Musings

Allow me to back up, as I’m sure this seems sudden. 

Let’s rewind to summer 2016, which, as I’ve talked about before, is when I felt like I was on top of the world. I felt that surely any one of the opportunities I was fortunate to get that summer (and the preceding spring) would give me the break I’d been longing for for at least two years. But then five distinct things happened that were like five punches to the gut... and I’m not sure when or if I’ll ever recover from them. I’ve made strides in the past year, sure, but I’m still a long way off from the girl who had a fire in her belly about doing what it took to land a paying gig in music journalism/writing/touring. 

I’ll go chronologically. 

1) I was finally living the dream of working every day on the Vans Warped Tour with an online radio station called MetalFortress Radio who had a tent at Warped for the whole New England run. To this day, I don’t think there’s ever been a time when I’ve been happier. Then I got what I considered the worst e-mail I could have gotten at the time: Examiner.com, the place I’d gotten my music journalism start and had been writing for for 4 years at that point (and where I got all my festival/big interview access from), was shutting down in 10 days. I would still be on tour in 10 days. The only internet access I had was my phone and I was busy all day every day (barely even got to sleep - and still - for some reason, I’ve never been happier), and I knew it’d be next to impossible for me to save 4 years worth of articles in those circumstances. Not sure if I was able to save any of them or if I just underestimated the importance of the clips being on a website (as I still have the originals, most of them anyway) and was like ‘well, I’m already committed to this other thing...’ but, yeah. Those articles are gone from the internet. They just redirect to the AXS.com ticket page. 

2) A few weeks later, a (now former) friend was driving the both of us through West Virginia’s street light-less, winding interstate on the way to stay at her friend’s place on the way to cover the Cincinnati date of the Vans Warped Tour. It was terrifyingly dark outside when I got the second punch: AXS, the “media and ticketing arm” of concert promoter AEG Live, who’d bought Examiner.com, was letting me go. I’d applied 3 times for this position and had felt so accomplished when I’d finally gotten it. 

And to top it all off, my credentials for Warped Tour were through AXS, and now I wasn’t even going to be able to post my coverage on the column I’d fought so hard for. I wasn’t even given an explanation, other than some legalese/PR bullshit that I apparently can’t talk about the exact content of because basically I can get sued if I do (though seriously, if they’re paying attention to this, it’d be a sort of cruel irony). I still went through with all my scheduled interviews and enjoyed Warped Tour, but the pet rain cloud that’s followed me almost all my life darkened that day. It cast an annoyingly long shadow over something that should have been another ‘best day of my life’.

 Not to mention that the subsequent depression hole I fell into after realizing I was on the wrong antidepressant (Cymbalta can kiss my ass. Made me more suicidal than I’d ever been. I’m also done with antidepressants in general because my body is so damn sensitive to them and I was tired of them making me sicker) + the events that followed prevented me from having any motivation at all to post said content until the end of December. DECEMBER. And even then, it wasn’t nearly up to my usual standards, but I figured better to get it out than never post it. Too many good interviews to just sit on them. 

3) All of this was definitely rough and unkind to mental state, but I thought ‘hey, I still have a full-time photography job to go back to when I get back to Orlando [where I was living at the time] and I’ve been fighting so hard to get a career in a more creative field (my previous work experience had all been in various fields of customer service), so it sucks that my writing stuff didn’t work out, but I do have an actual paying gig to go back to’.

 It didn’t quite work out like that. There were issues with this job from the beginning, but, since it was new I gave them the benefit of the doubt.. I’d bought the new hatchback I no longer have (nasty accident on the Turnpike... why do so many people leave tire shreds on the highway where people can hit them?!?! And being 100% transparent - that car was nothing but trouble almost from the moment I got it, but still. Scary as hell and I hate depending on my parents for help, though I did accept it) based on that full-time offer. All of that ended up being stupid and I’d even go as far as to say full of blind optimism. 

What I thought was a temporary situation with the store not opening ended up becoming a humorless joke (every month they would say they were opening and never would). They offered shifts at their other locations, which were 4 hours (Tampa, by the Port, at the Aquarium) and an hour from me (Daytona Beach, the International Speedway), so which one I picked shouldn’t be a surprise.

 Daytona was only able to give me part time hours. I also found out the reason we weren’t opening was because Disney and Coca-Cola (who contacts the photography company I worked for) were duking it out: Coca-Cola always used my company for photos and Disney, obviously, has its own photographers and didn’t take too kindly to Coca-Cola not using theirs. It was so stupid. The whole thing was stupid, annoying, and frustrating. I think I was so desperate for a way to pay my bills that I didn’t care that this was grounds for quitting (major change in terms) and I liked working there, actually. I liked working there more than working in the store that eventually opened in October. I was hired in JUNE. I quit soon after because I thought I had another job (with a salary!) lined up, but at the last minute that ended up not working out either. 

4) The was the punch that left me punch drunk. I lost my apartment through a bunch of shady bullshit that I wished I’d been rich enough to hire a lawyer to fight (or knew someone who knew someone. but. anyway. back to my point). I ended up asking my best friend and her husband if I could stay with them. I thought we were ALL good friends (they had roommates - we all knew each other from college) and it wasn’t like I showed up on their door step with my shit (I’d asked to stay with them twice before, and they’d said yes with no objections. I only asked when I was in dire straits). I asked, and they said yes, which is why what I’m going to say next is so fucked. After the salaried job fell through and, again, out of desperation, I got a job at Dunkin Donuts, I explained the situation to my best friend’s husband. I’d agreed to pay something even though I was literally living on their couch, but there was no negotiating with said husband. 

He said it was $400 (rent - $200 - which, lol - I didn’t even have a room but okay and for some reason their entire electricity bill, which was $200 - bitch, how?) or nothing. Obviously, I couldn’t pay that and my bills. What he said next, I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for: “We’re not kicking you out, but you need to find a new place to live”. I’d literally been there maybe two weeks after bouncing from a legitimately dangerous situation: a physically and emotionally abusive couple with a 6 year old as room mates (I reported them to the Department of Children and Families after I left) to a less than desirable (and expensive - they charged $300/wk!) situation: an Extended Stay on the other side of town from where I was taking journalism classes.

I was so determined to finish my (second) degree in digital media/broadcast journalism and to stay in Orlando, I ended up in transitional housing where the only requirements were that you be sober and homeless. Since the sober thing wasn’t a problem for me (never has been), I asked if you could just be homeless. The lady that ran the house said yes and was willing to negotiate the rent price. This perfect stranger showed me more kindness than my supposed best friends and I don’t know if that will ever stop stinging. I’ve since made up with my best friend after finding out she’s the only one who fought for me to stay with them. 

The transitional house was about what you’d expect for a homeless/sober house, and I found out I’m massively allergic to the bed bugs that I soon found out resided in my mattress. So I went back to having no bed and no internet access at “home”, which was an interesting experience as I was studying DIGITAL media/broadcast journalism.

Issues among the other roommates as well as bug issues and our non landlady (that was part of our contract, that we weren’t landlord/tenant) not fixing shit became a thing and I started forgetting/missing classes and dragging myself to a class I’d otherwise love: “College Newspaper”. The final straw came as I lost the Dunkin Donuts job and was faced with having no way to pay rent and no potential steady income (I’d applied to Orlando’s substitute teaching agency thing but I wasn’t sure about the hours with that and I didn’t have anything else). I talked to a counselor at the college I was going to and he said the words that finally hit home: “Why don’t you just let your parents help you?” We’d been getting along better lately and that seemed like a better option than the ones currently in front of me. Add/drop hadn’t passed yet, as I found out, so I dropped my classes and texted my parents the situation. I moved home a few days later.

It wasn’t an easy decision. I hate Miami. I’ve always hated living in Miami for a lot of reasons: too expensive, too much traffic, too much dishonesty/shady dealings, the rudest and most miserable people, too hot, and the city just gives zero fucks about the people who were actually born and raised here. There’s also an air of snobbery I’ve never felt anywhere else plus I’ve always felt like an outsider as a white person even though this is literally my hometown. 

Sometimes I wish I’d taken my one two hours outside of Orlando friend who actually is a friend unlike SOME people up on staying with her and her fiancé (they weren’t asking anything of me, just not to post about them on FB, which, duh. Easy.). Sometimes I wish I had said “fuck it” and gone to the interview with Park Ave. CDs and figured it out later, but at that time, I was, again, on the wrong antidepressant/medication for my generalized anxiety disorder/depression and so tired of moving. I’d moved once about every month. Sometimes more. I’d also just found a job as an after care counselor, gotten settled as a substitute teacher and settled back at my parents’ house again and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go through all of that again elsewhere. 

5) This last and final punch is the one that left me on the floor coughing up blood (figuratively, of course). Before I’d moved back to Miami, I’d been contacted to be an editor-in-chief of the Valencia College community at The Odyssey Online. This was something I didn’t know I wanted until I started studying journalism at Valencia so I was beyond excited the managing editor who did my interview was going to take a chance on me. Said managing editor was enthusiastic, supportive, and impossible not to like.

I loved her, loved helping new writers. I loved how much attention said managing editor paid to my articles. I loved how helpful she was. 

I actually was getting into a good flow of writing every week and absolutely loving it... and then I got ANOTHER devastating e-mail. Odyssey Online had overestimated how successful it would be and fired pretty much everyone, including my managing editor. Then they lied about it, saying she’d just left (I texted my managing editor - she said they fired her). The doublespeak continued and I just wasn’t having it and neither was my group.

The powers that be at Odyssey took away any incentive that could get you paid and basically turned into yet another content mill. This happened at almost the exact same time I moved back to Miami (in January) and after I wrote my article that week, I decided I was done. I didn’t write anything for months after that. Why? is the one thing that kept running through my mind. The whole thing felt pointless. Why was I putting in so much effort to get such little return? It’s not like I was actually getting anywhere payment wise and it wasn’t enough for me anymore to just be relevant or on the right people’s mailing lists. 

Couple that with the fact that all I’ve ever wanted is for my words to reach people and then finding out that most of them don’t even care about my words. They just care about my outlet and won’t even speak to me if I’m not with, say, AXS anymore, even if I’ve done reviews for them for years before that. I had one guy, who was one of the first people to ever contact me to pitch an artist/review/feature, suddenly fobbing his assistant off on me with a truly terrible band once I told him I didn’t write for AXS anymore. That hurt. 

it’s taken me being back in my hometown, oddly enough, to be able to admit to myself that my heart just isn’t in any of this anymore. Not after everything that’s happened. I’ve been going through the motions: answering e-mails, saying I’ll do reviews, requesting interviews (and then not getting them since I’m not with a big outlet anymore), requesting to cover shows. I’ll do the reviews and interviews, some of which are still fun (I did less in 2017, but the ones I did do - Neck Deep, Palisades, Carousel Kings, and Story of the Year reviews, Broadside/Dinosaur Pile Up interviews were great). But the truth is, and the reason behind a lot of the delay in posting said reviews, is that this stopped being fun a long time ago. Especially when I have a job that, depending on the time of year, helps me pay my bills to concentrate on. Now music journalism is just a reminder of something I feel like I’ll never have and an industry that’s in shambles (the media industry that is -- they’ve been slower to catch up to the 21st century than the music business). 

I’m grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had, and looking back on it, I still can’t believe I got to interview and review some of my childhood favorites (Acceptance! Story of the Year! Silverstein! 3OH!3! Matchbook Romance! Even Kevin Lyman!). As I sit here in my one of my favorite pieces of music merch, a red Victory Records tank sent to me by Victory’s publicist, I’m still flabbergasted that he approached me to be on their e-mail list for reviews. I’ve discovered a lot of great bands (Broadside! Awaken I Am! Carousel Kings! Colours! Tear Out The Heart!) because he knows exactly what types of bands to send me... and some have become favorites of mine. I’ve also come to love Neck Deep, Tonight Alive, Too Close To Touch, Pepper, Post Season, Protagonist, Real Friends and Pierce the Veil because of my music journalism work. 

I don’t think I’ll ever completely stop writing about music... like if an album catches my eye or I’m offered to do a review/interview, if I like the band enough, I’ll do it. And if it’s close. I just need to step away for a while, remember why I loved music and the music business in the first place. Plus, I’m really trying to get my life started finally (at 30, but hey we all run on our own timelines) and get a stable job and save money and finally be able to own my own place and be able to afford food by myself and still be able to have fun after (the millennial dream lol). I can’t do any of that chasing a slowly decaying industry that looks to have little hope of recovery, especially when what I write is apparently already for such a narrow audience.

Above all, I just want it to be fun again. That’s why I started doing this in the first place... other than being a novelist, being an A&R rep in the music industry was my childhood dream and, by the time I “grew up”, A&R was pretty much gone, so journalism was my way of getting in there. I was already going to local shows every weekend, photographing and sometimes taking videos of the band to put on my then young YouTube channel (...and then my camera that was good for videos got stolen). Music journalism seemed like a natural progression of all of those things. I love telling a band’s story from the beginning. I suppose that’s my love of fiction and poetry bleeding through.

Linkin Park has always been an important band for me as they were one of the bands who felt like home when I felt like I didn’t have one, so it seems fitting that I thought one of their lyrics would be appropriate here: “I tried so hard and I got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter.” it’s a weird feeling and a weird place to be in. 

One of my best online friends, Ariel May, who I was talking this over with, put it perfectly: “It's a weird crossroads to be in. Because you feel attached to something but also very disconnected all at once.” 

And with all the sexual harassment/assault allegations that have come out recently, as a woman, it reminds me of how guys, especially guys in the industry, see you as an object 90% of the time and just... :sigh:. There’s so much more I could say about that, but this is already long enough. 

On a similar but different note, I hate having to be twice as good and having more to prove as soon as I walk in the door simply because I was born with a vagina. It’s fucking ridiculous. 

I’ll do one more playlist of the week before I cancel the premium subscription I have with Wix (which is going to severely limit my bandwidth, so I’ll have to have less videos or just get rid of the section entirely... who knows. We’ll see how slow it loads). It’s going to charge me again on the 13th of this month, so I'm canceling on the 12th. 

I’m also focusing more on my first love, which is that of fiction writing. I already have one novella finished and I’m working on a second one (different plot). It seems to be catching on more than my music writing ever has and I’ve always enjoyed it more. Plus I hope to teach writing, hopefully fiction, eventually. That’s the only bright spot to come out of all of this: discovering an up until now hidden talent for teaching. 

I love helping students get a good grasp on reading and writing (and even helping them understand basic math and even some high school/8th grade science? Those weren’t my best subjects in school, but now that I’ve had some time away from them...), which is why I’ve now applied to an MFA program so I can teach creative writing. I’m currently waiting to hear if I got in. 

I’m considering scrapping this site and creating just a blog where I can write about anything and everything... eventually. That was one thing I enjoyed about Odyssey. The freedom to write about anything. Planning to name it after one of my favorite Yellowcard lyrics ‘cause it’s so applicable: “Letting out the noise inside of me...” maybe shortened to “the noise inside of me”. Who knows. We’ll see.