Overdone

I do too much. I can not seem to ever say no to a project. Presently i have the Dandy Pirates that we will be doing in Pennsylvania, The Lords of Adventure with John Williams that i am trying to get a press kit together for (mind you i have no idea how to make a press kit), The Saltwater Moonshine Boys here in Colorado, NJ Ren Faire coming up in September, trying to figure out where and when to teach martial arts, and i am sure there are other things i am forgetting about. I need to focus a little i think but i am not willing to ever give anything up.

The thing that i really find annoying is the constant trying to market myself and these projects. It is really hard to get people to even return a call when you are starting out in the entertainment business. I guess that is what irks me. I am not really starting out. I have been doing these things since 1997 yet in a lot of ways it really feels like i am starting over because outside of PA, no one really knows who we are.

A lot of times it feels like it would just be nice to get a 9-5 job and be able to go home afterward and leave the job at home. As it is i feel like i am constantly online or trying to keep up with the mountain of things i have to do to keep marketing. I drives me slightly mad. What i really need is a manager. I would love someone to call me up and tell me where to go for auditions and such so i could just do the part of it that i am good at. Oh well.

By the way, anybody a manager? Namaste.

Comfort Zones

I played guitar in front of people during shows this weekend. Myself and Rook formed the band "The Saltwater Moonshine Boys" with about three days notice this past week and had shows at the Colorado Renaissance Festival this weekend. We also had to audition for the faire owner and the entertainment director. It all worked out but it was definitely outside my comfort zone. Usually i have a Dreagn with me when i am performing music and he handles the guitar. It all went well and i only screwed up a couple times so it felt pretty good.

I was talking to Cameron of Barely Balanced after we got the gig and he said he tries to do something outside his comfort zone 3-4 times a week. I always have admired that about him. You can always find him working on new skills and practicing hand stands outside his trailer to better himself and his talent. It is easy to slip into complacency when you are working on something or get to a certain comfortable level. That is something i always liked about working with Dreagn as well. He was always trying to perfect the show. It made us a lot better. Little things that a lot of performers do not pay attention to, he would think about and work on. It bothered him when we were not at a level that we both knew we could be at. Working with Dreagn has made me a much better performer.

It felt good to do that this weekend. Since working at various Ren Faires for the past 13 years, it is hard for me to find something that makes me nervous. I do not find that same sense of nerves and tension in my stomach i used to get back when i was teaching and had to talk in front of people back when i started in 1992. This weekend did that. I feel 10x better as a guitarist just after this one week of work and am thankful i get this whole run to continue to improve. Another side effect is that i feel it has also raised the level of my singing.

When we train in martial arts, i tell my students, as i learned from my teacher Craig Stanton, that most fights are at intensity level 3-5 and that we should train for intensity level 10. That makes the real fight you get into anti-climactic. Train to fight multiple people and weapons and intense crazy situations and the most common real situations will be easy. It is like driving down the turnpike at 65 MPH and then getting off into the residential neighborhood and having to go 25. Everything feels like it is moving in slow motion. That is how you want a fight to be. Another analogy is playing your favorite video game up to level 47, and then going back and playing level 1 all over again. Super easy right? I think that after singing and playing guitar, going back to doing the Dandy Pirates with Dreagn will be like that as well. It will up our game.

Do things outside your comfort zone. That is really how we improve in whatever thing it is we are doing.

Dog Days of Summer

Let me say first off, i am a cat person, cat is my totem and i was raised by cats. My cat Ninja, Grandfather, wise man of the hedge row, was one of the greatest teachers i ever had. He taught me about patience and how to appreciate the night. He was Buddha. He would sit outside at night and meditate. I love the calmness of cats and as a person, i would much rather be cat like than dog like. I usually tend to look at dogs like cats do. Sort of with a sense of, "oh my God man, get a hold of your self and just calm down." This being said, i would like to send this blog out to the dogs.

There have been several times in my life that dogs have won me over. The first time was when i was living in the ADE frat house at Rutgers as a boarder. One of the sisters had a dog named Oliver, or rather maybe, he had her. I loved that dog. He would smile all the time and watching him chase around after stuff was an utter joy. He fully embraced life and totally enjoyed every minute of it. Every scratch behind the ear or morsel from your plate was a miracle to him. We took him hiking to the Delaware Water Gap and he did laps around us the whole time, thrilled to run and play in the mountains and chase after squirrels. We hiked three or four miles, he must have gone twelve just lapping us.

I had an opportunity to spend some time with dogs recently again and they have also won me over. Up at Bethany's parents' house in South Dakota, the three dogs, Dakota, Gypsy and Azlain all got to run free in the mountains with us and again i saw that joy. It is a whole different thing with dogs. They just love you so much and go so fully into whatever it is they are doing. I think, theirs is the kingdom of heaven, like a child. Where cats seem like they know that they are entitled to everything you do for them, dogs just appreciate it so much. There is something to be said for that.

Living with Bethany and Azlain i am really appreciating having that big lug wag his tail and get excited when i come home. It is pretty beautiful. I do not want to be that in my life, but i do appreciate it. I love you Azlain. Thanks for teaching me that dogs can be pretty good people too.

South Dakota

Have been at Bethany's parents' place in South Dakota for a couple of days and i really think that eventually we will move out here and set up stakes. Spending at least part of the year here would be amazing. This is exactly what i have always looked for in a place to build a home. Everyone has their own property of at least twenty acres and at night i have been walking out into the woods, looking for elk or being one with the beautiful sky. I also find that i am able to relax here. The days go by on God's time in the mountains like this.

You can see what i am talking about in watching the dogs as they laze about or watching the cattle graze. There is no rush. Life simply is. It is the time of the Great Mother and the time of Father Sky. It is not measured on a clock, it just is, eternally present. Beautiful. I love the east coast as well, and that is home, but there is always such a buzz there and rush to do everything. I am learning how to relax in the mountains.

Colorado

Tomorrow i head to South Dakota and then on to Colorado with Bethany. That is where it all began. It is where she took me into the mountains and we saw the most amazing pair of rainbows i have ever seen. They seemed to last forever and were complete across the sky. It is where we sat out at night and watch a lightening storm over the city below. It was the place where watching her made me realize everything that i liked about myself and what i had to become again. It was there that i solidified my decision to leave my business and head on to the next adventure.

I am amazed that she still spends her time with me and that she really still seems to enjoy my company. She is amazing. I am also so much happier now than i was a year ago. I do not really believe that there are right and wrong decisions in most cases, i feel like we choose a path and then have to do the best with what we have chosen. As a warrior we do not regret those decisions because we know that every choice we make may be our last. There is no time to regret. The warrior chooses and then stands under the choice that was made. I am very glad that i made the decision i did in this case. The quality of my life is far greater now than it was.

I also feel it was the best decision for my martial arts training and teaching as well. At the end, the school became nothing but a job for me and i was starting to dread going in there every day. I was not enjoying my life and i learned a long time ago when i worked at UPS from 3AM til 9AM every morning that no job is worth being miserable for. I once again have found a passion for teaching the martial arts. The small groups i have worked with and the private classes feel like the reason is started teaching in the first place again.

I am excited to move on to a new place and new experiences. I am excited that she will be by my side. Life is indeed worth the living. I will be back out this way, the area that is my physical home in August. Be well and remember to enjoy your life. If you are stuck in something that you is slowly killing your soul, i highly recommend going out on the road. Move on. Our society makes us believe that you can not do it, but you really can. Freedom is there if you merely reach out and take hold of it.

Wonder

"Verily i say unto you, unless you convert and become like a little child, you shall by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." ~Jesus

My mom has a habit of seeing things in other things. For example clouds. She often times says sentences that start like this... "Doesn't that look like a..." We went for a walk today by the Delaware Canal and she saw many things in other things. It was wonderful. She gets really excited about it and sometimes i think my father and i get frustrated by it and do not realize the beauty of that eye on the world.

What is it to convert and become like a little child? I think it is something akin to my mother seeing things in other things. Seeing geese looking at the sky in broken branches of a tree, seeing a face in the clouds or in a pair of drain pipes, all of these things are very child like ways of looking at the world. The things she sees are not sterile facts either, it is like a child noticing something wonderful, "Wow, look at that cloud, it looks like a dragon." I think that trait of children is the one that Jesus was talking about.

To the small child, everything is new and fresh. The world is an amazing place. Stuff, all stuff is something to get excited about. It is amazing to watch a lightening storm with the fresh eyes of childhood or to see a face in the bark of a tree. Children feel, deeply every emotion that they have. They are fully present in the moment. Part of the reason why time seems to fly by as people get older is because they stop really embracing the wonder of each moment. We rush through our days or wait like zombies for vacations and we wish our lives away. I do pretty well at declaring my neutrality from time and i can honestly say my life seems to be slowing down if anything. I have days that feel like weeks have past and several months ago seems like ages. It does make it hard when the person you love is away for a month or you are stuck at a red light but it is a small price to pay for an infinite feeling life.

My mom has a child-like wonder when she looks at things and i really admire that about her. When she sees those geese in the wood of the fallen tree and tells us about it, she has entered the kingdom of heaven. Loren Eisley talked of a child sized hole into greater eternities and we can only go through when we return to that state of childlike wonder and rapture at the amazing things everywhere around us. Because everything is amazing. There is an amazing play or game being played out about us all the time. Life is a glorious dream and i will continue to search for the things that other stuff looks like.

I guess what it all comes down to is that really, the Kingdom of Heaven is all around us. Children can see that and so can we if we put those child-eyes back on and remember to notice the magic or the faces in the clouds once in awhile. Thanks mom.

Politics

I am starting to believe, maybe wish, that politicians are going to make themselves completely irrelevant. I was listening to Joe Sestak on NPR tonight (he is running for Senate in PA) and i liked a lot of what he had to say, but i did not really believe a word of it. I do not think i am the only one. I am not talking just about him either. I do not trust anything that any politician says and i bet most of the people in the country do not either.

Republicans and democrats will not agree on anything so virtually nothing gets done. There are some major problems out there that should be dealt with but they are not because these people in our houses of government are more worried about maintaining their power than they are about doing a good job for the country. It is not about making the world a better place it is about keeping your party in and the other party out.

States and cities are starting to make their own moves toward green energy or other things that need to be done because it is becoming apparent that you can not wait on the federal government. It seems that if anything is going to happen it will be on the local level because the federal government is too busy bickering to get anything moving.

Why vote in the big elections? It seems like an opiate to me. People believe that their vote makes a difference and it keeps them from enacting real change or from doing something that might actually be worthwhile. Most of the time, it feels like even if you knew you had the vote that would decide the whole thing, what difference would that make? How do you tell who is the better choice? Petty quarreling is mainly what we get in the name calling that we have for elections. It also seems to be all that politicians do. When do these people work? There is a near constant stream of campaigning that goes on, no sooner are they elected, that they begin raising money for the next campaign and getting out on the trail. It is madness.

The things i think we need to do will never be done. So much money goes towards these campaigns. If you are not a super rich person, you can not compete in a campaign. That money could be much more well spent. Do not let politicians advertise. Make several debates and give each of them an equal amount of air time. Hopefully this will allow better candidates to emerge. Money does not need to be a factor. Why should we be spending billions of dollars as a nation on political campaigns. It would be lovely to actually get to know a candidate and have it not be a money contest.

I do not pretend to have all the answers but the system does seem broken. I want to declare my neutrality from it. If you want to vote, do it in a way that counts. Vote with your shopping. Companies listen to that sometime. Don't buy into the system. Stop spending money on all the disposable crap we use. Don't drink bottled water. Stop using disposable cameras. Walk when you can. Tell off someone who speaks racist garbage in your presence. Get off the electric grid. Run away to the woods. Do something. Work in a soup kitchen. Be nice to a stranger. Feed a parking meter for somebody. Stop watching so much TV.

This is a super late night rant. I know the voting thing is a touchy issue. People died for our right to vote. That makes me sad. That can not be all it is about. People will shove that down your throat and make you believe that by once every couple of years going out to push a button you are making a difference. It keeps people happy and feeling like they did their part and it creates the illusion that we have a voice. That can not be all you do. Politicians lie to you. You have no idea, really, what you are going to get when they get into office. If you want to vote, do so, but do not let that be all that you do. Make a difference around you in the world, make it a better place and let your vote be the icing on that cake. Good luck trying to figure it out, i know i haven't.