The Band, The Girl, The Future, The Failures

The title suggests some all encompassing passage of my life; don't think you're getting all that shit tonight.

Lets start with the band.

More and more these days do I find how I'm not found loving it like I used to. For five years I've been working with my fellow musician on what would be a perpetual project, but alas after five years I'm just about ready to kill the motherfucker dead cold in its tracks. Of course, it's not all up to me, but nevertheless it will surely put a damper on his days to come; having to now find not one but two replacements, bass player and drummer. Poor son of a bitch, it'll be a set back for sure. I know, I know, this makes me sound like a quitter and an asshole, and you will see it how you will, but you don't know the whole goddamn story and this defiantely will not suffice for a proper explanation. It is one thing to aim high, doing what we do, but it is quite another to be completely full of shit, which I think is more so the case. I suggest a small local label to help alleviate the pressures on us and get more shows with less work, and I promptly get a big, "no. Fuck that. We're beyond that now; we need something bigger." Does anyone out there understand how this game works? Exactly. In the meantime I'm going to go ahead and make myself sound like more of a jerk by saying as much as they are his songs and his vocals, guitar parts, etc. he does the least amount of actual work it takes in every other area of something like this.
All I ever wanted to do was play my music and have my fun and be glad when people liked it. People kept liking it, which inflated all of our ego's, but mostly his. Now we can't stop until the record man comes knocking on the door shouting, "deal! deal! deal!" and it fucking sickens me to my bones. Of course, this is only part of my quarrel with the situation. The other part is that I am moving in another direction. The types of music I want to playing are slowly and surely differing from his. That is the sad part. I could ignore all the other drama previously mentioned and just keep on going through the fight with him until the bitter end. I think I have been doing that for quite sometime now. When my music tastes and wants of creation start to divert from his, that is irrevocable, and so here I stand, watching it all just crumble and fade. We played together for the first time just last night, and I almost wanted to set my drums on fire and call it quits. It wasn't me- at all. It did and does not reflect the person I have become over the accumulation of the past five years. When I go home at night, I don't listen to the type of music I play, at all. I will never regret the times I spent onstage in the different cities and for the different people. I am thankful for every last ounce of sweat I have ever expelled in the name of this music. I must move onward now, with the promptings of my own heart and soul.

Shall we speak of the girl? (You would do just as well skipping this portion, its long and boring and impersonal to anyone but I and the respective party spoken of. You have fair warning.)

Why not. I shall refrain from using her name out of respect to her privacy. I shall only give you her initials: K.G. It started over Thanksgiving break of 2005. I was sitting at a bar with my good friend Mr. Childs, drinking and thinking and talking and shouting about the days gone by and the things to come. The one I speak of was at the end of the table where I sat between my brother in law and my dear friend Andrew. I had seen her before and decided that conversation should be in order. So we talked... small talk, don't ya know, and thats how it goes at bars with folks you hardly know. Sparing the unimportant details of the middleground, by the end of the night we were sitting face to face, shouting and laughing and drunk as could be. It was nice. Hadn't been there in awhile, sitting across from someone who was refreshing and new and incites all our curiosities like people do. We shared a ride home and made plans to see each other Thanksgiving night after we were both good and worn out of family affairs. I was to call her at 9pm, but I didn't. It was out of my own lack of self esteem that I refused to acknwoledge even the phone reminder sounding off in my pocket an hour before. I didn't believe that she really wanted me to call her. Way to go Chuck, fucked that one up alright. So I called her the next day. After explaining myself, we decided to try it again over Christmas break.
Christmas break was much more successful. I picked her and her friend up and we met Uncle T. at the bar for drinks and some shuffleboard. We talked and flirted and made fun of each other and it was great all over again. By the end of the night we were the last two up for anything after the bar, with a little strategic help by a good friend who promotes the endevour. We went to my house, played a few rounds of pool, silently and awkawardly, partly I'm sure due to the eventual consequences of being alone with each other. I walked her unpstairs and put on some music. Elvis Presley is what I found to play, and I asked her to dance. We laughed because I can't dance worth a shit, but being drunk and drawn, its what I like to do. Then we kissed... it was passionate and sweet and fun and felt so nice after so long without two lips to meet and invite. We fell asleep together, (kissing is all that took place, by the way, you perverts.) That is the bulk of Christmas. The dilemma that would follow with us comes out of the fact that I would not return for over three months, when something good like this has just begun, and you want to stick around for whats in store. When I say, "return" I mean return to my hometown, and I am coming from 700 miles north, where I live and drink and do my daily things. I have just recently returned home, and I did meet her again. At this point I thought nothing would come of it. We were apart for so long with nothing to really go on but a mutual attraction, and anyways who wants to complicate things on such little fuel as that? But it happened all over again...
This time I am affected fully. I want to be back there. Tomorrow, tonight, this minute, this moment, and yet I'm still far away. She has made an impression on me that is irrecoverable, and now I'm left to play the hand. There are many things that can account for my feelings and their mixtures and measures. I am a bit fucked up, like all twenty-somethings, and I have not too much experience with relationships. Like I said, I dance like shit, and this is a common dance for most people but not for me. So I sent her a mix. A childish way to use the words of others to express what I could say myself. It is almost always misinterpreted. I figured that I should take some kind of risk. No risk, no gain. Play it safe and play it on the bench. Anything of that sort of common sense jargon could sum it up. All I know is that the absence thins the air between us and phone calls never do.

The Future

The future is as wide open as the great plains of the Dakota's. I have read that their expanse is so immense that you can stair for miles with nothing beyond and watch a storm come in, in all its dark and powerful presence, from far as the eye could see. I am going to take my motorcycle and watch that storm roll right on in front of me, and I will tell you how it feels one day, if you care to know. But that is not the basis for a life of long years, as sad and true as that seems. Many will say that my choice to embark on this journey through our great and diverse country is me running from myself and what I should be doing in the ways of growing up. The jealous bastards can shove it up their asses. If you get a chance to do something such as this you don't pass it up, no matter the outcome. I could very well die on this excursion, and it would not be a death unfettered of greatness and reality. I do what I feel I am compelled to do. I may not have a degree to my name, or money or power or fame to expell, but I have my words and my heart and my love of the things I love, and that is what I have always set out to accomplish and maintain. I know I will find myself settled one day in an endevore that is issued with practicality and responsibility, but it will not be now, not while I still have some chance to make it worth my time. When its all said and done I will probably return to education and become a professor of English. They say that today it is considered admirable to profess because long ago it was once admirable to live. That quote isn't right but I don't give a damn, I know what it means. Or I'll take over the family business. Who knows, and who cares. If not me, than no one really should. I'll find my feet someday, and so will you, dear reader.

The Failures

Sure I've had my share of letdowns time and again, who hasn't? Who hasn't felt afraid and distant from some words or judgements or actions they beset upon someone else, for whatever reason? Everyone does. My failures are more than anything those in myself. I have ignored my inner voices and ideas for so long now it is hard to recognize the voice. I am changing that. I would write more, but as we have gone on with this entry it has become more and more vague and metaphysical, and so therefore I will spare you of the tortures that would ensue were I to delve any further on the subject at hand.

Take care and exercise a little fate now and again. Make sure to NOT have a plan sometimes.

The poet, the idiot,
Charlie-be-good.