Photogenic Failure

Hey.

I have grown so goddamn sick and tired of keeping this barbed wire coat of failure wrapped tight for more than two years now.

I'm not ok.  I need help out.  I don't know how that comes.  A mentor or booking a gig or taking one of my shows out of the closet and giving it life again, maybe.

Researching this essay, I wanted to start off with a quote.  A footprint from someone or something in poetry or literature which did more than your typical "turned my failure into cobblestones for success" pablum.  Somebody who really knelt down, took the punches, coughed the blood. Shivered in the silence. And was left there with nothing but their thoughts.  For ages.

Couldn't find that.  So I guess I'll write that.

The story starts November 2015.  King of the Hobos , the result of three year's workshopping, brainstorming, and obsession, was now a three week run in Brooklyn.  I formed a production company. Got a real grown up publicist.  Went over budget, but felt optimistic that I could turn a corner, make this work.

By November's end, it was a terrible, terrible bomb.  77 people attended in total those 11 shows.  I got hit hard with debt.  Nobody bought the music.  

I remembered the flat, cold in my father's eyes after his second bankruptcy, when his bike shops closed.  He was so damn proud that one Christmas he got a front-page spread in the local paper, having us deliver bikes to the even more disenfranchised (which until that day, I thought wasn't even possible)  And now, it was over.  He kept trying, one get-rich quick scheme after another, but he never swung with the full strength ever again.  Fear sat on his chest, held his throat.  Made a quiet man even more taciturn.

Same with me.  I couldn't bear to look people in the face after being such a failure as a producer, as a performer.  Starting refusing invitations to see folks.  I'd creep into social media less and less, each time in disbelief over those who still had the gumption and the spirit to hawk themselves so ardently -see my work - read my twitter - buy my stuff -  Didn't they understand?  I thought, tears coming to my face.   Didn't they know somehow in the root of their bones that we're so horribly broken and withered up and nobody wants what we're selling?

I couldn't make work anymore.  Every song attempt make me flash forward to the ramifications of production costs and audience accessibility  - is the subject matter going to be too goddamn weird?  And I'd stop before I'd even plunked out a draft.

I auditioned heavily in the vise of failure, but it felt so useless.  I'm sure I wore it on me like a bad cologne.  A blunt, weary focus.  Fifty auditions in 2017 alone and nothing - no callback, no work.

I am so, so sorry for being cold and distant to everyone.  I'm sorry for not being more open as a friend these past few years. I'm sorry for not seeing your shows, for not being as supportive and kind and welcoming as I should have been.   I'm sorry I haven't been able to talk about this oppressive weight.  It still makes me fall apart when I think about it.

I want to get better.  I want to be free from this failure.  I want to be able to make things again, just enjoy making them.   I hope making this public opens a door to that growth.

Love,

Jara