god bless vodka

When I was a teenager, and even in my early 20’s, I would sometimes have dreams or visions about people and instances. I never had visions of disasters, or accidents, or even events, but I would get feelings about things. My friend Steven once said that if music didn’t work out for me, I could always be a psychic. That’s overstating these visions by a long stretch, I think. A lot of them could be classified simply as intuition.
During this period of time though, for one week out of the year, I would have these very realistic dreams that I would always remember. In the dreams I would run into people I hadn’t seen in years, things would happen to me, both good and bad. Sometimes these things were nothing special, sometimes they were. Whatever the case, the week following the week of vivid dreams, almost everything that I dreamt about would happen.
When it first started happening it felt very weird, like the world and I were moving together in sync for the first time. But then I kind of got used to the feeling. I stopped paying attention, resulting in these dreams virtually disappearing from my life, until many years later when I decided I wanted them again. But this time, I wanted to tune in more and really utilize this feeling. I started reading books on 6th senses/intuition/psychic tendencies, etc. Almost instantly these dreams and feelings came flooding back, but this time they were more intense. This time I didn’t feel in tune with the world, this time it felt like I was trying to control something that should happen naturally. I didn’t like knowing things, and I was worried where it would lead. There was also an uncanny amount of lights that would flicker off, or light bulbs that would break in my presence. In one week it could be upwards of 6 lights and bulbs. I didn’t really think anything of it until I came to this section in one of the books about how when you are tuning into these ‘powers’ or whatever, that light bulbs tend to break or go out. That pretty much did it for me. I closed up the books and decided to turn this thing that I have off.

I have to admit that I did miss the feeling of being tuned into something, and consider trying to go back. Maybe this time it wouldn’t be as bad as the last, not that anything bad happened. But it was a bad feeling. It wasn’t helpful or insightful.
However, I am still ruled by intuition. Every time I try and ignore it, or act only from my mind, the end results are shit. I should have listened to my intuition.

For the past month, a series of crap has shit all over me and everything I’ve touched. Not all of it is really really really really bad stuff, it’s just the accumulation of things. Ok, so there was a mastering problem for a long time---but that got fixed. There were artwork delays. Then there was stupid personal stuff like renovating a bathroom that I really had no interest in doing. Ok, so….shitty but can deal. But then there was the flash flood that took place in Cambridge a few weeks ago. Haven’t heard about it? That’s because it only happened on one street, the street where my car was parked. I went in to get some Indian food with a friend; we came back out to find the car under a foot of water. The best part? There was 8 inches of water INSIDE the car too. After we bailed it out, the car did start, but it was super gross and needed a serious douching. The next weekend we were shopping for fucking bathroom tile AGAIN in the other car we have when the brakes went out. Had to wait around to tow it back home.
I went to go see The Dark Knight at my favorite theatre in Davis Sq. Afterwards my friend and I stopped into the bar for a beer. This place notoriously has awesome beer. I get one. Fine, delicious. I order a 2nd and the keg kicks. I pick another, and that keg kicks too. Pick one more, and that one kicks. Picked a fourth beer, and that keg kicks. At this point the bartender gives up. Seriously?

These are just examples of the litany of things that continued to go wrong. It was unreal. I was a walking stress case unable to breathe like a normal human. But all of a sudden a thought came to me……..What if I release my record in January instead of November? I can raise more money, I can do a better job of booking, my artwork deadlines aren’t so time sensitive. ‘It sounds like such a fall record though,’ I say to myself. But then I let that go. I let a January release seep into my world a little bit more. And what should happen?
Full moon wanes, rain stops, the artwork gets done, the album is being pressed, cars get fixed, tile (the motherfucker) gets picked, I do some yoga, I start drinking vodka again instead of beer, problems get solved.

God bless vodka.