Thanks for All the Beer

I don’t feel the same. I’m sitting in a room that I haven’t paid for in two months, drinking red wine, wondering why I can’t write anymore. I suddenly realized tonight that I just don’t feel like I used to about so many things, and most of them happen to directly affect the course of my life. I used to believe that, if I failed as a professional musician, I would, instead, write for a living. But, strangely enough, it’s the writing that’s left me and only the music that remains, without the allure of fame. I mean, sure, I’ve never been the world’s greatest songwriter but now it’s like I’m forcing tiny droplets of mediocrity to just eke out of a canteen long-dry.

I don’t want to smoke myself to death anymore. In fact, I don’t even want to die anymore. I had this wild desire all through my teenage years to go like a fireball and then wink out in supernova by 29. Well now I’m 24, and 29 doesn’t seem all too far off anymore. Don’t get me wrong, it still doesn’t seem young, but it’s much, much closer.

I just thought that, by now, I would have accomplished something; that I would have met that certain someone who would alter my career forever. Instead, I’m in a really talented band (The Revival) that started out like a dream come true, but has now started to fizzle and sputter with all of us wondering where the impetus to create is coming from and whether it’s even coming anymore.

I can’t write anymore. It’s just not there. I used to be unstoppably prolific. Endlessly streaming lines across page after page, I was a machine. It was like I had a typewriter for a heart. Now I scratch out some words and try to convince myself that, though they seem simple outright, they hold some much deeper meaning. It’s not really true though, and I know it. They’re completely meaningless meanderings in poetry gone wrong. I think writing songs is what killed my inner-writer. And from now on, I’ll never be anything more than a shadow of my former artist, constantly attempting to regain what I’ve lost. But I am no fool. I know it’s gone.

This is very depressing. I wake up every couple days feeling sure that it was just some passing mood. But then it comes back, again and again, and again. Since Ambra, I have been without song. It’s not that I miss her (because, strangely enough, I really don’t even think about her all too often), it’s just that since I wrote The Sharpened City and had it constantly battled and ultimately defeated by Benjamin (Ben Hart, my bass player, friend, and self-appointed surrogate father figure - basically the guy who tells me I'm wrong about everything), I’ve been dry of all inspiration. That moment could have and should have been capitalized upon, not shunned and shut down because its first output wasn’t to his immediate liking. It was what I, as the band’s fucking songwriter, was going through and being inspired by. Since I had to turn that off, I’ve felt numb to everything. I don’t have sex, don’t really even care enough to, I don’t go out anymore, I don’t strive continuously to pick up the next gig, I don’t even really care when another one comes up. Sure, I get more joy from playing on the stage for people and having them awed and fascinated than doing anything else in the world, but it just doesn’t seem so immediate anymore, which makes me think that it’s over. If it’s not immediate, then it’s not anything. It’s not even real.

It doesn’t help at all that I’m fighting the most intense writer’s block of my life while Ben is constantly on me to write what ‘people want to hear,’ and not just excuses for instrumental escapades (which, in case you weren’t aware, is apparently all I write). I need to be inspired so badly, I feel my heart is empty. And sitting around here, even in this awesome city, just floundering to live, not really being touched by anything or certainly anyone, waiting around for something that’s not coming is not cutting it for me. It ain’t workin’. And, beyond that, I’m sick of it. I need to go, goddamnit. I could scream! Why does he try so hard to keep me here if all he’s going to do is tell me that I’m not doing it right?! If I’m not the one, man, then just let me go!

I know I’m a star. I know that if I just keep going, then I will succeed beyond any of my obstacles’ wildest imaginings. This however, this whatever-it-is that I’m doing now, is not what I consider to be ‘keeping going.’

I need to do something drastic. I need to go somewhere that no one knows me, or even if they do, they don’t expect anything of me. The Revival is nearing the end of its story, and I’m getting too old to sit around and pretend that it isn’t. There are some serious roadblocks keeping me back right now, but how is that any different than when I left Texas the last time? Hell, then it took me five months to get away.

I need to get out of this city, or I am going to grow up here; grow up and grow old. I should just go. I mean, no matter how hurt they act when I say it, or how much they say I’ll be leaving behind, what do they have to offer me? Friendship? Ha! Is that it? I need direction right now, not friends. I need to feel like I am accomplishing my goals, not having fun in my comfort zone. I need a future. I need inspiration. If that’s not what you’re offering, San Francisco, then I’ll be moving on. Thanks for all the beer.