i hate...

i hate myself. i hate the decisions i've made. i hate how i look. i hate the fact that i hate myself. i hate that i smoke. i hate that i didn't know what i wanted to do with my life until just recently. i hate that i am not 100% sure if thats what i want to do for a career. i hate that i never took voice lessons. i hate that i can't afford the music stuff i want. i hate michigan winters. i hate that i have white hairs. i hate going to sleep alone every night. i hate not being happy. i hate feeling like an unaccomplished loser. i hate to talk to people who have their lives 'together'. i hate crying. i hate not having a family. i hate how much time i've wasted. i hate how i know i'll waste even more year after year. i hate that i'd rather play a video game instead of read a book. i hate that i have to learn by doing, instead of just thinking. i hate that i feel i am stupid. i hate getting up in the morning. i hate that i dread going to bed because then the morning gets here faster. i hate being tired all day because i stay up too late. i hate that i can't figure out a way to be or come up with "the next big idea or thing" and make money just by being or doing that. i hate looking in the mirror. i hate my clothes. i hate that i can't be organized no matter how hard i try or pretend i am. i hate that i let people down. i hate that im stubborn. i hate .......

i've got a notion.. a preconceived one.

looking over my coffee cup and through the window i watched it all unfold. boom. an older model jetta had collided with a F-150. the jetta was backing out of a parking space and only looking one direction as he backed out. he did not see the F-150 coming from the other direction. the F-150 was driving quite fast, and the wrong direction through the Starbucks drive-thru. they both parked their vehicles and argued with each other using over-exaggerated arm motions. they had exchanged information and ten minutes later were on their way. obviously news of this had spread throughout the coffee-shop and people started offering their opinions as to who was at fault. a cute skinny blonde employee was not shy about her feelings and expressed several times that, "the shitty jetta" was at fault. even though the brand new F-150 was breaking two laws at the time. speeding and driving the wrong way through a drive-thru wide enough for one vehicle. for some reason the stupid, now not-so-cute employee had something against the jetta because it was old and beat to crap. this amazed me. what is this world coming to? how has our world view changed so much that we take innocent people and throw them under the bus? place blame upon them. all because of appearances.

this is my transition into the music industry....

vocal tuning has been around since the very late nineties. the ability to correct the pitch of a sung note. when you turn this correction up to a higher setting, you get the robotic tone while switching notes i.e. cher's "do you believe in life after love", kid rock's "only god knows why", and most of t-payne's songs on the radio today. at first this technology was used very little, in fact the whole purpose of it was to use it in moderation so that you can correct tiny flaws in your vocal track. it tightens up harmonies quite well. the technology has progressed over the past 10yrs and now you simply have to sing somewhere near the note desired and the program will 'bump' your note to the correct note. this technology is now widely used in live performances as well. you don't have to have any musical talent to be a singer anymore. thus shifting all the attention away from ability to appearances.

how good do you look on stage? will your image sell?

i just searched "judge a book by its cover" in Google Images.. guess what was on the first page?

please watch this video, and when susan replies to simons question of, "what is your dream?" there is a fantastic expression from a girl in the audience wearing a blue shirt at 1:23.

Susan Boyle being judged by her cover

until now, the pitch-correcting was limited to a single note in a single track. the german based company, Melodyne introduced this technology 10yrs ago and have come quite a long way since then. they are now releasing a new version where you can take a recorded piano or guitar chord and break down each individual note that is played... even if they are played at the same time. it can distinguish each individual note and move them wherever you want them to be. you could simply strum the guitar one time... and copy and paste that recording a couple hundred times and move each individual note to form different chords. did you hear me?? you don't even have to know how to play the guitar! if you form the wrong chord or hit a wrong note in a piano concerto you don't have to go back and re-record the track, simply bump the sour note to the correct place. mark my words, the music industry will be changing tremendously in the next five years. and not for the better. the music industry is already all about image and not about musical talent.

where will this end up? how far can we continue like this?

no longer do the majority of us care about the inside. its all about our outsides. our.... covers. i remember the one and only time i purchased a book because of the title and how it looked. it was titled, "Why Men Don't Want to go to Church". its not that good of a book... at all. i don't go to church anymore and i don't relate to most of what the book says. but thats what i get for not finding out what's on the inside. its the same with people. we all have initial reactions when we first see someone. he's dirty and unshaven, has holes in his clothes. he must be homeless, or really poor. she's driving a mercedes, wearing D&G sunglasses, with a prada purse over her shoulder. she must be rich and have her life together. who would you sit next to in the restaurant? who would you hold the door open for? i do it too... and i hate myself for it. unless we change the way we view people, we will always have this social tier system in our brains. i think it all boils down to being closed-minded. i am the biggest victim of this horrible disease. i do it with music, movies, and sadly... people. there are few times when i throw away my preconceived notion and find i enjoy things much more when i do. i also find that people don't get frustrated with me as much... go figure...

something i will be working on until i die.... bare with me

the cleavers.

lately my mind wanders. i have dreams. visions of smiling children running through a house everyday at 5:45pm. excited to see daddy for the first time that day. the little girl wants nothing more than to tell him how she made it to the end of the monkey bars on the playground and to give him the crayon portrait of him. beard and all. the little boy forces his tiny hand into an oversized leather ball glove and asks his hero to play catch with him after dinner. walking into the kitchen he places the crayola art on the refrigerator and deeply inhales the smell of a roast with carrots and potatoes. at the stove she stands. in a dirty apron, hair unkempt and more beautiful than ever. he wraps his arms around her and buries his face into her hair. mmmm... closing his eyes for a brief second imagining heaven. i love you escapes his lips in a whisper as she turns to him. kiss. and at 6pm his day has just begun.

fantasies. dreams. wishes. desires. they keep me company for a short while and are too quickly swept away by reality. the reality of a promise i made to myself to never fall in love ever again. i simply cannot deal with the hurt, pain and frustration.

a girl. she comes around for a short time and disappears. the first time she came back around i felt flattered. a week into it she disappears. ignores me. nine months later she comes around again. in the ten seconds it takes to respond to a text i have already forgotten how she disappeared the first time. two days later, she's gone again. why the hell do i do this? why do i allow her back in? what about that promise i made? why do i turn my back on it so quickly? if she comes back again will i be a fool a third time? i have let go of more important people so why hold on to her? is it because of my visions of aprons and crayon art?

A Christmas Story

tuesday morning

this is Sparta, MI.

i had received an assignment to work a case that i had done before in Sparta, MI. in perfect conditions the drive one way is 2.5 hrs. so i set my alarm for 7am so i'd be on the road by 7:15am and arrive shortly before 10am.

walking out the front door to my condo i remembered that my assignment said:

Start Time - 9:00am.

...damn

the first 40 minutes of my sojourn were the worst. stop n go on 696. had to stop for gas and walked into the station. heading straight for the 2 hr old pots of coffee i heard a soft voice, "good morning!" i looked over my shoulder and threw out a, "good morning to...... you..." there was no one around. pouring a cup of crazy i began to think i was going coffee. on approaching the counter i found her sitting on the floor behind the register. the attendant that is. young, lively, glasses, pony tail, and a smile. paid for my dark roast and fuel and continued on my way.

i hope Melissa had a nice day... i think she did.

feeling badly about myself for running late i called into headquarters. the start time on the assignment was incorrect. it was supposed to say 10am. i arrive on site at 10am and begin the waiting game. 8 hrs later my waiting is over. yes... i sat in one spot in my truck watching the front door to a house for 8 hrs straight. i think you either have to be SUPER patient for this job, or just straight up coffee. the sky now the color of my dark roast as i begin my trip back home. things were just dandy, until it started to rain and drivers got stupid. why does logic leave when the bad weather comes?

its as if people accidentally turn on the "idiot" while looking for the wipers controls.

decided to call mom. talked about a few important things and got me thinking again. i absolutely love my mom and do not blame the following on her whatsoever.

a phrase i've been hearing a lot lately. well, maybe its not that i hear it more than usual but just that i've been noticing it even more lately. "i live life with no regrets." if you don't regret anything you've ever done then you must be a perfect human being putting Mother Teresa to shame. either that or you are one of those spoiled brats on Mtv's "Sweet Sixteen" who think their poop should have its own rolls royce for smelling so good. if you have a soul, you have regrets. if you have any feelings at all, you have regrets. if you are human, you should have at least one moment where you should have reacted, acted, decided, or said something different.

regrets are like an arranged marriage,

you didn't want them but they are here to stay

and you have to learn to live with them.

i have several things i regret. not trivial things like, "man, i really regret getting extra beans in my burrito!" i mean with big things. regrets have been the fulcrum of my frequent frustration. "mike, are you still there?" mom asked over the phone, because i had suddenly become very sad again and hadn't said anything for a while. i quickly ended the conversation. where is the line that separates "do better next time" from "the damage is done, you're screwed"? i have a hard time knowing how to organize my regrets into the "lesson learned" bin and have a surplus of "lesson over" bins.

my regrets haunt me like the monster under my bed.

putting it out there...

i must write about the last half of this "less than epic" day.

my mother has been using a lot of text messaging lately. weird at first but totally cool now. even if she sends me "can you stop by sometime tongue or tomorrow?" T9 can be skittish sometimes... proof-reading is a good friend. anyways, she sent me a text that a co-worker of hers named Liz is hosting an open mic night at the Wellington Pub in Troy, and that Breach should stop in and jam. i asked the boys and we decided to go. dom came to the condo to burn an hour before heading over there.

i always enjoy our conversations.

im not sure he understands how much they mean to me.

there is a reason we have been very close friends for 7 or 8 years.

we got to the pub and gave a round of greetings to liz and her band before claiming our seats at the bar. liz and her guitarist played several songs and offered for us to do a few. we waited till mike showed up and decided to jump into the "music go round". "josie's on a vacation far away...." "damn, this is high" i thought to myself. "come around and talk it over.." "yes... high indeed" again to myself. the guitar was in standard tuning, while my voice had been chilling in the basement of my register all day.

Journey's "any way you want it" for song #2? why not.

people enjoyed our music and for that short moment... while lost in the songs, i was happy.