AND UP UNTIL NOW I’VE PRESSED THEM ALL…EXCEPT ONE

Believe it or not, the decision to blog here in this format was a pretty big one.  I’ve wanted to have a more public blog for years where I could write about the things and topics that would show my love for music, education, helping people and musicians network, poetry, and all sorts of silly things, but as you’ll read the decision as to how it would appear was a carefully long and drawn out one.

See, I Loove to write!  Over the years I have been an on and off blogger, college newspaper journalist, PR-spread-the-word-promo-guy, poet…you name it!  I started blogging back in the old myspace days just journaling my day/asking people questions like “Is it worse to be called Fat or Creepy”, pitting two cultural “icons” like Barney the Dinosaur vs. Big Bird, or Fred Flinstone vs. George Jetson in mock fights to the finish and seeing who people thought would win, as well as writing poetry and just keeping a general journal of my thoughts.  I will have to say that I was at least ahead of the curve on the which is worse/who would win thing (as tons of people do that now). [gotta love Epic Rap Battles of History]

:: 10 minutes later after getting distracted by ERB ::

I actually got the battle and questioning idea when some kid I know from college started calling random dorm extensions asking the simple question “Shaven or unshaven?”.  I asked him to clarify annnnnd he just repeated the question.  It was pretty fantastic!

Annnnnyway, I was writing on MySpace for a while and then got invited to this site Catch27.  I’ll blog about how ingenious that site was later, but in the end it kind of gave me this place I could write where no one knew me.  After a bit I slowly started writing about things more personal to me.  Getting all “risky”, I’d write about things like being single, clubbing, sex, how at times me talking to women would usually go something like this, how amazingly socially awkward I can be sometimes, and other things that I wanted to work on personally.

Before I knew it, I had a following of mostly women and my blog titles morphed from pretty G Rated ones like “Who’s the Best Breakfast Cereal Mascot?”, to more risqué things like “Condoms Condoms Condoms!”  (Where I posed a the question of condom preference to all my readers), and of course… “Shaven or Unshaven?” haha

I actually just now realized what made me change my writing topics and style.  Well, for reasons that I’ll blog about, I can be really shy.  Waaay more shy than one should be.  I’m talking “it took me 9 months of talking to this one girl every day and night for hours at a whack to even get the guts to ask to see her outside of high school” kind of shy.

But as soon as those words hit the proverbial page, I was a completely different man.  I went from that shy guy in the elevator, to a guy just being the confident self that he really is/wanted to be.

[Ok, so I was going to scratch that last line/video link and put a deep-voiced "awwwww yeah" type of analogy there referencing some kick ass performer that is all shy until they hit the stage... And the first thought that popped into my head was Barney Rubble being this amazing singer in the shower, yet terrible otherwise...and yes I'm a dork and know that they reused that storyline at least once more in the "Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show" in the 70's haha.]

I think about at “the wall” of the computer screen, and how I also used Catch 27 to keep me kind of anonymous, (an alter ego if you will), and see how they just gave me less to worry about when it came to what other people would think.  Up until now I thought that talking to women on there just came natural to me.  Now after thinking about it and reflecting back on it, I see that it all had to do with the fact that I wasn’t a terrible writer, asked people questions, women read what I had to say, and just like in person they thought I was alright and started responding.  Alas if an “in person” opportunity came up for me to start actually having a conversation with most of the woman that read my blog out from behind the comforts of my big ass 19 inch CRT monitor you can bet that even Shy Elevator Harold would have more “game” than I.

:: inserts blog here about how I’m so not a fan of using the word “game” in that way::

Don’t get me wrong, just because I’m not all about having “game” and that took me 9 months of psyching myself up to ask a girl out, didn’t mean sex wasn’t ever on my mind.  It was on my mind all the damn time (and still is haha) I was a typical male teenager during those 9 months, and the fact the fact that it took me 9 months to just get the guts to ask a girl out just meant that I had That much more time to think about it.

So there I sat…this girl crazy kid, finally finding a way that I can “talk” to women.  Why wouldn’t I want to write about being single… or be at least a little more risqué talking more openly about sex?  Especially when attractive women would respond.  Sure people write what they like, and while I did and do that, I initially just wanted to be a better communicator with women.  I Absolutely Never wanted to write about that stuff to go meet women and have one night stands, I just assumed that if whoever I was talking to was into reading/talking about sex then I’d be more likely to meet someone who would be able to compete with a lifetime of pent up sexual energy.

Well, after the days of Catch 27, another site, and a few posts here and there for Facebook and Audio Cotton I end up here.   I am in a place where I really want to write more and am in need of an outlet.  Yet, as much as I really enjoyed my previous blog format, I have been hesitant about going public with those topics.  See, some of those are topics you might not want to talk about at your local “churtempleagogue” or the family dinner table, and like anyone I have a reputation to consider. I run a business, people I see every day may think differently of me and some of my choices, and to any potential employer this (and any other internet related thing with “me” on it ) is pretty much part of my resume.

So with all that to consider, and this burning need to write I started to look at the goals of any potential project.  I really wanted to be able to use this blog to, not only scratch my creative itch, but to talk about cool things are going on with my business, help expose people to great music by doing things like album reviews, blog about art, help people in parts of my network connect with people in other parts of my network, help/inspire people with AD(H)D, work on my web development skills, and (among lots of other things) allow people to just get to know me better.

Most of that is pretty straightforward.  I can write about all sorts of things publicly here, make it work, and feel no worries about who sees it. And although those non-dinner table topics won’t consume this blog, those were the things that I wasn’t sure how to fit in here and still be ok with slapping my name on it.

I thought long, then I thought hard, short, and even thought soft… it took a while but I started to hash out some blog style options.  I started by making lists of things that I would or would not write about if I went “public” like this; and in the end I kept coming up with only one solution.  I just needed to have 2 blogs.  One written by “me” where I played it safe, laid down a little awesomeness to the page, and you hopefully loved every last word; and another blog written by a pseudonym that, where instead of writing about local music, Audio Cotton or and other personally identifiable things, took the filter off and allowed people to get to know more about who I really am…polished “resume” detractors and all.  (oh the irony)

For the longest time I couldn’t see a way around keeping some topics in that anonymous format.  Eventually though I chose to write a blog by “me” and put it all in there (or out there depending on how you look at it).

I look at it this way:

I really want people to know who I am, and I know that nobody is perfect.  Sure, I will talk about things like mental illness, how I think it’s fun to go clubbing wearing the most attention grabbing outfit in the room

::coughhumancandycanewithactualcandycanestapedtohisbodycough::

How I’ve been intimate with 3 women in my life that had significant others,  hell I’ve even made a girl that I wasn’t really dating cry on a casual date.

But with all that said, and as imperfect as I am, my parents raised me to be a good person with pretty kick ass morals (thanks mom and dad).  In the end, whenever I have been faced with any decision where I could make a choice to be actually “bad” I knew that in the end I have only myself to live with.  I feel Terrible about that girl crying (although she totally got me back), and as far as the women with significant others, none of those relationships happened without some Major internal conflict.

I guess in the end, being good is totally subjective, and people will judge you no matter what.  One doesn’t build great friendships on just kind of knowing someone’s story and if personal friends of mine aren’t fans of the bits of controversial things I sprinkle in here then it would only make sense for me to know.

After writing that last section, I realized that this blog is more likely to have a positive impact on my life and actual “resume”.  I’m ok with choosing a life where I can express myself and be potentially closer to my friends over worrying about a stranger looking at this in a poor light and not hiring me.  Plus, this kid’s got morals and most people will see and respect that.  Either way, being better connected with more people will totally expand my overall “reach” and in the end would probably enhance the effectiveness of my actual resume.

After reading this all again haha I realized that I do have to consider my reputation at least a little.  For example, I want to teach one day, (probably music business to kids), but if it were to be in a public institution like a school what would my employers/the school board think of seeing the edgy side of me?

I just stopped to think and then answer that question to myself.  I’ll be honest, the only thing that I’ve ever done that I have heard people get fired for has to deal with dating someone who is spoken for.  As for clubbing? Sure I may have gone all candy cane or worn all purple and topped it off with some grape gum and/or Fanta, but it’s not like  I’m about to go “Full Monty” at the Bird Cage. As for any risqué writings?  So far, the topics are more like 2014′s version of PG-13, with some R rated things sprinkled in.  All things that many people experience in one form or another in their day to day life.  If I ever got a job teaching kids, then I would obviously remove some things… But not without fully disclosing such things to my employer.

The fact that I am writing about this now and have had other blogs that had some anonymity before shows that I know that there are times and places when, you do have to be careful about being too open about things.  But having things to hide?  To me that’s waay worse.  I guess what I am saying, is that I care more about living a life where I don’t have to worry about what people know about me, and that if I can personally live with the good and bad choices that I make then I don’t really have to care about what details about my life come out in my writing.

So there it is…

….and here I am!

Thank you so much for reading this… I hope it is the start of many kick ass things to come!  

Oh yeah…Feel free to comment… or not… Whatever works!