Finding My Voice

If you’ve not noticed, I haven’t been around on the on-line communities lately. It’s not anything personal, I dearly value the dialogue, the support and good fun we share together in this experience. I’m not on the run, I haven’t pissed off The NSA or Habdalah yet, but I have been exploring. I have been busy searching for something many authors/artists need, a rather unique, original and valuable voice of my own. I have been working on this forever, all my life I have been defining myself as an artist with a distinctive voice, but truthfully, it was not always my own voice. I like to steal lines from John Lennon or Ken Kesey or Dr. Gonzo sometimes…I often pull Zen shit from my ass…for much of my younger life I just repeated things, a pop art parrot, a suburban poser with self-esteem issues and profound shame. As an adult the voice became more of my own, it sounded like me but it was still other shit twisted inside out, from years of use and abuse, like Picasso said…I didn’t borrow, I stole and made it my own. At this point in my experience of reality, it seemed to work and I garnered several successful ventures, started to build a core following and mistakenly thought I had my shit together. Then it was 2001, an awful year in my life…The Dot-Com Bomb & 9/11…My daughter’s murder, both Ken Kesey and George Harrison died and I turned 40 years old in rural Arkansas feeling like hell but wearing a brave face.

I wore that brave face without fail for five years and nobody suspected a thing. I relocated the family from Arkansas to Arizona before returning to Chicago with my proverbial tail between my legs. I took a job driving a limo, then got a CDL to drive big rigs across the country but eventually used one of my 3 college degrees to secure a marketing position with a large corporate cinema organization. After waging peace inside the corporate environment for a couple of years, I left and started freelancing until…November 16, 2006…on The Edens Expressway, on my way to my first client of the day…something happened, I snapped; the next thing I remember are some images of being on the ground, on the freeway, in front of my car…I remember a paramedic’s boot and someone asking me something but not being able to answer…six weeks later I regained some sense of sanity and realized I was in a psych ward and it was my 45th birthday! That’s when I completely lost my voice, I was mute, I could not put together a sentence let alone speak my mind in my own voice.

It was a long road to recovery, a road I still ride today in fact…along the way I did a lot of “personal work”, a lot of “putting the pieces that used to be me back together again”…I like to call it my Humpty Dumpty period. In that process, like organizing an overstuffed storage area, one has the opportunity to evaluate and access one’s items…you keep important things, valuable items and sentimental trinkets and discard all the other bullshit. That’s what it was like in my experience of recovery from a psychotic break as severe as I had, I suspect everyone has a unique perspective.

 Around the five year recovery bench mark, I started to write about the experience. I began to again test the waters as a more productive person, I pushed the boundaries of my ailment and eventually the stuff I was writing became a book and now I’m in a totally different state…both physically and in my head. It’s been almost five more years now, I’m still pushing the envelop of inhibitions which reverberates still in my life daily…and it’s hard, I have some days I feel crushed. I keep on keeping on, I keep my dobber up and I simply don’t give in, never stop working towards my goals. This move to California, we’ve been here just over a year now, has really challenged me, my family and it’s not all dreams come true bullshit. There’s some fear, there’s some uncertainty and moments when it seems like it wasn’t the right move. I trust myself, however, I think it’s still the right move, the right direction and I’m not giving up, not yet, not ever.

One of the primary reasons why we relocated to California a little over a year ago was to position myself in a market where I can, as an author, screenwriter, artist be more exposed to a vibrant stream of opportunities found in The Golden State. To date this is working, perhaps not as fast as I imagined (but it never is either) in my lessons of patience some things are happening for me in a very positive way. My book is close to reaching the 2,000 units sold bench mark, this is good for a micro-published book in less than the first year of release, so the publisher is investing in producing an audio book version of the book! Yeah, you’ll be able download the entire 400+ pages, as read by the author, for only a few bucks! I’ve been getting more attention with every live event speaking engagement and recently, as a result of those events, I was approached by a television producer to participate in a community service type of documentary about identifying mental illness in the family. I’ve also got an interview which I just recorded with iHeart radio which will be used in syndication on their network as a medical information program (heard late at night or Sunday morning, but still…) and I’ve been trying to make contact with an agent or two to help pimp my screenplays in Hollywood next year…through all of this one of the most surprising things I’ve learned about myself is that I do, in fact, now have my very own distinctive, unique and original voice! I can hear my dialogue and conversations, they have changed and become something they didn’t used to be; they have become totally me!

I’d say something like I’m proud of myself, but truthfully, that’s just stroking my ego which doesn’t need the encouragement. It actually doesn’t surprise me in some ways, after putting myself back together again, doing that Humpty Dumpty period, I probably sorted which thoughts were mine and which are not, which words are truly me and which ones did I read someplace else? Writing my second book, in my own voice about the truth I know about my life certainly brought focus to my voice; having to first sell it to a publisher and then to the public really forged my words; continuing this dialogue on-line, in the media and with people on an individual level has solidified my voice with a confident and positive vibe. I’m certainly not proud of myself, but I’m ever so Grateful that I have a voice of my own. Some of that gratitude belongs to you, the people who read my seemingly mindless blog or watch my silly little video.Philes…and to those who have bought my book or come to see hear me speak…I am always thankful for your kind words and encouraging messages. I also feel indebted to the therapeutic team back in Illinois that helped me, to the Masters at The Zen Center I now visit and others who periodically counsel me in moments private and intimate.  My family…both my core of wife and 3 kids and the family beyond that circle also helped me find my voice. Especially when to speak and when to not speak. How to listen and not take a thing for granted…I could not have the voice I have if it were not for all of these people and many others through the annals of pop culture and history…but still, I know, it’s my voice.

Now if I could only get this stupid voice to sing like David Bowie, I’d be all set!