No Rest For The Bi-Continental-Curious

I've felt as of late the writing a blog is an exercise in unbridled narcissism. A rambling and verbose expansion of the need for concise and attention seeking text that dominates our current twitter-face social universe. I am guilty. Guilty of posting the ridiculous, the obscene, the censored, the important, the self-important, the promotional, the humorous and the pathetic; most of which is represented in instagram photos of meals I've cooked and painstakingly garnished -- for myself. But here I am, half-drunk on wine, feeling clever and creative; fidgety fingers stabbing quickly at keys eagerly awaiting a masterpiece. Why? What is so god-damn interesting in my life would lead others in my "social network" to eschew their 140-character intake of the arcane and want to enter my inebriated and twisted little universe?

Clearly, I don't have an answer to that question. Now I'll post alternating pictures of cats with funny captions and attractive women eating turkey legs.

 

As I pour over travel memoirs of the famous, the not-so-famous, the explorers, the deceased and the unknown, I realize that their stories may have had just as humble beginnings as mine; except perhaps theirs were funded by National Geographic and mine are fueled by rhythm, food, caffeine and alcohol. Nonetheless, the last three plus years of my life I have spent a good amount of time drunk and silly and love-struck. The remainder of the hours have been spent on the road in a car/train/airplane, behind a drum set, in a kitchen, slowly climbing a mountain, descending a mountain at high rates of speed, Machu Picchu, Mexico, transversing the great USA in a rock-n-roll van in a rock-n-roll band, learning the secrets to Brasilian music in the redwood forest north of San Francisco, applying to teach English in Japan, carousing with friends and harboring avidity directed at another on the cobblestone streets of The Big Easy, savoring every last bite of the most fantastic bagel while wandering the congested avenues of Manhattan, and finally enjoying the solitude and peacefulness of my quiet mountain home in Colorado. Strong emphasis on the word HOME. Undoubtedly, I'm misplacing a detail or seventeen in my brief synopsis but like I said, I was drunk a lot too. I can't be expected to recall everything.   

Why do I feel compelled to recount this tail of self-congratulatory garbage as I have? Why do I agonize over grammatical errors or pace endlessly, searching a combination of words that will satisfy an apparent deep seeded desire to sound educated and interesting and cultured? These are questions I pose to myself prior to attempting prose and debilitating thoughts that have kept me from doing so for well over a year. But then I ask "why does the song writer write, or the painter paint?" or hitting closer to home, "why does the cook cook?" Sustenance and survival are the obvious and easy answers, however, in our burgeoning foodie obsessed culture, we all know that the answer to that question is multi-layered and complex akin to the finest dishes produced by our culinary masters. We eat and drink to celebrate. We listen to music that evokes a emotional response whether it be dancing, head-banging or self-loathing. We view art to see into the soul of the illustrator, sculptor or photographer - to attempt to understand the subject matter no matter how low-brow or abstract. We read to be transported into the minds of the interesting, the perverse, the exciting, other-worldly and fascinating. I am discovering at this very moment that I write to fill a creative void. It's challenging and painful and I hate myself for doing it. I despise the time I'm wasting when I could be practicing drums or at the gym or going for a hike. 

An epiphany strikes me as I'm once again finding any excuse to not finish what I've started. I will finish this god-forsaken blog entry which has gone completely off the subject matter I originally didn't intend to write about. My life and these experiences I choose to narrate aren't simply vacations. They are not well thought out and planned. Hell, I never thought I was going to be a professional musician. I never thought I was going to work in a kitchen again and enjoy the shit out of every minute preparing food that elicits smiles from a reserved suburban clientele. I didn't imagine that I'd be sharing my narrow breadth of rhythmic knowledge with an attentive young audience that will have more distractions than any generation that precede them. I'd always hoped to travel, to be worldly and wise but for a time, I didn't think that was in the cards. I was in a dark place - the bottom of a canyon if you will - the walls above crumbling down, suffocating my spirit and crushing my will. I was able to fight through it with the enormous help of a supportive and "real-life" social circle. Friends and family I leaned on in times of strife. Individuals I met with face to face to share a story, a beer, a hug. 

I have found happiness and contentment but not without wanderlust and curiosity always tugging the other direction. I am steadfast and ultimately believe in myself no matter where my "career" may lie. Life as an adventure and I am a willing participant. 

Alaska, Denali, the Kenai Peninsula await. 

A rousing percussion performance in Las Vegas (on pots and pans of all things) still visible in the rear-view mirror. 

...More to follow

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

-Mark Twain