Trash talk

We're all human, and because of this, we like a bit of gossip. Even if you say you don't. There's always that tiny, insignificant part of your life where you do like to hear something about someone or maybe even say something about someone.

The buddhist say if you have only bad things to say about someone, keep them to yourself.

This is fair. While you may still think these thoughts, it's probably best to keep them to yourself. If anything, just to not harm your own self image.

While I have bad mouthed people in the past, and occasionally I'm still guilty of doing so. It is my flaw. It's something I've been working on for years, and I can tell I'm getting better at not doing it. I still find myself occasionally letting out what I think about someone, and letting it out in a bad way.

One of the ways I know I'm getting better is that I don't do it as often, or other peoples flaws effect me less than what they use to. But the most identifiable factor is where I see others do it to me. Don't misunderstand, not at me, but to me.

What I mean is when I may know a group of friends. I like them all. But one might say something bad about the other friend, and the other friend says something bad about them. Though in person, everyone gets along just fine.

Recently I spoke to two people I know. They know of each other, but they're not friends. However, one person told me about how they felt towards this other person. They voiced their opinion about their personality, their practices and their ways. I took this into consideration, as I agreed with some of what was said, though a lot of it was due to their own opinion, which I had no experience with, therefore I could not agree.

The person it was aimed at doesn't know what's being said about him. They don't know that I know this either. However, today, meeting that person, they bad mouthed another person in the same circle.

It would seem that everyone is talking about each other, but no one is actually speaking to one another. What the heck does that mean? Well, I might say something bad about you, but you say something about our other friend, and they might say something about another friend, who said something bad about me, or you.

And the vicious circle continues to spin round and round.

Everyone has an opinion, and that's fine. But when it conflicts or undermines what I think, I am affected too.

Todays talk was about someone who has helped me. The problem is, the person I spoke to today has been bad mouthed about from someone else I know.

It's really funny because when I started to teach music and organise myself, I started to make friends in the music industry more and more. It turns out that competition is almost non-existant. Everyone seems to be helpful with each other.

I started doing drum circles, and rather than other organisations that do that sort of thing contacting me and telling me to piss off, they were there first, I'm on their turf. They have all encouraged me to do more drum circles. If I opened a car yard right next to another one tomorrow, do you think I'd get the same response? Heck no! I'd be in direct competition with the guy and probably start a war.

But my experience with music, everyone seems to support everyone else. As if we're all in it together. And I like that.

Now, today I met up with the guys from the music shop I looked at purchasing a while ago. They called me in to have a meeting due to their heads up on me opening my own school. I knew why they called me to come and see them. I didn't mind. My wife said it's a waste of time. Do your own thing. But I'm friendly and open to opinions and options. So I went to see what they had to say and see if it was different to what my wife and I assumed.

While we were just about spot on with what the nature of the meeting was about. I held my ground. I'm sticking with opening my own music school. Not someone else's. However, I chose to take the meeting as an opportunity to voice my opinion and feelings about opening up the music school.

I think their fear was that I was competition. The word was mentioned. So I brought that up, and mentioned that we're too far apart to be competitors. Amalgamating, well, no, because that requires me to pay you fees, and I'm here on my own, just how I like it. Reduced fees. Yeah, but I've already invested my time and money on my own thing, to start again is going backwards from here. Even if it was cost free.

Either way we looked at it, I had my ball rolling and wasn't planning on stopping it or changing direction. However, despite my assurance that we can still work in the same industry and still be friends didn't seem like it went down well. Again, my gut feeling tells me that this is going to be rocky. I don't want to dwell on it too much, if at all. In fact, my head is down in my own thing now more than ever and I really don't care what other people's intentions are. However much they have rocked the boat for me.

Truth is, we're not competitors, we are friends, so lets just work together and not bad mouth others who are not only in our industry too, but people I still talk to and deal with. If you feel that way, fine, keep it to yourself and we can all be happy.

I thought about how I was going to write this, and as like all my blog entries, it's just another brain explosion, or Kasplosion... KASPLODE!

Today's meeting just confirmed to me that I am glad I didn't end up within that organisation. I'm in control of my own karma.

No matter where you go, you'll always be with you

My mother said those words to me years ago before she died.

It was at a time when I just had my motorcycle accident. I was on the road to recovery. I was getting better. And rather than two steps forward, one step back. At that point in my life it felt as though I was taking two steps forward, three steps back.

Nothing, it seamed worked out for me. Every plan I made was shattered. Every decision I made was negated. Everything I did failed. Everything I touched turned to shit.

I'm not the type who gives up. I may look like I turn my back on things, but that's only because I decide that the direction I'm going in isn't working out, it's time to decide whether to keep going, turn left, turn right or turn around.

The crossroads of life. I've met them a few times now. I'm learning to deal with them a lot better than I use to.

However, what my mother told me came about because I was so sick of trying so hard to make things work out that I started to regret things I had said, done and planned on doing. I started to think of changes I could make.

The first big change was to move. Start fresh.

Moving to a new country. Somewhere I could start all over again. I had the idea in my head for a while. Then one day my mother said to me "What are you going to do when you get there? You'll still suffer from the problems you are experiencing here. You have still had that accident. You still have to look for work. You still have to find a way to live, and a place to live. In fact moving will make matters worse. And to top it off, it doesn't matter where you go. You'll still be with you.

What she said hit me hard. In fact so hard that I was speechless and didn't come back with anything. It took me a while to figure out that it didn't matter where I went. I'd still have to live with myself first. So then the answer hit me. I have to fix myself.

While I know I've started. I'm most definitely a better person than I use to be. I like myself, I like who I am, and I like who and what I'm surrounded by. I also know that I am by no means finished. I know that I still have a few quirks, a few prejudices, a few things still misplaced or loose.

I know I'm on the road to fixing all this, however I am reminded of what my mother said to me. And more so last night when I called up a friend who recently moved interstate.

His life is in complete turmoil. It has been since childhood. I don't blame him. However, after seeing the light, he still walks down the dark path. He makes the same mistakes. He still think that changing his surroundings will change his life, and because of that he continuously tries to make everything around him better.

He always tries to have a girlfriend, because having one is going to make his life better. As I mentioned, he recently moved. It was a bold move for him. But he did it. And I give him kudos for that. But when I spoke to him last night, he mentioned all the usual problems he was having up here living around my area were happening down there. He said "It just follows me around like some curse".

I felt like throwing my phone into traffic. But I held back my anger and said "Like my mother told me, and I told you. Wherever you go, you'll always be around you. Change yourself, and your surroundings will automatically change."

Always look on the bright side of life, as the song goes.

Gandhi said it best, "Be the change you want to see in the world". He wasn't talking about the planet. He was talking about your own universe. The one where you have your friends, and other people you know don't know those people. Others don't travel the roads you travel. Some do, and those are in your world. But a lot of people aren't in your world. A lot of things, possessions, problems, issues aren't in your world. They're someone else's world. Change your world and you may have a chance to make it a happier one. One that you're satisfied with, because no one else has control over what your world looks like.

I just thought I'd share that thought. It seems when I speak it, they fell on deaf ears.

It's that time of the year again

No, not Okoberfest... Though yes, I'll be going to that too... No, not in Germany, sadly. But in Wollongong. I sleepy industrial town where if the steelworks shut down, so would the town.

However, more important matters are that my birthday is in two days. I'll be 32. I can't believe I have made it this far in my life with the upbringing I have had and the past I have had. There were certainly no silver spoons on my dinner table.

However, being poor isn't what I'm afraid of. It's being without that I don't the idea of.

In a world where money is the ruler of all, it's hard to live the life I feel I should have, or did in a past life. I always seem to enjoy a transaction more when it's a trade rather than putting a money value on it.

I once needed a new heater. My friend had a heater he never used anymore. The same friend had bought a new iPod, and he wanted a protective case for it. I had one that fit. Eliminating the money value of the case and the heater, you can see that we both had something we needed.

I needed a heater, he had one. He wanted the iPod case, I had one. We traded. To both of us that was an equal value trade. The importance of the heater to me in Winter was just as equal to him protecting his iPod from scratches and bumps.

Put money into the factor and you can see how all of a sudden the scales automatically lean to one side. Clearly the heater will be worth more than some $10 iPod cover.

The same thing happens everywhere in the world, at least in the developed world. Money seems to put a false value on objects, whether needed or just wanted, and this value is often what we all base our lives on, when we really should be more concerned about whether or not we need something or want something.

Not rich, but maybe famous

Since I have a fair amount of music experience, I often get asked why I've never got a record produced, or a contract signed or something silly like that. The truth is, the music industry is in ruines. Not for the record companies, but certainly for the artists.

The problem is, the way record deals are made these days, the artist thinks they're getting a good deal, when really it's nothing but trouble. With the recent (insert your favourite country name here) Idol television shows that glamourise the whole music industry and inspire people to get up off their arses and try to make an attempt at singing only to be shot into pieces has made me come up with this story.

Let me explain in brief what a record contract works like.

Say you sign a deal worth a million dollars. What up and coming band wouldn't say yes to that? However, the record company then tells you, it's going to cost $300,000 to produce the album, another $500,000 for the marketing campaign and $200,000 to promote your album on all the radio stations that are going to play it to death.

What we discover is that the millions dollars you got was more of a cash advance to pay for all these things to get done.

Lets say that the costs were higher, which has been known to happen in some cases, and in particular, one case of a recent Australian Idol winner who did the whole thing so he could set himself up and provide for his family. Only to have recently sold his family home because he could no longer afford to make the mortgage repayments. This wasn't due to the global financial crisis. It was due to the fact that production costs, marketing and radio play cost more than what the artist received. And because of that, he owes the record company hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent on him to produce the one album.

Never mind that the record sold millions of copies, went platinum in the CD sales and the record company not only made back what they spent on the artist, but made a profit of over $6 Million just from the sales of CD's. Taking out all the costs, if you want to call it that.... I'm not sure how billing yourself is a cost... they ended up making just over $3.3 Million dollars. On an investment of $1 Million to the artist, which he never saw a cent of because it wasn't a paycheck. It was a cash advance to pay for the production of the album.

He know works a regular job, trying to pay off a loan to the record company and is also trying to feed and clothe his wife and child.

I'd rather be famous, you can keep your riches to yourself.

Music School

I haven't heard back from the real estate agent. So I thought I'd put a reminder in my calendar to contact him tomorrow. I have an IT customer who I have to attend to that I had to fix a warranty issue for which was pending long before I decided to stop IT support.

I'm not going to bother putting in council approval with this one. I'm going to just set up the business and go for it. There are no shared, common walls. So there won't be neighbouring businesses or anyone for that matter complaining about noise. Not that there will be noise since it's just mostly acoustic guitar lessons.

There will be a drum kit, but I'll get an electronic one which pretty much makes no noise.

I drew up a plan of how the school will be laid out. This is rough though. I don't have exact measurements, so there are no dimensions to speak of on the plan. However, this drawing gives a rough idea of what it will look like when it's done.

Again, this is rough. But provides ideas. My wife had some say, and what she suggested is what you see above. Previously, I had the drum room on the right, with that room being bigger. But it made the rest of the layout smaller, and hindered the idea of having more than two rooms. Moving the drum room to the left created enough room to add two more rooms.

Going for 2 rooms to 4 gives me double the maximum earning potential.

A concept a musician friend told me about was to have the products caged off when I leave. Leaving the music rooms available for music teachers to teach from as they please. I wondered how this helped me. But he continued with the idea by saying that I don't hire teachers, I rent the rooms out to them. That way I still generate money while I'm not there.

The only thing is, the teaching method is not in my control any more because they just do as they please. Nice idea, but not the direction I'm willing to take.