Music Snobbary

I love music. Let me rephrase that, I love good music.

I have been called a music snob, I've been called a hipster (albeit by my self), I have also been called a music guru, and told I have a good taste in music. Music is important to me, and I take it very seriously.

They say that smell is the sense most strongly tied to a person's memory. For me music very strongly tied to my memories. Listening to certain music can bring back strong memories of experiences or certain times in my life. When I listen to the album About Today by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti I am instantly reminded of driving around Atlanta at night during the fall. When I listen to Minus the Bear I feel like I'm back on the beach. Some music reminds me of high school, some of college. Music I listened to during good times and music I listened to during low times. The song Monsters by Band of Horses will forever be my favorite song because of the close emotional bond I felt to it. The song basically talks about how we have problems, and there are always going to be awful people, and how we try to hide from them. There is a line in the song that says, "Though, to say we've got much hope; if I am lost its only for a little while" its so optimistic in the face of people constantly trying to bring us down. It also helps that its a beautiful song too. I still tear up sometimes when I listen to it.

The point is that music moves us. We relate to lyrics, rhythm and melody. We can connect to artists and feel a kinship to them, all based on their music. These bands become extensions to ourselves, and can be how we express ourselves. We feel loyalty to our bands, and defend them. And if you have ever been told you are a music snob, or even had a favorite indie band, you might have experienced the agony of what its like when your band betrays you...by going mainstream.

It sounds silly, but if you are a music fan it can kind of feel like a betrayal when your band finds mainstream success. I have been chastised for feeling this way numerous times. Why does it bother us so much to hear our beloved band on the radio? I can't speak for everyone but for me its because of a couple of reasons.

1. It changes the band. There have been several indie artists whose music became much more accessible and less adventurous.
2. The band doesn't mean as much to the new found "fans." Your favorite band is like you childhood best friend who just ping-pong table and suddenly has a new found popularity. These new fans are quick to drop your band just as your best friend's popularity is sure to wane when someone in the neighborhood gets a pool table.

I'm not saying that just because you hear your favorite band's song on the radio that they've completely gone "mainstream" just look at Modest Mouse and Radiohead they have each had major hits and it hasn't changed their music.

I turn on the radio today and at any moment can hear bands that I like, that started out as Indie bands, and I start to worry. What if my worry is all in vain? What if the music industry is finally starting to have higher standards. I mean after all, Arcade Fire won a Grammy and Bon Iver was nominated. Maybe we have Internet Radio services to thank for this shift in demand for better music, now that broadcast radio stations are no longer our only source for new music.

No matter what your opinion on music is, I think we can all agree that we are glad Nickelback's popularity is dropping.

Golden Age of Television or My Dream Job

As I have mentioned, and will probably mention many more times, my aspirations are to be a professional writer. I would love to write novels, I would love a job as a copywriter, or an essayist that writes thought provoking pieces, however my highest aspirations, my dream job, would be to a screenwriter for a television show. I know what you are thinking, and yes I do indeed reach for the stars. 

I'm not really that great at small talk, in fact it's a small wonder that I am not legally required to make that disclaimer upon introducing myself to new people. As far as societal rules for talking to someone new, the first question after asking someone their name is to ask them what they do. For a long time I have not really had a good answer to give. "Oh I work at GNC" or "I'm a bank teller" even now, I have a pretty interesting job as a Youth Care Specialist at a residential foster home, however I still always feel the need to include the fact that my real aspirations lie as a writer. Those in which I converse with are usually more well-versed in the art of small talk and ask the next logical question, "what do you want to write?" to which I generally respond, "Anything. Books, blogs, copywriting, and so on, but really I would love to be a writer for a TV sitcom." For whatever reason that generally gets a laugh, and now as I reflect on these conversations I should probably respond to their laughter by telling them that I should use that line sometime in a script. 

Why do people respond with laughter when I tell them I'd love to write for a television show? I know I am not the first to say this, but we truly in a golden age of television. There are so many brilliant television shows on the air today. HBO and Showtime have blazed the trail with shows like The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, The Newsroom, Bored to Death, and now networks like AMC, FX, and more recently Netflix have followed suit with Mad Men, Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Damages, Sons of Anarchy, and House of Cards. Even half hour comedies are breaking new ground with Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, Community, 30 Rock, The Office, Arrested Development, and so on. 

The truth is, television is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry. For a long time there has been a stigma for "top tier" actors to do television. Alec Baldwin made jokes about it on 30 Rock (in 30 Rock made this joke several times, even with a cameo from Tom Hanks), David Cross had a joke about it on Arrested development. It has been seen as a step down for an actor to do television. I read an article yesterday that said that Steven Spielberg is predicting the "implosion" of the film industry. In the article they cited George Lucas saying that with the rising costs of producing and marketing films with the pressure to make them accessible for the masses is producing highly publicized  flops and unoriginal concepts/remakes/sequels while television is creating more ambitious shows for certain niches of audiences. Spielberg said that the more original and adventurous idea for movies are taking their pitches to television studios. People are now opting to stay home and binge watch original serial television shows than go to the movies to see something something safe and predictable. 

I love the long form story telling that comes with television. Consider a television show as a novel whereas a movie is just a short story. Television is becoming so much more than just fodder for the water cooler the following day. Right now on Facebook, Buzzfeed and other sites there are far more conversations about people's favorite television characters than there are movie characters. Why is that? Because there is more time and space to develop your characters, make them relatable and lovable, or vile and complex. When you write a television show, you have the ability and opportunity to create characters that people care about, can relate to and connect with. When you write a television show you have the ability to look more closely into everyday life and show the beauty in the little things without feeling the pressure to make everything on a grand scale. For the majority of people, life is lived in between the stories we tell, and that in itself is a story worth telling.

Plus, who wouldn't want to get paid to sit in a room and come up with jokes all day?

Antique shop (or Thrift Shop to be more topical)

I love where I live. 

My wife and I live in a loft in a community called Commercial Street in Springfield Missouri. It sits along the Frisco Railroad and once upon a time was a transportation and cultural hub in Springfield. It was home to theaters, saloons, factories, elegant hotels, and restaurants. As time went on, as it often seems to do, businesses like Wal-Mart, shopping malls, and large chain restaurants moved into town forcing the local businesses to close their doors, as is often the case. Commercial Street began to decay. From what I am told, Commercial Street became a very unsavory place to visit. And, as many cities are starting to do, a revitalization has begun to bring life and commerce back to downtown urban areas.  Slowly but surely, Commercial street is beginning to rebrand itself as a premier place to live, work, and play. 

As far as restaurants are concerned, we are developing into an international culinary hub. I live across from my favorite coffee shop and cafe called Big Mammas (they have soups and specialty grilled cheese sandwiches that will forever change your opinion on soups and sandwiches) down the road is a Springfield mainstay in Pizza House, a Lebanese place opened up a few months ago, The Artisan Oven opened below me only last month (their bread pudding was suburb), and here in a few short weeks a Peruvian place is opening up on the corner. We even have a local brewery and world renowned chocolate factory.

Outside of restaurants though, it seems that the only store fronts you will find that are not vacant are that of antique shops and thrift stores. I love these shops. The owners are some of the nicest people you will ever meet, some of whom even donated or loaned items to decorate my wife and I's vintage themed wedding. But have you ever stopped to realize the sad irony of an antique shop or a thrift store? 

I know these stores have found a new life since shows like Antique Road show, DIY television, and songs like Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" but really take time to consider the tragedy of the items in this store, or even the fact that these stores have to exist. 

Growing up in Kansas and now residing in Missouri, its not hard to drive through all these small towns that, at one time, used to be thriving communities, to see them reduced to next to nothing. When I was in college there used to be this particular route that I would travel on between my parent's home and the campus that would go through the Flint Hills, that was absolutely gorgeous. On that two and a half hour drive there were approximately towns I would drive through, and three of them are nearly run down. At one point in time, these locations were deemed a great place to live, new houses being built all the time, and I'm sure that each one of those families would never dare think that one day the place they call home, a place where under layers of paint they would find the marks of their children's heights on the wall, is now teetering upon the brink of being condemned. The roof they hung Christmas lights on near crumbling, and the porch and yard they watched their children play in is now littered with broken appliances and overgrown grass. 

It never fails that in each of these small towns there is always an antique shop, selling the last great treasures of these once great towns. Towns like Cottonwood Falls and Matfield Green have been reduced to mile markers and places for weather people to point to on a map for a reference of a storms proximity to larger towns. Yet antique stores persist in these towns, to sell the possessions that were once the envy of the entire community. 

These are objects that people loved, envied, even cherished, things that people saved up money for, things that people designed and built in a factory or by hand, and now they reside, forgotten in a shop, collecting dust. 

Take time to consider, the clothes you are wearing in this instant, the chair you are sitting in, the art on your wall, will either one day be thrown away/destroyed, end up in an antique/thrift shop, or if you're lucky passed down to remain loved and cherished. I know I for one can only hope that if my belongings are not passed on to friends and loved ones that establishments such as antique shops and thrift stores can find them homes where they can find further use. 

Another tragedy lies in the fact that these stores all over the country are closing left and right, with consumers choosing to to consume newer items. I'm guilty of it. It's a vicious cycle. Our precious new items we are so desperate to purchase and consume will also one day face the same problem. 

And so it is in considering the tragic and ironic nature of these store do we realize the futility of our possessions. They are simply objects we own for just a small window of time. The objects we love, we will grow to hate. 

Let us learn contentment. 

[insert cliche post title such as: Cameron Unfiltered or Cameron 2.0]

I realize that I have said in previous entries that this blog would be dedicated to my short stories, however I would like to amend that by saying that this blog, much like the majority of blogs in existence, shall be a vehicle in which I will convey my thoughts, which admittedly is scary, both for myself and for the reader.

Yesterday I began watching a television show called The Newsroom, which is an excellent program, one you should watch however I will not get into that right now. The basic premise of the show is that the main character, Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) is a very popular TV newscaster for cable news network, whom is recently told that he is journalistic equivalent to Jay Leno, people watch him because he does not bother them. The series basically opens with Will having a very public meltdown at a college forum he is speaking at. Without giving anything away, his programing directer basically sees a glimmer of potential of the great broadcaster Will could become and hires a new Executive Producer to bring the best out of him, in which she effectively does. Like I said, it's a great program, you should watch it. One of my favorite scenes in the show (of all 10 episodes in its vast history) is when Will is engaging with a woman who works for a gossip magazine who is trying to smear Will and his EP. Will gives a rousing speech about he and his crew are true journalists, and she should, essentially. mind her own business. She of course, in a futile attempt to save face, makes some snide remark about said rousing speech and says he will never win, to which he responds, "Eh, I don't care, I'm just some middle-aged man who never lived up to his potential, you don't want to be on the wrong end of me if I ever do."

Don't you just love it when a line from a book or a movie or song or even a TV show just resonates with you on such a deep and profound level? Given, I am in no way a middle-aged man, if anything I am twenty years Will McAvoy's junior, but regardless that line resonated with me. For my adult life (all ten years of it) it would seem that I have lead a very safe life. Much like Will McAvoy and Jay Leno, I live my life in a way so as not to bother people. I keep my views on my personal politics and religion very much private, at least in the blogosphere, and I have refrained from really publishing my writing, whether fictional or memoirs, away from the public eye (or if I'm being completely honest away from even being recorded) for the fear that it would not be good, or that it will bother people, challenge their thinking, or that I will be labeled ignorant and naive.

Ever since high school I have known that I have a talent for writing (in fact those that know me can attest that I communicate far better in writing than I do verbally). I have, on several occasions, received papers back from teachers and professors with notes saying they would like signed copies of my first book (Mr. Belsan, if you are reading this, I vividly remember you writing this on my senior paper, to which I will keep my promise). Since then I have aspired myself to become a professional writer. I still hold fast to ambitions of writing books and perhaps even a screenplay, however sadly, those dreams have been stunted by a conversation I had with a "friend while" while I was in college. I was talking with him about how I wanted to write a book, and his words to me were, and I quote, "What could you possibly have to write about?" I can see now that he was just a pretentious jerk (feel free to add in your own expletive if that helps).

The years following that conversation, those words have haunted me on a subconscious level. What on earth could I have to say that hasn't already been said? Then I did research into the costs of submitting manuscripts into publishers for them to even read it, without the promise of publication, and I became discouraged even further. From that point, I subconsciously assumed the role of Jay Leno, not just in my writing, but also in all other areas of my life. I was just trying to make my way through the world without bothering anybody. I kept my ambitions, stories, and thoughts to myself... and then I watched The Newsroom.

I may just be twenty-something who hasn't reached my full potential, but to that pretentious jerk (again feel free to reinsert your previous expletive. Just like a mad-lib!): well, I won't say something as threatening as Will McAvoy did, but still, I'm about to prove you wrong.

How dare anyone tell someone that another human being doesn't have a story to tell? That their voice is any less valid just because they have not acquired the proper degree, or lived seemingly exciting adventures. My stories and experiences may not make me a sought after dinner guest, but that does not mean that my voice or anyone else who has ever tread this great earth, does not have a story worth telling, worth listening to.

It is time that I stop wandering though life afraid of bothering people with what I have to say.

What if what I have to say is what millions of people have been dying to say but have not been able to articulate? What if what I have to say can resonate with someone as much as the words of Aaron Sorkin through Will McAvoy resonated with me. I'm not saying that my words are profound and earth shattering, but I have a voice and it is my right to be heard.

Welcome to Cameron Writes Stuff Down 2.0


(I realize how cheesy and overused that last line is, and I don't care.)