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Since I’ve set the precedent of wishing a happy birthday to people here, I guess I’ll mention mine as well. Today is my birthday and I just want to say that I’m grateful for all the wonderful people I’ve got in my life who’ve supported me and encouraged me to follow this dream. We’re gonna all hang out and sit in the sun and make pizzas in my new pizza oven. Then later I’ll take a little time for myself to reflect on my life up to this point and how lucky I am to have all the love I have in my life. Hope everyone has a great day.
-J.P.
Public Practice
Have you ever practiced in public? Taken your instrument or whatever you’re working on and just sat in a park somewhere surrounded by strangers and started practicing in plain view? It’s intimidating at first, but it’s a good way to get comfortable with yourself.
That’s kinda what this whole year has felt like so far. Sharing all this music and all the silly bits we put on social media… I try to look at it as public practice. We’re trying out all our ideas and refining our skills, but instead of holding onto everything until it’s perfect, we’re letting everyone watch and hear what we’re working on it as we do it. I sway back and forth between feeling like everything needs to be way better and feeling like it doesn’t matter at all, as long as we do something. I think there’s probably merit to both sides of the argument to be honest. The speed at which society moves lends itself to the idea that you need to share constantly, but most of the artists I admire do the opposite, and that leaves me feeling conflicted.
The conflict usually ends in me considering everything we’ve done to this point as failure, especially when you consider the weight numbers hold these days, but when I think about it, we haven’t failed at all. In reality this is the most successful we’ve ever been. Our numbers might not be earth shattering right now, but I have to constantly remind myself that this the beginning of this journey, and we’ve maintained a steady output of material and a presence on the internet where we can be found, if people choose to seek us out. That’s all we can do. Keep practicing in public, and trust that the whole will be greater than the sum of our parts.
New music next week from The New Hippies, and from Roe’s Garden the week after that.
-J.P.
Compromised Vision
I’d like to know the person who can take what they see or hear in their head and put it out into the world exactly as it was in there. The one thing I’ve found to be true in all my creative endeavors to this point in my life is that they come to be through a series of compromise. Sometimes you can be bound by physical limitations - your skill might not match what’s required to realize the idea, you may not have the space to build the thing you saw in your dreams, you may not have the time to get everything exactly right. Other times the compromise may be interpersonal - there could be miscommunications or a difference in opinion and you have to meet somewhere in the middle. Sometimes you may just realize the idea wasn’t fully formed and so you change it along the way. I had to learn to not let the difference between the original idea and the finished product taint the experience of making the thing. At the end of the day, completing the task is a great feat of strength, and the compromises likely made it better or presented an opportunity to learn and refine my craft. Still though, there’s a part of me that will always chase that pure expression. Maybe it’ll happen one day.
-J.P.
Computer Love
Today I’m asking myself a series of questions to which I don’t have the answers. Who wins between the heart and the brain? What happens when one decides they can no longer coexist? How can a person be so small and so vast at the same time? Will the machines really take over? Will I still be here? Who let the dogs out?
Who knows.
-J.P.
Two Things
Say what you mean and do what you say you’re going to do and life will probably be pretty easy for you. Just sayin.
-J.P.
Bryana’s birthday!
Today is Bryana’s birthday! I could write for hours here but we’re about to go dinner. Bryana, if you find yourself reading this, I want you to know that you are loved immensely. You bring peace to a world of chaos and I’m truly blessed to have you in my life. I hope that this coming year - which will be full of growth and new experiences - is the beginning of a wonderful next chapter that becomes the springboard for you leap from as you chase the things that set your world on fire. I’m lucky to be by your side and I’ll be here whenever you need me. You’re the best.
-J.P.
Trying Times
The beginning of a journey is an interesting place to be. It’s funny to even consider this the beginning - to me I’ve been dreaming of making music and movies for the better part of 25 years at their point, but this is the first year we have an actionable plan and a catalogue of music to release in hopes of realizing that dream so we’ll say this is the beginning.
The beginning is full of wide-eyed enthusiasm and jolt of energy. We all know the tortoise and the hare though, so I’ve tried not to blow through all my energy too soon. That initial jolt faded into a wave of what I guess you could call depression. I’ve settled into a routine of general anxiety mixed with determination to push through the year. It works for me for now. It’s not as bad as I’m making it sound either. Days are mostly good, it’s just that we’re four months into our year-long plan and our music is going mostly unheard. We’ve had very little traction on social media and we’re not really growing like we need to. There have been a few PR companies to reach out and we’re about to make some decisions in regards to a marketing push, so hopefully that will help us break a threshold of legitimacy but it’s all unknown, which gets stressful. There’s no work coming in and we’re going to run out of money, but you gotta take a risk, right?
That’s the thing. It’s the beginning. It’s trying times. Times of trying everything we possibly can to make it work, because if you believe in what you’re doing, you have to give it everything you have. I’ll wear myself all the way down to the bone because I have everything riding on this, and I refuse to get to the end of the road and feel like I could’ve done more. Here’s to trying.
-J.P.
