++++ FOR GOD'S SAKE, PLEASE TRY TOO HARD!

THIS, Ben Folds, is the it.

THIS is what I've been talking about. THIS is what I've been doing on this blog. Ben Folds posted a note on Facebook (??) answering the questions aspiring artists ask him about how to "make it." It's so good, it's worth reading all the way through but here's a teeny excerpt on the section entitled...

++ WORK DILIGENTLY TO FIND YOUR VOICE:

Finding your Voice takes a lot of frustrating time. That's a painful period that all artists go through, sometimes more than once. I think that most artists don't want to admit that period ever existed. We all like to pretend we came out special and it all just magically happened. You will eventually find that it takes no effort to just be yourself, but the road to that place can be long and rough. The truth is that most artists would not want you to see the evolution of their Voice. It would be very embarrassing. Imitating your heroes, trying on ill advised affectations. It's all part of the trip. It's why all those Before They Were Stars footage is so cringe worthy. Nobody wants to be seen in that light and so successful musicians do the new generation a disservice by denying their shady artistic past. I for one, will do my best to cover my tracks because I don't want anyone seeing that sh*t!

This blog is my road map. My inspirational treasure map for any of those who might come behind me. Perhaps it could be crazy or professionally suicidal to allow the world to view my flipping, my flopping, my muddling months and years of finding my own voice, of finding my own sound, of becoming an active artist with successful shows and albums. Perhaps there are those friends or colleagues or passing readers who listen to these "rough draft scratch recordings" or read my naked ramblings and feel uncomfortable or embarrassed for me, thinking I just "don't have it" and I "shouldn't quit [my] day job" and all the other know-it-all things we say when somebody else does something that disturbs our own illusions of stability and security and propriety.

But I am a smarty-pants and I do not think so. I know that I will get there and I know the music will be good. And I believe that I am telling stories and writing songs that other people will take comfort or joy in and call home: something I have dreamed about for as long as I can remember. And when that time comes I want the world to know how messy and confusing and terrifying it was to get there. And maybe there will be just one person who, also messy and scared and confused, will see this map and recognize it and take courage to move forward to write that book, make that album, go to art school, launch that company, take on that social justice mission.

AND IT WILL HAVE MATTERED TO BOTH THIS AND THAT STARFISH.

BOOM.

(End mixed metaphor. Now read Ben Folds' entire post because it is razor sharp. Hat tip to Those Little Details for the link.)

Greenwood Cemetery 4/10/12

i will grow old 

and grow apart from all that's dear to me

i will grow old

i will grow old

sickness and death will surely come to me
i will go on

i will go on

in the sun

there is nothing that is done

(earth and sun)

 

here, i have made huge mistakes

i haven't been all that i could be

i've fought, hidden, and lied

i haven't seen what's right before me

i am subject to illness, to blind spots

and blind sides

 

i fall heir to all of this — even to forgiveness

i do not know

that there'll be golden gates or glassy sea

if there'll be hands, or face, to welcome me

i'll be alone and will not know

that dawn will break

fearless as the heart — leveled — after an earthquake