The Emotional Purging; or, The Sum of My Life Thus Far
So as I'm sitting in bed with my latest bout of bronchitis, I decided to sit down and finish writing out some thoughts that have been floating around my consciousness for the last few months. This is a little disjointed, I'll admit, and a VERY long read...
If I had to write a few pages entailing what I’ve learned over the last 24 years, this would be about as all-encompassing as it gets.
The Industry
I remember when I moved up into this area how blindsided I was by all the drama. I somehow managed to make a few enemies before I even made friends, simply by booking a show.
So now that I’ve been here a year, I think I’ve safely passed out of the newbie territory and can make some justified comments about what I’ve seen thus far. I understand that while I came into this area with a considerable amount of experience, that I didn’t really have a place at the time to judge this immediate scene having not really lived in it. However, since I do have the background of working in this industry heavily via record labels, bands, and extensively online promotion, I feel like my observations are both global and not just based on my experiences here.
“If I wanted drama, I would have stayed in theatre,” has been a long-used comment by me, but the reality of the situation is almost the opposite. To take my experience and history back a little bit farther, as some of you know, before I was in the music scene I was in theatre. I fell in love with theatre in high school, worked hard to build my portfolio to get into college, graduated with strong skills, confidence, and a professional attitude towards my career, and have since been working successfully in all aspects of theatre technology and corporate a/v. I mention this because while theatre isn’t directly related to what I do now in the music industry, it set the background and the standard for what I do now.
After watching a considerable amount of personal and behind-the-scenes drama here in the music scene, I tried to understand and analyze just why there is so much crap interwoven into our profession, whereas in theatre, things are almost always peaceful. I think I have a few answers to that now.
I don’t in any way want to come across as arrogant or in a “better-than-thou” light by saying this. But I think the line comes from the differences between industry professionals and industry amateurs. I don’t want to in any way belittle the passion, the love, and the hard work by fans-turned-DJs or fans-turned-promoters. Because, let’s face it, none of us got into this industry for the money or the fame - and if you did, you picked the wrong genre. We all did this, despite our backgrounds, because of our passion for this music and this scene. But I think I got considerably lucky by having formal training for a career in the entertainment industry, because I learned (and I’ll totally admit it, the hard way - by having a nervous breakdown during college after living this “live or die for your art” mentality) to have the personal and professional detachment from what I do.
That doesn’t mean I’m not still passionate about the music I support. That doesn’t mean I won’t bend over backwards to make a show work. It just means that I don’t take professional/industry disagreements as personal attacks. If some of my friends don’t come see one of my shows, my first conclusions are probably along the lines of a) they were busy, b) they had to work, or c) they just didn’t want to that night; and NOT d) they hate me, e) they’re trying to undermine my business, or f) they want to start a competing night/event.
I’ve seen the widest array of:
DJ’s hating bands for playing shows and taking up club time
DJ’s hating promoters who book bands at their clubs for the same reasons
bands hating DJ’s for not always and immediately playing their music
promoters hating DJ’s for not playing for free
promoters hating bands for circumstances out of everyone’s control
bands hating promoters for taking a cut of the band’s hard earned money
promoters hating other promoters for event scheduling
etc.
…and all of this spirals down into personal attacks and divided friendships. Seriously, people, we need to get our acts together.
As stated above, we all (presumably) got into this business for the love of the art. We’re all striving for the same goal. We should be working together in a symbiotic relationship for the common good of the art and the scene. I don’t mean to get all romantic and whatnot here, so here are some key things to remember:
Bands: DJ’s do play your music, they expose you to new crowds, and are an essentially free promotional tool directly to your targeted audiences, so appreciate any help they give you. And most promoters are not trying to take your money, they’re helping you get into a new space (most of the time with great effort and risk of personal financial loss) where you may not have been able to get in on your own.
DJs: Bands make the material you spin. Without them, you wouldn’t have a job. Promoters help bands continue making their music, too, so obligingly give up 45 minutes one night a month to let them have their time.
Promoters: There are only seven days in a week. It’s a business decision to book an event, not a personal attack. And have some honor and integrity to pay your DJs, your bands, and your sound guy.
Love & Human Nature
Some of this is personal and directed. Some of it is global and observational.
“I really care about you…I know, I know…you don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you, it just doesn’t make sense. We only see each other once in awhile and talk some…”
I usually have pretty good instincts about people. You say that I don’t know you, but I feel like it had only been a month or so before I knew you completely. You try so hard to hide behind this persona you’ve created, but you’re so transparent to me. I see the beauty, the softness, and the character you’re so desperately trying to stifle…things you’re somehow mistaking for weakness and ugliness…
You try to pretend you’re indifferent. You say that you want to be like your friends…that you want to live that lifestyle (“if only I had a bit more self-confidence”). Do you really think this is what it’s going to take to make yourself feel better? By trying to hurt or use someone, everyone else? Is that the path to personal peace? I could try to tell you all of this, but I know that this is something you have to find out for yourself. It’s just painful to watch from a distance, and know that it’s going to take a considerable amount of time and more pain for you to understand that you’re chasing after the wrong dream.
But I will still be here. As much as you might want to think that I’m just another body you could toss around, in truth I know that your conscious won’t quite let you. And even if it could, you still have to consider my position:
You can’t hurt me. I never gave you that power over me. I never expected you to want to be with me, or to love me back. I am long past the days where I have some selfish need for you to “justify” my affection.
And you can’t take anything from me. Everything I’ve done, I’ve given to you freely.
I can’t say these disastrous three words to you. I know it would scare you. And, I know it would be meaningless until you figure it out for yourself.
******
For those of you who were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to know me well enough to have been a reader of my personal blog, you may have seen me write about my perceived purpose in my life in regards to love.
The longer I live, and the more people and situations I run into, the more I’m becoming convinced that there’s not someone out there for me after all. This all goes back to a night my first year of college, when I was sitting in the BSU and listening to one of my friends talk about love.
There is no guarantee from God that there is “someone for everyone”. And, perhaps, some people’s purposes in life are to touch many lives, not just one. Maybe some people are meant to float in and out of lives to make small, barely perceptible differences in many, rather than a big difference in one.
Ok, fine, I can accept that. I know there are things much bigger in this life than me. Then why, then, this burning and sometimes overwhelming desire for love of my own that will not go away? I prayed for peace and for acceptance if this is to be my life, but I am still so painfully lonely.
I realize, now, that this pain and desire to be loved is what spawns the compassion that drives me to reach and love to so many people over and over again. I love so deeply, and so easily, because of my desperate wish to have had someone have felt that way towards me at those moments when I needed the most compassion and understanding.
I think the moment someone does love me might be the moment I would lose what makes me a good person.
The interesting part of all of this is how many of my friends seem to be at a similar crossroads in their lives as well. I’ve watched a lot of similar journal entries go up about the same feeling of hopelessness about love, along with a sudden lack of direction in our lives.
It all started in 5th grade. You know, when they let you take that test to see if you could move up to 6th grade math. So you did, and then in 6th grade you were taking 7th grade math, and so forth in 7th grade. Then, in 8th grade, not only are you taking algebra 1, but you’re also going to get high school credit for earth science and social studies. Then in 9th grade, the honors classes hit. In 10th grade, you take your first AP class so that you can start getting ready for college. In 11th and 12th grades, your plate is full with AP, IB, and dual enrollment classes, so by the time you roll out to your university, you’re already a college sophomore.
So you pack your classes some more. You join a few honor societies, you’re a double major, and you have a minor or two. Somewhere in your junior year it might hit you that you really don’t have to get a good grade in History of Drama and Theatre (“D is for diploma!”) because your future employers aren’t going to look at your GPA anyway. But you still work hard in everything else and graduate a year early, because it’s been ingrained in you since 5th grade that you have to work hard to get through this level so that you can get to the next one more quickly.
You’re out of college and in your first job, and the push for success intensifies. You move up through the ranks at that one, then switch to a better company a year or so later and do the same thing. Finally, you move to a new area, are working at the job you’ve been prepared for and think you’ve wanted since being a high school sophomore sitting in AP European History. Now you’re 23 - 25 years old.
Now what?
You put a little money into a new retirement fund. You think about going to the bar one week to see if you might meet someone new, even though in the past you rarely did. You wonder if you might make enough money in the next few months to take a short vacation this summer. And maybe you finally grasp the concept that at this rate you will more than likely be doing the same routine you did today every day for the next 50 years.
All this “hurry up and get to the next level” mentality was for what? Now that there is essentially no “next level”, we all feel directionless and lost. There’s no immediate goal to work on, no new management position to aspire to, no good grades to make. So a lot of us are indeed aimlessly grasping at attempts for love, direction and purpose in our lives.
This dissatisfaction seems so silly. Here I am, in a big city with plenty of opportunity, working the career I have pursued for so long. I get to sleep in, I get to dye my hair pink, and my career (that pays me reasonably well) consists of me listening to good music on a daily basis. I am shocked at my own feelings of disappointment now that I’m here doing what I had worked for and dreamed about for so long. And so many of my friends have had similar success in their own careers this past year…and like me, they’re all asking…now what?
If I figure it out, I’ll let you know. I hope you guys will do the same. But I have a feeling that the answer will come in loosing this “next level” mentality that has been ingrained in us since elementary school, and becoming content with the here and now, and not the inconstant future.
**************************************************
I’ve also noticed a growing trend in my life revolving around the men that I know. While my love life might have been dead and buried for quite some time, I’ve always felt on the flip side that I have some of the best friends in the world. I’ve always been surrounded by good, honorable, caring and understanding people throughout my life. It usually happens that most of my friends are male, and because of that I’m seeing a saddening reality among many of them: a complete and total lack of self-esteem and confidence in some of these guys that I consider to be some of the truest gentlemen I’ve ever known.
What is it about our society that convinces those men who are thoughtful, kind, honorable, respectable, hardworking, responsible, and loving that they are somehow slow, weak, ugly, stupid, scared, and unworthy of love?
I’ve known men who have always been respectful and caring, who have been responsible in their jobs and personal lives, and who work hard to achieve their goals. But, at the same time, they’ve been dragged down by meaningless details that have somehow convinced them that their one small perceived fault somehow negates everything wonderful about them. These “faults” usually have to do with appearance, be it weight-related or the dreaded “my penis is too small” mentality.
I’m watching several of my male friends in particular who are right now undermining their own relationships because of this. You don’t seem to gain much confidence or get much assurance from all the things you ARE doing right: you have a steady job, you have a house or at least your own place to live, you’re a good father (if applicable), you work hard to pursue your dreams, you’re financially responsible, you love your girlfriend/wife, you’re attentive to her needs, you support her career, you can make her laugh, you listen to her when she needs to talk about her day, you hold her when she cries, and you make personal sacrifices for a better future. You know, you're the walking definition of The Perfect Man.
But you’re convinced you’re not good enough for her and that she’s going to leave you because you’ve got love handles and you’re not a porn star in bed.
Based on my own personal (and to be totally honest, instinctual) tastes and needs, here’s some things you guys should all know. I know that the aesthetic (for this scene especially) is for everyone to be 6’10” and 110lbs. That might look good for a photographer’s portfolio, but it’s not attractive for a potential mate. I want my man to be a man; I want him to have the weight to cuddle me when I need comfort, to keep me warm when he holds me, to punch some guy’s lights out when I get harassed at the club, and to not make me feel fat by comparison. (I also don’t want to climb a tree just to kiss my guy, but that’s relative based on my own height.)
And in spite of the 200+ per day spam messages stating otherwise, size hasn’t mattered to any woman I’ve ever talked to. True pleasure comes from intimacy and love, not from a small bundle of nerves.
I say this now in hopes that a few people reading this might realize that the only thing that is wrong with you is the fact that you think everything is wrong with you. It’s a cycle, yes, but it’s in your control alone to stop it.
******************************
Now that this is all out in the open...now what?
If I had to write a few pages entailing what I’ve learned over the last 24 years, this would be about as all-encompassing as it gets.
The Industry
I remember when I moved up into this area how blindsided I was by all the drama. I somehow managed to make a few enemies before I even made friends, simply by booking a show.
So now that I’ve been here a year, I think I’ve safely passed out of the newbie territory and can make some justified comments about what I’ve seen thus far. I understand that while I came into this area with a considerable amount of experience, that I didn’t really have a place at the time to judge this immediate scene having not really lived in it. However, since I do have the background of working in this industry heavily via record labels, bands, and extensively online promotion, I feel like my observations are both global and not just based on my experiences here.
“If I wanted drama, I would have stayed in theatre,” has been a long-used comment by me, but the reality of the situation is almost the opposite. To take my experience and history back a little bit farther, as some of you know, before I was in the music scene I was in theatre. I fell in love with theatre in high school, worked hard to build my portfolio to get into college, graduated with strong skills, confidence, and a professional attitude towards my career, and have since been working successfully in all aspects of theatre technology and corporate a/v. I mention this because while theatre isn’t directly related to what I do now in the music industry, it set the background and the standard for what I do now.
After watching a considerable amount of personal and behind-the-scenes drama here in the music scene, I tried to understand and analyze just why there is so much crap interwoven into our profession, whereas in theatre, things are almost always peaceful. I think I have a few answers to that now.
I don’t in any way want to come across as arrogant or in a “better-than-thou” light by saying this. But I think the line comes from the differences between industry professionals and industry amateurs. I don’t want to in any way belittle the passion, the love, and the hard work by fans-turned-DJs or fans-turned-promoters. Because, let’s face it, none of us got into this industry for the money or the fame - and if you did, you picked the wrong genre. We all did this, despite our backgrounds, because of our passion for this music and this scene. But I think I got considerably lucky by having formal training for a career in the entertainment industry, because I learned (and I’ll totally admit it, the hard way - by having a nervous breakdown during college after living this “live or die for your art” mentality) to have the personal and professional detachment from what I do.
That doesn’t mean I’m not still passionate about the music I support. That doesn’t mean I won’t bend over backwards to make a show work. It just means that I don’t take professional/industry disagreements as personal attacks. If some of my friends don’t come see one of my shows, my first conclusions are probably along the lines of a) they were busy, b) they had to work, or c) they just didn’t want to that night; and NOT d) they hate me, e) they’re trying to undermine my business, or f) they want to start a competing night/event.
I’ve seen the widest array of:
DJ’s hating bands for playing shows and taking up club time
DJ’s hating promoters who book bands at their clubs for the same reasons
bands hating DJ’s for not always and immediately playing their music
promoters hating DJ’s for not playing for free
promoters hating bands for circumstances out of everyone’s control
bands hating promoters for taking a cut of the band’s hard earned money
promoters hating other promoters for event scheduling
etc.
…and all of this spirals down into personal attacks and divided friendships. Seriously, people, we need to get our acts together.
As stated above, we all (presumably) got into this business for the love of the art. We’re all striving for the same goal. We should be working together in a symbiotic relationship for the common good of the art and the scene. I don’t mean to get all romantic and whatnot here, so here are some key things to remember:
Bands: DJ’s do play your music, they expose you to new crowds, and are an essentially free promotional tool directly to your targeted audiences, so appreciate any help they give you. And most promoters are not trying to take your money, they’re helping you get into a new space (most of the time with great effort and risk of personal financial loss) where you may not have been able to get in on your own.
DJs: Bands make the material you spin. Without them, you wouldn’t have a job. Promoters help bands continue making their music, too, so obligingly give up 45 minutes one night a month to let them have their time.
Promoters: There are only seven days in a week. It’s a business decision to book an event, not a personal attack. And have some honor and integrity to pay your DJs, your bands, and your sound guy.
Love & Human Nature
Some of this is personal and directed. Some of it is global and observational.
“I really care about you…I know, I know…you don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you, it just doesn’t make sense. We only see each other once in awhile and talk some…”
I usually have pretty good instincts about people. You say that I don’t know you, but I feel like it had only been a month or so before I knew you completely. You try so hard to hide behind this persona you’ve created, but you’re so transparent to me. I see the beauty, the softness, and the character you’re so desperately trying to stifle…things you’re somehow mistaking for weakness and ugliness…
You try to pretend you’re indifferent. You say that you want to be like your friends…that you want to live that lifestyle (“if only I had a bit more self-confidence”). Do you really think this is what it’s going to take to make yourself feel better? By trying to hurt or use someone, everyone else? Is that the path to personal peace? I could try to tell you all of this, but I know that this is something you have to find out for yourself. It’s just painful to watch from a distance, and know that it’s going to take a considerable amount of time and more pain for you to understand that you’re chasing after the wrong dream.
But I will still be here. As much as you might want to think that I’m just another body you could toss around, in truth I know that your conscious won’t quite let you. And even if it could, you still have to consider my position:
You can’t hurt me. I never gave you that power over me. I never expected you to want to be with me, or to love me back. I am long past the days where I have some selfish need for you to “justify” my affection.
And you can’t take anything from me. Everything I’ve done, I’ve given to you freely.
I can’t say these disastrous three words to you. I know it would scare you. And, I know it would be meaningless until you figure it out for yourself.
******
For those of you who were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to know me well enough to have been a reader of my personal blog, you may have seen me write about my perceived purpose in my life in regards to love.
The longer I live, and the more people and situations I run into, the more I’m becoming convinced that there’s not someone out there for me after all. This all goes back to a night my first year of college, when I was sitting in the BSU and listening to one of my friends talk about love.
There is no guarantee from God that there is “someone for everyone”. And, perhaps, some people’s purposes in life are to touch many lives, not just one. Maybe some people are meant to float in and out of lives to make small, barely perceptible differences in many, rather than a big difference in one.
Ok, fine, I can accept that. I know there are things much bigger in this life than me. Then why, then, this burning and sometimes overwhelming desire for love of my own that will not go away? I prayed for peace and for acceptance if this is to be my life, but I am still so painfully lonely.
I realize, now, that this pain and desire to be loved is what spawns the compassion that drives me to reach and love to so many people over and over again. I love so deeply, and so easily, because of my desperate wish to have had someone have felt that way towards me at those moments when I needed the most compassion and understanding.
I think the moment someone does love me might be the moment I would lose what makes me a good person.
The interesting part of all of this is how many of my friends seem to be at a similar crossroads in their lives as well. I’ve watched a lot of similar journal entries go up about the same feeling of hopelessness about love, along with a sudden lack of direction in our lives.
It all started in 5th grade. You know, when they let you take that test to see if you could move up to 6th grade math. So you did, and then in 6th grade you were taking 7th grade math, and so forth in 7th grade. Then, in 8th grade, not only are you taking algebra 1, but you’re also going to get high school credit for earth science and social studies. Then in 9th grade, the honors classes hit. In 10th grade, you take your first AP class so that you can start getting ready for college. In 11th and 12th grades, your plate is full with AP, IB, and dual enrollment classes, so by the time you roll out to your university, you’re already a college sophomore.
So you pack your classes some more. You join a few honor societies, you’re a double major, and you have a minor or two. Somewhere in your junior year it might hit you that you really don’t have to get a good grade in History of Drama and Theatre (“D is for diploma!”) because your future employers aren’t going to look at your GPA anyway. But you still work hard in everything else and graduate a year early, because it’s been ingrained in you since 5th grade that you have to work hard to get through this level so that you can get to the next one more quickly.
You’re out of college and in your first job, and the push for success intensifies. You move up through the ranks at that one, then switch to a better company a year or so later and do the same thing. Finally, you move to a new area, are working at the job you’ve been prepared for and think you’ve wanted since being a high school sophomore sitting in AP European History. Now you’re 23 - 25 years old.
Now what?
You put a little money into a new retirement fund. You think about going to the bar one week to see if you might meet someone new, even though in the past you rarely did. You wonder if you might make enough money in the next few months to take a short vacation this summer. And maybe you finally grasp the concept that at this rate you will more than likely be doing the same routine you did today every day for the next 50 years.
All this “hurry up and get to the next level” mentality was for what? Now that there is essentially no “next level”, we all feel directionless and lost. There’s no immediate goal to work on, no new management position to aspire to, no good grades to make. So a lot of us are indeed aimlessly grasping at attempts for love, direction and purpose in our lives.
This dissatisfaction seems so silly. Here I am, in a big city with plenty of opportunity, working the career I have pursued for so long. I get to sleep in, I get to dye my hair pink, and my career (that pays me reasonably well) consists of me listening to good music on a daily basis. I am shocked at my own feelings of disappointment now that I’m here doing what I had worked for and dreamed about for so long. And so many of my friends have had similar success in their own careers this past year…and like me, they’re all asking…now what?
If I figure it out, I’ll let you know. I hope you guys will do the same. But I have a feeling that the answer will come in loosing this “next level” mentality that has been ingrained in us since elementary school, and becoming content with the here and now, and not the inconstant future.
**************************************************
I’ve also noticed a growing trend in my life revolving around the men that I know. While my love life might have been dead and buried for quite some time, I’ve always felt on the flip side that I have some of the best friends in the world. I’ve always been surrounded by good, honorable, caring and understanding people throughout my life. It usually happens that most of my friends are male, and because of that I’m seeing a saddening reality among many of them: a complete and total lack of self-esteem and confidence in some of these guys that I consider to be some of the truest gentlemen I’ve ever known.
What is it about our society that convinces those men who are thoughtful, kind, honorable, respectable, hardworking, responsible, and loving that they are somehow slow, weak, ugly, stupid, scared, and unworthy of love?
I’ve known men who have always been respectful and caring, who have been responsible in their jobs and personal lives, and who work hard to achieve their goals. But, at the same time, they’ve been dragged down by meaningless details that have somehow convinced them that their one small perceived fault somehow negates everything wonderful about them. These “faults” usually have to do with appearance, be it weight-related or the dreaded “my penis is too small” mentality.
I’m watching several of my male friends in particular who are right now undermining their own relationships because of this. You don’t seem to gain much confidence or get much assurance from all the things you ARE doing right: you have a steady job, you have a house or at least your own place to live, you’re a good father (if applicable), you work hard to pursue your dreams, you’re financially responsible, you love your girlfriend/wife, you’re attentive to her needs, you support her career, you can make her laugh, you listen to her when she needs to talk about her day, you hold her when she cries, and you make personal sacrifices for a better future. You know, you're the walking definition of The Perfect Man.
But you’re convinced you’re not good enough for her and that she’s going to leave you because you’ve got love handles and you’re not a porn star in bed.
Based on my own personal (and to be totally honest, instinctual) tastes and needs, here’s some things you guys should all know. I know that the aesthetic (for this scene especially) is for everyone to be 6’10” and 110lbs. That might look good for a photographer’s portfolio, but it’s not attractive for a potential mate. I want my man to be a man; I want him to have the weight to cuddle me when I need comfort, to keep me warm when he holds me, to punch some guy’s lights out when I get harassed at the club, and to not make me feel fat by comparison. (I also don’t want to climb a tree just to kiss my guy, but that’s relative based on my own height.)
And in spite of the 200+ per day spam messages stating otherwise, size hasn’t mattered to any woman I’ve ever talked to. True pleasure comes from intimacy and love, not from a small bundle of nerves.
I say this now in hopes that a few people reading this might realize that the only thing that is wrong with you is the fact that you think everything is wrong with you. It’s a cycle, yes, but it’s in your control alone to stop it.
******************************
Now that this is all out in the open...now what?