Where Will Life Have Taken You By Your 20 Year Reunion?

From The Blog Series… 365 Blogs To Finding Pinocchio A Home      

The Big Twenty!  I went to mine this past weekend at The New Rochelle Raddison Hotel.  As I type this blog I am thinking to myself, “Should I include my personal life into these blogs?”  The answer is yes.  Absolutely!  Life is what makes art happen.  So yes, let’s talk about this experience for a moment, if you don’t mind.  The main thought that comes to my mind is: Choose freedom over security and watch life start to open up.  Now, this does not in any way mean to live life like a gypsy, which I admit, I had been doing for many years.  Yes, I had been living day to day, not taking into account anything but my career as a singer and songwriter, my desperation in wanting to “make it” in the industry.  That, by the way, has not allowed for me to have much of a balanced life.  It’s like I was stuck in the air on a seesaw for so many years with The Incredible Hulk, my ego, as my partner and he wouldn’t let me down to feel the ground.  I never felt like there was anything terribly wrong with going after my dreams fully.  I thought it was a given that there really was no time to be a balanced person if I chose this career path and I would keep on going till I reached “SUCCESS”!  And then, then I could have a balanced life.  Then I would have the money, the fame, the time! Ha! Ha! Double Ha! That’s pretty funny.  Funny because it’s all much clearer now as I have been “returning to me” so to speak, over this past year.  I have found that being free has nothing to do with living life “in the air” or “with my head in the clouds”.  No, being free means that I choose what makes me happy .  I choose what makes that smile stay present.  I love the life I have already!  So, The Incredible Hulk can take a little seat on the bleachers as I begin to live a balanced existence, right where I am now.  That is definitely exciting and I kinda wonder what life will be like tomorrow and the next and the next.  The one thing that is consistent in my life is the growth of my awareness of myself and of others and that is shifting who I am becoming little by little.

We do not control much in our life, we just think we do.  That’s half our stress.  Thinking we have to hold this huge boulder over our heads, all by ourselves, every single day, and if it falls, well, make sure to beat yourself silly.  That’s right, you should have been able to do it all alone.  Who the hell could hold that boulder over their heads?  Really! Ya, maybe some muscle guy on Venice Beach, but he’ll drop it eventually too.

So, if we cannot truly control much, we really have no security.  Freedom vs Security.  Freedom vs Security?  Hmmm.  What if you really accepted that nothing in life is guaranteed.  Nothing, accept we are all gonna die one day!  Sorry to go there but it’s kinda funny.  I mean, if you accepted that life was to be lived and not to be held onto so tightly, wouldn’t that shift things a bit?  Freedom vs Security?  I choose freedom because that’s really all there is to choose from, so why not stop buying into all that pressure, having to keep working to keep filling a void that you think is there. There is no void.  We are already complete.  It’s just a shift in mindset.  Is the glass half empty or half full? That voice, that fear inside will cause you to try to look, live and be like the Smiths.  Just be free and throw that idea of security out the door and welcome in the calm.

What do we control?  We control the actions we take.  So as life is placed in front of us day in and day out, we get to chose what actions we can take to better ourselves, which will better others without us even knowing it.  Ok, so maybe this seem a bit mooshy to you, but by letting go of this false sense of security, you can choose to be happy in the life you are already living, no matter where it is that you are or have been in your life!  That, to me, sounds pretty darn cool.  No, I am not saying this happens over night.  It takes time and patience to change your habits.   But it’s all there waiting for you, if you dare.  If you like this idea feel free to check out these books: “The Art of Life”,  “Infinite Self” and “Conversations With God”.

So, back to this past weekend’s reunion.  This was a great way to practice this whole theory I am speaking of.  I was not planning on going to the reunion, by the way.  Oh, just for your information, I graduated from Cardinal Spellman High School in The Bronx.  It was a great school.  I truly loved it and enjoyed being a part of the volleyball team and The Cardinal Singers and a part of the school musicals for three of the four years.  The first year I auditioned but didn’t make it.  I sang, “There Are Worst Things I Could Do”, from the movie, “Grease”.  I totally froze up and forgot the words!  I was so devastated and felt defeated and embarrassed.  It took me a few days to get past this and then I asked my mom if I could take voice lessons.  The next year I tried out again and I actually made one of the leads, Queen Aggravain, from the musical, “The Princess And The Pea”.  I continued to get leading roles for the next few years.  This is a perfect example of living life rather than keeping secure and safe and giving up when things don’t go as planned.  It’s a great way to stay small.  And even though I felt embarrassed and depressed, I chose to turn that experience around and make it a positive one.  I remember thinking to myself, how can I make it in the play next year?  How can I get more confident and not freeze up?  The answer, taking voice lessons and following through by going to the audition the next time around.  Yup.  Taking an action and following through on it.  That I could control.

Ok, so back to the reunion that I was not even planning on going to.  I think you are getting a good sense of my way of thought.  I have this habit of going on tangents.  I know, I know!  Just go with the flow and I promise it will all tie together in some way.  So, I was actually planning on going to LA for a few days for the TAXI ROAD RALLY which they hold every year by LAX. Do you remember in my last blog how I spoke of my taking a major step in my music career by joining TAXI?  Well, I did join it and I will talk about that in a moment.  Don’t worry, I am not forgetting about finding Pinocchio a home.  This is all going towards finding Pinocchio the best home ever.  It takes time and patience and putting one foot in front of the other, so that’s what this blog is.  So, I really wanted to go to the Road Rally, which is filled with four days of music supervisors, hit songwriters, showcases and seminars. I normally would have found a way to make it happen and just put it on a credit card.  But this time I was grounded and balanced.  I chose to not go and ended up canceling the reservation.  I could put that money I would have spent for this event towards submitting to Taxi and continuing to work consistently here in NY towards my music goals.  “Freedom” allowed me to get my head out of the clouds and think straight.  “Security” would have made me think I really needed to go to the Rally because of who I could have met or the contacts I could have made there.  When the time is right, the door that needs to open will open and I will step through it.  Bottom line, it felt right and I am glad I listened to my gut, not my intellect.  My intellect, because the ego gets stuck in there a lot of the times, makes me think that “I should do this” and “I should do that “, when really, all I have to do is sit still long enough for the answer to calmly come to me.  I am starting to witness that nothing good ever comes from force.

So I accepted The Taxi Road Rally was a no, no this time around and that opened up a door for me to go to the reunion.  I bought my ticket the day before sales closed.  A part of me did not want to go.  Thoughts started racing through my head. Where was I now in my life?  Should I be somewhere else?  Am I a failure because I have not accomplished what I told myself I wanted to accomplish?  Ah, all things that “Security” wants me to buy into. “Freedom” simply sat there waiting for me to take an action and buy the ticket.  But The Incredible Hulk was right there waiting for his chance to step in.   I wouldn’t let him in.  I took a breathe and stood still.  I knew I had grown tremendously as a person and as an artist and that my life was filled with powerful experiences, both good and bad, that made me who I am today. That was without question.  But what really bothered me was the thought that I would be judged for still being single with no kids, no house, not one ounce of “Security”.  Oh… “Security”!  Would any of this make me happy anyway if I didn’t have music in my life?  My body got thrown into a whirl wind of self judgment. “Security” vs “Freedom”?  I talked to a friend to help me see straight and that drew me right back into reality.  Freedom, thank you!  What I was reminded of was that at this moment in my life I was truly happy.  I am truly happy.  And in addition, at this point in my life, I am also in a very unfamiliar territory.  Unfamiliar because I have begun be aware of a new side of me, the side that isn’t seesawing with The Incredible Hulk.  The side that is filled with abundance and love and excitement and pure joy of living and just being totally calm with where I am in my life. That is so new for me.

So after going through this internal dance with The Incredible Hulk and “Security” vs “Freedom”, I put on something I felt comfortable in and I went to the reunion.  What a great time!  So many of my old friends showed up and yes, it was just a bit overwhelming.  I found myself wanting to run around the room and ask each person the main questions “Security” wants to know about them:  What have you been up to?  Are you married?  Do you have kids?  What do you do for a living?  It’s funny, these are the questions we ask as a whole to size up a situation.  Many were happily married with kids; very few were single.  Actually, anyone I spoke to who was single had already been married and were now divorced and starting all over again on a new path.  It was just fun to see everyone.  And it’s funny, everyone looked better this time around then I remembered from our 10 year reunion.  Crazy!

The difference between this twenty year reunion and my ten year reunion was that I felt completely whole and just perfectly calm.  it does help that I gave the ego the night off and I enjoyed the experience and talked to the people I wanted to talk to and pretty much danced the night away.  My feet hurt so much.  It was all worth it!  At the end of the night, the main coordinator for the event, Donyella, had asked a few days before if I would play a song and I said yes, it would just have to be unplugged.  So, at the end of the night, they called me up and I chose to sing, without hesitation, “Pinocchio”.  What a fun few minutes.  It’s really nice to just get up and improvise, unplugged.  Donyella held a mic up to my mouth and I started to sing “Pinocchio” with my guitar.  I felt connected to everyone in such a calm and non judging way.  It was a perfect way to complete the event.

So why am I bringing this into my blog?  Well, sometimes I am “on fire” doing my music and taking care of the business aspect of this music career of mine and when something comes in from my past, like a twenty year reunion, I find myself gaining a better perspective on life.  I find that where I am is exactly where I am supposed to be and I sit back and enjoy the ride.  I can allow the journey to show itself day in and day out without taking control of it.  This is just a continuous reminder that I do not run the ship.  The captain does, the one who I cannot see, but certainly, without a doubt, when I release the need to be right, I get the gift of feeling that presence and that calm that allows me to live life, and not survive it like it were a storm.  Yes, there are storms all along the way.  That, in my opinion, is to keep me alert and aware that life is here to be lived no matter what stands in my way.  “Security” is the storm and “Freedom” is the calm.  I think that makes the most sense to me.

Let’s move onto the next part of this blog, shall we.  Are you enjoying this journey so far?  I hope so.  It’s interesting to do these blogs and not really have a clue what the heck I am gonna talk about.  I know it’s about the music, but the music doesn’t get written without the journey!  So, let’s talk about Taxi.  I had mentioned in Blog # 3 that I took a big step into finding Pinocchio a home and was going to join Taxi.  To recap, Taxi is the world’s leading Independent Artist and Repertoire Company giving artists real access to the people in the music business who have the power to sign deals and get music to upcoming television and film projects.  Well, I joined it and I have been working consistently submitting my songs for as many projects that come in that fit what they are asking for.  Before doing that though, I spent a day fully engaged in reading everything regarding the process and rules and how to best get the most out of Taxi.  After going through that I set up my profile and downloaded my songs to their server.  Taxi allows 50 songs to download.  I downloaded 25 so far that I feel are my best choices to submit.  As I record new songs I will add them to the list.

So far, I have sent in twenty one submissions and six of those submissions have already been critiqued.  The good news is that two of the songs I sent in for a tv project were accepted!  That means they have now gone directly to the source so the people who asked for the song will now listen to it!  Whether or not it is chosen is up to them, but finally I am going to be heard by the people who can place the songs I write and have an opportunity to make solid money from my music.  And that can allow me to become a fulltime musician without holding a “B” job.  Now, as for the other five submissions that did not make the cut, I can learn from it.  Here’s a comment that was made in regards to one of my songs from one Taxi’s staff members:

“You did a good job developing the melody arrangement from beginning to end. Your style keeps the song catchy as well I like the climax of the chorus. You did a good job developing the story line with a clever approach, but it doesn’t have that current style that would be competitive with the song mentioned in the listing. You have to find ways to connect youthfully with your lyric structure.”   taximusic.com

While this is only one person’s opinion, it is a good way to be present and learn from it for future songs I write.  No one ever really knows why a song is better than another when it comes to what song or music clip is chosen for a specific slot to fill a certain scene on tv, commercial spot or movie trailer, beginning spot, ending spot and everything in between.  It comes down to a decision made most likely due to a certain feel or vibe.  I am simply listening to each critique they send to allow me to become a better writer.  This, as I said, is a process.  All these blogs are documenting the results from the actions I am taking as I learn how this whole music monster works in regards to tv and film.  I will keep you posted as the submission critiques keep coming in as I continue to send them out.

Thank’s for taking the time to sit down for a bit and read another slice of the pie I am baking up as I continue on this journey to finding Pinocchio a home!  I hope you got something out of it and please feel free to share your thoughts below.  I would love to hear what you think.  I really would.