I Have Lost My Spark

I Have Lost My Spark.

I Have Lost My Spark

                                                                Once one has lost the spark that once drove him, where is he to turn to try and regain momentum in order to go on w/  what he has spent an entire life trying to accomplish? The image above best represents what I have been seeing in my mind, dancing & bouncing around in my head along w/ every single thought that has entered my brain from as far back as I can remember as a child.  As I now am on the brink of seeing my dream become reality, the spark has disappeared. Why is this? I have been asking myself over, & over, & over again, daily, “what the hell happened”?  I sat down to write this post for my blog, in a deep state of depression, and I think maybe i am in hopes of it serving as a self-help kind of therapy that might put me back on the path to completing what i started. I spent almost 4 years, prior to signing my record contract, writing 250+ songs. I remember wondering if I had wasted all that time, not knowing whether my songs were worthy of anything or not. I took a trip to Enid Oklahoma, entered a competition where I turned out to be the only solo act on the bill, got a standing ovation, was the only artist there that was called back on stage for an encore, had multiple offers from various bands to open shows for them, and ended up I was the only act involved that the artist development company who produced the show, took on as a client. So I guess that should have told me that yes, my songs are worthy of the time spent on them…but,  being the narcissist that I am, with 100’s of conspiracy theories running rampant through my head,  the first words out of my mouth, as all these people rushed the stage at the end of my performance, was “who paid all you people to pretend that you like me so much?”..as I was thinking  “Why”? Even to this day, I am not 100% sure that someone did not put them up to it. Nevertheless, both my longtime friend’s, Mark & Frank, who had accompanied me to Enid, both stood w/ tears of joy for me in their eyes, convincing me, at least temporarily, otherwise..Although doubt still remains in my head to this day. Close to a year, later I recieve the call from the A&R rep at  the label that we signed with, offering me the record deal. You would think this would be enough to convince me that everything was going to be O.K….Not!!!…My life has been much worse since the signing of that contract than one could ever imagine. I have been miserable & totally stressed like no other time in my life..Mentally, it has taken more of a toll on me than the nightmare I went through in 1995 as I layed in the hospital, just waking up from a coma that I was in for 4 1/2 weeks and finding that my weight had dropped from 178 lbs to 92 lbs, having to learn to walk again, with the aid of braces and a walker, w/ 6 specialists giving me a 0% chance of survival…..yes, this has been much worse than that. I have been bombarded by “the music industry”..I already was very leery of poeple in the world today..being that things had changed so very much, to the point of destroying the attitudes of the “WE GENERATION”, that the peace movement in the 60’s had created, replacing it w/ the “ME GENERATION”…an attitude of “I am going to screw you over before you get a chance to screw me”..that truly is the general attitude on the streets in the world we live in..but, NEVER have I experienced anthing like what I have dealt with from the lowlife, waste of human skin, lieing, back stabbing, crooked individuals lurking around every corner waiting to pounce on a starving artist who they might possibly be pouncing on for the very last time..either because they have messed w/ the wrong person and the odds caught up w/ them, leading to legal action or maybe “illegal action”..where guns and such might be involved, or they have messed w/ a guy who has been pushed to the limit and taken advantage of so many, many times that he has reached his breaking point and is ready to call it quits… giving up his lifelong dream, which In my case, I am addicted to this dream, so my only way out would be to call it quits permanently….leaving this world that is in such a mess, behind…I cannot even begin to explain what goes on behind the scenes in this industry. Trust me, it is sickening, disgusting and beyond anyones belief who has never had to deal with it.  I, like all of you, have heard my entire life that the music business is a rough and ruthless industry..bahahaha..that was a very nice way of saying bend over and grab your ankles and if you do not and you don’t keep your mouth shut, …….well, you know where I am heading w/ this….So rather than continueing on w/ what will only come back to bite me in the ass, I will pull myself back up, continue to stand on the principals of peace, love and understanding (as I sit w/ my double barrel shotgun at my side) and rather than fight them one on one, I will fight them through my lyrics my actions and hopefully reach that plateau I am trying to reach in order to use it as a platform to help change this screwed up place that we all have forcefully been brought into by our loving parents..lol..I know for sure that if either of my folks had have had any earthly idea that I would ever come to the point of dealing w/ such individuals in my lifetime, they would have steered me in a totally different direction.  Music was once a thing of joy for me…no longer is it that!..it is merely a tool now that i am obsessed w/ and require in order to finish doing what I was put here to do. Hopefully the joy and love for my craft will return again before I go to my grave. The ONLY time I am truly happy is as I sit at my piano, doing what I do. That leaves me w/ anywhere from 18 to 24                                                                    hours of being unhappy every single day. ~  GJM