April 13, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Travel Blog, Travel, Blog

Travel Blog: Bohol, Philippines- Part Three: Let's Play It By Ear...

April 13, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Travel Blog, Travel, Blog

BOHOL, PHILIPPINES

Hiya folks, welcome back to the blog!

This will unfortunately be the last segment of blog from my trip to Bohol. I know, I know, we’re all sad about that. As we should be. Fear not though, we still have several days work of content, as well as a previously heavily hinted at & foreshadowed ailment to discuss in this blog. If you’re joining us here & looking at that big ole ‘Part Three’ at the top in confusion & bewilderment, worry not, the links for the previous two parts of this globetrotting romp will be posted below for your reading & visual pleasure! With all of those pieces of business out of the way I say let us continue along!

Part One

Part Two

PART THREE:

Day Six

We started off our day in the usual way. 6-something AM wake up, pancake with fruit, black coffee, & fresh mango/pinapple juice with ice. Next step; preparing gear/cameras for the day, loading up, & briefing & off we went to our first dive site.

You’ll only get a single photo from me on this dive site. The day prior Cari, Darin, & I had requested a change of pace & asked the guides if it was possible to do a muck dive (silt/sandy bottom, easily stirred up if you’re not careful) to which they obliged with a site just off of Anda town called J. Eden’s Place. No clue where that name came from apparently.

The trip out to J Eden’s was a bit tumultuous with larger waves than we’d experience the entirety of the days before. Evan found himself getting a bit sea sick. Despite the larger surge, we suited up & into the water we went.

I have a set of earplugs that are designed specifically for diving, they have a tiny hole in the middle so that the air inside the concha & external auditory canal creates a seal while still allowing the possibility for equalization. Since my left ear was feeling a little off the day before, I put in the large sized one & attempted the dive.

The large wasn’t big enough apparently & by the time we had gotten down to depth, past the Chocolate Chip Starfish & were starting to sink further to around 35 feet my left ear was screaming at me. I signaled to the group that something was wrong with my ear & that I was headed back to the boat only a short bit aways at this point.

The whole way back to the boat I was clinching my teeth, I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, & I felt a burning sensation in the left side of my throat. I got back to the boat, threw off my gear & began to clear the water from my ear while sitting in the sun awaiting the return of everyone else.

Of course when everyone returned they raved about the dive. My group had worked at one point to free a bunch of fish & a Mantis Shrimp from a dropped fishing net which they brought back on board with them. Additionally they’d seen Seahorses, Bluespotted Stingrays, & all of the other fun things that you find living in the substrate on a muck dive.

We weren’t entirely sure the diagnosis of my ear but as we continued on to the next site it began to feel better so I thought, you know, I’m going to give the larger earplug a try & see if that keeps me from feeling like this. I promise you, I am more intelligent than I seem at times.

The next site was a wall dive ironically named Wonderwall. With my larger earplug installed & a fresh tank we set about trying again.

I went down slower than everyone else, adjusting incrementally as the depth increased. The larger plug worked like a charm, I had no pain, no issue equalizing, I thought I was in the clear & that maybe I was just sporting the beginnings of an ear infection. I also had the team on deck prepared to help in the case that I had trouble equalizing on my way back up from depth. Neither ended up being an issue.

The wall really was a wonder! There were tons & tons of varietals of Nudibranchs, Commensal Shrimp, Arrow Crabs, the largest school of Engineer Gobies I have ever seen (talking like several feet in diameter), & a Marine Betta (Comet)! Additionally the wall house schools of Anthias, Scribbled Boxfish, Porcupine Pufferfish, & even a Stonefish which when JR gave me the signal for, I thought he was indicating that he was low on air. (The indication of stonefish & low on air are both a closed fist, only low on air is a closed at the chest.) Funny enough the signal for stonefish is also the signal for danger as stonefish are highly venomous if stepped on.

I made it back to the boat completely unscathed. The ear plug had worked & I’d had no issues with my ear at all during the dive so I was clearly not dealing with an equalization issue.

For lunch Cari & I had also made a request the night prior. I had raved to Evelyn, the resort manager, about the Filipino stew I’d had at lunch while we were all on our sunset cruise. A few of us, Cari & myself included, then had used that as an opportunity to request more Filipino dishes be served during our stay because why would you fly halfway across the world just to eat the same things you do at home? She had gladly obliged our request & in the morning had given us the option between a saucy beef & peanut dish or a mung bean soup. I chose the beef, as did most people. The thing that I knew, that I refrained from telling the rest of our party, was that the beef dish wasn’t just beef, but was in fact beef skin that had been cooking for almost a day & a half. The dish in question is called Balbacua & was absolutely delicious!

After lunch it was once again time for our afternoon dives. The site in question was called Dapdap & was in fact just off the coast of Magic Oceans to the west. The dive was actually projected to end at the resort itself. JR & I ended up being the only two from our group to go so he & I had a nice little private dive. With my extra large ear plug in place & kit assembled & accounted for we began our decent into the blue.

Dapdap is a site where, yes, you drop in on a wall, but around the last fifteen feet of the wall, from the bottom, is a dome carved out of the rock face. We started our dive in that little alcove. Here I found yet another Marine Betta, another Ornate Ghost Piperfish, & a rather curious little Flatworm cruising along the substrate.

Farther along & out a ways from the wall we found more interesting critters. We found a little grouping of Sexy Shrimp (yes, that’s literally what they’re called & no, I don’t know why), more Eels, two separate types of Mantis Shrimp; one peacock & one the name of which I’m not sure, & yet another Sea Turtle.

Everything was right as rain & business as normal until we came upon it; the largest Sea Turtle I have ever seen! No joke, this thing had to have a shell that was 4-5 feet from top to tail. It was enormous & was doing its best to wedge itself under a rock to sleep away the late afternoon. There was enough room on its back for two full grown Remoras which hung on snug while still leaving ample room for a good 3-4 more of them to nestle in.

We rounded off the dive & made our way back to shore. Along the way we stumbled upon a pair of Banded Pipefish, a big ole Coral Catfish, & a couple of Leopard Wrasse.

The ascent out of the water was an interesting one. We’d come up on the short & were in only about five feet of water when all of the sudden, there in front of us was the boat with its steps extended down into the water. JR de-finned first & climbed up & I followed only to find us at the resort’s dock, parked. We’d gotten out of the water, into the boat, to walk up onto the dock, & into the dive shop. It was a bit of a disorienting feeling.

After I got all of my gear taken care of for the evening I was met by Jamie who told me that he thought I may have a perforated ear drum. He recommended that I do an easy test to check & had me gather Evan & my ear plug & head to the resort pool. In the resort pool I had been told to go underwater, plug my nose, & blow out like I was trying to equalize. Evan had been asked to go in with me & with his mask on look to see if there were bubble evacuating from my ear. Sure enough there were.

With the ear mystery mostly solved we all agreed that is was probably for the best that I be done diving for the week even though there was another day’s worth of dives to go on. It was also recommended from both Jamie & my dive insurance that I go to a local doctor to get checked out & have them confirm our findings. Additionally it was advised that I start a preventative antibiotic as perforated drums often get inner ear infections from the water that has gotten in.

So off I went about the rest of my evening, to dinner & the like, with the newly acquired knowledge & field diagnosis of a perforated ear drum, knowing the following day I would need to find an official, proper diagnosis, & some medication.

End Of Day Six

Day Seven

I changed up my breakfast. With no risk of sea sickness or motion sickness from diving I opted out of my normal Pancake with fruit & instead went for a Ham & Cheese Omelet. It was lovely as well!

After breakfast I walked down to join everyone else while they were preparing to depart. I joined in their briefing, helped people to suit up, etc. etc. & once they were on their way I went & got dressed for my day on the town.

Jamie had already informed the main office that I needed a ride to the clinic. I went in to check on the status of all of that & they informed me that a tuk-tuk had been called & asked me to wait in my room until it arrived. They would send someone to fetch me once it showed. They also informed me that the tuk-tuk would be about 500 NFP (8.84 USD) each way & apologized profusely that I’d have to walk to the top of the hill to get into it, as it couldn’t make the drive down the steep driveway into the resort. I told them it was truly no problem & went back to my room to await my transit.

They had originally quoted me something like 30 minutes to an hour but it ended up only being about 10 I believe. I was retrieved & returned to the head office where I was greeted by Marj, one of the resort staff. She informed me that she would be accompanying me to the clinic, if that was alright, along with Shakka, one of the resort dogs.

We walked up the hill to where the tuk-tuk waited & filed in the back. I’m assuming he already knew the purpose of our trip because no words were exchanged other than ‘hellos’ & off he went.

I had never ridden in a tuk-tuk before. I’m assuming they’re similar world wide, but this one was essentially a motorcycle with a hard shell covering mounted to it.

Our trip took us back the way in which we’d previously gone for the Whale Shark dive. We turned from the peninsula where Anda sits & ended up in Guindulman. After weaving through the side streets a bit we arrived at the clinic.

Liao’s Clinic is a two room operation sat on the end of a strip. When we arrived there were around 10-15 people already sat waiting. The doctor didn’t arrive until 9 AM & I think we were around 20 minutes early so naturally we had to wait. The driver’s booking included him waiting so Marj, Shakka, & I waited outside the clinic in the back of the tuk-tuk.

The time went by quickly. Marj & I struck up conversation. We talked all about each of our separate curiosities about how the other lived & what life was like respectively & I introduced her to the scientific fact that white people can’t do ‘the Asian squat.’ At one point I remarked at the two roosters who were leashed up outside of the store down the street from the clinic. They each had a leash tied to one of their ankles & each time they would reach the end of their cord they would behave as though its existence was entirely unbeknownst to them up until that exact moment. There came a point in which one of the children waiting at the clinic released the CO2 filled balloon he’d been holding & it got picked up by the wind. Unfortunately for one of the roosters, but fortunately for me, the wind eddied & swirled right where the rooster had taken up residence at the end of its leash. I watched for a good 10 seconds as the balloon whirled around & around, smacking into this poor rooster over & over. All the while the rooster did its best to escape, exclusively doing so in the direction opposite of where he was tied. I hate to say I cackled at the poor beast, but nevertheless, I did.

When it was time for me to be checked out Marj accompanied me into the room where the doctor worked. He sat me in a white lawn chair & heard me out. Marj translated any words that were lost in the language divide, he looked in my ear, & sure enough confirmed that I had a lightly perforated ear drum with a hole only about the size of a pin. He prescribed me a preventative weeks worth of antibiotics & steroid drops which I was to do twice a day for two weeks. My total at the clinic with medications included was 2700 NFP or $48 USD. #CriesInAmerican

After I’d paid & acquired my drugs we asked the driver if he wouldn’t mind stopping at the market down the street for us to check on something. I am a lover of Jackfruit, I love it dearly. If you read any of my Indonesian blogs you’ll know that to be true, but anytime I’m in the islands or in Southeast Asia I do my utmost to find out. We went to the market to peruse for one but unfortunately came up empty. Though I’m grateful for the attempt!

We had a quick turn over when we returned to the Oceans of Magic, well relative to the turn overs of the rest of the trip. We were to meet those who had gone out diving on a beach between the resort & Anda for a barbecue. Evan & I departed with the staff & a few other resort guests as the others would arrive by boat.

When we got to Bituon Beach we found the kitchen staff already hard at work. They were grilling marinated meats (Chicken & Pork) & had a whole line of cloth covered tables set up with table settings all along. Ev & I sat & waited for the boats with our party members to arrive which only took about ten minuted before they appeared. Once they were sat we were served the Meats with Soya Sauce, two kinds of Salad (Potato & Garden), & beverages we’d ordered ahead previously in the week.

After a wonderful lunch on a perfect day at the beach we were treated to Ube ‘Dirty Ice Cream’ as the dive staff serenaded us via the Karaoke booth on the other side of the beach.

Don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging, I’m going to address dirty ice cream & where the moniker originated, or at least what I was told the name came from. Dirty ice cream is so called because it typically comes from a street vendor. That’s not the dirty part. The dirty part stems from the vendors walking around selling their goods with a bell. When kids would ask their parents if they could get ice cream their parents would always say “nah, that’s dirty ice cream” as a way of deterring their children from wanting the vendor’s product. The ice cream & the vendors are perfectly clean, the name just stuck as a way to make children not want it.

At a certain point during Evan dipped from lunch to go hunt down a bathroom, as he is one to do. (He’s going to beat me for saying that.) Upon asking to be shown the restroom he was brought over to someone’s home near the beach where he was ushered inside & shown to their personal bathroom. After going about his going abouts he turned around to leave the bathroom & there, on the back of the door, is a 8X10 cut out picture of none other than early 2000s Disney icon Hilary Duff.

With full tummies & sunburnt skin we boarded back on the dive boat & were taken to the resort from there.

Knowing I would be forced to spend my day landlocked I had booked a massage. The resort had a built in spa where you could request services up to an hour before you would like them. I booked a 90 minute Hilot massage.

Hilot is a Filipino type of massage. It is a mix of deep tissue massage & energy healing where the practitioners use their hands to find areas of blocked energy & knead them out. The massage itself, while being deep tissue in nature, is very gentle & is less like the Swedish variety where pressure is applied in long strokes to the muscle fiber & more like the kneading of a cat along the fibers. It was absolutely lovely.

About an hour into my hour & a half of relaxation the Tokay Gecko that I was unaware lives in the room decided to start chirping right above my head. The gecko’s call is loud, very loud & it scared the ever loving hell out of me. Imagine being in a state of total relaxation & having energy work done & out of nowhere you’re ripped from your tranquility by the “EHT EER” of the gecko. Click on the sound files in the wiki link attached to the name if you want to hear what they sound like.

After my massage I found Evan sat at the bar, gossiping it up with Ester. He had let it leak to her that I am a Singer/Songwriter & she had gone through the trouble of pulling up my entire Spotify catalog which she then proceeded to wait to play until I showed up. We made it through all of the songs several times.

Around 7 PM we were all called to dinner where I got to sit & hear the rounding out of everyone else’s week of dive. To be entirely honest though, I had had a fantastic day. Inspire of the injury, inspire of the inability to dive, I got to travel around & do one of my favorite aspects of travel which is connecting with people around the world & submerging myself not in their waters, but in their lives. To once again be entirely honest, this is one of the days of the trip that I remember the most fondly & with the utmost joy in my heart.

End Of Day Seven

Day Eight

Wake up was the normal 6-ish AM natural occurrence. With our last day of activities ahead of us breakfast was again starting a little earlier than the previous day & with no more diving, boat rides, or current in my near future, I opted for what I thought was a Breakfast Sandwich for breakfast. It turned out to just be a sandwich with assorted veggies & no egg. It was my fault for misreading the menu.

After breakfast we all loaded up into the vans with a day bag & a potential change of clothes & off we went to see what the day held. Some of the dive & resort staff joined us, including JR & Lee Ann & after about an hour to an hour & a half we landed at our first stop, the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary is, as their name suggests, dedicated to protecting the Philippine Tarsier, one of the smallest primates in the world, inhabiting the southeastern most islands in the Philippine Archipelago. The primates are nocturnal & only measure around 3-6 inches in size with an adult weight of between 2.5 & 6 ounces.

The facility itself consists of a parking lot, a placard arched entrance, a set of facilities, & an informational museum which serves as the entrance to the sanctuary as well as an educational center. Once you pass through the museum you find yourself in a chainlink fenced in forest scribbled with meandering trails. Posted all over are signs telling you to please be quiet & refrain from flash photography as the Tarsiers are trying to sleep during visiting hours.

The first of them we encountered was amongst a cluster of short palms. It was tucked up in the foliage about seven or eight feet from the ground. It looked to be clinging to the palm for dear life, hoping to blend in from us, which I would assume it took as predatory. The next couple were in similar predicaments with the farthest we found only being about nine feet off of the ground. Some were more active than others, peaking up from their slumber to watch us, all had ears that reminded me of Yoda.

After we’d pestered the tarsiers enough we all went about our separate activities. Some wandered the museum, watched the informational videos, & asked questions to those who worked there. Evan & I on the other hand went out to the entrance patio where one of the area dogs had brought out her puppy. As I approached she gave me a bit of a snarl but I sat & waited for her approach & approval before giving her a pet & continuing on to see her puppy.

When the others had exhausted their fill of the primates & the dogs had their fill of me we all loaded back up into the vans & headed down the road to what would be lunch.

Lunch was an interesting one. We were only in the van about fifteen minutes before we were dropped in Loboc at the Loboc River Tourist Complex. Once we were checked in we were all shown down the outdoor corridor to the river itself where we were directed down a flight of stairs & onto a series of floating barges each with restaurant seating set up. We were all asked to be seated & were brought Cucumber Lemonade before the boats swiftly departed from shore.

Once we were moving we were then directed to line up at the end of the barge where a table strewn with all sorts of Filipino foods had been set up. We each grabbed ourselves a plate & made our way through selecting the items that looked appealing to each of us. As we began to dine a singer & guitar player took up a mic in the corner & began to serenade us with mostly 80s love songs. It was charming.

A couple of minutes up river the duo stopped & instead we docked right up to a stage that jutted out into the water. There about twenty people were dancing & singing their way through a catalog of assorted traditional Filipino & Spanish songs & dances (the Spanish occupied the Philippines for over 300 years.) After they were done they waved goodbye & we continued up river.

Farther up stream we found ourselves privy to all sorts of activities both in the river & above. There were zipliners darting back & forth from bank to bank in the hills above, there were kids swinging into the river doing the latest trick they dared, & even a few fishermen hauling in their daily catch. All while the duo continued their cantations. We doubled back at a certain point & enjoy the drift downstream before we reconnected with the complex we’d began our journey at & shown through to the gift shop. I’m not going to lie, I purchased a shirt. It’s blue tied dye with the Bohol insignia on it.

Once we’d finished our shopping we were loaded up & back on down the road we went.

I was severely undersold the Chocolate Hills. Severely. When I asked what they were & if they contained chocolate I was told that they’re simply some hills & that no, the do not in fact contain chocolate. While that is somewhat true, calling them “just some hills” is the understatement of the century.

The Chocolate Hills are haystack shaped karst hills. They formed from eroding limestone in the region as well as tectonic activity that thrust them up into the air. Not only are they a geographical monument in the Philippines, they are also a staple of the island of Bohol. There are around 1,200 of these hills in the center of the island & they vary in size from 100 feet tall to the tallest at 390 feet tall. They are referred to as the chocolate hills not because cacao grows there, but because during the dry season the vegetation covering them turns a rich chocolate brown.

They are nothing short of stunning.

We arrived in the region after about an hour drive inland. Turning into the visitor center, we rounded one of the larger hills to a lot where we were once again dropped. Meeting the lot was a set of around 200 steep steps which led to the top of the hill we’d just circumnavigated. It was a bit of a climb but the view from the top was spectacular! Not just the hills, but the valley in which they sit. You could see for miles!

Once we’d all had our fill of the tops of the hills we descended where we drove just around the corner to Graham ATV & Bugcar Rental.

When you arrive at Graham ATV & Bugcar Rental you are handed a helmet, a waiver, & asked to choose between a two person buggy or an ATV. Then, following a briefing, you are shown to your respective vehicle & away you go.

The tour is about an hour long & takes you along muddy trails in-between several of the Chocolate Hills. You dip in & out of forest & meadows going over hills & through streams before looping around to return the basecamp. Evan had a hard time getting into it initially, but once he felt comfortable he was all in. I, on the other hand, was gung ho from the beginning!

After an hour of zipping around the hills we rinsed off our mud soaked selves, changed our clothes, got some ice cream & started to make our way back towards the coast.

Along the way Lee Ann abruptly asked our driver to pull over. She’d caught a Tempura Street Stand as we’d passed through Carmen on our way back. She & one of the other resort staff who’d come along for the day hopped out & immediately started ordering from the stand. Never one to not dive headlong into my curiosities, I joined them. Lee Ann ordered for me & gave me a bag with several tempura items in it. I think one of them was just strips of fried dough, the other was a fried egg. There were also a series of sauces which you dumped directly into the bag. I went for what was warned would be the spiciest, but it was actually a very pleasant sweet chili vibe.

We loaded back into the van & off down the road we went.

The evening was a planned party. They had pulled the tables out from the restaurant & assembled them along the grounds near the dive shop. There was also a band from Manila who had come in to play.

As everything was being set up we were instructed to start emptying our designated spots in the dive shop & change into something a little nicer. I went back to our room, packed up all of my gear, showered, & got my other luggage together.

The party was so nice. They’d pit roasted a Lichon for us & set up long tables filled with food under the sky & the hung ropes of lights above. The whole of the resort staff was there & were able to let loose & celebrate with us. Apparently we were the first large group of the busy season & the resort & its faculty were excited about it!

During dinner the band played 80s covers, clearly a favorite decade of music, as we ate. After we’d finish Ester stepped into the role of MC & started calling up people to sing along with the band…….

The first to sing was the chef! Yes, the resort chef. He had a lovely voice & sang two or three songs. During his set I got a grip on the shoulder & turned to find Ester who looked me dead in the eye & told me “I hope you know I’m not letting you run off for the night without singing something.” To which I laughed & obliged. Next up was Lee Ann, the karaoke queen struck again & did two songs as well as a song with Ester! Then came my moment of doom haha.

Me Doing The Thing
Photo Credit: Evan Michael

Ester, still holding the mic, called me up on stage. I got up & walked on but asked what I should sing. I was told an original. I asked if I could borrow a guitar to which the lead guitar player handed me his. After adjusting the height of the mic stand (I’m a good head or two taller than most of the filipinos I encountered) I went in on “When He Was Me” I was shocked when I got to the pre-chorus & the rest of the band join in with me! They followed the chord changes as best they could & when I finished I was greeted with a standing ovation & a call for more songs. I agreed & decided to play “Just Another Late Night” since the chords were the same throughout & it would allow the band an easier time following along. They crushed it!

After finishing up “Just Another Late Night” I once again got the request for another song, even the band was now requesting more music. So I did the same thing as before, I played “Insomniac” since the chords are the same throughout.

Still the group wanted more songs, but I turned down their request, it wasn’t my show to take over, it was the group who had come in to play, so I passed the microphone & the guitar back to their owners & descended from the stage.

They made me feel like a rock star, I’m not going to lie. I got off stage & JR immediately wanted a picture, then so did Lee Ann, then so did a few others. I thanked them all profusely for their kindness & hospitality & sat to watch the band sing through a few more songs.

When the toll of the day finally came to tax me of my energy I headed off to the bar to pay my tab for the evening. There Ester met me with a hug & a request for a photo to which I happily agreed & we said our good-byes until next time.

End Of Day Eight

END OF PART THREE & END OF BLOG SERIES!!!

April 6, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Travel, Travel Blog, Blog

Travel Blog: Bohol, Philippines- Part Two: It's A Shark, It May Have The Word 'Whale' In Its Name, But It Is A Shark!

April 6, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Travel, Travel Blog, Blog

BOHOL, PHILIPPINES

Welcome back, welcome back! How’re we feeling today? Ready to embark on another adventure into the deep blue? I sure hope so! If you are coming into this post & seeing that big ole ‘part two’ across the title & scratching your head, fear not, I’ll link Part One of this here trilogy below this here paragraph. If you’re coming from the previous post, welcome to it! Glad you stuck around! Sorry we didn’t get into any diving with that one, I promise this one will be different in that regard. Now, if we don’t have any more points of business to get out of the way, I’d be happy to continue this ongoing story. Strap on your BCD, bite down on your reg, & let’s dive on in!

Part One

PART TWO:

Day Three

One of the only times that you will catch me being a morning person is on the days in which there is diving or some sort of other adventure involved. I tend to be more of a late morning riser & a night owl than an early bird but when you dive, a lot of times your dives will start sometime around or before 8 AM. That was no different here.

We awoke around 6:15/6:30 AM. Having made our way to the resort in the dark I wanted to a brief bit of exploring. I revisited the path I’d gone down the night prior; a pair of jet black honey bees were zipping around, pollenating a papaya tree that had cropped up near the trail. Continuing along it I sat & watched the newly minted day from the overlook above the rocks, listening to the waves dash against them.

Breakfast at Magic Oceans begins around that time & is custom, made to order, from the menu provided at the table. Along with your freshly made breakfast options you also have the ability to order coffee, tea, water, or an assortment of fresh juices such as apple, mango, orange, & pineapple. I tend to lean something a little more carb leaning, less greasy or dense, for days I plan to dive, especially if we’re going out on a boat. It was a tip that Elaine taught me back in Fiji that helps mitigate the potential of “feeding the fish” should the boat ride out, or the currents under the waves, prove to be rocky. With that in mind I ordered the Pancake with Fresh Fruit.

The plate sized pancake was less your traditional southern/midwestern American dense dark golden brown disk & more akin to a thick crepe or a dutch baby. Whatever it was, it was delicious. It came covered in fresh pineapple, some of the best mango I've ever had, & bananas. It felt sacrilegious of me to put syrup on it, so instead I asked for honey, which I drizzled gingerly atop.

With breakfast also came the remainder of our briefing from the night before that had been cut short by the exhaustion we all shared. Evelyn filled us in on the remainder of the resort proceedings while Jamie, the Dive Master, began briefing us on what our days of dive would consist of. We were to be at the ‘dive shop’ each morning at 8 AM for check-in & briefing where we’d pack up & depart for two morning dives before returning back for lunch, refueling, & going out for our afternoon dive.

As we all began finishing our respective breakfasts & departing for our rooms to gather our belonging for our dives we were once again greeted by the dining staff who were taking out lunch orders.

With lunch you had the option for whatever you wanted from the even broader lunch menu. However, each day the kitchen staff would pick two items from the menu that they would then offer to guests as a way of making the load on the kitchen for lunch easier. If neither of those two options suited you then you were more than welcome to order from the menu.

Once we’d all retreated & reconvened down at the dive shop we set about setting up out tanks for the week. Each of us was given a polished wood station with room to hang your BCD (buoyancy control device), your wetsuit, & a milk crate in which to put things whenever you needed them. As I was getting situated, JR, who would be my guide for the week, came over & metered the nitrox from my tank for me. You meter with each tank so that you know what percentage O2 your tank has which then is inputted into your dive computer which uses the exact measurements to calculate a dive requiring no decompression time. We finish measuring my tank, attached it to the BCD, & screwed on my regulator, then it was Evan’s turn.

This is where I think we ran into the trouble of the week, the trouble that we probably won’t include in this part of the blog, but will probably occupy the majority of part three. We got Evan’s tank measurements, signed off on them on the sheet saying we’d measured & crosschecked the tank, & went to assemble his dive kit. We screw the BCD in place & I go to attend to something in my milk crate. The next thing I know there’s a loud pop from my left & a whooshing. Those of us who are experience divers have already called it; it was a popped o-ring. An o-ring, for anyone not familiar with plumbing or any type of activity involving the sealing of two connecting points, is a little rubber ring that sits in the connection fro the tank to the regulator. It prevents air from leaking out the connection. Evan’s had just blown. Totally normal occurrence, nothing to be frightened by or upset about. They pull his reg off the tank & inspect the issue. I immediately see the problem, there’s not one, but two o-rings in the slot. I call that out & turn my head back to my kit or whatever I was fidgeting with on my kit. Another pop right next to my left ear. The blown o’ring had been discarded & another one had replaced it, which then also blew.

I want to be very clear that I’m not tacking blame on this for anyone, especially since I was basically the only one who could see the second o-ring from where I was positioned & the way the tank was facing. I understand having taken the regulator off, seeing the o-ring attached to said regulator connection, & replacing it there assuming that it was the only one present. I also speak at a pitch that tends to blend in to the background noise of the world around you, so I may not have been heard. I made sure to point the mistake out before the same thing happened a second time though.

With gear finally assembled & loaded on board the boat, we gathered around for our briefing & to be divided into our dive groups.

At this point I suppose it’s worth noting the following. Anytime I write stories or blogs I do my best to not include the names of persons under the age of 18, unless I am personally related to them. I am not their parents/guardians, the extent in which their personage being spread across the world wide web is not my choice to make. There will be several mentions of underage party members throughout this blog series, but I shan’t be naming them. They will simply be referred to as in relation, i.e. so & so’s daughter, such & such’s friend, you get it? If you’re one of the aforementioned reading this, I promise I know your names & don’t mean to diminish you to who you are to someone else! Continuing on…

Evan & I naturally got placed together, along with Deb (whom I adore & dove with previously in Fiji & Indonesia), & Darin & Cari’s Daughter (whom I also adore & dove with in Fiji), as she was rooming with Deb. Cari departed from her assigned group & joined ours under JR as the group she was assigned to with Darin, their son, & his friend, would be busy certifying their son’s friend as a diver. So we became a group of six, JR included, & they became a group of four.

Our boat held three groups, which meant that our last group from our party would be on another boat for the week, but they didn’t seem to mind! At least as far as none of them voiced.

Our first dive of the trip was a site called Birhen Sanctuary. A lot of the diving that we did around the peninsula that Anda sits on were wall dives as the shore went out a ways before dropping off drastically at a depth of around fifteen to twenty feet to around eighty to one hundred. Birhen was no exception. With our max depth for the site set around eighty-five feet we all suited up & into the water we went. I was eager as always to resubmerge & was actually planning on trying out a new bit of tech that I’d acquired, the Oceanic+ Dive Housing which uses the already solid camera output from my iPhone 15 Pro Max as its camera!

The Philippines did not come to play. In terms of an “introductory dive” for the location, it put all of the cards on the table. We got down to depth, immediately a massive field of Garden Eels (if you follow me on any of my socials you know how much love I have for garden eels.) Slight turn back towards the wall, boom, Sea Krait. This was all within the first minute or two of the dive. We saw Regal Angelfish, Ornate Ghost Pipefish, Scorpionfish, Frogfish, & even some Pygmy Seahorses (only about the size of a fingernail) camouflaged & tucked into a Gorgonian Coral. The site was splendid! If offered Greyfaced Moray Eels, harems of Anthias galore, & tons & tons of different varietals of Nudibranchs.

At the top of the wall sat an additional reef where we ran into a Peacock Grouper, a school of Durgon Triggerfish, & a Powder Brown Tang in addition to all the Anemones with Clownfish & a plethora of Long-Spined Sea Urchins.

Returning to the boat we were met with coffee, tea, bananas, & a container full of fresh cut mango. The crew was put in charge of changing out our empty tanks for the next dive & we set about burning through our hour long surface interval.

Any time I do these blogs, specifically the ones involving large amounts of diving, I never know exactly how much or how little you, as the reader, know about the activity of diving. Typically, I feel like most people sit in the realm of knowing very little about dive other than what they’re seen in tv or movies, often which promote very unsafe practices in their frames. BUT with the feeling that most people don’t know much about Scuba & its practices, I tend to overshare about the items or activities in which I am referencing. *See entire paragraph about ‘o-rings’ above.

Surface intervals, for those that don’t know, is the time designated for you as a diver to sit in our natural environment, the surface, & breathe out some of the nitrogen that has accumulated in your system at depth. The deeper you go, the longer you stay, the more pressure forces nitrogen into your body, the longer your surface interval needs to be. One of the goals of recreational diving is to stay within the threshold of what we call “no-deco time” or no decompression time, meaning you don’t require decompression to get back to normal above water stasis. All of these are fun things you learn if you ever take a dive course. During the surface interval is also typically the time in which you move from one dive site to the next, as we did.

Our next dive site was called Seahorse Point, another wall with a bit more sandy & sloped of a bottom. We still had a bit of time left before we could go diving so we sat & watched an outrigger pull up a fish trap full of fish. I swung around the back of the boat to use the bathroom & found Lee Ann, one of the other dive guides, eat something that I’m still not sure of its name with rice. I asked her what it was, which she gave me the name of, which I swiftly forgot, & then she offered me some. I took a pinch of it & it was exquisite! To describe it, it was a savory, salty reddish mush that I could not for the life of me tell you what was in it or what it was called. All I know was that it was very good & I am grateful she allowed me to try her lunch!

It was once again time to suit up & get in the water. The six of us jumped in, descended as a group, & started to make our way over the wall. The current at Seahorse Point was a little stronger than that of the previous dive, but was still manageable. We started this dive headed East, away from our boat. On our first pass, near the base of the wall we found lots more Nudibranchs, Feather Duster & Christmas Tree Worms, & an anemone full of Sarasvati Anemone Shrimp. We’d just made it to the halfway point of our dive & gotten the ‘turn around’ signal from JR when I spotted it. Nestled in the wall, doing its utmost to hide from us, was a rather large Common Octopus. I would have missed it entirely if I hadn’t been waiting for the rest of the group to start their return back the way we came. I only noticed it because of the white flash of its respiratory siphon.

We all gathered around the octopus as it did its best to blend into the reef wall & the cavity that it had claimed to hide in. It’s always an exciting find when you stumble across an octopus or any other type of cephalopod as their alien like appearance never ceases to amaze.

Going back the way we came we stumbled upon another fun find, an Electric Flame Scallop, tucked back in a slight cave, flashing its mantle to attract plankton which it filter feeds out. The scallop isn’t really electric, but it gives the appearance of such as it tucks & untucks the white edge of tissue around the edge of the opening of its mantle. Additionally we ran into more scorpionfish, more frogfish, & even more schools of anthias.

With the morning dives completed, it was time to head back to the resort for lunch.

For lunch Evan & I had chosen the burger option. It was definitely an interesting take on one, a far departure from the American style, but it was still very good. The patty came with your usual lettuce, onion, tomato, mayo, but additionally had fresh cucumbers on it, I’m assuming in place of the pickle. It made for a much “fresher” take on the classic dish.

After lunch it was back to the boat for our afternoon wall dive at Snapper’s Cove.

Snapper’s Cove is aptly name. There is a cove, in the wall, that typically is host to a school of Snapper. Imagine that. Evan skipped out on the afternoon dive & opted to relax by the pool, as did Deb, so our group of six was down to four.

In my experience afternoon dives can be hit or miss. A lot of the stuff that is active in the morning has started to hide away for the approaching night & a lot of the things that are active at night haven’t started to come out to hunt in the darkness yet. This one turned out to be a solid one!

The wall was chockablock with different kinds of nudibranchs as well as soft corals such as Pulsing Xenia & Waving Hand Anthelia. Additionally we didn’t find any snapper, but we did find a whole school of large Cardinalfish. I tried & failed to fulfill my endless pursuit of getting two Yellow Capped Cleaner Wrasse to clean my mouth & we found a massive white Giant Frogfish perched on some sponges awaiting whatever unlucky fish swims too close to it. We stumbled upon a school of juvenile Engineer Gobies, a duo of Zanzibar Whip Coral Shrimp, & some Orangutan Crab nestled in a Bubble Coral.

On top of the reef we ran into another Sea Krait, a few rather large hermit crabs, tons of Leather Corals, another frogfish, & our first Sea Turtle! Evan really missed out.

Back on land Evan & I made our way to the bar. I typically edit & post dive videos while on my trips & it usually takes me the entirety of the evening to do so, but I found myself having technical difficulties. You see, I am used to shooting on my GoPro, which has phenomenal stabilizers but can’t do macro (anything closer than a foot) to save its life. My iPhone, on the other hand, can shoot macro & wide but lacks the stabilizers. So I spend the good part of an hour or so editing footage, trying to figure out how to stabilize it on my iPad, which simply wasn't' happening. I decided that I’d wait til I returned stateside to compile my videos this time around since the stabilizing tech on my computer is absolutely astounding at times! I resigned myself to enjoying my time & not putting the pressure of content creation on myself this trip.

Here we meet more key players for the week; Ester & Ian, both of whom run the bar at the resort. Ester is by far who Evan & I spent the majority of our week conversing with & I would say we left the week decent enough friends! Ester was also in charge of the daily specials, her ‘cocktails of the day’ were always innovative & fun & we all sat at the bar most nights talking about life, movies, & joking around. This was to be the first of those evenings.

Dinner was called at almost exactly 7 PM & was served family style, just as it was the night prior. We were sat with water & a lovely sweet fruit tea along with an appetizer, a soup, or a salad. We ate dinner at a leisurely pace & once we were done it seems we’d all been taken by sleep, as every one in our party immediately went off to bed for the night.

End Of Day Three

Day Four

I woke up Tuesday with the biggest pep in my step, not that I don’t normally when it comes to diving, but today was the day that we were crossing off one of my bucket list dives. We were going to be diving with Whale Sharks!!!

Along with Manta Rays, Whale Sharks have always been a big “I wanna” for my dive bucket list & with over 60 dives under my belt, I had yet to have gotten a chance run in with either of the gentle giants. That was due to change!

Also, quick interjection here. THE ARE SHARKS, NOT WHALES! They may have ‘whale’ in the name, but it is used here as an adjective, like Goliath, it is meant to denote their size. They are not mammals, they are fish. They do not lactate, grow hair, have lungs, or have warm blood. I don’t know how many people I’ve talk to about this who have said something along the lines of “omg, I’m so jealous, I’d love to swim with whales” or “weren’t you afraid to be that close to whales.” They’re not whales. At all.

END OF SOAP BOX RANT.

Breakfast was served a little earlier than normal as we needed to be on the road headed to the dive site around 7:30. I had my usual pancakes with fruit & before I knew it, we were off on the one & a half hour ride to the site.

The staff had asked that we gather & group our dive gear the night prior so that they could load it into the truck that would go ahead & meet us there with everything already previously prepared so that when we arrived & it was our turn to go, we could just find & collect our things from our milk crate, dress, & get right into the water.

We arrived at Taug Whaleshark Watching just before 9:30. Upon arrival we were ushered through a series of vendor stalls before being sat under a covered patio where we received our safety briefing about the sharks & filled our or consent forms & waivers. One of the main rules that was being hammered in was that of distance & touch. Naturally they asked that you not touch the sharks & that doing so would accrue a 15,000 NFP fine. Additionally they asked that you not get within 10 meters of the sharks or 12 meters from their tail as it has a rather large swing radius. They also explained that this morning, when the crews got to work, there were about eight whale sharks out off the shore & now there were three as they show up each morning to be fed by the organization.

I want to pause here to talk a little about the morality of this, of feeding wild animals essentially as a tourist attraction & where I fall on this spectrum as I know certain other members of the dive community at large fall on very opposite ends of what they believe to be right.

I, in the past, have done very similar experiences where the animals are incentivized by the prospect of food to show up & be spectacle for divers or other tourists, that’s essentially what happens in Beja during their shark dive as well. (Read about it here.) Each time that I participate in such a program I always end up with the same grey area feeling around it but, I think that Jamie, the dive master at Magic Oceans, actually had very good insight into the practice, especially in Bohol.

One night at the bar Darin asked Jamie his feelings on the feeding of the whale sharks. His response came in the form of a story. Jamie said that it used to be that whale sharks were free game. Free game for fishermen, for butchers, etc. There were no protection for the sharks & they would often be caught, butchered, & sold at markets for their meat. Then something shifted. Someone along the way picked up on the fact that a very large percentage of the world would love nothing more than to see a live whale shark up close, so they started a business & began feeding the sharks planktonic organisms in the same spot each day. This naturally got the sharks accustomed to being fed & not having to search the oceans for their rapidly dwindling food source. Then they started hiring staff, then they started allowing vendors around their business, & quickly the other locals picked up on the fact that people would pay for the experience which then would enrich their chances of also getting a slice of the pie. Turn back to the local markets, people started to get run out for selling the shark because it became an active representation of the destruction of the livelihood of those in the community & almost all at once the fishing & sale of whale shark meat diminished & disappeared.

I’m not here to say it’s objectively right or wrong, what I will say will err on the side of the former though. Whale sharks are an endangered species, climate change is decimating their populations as their food source continues to lessen & lessen in availability. We take in rhinos for protection, we take in big cats in the hopes of rehabilitating & reintroducing them at later dates, what’s the harm in doing so with massive sharks while still keeping them in their natural habitat? Do we not sell safaris in nature preserves to pay to protect the animals there within?

After sitting, waiting our turn for around 30 minutes to an hour we were called to dress.

The dive was a shore dive with a max depth around 45 feet. We were asked to suit up quickly & get into the water to finish off our kit so that the boats coming in with those who had gone out to feed & observe from the surface could get in & start unloading/loading their groups. All in all there were probably just short of a hundred people mingling about either beginning or ending their trip with the sharks. We were apparently the last dive group of the day, so we weren't given a time limit for our excursion.

Long Spined Sea Urchins w/ Threadfin Cardinalfish

Once we were all in & kitted, we began the kick out to the site. The shoreline was rather rocky & full of urchins so they had us submerge as soon as we could in part so we weren’t stepping on anyone of their homes but also so that we could get lower in the water, giving the sharks ample space to swim above us just below the surface.

We were at about 35 feet when I saw my first wild whale shark. I was just kicking along, out into the Bohol Sea when I heard the clicks of JR’s carabiner. I found him in the water & he pointed up & there, about twenty feet above me, swam three whale sharks.

The group of three featured two sharks that were about 15-20 feet in length, the third was massive probably anywhere from 30-40 feet in length with a tail around 9 feet in height. They were easily the largest animals I had ever seen much less been in close proximity to. I was beaming!

Over the next hour we floated, suspended almost entirely in the middle of the bottom & the surface staring in awe & amazement as the sharks crossed back & forth collecting the food that had been thrown out for them. The largest shark, however, seemed to have the whole “feeding game” figured out & was situated at the surface the entirely of the time at around a 45º angle between the two boats that were throwing out the food. It didn’t move from its spot as its tail swooshed back & forth behind it, keeping its head elevated to the surface where it funneled in a constant flow of water & food.

At one point we all got a little sick of being reserved to the bottom/middle of the water column as we watched the groups of snorkelers go right up next to the shark & we decided to raise ourself up to a depth of about 15 feet instead. As soon as we did this I almost got bulled over by one of the smaller sharks who swam in from behind me. Luckily I saw it coming & was able to drop back down underneath it, which ultimately resulted is an amazing shot!

After we got out we dried off & dressed. There were refreshments waiting for us & our ride back. We repacked all of our gear into our milk crates & boarded the vans back to Magic Oceans.

Since the dive site was a ways away it ate the time slot for both of the morning dives, meaning that following lunch there would only be the afternoon dive to round out the day.

Our afternoon dive was a wall dive called Coco North. A sloping wall dive, this one featured deep fissures where schools of fish would gather & take refuge. During out time here I actually encountered another nautical first for me, which is a swimming Feather Starfish!

Feather stars get their name from the frilled appearance of their appendages of which there are anywhere from 10-200, though they always appear in groups of five. They dust these super sticky limbs through the water collecting food but also use them to maneuver through the water appearing almost like a dancing spider as they do. To see them stationary is fairly common place, but occasionally you’ll manage to see one fluttering about, which is a rather surreal experience!

In addition to the starfish we also stumbled upon a multitude of clams, some Yellow Boxfish, a few Orange-lined Triggerfish ( I prefer the aquarists term of “Undulate Triggerfish), & even happened upon a Fimbriated Moray Eel! The eel was tucked behind a crusting coral & didn’t want to say hi, despite our best efforts to get the beautiful creature to come out of its lair for a few photos.

In addition to all that the wall hosted a number of clownfish with anemones, Banded Coral Shrimp, Nudibranchs aplenty, Cleaner Wrasse, & more.

When we rounded the top of the wall there was a large school of Sergeant Majors waiting to greet us in addition to all of the soft corals & even a Banana Wrasse.

Post dives we made our nightly trip to the bar to await dinner & chat with Ester whom we got into a lovely heartfelt conversation about the differences in life between The US & The Philippines. As per usual, we also talked about movies & TV shows & which she was watching in the evenings when work was slow or when she got home after getting off. We made our recommendations & she made hers.

Dinner was served in the usual way & after some much need sustenance we once again retired for the night. Though before my head hit the pillow & drifted my off to dreamland I snuck down to the end of the dock for a bit of star gazing.

One of my favorite parts about being in a more remote part of the world with not as much light pollution, especially around the water, is the ability to see the stars. They’re the only times that I’ve managed to catch glimpses of The Milky Way.

All in all, it was one for the books, a day I will remember forever!

End Of Day Four

Day Five

Another morning, another Filipino Pancake with Fruit.

Our morning dive was a site called Island View. Yes, it did contain a view of an island, that island being Bohol. So I guess technically all of the dives we had should’ve been called “Island View.” It was also a wall dive.

While diving the view we encounter a multitude of lovely fish & other oceanic critters. There were a few types of Puffers: Porcupine, Dogfaced, & Valnetin’s Sharpnose, an Ornate Ghost Pipefish, loads of Anemones with Clowns, more Garibaldi Shrimp, Marbled Tile Starfish, a Crown-Of-Thorns Starfish, the clusterf- of Nudies we’ve come to expect, Frogfish, & even a little Snowflake Eel.

The morning dive was followed by a second at a site called “Coral Garden.”

Coral Garden was aptly named as the top reef was a vibrant myriad of corals & fish swimming about. Most of the top side crew were Damsels in variety: Sergeant Majors, Black Damsels, Staghorns, & Yellowtail Blue Damsels. Once we descended over the side of the wall, down the drop off, the reef traffic definitely got a bit quieter, & a lot less territorial.

You know, now that I think about it, this may be the first & only dive trip in which I wasn’t attacked by some sort of Damsel while diving…huh.

Off the wall we found Big Eye Soldierfish, a few Dwarf Hawkfish perched in the Barrel Sponges, more schools of Juvenile Engineer Gobies, Rabbitfish, a Soft Coral Crab, some spaghetti looking Nudibranchs, a school of Drummerfish, another two Sea Turtles, & a colony of Coral Catfish! It also ended up including one of my favorite dive happenings; diving in the rain!

Cari asked me when I explained that I love diving in the rain if I’d even noticed that it was until we’d hit the surface & while I don’t think I outright knew it was raining from depth, I definitely could hear & feel it around 20 feet. It also does something interesting to the animals below water where I feel it makes them a touch more active, though that could just be a wildly skewed observation that has no actual scientific merit to it in any regard. Either way, I love coming up out of the water into the rain, there’s something otherworldly about it.

When we got back to the resort it was lunch time. I can’t entirely recall what the option was for the day but I’m pretty sure it was like a chicken sandwich or something. As we were sat waiting I noticed JR & some of the other dive guides going up to the kitchen with a bowl & a plate & leaving with something entirely different than the options that we had been presented. I called over one of the kitchen staff & asked her about it, she told me it was the staff lunch, a Filipino stew of some sort. Naturally, I ask her if I could try it. She disappeared back to the kitchen for a second & returned to ask me if I was sure & when I said that I was she asked if I wanted it with rice. I told her to bring it however they would eat it, but only if there was still plenty for the staff. She brought me back a massive bowl of the stew & a side of rice.

I’m not entirely sure what was in the stew other than a varietal of Bok Choy & maybe some Pork with Potatoes. Looking through Filipino stews online I’m not sure it wasn’t Nilaga/Nilagang, either way it was salty & savory & really hit the spot on what had turned out to be a rainy afternoon.

I can’t recall if I skipped out on the afternoon dive or if there wasn’t one because of the events planned for the evening. I think it was the former as at this point I think my ear was being a bit wonky…we’ll get to that in part three… At any rate I think I may have napped & then gone & sat at the bar for a bit before our scheduled evening activities.

The Duffins are rather huge fans of a sunset cruise. They like to book the dive boat out with drinks & snacks & go out on the waves for a bit & just spend a little bit of time socializing & relaxing in the sea air & I’m not mad at that. We did one in Indonesia (you can read about it here) & I think attempted one in Fiji as well, but the tides wouldn’t allow for it. So as the sun began to sank we all filed onto one of the cleaned off dive boats & away we went.

The staff had thought ahead & taken our two drink order days prior to the expedition. They prepared plates of chips & other snacky bits & also had a partial service bar set up to bring us our preordered beverages. Evan & I both ordered Rum & Cokes because they’re an easy staple, especially in the tropics, & we sat atop the cabin sipping them & talking with Deb & some of the other members of our party.

At a certain point someone spotted a pod of, what we thought were dolphins. The boat maneuvered in the direction it looked like they were headed & when we got closer we found, what I believe to have been, a pod of Melon-Headed Whales. They were breaching the waves, skimming along the surface & every time a new one would crop up we’d head in their direction. Previously Ester had mentioned that right after the pandemic their had been a Sperm Whale sighting off the coast of the resort & that when they had shared about it to their socials they’d had a person later come looking for it. Some guest had flown halfway across the world to the resort & requested to be taken to the whale…a migratory species that swims up & down the globe.

After about an hour cruising around on the waves we headed back to the resort for dinner. A lot of us we a little toasty from the drink both before & during the sunset cruise so dinner was a bit of a ruckus. After dinner the staff brought out a congratulatory cake for Evan & the Duffin’s Son’s Friend who had completely a Nitrox Class & an Open Water Certification respectively. The cake was adorable, it featured who little fondant divers over a reef with their names inscribed in icing.

We all enjoyed a slice of the cake & with the alcohol starting to leave our bloodstreams & the exhaustion setting in, went off to sleep.

End Of Day Five

End Of Part Two

March 23, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Travel, Travel Blog, Blog

Travel Blog: Bohol, Philippines- Part One: I Flew To The Other Side Of The World To Go Diving & All You're Getting Is One Singular Mention Of The Ocean In This First Blog

March 23, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Travel, Travel Blog, Blog

BOHOL, PHILIPPINES

Prologue

Hello Fellow Travelers,

Welcome back to one of my absolute favorite blog series that I do here at my beloved site; travel blogs! I know, for a large handful of you all, this is also your favorite series of mine & I think for good reason. This is often the blog that I get to share major passion of mine, travel, as well as a few subsequent others such as food, beverage, dive, & storytelling. Fortunately for all of us, this series will contain all of these aspects & more! So, if you’re along for the ride, buckle in, as the full scope of this trip & its embedded tales will take up a good three weeks worth of space on this blog! With all of that being said & everything else out of the way, let’s dive on in shall we?!

PART ONE:

Day One

Los Angeles, California

Evan & I landed in Los Angeles around 10 AM on March 7th. Our direct flight options for our arrival with Southwest Airlines were either the flight we chose or one that got in around 9:15 PM, which would have cut us far too close to our 10:35 PM departure with EVA Air for Taipei. This naturally left us with around 9 hours worth of time to burn before we had to check-in for the aforementioned flight. Initially our plan was to have our friend Jenna pick us up from LAX & drop us back later but upon looking into the amount of time it would force her into in commutes on our behalf we opted to rent a car for the day instead. Popping on over to Avis we snagged the rental I had booked the evening prior, a Tesla Model 3, of which Avis has an exclusive deal for the rental of. The really nice part about it was that we weren’t responsible for charging it upon its return which really helps save you a bit of cash, especially with LA gas prices being around $5 a gallon.

Jenna had planned to head over to Pasadena to catch our other friend Rory’s Barry’s Ass & Abs class. She’d suggested dropping our luggage with her in North Hollywood, then carpooling around together, but unfortunately the time it would have taken for such a measure would have forced us to miss Rory’s class. So we opted just to meet there instead. We made it to Pas with about ten minutes to spare & loaded our luggage into the locked trunk & loathsomely named “frunk” (front trunk) of the Tesla.

I think Evan has cursed us, either that or it’s all to do with the timing of when we travel seeing as he is off Wednesdays & Thursdays so we usually end up flying those days. Either way we seem to always do a “leg day” the day prior to large amounts of travel, I guess this time would be no different.

Barry’s has a lower focus class on Tuesdays & an ass & abs class on Thursdays, that usually ends up being the cause of his post-leg day flight woes. Even if we don’t end up at Barry’s we typically end up adhering to their schedule so that we don’t get thrown into a wonky “I’m too sore for this” situation should we decide to hit another of their classes during the week.

After class we were all desperately craving a coffee. Evan & I had wanted to venture into The Burlington Arcade in Pasadena for a while & the Pas Barry’s location just happened to be right within the same block or two, so that’s where our search began & ultimately ended.

The Mandarin Coffee Stand is nestled right in the middle of The Arcade. It is a teeny, tiny coffee shop that has a customer occupancy limit of four guests at a time. The are a local, Asian women owned & operated shop that specializes in Chinese style coffee. I got a latte known as the “Toasty” which consists of Rooibos, Cinnamon, Espresso, Brown Sugar, & Oat Milk. Not typically a fan of the milk of the oat, I tried it anyway at the recommendation of the barista & it was nothing short of bangin’! As we stood around the strip sipping our respective coffees we all decided the next necessary & logical step would be to find food.

If you were to dig into the notes app on either Evan or my phone you’d discover a shared note simply titled “Travel Visits.” In said note you will find lists upon lists of mostly restaurants & bars that we’ve written down over the years to try should we ever find ourselves in any of the locations listed therein. Despite our many years in LA the list for it seems to continue to grow & grow & so we both began to pilfer through in search of what would inevitably be that day’s lunch.

Many of the locations that we found were either evening only, too far from Pasadena, North Hollywood, or LAX, weren’t open that day, or weren’t a type of food we were all feeling, but at the end of our extensive filtering we ended up deciding on a deli in Westlake called Langer’s.

Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant was founded in 1947 & has been in the Langer family ever since. They are a member of the LA Times 101 Hall of Fame & have been a staple on the Michelin guide for many years. They are famous for their #19 Pastrami Sandwich which has been voted amongst the world’s best which is exactly what Evan & both ordered. The sandwich was excellent, sporting Pastrami on Rye with Coleslaw, Swiss Cheese & Russian Dressing. Jenna ordered a simple sliced Salami on a Hoagie it Provolone which was simple & delightful in its own way. After lunch we ended LA’s early afternoon traffic & made our way towards Jenna’s place in North Hollywood. Once we’d gotten to North Hollywood we pulled off into the CVS to grab a few provisions.

Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles
Photo Credit: Evan Michael

Anytime I fly overseas or on a flight that is longer than 4-5 hours I bring the cabin crew a sack of goodies just to say “thank you” & help ease their time on the job in even the slightest of ways. I typically pick up some family sized packs of chocolates, candies, & snacky things to give out. In addition to our care package we also picked up some Zzzquil for the flight, since it was an over nighter. After acquiring our items we continued onto Jenna’s to recharge for a bit; both for ourselves & our devices which had already made it through a morning of travel & a day of light exploration.

With our time in LA coming to an end & our need to head off to the airport approaching, we popped into a quick shower, refreshed deodorants & the like, & swapped over into our travel clothes before packing everything back up, bidding Jenna a fond farewell, & beginning the hour+ commute to the airport.

Once we’d dropped the car back at Avis we headed into LAX to check-in for our EVA Air flight to Taipei with continued service to Manilla. Once we got to Manilla we’d have to go through immigration & customs before rechecking our bags & continuing on. We met the rest of our group from Midwest Aquatics that were headed to Bohol at the check-in gate & after greetings & hugs we all headed through security.

The process was lighter than usual so we found ourselves incredibly early for our flight, so much so that the British Airways flight occupying our gate hadn’t even received their plane. We wandered around the international terminal before settling in on something to eat. After some truly mid fish tacos, I found a secluded corner in which to write two weeks ago’s blog & awaited the boarding process.

We boarded right on time & once we’d taken off, & eaten our in-flight meal, we took the Zzzquils & attempted to get some sleep.

End Of Day One

Day Two

Taipei, Taiwan

We arrived in Taipei around 5:15 AM, local time. I managed to sleep for about a half or so of the duration of the fourteen & a half hour flight, Evan managed about two thirds. That was when he wasn’t attempting to shut off our sleeping neighbor’s over head light.

We had booked ahead online & gotten ourselves the exit row. I’m a rather tall gent at 6’4” & definitely need the extra leg room that the exit row or premium economy provide, especially on airlines based out of parts of the world where people tend to be on the shorter side. I had the “window” (there was no window) & Evan had the middle. At the time of our booking the aisle seat was already occupied, we actually assumed that it was Deb, a member of our group. It wasn’t, it was a gentlemen we had no relation to. When you’re in the exit row all of the buttons for your seat are located on the arm rest to your left about thigh high. Strangely enough, in EVA Air Economy Class, the reading light for the aisle seat illuminates the middle seat. No joke. Like each of the other buttons illuminate each of their respective seats, except for the aisle which basically doubles up on the middle. Additionally, the man on the end’s button for his over head light seemed to be a little on the sensitive side & every time he shifted in his seat it lit up the light over Evan’s head. I legitimately thought it was his own light until I noticed him slyly reaching over, across the man’s lap, trying to tap his light button. In his words “I had no issue with the light itself, it was the heat that it generated that was keeping me awake.” When he finally got around to turning off the light the man shifted in his seat thirty seconds later, immediately reigniting Evan’s personal warming bulb. Later when he got up to use the restroom, Evan positioned the man’s blanked so as to block any accidental bumping of the button from occurring.

We had about a three-ish hour layover in Taipei & we’d arrived before any of the shops & restaurants had opened. So, we as a group, decided to stretch out collective legs & walk the length of the terminal. By the time we’d made it all the way down shops had begun to open. Several members of our group took special interest in the Sanrio shop but I had my eyes set on a bakery that was beginning their prep as we initially walked by. The bakery in question is called Mazu Village, it’s half wheel pies & half boba stand. The boba & wheels pies are presented in a combo format so Evan & I opted for the one that would let us each have one of each of the two flavors; Salted Custard & Salted Custard with Peanut Butter, & also gave us each a Taro Boba Tea. The rest of the group ended up with something similar & while the two of us had decided that we favored just the custard pie over the one with peanut butter, as we found it too rich, the others disagreed.

After our saccharine breakfast we sat around making calls for a bit. Evan called his family & I called my sister, whose birthday it still was in the states. At this point we’d crossed the international date line & were a half a day ahead of everyone back home. We waited around a bit longer before I went to a booth to buy some Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup which Evan & I split. I actually think one of the best parts of the soup was the Sauced Cabbage that came with it & the hyper sweet Cold Assam Tea. We wandered around the airport for a bit after we finished our food, flitting in & out of the assorted duty free shops before we descended to our gate to wait to board.

In the Taoyuan International Airport all of the gates are situated a level below the main parts of the concourse so you have to ascend a flight of stairs/take an elevator up when you arrive & descend the stairs/elevator when you plan to depart. It’s nice because it keeps the waiting areas separate from the hustle & bustle of the main terminal. The EVA Air Gods saw fit to grace us with the Sanrio plane for our trip from Taipei to Manila. I was actually surprised to see how many of us in the group were excited about that, but the plane was cute! Even once we’d boarded the plane was full of little Sanrio easter eggs such as the Hello Kitty air freshener holder in the lavatories.

We departed Taipei at around 9:10 AM local time & began our two hours & thirty minute flight across the Luzon Strait to the Philippines & Manila.

Manila

Our flight landed in Manila at 11:45 & we were immediately ushered off the plane to immigration. Evan somehow made it through the passport check without filling out the online application for a visa, the rest of us weren’t so lucky. We were all handed a QR code to scan & fill out a digital form before we could get our stamp. Pretty standard procedure, just thought it was odd Evan got through without it, he must just have one of those faces.

He did fill out his visa application retroactively as we sat waiting for our baggage to come through. Figured it was better to have it done & entered in, especially if it ended up being needed upon our departure. Once we all had our luggage collected we headed out to the transfer area where we booked the transfer shuttle to the local departures terminal & exchange USD for Filipino Peso.

The man running the shuttle kiosk at the international terminal told us that it would be about a forty-five minute wait before we would have a transfer & it wasn’t guaranteed that we would all fit, in which case they would have us wait an additional 30-45 minutes for the next shuttle. I’m not really sure how or why the transfer times on the shuttles are so long, especially since the walk time between the two terminals was only about 5-10 minutes. We all opted for that.

The walk was a bit of a system shock. Most of us changed into lighter clothing before hand, but coming from LA & then Taipei where the weather was sitting in the mid to upper 50s, the shift into the 80s felt like much more drastic a change. By the end of our walk to the other terminal we were all sweating. Each of us reapplied deodorant & proceeded to the Philippine Airlines ticketing counter where we were met with one of the more common annoyances when it comes to checking baggage internationally across different carriers; entirely different baggage rules. We made it work & got everything figured out without the need for any extra dollars being exchanged.

By the time we made it through security we only had about an hour to an hour & a half left over in what was our four hour layover. We camped the bags & we went out exploring in waves to see what the airport terminal had to offer. Two party members came back with some rather tantalizing looking Boba Tea & Evan & me, & two others set out to find & claim our own.

Once the teas were acquired we returned to our gate & waited to board. Around 3 PM we all started lining up to board & before long we were off on our way to the island of Bohol.

Bohol

Bohol-Panglao International Airport is a bit on the smaller size, boasting around five or six gates in total. We arrived after our brief hour & a half flight just before 5 PM where we descended the escalator to the single baggage carousel, collected our belongings, & were greeted by the Magic Oceans transfer crew with water bottled & some bomb ass banana chips. We all climbed into the two vans they’d provided, with out luggage occupying a third vehicle, & off we went towards Anda.

The drive to the dive resort was a long one, not going to lie. We’re talking like two & a half to three hours long. After being in planes for a total of 22 hours off & on & laying over, I think all of us were ready to be done & there. The benefit of these far out locations & trips is that once you’re there, you’re there for a while! They also certainly drive different in the Philippines than we do here in the states. For starters there’s no speed limits, at least not in Bohol, unless designated by a work or school zone. They also don’t necessarily abide by the lanes. Evan & I got sat on the front bench of the van & I think we both regretted it as there were many times that each of us was slamming down our foot on the imaginary brake that we each wish we had. At the end of the day though the driver DID deliver us safely to Magic Oceans, even though I though we were going to hit dogs or those going out on the then Saturday evening who were walking along the side of the road.

I did manage to sleep the last hour & some change in the car, mostly because I had to pee & it seemed the only solution to avoiding that issue. We arrived in the darkness to Magic Ocean where we were all guided to the dining area for dinner, which was in full swing. Dinner at Magic Oceans is served family style with an exquisite chef preparing an appetizer course, a main course with around five dishes, & a dessert. I made it about halfway through the trip before I realized that I’d forgotten to write down the nightly menus so unfortunately they will be absent from this series despite their amazing quality in nature & the chef who prepared them’s lovely singing voice (we’ll get to that in later installments).

Once we were all situated with food, Evelyn, the resort manager gave us a quick briefing regarding our rooms & the plan for the morning in which we planned to start our diving. Once she had finished we were each escorted privately to our rooms where our luggage awaited us & promptly showered & went to bed so as to be ready & refreshed for the adventures that awaited us the following day!…but not before I went out the door of our room to the sandy overlook where I sat listening to the rush of the ocean for a few minutes.

…see, I mentioned it, once…& yes, that did happen, seriously. There were Dwarf Zebra Hermit Crabs in the sand fighting over a scrap of food. Evan even took a picture of me headed there! (See Below)

Path Outside Our Room At Magic Oceans
Photo Credit: Evan Michael

End Of Day Two

END OF PART ONE

Part Two

March 7, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog: Philip(pre)nes

March 7, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Typically when I do a travel blog I set it up with a pre-trip blog the week or two prior to set the scene for what’s to come, this is no exception. As I sit here in the International Terminal of Los Angeles International Airport I’m reminded of the path that I took to get here. If you hadn’t guessed by my title, I am headed to the Philippines, once again to dive. The root of which was instilled many years back.

When I was in Indonesia back in October of 2022, the group I was with had a few divers who had recently been to Magic Ocean Resort in Anda. It seemed that each time we dive something would be brought up & compared to their experience diving in Anda. There was nothing overly comparative, but instead was talking about the variation in experience, diving a site only a couple hundred miles to the north of Lembeh Strait. Naturally, the more the conversations continued, the more interested I was in experiencing it myself.

The hype beast aside, I have always wanted two specific experiences when it comes to diving. I’ve always wanted to dive with Manta Rays, of which my easiest option would be Kona, & I’ve always wanted to dive with Whale Sharks, the latter of which is abundant on the Philippine isles. Palau & the Maldives tend to be the top two spots associated with the gentle giants but the resort itself boasts & advertises the experience as a part of their experience. The two factors combined to really give me the “I wanna’s” & almost a year & a half later, here I sit in preparation to depart on this next great adventure.

Traveling the world has always been one of my deepest loves, as I’m sure many of you who follow my blogs here, my social feeds, or a combination of all of it, can attest. It is one of the things that ignites my wildest joy &, despite the often grueling amount of air time spent in economy seating, is always something I am more than happy to do if it means I get to experience a new corner of this world & the people who occupy it. I am beyond grateful for each trip I take & the mysteries that unfold along the way. I am also incredibly grateful that so many of you tune into these travel blogs any time I have the fortune of producing one for you all to read.

Words can’t properly express how ecstatically excited I am for this new adventure & it is my hope that you too share in the excitement for what is sure to be an incredible ride. I cannot wait to get to share the stories & photos that come out of this March 2024 excursion. Please give my Instagram & TikTok a follow to keep up to date with the day to day & get ahead of this for of publication!

See you all on the other side!

As always, much love to you all,

-C

March 2, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: What Am I Meant To Say?

March 2, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog

I have been known from time to time to talk philosophically. The manner in which I speak & the way that I relay information often dips in & out of analogy & allegory especially where the advice column of my mind is concerned. I’m sure that a lot of people find this annoying, but it is my hope that those I call friend, whom I love, enjoy the manner in which I convey information, particularly when advice is asked or my input is given. For those that do enjoy the machinations of my mind, they often ask me how I go about formulating these imaginings into, hopefully, relatable assertions that leave the other person with a deeper understanding of the point I am trying to make. So I guess here is my answer to that question.

It is first worth noting that I do not view myself as some forward or crazy derivative thinker. There are a multitude of people more readily equipped with IQs that are beyond my deepest fathoming who I think could bury me under a mountain of logic & sheer might of brain if given the chance. I am not a prophet, nor am I a counselor, a teacher, a therapist, or a guru. I am simply a man who has put a lot of effort into educating himself & changing his mind when it so often proves to be wrong. So what is it that I think draws people to pick my brain & solicit my advice?

I am a storyteller. That is, after all, why you’re here no? I use my words both in lyric form & in the form of these assorted blogs to tell stories of my life & flood these virtual pages with the muck that spews from my brain. Commonality is my bread & butter & finding the through-line that many of us posses is an easy task for me. This, no doubt, is also partially to do with my neurodivergent brain which is highly tuned to recognize patterns. We all have this ingrained ability to an extent, but those of us who fall somewhere on the spectrum of neurodiversity often have an easy go at analyzing that data & forming a hypothesis that we either internalize or share with those around us. We as humans are constantly taking in new information, it’s just that some of us are more adept at filtering through it or at keeping multiple plates spinning at the same time.

So how do I know what to say? What is it that helps me convey my point outside of the aforementioned parts of my being? Well, I often tailor my response to the person whom I am speaking to. I know we all do that to a degree, & having written that out on here it just sounds like a “yeah, no duh” bit of advice, but it extends further than that. Remember in the last paragraph when I talked about how neurodivergent people are good at pattern recognition & application? You remember that? Just a few short sentences ago? Well, what if I told you that it goes farther than that. That a lot of times we can actively predict the way a conversation will go simply based on past experience & tend to drive conversations using said knowledge. Not going to lie, it sounds a bit manipulative, but think of it more in line of walking into a really, really nice hotel where they’ve called ahead to ask your preferences on music, temperature, scent, lighting, etc. etc. Truly I’ve never been in a hotel that does that, but I imagine it’s a thing. I tailor the experience to the person to help them see the point I am trying to get across.

The other thing that a lot of people seem to miss in all of this is the point of the interaction being a conversation. What does a conversation require to be more than just a lecture? More than one person speaking AS WELL AS listening to the others involved. You have to listen to what is being said, take in that information, & reconfigure your approach or even entirely reevaluate it. The saying “the customer is always right in matters of taste” applies to these scenarios as well. Just because you feel a certain way doesn’t mean the other person does as well. Each of us has our own lived experiences & our feelings are not invalid simply because they don’t align with someone else’s. You have to be willing to listen, adapt, & offer educated & thoughtful rebuttals based on what your understanding of what the other person is going through. Have a little empathy, imagine yourself in their shoes, & for the love of God, listen.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend/week/whenever you find yourself reading this.

As always,

Much love to you all,

-C

February 18, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog: Bite The Bullet

February 18, 2024

Charlie Rogers

I often have a rather hard time speaking my mind or sawing when things hurt my feelings/irk me in a certain way. I’m sure anyone who has been on the receiving end of a conversation with me that starts with “…sooooo…” would probably disagree with that, especially my parents, with whom I have an extra hard time being forthright with, even into my 30s. I allow a moment, or an idea, or a feeling to fester & fester, keeping &/or waking me up at night, & permeating my brain until it all but explodes out of me. This past month, more specifically this past week, I had one of these such moments. Please bear with me as I take you on this journey, there will be a point I swear, it just needs context to be illustrated properly.

For a lot of us it’s difficult to be confrontational with our parents. It can be hard to feel like you’re disappointing them in some way or like you’re not grateful to have them & any assistance in your life that they’re willing to give, but emotional needs are still needs that needs be met.

I’m going to be honest & frank, as I often am on this page, but when I came out to my parents as bi it was far from smooth sailing, that’s not to say I’m not incredibly proud & grateful for all of the work they’ve put in at becoming more open minded, accepting humans. It’s truly a night & day difference, but it was rough there for a year or so. During that time period a lot of what was happening was what goes on in the vast majority of middle American conservative households; the expectation of business as usual or sweeping of certain issues, feelings, & problems under the rug. This is when I wrote a song called “Consequences Of My Honest” because, at the time, I felt there had been consequences of my honesty with them.

Consequences was born as one of those songs that contains a chunk of my heart, it is an open reflection of the deep pain & hurt that I felt at the time & therefore is an incredibly honest & vulnerable piece of music that I have sat on for many years. It is one of the songs that I am most proud of & a song that I consistently played out or included in pitch junkets because I thought it showcased my heart as an artist very well. It was a song I desperately wanted to put out & share with the world outside of the confines of the small rooms where it was played, but one that I felt was a betrayal to my parents to even consider recording & releasing. However, the more I played it out, the more people related to it & fell in love with it, especially in queer spaces where who we are often gets us alienated by our families or leaves us feeling like we have to fit into a mold to even be a part of them any more.

After years & years of this song floating around, haunting me, I finally sent it in a pack of songs to Jess Grommet as an option for songs to have him produce. Jess, who has played with me for years, loved it & immediately wanted to work on it, which then left me to the decision of being honest about its existence, or blind siding my family with its release. Naturally I chose the former.

Jess & I met prior to my trip out to LA for Grammy’s week two or so weeks ago. Which meant every single call with my parents following that meeting I had my heart in my throat, just waiting for the perfect timing to drop the news that I was going to do this song that I knew they weren’t going to like. Every night they’d call & every night I’d never mention it. Every night I’d have a slight panic attack or wake up stressed out in the middle of the night spiraling. Another call, another day, still no mention, til finally it came to this week, the night before I was set to go into the studio & start recording.

My parents were on a trip in San Diego & my dad had called me following their trip to the zoo. My mom was out in the Airbnb hot tub & he was filling me in on the events of the day & I just kept finding things to talk about to keep him on the line except for what I needed to say. Finally, with elevated heart rate & stammering words, I started my “…sooooo…” conversation. My dad, to his credit, sat & listened. I explained how important the song has proven to a lot of people & how often I get asked by those in the industry & my peers to cut it & said that it was something I felt deeply I needed to do. I explained that I have a really hard time creating without the constant feeling of “how will my parents feel about this?!” This blog included, & that I desperately needed to break away from that, because it’s incredibly limiting. It’s nothing they’ve ever expected of me or voiced that everything I create has to align with their tastes or their view of life, I just isolated myself in those self created walls. I offered to send them the demo or the lyrics so they could hear it, which he told me there was no need for, & at the end of my raving & ranting he simply said “sounds to me like you need to cut it.” Which I simply said “okay” to.

I spent months, nay, years, stressing about how I was going to tell them about this song. Years of my life anxious about it & in the end it came down to a five minute conversation with someone who responded with what I took as understanding.

I don’t think I was asking permission or anything like that, I just felt I owed them the explanation upfront. Do I think it’s going to change how they feel about the song after it’s out or they’ve heard it? No. Do I think it’s something they’ll enjoy hearing? No. But was it written with malicious intent or hatred? No. It is & always has been an expression of my grief that has been worked through, thanks to their willingness to learn & grow as parents.

My point in all of this is, as the title says, bite the bullet. Say the things you need to say that allow you your peace & that allow healing to begin because all you are doing is causing stagnation & potentially building resentment. I understand that timing can often be everything as well & that sometimes people need the distance & space to hear certain things when they’re ready or to be open to engaging in that type of conversation, but I sat on that anxiety over something as simple as a three minute song for years & years.

I know those conversations are hard, I know they may at times make things worse before they get better, but leaving things unspoken does nothing but fester & rot relationships & builds walls where there could be understanding & commonality instead. Again, totally get that every situation is different, but I want to challenge you to have those hard conversations, to bite the bullet, rip off the bandaid, & allow healing to begin.

As always,

Much love to you all,

-C

February 9, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog: Watering Dead Plants

February 9, 2024

Charlie Rogers

As hard as it is, & as discouraging as it can be, sometimes you have to come face to face with the realization that you’ve been watering dead plants. While, yes, I could mean this literally, if you haven’t heard the expression before I’d be more than happy to fill you in. The term ‘watering dead plants’ or ‘watering dead flowers’ stems (lol) from the idea that you are pouring a resource of yours (represented by the water), be it your time, energy, a combination of both, other resources tangible or otherwise, into an endeavor that, despite your best efforts & intentions, will not yield you the result you desire. Which in terms of the analogy is represented by the growth of plants or I guess the lack there of.

The saying can be applied to a myriad of situations; a dead end job, a relationship that’s one sided, a project that seems never ending & keeps requiring you to dig in farther & farther, the possibilities are endless. The problem comes when trying to recognize when you have in fact been ‘watering dead plants.”

Often times the process of recognition here requires a deep level of introspection. It requires you to look at a situation objectively & to be entirely honest & open about yourself about what you’re hoping to achieve in the hopeless situation. Usually when you come to the conclusion that you’ve been wasting your efforts on something those around you will be the first to reinforce that feeling. Typically you’ll get a “no duh” or a “that’s what I’ve been trying to say” or “finally, you see it” type of response to telling someone close to you about your revelation.

I’ve been watering dead plants for a few years now. There’s a relationship that I’ve really, desperately wanted to work out, but I think I’ve decided that it’s not worth my time. It’s almost entirely one sided & when I look at the relationship & wonder ‘would they do the same for me as I have for them? Would they put in the same effort as I have for them?” the answer it an undeniable ‘no.”

Does that suck? Absolutely. Because despite my best efforts & the energy & time I feel I’ve overly invested, I still enjoy the time that I spend with this person, or at least I think I do. You see I think that I’ve realized that I’ve been a convenient friend to them. I’ve offered up my companionship & my time because I wanted to be their friend, but I think in reality I was just something convenient for them. Someone to call when everyone else is busy or when they need something & that does a major disservice to me & my value as a human being.

Much like I mentioned above, I’ve been somewhat aware of this happening, but I’ve continued in the hope that it wasn’t the case. I guess Maya Angelou was right in saying “When people show you who they are, believe them.” It can just be so hard to do when you want something to work out so badly. Like I previously stated, my friends all told me this was happening, they told me I was being taken advantage of or not valued, & I ignored it, despite what they & my intuition told me. Because it sucks & I so entirely wanted them all to be wrong, but I don’t think they are.

So what are your options going forward once you’ve recognized the pattern? How do you/I break the wheel? You reclaim your power. Whatever that looks like to you, you reclaim your power. For me, in this specific situation, I think reclaiming my power looks like limiting engagement. I don’t think I want to cut this person out of my life entirely, but I also know that I don’t want to pour more effort than I am going to receive in return, which will be hard for me as someone who naturally wants to help those I call ‘friend.’ I think I’ll still see this person from time to time but I don’t plan to over extend myself, I don’t intend to have expectation or any hopes for anything deeper than what will essentially be a surface level relationship going forward. I can’t continue hoping to matter to someone who I feel I don’t matter to.

I bring all of this up as a way of bridging my gap, to help those of you reading who have been filling the same proverbial watering can over & over again just to empty it out on something that will never sprout & bloom. Sometimes the best thing you can do is throw out the plant & find a different one to fill its pot. I know it’s easier said than done & I know it often takes years of self reflection to recognize the decay & the rot, but once you do, I also want you to recognize the lesson & trust that the time & energy spent were not in vain. There is a lesson to be learned & a stronger, more streamlined & resilient person waiting on the other side.

As stated, this is not a fun thing to realize or go through, but I want you to have strength & give yourself the patience & understanding that I’m sure you’d be willing to give to somebody else.

What are the areas in your life where you’ve been watering dead plants? How can you shift out of the cycle of doing so? How can you grow from this & evolve?

As always, much love to you all,

-C

January 26, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Story

Story: Throw Some Perm On Your Attitude

January 26, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Story

Prior to around 24 hours ago, I hadn’t had a haircut since October. While three months isn’t the longest stretch of time to go without a trimming of the hairs, my hair tends to grow in rather quickly & rather full so I was rocking a mess AF mop. I had an idea, while my hair was at length, to do something new with it. I’m always one who is up for a “hair adventure” & my brain came up with the bright idea that I should attempt a perm. My hair naturally is rather stick straight with only the slightest, tiniest, incremental bit of natural wave, that pops its little head out when salt is introduced into my follicle formula, but I was after a more permanent solution for my hair.

A bit of trivia that I learned while on this quest, but the term “perm” is actually short for “permanent hairstyle.” Maybe I’ve just been living under a rock & should have known that, but whether or not you were in the know regarding that information before, it’s out there on this site now for all of us to share in the common knowing of the thing.

I started by posting on my social to see if anyone I know or who knows me knew of anyone in the Nashville area who still offers perms, they’ve fallen a bit out of vogue, I feel, so I wasn’t sure. I was given a few names from friends & I reached out to each of them but ended up only finding dead ends. (Tried to refrain from making a hair joke there.) My next step was to reach out to local salons & see who could help me with my request. I reached out to a few local salons in the area that I’d either been to in the past or had people around me mention. They each told me that they didn’t do them until I got to Bea Rose Salon.

Bea is where I typically get my haircut on the reg from a guy named Joe Linkin. Joe is a veteran in the men’s haircut & styling space & always gives a trustworthy & thorough haircut. I didn’t reach out to Joe first simply because I knew HE didn’t perm & I wasn’t sure the studio he works out of now does either. I decided to reach out to the salon just to see.

When I got in contact with them they initially told me the same story I was hearing around town, that no one really does them any more, but they offered to check in with some of their stylists to see. Not more than thirty minutes later they were calling me back to tell me that while one of their stylists, Andi, hadn’t done one in a while, he was willing to give it a go & attempt the perm, however, he first wanted to meet with me to do a consultation. We set up the consultation for that same day & I came in to see what we could do with my hair!

Andi Sylvester & I met in the evening about two weeks ago now. He took me over to his station in the salon, sat me down, & began to examine the untamed mass atop my head. He & I came to the consensus that, while in order to perm the whole of my head I’d need to grow it out for a month or two, we would do the top & ditch the sides so that I had something manageable to deal with during Grammy’s week which was approaching. Additionally, he didn’t want to ‘poach’ me from Joe, so we met with Joe to go over the plan to cut my hair prior to the perming, as well as following up the perm with a trimming. We decided to block out three hours on the salon schedule to make the whole thing work. Initially this whole saga was planned for last week. The weather, the pile of snow that we got in Nashville, & the week worth of below freezing temperatures said otherwise, so we got bumped til yesterday.

I arrived at Bea Rose just short of noon. Andi, Joe, & I sat together at Joe’s station & further established the plan. I pulled a few pictures of permed styles that I liked & we decided to go almost the undercut route; longer on the top with very tight faded sides. Joe got to cutting & in under an hour I was partially styled, the rough was in place. With the roughage gone, it was Andi’s turn.

We first clarified my hair, stripping it of any chemicals, products, or oils that would stop the solution from taking to my hair. Next Andi got to rolling. It took him around an hour fifteen to an hour & a half to get the top of my hair in rollers. The method he used would take a strand, press it between to sheets of some sort of hair paper, then roll. He told me that the paper helps to insure that the ends of the hair also end up curled so there’s not some weird disconnect. With my hair all rolled up it then came time for the solution.

The way a perm works, at least from my understanding, is that it breaks down the bonds of the hair. After around twenty minutes of those bonds being eroded, you rinse the solution & add a neutralized that helps to resolidify them in their new position, which when your hair is rolled up, ends up being in the form of curls. Andi decided to pull my rollers prior to using the neutralizer just so the curls wouldn’t be quite so tight. It worked wonders!

I’m going to be honest, when I got back to the chair I was a little startled. It’s a rather weird feeling to go away from an area with one thing that you’ve had your entire life & come back forty minutes later with something completely different. Additionally the curls were a lot at the beginning, they also weren’t styled. It wasn’t processing in my brain that this was as tight as the curls were going to be & that over the next 48 hours into the weeks that followed, the curls would loosen up & settle somewhere between a curl & a wave.

I think that Joe caught the slight look of panic on my face & quickly ushered me over to his chair to trim it up. He explained to me as he was reshaping the new form of madness the different ways in which I could style it, additionally he talked me through ways to dry it that would allow the curls to loosen a bit & give more of the wave I was initially looking for. Styled & dried we met back up with Andi who took a few pictures & video of his masterful work & out the door I went.

It’s still a tad jarring. Every time I look in the mirror or touch my hair I have to be like “oh yeah, it’s curly now.” I would assume it’s a similar feeling to getting a new tattoo & forgetting about it until a mirror or your eyes remind you of it. The shock of it aside, I think I really like it & I’ve gotten a ton of very positive feedback thus far from those of you who have seen it! The team at Bea Rose Salon did an incredible job & we all got to go on a little bit of an adventure where we didn’t entirely know where we were going to land, which I think we all need a little more of in our lives.

Key take aways here. One; don't be afraid to change up your look. I know that can be intimidating but at the end of the day it’s just hair, it’s just make-up, it’s just clothes, they can all be changed. Two; the perm solutions smells a little like cat pee. It does, but with almost a fragrance aspect to it too. If you want to know what a similar smell would be seek out Mixed Emotions by Byredo. Three; be playful. At the end of the day a lot of the things that we obsess over or put a lot of stock into are just frivolities, have fun. Life doesn’t have to be serious all the time.

Here’s wishing you a phenomenal weekend &/or week!

As always, much love,

-C

January 19, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: I Guess I Need To Learn To Shut My Damn Mouth

January 19, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog

I am someone who is often outwardly opposed to the cold. I have stated many times in person & probably on this blog as well that I would be fine going the remainder of my life without seeing another “winter.” Sometimes that sentiment also takes the shape of “going the rest of my life without seeing snow” but it feels like a similar concept either way. I live in the upper end of the American South, & while winters are slightly less harsh here than they were growing up in Kansas where there is nothing to block the wind sweeping from The Rockies across the plains, we still get our share of winter weather, especially with the recent surge of Arctic blasts that climate change has seen fit to give us annually. Part of the one-sided contract that I have with mother nature is that “if it’s going to be cold, there might as well be snow.” Well, I guess this week I got my wish & I fear I may have second feelings about the contract I, undoubtable, am responsible for securing us all in.

It snowed eight inches here in Nashville this week, an amount that I have not seen annually since I moved to Nashville in 2010. In fact, upon a minor bit of googling, I have discovered the annual average snowfall for Nashville typically sits around 4.7 inches, so we basically doubled that in one sitting.

Now, since Nashville typically is a snowless place, we lack the infrastructure required for maintaining our roads & clearing them effectively during our winter storms. Add to that the fact that my HOA, a mindless bureaucracy that oversees the neighborhood I live is, has seen fit to not contract a plow company simply because there is typically not a need for it, & you get me being mostly sequester to my home on the outskirts of Nashville for the last week. I am, for all intents & purposes, sick of the snow.

Was it fun & cheeky at the beginning? Yeah, sure. Did I enjoy a day or two of making soups & trying to make my furnace get my house above 65º? Sure. But I am over it & I feel like that is the sentiment for most of the people on my social feeds dealing with the same cabin fever from the storm, even those that I know live in walkable parts of town. I am humbling regretting the statement “well if it’s going to be cold, it might as well snow.”

So what’s my solution? What’s my ideal outcome? Well my ideal outcome is that all the snow melts today & the temperature returns to an area at the very least above the freezing line. What is the point of this blog? I guess in some way it’s me apologizing to you all if this is something that I, & I alone, manifested. I was unaware my skills of conjuring were so powerful. I shall do my best to be better next time & understand the consequences for the simple words I say out loud.

If you too are stuck in this frozen hellscape, wishing desperately for a beach & 80º weather, take solace in the fact that you are not alone in that desire. In the interim make all of the soups, take all of the baths or hot showers, pull out all the blankets, embrace the hibernation that we as a species are supposed to participate in, but somehow feel we are above even though every other bit of nature observes it.

Stay warm in there!

As always, much love,

-C

January 13, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: Insomniac, Revisited

January 13, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog

I don’t know if I’ve ever publicly stated this, much less done so in a full on blog format, but the release of my song “Insomniac” was a traumatic one for me. If you were around at the time & a follower of mine then you would possibly remember that the song, upon its original release, had to be pulled, remastered, & redistributed. All of this was to do with background drama & poor choices that were made against my better judgment & with promises that the decisions being made would pan out & be for the best. Once again, my intuition was right on that, but that’s not what I’m here to write about today.

Last night, while working on something for my socials, I stumbled upon the series of videos that Evan & I created to promote the release of “Insomniac.” These videos stemmed from an idea that I had which I referred to as “things you do when you can’t sleep.” They featured a single shot of someone one would do when they can’t sleep & then about halfway through the 10-20 second video, the intro to the song would cut in, it would pull up a title card & give the date of release as well as a call to pre-save. I remember that we started with a much larger list of activities but ended up cutting it down to nine for the promotion; exercise, watching TV, taking a bath, playing video games, eating, texting, taking a shower, drinking, & surfing the internet. We shot these little blurb videos over the course of several evenings & filled them to the brim with little easter eggs as well, mostly as call backs or little features of the things that I enjoy. For example, the one where I was surfing the web features me going to my website, this website. It also has a “Country Music Allies” pin in the bottom right of the frame, a group that I partnered with for the release of the song. Additionally, I’m snacking on “Smart Sweets” a brand I was all over at the time & there’s an Assassin’s Creed lanyard dangling by the computer, a gaming franchise I enjoy. We put so much thought & curation into these little promotional videos that I don’t feel like people even gave that much of a passing glance to.

What strikes me as odd about “Insomniac” is that for a lot of you it still remains one of your Top 3 songs of mine, despite the fact that it is one of my lowest streaming. Background meddling & a botched release have a lot to do with that. It’s frequently one of the songs I get asked to play in the live setting most often but for the longest time it was the song that I wanted the least to do with, simply because of how grueling a process it was to get it out & how it essentially became dead in the water upon release. Nothing went right with its launch, all the way down to the album artwork file being corrupted upon hours of completion & immediately requiring a do over. I guess that was foreshadowing.

But the more time passes, the more the content from the “Insomniac” era resurfaces, the more it saddens me all over again that this song that Jared Scott, Evan, & I had so much writing, & Joshua Gleave & I had so much producing, ended up as essentially a lost cause simply because of incompetence by those who I was prodded into trusting for its release. Even when we went back in & tried to salvage the song & re-release it, everything got lumped back together & was immediately null & void again. Unfortunately, I think that this was one of the last releases that I went “all out” on with the promotion & the efforts behind it because the project that I worked so hard on & had so much fair in essentially ended up amounting to nothing. I may as well have just cold dropped the song. I guess that comes with the territory of trying to be an artist though.

There are still embers of hope somewhere inside of me that “Insomniac” will have its day. I’m not sure if or when that will be, but I still hold on to its vindication somewhere in my heart.

I understand that art is meant to be, simply, without expectation, but it’s really hard to watch the things you spent countless hours getting off the ground immediately crash & burn with no immediate chance of redemption or salvation. Countless hours, countless dollars, essentially amounting to nothing, it cuts deep.

For those of you out there who tried tirelessly to salvage this song for me upon its release, I am beyond grateful. For those of you who still stream it, who still have love for this song, I hope to be one of you some day soon, it’s just still a very tender spot of my musical catalog for me.

I will continue to revisit this song which I have exiled from my psyche, in the hopes that someday I rediscover my love for it & I hope to someday be at a place where I feel comfortable & convinced to share the full story around the goings on of it all, but until then, I leave it to you all to give the love that it so desperately deserves.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

January 5, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Why I Love..., Travel, Blog

Why I Love...: The Pacific Northwest

January 5, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Why I Love..., Travel, Blog

Hello,

Happy New Year! I hope that your holidays were relaxing, rejuvenating, healthy, stress free, & uncomplicated. I also hope that you didn’t miss me on the two week hiatus that I took during the latter half of December; I was traveling, seeing family, & even played a show or two. I appreciate you all allowing me the space to do so & having the patience & understanding for those times when I need to dip away for a minute. I always worry subconsciously that no one is going to come back any time I skip a week or so with the blogs, but amazingly so many of you return with your love & your hunger for the stories that I tell, the feelings that I share, the experiences I so exuberantly pass along to you all, & time that it takes to interject my life into yours for however long you choose to read these pages.

I was struggling to find a topic for today’s blog at first, until Evan shared with me a TikTok highlighting a minute of different vignettes around the PNW. Then, as the deep pang of homesickness hit me, so too did the idea for this blog. However, with the singular idea also came a myriad & the idea further blossomed from one stand alone piece to the series I hope that this will become.

I am privileged to call myself well travelled. I have been to many corners of the world & fallen in love with many of the locations & people I have come to know along the way. As someone who travels, & travels often, I often feel a deep sense of “Saudade” (see attached blog) but I also get frequently asked about my favorite places & the question that always seems to follow the locations I disclose is “Why Do You Love It?” So, therein lies the blog idea. My friend Josh Brady, an excellent writer & author himself, reached out to me regarding the PNW post & said “Now you’re making me miss it too. Only lived in Washington for two years, but I miss it every day. Been dying to get back ever since I moved away.” To which I replied “There’s something about the way that the mist & the darkness creeps into your bones & embeds itself there that is inescapable." Which immediately flooded my mind with all of the other things about the region that I hold so dearly intertwined in my DNA. Welcome, dear reader, to the “Why I Love…” series. May it help you find connection around the world & fill your spirit with a sense of wanderlust, comfort, & adventure.

Why I Love…

The Pacific Northwest

There’s a spirit to the PNW that is unlike any other, it maintains the wild, untamed energy that most of the land west of the Rocky Mountains carry, but there’s something deep & brooding about it, like slowly drifting into a bottomless slumber. The freedom that emanates from the “ungentrified, uncolonized, untainted” wilderness allows an unbridled sense of personal expression & peace that is probably, in part, reasonable for the coined slogan “Keep Portland Weird.” And while the free spirited, often aloof nature of its city dwelling people may not be everyone’s cup of tea, their sense of personal freedom & being is undeniably admirable. The PNW is undeniably a place where they have yet to kill their mother. Those who live on the land work, almost to a fault, to preserve the natural beauty & antiquity of their home resulting in a world that feels almost alien to those of us who have become so accustomed to the strip malls & park lotted developments of our modern, American, late-capitalist system.

The PNW is a palette of sullen vetiver, slithering grey, lush alpine, contemplative blues, & rich earthy browns. The unique & ravenous landscape sits nettled perfectly between the Cascade Mountains & the Pacific Ocean feeding & nurturing a rift of ultra-fertile volcanic soil that gives life to everything that plants roots in its ancient fields. Trees grow tall & slender, fed by the creeping mists & the drizzly, spitting rain & waterfalls & life flow freely throughout.

The coast of The PNW is a unmastered darkness that feels simultaneously like the cold embrace of welcomed solitude & the longing for something simpler & altogether uncomplicated. The ocean does little to hide its fury & ferocity here but also isn’t afraid to share the most vulnerable & quiet aspects of itself. The life that teems beneath its hushed waves is cold & hardy & embeds small bits of its soul into the driftwood & tumbled cobbles that wash up on its shore.

I have yet to meet anyone who has made their way up to The PNW & not fallen in love with it. There is simply something for everyone & I think that it connects with something intrinsically primal within us all & makes us feel strangely at home. Despite its urban developments & modern amenities there is something about it that just makes you want to reconnect with nature. It makes your soul yearn for darker days propped up in a cabin by the sea or in the mountains with an exquisitely crafted cup of coffee, some fresh fruit & berries, a fire in the hearth, & a warm bowl of chowder in hand. It is the coziness of a home but lives more so in the space of yearned for loneliness in the best possible way.

I love The Pacific Northwest because it is somewhere that the Earth still sings, it is somewhere that forces you to understand where you fit in the great circle, & that beckons you home away from the noise & the tech to just be in the pure surroundings of Mother Earth. The PNW feels like a fresh breath of the cleanest air, it is at the same time timeless & archaic. I love the PNW because it is the land that birthed me & it is also the land that draws me into the deepest embrace whenever I have the privilege of returning.

-C

December 15, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: Trying To Bridge The Disconnect

December 15, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Lately my career, specifically where music is related, has taken a turn that I don’t think I expected. For those new here who read that first sentence & said to yourselves “wait, you do music?!” welcome to CharlieRogersMUSIC.com, nice to have you. The turn I seem to have made lives in the writing world, & no, not this writing world, the songwriting one.

I’ve been writing songs since I was sixteen, so almost half of my life at this point. I started in my bedroom writing about my life as a high schooler & while a lot of those first songs were definitely not the greatest, I am still proud that I took the step to start somewhere. From there I went to college where more often than not, I was writing for myself still. It wasn’t until around the time that I graduated from Belmont that I really started to write for other people. I had a hard time with that at first, removing myself from the art, from the narrative, but I soon found that that is where the empathy of the artist really comes in handy. Even though I may not have a specific lived experience, I can still, to some degree, project my own life experience into the writing & inject my own personality & life into crafting a song that is entirely to do with someone else’s point of view & story. Even though I had shifted away from being entirely self centered in my narrative, I was still writing a lot for &/or about myself, though the shift allowed me to create songs that were still about me but were filtered through the lens of an alternative character. See Jericho. This continued for a very long time until I kind of lost my way.

I would say around 2020 it became incredibly difficult for me to write. Probably in part due to the pandemic as well as a lot of personal change that I went through, my creative mind seemed to have departed my being almost entirely & when at long last it finally came back, it seemed to have left my introspection behind, wherever it had gone. However, what seems to have come back with my creativity was this new found ability to draw entirely personal stories & details out of those I find myself writing for & inject that into their songs.

I found myself entering rooms & leaving with songs that, to me, felt disingenuous. I knew a lot of my cowriters & their backgrounds & a lot of what they were projecting into the writing space was very counter to who they are as people or what their lived experience is. That’s not to say that we can't play characters as writers, but I feel like when writing for oneself, there needs to be a level of authenticity in the project or the audience sniffs it out near instantaneously. I started to get fed up with vague generalities & instead found myself craving the deep intimate details of each song being written. I wanted to know the story behind the prompt, how it made the writer or artist feel, what in their mind the specific imagery surrounding the song consisted of, any specific memories it brought up. It was no longer enough for me to play into an interesting rhyme or idea just for the hell of it, I wanted the music I was a part of creating to bear signatures of the soul of those who worked on it.

I’ve gotten very good at this practice, in fact, it’s one of the main reasons I get drawn into sessions these days, because I don’t settle for the generic in terms of the song’s personality signature. I am, however, finding myself incapable of extending this practice into my own writing for myself. I find myself utterly blank when I ask the same questions about a song & its premise that I drill my fellow writers & artists about during a write, I can’t seem to refocus the lens on myself & make something deeply personal. Maybe it stems from years of projecting an idea of who or what artist I wanted to be. Maybe it stems from years of censoring myself because I know if I said certain things in songs that it would offend or upset people close to me. Whatever it is, I can’t, at the moment, seem to shake loose of it.

So here in lies my struggle, the bridging of this disconnect that I have had the last couple of years. Having the ability to be almost overly analytical & receptive to the lives & ideas of those I collaborate with but lacking, almost entirely, the ability to be introspective & open with myself & the things that I want & need to say as a writer & artist.

Maybe there are conversations that need to be had that will allow me to feel like I can express my feelings, my history, my emotions openly in song without fear of retribution or backlash, maybe there’s inner work that needs to be done. Whatever the answer it, it has become abundantly clear to me that I am, at my current state, far more comfortable with being open & honest through the lens of other people than I am through my own works. Which as someone who strives to be an open & authentic artist, is incredibly discouraging for me. I think I’m writing some of the best works I’ve ever written, & am more proud of what I leave writing rooms with then I ever was before, but I would certainly like for the elevation to extend to myself & what it is that I want to work on.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

December 1, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: It's Giving...Gifts

December 1, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, much love,

-C

November 24, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: The Part Of Pet Ownership That No One Takes To Heart

November 24, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Hiya, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my US based folks or those who celebrate! If you’re going back through the log of my blogs & noticing that last week I was noticeably it’s due to two prominent reasons. The first is that my immediate family celebrated the holiday last Friday & thus I was busy cooking, socializing, & entertaining. The second reason is the topic of this week’s blog & while I don’t intend for it to be a downer, I’d be lying if I said the subject matter is a walk through the park. Nevertheless, it is something I feel drawn to speak on in this season of life as well as this season of the year since many people will soon be giving or receiving the gift of a furry, feathered, &/or scaled friend & should understand what exactly it is you or your loved one is signing up for.

Some of you may be aware of the ‘zoo’ that I have at my house; two golden retrievers (Harvey (12) & Peter (3)), two domestic shorthair cats (Jade (13) & Max (5)), & a 185 gallon saltwater fish tank. In addition to a jungle of over 150 house plants. Today we’re going to be focused on my eldest golden, Harvey, for the purpose of our narrative.

I grew up with animals, we always had big dogs when I was young, Newfoundlands to be exact. Over the years we also had cats, fish, frogs, & two terriers, but I always wanted a Golden Retriever. I remember a friend of mine’s parents from elementary school used to breed them & the movie Homeward Bound featured an old golden named Shadow, so I’m sure that’s where the obsession started. Despite the want, we never got goldens so after I moved out I rescued Harvey from an abusive mill at the age of six months old. He was incredibly hard to potty train as he’d spent his entire life up to that point on concrete & was afraid of grass. It didn’t help that my apartment at the time had concrete floors. Harvey, despite my early frustrations with him, is & has always been the perfect dog. He is loyal & loving to a fault. He is gentle & has the most kind heart of any being I have yet to come across. He was instantly my guy, the gold (pun intended) standard to which I shall now hold every dog for the rest of my life, but Harvey’s biggest fault & the one to which all great dogs falter, is that he grew old.

It’s hard, you know. It’s so damned hard to watch your best friend, your buddy, your companion, your most goodest of boys grey around the muzzle, then struggle to find their footing, then have a hard time getting up & lose interest in their toys or their favorite snacks. It’s so unrelentingly hard when those beautiful, loving brown eyes begin to cloud over & their breath begins to get labored & you start to have to think about the beginnings of the end of your time with this purest of hearts that you wish endlessly would beat on forever. & unfortunately this is the part of pet ownership that far too many find to be just way too difficult.

The shelters are full of animals whose previous owners truly didn’t understand. They didn’t know the commitment, emotionally, physically, spiritually, that it takes to raise & care for an animal & I feel sorry for them. Not just for the abandoned animals, of which the majority are over half their lifespan in age, but also for the people who will never know what it is to spend the course of their life being unconditionally loved by an animal.

About a week & a half ago Harvey fell. We were out on a walk & he just kind of crumpled. From there he spent the next couple of days incapable of getting up, when he’d try to stand or walk he’d fall or his legs would drag, he wasn’t eating, wasn’t taking treats & I truly began to think that this was it, this was going to be the last week that I had with this golden angel who poops in my yard & gets taken on daily walks around the block. Ev & I canceled our flights to Kansas City & loaded up both of the dogs in the the car to drive the 16 hours round trip not only so we could tend to Harvey, but also so my parents, who have so much love for my dear boy, could say goodbye to him. Over the next week he didn’t get that much better, though he did eat & regained a bit of his footing, & for the first time since I’d been bringing him back to Kansas he didn’t ascend the stairs with me to sleep at the foot of my bed.

Evan & I did our best to prepare for what we thought was surely the end; we told our friends who had special connections with Harvey to come say their goodbyes, we set Harvey’s paw print in a mold to have a token or remembrance & I don’t think there was a day in which I didn’t have to go off on my own for a while to break down & weep. It’s a truly impossible thing but you do it because you wouldn’t give back a single minute that you shared with that animal.

I’m sure I’m not too many blogs off from writing about my dearly departed dog but we’re not there yet. Harvey went from the shell of a dog he was last week back to somewhat of his older self. The vet explained to me that small scale strokes are common in large dogs of his age & there’s a potential that’s what happened, but I most fortunately get more time with my guy, time where he is still the happy, smiling dog I love with every cell of my heart & for that I am so infinitely grateful. But I know there will come a day, sooner rather than later, where I will have to say goodbye to my red, shaggy rock & I will face that with a broken heart & tear stained cheeks but I will be there, with him, til the end because how could I not be?

This past week & a half has been a rollercoaster & in all honesty, if I were to put into words how I’ve been feeling, the answer would be fragile. I wrote this blog with tears streaming my face, but I bare them with all of the pride in the world, because over the last twelve years I have had the utmost privilege of being loved, unconditionally, even on the days where I definitely didn’t deserve it, by the best dog I could have ever dreamed of & I have loved him back. But I know, at the end of it, when all is said & done & I am left to come home with nothing but a collar, I’ll know that for all of the love I gave him, he will always have loved me more & I would do it all again in a heartbeat knowing how it feels when it’s time to let a great dog go.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

November 10, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: A Social Media Fracture

November 10, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

After I smashed that “save & publish” button on last week’s blog & went about the internet to the various socials to post links so you all would know that it’s up & exists for you to dig your stunning little eyes into, I took a week long social media hiatus.

First off, let me acknowledge just how special, important, heroic, self sacrificing, & outright paramount I am for making that decision & going against the cultural & societal norms that inform our need to consume phone related snippets of content constantly. I know I am a monolith of courage & strength in these trying times. Secondly, if you don’t understand sarcasm, that was it, but I feel like that’s how we all behave when we “announce” our departure from our socials. We act as though we’re giving up a limb & as if our decision was the most refreshing, innovative thought to ever grace the idea space. It’s really not & I don’t think we should treat these breaks as novel things, they should be ingrained in us, because they are healthy. Anyway, here’s what I learned, what I felt in just the week I took off.

The rules were simple. No social media for a week with the singular exception of the daily allotted minute in which I could go into my messages & DMs to see if there was anything pressing that I needed to address. Outside of that there was to be no scrolling, no posting, no sharing, no engagement with the apps outside of answering the few things that needed to be answered & taken care of. The fast began at the time that I finished promoting my blog & ended this morning. Simple enough.

The first thing that I noticed was just how clear my mind felt. My thoughts didn't feel foggy or convoluted, in Scuba terms, my visibility went from a minimal amount of feet to 50-100 feet. Optimal dive conditions. I was able to process information, to make decisions, to form thoughts like I haven’t been able to do for years, probably since 2020 when we all got trapped inside & the only real thing to do was doom scroll into eternity until we all became massively addicted to the light boxes in our pockets. I felt more grounded & at home in my mind in a way that was refreshing.

The first & a half thing that I noticed, which coattails a little off of the previous point, was that I felt a lot more creative. I felt a lot more inspired, I was coming up with new melodies & songs randomly throughout my day instead of having to sit & try & force creativity to work in my favor. While I didn’t get the chance to full on sit & work on something creative during this time off, I am certain that it would have been an easy & enjoyable practice just based on the frequency & freedom in which ideas were flowing to me.

The second thing that I noticed was that I didn’t have the “doom scroll crave” that I normally do. By completely eliminating socials as an option my brain didn’t feel that pull to open up instagram, Tik Tok, or twitter & just scroll. This opened up a lot more time & space for me to do other things & in term made me a lot more productive & economical with my time. That being said, I found that not having the ability to scroll made time pass a lot slower, often to the point where I was often ready to be done with my day far before it was actually time to call it.

The third thing that I noticed was that my attention span was much improved. As someone with ADHD who is struggling to stay focused on this blog as I’m writing it because I know my phone is just a few feet away with the option of scrolling now that I can, I was actually wildly impressed with how much better I was able to maintain my attention span. I actually ended up getting pretty far along in a book that I’ve been reading for a while now & made my way through a few shows entirely focused on the plot & the goings on, without that constant tug to scroll.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, I have fallen back into the grips of social media having ended the fast this morning, especially Tik Tok. There's just something about it that feeds the dopamine meter in my brain in just the right way & I think I’ll need to put deeper limits on myself with it going forward. This morning I set my social media timer to one hour total for the day, of which I have already exceeded that because I often use social media in passing, splitting my attention while doing other things, in addition to using it as a messaging system.

All in all I think it’s incredibly healthy to step away from our socials from time to time. It allows us to reprioritize, to clear our minds, to put aside comparison, & rediscover our focus. I took my daily phone screen time from 6-7 hours down to 3-4 without it & I honestly thing I should have extended the break another half a week or more just to fully purge the need of it from my system. All things in moderation, right?

As always, much love to you all,

-C

November 3, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: Into The Unknown

November 3, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

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

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

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

Back to my point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, much love to you all,

Thank you for reading!

-C

October 21, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: If I'm Being Honest...

October 21, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

If I’m being honest these blogs have become a difficult thing to maintain. It’s not out of any desire to stop creating them or any lack of time but instead out of a lack of inspiration. I started this part of my site as a way to engage with my audience about the things that I love, specifically when it comes to food & travel. I made this my public journey because I didn’t feel that I could properly share my expertise & adventures over further points of social media & wanted a place that was distinctly my own to fill with the inner machinations of my ever curious mind. However lately this has felt a bit like a constant uphill battle.

I used to look forward to writing these entries every week, but back when I started I had content to share & insight to give out. Now I feel like I’m doing my best to come up with a topic each week that people will find interesting & engaging. I wanted to start this as an expanded travel & advise blog but along the way, be it due to ADHD or lack of funds to cover the travel aspect of this, we drifted away. None of this is to say that I don’t still enjoy crafting this blog each week in the broadest of terms, I think I’ve just lost what made me feel like this was something special & am having a really hard time rediscovering that & creating entries that I think you all will find helpful & inspiring.

If I’m being honest, I feel burnt out but don’t want to stop the content drip because I know the moment I do I won’t pick this back up again. That’s just how I seem to function. This would be thrown to the wayside like so many other content projects that I started & fizzled out on & I really don’t want that to happen with this as well.

I’m sure many of you who keep up with me on the regular have noticed that my posts have been coming in late, or not showing up at all & I promise you it’s not from a lack of trying, I’m simply feeling entirely fried. If I’m being honest I feel as though, each week, it’s a losing battle to try & come up with a topic for this site that I can sit with & write an entire blog about. I don’t want to be this way & for a while the “requested blogs” were really helping that because it took my mind off of the pressure of what I feel is a near constant failing to incept anything meaningful topic-wise into my mind. I have become jaded & disheartened by the things that used to bring me joy because, if I’m being honest, I feel entirely lost at the moment.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing or not doing & it feels like everyone else has their life figured out or at least pointed in the right direction, but me. I just want so badly for someone to tell me, in earnest, what I should be doing & guide me along that path, but that’s not how life works is it? We are all our own people, our own psyches, our path is our own & it is distinct to each of us. I just feel like I got derailed somewhere along the way & I have been fighting to get back on course ever since.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant or for it to become a cry for attention because, as always, I write these blogs to forge connection. I lay my thoughts & my heart out to you all, not for your sympathies, but in the hopes that you will see this & think “wow, that’s me” & realize that your situation is not as lonely as I’m sure it feels. I’m grateful that I have the ability & opportunity to make the art that I create & to have been so many of the amazing places that fill the archives of this page, please know I never take that or your patronage for granted, but I know sometimes we all get lost & want just someone to stand up & say “I understand your struggle & it is valid.”

I will continue doing my best to post here weekly &, of course, on time, thought I can’t make any promises. I am a human after all, prone to failure & struggle, & that’s okay. You’re not always going to agree with what I have to say or the messages that I try to share & that’s also entirely okay. This is my platform to speak freely & openly in the hopes of finding like minded people or starting constructive dialogues. If you would like your own echo chamber to do the same I’d be more than happy to share my Squarespace referral code with you.

Wow, this blog has really gone awol hasn’t it?! I hope wherever you are, who eve you are, that you’re having a great weekend or a great whatever based on when it is that you found this post.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

October 14, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Bloglet

Bloglet: It's Okay...

October 14, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Bloglet

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, much love to you all,

-C

October 6, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: Saudade

October 6, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, much love,

September 22, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: Has The Tree Begun To Fall?

September 22, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog

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

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

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

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

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

As always, much love to you all,

-C