Today I discovered that writing about yourself is challenging.  Actually it’s hard. And to quote the great philosopher Homer (Simpson, of course): “If something is too hard to do, then it’s not worth doing. (You just stick that guitar in the closet next to your shortwave radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle and we’ll go inside and watch TV.)” And with that, I’m done. Not gonna do it. Nope. Maybe MWD will do it for me (please, Honey?).

While I’m trying to take my crack at writing, I have decided to try a little non-fiction. It isn’t that far fetched, really, it’s kind of full circle. When I was in Jr. High I joined the yearbook, which by mid High School had grown into yearbook and newspaper. I’m fairly certain the newspaper jump was a mixture of my amazing ability to sell ads (Eventually I just took over all ad sales since everyone hated it) and my desire to impress the editor of the newspaper. I don’t remember his name, let’s call him Chris (actually I think it was Chris), but I once tried so hard to appear interested in what he was working on that I failed to notice the exacto knife I head leaned on and jabbed into my elbow until he pointed out the blood that was ruining our current layout. Oh my, I digress. I had a column and I sold ads – next. I convinced my Dad to pay for a few photography and journalism courses at the community college in the summers. Journalism was my calling, I was sure, until my senior year when I quit caring about anything that might impress my parents or contribute to an easy future.

Skip ahead a few college courses, career changes, bad life choices, good life choices and you end up in 2006 with MWD and I sitting in the car outside of a show at the AMA conference in Nashville. He was on the phone with the creative director for Mavrik magazine and she was crying so loud I could hear it from the passenger seat. We had LoneStarMusic in a pretty sweet spot at that time and they needed our help which it seemed like would be good for the scene. So we came in and took over the business side and then more of the content side and eventually we converted the whole thing to LoneStarMusic magazine to avoid having to deal with the original editor who was a walking tragedy (the black cloud kind). The magazine struggled, but grew and even though we never seemed to have time to do it the way we wanted to (running the actual business was priority), I loved being involved. And I always wanted to write, but never had time to do more than dole out assignments and sell a few ads.

Fast forward a little more and now we have sold the business including our share of the magazine. We still help out, especially MWD who has written the last three cover stories. And guess what? I have time to write. And I have decided to (with the new owners blessing) start a regular column in LoneStarMusic Magazine. It might be a one and done, but I hope not.

It seems that I’ve been trying to find a way to hang on to a little piece of the TX music scene without giving away my sanity and this might be just right. Minimal drama and an excuse to use some of the knowledge and connections I have spent the last decade earning. And that is why I need this bio/intro that I cannot write. I wrote it for an hour and it sounded awful out loud which I hoped it was just cheesy to me, but I sent it to MWD and he told me to tear it up. OUCH.  I think that’s what I will call my column – Tear It Up!

It isn’t a big gig. It’s for fun and shouldn’t take much of my time, but here I go. Starting this week when I meet up with some of my favorite peeps Walt Wilkins & The Mystiqueros in the studio on Wednesday. I know. It’s a hard knock life.