On Blogging..

I've always loved writing. Like, my favorite school memories were when the teacher'd be like, "Ok, get out your notebooks, we're gonna do some creative writing." It was funny because after those words were spoken, the classroom would erupt into two different sounds: Squeels of Excitement, and Groans of Disgust.

You can guess which sect I belonged to.

I especially liked when there were no particular guidelines (a thing that can freak kid out today: total freedom). Oh man, the roads my imagination would take me down! Fantastic tales of sharks, deserted islands with volcano monsters, surfing ninjas, and machine-gun weilding damsels that weren't so in distress (Yeah, I grew up on 80's R rated action movies).

And obviously, as the world changed and them-there intranets made it's almighty rise to glo-ry, everybody and their 3rd nipple took to the keyboard to flood the virgin pool with their mental excrement. Now here we is, and for the longest time, I felt like all those opinions out there, both mattering and not mattering simultaneously, was compressing my own views, or rather my VIEW of views, into an insignificant, squelched little creature. Of course, all these opinions and pontifications FILL us up with objections, agreements, etc, but also make us feel powerless to contribute.
"I'll be just one more turd in the online toilet"

Then it hit me (and pardon the CRUDEST analogy, but..) :

If everybody else is out there cloggin up the works, why should I sit here, about to burst? My thoughts and feelings are just as relevant, I can be the change I wanna see in the blahgosphere, blah blah, etc. but you catch my drift.

I'm a writer. Time to write.

So, I'm excited to finally have this opportunity, through the Judd Hall website, to stretch my legs and get my blahg on.
Some'll be short, most'll be lengthy, cuz I tend to ramble. There will be typos, not really because of me, but because I will type most of these on the run, from my stupid touch-screen phone that almost ALWAYS insists on throwin out an I when I need an O, and vice verse, etc. There will be profanity, there will be crude analogies and rather vulgar imagery, oddly coupled with sweet visions and heart warming revelations of idealism, often in the same sentence. I'll be usin them high-fallutin' words, then sometimes I'll be sayin it all plain-like. Sometimes i'll be angry, saddened by somethin I see in the world, sometimes i'll be all happy, full of wonder, amazement and gratefulness for the life around me. Sometimes I'll be downright cheesy, sometimes I'll be cooler'n Bob Dylan.
Point is, check your expectations at the door and keep your judgements in your little judgement-box. IF YOU ONLY WANT ONE TYPE OF JAMES, THEN YOU DON'T WANT ANY JAMES AT ALL. As bizarre, hokie and utterly confusing as this blog may seem from time to time, just know that it is but a petty reflection of the craziness that is me in the flesh, and that you should consider yourself luck you only have to READ my words and not deal with me invading the rest of your 5 senses.

Have I sold you? I hope not. Selling sucks.
Now, on with the blahgging!!!
(If you've made it this far, thank you)

BOROSTOCK!

When Big Kev and I started thinkin about forming this band, or what we imagined the band might sound like, jammin out for our fellow Blue Raiders, right away, the first bar that popped into my head was The Boro Bar and Grill.
Maybe because it was located right across from the the Murphy Center, MTSU's arena/concert hall, where superstar acts from Phish to Springsteen might play, or maybe that we'd spent so many nights there watching countless random college bands slug it out, coupled with occasional legends like Roland Gresham (rumored to have tutored Hendrix). Maybe it was the wings, maybe it was just the fact that there was something about the place that simply oozed "We were here first".
Whatever it was, The Boro was and always has been cemented in my mind as THE MTSU college bar, and an absolute rite of passage for a local band, which is weird 'cause they don't even have a sound system!
We'd been trying to get a show there since our inception, and found it surprisingly tough to get in, so you can imagine my excitement when we landed a slot on their annual BOROSTOCK™ festival (yeah I just found the trademark button, and I'm rockin it).
It's a fri-sun event, (P.A., check.) with probably like, 20/30 bands playin. We got a pretty sweet slot: Saturday, 9:00.
When I walked in, I was glad to see that little had changed. It looked good. Dark. Stoic. Timeless.

Yes!

The stage was set: (No pun intended)

See, as I stated earlier, when I think about Murfreesboro music, I think about playin in that bar. In my imagination, it's always goin down, in The Boro.
So we took the stage.

The lighting, the sounds of clinking glass, the smell of the stage, the burning hot stage lights, 8 inches from our faces,..

It was EXACTLY like I'd imagined it!
Awesome.

When we were finished, we got to meet a lot of super-cool people, like Amanda, who'd helped organize and execute the event. She had a real passion for the music. That's crucial.
I really enjoyed just walkin around, talkin to random people, sippin beers. If you're one of them folks I kicked it with, I wanna say thanks for the kind vibe and the good conversation. Yall know who you are.
We really appreciated you coming out and making my imagined mental picture actually HAPPEN, right down to numbers of butts in seats!
And of course, thanks to The Boro Bar and Grill. For the sights, the sounds, the history,
And the shit-ton of free beer.