So I find myself at 1:00am, wide awake. I have an idea of why, but tell me if you think I’m right. I call it “Mixing timezones/Living like a musician”. My past few months have looked like this:

May 8th-June 17th: Four weeks in Seattle, WA playing shows at Chopstix, then one week in Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, MI for some shows at Monaco Bay and another one for my booking agent’s wedding (which was uber fun!).

June 18th: Flight back to Seattle, WA aka a nice 4 hour nap

June 19th-July 17th: Four weeks of sailing the high seas on a cruise ship, working for Holland America Line as a piano player. No days off. Okay, I lied. I had two days off, but I spent them getting ridiculously drunk in Victoria, B.C., so consider those overtime-work days.

Working on the cruise ship

However the sleep schedule on the ship was crazy because I worked from 8pm-2am every night, which meant that I didn’t go to bed until 3-4am, but I had to be up by 9am otherwise I’d miss breakfast. Then another nap before exploring Alaska, but I had to be back on the ship for another quick nap from 5-6pm because I had to be out of the room so that I wouldn’t miss dinner. Then back to the room for a shower/shave before work, and then, of course, repeat.

Now that I’m off the ship, my sleep schedule is completely out of whack…

I realized while I was describing my past few months just now, that I’m the luckiest guy in the world! I love my job! I love my life! However, if I could make one itsy bitsy change, I’d like to have a normal sleep schedule like everybody else. But I can’t. It’s the burden of the rockstar lifestyle. But don’t you worry, all you night-sleepers. I will bare this burden for you, because I know that someone has to. You’re welcome. Sleep well.

Just yesterday, Todd and I started recording a new tune called “Groove with Me”.  We’re using a new way of writing that centers around a program called Sony ACID Pro 5.0, and it’s a lot of fun to work with.  They have tons of drum samples that are super easy to plug in, which is huge for us because we don’t have a drummer in the band and I’ve always liked building melodies/chord progressions around a beat.  That’s how MJ did it, and I think it worked out pretty well for him

Another tune we started to flush out before this one is called “Started it Up”, which is a song that came about because of our big move that’s coming up on August 8th.  We’re selling the house and all our worldly possessions, loading up the RV and hitting the road for a year to tour/promote our album “Audio Bacon”.  It’s a very exciting time for everyone in the house, including Madi (15) and Phae (9)who are going to be given a very rare opportunity to see a whole lot of our country at a young age. There are still lots of stresses that consume our thoughts like selling the house/cars, but the anticipation of being on the road with the world as our oyster is keeping our morale high and hopeful!  The chorus goes “Started it up now I’m going all the way”….and that’s what we’re doing