Chapter 93: Simple Kind Of Life

Today was a much better day than yesterday, for certain. It was a day off of work for one, and after the past week, (yesterday, in particular,) it was a much needed one. The week just felt extremely long for some reason, and I have come out of it feeling very drained of energy or motivation of any kind. I woke up around 11:30am, when my weekend alarm goes off, but I went back to sleep until about 1:30pm. I got up and sat down to an extremely unhealthy breakfast of leftover General Tso’s Chicken. This is unfortunately not counterbalanced, as initially intended, by me following it up with a workout. I thought, at the time, that I would simply do it later in the day. Spoiler alert: That didn’t happen. It sucks. I’ve fallen off of the wagon and I’ve fallen pretty hard. The thing about falling, no matter how hard it may be, is that you can always pick yourself back up. It’s even better knowing that the wagon is always ready to slow down, and maybe even stop, to let you back on. I am counting on that. I may wind up doing it tomorrow, but I may not. I am not going to pressure myself to do it. I will just make sure that I return to the routine next week, and not let this slip up affect my momentum moving forward. The only real reason I consider possibly not doing it tomorrow is because my Mom is out of town and while I surely CAN do it alone, (and will Monday morning, even though she won’t be home yet,) it is kind of a thing that we do together and I just strongly prefer doing it with her. Whether or not I do it tomorrow, though, I will make sure to do it on Monday morning. I may have fallen off the wagon for the week, but I refuse to allow myself to stay off of it.

While eating breakfast, I decided to spend a little time catching up on TV from the past week or two that I have missed. It was mainly a lot of daytime TV, including yesterday’s episode of Oprah. I was kind of excited because one of her guests was Pink. Pink has been talked about a LOT this past week, since her stunning, brilliant Grammy performance last weekend. For any musical artist it is quite a coup to get a spot on Oprah and I was really excited to see that she was having Pink on the show. Pink is really an incredible artist and, while being popular, has never really seemed to achieve the type of mainstream visibility that some other, considerably less captivating artists have, (one, in particular, who shall remain nameless because I am not being mean about her anymore.) Fortunately, with that incredible performance, she seems to be getting a lot more attention from the mainstream media than she ever has before. She had Oprah gushing, after all. That is guaranteed to pick up sales and visibility for her quite a bit. Her interview was adorable and she did a gorgeous acoustic performance of the song, “I Don’t Believe You.” She also discussed the fact that “I Don’t Believe You” is her most humble song. I found this whole bit fascinating because she was discussing how she is normally full of attitude and very in-your-face in her music and in her life, but that this song was one of those moments where she was very much the opposite of that: insecure, frightened and in need. It was a beautiful sentiment and I love the fact that she could discuss that so openly in such a huge forum. I also love how a song can really capture that type of emotion, even when the songwriter doesn’t necessarily want to face it. I have had that experience many times myself in songwriting. This is one of the endless reasons that I feel so passionately about songwriting as a craft – there are things that you may have never even realized or just didn’t want to face about yourself that will come out in the process. Pink really is one of the better songwriters working today. Aside from many of her own songs, she wrote one of my absolute favorite songs to have come out in recent years, “Whataya Want From Me” by Adam Lambert. That song is absolutely gorgeous and heartbreaking and just feels like it comes from such an honest place, and also seems so perfectly and completely Adam Lambert it is hard to imagine he didn’t write it himself. It is perfection.

Aside from Pink on Oprah, I also watched the episode from last week with Jay Leno discussing the whole recent debacle with “The Tonight Show.” It was pretty fascinating, honestly. The whole debacle is fascinating in itself because I really have no stake in it myself, not really being a fan of either Jay or Conan, but it seems like so many people across the country have really strong opinions on the situation. I guess I just didn’t realize how many people really watch these late night shows. This is probably because the only late night show I pay any attention to is “Chelsea Lately,” which isn’t really a contender with any of these others due to it’s 11pm timeslot and placement on basic cable as opposed to a major network. I’ve got to say, it really does seem like a big mess and a very raw deal for Conan O’Brien, but I don’t necessarily think that anyone can really blame that on Jay Leno. He got the raw deal five years ago when it was announced that he would be leaving in 2009. I don’t really think anyone can blame him for going back to a job that he loved and never wanted to leave in the first place. That being said, Jay Leno also seems like a real asshole. Not because of this whole situation, just because he has this overly cocky attitude towards life and comes across in this Oprah interview like he is extremely stuck up his own ass. I find it very annoying. The best part of it all is the fact that Oprah seemed to find it really annoying, as well. He kept comparing himself to her throughout the course of this interview which, a) is horribly inaccurate and, b) just seems like a real dick move. I understand that Jay Leno is very popular. I understand that while he was hosting “The Tonight Show” and when he left for his 10pm show, it was the number one late night show, (he reiterated that fact about a hundred times in this interview,) but he is NOT Oprah. He is nowhere near Oprah’s status, let alone her class, dignity and grace. He is nothing like Oprah and for him to sit there and compare himself to her is simply ridiculous and, in my opinion, a bit of an insult. On the other hand, though, Conan O’Brien was offered a deal that let him maintain “The Tonight Show,” in a slightly different timeslot and it was only his unwillingness to change that has caused him to lose the show. I understand that 11:35pm is a tradition for the franchise, but traditions are not binding rules – they are simply sticking to the way things have always been. Of course, I am not a traditionalist by any means. I honestly view tradition itself as an unwillingness to change. Change is inevitable in life. It is reality. It can also be a very good thing. I don’t really understand why so many people have such trouble with it. I certainly understand being afraid of it, but fear can also be a very good thing. Fear simply serves to provide us with an opportunity to rise above. That is the best thing of all because, according to Kabbalah, when we rise above our ego-based fears, we make a connection to the Light.

I also set up a Flickr account this afternoon to showcase some of my photography work, (which can be found here.) There’s not much in it currently, but that makes sense considering I am still new to this. However, because I am very excited to explore it further, I imagine it will grow fairly quickly. I have a few ideas for things that I would like to try combining photography and video technology with music. I’m not going to go into details about them at this point because I am not entirely certain of how to put it all together just yet and it is really only an idea at this point, but an idea that I think will be pretty amazing if I can pull it off. These ideas, though, are simply ways to showcase the photography in an interesting, unique and fun way. We’ll see how all that goes. Again, photography isn’t really something that I am trying to make anything out of but is something that I am having a lot of fun with and really enjoying exploring. My friend Rachel came over this evening, (more on that later,) and gave me a really cool idea that I would like to try with her, as well, if she will agree to it. Rachel is a really fun, interesting person and has a lot of very quirky, interesting people that she surrounds herself with. What I would like to do is kind of shadow her for an evening or a day and kind of try to capture some of the essence of her day-to-day life because I find it very interesting and think it could make a great subject for a set of photographs.

Spending an evening with my friend Rachel is always very fun and full of laughter, but she also has a way of making me look at things a little differently than I normally would. She also has a way of reminding me that fun is a very important and necessary part of life. It had been a while, about six weeks or so, since Rachel and I had gotten together and I think that I really needed it right about now. Every time I hang out with her I find myself thinking, “I need to hang out with her more often.” Sadly, life always seems to get in the way. We discussed something tonight, too, that I found really interesting. I was telling her about a few months ago when I did the “Communication Deprivation” experiment and how I didn’t really feel like it wound up being very effective and didn’t really accomplish anything overly substantial. I mean, yes, that was the day that I realized that I needed to take up piano instead of guitar, but beyond that I didn’t really take a lot from that whole experience. As I was telling her about this, she said that I didn’t need to spend a day locked up inside the house without any communication or connection to the outside world, but that I needed to do the opposite – spend the day out of the house, finding things here in town that I’ve never seen or done before and kind of talking to people I’ve never met and things of that nature. It’s an awesome idea, but not something that is all that accessible to me as somebody who doesn’t drive or have a way to get around town on my own. She said that she could come along and drive and we could go explore together. I really like that whole idea and think she may be right – maybe that is exactly what I could use right now. We are going to try to organize that sometime in the not too distant future. I think that would be an excellent opportunity to capture some video for the short film/long-form music video, as well as some interesting moments to photograph. I am really kind of excited by that whole idea. It was interesting because tonight was kind of initially planned to be a movie night, and we did run to Blockbuster to pick up some DVDs to watch, but we actually just wound up spending the evening talking and listening to some music. It was really a good time and, once again, I have found myself feeling like, “I should really spend more time with Rachel.” Hopefully I will follow through on that feeling this time because hanging out with her really does give me a different perspective on things and, as I mentioned above, reminds me to add a little more fun to my life.

Due to the fact that we picked up movies but never watched them, I have pretty much decided that tomorrow should be a movie day. I really kind of want to spend tomorrow doing nothing but watching movies. I picked up some really good ones, too, which I have been pretty anxious to see. I got “(500) Days Of Summer,” “Inglourious Basterds,” and a really interesting sounding fashion documentary called “Valentino: The Last Great Empire,” which chronicles the creation and release of the final collection from Valentino. I also have the movie “The Box” on the computer, which I have been really anxious to see, as well. It’s funny, I was talking to a friend on Facebook earlier today about the fact that I feel like I have lost the attention span for movies and have so many DVDs that I have purchased but put off watching forever. I still haven’t watched some of them. In fact, I have “Burn After Reading” and “The Darjeeling Limited” sitting on my bookshelf right next to me still sealed. Those are both films that I purchased because I have an interest in the filmmakers of them, the Coen Brothers and Wes Anderson, but have never actually seen any of their work. Maybe I’ll try to work one or both of those into the movie watching tomorrow, as well. On the topic of filmmakers, I watched a movie tonight after Rachel left, from a filmmaker who I am really becoming a big fan of: Jason Reitman. Jason Reitman only has three films under his belt at this point, “Thank You For Smoking” and “Juno,” both of which I loved, and now “Up In The Air.” I have to say, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect of this movie. George Clooney, as famous as he is, has never really appealed to me and I have only seen him in one or two movies in the past. Those movies are ones that, overall, don’t really seem to be indicative of his usual work, like “One Fine Day” with Michelle Pfeiffer, his Batman film and “Ocean’s Eleven,” which was much more of an ensemble piece and not really up my alley at all. “Up In The Air,” however, was an absolutely incredible film. It is the story of Ryan Bingham, who travels across the country to fire people from their jobs. He also, on the side, is a “motivational speaker,” with a series of lectures called “What’s In Your Backpack?” discussing the fact that we carry all of our commitments and relationships in our life and how they tie us down. Over the course of this film he comes to realize how wrong he is about that and how necessary it is to have a connection to others. I have talked a lot about this idea recently and this film really captured it in a brilliant way. What this film did not provide, however, is what the resolution is to living your life that way. Still, despite the major differences, I found myself relating to this character a LOT. He lives his life avoiding making real connections with people by simply never staying in one place and traveling constantly. I do that, too. Sure, I don’t travel quite as frequently as he does but I have made a habit of picking up and moving across the country to get away from the issues I have with the people surrounding me and to keep anyone from getting close enough to really latch on. More than that, though, this character really lived inside his head exactly like I do. Once again, though, I don’t really know what the answer to that is. I do kind of feel like perhaps my recent influx of artistic endeavors and my goal to live my life more in my artistic headspace than in my person headspace is just another way of avoiding trying to make a real connection to the people around me here. I have nearly stopped speaking to the people at work, at least speaking about anything truly substantial, because I have been so focused on my artwork. I also find myself going entire weeks without so much as a text message to or from my friends. I don’t like the fact that this is how I am at this point. I just don’t really know how to change that. I know it is all a matter of making an effort with people; making the effort to let them in and to try to get in with them, as well. It just seems like when I try everyone is unresponsive. I am not trying to pass blame off on others or anything, but it is easy to feel discouraged and not want to make the effort. Plus, in a lot of ways, I feel like everybody I know has bigger things going on in their lives right now, like relationships and such. It doesn’t help that I feel like I have bigger things going on in my life right now, too, with all of my artistic endeavors. I can’t really pinpoint the moment that it happened, but somewhere throughout the course of my life, my goals became more important to me than friends or family or people in general. It’s funny, too, because isn’t that really what art is about? I have always believed and kept in mind that what I really want to do is make a connection to people through my music and any other art forms I may work in. I do these things because I want to make an impact and be an inspiration to others. The goal is really to create change in people and make my mark on the world by changing peoples minds and changing their lives. How can I expect to do that if I can’t even make an impact in the lives of people who are supposed to be my nearest and dearest? It is so complicated and I don’t know how to fix it. My thoughts on this are really just a giant clusterfuck that includes everything but an answer.

It really reminds me of the No Doubt song “Simple Kind Of Life.” This is a song about just wanting the simple things out of life, particularly a family, but in the end it concludes, “Now all those simple things are simply too complicated for my life. How’d I get so faithful to my freedom? A selfish kind of life, when all I wanted were the simple things, a simple kind of life.” I can really relate to that whole concept. I mean, getting married and having a family is not a goal that I have ever had for my life but I have always said that I would like to live an ordinary life in which I do extraordinary things. Somewhere along the lines the pursuit of those extraordinary things has nearly eradicated the ordinary things that I have wanted. Again, it sucks because I really have no idea how to fix it. I am pretty much completely unwilling to sacrifice the extraordinary things – it is really a matter of finding a way to incorporate the ordinary things, like friendships and connections, in with the pursuit of the extraordinary. There IS a way. I don’t know what it is at this point, but I know that I will find it. I will because I simply have to. I am not willing to continue to live a life like I do right now; a life in which I feel completely alone. It brings me back to the Adam Lambert song I mentioned before, penned by Pink, “Whataya Want From Me.” That song really kind of describes how I feel towards the people in my life right now: “There might have been a time when I would let you slip away, I wouldn’t even try, but I think you could save my life, Just don’t give up, I’m working it out, Please don’t give in, I won’t let you down.” All I can really ask of the people in my life, my friends in particular, is that they just don’t give up on me. I am trying… I just don’t know what I am doing here. It’s a process and I don’t know how long it will take, but I am doing everything I can figure out right now. Just please hang in there.