Overdue Update

In music business news - how about this? My song 'The Storm' from my new record 'Follow The Voices' won Lyric Finalist in the International Songwriting Competition! 1 of 17 Lyric Finalists out of 18,000 total entries in all categories. Crazy.

Wanna hear it? Lyrics are in the info. Leave a comment, share the link please!

Do you own it?

 

So I am sorry I've not been in touch. The first 4-5 months of this year have been maybe the hardest of my life. All that Kickstarter money you wonderful people gave me to help me promote Follow The Voices vanished. Why?? It's touchy to give too many details in a public forum like this (I will tell you who to haunt if you email me directly) but I was working at a restaurant, and then I wasn't.. This was right after the Holidays, right around the time a close loved one fell off the wagon - on my birthday at my birthday party - and someone else I knew got some terrible health news. And for 3-4 months I applied at 28 different jobs, and finally went through training to deliver pizzas. Ya gotta do what you gotta do. So since no restaurant hires when there's a sheet of ice on the ground for the first 3 months of the year - I was in a bad way. I'm so, so sorry that that money no longer exists. And I have no idea what's gonna happen to Follow The Voices, I'm guessing it's dead in the water and that's for another discussion I can't even think about that right now. I honest to God tried my hardest to get A job. Maybe there is a large karmic hell waiting for the people who fucked me over. You have no idea the shame and terrible thoughts and feelings I've had, believe me. And write songs? Yeah right! It's been almost impossible to get out of bed. I'm thankful your money was there, it paid my rent and bills as I went to job interview after another and got told 'no' again and again. Small consolation so many other restaurants around Nashville would ask me about why I didn't work at so-and-so anymore and they'd say 'ah yeah I heard horrible things about that place and their management.' 

It's very corny, this facade we put up on the internet. This 'best foot forward' thing. I sometimes don't even know how to think about this blog. Should I be my normal self or should I be all business. I've found myself self-editing in the past in part because there are people in my own family (really just on one side) who read what I write and have used it to fuel their never-ending nuclear family feud.

I so often just want to have a dialogue. Have a platform and put out ideas. I'm tired of being afraid to talk about who I am. I'm an incredibly lonely person almost all the time. We're all human here and capable of pretty much the same emotional and mental spectrum. So I tiptoe around saying this but maybe many of you have already wondered it at some point but in the first part of this year there were some very, very dark times. All of them directly attributed to the collapse of everything around me due to lack of job. And I didn't know a lot of nights if I was going to be okay. Humiliated, sleepless, shaking, broke. My bulimia roared it's ugly head I don't know a dozen times or so. I sometimes have an out of control relationship with food. I saw some incredible financial chips to play towards my new record's growth now completely vanished from the checking account along with everything else - there were many nights I was wondering if me envisioning throwing myself out the window or off my balcony would actually become real life. How would I land, would I somersault, would I land on glass? I'm so glad I don't own a gun.

Sometimes it feels like too much, you know? I maybe have under-estimated the mental illness I think I'll be living with for the rest of my life. I just feel different. I've always felt different. I don't have this 'oh I've got a mental illness therefore I'm gonna sit behind a guitar and write 25 songs in a week' God I wish I had that I have the 'I have a mental illness I feel dead all over I can't move'. So it's almost always been incredibly difficult for me to even be in the right mind to sit down with my guitar and do anything.

How bout some good news, you say? Well I've been totally sober for 2+ weeks now. Memorial Day this year I had my last drink. Who knows when I'll drink for pleasure again, it could be a long while. And I'm okay with that, I don't miss it! Sometimes things get to a certain point in a certain way for me and I lose control. I don't want to lose control of my life. I've been in a dangerous spot, I feel weakened and pretty wounded. So I've got to reign it in.

Thank God the job I have now is the best in town. Nursing my checking account back to life, very slowly.

So I kind of felt like just being honest and personal tonight. I owed you a 'blog update' and thanks for visiting my website again. Pray for 'Follow The Voices', will you? I don't know what good can come of it anymore, people in 'the biz' don't listen to 1 year old records. Pray for my new stuff, too. I have begun writing again. I have begun rebuilding again.

I'll try to be more in touch, okay? Maybe there's more than a handful of people reading this who know how it feels to go through what I've described, and the terror of it all. I kinda wanted to reach out to you and let you know you weren't alone. If you're out there. I don't want to be the only one anymore. If you see me around will you just hug me, please? Don't even ask. I need it.