Scary Movies and an Update too!?!!

Dear Internauts, 

How ya doing? 

I saw the film Lights Out last night and really enjoyed it. It uses a smart and creative script to convey what could have been far too simple a horror concept. It works, I think, on multiple levels as both a fun scare-fest and a tragic allegory for the way that mental illness and loss can affect the one with the illness and their family. Unlike plenty of other horror flicks, though, it doesn't make the one with the illness out to be themselves a monster but rather shows how hard it is to deal with for them and those they love. This external antagonistic force can so often feel like it's all our fault and make us feel hopeless or terrified and want to hide away from those who love us. 

I don't think that is really a spoiler in any way but represents why you might find it a good watch. If you've seen it, I'd love to know your thoughts. While it's a jump-scare filled summer thriller, it's also an intelligent, character-driven drama. 

I've also been reading Freedom by Daniel Suarez, the sequel to the masterwork which is Daemon. Think Michael Chricton level research and technical knowledge in a sci-fi thriller of Hollywood proportions (but with the kind of sci-fi smarts more often found in Philip K. Dick short stories). It's hard sci-fi based in tech that exists or will likely exist very soon. What happens when the killer in a detective story isn't a person but a computer program designed by a dead genius? What will it take to stop it? Can it even be stopped? AH! It's so good. 

Anyways, I started on a new song last night. Pretty personal, but nothing I haven't shared on here before. Sincerity enriches art. Breaking it down into twenty-ish lines of verse can be tough, though. 

By the by, if there are any songs you'd love to hear me cover or any questions you feel like asking me about anything at all, let me know on this blog, facebook, twitter, or email ( odistabettor@gmail.com ).

Hope you have a lovely week!!! Keep your head up, k?

......

The following was posted on my new kickstarter page as an update. To check that out and/or help fund my next recording project, visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1610720524/odist-abettor-ep

If you're reading this, you might have noticed I have a kickstarter campaign. I remember for a while there, it seemed like everyone had one of these. Knowing plenty of artists is one of my favorite parts of life, though at times it can seem like everyone is trying to get their next project funded at the same time. I've helped fund some projects in the past, but could never give very much. There have also been plenty of projects I wanted to give to but couldn't. 

Soooo, when I say no pressure, I mean it. I understand that just paying for the necessities in life is tough enough. Even if you're steadily employed, it can def throw off your budget or cause stress whenever someone from left field asks for money. 

I care far more about not stressing you out or making things hard for you than I do about convincing you to give money to this or any project. Thus why most everything I've released before has been free or 'pay what you want'. 

So why is this different? Why would I even want to do a project that requires funding after all I've been able to do for free in the past? Basically, why in the world am I doing this whole thing?

Well, I have (for the sake of brevity and balance) 3 main reasons: 

1. Money or not, no work is free. Other recordings I've done took an ever building number of hours from folks kind enough to volunteer their time and talent. Artists do a lot of work for free when they should be paid. I can never fully pay back all those who've given of themselves to help realize my artistic visions. Even my self-produced album Hazard Lights took so much time and energy, I still don't know where it all came from. But then, of course, I remember how that project succeeded for the same reason I know this one can, because...

2. I believe this could be the best yet. I know, belief isn't everything, but it's a necessary ingredient to mix into the foundation of any creative endeavor. It's why I keep pushing forward with stories, songs, and drawings even when I feel so stuck or depressed it seems hopeless. It's tough to see the potential of anything during the process of making it. That said, I've been through a lot of living since the last go. Plus, so much has happened in the world. I've written a lot of songs and gotten better as a songwriter, musician, and performer. Working with a new producer in a pro studio, I believe, can take all the ingredients I bring and help build up something marvelous. Still, I gotta be cautious and sensible, right? Well...

3. Nothing decently worthwhile I've ever done has been without risk. Growing up, whenever anyone asked what I wanted to do with my life and I even hinted at music, they got this look on their face. It was like they saw a dead bunny on the side of the road. I'm only where I am because of the people who have believed and supported me, but then I should also thank all those people who lectured me about practicality and having a fallback plan. What I'm risking here is trusting folks I don't know with aspects of my music and my reputation as an artist. But then, I can always write more songs, and I should really care a lot less what anybody thinks of me.  It also feels pretty scary asking you for help. Asking anyone for help. I'm so grateful for the trust you put in me and please know how much your support means to me. Your risk means so much, but it also has only two pretty simple outcomes. Either A) you help me create some new and different and amazing art, or B) if we don't reach the goal by the end of this, you get your money back. No problem.

Feel free to check back here or on my blog @ odistabettormusic.blogspot.com for further updates. Thank you for your help! 

This is very exciting :)

-Odist

Fool of Three (or how i learned to stop worrying and love myself)

Dear Internauts,

Does you ever feel like there are aspects of yourself which, for whatever reason, are ten trillion times harder to adequately express than all the rest?

Like, I've worked as a mail clerk, a funeral assistant, a cashier, a camp counselor, a night auditor, and more, but even while being in those positions, none of those titles felt appropriate to describe even a portion of myself. While a job may take up most of my day, I never felt such a close connection to any of those jobs that saying "I am a (insert job title)" was anywhere close to accurate. Let's call these jobs the "grown-up-kid-jobs".

However, don't we need an answer to the inevitable "what do you do" or "where do you work" or even "what are you"?

(For reference, the answers are "not much", "nowhere without an adapter", and "human last I checked".)

Okay, you may say, but that's just a social norm thing. Small talk. No big deal.

Firstly, I'm an INFP so I don't have the patience or the blood pressure for most small talk. Secondly, I would avoid all social interaction if it weren't for the whole living in a society where I have to sell my labor for the means to trade for goods and services. Thirdly, rule of three.

The truth of it is, though, when working at one of these grown-up-kid-jobs, there's another kind of work that I have to find time and energy for in between all the menial adult-ing. This is the writing kinda stuff or the music kinda stuff or the visual arts kinda stuff.

Did you know I'm working on a novel and a comic and several short stories?

Did you know I'm writing a bunch of poetry and songs? (ok that one you may have known)

Did you know I really feel like a dramatic list only works well if there are at least three examples and above that always an odd number?

My point to all the above nonsense is that I've done a lot of things that have not staying power with my sense of personal identity but they've allowed me to live. At the same time, I've tried to continue doing what I love: creating good art in whatever form or medium may work. The stress, energy, and time necessary to do the first can often leave little of me left for the second. I know I'm not alone in feeling that way. And it's not just the responsibilities of adulthood getting in the way of fun or free time. In fact, while I feel most free and have the most fun while working on or presenting creative projects, it's still very much a job. Several jobs, in fact.

They don't serve as my main source of income, and if we're honest that's where the societal line is drawn between professional and hobbyist. Still, throughout history how many writers, musicians, painters, dancers, sculptors, even olympic athletes went to their day jobs knowing it would never be a good fit. There will always be that tension, that disincorporation, that boiling frustration, that pulsing sense of inadequacy leaning on despair.

There are plenty of folks who, through time and effort, have found a balance wherein the time they can spend on their real flow makes the daily grind somehow worthwhile. It fades into just something they've gotta do, with the fire and the certainty inside to know that they aren't defined solely or even mostly by a job they don't enjoy or can hardly even stand sometimes.

That kinda brave self-assuredness has to be held firm and held high in a place of reverence inside their minds. On a spotlit pedestal yet also right at hand. Like a locket with a picture inside of a person that can achieve big, impossible goals.

We all have some kinda picture of ourselves we look to for clarity. We hold up that image of who we want to be next to our reflection and try to line them up.

For my whole life, I've been an artist, a writer, a musician. I would see where my life was and label myself as whatever role, whether student, clerk, facilitator, or whatever. I'd be that guy who really wanted to be something else. A cashier who'd rather be a songwriter. A psych major who'd rather be a performer. A side dish who'd rather be a good friend.

I don't believe that words alone hold any power. Even the best of intentions fall short of actual proactive movement. Still, from now on I'm gonna try to rearrange some of my words in order to get a little closer to that picture of who I wanna be.

I am an artist.

I am a writer.

I am a musician.

Even when I'm so anxious I can't move. Even when I'm so depressed I can't eat. Even when I'm so drained from being around people all I wanna do is huddle up and watch youtube fail compilations.

Even when my "real job"—here's to hoping I get one soon, right?—takes up so much emotional and physical energy and so much time, I don't feel like I can truly offer anything decent to the content I hope to create. I can still be a content creator.

I am an artist because I make art. A writer because I write. A musician because I create music. Of course, it's more than that. Like a favorite color or season or a gut conscience, there's something in creating which resonates in an inherent and emergent way from within me.

Who cares if it sounds pretentious to some people or doesn't count as a real profession to other people? Who cares what they think? They don't know you like you know you!!!

And that real you, whoever they are or will be or could be or whatever, I'm sure they're awesome and def worth hanging out with.

Thanks,
Odist

p.s. - I'll just come right out and say it: I have a kickstarter. I know, ugh! BUT just think of it as a chance for you and me to work together in making some good art. Maybe even great art! I've joined up with Breakout Artist Group to go to their studio in Cleveland, OH and record a BRAND NEW EP. If you're like me and don't have a diving board over piles of gold coins, that is perfectly alright. Whatever you can give is appreciated. This is gonna be a journey we can walk together over the next month, so if you're interested in helping me pursue this goal, click here for the fundraising page. I'll def keep all you amazing Internauts up to date on this process. I'm wicked grateful for all your eyes, ears, and everything between.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1610720524/odist-abettor-ep

Real Life is Scarier than Fiction

Dear Internauts,

I have far too much I'd like to say and little sense of how best to say it, so here's somethin anyway...

Earlier this month, I went with my folks to visit family in Massachusetts. I've mentioned here before that I've not found HOME to be any place I've ever lived. I suppose sitting on the cement beach wall, looking out over Wollaston Bay and out toward the Boston skyline, sipping a raspberry lime rickey in the humid summer haze—that could be the closest to home I've come to see in a location.

Mostly, I find home in people. Moments. Ideas.

How often to you does home simply mean settlement? I think we strive for contentment. At best we hope for stability. A sense of place.

Three years ago, give or take a week, any hope of stability was stolen from me at the end of a silver barrel. What sense of place I'd managed to build down in Nashville collapsed with my sanity like a sandcastle with the tide.

I've often thought that the believed stability of a life, like the height of a great mountain, dares a challenge. Does our contentment rise like the smoke from a signal fire to beckon unrest?

With time, counseling, and medication, my restless mind has reached something of a crossroads.

Perhaps a place can be a pit or a prison even if it wasn't before. For a time, I had to learn how to think again, to wear away the trauma which froze my bones. To walk again, I had to tread and pace this ground for a time. It's taken much longer than I thought, and I've lost more than I thought I would. Or could. I paced till my legs grew strong again. I paced until my feet dug a trench.

At some point, it's time to stop pacing and climb out of the pit.

Trauma can be grief. The loss of an old life like the death of a close friend. Fear can be a paralytic. We expect it to hold us in the moment, but it can grow on us, choke us like a vine. Squeeze the breath from our motivation. Confidence can be fickle. Moreso, I think, for those of us who find it in the opinions of others.

So I went to some career centers and am on the path to moving back to New England. I don't have nearly as many friends there as I used to, and some of my family has grown and gone out onto their own distant roads as they should. But now I have lived a whole lot more life than I had.

The validation of others is no longer the defining trait of my perceived self-worth.

The trauma I've faced is still very much a part of me. The past is still part of my story.

But can any of us truly find courage without knowing the weight of fear?

Important note: I couldn't have gotten this far without the love and support of my parents.

------------------

On another note, I realize there is a lot of talk, understandably so, about the politics of language. Why must everything be so political? Why can't anything just be loved or hated on the simple level of what it is?

For instance, why can't I just go and see some hilarious and thrilling new movie without the thought that I'm making a mostly weightless statement about gender representation in Hollywood?

Why can't I support the cast and crew of a famous comedic director without making some kind of ideological statement about disregarding his blatant history of sexually predatory behavior?

Why can't I eat a hamburger without contributing to the massive amount of grain production which goes to feeding herd animals, increasing air pollution, depriving millions of food, destroying natural ecosystems, and causing the violent torture and death of innocent animals?

Why can't we just say what we mean?

Perhaps it is part of our humanity to be able to see everything from multiple angles. Not everyone who likes a work of art unquestionably supports the artist. And yet we support the artist by the way we enjoy the art.

To truly experience the fullness of anything in our 3D world, how can we only look at it from one side?

And as far as politics go, everything I was taught in school about American democracy seems to be a lie, with "representation" in government a very loosely interpreted concept.

So tell me, am I more responsible for the actions of the one I vote for or for the one I don't?

And what does any of that matter when children are murdered by those who swear to protect them?

I have no answers. Only a bunch of questions like grapes on a vine of serendipitous narcissism.

Thanks,
Odist