my good friend eric, with whom i play cards with regularly here in east nashville, were discussing last night about what it is we strive to get out of our jobs. by that i don't mean fame (entertainment biz) or some high paying suit job. what i mean is why are you working THAT job? why are you currently doing what you are doing? is it because you love that job or does it simply enable you to earn enough money to do what really makes you happy? or is it, for the time being, something you have to do to pay the bills? sometimes you love your job so much that making a nice living at it is a nice little bonus. sometimes you hate your job so much the excess money you make isn't worth it.
at this point in my life i still absolutely love playing music, not necessarly drums per se, but i love playing MUSIC. there is a difference. i like playing the groove simply to enhance the melody. period. anything else i do that gets in the way of the main groove or melody is simply rubbish. so i try and avoid doing that. sometimes i succeed and sometimes i don't........much like cards.
"it isn't necessary to follow chord by chord, but a drummer should know the melody.....that way the song can be played as a unit, not just two or three people carrying the whole thing and the drummer sitting back there just keeping time" - Elvin jones
so in thinking back to my conversation with eric last night, and i have realized this over the last year or so, at this point my playing music is what enables me to do something that i have always loved and will always love. playing music is the thing that gets me to where i want to be.......................which is traveling this very large planet.
traveling......................that's it. that's THE single reason that i try and make a lot of money, so i can see the world (which is understandably why touring is such a wonderful thing: music AND traveling). i've been traveling since i was 2 years old when my mom, pop, sister and brother went camping. we traveled every summer to somewhere (usually north carolina) and i remember some of those trips very vividly. traveling all over the world (or US), meeting new people and eating new foods will most certainly help you appreciate home, your family and your close friends. OR it'll make you want to pack up and move. i know that both times i have been to london i NEVER want to leave. i love the people there, the slang, the pubs, the food and the weather. especially the weather (which also explains my love of seattle). i love living out of a suitcase, sleeping in hotel beds, driving every day (well, almost every day) and always trying to find some small cafe or restaurant to have some good local food (mind you i have had some very bad food on my travels). the seafood enchiladas on the santa monica pier and the seafood pasta in DE come to mind. the latter i actually had to send back after two bites. i do NOT like sending my food back to the kitchen and have only done so twice in my life (the other time was in amsterdam).
i can remember taking the pics below like i took them yesterday (except for the one in ftw 10/08. i have NO clue what i was doing up that early on a thursday morning. i'm assuming i hadn't been to sleep and stepped outside when i heard amy taking bitty to school...who knows). the one from canberra, australia i vividly remember taking. mike wynn and i were out on the balcony of the hotel we were staying at having a smoke and a pint. i don't know what we were chatting about, but the subject matter matters not. kicking back with a good friend enjoying life on the other side of the world is all i remember.
and this quote pretty much sums it all up:
"It says something about me, I think, that I am most at ease these days-at my most relaxed-when alone in the smoking room of an airport lounge, coming from somewhere nice and on my way to another." - Anthony Bourdain
ok, time to cook some dinner and go play some live cards at 7pm.
bruce
You say in one breath that you don't know what it would take, but it seems here you've written a love letter to the world in sunrises and sunsets.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you don't just 'follow your bliss' Sometimes you have to chase it like a rabid dog, grab it by the throat and drag it off with you.