when I auditioned before the judges at AGT, I had that a capella back-up because I was afraid their back-up was going to sound like cheesy karaoke backing (though–as I always say–I asked them to give me their version as well so I could choose the one I wanted to back me, and of course I would have chose theirs once I found out how awesome their band was, which I realized only the days of the taping). Everyone gets a live band in the background, which makes me wonder if perhaps when I went up before the judges whether or not I got a live a capella backing NOT the one I recorded. Since when I heard it their the speakers I was like, “this doesn’t sound like me” (in fact it sounded very sucky) but I thought, maybe it was just because of the largeness of the auditorium and all that (though I am just realizing now as I am writing this that that is a stupid belief as I heard the backing in the same auditorium/stage/whatever when I had did the run-through a week or so before, which went awesome and everyone gave me great feedback–of course they could just give everyone the “you’re awesome” feedback). DUDE, I’m just realizing this now. It didn’t sound all jacked up when we did the run through! Anyway, my thought over the years has been maybe they had live singers in the back-up, which means my singing was now determined by how good /their/ singing was (and how good could it be, they would be faceless back-up singers who had to sound somewhat like me). DUDE, this is really pissing me off. Because the whole thing was, I didn’t even get to start doing my singing when that shit was going over the speakers and I got buzzed off by one person, and then people started booing, and then I got buzzed by another person, and only then after like 15-20 seconds (fuck I forget how long the intro is, maybe it’s less than that, I’m not sure–it’s longer in the original, but I thought I only did part of the intro in mine) then I actually get to sing and I sing at most five or ten words (probably closer to five, and of course I’m already thrown off entirely as the back-up doesn’t sound like I remember and the audience is booing and I already got two buzzes) and I get buzzed off by the last person. If they put live singers in there, in the band area which I couldn’t see, this is even worse than the fact they never let me hear the band. This would totally throw me off and would mean I was beholden to the talents of these back-up singers.

I mean, the backing wasn’t great. Link: (don’t know if I’ve ever linked this before, I don’t think I have) http://www.awbvious.com/audio/nevertoomuchinstrumental.mp3 I recorded the damn thing in my room in one night, maybe in about an hour or two, just about all the “instruments” were first takes. I can’t really bare myself to listen to it now. I must admit that maybe in the clarity of being on the stage in front of that audience I noticed how crappy it sounded. Or I felt that way because the audience was reacting so poorly to it. But I know when I was listening to it at the run-through the time before, I was on the exact same stage, the only difference was there wasn’t all the people there. And it didn’t sound (to me) like it did when I was performing it with all the people there. I really think there is a good possibility I had back-up singers (bad ones, I’m sure they could have been good, if they weren’t doing something I made, but something they were familiar with and not trying to sound like me, and had to be picked to sound like me)…

Fuck, I don’t know, the only reason I’m thinking about this shit nowadays is I’m so used to feeling like they switch musicians/singers on me. Use people who aren’t the originals. Sometimes, even, like when I was listening to those songs that I made with karaoke backings (those horrid karaoke backings) with someone else singing pretending to be me (and it sounded like shit). I couldn’t even listen to myself again for a long time after that, I’ve listened to myself since then, even the same songs (I think, maybe not) and not thought as badly. I don’t know, my mind is a horrible fuck-place.

Like when I mentioned this to Hess on Saturday, he was asleep, but when I got home I heard Never Too Much on the radio. And dude, it wasn’t timed right at all, it seemed. But I happened to be recording that, and I went home and I listened to it and it wasn’t nearly as off time (though still some) as I remembered it when I was singing it. Link: http://www.awbvious.com/audio/awbvious%20–%20never%20too%20much%20cover%20with%20original%20audio.mp3

So, was that played just because I talked to Hess about it when I was at his home a few hours before? I don’t know. But the point is, I can’t trust what I hear. (Of course, there is the possibility that I heard perfectly fine the first time, when it was someone other than luther, then when I heard it on my computer they got yet another person other than luther, but this time not as unluther as the first time.) Of course, the experience of being on that stage was one of the most intense experiences in my life (if not the most) so I can remember almost every detail, how the air felt on my skin, everything. And I remember how off it sounded. But maybe my mind was already fucking with me by then. I do know that while I thought it was really weird at the time, I didn’t really think (or at least I don’t remember) thinking it could possibly be someone else. Or at least this was dismissed quickly. Much like any rational person would dismiss any of the things I hear–except maybe not after hearing them repeatedly for years on end. (Or maybe especially dismissing them for having it years on end.) I don’t know, this was supposed to be a quick post, it quickly dissolved into a long one. Sorry.
EDIT: Two things.  One, what really annoys me is the fact that these can’t just be brushed off as unfortunate mistakes I can learn from and fix for next time.  Because of all this psychological shit I’ve gone through these last 6 years, I can’t EVER go on another show.  Not as long as I’m living with my parents, or in any situation where my mom might have to take care of me again.  I can’t do anything that might make me get put in a hospital again and moved out of wherever I am, and have to deal with my mom knowing I was going through anything like that.  My mom has said she doesn’t have the strength to go through it again, and my little mini-relapse (nothing on the scale of what might happen if I go again on a show–but, of course, I’m living at home so I couldn’t keep it from my mom–something I’m sure I would do if I wasn’t) back in May when I was doing my thesis.  So, anything that went fucked up is pretty much permanent.  My one shot in life at musical fame, almost certainly.  (Like 99.99% likely.)

And secondly…  FUCK, I was just thinking after I closed my blog.  I realized the back-up “music” was sounding off BEFORE I heard the audience react poorly and boo.  I mean, the first goddamn note, as soon as someone (maybe me) openned their fucking mouth.  And I did NOT feel like it sounded off when I was at the run-through.  Sure, even during the run-through I thought it was kinda amaturish.  But it didn’t sound BAD like it did that fateful day.  I’m becoming more and more convinced, just tonight writing about it, that maybe it was live back-up singers.  Everyone else had live back-up, after all.  FUCK.  I am really, really pissed right now.  They could have totally ruined my one chance at fulfilling a dream (and by “could” I mean, if they did use live musicians, then they really did make it sound like shit and got everyone to boo me before I even had a chance to sing).  I was always mad about them not giving me the choice before of having the live band, but instead just going with the thing I said (twice!  In email!  Including the email which I sent with the link to that back-up) I might want to use if their back-up didn’t sound good.  But now, now I’m SEETHING because they could have made what was already inferior (yes, even if I had the option of going with my own back-up vocal that I recorded or the band I would choose the band which was awesome in a heartbeat, that shit is only out of necessity when I do it with my own recordings because I can’t play the instruments and karaoke backing sounds so shitty–and I don’t even do it any more, I think after that experience I just gave up on a capella back-ups) far, far worse by using people who weren’t used to do a capella back-ups, sounding like instruments, and further trying to sound like me, doing some song they probably didn’t know.  I mean, they would have almost certainly used a bunch of young white males–who (myself excluded I like to think) nowadays all sound like shit, and definitely can’t pull off something like what I was trying (or never too much for that matter).  Fuck, I am so pissed, I don’t even know how I’m going to sleep.

So, as I thought it might, it happened again, but to a lesser degree.  That is to say it wasn’t /quite/ as off as it was last week.  But it seemed like others than the original singers.  I think Steve Winwood was the most off.  But there were plenty of examples.  (Note, last week, I remembered later, it was You Are the Sunshine of My Life, not Signed Sealed Delivered.  There were two Stevie songs tonight also, the Stevie was pretty good as it was last night, but I think it wasn’t him.  By far not the most noticeable.)  They did Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (by Diana Ross, where they play verses I’m not familiar with, but I don’t think it was her).  Sure, I could be off, and I could be offending some sensibilities (and senses).

The thing was, I brought my recorder but I never recorded.  I was out there for at least two hours.  I didn’t really feel like wading through the songs that were close enough to hear the ones that were really noticeable.  They started pretty strong and so I put it off, and then once I had done it for twenty minutes I was like, why bother.  I don’t really record myself with the radio much any more.  If there is anything, someone’s got it, but there isn’t anything, so it doesn’t really matter.

I fucked up a few times, too.  Particularly starting out, so I didn’t really feel like recording for that reason too.  Like I was doing a much more faithful Elton John, but I messed up by starting to sing the third verse at the second verse of Candle in the Wind, and so it is just as well that I didn’t get that on tape.  I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll record it next Thursday.  Perhaps it will happen again.  But as I was thinking about it, I didn’t really want to have to listen to myself the next day or whatever.  It didn’t seem as dramatic as last Thursday, like they were more prepared this time.  I mean the Bee Gees sounded really on, which was impressive as Bee Gees can be screwed up (when not prepared for).

Man, this sounds so crazy right now.  What the hell am I thinking anyway.  I just sang in my car for two hours for no one.  It’s kind of nice to get the practice though.  (Though what good is practice if not for an end result?)  I do like singing.  And I am impressed with myself for knowing so many words to so many songs.  It keeps the mind fresh.  But really, this is crazy.  I wonder if Tuesday they will play the songs from Thursday again.  That would be weird.  I’ll have to make a point of going to yoga so I’ll get a chance to hear it.

So crazy.  I’m a fucking loon.  Maybe if it was more off, I wouldn’t feel this way.  Like last week it was /every/ song and really noticeable.  This time it was like half the songs, but in my crazy world they usually keep things up for an entire night for every song, it just isn’t as noticeable because they have different teams…  That is so crazy.  Damn I am crazy.  Whatever, I should sleep.

That job in my last post didn’t last.  It only lasted two and a half weeks.  I was dismissed, probably because I was late to work a few times (like half the times by about 30 minutes, I just couldn’t wake up early enough and the commute was like an hour), or because I screwed up on a document where I was supposed to use track changes, or possibly because I was (though I am embarrassed to mention it) singing quietly during work.  (I of course know I can sing and work at the same time, but to others it might have looked like I was not doing work, it wasn’t professional regardless.)  Anyway you look at it, I fucked up, and I’ve been unemployed since then.  I still haven’t gotten unemployment.  People say I should just get the job, but that’s taken forever (since August when my 2 and a half year job ended, I’ve only had that one job), so I should probably get unemployment.  I applied for it using this short term job I had, but it didn’t satisfy the requirements, so I should probably get my records out (not that I keep them, my mother does) and try for the job before that, though I made such a pittance…  Oh well.

Anyway, I’m unemployed and still living at home with my parents, no girlfriend (not even a date in many months) and I’m now 33.  Not exactly what I expected my life to be.  I feel like an utter failure.

I’m off the Risperdal though.  For the first time in over a decade I’m not taking any pills at all.  The Risperdal was making me fatigued, I couldn’t do any exercise so I finally convinced my psychiatrist to let me off it.  It was not an easy task, he always thought of excuses before.  But I knew my fatigue problems started when I began taking it and sure enough when I went off my fatigue went away.  I can now do an entire rigorous yoga session which I was unable to do months ago, whenever I started the Risperdal (I’m sure it is in my blog somewhere).  I wanted to get off it before my salsa class started, which it did two weeks ago.

Have there been changes besides that?  Well, after my salsa class on Thursday, I did (oh and another thing, at the psychiatrist’s he was asking me if I was worried about a recurrence of the situation six years–my god has it been that long–ago…  I told him that I didn’t even really remember the situation, the attack I presumably felt.  And I don’t, I can’t remember feeling the pain or the experience at all.  I can vaguely remember my cat laying on my bed afterward, but the actual experience is pretty much gone.  If I hadn’t written about it, I might not remember any of the details.  It is completely behind me now, I’ve made my peace.) have an experience of sorts.  It’s been a while since I’ve felt an entire night of live music decidedly not from the original artists.  But that night for the hour or two I was outside my house listening to music (maybe an hour and a half) I was listening and singing along to song after song that sounded like younger imitators.  This was, of course, a little exciting.  The one most striking thing was they held the notes too long, I was almost afraid I was singing the lines short, but I don’t think I was.  I really think that it was a night of imitators.

Then, on Tuesday night, as if to reference that night I heard no less than six of the songs (I think, maybe more maybe less).  But this time, sung by the original artists (or at least people who sounded a lot more like the original artists and knew the songs better).  I mean, if I had to put money on it, I’d say that was not Neil Diamond singing Sweet Caroline on Thursday, but definitely him on Tuesday.  So, not only do I think I was treated to a bunch of very talented (but not original) singers on Thursday I was treated to the originals singing the same songs on Thursday (they were too close to be sure it wasn’t the original versions as well, but other songs like Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, which I know very well, sounded live–and I think the Eagle’s One of These Nights–another song that was played both nights was live the second time as well, the singer sounding a little more aged than the original).

Of course, this could all be bullshit.  And I really wish I had my voice recorder that Tuesday night so I could listen to those songs again.  Maybe when I listened to them again, they would sound like the originals and I was the one singing it off.  But I really think they were sung by a bunch of younger guys (and girls) who clearly didn’t know the songs as well as I did.  (I even think some of the songs were sung by the same guy.)  I mean, clearly that didn’t sound like When Doves Cry.  Prince is hard to imitate.  I’ve said it before.  Valiant effort, but no.  I was thrown off a bit by it so it wasn’t my best version of it, but I still think I did a better job.  In fact, that entire night I felt very satisfied that it was a competition of sorts that I was winning handily.  It made me think, here is something I’m really good at.  And maybe people are actually noticing and giving me a shot to shine.  And further, I’d be showing the original artists how much I like their music.

But, of course, it could all be in my mind.  I mean, the odds are very much in favor of that.  Nothing in real life suggests this is happening.  It’s almost like there’s some kind of Prime Directive going on, that says they can only mess with the music.  I mean, it was kinda coincidental that I was able to get my sport’s coat on 70% off in my size.  But that’s rather silly.  Of all the things they could do for me, they get my a sport’s coat on sale?  Why not get me a band?  I put out those craigslist postings, they could rustle up a few really good musicians and answer my ad and let me actually perform directly in front of people.  That would be nice.  What am I?  Forever in my car?  I need to get out of my dreams and out of my car.  This is ridiculous.

Maybe I should do another craigslist ad.  I’ve asked many times for some kind of benefit from my situation.  Clearly there will be no reveals.  It feels too much like some kind of I’m a primate and they hide in the bush.  I could get killed by a rival baboon and they won’t shit.  This will never end.  I mean, it clearly should have by now.  How are they going to make any money with this if it just goes on year after year.  Are they waiting until I accomplish anything?  The only thing I could possibly accomplish is a job.  And even that looks more unlikely by the day.  I’ll probably end up dying in this house.  Surviving another pitiful twenty years, first my cat will die (and I won’t get another, I can’t be tied to another animal–not unless something definitely changes like I’m happy with a career and a wife and some kind of future) and then my mother and then I’ll probably take that opportunity to finally off myself.  If I’ve got a little bit of money, maybe I’ll take up smoking pot before I go, and wait until full psychosis takes over.  But, hey, maybe that’ll give me delusions enough to live off and then die.  What anyone would want with a 53-year-old who sings to himself is nothing logical, but hey, it’s psychosis, it’s not meant to be logical.

Man, if you were in there with me on that Tuesday, if you could hear what I hear.  If you could have noticed all those young live singers.  What would you say, what would you think?  It is true I have done practically nothing in these last six years.  Unless there was some truth to this.  For I’ve done lots of singing.  I could have sung with a lot of musicians who are now dead.  I’ll never get to say to their faces how much I appreciated their music (and you get bet I’ll be pretty damn sad when Stevie Wonder dies, luckily he was young when he made it in Motown–that Signed Sealed Deliver on Tuesday didn’t sound like him, it was much better version than the Prince though, only because of the other singers did I suspect it wasn’t him–but Stevie is so vibrant, it’s hard to replicate that–when he actually sings it, it’s like the original impeccably).  I could have sang with James Brown, I could have sang with Michael Jackson.  I probably didn’t (or Solomon Burke, hell maybe even once or twice with Whitney, not that I really knew her songs and they only played them a few times on the stations I listen to).  Thursday didn’t sound like Tommy James, but Tuesday when they played the same song really did.  I wish they had done Stevie on Tuesday, but whatever, I think I get him plenty as it is.  Or not.  It could all really and truly be in my head.  Everyday it just gets more implausible after all.

The kicker is the thing that I think maybe I could stop it by just being successful in someway (musically that is).  Then they could end it on a happy note.  Maybe they just want a happy note to end it.  But I can’t give it to them because I can never accomplish anything on my own.  I can’t get a band, I just don’t have the social skills.  And besides, I’m 33.  What good am I except as this oddity?

My friend is thinking of seeing an AC/DC tribute band and Guns and Roses tribute band at the House of Blues on Thursday.  I’ve thought of seeing him after I get done with Salsa.  But I want to come home (and bring my tape recorder with me, though that might ruin my chances of having this happen) and sing in my car and get the youngsters again.  That gave me a lot of hope.  Sure it is very silly hope based on what everyone tells me is complete delusion, but when you have as little as I do, any hope is nice, even based on fantasy.  Man, I tell you, if you ever get to see it, which you won’t as it didn’t happen, and there’s so much I’ve done in these last six years, why would they show you that night of all of them (so much I haven’t done…  So many contradictions in this life).  You’d get to see how good I am.  Of course there were songs I didn’t know the words to.  They did Born to Run, probably the one Springsteen song I know the best, and of course I never understand what the hell that guy is saying, but at least I knew /how/ the song went.  I sang it very similarly even if it just growled a bunch of similar sounds to what is what was presumably sung.

If only you saw inside my mind.  If only you heard what I heard.  I don’t see famous musicians any more.  It’s been years since I’ve seen one.  I thought we were getting close to a culmination when that happened.  But it didn’t culminate into anything.  I’m inclined to believe that was definitely wishful thinking at the time.  Of course I thought maybe some of the people at the outpatient a few months ago were musicians in disguise, Madonna, Streisand, but they didn’t really look like them.  I was just thinking that would be an opportunity they wouldn’t pass up.  And as the days went on, they looked less like the musicians.  (But notably they were musicians who also acted.)  No, I don’t see famous people any more.  Which is kind of comforting.  It makes me think I’m not slipping in more ways.  The only way is in music.  And that is almost certainly going to be with me until I die.  Doesn’t bother me much though.  I made my peace with that as well.  It never really bothered me.  I suppose that’s why they did/do it.  Nothing ever seemed malicious to me.  Which really helped with the supposed attack I felt, of course I always thought that was a lone wolf situation, never intended.  What a weird couple of weeks that was.  So long ago.

False hopes that is all I have.  Sometimes I think, maybe when AGT gets cancelled–though that could be years from now–it will finally end.  But the way people keep coming up with more of these singing reality shows, and the more it gets those good ratings which it always seems to do in the summer, the less that seems like it will happen.  And even still, when it does, nothing will change.  How surprised I would feel if once it did all the music went back to how it was six years ago.  You Dropped A Bomb on Me no longer has double thrills and pills.  Lowrider no longer has the last two verses swapped.  It’s been so long with those songs as they are now, I can’t even remember hearing them the original way…  Or even feel that strongly that ever were another way.  One Way’s Cutie Pie is back to how it was.  I remember at one point I thought that song was shifting all the time (a funny thing considering their band is called One Way), but they’ve got it down to a single version now I hear all the time.

I wish it were true.  I really do.  Then I would know I never was delusional.  That I wasn’t wasting all my time singing to songs.  That people cared about my talent and they were showcasing it.  That musicans I cared about knew how I felt.  I always wish that someday, someone would say, “it’s true.”  Not even that it was over.  I always felt when it was over it would just turn into something new, something overt.  With me actually in front of people.  But maybe they are afraid that it would just be over.  That the magic would be gone.  That I was no longer entertaining.  That they’d be out of job.  That’s not really fair to me.  I want to start a new chapter.  I want to be a real musician, with musicians playing by my side and me in front of an audience who can give back the feelings I give to them.  Recorded applause in song that were recorded live don’t really do it for me any more.  I want to feel something real.  Not these feelings that I always have to accept with a grain of delusional salt.  There is never any time when I think “wow this is definitely really happening.”  Except for those few weeks when I had my attack.  Maybe my brain tells myself not to ever think that, because the attack might happen again.  I just sang and sang when that happened for hours at end, loud as I wanted, fuck the neighbors, because it was finally my chance.  How nice it would be to devote myself to music and entertainment.  To know that I really had a calling that was being received.

Instead, I am lost in my own mind.  Tuesday could just have been something that my brain created, maybe because I was off the Risperdal.  Maybe, rather than doing the songs more justice than the others I was actually singing way off than I normally was.  I don’t know.  Maybe I was just singing the songs too fast and clipped rather than whoever else was drawing the notes out too long.

I know the most likely case.  The most likely case was Tuesday was an anomaly.  I won’t hear another one like that.  Not for a long time.  And even if I do, it will be false just like Tuesday was.  I’ll continue my days wondering about music.  Wondering if anyone else is doing anything, wondering who is in on it.  (Though each day makes me think no one is–at least that I have contact with directly.)  The music will always have moments for me, where I think some musician says a word that shouldn’t be there.  But it won’t ever change.  I will continue singing my songs to myself, hoping for something better that will never happen.  I will continue to languish in Huntington Beach, maybe getting some shit job that I hate, but probably not getting a girlfriend or an eventual wife and kids and a house all that stuff I know I want but seems so far away.  I’ll just live in this house, with my cat, until he dies, then alone, my parents always wishing I got on with my life, my friends going on with their lives and being more successful than I will ever be, never finding love and companionship never realizing any of my dreams.  That is just how it will be.  I used to think I was destined for fame.  For big things.  But it won’t happen.  I’ll just grow older and farther away from my dreams until I finally die.  Quite possibly by my own hand.  I won’t even become a writer like I wanted (before I ever thought about singing).  I don’t write nearly as much as I used to.  This current environment isn’t very suited to it.  I always feel encumbered by this wall next to me when I write, if I ever move out, I’ll be sure that my desk is in an open space.  No.  I won’t be anything.  Nothing will happen.

Nothing will happen.

I have a new job.  Writing.  perhaps that masters in professional writing will work out after all.  it pays well, 50,000 a year approx.  That’s three times more than I was getting before (that job was part-time).  Not many people in the office with me, only four of us.  Three most of the time.  Still clean off the green.  What has it been about 5 months now?  Maybe more?  I should have paid more attention to the last day/time.  That way I could celebrate anniversaries.  (Not with MA, I went to that twice when I was already 4 months in, not my cup of tea.  Too much chanting, for lack of a better word.)  Yep, I’m a regular square now.  That coupled with my lately feelings of not being followed/filmed any more.  I still wonder why songs seem changed from how they were five years ago.  But as I said in a previous post, there’s a possible reason for the radio stations playing slightly different versions.  More importantly, it doesn’t sound like different people, or live singing.  Just sounds like a slightly different edit, which is much more explainable.  Still wish I knew what happened to my cat’s marks on his nose and ear.  But, one can’t expect everything.  Just like the radio songs, I’ll probably never know about those either.  I’m tempted from time to time to write to the program managers of the stations, but I think I should have a list of some sort of the songs that I think changed.  But now, as they have seemed to have done most of their changing already, and I’ve heard them the same way for years now, I kind of feel like they are “correct.”  Just today I heard “Hello I Love You” by the doors, and I sometimes in the past wondered if there were too many “hello”s at the end before it goes “I want you, I need you,” today I just waited for the “ah” sound and didn’t really pay attention to how many hellos it took to get there, and in the way past, I might have just listened for the “ah” (though I’ve only recently learned that exists to trigger the “I want you”s and I can sing them on time) and not really paid attention to how many hellos.  That’s the thing, you never really know until it suddenly seems different and then there’s no way of knowing what it was.  Some songs, like “Erotic City” which I heard about three days ago, have “modern” changes, it changed about half a year ago.  Now it says “if we can not make babies, maybe we can make some time” twice at least in the beginning.  Instead of once and “we can [funk-whatever] until the dawn” for the second time, as it is listed in the lyrics I just pulled up online.  So the lyrics I just pulled up show it the way I remember it before the change.  I don’t know why it has changed, it doesn’t make any sense.  There was a time I heard a whole different coda to “When Doves Cry” as I was pulling into my psychiatrist’s office.  Don’t know if I mentioned it to him when I saw him, why bother at this point.  I think the most recent times I’ve heard it, it has been the traditional though.  Would be kinda cool if it was Prince singing with me–but a) that’s severely doubtful and b) this charade is not cool if it exists.  It has caused me too much pain over the years with no end in sight.  I don’t even think I’m singing with people any more, I just things are fucked up and changed.  Sure, I heard a little difference in the singing in “Hooked on a Feeling” on the way home from work, but it was so subtle, it could be (and it is) nothing.  More than not, I just feel like I’m alone.  And if there’s any changes, it isn’t a continual live thing, it’s, if anything, a long cover up for the live stuff in the past, just playing all the changed versions over and over again, hoping I’ll just accept and forget.  And to some extent that is happening.  Which is more than I can say about my theories of the cover-up, I don’t believe in that very much either.  No, radio stations are just changing songs–that I still believe in–but for prosaic reasons having absolutely nothing to do with me, so it’s not paranoid/grandiose delusions.

Anyway, stephen has imed, so i’ll do that.

I didn’t mean for that to be the title, I was actually trying to search for comments.  But whatever.  Zzz works as well as any post title, and I am feeling a bit posty.

Five years.  Christ.  That would be my other title.  Though I don’t particularly like to use the Lord’s name in vain.  I don’t think he would mind, it’s just a statement of astonishment.  I’m astonished it has been so many years.  5 years of on-again-off-again lunacy.  Though lately it’s been off-again.

Something happened when I went back into out-patient.  For one, they put me back on Risperdal, the only medication that has seemed to work for me in the past.  Though I am tempted to lower my dosage again.  I went down from 4 to 3 about a week ago.  Trying to settle this sleeping issue.  Maybe it’s a side effect.  Maybe it’s a different kind of side-effect.  Maybe being “free” of my delusions is making me tired.  Tired from years of performing for no one.

I really do feel like I’m more sane lately than I ever have been.  It’s hard to accept that for many years I thought I was the subject of a reality show…  How insane…  You’d think the years of evidence of nothing happening would be enough to convince me otherwise.  But the music just didn’t have any explanation.  I went with my dad to therapy a couple of days ago.  And the therapist turns out to be an amateur deejay, he says there are lots of various versions of songs.  And that in the last ten years he’s noticed radio stations playing different versions as well.  Finally, someone else who had been noticing what I had.

Nowadays the songs don’t seem live.  They just seem like different versions.  Maybe different edits.  I don’t have that rush of feeling like I might be singing with someone, for someone.  It just feels like singing to the radio nowadays.  Which is good, I suppose.  Better to be alone than with imaginary “friends” anyway.  I can believe that the radio stations just changed their songs.  Picked them from new sources.  And the difference I notice now I just from noticing more closely the songs.  Who knows how long there have been two versions of “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”  That “yeah” in the song on 92.3 is not for me.  It’s just a part of the song.  And while I think there’s about twenty of those songs that are different now, different on different stations.  It’s true that before all this there were at least four that were different in the past.  Reasons, the live and not live version (now, though, there’s the different edit of “Fantasy” they play on KRTH).  Now, though, as of the last six months, they play the live version and cut out that great interplay at the end between the saxaphonist and the lead vocalist in Reasons on 92.3.  It’s just a new edit that’s all.  It was weird when I listened to Chaka Kahn’s “I Feel For You,” they had the part I remember in it, but it was cut short, all different edits I suppose–that was on 92.3.  The variants are usually on that station.  One of the songs that always had multiple versions was “Rapper’s Delight” (or is it Delite?, no I think it is Delight), now they play the version on 92.3 that they used to play on 104.3, back when it was KBIG.  I don’t know the versions they play on 92.5, the San Diego station, as I haven’t been there in the last five years.

I’m pretty sure when I hear these different versions they really are different.  I just don’t know why.  But I can believe they are different edits.  Not live versions.  I mean, in 5 years I never once heard a person cough or sneeze.  I know I’ve coughed or sneezed during songs in these last 5 years, if it was live, it goes to reason that at least once that would happen.  All those various versions of One Way’s (ironic band name) Cutie Pie, could have just been the radio station figuring out what version they wanted to play on the radio.  That various versions thing was four or five years ago.  Various versions have been played around with more back then, it seemed.  But then, again, that could just be when I first started to notice these things.

No, I don’t believe they are live any more.  Of course, I always felt they could be the originals.  Except for those four or five glorious days and nights when I was at my sickest.  I really thought it was live then, and I sang continuously.  Then I had my attack.  Perhaps I don’t let myself believe they are as real as I did then because I don’t want another attack.  Perhaps that attack has always been what’s kept me from falling too deeply into the trance of it.  Sirens calls and lotus blossoms, it’s all a big odyssey.

I wish Stephen was around.  Oh well.  Oh, I have good news on the job front.  I’m one of two candidates for a job.  I’m having a skype meeting on Monday, and then we should know more about it soon after.  I hope I get the job.  It’s part of the normalcy and sense of progress I really want nowadays.  Five years of stasis is too much.  Even if my life seemed to be stasis before then.  I still wonder what would have happened if I just had the band’s backing five years ago.  Perhaps it could have all gone a better way.  I’ll never know as I’ll never try out for one of those contests again.  Could never risk it.  I’m much too old now, anyway.

32.  God, the years have gone.  I just watched another program where someone was disparagingly talking about someone who was in their thirties living with their mother.  That always makes me want to move out.  That and when I think I might have a girlfriend and maybe a relationship if I move out.  That would be amazing.  I’m hoping I’ll make some friends with the new job.  Friends with female friends who can maybe become girlfriends.  It’s never too late to hope for that.  Sad to think, though, that if I wait the usual 4 years that I want to have a wife and kids (four years with the woman to know if it was time to do such a thing), she’ll be 36 (approx, assuming I find someone tomorrow) and maybe too old to have them.  I don’t want someone else’s kids, I know it sounds a bit horrible, but I want my own genes to look after.

I think about my cat.  What I’ll do when he passes.  He’s getting older, probably nearing his teens if not in them already.  I almost invariably also wonder if he’s my cat when I start thinking about that.  Still no explanation for the spots that moved on his face.  The small amount of searching online can’t really help.  Not like I can do a yahoo question: “How do I know my cat wasn’t replaced by another cat by the reality show that may not exist which put me in a mental institution?”  I have a lot of questions in that vein I can’t really ask anyone except psychiatrists who have a vested interest in convincing me that I’m imagining everything.  But if the music is just different versions and not live, then it goes that my cat is really my cat, once I am solidified in the one, I should be solidified in the other.  My cat always gets antsy when I look at his nose the way I do, trying to figure out how two spots can turn into one larger, rounder spot.  I love him, though, and perhaps that’s all that counts, as there is no way I can get my old cat back.  Other than him always being here, of course.

It’s 11 PM, I’m not particularly tired, except for that brand of tired I’m always in.  I could keep writing, but what’s the bother?  Where does any of it get me?  Where does this blog get me?  When I had friends who may have been reading (only because I lived with them and sometimes wrote about them), it was a bit different.  Now I’m just writing for myself.  And not with the whimsy of my greenroom days.

Yeah, sometimes I still wish that I was famous.  That somehow they still cared after all these years.  But I know better.  I know that I am normal (with an abnormal psychology).  On the face of it, I’m just an unpublished writer in his thirties living with his parents.  No girlfriend.  Few friends.  A few diversions like this website, but otherwise not much going for me.  Oh well, perhaps we should conclude with a prayer:

Dear Whatever It Is Out There
I am sick of my life, but I’ve been sick for a long time
I’m ready for a new one, an exciting one would be nice, but productive is sufficient
I don’t want to be burden on my family, I’d like to be a support
I’d like to have a job, as my fantasy one doesn’t pay very well
I’d like to also have a girlfriend, that would be nice
I’d like the normal things that people are allowed to want and often get
Please let me have them

I masturbate with condoms on so I don’t have to say I throw them out for being too old.

I was going to.  But now, now…  Now…  Now i am just tired without sleep.  Being tired and not being able to sleep is a horrible combination.

Things I have been thinking about: I am thinking about the nurse who saw me right before I went in for my hemorrhoidectomy.  She was very kind, and I was nervous so I flirted with her.  And after it was over, she called to see how I was, but my mother answered.  And she talked to my mother longer than needed, perhaps so I would interrupt my mother and talk directly to her.  But I was wounded and not in the mood for flirting then.  Now I am in much better health and would like to call the hospital and see if I can’t thank her for her help back then (and maybe get in touch) but I don’t even remember her name.

As for the hemorroidectomy itself, it is going well, healing as it were.  But lately I’ve noted a bit of spottiness after movements.  I don’t want to go back to the surgeon–as good a surgeon as I think he is, his bedside lacks, and last time I was there, he had to scrape off some regrown tissue because of the spottiness.  And it was a painful, painful experience.  Before I got the hemorrhoidectomy I had no problem with going and getting that area checked, hell I had to deal with similar stuff just because of things that would come out that should stay in after movements, that I would have to put back in myself.  But now that area is super tender, even today, so I don’t want anything near it, especially instruments that are painful doing painful scraping.

Anyway, enough of that stuff, that’s not why I felt the need to blog.

I think I have chronic fatigue syndrome.  Which I hate to say I have, since it is such a lame disease.  I don’t think it’s psychological though.  I really had trouble doing yoga–easy yoga at that–tonight.  I just couldn’t get the energy to do simple poses.  I stay in bed most days.  I only wake up at night, and like around 10 pm at that.  I’m still tired.  But I sleep so many hours of the day and night, I can’t sleep on command any more.  If I didn’t have to get up tomorrow for after-care program (I’m going to take a sleeping pill, fuck it, I can’t stand this, I’ll just put a note on the door).  There.

I’m gonna smoke a cigarette, and then I’ll see about finishing this blog post with what I really wanted to write about.

I want to write about the big Reveal.  How I’m slowly accepting it won’t happen.  Because there is no reveal.  (And yes, a part of me hopes that if I say it doesn’t exist it will somehow encourage it to happen, but it is not enough to encourage me to say it.  I’m not in the mood for that right now–not in the mood for wanting, i’m always ready for it to happen.)  It really should happen, though, as I’m not going to be singing for nobody nowadays.  They must know I’ve stopped doing that.  And yes, I know I can’t say that and still sound like I don’t believe they are there.  I’m not completely there yet.  Just closer than I have been in many years.

I don’t think about it as much any more.  I think about, more, how much I don’t have.  Music has gotten only to be a “I don’t remember that being that way long ago” and not “that was different from last time.”  Sure I hear Little Richard today and wish it was him, and think maybe, just maybe I hear a little difference.  But I don’t.  And otherwise it was a typical day.  Typical nowadays day.  Even the Stevie Wonder song I heard had nothing in it.  Maybe I’ll listen to some pandora, it’s been a while.  Do a little singing.  Nothing loud, it’s a bit late.  But I’d love to hear something in someone tonight.  It’s been lonely lately.

Hey [my friend],

I was bored and thought to message you. I want to see how you are doing on your side of the world. Hopefully well. My side of the world is the same as always.

You were the best friend I made at USC. I miss having you around. So… What’s new with me?

For one, I quit the green, I did that about four months ago. Can’t say “I’m happier than ever and will never look back,” but I can’t say I’m much more miserable either. Things are pretty much the same. It’s just a bit tough because all my friends who live near me (all one of them–i.e. I have one friend who I meet face to face, that’s why when you left for Pakistan my friends quotient dropped in half) are smoker(s). Well, he never smoked as much as I, and I have seen him twice since I’ve quit and we’ve had fun without.

I wonder how you are doing, but I know you are such a more outgoing person that you must have tons of friends where you are. That is good to know.

I still have my friend who I talk to online, the one I watch anime with. (By the way, if you don’t remember that anime I told you about, it’s called Gintama. You would like it because it has a lot of “in jokes” about anime in it. I’m sure you would “get it” more than I do, and I already thoroughly enjoy it.) I have another friend who is helping me find a job–I just had an interview today, so that’s good news.

I don’t know what made me think of messaging you, I guess it was because I felt like writing and my instant messaging client was telling me I was disconnected from facebook. And I’ve been meaning to get back in touch with you. I really do wonder how you’re doing, I know you say Pakistan and Los Angeles are like night and day.

It’s funny, I was just looking at your profile, you have over 300 people as friends–373 in fact–I have but 16. I have that guy we met who was a friend of yours as a friend, but I haven’t talked to him since that party. I would never have added him (I like to be exclusive) but he asked me if I would at the party, and I couldn’t say no to him, to his face. Now I feel like I want to remove him, but I don’t have the guts. Oh well, I also have [another guy] from the program on my friend’s list and I barely know him as well. I’m proud to have you as a friend, though.

Anyway, don’t have anything particular to say, just that I remember you and think about you occasionally. Again, I hope you are well, Kaizouku ou ni ore wa naru!

I’d go back to sleep but I have an appointment tomorrow (technically today) and I know he’s going to ask me i I’ve had any dreams lately.

How it went: I was looking for my cat.  I had gotten an email or a call about my cat, it was about some kind of task I was to do regarding him.  But I needed to find him to do it.  So, I was looking around for him.  I tried turning on my light in my room so I could see, but it did not turn on.  I went into the bathroom and tried to turn on the light in there (I believe it was the bathroom, it could have been a different room) but I could not see in there either.  I went back to my room, looked outside, and I could see what looked like my cat, and two other cats that looked like him out by the wall.  One cat was on the wall, another was nearby, the other on the ground.  They seemed to be involved with each other, keeping each other from moving to the other’s position.  It was disturbing so I went to my parents bedroom, I wanted to tell them how I was in a club where we are asked to do things with our cats, but I couldn’t do anything today because I can’t find my cat amongst the many around.  (Tonight/today, whatever, I couldn’t find my cat.)  They complained about (my father complained) about my waking them up, then they went to the den to wake up.  I went to the bathroom to take my bath, which I was drawing.  But I felt a need to finish discussing what was wrong, for it was really bothering me, enough I felt agitated to the point where I needed to talk to someone.  I went into the den, and they were watching a reunion episode of Home Improvement, where everyone was around the campfire.  I tried to explain to them how I would get these phone calls and emails, and I couldn’t tell if they were from the same group.  If they were purposely giving me conflicting messages, were out to mess with my mind.  But I just stammered.  Finally, I blurted out something…  No, wait, what happened was I got really mad and I got in my father’s face and said something about Tool Time being more important to him.  Then I tried again, but I found I had to calm myself before I could talk.  So I purposefully calm myself, and then I say “it all started when I got these emails…”  Something like that.  When I said it, I became relaxed.  (Or rather, right before I said it I was relaxed, but I was still relaxed when I started speaking.)  Since I was relaxed, I was relaxed enough to wake up out of the dream.  And so I did.  And then I went to the bathroom (literally, not there in bed) thinking about had my cat been on my bed with me, and sleeping with me like he should lately, this might not have happened.

32 y.o. soul singer looking for band (Huntington Beach)

Date: 2011-09-01, 11:29PM PDT
Reply to: awbvious@awbvious.com

PostingID: 2578051803