Back To Burnout And Disgust

I spent a month up in Lake Tahoe, being a working person.  I worked at a State Park there, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed most of the workers, well, all except for the one workplace bully who didn’t want to be responsible for what she did, who wasn’t going to stand her ground with her co-workers who went to bat for me, who chose to punish and bully the one person who couldn’t fight back.  I enjoyed the quiet, I even enjoyed living in the little shack that had no plumbing (bathrooms and other facilities were right across the parking lot).  I enjoyed the fact that I was earning a paycheck, and that it was only a matter of a short time before I would have my own life back.  It was a full time job, but even with that, I managed to break out my guitar or banjo and play some.  I was enjoying doing that more than I had in years.  I was in complete burnout and disgust mode before I moved to the Lake.

I’m now back in Reno, where all the angry people are, where all the noise is, where the grossly inept working people are.  I’m about ¾ of the way back to total burnout and disgust – and this is after being back here two weeks.  I could be a pretentious ass and claim that it doesn’t get to me, that I’m able to “let it go”, that I’m stronger than any this or that – and other such horseshit.  I could pretend that I’m ok.  Yes, I get it that all the angries out there must live with their own self inflicted stuff, yes, of course I get that, but it doesn’t change the fact that I continue to be on the receiving end of their hostility, their vindictiveness, their envy, their slander, and their simmering anger.  In what world should I be, by law, demanded to take crap from lowlifes in the street, or lowlifes in the workplace, lowlifes in any and all public places?  The result of all of this is that the thing I loved most, the thing I knew best, the thing I chose to do for a living, the thing I knew was a good thing to offer to the universe, is now all but gone.  After getting tossed out of what appeared to be a vacant parking lot yesterday, and after seeing the double padlocked gate and the “No trespassing or else” sign where I was going a couple times a week to play music, after having lost the job that would have paid for the replacing of things that have been lost, stolen, sold, or given away over the past few years – things that I need so that I can do decent recordings, and make decent videos, here I am.  At this particular moment, I couldn’t bring myself to take any of my guitars or my banjo out of the case, much less play them.  I’m not arrogant enough to claim that only I have control over what I do.  This external crap has been taking its toll on my all my life.

As I’ve said many times, I really don’t know where to go from here.  I’ve spend the past couple of years trying to contact record labels, artist management companies, booking agents, and other music business related people, and I continue to be blatantly ignored.  I’m pretty sure my music and my abilities are decent.  I play ten instruments, and yes, I can actually play them.  My delivery is something that people have enjoyed – ever since I first started in this business way back in the day.  I hit the notes when I sing, and my voice is listenable.  I’m on the stage to give, not to take – always – in other words, I’m not up there for people to tell my how wonderful I am, I’m up there to give the only thing I know.  Add to all of that, it’s been decades of people doing their damedest to stifle me in every way, and if you think that doesn’t get fucking old, think again.  So, now I’m burned out again, not sure when I’ll feel like playing again.

This is where I am today.  People have been telling me to “Be patient” all my life, so how much longer do I wait before I stumble across anything resembling fair or just, how long before I be compensated for my hard work and abilities – as opposed to either being stifled, or for some parasite to profit from what I do?  As always, I have no answers.

All for now.

The Kid With The Goofy Grin And The Rifle Arm

 Middle Row, Far Right

Again today, I had the misfortune of being in the line of fire of still another bullying lowlife.  This one was in the form of a (kinda) female security guard.  I was in an empty parking lot, there’s a building there that I’d never seen any car near, or any person in or near it.  I was trying to film (with my phone) a couple of music videos – playing guitar and singing.  When I first got there, a different security person came up and asked, “Can I help you?”, I replied, “No, I don’t think so, I’m just going to make a couple of videos”.  The guy said, “Ok, no problem”.  So, I kept doing what I was doing.  About an hour later, here comes this miniature security person, puffs her chest, sneering, glares at me and spits up, “You need to move on”.  I can’t recite the whole exchange, but basically I told her what a pathetic little ass she was, that if you have no life, and you hate yourself so much, I guess this is what you do – go screw with other people.  After some amount of smartass from her, I managed to tell her to go fuck herself.  It has never mattered if I walked away, told the person to screw off, or if I ended up belting somebody (I’ve had to do all three, and I don’t say any of this proudly or ashamedly, just matter of fact), I always felt equally as bad afterward, for two reasons.  First, how is it that so many people hate themselves so much (Psych 101), and have so much envy for other people – especially ones who are going after something, or doing something worthwhile, that they first find a weapon to hide behind, then look for people to beat over the head with their bullshit.  Second, and the worse of the two, how do I continue to be such a magnet for these kinds of people.  It goes back (as far back as I can remember) to when I was eight years old, when step mom was so angry that I was doing something (ever how small it was), that she went outside and pulled up my corn plants.  I was eight, I planted the corn, I ran home from school every day to weed and water – did it for months, my corn was getting big (it looked big to me – but I was a little kid).  I would sit there with my plants, sometimes for over an hour, trying to see if the plants would grow while I was watching.   So, one day I ran home from school, to find my corn plants gone – having been dug up by the vindictive step mom.  She gave me some cockamamie reason why she just HAD to do it, but well…    From that, the contempt I seemed to incite came from the little league baseball coaches, more teachers than not, the guys I hung around with at Kaimuki Park from the time I was 12 up until 17, to the high school basketball coaches, to the second batch of guys I hung around with just out of high school, to bosses at the two transmission shops I worked at for the five years of my early adult life, to people in the music business – including musicians, booking agents, club managers, and even radio people – this has been going on for 35+ years – right up until this very minute.  There were a couple of periods where I worked “regular” jobs – same – the bullying bosses.  FTR, in school, in jobs, and in music, I was always on time, never missed a day of school or work, and I was proud to do the best job possible.  The current “significant other” – same B.S., using money as the weapon to hide behind.  I wasn’t bullied as a kid – by other kids, the only bullying I remember as a kid was parents, teachers, little league coaches, etc., in other words, full grown adults.

I seem to get this much more often than most people.  I don’t know if it’s that I’m more sensitive to it, or more aware, or if my energy field moves in the opposite direction of most people’s, or some other reason, all I know is, I’ve always said that I would be more than ok if I got what the general population got.  I’m perfectly aware of what many people think of a person who thinks this way, but well, being that I’m not here to get other people’s permission to think what I think, I really don’t care.

I’m not sure I could even describe the degree of contempt, hostility, and aggression I experience just about every day of my life, you probably wouldn’t believe me even if I were to describe the half of it.  I never felt welcome in the world, I guess I just learned to live with it.  And same, I say this in the most matter of fact way.

So, just in the past two weeks, I managed to be on the receiving end of four of them. The bullying boss – having lost my job after a month because she did not want to be responsible for what she did – and felt the need to punish the guy who couldn’t fight back.  Shortly before that, it was the old man who operated the backhoe, who took one look at me, and proceeded to tell me how tough he was, how brave he was, how “successful” he was, how he liked to drink all the time, and other such macho crap.  I handled him the same way I always do with guys like that – I proceed to tell them what a screwup and a dimwit I am.  A week ago, I found the gates to the railroad track area where I was taking my guitar to play a couple times a week – the gates closed, double padlocked, and the “NO TRESPASSING OR ELSE” sign in full view.  Before this, the place looked like it hadn’t been used or tended to in years, maybe decades.  Apparently, somebody was offended by me being there – even though I never did anything disrespectful, never left anything for anybody to clean up, left it just as I found it – always.  I also never saw another soul anywhere near the place.  So, four pathetic little humans just in the past two weeks – that’s not to mention the same throughout my whole life.

For the record, there has never been a time when I stood up for mice elf, where I didn’t pay big – as a result of something cowardly that some bullying lowlife did.  Even worse, more and more laws get put into place, in order to protect lowlifes, to protect smartasses, to protect bullies.  The Powers That Be pretend otherwise, but look around you.  Oregon has Measure 11.  The Righteous Right would have you believe that “It’s only for repeat offenders” – well, bullshit, you punch out some punk in the street, and you can easily end up in prison for SIXTY MONTHS, that’s FIVE YEARS.  Do the reasoning – punk in the street, five years in prison…  and it’s only getting worse.

I have a picture of me with my first little league team, I was ten (this one actually had a decent coach).  I’m there, with my goofy grin and my rifle arm.  I’m still that kid, will be till I’m not here anymore.  I like that kid, I like that he still instinctively trusts, instinctively loves, instinctively gives.  On an intellectual level, different story, I've learned to mistrust and dislike most humans, but instinctively, well...     My instinctive trust and all the rest, has rarely been a two way street, but I guess somewhere in here, it doesn’t matter all that much.

I don’t know where I go from here, and I guess that’s all I have to say for now.

The Destruction Of Country Music

Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed barrage of desperate advertising of country music.  Every month, sometimes more than one a month, there is either an “Awards Show”, or some kind of “Special”.  Country “stars” appear often on daytime and nighttime TV talk shows, being interviewed, then being allowed time to play at least one song.  TV ads also include country “stars”.  Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan are all over the place on TV.  The reasons for this hammer job are beyond obvious.  First, country music as a whole is not selling, hasn’t been for quite some time – since the mid 90s at least.

Let’s backtrack for a few.  In 1980, the movie, “The Urban Cowboy” movie hit the screen, and millions of hipsters and posers bought up cowboy garb and filed into what was known at the time as “Country Bars”, or “Cowboy Bars”.  Country music took a turn for the worst between 1980 and 1990.  The music became “commercial”, being more “Pop” than country.  More artists that I care to think about were told by their producers to move away from the traditional country sound over to the slick, grossly overproduced, “Wall of Sound”.  The Nashville Machine took a lesson from other genres by hiring “Sessions Musicians”.  They did do that to some degree before that, but when everything went “commercial”, they started with the tightly controlled studio scene, along with the also tightly controlled songwriter scene.  So, now there were “Sessions Musicians”, and “Staff Writers”.  Very seldom were artists and/or bands allowed to play their own songs, and, the bands were not allowed to use their players in the studio.  By 1984, a small, exclusive handful of musicians were playing all the music for all the recordings – no matter – band, artist, or otherwise.  Same went for studio “Producers” – the guys who call the shots in the studios – a tiny, exclusive handful.  I remember going into a used book and music store sometime in the late 80s, to find endless reject bins full of CDs by current “Country” artists and bands.  With most of the music being mindless, contrived white noise, I fully understood why things were as they were.  About this time (mid 80s) the line dancing craze was starting, with the Nashville Machine catering to these narcissistic posers by putting out “music” that was recorded at a certain “BPM” (beats per minute) so that the line dancing crowd could do what they were doing.  By the early 90s, bands were being phased out to be replaced by DJs – guys who must have spent HOURS practicing how to push “Start” and “Play”.  The country bars, almost overnight, became “Dance Halls”, with the line dancer crowd monopolizing all the good seating, the dance floor, and any female who walked through the door.  These self serving asses would order a bottle of water for a DOLLAR, and when they finished with it, do you think they would order another one, NO, they would go into the bathroom and fill it back up.  The other part of the “Dance Hall” phenomenon included, first, bands who would mimic the latest songs from the “Country Top 40”, and have their lips so firmly lodged up the line dancers’ rear ends that any normal person in the place would lose their lunch.  This quickly morphed into DJs having taken over the stages, the “Dance Halls” having invested in sound systems that had tens of thousands of watts of power, and stacks of speakers – catering, still, to the line dance crowd – the selfish posers who monopolized the establishments, while not supporting them.  This right here is what had me baffled at the time, and baffled still – that all the club owners and management catered to the line dancers.  By the mid 90s, add to the young posers in their Shepler clothes, we now had the ex disco dimwits – by this time, middle aged men and women – with the same self serving, snooty attitude as their younger counterparts.  With all this, the youngsters who used to frequent country bars saw that they didn’t stand a chance of getting in a dance, or meeting a girl (or girl meeting guy), so they just quit going out to these places.  These were folks who genuinely loved the music, supported the music, and supported the clubs – by actually buying stuff – CDs, concert tickets, T-Shirts, touring jackets, and whiskey when they were in the clubs – as opposed to the self congratulatory line dance crowd who rarely paid for anything – including their monopolizing of the dance halls.  By 1998, the dance halls were quickly shutting down – and I mean shutting down all over the country.  As you can see, there are no more country dance halls.  You might find a small local bar that they might squeeze a 3 or 4 piece band into a tiny corner stage – mostly being way too loud for the 25 seater venue, and mostly not worth walking across the street to listen to.

Sometime around the mid 90s, I had the good fortune to catch a few “Documentaries”, where they were talking about the dismal “Unit” sales of country music – the bigwigs whining and sniveling about “Piracy”, blaming THAT for the horrible numbers.  About that time, the number of signed country acts playing the 10,000 seater arenas went from hundreds down to tens.  Since then, you have a small handful of country acts playing the big venues, while the rest play the 500 seaters – many times even those not selling out.  Mostly who attends the country themed concerts are the teenagers.  It disgusts me the ruthless trickery that is employed by the music industry – to get impressionable youngsters to buy their talentless, contrived B.S.  With “Streaming Music” being the way of the world today, CD sales are even lower than before, with just a couple of the megastars selling enough for the pitiful record labels to recoup the dollars they put out for advertising.

So, we’ve gone from Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and George Jones, to Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Trace Adkins, and Jason Aldean – how the hell is this even possible?  You can’t tell me that real talent has simply disappeared from society.  My guess is that any honestly talented artist will be ignored, and even squashed by the Nashville Machine.  I’ve been to Nashville four times, first time in 1981, second time 1992, third time 2004, and last time 2013.  In 81, there were country bars all over that town, and the town was crawling with people – tourists and locals alike – all looking for places to hear country music.  The Urban Cowboy Craze had just begun, so the transition was going from conventional country bars to more showcase bars – where they would put on “Vocal Contests”.  It was a huge scam, but there were still people in that town.

By 92, many of the bars were either gone, or had some other business – non music related in the space.  The town was bordering on Ghost Town status – with that little one block area of Broadway between 4^th and 5^th being about the only place to find anything resembling a country bar.  Printer’s Alley was no longer a place to hear music.  The “Artists” and bands at the time were horrid – except for the one family bluegrass band that played a couple of the venues there.  The “side men” (musicians who would play backup for the “artists”), made the rounds between the clubs in that tiny area – going from one venue to the next when shifts would change.  All of these guys being middle aged, overweight men with scruffy beards, and jeans hanging halfway down their rear ends, and holey t-shirts.  They would have learned the signature Nashville licks, which they would play on every song.  The few fiddle players around town made noises that sounded, not kidding, like cats in heat.  I did manage to hear a couple of half decent pedal steel players.  The only time there were any crowds at all was on Friday and Saturday nights between about 9 and midnight.

By 2002, it wasn’t much different, the one block area being the majority of venues.  Broadway was desolate, some of the businesses being boarded up.

My last trip there was in 2013, much the same, except that they extended the Broadway clubs down towards the river, and they added the Hard Rock Café.  Still a ghost town, though.

So, with all the damage that the Nashville Machine has done, they’re desperate.  The RIAA, along with all the upper management of Billboard, has been lobbying to reduce the royalties for the artists and writers.  I also suspect, on writers, that they write under the “Work for hire” heading, so they don’t actually get royalties, they get a flat rate – leaving any profits to the Nashville brass.  We must see all these new country “Awards Shows”, and specials.  We’ll be seeing a lot of Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan, and whoever else they can shove down our throats via TV.  The sad part is, as long as there are impressionable people – whether they be youngsters, or desperate adults, the Good Ol’ Boy Network of “Country Music” will always find a way to turn a profit at the expense of folks who fail to see the horrible, ruthless trickery that is designed to sell their talentless white noise.