Right now I find myself 3/4 of the way through April 12th and at a cruising altitude of 33,436ft above you. I am on my 3rd or 4th week straight of being in some kind of airplane, on a trip, away from my daily life.
While work travel can have its advantages, they are few and far between. The plus side greatly falls short of the minus side and will never equal out. The only thing that makes it any better is the sweet time of laying in my own bed next to my amazing wife for that first moment in 3 or 4 days.
Luckily for me this is my last trip for a couple of weeks and I can at least have a two week period of normal living. Amazing how our lives can change and we can accept two weeks of being home as a good thing. I would have never thought 10 years ago that I would even be considering this a positive…or writing about it on my trusty Apple mobile device!
I have seen many things these past couple of weeks that have amazed, saddened, and intrigued me. I will be writing about a couple of them here in this fake world…I promise you this. I know what you are thinking…”yeah, you have said that you would write about things and never do…”, but I assure you these things have left me in a deep contemplative state. A state that I must communicate.
Remember to seize your day. Remember that petty, non forward progressing issues can, and will, bring you down. We can’t move forward if we are not willing to rise above and float upon our own current of positive energy.
It is January 21st in the year 2012. This Saturday following Seattle’s WINTERBLAST 2012 is kind of an odd one. For the past 5 days the temperatures have been in the mid 20′s to the high 20′s. We have had too much snow for the area. NOT too much snow for me…but too much snow for the drooling masses.
Today though…is different. Today is stark in contrast to the days previous. It is partly cloudy…the temperature being 45* instead of 28*. The wind is blowing hard, very hard. The wind blows with such force that it causes wives to wake in the 4 o’clock hour to inform their husband that they are scared. The wind is what I am used to calling a “Chinook Wind”. It brings the warmth from the ocean and the smell of change.
Today is full of change. I am writing this little post in MY world from my IPAD. I am sloooowwwllly starting to embrace this little piece of technology and figure out how to use it in my daily life. I am so used to lugging around my 8.34lb laptop and all of its trappings for these kinds of purposes…but think I might get along well with this smaller, younger cousin. I am hoping that I will be able to bring just this gizmo with me on the road for my business travels. The battery life alone gives me hope that we will have a nice little relationship. Once I figure out the apps that will give me the best business use possible…it is on.
The first thing that I did pick up for this little gizmo though is a bluetooth keyboard/case from Brookstone. Pretty bomb.com little unit. It is allowing me to type much faster than I would ever be able to chicken peck on the flat screen. Though smaller in footprint, it is quite an imrovement.
May this be another part of the things that come…the changes that blow through our life day to day. Not too unlike the winds that blow this fine morning.
Well here Sara and I are in our first winter in the new house. We are slowly learning about the quirks of our home and the things that happen here during the shifts of season.
I learned today that my shit is not nearly as soft as it used to be. As I was walking up the driveway this afternoon I took a fucking dive. Right square on my old man hip and elbow I fell. I am now tighter than a bolt in a square hole…
Next I learned that due to the incline of my driveway, coupled with a touch of slush…your car will slide out of the driveway! I took some groceries out of the back of the car and thought I heard someone coming up the cul-d-sac, turning I witnessed my car sliding out of the drive!!!
Luckily nothing was damaged, the car was in park, all is good. What this did though was remind me that things happen in a flash, and when we least expect them.
Be safe in this season of weather related chaos. Remember that taking your time, being wise, and patient may just pay dividends in the future.
I know I will be resting my bones these next few days…
Today is Friday the 25th. It is the day after Thanksgiving in my new home and I have come to realize just how lucky I am. Lucky to have had the stars align the way they have through the years and put me on this path.
I am able to make musical art with my band when I can find the time. I have an amazing home that my wife and I work hard for. My day job is fairly stable. My two sons are becoming such great young men and may be living with me soon.
Though the equations that make up our life can at times seem complex, if we keep looking forward, the answer will find its way to you.
I have much to be thankful for, and in this season of reflection…tomorrow looks like a another great day.
I remember a day when someone got on a label because THEY WERE AMAZING. Not the today kind of amazing, you know the blogging world fed “oh my God this is an amazing band” only to find that the band doesn’t exist 6 months later…But FUCKING mind blowing amazing.
THEEsatisfaction have the longevity…the back catalog…the instant (if taken on as part of the recording contract) back revenue, I get that part. But I just don’t get them. I suppose that is what makes music a powerful part of the artistic community…the fact that something can be “good” but still not be understood by the masses. I deal with that subjectivity regarding my own music and other projects I have been a part of.
Congrats to them…let’s see if SubPop can make them Mo Betta’ and stuff. This was my first introduction to THEE and well it colored my palette with a shade of meh…I have tried many a times to get into them, as again I was told I should by the local press, but only with the same taste of bleh:
I am here.
I have so much to write.
So many things to say that should be said.
Blank spaces translating my fears.
Fears drenched in saline from adolescent tears.
Try to see tomorrow…
Try to see tomorrow…
Looking down again.
Scribbled thoughts on paper.
A man conjuring demons of a boy long gone.
Passing through on memory lane.
Confusion the destination of this game.
Try to see tomorrow…
Try to see tomorrow…
Cry little boy.
Cry again tonight.
Freedom falls from your voice again.
Some things we never needed to hear.
Deaf walls of deceit disguising your true worth.
Try to see tomorrow…
Try to see tomorrow…
Never as far as might seem…
Never as far as might seem…
Just sitting here in a hotel room at 12:30am. Fingers lock like anchors on the ocean floor when I try to write the things that I want to convey. I do not know where this fear comes from. Is it my growing older? Is it my quest for perfection? Might it be the fear of being judged…
I do know that the past couple of weeks have been quite amazing. My band played an amazing set of shows in Yakima, WA (of which I must write about). Also my oldest son Diego turned 14. I look at him and his brother Cruz and am instantly taken back to a different place. That place of confusion…that place that is created when living in a broken home. That time of not knowing just what to say, or when to say it, or how to feel about it.
Thinking the words are simple. Stacking them on a ledge outside of your mind is the hardest part.
Center aisle. Not the kind of aisle that you would expect to be performing in… or on…but the kind where you are contained within 2sqft whilst breathing recycled air, gagging on the salted 28grams of peanuts you were blessed with, and praying that you don’t catch DEATH from the coughing souls around you.
Thank you Delta Airlines. Thank you to my slight case of work induced adult ADD. For between the two of you battling for my time, I somehow forgot to check my seat reservation and realize that it did not get saved correctly. Full flights don’t forgive, and if we forget, well that is a calculation that equals a loss.
So while sitting in my dreaded middle seat I have plenty of time to ponder something. 38 spins around this thing we call life. See today, January 19th…I turn 38. Yes if you have read this far you might have come to the correct assumption that I am traveling on my birthday. Happy, happy, happy day to Mark!
I swear this has happened before…on spin number 35 or 36, who can remember anymore
2011 has started with a promise, like all years do, of potentially amazing things. Sara and I are trying to find a place to call our home. March 29th will finally see the release of my very first MUSIC release “Going Somewhere…?”. www.markyoungrocks.com will finally be my home to park my various music projects and releases on, which is something that I have lacked for many years now. HISTORY for SALE will be going into the famed STUDIO X on February 5th to start the recording of our second EP. All of these things will be happening before the completion of March…so as we start to rotate around spin 39…I am off to a good start.
The seat smells…the asses of so many leaving their mark, their stains before me.
Today I introduce my new friend. I bought him last night with my wife Sara at Michaels Craft Store. He was only $1.00 and though he was stacked in a bin with many like him, this particular one spoke to me. Maybe it was the voices of the factory workers in China that make .015 cents per 100 cups? Maybe it was the fact that I have been feeling creatively taxed these past months? I do not know exactly why, but his little message spoke clearly to me: “Write your own story”.
It is gentle little reminders like this one that continue us on our path. They nudge us along through these days of dark rise and dark fall. They help to keep our eyes somewhat focused on a horizon that we at times feel may never really approach. A horizontal line of color and life that we swear is out there, knowing so because we can see it, but still afraid to believe in because it seems so far out of reach.
It took a little $1.00 mug to help put me back in sync with my mental GPS. Today I feel like I am slightly back on course. Maybe it is the cup of strong coffee that sits inside my new friend. Maybe it is just a case of mental diarrhea that needed to be purged. Regardless the job has been accomplished and I sit here typing for you.
I am definitely not a youngster any longer…but I still feel young at heart. There are scars that remind me of the battles that I have fought, wounds that were very deep in penetration, yet my blood runs warm and under high pressure.
They say that people blossom at different stages. That if they ever realize a decent percentage of their potential…it will come at a different time or stage of their life than their neighbor does. I feel that I am starting to come into my time, my now.
Sometimes the train is hard to get going. There are re-routes, track switches, and even banditos wanting to sway the forward progress of Engine 37. I think that I am at a time in my life now where I can see far enough down the tracks and steer the locomotive. I have the experience to know the rammifications of certain actions, yet contain enough youth to still enjoy the ride…however bumpy.
In the next month or two I will be working on seeing if there is any “traditional” interest in my 9 song release “GOING SOMEWHERE”. The work is done, the songs are mastered, all that is left is to see if anybody wants them. If nobody wants them…which realistically will be the case, then I will be going a “non-traditional” route.
I am trying to start a franchise. I am the franchise. I will be working on at least two other projects this year. One project will be for HISTORY for SALE and the other will be an EP titled “El Bano” that will be finished this year.
I will be shooting and directing my own music videos (Mark Young and HISTORY for SALE) this year. They will be better than you might expect.
If all of this can’t find an interested home…to help mainly with distribution and promotion, then I will create a home for them.
So much to talk about that has gone on in the past months since I have last wrote…
I tell myself that I need to do a better job at communicating my thoughts and that I should type them as soon as they are available. Then 6 months passes by like the flick of a light switch.
I am writing again…music…completion is in the rear view mirror for my now two year old project…but the end is near.
For those of you that might actually read blogs…thank you.
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