Blog: Why You Should Be Pre-Saving Releases From Independent Artists

Hiya!

I’m sure if many of you are like myself you often find yourself faced with an artist friend or an artist you follow prompting you to pre-save their upcoming release. And if you’re also like myself the first thing to usually go through your mind is “why would I do that? I don’t even know if the song is good or not yet.” Well, I’m here to tell you today, that doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, I’m also going to tell you why!

Back in the day, when people were still buying tracks/eps/albums/etc, (which if you’re still doing that, you’re a saint in the eyes of artists & writers) you could often preorder said piece of musical art & that made sense, because it’s like preordering a book or a game or whatever else you may be excited for! It gave the artist distributed the piece a leg up, especially where charts & sales are concerned.

How does this translate to our modern era of streaming?

Well, much like preorders, pre-saves give us as independent artists a leg up in an industry where the charts & playlists often favor the labels & the signed artists. It gives us a behinds the scenes way of saying “this is how many people are already interested in this song on day one, imagine how many more will be when you add it to your super exclusive editorial playlist!” And that counts EVEN IF YOU NEVER LISTEN TO THE SONG!!!

That’s right, you don’t even have to stream the song, the pre-save is enough!

I mean, by all means listen to the song because that’s somebody’s hard work they poured time, love, money, & effort into! It deserves to be heard! You never know, it may end up being your cup of tea too!

I have been hearing more & more independent artists vamping up massive pre-save campaigns just to get the attention of the editorial playlisters on the major music streaming platforms, & you know what, it’s working! Slowly but surely these artists are getting thrown onto major playlists in part because their songs deserve to be there, but a lot of the time because it got flagged as a song of interest simply from the number of pre-saves.

All of this is meant to say help independent artists out & pre-save their releases! It takes like 30 seconds to do & you could be a major boost to their career! In addition to, you know, being a good friend/supporter for those of us out here doing the thing all by our lonesome!

SPEAKING OF….

I have a new single that comes out on June 24th called “Just Another Late Night!” You’d be doing me a humongous favor by going in & pre-saving it to your streaming platform of choice or even all of them you’re a part of if you feel like going above & beyond! I’m going to post the pre-save link below, again, please take thirty seconds more out of the couple minutes you’ve set aside to give this a read & pre-save my next single! It’s a bop, I promise!

Object Writing: Wick

It flickers delicately in the softly shifting air of my abode. As its warmth turns wax to liquid & then to vapor it expels scents of Spearmint, Texas Cedar, Rose, Palo Santo, Rosemary, Grapefruit, & Eucalyptus into the space around it. The aromatic mixture invigorates the senses of all who pass into the space, igniting a deep calm that puts the brain at ease & unwinds the tension of muscular stress. This candle is of my own design, a combination of all that which puts me in a place of hospitable comfort. It is a natural favorite that I savor endlessly despite having the means for its recreation at any given moment. The melted wax & its aroma put me at peace & give me a sense of home that I feel has escaped me for so long.

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Travel Blog: The United Kingdom-Part Three: There & Back Again

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Welcome back to my United Kingdom travel blog! If you’ve made it this far, congrats, you’re onto the last part!!! If you’re reading this like “last part?! whaaaa?!” then I invite you to go read through Part One & Two before returning to finish out this most epic of trilogies. You can find links to both here:

Part One

Part Two

All caught up? Great! Let’s move on to Part Three then!


Part Three:

There & Back Again


Day Ten

We departed Dumfries right around 8 AM, our rental was due back in Camden by 5 PM & we had a long drive down from Scotland through England to make. We unfortunately didn’t get to say goodbye to Carolann on our way out but Ali & the rest of the crew definitely gave us the royal send off.

Our first stop on the way down is a must hit if you’re traveling up or down the Northwest coast of England, Tebay. I was first introduced to Tebay by the Liverpool/Manchester gents who played RNLI Park Fest with me back in 2019 who try to make it a stop anytime they play up north. Tebay, while technically a small English town, is also a service center. For my American folks think a truck stop but way way way way way nicer. Tebay Services, Farmshop, & Kitchen has two locations; one northbound, one southbound. It is exactly as the name states, a service stop in addition to a restaurant & shop. The beautiful thing about Tebay, aside from the immaculate view it offers, is that all of the food served comes from within only a handful of miles from the stop.

We arrived around 10:30 AM & breakfast was still in full swing so we went the full on English Breakfast route! I had Scrambled Eggs, Beans, Cumberland Sausage, Roasted Tomato & Mushroom, Haggis, Bacon, A Raisin Scone w/ Orange Marmalade, & A Drip Coffee. Evan did the same sans Mushroom, Scone, & Haggis & also got a Pork Sausage. After taking in breakfast with a gorgeous view of the English countryside we walked around their Farmshop! It’s really almost three shops put into one. There’s a genuine market selling uncooked ingredients from around the area, there’s a local clothing/item section, & there’s a section dedicated to foods distinctly from The United Kingdom including small batch chocolatiers, distillers, bakers, etc.

By the time we’d finished up & were getting ready to go the hand pie stand had opened up so we grabbed a few of those for the road. I got a Chicken & Mushroom Pie, Evan got the Onion & Cheese. We grabbed gas & a few drinks & down the road we went towards London.

To be entirely frank I was quite nervous about driving in London, especially since we’d be arriving around rush hour. When I picked up the rental our drop off options were Camden, Tower Heights, Gatwick, or Heathrow & I didn’t feel like driving an hour outside of London just to spend an hour & a half on the tube with luggage felt economical, so Camden it was.

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy I found driving in London rush hour, it was far easier than New York City even with the inclusion of driving on the other side of the road. We did end up dropping off the car a little late but the agency couldn’t have cared less. From there we walked to Euston Station & hopped the southbound train to Covent Gardens back to Victoria & Rhys’s.

Seeing as it was now around 6 PM the hunt for dinner began. We were presented with the idea of Seven Dials Market, a coalition of street food vendors that had come together in an old cucumber & banana storage warehouse, a theme that is still prevalent throughout. At Seven Dials Market you can order drinks from the bar to be delivered to your table but as far as food goes you need to go to the different stalls to picket what you want. I grabbed an Iced Masala Chai from Chai Guys & we began the task of picking which of the over a dozen food options we wanted.

Evan & I decided on splitting a few things. We were really craving a burger so we went downstairs to Truffle but found that we couldn’t decide between The Truffle Burger (Beef & Bacon Patty w/ Raclette Cheese, Crispy Onions, Fig Jam & Truffle Mayo) or the Cheeseburger (Aged Beef/Bacon Patty, Cheese, Pickles, Lettuce, & Truffle Sauce) so we got both in addition to some Truffle Parmesan Fries. On top of the burgers there was also a dumpling stand that was calling our names so we got an order of Pork Bao & Pork & Chive Dumplings from Yum Bun! All of the food was outstanding & for dessert Victoria got us all a Chocolate Hazelnut Finger Doughnut from Longboys to share!

Practically bursting at this point we waddled back to the flat, stopping at Tesco to grab some snacks (yes that includes Strawbs) & drinks to enjoy later on when we sat down to watch Shutter Island before calling it a night!

Day Eleven

In desperate need of a workout after almost a week without we joined Victoria at Barry’s Soho for their 8:45 Full Body class. Following my “I can’t workout in the morning rule unless I’ve had caffeine & food prior” I ended up booking double floor. I knew running wasn’t going to happen. I’d done a touch of carb loading before just to be safe though, having gone downstairs to Tesco to pick up an energy drink & some fresh baked goods from their untouched morning selection. Scarfing down a soft pretzel & a croissant along with an apple the three of us walked to Barry’s (Rhys went once again with his trainer).

The class was hard! It was a circuit set meaning it built. Four total exercises per circuit, each targeted for a minute at as many as possible before combining them for two. We ended up walking back separate from Victoria because she was in need of a shower & we had planned to wait until we got back to the flat to bathe.

Along the way we had decided that another caffeine source was necessary so we walked over to WatchHouse. The barista recommended the Iced Peruvian Pourer so that’s what we got! The coffee had a nice almost bread & jam taste, very similar to my Raisin Scone w/ Orange Marmalade the morning before. It smacked! We walked back the rest of the way before showering & dressing for the day.

We had been prompted with a text of “Borough Market tomorrow?” on our drive back to London the day prior. Victoria had a mind for a Sausage Roll from The Black Pig & I, for one, am always down for a trip to Borough Market so that is where our pre-afternoon began!

We walked the same path that Evan & I had taken the week before; past St. Paul’s, over the Millennium Bridge, by The Globe. Borough Market was a zoo! There were far more people there this Saturday than the one prior which was surprising seeing as the previous had been Easter weekend.

We made a beeline for Bread Ahead as our glowing doughnut review had left V&R wanting. I returned for the Blackcurrant Cheesecake, Evan for the Pistachio, V&R split a Blueberry Jam, thought naturally they all got passed around between the four of us.

Rhys got Cod & Chips from Fish!, Victoria went after her Sausage Roll, & Evan & I got in line for the special at Northfield Kitchen, an Aged Corned Beef Sandwich on Rye with Pickles, Spicy Mustard, Swiss, & Cole Slaw. We all sat around on a barricade munching on our lunch & sipping Prosecco Punch but heading over to hop the Uber Boat back up the river to Westminster.

V&R headed back to the flat but Evan & I decided to continue on back to Soho to hit up Carnaby, Regent, & Bond. We wafted in & out of a few shops, most of which clearly didn’t get the memo that the weather was nice out because they were blasting the heat like it was midwinter. After mostly coming up dry in our shopping escapades we ended up at Scotch & Soda where I almost bumped smack into Tom Felton & his girlfriend.

I have had an obsession with this sweater that was shown in one singular scene in one of the later seasons of a show that used to be on called “Penny Dreadful.” It’s an oversized button shoulder turtleneck sweater & while I still have yet to find something exact, I did manage to find two button shoulder sweaters at Scotch & Soda that worked for me! I was ecstatic to discover them & purchased them immediately & naturally I wore one of them to dinner later! However, if you or a loved one know where I can find my oversized button shoulder turtleneck sweater, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

Post shop we took ourselves a little nap, having woken up at 7:30 AM & walked hither & yon. It was about 6 PM by the time we’d made it back to the flat & we he had a 9:30 dinner reservation at Frog by Adam Handling to look forward to! A glass or two of red wine made that slip into a nap very, very easy.

I’d made the executive decision to try to get to Frog about thirty minutes early, not because I thought they’d squeeze us into our reservation earlier, but because I thought they’d squeeze us into Eve, their companion bar…which is exactly what they did!

Eve is a cocktail bar that makes excellent use of its upstairs neighbor, Frog. The premise behind Eve is that they push the boundaries of craft cocktail using ingredients that would otherwise be wasted from the restaurant above, going as far as having a lab present to distill & infuse certain ingredients into their drinks.

When you’re seated in the stained glass anointed underground bar you are greeted with a welcome cocktail to cleanse the palette, this night is was an Apple Daiquiri. Bright, refreshing, & full of spring! I then proceeded to order the Tiki-Ero, a Clementine & Banana Peel infused Rum drink paired with Allspice, Coconut, & Lime. It was revitalizing & forward while still being warm & comfortable. We were then ushered upstairs for dinner service.

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You ready for it?

Dinner at Frog started off in the normal tasting menu way, with snack courses! The thing to remember here going forward is that Frog is centered around tradition ingredients found within the UK, in fact the “menu” includes a map marked with the places each of their star ingredients were gathered from. Now, back to the snack.

The first of the snacks was a twist on Eggs & Bacon served in a ceramic eggshell nestled into a bed of straw with dry ice concealed underneath. When presented water was offed to the bed causing it to “fog” the table. In addition to the breakfast staples the custardy dish also contained Maitake Mushrooms otherwise known as Hen-of-the-woods. Adorable.

The second of the snacks was reminiscent of a Cucumber Sandwich. It presented as a one-two bite Tart filled with little Jellied Cucumber Drops, Edible Flowers, Dried Oyster, & Caviar. I’m not usually one to toot the horn of cucumber but this little tart was so full of life its hard no to! Springy, salty, savory, while still maintaining its effervescence!

The following dish, if I’m being honest, was my least favorite of the snacks, that’s not to say it was bad by any means though. It was Black Cod, a staple fish of British cuisine, served as a mandala’d Cracker. The spokes of its black wheels were hollow offering a very pleasant mouth feel & crunch!

The final snack was a Beef Tartare, a dish that I feel can be rather polarizing to most. I personally am great fan of the Tartares of the world. This varietal contained a Crispy Wrapping, a crown of Edible Flowers, & Kimchi harkening back to its roots as originally a North East Asian dish followed by its rise in popularity throughout Europe in the 19th Century. The mince was soft & moist & that added crunch brought me back to my favorite setting of beef tartare, served atop bread!

Onto the main courses!

The first official course is one that I’ve been talking about for weeks now. It truly warmed my heart to the core & reaffirmed the reason I love the shared culture of food so much. Food is often the story of our lives. Fresh Bread was served along side four other plates. The first of these plates contained a Stuffed Chicken Wing. Boneless, a singular bite, juicy & supple on the inside with a crisp skin pinned in place with a barb & a rooster feather. The next to plates were spread; Fresh Butter with Chicken Cracklin’ on top & Chicken Pâté. Both were meant to be spread & enjoyed with the bread. The final plate contained a card. On this card sat a story. It said the following:

““My sister, the fussy eater that she is, would only want roast chicken every family Sunday lunch. But Mondays were my favourite-leftover roast chicken in a white, floury Scottish bun with loads of salted butter. Delish!

This dish is my take on the happy memories of that Monday morning roast chicken sandwich.””
— Adam Handling, Bread, Chicken Butter

This. This folks is why I love the culinary arts, because they are exactly that, an art. They are an expression of ones life story through the food that made them the person that they are today. It is the culmination of heritage, culture, trial & error, failures & successes, life, love, loss, & time. It speaks to us not through merely our eyes or ears but through each of our five senses. It tells a story in a single bite & expresses the unseen or unheard effortlessly.

Sorry for the rant, back to our scheduled programing.

Dish number two! I know right, how do we follow up the tangent I went on with that one? The second dish was an ode to the Tomato served in the form of a Gazpacho. The three stars of this dish were Tomato, obviously, Pepper, & Basil. The gazpacho was presented patiently waiting below a Tomato Crisp served with a Red Pepper Granache draped over. I think this may have been my least favorite of the course, not because it wasn’t an amazing expression in its own right but simply because my personage tends to have an aversion to Bell Pepper.

The third course was simply titled “All About The Sturgeon” & much like the bar hidden beneath Frog, it too sought to use different parts of the fish to great success. The common sturgeon having been a popular choice specifically for its caviar is considered a “Royal Fish” meaning that they, along with Whales, are the property of the British Monarchy when in sovereign waters, much like Swans. This dish was absolutely one of my favorites of the evening.

Sat prim upon a Heart-shaped Waffle was a dollop of Sturgeon Mousse, topped with Sturgeon Caviar, & covered, in its entirety, by Maple Syrup. This dish was so complex in its flavor profile while still being entirely familiar. It blended salty, sweet, savory, all on the most perfect of levels, allowing each to take up battlements on the pallet & wax & wane over the who had control. Each bite a new battle always resulting in the consumer’s favor.

Course four was another favorite. I feel like I keep saying that, but y’all, this meal was truly exceptional! A Scallop from the Orkney Isles up off of the northern point of Scotland swimming in a Foam Emulsion & Herb Reduction featuring prominent flavors of Za’atar & tap root, specifically an assorted shaving of Rainbow Carrots. The dish had a very nice heat to it without being overbearing. It was earthy & smokey without compromising the natural citrus notes of the scallop. Absolutely wonder!

Next came a course with yet another card attached only this time it wasn’t a note or a story. Course five was a spoon full of Duck covered in freshly shaved Black Truffle & served on a plate of beach stones with a picture of a very satisfied looking black lab named Stanley. In the photo Stanley is standing overtop a bowl filled with freshly foraged black truffles. These were Stanley’s truffles & his hard work was being recognized in glorious fashion along with I hope heaps of belly rubs at home. I’m always a sucker for fresh truffles, especially when served with water fowl & a picture of a large dog. The spoonful unfortunately didn’t last too long seeing as it was a one to two biter, but that’s my only true complaint revolving around it.

Next we were back to Cod, only this time served as a filet, not as a cracker. Lemongrass reduction formed a moat the fillet itself. I wish I could recall the what made up the remainder of the dish, from the crispy wafer on top to the puree that elevated the fish out of the reduction. My notes mention something about there being Grape in the dish but I think between the wine & still fawning over Stanley being the goodest boy it’s been lost in translation a tad.

Course seven came with two options; Wagyu Beef with Hen-of-the-woods or Lamb with Sweetbread, & Morels. We went with both each ordering one or the other then swapping not only plates halfway through but also the paired wine. I’m going to go in order of my tasting starting with the Beef.

Served Medium Rare the British Wagyu came with the aforementioned Hen-of-the-woods Mushrooms in addition to some grilled onions & an Au Jus made from Beef Tongue. The steak was incredibly tender & truly melted in your mouth with the inclusion of the Tongue Aus Jus. I also really enjoyed the little stenciled leaves that were served along the side of the plate, separating out the vegetables. It was then my turn with the Lamb.

The Lamb was definitely the more eloquent of the pair at least as far as presentation goes. It included a Morel Reduction along with a few stocks of Asparagus. The slight gaminess of the Lamb lended itself wonderfully to the earthy/springy clash the mushrooms & the asparagus brought. I think between the two I preferred the beef, though Evan preferred the Lamb. I wouldn’t have been mad to receive either though. With savory courses now wrapped we moved on to dessert!

The first of the dessert courses brought Britain’s favorite springtime veggie to the forefront. Rhubarb. Appearing in the form of a Rhubarb & Wasted Wine Sorbet served alongside a Fresh Whipped Creme. The tart bouncy rhubarb was brought well into balance by the presence of the cream & it made for a very pleasant dessert/palette cleanser!

The final course of the evening, pre-dessert snack course, was a Yoghurt Cheesecake topped with little spots of Apricot & a serving of Lemon Thyme Sorbet. Another mellow dessert it was the perfect end cap for the warm spring night. Then came the snacks.

As I’ve mentioned before in other tasting menu blogs, it appears to be customary to end the evening with another snack course, just as the evening is started with one, Frog was no exception. They served what they call their Petit Fours…though there were five. (And yes I know Petit Fours refers to bitesized desserts, not the quantity of the bite sized desserts.)

First up, served as a pair, were a simple Blackberry Jelly Gumdrop & a White Chocolate Frog Truffle filled with Yuzu. The jelly bite, as I stated above, was simple, none offensive, but carried with it a subtle charm. Their dashing little frog companions was citrusy with soft floral undertones.

Next on the list were the Chocolate & Miso Tarts. I am always a huge fan of the combinations of Miso & Chocolate. The umami of the miso really lends itself to the bold sweetness of the ganache-y chocolate. It had a nice give before finishing off with the crust.

Our final in restaurant dessert was the Strawberry & Cream Possett. Unlike the earlier egg custard dish this one was served in an actual eggshell instead of a ceramic one. It was a sweet little twist on the traditional “strawberries & cream” formula that made for a very nice introduction into the summer months coming ahead.

I regret to inform you that the last of the Petit Fours was not had by us. You see it was a take home item & in our more than now inebriated state we completely forgot that we had it on our walk home & left it in the fridge at the flat.

As I was writing all about this meal again & experiencing it vicariously through my words I had the following thought that I stand by adamantly. I would fly from Nashville to London just to dine at Frog again, turn right back around & come home. I would sit through 14+ hours of travel overseas just to spend another three house in this restaurant. That is the extent to which I recommend Frog by Adam Handling to you. If you find yourself in London or in The British Isles or hell, even in France, make the trip to London to eat here. Eat here before its well deserved two Michelin stars become three & this place is booked out for the next eternity. I promise you will not regret it or look back. The story of food that Adam & crew tell at Frog is that of many lifetimes converging to create spectacular art that fills you to your core. It is few & far between that the love gushes so freely from the likes of a tasting menu but I cannot overstate how beautiful an expression of food this place is. Run, do not walk to Frog.

I wanted to end this, our last full day in The UK with the note I wrote & sent to the Frog crew on the plane ride home.

Frog,

I wanted to pass along a thought to you. I know you neither asked for it nor is it by any means a slight or mark against you & your institution. I am also utterly aware that as someone who merely dabbles recreationally in the culinary arts I have no grounds to file suggestions based on your food. Again, not that you need it by any means, yours & your teams’ cuisine & masterful practice of the art form are up there in the highest of the upper echelons. What I can offer you is insight from one story teller to another. While I communicate with the world at large primarily through words, lyrics, music, & writing, yours is the craft of communication through food; you tell stories through experimentation, retellings of tradition, & personal connection. It’s that last bit that really struck me last night while having the pleasure of dining in your establishment. You see I have been fortunate enough to participate in many a tasting menu as life changing food is a true passion of mine. Today I find myself not so much discussing the items on your menu that I enjoyed most from a palette stand point but those which invoked a feeling of connection to you & your staff. In my many years of gallivanting the food scene I have never been presented with a story to accompany a dish, or I guess in this case a course. I’m sure at this point you realize I am talking about your “leftover” chicken dish. The subtle art of story telling is one that thrills me to the core & it was an honor to experience a slice of your life through the expression of love, admiration, & nostalgia you put into that. I applaud you on your candor & your vulnerability when openly sharing a shining glimpse into the food, events, & emotions that led you to cook the food that you do. In addition to this radiant moment, I also truly enjoyed the touch of perspective you injected into your truffle course with Stanley. You have created food that is deeply personal, not just to yourself but also to those involved in its construction & that is the true measure of great art. I am grateful for the experience & hope to have the fortune of dining with you all again very soon. These moments of passion & love are the subtle strengths that elevate you to the stars my friends, of course not discounting your impeccable preparatory skills, but I would be remiss if I did not express my hope that you continue to find places to insert them into the story that is an evening at Frog.

It is with the warmest of regards & deepest appreciation that I write you,

Your newest regular,

Charlie Rogers

Day Twelve

Even though all other COVID regulations for travel had been lifted at this point & even though both Evan & I are fully vaxxed & boosted US Citizens, we still had to get a COVID test to reenter the US no more than 24 hours before our flight.

Evan had scheduled us a 9 AM appointment to have a rapid antigen test done, we hadn’t gone to bed til at least 2 AM that same morning. In addition to lack of sleep we were hungover as all get out so crawling through Covent Garden to Soho at 8:45 was a struggle & a half.

Our tests were quick, only taking about 10 minutes total in the testing location, but once again we were in a facility with rude, entitled Americans.

I truly give Americans a bad rep in this blog series don’t I, or at least I have a knack for calling them out on their BS. I don’t mean to appear “greater than” it’s just, y’all, we have to be better.

Anyway, back to this rude American couple. They were both well in their late-60s & truthfully were not only rude to the French attendants at the clinic but also to us upon entering. They hadn’t made a reservation, an ongoing theme it seems, & were demanding to be tested asap. Luckily for them there had been a no show so they had tests available. The clinicians handled it much better than I would have too, I’d have told them to kick rocks & maybe plan ahead next time, have fun rescheduling your flight!

Now tested & still wildly hungover the daily hunt for coffee began. We decided to try a coffee shop just down the street from the flat called The Espresso Room. Ordering yet another Iced Drip I also was instructed to get an Almond Croissant, a pastry I had passed up a week prior at Monmouth. WHY DID I PASS UP THE ALMOND CROISSANT?! No one told me they were filled!!! This almond croissant was massive, like almost a foot long, & it was incredible. It has also instilled a new dopamine obsession for me, that of course being the almond croissant. Don’t sleep on her, she’s busin’.

We decided that a walk would probably help the hangover & the streets of Covent Gardens were completely deserted, so we went walkabout. On our voyage around the borough we stumbled upon a little courtyard that had a catholic church tucked in the back, St Paul’s Church. The exciting thing, to us, about St. Paul’s is that they had cats. Two absolutely stunning black cats that have been residents of the church all their lives & spend their days wandering Inigo Jones Garden. Even though we were only a day away from being home with our animals we had to stop & spend a little time with the kitties.

It had now become time to pack & prepare for our departure. Heading back to the flat we gathered our belongings, forgetting the breakfast offering from Frog, hugged V&R goodbye, & hopped the Piccadilly Line back to Heathrow.

From here the journey is pretty standard; security, snacks from duty-free for the flight attendants, one last smoked salmon sandwich for the road, a matcha latte, & finally boarding. We were sat in the same exact seats as our trip into the UK only this time the plan was stay awake at all costs. Remember folks, the rule is sleep overnight going East, stay the hell awake going West. I wrote the above note, did a bit of object writing, we caught up on Moon Knight & then proceeded to bing Heartstopper.

We arrived at JFK around 9PM EST ready to PTFO, unfortunately we still had to go through immigrations, customs, grab bags, hop into an Uber, & drive across Queens to our hotel just outside of LaGuardia, all of which turned out to be fairly painless.

We arrived at Aloft around 10:30 & were passed out, having had dinner from a vending machine, around 11.

Day Thirteen

We really only got around 5-6 hours of sleep, our flight out of New York was early, departing around 7 AM. We had to be in line for the shuttle by 4:30 AM & it was packed!

LaGuardia security was more of a pain than Heathrow & customs combined, so I’m glad we got there early.

There’s truly not that much more interesting to tell from here on out. We landed in Nashville at 8:30 CST, had to pay far too much for an Uber home, then stayed up all day to try & beat the jetlag…it didn’t work…


Afterward

If you’ve made it this far I’m grateful for you taking the time out of your day or night or whenever you’re reading this to do so!

Traveling, exchanging stories, customs, cuisine, art, music, & culture are the things that fill me with life. It is truly my honor to go one these adventures & share these experiences with you. I hope you gain something out of reading them & find them informative & or inspiring in one way or another.

I’d like to thank Victoria & Rhys for being so accommodating to us, The Donowhos for your years & years of love & support & willingness to help me & mine, the people of Dumfries for opening up your town & hearts so hospitably to me, & anyone I may have missed along the way. Shoutout to Ross for putting your sound & videography skills to use on my behalf, I can’t wait to show off the footage! Thank you to Evan for being the patient, easygoing travel companion you are! You all made this trip a joy & made my 30th one for the books.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking the time to give this a read!

Much love to you all,

-C

End Of Part Three

End Of Blog Series For The United Kingdom

Object Writing: Sunburn

“How?! How? How did this happen? I put on so much sunscreen” I exclaim, the warm scent of coconut & shea butter still wafting from my now reddened skin. I look down begrudgingly at my arm, the blotchy red fading into pale tan as the skin progresses around the underside of my forearm. I reach out to touch with the other, my fingertips sticking the now hot iron that hold the place of my baked epidermis, leaving a lasting streak of white with its impression. Even just lightly hovering above my burnt skin I can feel the embedded heat rising, radiating my regret into my opposite hand.

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Travel Blog: The United Kingdom-Part Two: Great Scot!

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Hiya! Welcome back!

If you’re reading that above sentence going “Wha?! Welcome back?!” feel free to go give Part One a read & make your way back here!

You can find Part One HERE!

All caught up? Yes? Great! Onto Part Two!!!!

Part Two:

Great Scot!

Day Five

Day Five was a bit of a travel day. We’d booked the train from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. We’d also slept in just a tad seeing as the previous day’s events had been rather physically draining on my now certified thirty year old self. Before packing our belongings & heading to the station however we went on our daily search for coffee, naturally.

We met up with Victoria & Rhys, who had already made their way out, & stopped into a small coffee shop for an iced latte & a chocolate croissant. I can’t remember what the name of it was unfortunately. After some hugs & temporary goodbyes we boarded the tube up to King’s Cross.

We arrived at the station around noon with our train not due to depart until 12:30. We waited about, laughing a little about the snaked around line for a picture at Platform 9 3/4 & corresponding gift shop before we were eventually assigned a train at Platform 5. Our train departed promptly & we were off to Scotland.

I fell asleep for the first leg of our four & a half hour journey. I was unfortunately awoken about 30-40 minutes later by a rather rancid stench. Walker’s Prawn Cocktail Crisps. While fine on their own, believe me, the girl sitting next to us had brought a bag with her on the train that she was now leisurely snacking on. She must have spent a total of several hours on this personal sized back of crisps but the smell that permeated the air from them was death.

An hour or so in I worked up an appetite in spite of the stench. I popped over to the dining car for a chicken salad sandwich (less mayo based chicken salad (more like a salad with chicken on bread), a bag of Walker’s Onion & Cheese Crisps, & a Coke. I’m sure the Coke in The UK is just as bad for you but I couldn’t help but feel it wasn't seeing as it was lacking in the high fructose corn syrup & other “American only ingredients” department. Rhys had warned me that The UK Coke tasted “watered down” ever since the implementation of the sugar tax, but I actually quite enjoyed it.

Between snacking, taking pictures of the passing towns & scenery, & dozing off here & there, I played a few demos I’d downloaded ahead of time on my Switch. The train made many stops along the way passing through Durham, Newcastle, etc. before arriving in Scotland. We vowed to return to a few of these locales as they looked cute af.

Arriving in Edinburgh we grabbed our luggage & made our way through the station to the very busy Princes Street. The time was now 5 PM. We carted our luggage several blocks before landing at our accommodations for the evening, the Mode Aparthotel. The space was massive! We got all of our items situated, grabbed a coffee from the lounge, made a few calls, then decided to make our way to Old Town!

Once we’d passed through the mob of people taking in an Easter Sunday evening in Edinburgh & ascended the hill into Old Town we immediately made a b-line for The Devil’s Advocate. We’d been prescribed Devil’s Advocate by four separate parties at this point; Victoria & Rhys, the staff at The Clove Club, Kim Logan & crew, as well as the front desk attendants at our hotel. We were greeted by a “reservations only” sign which, if you’ve read my other blogs, you know means nothing to me. I am the king of getting a table without a reservation! I failed this time though…or did I?…

We walked into the bar/restaurant & were greeted by a very overworked hostess as well as restaurant manager I believe. She reinforced the rezys only rule but told us we were welcome to take a seat at the bar & order cocktails. Food couldn’t be delivered there with the exception of non-cooked appetizers. We were immediately gifted a seat by a duo leaving the bar & struck up a conversation with the bartender, his name was Finn.

Finn & I got to talking about cocktails, I’d taken up craft cocktail making over covid & have become a bit of proprietor of interesting drinks & alcohols. He asked me what I wanted to drink to which I let him surprise me. He crafted me a very complex botanical cocktail he’d been working on for the bar & asked my notes. I frankly had very few! After that he gave me a rum drink which he was planning to add a fat wash too & try out for the bar. Again, excellent. For Evan he made a banana drink that wasn’t overly sweet. It was definitely similar to a daiquiri but again, not as sweet. All while the cocktails were pouring we’d ordered a smoked fish plate to snack on. The platter contained Hot & Cold Smoked Salmon, Arbroath Smoke Pâté, Smoked Mussels, Fresh Caper Berries, an assortment of Pickled Veggies, Oat Cakes, Sourdough Bread, & Tartare Sauce. We ordered the small version with the intent of finding full plated dinner later!

While we were sitting enjoying our platter & drinks this group of two douchebag Americans & one Brit came to the bar & acted like they immediately owned the place. They just had an air of sleaze about them. They came to the bar demanding Scotch, or as Ali later corrected me “Whisky.” The main American asked for Oban, a brand from the West coast, because he didn’t want something too smoky. He specifically asked for Oban 12 which is “what he usually drinks” then got mad at Finn for pouring him that because it was “too smoky” & clearly not the right bottle or drink. Having pissed off & disappeared I thought we were rid of them, that was until one of the waitresses came down asking if the hostess had sat them at one of the outside tables. She said no. So up the stairs she went after theses douchebags, returning several minutes later with the lot. They’d clearly stared an argument upstairs that had now continued back to the bar where she’d asked them to settle up & leave. These men then continued trying to justify their actions claiming the table was empty, still doesn't mean it’s not being held for a reservation, then proceeded to attempt to belittle this woman when she wouldn’t budge on it. The main dude proceeded to say to here “wow, you’re so cool, you’re life is so awesome a 30 something year old who is a hostess at a restaurant, you must be sooo happy” with as much sarcasm as his tiny, ignorant brain could muster. Naturally she kicked them out. I then proceeded to apologize to her & the rest of the staff within earshot on the behalf of all Americans, I know it wasn’t our fault but I still felt it reflected poorly on us as a collective.

At this point we’d been at Devil’s Advocate for about an hour & I was just about to give up hope for a miraculous table. We paid our bar tab & were turning to leave when the hostess put a hand on my shoulder & said “we’ve actually found a table for you!” Turns out the had arranged a table just for us!

Dinner was well worth the wait! I had Evan try Haggis for the first time, it was served here with Mango & Chili Chutney! We then ordered our mains, Evan got a Tempura Battered Haddock Chickpea & Sweet Potato Toasted Coconut Curry & I got the Venison with Shallots, Peas, Purple Broccoli, & Smoked Bacon at the behest of both our waitress & the hostess/manager. And oof, the truffle fries. They may have been the best I’ve ever had! I truthfully cannot recommend this place enough, if you can get a seat or book one do so immediately! Nothing on the menu was anywhere below the level of good to great!

While we were dining more American drama ensued. The table next to us of around seven Americans on vacation had ordered a bottle of wine with dinner. Apparently the wine was not the correct wine they had asked for BUT instead of telling their waitress upon its arrival they waited til they’d finish the entirety of it to bring it up to the staff, demanding to not have to pay for it. The staff eventually gave in to them because they were throwing a fit & I’m sure they were done dealing with this BS for the day. Additionally another group of Americans came in & tried to just go sit at an empty table, throwing a fit when they were told they had to have a reservation.

The lesson here for my fellow American folks is STOP BEING DICKS IN PLACES WHERE YOU DO NOT LIVE!!!! I guess stop being dicks in general but you are not better than anyone else simply because your passport says USA. To be completely honest I’ve actually found, through my many travels, that we as Americans are truly the least of these. Put your unearned pride aside & treat people like human beings, not your servants.

We paid, apologized again for the other Americans, & thanked the staff over & over for their willingness to accommodate us before walking down Jeffery Street back to New Town.

Upon reentering New Town we decided we weren’t ready to end our night despite Edinburgh seemingly slowing down. We made our way off Leith to The Alchemist, a showy, theatrical UK based cocktail chain. I got a Rum Punch cooked & caramelized over an open flame & Evan got a true “Bubble Tea,” a bubbling cocktail with popping boba at the bottom.

Finishing our nightcaps we made our way through the misty Scottish evening back to our hotel to start laundry in our en suite laundry machines!!!! It’s the simple things haha.


Day Six

The washing machine was a bad choice. We’d started a round of laundry before departing to go into Old Town so we hadn’t heard just how loud our washer/dryer were, something we quickly found out when we tried to start a load to run over night. It kept us up. The problem with it was also that once the cloths were wet they needed spinning & drying, so it was better just to let the machine take its course.

We requested a later checkout due to our lack of sleep & were gifted an extra hour to check out at noon. I’d booked a car to rent from the Edinburgh Airport which I called an Uber to go & retrieve while I sent Evan in search of coffee & breakfast, now lunch.

My Uber driver was a gent from Tunisia who had lived in The UK for around 25-30 years & thought it comical that Americans pronounce Tunisia as “Tune-E-Juh.” “Where’s the ‘J’” he asked me on the way. Meanwhile I’d sent Evan to get coffee at one of my favorite Edinburgh spots, Lowdown as well as brunch from Urban Angel where I got a Banana Butterscotch Brioche French Toast with Hazelnut Crumble & Greek Yogurt. Ev got Hummus on Sourdough with Cherry Tomatoes, Pickled Shallots, Za’atar, Salsa Verde, Capers, & Crispy Chickpeas. In addition to our food from Urban Angel he picked up a Salted Caramel Browning from Lowdown.

Upon arriving at the airport rental car terminal I was offered an upgrade from the coup I’d ordered to a mid-sized SUV for $80 more total. We actually ended up being very glad I took it. I was very surprised at how quickly my brain acclimated to driving on the left side of the road again, the first time I’d done it back in 2019 I white knuckled it the whole time.

I drove back into town, collecting Evan, the food, & the bags & we made our way out of Edinburgh towards Dumfries.

An hour or so along the way to Dumfries, a two hour drive, we stopped at a rest stop to grab some snacks & stretch. It is here that we discovered the joy of Haribo Strabs, a gummy candy that, unfortunately, cannot be found in the states. Something else I noticed about UK candies is that none of them contain high fructose corn syrup nor red 40, what a concept.

We made it to Dumfries a tad early which was fine, we got to be a surprise for Ali & Carolann’s son! He was speechless when he walked in from school to find us on the couch. He simply went “Oh. Hi!…” Ali arrived shortly there after & we spent the day catching up. Carolann made us an incredible Sweet Potato Curry for dinner. We then finished the evening chatting over a “cuppa” tea!

Day Seven

We did manage to get a little more sleep Monday into Tuesday & slept in a tad as well. Following a breakfast of strong coffee & my antidepressants we went out into the town to check out Historic Dumfries. We walked around seeing the many places in which Robert Burns, the famous Scottish songwriter, lived his life & played as well as the place where Robert the Bruce struck down John Comyn.

We ventured around the shops, grabbed lunch & went to tour & scout the theater I had a show at Thursday evening.

The picture of the umbrellas I’ll post below also comes with a rather interesting story. The shop with the umbrellas strung out is a coffee shop. One night a bunch of drunk guys came along & started hanging from them, tearing the art display down. The owner of the shop posted about it in one of the local forums & the people who did it immediately came forward & repaired the installation, hanging it even higher so that no one else could follow in their footsteps.

That evening we met up with Ross at Bob & Bert’s, an Irish coffee chain, to discuss the plans for Thursday in addition to planning out the video & set for the evening.

For dinner that evening Carolann was gracious enough to indulge Evan’s need for Curry, Chicken, Cheese, & Chips & made us her version of them!

Day Eight

The plan on the Wednesday was to go over from Dumfries to Stranraer, Port Partick, & the Mull of Galloway. We ended up getting out a little later than we’d planned as Ali had to finish up some things for the radio show & we slept in a little again.

We ended up taking our rental as it had more amble seating. I drove on the way out, something I’m sure Ali, the ambulance driver, had to stomach. I, much like I’m sure Ali doesn’t, don’t enjoy being “chauffeured,” I prefer to drive.

We decided to head towards Port Patrick first, my only stipulation being that we stop at Marrbury Smokehouse along the way so that I could get a Smoked Salmon Sandwich. We received a lot of conflicting information regarding the state of Marrbury & whether or not it had been swept under the COVID tidal wave as well but it turns out their Google “permanently closed” sign was only due to them being bought & having a name change.

We stopped at the former Marrbury Smokehouse, now the Oakhill Cafe & Deli, got out to walk about the castle there & grab lunch. I grabbed two Smoked Salmon Sandwichs, of course, as well as a Smoked Salmon Tart & some form of dessert tray bake. Evan got the same sandwich as well as a Smoked Chicken Salad Sandwich, a Pan Au Chocolate, & a Mushroom & Leek Tart. Ali, Carolann, & their sun split a few Tarts & a Smoked Chicken Sandwich!

On down the road we went to Port Patrick where we got out & walked around. I took the time by the ocean to go shell & tide pool hunting. I mostly found snails, moss, & barnacle shells. We then proceeded to walk around the harbor, observe Ireland from a far, & do a little more searching along the oceans edge before climbing back into the car to head to the Mull.

The Mull of Galloway is the southern most point of Scotland. It is a cliff that jets out into the Irish Sea atop the North Channel. At the top of said cliff sits a large light house, fields & fields of heather, a café, & a massive fog horn. The drive up to the lighthouse is a winding, single lane, paved road often overtaken by the sheep whose shepherd’s land it cuts through.

We got out here once again, walked around, went down the southern side to see the fog horn which looks more like an old WWII bunker then did a brief tour of the lighthouse keepers grounds & garden before grabbing a coffee & a Ribena at the café. There was a golden retriever pup there that made me miss my own, but I was still more than enjoying my time in Scotland.

I let Ali drive on the way back, some pressing things came up that required us to get back to Dumfries so down the road we flew.

We did manage to hit Stranraer though just as a pass through. We made it back to Dumfries in probably 3/4ths the time it took us to get out.

On the way back to the house we stopped at Deli 56 & to grab some sandwiches, I guess it was just a day filled with them! It is here that we officially tried the Prawn Cocktail Crisps…they’re interesting to say the least.

Feeling sapped from the day in the sun we spent the rest of our evening doing one of my favorite activities, having deep conversations about life. These conversations sprang from cups of black tea & devolved into us all watching YouTube videos of magnetic ball as well as “primal” constructions. Then it was time for bed to prepare for the busy day ahead!

Day Nine

Thursday was a tad chaotic to be honest. In some ways, good, in other ways, not so much. Ali, Evan, & I took a morning walk through Castledykes Park before walking up the path along the River Nith. The day was gorgeous, as had ever other day been unseasonably so both in Scotland & England. We stopped in the Peter Pan themed Dock Park (the author of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie was from Dumfries) on our was back downstream & grabbed a Latte & some Banofee Ice Cream.

We ended up needing to help Ali & Carolann out regarding some pressing issues at home & watched their son while those things were dealt with. We ran a few errands with him before coming back to the house to get prepped for the show I had a the Theatre Royal that evening.

The concept of the show we’d come up with was a “living room session.” We wanted a casual living room environment where Ali would host, I’d play songs acoustic & answer questions, & guests were free to ask questions & just relax. I suppose it’s worth mentioning that I’ve known Ali for years now! He’s a host for Alive FM out of Dumfries & has been a massive supporter & friend to me over the years.

We weren’t entirely sure if Ali was going to make the show as about thirty minutes before showtime he was still occupied with his now pressing engagements so Evan had started to prepare questions incase he needed to step in & host himself. I also was planning just to go it alone if need be. Part of being a performer is learning to adapt. Ali did show up however & the show was a ravenous success. We play off one another from a humor standpoint quite nicely & the two hours flew by! I was even asked if I could come back & play their main stage next time as well as a few other venues in the area!

After the show wrapped & we’d gotten everything squared away with the theater we went in search of food. One of the only places open was an Indian takeaway spot called Siemo Seito where we proceeded to order the menu. Something they don’t tell you in The UK is that when you order Naan with your food you’re not getting a pita sized bit of bread but instead a full on sheet of bread covered in toppings folded all up into itself. We’d ordered three of them in addition to Chicken & Lamb Tikka, a whole ass Pizza, Rice, & Curry, Chicken, Cheese, & Chips. Evan, Ali, & I only ended up eating about half of it.

With stomachs bursting & hearts full of the love & support of the people of Dumfries we went to bed, prepared for an early morning’s departure back to London.

END OF PART TWO

Object Writing: Lightsaber

In Honor of May the Fourth!

Lightsaber

The pieces sit patiently waiting before me scattered meticulously over a thin shroud. Ceremony. My knees ache from the pressure of my personage against the dense, well practiced stone beneath them all while the light flickers around me, the smell of tradition & ritual settling comfortably into my nostrils. I reach out hesitant, space & time pulse with gentle insistence the closer my fingers get to the heart of that which I aim to construct & suddenly, without warning my mind is flooded with visions; a cacophonous eruption of life, death, light, & darkness, the swirling eternity calling out to me through this one small object. It had called to me before, this crystal. From deep within the cavern of its origin I heard its soft ring beaconing me to come & lay claim to it. Despite its make the stone is warm to the touch, like the embrace of an old friend it sends familiarity coursing through my veins before nestling neatly into my bones. I pick it up, turning it over diligently in my hand before reaching over to retrieve its housing. Once it is fixed in place it sends out a tintinnabulation of joyous acceptance. I grab the remainder of the guard & continue my meticulous assembly. The metal is cold to the touch in contrast to that of its core but it still feels instantly recognizable like the still of a snow covered winter’s eve. Once my task is complete so too is the rite. I stand victorious & the light is extinguished from the room. Igniting the blade it shares its true color with me, a reflection of its now bonded wielder. I am one of them, one of the Jedi & The Force is strong with me.

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Travel Blog: The United Kingdom-Part One: Take Me Back To London

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I’m fairly certain this blog is going to take the shape of three parts. Maui was three & it was seven days, Puerto Rico was two & it was three days, so we’ll see if we can fit it all into three weeks worth of blogs! This may end up changing forms mid-series but that remains to be seen. So, I suppose, without any further ado, let’s get into it shall we?

Prologue:

I’d always known I wanted to go abroad for my thirtieth, let’s face it though, I want to go abroad at any given time. The original plan for that was Australia/New Zealand but ye olde corona virus saw fit to change that plan along with so, so many others. I love the United Kingdom, I’ve had a mild obsession with it since late high school & always enjoy my time there. Seeing how the UK has reopened & Australia has the door slightly ajar in terms of current tourism, The UK became the logical destination of choice.

As I’m sure many of you know, any great trip requires preparation & planning, long twelve day trips six time zones away on the other side of an ocean, extensively so. I knew I wanted to do London for my actual birthday but I also wanted to rekindle some relationships & do a little work while in country. For those of you that didn't know I was in the process of planning a UK based radio tour when covid hit back in 2020 around the song “When He Was Me,” a song that is still yet to be released. The plan was similar this go round except it was meant to center on “Just Another Late Night,” a song that still has yet to come out….but will soon, I promise. Naturally I didn’t want to do a massive radio tour around a single that no one could stream yet so it really just became a series of small acoustic sets.

I reached out to any & all UK based or affiliated music friends of mine to try & pack my musical schedule but I fear I waited a tad too long to do so & thus only a few things ended up happening. I’m grateful for each of you reading this who offered me support, help, reached out on my behalf, etc. I am so incredibly grateful for each of you!

As the above paragraph would indicate we waited just a touch too long to make those moves as well as buying tickets. Plane tickets that were $650 round trip on the Saturday three weeks before were either sold out or almost double three days later but we managed & the dates of the 13th-the 25th were set.

Evan is much more the type A planner than I am & he immediately set out to make accommodations. He found an incredible house/petsitter for us, got connected with our friends Victoria & Rhys in London who graciously offered us a place to stay, & started mapping out days. I dove headfirst into food planning, as I do, & came across several Michelin Star restaurants that I then attempted to snag reservations at.

The week before our departure was pure mayhem. My 185 gallon reef tank decided to develop a plague, of which I’m still battling, the house required scrubbing, pet food required prepping, laundry needed doing, travel documents, covid regulations, all needed navigating, in addition to our normal duties of work & content creation. We also did a photo shoot in the middle of this for album artwork! We did it though, we got everything together & orderly though it truly came down to the last couple hours!

Part One:

Take Me Back To London

Day One

We made it to bed far later than we’d hoped or expected & thus only slept around four or five hours. Our pre-scheduled Lyft met us at the door at 5:30 AM CST & we departed to the Nashville airport for our 7:20 flight to Washington D.C.. The original plan upon arriving in DC around noon was to meet Evan’s brother who lives in Bethesda for lunch during our six+ hour layover but unfortunately something came up. We also made it to the ticket counter at Dulles for Virgin Atlantic far before the staff had even thought about coming into work. We waited around two hours, grabbing food & a drink or two in the interim. We finally got checked in around 2:30 or 3, had an easy trip through security, if you don’t count Evan getting searched for packing a candle in his carry-on, & made our way to our gate.

I took the opportunity of time to film an Object Writing video for Terminal, which I had already done voice over for. I edited it & had it up within an hour or so. If you’d like to give it a view you can find it here! After posting my Wednesday writing prompt I got up & went in search of snacks. I learned this nifty little thing from my friend Stephen Lovegrove. Any time he flies he gifts the flight attendants snacks; candy, chips, anything else he thinks they might like. His reasoning is that flight attendants, especially on international or cross country flights, are there waiting on you hand & foot for upwards of four to eight hours straight. They deserve a treat & definitely better pay & benefits, but then again, so do most people. We boarded our flight, economy deluxe, & passed our bag of goodies to the steward in charge of our section, he was elated. I also may have dropped my guitar on a teenager’s face as I was trying to get it into the overhead bin, it slid out on me. I felt horrible. After battering a youth we claimed our seats for the next seven plus hours & headed off to Heathrow around 7:30 PM EST.

I have this rule anytime I fly through multiple time zones. If you’re headed east, fly red eye, that way you can sleep on the flight & wake up when it’s appropriate to be awake in your new time zone. This works best if you can get a seat that lays somewhat flat. On the other hand, if you’re going west then I recommend flying in the morning or early afternoon & staying up for the duration of your flight, that way you land & are tired at a time when it’s appropriate to go to sleep in that new timezone. I haven’t figured out north to south yet, but I’ll let you all know the minute I do!

Day Two

We landed in London around 6:30 AM GMT having logged around three hours of sleep at most. We departed the plane, I snagged by guitar being sure not to assault anyone this time, & we made our way through immigration. If you’ve never been to the UK CCTV is a very popular thing there, it’s basically government surveillance that’s kept in majority of public spaces. It sounds very big brother I know, but when you enter the country they scan your passport & your face & allow you on your merry way. Evan of course got stopped again.

We grabbed our bags & popped onto the Piccadilly Line, making our way from Heathrow to Covent Gardens in what was now the morning rush into London. At the Covent Gardens tube stop we were greeted by Victoria & Rhys who graciously showed us to their flat. When we got upstairs they asked if we needed a nap, the plan of which was an hour & a half. It ended up being around two to three.

Still dreary from travel & frankly starving we decided we were going to walk from Covent Gardens to Borough Market in Southwark. I’d been to London before, Evan has not, nor had he been truly out of the North Americas. So with that in mind we did a little sight seeing along the way. We passed by St. Paul’s Cathedral, all ready for Easter, we crossed Millennium Bridge, then made our way past The Globe to the Market.

At the market I had my sights set on a Scotch Egg from Scotchtails but much to my dismay it had been closed down due to the hardship of covid. For those of you who don’t know what a scotch egg is, it’s a soft boiled egg wrapped in sausage & breadcrumbs. It’s fire. Disappointed I followed Ev’s desire for Fish & Chips & we got in line at Fish! We asked the attendant what to get & he suggested the lemon bream so that’s what we got along with curry sauce, chips, & gravy. On the way to finding a spot to sit down we found doughnuts at Bread Ahead, a pistachio & a blackcurrant cheesecake one & grabbed a cranberry lemonade from a local fruit vendor.

The lemon bream was delightful! It worked really well with the curry sauce & was a very light, flaky fish with, as the name would suggest, a light lemony-ness to it! I wanted to like the brown gravy more than I did but I was more than happy leaning heavily on the curry sauce for the chips as well. Both doughnuts were outstanding though, much to my surprise, I favored the cheesecake one, Evan leaned pistachio.

After lunch the walking tour of London continued. We continued down the bank past London City Hall til we got to Tower Bridge. After crossing Tower Bridge & walking around the Tower of London where we hopped the Circle Line to Westminster. Arriving at Westminster we saw Big Ben, Parliament, & The London Eye before walking back to Covent Gardens to meet up with Victoria & Rhys once more.

We let Victoria pick dinner, since we had already chosen the following day’s. She immediately responded with the question “do you like Batman?” to which I excitedly replied “YES!?” After chilling at their flat for a while, probably passing back out in the interim, we got dressed & were led to dinner.

Through Leicester Square we meandered until we were prompted to enter a rather plain looking office building. We entered into a room that looked like an old library adorned with books like “Alice In Wonderland,” “The Drunken Botanist,” etc., busts & portraits of the Wayne family, & a giant stuffed horned owl. We were shown through the bookshelf to a flight of stairs which descended two stories all the while playing Hans Zimmer’s score from Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. At the bottom of the stairs we were shown through two double doors into a massive 20s style room, complete with jazz band. We had entered Park Row.

If you hadn’t guessed from the above two paragraphs, Park Row is a Batman themed restaurant. The venue is themed after the Iceberg Lounge from Batman Returns & is chockablock with easter eggs & little nods to the films & comic universe at large. We started our evening with a round of drinks, of course all of them being in theme. I got the Bludhaven (Sesame Scotch Old Fashioned), Evan got Matches (Roasted Pineapple Rum Collins), & Victoria ordered The Blue Boy (Blue Caraçao Gimlet) a drink poured from the frame of a print of “The Blue Boy” by Thomas Gainsborough. For our appetizer Evan & I split the “Fit For A Knight” the menu’s Beef Tartare dish & Victoria & Rhys split an order of Fried Oysters. For our main course I got Gotham City’s Savior, an excellently prepared ribeye, Evan got the Mama Maroni, some pretty solid tortellini, & V & R split The Elite, a massive dry aged Tomahawk steak. We skipped dessert, unlike me, I know, but the Row offers a lot of very cool novelty desserts most of which use liquid nitrogen!

After using the Joker themed loo (Harley Quinn for the ladies) we ascended the stairs & walked back through the madness of Leicester Square to Covent Gardens.

Day Three

Day three started with a bit of a rush. Victoria had made lunch plans for us in the City of London & we all wanted to squeeze a workout in. Rhys went with his trainer & Ev & I tried to squeeze into Victoria’s Barrys Soho class but unfortunately it was full. We found a few spots in Barrys Central London & set out to make the class.

I’m someone who, for the most part, can’t workout in the morning & if I do I have to have been awake for over an hour & I have to have eaten something & had caffeine. I think it has something to do with my blood sugar being slow to ramp up in the mornings but if I don’t follow this rule it makes me sick for the remainder of the day. With that in mind we headed north to one of my favorite London coffee shops, Monmouth Coffee Company. Since it was a bright, sunny, warm London day (I know right?!) I grabbed an iced filter coffee & a pain au chocolate. When I asked the cashier which pastry to get her first suggestion was the almond croissant but then she said it, the phrase that permeated the rest of the trip. “The pains quite nice.” So the pain is what I got.

Onward through Russell Square we went til we made it to Barrys Central. We were around twenty minutes early & my mate Ali had just sent me a text asking for an updated bio for the show in Dumfries. Part of my accelerator had been mentored by an artist who now writes bios professionally so I sat outside Barrys crafting the following biography:

“Charlie Rogers is a Kansas-born, genre alchemizing country singer-songwriter based out of Nashville, TN. His genuine, often widely varied sound aims to bridge interpersonal gaps allowing each of us to feel seen & understood.

Rogers has opened for the likes of Brothers Osborne, Russell Dickerson, & Janelle Arthur. He has played CMA honors ceremonies from Charley Pride to Ricky Skaggs. His artist work & writing has been shared the world over & encompasses stages from all over the US to Spain & the UK as well.

Rogers has been a proponent for music his whole life & began singing & writing even at a very young age. His inspiration for his musical pursuits is & has always been to communicate the commonalities between us, especially for those groups who often feel unseen or unheard, often reaching across rigid genre lines to do so.

Rogers’ most recent release, “Obliterated (Acoustic Mix),” received over 100k stream independently & has been features on radio stations & popular playlists throughout the world. Rogers’ plans to release his next single, “Just Another Late Night,” in the next coming months which is to be shortly followed by “When He Was Me” a ballad written by Shay Mooney of Dan + Shay.”
— Charlie Rogers on April 15th, 2022 outside of Barrys Central London, crafted in around ten minutes

It’s a pretty solid bio, no?!

Seeing as it was Easter weekend Lucy, our instructor, had decided to make class a dirty thirty. For those of you that don’t know what a dirty thirty is it’s thirty minutes on a treadmill, thirty minutes on weights. The normal Barrys formula is usually broken up into several ten minute chunks alternating between tread & floor.

After being thoroughly destroyed in a basement studio just north of Russell Square I grabbed a brotein shake & a Barrys London tank & began the speed walk back to Covent Gardens. Our initial plan was to get back to the flat with around thirty minutes before we needed to depart for lunch buuuuut class had gone over & we were running rather behind. We ended up getting there, showered, changed, & manicured within the span of around fifteen minutes.

We took the Circle Line to the City of London, a pristine, shining metropolis of a city. We were once again ushered into what appeared to be a normal office building but after ascending thirty-nine floors in the matter of just short of as many seconds we found ourselves in SushiSamba! While technically a chain, SushiSamba limits its locations to the most scenic & picturesque. This location of the restaurant has a panoramic view of London & features two outdoor patios, one with an outdoor bar, along with the massive bay windows that encompass the entirety of the restaurant.

Lunch began with a round of drinks as we waited for our table; for Rhys, a lager, Victoria, a Tangerine Spritz, Evan, a Café Millionaire (a twist on an Espresso Martini), & Me, a Kiffirinha (a twist on the Brazilian Caipirinha). Though each of these drinks were incredible in their own right it was the second round that brought the fire. Everyone ordered the same as before except me who ordered a clarified Piña Colada Old Fashioned. When I say this drink was the hit of the table I mean it. The fomo from the rest of the group was real!

For lunch we split a few different things; edamame, wagyu gyoza, toro tiradito (toro, yuzu soy, wasabi pickle, black truffle, & yuzu caviar), the Samba London roll (tuna, salmon, hamachi, avocado, asparagus, onion, hishiho mayo, crispy yuba, & yuzu dressing), & the tiger maki (crab, tiger prawn tempura, beetroot yogurt, & red onion). The Samba roll was my favorite, the Tiger Maki, Evan’s.

After lunch we basically had a free day & decided to make our way up to Shoreditch. We made a quick detour through Spitalfields Market to grab a juice & peruse before heading to what has been rated the second best bar in the entire world, Tāyer + Elementary.

If you hadn’t caught on yet this Friday was definitely a day filled with drinking…sorry Mom. V&R had taken off of work to join our escapades & we were taking full advantage of it.

Tāyer + Elementary is a quant little Shoreditch craft cocktail spot. The esthetic is very modern Industrial meets Scandinavian in design & it’s laidback simplicity creates a very soothing environment. The bar is a bit of a two in one. Elementary operating weekdays & afternoons, Tāyer taking over for the late weekends. The Bergamot Margarita & the Frozen Yuzu Margarita were popular amongst the rest of the crew, on the other hand I got one of the best Nigronis I’ve ever had in addition to an off menu drink that I still have no clue what it was. I remember it being piney though! Does it live up to the title of second best bar in the world? Yes. Yes it does. The drinks are creative & endearing, the menu is constantly changing & allowing more & more room for experimentation.

Now rather decently buzzed we made our way back to the flat. As the years go by day drinking seems to get harder & harder, rest was needed.

As aforementioned dinner had been decided by Ev & I at Kricket. Kricket is one of my favorite London stops. It’s traditional British Fare mixed with Indian in a fun chic locale. We arrived a tad early for our reservation so we were escorted down to their new speakeasy SOMA Soho. Much like their upstairs neighbors SOMA Soho takes the traditional flavors of India & integrates them into craft cocktails. I got the Almond, a whiskey soda highball meant to taste like marzipan, Evan got the Coconut, a coconut/grapefruit fizz, & Rhys got the Chai, a chai sour. Victoria ended up with wine terminating her voyage on the day of liquors.

For dinner we order way too much food. Kricket is meant to be shared so you order plates for the table & pass them about. Let me see if I can get all of what we ordered here. We got Pistachio & Date Kulcha, Bhel Puri, Samphire Pakoras, Grilled Butternut Squash, Cornish Sole, Keralan Fried Chicken, Beef Boti Kebabs, Kashmiri Lamb Ribs, Burnt Garlic Tarka Dal, & Malai Tandoori Paneer. The fried chicken & butternut squash were my personal favorites! In addition to our smorgasbord we got a bottle of wine to split, while Rhys partook in the Dark Matter, a green chili rum margarita.

Quite stuffed & intoxicated we stumbled through the bustling Soho Friday night back to the flat where we slept like rocks. If you’d like to know the level to which we were intoxicated, I am entirely lacking photos from Tāyer + Elementary on…

Day Four

HAPPY THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!!!

If you couldn’t have guessed by the previous day’s events we woke up rather hungover. Not a great way to start a birthday I guess but I wouldn’t change a thing! After showering, dressing, contemplating the meaning of existence, it was once again time to set out.

In my Michelin search & my “Top Restaurants In The World” search one place came up consistently, The Clove Club. Having been awarded their second Michelin star back in February & being the foodie that I am I absolutely had to go celebrate my birthday there! However when I went to book the only available reservations for the 16th were at noon. Fine by me! Boujee Birthday Lunch it is!!!

We take the tube to Hackney, greeted by another glorious day in London. The only problem with the glorious nature of the day was that Evan & I had planned for UK spring, you know, dark & rainy, soooo we were a tad warm to say the least. We arrived at The Clove Club & were the first ones there, probably because we booked the opening slot but I felt a bit like an elderly couple going to get the early bird special.

We were very poshly greeted by a lovely hostess who asked if we needed anything before our seating was ready. Yes. Coffee. Lot’s of coffee. She then proceeded to bring us two excellently crafted pourover coffees.

When at little last we were sat I was greeted at the table by a birthday card from the staff in addition to a very well travelled Somm/Scuba Diver from New Zealand. He explained our tasting menu options, long or short, as well as the drink pairing options, wine, tea, or a mix of both, & off we went!

The thing with tasting menus that they don’t often advertise is the series of snacks you are presented before your “actual meal” can begin. In this case our snacks course consisted of a few things. The first thing we were brought was a Spring Herb Broth. Bright, green, herbaceous, & warm it was a very welcomed welcome gift to the two of us. Next was a crab snack, presented in the hollowed out shell it was a thin wafer like tart piped with a custard made from the crab. It was salty, creamy, & savory with that subtle crab sweetness. The third snack came on a bed of pine branches. It was a Buttermilk Fried Chicken Bite with Pine Salt. Tender, juicy, scrumptious with just the slightest alpine notes from the salt. The last snack item was a molten lava Escargot Bon Bon. I say it was molten lava because the interior cream was boiling. Encased in a delicate fried shell the escargot bon bon was an adventure for the pallet for sure! I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Our first course was delectable; a nice cut of Hot Smoked Wiltshire Trout atop an almond milk & watercress cream, served with Petrossian Caviar, brown butter almonds, & a crispy bit of the trout skin. Almost like a lighter more buttery salmon the trout was perfectly smoked & the combinations the textures brought to the dish were next level!

The second dish was the star of the show, Raw Orkney Scallops with Roasted Hazelnuts, Clementine Gel, Mushrooms, & a Black Truffle Butter on top! This is the dish that they claim won them their second Michelin star! The scallops literally melted in your mouth & the bright citrus paired perfectly with mellow earth notes of the truffle & mushrooms. Truly a stand out worthy of the star it received!

Course Three, Scottish Langoustine. If you don’t know a langoustine is about halfway between a prawn & a lobster, though technically a part of the lobster family. This dish came with a squashed slice of Green Tomato & was covered with a White Beer Emulsion. On the side it also included some sort of Aioli. This dish was sweet yet acidic, the malt nature of the beer played nicely with the brighter notes of both the crustacean & the tomato.

Another fish course number four was that of a fillet of Cornish Monkfish. Delicately prepared the flakey white monkfish was then topped with a hot pot of its skin, Swiss Chard, & Sichuan Pepper really giving it a savory bitterness that ended up feeling much hardier than I’d anticipated from such a light fish.

Course five, the last of the savories. This course was a Dry Aged Middlewhite Pork. It sat upon a bed of Bagna Cauda, a traditional Italian “fondue”, & was paired with a crispy thousand layer potato & artichoke. I didn’t expect savory/sweet Italian from The Clove Club but I guess that’s my error in assumption!

Now onto my favorite courses.

I mean the above statement not because I think the dishes in question were the show stoppers of the afternoon but because my unrelenting sweet tooth demands it.

Dessert course one was a Grilled Habañero Granita, or as my bud Beau called it, flavored ice. It sat atop a Wild Plum Sorbet as well as something creamy that I’m not quite sure of. The dish was fire & ice. Spicy, yet very cool & refreshing at the same time. The plum had a slight saltiness that honestly made me want to take the ingredients & make them into a margarita.

Apparently The Clove Club is famous for their Gateau St. Honoré, a pastry so named after St. Honoré (no shit), the patron saint of pastries. Theirs has some nice bits of Rhubarb in the center that added a very nice tartness to the overall sweet, custardy pastry! I think it was my favorite dessert of the evening!

Next came more Rhubarb, a very popular British ingredient I quickly learned along with blackcurrent. Along with the Gateau came a Yorkshire Rhubarb Sorbet with Ginger Ale Gel & some form of crumble underneath. It was an excellent pallet cleanser to “end the night.” Only it wasn’t…

You see tasting menus also often like to include a dessert snack course at the end where you get little things like truffles & macarons. This menu was no different. Our tasting snacks were an Array of Chocolates; Milk Chocolate Macarons, Hard Shelled White Chocolate Truffles, & Dark Chocolate Ganache, meant to be consumed in that order. It’s hard to mess up chocolate y’all & each of these were exceptional!

Thinking we were done I went to get up but was met with a slice of Gold Foil Opera Cake & a candle with “Happy 30th Birthday” inscribed on the plate in chocolate. It was absolutely darling.

Overall I would say The Clove Club has more than earned its two Michelin stars. I wish I could remember the wine pairings to add in here but I unfortunately forgot to write them down. I will say this to the Somm team over at the club, this was truly the best pairing I’ve had with a tasting menu! Each wine was unique & interesting & enhanced the flavors of the food with expert precision & visa versa. This made for an excellent birthday lunch & I’m beyond blessed to have had the experience!

After lunch I reached out to my friend Kim Logan (+ The Silhouettes) to see if we could snag a quick hang. Kim traditionally lives in Glasgow & frequents Paris with her band but was in London for her boyfriend’s band’s show the night prior at Helgi’s in Hackney. We hopped the bus & headed the couple of stops to meet her.

She met us outside Helgi’s with a massive hug & ushered us in. The crew were packing up their gear from the previous night so while they did that we sat in the bar & chatted. It was mostly music bus & mutual friends but it was nice to connect in person!

After they left to return to Glasgow we walked through Hackney towards Bethnal Green to grab the tube back Soho way. We grabbed coffee at Mare Street Market along the way & made a mental note to come back because she was cuuuute!

Back in CG we slept off the day & the night before’s alcohol & calories before meeting V&R for dinner at Temper Soho.

Ev & I were still pretty full from lunch but we ordered a few things to get us through the night; Cheeseburger Tacos & Wood-Roasted Sea Bass.

After dinner we went to a wine bar back in Covent Gardens called Plume! I was feeling bubbly for my birthday & got Champagne, something somewhat uncharacteristic of me (I tend to drink red.) Post night cap we walked the streets of the Theater District before ending our last evening in London fulfilled & full of love, booze, & incredible food.

END OF PART ONE

Object Writing: Bedsheets

Through the soft silver glow of the crescent moon I watch your breath rise & fall. Like waves rolling gracefully under a midnight sky I am transfixed by the steady expansion & regression of your chest. Shadows dance lovingly across the muted gray linens that adorn you, their proprietors gently wafting in the midsummer breeze holding vigilant watch of the darkness from the other side of the window. It appears this will be yet another night where Morpheus has chosen to ignore my prayers for rest, but tonight I do not mind, for in his absence he has gifted me a view few on this earth have been fortunate enough to hold. I cradle the pillow tenderly between my forearm & crown & fix my eyes amorously upon you. Your hair falls indiscriminate upon your brow as you slip further into the realm of dreams with each passing aspiration.

Object Writing: Terminal

Concrete & rebar encase the hive, a buzzing center of travel & commerce where lives mingle with one another unbeknownst. Gripped by the sonder of individuality I watch each of them pass; some beginning their journeys, some in the middle, & some have reached their final destination. Each passing patron parades through the terminal, possessions in hand, scurrying too & fro like mice seeking shelter from a danger looming overhead. What must each of their fully fleshed out lives be like? Who are these people when the stress of hurry up & wait isn’t baring down on them? I watch them leaned lazily against the window; the outside air cooling the glass where it makes contact with my skin. My fingers trace circles in the scratchy, short carpet as I slip in & out of daydreams, little self inflicted distractions to pass the time as I await the winged carriage that will catapult me across the sea into my next adventure.

Blog: A 12 Week Accelerator & The Offer

Hello loves, how are we today?

Yesterday I finished a 12 week accelerator called the six figure artist. In this class, hosted by Lindsey Kirkendall, me & 10 other artists were put through a series of different tasks over the span of the 12 weeks where we were asked to reframe our thinking & belief systems about what it means to be an artist as a whole, how it’s possible to make money in the current independent artist economy, & what strengths we as artists/individuals bring to the table. In addition to that we were asked to put together an offer that we, as artists, could offer to the public that would add value to the world & help those who are walking the paths we have already trod. This accelerator is where the desire to share my object writing pieces came from, it’s also where past blogs such as Vulnerabilities & Rejection, Curiosity & Experience, Understanding Your Value, &, of course, Object Writing came from. This course also encouraged me to step out of my artistic & personal comfort zone; it got me to audition for a major musical, try on new live streaming platforms & ideas, & pushed me towards expression not hindered by the walls that I’ve built to hide being.

While many people in the course have gone through & are already out selling their respective offers mine is still a work in progress. You see in the group we narrowed down that the thing that makes me tick, the culmination, the shared thread amongst all of my many passions & hobbies, ADHD aside, is experience & curiosity. I am driven to try new things out of another of my defining words, consideration. I want to know how other people live, I want to experience their culture, their passions, I want to, as I’ve stated before, chisel away the marble encasing the man underneath. I think we as humans all do that to some extent, we use experience & curiosity to decide who we are because of the things that light us up, or as Lindsey puts it “flip our skirts up.” So I looked around at this idea of self discovery & wondered what I can do as a knowledge enthusiast to help others discover who they are.

My first offering came in the form of live performance. At the end of the day I am a lover of performing, it’s where I feel the most alive, on a stage. The idea modeled itself off of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” where in I would put on a concert & with the price of admission you would also get to experience some of my favorite things locally. From restaurants to distilleries/breweries/vineyard to shops that help fuel my many hobbies, the idea was a concert that was interactive & a little less formal. Think Sofar Sounds meets a craft fair/farmers market meets a restaurant pop-up shop meets a Q&A session. If this is an idea that “flips your skirt up” don’t worry, I’m in the process of planning one!

That exciting offering aside Lindsey & the group kept coming back to the feeling that I needed to be mentoring people, to offer my rather large knowledge & experience bank up to those who may feel a tad lost or disoriented. There in lies the second offer. The idea behind offer #2 is that I would spend five weeks with a group of individuals under my wing, prompting them to try new things, new ways of thinking, new paths, in the hope of helping them find which direction feels right for them in the next stage of their life. Originally the idea was to aim this at those who are switching from the high school world to that of the collegian. After a talk with my friend Miss Christine, whom I met through the group, they suggested that I bump my ideal participant up to those who are now exiting the college world. They stated that someone in their life had just graduated & was feeling entirely lost after spending the last 18 years of their life entirely entangled in the education system. I get it, I’ve been there, the other side of school is scary especially after we spend 82%-ish of our lives dedicated to it up til that point.

As I said above, the finalized version of this group offering is still a work in progress, but if you feel this is something you &/or someone you love could benefit from, I’d love to offer my assistance!

I truly wanted to just hop on here today & give a little insight into what I’ve been up to the last couple of months & why I’ve been posting the way that I have! Not sure what the next two weeks of posting will look like from me, as I’ll be in the UK, but you can bet there’ll be a travel blog or two to follow when it’s all said & done!

As always I hope you all have fantastic weekends! If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading, it means the world to me!

Much love to you all,

-C

Object Writing: Atlas

Deception, pain, punishment, these are all the things that brought me to where I am now; set between the crushing weight of atmosphere & the unrelenting density of earth sprawled out before me. I shift uncomfortable, the literal weight of the world on my shoulders, my knees bleed from the sharp mountain tops forced beneath them. My existence has become suffering, destined to stand tall & strong for an eternity watching life & time slip by. I am cursed, infinitely cursed all because of the need to support those who raised me, who cared for me, who gave me power & purpose in this world. I have been ripped from my lofty throne & thrust into the servitude of Gods that don’t serve me or mine. It is here that I am destined to spend my forever burdened with keeping two loving bodies from one another, doomed to be a passive member of creation, a watcher, a monument of strife, a beacon of warning. I heft the sky father farther away from my mother earth & bear his weight reluctantly all while life goes on without me, all around me, oblivious to the sacrifice I have been forced to make.

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Blog/Object Writing: Grief

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If you noticed I did not post an outright “Object Writing” post on here on Wednesday, that is because I did a five day series on grief. I was given the grief prompt by a dancer our of University in Canada who asked if I would do an object writing page for her final dance project using the five stages of grief. Naturally I agreed & was delighted, this is that assignment! In my initial writing I did my best to make the stages flow naturally into one another, over the last week I had to figure out ways to segment them out into five one minute posts, they are all attached below. So, what I’m going to do is first post the written form then if you feel so inclined, or if you’d rather, you can go through the individual posts & watch/listen to what I did with them. I can’t wait to share the final dance product as well once it’s presented! Enjoy!

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF

“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.” The shock of the news nearly knocks me off my feet as the message the tsunami of information carried echoes endlessly around my brain. I feel faint, detached from the human vessel that tethers my spirit to this earth, adrift in the noise & chaos. My myriad of emotions cause me to question what is real or even possible. Is this? Is it all just a dream, some sick illusion my subconscious has cooked up for some unknown reason or have the unfathomable nightmares of my deepest, darkest dread become reality? At the end of my Rolodex of “no’s” hangs the fixture to which I attach blame. “IF” I am to believe this malicious marquee of misinformation then someone is at fault. Someone or something is the culprit for this misfortune; effect is nothing without cause. My adrenals pump molten rage into my bloodstream, igniting my senses into fiery passion. I am fuming, eyes frantically searching for elucidation & something to pin the focus of my frustration. Then it hits me. It smacks me in the face with the fury of the scorn I’ve irradiated into my atmosphere. What if it’s me? What if it’s my fault? My mind begins to work overtime, clockwork machines come alive & the pressure & steam give way to desperation. I return a call, for the first time since being encumbered by the burden of knowing I reach out to another human being whom I share commonality with. I am insistent, disheartened, “if only I’d done this,” I cry, “if only I’d done that” but my cries are fruitless. What’s done is done. Life has no redo button, it offers no relapse into the undoing of retribution. Maybe an exchange then, something for that which I’ve lost. Maybe the almighty, the cosmos, the powers that be will shine one glint of mercy upon me & offer me a fair trade. Time, money, possessions, health, all are on the line, all viable options for the return. But the universe sits silent, unbothered by the heart-wrenched pleading of a drop in the river, in the grand stream of time. All is silent. The stillness creeps into my being & settles uncomfortably into my bones. The meaning & spirit drains from me like sap oozing softly from a tree into the ground below me. Gravity’s weight is multiplied ten fold & soon the creature comforts that bring me respite begin to do little the fill the void. I am hollow, an empty shell of icy numb hurt as the colors melt inchmeal around me into sickly, sullen shades of grays. It’s pointless, all of it. Pointless. My energy depleted, my hopes scattered, my berth begins to feel more & more like a tomb; a black void of nothingness to which I shall willingly succumb. Little by little I fall further into the pits of my forlorn until, at last, I reach the soft maw of the abyss. Cradled in self pity & affliction I lie there, transfixed by misery until a delicate ember drifts haphazardly into my core. It too rests with me in this eternity, offering a knowing melancholy smile before wrapping me in warmth. The freedom of empathy washed through me & enrobes me in loving light. It does not discount my loss or patronize but instead sits in amiable eloquence carrying me through my despair. It lifts my chin, places a quant reassurance on my forehead, & nudges me affectionately towards tomorrow. “It is time,” it whispers to me. Like a freshly birthed foal I stagger to find my footing; one & then the other. I look up to the mountain that stands proudly aloft before me & I begin the ascent; one foot at a time, one day & then the next. The sun breaks through the morbid gray & for the first time in what feels like an age I am at peace.

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART ONE: DENIAL

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART TWO: ANGER

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART THREE: BARGAINING

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART FOUR: DEPRESSION

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART FIVE: ACCEPTANCE

Blog: Is It Worth It? Let Me Work It.

The more I observe society the more commonality I find amongst us, especially, I feel, where people my age are concerned. We struggle with our with, our inherent value & worthiness that we bring with us into the world. I think growing up in the 90s & later, the 2000s, our worth was minimized. We were given participation trophies, shown that the work we put in didn’t matter, that we’d still receive the same level of prize. We were thrown into jobs as teenagers that had us working minimum wage jobs where that minimum wage never increased despite the value of a dollar decreasing. We were told we were special then shown the exact opposite.

Worth is definitely something that I’ve struggled with myself, I haven’t felt worthy of success or happiness or whatever else. Why? Lord knows, but something in me was ingrained to believe that I was only worthy of being considered a human being when I had found success. When I no longer struggled for money or had to fight to make headway in the music industry, only then would I be worth of the name I carry & the feelings of success or happiness I have.

I think a lot of that stems from growing up in church. No shame to the big man upstairs, I’m a fan, just not so much of the church world. When you’re living actively in the christian world there’s a lot of rhetoric around shame. We must be shameful of being inherently sinful or ashamed of the parts of ourself that some printing press decided should be included in the bible back in 1946 due to personal politics. We are told that we fall short of the glory of God simply by being born.

So of course so many of us struggle to find our worthiness. We’ve been told from a very young age that hard work & success are what brings us worthiness, but what happens when society doesn’t hold up its end of that bargain & your hard work just leads to more struggle instead of success or financial freedom? We’re told that if we want to be worthy in the eyes of the church or in the eyes of God that we have to hide parts of ourself or be ashamed of who we are. That no all loving God would accept you as they made you, that you have to fit the christian mold to be in God’s grace. That’s never sat right with me.

So many books that are published these days seek to resolve this issue. In “Rich As F*ck” Amanda Frances makes the bold claim that we are worthy of happiness & of our dreams simply because we are. You are worthy because you are. You were born worthy, raised worthy, & will die worthy of basic human rights, decencies, success, abundance, & happiness.

We, as millennials, definitely have a worthiness problem, fortunately it doesn’t seem to have carried over to Gen Z who appear to see right through the BS & are ready to come swinging. So many of us end up failing though simply because we do not believe that we are worthy of success. We self sabotage, we doubt, we make excuses instead of owning our inherent worthiness & just doing the damn thing with our chests puffed out & our head held high. We are so afraid of the fall that cometh after pride that we have completely depleted ourselves of any of it.

So here’s my challenge to you this week, in all honesty it’s probably something that’ll take more than a week but we gotta start somewhere don’t we? I want you to practice your worthiness. I want you to stop accepting the abuses you deal with at work or at home. I want you to demand to be paid what you’re worth. I want you to stand up for yourself & say “enough.” Why? Because you’re worthy. Why are you worthy? Because you are. Write it on your mirror, put a memo in your phone, put a slip in you car that says “I am worthy because I am.” & own it! Say it, repeat it, feel it, live it!

You are worthy because you are my lovelies, have a fantastic week, much love to you all!

-C

Object Writing: Mosquito

Its tiny taps on the window were what woke me. Small pinpoints ringing out from a minuscule life intent on escaping back to the warm promise of the sun just outside of the grime dusted glass in its way. I watch it from the sticky sheets of my summer bed; how freeing it must be to be a creature so oblivious to the drastic difference a handful of degrees swaying one way or another can make in a room. I lay there, sprawled out on just the mattress cover, sweat soaking through the cloth, as the mosquito moves to circle the room. The late afternoon sun casts long arching marigold blocks of light across the floor, interrupted by a long narrow shadow any time the bug ventures into frame. Another hot day, another hot summer. Even at the distance it flies from me I can still hear the piercing buzz of its wings. I was convinced it wanted to make a meal of me though thus far it has shown little to no interest in doing so. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the ting of musk in the air or the thick soup of humidity, but the insect pays me no mind, so I return the favor. So here I am, spread out over my bed like jam on bread, watching this mosquito search in vain for whatever entrance allowed it access to my abode. I watch & watch & watch until my eyelids began to grow heavy once again & I embrace sleep as my blanket of the oblivious, my single relief from this sweltering heat.

Blog: Vulnerabilities & Rejection

There will be times in your life where people will come to you in their most brazen & honest moments. They will intrust you with information about who they are, what they stand for, who they love, what they do, etc. It is your job as a friend, parent, sibling, lover, mentor, etc to remain as judgment free as humanly possible & make that person feel seen & heard & accepted in those moments.

I’m sure many of you have already had such encounters in your life. If not, there may be a reason why. There is a lesson I came across a few years ago that has stuck with me to this day. I can’t for the life of me recall where I heard it, if I could I’m sure it’d be linked below., but he point of this discussion was “testing the waters” specifically where the ‘parent/child’ relationship is concerned. In the discussion it was brought up that children will often, as the name would imply, test the waters with their parents. They try to gage little bits of information on how their parents may feel regarding certain topics or use hypotheticals to see what the outcome would be if they were blatant, honest, & authentic with their parental units. Often parents fail the test, they give their child an answer that builds a wall or creates a divide & all of the sudden, several months or years down the line, these parents feel like they don’t know who their kids are anymore. That’s because their child has decided it’s in their best interest to stay resigned because they no longer feel safe sharing information with their parents.

So too do we do this to the people we care about. Our friends gage our responses on how we feel about certain things or our willingness to be openminded before they confide in us. If we don’t pass the test, the relationship remains shallow. I pride myself on being able to be the keeper of the true lives & selves of many of those I hold dearest to myself. You see I’ve built up an err of compassion. My friends & loved ones know they can come to me with anything, as their true & authentic selves & know that I will be grateful for their vulnerabilities & embrace them as who they are, accepting the information they’ve told me as their truth, knowing it may have been a conversation, confession, or thought years in the making.

We never know how long these machinations stew in the minds of our peers. It may have taken them years to have the courage to voice exactly what they’re trying to say, it may have taken years for them to even come to the conclusion themselves & they felt safe making you privy to this new found part of self. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that this person felt it pertinent enough to tell you, they saw you as a large enough part of their life or even someone they thought they could receive counsel from. You have been honored with vulnerability, the worst possible thing you could do is respond with judgment or rejection.

The more occasions that your loved ones come to you with their vulnerabilities, the more you meet them with love & understanding, the deeper your relationships & bonds will grow. As a friend we can easily let those who reject us go or cut them from our lives but when it’s a family member, it becomes much harder. When holidays & family gatherings are still a thing for the member who feels estranged or like they can’t be authentic in those spaces, the time spent wearing that mask of “the perfect family member” can be exhausting & disheartening.

We are social beings, creatures of community, & when our chosen community meets our authenticity with a cold shoulder it scars, deeply. Feeling the outcast in an environment meant to cultivate & embrace your humanity gets very lonely very quick.

My challenge for you this week is to be honest with yourself. To look at the times where maybe you fell short of being the perfect confidante, friend, lover, or mentor when someone chose to confide something deeply personal in you. I then want you to reach out to those people, to mend the gaps, & in turn, to share your own vulnerabilities. I also want you to find someone you deem “safe” & foster a space to be vulnerable with them. Fortify that relationship, for as the song goes, “we all need somebody to lean on.”

I hope you have a fantastic week going ahead!

Much love to you all & appreciate you taking the time to read my thoughts every week.

Thank you, truly,

-C

Object Writing: Envelope

No return address, curious. I run my finger over the pointed top of the envelope, my name inked diligently below on the broad side in an enchanting cursive. The wax seal on the inverse panel glistens in the light as I turn the folded parchment over & over in my hands. Occasionally my fingertips caress the soft compress leaving behind a sensation of comfort & familiarity. Upon turning my attention back to the pressed fastening it stands out to me that the indentation of the seal is foreign to me, an unknown entity or house that I have yet to come across or that has possibly slipped my mind. I reach for my letter opener, the blunted blade is cold in my hands sending pin pricked goosebumps down my wrist. I press the tip of the instrument firmly under the binding, then hesitate to take in the insignia of my mysterious sender once more. One fell swoop & the letter is free, springing from its paper imprisonment & cascading folded sheets onto the floor. Casting the newly vacated envelope aside I reach anxiously for the message, wary of what news it may bring.

Blog: Curiosity & Experience

There’s a quote that recently surfaced from an interview that Jim Carrey did with TIFF about four years ago. The topic involved brought into light Carrey’s own struggles with mental health & finding identity, even at his current age of sixty years old. Jim talks about the characters he’s played over the years & states that this menagerie of characters also includes his best known one “Jim Carrey.” He then goes on to say something that really struck me. He asked the interviewer if they knew the different between sadness & depression. The interviewers shrugged. Carrey the said the following:

“People talk about depression all the time. The difference between depression & sadness is sadness is just from happenstance-whatever happened or didn’t happen for you, or grief, or whatever it is. Depression is your body saying “f*ck you, I don’t want to be this character anymore, I don’t want to hold up this avatar that you’ve created in the world. It’s too much for me.”

You should think of the word ‘depressed’ as ‘deep rest.’ Your body needs to be depressed. It needs deep rest from the character that you’ve been trying to play.”
— Jim Carrey on TIFF, Sept 22nd, 2017

I know that quote is a little blunt & I’m sure stirs up interesting thoughts or emotions for yourself. Whether you agree or disagree with Jim’s point of view is beside the point here. I’d like to invite you to follow me down the rabbit hole of my own thoughts regarding the quote at hand.

I remember the first time depression hit me, I think I was around seventeen at the time. I felt crazy, truly I felt like I was going mad, my mood would swing randomly, I would dive into emotional lulls fairly often, & could never seem to climb back out into the light. My parents, God bless them, didn’t know what to do with me so they sent me to their company therapist at the time. A wildly artistic woman, my first therapist introduced me to the works of Kahlil Gibran, an American-Lebanese artist, writer, poet, & philosopher, an author I love & frequent even to this day. She specifically wanted me to read the segment of Gibran’s book The Prophet called “On Children.” In the book a prophet arrives in a village & basically hosts a Q&A session for the town to come & grill him on his philosophies, this is what she had me read.

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
     And he said:
     Your children are not your children.
     They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
     They come through you but not from you,
     And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

     You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
     For they have their own thoughts.
     You may house their bodies but not their souls,
     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
     You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
     For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
     You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
     The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
     Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
     For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Her point in prescribing this passage was that I had not embraced my own thoughts, beliefs, & feelings. I was going off of my heritage, which we all do naturally. I wanted so badly to fit in as the ideal midwestern good ole boy that I’d completely neglected the actually person residing in my body. Furthermore, I hadn’t just ignored him, I’d straight up avoided him.

I’m a lover of media, as an art form, I feel it to be truly limitless. I love film, invigorating stories & novels, video games with compelling narratives, & music the makes me feel something in a profound manner. I still do to this day. I’m not saying these things are bad or that these things hindered my personal growth, I actually think I’m hinting at the opposite. You see media, in addition to my escapism into characters played on a stage or the role I assumed of the “country star,” allowed me to try on different hats. It allowed me to make connections with my true self in ways that it took me far too long to realize. Media was giving me the vicarious experiences I needed to chisel away the marble covering the man underneath.

Through these new & differing stories I began to embrace the thrill of curiosity. I wanted to know & feel more, I wanted to experience more & see the world through more eyes than had preciously been offered to me. I became obsessed with experiencing food first. Those that know me will tell you I proudly wear the obnoxious moniker of “foodie,” but I am. I’m always astounded by the ways in which culture shapes food, the way science shapes food, the way art shapes food, the way history shapes food. If you’ve ever been on a trip with me you can also attest to the fact that I tend to build my travel around food. There’s so much that a plate of food can say in just a single bite.

From food naturally followed drink, in addition to the aforementioned, travel. With each new experience I gained insight, with gained insight I gained empathy & compassion. The marble continued to get chiseled away.

I dove head first into my curiosity, it allowed me to find the facets of myself that I love & taught me how to manage & confront the parts I find less desirable. So too did curiosity & experience allow me to pilfer through the box of passions & pull the things that spoke to me, leaving the rest behind. That’s a journey that’s an ongoing process for sure!

You see in the past I’d become so ingrained in the miasma of what was in vogue that I abandoned some of the brightest parts of my being. I gave into what society wanted me to be, what my community wanted me to be, what my family wanted me to be, what the media wanted me to be that I became so convinced I couldn’t find success as an artist unless I forced myself into the preconceived boxes I’d been presented with. I’d looked at the world around me & found, white CIS male aspects aside, that my voice, my authentic voice, was one neither worth celebrating nor promoting. I thank God that I’ve since cast those feelings aside.

We are creatures of habit, us humans. We get so stuck in our ways that we forget just how massive the world is & how varied & diverse life can be when it’s allowed to flourish without the constraints of expectation. This is why I urge people to travel, this is why I urge people to make friends with people different than them, this is why I urge people to experience cuisine & media that may seem foreign or taboo to you because at the end of the day we’re all human & the veins of humanity run deep. Hell, you may even be surprised what you uncover about yourself along the way!

I hope you have an incredible week, I challenge you to go out & try something new this weekend; read a new type of book, watch a movie that follows someone whose life is drastically different from your own, be bold & unafraid to change your opinions or perspectives when presented with new information or lifestyles that aren’t reflective of your own experiences. After all, how boring a stagnant life would be?

Much love to you all,

-C

Object Writing: Coffee Cup

Red. Who do I know that wears red?

The lipstick stained rim would have been perfectly set if not for the smudge jetting off to right of the greasy rouge. Whether the imperfection was a remnant of an imperfectly released sip or an attempted clearing of the streaked mistake, I cannot tell. Shaking distraction my mind I snaps back to the question at hand “whose is this?” It was quite the surprise to wake up & find this lukewarm caffeinated tar sitting anxiously in the middle of my kitchen table, auspiciously anticipating the return of its consumer all the while spilling notes of baking chocolate & candied hazelnut into the pale morning ether. Could it be one of my roommates', had one of them had an unexpected guest, or was there now some gussied up rando lurking in my abode? I eyed the mug suspiciously, pondering not only its proprietor, but also where its contents had come from. We haven't had coffee in this house for weeks, an oversight that never seems to get remedied no matter how many times any of us happen to be out & about at the store. The more I observed, the more the neurons returned to their posts after my slumber, the more questions also I had. If I weren't already, the shockwave of the powder bathroom door careening open surely woke me.

And all at once I had my answers. All of them.

Blog: The Greatest Teacher, Failure Is.

This past weekend a friend of mine hit me up to go audition for a mainstage musical at TPAC (Tennessee Performing Arts Center). TPAC is where we get all of our touring shows here in Nashville; Hamilton, Wicked, The Lion King, etc. The musical in question, May We All, was a Nashville based production being produced by the lead singers of FGL, Brian Kelley & Tyler Hubbard. The modern country jukebox musical was specifically looking for country artists over musical theater actors, would feature an array of country songs, in addition to featuring a nightly revolving country artist role with the likes of Hubbard, Keith Urban, Breland, Carly Pearce, Etc. set to appear. In addition to all that the six week run would pay a minimum of around $1K a week to each performer. I saw it as an opportunity for great exposure in addition to some major monetary gain. So I auditioned.

My friend Kimi, who was the one insisting I go to the open call audition, had done a private audition through her acting school on Friday, the day prior. Having made the decision to go, Ev & I set out to preparing audition material at around 10:30 PM Friday evening, the open call was Saturday morning at 10. We did headshots in the upstairs bedroom, ran to Walgreens at 11:15 to print off said headshots, then I came home & made up an acting resumé & chose an audition song. All-in-all I ended up getting to bed around midnight 30 that night.

The next morning I got up around 8 to start warming up & finalize the sheet music I needed for my audition. I got to Starstruck, where the audition was being held around 9:45 & the audition list already had 65 people signed up in front of me. I waited around 4 hours to audition & was finally called in around 2 PM where I sang 32 bars of “Speechless” by Dan + Shay. I was immediately asked to come back in on Sunday afternoon for a callback. That evening I received my callback packet with the music & lines to prepare, it was for one of the supporting leads! I prepared the lines & the song, “One Man Band” by Old Dominion & prepared to return around one the next day.

Enter Sunday Morning. I wake up & my voice is exhausted, flat out exhausted. I warmed up through it, being gentle & trying to get back to at least a semi-decent voice for this audition. I had the song memorized, as it was one I was already familiar with, & felt complete & utterly ready to go nail my call back! I went back to Starstruck, ran into a few old Belmont friends of mine I hadn’t seen in a while, & waited to get called in.

After an hour or so my name was called & I got in line with a few other people who were called back for the role as well. I was last in my group to go, & again, felt completely confident in my auditioning capabilities. Boy was I wrong.

I get called into the room, nerves are fine, nothing out of the ordinary, & get told they’ve cut the song from the Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus, to just Verse & Chorus. Totally fine. I get halfway through the first verse & my brain goes blank. To be completely honest I’m not sure which went first, the lyrics or my voice but one of them said “deuces” & bounced. Having completely forgotten the words to this song I’m very, very familiar with, I started making them up. I flat out started making up lyrics. THEN I did my best to find the words in my sheet music & got further lost. It was a catastrophe. Between my made up lyrics & my voice not working every other note it came as no surprise to me when I finished singing & the casting director said “I think that’ll be all for us today,” to which I replied, “I completely understand” & proceeded to laugh my way out of the room. They didn’t even have me attempt to read lines, something each person in front of me had done. I went back to where I’d left my coat & just bounced.

Surprisingly I wasn’t mortified. Quite the contrary. I had screwed up this callback so horrifically that it didn’t even feel real to me, it felt like a farce. I had gone into this room feeling 100% on top of it & had, at best, delivered 40% of a performance for them. It was baaaaaaaad.

I’m sure some of you saw me post about this on my story. There I expressed that I was actually proud of the magnitude at which I’d failed & I still stand by that. You see I went in confident, I went in prepared, but nothing I could have done would have prepared me for the flub up I made. It was out of my control.

Did I fail? Yes. Exponentially. Was I embarrassed by it? Partially. Was I upset? Not in the least bit.

You see, so often we put so much pressure on success, so much pressure on the avoidance of failure that even our victories fall short. I failed this last weekend in the ultimate form. I failed not because I didn’t try, but because I did. There was no room for “what if” there was nothing different I could have done to have made that audition stellar. Why? Because at the end of the day I had reached the limits of what my body was capable of at that time.

A day later, Monday, I came to find out I was sick with a cold that’s still pinning me down a little today. I knew in that moment, on that day, that my extreme mess up was not the measure of my success nor was it a measure of my talents. It was my body saying “enough.” But hey, at least I tired right?

We put so much pressure on ourselves to be the best, to be better, at all times & for what? Exhaustion? Burnout? I’m not saying that you shouldn’t push yourself but I am saying you need to allow space for yourself to have grace. It’s okay to fail, it’s how we learn. Imagine how boring life would be if we got it right all the time, there’d be no point in celebrating anything. Nothing would ever be exciting.

At the end of the day I clearly wasn’t meant to do this. This clearly wasn’t the path that had been set for me & I may have very well dodged a bullet or cleared the way for something even greater & more in line with what I want & who I am. I remember sitting & thinking before my first audition, much in line with FGL, that if it’s meant to be it’ll be. Which clearly it wasn’t.

Failure is an excellent teacher, or as Yoda put it “the greatest teacher, failure is.” It requires us to look at our short comings, requires us to see where we need to work harder, requires us to acknowledge when we need rest, but it also gives us a chance to course correct & rediscover the path we’re meant to follow.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Object Writing: Easel

It stares tentatively at me every time I enter the spare room at the end of the upstairs hall, longing for the attention it had amorously received in its former life. What once belonged to my inspired grandmother now stands forgotten, collecting dust out of sight & out of mind. A half finished painting rests lazily against its frame, the acrylic paint of which still encrusts the shelf that hoists it aloft. It's been a while since this easel has been loved, properly loved that is. It was once the advocate for beautiful expressions of art; oil slicked splotches of plumage, delicately washed lofty cliffs overlooking the sea set under the watchful eye of a salt white lighthouse, true enchantment put to pigment. Now it yearns for such activity, its use long dismissed by the passing fancies of a neuro-divergent brain. Poor, lonely easel, you are so deserving of the flourish of life you once received in the past. I guess it may be time to once again crack out the paints & feel the tug of creativity.

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