Blog: It's Giving...Gifts

Early this week I stumbled upon a post that talked about the anthropology behind gift giving & how we each have our own set of expectations & traditions that go along with them. The post was weighing the merits of whether or not children should all sit around watching the birthday child at a party open the gifts they’ve received from their friends or not. Apparently, a lot of modern parents are stowing the gifts away until the termination of the party, having the child open them up once all of the other kids have left, & then going through later or the next day & thanking people for the specific gift interpersonally instead of publicly. This allows kids & parents to not feel a specific pressure to match the assumed gifts that other children will give, it also allows each gift giver to feel they’ve contributed something without knowing whether or not they’ve been “one upped.” This then opened up a further dialogue about gift giving & the social contracts there in which then led me to want to share my two cents regarding this season we’re now in in which so many of us are buying & exchanging gifts with one another.

Another thing that the poster in question mentioned, of whose name I wish I could remember so that I could credit them for the points being discussed in these few paragraphs, is the idea the it is not actually the thought that counts where gift giving is concerned & I honestly couldn’t agree more. You see, I am someone who gives gifts not just to give them, but because I feel on some level, they represent how invested we are in the lives of those with whom we dote upon. Your gifts, in my mind, should come from a place of understanding who the recipient is, what they like, how they feel about certain things, what their interests are, etc. & should also have love & understanding behind them. A hollow gift is simply that, a hollow gesture with no meaning & no feeling behind it & if I’m the recipient in question, often times, I’d rather you just not get me anything at all.

To some of you that may sound ungrateful, it may sound privileged or cold, but I never said that the gift in question had to be something expensive or that required buckets of time, I simply think that if you give someone a gift it should be from a place of love & understanding that shows “I value you as a human being & a companion & this item or act made me think of you.” In my experience, hollow gifts end up either being returned, thrown away, given away, or hidden away because as Marie Condo would say “they don’t spark joy.”

Now does every gift have to be the most thoughtful, considerate thing on the planet? No, but going the little extra mile to show someone you listen to them & place stock in your relationship by valuing the things that make them unique, does go a long way farther, in most cases, to just buying them the thing they asked for or the thing they need.

Not everyone is the greatest of gift givers, I understand that, & if you yourself struggle with these things that’s why lists are made. If your idea is to gift something cheap (we’re not talking financially cheap), something you think would be a huge risk on whether or not they’d like it, or something non-specific that falls most often into the ‘interests’ category of the person (think just random merchandise from a franchise or random items that are branded to be representative of a part of a person’s individual expression) then I say stick to the list. It’s there for a reason & while you probably won’t end up being the top of the list for things received, they will at least still love & appreciate the gift in question.

Naturally all of this is entirely subjective & you may disagree with me on all fronts, but a someone who frequently gets called one of the greatest gift givers out there *toss toss, I feel I have a handle on the art involved here that will help you all to step things up for your loved ones this holiday season. Nothing needs to be bought, if you feel you can make something heartwarming from the things you have at home that still expresses an understanding towards an individual, by all means, go for it! Think “oh, I know you love bananas foster so I made you bananas foster cookies” or “I know you’ve been looking for some art pieces to have around the house that are expressive of your interests AND of who you are as a person AND your personal sense of style, so I made you this.” Homemade gifts are often the best kind.

I hope this sheds a little light for those of you out there wracking your brains for gifts this year, just think of the person & the things that make them unique, especially if they’re the things that you love about them, & riff off of that! You’ve got this, I believe in you!

As always, much love,

-C

Blog: Into The Unknown

I remember when Frozen 2 came out. Whether you’re a fan of the franchise, of the installment or not, the message of the film was clear; you have to embrace & chase the unknown to become who you’re meant to be. It was not my intent going into this blog to make it about the second film in Disney’s smash hit world of Frozen but I have been engaging with a book the last few days called The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest & the stars ended up aligning with the computer animated universe in message.

If you read my last blog “If I’m Being Honest…” & saw my most recent Instagram post, you’ll know that lately I’ve been feeling rather lost & directionless in life & this feeling has been causing me mucho stress. I desperately wanted someone to come along & tell me which way I was meant to be going, what I was meant to be doing, etc. I was relying on an external someone I have now realized is irrational to think about & who I know is not coming. It’s also not someone else’s job to be that for me.

It’s now that I’d like to divert the conversation a little bit because apparently my last blog was not clear in my context. This is not how I feel spiritually, it is how I feel all around in life. In my thoughts, in my movements, in my motivation. I got a lot of “lean into God, lean into Jesus” comments & that’s not in the least bit what this is all about. I promise you, no one who is struggling with finding their identity wants to hear “you need religion” in any form. Apparently what we need is the hit Disney film, Frozen 2 released in 2019, starring Kristen Bell, Adele Dazeem, & Jonathan Groff…that’s a joke by the way, before you come for me in the comments section…

Back to my point.

This book, The Pivot Year, carries with it the tag line “365 Days To Become The Person You Truly Want To Be” of which there are 365 daily meditations for you to think about as you go about your business. Now, I’m going to be hyper realistic here & let you know with firm understanding or self, my ADHD will not allow me to get through all 365 days of this book. Just stating the facts here. I’m sure I’ll lose interest, or it’ll get put under something & I’ll forget the book exists entirely, but what it did do is remind me of the quantum mechanics in which the world functions.

I’ve stated this before & I stated it again earlier today in my Insta post, but we for the longest time knew the electrons of an atom existed not because we were able to see it but because we could measure its energy levels. It’s only recently that we discovered electrons, the physical negative charge of an atom that orbits the nucleus, exist in a quantum state. This means that they pop in & out of our ability to physical pin point them only at the point in which someone is trying to observe them. If we look at an atom, in its entirety, & don’t focus on the electrons of said atom, they won’t physically, visually exist to us. BUT if we turn our attention towards the illusive particle, they become precise before our very eyes. This is a phenomenon falls under something that we call the Copenhagen Interpretation.

I bring this up in part because it is what I have become. I have pinpointed the electron that says “I am lost” & therefore I am. I have become this thing because of a belief in its existence & the reaffirmation of its presence on almost a minute by minute basis. The daily meditations within The Pivot Year have help me to come to this revelation & to hopefully find a way forward by leaning into the unknown.

In the early meditations of the book it talks, as Joe Dispenza often does, about how the unknown is the opposite of a scary oppressive thing, but is in fact a chance for endless opportunity. Much as phrases like Carpe Diem try to express, tomorrow is not guaranteed, so why should the outcome be? If you have no idea what tomorrow holds why can’t it also hold the most positive, fulfilling thing possible? Why must we always view the vailed unknown with the fear of tragedy? What if we were to prepare for our future in a positive way instead the way we prepare for disaster to strike? Something akin to the opposite of doomsday prepping. What if I decided, today, as I write this, that I’m no longer lost? That I have purpose & drive & motivation to move towards the things that give me life? How quickly would a clear conclusion take form in my life?

If I can convince myself that I’m lost, that I’m not talented, that no one wants to work with me or help me or listen to/read my art, & have that manifest to some degree, then what would happen if I did the opposite? What would happen if I made myself believe that I am on the right path, that I’m abundantly talented, that everyone wants to work with me, support me, listen to my music, read my posts? Where would I end up?

What would happen if I leaned head first into the unknown & embraced it? Not as some dreaded thing but with wonder & as an endless stream of positive possibilities? I’m not saying to not be realistic, toxic positivity is very much a thing, I’m just thinking about reframing a mind set around the things we want, need, & the people we want to be. A mental ‘fake it til you make it’ if you will!

As always, much love to you all,

Thank you for reading!

-C

Bloglet: It's Okay...

It’s been a very heavy news week. There’s been a lot of news & feelings circulating & I know a lot of people are also under a lot of pressure to say certain things or to take certain sides & I want to encourage you that it is a genuinely okay response to bow your head out of any argument simply because you feel that you are improperly informed, overly conflicted, or because you seek to avoid perpetuating hate, hurt, & conflict. I firmly believe that there is nothing in this wide world that requires every single person’s input, especially if an educated input requires diving deep into unbiased news, history, politics, & other people’s lives.

That is not to say that you shouldn’t decry hate in all of its forms, but where global & political events are concerned, I’m sure the vast majority of us would rather not filter through naive, misinformed, or simply uninformed posts just for the sake of claiming a side or giving in to the pressure of feeling that you need to & I am also certain that the vast majority of those takes you are filtering through are minimally informed, previously cemented opinions that have little, to no desire, to intake new information & seek truth outside of what they were taught or think they already know.

It is okay to say “I don’t understand enough about the issue at hand but will do my best to continue properly educating myself on the topic” & allow those who do have a contextual understanding of an unfolding to share what they know & help those who don’t understand.

I definitely think that is one of the major pitfalls of social media at large, we all feel we need to weigh in on everything that happens & people like to virtue signal to those who don’t feel comfortable doing so & convince them that they are bad people for not aligning with their own understanding of a situation, be it an actually educated unbiased take, or not.

I’m sure I’m going to get kickback on this post simply for telling you that it’s okay to not be unabashed & brazen in your opinions on the internet but it’s something that I think needs to be said more often. You can still stand for humanity & what is right from a base level & still not flood the feed with the first information you come across without fact checking it or looking into its origin. It is okay to say “I see the issue, I stand with the innocent parties involved, & I pray for a peaceful, swift, & just resolution.”

It is okay to say “ I don’t know enough on the topic” & leave it at that.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Saudade

“Saudade is an emotional state of melancholy or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone.” From its original Portuguese it directly translates specifically to the word ‘longing’ though the type of longing it is indicative of is so much deeper.

I’ve seen this word floating around a lot over the last couple of weeks, mostly on different social media platforms where my algorithm has been skewed towards to traveler in me. A lot of those who are sharing it are doing so in respect to this field of interest; travel, & it’s really struck a chord with me as someone who has been feeling rather “saudade” for a while now.

To those of you who are not travelers, who don’t crave the almost ingrained need to go out into different parts of the world & forge connections with the people who live there, this concept may be very foreign to you. But to those of you who are like me, this feeling is all too familiar & it can be immutable & often impossible to satisfy. You see a lot of us crave the authentic human relationships we make in our travels but we often do so all at once. We want the ability to have these people we love to see, whom we see seldom, if barely at all, in the places that they live their lives, but we want the ability to do so simultaneously with every one we’ve made connections with. We want to be able to call up our friends in Scotland or Singapore or Seattle or Australia or LA or Hawaii or New York & get dinner with them, or hang out face to face, because they make us feel that sense of what it is to be human & have genuine, effortless connection. Needless to say this is, unfortunately, an impossibility.

They say the marker of a true friend is that you can grow separately, living your respective lives & having your own lived experiences, but when you come back together it feels like no time has passed even though you’ve grown & aged as a human being. For those who truly find bliss in our travels, not because of how it presents outwardly & idealistically, but because of how it gives us an understanding of the different parts out this, our human tribe, these scattered friendships around the globe leave us in a constant state of this longing. But unfortunately travel is expensive & often the plans we so desperately want to lay fall through because of lack of funding or time.

I had a moment of great privilege a few months ago. I came to the realization that we wouldn’t be hitting The UK this year & that made me really depressed. Not just because I love to venture out, but because, in a lot of ways, The UK, its people, its culture, its locations, have grown to be a bit of a second (or third, or fourth) home for me. Any time I hope the pond it doesn’t feel touristy or like a vacation, but instead feels like a homecoming. My sadness came out of a realization that I wasn’t going to get to see the people & the places that I love so dearly & not out of missing out on a “vacation.”

I think that truly those of us who are “travelers” will tell you that our “vacations” are seldom that, vacations. We spend our time abroad doing the leg work to meet people where they’re at & experience a glimpse of life through their eyes or their shoes. I often return home from trips feeling like I need a vacation, not because the trip was draining, it’s often quite the opposite, invigorating, I’ve just been on mentally, physically, & spiritually the whole time & need time to recenter & recalculate my bearings.

As per usual, I say all of this to inform. I feel like the vast majority of people travel to vacation & those of us who view it in more of an ambassadorial way are seldom spoken about or acknowledged. Just know that most days your traveler friends are experiencing a state of saudade & whether you empathize with it or not it is a near constant in most of our lives.

As always, much love,

C

Blog: Has The Tree Begun To Fall?

Last Friday now former country star, Maren Morris, announced her departure from country music at large. Along side Morris’s announcement she released a two song EP called “The Bridge” effectively acting as her literal musical bridge from the country world to where ever she decides to stake her claim genre wise going forward. One of the songs on the album, The Tree, is all about Morris’s fight for social justice & equality & finding it a losing battle year after year after year making the claim that she is “done filling a cup with a whole in the bottom,” & for me this all spells the beginning of what I fear will be a mass exodus from country music by artists who are tired of fighting for a better tomorrow within the genre & receiving nothing but the vitriol from its fans.

There’s a term that makes me want to gouge my ears out at the mere stupidity of it; go woke & go broke, because for starters, it’s simply not true. Many people or brands that “go woke” have done so either out of something they’ve always aligned with & feel passionate enough to speak up about or out of a highly calculated marketing plan that typically ends up working in their favor. Many people have claimed Morris & artists like her, who stand up against the disparaged treatment between the sexes in the country world, side with minorities or those being targeted in the public eye, or voice their political beliefs & morality, will end up “going broke” as a result of their “wokeness;” a term that seems to boil down into actually giving a shit about the struggles of your fellow humans & trying to make room for them to live comfortable, fulfilling lives in society. But in reality, outside of the comments section on Facebook or Twitter, have seen little to no depreciation in sales. In reality, the opposite tends to happen. People show that they care & hear the voices crying out for change or assistance & they tend to be made an ally out of it, bolstering the numbers in their fan base. Morris & the country artists that state their claim & fight for better conditions within the industry are baring their soul, not just in their statements, but also in the openness & honesty of the music they put out & I for one can understand growing tired of the hate & what appears to be a losing battle.

As I stated in the introduction to this blog, I think this is a trend that will continue, especially among the left leaning artists in the country world. Country fans have shown again & again that they’re fine making excuses for hate, racism, & bigotry in the name of often mediocre music. They’re emboldened by an artist being called out for their hateful or outdated rhetoric & end up shooting their songs to the top of the charts not out of genuine love for the songs but out of spite which then screams loudly to these mostly CIS white men, that their actions are not only perfectly fine, but are in the eyes of their fans, favorable. It’s no surprise to me then that when faced with these disheartening, unsurmountable odds that artists like Morris are dipping out of the country scene in favor of a more loving, open minded audience. I’m just amazed that it took this long.

I’ve had a note written in the “Song Ideas” section of my phone that simply reads “I’m finding it harder & harder to be a country artist & a fan.” That’s from 2020 & that sentiment seems to grow more & more as the years go on. It’s hard to stick it out & believe in an industry that frequently praises & promotes the worse in us instead of embracing those who are genuinely trying to push the envelope & make country music better for everyone. Not just the angry & the stagnant, but embracing genuine stories from genuine people. It seems the more people I talk about in this industry who are trying their damndest to cast something meaningful into the space, the more this sentiment is shared & the more disheartened we all seem to become from it. That is why I wonder if Maren is correct, if the tree that has rotted at its roots has already begun to topple under the weight of the regression that it props up.

It breaks my heart to see this, every time I see a pride playlist, or a black opry playlist, or anything remotely different pop up in the country music space it is instantly met by the worst kinds of ignorance & hatred, & when the opposite happens, when some other white dude does something problematic, it pains me to see their music fly to the top of the charts simply to “stick it” to those who called the problems to attention. I think Maren is the start. I think country will lose a lot of its current trailblazers & those who have a heart to give to this & I think it’s going to happen more & more frequently. Mark my words on that. Sometimes there’s only so much fighting you can do before you have to find your own peace, especially when the enemy is constantly advancing farther & farther into your lines. I stand with Maren & her decision, as it’s one I fight with daily, but I also understand the other side of the coin, & I don’t think I’m ready to give up my fight just yet.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Requested Blog: The Music Man & The Sea

Today we have ourselves another blog request. It’s funny, for a long time I put out feelers on weeks where I was feeling a bit like the well of my creativity is running a bit dry & most of the time those have come back with zilch. Once I rephrased the blog type as basically being my own personal request line, the requests came flooding in. I got a ton of suggestions this week but this one, which retapped the well & that felt the most intriguing to me to explore. This week’s prompt comes from my line time friend, the ever brilliant Dr. Morgan Turner. Doc Turner proposed the question: how do the ocean & music relate in my world, or how do they not?

A truly intriguing question!

If you’re someone who knows me or follows me in any small capacity you may have taken notice to my undying & blistering love for the sea. Why I don’t live by one, ask Nashville. But you see, there lies the disconnect. I have these two great loves; music & the ocean & yet the nature of the music I do & the place I inhabit keep these two worlds apart for me. Could I move to Los Angeles & be by the ocean, yes but I also have the conundrum of not wanting to inhabit a shoebox for the price of what I have here in Nashville. Really what it boils down to is that I’m unable to have my cake & eat it too, at least in the capacity that I want to be able to. So I guess that’s how they’re dissonant on a logistical & physical level, going deeper than that requires a bit more thought though.

How does the ocean relate to my music, or how does it not? To be quite frank & curt in my response, I’m not sure they do & maybe that’s a problem. Maybe a part of the reason why I feel so disjointed, disconnect, & lost most of the time is because I have forced my two great loves to be separate entities that I have to portion myself out for both spiritually & physically & maybe I need to find a way to marry the two. Maybe I need to spend a little time in & by the ocean sampling the sounds, the subtle nuances, & figuring out in what ways they inspire me to create. In all honesty, I’ve never tried to join the two & maybe that’s part of the problem.

Maybe I’m looking at my life the wrong way. Maybe instead of seeing myself as this person looking down a million different paths trying desperately to choose the right one, hoping I do, maybe I need to look at my life with the path starting in a different location.

On another note I think the ocean has always been an escape for me. It’s the place that I go to be at peace, to disconnect, to be in wonder & marvel at the world. I don’t know if it’s a place that I feel inspires me in the musical sense. Music occupies less of a therapeutic lens for me & more of a lens of enjoyment & fun. I make music because performing is what makes me feel alive. I make music because my narcissism loves a stage & a crowd & if I’m being honest, being the center of attention, something that I feel like I loathe in my day to day life. The stage is where I go to feel like I matter to society at large, the ocean is where I go to heal & dissolve away into nothing. So I guess in a lot of ways they sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.

This got a lot more introspective & revelationary (I know it’s not a word, but it should be) than I thought it would! Maybe I do need to attempt to bridge the gaps in my life a little better. Maybe I should look into finding a place that allows me to have all of my loves in one place while still keeping me out of life in what is basically a dormitory. Maybe I should be more open to that idea & the idea of relocation if I feel it’s something that will serve me & mine.

Keep these recs coming, they’re fun! If you have a blog suggestion please don’t hesitate to reach out, I’m definitely going to start a list & keep track of the ones I feel drawn to even if another occupies the weekly space!

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Requested Blog: Grown Ass Artists

I think I’m going to start doing these, I’ve definitely done a few unlabeled “requested blogs” in the past but I think this is going to be a thing, & I think I’m going to put up a submission form somewhere for people to send in their suggestions for what they would like to read me write about. That was a fun sentence to say by the way, read me write about. Anywho, our first official “requested blog” will be coming to us from Bryan Oliveira, who is a phenomenally talented designer that I will link in a button below! I want to also state that this blog will be more about what this request stirs in my brain than specifically answering & embellishing everything stated by Bryan.

Their prompt for me was as follows: (write about) …How as artists, life keeps pulling us away from our art, & the older we get the more of a fight it becomes to carve out time to create, but that time created is what keeps us going & fed & our creativity sustained.

The statement in & of itself is incredibly profound & honest & a feeling I’m sure many artists such as ourselves feel deeply, especially as we age out of what the industry as decided to claim as ideal time for our success. As a now thirty-one year old still trying to make it in music, I define feel this, in fact it’s something that often keeps me up at night.

I remember distinctly being asked by a higher up in a massive company in the entertainment business how old I was. When I answered “twenty-seven (at the time)” his reply was to say “well you’ve still got a few more years that you can make it in, I guess.” This sentence rings through my brain at least twice a week, if not more. It seems, at least to all of us on the outside of major label/publishing deals, that turning thirty in Nashville or LA is a death sentence. It’s a “well you tried, time to sell your soul to an office job” simply because we lacked the connections, the funds, or whatever to be in the right rooms at the right time, completely devoid of whether or not we actually have the talent & drive to take it from there. The more time passes, the more the pressure is increased to ‘give up’ & ‘find a real job.’ As if art isn’t the thing that everyone on the planet consumes & actually remembers…

In the song “Nothing New” by Taylor Swift she sings the line “how can a person know everything at eighteen but nothing at twenty-two?” A line that she wrote when she turned twenty-two out of fear that the industry would do all it can to replace her as she aged, calling attention not only to the misogyny of it all, but also that the industry has this knack of signing people who are still children & claiming their most profound & impactful work when they still are lacking a fully formed frontal lobe.

I do recall it being a lot easier to find creative time & energy when I was younger though. Time & to-do lists tend to get in the way the more the years creep on, but what I can also tell you is that what I was creating was not nearly as deep nor was it an open & honest expression of who I was & am. The blessing of time & the lessons that come with it are that we gain insight & perspective. We learn & grow & become fully fledged humans with interests & passions that surprise us. We learn to stop hiding behind the walls of perception & feeling like we have to create in a certain style or pattern simply because the people we look up to did/do. We learn that true art is the expression of the individual & not creating something just because we feel like it’s the right more or it’s what’s commercially viable or trending. In all honesty, I wish more artists were signed around my age, selfishly of course, but also because I feel like most of my friends who are in their late 20s/early 30s actually have something to say & contribute, but no one is willing to take a chance on them because of something as trivial as age. Yes there are the rare exceptions; Sia, Chris Stapleton, Old Dominion, etc., but they are definitely that, the exceptions, not the rule unfortunately.

It saddens me that grown ass artists don’t seem to be given the time or resources that our younger compatriots are, because I think it wholly eliminates & diminishes an incredible talented group of people, their individual outlook on life, & their lived experiences. Maybe we as humans are more inclined to the “mess” of growing pains & the lessons there in but a lot of those of us who are old also have that lived experience & the benefit of weaving it into our art.

If you are a grown ass artist, with a fully formed frontal lobe, keep going. Don’t give up because the industry you’re in tells you to or your parents start asking about what other careers you might be interested in or society says one thing or another. If you are talented, genuinely talented, express that! Share it with the world. Someone will connect with it, someone will see the greatness, & it will spread like wildfire. I believe in you & wish you nothing short of the best.

Love Always,

-C

Blog: Fine, I'll Do It Myself...

When I started recording “When He Was Me” I knew instinctively that I also wanted to put out an acoustic/stripped version of the song along side its more produced counterpart. Initially I had what we are now calling the “acoustic version” for its own full release, but after talking it out with PR & some other friends in the industry it was decided that we would treat the secondary release as supplemental. At the time of this decision the only version of “When He Was Me” that was completed was that of the original version, or what I’m calling the OG version & the timeline for the acoustic work’s completion was very tight. I began my “hi, let’s do a song together” texts to the normal avenues & producers I know but quickly found them all occupied with their own ambitious & excitingly full schedules so I found myself a bit at a loss of what to do. That’s when it hit me, what if I just…did it myself?…

Call it divine intervention, fortuitous winds, whatever, but the stars really aligned on this one. At the beginning of this process of doing something I had never done before, release something I produced/engineered/recorded/played entirely in the spare room upstairs, all I had was my MacBook with Logic Pro (recording software for those not familiar), my Lauten LA 320 microphone that I’d been using for voice over & demo work, & my Apollo Twin interface (how you connect your microphone/instruments to your computer). I was in desperate need of some studio monitors, a better workspace set up, & some plug-ins (effects added into Logic to make tracks sound or behave in a certain way), but I guess fortune favors the bold.

First came the desk. I was writing with the abundantly talented Frye in LA a few times ago when I was there & commented about how much I love her simple but hella effective studio set up. She sent me an entire gear list, including the studio desk she was using which sat around $300 on Amazon. I’d saved it to my wish list & never really thought much of it, that was until I started this project at which time I got a ping from Amazon telling me that the desk was on sale for a third of its normal price, $100. So here I sit, laptop propped up on my bright yellow studio desk!

Second came the monitors (speakers). I happened into McKay’s here in Nashville one day in search of an iPod for my niece. McKay’s is a used book/video/tech/etc warehouse by the way. While I was perusing the tech section I noticed a pair of Rokit 8s up on the shelf for the price of $190 for the pair. Now Rokits are fairly solid studio monitors & 8s are worth about $300 a piece brand new. So it was a steal. I asked the attendant about them, he said they’d been brought in a few hours earlier & worked great, so on home with me they went. I’m actually sitting here in between them listening to focus music as I type!

Last came the plug-ins. I was running a version of Melodyne already, I’d purchased it at a dizzyingly low price during their Black Friday Sale but I needed to upgrade the software to have it be affective at editing not just vocals, but polyphonic instrumentation (multiple notes being played at once, think of a guitar, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, non-MIDI piano, etc.). Once again, in waltzed a deal, $99 bucks to upgrade, normally $250. Now the deck was stacked in my favor!

With all of the pieces of my studio Infinity Gauntlet now assembled, it was time to get to work!

The first thing I did was lay down a rough. Rough vocal over simple piano chords tracked on my Roland RD-700, the only technically non-acoustic instrument that I played on the track. Tracking live piano is next to impossible to make sound good in a setting outside of an actual studio. From there I added rhythm guitar, a simple chorded finger picked pattern on my Collings Triple O that was also supplemented by full swinging strums panned left & right in the latter choruses. That’s when I hit my first snag.

You see, I don’t own a bass. What I do own is a cello, the only problem was that the bow of my cello had popped meaning the fastening holding the hairs in place had broken on one end. Another problem was that my local music shop was currently out of bows & would have to order me one. However, in the interim, I decided that I was going to track cello like a bass, using it as a plucked instrument to fill out the lower range of the song. With the bones set it was now time to fill in the intricacies of the song.

I knew I wanted to pay homage to the slide & dobro in the original version but I lack both a pedal steel & a dobro so instead I opted for a simple bottle slide on my acoustic. Tracking it in two octaves I still felt it lacking so I waited for my new bow to come in & added in the cello part later.

Next came the vocal texturing. I feel like Josh & I always end up with a stack of “Ah’s” in most of the songs we do & the OG is no exception having them lay essentially the pad for the bridge. So the “Ah’s” got tracked. Then came the Gregorian section.

I always feel like Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody when I bring up the Gregorian section, to me it bears the same energy as him saying “now comes the operatic section” & while the Gregorian section was essentially just a pad in the OG version, I wanted to do it myself in the acoustic. This ended up being the lowest I’ve had to sing since the time I sang bass in Kansas State Choir for an old Russian Hymn. We’re talking Ab2’s low. (My music nerds will get that one.)

The last bit of vocal flavoring I added in were what I refer to as the “call & response” parts. These can be found in the second & third chorus & are essentially just repeating the chorus lyrics back after they’ve been sang. They mad the original recording so I felt the need to replicate them here as well.

With all of that in place I set about tuning, adjusting, equalizing, adding reverb, etc. etc. etc. which took me the span of several weeks. From there I got some feedback from friends who felt it needed a little more drive to it, so I added Cajon & Shaker into the mix. With all of these parts established it was finally time to go in & retrack the lead vocals.

I think I ended up doing around twenty-five different takes of the song mostly all of the way through. There were times where I’d listen back & feel I was still missing the line & would go in to add another five or six takes just to make sure I got it. Then came vocal compiling, cutting & reassembling the vocal lines into the one you hear today. After that I went in to make sure the timing on certain lines fit well & certain notes that were too quiet were turned up & those that were too loud, softened. This is an entirely baseless, stupid, & not meant to be a “brag” because I have no issue with the tech, but I actually barely tuned the vocals at all, I wanted that raw performance. From there I added chorus doubles & a single layer of background harmonies to keep things simple.

Finally it was time to send off to mix. Jonathan Roye was more than patient with my steep & fumbled learning curve & allowed me ample opportunity to go back & fix the numerous mistakes I made along the way, including at one point having to go back & entirely redo the Melodyne of all of my vocals (quantize tempo, reduce loudness, increase softness, tune, etc.). After a few back & forth between him & I we passed it along to Mike Monseur who mastered the track effortlessly!

All in all it was definitely a struggle for me. There were many times where I felt like giving up or trying again to find someone else more readily equipped to do it, but I’m glad I pushed through. This is definitely going to be one of those tracks that I’m not going to be able to enjoy for myself for quite a while, simply because of all the work & stress around it. It doesn’t feel real to me that I’ve put it out, it doesn’t feel real to me that I’m not able to be hyper critical of it anymore & make tweaks, because it’s out. It’s done. It’s time to move on to the next thing & let the song be what it’s going to be!

If you’d like to stream When He Was Me (Acoustic Version) you can find it in the button below!

As Always, Much Love,

-C

Blog: Your Intuition Is Usually Right

That’s it. That’s the blog. Do with that information what you will.

Call it a “gut feeling,” “funky energies,” a “headed up from the universe,” a “download from your angels, guides, or the Notorious G. O. D.,” but for all intents & purposes today we will be referring to said phenomena as intuition. It’s an impulse that’s often indescribable in reasoning or conventional logic but it is something, nevertheless, that each of us has to one extent or another.

However, intuition is something that most of us like to ignore. Whether it’s because it’s inconvenient or goes again the grain of what we want, we often caulk it up to nothing more than a funny feeling & try to continuously hold down the ‘snooze button’ on the alarm telling us that we’re steering into dangerous waters. The longer we ignore the warning, the more it grades on our energy & makes us feel emotionally exhausted & to continue the boat metaphor farther, it’s very much giving the “you’re good” segment from SpongeBob in which he & Patrick are stewarding a ship saying “you’re good, you’re good, you’re good,” as the Flying Dutchman’s ship continues to scrape along the sides of the rocks.

Our intuition is one of those engrained programs that most of us humans have, just like the uncanny valley, though I’ve seen animals exhibit their fair share of intuitive abilities as well. If an animal is aggressively afraid of someone, there’s usually an intuitive reason (unless there’s past trauma involved).

I’ve been notoriously bad at listening to my intuition which, of late, has come back to smack me over the top of the head with a big, fat “I told you so.” There have been certain people in my life, certain events, that I wanted so desperately for my intuition to be wrong about, but it never is, & that brings us to the point of this here blog.

Your intuition is seldom wrong, it’s usually right. Again, let’s read that together:

Your. Intuition. Is. Seldom. Wrong. It. Is. Usually. Right.

Yes?

There are usually reasons that the energy feels off, or even the opposite, there are usually reasons that your energy steers you towards something even when it’s not the path you want to take. As the saying goes: Man makes plans & God laughs. I for years put off coming out. I for years put off being open & honest about who I am as a person & as Stephen Lovegrove will tell you, the path that you find the scariest is usually the right one. It’s not hard either. If you sit there & ask yourself “what do I need to be doing?” You’ll usually get a very swift & clear answer. Say hello to your intuition. It knows the path, it knows where you should be headed & you’ll watch as your life gets easier & easier once you stop fighting it.

I once heard a story from a self made millionaire who said the key to his success was his belief that there is no such thing as a coincidence. Any thought, any feeling, any event that happens that feels coincidental is that propelling force trying to rocket you forward, trying to give you a chance to stop & listen & fall freely into the flow of the powers that be, whatever form that takes for you.

I had intuition bite me in the ass this last week & in all honesty it was something I’ve known forever but didn’t want to accept. I didn’t feel angry or betrayed, I felt disappointed. Disappointed that I seemed to be right about something that I really didn’t want to be right about & that sucks. But the beautiful thing is, I have the faith to recognize that maybe it’s for the best & maybe it was something that needed clearing so that something better could come my way. Time will tell.

I’m going to try to be better at listening to my gut, to the voice in my head that says “that’s not right, or that’s absolutely correct” & acting accordingly, because I’ve found when I do I’m a lot happier, a lot healthier, & a lot more good comes of it.

Trust yourself & trust your intuition!

Much love as always,

-C

Release: When He Was Me

I first heard When He Was Me about five years ago now. I believe it was 2018 but it very well could have been 2019. I had a session with Josh Gleave at his studio on music row. When I walked in Josh was wrapping up work on a demo for the song that Shay Mooney had just recently come in to lay down vocals on. He played me the song in whole since I was present & it immediately grabbed ahold of me. It was one of those songs that catches your breath from the first line & doesn’t let go until the final chord strikes. Time went on & I patiently waited for When He Was Me to make an appearance on a Dan + Shay album, but it never did. As soon as the track listing for the duo’s third album came out I & I saw that the song wasn’t among them I immediately texted Josh to find out if he could reach out to Shay to see if I could cut the song myself. Shay gave not only his blessing but also sent over a folder of about six other songs of which I chose two; When He Was Me & Something To Do (we’ll get to her at a later date). Then began the process.

Being an independent artist can make getting a big boy industry song cleared amongst the big boy music industry a bit of a daunting task. After a few months of my former manager not making any headway on securing the rights we parted ways (for a number of reasons outside of the song itself). The task then fell upon Evan & I, but mostly Evan who loves himself some admin work, to get the song cleared. Of which he went through multiple different sources to find the proper avenues to secure the song.

We ended up doing the recording of When He Was Me right before the pandemic hit but I found that the more I sat with the recording, the more I felt it was lacking something, specifically where my vocal performance was concerned, so once we had a dip in quarantine restrictions & covid numbers, I headed back in the studio with Josh & Greg Breal to do a different vocal take, which I much prefer to the one we initially had. We also added a few more sets of BGVs to the song & a bit of vocoder!

After the song was sent off to Jonathan Roye for mix & Mike Monseur for master it sat. For almost three years it sat. Why you may ask? Well this is one of those songs that I wanted to put out right. I wanted all of my ducks in a row & everything to go smoothly, & thus far it has! Additionally, remember how I said I was dealing with big industry things with clearing this song? Well, that was beyond true! Evan counted last night that it took 78 different emails to different people to get this song cleared. That’s not counting the direct messages, phone calls, intermediary texts to find contacts, etc. This song took this long to put out in part because of my status as an independent artist.

But alas, we’re here now! The song has been released! It is out in the world for you all to make your own & to listen to & share amongst your friends & family & in all honesty, I feel good about it. For once I’ve got a release going smoothly with more things to follow. For once I’m not at a place where I’m sick of the song by the time it’s been released & that feels good. I’m at peace with it & am ready to see what comes of it. I’ve released the art to you all to do with as you see fit. I’ve done my part in its execution & now it’s time to let it fly!

When He Was Me was written by Shay Mooney & Benjy Davis. It was produced by Josh Gleave & vocal produced by Greg Breal with drums by Lester Estelle Jr., bass/keys/programing by Josh Gleave, & acoustic/steel/electric/dobro by Devin Malone. It was released through Distrokid & promoted by Trend PR. A special thanks to all who helped this song along the way: Noreen, Patricia, Kendall, Ashley, Alison, Amanda, Ben, & Hunter. A special thanks to Evan for all of his incredible hard work & beautiful content creation & a shoutout to The Fox Bar & Cocktail Club for allowing us to use their venue for photos!

I’ll place a link to the song below though you’re more than welcome to search it on whatever your favorite streaming site may be!

Much Love As Always,

-C

Blog: Copious Content Creation

Hiya!

Over the past week I’ve had a ripple of commonality come through multiple times between multiple conversations with several different friends of mine, the issue of content creation. All parties involved, in each individual dialogue, are singer-songwriters, none of whom are signed or have any sort of team behind us pumping out content on our behalf. The complaint that we each had was just how long it takes to make scrollable content & how taxing it can be to constantly be in that mode of creation that has to be, by nature, a tad frivolous.

If you're not someone whose job depends on how many eyes are on you at a given time this whole blog may come as a surprise to you, but content, in any form takes a long time to put together. I’m going to show you a few examples along the way to help illustrate this point but just know, that’s what you’re in for on this blog.

I’m going to start with a few examples of my own. Let’s talk about blogs. These ones, these one off, ten to fifteen paragraph numbers that I do almost every week take me on average an hour & a half to two hours. If that seems like an odd number to you then let me break it down. If I’m being honest, the days leading up to Friday are spent brainstorming, coming up with ideas for what this week’s topic should be & typically going with the one that feels the most natural or that I feel the most passionate about. We aren’t counting that time in our final number here simply because my ADHD’d brain allows me to do that while I’m doing other things. It’s not dedicated time, but it is still taking up mental space. Then I set aside time to sit down & do what I’m doing right….now! right…..NOW! which is typing out the blog. If there are specific points that I want to hit along the way I’ll type them down below in the order I want to present them in so that I know which way to steer this whole stream of consciousness train, otherwise I derail. Oh look, Squirrel!

Next, after my ten to fifteen plus paragraphs are done, which usually takes over an hour, I go in & edit. After I’m satisfied with my post, or at least deem it passable, it gets uploaded to square space with tags & categories, & all that good stuff. Then I’m still not done. I have to share this mother so that you all will see it. I post it to Facebook, swapping back & forth between my personal & artist page, I make an Instagram story post, & I post it to Twitter (& now I guess Threads too). All of that amounts to the total time of an hour & a half to two-ish minimum. That’s a completely different story for travel blogs.

Travel blogs take me days. I honestly don’t know if I can calculate just how much time goes into them but I have written about this in the past as well. For a travel blog I first have to travel which, yes is fun, but the way I do it, to be able to share an experience that others will want to immolate, I do a lot of research first. I find restaurants, activities, cool locations & dives, & put together a loose itinerary for my trip, broken down (again, loosely) by day. There are certain elements that are higher priority than others on said itinerary that get shifted around as needed.

While on the trip I have to be sure I’m making content; taking videos, taking pictures, writing down where I went, what I ate, etc. I keep a running tab over my whole stay that I refer to throughout my time writing these once I’ve returned. If I’m diving I have to go through & edit the video I took, as well as take screen shots from said videos so that there’s underwater photo content to attach here. That’s usually a several hour endeavor. Then I have to repeat the above blog process all while linking the places mentioned within said blog. Then after the written portion is complete I go in with the photos, upload them, & position them so that they look all nice & pretty. Truly travel blogs take me daaaaaaays to do & that’s even after I split them up into two to three day parts.

Then there’s music. The average songwriting session lasts around three to four hours & often you don’t get to finish the song in its entirety. After that you have to go in & do rewrites for lyrics or melodies that don’t quite work. As far as production goes, there’s tens more hours thrown in. Tracking all takes place in real time but you need to do multiple takes & then also go in & edit said takes. Equalizing, adding effects, mixing, mastering, etc, etc, I would guesstimate that most songs have a minimum of twenty hours thrown into them even before you start promoting, doing photoshoots for promotional content, reaching out to different publications, playlists, etc.

Going back to what each of us were specifically talking about with content creation is video. The first conversation I had was with Leena Regan who put together little highlight videos from the writing camp that Songbird Society put together. Each thirty second video took her around five hours to complete. You have to go in, edit the clips, color correct the clips, pick a song to have them synced to, sync the cuts in the video to the beats of the song, write a personal, catchy caption, share it everywhere you can.

Kate Cosentino was talking about the same thing, about how exhausting it is to make content for scrollable sites like TikTok or Instagram that you pour hours into just to have it be seen by a handful of people. Throwing your efforts into the void, hoping to catch someone’s attention enough to engage with them, failing & having to do it all over again.

For my Tarpons video I had to find a karaoke track of Feed The Birds from Mary Poppins to sing over, rewrite the lyrics to be about tarpons, record & edit vocals, then sync my dive footage up to the beat changes of the song. Probably a good four to five hours of work & the video went nowhere.

All of this is not meant as a poor poor me type of thing. I write all of this to make you all aware, to show you what it looks like to be a modern artist trying to promote yourself in hopes that one day you’ll have a team behind you who pays someone else to put hours of their time into these posts instead of cutting into your already limited time. I also write all of this so that maybe you’ll be a little more loving to the content people put out, especially your friends! These videos that make you laugh or smile or cry take time & work. These songs that you put onto your shuffle & never listen to with intention again take time & love & effort & are snippets of people’s lives! These blogs, especially the travel ones, take a lot & we do it because it’s what we love, but when you’re constantly throwing yourself out there into the oblivion & finding yourself fallen short each time it gets incredibly disheartening. That’s what causes creators to stop, that’s what causes musicians & artists to sell their gear, causes creatives to get a desk job, because they have tested their metal against the void & the void has swallowed them up.

If you’re here, reading this blog I’m so grateful for you. If you listen to my music, share my posts, anything that supports me in even the tiniest bit as a creator & an artist, I thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. You never know how far a simple comment, a like, a repost, a whatever else that takes five seconds to do means to someone in our field. Please be appreciative of the content creators in your life, without them this life would be so damn boring.

Much love as always,

-C

Blog: World Oceans Day 2023

Hiya!

Just incase you missed it, or the title of this post, Thursday of this week was World Oceans Day, a global celebration of that which covers 71% of our planet’s surface. For many the ocean is a bit of an illusive thing that we only come face to face with on vacations or when we’re driving along the coast, for others it’s a part of their daily lives. Whatever amount of time that you perceive the oceans play in your daily life, the impact that our oceans have on our daily lives is as immense & deep reaching as the bodies of water themselves. If you were unaware, the ocean produces between 50-80% of the total planetary oxygen, most of with comes from algae & phytoplankton. Additionally, the temperates & currents of the oceans have a massive impact on the weather we receive on land. The sad part is that we are killing our oceans, at a rapidly accelerating, & it will most definitely end with the extinction of us as a species along with the countless unique & beautiful species that dwell in the depths.

But the soapbox was not why I chose to write today’s blog about World Oceans Day, instead I really wanted to take the time to share a few stories from my experience in the big blue since 2022’s World Oceans Day. I know a few of these stories will be repeats of those already detailed in my travel blogs, but I know not all who find their way here have read those & those of you who have may have forgotten the stories there in, so please indulge me as I regale you with them now!

I suppose it is worth noting that I have always been a great lover of the ocean; it is a place that has both fascinated me, grounded me, & calmed me. The ocean is the place that I feel the most at home. I got my dive certification in May of 2021 & it has been my often pricy addiction ever since. These stories use this place of great love for me as their home place. Enjoy.

Fiji, July 2022, Sharks

The story I often get asked to tell the most happened in Fiji, where I went shark diving. I’ve never understood the infatuation with my shark story though I am also someone who has never found themselves afraid of them but this is the story my father requests I tell any time that I’m amongst friends, family, or newly forged acquaintances.

One of the main draws of diving the Beqa Lagoon in Fiji is the shark dive. For decades fishermen from Siwa would cross the lagoon going West to fish in the open waters that lie just beyond. On their way back across the lagoon they would clean the catch & return that which was undesirable to them to the sea. This chumming of the water naturally attracted sharks. At a certain point the Fijian government caught wind of the practice & decided to monetize this phenomenon while at the same time doing their bit for shark conservation. The Fijian government started to purchase the chum from the fishermen which they collected in bins & hauled back out to the site which they have now designated as a marine reserve. The authorities allow two boats of divers three or four times a week to come & watch them feed the sharks.

Within the pass where the sharks reside there was been built an arena. Literally called “The Arena,” it sits at one of the widest points of the passage where there has been constructed a three foot tall wall made of reef rubble. Divers line up around the edge of The Arena, behind the wall, & kneel in waiting. The way they feed the sharks is actually borderline hilarious. A member of the national park dangles a yellow rubbish bin about ten feet above the sharks & takes it over to a mooring spot where it is secured to the center of The Arena about fifteen feet above the bottom. When I was there they only had enough chum for one feeding on a two tank dive so the first dive they just marionette-d the bin around, taunting the sharks with the food they were still about an hour & a half away from getting.

Remember how I mentioned not being afraid of sharks? Well, that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect & understand that they are not beautiful, misunderstood creatures who are still capable of taking my arm off & then some. I knew that the longer I stayed on the boat at the dive site the more anxious I would become about getting into these shark inhabited depths, so I designated myself first one off the boat. Once I was in the lagoon & on the line I looked down & immediately caught a glimpse of a six foot bull shark circling the reef about thirty feet down. Once the whole group was in the water we descended where we were met by the same bull shark, only this time at a distance of around four or five feet away, swimming along beside us.

As I mentioned above, they didn’t empty out the chum bucket until our second dive at which time the sharks naturally frenzy. At one point one of the sharks decided the bin wasn’t dispensing fast enough & took it upon themself to enter the bin in an attempt to grab as much food as sharkly possible. The shark got a little stuck & after a lot of wriggling finally freed itself with several fish heads jutting out of its jaws. The shark then took off from the frenzy but was unable to make it out before another shark noticed its collection. The second shark chases the first right in the direction of my face. From where I was situated, pinned between the end of the wall of The Arena & the reef wall my options were limited on how to get out of their way. Fortunately one of the guides was positioned not too far from me & was able to nudge the sharks away with a large ring attached to a pole.

Before we left the dive site Elaine & I were ushered over to a small crack by the guide who had been sneaking food to a moray. The eel came out, wrapped around him, then returned to its hole where it stuck about half of its body out. We each offered it a scratch before it gently returned home.

Fiji, July 2022, Drifting

One afternoon we set out on a drift dive. The plan for the dive was to enter down current, drift along, & get picket up pretty far down the reef wall. About fifteen minutes into our dive the ocean had other plans & we ran smack into a wall of current.

Normally a little current is fine, but this was the level of current where you find yourself kicking with everything you’ve got to go little to no where. So our guide gave us the signal to double back & hope that the captain of the boat would catch on to our dilemma.

When we surfaced we all pulled out our SMBs (an inflatable, six foot tall beacon that sticks out of the water) & began to make as much noise as possible. We did this for about thirty minute, all the way slowly drifting farther & farther from the reef. Luckily the captain took notice to the lack of divers where he ended up & circled back to find us.

In the midst of all of this happening Jodie, the dive guide, began to tell us a story about this elderly couple she was guiding a few years back who she was stuck out at sea with for about forty-five minutes to an hour before the captain found them. She said that she was in full panic mode while the couple was having the time of their lives, taking picture, laughing, etc.

The crazy part about this whole endeavor was that none of us felt panicked by it. We were all chatting, making jokes, planning our very long swim back to shore. None of us, at least outwardly, seemed worried & the sentiment continued even when we were headed back & on shore!

Had we have stayed where the current hit us we most likely would have been swept out to sea even farther than we ended up. Now I dive with a mile radius whistle & a satellite phone enabled watch.

Indonesia, October 2022, Butterflyfish

At a site called Angel’s Window in the Lembeh Strait there exists a 100 foot rock tower that sits smack dab between the mouth of the strait & the open ocean. This rock has many caves & swim throughs as well as a flourishing reef. During the second half of our dive we rounded the edge of the rock & were met by a large school of butterflyfish who immediately came & schooled around us.

I suppose it’s worth noting to those of you who don’t dive that damselfish are a rather aggressive lot of fish, they come careening off of the reef & attack you, which feels like little more than just a stern poke wherever they hit. These damsels often attack the largest member of a group first, which in this case, & every other case, is usually me. Back to the butterflyfish.

So we’re surrounded by this school of butterflyfish. I was immediately both utterly confused & over the moon with excitement. As we got closer to the reef I was once again the victim of a feral damselfish attack only this time I had a posse. My posse dipped immediately. As soon as the damselfish came off the reef the butterflies went in. You see the butterflyfish, my new found homies, were just using us as a diversion to get the damselfish off to the reef so that they could swoop in & eat the eggs the damselfish was protecting. I was fascinated by what was happening & watched it as long as I could.

Puri, our guide, indicated that it was time to move on & seeing the ‘but, but’ in my eyes over leaving the spectacle that was happening he wrote “they will follow us” on his board & showed it to me. Trusting in Puri I left the butterflies only to turn around & find the exact occurrence Puri had predicted happening! The entire school of butterflyfish were following us, when a damsel would spring off the wall, they would slide in to eat the eggs. This continued for the duration of the dive until we got to a point where the current became too strong for them.

Blog: I, Charlie Rogers, Am...

If you’re a frequent reader of this blog you’ll know that every year I make a Pride post within the first week or so of June. Usually that post consists of the current reasons that Pride is relevant & necessary, not only as a celebration, but also as a way to draw attention to the issues still affecting the LGBTQIA+ community. This year I wanted to do something a little different. You see for years & years I feel I’ve skirted around the reasons that my passions run so deep for this particular community, though in hindsight it seems something only the most thinly veiled. I am so invested in the ongoings of the world where LGBTQIA+ rights are concerned because it is a community that I am not only happily entrenched in, but its also a community that I am a part of.

I, Charlie Rogers, am a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.

I, Charlie Rogers, am a bisexual man.

This is not a new development, it’s something that a lot of people have known for a very long time. It’s also not something that I’ve been overly coy about in recent years, especially around June. A lot of my friends & family have known & celebrated the person that I am for almost over half a decade now but for some reason I felt it was finally time to just be blatant & call out the rainbow elephant in the room.

I never wanted my sexual identity to be a big deal, I never wanted it to be the thing that defined me. I don’t want to be the bi-artist or the bi-influencer or traveller, because I think that I am so much more than that. Is it a part of who I am? No doubt, but is it the only part of who I am? Absolutely not.

I was so afraid of being pigeon holed for so long that I simple kept who I am & who I love locked away. I was told being open & honest would ruin my career. That I’d never make it in Nashville being open & honest about the person I am because history says that’s true, but history also gets changed all the time. Just because something is, doesn’t mean it should & though I know that’s an uphill, losing fight, it’s one that I would be disappointed in myself for at least not trying because at the end of the day, at least I can say I was authentic.

So yes, I’m bisexual. I’ve been so as long as I can remember & in a world that likes to present itself as black & white that can be hard. For the longest time I thought I had to choose, I thought that I could only be straight or gay. Even as a kid I remember only ever voicing my attractions to the females in the media, because I grew up in a time & a place where to do the opposite was taboo, ungodly, sinful, perverse. I thought I had to choose & silence a part of myself that was aching to be heard so naturally I took the easiest path & was exclusively '“straight,” but as the saying goes “we make plans & God laughs.”

I had always had flirtationships with members of the same sex, but never outright relationships. That changed when I met Evan. There was something about him that made me want to be honest, there was something about him that was calming to me, & the more time I spent in his presence & around his being, the more I found love to be the most easy, natural thing. I found myself not caring about the pretense, not caring about what others thought, not caring about the difficult path I knew I was facing by owning up to the way I felt & instead I leaned into that which ultimately terrified me.

I came out to my sister first & she met me with nothing but grace, love, & acceptance. I am so unfathomably grateful for her & the heart of overflowing kindness & beauty that beats beneath her chest. A few months later I wrote letters to my parents, to be frank & transparent, it didn’t go so great but they’re my parents & I’ve had the fortune of seeing their heartfelt transformations, something not everyone in my shoes gets the privilege of. It took a lot of time & uncomfortable conversations but I’m proud of the progress they’re making.

If I’m being honest this blog terrified me to write. As of this paragraph I’m on my third rendition of it because I kept diverting course to what was comfortable & writing the blog I typically write in June, about the current state of Pride, even though I said I wasn’t going to do that right off the bat. I’m actually typing above basically a fully finished blog about the 2023 GLAAD Accelerating Acceptance Report as the link to the report sits staring me down from my tabs. That wasn’t my purpose today, that wasn’t why I sat down to write. I didn’t come to play it say or continue the status quo because I’m tired of that. I’m tired of hiding parts of who I am out of fear or because I think it somehow protects me. I think all that it does is diminish me. It does a disservice to you as a reader of these postings, as a listener to my music, as an observer of my life, & for that I am sorry.

I know we all must do things in our own time but this is something that has been screaming from me at the inside for far too long & I finally decided that it was time to put on my big boy pants & be an artist, not just a pretender.

I say to you all, once again, with my whole chest; I, Charlie Rogers, am a bisexual man!

I want to wish you all the happiest & safest of Pride Months wherever you are on your journey. If you have any questions for me please feel free to leave them below or reach out directly! Remember, your timing is your own just as your feelings & your life are. I’m proud of you & as always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Target Misses The Mark

Well it’s almost June & you know what that means, it’s time for the grungy shine of rainbow capitalism to once again rear its head & pretend to give two licks about members of the LGBTQIA+ community. As per the annual occurrence, Target has launched their often wildly hit or miss pride collection to its usual mixed reviews, only this time there’s an awful lot more ‘booing’ than usual coming from the ignorant side of the shopping aisle.

If you’ve been to a Target ever in your life you’ll know that they always feature the monthly collections at the entrance to the store, whether it’s black history month, asian pacific islanders heritage month, woman’s history month, etc, there is always a display that caters to those wishing to express their pride in their often marginalized, persecuted, & subjugated communities. (Read that again please CIS/Het white folks, marginalized, persecuted, & subjugated communities, you needs not apply.) Pride month is no different & with the massive wave of anti-LGBTQ legislature & sentiment on the rise, this year, more than others, that seems to be causing quite the controversy.

Those who view themselves on the hearsay moral authority of the right have decided that this blatant display of pride in what makes someone’s life more difficult statistically in past & modern American life is an attempt at, one of their new favorite terms, grooming. That the displays in the front of the store are promoting (dare I say) acceptance & tolerance & teaching kids (god forbid) that it’s okay to not be on the ‘straight’ & narrow & that their thoughts & feelings might just be normal. They took major issue with Target’s offering of clothing items for kids & infants that might simply exist just as a way for children to show support for their LGBTQ+ parents, relatives, etc. Naturally, if you are new here, you can see where I fall on this side of the argument. These people have called for a boycott of Target store & unfortunately, it seems to have worked.

Target stores, over the course of the week long boycott, experienced around a nine billion dollar loss in market value. Not a number to bat an eye at. Surprisingly, however, the momentary monetary loss was not the issue. The issue was that these hateful, loathsome humans took it upon themselves to start rattling off death threats to target employees, who are simply there trying to earn a minimum wage. These threats were so forceful & so numerous that not only has Target unfortunately complied, moving the collection to the back of a lot of stores, but these acts are literally beginning to be labeled as forms of domestic terrorism because at the end of the day what is terrorism if not an attempt to scare someone into doing what you want?

This sets a precedent, it signals to those who disagree with anything even remotely outside of their limited world view that they can throw a fit, threaten people, & their voice & demands will be heard. What Target has caved to here will allow this type of action to be taken against other businesses, corporations, etc without the fear of any repercussions. Target has not only racked up a major loss for the visibility of those in marginalized groups but also for anyone else who has the balls to stand up against these closed minded individuals & declare “no, this is what’s right” in the face of hate.

I hope you all have a lovely week or weekend, whenever you may be reading this!

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Stumbling Through Life

This past week when I arrived back home from Arizona I received an email from a site called Feedspot. In the email they congratulated me on being placed as one of their 70 Best Nashville Music Blogs & Websites in 2023 to which they assigned me the 35th place. Now, I never applied for this site, nor had I honestly heard of it until I received the email, additionally I know absolutely zilch about the site or company itself but at the end of the day I’m honored that I was even considered to be on the list at all. After all, this blog is often just a journal of my ramblings & misadventures, a collection of my thoughts & feelings. The crazy thing is that, for whatever reason, it connects with people & that is what I am most grateful for.

So be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing each Friday or Saturday when I post a new entry in this crazy chronicle. What started out as a way to share my travel expertise & taste has shifted into a bit of an enigma that I’m still not entirely sure I have a grasp on. I’ve mentioned it before in previous blogs just how random & unexpected this is at times but in all honesty it often feels like I’m just stumbling through life, randomly landing on the occasional accomplishment.

I think this is true of most things I do; I put out music & it often sticks in the most random of places but seldom the ones that I intend. Same goes for this space. The blogs I write out of pain, frustration, or exhaustion are often the ones that are still read to this day. So too are the ones that I write from random spur of the moment travels, not the ones I spend weeks crafting trying to give my best possible recommendations for the many places in the world that I have frequented. To say I feel a tad unmoored or aimless in my day to day would be an understatement.

Maybe that’s all a part of the human experience, maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, but it feels like most days I wake up with a big, fat question mark floating above my head. I spend most of my mornings trying desperately to figure out the course of my day. Do I still have lists of tasks & work that I do each day? Of course, but it feels a little like I’m going through the motions a bit with no real end in sight. I don’t mean to say I’m depressed, quite the opposite, of the most part I find myself content, which is something that I believe we should all strive for, but I wish I had a better sense of direction or overt purpose than what I feel on my average day.

Again, maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, or maybe this is entirely taboo to you as a reader but there are so many days that I wish someone would just grab me by the shoulders, look me dead in the eyes, & say ‘this is what you’re meant to be doing & this is how you get there.’ I wish there was an overt light or guide holding my hand through the blackness & pulling me towards my destination instead of feeling like a mast-less ship adrift in the middle of the Pacific surviving of a steady supply of rainwater, fresh fish, & a library of assorted books, musical instruments, & games. Did that analogy land or did it sink?…I’ll leave.

At the end of the day I am grateful. I am grateful that I get to spend my life creating in different fashions. I am grateful that I get to see & experience the world & all of the incredible beauties it holds. I am grateful that I have the space & lack of pressure to do something that is soul sucking & I am grateful to each of you out there who read or listen to the inner machinations of my mind & find them interesting enough to keep coming back. I am just longing for clear direction as so many of us do but in the mean time I intend to stay in my contentment & learn as I try to grow towards whatever end awaits me.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Rediscovering The Joy In Your Passions

This past week I had the utter privilege of spending some time with a few fellow artists & friends in Arizona at a songwriter’s retreat put on by the Songbird Society out of Adelaide, Australia. This camp was centered entirely around two concepts; tension & release.

The first point of interest, tension, was meant to help us as songwriters find the points of tension within our creativity that keep us from creating to our fullest. We each were given a series of prompts at the beginning of the day, after a morning yoga session, & asked to think about them throughout the day & bring them with us into the sessions we were given. The rules were simple regarding the songs themselves. Whoever’s idea the song started as had right of first use. The sessions were also meant to be open, honest, & vulnerable & established a safe space for expression & transparency. The songs that each of the two groups of writers produced were organic & an amazingly natural flowing process of creation. When snags were reached, they were easily talked & worked through without allowing the session to get bogged down & turned into a grueling task. The art that was created in these sessions was free, personal, & inspiring.

Following our sessions on the first day we sat down to engage in symposium. Each of us took turns discussing the areas of our lives that we felt carried tension, be it personal or creative. From there we were prompted to see ways forward through our lives & creative process that would allow the alleviation of said points of tension.

The second day focused on release. We started the day with a five AM double black diamond hike up the side of a mountain & then spent the remainder of the morning in ease while contemplating the prompts we were given post hike regarding the release of our points of tension. Sessions took place in the early afternoon after we’d regained our energy & footing & were once again an inspiring free fall into the depths of what it is to be a songwriter & to create amazing, personal yet still widely appealing, art. Both sets of sessions ran into often outright painful points of tension for the focal songwriter but both groups worked through them in a loving & understanding manner. The evening concluded with us showcasing our songs & once again engaging in symposium.

On the third day we shifted course a little. We ended up setting two rooms in which the producers/engineers on the track were given a prompt that would put them out of their comfort zone, allowing them to experiment through trial & error in an affirming & encouraging space. The writers for each of these rooms were not set but instead kind of ended up happening by happenstance & once more, beautiful, innovative art was created!

My point in bringing up my week & telling the base story around it is not to showcase or showoff how great & amazing a creative experience I was privy to, but instead to encourage. You see we all left this week (there were more days that just the three where we did other engaging & creative pursuits) with a new found sense of purpose, with a newly established spark of creativity. Songbird took a group of individuals, a lot of whom knew each other very well, & fostered an experience that expanded & fine tuned not only our interpersonal relationships but also our creative spirits. We all left the camp with hope & optimism & a joy for the art of songwriting that I personally had lost.

We’re all led to do the things we do out of passion. We’ve all heard the saying “do what you love & you’ll never work a day” but so many of us end up resenting the thing we started doing out of love & enjoyment because it becomes work & loses all sense of fun. I know I can speak to this personally by saying that a lot of the writing rooms I’ve left in the past few years have left me almost with an icky feeling stirring around my gut, because that love of what was being done & what was being created was absent. Now, that’s not to say all writes were like this but there was truly something different about the writing that was being done & the spirit in which it was being created that made me feel reborn.

So often we go into our work with the purest intentions & somewhere along the way lose sight of the reason behind why we started it in the first place. I mean, to be honest, I was really starting to question whether or not this was something I even wanted anymore because of how grueling it had become. I knew, deep inside that the answers was ‘of course’ but I could for the life of me find that ember that was still holding on to the hope of what I love doing.

How does this apply to you? Well I ask you, when was the last time you felt inspired & in love with the work that you do? When did you lose that & why? These are not things that are irreversible, you got into the rut somehow & there’s always a way out whether that lies in the past or in moving forward towards the future. In all honesty, I spoke to my father about the week & he said something rather jarring to me. I said that for once writing doesn’t feel like work, it feels free & creative & fun. To which he replied that work should feel like work, that’s what it is. Which then led me to this blog because I know so many people who are miserable doing the things they set out to do with the purest intention because they’ve lost the spark that brought them to where they are now.

Your work shouldn’t be draining, especially if it’s something you love doing. It should be life giving & inspiring & if you find that isn’t the case I would challenge you to take the time to figure out why. To find your points of tension & release them so that you can spend the time living in a place that brings you happiness & satisfaction, not just potential profit & gain.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Writing The Hit

I can’t tell you the amount of times that I’ve walked into a session & had another artist or a writer say “are we going to write a hit today?” to which the proper response is always “of course” or “I sure hope so,” because let’s face it, nobody wants the negative energy of a “statistically, probably not.” Lately I’ve been convening with a lot of different writers, most of the time over drinks or a meal, & this topic of “I just need to write a hit” has come up time & time again. If you’re someone reading this who isn’t in the music world, I don’t want you to tune out, because in actuality, the broadness of the topic at hand may surprise you!

When the notion of ‘writing the hit’ is presented to me it automatically stirs up feelings of commercialism, of pandering, of conformity, & that’s not to say that there aren’t things you should strive for in your art or expression, to an extent. I think that if any of these feelings detract from your art or minimize your personal experience they are a hindrance, not a leg up, & should be avoided at all costs. If, on the other hand, these sentiments match who you are & what you bring to the table, fire away, the goal here should be, after all, authenticity.

There naturally has to be some for of commercial viability for something to be successful, but I often think that the idea of what is successful based on what has been successful pigeon holes us into a narrowed scope of thinking. Instead of allowing the imagination & the self expression to run wild, we end up worrying more about whether or not what we’ve created or plan to create will fit into the already etched out niche of what has been successful in the past. I would argue that playing into the hand of the road well trodden may lead to limited success but it also stumbles readily into the realm of the forgotten.

People who are trail blazers, in any industry, are seldom, if ever, those who followed the status quo. They are those who followed their gut & pushed the boundaries of what was deemed commercially viable. Let’s use an example from a few years ago. When Billie Eilish exploded onto the scene & immediately became popular, every label & their mother scrambled to find the next her, instead of continuing the search for something just as unique. They all sought to capitalize on that which was already raking in the capital. This happens not only in the music industry but in literally every other industry I can think of where something is successful & everyone else hops on board to try to ride the wave that sensation has created.

A lot of those who I was talking about this concept of ‘writing the hit’ with this week are also artists & are looking for that one song that will break them, something I’ve heard for years & years & years in this industry but I find in doing so, in chasing the monetary or status based success, we diminish what makes us unique & interesting as artists & individuals in favor of a brief minute on the well worn path instead of carving our own niche & finding those out there in the world who relate to us as we are, not how we think they should.

People are pretty good at sniffing out a phony, call it the uncanny valley of expression, & their ride in the limelight is often short lived because usually the person who blazed the trail they dipped into is already making the trek better than anyone else could. Why? Because it’s authentically who they are. If you are an artist, an inventor, a painter, a poet, a writer, a speaker, a ceo, a whatever, you have a unique outlook on the world & life that literally no one else shares because no one else looks through your eyes & has the lived experience that you do. No one else has the same genetic make up, the same voice (literal & figurative), the same neurological mapping, the same beats of their heart, the same chemical values, the same stacks of cells that you do, so stop trying to fit into the mold of someone who will never be you & someone you will never be. It’s a lot more interesting to create something novel & authentic than it is to be just another wanna be copy cat.

I hope you all have a great week or weekend whenever this blog happens to find you!

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Bloglet: On Easter

I don’t know why I felt called to write this today, but I did. I think a lot of my internal battles around faith have led me here & I thought a few of you out there might resonate with what I have to say.

First of all, I just want to remind each of you that your faith is your own. The level of belief or non-belief in whatever you believe in is entirely your journey to have outside of exterior influence & in fact I’ve often found that “exterior influence” tends to make my personal faith wane. No one is entitled to your spiritual journey except for you. Naturally, as the title would suggest, this little bloglet is coming from my own christian-centric journey. That being said, if you are someone who finds the act of going to church on Easter performative or disingenuous I would honestly advise you to not go. Faith shouldn’t feel like a chore & despite what Ragetti says in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Curse, I don’t believe that you “get credit for trying” at least not in the sense of attendance points. Likewise if you are someone who finds the church space uncomfortable, unwelcoming, or alienating, I would advise you not to go. You should feel welcomed & celebrated to come as you are, not as someone else would want you to be.

I personally am someone who finds churches, more often than not, falling into the above categories. I tried & tried for years to make them stick because of the way I was raised & it all just felt so superficial. I know that’s a massive generalization on my part, I’m simply speaking from my experience. I also know there are going to be many people out there who give me the “well, not my church, you should try mine” & if I’m being honest, it all just sounds like a sales pitch to me. If you’re someone who has found genuine community in your church, I’m so happy for you, truly I am, because that should be the goal, but for so many of us, that’s just not the case.

So, as someone who identifies as “Christian,” a phrase I use cautiously if you’ve read my other blogs on the topic, how do I celebrate Easter if it’s not from a church pew or a cushioned folding chair set up in a shared space? I celebrate Easter by seeking out God in the places I often find them. I celebrate Easter by immersing myself in the wild places; the forest, the ocean, the mountains, the meadows. I celebrate Easter by engaging in the passion of human beings; food, culture, closeness with those I love, music, the things that allow me to sit back & sonder, to see humans in the greatest expressions of joy, gratitude, & fulfillment. I find the signatures of God in nature, in genuine connection, & in the purest, most freed expression of what it is that makes us human. As Alan Moore wrote in his acclaimed graphic novel, V For Vendetta, “God is in the rain.”

I’m writing this today because I know there are so many of you out there like me, who see the disconnect between book & practice & find it jarring to try & squeeze into the mold of ‘the church goer’ on this holy day. I know there are many out there who are clinging to remnants of their faith because you desperately want to but your lived experience has been contrary to what The Bible says it should. I know for a lot of you today can be painful, especially for those of you who have lost or been ostracized by friends & family by actually practicing the words of the book. I am here to tell you that you are not alone, your experience is valid, & I understand what you are going through.

I want to challenge those of you who are clinging to the fragmented, tattered scraps of your faith to spend a portion of your day finding your reflections of creation wherever it if that you feel them. Bask in them, be grateful for them, & for the connection you share & live your life through the lens of unconditional love as we have been called to do.

The Happiest of Easters to those of you who follow the way!

He Is Risen!

Blog: Cold Fury

Here lies another blog that I really didn’t want to write but that emotionally I feel myself drawn to. My initial plan was to start this blog last night in the heat of the moment, but I decided to wait until today when I felt I might be a little more level headed. If you haven’t guessed by now this blog is about the rising tide of blatant fascism coming off the heels of the Tennessee GOP supermajority driven House’s ruling to expel two Democrat representatives from the chamber after three members of the house joined protestors in demanding an end to the gun violence that plagues US schools. A decision that left me, many other Tennesseans, Americans, & people around the world in a cold fury.

To put this into personal perspective, the rulings from the TN House started rolling out yesterday around the time that I entered the gym. The more happened, the more news that came out, the more I found myself infuriated. I found myself with my AirPods in, noise canceling activated, listening to absolutely nothing, & this was my modus operandi for the entire hour long duration of my work out. A friend of mine texted asking if I wanted to go out to trivia to which I declined, telling him in all honesty that I was not someone he wanted to be around yesterday evening.

To say I saw pissed is putting it lightly. I was texting friends of mine in blue states & other countries asking if they knew of any job openings. I was googling possible legal action that can be taken against those involved that would allow the reinstating of the representatives. I was even going so far as to try & think of possible ways in which Tennessee could redo its terribly gerrymandered election to overthrow this BS supermajority. Naturally I went through the five stages of grief.

I want to be forthright about something. This blog is not about outlining the events of history that unfolding last night & in the days leading up to it, there are plenty of those out there if you want an accurate account of what transpired. What I’m here to do today is to show you a glimpse of how people like me feel. How it feels to live in a bright blue city in a deep red state because it’s exhausting.

So many of us here in the south are fighting tooth & nail to have our voices heard, to feel like our opinions & lives matter, but it is becoming more & more apparent with every passing day & every passing bill that our GOP overlords would rather scapegoat & sit idly while they collect their lobbying checks. Over 10,000 students gathered at the Tennessee Capitol building last weekend & their answer to the outrage of these people was to expel the two black men who represent the vast majority of their districts for standing with them. Essentially last night’s decision has left two of the largest populous centers in the state, mostly inhabited by people of color, temporarily without a voice in the house that is meant to represent them all because the Tennessee GOP didn’t like two black men & a woman protesting their inaction.

Now, Nashville Metro has already set a date Monday to convene & vote on a new temporary representative but this still sets a precedent. It puts out the call for all of the other supermajority held houses in neighboring states that they can simply oust those who disagree with them simply for voicing those disagreements & siding with the people that they were elected to represent. People who, by the way, make up the majority of the population of the state.

This isn’t the only direct attack from intrenched Republicans around the country. In Kentucky last week thousands of protestors showed up to protest Kentucky’s ban on Gender Reaffirming care in an attempt to block the vetoed bill from being forcibly pushed through my the state congress. The masses voices went unrecognized. In Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantos has begun arresting leaders of Democrat organizations & whistleblowers simply for going against him in protest. The state of these United States are frightening to say the least, especially for those who fall in the scapegoated target demographics such as Trans individuals, other members of the LGBTQ community, women, & any other non-white, non-christian minorities. The number of antisemitic, transphobic, homophobic, anti-muslim attacks are on the rise & the voices of the masses are being drowned out in favor of divisive, oppressive, flagrant policies.

I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about how it’s becoming very difficult to stay a Tennessean, it’s becoming very difficult to not pack everything up & move, not just out of this state, but out of this country. The checks & balances that are meant to be in place to keep the citizens of this country safe & prosperous are failing left, right, & center, & I fear that, without the rising up of the generations to my younger, that this will continue to worsen & worsen. I’ve written many pleas in the past to conservative voters begging them to understand the kind of people they put in office & the kind of long lasting damage it is doing to this country & the people who live here. I understand that the money goes to both sides of the aisle, but there is one group actively seeking to destroy the lives of our most vulnerable & those who, at least for appearances sake, are fighting them each step of the way.

If this nation is to succeed then we must remove money from our politics & we must create an America that holds space for all people, not just those in power or those who are white & christian. I ask you all the following questions that were rattling around my brain all night simply because I do not know & I am trying to find a way forward out of this cold, numb fury that I have been encapsulated in.

What do you do when a government want to be for the people is only for themselves?

What do you do when the system stops working (or works exactly how it was designed to), where politicians would rather scapegoat than actually make meaningful, positive change?

What do you do when the system takes far too long to accomplish anything?

What do you do when the voices of the ignorant, the hateful, the uneducated, outweigh the voices of the knowledgable, the empathetic, & the intellectual?

I ask all of these things to you all simply because I lack the answer & want so badly not to lose faith that this too shall pass & that good will win on the other side.

I hope whenever this blog finds you that you are well & you are blessed & that you week/weekend/whatever has & will be an exceptional one.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Recipe: Charlie's Healthier, Yet Still Bussin' Brownies

As per usual, when it comes to recipe postings on my site, I shan’t be giving you some long drawn out story about how my grandpa made this recipe while fighting in the Korean War or how my mother used to make this on the days when we were sick on the verge of death because that’s not why you’re here. You’re here for a recipe, plain & simple.

This recipe, as many recipes do, originated as a combination of a bunch of different recipes that I put my own unique twist on & adjusted to fit my personal taste & lifestyle. As with any recipe, I urge you to do the same & to make it your own. Food is an art form after all.

Yes this recipe contains sweet potatoes but, as someone who doesn’t enjoy sweet potatoes, I promise you won’t be able to taste them!

Anyway, without further pomp & circumstance here’s the recipe!

Charlie’s Healthier, Yet Still Bussin’ Brownies

Yes, they are Paleo.

Ingredients:

• 3 Small Sweet Potatoes (Get Small Ones, They Won’t Be Stringy)

• 1/4 Cup of Paleo Blend Flour or Flour of Choice

• 1/3 Heaping Cup of Cocoa Powder

• 2 Eggs

• 1 TSP Vanilla Paste (or Extract If You Don’t Have Paste)

• 1 TBSP Nut Butter of Choice (I Use Almond or a Mix)

• 1/2 Cup of Chocolate Chips (I Use Lily’s To Cut The Sugar)

• 2/3 Cup of Coconut Sugar

• Pinch of Smoked Salt (Regular Is Fine Too)

• Pinch of Nutmeg

• Dash of Cinnamon

Optional Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup of Chopped Nuts

• 1/2 Cup of Shaved Coconut

• Pinch of Garam Masala

• Whatever Else You Might Like In Your Brownies

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

• Poke a plethora of holes in your sweet potatoes & arrange them on a baking sheet.

• Cook sweet potatoes in oven for 75-90 minutes or until caramelized & peeling. The skin should be easy to remove.

• Allow potatoes to cool before removing skin.

• Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

• Line a baking dish with parchment paper.

• In a stand mixer or large bowl combine all of your ingredients, don’t forget the potatoes.

• Pour batter into your lined baking pan.

• Sprinkle large flake smoked salt or coconut or whatever you’d like on top.

• Bake for 30 minutes.

• Remove from oven & let cool.

• The brownies should be baked through but still gooey.

• Enjoy them & enjoy serving them to friends & family without telling them they’re healthy-ish!