The mates of artists are special people or they move on, leaving the artist with even more things to write, paint, dance, act, sing, create about. But leaving them ALONE none the less. Those of us with mates who endure our out of the mainstream-ness are luckier than we realize.
Let me list the artistic transgressiions I’ve either witnessed with my friends or have actually inflicted on my wife and family:

• Not hearing important stuff being said to me because I’m composing something in my head or have headphones on.  I’m always composing in my head with invisible earphones on. Lately my wife asks, “Can I talk?” which is so incredibly respectful, it makes me feel guilty. Especially when I’m in the middle of something and can only bark out, “Not yet!” so as not to lose the thread. I love her so much.
• Not being able to make various social occasions because of a gig or rehearsal. This is usually met with quiet understanding. I think. Sometimes I’m reminded of it later. I feel like I’ve neglected something important. Like several relationships. I need a best seller to justify this behavior. I must be such a pain in the ass.
• Talking WAY too much about the art and the biz.  I am often reminded of this. Especially if I mention that somebody else is boring or repetitious. Ouch! I must be such a pain in the ass.
• Making the same noises over and over for hours. You can only sound proof your studio so much without reducing it’s size. And the size of your savings. Or borrowing limit. If I try to please I’ll stop practicing or stop searching for the perfect note, chord or phrase. Not good. I must be such a pain in the ass.
• Forgetting to bring stuff to a gig and making that emergency call. I once forgot my change of clothes on a hot summer day. I was 40 minutes away. In sweat stained boater shorts and T-shirt. Cathy rescued me. I bought her dinner but I didn’t buy a free pass from her to do it again or to ever let me forget about it. I must be such a pain in the ass.
• Talking bandmates, collaborators, colleagues “off the ledge” at the expense of quality mate time. Playing with fire here. You better be prepared to spend an equal amount of quality time with the person who counts the most. I love her so much.
• Spending too much money on tools of the trade. I’m self sustaining but I know many who dip into household funds. You better come up with a best seller or scale it back. YOU  must be such a pain in the ass.
• Making and then bitching about bad business decisions. Keep it to yourself or invite unending criticism. Don’t turn your mate into the pain in the ass you already are.
• Forgetting to tend to routine tasks like car maintenance, doctor’s appointment, cleaning up after myself or even cleaning myself. Get an iPhone. Enter EVERYthing in the calendar and put alarms on each item.  You know here the pain resides.
• Annoying the neighbors.  Um, so what. They either have been or will eventually be just as annoying. Everybody has the ability to cause the pain we’er talking about.
• Networking on a night out. Sometimes I’m encouraged to do this. Other times, I’m just a pain in the ass.  I haven’t learned the rules on this one yet. I’m always in jeopardy of making the wrong call here.
• Getting impatient when she doesn’t understand what the hell I’m talking about. Serious, egregious error. This deserves a classification. Maybe pain up the ass or just asshole. Maybe another body part or organ is involved here.

After looking that list over I really can’t understand why she puts up with me. So I asked. She pointed out that we are all artists and should learn to give each other enough slack to express ourselves however we choose. I love her so much.

I don’t think I could live with me. But I have little choice. No matter how many out of body experiences I have, I’m coming back. Until I don’t.

Performing artists who also create, need all the help they can get. I believe in self help to begin with and hope to attract support. Below is a list of obstacles I attacked as suggested in The Flinch.  Besides looking for as many weird or uncomfortable things to do in the general course of my day as possible, I’ve outboxed a number of adversaries. Not in the heavyweight division yet. Not by a long shot. But I’ll fight all these guys again and again and work my way up. Let me at ‘em!

• Music creation and practice has greatly improved.  I have learned to slay the do-it-later monster. Do THIS later, monster! Is there an emoticon for flipping the bird? ,,!,,  There, that works for me.
• Making the bed with my right hand in my pocket. In fact doing more things left handed.  Can’t hurt to be ambidextrous. Haven’t tried throwing left yet but I don’t generally throw things. Not even a fit. I’ve stopped yelling, “You Bastard, you!” every time I drop something or foul something up. Now I smile or laugh, even as a freshly peeled beet bounces across the white kitchen floor.
•  Meditating while doing cardio?  I thought I’d have to  find a machine that I can strap myself in or I’d be meditating in traction from a hospital bed.  But I did an hour on a Star Trak® elliptical while listening first to Personal Om app and then just no earbuds and counting while visualizing the numbers floating at me and away from me on my breaths. I can do that! And so it continues. One hour saved! But I’m not giving up on the hour I spend with Holosync. Oh, you will learn about this on coming weeks.
• Getting over my chills.  Look, below 70 degrees is cold for somebody living in Florida. Been chilly lately and obsessing over it. Just started ignoring the chill and things are improving bit by bit. I even tried the cold shower challenge. Unpleasant to be sure but I didn’t die.
• Learning two new Spanish words a day. I’m thinking it would make more sense to learn two phrases. You get grammar with that. Got some apps for that. Quires un poco de agua?
• Learning all the songs for my next Starkeeper gig. Some of them are my own which I rarely play. This is coming along well.  Arranged for my pals Joe Surowiec and Del Delarmo to play with me on various instruments. Making this a very small payout for me but a fun time in downtown Sarasota in a place devoted to singer songwriters.
•  Give up on sleeping aids.  Using the Silva Life Method to both gain energy and get to sleep.
• Programming my dreams starting with remembering to wake up and write them down on the iPad. Silva once again. Nothing exciting to report but I bet this space will be home to some interesting episodes in the future.
• Recording a musical idea a day. Deconstruct songs that I like to do this. I own too many gadgets to accomplish this. Watch out eBay! Captured a songwriting session with Jax recently.  Editing and posting to come. Right here
• Beginning my video storytelling series. Coming to you in this blog soon!
• Try to gain 15 fans a day. This is taking SO much time but it’ll keep at it. YOU can really help me out with this by clicking the LIKE button here and recommending me to your friends. Come on, will ya! You’ve come this far.
• Work on one new song a week. Beating this goal just now. Got to make completion a goal.
• Abs/pushups/rebounding every day. Yup and ugh.
• Write a song without rhymes. This will take a while.  This is tricky. Think I’ll start one about an orange.

The scary thing is that with all I feel I must do, I use 12+ hours a day. Did I mention that I also have a life?  I teach guitar, I play gigs. I help with housework I spend quality time with my wife and sometimes my friends. How do I even have friends? Other artists will put up with a lot more from me than say, retired golfers, of which there is no shortage  around here. Next blog deals with friending an artist. Yes, spell check, “friending” is a verb now.

These days I don’t have enough minutes to get done all I need and want to do. Most of my wants are needs. Not all of my needs are wants. But they are needs just the same. Do I want to work on publicity rather than music, for instance? No, I’d rather sing about other people. Compile tax info? Right after my root canal. Straighten up my studio? There’s probably a song under some of those piles.

Takes time to prioritize my many goals. I could let sleep become my enemy in this pursuit of making time count.  Instead, I’m attempting to control and remember my dreams. Important stuff is going on during those Delta brain wave hours. Gotta make that work for me.  You see how driven I’ve become? Multitasking sleep.  There’s either a book or a song in there.:
The hours I keep will be the death of me
Multitask my sleep to use the rest of me
Eh, some words just don’t work in songs. Add “multitask” to “Volkswagen” on my list of Not Lyrical Words.

On top of that, I’ve become extremely interested in a book by Julian Smith called FLINCH.  Enlightening to say the least.  It’s gonna be fascinating to see if I can change some of my behaviors. The idea is to take whatever punch comes your way without flinching and fight right back. Better yet, Flinch forward instead of away. This makes perfect sense and I’ve seen it work recently by a lizard on my lanai (patio for you non-Floridians).  I approached a lizard and instead of  running away, he ran right at me and between my feet, disappearing behind me. I did not expect that. He should have flinched and run away.  He defeated me with guts and surprise. This is the way I’m going to face problems I traditionally run away from. The book is also big on getting you to do stuff you are afraid of.  Take a cold shower, talk to strangers.  I’m working on it. Still cleaning dog dirt off of a sneaker to prove it.
Not afraid of dog shit
But I’m not gonna slide head first through it
Okay, maybe that’s a rap song. I offer it for free to any rappers out there Googling the dog shit tag. Just leave the explode and erode rhyme alone, please. See below.

I continue with my resolution to complete last year’s goals. The problem is still prioritizing and scheduling. Health has to be number one. Mental as well as physical.  I can easily spend three hours a day on those two (as I am very mental and get pretty physical at times too). That includes preparing healthy foods and meditating. Need to see if I can meditate and do cardio at the same time. Since I have my doubts, I will flinch forward with that tomorrow.  I will certainly flinch back at my aching muscles when I want to quit on a rep.
One more drop squat or the world will explode
Gym work stops rot, so I’ll never erode
Look, songs start somewhere. I can at least use explode and erode someplace else. Welcome to my mind.

Music practice and writing easily fills 5 hours. They tend to blend and one steals from the other. And then the many internet chores I do steals from both of them.  Gotta work that problem out.  Gotta tame my Facebook Jones.  It can be worse than cocaine at times. So I will flinch back by not moving to a song unless my practice is done. The internet stays off until I finish whatever song I’m composing. Gonna prove that today. Jax gave me a good pop lyric to develop and supply music to.

Internet chores eat about four hours.  Email, Facebook and publicity are the main conspirators.  Can’t really see how to trim any more. So I’ll flinch back by unsubscribing to a LOT of my regular email.

Avoidance, procrastination and denial are things that make me flinch and run away from what I need to do. Gonna be a fun adventure fighting back. Next week, I’ll report.  You gotta get this Flinch book. It’s free!

These were largely original bands doing covers of someone who has obviously given our art so much. As I watched young musicians showing Ziggy’s influence, it struck me that age means absolutely nothing.  It was starkly obvious. I can only hope it was noticeable to those in the crowd who use agism as a bench mark to value music.  I saw musicians who were born twenty years after Bowie had his biggest hits, covering him with conviction and taste. I saw older musicians who you might mistake for accountants or engineers, if you saw them on the street, covering with unmatched passion.

I felt deep camaraderie with every musician who played this event. The support and warmth we had for each other was sincere and deeply felt.  I never felt better about the choice as my second career.

I’m a solo act most of the time but I’ve fallen in love with working in a band for special projects and I know there are not only more on the way (Elton John Tribute, anyone?) but Jax Resto and I have cooked up a few ideas of our own.  We’re writing and will be recording and so we will be performing as BudahRest as material is honed into shape. For these tribute sets, we are Bud and His Buds. We should be looking for a beer sponsorship, no?
We had video shot by the talented crew from Tampa Bay Video  and it is a couple of weeks off from editing completion but you will see it here.

In the meantime the lesson is, age means nothing. Get  over it.

Rehearsing this material (three songs: Changes, Sorrow and The Jean Genie) has been a blast. Love working with this crew and although we are not a permanent band, I hope we can do more projects together. I feel certain we will. On drums is my new song writing collaborator, Jax Resto, Bass is Bri Hays, Keys are played by Joe Surowiec and Lead Guitar is Patrick Lee. I’m playing rhythm guitar and vocals.  The whole band lends back up vox.

If you’re local, I hope you come out to see an amazing show by 13 artists in Sarasota and more in St. Pete and Tampa.  I’m on at 5:40 sharp, Sunday Jan. 8.

Check out two of our rehearsal tracks:

01 Changes (D. Bowie)

02 Sorrow

By their example, I’ve always bent over backwards to help my musical friends and I’ll continue to do so. This tendency does need some fine tuning. In the past few years, through three of my own CD releases, I’ve contributed through various KickStarter programs and the like  to help people get their recordings made. I’ve also bought a number of CDs from friends.  I didn’t do any of that with the expectation that I’d receive any help in return.  I just run on the principal of paying it forward.  I’ve seen less evidence than I’d like that many others run their music biz the same way.

I’ll always do what I can to help. Here’s how: Instead of asking me for a Kick Starter donation, let’s just promise to swap CDs, okay?  I’ll always offer bands a spot on my bill as long as they do the same. Still waiting for some. I’ll lend equipment knowing I can borrow. I’ll promote your gig when you promote mine. I’ll work with you gratis because I know I can depend on you to return the favor.  I’ll say nice things about you or nothing at all. I know you’ll do the same.

We may play different genres but I still appreciate your art.  Every note we play and every groove we run has been played by someone else before we were born. So let’s not take ourselves too seriously but let’s keep expressing ourselves in our own way.

Happy New Year. Last year was pretty damn wonderful and busy. This  year  will be more of the same.

An App for that: Every human function will have an app by the end of the year.  I have one to show where the public rest rooms are and where to get Starbucks so how far can we be from an iBlood Test, an iMood Enhancer, an iAppetite Controller/Satisfier, iOrgasm anybody?

Occupy this: Tent cities will spring up anyplace there are unemployed. Invest in canvas.

Electronic LED green hair: Led lighting matched with solar power will give us such innovations as instant hair color changes projected from LED earrings, necklaces, headbands, powered by solar collectors imbedded in our clothing.

Bizarre oddities: New species will start appearing to replace those going extinct. Expect naked polar bears,
Reverse osmosis gills on fish, domed and gated communities for honey bees, Monsonto resistant wild corn and wheat, Oil eating algae that will defecate plastic,

Music cliches banned: In a move to help culture evolve, BMI, ASCAP, SESEC and the Library of Congress will refuse to register songs that use cliches. Several entire genres go silent.

Chocolate declared a vegetable: Chocolate will take it’s rightful place beside pizza as a vegetable in school cafeterias. It will melt all over the food pyramid making the whole thing more appetizing.

Oil wells declared as persons: If corporations are people, so are their offspring

Poor people declared as non-persons: Aren’t they already?

News networks suddenly realize how ridiculous they sound: At a conscious raising media convention, all the major TV News anchors and corespondents get a look at themselves after being secretly dosed with LSD/truth serum punch. They become embarrassed, point and laugh, vow to forever shut up and go away. They eventually go into recovery and everything gets back to normal.

Performers who’s demographic aims at sex appeal, will appear naked with no sound: Britney, and that entire ilk will realize that production costs can be cut to almost zero if they just do naked web cam with no sound. Their profits soar.

CD sales will boom at naked gigs. Performers still trying to sell CDs find that a naked merch table is the only way to go.

And who knows what else might happen? The Christmas song broadcast that my writing partner/drummer Jax Resto and I did along with bassist Bri Hays, was good fun despite some technical difficulties. I’ll perform those two songs again with Jax soon.  In the meantime I fed her another one liner and she returned two lyrics to me overnight. The girl may be my best Christmas present yet. Has Santa sent me a human song writing machine? I still have the Christmas weekend to play at my regular gig at Back Eddy Bistro, a private Boxing Day Party and the New Year weekend. Then the really busy season is upon us here in southwest  Florida. I still plan to get more done this year than last. I don’t do resolutions. I just stay busy on my goals. Adjusting them as time moves forward.  I write, I perform, I make new alliances, my business grows, I stay healthy, I realize my happiness hourly.  I make good Karma. Happy New Year!