The world's a stage, and I, I am the one who consistantly falls off of it.

Meanwhile, Back in New Bedford...

I find myself in a piping hot room, there's an air-conditioner, but I can't use it - I always get sick when I go back and forth between two extremes (not unlike anything else in life). It's two days after tour and my hands are shaking from the two cups of coffee I downed too quickly. Creatures of habit, right?

This has gone through my head a million times in the past, but I don't think I've ever written it down. I don't know if other musicians feel the same, or the specific events that have guided my life in this one direction has somehow ... smeared my genetic makeup, but this stop-and-go lifestyle sometimes feels like crashing into a brick wall.

I welled up on the last ride home, my brain felt like it was on fire - This seems to happen to me about twice a year, nowadays. I hate it. I fucking HATE it. I guess it's "anxiety", but it feels like "double-reverse-explosive-anti-anxiety" - freaking out at spending down-time, time alone, doing a lot of sitting and thinking. I'm not good at thinking, if "born with a capsized brain" were an old saying that actually existed, I'd hear it a lot. I was mouthy, bitter and upset, and the moment I caught myself being this way, I cornered myself off from the guys and stayed silent and sobbed.

(I'm not always like that - and 2011 has been especially good to me. What the hell is wrong with me? Good Question, Brian! Fuck.)

Real-life is hard, from what I remember. The routine, the monotony, the complaining, all that stuff that actually seems kind of fun right now. The thing that drives you crazy with being a nomadic touring-musician is the waiting, weighing out disappointments and rewards, avoiding trouble, getting as much sleep as you can - all for your 30-45-60 minute sets. It sucks to know/confirm that "Living the Dream" isn't really that easy either.

Don't read too much into my existential mumbling, I just wanted to get where I'm at right now out of my head. I'm not gonna go Cobain and develop an appetite for gun-metal. (What? Too-soon?). All in all, I'm writing to climb out of the tiny little pit I dug for myself over the last few days.

Tolstoy once wrote "All the diversity, all the charm, all the beauty of life is composed of shadow and light." - and I may be taking that wrong, but I do firmly believe that if you can pull a rainbow out of a piece of shit, you're not doing so bad.

Jesus fucking Christ Tolstoy said that better.

~Insert Standing-Ovation here~

Signing off - Sober & sweating,
Brian J.