so let's see here...
...19 more days and counting...
so i have just resumed contact with an old friend from college. and to all of you younger folks, i think it's important i relate this, because this will just teach you a lesson of how life can take many crazy turns for all of us.
when f. left barnard, she departed with many different options. she was smart, hip, blessed with good looks and ample cleavage, and she pursued many different interests. she played guitar in rock groups, designed websites for many clients and wrote for the mtv.com website. she eventually became a high-paid ad executive during the dot-com boom, and pulled in six figures. she was the most successful person i knew. the last time i talked to her was around 911, when she woke up to see a pillar of dust where the twin towers once stood. she was shaken up by that, but her life seemed to be generally intact.
as i found out a week ago, that was soon to crumble, too. in relatively short order, she lost her job after the recession hit. a band she was in was signed, only to implode after the lead guitarist checked into rehab. then, her fiancee split with her. finally, she had a nervous breakdown.
now she lives with her mother in chicago. she finally has a job, but she is in treatment for clinical depression and 30k in debt. gone is her self-assurance and drive she once had, replaced by a loneliness and self-doubt that i've never seen there before, but apparently was always there, just below the surface, waiting for its moment to take over.
i'm hoping that she can come to burning man with me. if anyone needs to have their mind blown, it is indeed her. hopefully, she will have the experience she needs to have out there so she can realize this new period of her life can be just as fruitful even if it is fundamentally different than the one she knew.
...so i have, amazingly enough, been accepted to this A&R scouting program.
i have a few more days to let them know if i want to take it or not. it's a sort of unpaid apprenticeship program to coach the next generation of A&R reps to enter the music industry and hopefully revolutionize it. i have many misgivings about entering the music industry at this point in time, but now is probably the best time to do so - right when everyone has all but given up on it.
...it's rare when i call out new acquaintances, but dood, there's this noo person named vivid here, and she's peachy-keen! i heard that she can tie her midriff into a fisherman's knot just like in that f4 movie. but she's from detroit, which means that she probably showed jack white how to put the smackdown on that guy from the von bondies. as alice cooper once said, "i'm from detroit, 'cause i was born to fight," but otherwise, i think she'll be a-okay for all of us.
...19 more days and counting...
so i have just resumed contact with an old friend from college. and to all of you younger folks, i think it's important i relate this, because this will just teach you a lesson of how life can take many crazy turns for all of us.
when f. left barnard, she departed with many different options. she was smart, hip, blessed with good looks and ample cleavage, and she pursued many different interests. she played guitar in rock groups, designed websites for many clients and wrote for the mtv.com website. she eventually became a high-paid ad executive during the dot-com boom, and pulled in six figures. she was the most successful person i knew. the last time i talked to her was around 911, when she woke up to see a pillar of dust where the twin towers once stood. she was shaken up by that, but her life seemed to be generally intact.
as i found out a week ago, that was soon to crumble, too. in relatively short order, she lost her job after the recession hit. a band she was in was signed, only to implode after the lead guitarist checked into rehab. then, her fiancee split with her. finally, she had a nervous breakdown.
now she lives with her mother in chicago. she finally has a job, but she is in treatment for clinical depression and 30k in debt. gone is her self-assurance and drive she once had, replaced by a loneliness and self-doubt that i've never seen there before, but apparently was always there, just below the surface, waiting for its moment to take over.
i'm hoping that she can come to burning man with me. if anyone needs to have their mind blown, it is indeed her. hopefully, she will have the experience she needs to have out there so she can realize this new period of her life can be just as fruitful even if it is fundamentally different than the one she knew.
...so i have, amazingly enough, been accepted to this A&R scouting program.
i have a few more days to let them know if i want to take it or not. it's a sort of unpaid apprenticeship program to coach the next generation of A&R reps to enter the music industry and hopefully revolutionize it. i have many misgivings about entering the music industry at this point in time, but now is probably the best time to do so - right when everyone has all but given up on it.
...it's rare when i call out new acquaintances, but dood, there's this noo person named vivid here, and she's peachy-keen! i heard that she can tie her midriff into a fisherman's knot just like in that f4 movie. but she's from detroit, which means that she probably showed jack white how to put the smackdown on that guy from the von bondies. as alice cooper once said, "i'm from detroit, 'cause i was born to fight," but otherwise, i think she'll be a-okay for all of us.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
there are still a lot of scenes untainted by greed and commerce that fight the good fight. but...if i told you what or where they are, it'd be nothing but trouble. FIND THEM APPRENTICE SCOUT!!! FIND THEM!!!
people are far more thinskinned than one would imagine. september 11 was YEARS ago. it happened out my window. it really didn't bother me one bit. it was bound to happen sooner or later.
what really bothered me about it was all of the fucking flags all over the place afterward. american foreign policy contributes to this event and all of these people are gonna wave flags and bolster the very government designing the policies that are being reacted against? man... that inspired me like few things ever have to do all i could do to push my art and my life to enjoy the freedoms that i want to enjoy, how and where i want to enjoy them. if that meant standing up to an armada of cops, armed soldiers or the secret service, that's what i did and am still doing.
i luckily turned down big money dot-com jobs in the late 90's to stick to working with people i cared about while making things i loved. it was probably one of the wisest decisions i ever made.
i'm pretty grateful that i've had a fortunate life. yr friend'll be ok. it's totally like you say. she just needs a kickstart. she needs to fall into something that she can feel passionate about. you can't find those things though. they find you completely accidentally. you just have to live.