What Do You Care About? What Inspires You?

9:59 a.m. My morning has consisted of the usual, but enjoyable regimen of responding to emails and reading/responding to drunken, sloppy, nonsensical text messages from my good friends who spent the night “making friends” with lovely co-eds.

“Dude, this girl I'm with is like a 9 out 10. I'm getting her to send me sweet pics from our fucked up night last night,” a fellow musician friend of mine so candidly texts me about a girl he met after a show in Tallahassee. My somewhat “boring” response to him, “I bet she's a winner. How was the show last night?” His response to me in the early morning, proving to me he has yet to sleep, is merely, “Fun. But this girl was.. like.. a 9 out of 10”. He then proceeds to go into detail about his wild sex-capade of a night consisting of details I will omit from this article, even though I'm sure you'd love to hear about his story involving the four other people in the room and why an industrial size bottle of lube & pieces of bologna were involved in said equation.

Now, raise your hand if you are semi-interested in who I'm talking about. Are you wondering where this story is going or how the night turned out? Don't worry, I can't see you through your computer, or iPhone, or iPad, or whatever electronic device you fancy. To begin with, the above story is true (yes, I got clearance from my fellow musician friend to put his texts into my story. Although I now owe him a bottle of Jameson when we cross paths). And really, would you have given a shit about reading this far into the article if it had started, “My political views have changed drastically over the years. This Occupy Wall Street movement is really starting to take shape. Wow, Herman Cain says some dumb shit.”?

What do you really care about?

Now, I will give you more credit than this, either way. For the sheer fact, that I myself am guilty of imposed question. My “I'm a guy, I want to read about this mysterious tour romp session” lightbulb illuminates in my dirty brain and I'm ready to share a link out on Twitter for everyone to read this softcore tour porno tale. Retweet me, please! But now, I come to this realization that most people would rather read about that than about the political and economical meltdowns that plague human existence. Maybe because we're so run down and punched in the face with it everyday on the news and in our news feed timelines. Or maybe we need proof that our personal lives don't seem as fucked up and crazy as someone else's.

I wanted to write this essay, blog, whatever we label these things nowadays, almost as a re-evaluation of myself while at the same time maybe affecting a few other like-minded peoples, but reflect more than anything else. When I see a fellow musician, someone I respect on many levels, post a tweet or a blog, I'll dismiss it in five seconds if it doesn't catch my attention. But on what am I judging my process? Does it have some dirt in it? Is he talking shit about a band that everyone is trashing on nowadays? Suddenly, I realize I'm an asshole. This person spent their time, opened themselves up, for the world to see and prod at—no matter what the subject is. And I'm completely dismissing what they're saying because it doesn't scream “Strike Gently & IsAnyoneUp material!”

Our fascination with everything but the music is growing exponentially. And fuck, does it bum me out. Some days I want to get rid of all devices that attach me to the shit that is the Internet and put myself in a somewhat prehistoric state of mind. Maybe that mindset when I was 15 years old and going to punk rock shows. No Internet. No gossip sites. No awkward band dude dick pics and girls showing off their balloon knots infiltrating my computer systems. I know it's extremely cheesy and old of me to say, but I miss and cherish those old days. I'd look in the local music magazine printed every Thursday and pick out all the shows I wanted to go to for the next 2 months. My parents would drop me off at these shows, bless their hearts for being so supportive of me going to punk rock shows infested with crazy skinheads and glue-sniffing punk rock kids. But these shows—the music—were all I cared about. It wasn't about how many Twitter followers the lead singer had or what chicks he hooked up with that are making headlines across Facebook statuses. It was solely about the music, the entertainment. Getting away from being teased at school and all the bullshit that comes with being a teenager. It was about that 30 minute, sweat-drenched set that would ultimately change my life and put me where I am today. Being exposed to the Bouncing Souls, blink-182, Good Riddance, AFI, Goldfinger, and countless other bands I'm name-dropping for the point of giving kudos. For instilling in me my work ethic as a musician. I watched all those bands rise from nothing. They flourished, all in varying degrees, obviously. But I was inspired by their music, their live performance, and their hard work.

To the younger generation, what are you inspired by? What gravitates you towards a band or a musician, in general? It's an honest question. I come from a different generation where the Internet wasn't such a heavy player in the musical ball game. Ten years from now, what will be your nostalgia? And as music listeners today, what do you care about and does the actions of your favorite musicians that you read about on gossip sites affect your opinions about them on a musical and/or personal level?

I'm guilty as charged. An almost 29 year old, mildly short, born and raised in San Diego boy. Human nature is a motherfucker. We can be nosy individuals. But let's not get side tracked. Let's attempt to be inspired by honesty and integrity through music. Let's respect others and always realize that no one is perfect—except for my mom. She's perfect. Spend some time getting to know the message behind your favorite artists and do something positive spawned off of that. alt

I'm not a blogger. Maybe this whole essay of mine made no sense to you. My mind goes a million miles per hour and I just type it all out. Somewhere in this soup bowl of words, hopefully you can relate and understand on a certain level. Maybe I just wanted to point out my own flaws. You can make fun of me, I don't care. But I also wanted to prove I'm just like anybody else in this world. I just love music, a lot.

Now, back to the story of the Tallahassee sexual deviancy, what happened when the monster bottle of lube was emptied, & where that fuckin' bologna went..