Daybreak

It feels to me like California is a promised-land of sorts, populated by folks who “got out” of one place and lifestyle to create an improved way of being. I’ve experienced the culture during my time there, and one aspect of it is that it’s a state of “transplants”- made up of many who’ve moved and settled to level-up in a new beginning. It’s not like in my hometown, where 99% of everyone you know is born, raised, and stays there. 

A big regional component of CA is the art of standup comedy. Which exists nationwide, but is the specialty brand of SoCal. In comedy clubs where i found myself, as my intention of landing in town, i discovered a norm being people sharing stories about their former lives as prologue to their restart on the famous sunshine coast. 

I graduated high school in 2010; we had cool t-shirts that read, “SEN10RS”. It was then that I left the fishbowl high school boxes us into. My performative student role had been lifted, thus i could start adulting in a more singular tune, to a melody more unique than adhering to the mass set standards. I felt like being 19 years of age was a gifted headspace, when my internal dialogue changed from the construct of having to fit into conversations with my basic swim team girlies, and into a pleasant knowing of my deeper self, inhibited and unhinged. I became a stoner. I became a 13th grade community college chick. I got a tattoo. I became a visual artist by way of illustration. And my most formative personality element: listening to my favorite band.

Immediately, this band got a hold on me. Radio 104.5 - Philadelphia’s Alternative - was responsible for sustaining and inventing a music scene characterized by 1990s rock thru 2010s indie. The most accurate assessment of this radio station is that they play the same songs again and again. They never remove any of their approximately 150 tracks from the stream; only add ones by new bands, when a lot of new music was blending eras of pop and emo, punk and electronic, and bass lining a social identity which delivered essence into our blank slate existence- from fashion to the mentality fueling your actions. Since the intriguing first song, my favorite band won an important place in my life. 

When philly and college took a toll on who i was becoming, i decided to take my band on the road. Into a metamorphosis of my life. On my lime green mp3 player powered by pirated files (too poor for an ipod haha). With my Sector 9 skateboard. And a will to keep letting this album, and the previous ones which would be future ones for me, influence my sphere. Is that the sun from Sublime on your wrist? Yes a rendition of the prototype indeed… later guys! Off to where i belong.  

I arrived at my rented room from craigslist with just 2 carry-on backpacks (body), a dream (ego), and my personal music taste on my mind (soul). Ventura - the wordplay in name alone enticed me, looking for an adventure. I heard of the jim carrey movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and felt good about seeing what kind of comical interrelation that could lead to. In my third month of residing out west, there was one, of many, many more to come, sign from the universe that i was absolutely at the right place at the right time.

Is this venue actually called The Majestic Theater, and my favorite acoustic album is titled The Majestic Majesty?! I need to attend this concert! What a fantastic coincidence, that the band happened to follow me geographically as I followed them in audio waves! Simply searching online for local fun activities to welcome me home, I’ll be there, out on a Wednesday night to experience these guys live. Against any odds, odds being that i had no money in between jobs, the 10 miles from my place to the show without a car, and 0 friends to attend with. Nonetheless, my delusionally resilient attitude would float me everywhere in california i really did belong.

So, i kinda had an introductory part-time gig, at Subway, the worldwide chain hoagie shop, and the only person calling Subway a hoagie shop is the jersey girl who got a job there. Dunkin Donuts and Wawa are on every block of where im from; in CA, it’s Subway Sandwiches. I lived so scarcely financially, i literally picked oranges from trees for daily caloric intake. Im the funniest college gurl with an eating disorder; but not the first california dreamer vagabond who's done that, for sure. Somewhere in there, and i am old enough now to feel this in a lighthearted tone, i had about a handful of sex work experiences, literally to buy a bicycle so i could routinely work my way into more hours at Subway. People say, ya know, your need to buy a $25 ticket to this concert was a dire obsession & they are correct. Tho, you never regret your Destiny.

Cash boom, bike check- looks like my lance armstrong ass is riding to the show! At the height of the band’s Evil Friends album era, you can find Me, Myself, and I, delightfully alive! Ha~ha! I never needed a friend. The manner in which the soundtrack to my life, on an eerily realistic level, would begin at this show, and continue to this very day, may be classified as a hand from divinity, imo. 

This would be the only show of theirs i was at where alc*hol was in the picture, as i have since fully recovered from an addiction. Yet, i must admit, for sheer storytelling interest, the picture safely passed social and cultural inspection. I’d been scheduled at Subway from 1-5pm that mid-October day, the first autumn i was super excited to experience an extension of 70 degrees and sunny rather than foliage. I biked home, and got ready for the concert! Shower, cutest outfit, and an average size $8 bot of white wine. Couple cups in, the remainder in a recycled Nesquik chocolate milk bottle attached to the water bottle holder on my bike frame, and a passion for the music… I’m doin’ me! Today, whenever i see Nesquik milk in the store - the yellow label, the chocolate rabbit - a tiny laugh under my breath reminisces not on a chemical fixation, but an association of a night so amazing, the energy and emotions of it kept me rising higher as a thriving human. 

(I am in such a recovered state I do not buy Nesquik because sobriety is all about canceling connotations too. Just so u know, im not glorifying drug use, but telling a true story of heroism in my character. Just so u get a fact of my rock n roll persona which led me there in the first place!)

I arrived pretty sharply on time, skipping the opening band due to lengthy travel time, but right on target for when my band started playing. I made my way to the front, a general admission pit, and had the hazy wave encapsulate all of me. It was magical. Literally the most fun i had in california since arriving. I sang Got It All. I danced foolishly to Purple Yellow Red and Blue. I didn’t know every song yet, but was swept away by their performance - the aesthetic in their image, the stage design and colored lights, the permeating weed scent, the vibe of a house party… it wasn’t a better experience i could’ve imagined. 

Feeling spiritual in a brand new way, it was as though i tuned into mySelf there, like a meditative trace, where my internal monologue was louder shaping me being 22 years of age, now truly entwined into my own proclaimed “soul-searching-journey”. I understood the healing power of music for the first time. Healing me towards a reasoning and road inspired by my love of musical arts. Feeling like my chosen Cali community could be rooted in musical connections. 

On my bike ride home post-show, i remember thinking, high from the vibrations with mild ringing in my ears, not that I would become a musician, but perhaps someone who bases their life around music. Maybe a music journalist, maybe a stage crew member, maybe a merch table employee, maybe a radio personality like Wendy on Radio 104.5, maybe a groupie. My fresh life could certainly be themed by music, & so far, that sounded fairly viable, during this time of constructing my future and professional goals. Always hoping Cali would show me opportunities for careers and a selected family, I now had an additional component to living my dream, peaches n cream: Imma be a most valuable player in the game of music.

Well, along the notes of biking to entertaining evenings, 3 weeks after my favorite jam session, standup comedy was born inside me. I swear to the green grass i stand upon, i never came back, mentally, from that first open mic doing 5 minutes. (i did not last the full 5 minutes but was so cute in naivety and originality that i made instant friendships). That internal monologue I'd been building found the track it would come to live on, without ever hopping off. It was like wearing comedy lenses on your eyes; i started questioning everything to find humor within, listening to everything with ears to turn it into my topical funny reports, and coming to know our shared world as a Comedienne. The identity crisis that brought me out there had been relieved with the most profound puzzle piece- i feel welcomed by myself as myself, here now.

The Ventura Comedy University Class of 2014, well, i owe it all to them. Couldn’t have thrived without getting by with a little help from my friends. The main thing about comedy rooms is everyone is equal, liked (or unliked) for the content of their character, and keeping the pool cool with those who do it for the love of the lifestyle. The dramady of the entire scene was too good for me to ever unplug. While grinding at Subway for 40 hours a week, i kept coming back 3/4 nights a week to my treasured hobby. I had class crushes, landed myself a fine place in the tribe, and sculpted my mind from laughter, humankind truth, empathy, and caliiiforniiia rays of talent and beauty.     

“What kind of bird likes electronic dance music?” i asked my audience at a chinese restaurant with a floor featuring a stool and a mic stand and 20 of my closest homies. 

Perfect silence for 3 seconds.

“A raven 🙂” 

As my brand was likable, i faded away from appearing at open mics when, much in the fashion of a classic comic, i fell down the rabbit hole. In part intentionally, for the golden material it would spark, with a lil guidance from my… haha, evil real friends… let’s just say my favorite friendz And I, we’re fans of one another, okay, relax, nbd, Easy Tiger! Great cliff hanger for this chapter.

It’s been a decade since all that; still rolling with only the best of its influence. While a girl’s gotta do myriads of things on her way up to becoming Music Journalist For The Modern American Revolution, you can never take the native spirit out of the lady reborn in love and never quit it. Hit it! 

This blog is a dream come true. I invented a catch phrase to sum up my experience: “far out, stay out!”. It is my poetic line to match many lyrics who are metaphorically the pump of my heartbeat. It means to the effect, “once black ain’t back”, not at all in a racial sense, but the idea that you can be riptided in your life saga so intensely, you as person cannot undo, or unknow, or unbe, and that is a timeless upgrade you will not return from, fortunately. Not a lateral move; an actual elevated mindset which accesses you to feel the planet as a sanctuary made for your wholesome heavy soul. Once here, the best news is we can’t take back the past & the future is coming fast… & it ain’t sounding sad or remorseful or anxious… this notion rings in melody as a message of Eternal Jubilation.   

My favorite band didn’t change my life; they actively made my life (path). In my 10 years making art, you can see across all my mediums their impression lovingly laced throughout. The next 12 posts on my page are gonna be a Tribute Project. Thank you for reading soma the most authentic fanart, from the bottom to top of my heart. Tine out <3.