4-30-2019

6-7-2017

5-17-2016

10-27-2015

10-24-2013

8-31-2013

11-12-2012

8-5-2012

10-19-2010 Plant It, With Hope.

8-19-2010

 

4-30-2019

i have now been sick for almost a decade. internally the last year has been perhaps the largest transition of a single year since it all began. i'll continue to endure the surgeries, tests, treatment, and medicine suggested to me but in the most hidden part of myself i may have finally let go of the desire to live a normal life again. this resignation comes with a lot of both acceptance and dismissal.

if you think of a person as an entity with strings tying it to everything in it's periphery, reexaming these bonds in this new light wasn't what i thought it'd be. i thought it would be about symbiosis, what they and i give and in turn receive, but i'm finding it's more about the absence of these interactions. over the years, all of the relationships that needed me to be a certain way have faltered and in many cases have broken outright. it was hard to be pragmatic and unemotional witnessing them fail. but with the benefit of hindsight i can see that, unbeknownst to me at the time, i had lost the ability to be who i was.

those ties were built with a particular kind of strength that is gone from me. it's one thing when a doctor tells you a physical part of yourself is damaged beyond repair, but assessing changes to the functional narrative framework of how you view your life is something i never even considered. i thought i was doing the right thing by holding onto the dream of being whole again, but as the decision to do so is torn away from me i'm realizing that i changed a long time ago and that anything the previous person supported has completely collapsed into ruin.

and so, what's left are things that require nothing from me. it's better this way, i'm sure, but i can't help but feel bitter and angry at both the vulnerability that brought me here and this state of physical and emotional begging that has consumed me. and though being a victim has seemingly become a commodity to the world at large, i'm finding my attempts to create something new with people are often just empty passes into the ether. familiarity breeds complacency so the response isn't surprising, but it's disappointing just the same.

i developed such an idea of what i would be that starting over, even in my head, feels incredibly frightening. you're always tied to the unknown, the only thing that changes is your ability to affect it. in that regard, i have nearly surrendered completely.

 

6-7-2017

hi everyone. it's been over a year since i chirped so it wouldn't be a bad time to go chirpin hard. i say a year but i haven't really been able to ''feel'' time accurately in ages, it's all a mess of smeared charcoal in my mind. my voice is still ravaged, and the procedures are so many in number i haven't bothered to keep count. sitting in that bed with that gown is an old hat for me now, one totally devoid of anything resembling nervousness or anxiety. i'm having another surgery again this friday. it seems weird to say to say ''i'' when my body feels more like an enemy than something i possess, just constantly breaking in ways that i'm powerless to fight.

if it's all sunny again someday i'll be glad but i'm not thinking about those days anymore. the automated chime of hope i've been wearing for the past 7 years has gotten pretty old too. still though, i feel blessed when you guys check in on me or when you let me peek into your ever evolving lives even though i haven't had many new things to say.

 

5-17-2016

hey neighbors! so i had another (and hopefully my final) surgery last friday.

i don't usually post surgery pics cause they've all been pretty gross so far but this one was pretty clean comparatively. don't tell anyone but i'm kinda secretly hoping the incision on my neck doesn't heal too good so i can have a super cool scar somewhere other than my body.

more importantly, I AM NOW A CYBORG. flee, weak fleshlings! they have rebuilt me! i'm like a superhero now, my name even has alliteration. so yeah, i have a pretty long recovery ahead of me and i'll be undergoing physical therapy soon. here's hoping i can go back to being a (cybernetic) human being this year. i have a lot of music written that i'm excited to do stuff with, i just hope there's still a place out there for it + myself.

also, i've always wondered what kind of drunk i might be and it seems i may be a love-y drunk since my first instinct every time when loaded on morphine is to tell everyone how much i love em'.

 

10-27-2015

hi friends. sorry i haven't been around for the longest time. i suppose it kinda goes without saying, but my health has gotten very poor again. i feel so silly to still talk about this stuff after all these years with everything going on in this world and in your lives.

there's a few things happening with me, but it's still mostly about my voice after all this time. having uncontrolled acid in my system for such a long period led to a chunk of one of my vocal cords being eroded clean off, leaving it unable to be closed properly with the other cord.

the small bit of good news i have to share is that i have a surgical procedure scheduled for it tomorrow. it only has a 10 percent chance of success, but that's still enough to excite me. wish i had more to say, i'm just dreaming of better days and hopping on to sincerely wish you all the best. bye for now.

 

10-24-2013

hey friends! just thought i'd shoot an update your way. 3 weeks out from the surgery and i'm starting to nibble on solid food again. getting around a bit easier but from what i'm told it can take up to 12 weeks total for the internal swelling to go away. so i have a lot of recovery time left but it's gettin there. as for the reflux, there's still some but it will apparently (hopefully) go away as more of the post op swelling around my esophagus subsides. i feel optimistic about it. in any case, there's probably 9 weeks before i can say anything for sure.

i didn't speak much about the operation itself. hmmm... and i'm not sure if i want to elaborate on it too much here but i'll say a few things. it was definitely a strange experience. maybe it was the anesthesia or just the journey leading up to the moment, but there was one particular feeling that really stuck with me. i consider myself a very practical person. that is, i don't spend a lot of time thinking about things of the metaphysical nature. but as i was leaving consciousness and as i was coming to, i had this very distinct otherwordly feeling.. like i existed in this area where i had all the people i've ever met with me. and you were all surrounding me as a half formed figures staring at me and even at a glimpse i could recognize all your faces. they say you dream of stuff you want moments before you lose consciousness so maybe i just wanted to feel like you all were there with me. it's hard to verbalize, i guess, but that's my best attempt.

ANYHOO! i want to thank you all for being around and sharing this with me. hope ya'll are doin well.. check in with you soon~

 

8-31-2013

hello dear friends. first and most importantly, i want to extend my deepest thanks to everyone who's kept in contact with me as i've gone through all this. it really means a lot to me that you'd go out of your way to check up on private ol' me.

i got this news a few weeks ago, but had to think about sharing it for a little. i'll be getting a surgery done on sept. 27th for my disease. (more info on my blog if you missed it.) it has an 80 percent success rate. i think those chances are pretty good. i won't know if it was a success or not for awhile after most likely. depending on how the surgery goes, i could be in there for as little as a day and up to a week.

i want to re-iterate how i feel to all of you who have asked me about my condition and music in my absence. i've lost a large portion of my life to this, and to think something i created has led to truly enduring friendships all over the world is a little crazy to me. anyways, thank you again.

hopefully everything goes well sept 27th and i'll be able to sing/speak/eat/sleep normally again and without dangerous medication.

until then!

 

11-12-2012

there's this dream i've been having for the longest time. i'm in a gigantic mall and i'm looking for someone, but i can't find her. i run through parking garages and scan through mall directories but i just can't track her down. i try to ask people for directions. but now even in my dreams, the words won't come out. i feel the dream become lucid at this point and after a struggle i manage to will myself back to the real world, where everything is the same sans the shopping mall.

i'd give anything to be able to speak again.

 

8-5-2012

This is definitely not the blog post I'd intended to write after my last one. Typically I only really want to post stuff on here that's positive or creative, and this won't fall into either of those categories so I apologize. This also may get lengthy, personal, and perhaps confusing so bear with me. Where to begin...

Before I'd completed my last record, I'd decided that upon it's completion I would start to tour. Having obtained a portable harp and putting together what I felt was a good set list, I got really excited for it. First thing I had to do was get back in shape vocally after sitting around doing post production for 7 months. After getting that in order and re-arranging my songs so they could just be played by one person live, I was ready to roll.

But something weird started to happen, I could feel my voice's durability get worse and worse by the day. My pitch was starting to go off center, just not being quite right even though I'd done these songs so many times before.

To condense the lengthy year plus thereafter of doctor visits: I have a disease called Laryngopharyngeal Reflux or ''Silent Reflux''. It's where your stomach acid escapes upwards, bypasses your esophagus, and burns your defenseless throat instead. It's gotten so severe that I can't speak at all without being in pain. It's far beyond what a sore throat feels like. If I had to describe it it'd be close to a steel rake scraping on the inside of your neck. I've tried nearly every kind of medical treatment and home remedy out there and nothing has worked.

I suppose it would be considered ''first world problems'' for me to complain about only being able to eat the same two extremely bland, small meals every day to reduce the pain only slightly. The same could be said about having to sleep in a sitting position. I can deal with tubes being put down my nose into my throat. But I miss being able to talk. To my family, to my best friend, to anyone at all. I miss singing. I gave up so many things that were important to me just to able to pursue this, and right now I can't even speak. It's been a devastating period for me.

And likely the worst thing about all of this, is I've done everything humanly possible that I could to prevent it. After changing every aspect of my life like I was supposed to and taking so many kinds of medication, nothing has worked. I thought I was mentally strong, being able to work and study hard whenever I'd rather be having fun. Being able to isolate myself and concentrate when I'd rather be with other people. But the truth is... there are a lot of nights now where I just sit, starving and crying because I can feel the bitter taste of my own stomach acid on my about-to-be numb tongue, knowing it's come up again even though I'd done everything I was supposed to to stop it. I feel broken and rotten.

It's invaded every facet of my life. Even speaking to the few people I do online, I find myself just being disinterested and depressed, not because of them but because of me. I never have anything new to say anymore, since my life revolves around just being in pain and trying to stop it.

So now my world is just a constant stream of various medications with the hope that one of them, somehow, will be the miracle cure that will stop the acid and let my voice heal before it's too late.

Apart from feeling like my life was stolen from me, I guess you could say I've gotten a lot of perspective from this. Perhaps not all of it is so positive. The way people treat you when you have chronic health problems, I've discovered, is not so good. Even if they love you, it only seems to go so far until out of sight, out of mind kicks in.

I've known a few people with chronic health problems, and thinking back on them I can finally understand why they had this particular demeanor that's hard to describe. There's many popular phrases about appreciating every day you're alive, and it's easy to buy into it when you're healthy. But when you can't function normally anymore, it doesn't hold the same meaning. There's very little to appreciate in your day when you can't say ''hello'' without grimacing in pain.

I consider myself a practical person, but with the length of time I've had to endure this I do have to think about the cosmic significance of it all. Perhaps I deserve it? Was I destined to just be in pain forever at a certain point because of something I did? Did I hurt you? I find myself looking for answers in these strange places, since I haven't found any anywhere else.

When I was a little boy I would spend every night listening to my Walkman cassette player underneath the covers until the batteries died. Somewhere in there, without realizing it, I knew what I had wanted to do with my life. You could say I'd gotten an idea of the person I wanted to be. It seems so far away from me now, the mental image that I had back then.

Despite my supposed despair, I'm still living my life (or lack thereof) with the assumption that one day this will all be fixed and I'll be normal again. And I don't say that out of strength. It's likely mostly out of ignorance, since it's all I have left to cling to after everything else was slowly whittled away.

I've written this out and read it over many times without posting it, but if you're reading it I finally did. So why did I post this? I'm not sure, to be honest. I don't think I'd wait over a year to want people to feel sorry for me. This won't particularly make me feel better, either. I don't have an explanation. Maybe there's this very human thing inside of me that I denied for so long that it just won't be anymore.

The reason for the music videos probably makes a bit more sense now, I had no intention of really doing them but it was all I could do with my inability to speak without pain. As of this moment, I've only released a few of the many videos but I might release more in the future if people are interested.

My fourth album (among other things) is also completely written, however there's obviously no plans to record it at the moment.

I guess that's it. Actually, I can't bear to end on such a dismal, depressing note. I want to tell you something that I wrote a song about on my fourth record and then I want you to do something for me. A long time ago I was in a certain relationship. It was really my first ''big'' one and being as blunt as I am, I made a lot of mistakes. Or at least I perceived them this way back then. I told this girl ''I love you'' all the time. Like most things, if it occurs very often it loses it's shine. After awhile, it didn't seem like a special thing to say anymore. So when that was over, I felt like it might have been a part of why we ended so I decided I wouldn't do it again.

So I stuck to my word, and wouldn't you know it, for my next ''big'' relationship... it seemed to work really well. I wanted my actions to show this particular affection and, in essence, it made sense for a long time. But then we ended, and I realized I'd made a terrible mistake. Obviously perspectives can change but this is what I believe for right now: Whatever you say or don't say, do or don't do, it's not about any of that. It's just about the truth. And uncovering the truth is never a single action, a single word. It's a monumental amount of dedication and many times, failure. I didn't do enough to show this person how I honestly felt about her, and doing it after the fact would rightly make me a coward for not accepting the responsibility of my inaction before.

So based on that, you probably think I'm going to tell you to tell someone you love them. Though you can and should, my request is actually that you have the longest phone conversation you can with somebody you really like. It's just one those small things we all take for granted. Go all out, talk for ten hours if you can. This is already far too long so that's all for now. See you later, space cowboy.

 

10-19-2010

Whoaaa there! All right, the site's undergone many changes. There's a lot I want to talk about, and the humor (if there was much in the first place) probably won't be too abundant in this blog entry. Sorry in advance! Let me also preface this by saying that I'm going to try and be as open as possible in this particular entry, and I hope everything comes across the way I'd like it to.

First, I want to once again give a heartfelt thank you to all the support I've been given over the years. It's a gift to me, and it's definitely not something I take lightly.

The people who constantly take time out of their day to listen to my music, the people who sent messages saying they were moved to tears, the people who donated their hard earned money, the people who check up on me constantly despite my absence, the people who remain close to me, and especially my family who gives me boundless motivation. I carry you all with me, and it's important to me that you feel like your support was justified. I don't want to let any of you down, and I'll try my absolute best not to. I thank you all so much, truly.

The period after completing an album is definitely a time of reflection, and when I hear those 40 minutes I can't help but recall the thousands of hours of training, work, preparation, memories, experiences, and people encased in the songs. I think it's easy to look at someone or something and see only surface details, but underneath is a wealth of history, connection, and emotion. I've enjoyed this realization very much, and I think there's something enriching about remembering how deep and complex the human lives around you can be. We are all a summation of all our experiences, the people we've known, and the decisions we've made. I'm not trying to preach anything in particular, I just thought I'd share some of these musings with you.

As you might have noticed, my music is now being sold. Making these albums by myself has been an astronomically staggering challenge. Additionally, each one has been a life changing and life draining experience for me. It is most definitely a full time job, and I've been doing this for free for close to four years now. I'm really touched that anybody would want to spend their time to listen to my music, but like everybody else I do have my own responsibilities and I hope you all understand.

Moving on... over the past few years I've received a dizzying amount of emails wondering if I had a Facebook. I didn't before, but I've finally decided to get one. In addition, I've gotten a few requests to start a Twitter account. I'll go ahead and give that a shot. I'll try my best to keep these updated and use them!

Thanks for everything, team! Talk to you again soon, hopefully!

 

8-19-2010

No massive update quite yet... just wanted to let everyone know I'm still around and that I'm OK! Revised the site a little bit. My new album is complete, but more info on that later! I would like to send a genuine thank you to all the messages of support and donations I received while I was hard at work on the 3rd album. I decided not to bring it up on the blog here because I knew it might take me awhile to complete. The other reason was the software for the website was on a computer that didn't have the internet! But it's all fixed now, so... we'll talk more soon, I promise! A lot of new stuff incoming! Stay safe, guys!