“Previously on Smashing Happy…” My last post was about how I have this little dream of changing the world. Not like I’m an overachiever or anything haha In all seriousness, it has been my goal for a long time to help inspire people through music. I shall blog about it later, but there was a “let there be light” moment in my life that I can directly attribute to music. I ‘m not going as far as to say that music saved my life, but it had such a profound impact on my world that I happily felt obligated to do what I could to recreate that moment for as many people as possible. It was slow at first. :: inserts comment as to how Rome wasn’t built in a day here :: There was broadcasting school and then commercial radio… and then the point where I realized that commercial radio had no room/potential to achieve my goals. Long story short, I have spent the last fourteen years of my life in the trenches, passing out/mailing/posting flyers, writing news articles, hosting a local college radio show, booking bands, oh yea and I may have kinda-sorta made a several thousand band t-shirts at some point in there. So as I’m looking at my resume last week I started to think that I might actually be “livin’ the dream” right now. I started thinking about all those bands that I helped out in college, how some went on to play all over the world, and how some bands I have worked with over the last seven years have gotten to play huge-multi thousand seat venues. But as I write this now I sit here and contemplate on whether I even have the right to be thinking that I had an impact on any of that at all. I start trying to quantify my “help” in comparison to the ass-kicking, hard-work, the blood, the sweat, and the tears that all those bands had to put in just to make it to where they are (or where they were if they have broke up by now) Well. think I have an answer. I came to the conclusion that to give myself credit for something like the Rationales playing The Pavillion, simply because I made shirts for them over the years is well, to say the least, “absolutely absurd”. I dunno, I guess I just have to look all the different things I have done and understand that they all have different levels of impact. Sure, I have made shirts for a multi-platinum selling artist (and on a side note The President of the United States as well), but I’d be sure as hell to bet (that as minuscule of an impact on their careers it was) that the shirts I made for The Rationales had way more of a relative impact than the much larger runs I did for Paula Cole. Or to be a little more realistic, booking bands like Harris and Aloud in the Fox Common at UMASS Lowell back when they were just getting started had a bigger impact on their careers than tons of of other things I’ve done. I guess there is no real way to tell when, or if anything I have ever done, has been big enough to have had an impact…but I sure as hell am giving this world a run for its money! I was going to end this post with that last line , but I just want to say thanks to every band I have ever worked with/for over these years. From Will Brierly and the Roller Holsters and Will Dailey, to Life Electric and elusive Evil Us’s. I actually pay myself sometimes to do this, and I couldn’t have done it without them…and yes even the crappy “something-big-has-come-up-so-we’ll-tell-you-when-our-set-is-going-to-be-and-how-long-we-play” type bands. I guess after reflecting on this I can say I am half living the dream… I mean I’ll never really be able to tell if I’ve had any serious impact on much, but I feel great knowing I’m trying to do my part, and that I’m closer every day to the point where all that effort is paying for itself. Thanks for reading this… talk soon! I think I’m going to tackle one of the 8 virtues I hold to heart….either Honesty or Humility… if I get any request in the comments I’ll just do whatever gets the most comments will be the one I do. Till then… Buenos Nachos! 
Additionally, if you are interested, v1interactive is the developer of Disintegration. It was founded in 2014 by Halo creative director Marcus Lehto and SOCOM director Mike Gutmann.