Blog: Rediscovering The Joy In Your Passions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: 31, A Year Of Endless POSSIBILITIES

This past week I turned 31 years old, a very odd age to me. For whatever reason the prospect of being a “31 year old” doesn’t feel real, it feels like a made up age with a made up number. Maybe it’s because the number isn’t evenly rounded like “30,35,etc.” but even when looking at numbers & ages like 32, 33, & 34, they seem realistic which has lead me to believe that the reason the age “31” feels so foreign to me as a concept is due to its prime nature.

As far back as I can remember, the number “13” has been lucky for me. Prime, in its own right, I found myself claimed by the number “13” at a very young age. When I was growing up on & playing team sports jerseys were often delegated by number. One would go to the smallest member of the team then the numbers would ascend as did the height of those involved with the team. I was always a tall kid, in fact I earned the monicker of the ‘jolly green giant’ in fourth or fifth grade from a kid, Nick, in my class because of my stature, demeanor, & tendency towards often adorning myself in the color green. So due to my lofty height I was always given the longest jersey, the first of which bore the “13.”

If you haven’t picked up on the flip yet, 13 backwards is 31, my lucky number has pulled an Uno reverse on this milestone year of my life & much like my much loved teen numeral & its unique ability to only be divisible by itself, the year before me seems mysterious but brimming with possibilities.

They say to create the future you want you have to live in a perpetual state of the unknown. You cannot expect different results going forward if you’ve already written your future to be; wake up at this time, eat these things, go to this place, go to that place, work here, eat there, etc. etc. & maybe that’s why the possibilities of this year seem so exciting to me.

The mysteries of the universe aside, the year in question also traditionally marks a year of “expansion,” of broadening horizons & coming into ones own & the thought of that excites me! You see I dreaded turning 30, I did, I didn’t want to leave my 20s behind, especially after I felt the latter years of which had been stolen from me by COVID, but there’s something different about this.

You would think plunging deeper into my 30s would terrify me, when I think, in reality, it invigorates me. I spent too much time in my 30th year afraid of aging when in reality I needed to take the time to understand just how much of a privilege aging is, it’s not something that all of us get. Years are not a given, you’re never guaranteed a tomorrow & it took me far too long to accept the gift I was being given that was the gift of endless possibility.

I’m so beyond excited to see what this year holds, I can’t begin to fathom the amazing experiences the future holds & I promise you all that I will do my best to live each of these moments with the utmost gratitude & appreciation for the time that I’ve been given.

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Writing The Hit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Bloglet: On Easter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Is Risen!

Blog: Cold Fury

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, much love to you all,

-C

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

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

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

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

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

Charlie’s Healthier, Yet Still Bussin’ Brownies

Yes, they are Paleo.

Ingredients:

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

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

• 1/3 Heaping Cup of Cocoa Powder

• 2 Eggs

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

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

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

• 2/3 Cup of Coconut Sugar

• Pinch of Smoked Salt (Regular Is Fine Too)

• Pinch of Nutmeg

• Dash of Cinnamon

Optional Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup of Chopped Nuts

• 1/2 Cup of Shaved Coconut

• Pinch of Garam Masala

• Whatever Else You Might Like In Your Brownies

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

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

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

• Allow potatoes to cool before removing skin.

• Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

• Line a baking dish with parchment paper.

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

• Pour batter into your lined baking pan.

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

• Bake for 30 minutes.

• Remove from oven & let cool.

• The brownies should be baked through but still gooey.

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

Blog: Time Is Once Again Ticking For Tik Tok

If you’re not a frequent user of the clock app, also known as Tik Tok, you may have missed the news that the federal government is once again attempting to ban Tik Tok in The US. If you were already aware of this news then you’ve probably also heard that the reason behind the potential ban apparently relates to “national security” but that reasoning is demonstrably false & we’re going to go over why.

I’m not sure at what point I became a political pundit blog but it seems to be the field of writing I’ve found myself most frequently in of late. Maybe it’s because I, myself am often invested in the world of politics & am a very active advocate against a lot of the BS laws that have been coming out over the last few months. I feel like I’m in the middle of the Trump years again, sharing all the horrible things that I don’t feel are receiving enough attention from the general public, but that’s not why we’re here today. We’re here to talk about the threat that has once again presented against Tik Tok.

As I mentioned above, Tik Tok is on the line in a new bipartisan bill that would force the Chinese based company to sell the United States portion of the app to a US company or face shut down. Sound familiar? Well, it should, because the same thing happened back in 2019. As also aforementioned, the federal government’s reasoning falls under the mustachioed guise of “data mining.” The humorous part about that being that Tik Tok doesn’t collect any more or different data than groups like Meta or Twitter have done for years. We’ll get back to Meta in a minute. The real problem that the feds have with Tik Tok falls into two categories, neither of which should be reasons for the outright ban of the app.

The first of these problems arises from Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s monstrous baby, rigging public opinion one Russian funded post at a time. Zuckerberg is upset that Tik Tok is out performing his two platforms; Instagram & Facebook, the latter of which has seen a fairly consistent decline in users, especially amongst those who embrace Tik Tok, Get Z & Millennials. In an attempt to compete Meta added “Reels” to their platforms which are essentially just Tik Tok rip offs, most times, quite literally. Zuckerberg, in the spirit of free market capitalism, hired GOP targeted PR firm, Targeted Victory, to run a smear campaign against the clock app amongst primarily conservative voters, a base to which has struggled to find a foothold on unfiltered, unregulated Tik Tok. Zuckerberg’s tactics clearly worked as here we are again, looking down the barrel of the same legal gun that we did when Trump found he couldn’t regulate the content of the Tok.

The second part of this is what brings in the bipartisan support for the ban. You see Tik Tok has around one hundred million users. These users, on average, spend about 90 minutes a day using the app. The networks don’t like this. In their minds 90 minutes spent on Tik Tok is 90 minutes you spent not watching CNN, HBO, Fox News, MSNBC, you name a network, I’ll give you a corresponding corporate donor. Additionally these networks are no longer in control of the message being delivered directly to the people, they no longer get to filter or modify their stories to fit the narrative that they want to push. Two recent prime examples of this are the TN’s anti-LGBTQ policies, whose law makers were exposed using Tik Tok for their hypocritical ways (Gov Bill Lee dressed in drag & LT Gov Randy McNally commenting on suggestive photos of twinks) & the train derailment that happened in East Palestine, OH which was barely, if at all covered, by new sites & networks. Tik Tok has repeatedly drawn attention to problems being swept under the rug or misdealing of politicians & the people in charge have grown tired of the wool being removed from the general publics’ eyes.

I know some of you just read those two paragraphs & are immediately discounting what I’ve just told you as conspiracy but I’m reporting exactly what has been said & what is being done. Don’t believe me? Here’s an article about the meta things & here’s a clip of the quiet parts being said out loud at a press briefing regarding the bill (skip to 5:55).

This should be frightening. It should be frightening to all of us because the logic isn’t logicing. The reasons we’re being given for the ban don’t add up. The truth of the matter is that the powers that be don’t like that we can speak to each other unfiltered, they don’t like that we can see each other’s lives, have dialogues, share news that isn’t being covered openly without passing it through the muzzle of the already foreign owned media. I don’t see people, especially younger people, standing by & taking this. I know to a lot of you Tik Tok is just an app but in reality Tik Tok has become the new ultimate exchange of ideas & information. It is digging up parts of the narrative that others would rather have silenced & they don’t like that & the fact that they’re moving so quickly to silence this platform should be alarming to all of you.

As always I hope you all have a great weekend, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Censoring Myself As An Artist

I think I’ve reached a point as a songwriter where I’m actively censoring myself. It’s not something I intended to do or wanted to happen but alas, that is where I find myself. I don’t think that I was always this way nor do I think a lot of the songs of my past are vague on the details of my personal life but I’ve had events happen in my life where people I’m close to have hurt me deeply & I find myself incapable of putting pen to paper or note to track out of a fear of hurting their feelings.

This is a problem I developed a couple of years ago that I am waking up to. You see, there are times where those in your life who support & cheer you on do the most undeniable damage they can to you & all you feel like you can do is march on & hope that time heals the wound & it doesn’t happen again. A lot of times these people don’t even know that the'y’ve caused you pain or that the things they’ve said or left unsaid made it to your eyes or ears & dug a sharp gash in your heart. I had one of these & while I wrote several songs around the events in question I began to self limit because I felt they were songs I could never share or release because they would upset the people they are about. Here in lies the paradox for me.

The thing that sucks is that I know these are songs that need to see the light of day because the struggles that I went through are not unique to my person & in releasing them to a broader audience they stand a chance of helping someone else out there who is struggling. I also understand that I am doing myself a disservice by locking these songs behind the screen of my iPhone or the hard drive of my computer & that the greatest art often comes from the greatest pain. In all honesty I’m looking at myself going “wtf am I doing,” as I write all of this into a blog even though I’m not specifying anything.

But here’s the problem. Art is expression. It’s meant to evoke an emotion from the listener, viewer, taster, etc. & by cutting myself off from the art that hurts, the art within me that is real, I am censoring myself as an artist & producing blunted content that helps no one & limits my growth both as a human being & as an artist. In shying away into what is safe like a chastised dog I have placed a wall between myself & the true art that lies in wait within me & I’m not sure I know how to tear it down.

The easy answer to that, naturally, is share & release the songs, but they are songs that require difficult conversations & may cause further damage to a wound that has found some form of healing, even if It’s not how I would like. But what must be done to the bone that has been set improperly & healed crooked? It must be unmade to heal properly. It is a redemption that my heart yearns for but that I fear is nothing more than a fantasy, so I sit stuck in indecision & with a great filter hindering my art.

This is true for those of you reading this who may not be artists as well. I think that we often times allow our ache to be swept under the rug so that we can continue to have certain relationships where we feel the connection outweighs our suffering. It’s a hard road to tread & a hard decision to make, especially if the wound is old. But I feel that we limit ourselves entirely by doing so, not just in the artistic sense but in our development as human beings. It’s often said that you can tell when someone experienced unresolved trauma because they often stagnate in their personal growth. People harmed at 25 remain the same mentally emotionally as they move into their 30s because they would rather cover the wound than face it.

I know I am not alone in this &, if this resonates with you, I hope you know that you are not alone. Your reservations are just as valid as your pain but can you imagine just how joyous it will feel the day that pain is set free, the day the conflict that has been eating you up inside is resolved? Maybe it is worth it, maybe it’s not, but in the end, that’s up to you to decide, just as it is for me. I want so badly to lean into the freedom but I’d be lying if I said fear wasn’t holding me back. As my friend Stephen Lovegrove says, “the path that scares you the most is usually the correct one.” Maybe it’s time to take the scary path & step out of the pain that has become comfortable. Maybe it’s time to step on a few toes.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: How Long Before You Say “Tennessee Ya" To Tennessee?

Cheeky title aside this post does require a bit of a trigger warning. It’s also probably worth noting that all points & facts here within are valid & true especially regarding laws & events, that’s not to say they won’t include my own feelings about them.

Thanks.

Trigger Warning: Homophobic/Transphobic Language, Suicide, Fascism, & Racism

If you’re not a Tennessee resident you may have missed just how awful the last month & specifically the last 24 hours have been for marginalized groups here, especially where the LGBTQ & Black communities are concerned. Within the last 24 hours Tennessee’s drag ban has been signed, the bill that bans parents from supporting gender affirming care for their trans children was signed, a Republican house member advocated for the legalization of lynching, & a banner appeared off the highway over Chestnut Street in Nashville praising Bill Lee, our horrid governor, for “tirelessly working to fight trannies & fags” saying “we must secure the existence of our people & future for white children” with a massive picture of Tennessee brandishing a swastika. To say that yesterday was defeating for a lot of us would be an understatement.

A lot of this has been an ongoing fight for the last month or so, we all waited with bated breath to see if these bills would pass the Tennessee house & then the senate, & of course, they did despite the innumerable logical arguments put in place to oppose their existence. It also feels like the first in what will undoubtably be a long string of human rights violations aimed at those who fall within the LGBTQ community coming out of Tennessee. I want to break each of these down a little so that they’re understood & can be recognized for what they are; hateful, targeted, bigoted laws.

The TN Drag Ban, which goes into effect on July 1st, 2023, will make it a felony for anyone to be dressed for performance in the “clothing opposite their biological gender” within a public space. This includes, but is not limited to, drag, any performance containing gender swapped characters (Hairspray, Ms Doubtfire, Tootsie), trans performers, & cosplay. The law makes it so that any performance containing said features must be labeled as 18+ content & anyone caught performing outside of this regulation will receive a federal sex offender charge. The law also reclassifies the art of drag as burlesque & requires establishments that support it to reapply for their license under, essentially the same business blanket as a strip club. This will cause any bar, brunch, or other location who continues hosting drag brunches & the like to relinquish their liquor license in favor of creating inclusive spaces for all people. This bill also throws into question what is to be done for performances such as Shakespeare or, as aforementioned, Ms Doubtfire & Hairspray, both of which have tour stops at TPAC in 2024. Additionally it bars drag performers from pride events going forward & throws in questions regarding the safety & legality of those within the trans community. Additionally the wording in the bill itself is incredibly vague, which is no doubt intentional.

Let’s bounce one sentence back & let’s move into the gender affirming care ban.

The second law that was signed on the desk of the repugnant Bill Lee yesterday was that which prevents parents & medical providers from providing their children with gender affirming care. This means that if a child, teen, what have you comes to their parents & says ‘I believe in my heart of hearts that I was born the wrong gender,’ that their parents are now legally bound to do nothing. They can’t provide their child with counseling that would help them to understand & move forward in their desired identity, they can’t advocate for their child in a medical sense regarding anything around their desired gender, they are limited, essentially, in what they can now legally do as parents to support their child who is already going through probably one of the most difficult times in their life under the threat of felony charges. Medical personal can no longer take steps towards assisting trans youth in any regard that affirms their new identity. What this will result in is even more of what the south is facing post abortion bans where finding doctors & nurses is becoming fairly impossible. Additionally it will cause the suicide rates of those effected, trans youth, to sky rocket. Though I would assume that’s no skin off of these legislator’s backs.

I’m going to circle back to the capital punishment discussion within the TN house yesterday since I think the first two points & the last, the banner, are all within the same line of thought & the banner was in direct response to Bill signing the two bills into law.

This banner, which I explained the contents of above, is not the first neo-nazi sentiment we’ve had come out of this state in the last 24 hours, nor is it the only one pointed at the LGBTQ community. Additionally it was discovered that a neo-nazi group & local resident, Tonya Holley, who is also a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, have put together a “hit list” of members of the LGBTQ living within Pulaski, TN. Pulaski also happens to be the founding place of the KKK. These individuals & the associated list have already been reported to Homeland Security but that hasn’t stopped members of the local government from requesting “legitiment names” of LGBTQ city members so that they can run them through the registered sex offender list, in spite of several members of the city counsel being well established members of the offender list in question.

Another item on the docket of the current Tennessee Congress has been capital punishment & reimplementing it specifically using firing squads & hangings. One member of the house, Paul Sherrell, argued that lynching should also be amended into the bill & should be legalized within the state despite having recently been outlawed nationwide. This legislator is the same who openly submitted a bill to change the name of Representative John Lewis Way to Donald Trump Way & apparently has never been shy or coy about his feelings towards the black members of the state of Tennessee.

All of this happened in a day. One singular day. And while the laws may have been coming down the pipeline for a while, the implementation & aggressive response to their implementation has all happened within the span of 24 hours. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve had people texting me asking if I need to move, to leave my home, which I am an owner of, & move to somewhere more progressive, While I don’t exactly think I’m there yet, I’m beginning to wonder what will be the straw that breaks the camels back for me? What will it take to dip out of this backwards ass state & its hateful legislators who have far more to be concerned about than stripping people of their rights. Maybe let’s focus on the 1/4th of all people living below the poverty line? Maybe let’s focus on how we’re in the 80th percentile for child & maternity mortality rates, or how we have one of the worst healthcare & education systems in the entire country. Maybe, just maybe, we should focus on the things that improve people’s lives instead of those that hinder them. Maybe we should figure out a way to get the 60+% of registered voters within the state who didn’t show up to vote for the midterms, the governor race, the state congressional race, to vote.

I don’t know what will be the last straw for me, truly I don’t, but I am so beyond sick & tired of hearing this “it’s just as bad on both sides” of the aisle argument when there is one clear group stripping rights, targeting marginalized groups, endangering Americans, destroying our futures & our planet, ostracizing people, flagrantly cheating to get ahead at the polls, damaging people’s lives, & encouraging hate groups while the other side of the aisle seeks to protect this nation & all of its people. These two things are not the same & never will be. For the 380+ bills introduced just these past three months that strip LGBTQ rights I would challenge anyone to find a single one that limits the rights of those on the opposite side of the fence. They don’t exist. This culture war is costing real human beings their lives over a completely fabricated enemy. We are not groomers. I am not a groomer, none of my LGBTQ friends are groomers nor have they ever been. What we are is uncles, aunts, siblings, sons, daughters, neighbors, coworkers, tax payers, employers, etc, etc, etc just trying to live our lives in peace. No one is taking the rights or the right away but they’re damn sure taking away the rights of those they’ve decided are “the enemy.”

I hope you have a great week or weekend, whenever you end up giving this a read.

And as always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: You'll Worry Yourself Sick

I think it’s no secret at this point in our society that our emotions & the things that we give “energy” to end up coming to fruition. Call it laws of attraction, quantum physics, etc, we now have fairly solid volumes of evidence to indicate that where we place our minds, especially where our health & wellness are concerned, ends up becoming our reality. I’m a very strong believer in this & so too are many people around the globe, whether they realize it or not.

I’m going to be using the term “energy” quite often in this blog. I don’t necessarily mean a physical voltage or anything of that nature, although that is also part of it to a degree. Instead I tend to mean more about your physical, mental, social, productive, & spiritual energy. The finite amount of internal processing power we have to give in the day to day or the moment to moment.

I want to circle back to something that I said in at the end of the first paragraph before we go any farther. I mentioned that a lot of people, globally, practice & believe in this philosophy, whether or not they realize it. I mean that simply in the context of prayer. Millions, or even billions, of people around the world pray daily, some more than daily. They put thought & energy towards a desired outcome, an aspiration, &/or a need. A lot of the time these come from a place of lack; Lord, keep me safe, heal my father, help me accomplish my goals, etc, etc, etc. & I think the laws of attraction would tell us this behavior only repels our desired outcome. Our prayers are not but energy put towards what we have each decided to call our own creator. I think there’s no denying that this all functions well outside of the religious or spiritual worlds as well.

So why make this the topic of today’s conversation? Why put energy towards it?

Well, it seems over the last week I’ve been running into synchronicities. This topic seems to be popping up left & right. It’s appeared in conversations I’ve had with at least three separate individuals, it’s appeared as one of the primary topics in one of the books that I’m reading, it’s been on the Tik Toks & Instagrams I’ve been receiving. Really the frequency of its occurrence has been startling!

I think it’s also worth mentioning that I’m not here advocating for toxic positivity, which is very much a real thing. I’ve just noticed that when you live believing the worst it tends to come to fruition.

So what is worry? Why do we as a species have it? The simple answer is that is was designed to keep us alive. Worry is what propelled us forwards as a social civilization, worry towards where our next meal is going to come from, whether our kids are safe, whether there’s a predator lurking in the brush that we can’t see, but I personally don’t think it serves us as much in our present society & way of living as it use to. Worry is how we kept ourselves safe & sustained but it can also very easily be debilitating.

Much like almost anything else, too much worry can be incredibly harmful. It locks us down, prevents us from taking risks, I’d even go as far to say that it prevents us from living altogether. But the worst part of worry is that it can literally cause you to worry yourself sick or even dead.

Worry is brought on by adrenaline, it’s a form of anxiety that saps your adrenals & can cause anything from chronic fatigue to anemia. When we force our body into constant survival states of fight or flight, a state we’re only supposed to be in in short bursts to keep us alive, it wears down the body pretty quickly. This, in addition to being bad for the heart, is bad for the immune system at large. There have even been studies of people who have worried themselves into organ failure, tumors, chronic sicknesses, autoimmune diseases, etc.

Again, not harping on exclusive positivity here, I think a little worry is good for you, but as the saying goes “worry is away present energy towards & unknown tomorrow.

What am I advising? How do I recommend you behave? How do you limit your worry?

I, for one, compartmentalize my worry into rational or irrational. Is what I’m afraid of a rational thought or likely to happen? If no, then I do my best to brush it off. If it continues to nag me I sit with it & try to find the reason behind its existence in my brain. Why am I worried about this? What caused me to worry about this? How can I show my body that this is not something worth worrying about?

In the context of prayer or manifestations how do we reframe our wants & navigate away from this place of lack? Always go from a place of gratitude & joy. Instead of “heal my father” think of how joyous the miraculous reparation would feel or how incredibly it would be to reach your goals! Instead of asking for safety be grateful that you have been kept safe thus far! The key to all of this is of course belief & not letting fear, doubt, worry, & suffering embed their hooks into you & literally drag you down into sickness.

I know all of this is easier said than done. I know, especially for those of you with anxiety it’s like you telling me to just be happy as someone with depression or to pay attention as someone with ADHD, but I promise, as someone who literally had shot adrenals, that there is a path forwards that leads to an easier, more worry-free future.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Go To Hell!…Wait, No! Not Like that!

I’m feeling a bit like “Last Week Tonight” as I write this. For those unfamiliar with the John Oliver led HBO Show, John covers news that occurred over the last week at the end of what HBO decided was the end of the week, in his case being when the show aired on Sundays. In place of John Oliver & HBO’s budget on a Sunday evening you now get me, on a tablet 40,000 feet above a fly over state on a Friday evening. I had three major talking points mulling around my brain today as I set out to begin this blog; one of them regarded J.K. Rowling & the release of Hogwarts Legacy, which I felt was a bit too polarizing even within the zeitgeist of the groups that I tend to meddle around in, the second & third both pertained to the Grammys. The first of which was around Harry Styles Album of the Year win & the discourse happening there, the second was where we find ourselves today.

As aforementioned, I feel a bit like John Oliver today because in a lot of circles, this is old news. I suppose to some degree it’s also old news simply because of the played out, droll, fetishized victimhood around it. In the sense of news cycles this story is old because it happened almost five days ago, hence the “Last Week Tonight” reference.

So what are we talking about today? What is our ‘not-so-current’ event in which we are currently focusing on? Well, that would be the exhausting narrative being perpetuated around the Sam Smith/Kim Petras performance of “Unholy” from Sunday evening’s events.

If you are among the multitude that do not partake of the Grammys I would invite you to watch the performance in the link below. Remember to come back here when you’re done so that we can discuss it though!

All caught up? Great, let’s chat.

It may come as no surprise to a lot of you that this performance is being demonized for being, well, “demonic.” “Satanic.” “Devil Worship.” Blah, di, blah, di blah. It also may be already abundantly clear how I feel about this rhetoric. Within the evangelical world & their partner site, Facebook, links & sermons & the dish & the spoon are all being passed around about Sam & Kim’s on stage “devil worship.” Not only that but I have had many friends in the music industry whose evangelical parents have reached out to them with their disgust demanding justification from people who weren’t even involved who may just be bunched in because they, like Sam & Kim, are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Y’all, it’s exhausting. Let’s break this down shall we?

First & foremost, the song is called “Unholy.” It is literally in the title & while the song may not be about submitting to Beelzebub, it is about a man being unfaithful to his wife. The imagery from the performance, which we all should have taken the time to watch by know, is that of creepy “Ring-esque” spirits clad in red dancing around Sam while they are adorned in a large red coat & a red top hat complete with devil horns. Additionally, Kim’s part is done from the confines of a jail cell on the main stage. It’s far from inspired y’all.

The performance is fine, truly. They both sound good, it’s mixed well, it’s visually appealing but it’s nothing new. It’s not groundbreaking in the least. Aside from maybe the creepy dancers there is nothing about this performance that screams “devil worshiping coven” to me. Could I maybe understand some of the flack this is getting if, let’s say, they sacrificed a goat on stage & drew a pentagram with its blood? Sure. Could I even understand it if it depicted a reversed crucifixion or something? Maybe. But we are no where near that. I think the outrage has less to do with the imagery in the performance than it does with the performers themselves.

Let’s talk about those performers. Kim Petras is a trans woman who actually became the first trans woman to ever win a Grammy in the category in which she won. Sam Smith on the other hand is an outspoken, gay, non-binary individual who openly embraces body positivity & feeling sexy in their own skin. There’s nothing that rattles the evangelical world more than the combination of which these performers are & represent. As I mentioned above this type of performance isn’t new, nor is the backlash it has received specifically where queer artists are concerned.

It feels that throughout my life there has been artist after artist who is forced to take the ire of the evangelical many. From Lady Gaga to Lil Nas X, most of these individuals also happen to fall somewhere on the queer spectrum. I don’t think that’s coincidence. You see many artists, around the world, perform what the group in question would consider uplifting Lucifer but it seems only the artists who are themselves queer or have a mostly queer fan base experience the brunt of the fury.

The ironic thing about these type of performances is that they’re often doing exactly what the artists have heard for years & years from those who oppose their “lifestyle” or art, they’re going to Hell, but when they actually call attention to this condemnation all of the sudden they’ve gone too far. It’s exhausting.

Where am I going with all of this? Well, I suppose this is all in a way so summarize the fact that artists who operated in the LGBTQIA+ space are tired of the BS. You don’t get to have it both ways; you don’t get to damn someone & then get upset when they claim the insults that’ve been hurled at them for years because embracing it allows them to take control of the narrative. If you are one of the evangelicals who are scolding these performances behind your keyboards or behind the walls of your prejudice I would advise you to pause, take a look at those around you, & understand that you are doing the exact opposite of what is commanded of you by Jesus. I’d also advise you to maybe go out & get to know some people who are actually queer, see them as the people they are, & get to know their struggles & see the part you’ve played in perpetuity.

I’m going to leave you with one more thing. I shared this particular bit of pastoral wisdom on my Instagram the other day & I’ll need to go in & see who the pastor was post flight but he essentially said “God didn’t send Jesus to earth to persecute people, what makes you think he sent you?”

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Story: Let's Go Back, Back To The Beginning

Earlier this week I grabbed coffee, or rather tea because I’m trying to cut my caffeine intake, with a new friend. At one point in the conversation he brought up my blogs. You know, this thing you’re currently feasting your eyes upon. The first thing he asked me was “how & why did you get started doing blogs” & it occurs to me now that I’ve never formally had that conversation with you all who return week after week, drift in & out, or have randomly stumbled upon this here post. It was an interesting thing to talk about & kind of piece together along the way as I told him the story but the idea of recounting it here hadn’t occurred to me until today when I sat down to write, at which time I was met with a random passing “how did you get started, how far have you come?” question while pilfering through the internet.

My blog page started as a recommendation blog. I had a former manager who commented on the fact that I always have food & drink recommendations for people when they go anywhere & that I should compile a list so that people can access that information at any time without having to text or DM me. The first one, naturally, was Nashville. I compiled a list of restaurants on one blog post & bars on another & published it to actually fairly moderate success. In fact the blog still remains actively edited to this day when I remember to make edits & feel like adding in new restaurants/bars or when some of the ones on the list have closed. From there my recommendation blogs continued. I did an LA food one next, followed by LA drink, then came Kansas City, which I’m pretty sure is a combination blog, & Portland, which I know for a fact is.

Now around this time the mailing list craze was really kicking off & I went to a seminar about marketing for artists such as myself. Someone on one of the panels brought up that one artist they knew did a weekly blog where she detailed & documented her week & then sent it out as a newsletter before the weekend. This sparked the idea of these now weekly blogs.

I knew I didn’t think my day to day life was interesting or varied enough to entice readers to come back week after week so instead I opted for a different approach. My blogs would be varied. Sometimes they would be recommendation blogs, sometimes recipes since I cook quite often, sometimes they would actually be about an event I experienced if I found that event to be interesting enough for a retelling.

Around the time I started to write blogs happened to coincide with the events & civil rights travesties of the Trump Administration. As someone who found himself incredibly politically literate & in possession of a platform, I started writing blogs highlighting the damage that was being done to The USA at large. Additionally, within that same vein, I started to write think pieces directed towards those reading who I knew might fall on the conservative spectrum about more liberal policies & why they are beneficial. I tried to frame them from the perspective of someone who would be against them to mixed success. I continued on this track, using my blog to post my opinions as well as resources when natural or political disasters struck. It wasn’t until May of 2021 that I started doing travel blogs.

Evan & I ended up in Maui right around the time that the tourism industry reopened in Hawaii. I had gone to finish the open water side of my dive certification & had just invested in a GoPro to grab footage of our time there. I did it partially for content & also so the people I knew that cared to know about my adventures had a place to turn to & get the inside scoop of all the goings on of my travels. Additionally it allowed me to combine a lot of the elements of what I was doing; storytelling, recommendations, etc., into one single post in one single place. The thing I ended up underestimating was the time in which each of these travel blogs take.

So the travel blogs ate up a lot of time, most of them ended up being around a two to three week series that took me around the totality of the week to complete for each. I had to write the stories, link the places, go through edit & add the photos, place the photos aesthetically, etc. etc. etc. but I quickly found that these were my most popular submissions. That’s until I wrote a blog called “No Hate Like Christian Love.”

NHLCL was really a think piece for me, a plea for the evangelicals of the world to look at how they were asked to behave in the book they claim to cling to & compare that to the way they are actually perceived by the world & also understand why “the church” is dying. It remains my most popular blog to this day, out performing each of my weekly submissions during the week they’re posted. NHLCL still garners easily around one hundred individual views a week just from people either searching for something of the like or having stumbled upon it some other way. It has, aside from each of my travel blogs, been the biggest source of outreach & foot traffic to this, my website.

So where are we today? Well, this piece, I suppose, could be filed under “story.” The shape that my blog has taken over the years is very reflective of who I am as an individual, all encompassing. I think, if I were to choose a direction for it to go, it would mostly remain in the story telling world, specifically as a recounting of my travels & the highs & lows of my life. I like to think that my blog has a positive influence on the world, as small or large as that is, but I suppose that’s for you all to decide, not me. The hard part about getting travel content for you all is getting to travel, having the funds & time to scour the globe for my next adventure to bring back & share with you all. If that weren’t as much of an issue, I think this blog would definitely take that shape more often than not. I’m always down for feedback though! I’d love to know what you’ve liked & disliked about my blog over the years. I’d love to know what you’d like to see more of or less of. I’m always intrigued to know who is reading my posts, why, & what they got out of it.

As always,

Much love to you all & thank you for supporting this crazy weekly thing that I do!

-C

Blog: Charlie Rogers, Renaissance Man.

I don’t remember in which grade we discussed the renaissance in history class. I’m not even entirely sure whether or not I was in middle or high school. While I’m pretty sure it was the latter, I remember immediately becoming obsessed with the idea of being “a renaissance man.”

This is a term that I heard pop up recently, though I can’t for the life of me recall where. I remember someone saying they always strove towards being a renaissance man themselves & it immediately struck a chord of commonality in me. So what exactly is a renaissance man?

According to the Oxford dictionary a renaissance man is:

“a person of many talents or areas of knowledge.”

— Oxford Dictionary, Renaissance Man

Some famous examples of which include the likes of Leonardo DiVinci, Niccolo Machiavelli, Galileo Galilei, & Nicolaus Copernicus, all who excelled in multiple fields of study. The moniker of “renaissance man” is not limited to men though, nor is it limited to the time of the renaissance, with there being quite a few “renaissance women” throughout history as well as “renaissance people,” if we are being all inclusive. Nor was the idea specific to the time, though I feel it is the most prominent within culture at large. Before the renaissance individual there was the Greek concept of a polymath, having learned many things. This list includes individuals throughout early history such as Archimedes, Hypatia, Ptolemy, Imhotep, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Zhang Heng, Al-Kindi, Shen Kuo, & Averroës. Farther into history we get Ben Franklin, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Jefferson, Issac Newton, etc. etc. etc. Catching on to the concept yet?

So why did this become a small obsession of mine? What was it about the renaissance polymaths that made me say “ooo, that!” Well, I’ve always wanted to be a jack-of-all trade, eliminating the “master of none” part of the saying. I never wanted to be someone who was exclusively known for one thing & that’s why finding a Capital C “Career” has been difficult for me. I never JUST wanted to be known as a singer or a songwriter, I wanted to be known as the multidimensional human that I am. That’s part of why I started writing these blogs, because I felt I had more to offer the world than just the songs I sang & the performances I gave. Can we chalk it up to ADHD & chasing the dopamine a little bit? Of course. But I highly doubt any of you out there ever lived your life wanting to be one note.

So where does that place me? Well, for starters it makes it very hard for me to play the long game in the Capital C Career world. All I’ve ever wanted is to have as many plates spinning in the air as possible & to make those plates as relatively self sufficient as possible so that I can return to them with my fancy. My brain stretches me in so many different directions that the clear path forward for any given career seems impossible to me. Let’s talk about just right now shall we? Where am I at right this minute.

Well, Charlie Rogers right now is a blogger, as I sit at this computer I am a blogger. Not just am I a blogger, I am a travel blogger, a food critic, an advice columnist, a humanitarian, a recipe creator, a motivational speaker, an encourager, & a pundit. That’s just within the digital walls of this section of my website. Swipe one page up & I am an artist, a musician, a songwriter. Click on my socials & I am an influencer, a bumbling comedian, an adventurer. Search me on YouTube & I am an actor, a singer. Meet me in person & I am a scholar, wildly spiritual, peacefully grounded, a zoologist, a marine biologist, a botanist, a foodie, a connoisseur, a collector, a chef, a mixologist, an explorer, a lover, a brother, a son, & a friend. Look inside my mind & you’ll find a stoic, a wanderer, an inventor, a well of ideas, a catalyst, an empath (even though I hate that word & it’s connotations), a free spirit. How do you sum all of that up at all times? How do you “market” all of that at once?

I think in a lot of ways we all fit the renaissance man mold, it’s just that some of us, like myself, wish to act upon it. I wish to be known for all of my aspects, not just the one or two that I can focus on at a time. I want to be the touring singer-songwriter, I want to be the inventor, I want to be the philanthropist, I want to be the actor, to be the influencer, to be the traveler, the humanitarian, to be the food critic, the revolutionary, & the jack-of-all trades, but I often find myself lost in the constant tug of war these concepts give biding for my time & my mental space.

For now I’ll just claim the moniker. Here I am, Charlie Rogers, Renaissance Man, what I shall be in the future has yet to be written, but I can’t wait to see where I end up!

Here’s wishing you all a fantastic week or weekend, whenever this blog has found you.

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: A Lesson In Stoicism

This was a blog requested & suggested by Evan, so if you take issue with it, take it up with him. Ha ha. Not that there’s anything controversial or spicy about it, I just mean in terms of enjoyment. If this is not a blog that you enjoy this week, take it up with Evan.

I make this sound like it’s going to be a dull topic, which in reality I think is entirely false. I noticed, at the beginning of the year, that many of my friends, specifically those in music, were all starting a book called The Daily Stoic. Naturally I became curious & ordered a copy of the book for myself. While not a novel or journal, Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman have put together what I can only describe as a daily devotional that revolves around stoicism.

Stoicism gets a bad name, something the authors point out themselves within the introduction of the book. Often when we, culturally, think of someone who is stoic, we think of them as being walled up, impenetrable, shut off, emotionless, or cold, when in reality that is a misnomer. The impression of the stoic that I was under boils down simply to contemplative, which is almost near exactly what it is. Someone who is stoic is in their head, yes, but they are so because they are processing & assessing the world around them, reserving most of their thoughts for themselves & often only sharing that which they’ve taken the time to digest internally. I would argue that the Oxford definition sits somewhere in the middle.

“Stoic
noun
1. a person who can endure pain & hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.”

— Quote Source

Holiday & Hanselman argue that stoicism is exactly as I put, a contemplation. It is looking at an emotion & saying “why do I feel that way?” “Is it justified?” “What is the role we play in society, in life, in nature, in culture?” “How does that effect the grand scheme of things?” Etc. Etc. Etc. They themselves lean into the three main disciplines of Stoicism.; Perception (how we see & perceive the world around us), Action (the decisions & actions we take & why), & Will (how we deal with the things we cannot change, clarify, justify, & understanding our place in the world around us). The book is then broken down into daily devotionals that you are asked to sit & contemplate throughout your day, starting with whatever calendar day you picked up the book in. The prompts are short, giving an overarching theme as the title, followed by a quote from a famous stoic, & then a reframing in modern context or clarification on what the authors perceived the original author was implying. I’ve carried these throughout my day just short of the last week & have also taken the time to write out my immediate thoughts with each as I finish going through the devotional in question. I’ve been asked to share the last three days here & expand upon some of my thoughts here.

Seeing The World Like A Poet & An Artist

One of the things I often remember fondly my mate, Ali Donowho, saying that he admires the way in which I noticed the little things in life & nature & then take the time to appreciate them as much as that which is grandiose.  So often we are distracted by this larger picture that those little bits tend to fall between the cracks. This segment talks specifically about turning the uglier parts of life into something beautiful like the spilts in the bread as it bakes, the thing that becomes alluring despite it not being a part of the baker’s (artist’s) plan.

The example used by Marcus Aurelius in the book is as follows:

“Pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature & come to your final resting place gracefully, just as a ripened olive might drop, praising the earth that nourished it & grateful to the tree that gave it growth.”

There is beauty in all things even if those beauties aren't always apparent. The more time goes by the more I find love & life to thrive in the mundane, not in the overtly boisterous; like a microcosm bursting with history, love, patience, & understanding. I have often found myself rewarded by the powers that be for the appreciation for the little thing & for taking the time simply to sit & absorb the tenacity of life. To see the world as a poet or an artist is to see the world in an ever shifting glorious eruption of expression. To find the beauty in all things, not just the conventionally beautiful.

Wherever You Go, There Your Choice Is

When life feels out of our control, when the world seems to be spiraling in on us, the one constant that remains, no matter your circumstance, is that you always have a choice in how you choose to act. It doesn't matter your station, your position, your financial or how opportunistically ready you are, at the end of the day your choice lies in on your choose to behave. As Epictetus writes:

“A podium & a prison is each a place, one high & one low, but in either place your freedom of choice can be maintained, if you wish.”

You are the master of yourself & are therefore responsible for only yourself. No one can dictate the words you say, the actions you take, the course you make except for you. How you behave in the darkest of depths will always come to light with you when you're raised to the highest heights. Be sure your choses remain in line with who you want to be as a person.

Reignite Your Thoughts

Today's meditation in stoicism is unintentionally based in grace & forgiveness, specifically for one’s self.  Its argument is that it's never too late to reignite something you enjoyed about yourself or your life. It can be a belief, a habit, a skill, whatever, just because you've fallen off of the wagon doesn't mean that it's gone too far ahead of you that you can't still hop back on.

“Your principles can’t be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it’s continually in your power to reignite new ones… It’s possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did- that’s how to restart life.”

-Marcus Aurelius

This can extend to any direction. It can be about something you did yesterday or an hour ago that disappointed you or you felt led you in the wrong directon. It can be about something that happened fifteen years ago or a lifetime ago, the point is that you're introspective enough to recognize you've shifted away from a belief or a behavior that you viewed as a positive influence in your life & find yourself yearning for that “lost” yesteryear. It's okay to put your stuff down, go back & pick up the joy you lost ten miles back on the road. Your life is yours to live & that includes how you act, what you believe, what you like/love, & who or what you spend your time with, & what you do that makes you feel alive. Just because you got a little lost in the woods doesn't mean the path is gone.

Like I said, I just wanted to share some of my thoughts around the topic with you as I believe dialogue is what makes all of this insightful. Just like the stoics of old had their schools to pass around ideas within, so too should we in a manner that creates a discourse. Evan had me share my thoughts because he found them insightful & I hope you did as well. I would challenge you to take up this practice as well, that doesn’t mean you need to go out & buy the book, but I think we should all get to know the inner machinations of our own minds & understand why we feel the way we do about the thoughts that drive our actions & emotions. At the very least it installs a bit of wonder back into your life & helps you to see the world around you in a completely different light than you would before.

I hope you all have a great week or weekend, whenever you find yourself reading this.

And as always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Little Abundances

If you’re a follower of mine on my Instagram, today’s blog posting will not be entirely foreign to you. I posted the tiniest anecdote around the roots of this story on my story posts a few days ago & got incredible feedback simply regarding the short paragraph that I had written. So, naturally I though that I should expand upon it in this longer form setting.

Towards the turn of the year I had a TikTok creator, of whom I should give credit for this idea if their name hadn’t been alluding me for the last few weeks, come across my daily doom scroll. She works specifically in a spiritualist setting but has had a lot of clients talk about their manifestations & how they have trouble believing that the things they want are coming their way when they live in a state of lack. She went on to explain that it, to her, an impossibility to manifest from a mindset of lack & offered a quick tip on how to escape that cumbersome feeling. Her method was altogether simple & has, over the last week & some change, become a staple in my day to day thought process.

Her suggestion for escaping scarcity mindsets was incremental. She said that every day, at the end of her day, she writes down three things that happened that were little abundances. This teaches the brain to look out for things to be thankful for & recognize that even when things don’t seem to be going your way, there are always little things to latch onto that will shine even the slightest bit of light on darker situations. So what are little abundances? What does that look like in the mundane day to day?

A little abundance is simply something that went your way in the tiniest of ways, let’s come up with some examples shall we?

Maybe there was a 10% discount on something you needed from the grocer.

Maybe your fragrance of choice or someone else’s hit the olfactory just right & made you smile.

Maybe you woke up without feeling achy or sore.

Maybe you wore an outfit that made you feel alluring or sexy.

Maybe you made it through the day with less anxiety or depression than the day prior.

Maybe you came across a post that made you think of an old friend or helped you to learn something interesting you hadn’t known before.

Maybe you simply enjoyed being in someone’s presence.

Maybe the perfect stone caught your eye as you were walking & you gained a new pocket companion.

Maybe your pet showed you affection & love.

Maybe someone in your family or friend group did.

Maybe that last quarter mile of your run felt a little easier than normal.

Maybe you found time to read a book or watch a show or movie that makes you feel something.

Maybe you had a good hair day.

Maybe you noticed a new grey hair (again is a gift after all).

Maybe you felt a sense of wanderlust walking through nature.

Maybe you got in your car & it was the perfect temperature or the perfect song was playing.

Maybe all of the machines or weights at the gym were open when you needed them.

Maybe you enjoyed a cup of your favorite tea or coffee.

Maybe an animal graced you with its presence outside.

Maybe you found a $20 note in your coat pocket.

Maybe you finally beat that level in that game you’ve been playing.

Maybe you brightened someone else’s day.

Is this starting to make sense to you? There is no limit to how “small” these little abundances can be. The point is to start recognizing them as God, The Universe, Nature, whatever you believe in sets them in your path, accepting them, & being grateful for their enrichment of your life. You cannot expect to embrace & love the unknown that is life if you aren’t willing to, as the saying goes, stop & smell the roses.

Now my method of this looks a little different. I knew that if it came down to be writing out my little abundances list every night I wouldn’t do it, I’d forget to or view it as a chore. So my list is mental & isn’t restricted to the time in which I lay my head to rest at night, nor is it limited to three items.

I count my abundances as the day rolls on, why this works for me, I don’t know. How it ends up not being forgotten, again, don’t know, but thus far, every day throughout my day, I am reminded from something within to find my little abundances that I’ve experienced thus far & look on them with love, gratitude, & admiration. On my list today: I had a package arrive that I wasn’t expecting until next week, I woke up several times in the night to Max, on of our cats, snuggled into me purring loudly, I had enough time to complete all of the tasks I needed to get done today, I had a humorous dream last night, my dogs listened when they got in a tiff while playing & I didn’t have to break up a fight, I had ample leftovers in my fridge & didn’t have to cook in a day where my time was scarce, I was notified of a refill order for one of my scripts that now I don’t have to call my doctor to get filled, I lit & dispelled some Palo Santo, one of my favorite, most comforting scents, I noticed a few of my plants have new leaves despite it being winter & not a time for usual growth, I woke up today but did so feeling energized, well, & taken care of, my Irish Breakfast Tea that I’m sipping while writing this is brewed perfectly, I got a good picture of Harvey, my rapidly aging Golden, of whom I don’t know how many more pictures I’ll have the privilege of taking.

Your life is rich my dear readers, you just have to look for it. That’s not discounting your problems, your ailments, your struggles, but the beauty in life is found in the little things, in the little abundances that show us that somewhere out there something, someone, is on our side & that this beautifully tragic, lonely, simply complex life is worth living day by day.

I’d love if you all would adopt this philosophy as well or at the very least give the abundance lists a try. Do it in your own way, make it your own, however that looks. Talk about it openly & honestly, let people in to celebrate with you your tiny victories.

I hope this post hasn’t been too flowery for some of you, I know we’re all on different levels of our life journey & have different degrees of happiness, privilege, health, & prosperity. Just know this comes from a place of love & gratitude for all of you who take the time to read my thoughts each week. You all make my little abundances list every week!

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Grace?! She Passed Away Thirty Years Ago.

For someone who doesn't believe in New Year’s Resolutions I sure am writing an awful lot of blogs about them, this being my third I think. When I sat down today to try & figure out what I wanted to write about I kept coming back to the idea of “grace.” I have made my own set of adjustments going into the new year in an attempt to get ‘back on the horse’ & have already, six days in, found myself falling short. Resolutions aside, I think we are often too hard on our short comings & falterings & I believe that a little self inflicted grace would do us all a great bit of good. I know for some of you out there the idea of grace has religious connotation or even triggers a religious trauma response but I hope by the end of this I can help to shed new light on the idea of grace & being gracious.

Let’s start out with a definition shall we? According to Merriam-Webster grace takes many linguistic forms. The one I’ve already addressed is:

“1: a: unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification
b: a virtue coming from God
c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance”

— Webster's Dictionary

And I can already feel those of you on the other end of the internet recoiling from the fear of having that definition & need for repentance nailed into your head. Let’s explore further shall we? Let’s look at the next set of definitions from M-WD.

“2: a: approval, favor
b: mercy, pardon
c: a special favor, privilege
d: disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency
e: a temporary exemption: reprieve”

— The Dictionary

It’s interesting to me that the five of these definitions fall within the same subset of definitions. In what way is a favor akin to mercy? How is an act of clemency the same as a privilege?

Much as the various religious texts would indicate grace is not something afforded to all but that exists at the same time in abundance, available to those who seek it out. Whether you seek an act of grace, of mercy, from that which you deem almighty, a ruler, a supervisor, a friend, a family member, or what have you, it is not something guaranteed or afforded without the permission & intent of the party to whom you are at the mercy of. It is a privilege to be reprieved of your guilt, shame, penance, or punishment.

So how does this tie into ourselves? How do we exercise grace when the judge of our falterings is the same person as the one requiring forgiveness? How do we set aside the shame, the guilt, the should’ve, could’ve, would’ves, of it all & release the anguish we feel? How do we afford ourselves grace? Well, I think to answer that question we have to briefly shift our focus to shame. For this I’m going to turn to Brené Brown.

In Atlas Of The Heart Brown defines shame as the following:

“Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed & therefore unworthy of love, belonging, & connection.”

— Atlas Of The Heart By Brené Brown, Page 137.

According to Brown shame thrives on several things, one of the primary being judgement. What dispels shame? Empathy. Self-Compassion. These allow us to look at our perfectly imperfect selves & see the humanity that lives within us. It blows perfectionism, another type of shaming, out of the way & makes way for grace. It gives us the leeway to learn from our mistakes & grow instead of festering & derailing.

“Grace means that all of your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of serving shame.”

— Brené Brown

I’m trying to get back on the wagon after the holiday. After eating poorly, not exercising my mind, body, spirit enough, not flexing my creativity enough, & definitely not drinking enough water, I decided to push myself for twelve weeks of evening out the playing field. Will I fall off as I’ve done already? Of course! Does that mean I should give up now & return to a place of discomfort & unhappiness? Absolutely not. We are human, at the end of the day, at the end of your diet, your abandoned workout equipment or stacks of books that have gone unread, we are human. Perfection is an unattainable goal that striving for will ultimately leave you feeling empty & unfulfilled. Having the grace to recognize your humanity, dust yourself off, & try again will be your saving grace & the thing that makes your spirit soar.

I want to leave you with one last anecdote this evening before I sign off & let you all get back to giving yourself grace in your day to day life.

I was recently told of a practice that many of the Native American tribes of the southwest observe. It specifically revolves around art & the pursuit of the perfect. Anytime a native artist from one of these tribes goes to finish a piece they’ve been working on; be it a knit, an item of jewelry, a painting, etc. they intentionally leave a flaw. Why? Well, two reasons. The first reason is that it allows the trapped bits of the artist’s soul that they’ve poured into their art to have a place to escape from. The second reason is that it allows a reprieve, a grace, from perfectionism & the never ending quest for that which is unreachable for us. It find this sentiment beautiful. It adds levity, humanity, & yes, grace, into a piece of art & allows the artist to free themselves from the shackles of shame.

I hope, thus far, you’re having an awesome new year. I wish you all the greatest one imaginable going forward. I want to challenge you to find little moments of grace in your day to day, not just for yourself, but for others as well. These little moments will eventually snowball into medium moments which then become larger moments & I’d be intrigued to see where that snowball leads you.

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: #Goals! Wait, Scratch That, #VisionBoards!

I’ve never been much for goal setting, though I’ve never been entirely sure why. Whether it has something to do with the fleeting fancies of ADHD or the feeling that somehow, if I don’t complete everything on it, I’m some sort of a failure, I’ve never been able to stick out my goals & make actual steps towards their achievement. That’s not to say I never meet my goals, but for some reason there’s a sterile pressure around the idea & practice of goal setting; it feels oddly corporate or cheesy, like something you do in a quarterly review with a higher up who really doesn’t care whether or not your aspirations are met. I guess a part of me still attributes goal setting to the academic setting, a worksheet to hand in for trivial credit that never actually amounts to much.

If you’ve read my previous blogs that were written around the transition between the old & new year, you’ll see that I also am not an advocate for the new year’s resolution, nor for that matter is science. Simply stated, they don’t work, they fizzle out. To some degree I’d say I feel the same about goal setting. In all honesty, I’m sure, if you’re like me, that you saw the title of this blog about “goal setting” & probably didn’t even click the link. I guess we’ll never know though seeing as the simple window shopping didn't come in to investigate.

This past year both myself & my lovely friend, Kate Cosentino, came across the same TikTok around the same week. It was a woman talking about how she, like me, hated the traditional form of goal setting & why said past goal setting attempts didn't work for her. Her approach, instead, was that of a guest who had previously appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. If their segment they talked about vision boards & what to do with them/how to place & arrange them in a way that allows you to use them towards the aims you were after. Their method was quarterly, requiring a new vision board every three months, & asked you, not only, to visualize your board on the front, but also to write your visions & goals out on the back. In this way it was similar to the “Mind Movies” that Dr Joe Dispenza uses in his seminars to teach shifting perspective & mental energy in alignment with the things you desire. As aforementioned, the vision board you’ve created is meant to be revisited on a quarterly basis, the only difference from your first board being that you are meant to review & revise.

Let’s say you put on your vision board that you want to rekindle a relationship with your parents. If at the end of Q1 you’ve made attempts & gotten no where near where you want to be you write on the back of your Q2 vision board the same goal emphasizing the things that worked & writing & evaluating a new path forward. I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that you’re meant to write how you plan to go about your visions on the back of the Q1 board.

Another major component of the vision boarding is that you’re meant to do so with a group & share your vision board with said group when you are finished. The day Kate & I came across out vision board TikTok we both planned an evening with Kimi Most & Evan to create together & share. This outward expression of your desires helps to get the word out, it helps to solidify the things you want in the words you say. After all, how can it be known what you want if you won’t ask? In this way it gets you accustomed to speaking on your wants, your shortcomings, & your plans with those who will love & nurture you along the way. It also allows people the chance to help you if something comes up on your board that they feel they have insight on.

So how did my vision boarding go? How did it turn out. Well, much like I mentioned above with goal setting, we all fell off the wagon. We did the one evening of work & then never followed up with the next three quarterly reports. That’s not to say it was a failure though as yet another aspect of this vision board journey is that you place your board somewhere you see it daily & somewhere people who enter your home will see it & can ask you about it. Again, the goal is to talk about the things you want, to keep them at the forefront of your mind so that they become the magnetic north that guides your internal compass. Mine & Evan’s have been in the kitchen, right next to the place where we consume majority of our meals. Both boards are highly visible & both have been talked about openly amongst each other, friend, & the like. I’d say of the twenty-five things I have on my board, around seven of them came true in one form or another. That’s not bad for not following the program to the letter you’re supposed to.

So why do I draw attention to all of this? Why do I talk vision boards, goals, & the steps it takes to actualize them? Well, because I’d like to, if I may, use the last half of this blog as a digital vision board, so to speak. I’m sure in the type format it will come out looking more like a goals list but I promise you, on the other end of this I will be making a vision board to represent all of the things listed below & probably more. I’m doing this here as a form of accountability. We’re meant to share & talk about our dreams & that’s what I’m doing here. I’d also like, if you may, for you to remind me to revisit this quarterly, checking off & adjusting as we go along!

I wish you all the happiest of new years, filled to the brim with love & joy!

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Charlie’s 2023 Digital Vision Board

-Sign A Publishing Deal (Smack, Universal, Warner Chapel)

-Get At Least Five Outside Cuts

-Tour As An Opener For A Larger Act

-Sign With A Talent Agency (WME, CAA, ACA)

-Get Paid To Travel

-Get Paid To Promote The Products I Already Use

-Cross Two More Continents Off The Total Seven (Still Need South America, Australia, Africa, & Antarctica)

-Release A Minimum Of One Song Per Quarter

-Get Verified Across All Social Platforms

-Grow Creatively

-Help More People

-Get Social Numbers Up (Instagram 20K BYE, TIKTOK 10K BYE, ETC)

-Get 1K Spotify Followers

-Get On Editorial Playlists For Spotify & Apple Music

-Visit Japan

-See The Northern Lights (Preferably In Iceland)

-Become A Master Diver

-Have At Least One Song Trend

-Write More Honest Lyrics

-Cut Medicine Written By Harry Styles

-Do More Features

-Add At Least Five More Michelin Stars To My Belt

-Find Daily Moments Of Gratitude

-Get Back Into Eating In A Healthier Manner

-Hit The Gym At Least Four Times A Week

-Walk My Dogs More

-Spend More Time With The People Who Bring Me Joy & Less With Those Who Don’t

-Find A Consistent Form Of Financial Freedom That’s Not Soul Sucking

-Embrace The Unknown

Blog: If Jesus Is The Reason For The Season, Then Why Does It Feel So Cold?

Back in June I was inspired to write a blog call “No Hate Like Christian Love.” At the time I was hesitant to put out the blog simply because I have people near & dear to me that I thought would disapprove of scoff at the blog simply because of what I chose to title it. I was wrong. In fact, to this day, exactly seven months later, it still remains the most popular blog of mine that I have ever written averaging anywhere from 100-200 individual monthly readers. It’s the blog I’ve received the most feedback on as well, all of which has been set to the tune of agreement. These, for the most part, are people who have been burned or ostracized by the church & it breaks my heart to see the commonality that so many of them share.

When I sat down to write today my brain just kept drifting back to that blog & it got me thinking, have things improved since June, when I wrote & posted it, or are things the same or worse then they were then from the standpoint of Christians using their beliefs as a “moral’ superiority? Sadly, I think the answer is the latter.

Over Thanksgiving I had this discussion with several people in my life who I would consider to be or have at one point or another been right smack dab in the middle of the church Christian lifestyle. This group included my parents; life long church goers & believers who lead the worship team at their small American Baptist Church, my dear friend David; a “missions” worker around the world & lover of Jesus (I put missions in quotes simply because what he does, to me, doesn’t constitute classification under the same blanket as the traditional colonist mentality & practice of missions work), & Evan; a former worship leader & attendee of bible college. Naturally I was also a part of this group, not just the silent observer.

Our discussion began around the subject of Christmas & my often outright disdain for the holiday. I think for a lot of us, especially in my generation & younger, Christmas is not the shining beacon of hope & joy that it is for those living in the older generations. In addition, we, generationally, have more access to the global network of information & have seen behind the curtain where Christmas & its outright stolen traditions are concerned. We don’t buy into the commercialism of the holiday, partially because a lot of us can’t afford to, & thus it becomes one of the most stressful times of the year for us all. However, my mother offered the argument that at the end of the day, what we are celebrating, as christians, is the birth of Christ. The “reason for the season” & all that.

I’m not sure how we circled back to the whole “no hate like christian love thing” but I believe it stemmed from one of my parents asking why I no longer attend church if I, as I say, consider myself a believer. From there entered David, a literal missionary who refuses to find a church to call his “home.” We talked about how the church is driving people away in droves & trying desperately to blame it on the media, or the LGBTQIA+ population, or schools, or drag story time, but is refusing outright to look inward & see itself as the root cause.

We came back to how “young people just don’t want to believe” & I offered the argument of what is being missed. You see, much like I mentioned in NHLCL (No Hate Like Christian Love), we read the book, we were taught about Jesus. We attended the Sunday schools & the church services & the vacation bible school, but when we got to an age where critical thinking came into play, where identity started to form, we looked around at the “brood of vipers” (Matt 12:34) & saw not a scrape of the unconditional love of Christ. We saw people who claimed to love us as we are outwardly belittle & damn the very people that we are or the people that we love & said “enough of this, this is not what love looks like” & we left. As I said in NHLCL, as well as that evening, the problem isn’t that we weren’t taught about Jesus, the problem is that we were & we don’t see that reflected in the people or the values of the church.

I hope what I’ve said thus far hasn’t turned too many of you off. I’m sure there are many people who will read this & not even make it to this paragraph, but if we, as christians, are to overcome the stigmas wrapped around us & the church, then we have to listen & we have to apply critical thinking & we have to know our biblical history & understand when & where & why the bible was modified to fit certain political ideology & personal agendas because this is another huge thing turning people away from churches.

Did you know that christians are far more likely to believe conspiracy theories than any other religious affiliation? Did you know that the brains of those identifying as atheist have been proven to think far more analytically than those identifying as believers? Why do you think that is? As I mentioned in the previous blog, I am not here to lecture or demean, nor am I here to minimize your beliefs. I just want to pose questions that get people thinking. I want to bridge the gap between the, dare I say, secluded world of the church & the outside world. Christians, the stigma against you is that you are self absorbed, incapable of critical thought, & often downright heartless, which for a religion based supposedly all in love, doesn’t seem to align does it?

Something that I had to cope with & make peace with is the following statement:

If you need the threat of eternal damnation to evoke good behavior & kindness then it’s time to revaluate your moral standing & personal shortcomings.

We are called to love, unconditionally, to embrace humanity with open arms & without judgment WITHOUT the expectation of reward, but simply out of the kindness of your heart. That reward includes salvation.

I write all of this because I want you to see. If Jesus is truly, to you, the reason for the season, then celebrate that & celebrate that as Christ would. Christ wouldn’t yell at the cashier for saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” because they don’t know which of the six holidays that happen in December you celebrate. Christ would celebrate with an outpour of love, compassion, kindness, & empathy. Not commercialism, elitism, being exclusionary, & ‘holier than thou.’

There is a reason that NHLCL remains my top viewed post. It’s because it speaks to a universal ache felt by those on the receiving end of christianity. It speaks to the religious trauma, to the family issues, to the isolation that so many feel because of those operating out of the “love of Christ.”

If Jesus is the reason for the season, then why does it feel so cold to so many people when it should be filled with warmth, joy, community, & happiness?

Happy Holidays & Much Love To You All,

-C

Charlie's Guide To Holiday Drinks & Wine

I got the request for this blog from my mate Rhys Jones. In addition to having the most Welsh name on planet earth, Rhys & his lovely bride, & my dear friend Victoria, were Evan & I’s drinking buddies in London. Me being a food fiend & a cocktail connoisseur, I was always dragging the bunch around London, taking them to cocktail bars & speakeasies that they had never heard of. Additionally, during the 2020 lockdown, I stocked my bar & began learning the art of craft cocktail work, of which, much like food, I treat less as the refined practice it has become & more of an ever changing & evolving art form demanding different ingredients not only in diversified flavor profiles but also in quantities. All of that to say that the following recipes will not be precise & you should adjust them as you see fit!

In addition to the few cocktail recipes that I plan to list below I will also be listing my personal wine recommendations for where holiday dinners are concerned. You will note that I have a regional bias for the Willamette Valley where Pinots & Rieslings are concerned, but I just blame the Oregonian in me. Let’s start off there shall we, with the wine! My go to holiday dinner wines will follow below!

WINES:

REDS:

-A To Z Pinot Noir: My stand by, my go to. Readily available in markets around the US & pairs perfectly with majority of your holiday table staples. If you’re wanting to bump the price tag up a little bit look for anything by their parent label Rex Hill & you won’t be disappointed!

-Laurence et Rémi Dufaitre Beaujolais Villages Prèmices…Le Millèsime Rouge: I’ll be honest, that name took me a minute to type. Another red from the lighter side of the spectrum, Gamay can be a little on the soft red fruit side of things. A fine sipper in its own rite, this bottle disappears fast once it’s opened.

-Scaia Corvina: If you’re looking for something slightly bolder here’s a really nice staple as well. This wine always impresses simply because it has a very lavender taste to it. Leaning a little more into the “red meats & pasta” pairing of red wines, I think this bottle still compliments a full holiday spread in style.

WHITES:

A To Z Riesling: I warned you. They’re just such a solid brand that is incredibly accessible. This riesling is perfectly balanced, not too dry, not too sweet. It pleases anyone from Chard drinkers to the Moscato guzzlers. Truly a lovingly bright & complex bottle that is sure to please.

Weingut Berger Grüner Veltliner: A lovely little Austrian grape that is often overlooked for the more mainstream French varietals. Affordable, dependable, readily available. It definitely leans more on the dry side of the spectrum which makes it highly suitable for those gamut of holiday fare.

Argyle Brut: Let’s add something sparkling shall we & while we’re at it, let’s make it also from Oregon! This one is a bit of a cheat because it is primarily Chardonnay while featuring just a touch of Pinot Noir, both being grapes that pair exceptionally well with holiday dinners. Truly refreshing & balanced.

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COCKTAILS:

As I said above, my cocktail making isn’t always an exact science, especially where the batched goods are concerned, nor are the often written out so I will do my utmost to remember them as they are & to the best of my ability. I am also going to include some cocktails that I love for the winter that are not my own. Their originators will be credited along with the beverages of their design.

CHARLIE’S MULLED WINE/GLUHWEIN:

-Jug Of Cheapish Medium-Bold Red Wine (Chianti, Merlot, etc)

-1 Cup Brandy or Cognac

-1/2 Cup Spiced Rum

-2 Cups Pomegranate Juice

-1.5 Cups of Cranberry Juice

-Sugar To Taste (Usually Ends Up 1-2 Cups)

-2 Blood Oranges Cut into Circles

-2 Lemons Cut into Circles

-1 Cup Pomegranate Arils

-2 Tablespoons Whole Cloves

-4-5 Cinnamon Sticks

-2-3 Star Anise

-1 Tablespoon Allspice

- 1 Sprig of Mint

(Optional):

-Rosemary Sprigs

-Cranberries

-Black Walnut Bitters

In a large sauce lidded pan bring all ingredients with the exception of the Brandy/Cognac to a light boil. Once the mixture starts to boil reduce it to a simmer & cook until spices & oils are thoroughly combined. Add Sugar to taste then when you’re satisfied with it add in the Cognac to replace any lost alcohol. Taste & adjust as needed & serve hot with a Cinnamon Stick or Orange Slice! Have fun with it, play with different ingredients & different combinations til you find something uniquely yours!

A (SLIGHTLY MODIFIED) DREARY DAY’S NIGHT:
Originally by Nic Hamilton

The modifications I’ve made to this drink are small but they, in my opinion, really can make or break it for me.

-4 Oz Brewed Peppermint & Lemongrass Tea (I recommend Steepologie’s Minty Kisses)

-2 Cinnamon Sticks

-.75 Oz Monkey Shoulder Scotch Whisky

-.75 Oz Jura 10 Year Scotch Whisky

.75 Oz Grade A Maple Syrup

.5 Oz Lemon Juice

.25 Oz Rosemary Simple Syrup (1 Part Sugar, 1 Part Water, 1 Sprig Rosemary. Cook in a Pan.)

Start by crushing up one of your cinnamon sticks. Make a little pile out of it & light that beotch on fire. Once it’s burning nicely cover it with a mug. After around 15-30 seconds your mug should be thoroughly smoked, flip it back over & assemble the rest of the cocktail. The last thing to go in should be your tea & it should go in boiling, & I mean boiling, hot. Garnish with your unburnt cinnamon stick.

Note A: I like to batch this in a hot coffee dispenser & put extra tea & a cinnamon stick or two in the coffee filter slot.

Note B: If you find this version of the drink to be too strong for you (please try first before you decide that) then I would half the amount of Whisky.

CHARLIE’S GROG:

-8 Oz. Hot Water

-3 Oz. Black Rum (I use Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva)

-.5 Oz Lime Juice

.25 Oz Pineapple Juice

-.25 Oz. POG Syrup (Monin’s Brand is “Hawaiian Island”)

-2 Teaspoons Brown Sugar

-1 Dash Angostura Bitters

-1 Dash Black Walnut Bitters

As above, mix your room temp/cool ingredients first in a mug, then add the Water. Stir til well combined then garnish with a lime wedge, cinnamon stick, dried pineapple ring, or any combination of the three!

CHARLIE’S ALMOND MEZCAL OLD FASHIONED:

-1 Oz. Mezcal ( I use Ilegal)

-.25 Oz Amaretto

-.25 Oz Agave Syrup

-2 Dashes Orange Bitters

Mix ingredients in a glass with ice. Stir for a good while, like you’re making a Negroni. Once slightly diluted strain over a large ice cube in a low ball glass & zest an Orange over the top!

Obliterated (Acoustic Mix) by Charlie Rogers-Official Music Video

Two years ago today I released the Obliterated (Acoustic Mix). Over those past two years you all have shown that song a great deal of love so as a way of saying “thank you” I wanted to gift you all the previously unreleased one shot video for Obliterated (Acoustic Mix) that Evan & I shot in September of 2020.

The video is rough & unpolished but that’s how I always imagined it, shaky cam & all. I hope you enjoy it & know just how much I appreciate all of the love you have given this song over its lifetime.

Thank you all & much love!

-C