A Gout Out for the Mix Tape Universe

Writing Assignment #6
This essay was assigned and I had to file the ideas into the back of my head, sit back and just think…What motivates me? Am I motivated differently by different things? I’ve kind of lost touch with the concept of myself lately. Actually, when one works in a cube time just sorts of blends together so it’s hard to differentiate between when certain paradigms take hold and change the way they see the world. The last three years of my adult career have been spent in revenue accounting and I have found myself in a situation of not worrying about my personal desires but attempting to be what the system wants me to be. I believe that in this modern age the concept of being alive is not based on organic genuine livelihood but more on creating synthetic symptoms of humanlike behavior. So these questions on my behavior have actually came somewhere out of left field because I had forgotten what it’s like for someone to express that extent of genuine interest. But it was tonight Friday September 30, 2005 that had actually inspired me to sit down before the ole’ Sony Vaio laptop and type these words. I’m a 24 year old crappy guitar player who wants nothing more than to be in a kick ass rock group that takes over the world. In the six years I have looked into being in a band but the gods of Rock and Roll have yet to throw me a freakin’ bone. I have endlessly combed the contours of this Denver metro area in search of people with like mind ideas and the desire to organize sound. To this day I cannot say I have ever really been in an active important role in any band. I’m 24 so if the next six years my pursuit of rock have gone as the last six years have gone then I will be 30 years old and still playing with myself (no pun intended.) When the Beatles were 30 years old they had already been in various bands, formed The Beatles, changed the world and broke up. (But whose comparing resumes?) Even with no hopes in sight I nightly grab hold of “Blushing Lucille” (that’s the name of my guitar which is a cherry red Gibson Les Paul Special with P-100 pick-ups.) I diligently practice externally motivated by the dangling carrot of an idea that one day I’ll be of a talent that people wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to be in band with me. It’s a sick and twisted thought which mirrors my feelings of the idea of a person losing his autonomy for the security and comfort of sitting in a cube. The delusion of actually being a good musician and taking part in an amazing rock band are constantly being scrutinized by the glaring eye of my helplessness. I feel that my daily practice is moving my talents in such a snails pace and I truly have no clue how to approach learning the guitar. It’s like going to a foreign country to learn their language and having everyone around not engage in conversation with you. By observing you could learn the language in theory but the entire use would be taken out of context and one would never get to feel the affirmation of actually living it. How am I to become a better guitar player if my fellow musicians won’t ever speak the language with me? These external motivations pushing me harder to live up to an image and catch the dangling carrot seem to have this deep negative effect on me. I don’t feel good about myself when I think about the stagnate nature of my musical situation and it’s at these times I’m prevented from moving forward in a more proactive manner. The inspiration for this writing assignment came tonight with the meeting of my sister’s friends Cory and Angie. They are this kind married couple that live in Denver/DIA (aka bfe.) The girls wanted to talk without us guys so Cory and I went to the basement of his home where he continued to show me his new creation. Cory is a web-site developer and he showed me his custom designed fantasy football site that he hopes to make his business. I have to be honest…I hate football. I could care less about a whole bunch of creatine snortin Neanderthals that get dressed up in pads and tackle each other for the soul purpose of getting back up to slap each other’s butts and do it all over again. But, Cory’s personality which was engaging, intelligent, inspired and genuine sparked my interest in fantasy football. Sitting before me was a man of immense programming knowledge. He freely shared the plans of his dream with me all the while answering my simple stupid questions about HTML. He was interested in not just his personal agenda. He proved this by getting my email address and sending me links to sites that could teach me HTML. Cory created a charismatic rapport with me by his patient reciprocal nature. I knew I could have spent hours just leaning about programming and football from him because of his love for the topics. So it was his external personality that motivated me to learn about topics which were only of a modest interest to me. It’s this type of passion that I need to find in two fellow musicians. If I met two people with half the glimmer in their eye for music as Cory had for computer programming than I would be well on my way to building my silly ideal band. The examples mentioned above are both the negative and positive experiences I have had with external motivation…it makes me wonder if the taste of the dangling carrot is what makes life worth living or is the purpose the memories you build by being pulled through life by the gravity of your dream? I still just want to eat the damn carrot!!!