This is what you have to endure when I practice: Sometimes off-key, outta tune, lukewarm, loud & repetitive. Dion's “Drip Drop” has a groove I can’t measure with just an acoustic guitar. I gotta fill that space with some sort of oral sleight-of-hand ( at least I think that’s what I need to do). A real look-I’m-trying-to-make-up-for-a-lack-of-rhythm-section song and dance. I could do it quietly and less offensive, but where’s the fun in that? ‘Cause if I’m not chasing the kick, then what’s the point? I need those kicks. I need it to kick me awake in the morning and scream into my eyes. I wanna be kicked in the ribs by a drill Sargent until my parasympathetic system ignites and I’m nothing more than a beaming ball of violent ubiety. I’m Ed Sheeran with a gun in his mouth. I’m Elvis Presley’s heartburn. I’m selling things that can’t be bought and chasing things that can’t be caught. Churning that soil until I die, so that my body may sing for worms and hum for birds that devour verse.

Giving myself permission to sound awful, to fail, and to sing off-key has become a liberating experience. I am free to try my hardest and not care about the outcome. I don't want fame. I want to be proud of the music I make.  The road is long and sounding mediocre is how you get there, Or maybe, I'll never arrive. I'll forever be in a constant state of attempting to arrive and never truly getting there. I've come to enjoy that process very much, it's those moments in between being and becoming that most satisfy me.