from my head to your screen

I Woke Up Older & Came Out Swinging.

I remember the exact feelings I had when the latest record from The Wonder Years came out. I definitely do. I remember giving the CD a good listen, then another, then another, and being more addicted to the album than any before in my life. I knew I loved the band but I could never figure it out, and then it hit me: the words, the message, the relation, the memories, everything.

I remember starting every morning in the shower screaming every word to Came Out Swinging and Woke Up Older. When I was in the car, I would reverse the order because it made more sense to me to think that I woke up older and came out swinging, it’s a weird thought, but given my mental state at the time, I would say it made perfect sense to me.

Every time I listened to “Woke Up Older” I replaced Jess, with another name, a name that had more meaning to me and allowed me to get even more into the song. By the time “Came Out Swinging” would kick in in the car, I was already yelling as loud as I could and hurting my ears with how loud the volume was.

I wanted so bad to relate to those songs in every way, and then I finally did. Losing a girlfriend, leaving a “real job,” traveling all over trying to make sense of the concept of “home,” the latter being something that is still very current in my life. I don’t know where home is and it’s causing me to constantly consider the idea of just leaving. Going far away, starting fresh, giving up everything I have here.

When memories don’t die, but get stronger, and chances become slim instead of greater, you have to be bold and you have to be a little crazy. You can either run a million miles away or think of some insane plan to fix everything that you’d run from, I’m still deciding which is best for me.

The only thing I know is that I’d rather wait a lifetime for PASSION before I settle for COMFORT.

I spent the winter writing songs about getting better, if I’m being honest, I’m getting there…

You met me at a very strange time in my life.

Hi, my name is Mike. I am 26 years old, and if half of what I am finding out lately is true, I might finally be growing up. This world is full of deception and distraction. These things always pull our focus off of what truly matters in life and try to put it on things that just waste our time. If this is something I can learn now, before I reach any level of real success, I could be saving my own life.

You hear rappers talking about money and drugs and all the alcohol they could want and all this flashy stuff. I guess they never grew up learning that all of that fades quicker than you can imagine. Sure money is a great thing, if it’s serving a greater purpose. It’s not wrong to have things, but these things can’t have you. It’s fine to have a girl, have money, have some expensive things, but the second all of those run your life, you are just a hollow man chasing more emptiness.

True comfort comes in the form of family, friends, God, achieving success, doing good for others, and leaving your positive impact. If you make all the money in the world and never use it for a purpose, you’ve wasted all your success. If you’ve been alive for 70 years but never made a difference, you never once lived.

I could go on for hours expressing everything going on in my mind, this is only about 1% of my thought process, I’d love to talk to any of you about everything I am going through and have been through.

I will tell you one thing, if I ever achieve the success I am chasing, I will make the biggest difference possible in the lives of as many people as possible. This wont be a wasted life.

LIFE CANT ALWAYS BE PERFECT, BUT IT STILL RULES

☑ Friends
☑ Job I Love
☑ Happiness
☐ Cute Girl To Spend All My Time With

2 Bands That Changed My Life In One Show

When I was 20 years old and attempting my third semester of college at UNT a band called Panic! At The Disco replied to a blog post from Pete Wentz and the rest is history. Most people think of Panic! as a fun, dancy band that puts out fun, dancy songs. While I was busy with my friends figuring out MySpace hacks, promoting concerts, and skipping class to try to take over the world, the words “Stop stalling make a name for yourself…” kept ringing in my head. Eventually it got to me enough that I decided I was going to quit school and go balls to the wall with my business and do just that, stop “wasting time” at college and focus 100% on making a name for myself. College would always be there if I needed to go back, right? I wrote one of my most memorable blogs the day I decided to leave college with the title “Stop Stalling Make A Name For Yourself.” To this day, I cannot hear that song without getting pumped on life.

Fast forward to 2010. I was 24 years old and met an amazing girl. Our story seemed like a fairytale for a lot of the time, but eventually things got extremely hard. During those hard times a band called “fun.” became part of the glue that was holding us together. A few of their songs just had the perfect words for the perfect situations. Unfortunately, there is no real happy ending here and I cannot tell you that the words to those songs are still true in our lives, but the impact that the band had on my life and my view of relationships was huge. Again… a fun (no pun intended) and dancy band with solid music that had such a deeper meaning to me. There’s a really good chance I wont be able to hear “Light A Roman Candle With Me” or “The Gambler” without getting sad or tearing up, but seeing them live is one of the things on my list of things I MUST do, so there is no way around it. I remember when my friend Taylor Thrash covered “The Gambler” and gave a private show one day, it meant more to me than he will ever know, as does the band fun.

We all have our stories and our memories, but these two bands have changed my life significantly and I am glad to be able to see both of them the same day, under the same rough, ironically (or sadly enough) even under the same roof as some of the people that were part of the importance of the meanings behind my love for both bands, but more than likely at a large distance away.

Either way, I look forward to this show more than ALMOST any show I’ve ever been too, sorry but BLINK 182 and the Austin show of THE WONDER YEARS won’t soon be topped :)

A NEW CHAPTER: A Promoter’s Life

In 2009, I came up with the idea for a “show” called A Promoter’s Life that never really took off for many reasons including me being full distracted with a lot of bullshit.

Now, two years later, I am preparing to launch this again.

The blog and Twitter are up and I think you’ll enjoy them.

I love Tumblr, but the majority of my posting will be through those so keep an eye on them.

http://apromoterslife.com

http://twitter.com/apromoterslife

10 Things I’ve Learned.

I have learned some key lessons that took a little bit of time to learn but will help me actually be able to have a fresh start and make the changes in my life that I want to make. I think it’s funny that people are calling me out as if changes happen over night and as if they know me well enough to see if anything has changed or not. Regardless… these are just some things I have learned.

1. It is far more important to have a small group of true, loyal, and caring friends than a large group of fake friends hanging around for all the wrong reasons. When the party stops and the damage is done, who’s there to help pick you up? Only your true friends.
2. If you truly love a person and want to plan a future together, you have to be completely understanding, sensitive, and observant of who they are and what they need. If they are above everyone else in your life and they are “it” for you, you can never walk away, you can never drift your eyes from theirs, and you can not by any means let someone come between the two of you.
3. Sometimes the only person that you need in your life is yourself. It’s okay to be selfish once in a while and isolate yourself from the world to fix yourself in a healthy way. It’s harder when you’re alone, but sometimes it’s exactly what you need. You don’t always need someone else to make you happy.
4. Rushing into a relationship with someone because they care about you a lot and it’s what they want is not always the healthiest way to step back in to dating. Everything takes time and allowing yourself to know everything you can about someone before getting as serious as you can is always a better route. There’s no guarantee it’s going to work with anyone, let alone someone who you can’t even answer what their favorites are and what their pet peeves are.
5. The best way to move forward with your life and stay positive on a daily basis is to do what makes YOU happy without concern or regard for what people are going to think of you. If one night you need to let loose and another you need to stay in, do it. If you need to be a workaholic to stay busy and keep your mind off of the negative, then turn all of that negative energy into productive positive energy.
6. The only reason anyone should ever make changes in their life is if they either feel they need to make them or understand why others are urging them to make them. Never change just because of how one person feels about something or what one person or a few people are going to think or say. Being yourself, being true to yourself, and staying YOU is what makes you different from the rest of the world.
7. No drug, no medicine, no pill, no drink, no person, and no monetary gain can make you feel better than the perfect song playing at the perfect moment can. Being able to relate to someone else’s pain through lyrics and music is the #1 healing remedy for me.
8. Falling in love was still the best thing I ever let happen to myself and I will never in a million years for one second regret anything that lead to making me who I am today. Nothing can actually destroy memories. Everything that doesn’t break us, makes us.
9. I have really, really, high walls and even the people I know are amazing and good for me cannot knock them down right now so I need to focus on working, taking care of myself, and not trying to be the perfect person for anyone right now.
10. I meant every single promise that I made to you. I questioned myself often and felt as though I was never good enough for you and that I always needed to change, but despite any amount of frustration and anger, at the end of the day, I meant the promises that I made. I meant it when I would talk about the future and even if you didn’t, it helps me to know that I was capable of thinking about the future and allowing myself to be so vulnerable.

you’ve got the wrong idea…again

I realized that there’s a lot of people that don’t take me seriously. Girls tell me that I’ll never “grow out of this” and people look to me for all the wrong things sometime. I think the last person I spent a good deal of time with didn’t understand this either. I was talking to someone yesterday about what I really want in life and why I work hard and I thought I would offer some incite into my brain to better understand me, since most of you follow me to get a better idea of me, to relate to me, or for whatever reason.

First off…

I DO like to have a good time. I like to party. I like talking to girls. I like going out with friends. I like going on dates. I like meeting new people. I like trying new things. I live a bit on the extreme sometime. HOWEVER… keep in mind this is me as a single person, not in a relationship, just doing the best I can do which is focus on myself and enjoy life to the fullest. I don’t sleep around, I know the difference between time to work and time to play, and I am a responsible human being…

That being said… it’s a good time to get to my next and final point: The reason I work as hard as I do.

More than anything in the world I look forward to getting married, having children, and being a “family man.” I work hard so that I can provide for a family one day. I work hard so that I can have a stable future. I work hard so that I can be at a point where I can be as involved in my family’s lives as I need to be. I want to be able to raise my kids, take them on vacations, coach their sports teams, go to their dance recitals… wherever I should be, I want to be. You can’t get this scraping by in life and having no goals or no control over your life. Being successful and having a family in life are my number one goals above and beyond anything else.

You can judge me all you want thinking I’m just this promoter guy that lives this super sweet life without care or worry like some of you do, or you can understand the deeper side to me that knows exactly what I am doing.

When the right girl walks into my life, she will understand all this, we will have a good time, we will enjoy our life, and when she is ready to start a family she will see that I am ready as well.

Until then… I will live every day to the fullest, meet as many people as I can, and make as many friendships as possible. You never know when or where you will meet the love of your life, but if I have learned anything from past relationships I’ve been in, it’s the the love of your life will never walk away and will never make you feel like anything short of amazing.

Dear dream girl, I look forward to meeting you.

This is my life…

oh hey.

sorry i haven’t updated lately.

not much updates.

still love my life.

still have the best girlfriend ever.

still working hard.

still happy.

:)