any joe or jane shmoe who lives. Now

Our Day: (previous night)
11pm: Finish set and load out no time for mingling
5am:   In full gear about 6 hours in our trip from Providence RI, to Nashville TN
7am:   Flat tire
8 30:   Back on the Road with horrible fast food again
2pm:  Arrive in Nashville
2 45:  Still looking for venue/ venue parking
4pm:  Load in sound check/ set up
5 30:  grab food and eat check out whats around in a max of a few city blocks waiting for venue to open
6/7pm  Still killing time
9pm: Venue opens show starts/ wait till you play and then after playing you still have to converse and network and load all your crap out into the trailer by whats now
12/1pm: Fucking hating life

now take that and apply it by 40 dates which realistically doesnt mean in a row. A band usually only has about 4 days tops to really play out of the week and expect something of a crowd to show. Remember kids because you have alot of fans in your home town doesnt mean you mean shit in another town.
Thurs- Sunday are your days people go out and hit up bars clubs and places.....

unless your like uncle ronie..........you poor ol bastard

so every day you have off you have the faults of spending money and doing nothing half the time.
Now living in a van or so forth on tour with other people for months at a time is extremely a test of faith and friendship. Your cramped in a space of no bigger than normal van with the same people who dont get to shower or wash clothes much and are all having personal things go on in their life as well has bottles and food wrappers every fucking were. Now to get me wrong there are exceptions, My friend had mentioned (being the tech for Reel Big Fish) they have a super clean bus and so forth so its really how the band looks at going about things as a family and a business,

                          This is what you dream of .....                            

This is what you get.....hey whos flashlight is touching me!

To finish off for now on that last part about personal things remember that everyone has peeves and frustrations and with everyone getting on nerves and stepping on toes it shows you when you have to be a bigger person but honestly with how little money you make and so forth you ever notice on how many heartbreak, hurt, angry, happy, lust-full songs there are out there?

these people literally have to make a living being on the road movin and promoting their passion and music and pretty much lifes work, and that leaves little margin for family, friends and relationships. So really in the industry if your looking in being in a band its somewhat true but not always when you consider there are unique people out there its either you ruin your career or you ruin your life at any stage in your music you have to remember your not playing for musicians, your playing for radio friendly people who you have to assume dont understand music theory or " how bad ass you look with your bass swinging around" You have to be able to market yourself and think your no longer 15 in a punk band in a garage playing music, This is your lifes work and really there are people who play music and people who are musicians



and within these categories you have to distinguish your profession that what makes a great band? writing good songs and working extremely hard for what you want is definetly a key point but also is the fact that you need to know what is going to get you by and what is going to make you crash. How can i save for life and feed my family with out having to give up,No one can exceed their limitations without having first knowing what they are, Playing/touring in a paying band is a luxury job just like tattooing or rodeo clowns. But in and economy like this the first thing to go is luxury and hits us just as hard so when someone says I dont have the money to buy an album so ill download it and so forth, its the same, if you were an electrician, to have clients stop calling you and needing your services because they found a free way to get the same outcome of your service and now have passed it along to all your customers and now are flat broke.



All and all it is a great life thats hard if you have little responsibilities but is very hard at the same time and if your willing to take it then go get it but support those in your local and indie scenes and remember that when you look at someone who goes through this they have alot of things that factor into what they do and its not all sunshine and farts.

well ......half the time.

Why do we allow ourselves to play the fool?

You know what I hate? having (friends & family as well with) a broken heart at times  Like the last episode of The Sopranos, its complete and total bullshit.

 And Bears...........fuck bears.

Personally I know what it feels like to have feelings of doubt, anxiety,hurt and whatever else you classify as a symptom, but really I see more than a dozen people who have been dealing with bad heartbreak or hurt. The consistent point of where you feel like you wanna move forward and then wanna go running back to someone and it sucks. But seriously some people need to grow up live life with two words

Fuck it

Some people cant move forward and others have to deal with immaturity/drunken text/calls so on and so forth but whatever the case may be the thing we tend to forget as people is something that one of my greatest friends pointed out.
We as people tend to always look at what we dont have rather then what we do.
Looking at the glass half full and half empty is really ones own self perception which is obviously different for everyone but really what have we lost and what have gained out of these situations?
Not a goddamn thing!




Going through the process of losing someone
 (whether that may be in love or more is different but still if someone has passed and your applying this to yourself  Im very sorry but..............your an idiot) and it hurts like hell.

Well.... for some of us 

But really think about it what have we lost? memories? affection? the chance of getting a quickie in before the in-laws come over for dinner? No technically we are still living life and just tend to look at the other side of yard where grass would grow even if you tried. You see the outlook of life its lonely, blue and you feel like all is crappy.
Thats natural we all go through it. Now look at the facts you tend to look at the good and or bad and then get stuck in this mode of what your thoughts of the situation are and tend to forget all the details like who,what,where, why?

Feeling doubt or frustration is natural as well but just take a deep breath.....In........and out......In ......and out...There feel better?

Now, Like that funny smelling baggie you have in the car while getting pulled over, Throw that shit out the window.

 "Littering annnnd?......littering annnnd?............"

We look at what we could have done and not really at what it is that we have done.
Example:
You have an argument with someone and get frustrated over something that should not even be an issue, maybe its someone insecurities or maybe someones been drinking out of your hello kitty coffee mug again. Then when all is said and done you realize half of the things you/they said were out of spite or hurt and then later on each other knows that what you've said wasn't meant (half of the time)
but we still take it personal.

Defenses go up and then people feel remorse for comments or actions or people hear the truth and then turn into Bush mode and start finding every reason to blow up on anything outta "defense". well what makes this any different when your hurting still post situation?
90% of the conversation that I hear from people is complete and utter horse shit and I cant stress on how much it annoys me to see people get defensive and act like 2nd graders about their problems in a hateful or negative way. We all have negative things about ourselves, thats what makes us human and able to learn on whats the difference between good and bad.


How many times does someone that gets left behind, whether it may be by friends or a loved one comes and is quick to say:
 "F- Him / Her, Im So tired of them, I dont know what i want anymore, I deserve better, Their going to miss me when im gone"
then sure enough after everyone and their mother has to hear about it, they jump right back into the situation they just complained about.

"Goddamnit Tom its 2am,If your really this down then do it already, cause if you dont shut the fuck up I sure as hell will"

Then you get people who live by the motto, "A Bitch really aint shit "
and this is said by both sexes, talking about how they're lives are going to be way better an moving on, Even you yourself is going to be impressed with how apparently baller, great and strong this person is!

and also how full of shit that statement is.

Really anyone that goes through the motions of pain an recovery know that like a broken bone it hurts, takes time to heal and hard work to get it back to what it was before if not better. but unlike a broken bone your not spending 50'000$ on recovery

Or maybe you are in a different form of medicine? 

So when you hear someone banter on about all this stuff you have to remember when you hear a song about someone living the "thug life" and Free with out care and love are you usually the most bothered and messed up people when you see who they really are?

Fun Fact. Gym Class Heroes Singer wrote majority of his songs after  The Paper Cut Chronicles about Katy Perry, then when she moved on and talks about F-in other guys and being promiscuous he came back with "The Quilt" and "Billionaire"  albums where obviously he does care and is a wreck at alot of points.

So when you think about it until your real with yourself and so forth your really just fooling yourself and its only gonna get worse. Confusing convenience for comfort is the common factor in these situations

People go out and just grab what ever they need to feel better for the moment and not think about letting themselves have space or time to really heal and although that might help ill let you know the truth...


Your fucking stupid.

"Never go full retarded"

On a serious note, when we heal the best thing I've tried to tell people like how I live my life by is that ignorance and negativity are a dime dozen in this world and the last thing we as people need to do is add into it. If you have disagreements with people let it go. If you move forward with yourself and just let life go on productively the other person will tend to know it and acknowledge it in time because most of the time people will fight to the end like dogs and make it out to be more than its worth. But when you let it go and can just leave it alone what really do you have to to live life, because eventually you'll watch others wreck themselves and make more an ass that what they could already be.



All and all people sometimes people do it to themselves when it comes to hurting and so forth. And theres no point in helping someone if they cant help themselves. But when the cards fall down you see your true friends and foes and knowing whos really there in the end makes you realize that you didnt loose as much as youve always have had along.