Where the sidewalk ends…

I feel tonight like I am at the end of the sidewalk. And right now, I don’t have that child-like mind that wants to continue, that wants to move on. I currently feel like every turn I take there is a roadblock. Even worse, I’ve got this nagging feeling deep down inside that even if I overcome the roadblock, my goals and desires are still worthless. Yes. Even if I persevere, even if I fight with all my might, overcome all of the obstacles in my path, achieve my goals, I still will have achieved nothing.

I am aware that this feeling, this too is a roadblock. This too will go away. I’m aware of the need to persevere. But:

Just as I start planning what to do with my money, stupid things pop up. I have no extra money to save, which is keeping me from achieving several of my most important plans. Just as I decide to start working out and eating healthy, and exercising daily, I get sick. I’m forced to put aside that plan for a few days. I decided to start smoking the electronic cigarette instead of destroying my lungs and the rest of my body. But I can’t come up with the funds for that. Plus, I missed a day of work, which leaves my bank account even worse for the wear.

I have so many ideas in my head about magic, and writing the show, that I am stuck as to what to put in the show. Every time I begin writing it, I am immediately unsatisfied with it. The blog seems to be going nowhere. I question if I’m falling out of love with magic.

I am way behind writing both of my books, and I feel like it’s impossible to get ahead there, too.

Here is the good news. I love magic as much as it frustrates me sometimes (and I mean that both ways). I love writing, I love setting goals and achieving them. So am I going to give up? Am I going to get lazy and do nothing and hope this all goes away?

Nope. There’s a lot to do, but I’m up to the task. I’ll rest because I’m sick, but all the while I’ll be moving forward. A little at a time? So be it? Better than remaining stagnant. Or God forbid, moving backwards. It’s time to stop whining and stay til the job is done.

I will somehow figure out how to get a smokeless cigarette and start smoking that INSTEAD of cigarettes.

I will finish the magic book.

I will finish “Why Me?”

I’ll keep blogging

I’ll stay in shape.

I’ll get into a band.

I’ll keep working on Wng Chun.

I’ll keep writing and working towards my goals.

I can do no other!

Where the Sidewalk Ends (by Shel Silverstein)

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Some new goals.

Well, the convention was really cool. I discovered my biggest problem in magic, though.

My favorite magical effects are parlor effects, and I am never in that kind of performance situation. I don’t even know how to get into that kind of a performance situation. So I do magic on the stage, and at tables. But it’s not my favorite kind of magic. The stuff that I want to practice and work on will apparently be of no use to me, so I have to go with my second and third favorites, because I don’t want to waste my time practicing magic that I will never use.

All of this aside however, it is time to work on my new show. And it’s time to perfect my walk around routines. So I am giving myself one month from today to have the script for my new show ready, plus about an hours worth of entertaining walk-around magic ready to perform.

December 11th, hopefully I will be letting you know this is done!

Lectures, textbooks, and blogs, OH MY

Okay, it’s not really a textbook.  It’s just a book. I just had to get the “T” in there, for the L, T, B, oh my. Get it?

The first chapter of my book is being printed this week in the form of a small book, to be sold apart from the book in it’s entirety. It’s called “An Introduction to a Miracle.” The booklet is going to be released at the Unconventional Convention in Cumberland Falls, on November 6th. A lot of effort has been placed in to the creation of the effect itself and the booklet. It is amazing (he said humbly!)

I will be lecturing at said convention to promote the book and convey some performing art ideas to my magical brothers and sisters. This is a grand opportunity for me, once which I won’t take lightly.

I’ve also changed the name of my magic review blog. It’s now called Fix my Tricks, and it can be found at fixmytricks.com.

There’s a lot going on with me still, which is why I’ve had a lack of posting to this site. I’m apologetic to all my reader. (That’s not a mistake, it’s a joke.)

Just in case – Sounds like me!

Last night I realized that I could download hundreds of new brushes for my Photoshop alternative, The Gimp. So I spent a few hours downloading all the brushes that I liked, inserted them into the proper folder on my drive, opened up Gimp, waited nearly three minutes for the program to work through all the brushes, and played around a little bit.  Then I saw that you can also download gradients, filters, and more. WOW! I was amazed. Think of all the time it’s going to take me to download all of this stuff, and then never use it. Because here’s the dirty little secret – I don’t really know how to use the program.

To make matters worse, since I’m into the whole cloud computing thing, I uploaded all the brushes to adrive.com, just in case my computer ever crashed, I could get these back, just in case the website I found them on was defunct by the time I needed them again.

This sounds so like the Matthew Bennett that I am all too familiar with. Earlier this year I downloaded 14,000 style files for my Yamaha keyboard, so that I could write many songs in many styles. Took me hours upon hours to do that, and then more hours to organize them. I haven’t written a song yet. I just play through the styles. to see what I have. But I have them, just in case.

All of this shows me that I just like to have a lot of tools and no jobs. Partly, I feel as if they aren’t going to be available to me if I need them, so I need them all NOW, just in case. These two examples are only a tiny portion of my just in case collecting. But they are telling enough that they are the only examples I need.

I’ve been working on my book, and recently I decided to change the font, to match some of Brent Braun’s material. VT Corona, he tells me. So I found the font, downloaded it, and installed it. It looks amazing. I have this thing inside me, this little nagging desire, to start downloading fonts. BAD IDEA! – the intelligent part of my brains starts to warn me. (MISTAAAAAAKE!!! – The opera singer in Scrubs tells me.)

I have to get out of this just in case mindset. It’s based on fear of not having the tools available to me when I need them. And the truth is, I will never have all the tools I need if I can’t trust myself.

I need to get to a place where I understand that I AM ABLE to find what I need, when I need it. It’s going to be very freeing in the next ten minutes, when I delete 90% of the brushes I downloaded, and all of the styles that I downloaded. It’s going to be very freeing indeed. I’ll have to keep a couple of the cool ones, though, just in case.

The List continues to be updated!

I’ve been busy like you wouldn’t believe!

First, my new blog, Maximum Entertainment, is up and running. It’s been getting mixed reactions. Some people love it, and some people seem to hate it. I honestly fit into both groups. I love that I’m getting the reactions that I am getting. I love writing about magic. I love getting to know new people. I LOVE having contests!!! I hate having to be mean sometimes in order to get my point across. I kind of hate that I have committed myself to about an hour a day dealing with the blog. But those are good problems to have. I am getting a steady stream of visitors, and with the amount of publicizing I am doing, it’s only going to get bigger and bigger. SHAMELESS PLUG: If you know any magicians, give them this link.

My book Conversations with Brent Braun, is coming along well, though slower than I had first hoped. This may have a lot to do with starting a new blog in the middle of the book project. However, I finished the new version of Torched & Restored, wrote about Yellow Six, and the Chair Principle. There’s so much more work to do, but I am moving forward.

I have added a lot of pictures to my photography account. Which means (and this is important) that I took time to pursue a hobby that I greatly enjoy. A friend of mine, Alex Ayers, took me to a couple of shoots with him and taught me the basics. I am so happy that my digital camera has manual settings so that I can use all of the information that Alex taught me and get better pictures. This is exciting. I used to want to be a professional photographer. In fact, this is the first hobby in my life that I’m not trying to turn into a career. It seems like every time I get into something new, I always want that to be what I do for the rest of my life and it becomes nothing but a source of stress that I’m not doing it. I guess that’s how I became a writer, magician, musician, graphics artist, etc… Now, I can completely relax, take this photography thing nice and slow, and do it simply to enjoy it. I don’t have to (and I am telling MYSELF this) pour money into this hobby. I am good with the equipment I have. If I ever start to make money, then I can spend (STOP IT!!!) Whew. Where was I? I will try to post some of my favorite pictures here for you to see. I’m really happy with a few of them.

I am about halfway through a new short story that I’m going to post here, and it gave me some ideas about how I want to put my book together. I am going to write a book of stories with a common charachter, and the stories will lead somewhere. One story is going to build onto the next. This made my job just a little bit harder, but completely worth the time I’m putting into it.

I am working on magic a lot more. There was a time when I had put it away. I think I went almost a year without doing a magic trick for anyone. That makes me sad…but I can’t write about magic if I’m not doing it, and I can’t inspire people to be better if I’m not trying to do so myself. So for now, I’m working on getting my “chops” back up for some close-up miracles, and then I’ll start picking material for my new show. If I happen to post any magic videos, I’ll let you know here.

I also realize that I need to continue writing this blog as often as possible. Because it was here that I began my journey, and my writing here that kept me going through some difficult times.

Enough for this morning. It’s time to sleep. Don’t bother me ’til 1pm (EST)

More annoying signs at work…

Oh Yeah! I’ve been staring at this bad boy for about six months now. I can’t tell you how much it wears on me to have to see this every time I have to use the toilet (not pictured, but about 10 inches below the sign). What drives me crazy is that it could have been correct TWO DIFFERENT WAYS and yet (whoever made  the sign) missed both of them entirely. It could have been “FLUIDS MAKE” or “FLUID MAKES”. Either way would have been fine. A swing and a miss, #1.

More? Yes, more. All caps. Ridiculous. Strike #2

Even more? Oh dear God yes! The last “sentence” (I use that phrase loosely) doesn’t contain a verb. Strike #3, you’re out. Except it’s not out. Because the sign is still there, and I really can’t do anything about it. It makes me so mad looking at it that I…I have to pee!

L8R.

It’s not just my words that get to me!!!

This is an actual posted notice at my place of employment. “Spill procedure in case of spill” Like there is some other kind of thing that you would use a spill procedure for. I hate redundancy, except in the interest of humor. And this isn’t meant to be funny. It’s just…thoughtless. And it is bothersome.

You know what I mean.

I have been recording interviews lately so that I can write them up. As I listen to the audio for transcription, I notice things mainly about myself, but others as well. I say a lot of stupid, meaningless, repetitive things. A. Lot. And because the purpose of Life of the List is to make me a better person, and to in turn inspire others, I am an the midst of a large effort to eradicate the senseless, thoughtless things that I say. When I say thoughtless, I don’t mean hurtful, I just mean “without thought.” So many things that I say, I have programmed myself to say over the years.

You know, you know what I mean, I like it, I’m sorry (yes, “sorry” pops out of my mouth quite a bit for no reason, and it steals power from a real apology) Okay then, gotcha, for whatever reason, I mean, no problem, take it easy, take care…

The list goes on and on. I’m actually going to make the list tonight at work and post it here tomorrow, because I’m quite sure I haven’t even named half the irrelevant, boring timewasters that come out of my mouth every day.

What I am trying to say here is that I want my words to have meaning. I want them to have power. And the potency is reduced with every single “you know what I mean” that I throw into the conversation.

More on this tomorrow, with a mostly-comprehensive list of the idiocy.

I know what I did last summer…

So fall is finally here. And I look back to this spring, when I started Life of the List, and I think of all the things that I wanted to accomplish, all of the things that I wanted to do, and I realize that I have not really been working on the list. I haven’t been blogging and I certainly haven’t been communicating with people the way that I should be. I became an island.

However, I did accomplish some things…

I started getting serious about my magic book, and things are actually getting done…

I finally began my book of short stories, “Why Me” and I am coming up with ideas daily.

I saved someones life using the Heimlich maneuver. (I’m not so sure, but she insists that if I wasn’t there, she’d be dead…)

I decided that I wanted to move away from Elizabethtown, and I took steps to do so.

I got into the world of cloud computing, and now I have almost everything online. (which means when a computer crashes, i’ve lost almost nothing as far a data is concerned)

I deleted all of my stolen music, started purchasing albums and loading those onto my computer.

I tried playing with a church worship team, though I decided that it just wasn’t the one for me.

I auditioned for a magic competition, although I lost. Twice.

I was the best man at my brother’s wedding.

I started picking up magic again, after blowing it off for so long (how can I write a book on magic if I’m not doing magic?)

I have maintained my weight at about 200 lbs (though now it’s time to start losing it again and toning up)

I posted some music videos. (Almost time for a magic vid!)

I made a couple of new friends that I consider good friends now.

I’m going out more, doing more, not sitting in my room doing nothing.

All these are things that I intend to hold on to. Hopefully, by December 21st I will be telling you all of the wonderful things that I accomplished this autumn. But for now, I’m okay with the summer. It’s a good thing that there is so much left to accomplish. So much left.

Why am I here?

I’ve been thinking lately about deleting everything on Life of the List. Been thinking about discontinuing blogging. I wondered what I’m here for, what I’m actually accomplishing. I’m not making any money. Something inside me, though, just kept saying “NO!” And that little voice inside is, of course, correct. Because I am compelled to write.

I’ve said before that sometimes I get in the fog, get in the “funk” of life (not the musical kind of funk; more the mold/mildew/swampy kind of funk) and I become temporarily lost. My priorities don’t seem important to me. I don’t FEEL as I ought to FEEL. I just live my life in autopilot. But all the while, this blog is screaming in the back of my mind. This blog is a tool or helpmate that reminds me that there is something more, something greater that I have a purpose greater than living in autopilot, something greater than feeding the needs of the day.

Because life is good. Life is good. I don’t always feel that. I’m not saying that it’s not hard, but it is valuable. And if I really want to live the goal of inspiring people to be better, encouraging, spurring on, it’s going to have to begin somewhere inside me first. This being the case, the first thing on my list now is to blog every single day.  I need to speak my mind here . Get  the air clear, get my mind clear.

This is a life of the list, and I am living it now.