Paulito never responded to my e-mail, suggesting we look at his friend before calling it a day. I had to forward it to him this morning, in order to get a response. Of course, his response was cold, saying that it was before Eileen chose to leave, and that he still has work issues.
So I'm hurt. Hurt enough to not want to see these people right now. So I wrote the band and told them that a personal issue has developed and that I might not be able to make the CROP Walk gig, but I'd let them know as soon as I can.
Paulito has sent a reply e-mail waiting in my inbox, which I'm currently choosing to ignore. Man, this is way too much drama. There's a strong chance that he'll decide to pull out of the Mensa gig, which wouldn't really hurt me, as only one of us wanted to play that gig anyway. That's Digger. Poor guy; he means well but has made some missteps lately. I'm sure he badly wants to play WeeM, now more than ever, and if it falls apart, he might hold me partially responsible for it.
All of this sucks. Get me out of this band. Another one, sure, though I'll want to wait on that for a while. But this band, and their inability or unwillingness to communicate and resolve, blows. Perhaps this is why bands needs leaders, those who have a greater say than others but are loved and respected. If not, everyone needs to buy into the greater good. Eileen was clearly not willing to do that and was only looking at her self-interests.
Okay, on to studying. I need to get this last part of the MLC math material done. Margie and I are going to see Primus tonight. Hell yeah!
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
this afternoon
I'm in a completely different mood now, and it's not just because I'm sitting in my underwear reading stuff about the Cubs' new GM.
My first appointment with Tom (as he prefers to be called) was quite good. When I first got there, I had gone through an amazing string of bad luck. Comcast cable went down. That knocked out my Internet connection and the VoIP phone, and since I don't own a cell phone, I had no way of contacting anyone. So I left early for my appointment, with the intention of finding a WiFi portal on the way, so that I could send an e-mail to Margie and ask her to contact Comcast about it. Of course, there were no such places on the way, at least not where I had to dtop for light and got the chance to pull into a gas station.
When I got into the center, the lady behind the counter said that yes, they had WiFi. But my computer wouldn't turn on, suddenly, and it wouldn't even reset. I thought I had enough battery, but of course, this happens on this day. The lady let me use the phone to call Margie, but it went to her voice mail, which she sometimes misses. At the time, this string of bad luck felt like it only happened to me, and at an alarming frequency.
After coming into Tom's office and handing over the paperwork, he asked me for Margie's social security number, which I've been meaning to memorize but haven't yet. So I called again. This time she answered, but said that Comcast wanted someone to call them from home. How was I supposed to do that without Internet? I can't be of help, she said, until I get home with my cell phone later this afternoon.
I cried three times during the hour-long session: once at the beginning, once in mentioning the personal problem, and a light one while discussing how difficult it would be if we were to have a child that was mentally disabled like my brother.
We didn't get into a ton of different things, since a good portion of the time dealt with paperwork, but we discussed my positive and negative feelings that I had as a youth toward each of my parents. There were significant contradictions in there, which Tom said was expected. Near the end of the session, he brought up Jung's theory of archetypes and said that I had too much love energy and not enough king energy.
I was enthralled in reading about these archetypes: I found an abstract of a study and found myself seeing some people from my past and future listed amongst the descriptions of the shadows, which are archetypes taken to one extreme or the other. When I got to the healthy "lover" archetype - or the "troubadour," as Tom called it - I cried as I read a description of the person I've wanted to be for so long. But only after reading the entire abstract did I realize that my biggest issue might not be my transgression to the shadows of the lover, known as the Addict and the Impotent. It might be my increasing desire to be solely the lover, repressing any king, warrior and magician selves I may have inside of my psyche. Lots to digest, but it tastes very good, knowing that I'm taking a proactive and healthful approach to recovery.
There may be hope for me yet. It'll take a long time and a lot of work to get there, but that's okay. The healthy king doesn't get side-tracked by pettiness and keeps long-term goals in mind. Just remembering that helps strengthen my king energy.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to choose the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
My first appointment with Tom (as he prefers to be called) was quite good. When I first got there, I had gone through an amazing string of bad luck. Comcast cable went down. That knocked out my Internet connection and the VoIP phone, and since I don't own a cell phone, I had no way of contacting anyone. So I left early for my appointment, with the intention of finding a WiFi portal on the way, so that I could send an e-mail to Margie and ask her to contact Comcast about it. Of course, there were no such places on the way, at least not where I had to dtop for light and got the chance to pull into a gas station.
When I got into the center, the lady behind the counter said that yes, they had WiFi. But my computer wouldn't turn on, suddenly, and it wouldn't even reset. I thought I had enough battery, but of course, this happens on this day. The lady let me use the phone to call Margie, but it went to her voice mail, which she sometimes misses. At the time, this string of bad luck felt like it only happened to me, and at an alarming frequency.
After coming into Tom's office and handing over the paperwork, he asked me for Margie's social security number, which I've been meaning to memorize but haven't yet. So I called again. This time she answered, but said that Comcast wanted someone to call them from home. How was I supposed to do that without Internet? I can't be of help, she said, until I get home with my cell phone later this afternoon.
I cried three times during the hour-long session: once at the beginning, once in mentioning the personal problem, and a light one while discussing how difficult it would be if we were to have a child that was mentally disabled like my brother.
We didn't get into a ton of different things, since a good portion of the time dealt with paperwork, but we discussed my positive and negative feelings that I had as a youth toward each of my parents. There were significant contradictions in there, which Tom said was expected. Near the end of the session, he brought up Jung's theory of archetypes and said that I had too much love energy and not enough king energy.
I was enthralled in reading about these archetypes: I found an abstract of a study and found myself seeing some people from my past and future listed amongst the descriptions of the shadows, which are archetypes taken to one extreme or the other. When I got to the healthy "lover" archetype - or the "troubadour," as Tom called it - I cried as I read a description of the person I've wanted to be for so long. But only after reading the entire abstract did I realize that my biggest issue might not be my transgression to the shadows of the lover, known as the Addict and the Impotent. It might be my increasing desire to be solely the lover, repressing any king, warrior and magician selves I may have inside of my psyche. Lots to digest, but it tastes very good, knowing that I'm taking a proactive and healthful approach to recovery.
There may be hope for me yet. It'll take a long time and a lot of work to get there, but that's okay. The healthy king doesn't get side-tracked by pettiness and keeps long-term goals in mind. Just remembering that helps strengthen my king energy.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to choose the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
this morning
I wrote the following this morning, before my first session, but I was unable to post it at the time. In the spirit of openness and honesty, I will post it now.
Last night, Digger decided to write everyone and ask what was up, specifically because he was getting requests for TFA to play places and he didn't know what to tell them. It's an understandable query, but one that I wish he had done in person, where it wouldn't have been so easy for Paulito to announce his hiatus, which he just did this morning.
Eileen should have to live with the fact that she broke up the band. I bet she'll kid herself into thinking that it had nothing to do with her. But it had everything to do with her, and it's important to me that she be aware of her role in the dismantling of TFA. I don't know exactly how I'll tell her, as I'm not a big fan of confrontation either, but since we're going down, having a few extra flames in the fire ain't so bad.
TFA has defined me, and I swallowed a lot of pride to stay in it, only to have others be much less flexible. I just can’t correctly handle anything. Now I’m leaving, but I don’t even get to do it on my terms. That is, unless I skip the CROP walk, which is a charity event and would stick it to Paulito, or not bother with WeeM, which would completely ruin MY time at the weekend-long event and really stick it to Digger, the only friend I’ll keep out of this. Again, I’m stuck.
I’m aware that the blog has not been the “math, music and art” board that I originally envisioned it to be. Then, again, I didn’t realize how difficult my life would become.
In about an hour, I’ll be headed to the old hospital to meet for the first time with a therapist. I went to see a “shrink” twice in 1999, when the world seemed very strange and I started to have panic attacks. After five minutes, the first therapist said that she couldn’t see me anymore and referred me to someone else at another time. (You can imagine how upset this made me, since I likely had feelings of rejection at the time and got rejected by my own therapist right away.) The second one took a strange tactic with me and was deliberately nasty to me. I remember telling him off and leaving, and somehow feeling better out of it. Did he know that such a tactic was most beneficial to me? Here’s hoping that no such move will be instituted by the new guy today.
It’s different this time, though. In 1999, I was a few months into a new job at IBM that was hurting my social life, but I was making more money than ever before, working in a big building (something I wanted to do) and in the middle of dating a lot of different women. Until 1998, I only dated one girl a year, the relationship usually starting in late January or so and ending around May Day. Seriously, it was almost like clockwork. But in 1998-1999, I got around a lot. I now like to think of that time as “the quickening,” in reference to the sci-fi sword-wielding cult hit “Highlander,” where a few immortals on this earth start being drawn to each other to fight one other, since only they can kill each other, with there being only one left. (Okay, maybe that part was “the gathering,” but my experiences of those two years seemed to quickly lead me to Margie, whom I met a week before Thanksgiving in 1999.)
This time, apart from my wonderful marriage, nothing’s going right for me. I suppose my health is still okay, but that’s nothing new. No job. Questionable prospects, even IF I pass next month’s exam. 40 years old now. Very few friends, most of them estranged or wrapped up in their own families. My social outlet, the band, is done. And I haven’t even brought up the biggest source of sadness in my life, but it’s too private a matter to discuss here, even though only one other person reads this board and that person is aware of it.
Huh. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my Internet went down. So I’ve had to write this from a Word file. Not a big deal in the grand scheme, but it’s another unwelcome raindrop hitting me in the eye.
It sounds like the Cubs just nabbed Theo Epstein, the Red Sox’ general manager, for five years. At least some good news in coming to my team. Doesn’t it somehow make perfect sense that my team is the Cubs?
During one Halloween night in college, a bunch of friends went to a local graveyard to goof around and try to scare each other. We were likely tipsy at the time but did nothing illegal on the grounds. However, Angela’s asthma had acted up and she couldn’t run with the rest of the crowd, so I stayed back with her. Margaret poked fun at the two of us with our asthma, not being able to keep up. While I do have asthma, it wasn’t bad and I could’ve easily kept pace. But I chose not to, instead opting to comfort someone in need. No one else saw it that way, though. This little story often feels like my entire life. I could excel, but I stay behind for some reason that is completely unappreciated. Why must I do this? No one asks me to lag, or to fail, or to regress and retard. Yet I keep doing it, and too often, it feels like I don’t know how to change my behavior.
Now everything from Comcast is down: TV, Internet, and phone, since I have VoIP. I can’t contact anyone. Seriously, what is going on in my life? Can I ever make the right decision or get lucky? Ever?
Monday, October 10, 2011
No woman, no cry
I realized lately that Eileen is a diva, and that it's not so bad that she's leaving. She's not at all a bad person and has usually been friendly, but in the context of TFA, she took on the air of a diva. I'll give you reasons to my conclusion:
She showed no interest in learning an instrument, other than shaking a tambourine. She did it at strange times and did not seem receptive to learning when and how to do it better.
She didn't push for anyone else to sing certain songs. She once complained that she was only involved in half of the songs. The combined lead vocals from the other four members, all of whom had a lot more experience in the band, barely equaled her total, yet she had a "I'm not saying, I'm just saying" issue with it. Were we supposed to stop playing an hour earlier because she hadn't learned enough songs with us yet?
When Gumby would come on-stage to play drums for "Rockin' in the Free World" or "Still The Night," there was no concern. But when I brought him on to play on one of her songs, it angered her to the point of cursing me out on stage. Her biggest beef? It was too fast. (First off, it wasn't that much faster - in fact, it was more danceable at Gumby's tempo - and secondly, every other band member adjusted to it right away, but she had an issue with it.)
She could always make gigs where she could be seen by her friends. But for other gigs, her availability was not as good. (Not a ton of evidence to back this one up, but I took this impression away from the whole thing.)
When we were going to try out Jamie, the girl that could sing and play keys, she did not want her to sing lead on any songs at all. Not a handful, not a few, not one. None. Her reasoning? "Because I don't do anything but sing in this band," or something to that effect. Even if she lost none of her leads and might end up singing even more than before, she wouldn't budge. Because she's one-dimensional, we were expected to cater to that. She had to be the only girl singer. She could not be expected to let some other girl sing lead, I guess.
She would occasionally change everyone else's set list when it came to her songs. She would do it days in advance, or sometimes right before the concert. Yet, during a recent gig, when I told the band to scrap a song that I was going to sing, she frowned upon it.
Her complaint about my Facebook posting was over-reaching. I complained about the Beacon Tap and our continued problems at playing outside there on my own Facebook page, not TFA's, yet she had the gall to tell me to take down what I wrote. Other band members said that they wouldn't have been happy if I had posted it on the TFA site, but were accepting of it on my own. Eileen could not accept.
She would leave the stage whenever she wasn't involved in a song. It looked quite unprofessional, but she preferred to leaving the stage and talk to her friends, ignoring the band when not singing.
Again, Eileen's not a terrible person. She was genuinely grateful when we took her on, and she was a very strong singer, lack of stage presence notwithstanding. but maybe the band's better off. For my standpoint, any move was a good move, but this move a bit of a shock to me when it happened. Now, it's not so bad.
After her announcement and my request that she reconsider, Eileen wrote me back and said that the two of us "are on totally different pages on what we are looking to get out of this whole experience." And she's right. The way I see it, Eileen's goal was to get the continued adoration of her friends by singing songs in her wheelhouse, while my goals were more long-term, demanding and democratic.
I'll admit, I wanted an equal share of the spotlight, as did everyone else. But she wanted as much of it as her talents could handle. Diva-esque, wouldn't you say?
Margie reminded me that Eileen considers herself to be very non-confrontational. She could work at straightening all of this out, but she'd rather quit instead. Her e-mail asked that I accept it and leave it at that. I will accept it, but not because a confrontation might fail at resolving the issues at hand. I'll accept it because I'd rather not have a diva in the band.
She showed no interest in learning an instrument, other than shaking a tambourine. She did it at strange times and did not seem receptive to learning when and how to do it better.
She didn't push for anyone else to sing certain songs. She once complained that she was only involved in half of the songs. The combined lead vocals from the other four members, all of whom had a lot more experience in the band, barely equaled her total, yet she had a "I'm not saying, I'm just saying" issue with it. Were we supposed to stop playing an hour earlier because she hadn't learned enough songs with us yet?
When Gumby would come on-stage to play drums for "Rockin' in the Free World" or "Still The Night," there was no concern. But when I brought him on to play on one of her songs, it angered her to the point of cursing me out on stage. Her biggest beef? It was too fast. (First off, it wasn't that much faster - in fact, it was more danceable at Gumby's tempo - and secondly, every other band member adjusted to it right away, but she had an issue with it.)
She could always make gigs where she could be seen by her friends. But for other gigs, her availability was not as good. (Not a ton of evidence to back this one up, but I took this impression away from the whole thing.)
When we were going to try out Jamie, the girl that could sing and play keys, she did not want her to sing lead on any songs at all. Not a handful, not a few, not one. None. Her reasoning? "Because I don't do anything but sing in this band," or something to that effect. Even if she lost none of her leads and might end up singing even more than before, she wouldn't budge. Because she's one-dimensional, we were expected to cater to that. She had to be the only girl singer. She could not be expected to let some other girl sing lead, I guess.
She would occasionally change everyone else's set list when it came to her songs. She would do it days in advance, or sometimes right before the concert. Yet, during a recent gig, when I told the band to scrap a song that I was going to sing, she frowned upon it.
Her complaint about my Facebook posting was over-reaching. I complained about the Beacon Tap and our continued problems at playing outside there on my own Facebook page, not TFA's, yet she had the gall to tell me to take down what I wrote. Other band members said that they wouldn't have been happy if I had posted it on the TFA site, but were accepting of it on my own. Eileen could not accept.
She would leave the stage whenever she wasn't involved in a song. It looked quite unprofessional, but she preferred to leaving the stage and talk to her friends, ignoring the band when not singing.
Again, Eileen's not a terrible person. She was genuinely grateful when we took her on, and she was a very strong singer, lack of stage presence notwithstanding. but maybe the band's better off. For my standpoint, any move was a good move, but this move a bit of a shock to me when it happened. Now, it's not so bad.
After her announcement and my request that she reconsider, Eileen wrote me back and said that the two of us "are on totally different pages on what we are looking to get out of this whole experience." And she's right. The way I see it, Eileen's goal was to get the continued adoration of her friends by singing songs in her wheelhouse, while my goals were more long-term, demanding and democratic.
I'll admit, I wanted an equal share of the spotlight, as did everyone else. But she wanted as much of it as her talents could handle. Diva-esque, wouldn't you say?
Margie reminded me that Eileen considers herself to be very non-confrontational. She could work at straightening all of this out, but she'd rather quit instead. Her e-mail asked that I accept it and leave it at that. I will accept it, but not because a confrontation might fail at resolving the issues at hand. I'll accept it because I'd rather not have a diva in the band.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Wow
Damien Rice. His first album. Wow.
I don't think I've heard of him before tonight, but what he writes and plays and sings is gorgeous. And it seems not so far out of reach for me.
Maybe this is what I should do. Play this sort of music. Work on writing such music.
What I hate about my communicative ability is that it'll take me 500 words to express something that could've been said in 100, while it'll take Rice and other lyricists 100 words to say 500 words' worth.
Must try. Must try.
I don't think I've heard of him before tonight, but what he writes and plays and sings is gorgeous. And it seems not so far out of reach for me.
Maybe this is what I should do. Play this sort of music. Work on writing such music.
What I hate about my communicative ability is that it'll take me 500 words to express something that could've been said in 100, while it'll take Rice and other lyricists 100 words to say 500 words' worth.
Must try. Must try.
My musical options
As my musical life is will be changing (with Eileen leaving the band at the end of the month), what could I possibly do next?
- Nothing. Give it up, keeping my drumming to hands on pantlegs and my singing to the shower.
- Nothing for now, but finish studying, get a job, and sort out another personal matter before attempting one or more below options.
- Try out for a musical. I thought about this idea while watching Andy Bernard in "The Office." I've acted before and I like to sing, so why not find a small playhouse that'll put on a musical?
- Drop TFA and play guitar on my own, finding open mikes, possibly writing a few more songs. This is basically what I did when I lived for Virginia, when not in the teacher bands (Big Daddy and the Slurpies, Gulp.) (I loved Gulp, by the way. Short but sweet.)
- Hit lots of karaoke bars. There are great songs I'll only be able to do in that medium.
- Talk to Galen and see what he wants to get going.
- Talk to Brett and see if he's willing to get something going.
- Watch craigslist and bulletin boards at music stores, looking for an opening.
- Get together with Karen's friends, the ones that made up Agave, and get something going with them.
- Stay with Digger and do the two-guy thing.
- Start my own one-hit wonder band. (This is the "shoot for the moon" option.)
- Find a group of folk singers and join in.
- Write and record my own music.
- Stay in TFA as a four-piece.
- Stay in TFA as a five-piece, with a new female lead.
- Stay in TFA as a five-piece, with a new male keyboardist.
- Stay in TFA as a five-piece, with a new drummer and me on keys/guitar.
- Stay in TFA as a five-piece, with a female keyboardist who can sing.
What now?
I had a very rough day yesterday. Several issues, including one I'm not willing to discuss here, have been bringing me down quite a bit lately, and then the announcement from TFA's lead singer, which was made exactly five minutes after our lead guitarist said that he didn't want to play without her. It was the ultimate diva move.
I'm hopeful that Paulito will see his way through this. We played as a band before Eileen. We had a lot of good song ideas that got ignored because they didn't feature Eileen. We learned other songs solely because they were liked by Eileen. A lot of our identity is Eileen, but she wasn't the whole show.
If Paulito calls it a day, we're done. John would likely bail, even if Digger and I wanted to continue without him. But I associate our sound as more Paulito with Eileen, and I always have. When Eileen left the stage, we kept playing. When Paulito did - usually for a quick bathroom break - there was no music.
I don't know what to do about this. No one's talking right now. If we wait to converse with Paulito, does he make up his mind to leave? Then again, can we persuade him anyway? The only thing I could say is that there will now be less drama. Eileen herself said that "females bring drama," after all.
If he stayed, do we want to stay as a four-piece, or do we look to get another singer? Could we find one that plays keys? That would be my preference: getting a female keyboardist that can sing. Oh, Paulito mentioned that he works with a guy that plays keys. I know the gender's wrong, but a keyboard player opens up another dimension of songs for us. It might also give Paulito enough impetus to stay.
So, we have the following options for Paulito. Since it's him that's likely on the fencepost now, these options are really his, not anyone else's:
I was not in the mood to bowl last night. But it's great that I did. I bowled a new high series (544) at a league. My first game was a 211. Yes, in front of other people! Like last time, my third game suffered, but it was still a 158, which is about what my average was going into the league, so I can't complain much. We killed the other team the first game but narrowly lost the other two. At one point, our entire team had ten consecutive strikes. Great stuff.
I was 3-for-3 in making standing seven pins, and I don't remember missing the ten, but I know I had a couple of 6-10s that I pulled left. There's an improvement or two to be made, but you know, I can be in this league and do okay. My first game was the best on the team... except for Dave, the guy's that helped me all along. He joined as a sub and was in the 230's every game.
Okay, on to math. What I did get done yesterday was a good amount of math, and I need such production to be the morn from now until exam day.
I'm hopeful that Paulito will see his way through this. We played as a band before Eileen. We had a lot of good song ideas that got ignored because they didn't feature Eileen. We learned other songs solely because they were liked by Eileen. A lot of our identity is Eileen, but she wasn't the whole show.
If Paulito calls it a day, we're done. John would likely bail, even if Digger and I wanted to continue without him. But I associate our sound as more Paulito with Eileen, and I always have. When Eileen left the stage, we kept playing. When Paulito did - usually for a quick bathroom break - there was no music.
I don't know what to do about this. No one's talking right now. If we wait to converse with Paulito, does he make up his mind to leave? Then again, can we persuade him anyway? The only thing I could say is that there will now be less drama. Eileen herself said that "females bring drama," after all.
If he stayed, do we want to stay as a four-piece, or do we look to get another singer? Could we find one that plays keys? That would be my preference: getting a female keyboardist that can sing. Oh, Paulito mentioned that he works with a guy that plays keys. I know the gender's wrong, but a keyboard player opens up another dimension of songs for us. It might also give Paulito enough impetus to stay.
So, we have the following options for Paulito. Since it's him that's likely on the fencepost now, these options are really his, not anyone else's:
- Stay as a four-piece band;
- Find a new female lead that plays keys;
- Go with the keys-playing co-worker;
- Find a girl that only sings;
- Pull the plug.
I was not in the mood to bowl last night. But it's great that I did. I bowled a new high series (544) at a league. My first game was a 211. Yes, in front of other people! Like last time, my third game suffered, but it was still a 158, which is about what my average was going into the league, so I can't complain much. We killed the other team the first game but narrowly lost the other two. At one point, our entire team had ten consecutive strikes. Great stuff.
I was 3-for-3 in making standing seven pins, and I don't remember missing the ten, but I know I had a couple of 6-10s that I pulled left. There's an improvement or two to be made, but you know, I can be in this league and do okay. My first game was the best on the team... except for Dave, the guy's that helped me all along. He joined as a sub and was in the 230's every game.
Okay, on to math. What I did get done yesterday was a good amount of math, and I need such production to be the morn from now until exam day.
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