Cutting the cable

Well - I did it. Due in part to financial justification and time management, I have reached (and acted upon) the decision  to effectively give up television. I also choose to stop paying my local cable provider the 55, 60, 70 or however many dollars a month they decide to charge. Plus the phone - plus the internet. Not only do I hope to dramatically increase my creative output and lower my bills, but I'm going to stop allowing the fuzzy memories of our past obscure the fact that she is now but a crass whore.

Having grown up in the glow of her cathode rays, I was blessed to see television through the early years of innocence, the awkward teens, the cocksure but dumbass 20 something, the conceited know it all, the insecure aging starlet - and now, finally, the electronic hybrid of Joan Rivers and William Shatner  - the shameless splaying of former greatness.

My demographic mirrors that of television and I will shit you not that my background and careers (for lack of a better description less odious than this explanation) have all been connected to television. From Broadcast Journalism to retail video, video production, television production, television market research, my whole damn life was somehow centered around this thing that could somehow quiet the hyper kid and teach the unteachable kid. It always seemed bright, exciting, noble...not any more.

The advent of computers shoved TV and newspapers into denial, and then eventually into the dumpster. Wherein cable television had enough time to amass a great deal of money, they were amassing a large overhead. The effects of that trickle down is at the point where single advertisers now own majority advertising rights to a 30 or 15 minute show and play their 15 second ad up to 16 of the 32 potential timeslots. Yep, you get bombarbed with 32 - 15 second commercials every time you watch a 30 minute show (8 min pr. 30) ..pretty sick eh?   That is also why most all TV ads are aimed at women - men simply don't watch them.

So - I will be forced to re-learn all my bad habits of watching shit for no reason. I will have to get many things done because the computer will make me blind and more crippled than I already am if I attempt to use it as my full time fix.  The forums, movies and docs available on line are fantastic, and I'm in control for the first time.  It stops when I do., it doesn't just keep going and going and going. The best thing however, is that I will be saying goodbye to an unhealthy relationship that has run it's course.

Goodbye baby.

Show Weakness

I'm really glad I have some great kids Oh sure, those girls will break my back, bank and heart more than a few times before I shuffle off, but for the present time I'm starting to think they came around at the perfect time.  You see, anytime prior to the age of 40, I was far too immature, manic, dangerous to be a good bet at parenting.  Oh I would have sucked it up and thrown myself into it - but somehow I have the feeling my lack of self awareness and perspective would have imparted some pretty serious social tics in my girls.  Like most folk, I had a lot of issues to work out - but unbenownst to me, I had been dealing with full-blown bi-polarism since about the age of 12.  A lifetime of hard evidence unfolded like a roadmap. Instead of recoiling in shock or burying the truth under drugs and alcohol, I started a long process of finding the right medication to adjust the valproic acid levels in my body.  Something so simple as a chemical alignment - and enough couch time with a person knowlegeable about the condition has transformed someone on the edge of madness in 2008 to someone eager for the next great act to play out in this life of mine. I also learned a great deal about a subject I knew nothing about.  Like most people, the thought of being labeled defective was a far worse fate then suffering the same debilitating effects year after year.  Being crazy - let alone disabled - was a pathetic fate for losers who are doing nothing for the greater good.  I hate to say it, but I wanted very much to believe that anyone could change if they just wanted to badly enough.  As the years progressed, I was subconciously shitting on myself as failed relationships, failed dreams and short-short term employment piled up.

Something remarkable in my life happened a decade ago.  I became a small fish in a pretty big pond by playing, recording, promoting...basically living music.  The people and places of those years saw the birth of the real me - and I started whole-heartedly buying into the role I was ready to play into my own personal sunset. I was finally happy

Which brings me back to Grace and Evie.  They are going to be the ones who benefit most in this whole process. Although the patchwork of fixes that governed my life during some of the happiest times worked when the sun shone, things like 2 unplanned pregnancies - economic hardship, not doing what makes you happy, and at the root - the lack of any real communication cracked the facade and nearly brought my house of cards all the way down.  These girls will get the Kevin that I wish was a long time ago.  All because I wasn't too ashamed to ask for help.