The 7-Year Itch

So it’s been about 7 years since I’ve posted a blog entry… What persuaded me to post now? Well, in a roundabout way Brandon Boyd of the band Incubus inspired me. I ordered his 3 books around my birthday in August and just recently got around to reading them all. I ordered them because at the beginning of 2020 I had bought a ticket and a meet and greet package for an Incubus concert that was supposed to happen in the summer and we all know those plans got canceled due to the pandemic. So the books were my treat to try to give me a little substitute for missing out on that experience.

Brandon's books which you can purchase at brandonboyd.me

Now I’ve been a fan of Incubus since 1999 and had the pleasure of seeing them in concert in 2001 at HFStival. Seeing them live made me love the band even more. I remember Brandon with his dreads at the time, not only singing, but playing a didgeridoo and rocking out on a djembe drum, and I instantly had a crush. Anyone who knows me knows I get crushes rather easily. But he was one of my fascinations from that point on.

He used to have an email list you could subscribe to and he would send out emails at the time, similar to what a blog is nowadays, with random journal entries he would write. I used to love reading those emails. He’s a very deep, enlightened human being with a great perspective on the world and he’s also quite amusing too. His thoughts make me think and also radiate a positive energy. If you’ve listened to any Incubus music, it’s also evident in his clever lyric writing.

I didn’t intend for this to be all about Incubus but I might as well tell the whole story since I started… I got to see Incubus again at Moby’s Area One Festival in 2001 as well I believe. He had cut off his dreads at that point. Then I saw them in 2003 at Lollapalooza and my last time was in 2012 at the DC101 Chili Cookoff. So I’ve never actually been to a full Incubus show, it’s been kind of an inside joke that if I went to a music festival, Incubus was there.

Something drew me back to them early last year. I think it was the release of their new song “Our Love” and I really liked the video for it too. Then I found that YouTube has a ton of live concerts and music content now, and with the help of my RokuTV I got hooked on watching music videos and live performances and even found a few years of music I had missed out on. They have continued to be a comfort for me during this pandemic.

So back to Brandon Boyd’s books… They are full of his art, journal entries and randomness. Yes, he also paints and makes art in addition to fronting a band. This is interesting to me now especially because after my divorce I found a love for painting. So going through his books made me realize something about myself… Since I was a kid I loved writing. I wrote stories during elementary and middle school age, then in high school I leaned more toward music so my words delved more into writing poetry or possible song lyrics. I also got into journalism from taking that class and working on the school newspaper during high school. So my writing transformed into journalistic styles as well.

In reading some of Brandon’s writing, he started out with art and then later got into writing and then music. For me I started with writing, then got into music, and much later found art. These connections are what inspired me to write this blog today. I realized I hadn’t written in a long, long time and it’s my most familiar form of creative self-expression. I don’t know if all creative types delve into all the forms of the arts, but maybe many of us do experiment with different forms. I still love music, but making music isn’t my strongest talent. I wish I was better at songwriting and performing music, but perhaps it’s not my deepest calling. Writing is the easiest or most natural thing for me so I really should get back to it more often. Even if it is just blogging, it’s something.

So to fill in the gap a little bit from my last blog entry about 7 years ago… What happened in 7 years? Well I got married and divorced, got a new job, got 2 new cats after my former 2 passed away, still live in my condo and still drive the same car. My 2002 Chevy was given a 1-2 year life expectancy last year though, so I’m trying to hold off another year or so before having to buy a new one, just so I can catch up on some debt first. Those are the boring life details haha. I didn’t go to many concerts during that time period… I did get to see Dead Sara, Kiss, Transiberian Orchestra and Hollywood Vampires. I think those were it besides my ex’s band. You can catch up on some videos from all of those on my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/mewzak

Back to art and such… As I mentioned earlier, after my divorce I discovered painting. This actually started with the fad of these little painting and sipping wine places popping up. I decided to try one at Painting with a Twist and loved it. Unfortunately the location near me closed permanently during the pandemic, but I went there about once a month for about a year to make paintings and sip on a few glasses of wine. I started out with the instructor-led classes but then found I preferred the open studio classes where people are doing different paintings of their choice from the selections and given an example to reference and minimal instruction. I liked going at my own pace and figuring out how to do it on my own with a few tips more than going by the pace of an instructor and the whole class doing the same painting. This became a sort of creative therapy for me. It was a way for me to be expressive and create something I can keep hanging on my walls.

I also tried a paint pouring class once that a lady just did out of her own home. I really enjoyed that but I’ve been wanting to experiment more with it. Whereas regular painting focuses more on the details and usually trying to copy or mimic something, such as trees, the moon, water, and other landscape imagery I did at Painting with a Twist, paint pouring is almost the opposite. It’s more random or chaotic, a sense of letting go and letting it morph into its own thing, and I really liked that too. You can pick the colors or the framework so to speak, but the end result is mostly out of your control. It’s strangely releasing to find beauty in the chaos. I recently finally got most of my own supplies to try more of that on my own at home and also do some more regular painting on my own. I might share some pictures of my creations on here in the future.

Besides painting, I also got into wine. Perhaps Painting with a Twist started that little spark, and then the pandemic ignited it. Not in the way you would think necessarily… My former bass guitar teacher runs a winery and I saw posts on Facebook about struggles with the state of things, so I joined their wine club to help support a friend’s small business, and in return I’ve learned about different kinds of wine and found out which ones I like. Rogers Ford Farm Winery is also off a back road, secluded kind of in the country, in the woods and an old farmhouse tasting room. The setting was a welcome stress reliever over the past year as well.

My other best therapy during the pandemic was nature therapy. I have been walking in the woods at Alum Springs Park about once a month since this craziness began and it’s been my breath of fresh air to have some quiet moments amongst the trees and babbling springs and scampering squirrels and I even had a magical encounter with a deer one morning. I like going earlier in the mornings before more people show up. Sometimes I’ve been the only one there at the time and it’s very peaceful.

I think that’s all I have to say for tonight… Until next time.