My Neurosis

"You know that bad news never had good timing..." -John Mayer My grandmother lived with us when I grew up. There was always someone there to watch my brother and I our entire childhood. Both of my parents worked and as such having my grandma there made things a bit easier for them I'm sure. Looking back, I have happy memories of her being there. She got me to the bus stop. She made sure I got into the house in the afternoons. Once I was home, I was fed and happy. She would tell me stories about how she worked in factories making clothes or how she went to Mexico and it was "the dirtiest place she had ever seen". Apparently there were flies everywhere, on the food, on the people, everywhere. The one constant was laughing. And love. And caring. Ok three constants. She made me laugh all the time whether it was her critiques of our neighbors way of doing things or her observations of the news and world in general my grandma made me laugh all the time. As a ki

Saturday night I went with a friend to see a band I had never heard of. The best way to describe them is if Dave Matthews Band had a baby with The Gin Blossoms. The set lasted for about 2 and a half hours. The entire time I was there I had a fairly long range of emotions. Indifference, curiosity, more indifference, drunken interest, and eventually a full ability to let go and have a good time. My friend on the other hand is a huge fan. He was able to sit through the show and enjoy the entire thing. I go to an average of 20 shows a year. I am willing to see anyone live at least once. This particular show was kind of a throwaway and I had a great time. But it didn't start that way.  It started as most of my stories do: me in the fetal position on my bed at 7 am. Like most Saturday mornings I was up at the crack of dawn ready to go to work. I then spent the usual 5-10 minutes reminding myself that I don't work weekends. Once that feeling sets in I can relax and try to sleep f

"Oh look at how she listens. She says nothing of what she thinks just goes stumbling through her memories staring out onto grey street. And she think: How did I come to this, dreamed myself a million times around the world. I can't get out of this place. " Dave Matthews, Grey Street In my early twenties I had a serious relationship that I ended. Poorly. At best it was done in an awful way. I touched all the stereotypical notes: stopped communicating effectively , blamed them for things that weren't their fault, was much more distant than I normally would have been. In a shocking twist, we stopped talking altogether and lost touch for an extended period of time. During the time apart I shouldered a heavy amount of guilt over my actions. I became obsessed with the ideas of forgiveness and redemption and tried to go out of my way to show the person ( and everyone elsw) how sorry I was and how damaged I became as a result of my actions. In my mind I thought show

One of my favorite things to do is go to live performances. Concerts, stand up, plays, musicals all are welcome ways to spend an evening. When I go to a show it's always kind of amazing the number of people who are fixated on their phones. Recently when I saw Chris Rock we were asked to put our phones into special locked bags as a way of stopping people from taping the show or being disruptive. Of course the entire time we entered the arena the audience complained about  the inconvenience of not having their phones. I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't annoyed too. Once the show began and I stopped checking the time on my obscured phone I was able to enjoy myself without documenting and posting every second of it. Actually paying attention to the show and not being preoccupied with cataloging it was refreshing. It made me think about the countless times I've watched a concert and sat with my phone in front of my face recording a song instead of letting myself enjoy t

"The sun is up the sky is blue it's beautiful and so are you..." John Lennon I grew up in the middle eighties through the middle nineties. As a result I was primarily a metal head but also got into several bands that were alternative and grunge. Of them I enjoyed Jane's Addiction, Nirvana, Pearl Jam , and my favorite was soundgarden. Chris Cornell had a voice that the other bands didn't have. He wrote lyrics that went beyond the disaffected alienated feelings the others used. Soundgarden reminded me so much of Blqck Sabbath (appropriate that he would record with both Ozzy and Tony Iommi later).  His lyrics touched on something deeper that many of the other bands (STP , Im looking at you) didn't. Drugs, death, fear, failure. All were fair game. But Chris never struck me as someone who had given up hope. He was someone who had true power with his voice and his guitar headlining two huge bands, Audioslave and Soundgarden. His solo work is also underr

"James, do you like your life? Can you find release? And will you ever change? When will you ever write your masterpiece?" -Billy Joel Recently I decided to open an art business based primarily online. I'm completely new to the scene and took some time to learn as much as I could setting up a business plan and budgets ensuring that I would make all the right decisions and take all the opportunities as they presented themselves to me. I wish this was actually true. I've never run my own business before now and did very little planning or organizing in doing things. I'm a classically trained anti-business person who hears words like leverage and synergy and hoes into almost a Vietnam-flashback-type trance. With a little bit of work I probably could have saved myself some stress and aggravation but I'm an artist at heart and we creative types don't do that planning shit, you lame ass. My transition from corporate office living to the starving artist bo

"I am lost and I can't even say why...But I have an emptiness way deep down inside and I can say that I've tried..." -Neil Diamond  For as long as I can remember I have felt out of place. Not unlike an extra in someone else's movie, I kind of meandered from place to place slinking by unnoticed as best I could. I'm the guy behind you in line at the post office or the person you see when you randomly look at the car next to you on the highway. And I'm looking back which is weird. It takes a while for me to come out of my shell. I don't get comfortable with someone right away except in the rarest of circumstances. I don't think there's anything wrong with me. I'm pretty sure at least. Who knows. One thing I almost always feel is lost. I try to find myself and most times end up with more questions than answers. I'm always trying to answer things in a frank black and white way. Ambiguity isn't fun for me. Because of that I go to g

"There will be days when you are defeated by your laces and the looks of people are all condescending....there's more than one way out and if at the end of the day you're at the end of your rope, never give up hope. A new day will follow there's always tomorrow." -Andy Karl You're in bed and it's a new day. What kind of day is it? Perhaps one of: Those days when you're sitting in your room and you see the sun shining brightly, the birds making their "it's spring guys" noises and the kids in your neighborhood outside (remember that) playing on bikes and shooting hoops and it all just annoys the ever loving shit out of you. Those days when you don't have to work but you're still up at the crack of dawn ready to conquer nothing and just embrace the silence of a day when you kind of feel in control but know that there's something around the corner waiting to shit on your head. Those days when you have ten unread texts on

The other day I had lunch with a friend of mine. She was talking about how she feels like she's treading water and swimming in circles all at the same time. Her life doesn't feel like it has purpose and she wants to run away from where she is. I listened to her as she told me her issues and concerns and if I'm being honest I feel a lot of the same things she does. I feel like giving up hope just as she told me she does. I have felt like my life was a rich full fucking waster and that what I do is meaningless. But I also realized that most people seem to feel that way. Everybody hurts and that kind of sucks. I prefer to think that it's a select few but the more I talk to others the more I realize that life just kind of sucks all the time and there are random dashes of pleasure sprinkled in between. As wonderful as that all sounds there is a glimmer of hope. Hope that we shouldn't let go of. Hope that we need to cling to but not in the white knuckled kind of way like

Happy Independence Day Mexico! Or not! Because Cinco De Mayo is the celebration of the battle of Puebla! This afternoon, the more responsible of us will join the less responsible who have been drinking since ten to celebrate tacos, margarita mixes and the colors red and green. Most will have zero idea what they are truly toasting and judging by the fact that it is the top trend on Google today people are at least trying to educate themselves on their history.  Trivia question: who was Mexico fighting in that battle? If you said America you're wrong because it's the French! You know them, the ones who helped us win the Revolutionary War! History is fun when you read it. It's even better when you understand it. I love reading because I'm a nerd and I love to know things because it helps keep things interesting at trivia nights and on the occasional subway conversation at 1 am. My overall point here though is the lack of attention to this day that we blindly celebrate a

"What do I think about this winter? It's going to be cold. It's going to be dark. And it's going to last us the rest of our lives. " -Bill Murray  That's a quote from one of my favorite movies Groundhog Day. In the movie, Phil Connors a weatherman who has an acerbic and overall negative view of life, is given the opportunity to live his life over and over again. During the course of the film he encounters the same people and situations but tries to approach them differently and eventually learns about life and attitude along the way. It's a great film and I suggest everyone watch it. The movie brings up an interesting idea that I can absolutely relate to. This is the idea of doing it again. Getting another chance (or in Phil's case 1087 chances ) to do something.  Life is complicated as shit. Every day we get a new chance but we have to build on what we learned the day before. Every day is a blank slate but we also walk into it different than

Waiting for the train is kind of amazing every morning. The stop that I get on is first for the day for the time I take the train. Every morning at 7:37 an empty train pulls into the station. And every morning nine trillion people push their way onto the train. It blows my mind how this is always the case. The train is empty. Completely. Except for the conductors who take up no seats that is. And it gets in five minutes early. So I see why people might be afraid to miss out. It makes me think about the world as a whole. So many people trying to push and sneak by each other to get ahead. But the world really is one big empty train if you think about it. We're all looking for more or less the same things: fulfillment happiness success. It's not some big race that we all have been forced to run. But every morning that's exactly what it feels like. Think about walking in manhattan for example. It's the most populated city in the world and there are tourists everywhere. It&