Chillin in Chicagoland

I am staying the night at my aunt's place tonight. Tomorrow is my cousin Will's baptism and I am is his godfather. I think that's really cool and I feel honored to be it. If he is anything like his older brother Scotty or his dad Steve he is destined to be a cool kid. I love being in Chicagoland. You know how you can go places by yourself and feel alone and almost kind of worthless almost? Well Chicagoland is the complete opposite for me, I could chillin in Chicagoland all by myself and feel great. This is where I hope to end up at some point. The Bulls, Cubs, Bears, the city, my family, what else is there? It's pretty sweet.

It's funny you know because a few years ago I would have fought to get back to Des Moines, mainly because all my friends were there. I can see why Des Moines is a great place to raise your kids but I am ready to split. I don't want to raise my kids where most of my history is. I'm a pretty excited guy at this point of my life. Little things like my grades this semester and living by myself next year and big things like graduating and get out into the real world. A lot of people I know are pretty hesitant about it but I more anxious (Is that spelled right? Ah, screw it), I just want to get a job, any job and start living. I used to hate that saying about how your job doesn't define who you are, now I truly believe it. There is no way I am gonna let my job define my personality, unless it is something amazing that I love going to everyday, something I wouldn't mind working 7 days a week, all day, everyday.

Two years ago I would have said that a 7 day a week job for me would and could only be rock n roll. Man that noise is trailing dream nowadays. The music business sucks, Not only do they screw over any act that comes their way but you have to live this stupid stage persona at all times. That sucks, I don't want to be forced to put out art that I don't like. Solo artists have all the real control over their future. Springsteen and Beck are perfect examples. They don't have 3 or four other guys fates intertwined with theirs. Those guys do what they want, when they want. I kind of feel that way now. Eight Miles Out is (maybe was) great, I love the guys, had fun at the shows but I am tired of juggling people emotions and agendas. When a musician/artist has to work with others to illustrate their art you ultimately have to make compromises in what you want to convey, ask the Beatles.

Man I rambling, it's late and I am tired. You kids have a great time and spring. P.S. golf rocks, go bust a few.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This book should not exist

Image
It's late on a mid-October 2015 night and I am struggling with whether I should buy a $1,200 last-minute ticket to California to be with my family for my mother's emergency brain surgery. A week prior everyone was together in my house for an adventurous weekend climbing a wind turbine and celebrating my grandmother's 90th birthday, now we are on the eve of my mom going under the gamma knife for emergency brain surgery. Turns out she has a size-able tumor growing on the surface of her brain.   It's a bit of miracle that the tumor was discovered in the first place as my mom's routine cancer screenings didn't usually include brain scans; however, she had been complaining of blurry vision and balance issues, plus she had become quite irritable having been pushed to take FMLA from work to deal with what she thought was post-cancer "brain fog." Thankfully her doctor had the good sense to add it all up and include her brain in her next cancer scan. Sure enou...
Read more

Finding "Clarity" in 1999

Image
I distinctly remember Tuesday, February 23, 1999. I was still living in Iowa and immediately after school let out I road with a friend to Best Buy so he could pick up Eminem's freshly released second album. Always down for a hang, I road along as there was one album I had read about and wanted to see if it was in stores. That album was Jimmy Eat World's Clarity . On the ride home I didn't bother asking to put in my purchase as my friend was not a rock fan. So for the next hour or so of cruising we blasted Slim Shady at painful volumes. For those uninitiated, this was the "Hi! My name is (ticka ticka) Slim Shady" album. I was indifferent to rap so it got a little long and tiresome by roughly the third time through the album. When I finally listened to Clarity it underwhelmed. Nothing on the album is lyrically hook centered on kinetically riff focused like later Jimmy Eat World releases. For a 16 year-old ska and pop punk super fan, Clarity go...
Read more

My Favorite Creative

Image
As I type this two drastically different things are happening; I'm in California for a film festival and my mother, Linda Boberg, is lying in a Des Moines hospice bed. In fact she started hospice care the day I flew out here. As you can imagine, I'm experiencing quite the emotional tug of war. When you have a kid you commonly examine where they get certain traits. I've always been able to parse that I get my emotional, empathetic tendencies from my mother and my pragmatic, compartmentalizing skills from my Dad (another raging tug of war at the moment). This list could go on forever, but one thing I've never fully understood is where my creative drive came from. Now with the writing on the wall, it's obvious my mom flipped the creativity switch. It wasn't until my Mom self-published a novel at 65 years old that I understood how creative she is. In the last three years she's self published half a dozen books and written many more. Her first bout of cancer in 2...
Read more