"It's just one of those days
When you don't wanna wake up
Everything is fucked
Everybody sucks
You really don't know why
But you want to justify
Ripping someone's head off"
Making a life in music is an ongoing challenge. I know I'm not alone in that but yesterday it sure seemed that way. And it doesn't even make any sense. I'm here in Vernon staying in the one and only Barefoot Caravan (thanks to the kindness of BC Queen Angela Roy), I have food to eat and a soft place to lay down (one that doesn't require me moving everything in my van to do so), and I have a little money in my pocket, and more coming when I play a show here on Thursday night (with thanks to Standup Steve for setting that up).
But as the song goes . . . I just felt like ripping someone's head off. Why??
I sometimes get frustrated with the ongoing challenge of getting people to come out to shows. Take last Saturday night as an example. Standup Steve put together an amazing show at The Warehouse in Kelowna. Our friends Red Haven opened, then the awe-inspiring Leila Neverland played a set that seemed to naturally just fall out of her. Following that Okanagan powerhouse Crowd The Joanna absolutely rocked the joint before the always captivating Blackberry Wood closed the night. At the end the audience (or what little audience was there), was left chanting "ten more songs, ten more songs". All-in-all it was a really great night of top-notch performances by professional musicians who put their heart and soul into it.
Everyone that was there had a great time, including the owners of the venue, but in the end the promoter was left having to decide how little each performer was going to get from the take at the door. After all was said and done he ended up in the hole. WHY?
This is a thing that I deal with all the time, I'm sure many people do. It's like pulling teeth to get people to come out to shows. You can go and put a zillion posters out, something that is very challenging when you are traveling and are not actually in the town you're playing next. You can hammer social media to the point that people start asking you to stop posting about your show and you can email, call and talk to every person you know who lives there, or has friends who live there and the end result is often the same. Empty chairs. Why?
I sometimes get frustrated with the ongoing challenge of getting people to come out to shows. Take last Saturday night as an example. Standup Steve put together an amazing show at The Warehouse in Kelowna. Our friends Red Haven opened, then the awe-inspiring Leila Neverland played a set that seemed to naturally just fall out of her. Following that Okanagan powerhouse Crowd The Joanna absolutely rocked the joint before the always captivating Blackberry Wood closed the night. At the end the audience (or what little audience was there), was left chanting "ten more songs, ten more songs". All-in-all it was a really great night of top-notch performances by professional musicians who put their heart and soul into it.
Everyone that was there had a great time, including the owners of the venue, but in the end the promoter was left having to decide how little each performer was going to get from the take at the door. After all was said and done he ended up in the hole. WHY?
This is a thing that I deal with all the time, I'm sure many people do. It's like pulling teeth to get people to come out to shows. You can go and put a zillion posters out, something that is very challenging when you are traveling and are not actually in the town you're playing next. You can hammer social media to the point that people start asking you to stop posting about your show and you can email, call and talk to every person you know who lives there, or has friends who live there and the end result is often the same. Empty chairs. Why?
I think it's partly because of the busy life that everyone lives. Many people rush around, going from one activity to the next never taking a moment to stop and smell the roses. We see things on social media but we don't really pay attention to what's going on. We listen to things, not with an intention to listen and hear what's being said but rather to formulate our response to what's being said. We don't (generally), as a culture spend a lot of time enjoying the moment we're in.
That may be the result of our cultural predisposition to want to get to a goal. It's not that I think having goals is bad, don't get me wrong. We endure our work day so we can get to the end of the day and finally relax. We endure our work week so we can get to the weekend and relax. We endure our work year so we can get to the magical holiday time and go run around like crazy people taking in as much as we can (exceptions notwithstanding). We endure our work career so we can get to retirement and be able to lay back and enjoy the fruits of our labours but how many people get to the end, the weekend, holiday, retirement, and find out that all they want to do is go back to work?
I think the whole thing does nothing more than make us busy and filled with discontent. Is it a big surprise that suicide is such a huge thing? This system does little more, I believe, than keep us in a state of constantly reaching for the happiness that we have been convinced we have to work hard for. I think it's a lie and that all it does is keep us in a state or lack, inadequacy and longing . . . Not a recipe for success.
Happiness is not an external condition, it's an internal one. Happiness is a choice and we can choose it at any time. Happiness is the joy of a child laughing at nothing at all. Happiness is watching that child achieve something they set out to do and worked hard to get to. Happiness is sitting on a bench beside a babbling stream thinking about nothing more than the sun shining on your head. Happiness is sitting in a room with friends while someone performs music that they love . . . You might not "get" the music but if you pay close attention to the person, you will see that they love it and love presenting it to you.
Happiness is not an external condition, it's an internal one. Happiness is a choice and we can choose it at any time. Happiness is the joy of a child laughing at nothing at all. Happiness is watching that child achieve something they set out to do and worked hard to get to. Happiness is sitting on a bench beside a babbling stream thinking about nothing more than the sun shining on your head. Happiness is sitting in a room with friends while someone performs music that they love . . . You might not "get" the music but if you pay close attention to the person, you will see that they love it and love presenting it to you.
Happiness is something I decided to choose this morning, regardless of all that other crap.
Today is a better day. <3
.
Today is a better day. <3
.
No comments:
Post a Comment