Starting a life and getting into music
A Late bloomer but the timing seemed perfect.
Shannon eventually got a job a lot closer to home after working in Warm Springs. She got a job working for a large non-profit serving the county. We began planning for our wedding, and decided to have the ceremony nearly a year away during the end of next September. Plenty of time to save up and to plan for our relatives to come to Central Oregon. Also, the place we wanted to get married was almost a year out with reservations.
I started to seriously look for a better paying job. Saving up money and spending more time with Shannon was much more important to me than juggling a bunch of gig work. I also continued to write articles for national magazines, including Movie Maker Magazine and popular online publications.
The magazines actually really helped me land some nice interviews. I showcased them to one with a Chief Marketing Officer of a regional Telecom company. They were looking for a marketing coordinator who would write up newsletters for all of their branches around the region. I was the perfect fit and was hired on.
When September came around, Shannon and I celebrated a wonderful wedding. Our families came from all over, including Nebraska and Arizona. Things were really working out; I was down to one job and making good money. As newlyweds, we moved into a new condo in downtown Bend. I would ride my bike to work in my cubical. We had much more time to do fun things with each other, like attend the great line up of concerts and hang out with new friends.
That was about when the music bug bit me. My friend who spotted my interest in playing music decided to bring me to a band practice of one of his favorite bands, The Bond Brothers. It inspired the whole chain of events, where I’d eventually audition once again for another band, only to once again fail miserably.
Shannon was a little shocked by the transition from writing non-fiction as a passion to jumping into writing and performing music. I felt that the time was right for me to explore songwriting again. I thought that my past experiences would help me jump into the craft of writing and performing. I saw it as an outlet while I worked a normal life in the office.
Most musicians get their credibility from starting at a very young age. I quickly learned that being an artist who was starting to play music at the ripe age of thirty years old wouldn’t gather that much respect from people. I didn’t care, and felt it was just a hobby that would eventually blossom into a new passion and it was worth it.
Bird came to my rescue then, and asked me to come over to his studio where I had lived across the street from earlier. Thanks to his guidance, I was off to a good start of learning how to write, record and perform.
Shannon would probably disagree, but I like to think I inspired her to try new things also. She became friends with a few girls in a new local roller derby league. It wasn’t long before she was on the track, skating and pushing other ladies down. We spent our first year of marriage as a roller/rocker couple, working hard during the days to playing open mics and shows in smoky bars or attending Roller Derby bouts at night.
Life got in the way, in a good way though. We were working to get into a new home, and later found out that we were expecting our first-born, Benjamin.