54 Hours

54 Hours

Fifty four hours it took to get from L.A. to Berlin. Yikes! Starting with a 3 hour delay on the first leg of the trip due to weather in Newark, New Jersey. By the time Jess and I got to Newark, our connection to Berlin was long gone, so Continental re-routed us on a later flight through London. However, by the time we got to London's Heathrow International, many flights were cancelled due to extreme weather conditions, including our flight to Berlin. 

We began scrambling on Facebook to find a place to stay for the evening after being told by an airline representative that they wouldn't put us up in a hotel. We waited in the slowest moving line on earth with another 150 people. The line took 3 hours or so and we got our flight booked for the following afternoon. 

Ten minutes into the wait I realized how long this was going to take and I could see the misery and frustration on everyone's face around me. I felt the same, so I figured there's only one way I can personally cope with this situation and make light of it. I busted out my miniature guitar. I started playing and singing whatever I felt like- covers, a lot of improvisation, and a few blues tunes with lyrics I made up on the spot about waiting in a stupid line. A few people tapped their toes quietly, some pretended I wasn't there at all (which is funny because there was nothing else happening), while others seemed to be playing an instrument in their head jamming along with me. I got a few gestures of appreciation. One guy said "you're all we got" which was nice. Considering how miserable everyone in that line was, it was amazing I got any recognition. But that wasn't what was important. It was nice to help ease the pain for others with some grooves and humor. That's a magical thing about music. However, at the end of the day, I admit, I just needed to keep myself sane and that was the only way I knew how to. 

It was a great outlet turning frustration into flowing positive energy. It taught me that just about any situation can become funny if you are honest about what's going on, and turn it into a song. Somehow hearing the situation you're in, in that moment the feeling transforms into an understanding and acceptance- I suppose because it makes it feel less personal and more communal. When people are in it together and they can relate to others about what they're feeling, hear others say what's on your mind, it distributes the energy and diminishes the perceived size of the issue. I'm glad I could play a role in opening that up. 

A funny thing that happened in line (LOL) - I heard a guy behind me talking on his cell phone, and thought to myself "what language is he speaking? it's so strange." I've spent quite a bit of time in Europe and can recognize a lot of languages, so it's rare I hear something I've never heard before. The closest thing I could relate it to was Norwegian, which has certain characteristics that are very distinct like uniquely contorted vowels and a punchy consonant rhythm that seems to interrupt themselves or frolic around a grassy hill top. It was so strange that I couldn't recognize any grammatical structure, or words that would have reminded me of German or Italian, or French, or Spanish, or Dutch. Then I heard the word "snow". Soon thereafter came almost a full sentence I understood like "it's snowing a lot up there", followed by more gibberish to my ears. After the third phrase I recognized I began to wonder what was going on here. Was this guy mixing in a few English phrases or was I imagining things in my travel delirium? After some very acute listening, I began to develop "Spidey ears" and was able to decipher the code as yes indeed…an incredibly fascinating breed of English. 

I know there are some thick dialects in Ireland and Scotland, and I would normally recognize those accents, but this one was deep bayou style Irish as it turned out. It reminded me of Brad Pitt in the movie "Snatch". Anyway, it was really funny. 

So, at that point we were totally exhausted and hungry! Still in the airport, we went upstairs to a restaurant where we were cheerfully greeted by a table of fellow stranded travelers who we had chatted with a bit in line. A Super friendly threesome- a girl from Ireland, a guy from Scotland (he's actually Chinese with a Scottish dialect! awesomeness), and an very tall Slovich guy. We had a nice dinner and chat. The Irish girl, Pamela, was kind enough to give us a little package with a toothbrush and red socks. Yay! Before going separate ways, the Slovich guy, Peter, told us that he was able to get a hotel because he was in transit, so Jess and I went to a counter and asked another representative if we could get a hotel for the night. We explained the situation and that we had been traveling already for over 30 hours. Thankfully, the nice rep from Bmi airlines hooked it up. We stayed the night near the airport and flew out the following afternoon. 

When we arrived in Berlin, my luggage came through, but not Jess's, so we spent a few more hours trying to track that down (at which point I pulled out my guitar again and sang Christmas songs. I tried to get some strangers who were also waiting for lost baggage to sing along with me, but they declined with a smile and a laugh but requested I keep going, so I did.

We hopped on a bus with our awesome friend Sebastian and walked a few blocks in the snow to his apartment. The three of us took a stroll down the street to a cozy, warm, little restaurant where we ate a delicious dinner. Pork and rosemary potatoes doused in mushroom sauce to end a fifty four hour trip from Los Angeles. We finally made it!

The state of being in human

The state of being in human is like being inside one's own chemistry experiment. Depending on what chemicals you decide to try mixing together, you get many different reactions. We pour all kinds of things physical and mental into our minds and bodies. We become dependent on some, while others we couldn't care less for. Some excite us so much we are elated and enthusiastic, perhaps in love with existence. Others depress us and tear us into experiencing what we may perceive as nothingness, darkness, or even death.

I find the experience of living to be (in the background of everything we see happening) like a non-stop balancing act of chemicals, forces, and thoughts, all of which interact and react with one another. We are in constant mode of decision making about what we spend time thinking about. Should I be thinking of being productive, my partner, school, love, how much I can't stand this guy, what I want for dinner, oh my god that girl is so hot, I wish I didn't do that stupid thing I did 10 years ago, I'm so awesome, I'm so miserable, and on and on.

It's non-stop.

If you haven't seen it yet, see "What the Bleep Do We Know?" It's by far one of my favorite films. It's an award winning documentary that deals exactly with this topic. It explores what is happening in our bodies chemically through all the thoughts we have, and how that can lift us up or tear us down. It explains scientifically how these connections, attachments, habits, and patterns are made in our brain through the thoughts we have and our reactions/perceptions to experiences. check it out- http://www.whatthebleep.com/

So what am I getting at? I don't really know. Maybe just that being human can be tough because well...we are human. Understanding, I mean REALLY understanding what that means opens up a lot of thoughts- like how much power do we have in our lives? How responsible am I for my own happiness? What we learn from understanding what it means to be human is we can be our own best friend, or worst enemy. We have a lot of choice what enters our inner world, but once things enter, we give away a certain amount of power. We allow various struggles to take place. We give it away to love, to lust, hatred, depression, excitement, and all other feelings and emotions in various doses. From these inner battles fight or flight responses take place. It's not easy keeping all the billions of thoughts and feelings in check to reach our goals.

It's no wonder people seek out lives in monasteries. I even went through a phase like that myself near the end of college. I was so burnt out being a full-time student, and producing my records, and having a girlfriend, being in multiple bands, teaching lessons after school and on weekends, that I contemplated becoming a monk, sacrificing my own desires, living to serve, and living a life of celibacy. Well, that whole celibacy thing after a few days thinking about it turned out to be the opposite of my thing, so it never happened. But I did spend more time investing all the other stuff.

At one point I even asked a monk about how one decides to become a monk. I don't remember exactly what he said but something along the lines of "it's a way of life for a select few", and "you should really feel that's what you want for your life", and continued to tell me about his life events and thoughts that led him to his decision to lead a life of monkness. I like clear unquestionable answers in life so I don't have to think too much. This wasn't one of those answers, so I guess it didn't help much, but I know he did the zen thing, so it's cool with me. It's part of learning that no one can give you clear path answers for yourself. I would have to make that decision on my own, as with most things.

Ultimately I decided to stay on my path of rock n' roll, jazz, or Soul-Funktified life. In other words, of dealing with being human. I chose that challenge, and every day is a new one. Love it!

MUSICIANS- Who are we really and what are we doing?

We are in hard times. So many people are struggling in this economy, and musicians are at the center of the line of fire. But is making our next rent payment really our greatest struggle? Or is there something much more threatening coming our way? Perhaps something that threatens the core of how we perceive our own personal existence.

What do we do when many facets of our profession that we once counted on for our livelihood and existential validation face obsoleteness? There are less jobs, and the jobs left are offering far less money. Cutbacks and small buyouts are a popular theme, and for many I know, there are simply too few to no gigs at all.

It's not healthy, but we do tend to define ourselves by what we do, so when the world in which we have defined ourselves starts to crumble, we crumble along with it. The result of which that will really take its toll on us is the question "who are we" now?

Who am I? What should I do? These are a few questions that come to my mind in this state. It's a huge thwarted expectation. We grow up crafting our skills and expect that if we follow a certain path we'll be at certain places by certain points on our timeline. Going to school for music reinforces a lot of this expectation. We learn about what others did, and are filled with the motivation that "I can do it too", and "this is what you can expect" and most of us studied a model that used to work. Wake up call- it doesn't work that way in the arts anymore. No one can give you any answers that hold up beyond today. It's changing too fast.

This expectation began very young for most of us. For me, it happened when I was thirteen. I played my very first concert (which I uploaded for you to see at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1bjDNLiK0A). It was the adrenaline, the lights, the energy of rocking out, whaling on my guitar, and the screaming girls (I'll admit, even though I got into music for the music, those screaming girls didn't hurt).

From that experience, and inspiration from my heroes of the time (Joe Satriani, Pat Metheny, Scott Henderson, Steve Vai, Frank Gambale, Kirk Hammett, and many others) I had a certain specific vision of what I wanted to be and where I wanted to go. Don't get me wrong, I've had a lot of great experiences working as a professional musician, and sometimes people say to me "man, you really made it, you're doing it". But am I? From my perspective and personal expectations of where I would like to be, I'm not. I've satisfied a few things, but as a whole, there are much bigger things I have in mind regarding how I contribute to the world of music and what role I would like to play. But it seems there's no clear model or direction to get there.

Life feels pretty good when there's a clear direction. Clarity and direction is our psychological safety net, but as a musician in 2010 there is none. That doesn't mean we're doomed to fall, it just means we have to approach things different from what we're used to in order to stay up.

Here's what I think has to happen in order to make light out of this darkness- we have to actually become artists. We have to actually become creative. We think we are artists because we are studied, and we make our livings with our art. We think of ourselves as artists because we write songs, chord changes and melodies, record, and do gigs, etc. But really, does that make us artists? I think we are much more interesting than that.

With a changing climate of industry, we now have to be more creative than ever. This is actually good because there's a lot more openness now, and possibility. Creativity has a way of shining through with the internet's monopolizing social networks. In fact, interesting people on youtube are beating professionally trained musicians to the punch of a career in music. This goes to show what people identify with and are interested in. We should take it as a challenge to bring our knowledge to that world. What we are left now with is what we can create, and how we can connect.

We have to be humble enough to let go of any ideas of who we thought we'd be, and where we think we "should be". We have to think outside the box (and not just in the box next door). We have to be strong enough to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We have to be creative people, and not just people who express creative things. And it would be great if we could have a lot of fun doing it!!


-Matthew Haze
www.matthewhaze.com

What this blogging all about

Here I am- I'm a professional musician and Los Angeles native (yes, born and raised Valley boy). I went to USC, studied music, went on to perform as a guitarist for Lady Gaga, Solange Knowles, musical director for Justin Guarini, and a few other artists you might know. I'm now producing tracks for tv/commercials, co-writing and producing Justin Guarini's new album, and performing regularly live in L.A.

Well, it's been a long time since I wrote down my thoughts to be read by the public. I used to do it quite often through mass emails, sharing my views about life and the world, especially after breakups with girlfriends, the lessons I learned from the heartache, or when I was feeling sentimental etc. but for various reasons (which may be divulged throughout my blogging career) I haven't written any in well...years! So, it's very fresh for me to start this again in a new arena I know nothing about- Blogging?!!

Blogging has been around for a while now, but it's totally new to me. I have neither written or read blogs. I don't know how to do it. USC didn't have a class in it. But they probably do by now ;)

So no more letters, not much talking on the phone (except after peak hours or on weekends). To compensate we post self incriminating videos of ourselves in our underwear and post them on Youtube (I played guitar in my underwear exposing video).

And getting together in person- WoW- that would be asking a lot of us L.A. habitants to do. Drive in 30 minutes to an hour of grueling, heart attack instigating traffic?! Not to mention taking the time out of our busy schedules. I've tried to make that happen more lately since I've been off the road, but most people seem to have a hard time committing. I'm somewhat guilty of that myself, I admit. I miss connecting with people in person... not just now, but always have I think.

At a rehearsal recently with a group of Brazilian musicians, they said that in Brazil people will just be walking by your house on the way somewhere, see you on the porch and say "hey, let's go have a drink! let's hang" and most of the time, you would go along, maybe even collect more friends along the way, and really be together. L.A. is hardly designed for this possibility- it's almost as if it was designed to make that as hard as possible. This is where I grew up, so I really noticed this difference when I started to travel to places like Brazil, Berlin, and to some extend New York (which is much better at this, but still a rat race too).

Don't get me wrong- I'm not an L.A. hater. The older I get and the more I've travelled, the more I actually appreciate where I come from and the luxuries we have here. This is a great place for sure. Nevertheless, there is something missing in natural human interaction- which brings me to blogging,  not as a substitute for what is missing here for me (because it won't ever be that), but as an exploration. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Sometimes it's the only way to grow. Maybe this is just to let go of my own stubbornness (just shoot me if you catch me on Twitter ;)

If coming together is evolving in our society to become more challenging, then I'd at least like to share things that may entertain you, or someone may benefit from, or just let it be the rantings of a late twenties artist if that's all it's meant to be. So, let's see what comes...

-Matthew Haze
Funky White Boys Entertainment