The discovery of music

From the time I was a little kid, music has always been actively present in my life.

Whether it was my dad blaring Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or Eric Clapton on the entertainment system that he set up in our living room, my mom rotating albums from Sting and The Police or my oldest brother's liking to Metallica and Korn, my ears were constantly being exposed to music. It's definitely why now approaching my mid-20s, music is very much an art form to me and not a commodity.

That being said, I'm constantly getting turned on to new music. I think it's only natural that as you get older you discover what types of music you enjoy the most, and your musical palette both grows and changes with age. In my house growing up, I got exposed mostly to classic and southern rock and 80's with a little bit of heavy metal and alternative thrown in there. And because I wanted to be like my oldest brother growing up, my first steps in discovering what kind of music I liked were out of my desire to be like him.

When I was nine I bought my first CD, an "Until It Sleeps" Metallica EP back in the days when artists were actually moving and making good money on CD's. I was nine, man. I had absolutely no clue of any of the names of any Metallica albums. All I knew was that my oldest brother loved them and I wanted to know more about them.

The mid-90's were a strange time for Metallica. With the crossover success of what came to be known as "The Black Album," Metallica had given the mainstream a punch to the gut with hits like 'Enter Sandman,' 'Sad But True,' 'Wherever I May Roam' and 'Nothing Else Matters.' At the same time, metalheads all over the world were crying blasphemy when "Load" came out in 1996, an album that further stepped away from Metallica's thrash roots and into the hard rock realm, albeit with short hair. Oh no!

Since I was a kid at that time, the big Metallica song I latched onto was "Until It Sleeps." It was all over the local rock stations in my town, and back when MTV used to play music videos for all you kids now who are growing up on "Teen Mom" and "Jersey Shore," I saw the music video for that song several times and really liked it.

So one Sunday when I was nine, I went to CD Warehouse with my mom--a local record shop in my town--found a CD bearing the words "Metallica Until It Sleeps" and bought it. When we got home, I put it in the living room stereo my dad hooked up. The first song was, as expected, the studio version of "Until It Sleeps." The next was a live cut in which James Hetfield was revving up the crowd with some choice words.

Needless to say, my mom wasn't too thrilled with the language. That same day (I don't even think it was more than two hours later), we took a trip back to CD Warehouse and she made me return that lovely "Until It Sleeps" EP. I can still remember the smile on the guy behind the counter's face when we came back hours later. I may have had to return that CD, but the seeds of heavy music had been planted.

To this day, heavy music is the music that feels the most at home to me. I just get it and I love it, the way that many of you may get and love rap or country or classic rock. I got the chance to see Metallica live at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit on January 13th, 2009, and it is still one of the greatest moments of my life. Me and two of my best friends had aisle seats 11 rows up from the floor with the stage in the middle. The Sword and Machine Head opened. Simply put: it. was. awesome.

There really are no words to describe what it's like to go see your favorite artist live, and I highly recommend that you do whenever you get the chance. You won't regret it. Metallica was my gateway into the heavy music world nearly 15 years ago when I bought that EP, and I never really looked back.

Today, there's a handful of artists I listen to and enjoy from just about every subgenre of the heavy music spectrum. Me personally, I'm not a fan of the word "subgenre." If something rocks it rocks. I don't care what you call it--numetal, metalcore, screamo, emo, elmo--good music is good music. Metallica. Alter Bridge. Disturbed. Lacuna Coil. In This Moment. Trivium. Deftones. Bullet For My Valentine. Five Finger Death Punch. Mastodon. Pearl Jam. Animals As Leaders. Sevendust. Korn. MonstrO. Lamb of God. Machine Head. Killswitch Engage. Times of Grace. Pantera. All That Remains. OnceOver. Slipknot. Stone Sour. Alice In Chains. Foo Fighters. Pink Floyd. AC/DC. Neil Young. Dio.

Those are several of the bands that I have on my iPod. They're all artists that connect with me on a musical level from various parts of the rock spectrum, many from the heavier end. All that leads me to the music I've discovered within the last year or so that I really enjoy and wanted to share with you. Some of these artists you will recognize instantly, while others you may never have heard of.

I'll preface this list of albums by saying that to me, music is art, and therefore it cannot be graded on a win-lose or better-worse scale. This isn't sports or automobiles we're talking about; it's music. The following albums are in no particular order of awesomeness. They all are collectively awesome. While I may be more of a metal guy, that's just what speaks to me. I respect all music, because without it life would be a painfully dull and empty canvas. And here. we. go. 

Deftones: Diamond Eyes

Image credit: Wikipedia

This is an album that I listen to front to back every time I have it on. As I've grown older, I've taken a liking to music that's both heavy and spacey, and I love that this album has both of those elements.

Deftones really has its own sound, and the band does what it does so well on this record. From the riffs, to the vocals, to the rhythm, I just love how this album flows together. Every song really stands on its own and has something to offer.

My faves off it: "Sextape"; "976-EVIL"; "This Place Is Death"






Times of Grace: The Hymn of a Broken Man

Image credit: Wikipedia

Anchored by the duo of Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Duktiewicz and former and now current KsE vocalist Jesse Leach, this record is heavy but uplifting. I hate using subgenres to describe music, but if you are into quote-unquote "metalcore" artists like All That Remains, Trivium and KsE, you'll love this. So often, heavier music gets a bad wrap and is labeled as dark, depressing, evil, you name it. This is a record that really left me inspired. 

The first time I listened to it, it was one of two albums I listened to over and over in an eight-and-a-half hour work day, if that means anything to anybody. I just love this record.


My faves off it: "Where The Spirit Leads Me"; "Live In Love"; "Willing"


OnceOver: 9

Image credit: http://onceover.bandcamp.com/album/9

Hailing from my hometown of Toledo, OnceOver will likely fall into the category of a band you haven't heard of, but these guys are extremely, extremely talented. This album is the band's fifth full-length and my introduction to its music, which I wish I would have discovered a long time ago. 

OnceOver has been together for more than a decade now, and this album really just shows how talented the group is at every spot. Lead singer Steve Dwyer is also a producer, having worked with many different artists over the years, and this album is on a production level one would expect from a major label act.


What I love most about "9" is that there is nothing pretentious about it. The lyrics, riffs, rhythm--it's just an awesome record. Is OnceOver reinventing the wheel with this? No, but in my opinion you'll be hard-pressed to find anything this emotionally charging or adrenaline-pumping on the radio. 

OnceOver hits you in the gut and takes you on a true musical journey with "9." It really is a shame that the masses don't know about these guys. Just great, down-to-earth dudes who make great music.


My faves off it: "9"; "Sniper In The Bell Tower"; "The Roaches" 


Middle Class Rut: No Name No Color 

Image credit: Wikipedia

Middle Class Rut became known on a national level with hit "New Low," but it really would be a disservice to this duo to only talk about that song. Zack Lopez and Sean Stockham have a raw energy that comes out on this record, one which really comes to life when you see them play together live. 

I had an opportunity to do a story on these guys when they came to Toledo back in November. Not only are they really good guys, but they make great music together. This album has songs that will make you bang your head and songs that will make you get lost in your head. Like all the albums I've listed, you have to listen to it front to back. 


My faves off it: "Busy Bein' Born"; "Lifelong Dayshift"; "Sad To Know"

MonstrO: MonstrO

Image credit: http://www.facebook.com/monstroband

I head the song "Anchors Up!" one day on Sirius Octane when I was working out and had to check these guys out. That song is great, but you really have to listen to the whole album to get the entire experience MonstrO offers you musically. As far as spacey goes, this album blends rock, psychedelic and heavy, catchy riffs all into one. 


It's rare that a band can really pull off elements from different ends of the musical spectrum and have it come out sounding so awesome, but MonstrO really created a record that just flows together seamlessly from beginning to end. Keeping with the theme of all the albums I've listed, this is just a great listen from front to back. I'm not really a singles guy; I'm an album guy, and this is a great album.


My faves off it: "Concertina"; "Olympia"; "April"




And there you have it readers, whoever you are and wherever you may be. Music is something that I wouldn't be able to live without, so I wanted to do a post where I shared with you some of the stuff that I've been destroying my eardrums with little by little over the last year. 

If you've heard any of the stuff I've mentioned, I'd love to read your comments. And I'd also love to read about what music you're listening to and/or what your first album was. Happy listening. 


Mike

Keep your head up

What's up everybody?

It's a little crazy to think that I started this thing more than a year ago. And I have to say that in the last year, between my part-time job and writing I didn't post as much as I wanted to. I plan on changing that this year.

That's not to say that I'm completely disappointed in myself, however. It's been almost two years since I graduated from college, and I have to say that in the time since I believe that I've learned more about myself in the past two years than at any other point during my life.

To me, graduating from college was definitely bittersweet. On one end, I was elated to finally be done with homework, and studying, and papers, and studying, and reading, and more papers, and more tests, and exams, and quizzes, and tests and more studying. It felt so good to know that after putting all that time into school, I had finally made it--with honors, thank you (no need for applause, seeing as I'm modest and this is the Internet and I wouldn't be able to hear your claps, anyway).

Getting your degree also presents a sobering reality, though, too: the job market. I feel like that should be the title of some dark comedy by the Coen brothers. I don't like to refer to post-graduation life as "the real life." That just irritates me. As if taking your college career seriously (and by seriously I mean 16 credit hours a semester while working an additional 16 hours a week at a local hospital--which included working every other weekend--while writing for the student newspaper at my college) isn't consider "real life." Give me a break.

Between being a full-time student, working a part-time job and building up my clips to pursue a career in journalism, I believe that I was juggling enough tasks and succeeding in said tasks (graduated Magna Cum Laude, thank you) to put some "real worlders" to shame. And honestly, I knew people who did more than I did, balancing full-time student duties with parental duties, full-time job duties and sometimes multi-job duties.

So, yes, it does irritate me even now in my quest to gain my footing in this life when I hear people say, "Welcome to the real world." Right now in my post-graduate "real world" life, I still have that 16-hour-a-week job so I can afford to pay for what I need to pay for, write for a local paper, get up at 6 a.m. every Saturday morning to do a radio show and once the fall comes back around I'll return to my broadcasting duties as a color analyst/play-by-play announcer/sideline reporter for local high school football games.

In the midst of all that, I've updated my resume as I try to choose what path to take for my career. Journalism has changed so much just in the last five years. As somebody who loves feature writing, I think I'm in a great area for it because music is one of my biggest interests, and Northwest Ohio has a pretty good local scene that also draws in some great national touring acts, as well. I may not have a full-time gig in what I went to school for, but I'm cutting my teeth and honing my skills in a pretty good midsized music market, one which also is great for sports, which I'm passionate about and cover as well.

In the past two years since graduating, I've challenged myself. Broadcasting is something that I never would have ventured into before in my life prior to meeting the guys over at Toledo Sports Network. The thought of being on camera and potentially screwing up (or, throwing up) on camera just turned me green and made me panic. But you know what? One day, I just went out to Perrysburg where they were filming their weekly high school football show, sat down, got a mic put on me and did it.

Not long after that, I drove out to Tontogany, Ohio and did my first high school football game as a color analyst. And you know what? I found out that I actually enjoy broadcasting. And no, some of you cynical readers out there, it's not because I love attention and want all eyes on me because I'm some sort of narcissistic, egotistical maniac. I love going out to these games and seeing what they mean to people.

When I roll up and have a tough time finding a spot and it's an hour-plus until kickoff or opening tip, I love that. Crowds used to make me nervous. They don't so much anymore, and I think it's because I realize what a positive environment I'm in and how lucky I am just to be alive and do what I do. And we've done some great games that have gone down to the wire. As a broadcaster, it's so awesome to be part of that.

So yeah, nearly two years later, this post-grad is still living at home, pondering (eh, worrying, but trying hard not to) my career options and what path I want to take in this world, one that will allow me to live on my own and enjoy what I do. I won't lie to you because I'm not a liar. I've had some real, real down days where I tread the waters of my own mind wondering, 'What am I going to do with myself?' and 'Where am I going?' and 'How and when am I going to get there?' And you know what I've realized? That type of downward spiral thinking gets you absolutely nowhere.

I pull myself out of that crap by rehashing all the things I have done and achieved. Not only have I continued to build my clips as a journalist, but I've done so with stories on the likes of Korn, Sevendust, Social Distortion, Taking Back Sunday, All Time Low, and others. I conquered my fear of being in front of the camera and now feel completely comfortable when I walk into a packed gym or stadium because I've been there, done that and have learned with each broadcast. I've gotten to meet and work with some great, great people.

At 24-years-old, I have a lot to learn about this world and this life, but I'll be damned if I'm going to throw in the towel on my dreams to chase the almighty dollar, and it's my advice to whoever stumbles upon this and makes it to the end to pursue what you're good at and not what's going to pay you. And no, that's not easy for me to say because I do still live at home. I don't make much, but I've diversified my resume by proving that I'm skilled in more than one area, and that counts for something in the job market.

Not to mention that I speak from experience. I've worked with several people over the years whose best part of the day is when they go home. Sure, they make some decent coin, but what you have to ask yourself is 'Do I want to go through life hating my job 85 percent of the time every day I go to work just so I can have more than I need?'

Most of the people my age that have gotten decent jobs out of college are nurses. And you know what? I've met a lot of nurses over the years that I can tell just went into it for the money and dislike their jobs very much because they can't handle the stress. Sure, most of them start out making roughly $23-28 dollars an hour or more, but they complain all the time and are of the "can't wait 'til I go home" variety.

And you know what else? Patients can tell those nurses from the ones who went into it because they actually care about helping people, and it reflects in those patient care surveys which, to my knowledge, will soon have an effect on each hospital's funding.

So, if you're getting ready to graduate, you have to decide what kind of person you are. Are you someone who defines success by money, or are you someone who defines success by happiness? Neither comes easy, but if you stay true to yourself and are honest with yourself and your intentions, your path to self discovery will be less treacherous as you get older. I know people who have money, and I can tell you on the whole they're not happier than the people who have less than them, and sometimes the people who have far less.

Figure out what you're good at. Work at it. Cultivate your craft. Somebody will eventually take a chance on you and give you an opportunity. You may have to do work that has nothing to do with what you went to school for and take a different route than you anticipated to get where you ultimately want to go, but it's all a means to an end, my friend.

But my whole thing is this: If you die tomorrow, what difference does it make of how much money you have, or what car you drive, or what shoes you have on? None of that crap is going with you in the afterlife. I mean, I've never dug up a grave, but I'm pretty certain that that Gucci suit and those Italian leather shoes are going to erode over time just like your corpse.

We all need money to survive. If you do right with yours, there's no need to panic because you can make enough to survive. Am I proud to still live at home? No. Am I ashamed? Not really. Am I content to live here? Absolutely not. But I'm working towards the life I want and pursuing my options. This is not a permanent state and I don't treat it as such. If anything, I'm lucky to be in the position I'm in as I pursue my dreams.

In closing, trust your gut, believe in yourself, work hard and try as hard as you can to stay positive. After all, things could be much, much worse.

Mike

P.S.--check out my latest story in Toledo Free Press http://www.toledofreepress.com/2012/04/24/common-hatred-to-rock-the-zodiac/

Yeah, it's a shameless plug, but so what? What's an aspiring writer to do?

Don't just live; be ALIVE

As I sit here in the rustic, calm, modest Florida getaway of my parents enjoying a little break from the daily realities and tasks I'm accustomed to back home in the Midwest, I realize just how lucky I am to be alive.

Though I'm still working towards getting to where I eventually want to be in my career, I am in good health, good spirits, and overall a pretty good place in my life. That positivity is directly related to the support system of my family and the small, loyal group of friends which I keep. Each of the individuals I hold dear has brought something to the table when it comes to reaching me on a unique level, keeping me inspired and focused on the truly important aspects of my life. I am forever indebted to these people and take a part of them with me wherever I go, including my deceased Grandpa (R.I.P., gramp; I love you).

My life has been mostly filled with happiness, and it is mostly due that aforementioned support system. When the monsters in my closet have come in the darkest hours of the night, those people have been there to protect me and pull me through. Six years have passed since I underwent major surgery to remove a rare tumor from my nasal cavity, a tumor that is referred to as a juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma.

In layman's terms, I had a rare, quarter-sized tumor growing in my nasal cavity. JNA's are fibrous tumors which grow by attaching themselves to blood vessels. Mine was attached to my maxillary artery, which feeds blood to your face. Had it not been for a couple of really bad nosebleeds, I probably never would have known this thing was in there. Thankfully for those few terrible nosebleeds, I found out what was wrong with me.

And more importantly thanks to my mom being a registered nurse, we were able to speed along a process that most likely would have taken much longer had she not had the resources she did. What's even crazier is a coworker of hers had a son who had the same thing despite the rarity of this particular tumor, leading us to the University of Michigan and the wonderful humanitarian who I owe my life to, Dr. Lawrence J. Marentette.

Words cannot describe the absolutely sincere gratitude and thank you I owe this man for what he did for me. The guy is just awesome. He treated me like I was his only patient and gave me a renewed passion in a life that I was not taking for granted, but not living to its full potential, either. A lot of doctors get bad raps for being chauvinistic and cold; not Dr. Marentette.

In short, the man represents the type of human being this world needs a lot more of: compassionate, caring and focused individuals who make it a mission to improve--and save--the lives of others. Was what I had deadly? I'm not an expert, but I don't think so. However, without the likes of Dr. Marentette and modern technology, it could have been had I not been born in the day and age I was. Would I have made it if I had a JNA say, in 1966 and not in 2006? I cannot say for certain, but my chances I think would have been substantially worse.

Why am I sharing this with you? You could say that being in a relaxed environment has given me an opportunity to open up my mind and reflect. In saying that, however, I also want to stress just how important it is to thank the people that have truly made a difference in your life. Whether it's your parents, your friends, teachers, coaches, close family members, whoever it may be, make sure you let them know what they mean to you. Gratitude is such a huge part of attitude, and it shows.

The last time I saw Dr. Marentette was in 2008 for my last follow-up MRI to make sure my tumor was dead and gone. After everything checked out that day, I said goodbye and shook the hand of a person that I owe so much to. Nearly four years later, sitting in this Florida trailer, I realize how quickly time has passed seeing as it is in fact more than six years since Dr. Marentette gave me a second chance to live my life. That realization has given me the realization that I need to reach out to him again and let him know just how thankful I am for what he and his staff did for me.

As harmonious as I strive to make my life each day, I've also realized that without struggle or pain on some level, I probably wouldn't have the outlook on life that I do now. When you face the demons of your life, whether they're ones you've created or ones that sneak up on you, you learn exactly what you're made of. It takes a substantial amount of courage to stare fear in the face in the midst of darkness and charge forward with all the might you can muster. But what other choice do we have?

My worst critic, by far, is myself. I can sit here and tell you straight up that most of the demons I face are ones that I create. They are manufactured in my own head, between my two ears in my ever-racing brain. Self-doubt; worry; panic; fear of the unknown; these are demons I know all too well because of how hard I am on myself. But thanks to people like Dr. Marentette, I have slowly started to realize just how precious life is and that the world can be our playground if we take it by the reins and experience the wonders of what it has to offer us if we so choose to seek them.

It's funny when you go through something catastrophic, the fallout, that is. After I came out the other side alive once my surgery was over and a few months had passed, the positive energy I exuded for life and the happiness I felt was a high unlike anything I had ever experienced before. No drug or drink could ever duplicate that feeling. Though I have not experimented with drugs and have not had every drink known to man, I'm quite certain that I'm correct in that statement.

The funny in the catastrophe comes when life starts to punch you again, delivering blows that sober you up quick. You realize that the only constant in life will be the struggle, and that's difficult to go through. As somebody who is definitely my hardest critic, I felt extreme guilt if I wasn't a bouncing ball of happiness every day. That inner monologue of 'Mike, you survived! You're lucky to be alive, so act like it!' came at me in waves, knocking me into the sand and shells below and often leaving me defeated and bruised.

What I've realized (there's that word again; you may not have noticed it, but I did; there's that damn critic I call myself again) is that no matter what happens, you get back up and fight. You fight with everything you've got, because life does not care about your plans. Life will throw you a curve ball just when you think you've got the pitch figured out, leaving you swinging for air and striking out again, and again, and again.

If you remember none of the above, remember this: DO NOT BE AFRAID OF FAILURE. Because of society and our own bastard inner monologues, a lot of us put way too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, to live up to the lofty expectations we have for ourselves as well as the expectations of certain people we deem important. I'm here to tell you to stop doing that. Trust me, you will strike out all the time if you constantly try to be everything to everybody and expect everything and more of yourself.

Nobody is perfect. Nobody. That's what makes us human and connects us all as a species is our imperfection. Remember that the next time you envy someone better looking or with a fatter wallet than you. Remember that when you don't get that job you had your hopes set on. You're not perfect, and anybody who expects you to be perfect is not worth your time and energy.

There's a fine line between expecting and giving your best effort every time you undertake a task and expecting perfection. Don't cross that line because you will always end up disappointed, and don't surround yourself in the company of those who expect perfection from you because they will always leave you feeling disappointed, and that is not a good feeling. Always do your best, but don't expect to be perfect; it's not in our genes as human beings to be perfect. If you don't believe me, take a nice look around at the world we're living in and come back and finish reading this.

All of us have it in us to be great. I, for one, believe in God and purpose. That is, God is the higher power that I have faith and believe in, and I subscribe to the notion that each one of us has a purpose to fulfill in our time on this planet. It's up to us whether or not we discover that purpose. I have no physical, hard evidence that God exists, just my faith. If any one of you reading this doesn't believe in God, that is your choice and I'm not here to condemn you. That is your choice, and you each have your own journey to discover.

For your sake, I hope all of you who have taken the time to read this today leave with three things: 1) Thank the ones who have made a difference in your life 2) DO NOT BE AFRAID OF FAILURE 3) Always work your butt off and put your all in whatever you pursue, but don't expect perfection.

They're all areas I hold in my mind every day I'm here, and as I continue my journey of fulfilling my own personal goals and dreams in this life, I wanted to encourage all of you to do the same. Give yourself some credit.

Keep working, keep fighting, and never, ever give up.

P.S. Thank you, Dr. Marentette. I'll be getting in touch with you soon.


Mike

Dude--where have you been?!

I realize compared to the plethora of bloggers around the world, I'm not on here a lot and probably have lost relevance with my two or three readers. My apologies. But I don't want to end the first paragraph of my first post since the first day of the new year on a somber note, so I want to say that it's good to be back on here!

As is the norm with me--and the way I like to keep things--just about every day of my life is different. Yes, I have certain routines and things that I do regularly, but I enjoy not getting up and following the same routine day after day after day. I'm not busy every second of every day; I have my free time and periods of less activity. But as an aspiring journalist, each day presents new information, whether it's a possible story opportunity, an interview to play back for quotes, a story to write, a new email from somebody, etc. And I love it.

Even as a kid when I obviously had no idea what I was going to be doing once my school days were over, I could never picture myself in a suit and tie going to work every day (though as a broadcaster I wear a tie and nice pants, which I enjoy despite being a t-shirt and jeans dude). I was always quite imaginative and in my head a lot when I was younger. My brother and me would create little stories and scenarios with our toys, even making a "toy city" in our basement a few times. We were just weird, creative, imaginative little dudes.

That being said, I think it was always in me to be a writer or do something that involved art and communicating with others. Drawing was my first passion before writing. It was just something that came naturally to me, and it was therapeutic to do that when I was growing up. It was my prime form of self expression. Writing soon followed.

I won a creative writing award at my school when I was in the first grade and really never looked back. I always looked forward to being able to craft stories and write in school. To this day, even though I always got good grades (mostly A's, a few B's and one C ever--my senior year of college) I still don't consider myself to be really smart. I would spend hours working on homework growing up. I read chapters word for word and really had to study to get the grades I got. I was never the kid who didn't have to crack a book to get A's. I got them through work.

Writing, however, I had a knack for. So with the combination of the imagination, drawing and writing, I definitely consider myself to be a right brain person. I liked Science but had difficulties with Chemistry, and Math...let's not get into Math; we had a rocky relationship.

So all that leads me to this: as someone who considers myself a creative person and a dreamer--maybe sometimes thinking way too much--I get lost in what I do sometimes. Hence, I haven't been paying too much attention to my blog with all the focus I've been putting into writing and trying to further my career. Let me fill you in on what I've been up to.

January and February were both pretty busy months. Between writing about University of Toledo men's and women's basketball and catching as many of those games as I could, I've also really been grinding it out with trying to cover as much of the music entertainment in Northwest Ohio as I can.

In January, I wrote a story about local country artist Abby Ray, an awesome band from Canada called The Trews, a local hard rock/old school metal band called Angola Road and a story about local bands Tropic Bombs and Mind Fish in a feature that profiled how they are connecting with fans and funding their albums through Kickstarter.

February was also cool with a story on Reggae artist Rising Lion, Toledo native Jeremy Lindsay and the music he's making with Allison Russell, a sister-fronted garage punk band called Bleached, Korn and an upcoming story on Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Pop Evil, who are making a lot of noise in the rock realm with its latest album "War of Angels."

I think those are all the music stories I've done, in addition to broadcasting for Toledo Sports Network, working at my part-time job and covering as much of the aforementioned Rocket basketball as I can. I think in total it was something like 18 stories I've done for Toledo Free Press the past two months. See, for me it's weird talking about what I do because I'm not a brash, cocky dude, you know?

But my job is what it is and telling people about what I do also involves describing the stories I write, which inevitably includes name-dropping. So just know that when I'm talking about what I do it's not in a 'Hey, look at me and how awesome I am' type of connotation. I love what I do, but not because of who I get to talk to. Everybody as a story, and it's a privilege for me to be able to share as many of those stories as I can with the world.

Plus, every story is different, and that falls in line with how I am creatively. I love different. Just in those music stories alone, there was a country artist, an older metal group, a genre-smasher in Korn, a band with tremendous Canadian success trying to make a name stateside in The Trews, an awesome Reggae artist in Danny Dred of Rising Lion, two great local indie bands in Tropic Bombs and Mind Fish, and so on. That's what I love about writing.

Though Journalism is obviously way different from the creative writing I did when I was younger, I continually tap into creativity through sharing other people's stories. It really is awesome and very rewarding. And on that note, I'm going to wrap this up because the slide bar is getting quite small, meaning my post is quite long.

You can catch me at toledofreepress.com, toledosportsradio.com and on Twitter at @mbauman5! I'll be back soon!

Mike

Goodbye, 2011; Hello, 2012

Now that I'm 23 and going on 24, it's finally starting to hit me in terms of how fast life passes us by. All those times growing up when I'd hear adults say, 'Just wait 'til you're my age; the years go faster and faster the more you get older.' As a kid, that just never struck a chord with me because I was young.

And while I'm certainly conscientious of the fact that I am indeed still young at 23-years-old, just looking at what's happened in my life in the past year makes me recall those moments when adults would remind of how time flies. Though 2011 started off a little rocky for me in my personal life, professionally business was a boomin.' I've been lucky enough to work for people who have given me the opportunity to pursue my dreams, and all of them had a hand in why 2011 was so great for me on a career level.

Mike Jameson, Mik Gonzales and Steve Taylor at Toledo Sports Network; Michael Miller and Tom Pounds at Toledo Free Press; Tom Bedell, the man who got my name to the guys at Toledo Sports Network in late 2010 and helped me discover a new passion in broadcasting; John from work also deserves credit for that, too.

All of those people have at least had a part in allowing me to expand as a writer, a broadcaster and a human being, and I truly would not be where I am today without those men. I'm forever indebted to the opportunities they've helped me get, and forever thankful that I've gotten the chance to know them on my journey in this life.

When I graduated from the University of Toledo in May of 2010, I really didn't know if there was a professional future for me in my hometown of Toledo given the city's economic struggles. However, the aforementioned names you read helped me kickstart my career here and really rediscover why I'm proud to be from Toledo and never--no matter where I end up--forget where I came from.

A lot of people who live in Toledo complain about the city, but there are a lot of great people here trying to make a positive impact and I've been fortunate enough to meet several of them, whether it was through writing stories, doing local sports broadcasts or setting up interviews.

In 2011, I was able to learn a lot about myself both personally and professionally. I constantly dealt with things that I never experienced before, and I think that's why last year more than any other year in recent memory I experienced the most personal growth that I can remember. Personally, I went through a breakup at the beginning of the year and lost my grandpa towards the tail end of 2011. The emotions I had to tread through with both of those were extremely challenging, but both were necessary, I think, for me to really become a better person.

On one end, at some point or another in life you're going to get your heart broken. That's just the way it is. And if you're one of the lucky ones to never have that happen and fall in love with one person and remain with that person for the rest of your life, I salute you and will remind you to remember just how lucky you are. And though it took awhile, I'm glad I went through what I went through in my first relationship because it really did make me stronger.

Through all of the negative emotions I dealt with, thanks to prayer and the guidance of the select few I keep close to me, I was able to come out the other side of that a stronger man. It made me realize both what I want and what I deserve in a future relationship, and for that I'm thankful.

As far as my grandfather, admittedly I still deal with that everyday. That's mainly because I haven't dealt with his death, or don't really know how to deal with it. Death is strange to me. I don't fear it, but I definitely don't like it. To experience death for the first time personally with the one person who was closer to me in my life than all but maybe my own parents was absolutely devastating.

But, like dealing with a broken heart, at some point in your life you're going to deal with death, and at some point it will be with someone close to you. I happened to deal with both in the same year, but I'm not crying a river of sorrows for myself due to that. I was lucky to have my grandpa for the 23-plus years that I did. Most of my friends have one grandparent or no grandparents left.

And while my grandpa is no longer here physically, I know he's here spiritually. On Christmas, for example, I had to work at one of my jobs. Though it was my second-straight year working Christmas, it didn't really bother me because I knew that I'd get to see my family in the evening, I made time-and-a-half, and honestly with my grandpa gone--maybe this is bah humbug-ish of me to say--I wasn't as excited about Christmas this year as in year's past.

Anywho, one of the Christmas tunes my mom said my grandpa would sing--probably jokingly, and you'll see why--was "The Christmas Song" aka "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire." I heard that song on my way into work, towards the end of  my shift when my iPod was on shuffle and on my way to my uncle's house after I got off. Don't tell me there isn't a spiritual realm where our loved ones and those who have passed in this life don't exist, because I won't believe you. My grandpa was there, just as he always has been and always will be.

In summation, between those personal struggles and professional gains, 2011 wasn't so bad in my book. I learned a lot about myself, and without the new career challenges I faced or the difficulties I endured through in my personal life, I'd still be mentally where I was when I graduated college. And for that, I'm thankful.

With 2012 now here, as weird and spacey as "2012" sounds to me, I have no idea what this year holds for me personally, and I'm absolutely on board that ship of uncertainty. Routine has never really been my schtick. I like waking up and discovering what the new day has to offer, and I'd like to believe that my goodwill towards others, my work ethic and my faith will guide me where I will ultimately find myself in the new year.

So, for those of you who party-hardied last night and need a little hair of the dog to take the edge off as you head into the second year of the next decade in this millennium, here's a toast from me to you to climb aboard the ship of uncertainty, to ride life's waves with the confidence and belief in yourself to know that no matter what happens, you'll be able to weather life's storms so long as you believe that you can (now cue that Journey song you all know--no seriously; click the title of this post to hear a clip; Don't stop believin', 2012-ers).

It just wouldn't be me if I didn't end this a little bit cheesy like that. Cheers to the new year, folks.

Mike

Interview with Morgan Rose

Hey everybody. It's been more than a month since I've posted on here. I've been really busy with work, which is great. You'll never hear me complain about what I do because I truly love to do it. That being said, I have been more than occupied with writing, broadcasting and just in general trying to make a living doing what I love to do. However, I haven't forgotten about this medium, nor will I ignore it simply because of my schedule.

As I stated when I first started this blog, I wanted this to become an avenue where I could share more insight into exactly what it is that I do as far as being a journalist and a broadcaster. So often, people only see the final product of what is a process composed of several layers when it comes to stories. The final story, obviously, is what you want people to see in terms of the whole picture with the story. That being said, I've had the opportunity to do interviews with some pretty amazing people within the last year, and one in particular I'd like to share with you before the clock is up on 2011.

Sevendust is a band I have listened to for quite some time now. I've always been partial to heavy music, and the vein within which Sevendust writes and performs is quite inspiring and motivating, to say the least. The band's drummer is Morgan Rose. Back in July, Sevendust performed at Headliner's in Toledo, so I got in touch with their media personnel asap so that I could do a story. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I just couldn't pass up.

While we weren't able to work out an interview prior to Sevendust's show due to the holiday, I was able to speak with Morgan over the phone not long afterwards and the story was still relevant since Sevendust was part of Uproar this year and played in Detroit in September. Sometimes when you do these, the media rep will give you a time limit on the interview, which is completely understandable since band's are on the move almost constantly while on tour. However, Morgan simply called me up on the day we were to talk and graciously gave me more than 30 minutes of his time for the interview.

What followed was one of the deepest conversations I've had with anybody--and not just as a journalist--but ever. Morgan was candid about the band and his personal life with me, and the conversation gave me a better appreciation for how lucky I am to do what I do. For awhile, I debated on whether to post the interview since it is deeply personal. That being said, Morgan has a new book coming out on what he's gone through both as a musician and in his life, and there are merely snip-its in here of what will most likely be gone through in much greater detail once his book releases.

This interview was from July. For the record, I want to make it clear that I am posting this because of what it means to the shared human experience and not because of any other selfish, ulterior motives. I think we all get so wrapped up in our own lives that we forget that we're all part of something much, much greater, and that if we truly listen and care about what other people both have to say and to offer, we really can learn a lot about ourselves and just what true humanity is.

My conversation with Morgan is something I'll never forget. He was just an incredibly nice guy and extremely cordial. Given the stereotypes often associated with recognizable musicians, I can tell you that Morgan Rose is as nice and candid as they come. My hope in sharing this is that this interview will be as enlightening for you in terms of life and the human experience as it was for me. It really is a reminder of how we all go through struggle, but no matter what, light exists at the end of that difficult path if we so choose to seek it.

Please keep that in mind when you read this.

What’s it like after all these years with Sevendust

“It’s weird it’s like, we’ve been touring so hard from the beginning that I don’t think anybody’s ever really toured like we have. I mean, I know everybody puts the pedal to the floor when they get a deal. I mean, we’ve been lucky enough to be this busy, really. It’ll probably end up being something that slows us down to a halt pretty soon. I don’t think that we’re interested in going out there and being cryptic on the stage and having people point at us and go, ‘Man, I remember when they really used to throw it down.’ The aches and pains are hitting a little bit harder now. I mean, on any given day we feel pretty amazing, but the combination between missing home and missing our families and just the wear and tear of what it’s done to our bodies is probably going to end up, we’ll probably end up stopping probably in the semi-near future.

“We’ve been looking back, and we get along great. We love each other and all that, so we’re just going to take this one step at a time. We’re definitely doing another record. I can tell you that. So, we’re not calling it quits any time real soon, but we do look back on it and go, ‘Wow,’ you know? We’ve come a long way, you know?”

On Sevendust’s influence over the course of its career

“That’s awesome. We’re flattered. It’s something that we never planned on doing. We just wanted to play our style of music, and we didn’t think that we’re reinventing the wheel too much, but it’s really hard to be original after all this time that rock has been going. It’s basically a formula. You look at a formula, you put these people together and that formula sometimes comes out sounding original. And we put something together that was just something a little bit different, you know? A bunch of people that listened to a bunch of different kinds of music, and somehow or another we came together with something that was cool, so it’s cool to hear bands say that. I mean, especially when I hear that ‘I love that band’ and I don’t even really hear our music in there, but they say it and I’m like ‘Wow. That’s crazy.’”

On surviving when a lot of other bands from their day have fizzled out

“The same thing that I think will be our demise is probably what kept us around so long. We basically never went away. We were never out of sight, therefore, it made it hard to be out of mind. We weren’t on the radio everyday. We oversaturated the United States with our live show, and then we oversaturated radio with records and we never gave anybody a break. That was basically how we stayed around. We kept in the public eye. We appreciated the people that spent their hard-earned money to see us, which I think translated to loyalty.

“We feel extremely close to the people that follow the band and support the band. And we don’t—I don’t want to sound too dramatic, but I’ve said it many times that we don’t call people that support the band fans because that seems a little degrading to me. I look at them as family to us. They support us, so it’s been that cool relationship that we’ve had with them from the start that I think has kept us around this long, and us trying to stay semi-true to what we started. We’ve gone a little heavier on some records and we’ve gone a little more commercial on other records, but ultimately I think that we’ve kept our integrity as best we can. You grow up. You listen to different music, and we’ve tried to stay true to what we like.”

On becoming fathers

“You find a bunch of 20-year-old kids like we were, and you start sticking babies in the house and wives in the house and all of a sudden it’s like, OK: first thing’s first is I don’t want people walking around looking at me being a fool and saying, ‘God. That guy’s got a daughter at the house. Look how he acts.’ So I put a lid on me partying the way that I used to party, and got a little more responsible, and that’s basically it. If you any real care for the people there, you try to be responsible. You’re still sticking a huge responsibility to be a parent on somebody that sometimes—I can only speak for myself—but I can say that you get a mid-20s guy with a kid sitting at the house and say, ‘OK. Now it’s time to be responsible.’ It’s not an overnight thing.

“For me it was not. For me, I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I still want to do coke, and I still want to drink until I throw up, and I want to be a completely horrible individual to people that care about me,’ [laughs] but the kids slowed me down. And it did it to everybody in my band. Everybody loves their family. They love their kids. It changes everything. To be honest with you, it’s the part that changes [inaudible] business more than anything. I mean, that’s the downside of it. You have somebody that you have to take care of, so when I used to not care about money I do care about it now because I’ve got children.”

On realizing Sevendust's impact over the years

“It’s a few records ago I was like, ‘You know, I think we could do this for awhile.’ I think that this is kind of like a family reunion every time we come through a different town. We’ve become close with enough people in each town that [we’d fill] a decent-sized room with just people that we’d go to dinner with. You accumulate a lot of friends over fifteen years. Some of those friends you only see two or three times a year, but I can definitely tell you that my phone has got hundreds of people that I’ve met on the road over the years have just become people that I’ll either have a drink with, have dinner with, play golf with, go to a baseball game with. I mean, they’re all over the place. My guest list is tough to do, so I get to the point where I either try to let them know, ‘I love you, but I’ll give you passes. You’re going to have to get tickets because I can’t put 40 people a night on the list personally,’ and that’s what my list would look like. It’s like a hometown show for us in many more places than Atlanta.

“It can be frustrating sometimes because sometimes everybody wants in, and as I said, sometimes when I headline I don’t have the pull that I need to be able to walk everybody through the door. It’s pretty awesome that I have that many people that I can call friends. Pretty amazing.”

On Sevendust’s live show

“There’s all kinds of emotions that run through us. I can tell you that that particular night [at Headliner’s in Toledo on July 10] Clint was deathly ill. We didn’t do our whole set that night because he was throwing up violently all over the place, and he still pulled it together. There’s all these different things that we do. You go through these emotions of on one side I’ll be, ‘I feel horrible. My body is broken.’ The other side I’ll be, ‘I can’t believe that we’re still doing this.’ Usually, to be honest with you, I dread going on the stage, and then the lights go out and I’m like the happiest that I can be right this minute. There’s fear of the body breaking down up there, and there’s complete feeling of being blessed that people are still out there singing the songs. So there’s a range of emotions that we go through nightly.

“When we get up there, though, with the exception of people getting sick up there, usually we have a blast. It’s as fun as it ever was when we’re on the stage.”

Difference between small shows and big shows

“They’ve all got their pros and cons. I prefer the arena stuff. I like it indoors. I like there being no seats on the ground. I like it being a show where the lights go out, instead of being outside. We’re headlining the second stage [at Uproar]. We’ll be on in broad daylight every day so it’s like, there’s no concert feel to that. That’s just kind of like there’s no mystique. Hey man, how you doing? I’ll be on the drums. A few seconds, get up there, plug in and go. There’s no reveal, and from when I was a kid, I liked when the lights went off. Still do. I like when it’s like, ‘Pop!’ The song starts, the lights go on, and I’m excited. So I like the arena feel for not only that. I know that it’s a lot bigger than the club stuff, but it’s also usually a lot cooler in there.

“And I’m not going to lie I like it when it’s decent [laughs]. I don’t like it when it was like it was in Toledo. I don’t like it being 200 degrees on the stage with these lights that are cooking me like a rotisserie chicken. I’m not into that, and the crowd usually gets so exhausted and so hot that they can’t even give their full love because they’re dying. I like theaters and I like arenas. Those are my two favorite things to play. I don’t like amphitheaters, and I don’t like the sweathouses. I do like to see the people that close, but usually when I’m looking at them that close they’re melting.”

On "Cold Day Memory"

“It was great. I love Johnny [K]. Johnny’s a really cool guy, too, and he’s funny as hell, and real meticulous in how he handles stuff. I think that our personalities clashed in that aspect. We were so used to hauling ass, and he was kind of like, ‘Relax. We’ll get this done when we get it done.’ But he brought some really good ideas to the table and he definitely wasn’t a Yes Man. It wasn’t like he’d hear it and say, ‘Yeah man. That’s perfect.’ So he was fun to work with, and Clint obviously, we were all too excited to get him in the studio and start getting the five of us back in a room together. It was pretty painless, actually. The record went by pretty easy.”

About Sevendust albums

“That’s something that probably has hurt us as far as the masses. Everybody knows that if you write ‘Who let the dog’s out, whoot, whoot, whoot, whoot, whoot,’ that’s going to get a lot more play than somebody that’s writing about something that happened to them and put their heart out in detail. I mean, it’s just the kind of band we are. I have friends that are in bands that write party lyrics, and I love those guys, and I love hanging out with them and I even like the band, but when I hear some of those lyrics that are out there, I can’t do it. There’s no way that you’ll ever see us plagiarizing somebody that writes lyrics that have been either a) done a million times, or are just not good enough to take serious. We’re a band that wears our life on our sleeves, and I for one totally do that, and Clint does that as well. And we do a lot of lyric writing, and we’ve been through a lot in different things, so we cover a lot of bases.

“There’s many times that we get mail from people, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, whatever, that people are just sending these letters in of ‘You’ve saved my life,’ and ‘I went through this tough time' and 'Thank God I had you there with your words' and stuff and it’s like, again, we never set out to be trying to do anything to help anybody consciously. We just were out there talking about what we were going through, and it’s somewhat therapeutic for us as well. I mean, it’s therapeutic to write it, and then all of a sudden you realize, ‘Hey, I’m not really in the minority here on the way that I’m feeling a lot of times,’ so the kids help us out a lot as well. I mean, people think that 'Hey, you’re a rock star. Life is great. There’s no problems.' Life is definitely…it hits us hard.”

On what the band has been through over the years

“I look at it and it’s like, I make the mistake of every now and again looking at Blabbermouth. You know, 14-year-old death metal dudes that just crucify everybody that gets mentioned on there. For some reason, I’ll look at it like a bad car wreck every now and again, knowing that they’re all protected by a computer on there. As far as looking at what we’ve been through, it’s like we are almost not allowed to bitch about it. Any time I’ve ever really complained about anything, which seems to be often, which is one of my traits as a person. I don’t know why it’s like that, but I’ve always got something wrong with me. It’s either 'My leg hurts; my arm hurts; this guy ripped us off; this chick’s a hooker and cheated on me.'

“I mean, I’ve got a complaint every turn and it sucks, but I like to try to exercise those demons and get it out and talk about it to people, but I mean the minute that I say anything, it’s ‘Well then go home and give me a shot because I’ve been waiting and I’m one of the millions that are dying to be a touring musician and quote unquote “Rock star.”’ And I’m like, ‘You know what man? Not everybody’s built for this.’ This is not something that you just say, ‘I’m going to pick up my sticks. I’m going to play some shows. People are going to scream for me. I’m going to screw a bunch of girls. I’m going to drink a lot of liquor, and party and hang out and do what basically the stereotype is—the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll part of it.’ And it’s like, well, then you’ve got to miss your wife, and then you’ve got to like lose two marriages. And then you’ve got to have your daughter grow up and be 11-years-old and know that you only saw about three years of her life. And then you’ve got to have two or three people rip you off by millions and set you in bankruptcy almost twice. And then you’ve got to have people steal money from you on the road that you though were your brother. And then you’ve got to go through the physical beating of playing 462 shows in 21 months. Then you’ve got to sleep in a van for 18 months straight, and you’ve got to pile nine guys into a room because you don’t have enough money to get more than one hotel room.

“There’s certain people that are like, ‘Yeah man! That’s what I’m talking about! I’m down with that life!’ [laughs] And I’m like, ‘Man, you can’t say that until you’ve been through it.’ You can’t watch two marriages crumble into the floor with children involved and say, ‘That’s cool.’ I mean, those are the kind of things that nobody gets. The guilt that I carry, it’s in need of major shrink help. Major. I mean, I’ve got kids that are getting to be fully grown that don’t even know me, so I mean, that can wear on you.”

On closeness within the band

“We’re the closest five people in the world. I mean, [we’ve spent] more time together over the last 16 or 17 years than we have with anybody else, that’s for sure. And if you probably added up the time that we spent together, we’ve probably spent more time with each other than anybody else in the world since we were born, just about. I mean, including our parents. We’re the closest people you can have. We look at each other and shrug our shoulders sometimes. I mean, it’s like you make decisions and you make them because you’re spontaneous sometimes, and sometimes you make them because you think you’re making the right decision and it just turns weird where you don’t know what you were getting yourself into.

“The [inaudible] answer to ‘Would I change anything?’ I would have to say ‘No’ because I have kids and all that, but I mean, I can tell you right now I should’ve never have gotten married. I should never have gotten married either time. There’s no doubt in my mind. I’m writing a book and I’m going to go in detail on most of this stuff, but I can tell you right now, do I regret being married twice? Absolutely. Did I make the decision consciously? Absolutely not. It was an irresponsible move on my part. I went out. I had a rock star girlfriend. We were very passionate with each other like most people are when they meet, and for the moment I didn’t think I could see myself with anybody else. ‘Hey, let’s go get married.’ ‘OK. When?’ ‘How about Friday?’ There was no prep work for any of that. We were both on the road. There was no reason for us to be doing that. We had our lives ahead of us, our careers ahead of us.

“People in Hollywood fail miserably most of the time because they never see each other. Well, we didn’t see each other and on top of that, she was in a band and I was in a band, which meant that how you going to balance each other’s tours? I mean, it just was crazy. Plus, we were both starting on our first records. We had no money. We didn’t know what the future held. We just went for it, and then when that went south I got married again—in a courthouse—on a Wednesday, with nobody there but a bunch of people that I didn’t know. I did that without thinking. Just crazy shit. You know? Just crazy.

“You make decisions out here, man. I left in 1997 to hit the road. I had a girlfriend, and a dog and we lived in this decent-sized house. And I came back and I had a wife, and a cat, and lived in a tiny condo and like didn’t know what the hell had just happened. It was like everything changed.”

On the future of Sevendust

“We’re taking it one step at a time. We’re going to have to slow it down, for many reasons. For health reasons. We had to cancel a bunch of shows. We’ve never canceled anything. We canceled half of Europe because we had people working with us that didn’t know what they were doing at all and we were like, ‘This is doing more harm than good for us to be over here. We have to handle our business.’ At the same time handling that business, we found out that we had issues that there was nothing we could do about them, so we canceled Australia. Not only that, but the people that were supposed to be cancelling Australia didn’t let the public know about us cancelling Australia until, like, a few days before we were even supposed to go. So all of a sudden those people are pissed off at us. And people don’t really know and really I don’t even [inaudible] them. And they have a right to a lot of their being pissed. There’s people that bought plane tickets to fly from one part of the coast to the other into hotels that are non-refundable to come and see us and we’re not going now because the people that we pay money to take care of us and to represent us didn’t go out there and let the public know we [weren’t] coming.

“In the meantime, they’re like, ‘Listen. You guys should go out and do a few states because you’re not headlining anymore. This is the end of it, so why don’t we pick a few places and you guys go out and play because now that you’ve cut everything short, you’ve lost a ton of money, and we need to kind of pick up some of those dead pieces and try to almost help the loss.’ So we’re like, ‘OK.’ Well next thing you know, we’re out and we’re doing two-and-a-half weeks, and [the tickets have] been on sale for, like, two weeks. It’s like, bands go out and tour, they put the tickets on sale three months in advance. We’re going out and doing shows that we’ve put on sale two weeks ago. It’s like real weird; really weird.

“It’s the kind of stuff that makes the band go, ‘OK. You know what? You want to know what I’m going to be doing in the near future? I’m going to be stopping. I’m going to be refueling. I’m going to be looking at who the hell is helping us drive these cars over here and figure out how to make sure that what just went down never goes down again.’ That’s basically what we’re going to do. We’re going to stop. We’re going to get our business back in order because we don’t want what has happened in the past to happen again. People look at us and they go, ‘Man, we don’t feel bad for you guys anymore because you’ve got a problem, like, every few years there’s another catastrophic issue with your band.’ And they’re right, you know? Like, we can’t be bitching about this stuff anymore. We’ve got to handle it. So we’re going to plan for the future and whatever that holds. I don’t know what’s going to go down, but I do know that we’re going to plan for it.”

On the book idea coming about

“The idea was people were coming up to me—my close friends, obviously, were the first ones to say, ‘Man, you should be writing a book.’ And I’m like, ‘Man, I’m really not alone in this. Most of the people that are on the road have the same kind of story.’ And they’re like, ‘Well, not really.’ They’re like, ‘You might get the people that have been ripped off. Everybody seems to get ripped off. You might have the family breakups and stuff, and you have the drugs.’ And I went to rehab. I mean, everybody has these same stories, but there’s a lot of stories that went on with me before the band that are pretty unique, and there’s still a lot of stuff that happened during the band that’s pretty unique, too, on the personal side.

“I mean, how many people can say that they were taken to prison in the same car with their dad on a drug bust with seven keys of coke in the house? It’s kind of fun to talk about shit like that [laughs]. There’s interesting stories with me. I mean, I’m definitely not this screwed up for no reason.”

On the positive impact he’s had personally with other people

“It’s crazy, man. I do sit there a lot. I have a little Alien Freak tattoo on my arm, and it’s like, I get pictures almost daily of people that go and get this tattooed on them. And then there’s portraits of me on these people on their bodies and I’m like, ‘What did I do that was special enough to think that they needed to carry me for the rest of their life like that?’ And it’s like, I don’t get it sometimes, but I am totally blown away by it. I mean, it does make you stop and just [inaudible]. And sometimes the people that I talk to, I’m like, ‘God, man. No matter what, I’ve done something to hit these people hard.’

“That’s pretty special to think that just a little redneck coming out of Georgia really not knowing nothing about this business and very little about songwriting could start writing songs about his life and then all of a sudden people are like, ‘You’ve changed mine because of it.’ And it’s like, ‘Wow, man.’ It’s crazy.” 



To read the story I did in Toledo Free Press Star, click on the post title and it will take you to the issue it appeared in. Once you are there, just click on the issue and scroll through. The story's a few pages into the issue. If you read, thank you for reading. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Get busy livin'

Life is so rarely--if ever--a linear process. Countless curveballs are thrown along the way, making our paths to wherever we end up that much more treacherous. I've found in my few 23 years on this earth that since those curveballs are unavoidable and most often unforeseen, you just have to put your head down and press on no matter what.

It's kind of like that quote which states something like "Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it." Both in my own experiences and in my experiences with several people close to me, I'd say that whoever came up with that quote is 99.9 percent accurate in what they're talking about. It doesn't matter if you're the type of person who constantly procrastinates or constantly prepares. Life is going to throw you many, many, many curveballs, some of the pleasantly surprising variety and likely a plethora of the 'You've got to be kidding me. This? Now?! Really?!' variety.

The point I'm getting at is that the only way to keep a level head and make it through is to embrace the chaos. And no, that doesn't mean I'm advocating you to loot when everyone else is looting, to lie when everyone else lies or to quit trying because the people around you aren't trying too hard and seem to get away with everything. No, no, no. I'm advocating you to take the opportunity--and yes, it is an opportunity--to extract the meaning and learn from whatever curveball life throws you, be it good or bad.

I think it was Martin Lawrence who tweeted a few months back that "whenever something bad happens to you, there are only three possible outcomes: you can let it define you, you can let it destroy you, or you can let it make you stronger." For some reason as human beings, it seems that we are wired to remember the negative things that happen to us more than the positive things. I don't know why that is, but I do know that what Martin Lawrence tweeted is absolutely true.

It doesn't matter if you're the nicest, kindest, most giving person in the world who puts others above yourself and truly leaves this world a better place each day you get up and get out of bed and interact with people. Bad things, bad people, and bad situations will eventually find you and try to break you, be it the death of a loved one, being cheated on and/or left by someone you loved or losing your job. The question isn't one of whether those things will happen, but rather one of how frequently and what am I going to do to deal with them when they do occur?

I'm not trying to get all Dr. Phil with this post; I'm merely pointing out an integral observation that I've come to notice in 23 years on this planet. Everywhere you look and everyday you look there's something bad happening, whether it's in your own backyard or the next street or state over. Evil is very, very real, and it exists within the confines of planet Earth. Humans are vengeful, clever creatures. Think about it.

Look at all the powerful animals and creatures out in nature. Tigers. Lions. Giant Grizzly and Black bears. Gorillas. Deadly snakes that can strangle the life out of you. We didn't get to the top of the food chain because we're the strongest and smartest creatures on the planet. Like I read a few years back in "Cell" by Stephen King, the way he put it was something along the lines of that we got to the top of the food chain because we're the most crazy, ruthless beings on the planet who will do anything to survive. And when you digest that for a few moments, it's very, very true.

We got where we got because we're cuckoo for cocoa puffs. In other words, humans are pretty tough in a survival sense, which is good if you look at it from the perspective that you are in fact a human being and at the top of the food chain, and bad from the perspective that that very fact means you'll meet a lot of lying, deceitful, crazy, ruthless individuals in your time on this planet.

The only way to get through it is to keep battling to search for truth and work for good. If you don't have the financial means for charitable donations, you can still give back. Hold the door for a stranger instead of flying inside from the bitter cold. Wait a few seconds for that person. They'll appreciate it. Say hi to people. Chances are they'll ignore you and keep walking, but at least you can keep walking in the other direction knowing that you tried.

And on a deeper level, when something awful happens to you, KNOW YOUR RESOURCES. I put that in all caps because when we go through what at the time are the craziest, crappiest points and the lowest of lows in our lives, we are so entrenched in pain, or fear, or guilt, or sorrow, or anger or all of those feelings together that we get lost in our own little worlds, put up walls as defense and forget that there's actual people and resources available to help us if we so choose to let those people in the fortresses we've built. Not only I have experienced situations like that in my own personal life, both in my own dealings and in dealings with others, but I see it pretty much on a daily basis.

Person experiences something awful; person retreats; person bites, claws, scratches and barks like a wounded animal in a corner; person doesn't get help; person gets lost in translation for a long, long time, maybe and unfortunately even forever. It just isn't worth it, man. It really isn't. Whenever I'd let something really, really get to me, which used to be a lot because admittedly I'm an emotional person (No, I don't cry all the time, but I'm sentimental and therefore can let my emotions get in the way of logic and truth), my stepdad would always say, 'Mike, how long are you going to let them do time in your head?'

Life can be beautiful, and life can be a nightmare. My guess is that most of the human experience lies somewhere in between. We are neither constantly happy nor constantly sad. There will be good times, bad times, awkward times, fun times, sad times, regrettable times, meaningful times and unfortunate times. The only way to keep things as level as possible is to extract meaning.

How do we do that? We learn. We evolve. We don't sulk. We don't point our fingers to blame someone else. Just look in the mirror. Ask yourself, 'How can I make this better?' Once you've done that, go find the resources to do so.

I've lived a very, very blessed life. Yes, I've had my heart broken. Yes, I watched my parents get divorced at a young age and had to grow up fast. And yes, I lost someone in death who was as close to me and knew me as good if not better than most in my Grandpa. But you know what? I don't let that defeat me. You know why? Because one day I'm going to die. My heart's going to stop ticking, my blood's going to stop flowing and my chest is going to stop rising as my last breath leaves me while I clock out to the Afterlife.

Point being that it's not worth it to become defeated. I believe that wherever I'm going is infinitely better than even the most pleasurable experiences I'll have while I'm in this body on this planet. That is why I seek truth. That is why I don't settle to surround myself with anything lower than what I feel I deserve. And--most importantly--it's why I strive everyday through the God above whom I pray to and worship to work my hardest and live the best and most peacefully I can.

It's not easy to do that. You know how many times I've doubted and questioned God? How many times I've lashed out or complained when I felt that I was cheated or wronged? Too many. But I try really, really hard to have faith in God and ask God to help me find the meaning because without that guidance, what is there?

I know that more bad things will happen in my life until I'm dead. I also know that no matter what, I'm going to fight those things with every fiber of my being. Like I said before, I believe where I'm going is way better than what is here. So while I am here, I'm going to always work hard to fight whatever tries to bring me down. This life is too short for nonsense and bad people to get in the way.

Hope y'all have had a great weekend and have a great week. And remember, no matter what happens to you, keep your head up and press on. There's alive, and then there's livin'. Get busy livin'.

Mike