Keep Those Hands Busy

Being in the midst of a very up and down summer: Quit a band that really messed with me... continues to mess with me, having a big family crisis with my dad that i was directly in my line of work and turned my head and emotions inside, but it's still been a beautiful summer and i'm trying not to take that for granted.
A goal for awhile has been to build a cigar box guitar, making things by hand as much as possible - from nut and bridge out of antler/bone, to detailing the wood, hand made piezo pick ups and keeping a focus on my desired semi-deco approach. A slow labour of love and a learning curve that has me really juiced to keep up with building cigar box guitars, wiring homemade pedals and really taking the love of guitars and accessories and mixing them with a love for working with hands and making it with style, thought and some of me.
So here is a link for the detailed photo set of my first cigar box guitar build.

PS: i still need a idea for a volume knob, so feel free to pass those along.


Find more photos like this on Cigar Box Nation

That and Those That Matter

In looking at the idea of jumping ship and leaving where i am currently living has led me to really focus on a few things that seem small at first examination but turn out huge with a small amount of applied focus. First is vain and degrading but honest: just how much i own, how much crap there is surrounding me... all of us. Second, the things that really matter like the events and areas that mean something to you in whatever stink-town or shit situation you're looking at bailing out of. Thirdly, perhaps most importantly are the people.
i've been trying to really cut down on how much i own. Eliminate the things that aren't necessary, especially if i don't love it. The amount of garbage that when you're really looking at it is insane. Shitty DVDs, weird little appliances, old shoes, crapped out electronics, and accessories for things you can no longer identify become sickening. The list is endless as is all the crap. i've recently been going through boxes, literally, full of stuff that i used when i first moved out... why the hell do i need so many glasses and mugs?!?! My god. The Salvation Army has been seeing a lot my old stuff. i hope that in some small way my stupid self-excess can benefit someone in some way.
The second one has been a very hard mixed blessing. As i think and feel more and more about the things i'm involved in the bigger the questions seem to become as do questions about motivation, sacrifice, desire, dreams... acceptance, even. Being a part of a music scene and more emotionally in a band i love has been strangely been the biggest mixed blessing of them all. i truly love this band, i love the music we play and i love the people in it so much but i'm also realizing that my willingness to commit to it is no longer what it once was. i appreciate the challenge of this loving dichotomy. It hurts realizing this, but in a way the draining and emotional charge that keeps coming with this kind of questioning is in a way revitalizing. Most of the time our lives seem so full of acceptance of what has just always been. At least in re-evaluation of my loved things i can understand more about my loves, the things i want to be a part of and myself.
Lastly, the heart breaker... the  connection... the relationships, the god damned people. Family and friends, their influence on our day to day lives are hard to really quantify without allowing yourself to register the hurt and loss that will ultimately accompany this change of winds.
All of this if done honestly really allows one to see the good in many places, things and people that you may not expect. The hilariously awful truth in the ying-yang, in all things terrific and special there is some small amount of crap, and in all things shit storm and intolerable is some small piece of gold.

In craving an adventure and a change i faced these all before but it has been probably 9 nines since my last one. This time things seem somehow gigantically bigger.

Connections and Cold Memories

Have you ever had a moment in life where you've been interacting with someone and felt that you might have been this same person if only a couple of choices, lucky breaks or downright random things might have happened along the way? That though your histories, past or many, many things might be different that there is a kinship beyond others you've known?
i have recently been struck by this feeling again. This time my professional life and responsibilities brought in contact with this person. There was a sense that when i was dealing with this person that without knowing them i could have been them in another life. The connection was immediate and struck me so that i've been thinking about it solid since. It made my day a bit distracting and led me to reflect about how much the things we don't choose end up impacting our lives. Life is so full of uneven roads and unexpected potholes along the way. So many choose to believe that these mere highways are meant to lead us somewhere personal, original and just for us. For me, i am feeling more and more that the roads, the universe and life is totally indifferent and why shouldn't it be. In some ways that is a freeing thought and feeling but also leaves the responsibility for all we can control solely on us.
The connection i shared with this person led me to reflect that the things that truly change and form who we become is thinner and more transparent than any us of truly expect or obviously acknowledge. The things that make us up are only microscopically different from a tree, a cat, a car, or a brick, and the only differences we see between people are the taught and learned cultural, ethnic, spiritual and circumstantial garbage that we drag around with us as we age and learn from the places and people we have encountered.
So thin yet so defining in so many ways.

i don't expect to understand these moments, frankly speaking that feeling and moment might be simply my own, perhaps these moments are not something others can identify with, but this is the second time i've felt this feeling in the past 5 or 6 years. Each time it stops me dead. Last time it was in my personal life, and i've tried desperately to maintain contact and a friendship with that person. This time because it's been under my professional capacity i feel somehow more responsible for this person more than most others i've dealt with.

#mebutnotme

Days

Stress has been getting me. Getting me in ways i haven't had before, or that has felt this acute. i wake up scared. i have nightmares. i feel depression weighing on me. Once or twice a day it feels hard to breathe, just too much weight on my back and chest and shoulders.

Not sure how to proceed. i've made the kinds of errors and choices that put an end to potential dreams, and has truly affected my quality of life. i worry about what happens if i make choices now that will intentionally hurt myself. Fall-out of my own making. i feel irradiated by this. Marked for life and disfigured.

Riding this out is necessary but hard. i have to take the blows and responsibility for the outcome, but it hurts physically, emotionally and mentally. 

Hymns of Emergency

Being a promoter for the need to be connected to people, to the physical life, adventures and activities in the real world i have been finding myself more and more in the midst of strong feelings of being disconnected. My current feelings about best laid plans and my level of energy has begun to haunt me. Being exhausted leads to an increase in the feelings of disconnectedness but also makes me feel as though i haven't slept for four days after having just woken. Black and blue through and through, dreaming of the past and future fully aware that it is an attempt to deal with my current private SOS that i'm drowning in. Preparez-vous...
Black and blue, there's nothing i can do, and usually i feel as though there's nothing i can't do. So how to shake the shivers and aches?
Old habits die hard, and knowing that the feelings of disconnect are linked to sadness and realizing that i have been left behind and have removed a limb covered in old, well-earned and loved scars. To be in, but on the outside of in... to feel it, but to not know where you'll be standing once you're back standing instead of lying flat and weak. But it's very new territory after having been so used to being a part of the service, a part of the action, a man of the hymns of danger and sweat.
Guess i'm just jealous and feeling left out.

Breathing hard? Naw, it's just something in my Eye.

It's taken awhile to accept this. i haven't wanted to think about this, and i certainly didn't want to feel it. i gave my heart, sweat, for lack of a cheesier statement, my ALL to this band. Walking away and giving all the dedication and work a funeral so quiet, undeserved and perhaps premature leans heavy on me. The work of partnership building a feeling and momentum was so refreshing and liberating. To know that we came together to make ourselves bigger and better into something we all loved is hard to duplicate. The energy that carried us forward gave me hopes for dreams that have always been secreted in journals and in the birthday wishes you know could never come true... somehow though this felt like maybe, on the outside chance, there was enough given to this that together we could make it count.

i'd like to feel that i was part of something special, and special to more than just three lovers of music. i'd like to imagine that in some way the work and successes marked other peoples memories. i want to say that the Sinsters were always great, but all things have moments of hurt and embarasement, this is no exception. Looking past the hard times, giving myself the due i feel i've earned and moving forward in the things i love help but it does not entirely save me or shake the sense of loss. Maybe that's the point, maybe the point is the hard parts, maybe the hard points are what make this mine all the more. i'm being tempered by this, much in the same way i carved my love for music into something physical. i do not want to become tempered steel, i do not want to believe that is the best of what i have to offer, i do not want to believe that i have lost something i could never feel again.
Like i said, i didn't and don't want to feel all of this but it's over now. Slowly down this road i walk, and slowly i recognize how much i loved, hurt and have to accept this... and yeah, that's just something in my eye.

R.I.P. the Sinsters 2004-2010 ~ Are you ready? Well, i'm Ready...

First in Eight Years

The energy and refreshing energy of a really big first is somethings that seems rare of these by-gone days and nights. To feel the excitement, oh and the nervousness, racing throughout the night. After three, four, or five recordings, finally having a release party and a well put together release gave it a feeling of legitimacy and importance that i'd never had before. A celebration for something of which i am very proud of, and vinyl to boot.
i love music. It's one of the few things in my life that i feel has the ability to be limitless, truly limitless. Music has been a part of my life for as long as i can remember, and so many memories have a music element ingrained in them. To create a memory based on a piece of music that i had a part in feels natural in many ways, like destiny in others, and as though it's something i could never have imagined being a hand in.
i love the people that have helped me come this far, and i want to thank them.

There are people i wish that i could have shared this with from years and days gone-by, but it is not an issue of lament. Sometimes the best things bring up ideas about what make it special.

Panic and the Shape of Things to Come

Where did all this panic come from? It's as though one minute i'm fine the next i'm shaking and panicked... actually that's exactly what it is. As this short month full of so many events, assignments and other various agenda filling things rolls along i'm hoping it'll relax. The hope that once one or two things is off your plate then perhaps there can be some sort of attempted relaxation, or maybe i'll have burnt out my synapses from the fits of panic and be forced into a medically induced coma to recover. i bet comas are good sleeping too.
Waiting for March to arrive is the idea, but the knowledge that this month will be a full on sprint really doesn't have me jumping for joy, rather ducking for cover and hoping some will come to my rescue (Superman, Spiderman... anybody out there?!).
Long dark, cold nights ahead. Little sleep ahead. Little free time ahead... not that i've really had much of that over the past couple years.

Just trying to maintain this course towards that impending shore. Eyes on the horizon.

Is This It?

It's this time of year. Exhausted, overworked, stressed beyond belief and it's par for the course. How can  shake this feeling? Can i?

Can i trust things enough to bail me out of this stupid fucking endeavor? i'm not sure that i do trust, but i am hopeful. The fall out, even potential, makes me sick to my stomach and has on more than one occasion made me light headed. Here's to having your head on the chopping block and trusting that someone who has a tarnished track record come to your rescue. Off with my head... Bout that time of year. 

Two Successes Spell One Failure

It's time to get past all of this. We so often seem willing to forget, or perhaps deny, that there is always something at stake. Time, joy, goals, life. A powerful list full of potential that we're all chasing.  The chasing is what becomes the problem, i believe. So often the hope for success, the work towards success teaches us little. We become accustomed to it, it seems normal, maybe because we live in an age of mediocrity or maybe because it's easier to push people forward and then forget them. Yet, where are the lessons in those moments?
Illness has been rushing through me all week when considering that even with what under different circumstances be seen as a success, a strong success, will become a failure. It reminds me of the lessons of failure and how much more that has the ability to teach you, but in this situation it hasn't had the same of dire straits feel as other failures. A loss of time, a loss of respect, a loss of self-confidence, and potential for a much, much more significant loss lies down that road, those feelings and ideas scare me most of all. What if this goal can never be completed? What if i've gone as far as i can already? Perhaps it's a victory because you've maximized on potential and become something you never imagined. But you cannot celebrate a victory when standing over the grave of one of your dreams.
i dreamt i bought someone a Christmas present that was a tombstone. Maybe i bought it for the dreams i'm going to have to bury...

Crown of Scorn

 It's all a little silly, it's all a little surprising, and it's all some people choose to see.

A culture of entitlement is a phrase i've been hearing about more and more in the past year, though only after seeing people near to me take a stand point i could never have expected do i start to come to the broader understanding of how so many of us think we deserve more and more and MORE of everything without the effort or willing desire to earn and be proud. To be honest with a sense of dignity, empathy and confidence that i see this new culture beginning to rob us all of.

It always amazes with so much potential in each and every person, so many are trapped by the barriers they put themselves behind, and eventually do not see the passages that can lead them out towards happiness that they can provide for themselves. With the blinders on many people i know go forward unwilling to say yes to so much and so easily saying no to the majority of life... and yet fundamentally believe that sense of entitlement is fully justified. i see more of the attitude of "Do less Expect more". This makes me cringe.

Priding yourself with a job well done or a situation handled to the absolute best of your know how are moments that provide the most savory flavors to life. How can so many be wrapped up in the self deceit and self fulfilling habits? It is a choice, and a choice to rob yourself of challenges you deserve and life to be lived. To aid, to believe and forward a sense of community within a global, national, friendship or complete stranger level is where the belief in and of entitlement really hurts everyone. When most believe they deserve more and do less the loss is without equal, but most of all for those people who refuse to see the other side of the coin we all see spinning in front of us.

Don't hand me hand outs. Hand me how to's and the situations to come through either up or down just let me know i do it for the right reasons.

Don't-cha Hold Nuthin' Back

It kills me, i feel guilty through and through, and always at this time of year it happens... another annual tradition i could do without.
It's almost time to celebrate my annual entry into the world, the planet of free choices and complex feelings, and with this anniversary comes my most hated annual happening. i receive gifts, which are fine, if nothing more than a show of love, but i cannot stand the gift of clothes. It is so rare that i get some article of clothing that i truly love as a gift that in all my life i can only imagine one or two times it happening.
Now that in itself is not the end of the world, but the guilt and feelings of letting someone down who bought you a gift is so common for me but also still so uncomfortable and excruciating, especially as they ask the inevitable question: "Do you like it?" You lie, of course (never hurt the feelings of one giving you a gift, ever!), but the lie doesn't reach your eyes, if you're lucky it might even reach your mouth so that you can crack a con-man's smile to match your lie. You feel the lie heavy and deep in your heart and mind, the guilt of it all holding so tight you that you can taste it and imagine it again any time the thought of the gift crossed your memory. Trying not to think how long you'll have to hold onto this till it can 'magically' disappear.
Many times i would so much rather get no gift at all than to have to feel the heavy guilt, mild disappointment and to see the hurt feelings of the gift-er. If anyone on the planet actually reads this, and is in a position to buy me gift at any time in my life, heed my cry and do us both a favour, do not buy me clothing as a gift, especially a black tee shirt you're certain i'll love. It's just easier all the way around.

With love, here's to annual disappointment.

Consideration 6 Days A-Week

The through and through consideration of where this is meant to end, or start again in another sense is difficult to recognize. Endless feelings of mistrust have not always been the way of it, but it has become our shared and mutual existence. All and all there has been a passing by of better days towards one of parody and lies. i question who sees the lies, better yet i question why we need to tell ourselves, us, you, me, him, the lies. Why do i choose to hear them and let them pass?
i hate so much of what we do now. There are so few things that we do now that have any resemblance to what we once were, or are capable of together. Let's destroy it, cause it's destroying me to be a part of this lackluster and listless has-been story. Tumbling backwards, pretending that there is forward momentum but that has been in short supply for a long, long time. i pray to heaven, and to hell, to anyone who will listen that i don't have to be the reason that this disintegrates, but as long as the lies fall heavy and hard from those involved how else can i be free?

i can handle being hated, it's the disappointment from one person that is hardest to think of bearing.

Working to Kill Yourself

Long and lean, that's been the taste of things. Anything that's been extra has been trimmed. You are without ears, half your fingers and toes, half of a thigh...
This is the year that has changed everything, and meant it. You ignore the rumours and the mouths that never cease. You've heard it all before, and it's always tolerable or better. This time you stepped into the grind-house and didn't notice the blood on the floor. It starts with nicks, and scrapes, and just as that seems like the norm the floor falls out.
The mix and change of all of this has been like walking into a spear, knowing it hurts and it is painful but you do not know where the end of the spear is. Is there an end?
Don't bother getting out the bandages, don't bother trying to improve the situation, don't think about survival, just make it so.

Hypo-Scholastic Shock

Looking for answers in all of the wrong places, even with hours and days dedicated to the understanding. Where to turn...

Haven't felt like this in years, haven't cried like this in years, haven't been this disappointed in myself ever.

Sometimes your best isn't enough, and honestly this semester has had that feel for me the whole time. It's as though i'm trying to gain my balance but have to stand at a 45 degree angle; you never feel right and you never gain a sense of confidence on your feet.

So you look to the future that looked so bright, and watch it turn to ashes. Banish those old familiar, hope filled dreams, that helped you stay focussed and instead trade them in for nothing.

Here's to nothing.

Cheers.