I’m recording my next CD, creating an art booklet to package it in, I’ve got zines on the backburner, electronics projects I’m planning, and a big chunk of mahogany that I paid $50 for, hoping to turn it into a guitar. While that all sounds busy and interesting, the reality is I spend most of my time bored out of my fucking mind, sweeping up dust in a basement, patching concrete, sanding walls, moving furniture and dealing with the habits of scatterbrained, sixty-plus entrepreneurs.
I hated gym class, shop, after-school sports, etc. Somehow my predominant career got to be manual labor. So far every means I’ve found to break the spell has fallen apart. I’m becoming a career job-seeker. No one will hire me because my disaster-zone of a resume shows a history of settling for jobs I didn’t want. I’ve gotten my hopes up so many times, I’m letting go. There is no job for me. I have to create it myself. Combine music and art in my own style of publishing, like I’m already doing. I’m already working the job I want, I just don’t have time for it.
Minneapolis can’t support artists. Take the number of venues or galleries and compare it to the number of musicians or painters and you have a problem. And some of those people are cooler than you. Some have “friends in the scene.” Some have money in their family or other weird sources of income. Plenty of them are younger than you and willing to take greater risks. Add my own personal struggle with myself, and it gets hard to compete.
Anyways, I’m TRYING to piece together the possibility of going on the road this year. Take my guitar, CDs and zines and try to get some momentum. The only thing stopping me is money. My jobs are completely flexible. In theory I should be able to afford it as long as I work full time.
And thats where the plan falls apart. I’ve been working for my dad most of my life. I’ve tried to save money with that job so many times, and I always just end up in debt to him instead. My depression gets worse the more hours I put into that job. I had a stomachache for a year and a half that came back every day. No one knew what it was. I got a different job and it was gone.
As an experiment, I’m going to try and put up with this shit throughout the month of March. Then I’m leaving for 10 days to tour the Midwest. I’m not planning on this, I’m hoping for it. I’m going to be blogging more. It might help to write about how much I despise what I do for a living. And sometimes I feel like people think I’m OK with it. I’m not. I need out or I’m going to destroy myself. 5 years from now I see myself either working full time or being creative. I can’t see myself doing both.
This blog is being simultaneously published on Blogger and LiveJournal, after which it will eventually be moving to Blogger. I will be using both as I get Blogger set up. You can always access my blog by going to blog.geraldprokop.com