Wednesday, September 24, 2003
There has to come a point where you stop looking up to musicians and writers as being on a higher plane then you. Surely, a time must come in life where you stop floating on the notes of musician as heavenly or dwell on the deeper prose of a writer. A time must come when your idolizing of these people ceases and their crafts become more of a mentor for your own inspiration. It’s a time that needs to find me soon.
Music and writing have been two of the most consistent and cherished pieces in my life. Music hooked me from the very first Beatles song my Dad ever played and writing has hooked me ever since One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I’ve run the gamut of musical genres since, from Def Leppard to Led Zeppelin to Pearl Jam to Phish while my favorite writers run from Jack London to Jack Kerouac to Dave Barry to Tom Robbins. They have all inspired me and I have aspired to be them ever since I can remember.
Having idols is a natural part of the human condition. This was especially true for music with me. I used to stage my own rock concerts in my room as a kid with a hockey stick for a microphone and a tennis racket for a guitar; I’d wow thousands of people every night. I got serious enough in junior high to actually purchase a bass guitar. Determined to make it as a rock star, I took lessons and tried to learn songs only to find I suffered from the biggest obstacle a would-be musician could experience, I was tone-deaf. Still, it didn’t kill my dreams.
Through my latter high school years and college I was caught up in the grunge movement and obsessed with Pearl Jam. At one point I may have even thought I was Eddie Vedder. I wrote a lot of lyrics back then in the hopes I could write songs with a lot of my musicians friends when I encountered the dream-killing reality that I could not sing. Still, it didn’t stop me from writing, lyrics or otherwise.
To this day, I aspire to have my own syndicated column. Like any aspiring writer, I write. I’ve done a few stints on the journalism circuit both working for a paper and freelancing. But, the student loans came due and the lure of corporate America and its big bucks were a necessity I couldn’t pass up. After five-plus years in the public relations realm, corporate America had enough of me and decided to restructure me. I was laid-off.
For two months now I have contemplated what my future holds. I have decided I want no part of my former career and have set about trying to figure out what I want to do. And that is writing a column. For the last year, I have been writing intermittent columns and posting them on my own web site for the world to read, in theory anyway as there are perhaps a dozen people who know my web page exists. I have also set about attempting to gather information from actual paid columnists in hope of finding a way to get my proverbial foot in the door. It has been helpful, but I still sit on the outside looking in.
The rock star dream may long be dead, but music as continued to be an outlet for me. I was at a show recently chatting with a friend of mine who had just performed when I looked out at the crowd and felt old. The show that night was 18-plus and most of the kids in attendance were at least 10 years younger than me. I was actually feeling a bit washed-up, as if these kids were looking at me and wondering who this old guy was, when a notion that has always been bouncing around my gray matter took hold. At some point you have to go from idolizing the people on stage to the person that is creating the memories for these folks. In short, I realized I need to get off my ass and make things happens. And for me, that means to write and write some more. I need to be the creator versus the one who idolizes. It’s time to reach for the higher plane.
Music and writing have been two of the most consistent and cherished pieces in my life. Music hooked me from the very first Beatles song my Dad ever played and writing has hooked me ever since One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I’ve run the gamut of musical genres since, from Def Leppard to Led Zeppelin to Pearl Jam to Phish while my favorite writers run from Jack London to Jack Kerouac to Dave Barry to Tom Robbins. They have all inspired me and I have aspired to be them ever since I can remember.
Having idols is a natural part of the human condition. This was especially true for music with me. I used to stage my own rock concerts in my room as a kid with a hockey stick for a microphone and a tennis racket for a guitar; I’d wow thousands of people every night. I got serious enough in junior high to actually purchase a bass guitar. Determined to make it as a rock star, I took lessons and tried to learn songs only to find I suffered from the biggest obstacle a would-be musician could experience, I was tone-deaf. Still, it didn’t kill my dreams.
Through my latter high school years and college I was caught up in the grunge movement and obsessed with Pearl Jam. At one point I may have even thought I was Eddie Vedder. I wrote a lot of lyrics back then in the hopes I could write songs with a lot of my musicians friends when I encountered the dream-killing reality that I could not sing. Still, it didn’t stop me from writing, lyrics or otherwise.
To this day, I aspire to have my own syndicated column. Like any aspiring writer, I write. I’ve done a few stints on the journalism circuit both working for a paper and freelancing. But, the student loans came due and the lure of corporate America and its big bucks were a necessity I couldn’t pass up. After five-plus years in the public relations realm, corporate America had enough of me and decided to restructure me. I was laid-off.
For two months now I have contemplated what my future holds. I have decided I want no part of my former career and have set about trying to figure out what I want to do. And that is writing a column. For the last year, I have been writing intermittent columns and posting them on my own web site for the world to read, in theory anyway as there are perhaps a dozen people who know my web page exists. I have also set about attempting to gather information from actual paid columnists in hope of finding a way to get my proverbial foot in the door. It has been helpful, but I still sit on the outside looking in.
The rock star dream may long be dead, but music as continued to be an outlet for me. I was at a show recently chatting with a friend of mine who had just performed when I looked out at the crowd and felt old. The show that night was 18-plus and most of the kids in attendance were at least 10 years younger than me. I was actually feeling a bit washed-up, as if these kids were looking at me and wondering who this old guy was, when a notion that has always been bouncing around my gray matter took hold. At some point you have to go from idolizing the people on stage to the person that is creating the memories for these folks. In short, I realized I need to get off my ass and make things happens. And for me, that means to write and write some more. I need to be the creator versus the one who idolizes. It’s time to reach for the higher plane.
