There comes a point where you have to cross a one-way bridge and there’s no looking back. Sometimes things are do or die. One of my favorite idioms is “Crossing the Rubicon”, which means making an irreversible decision. In 49BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon river ready to risk death and in that moment he spoke like a man possessed, “the die is cast”, and marched forward.
The actual work was messier and more practical than that. Practice. Filming. Learning the lighting was kind of a pain. I was playing around with the camera, the lens I have is good, but I think I might try a different focal length. That one was decent, but we can do better. Getting the audio right, the video right, figuring out a repeatable workflow, and finally pressing publish.
When everything came together, it felt like the A-Team. Years of effort had finally converged into a single moment. There was a tree that seemed like it was withering, dying, bent and crooked, but it kept growing. In the last couple years it started to produce fruit, and now it’s produced fruit of music.
The piece I chose to launch with was “Floods,” and I particularly chose that outro. For me, the song Floods instantly takes me to the great biblical flood, right? You hear the song itself and it’s very intense, and you just see and hear the guitar building up, the voice just shouting, and then the gain just all the way up to 11, and then it breaks. It breaks, and then you hear the sound of rain, and then you hear these beautiful, haunting arpeggios, and it’s just like, for me, when I hear that, it reminds me or it makes me think of the moment when the great biblical flood happened, and God promises his people, he’s like, never again, and they see the rainbow. The song has that element of chaos, but then it resolves itself beautifully in a promise. Dimebag Darrell is obviously one of the greatest guitar players ever, and his ending was so tragic, and it’s just something that you can pay homage to somebody who was such a great musician, so talented, so loved.
Presentation really mattered to me a lot because when I was younger, I uploaded a lot of music trying to get feedback online. One person, very kindly, told me: “You’re a great musician but you need to present your work better.”
I used to tell myself, well, the art is the art and what I play is what I play, if they like it good, if they don’t fine. But the world has expectations. You don’t want to become hyper-overproduced, clickbait, algorithmic, take away the soul of an individual, but you also don’t want to be sloppy. If you want your art to really connect with people, you have to make it in a way that’s accessible.
We’ve set the stage to be able to do much more than just music. I want to be an auteur. Any work I do, I want it to be like, “That’s him.” I want there to be a mark. My artistic identity.
YouTube underperformed—probably because I hadn’t uploaded in a couple months. But Instagram and TikTok were strong. That launch became my best social media performance ever. We got followers across platforms.
I’m fighting the urge to get another Ibanez RG. I’ve literally fallen in love with the Wizard necks. Everything about them—the neck profile, the feel, the way it’s sculpted—is perfect to me. The RG is the ideal Strat. I’m looking at an RG470AHM in Blue Moon Burst.
I’ve been reading about CPTSD, childhood trauma, how it manifests and how people respond differently. It’s helped me understand myself and have more patience for other people. With Father Ted’s anniversary coming up, I wake up realizing how temporary this is. It’s such a gift, such a blessing. His teachings about love, kindness, patience, humility, sacrifice have been a guiding light to me. I’ve been taking care of my health better, sleeping more, a month without alcohol now, and I feel a lot better. My skin’s clearing up.
And I’m so excited to finally get my braces off. Growing up, we didn’t have money for things like that. Now as an adult, I invested in myself. It’s been two years of hell, but I am ready for them to come off and smile again.
There’s something underrated about improving yourself at a later age. It’s easy to start calcifying around 25 or 30. But that doesn’t have to happen.
I’m not rushing things anymore. Not the music, not art, and not life. I’ve been having so much fun lately and I can’t wait to show you all what’s coming down the pipeline. I’m going to merge all of my creative skills and hopefully give something back to the world. Lots of improvements on the way. We’re gonna be able to do some really cool stuff and I’m excited for the future.
If somebody discovers th3os1s six months from now and looks back at September, I want them to know: this is the moment I took full sovereignty of my life, full control. That’s the moment I crossed the Rubicon.
the writing and the music come from the same place
listen — Psycho (Solo Improv) →