badlybent.ca

Quick confession:  a lot of things have been getting me down over the past few months.  Don’t worry, I am going somewhere with this.  Everything from the ‘house renovation blues’ to my computer woes to the ‘issues with the misses’ to my complete and total musical block have really been taking their toll.  The real reason I think that things were getting to me, however, was that I forgot a key thing: PMA.

PMA stands for “Positive Mental Attitude” and it’s often the difference between being happy or miserable.  Someone famous once said something along the lines of “it’s not what happens to you in life, it’s how you deal with it”.  I’m not sure whether it was Ghandi, or maybe Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street.  Regardless, it’s the kind of thing that bears repeating:

“It’s not what happens to you in life, it’s how you deal with it”.

I’m not talking about walking around with a drooley smile on your face, ignoring the iceberg that you’re bearing down full speed on and simply ‘pretending’ that everything’s peachy.  That would be stupid.  I’m talking about how, when something comes along that falls in the ‘bad’ side of life, you process it and deal with it.

I’ve learned better ways to deal with crap from two people, and I’m going to discuss the first person here.  He goes by the handle of “Scarborough Dude” and you can find his blog and podcast here. (One Caveat: the language can be strong, and the opinions can be as well)

On his podcast he discusses his life:  his past, his present, and sometimes, almost begrudgingly, his future.  The two most common themes, however, are honesty and looking at the positive side of things.  His journey seems to be one of discovering why stuff happens. One of his common phrases is “what does it mean?”  I’ve tried to incorporate more of the honesty (to both myself, and others) in my daily life, and my writings.

The other part - the looking on the positive side, has been slightly more difficult.  I have had a bit of a temper for most of my life, and an urge to be ‘on top’ of things, as well as a definite bad reaction when things don’t go the way I think they should.  As you can imagine, this is not the easy road to travel.   Being a Production Manager for many years helped hone my desperate need to always be in control of everything…at all times.

Let me give you an example:  The Scarborough Dude loses half of his year’s income in one email.  He is upset, as he should be, however since there is literally nothing he can do about it, he doesn’t have a complete freak out, and he deals with it appropriately.  I get stuck in traffic, adding an extra 20 minutes to my drive and I act like someone is sawing off my right foot and have a meltdown.  In short, I’m not dealing well with stuff. Especially the little, stupid stuff that doesn’t matter in the big picture.

But, I’m getting better.  I’m starting to (slowly) learn to let go of what I can’t control.  I can’t control the weather, I can’t control other people in traffic, I can’t control my guitar strings breaking, I can’t control rude jackasses in bars braying loudly their idiot sentiments and pointless opinions on stuff nobody cares about, all while someone is pouring their heart out in a song they wrote and….oops, there I go again.

I’ve actually found, when I get into situations that start my blood pressure soaring,  and get my dander up, asking myself “What would Scarborough Dude do?“  And then, if nothing else, I get a chuckle out of it, but ya know, I also find myself more and more often just talking myself down off of a ledge I shouldn’t have been on in the first place.

So do yourself a favour - head on over to The Scarborough Dude’s website, and have a listen to a few of his podcasts.  I recommend that you commit to 5 episodes.  It takes a few episodes to get used to his particular style, and leanings.  I’ll admit that the first time I listened to his show I thought he was a hippie-wacko-pinko-lunatic.   After calling myself a fan for over a year now…..well, I still think he’s a hippie-wacko-pinko-lunatic…but I also now mean that in an endearing sort of way, and I do believe I’ve learned a few things along the way.

So, thanks Dude.

Stevie Z

Last night marked the last of the Semi Final rounds of the Cambridge Songwriting Competition, and the second straight night I’ve been up until after 1 am in the morning….and loving it!  I’ve been a judge every week now for about 5-ish weeks, and I have to say that it’s truly been an awesome experience.  I’d heard of and/or seen a couple of the competitors before, but the vast majority of them were people I’d never heard the music of previously.

Let me explain that I don’t really like going to bars to see people perform.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy live performances, and don’t want to support local artists, in fact quite the opposite:  a true measure of a performer AS a performer is what they can do live.  Practically anyone can sound good digitally, however to perform live is to perform without an AutoTune net, so to speak.  And besides, some bands (Big Sugar, Gogol Bordello) can only be experienced properly live.  The problem I have isn’t with the venues themselves, either.  The bar as a concept is a great place to see live music - good food, good drink, decent acoustics most of the time, and an intimate setting for the performer(s) and the fans.

The problem I have with bars is the people in them.  Not all, of course. Ninety some-odd percent of the people are cool most of the time, but all it takes is one or two asshats to really ruin things.  I know, I’m too uptight.  I’m working on it though.  That’s another reason that I don’t perform much as well - I can’t stand jerks in bars.  And also, I don’t play Freebird.  Ever.

I do have to say though, that so far at the Cambridge Songwriting Competition it’s been really good.  A couple of jerks of course, but overall the crowd has been fairly respectful.  It’s being held at a bar called Mulligan’s in Cambridge, and the place has an interesting setup with a stage and area that’s almost a separate room, but not quite, so the entire bar can watch and listen to the performers, and us hard-core song junkies can sit up close too.  It’s also got an owner who loves good songwriting (ask him if he’s ever heard of some guy named Bruce Springsteen) and also likes to support local artists.

I believe that there was 65 entrants, and I’ve seen almost all of them.  The songwriting has run the gamut from mediocre to completely mind-blowing, as have the performances.  That’s what I love about a thing like this competition though - it gets people out who have maybe never performed their songs for an audience of strangers before, especially strangers who want to hear their songs.

One thing that organizer Robbie Hancock has done, which is fantastic, is to make it purely and completely about the song.  He’s drummed that into the judge’s heads every single week, and testified it to the audience too - “The Song Is the Star” as he puts it.  It’s not a ‘talent’ competition.  It’s not about who’s prettiest, or who can sing the best, or who the best guitar/piano etc. player is - it’s about the songs they’re performing.  ARE YOU LISTENING CANADIAN IDOL?!?!?

I’d rather hear a decent song performed by the writer then some over-produced, over-hyped and overdone song any day.  Don’t get me wrong, a well-polished and well-produced song can be awe-inspiring too, but there’s something about a songwriter onstage, just them and their songs, (with a person or two accompanying them sometimes) that really makes it special, and really lays bare the true art of the song itself.   Without an entire fleet of instrumentation or effects to dig through, the song itself becomes the focal point, and that’s where the magic happens.

I’m hoping to showcase a lot of the entrants from the competition over the next weeks on the podcast (yes, I do still have a podcast, and yes, it’s going to be re-launched shortly) but I’m waiting until the competition is over before I start approaching the artists regarding their material.

If you live anywhere within driving distance of Cambridge, Ontario, and you’re not undergoing open-anything surgery next Wednesday, June 24, 2009, I invite you to drop by Mulligan’s for what will truly be an astounding evening of entertainment that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.  Tickets are available online here, or at the door for a couple of bucks more.

Stevie Z

Pea Ess - Oh yeah, the judges for the Finals will be:

Miss Angel Brown
Carroll Baker
Greg Fritz Hinz
Glenn Reid

and Yours Truly, Stevie Z  ( you didn’t just click on that link…did you? )