It must be real hard to be in a relationship with you….Or any musician.

Okay, so it’s like 2am EST and I just left LAX headed back to DC for two performances tonight and I’m tired. Although, I have followed my dream and encourage everyone else to follow his or hers, let me be clear: This is not easy.  This industry is so crazy right now, no, this world is in such a dynamic structural change that it feels like spiritual and philosophical civil war.  You have the old regime telling you about the hey day of the music and the new guys telling you that cd sales are a thing of the past.  You have agents telling you that you work too much for them to book you and others telling you that you need more radio airplay and sales to register on their radar. You have retail telling you to get a distributor and the distributor telling you that you have get retail.  It’s enough to make you, as my mom would say, laugh out loud to keep from crying.  But if you ask me, that’s just business.  Each of these people, though,  are just working at their current state of consciousness and trying to make a living….. And yes some of them are just buttholes (with a capital A) who are protecting positions of arrogant entitlement.  But the one statement that pisses me off more than any other is the following statement or its progeny:

“Wow your schedule is tough. It must be hard to be in a relationship with a musician!”

Are you kidding me! Musicians and artists, as a whole, are some of the most compassionate, romantic, loving people around.  We are used to compromise because we have had to compromise our hearts and dreams for most of our lives. What amazes me is the selfishness and lack of consideration for the artist in this statement.  Everyone always automatically assumes that artsits(male and females) are living a glamorous life every day.  Hey, I’m in Paris today, I’m in DC tomorrow, I’m in LA at the end of the week.  Hmmmmm.  I don’t hear many people say, “Hmmmm let me think. That was 7 hours to Paris with a 6 hour difference followed by an 8 hour flight back with a 6 hour difference-that got you to zero-followed by a 5 hour flight to LA that gave you back 3 extra hours only to lose them on the 4 hour Red Eye back to DC! Damn man do you need a hug?”  No one ever says, “Wow man! I know you have to miss being with the one(s you love! It must be really hard on you to wake up in a hotel after a night not drinking and have to take a second to realize what city  you are in.” I think the funniest was the morning I was doing my morning show on 105.9 and got up in a frenzy because it was 4:45 am and I had to be on the air at 5.  I jumped up, into the shower, and have no idea how I actually got into my clothing only to be told by my then girlfriend, “Baby what’s wrong? It’s Saturday!” As in that was my day off.  Dooooh!

People, we miss our friends and family member’s birthdays, engagements, sports activities, school activities, cookouts, family reunions, graduations, and the like.  We miss out on the things that matter most like, going to the store to get our sick loved ones Thera-flu, aspirin, Motrin, Vicks, and coffee.  We miss first steps, date night, deaths, births (and the activities that lead to births), behind the scenes at proms, and homecomings. We miss waking up on Saturday Morning and doing nothing and finishing the work day to go home and not to a gig. We miss all of this and mostly being able to look into our love ones eyes to let them know, in a moment of silence, that I’m/we’re doing this because we love you and we have your Friggin ASS back, Ride or Die, For REAL playa style! And know this too….It hurts! We love what we do but it hurts like hell to be absent from these things.  But there is no one (or not many people) who are flying “privately” above me in a G550 (that’s entourage style)  that didn’t make this sacrifice.  And when I do get that chance and have those folk whom I love, within my eyesight, there is no doubting my exact feelings.  I’m there’s 100% and even if the Droid goes off or I’m blazing off a text or two know that I’m there and 100% theirs and wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.

So the next time you tell a working man or woman with a demanding dream job how rough it may be to date them, think about this..We f#$%!!!g know it. So just shut up, look into their eyes and let them love you 100%. Now good nite!