Derek Vasconi is an author,musician, counselor, college graduate, and publisher. He has won several awards, including an inclusion in the National Honor Society for students, four Merit Scholarships at his Alma Mater, Penn State University, and second place in a PA college Poetry competition in 1996. He co-founded the Hardcore Metal band "From a Second Story Window," and released two albums worldwide with them. He also has an acoustic side project entitled Virgin Universe. His debut novel, KAI, will hit stores soon. When asked to explain who he is, Derek has the following to say:   

"Yeah, that's me. I am an aspiring writer who one day decided to help other writers realize their visions. I have been burned by people who just wanted to "help" when in reality all they wanted was money. So I figured I would just lay it out there like it is to anyone who needs some help and a friend along the way. It's kind of scary to just put out your work and never be quite sure if it's getting the proper attention and respect it deserves you know? So lucky for you, I've been there and done that, and now I know alot more than the average person who is just starting out. I can save you alot of time and money by helping you get exactly what you need, which is attention and respect. As for my credentials, I am based out of Pennsylvania and I graduated from Penn State with a degree in Psychology. I worked as a counselor for a few years and decided that working with people who are mentally unstable isn't for me. However, while counseling, I learned how to listen and how to understand more than I ever thought I could. Concurrently, I still work as a counselor, but I have also been writing for years on various subjects and ideas that make me smile. I am nearing completion of my first full length fiction book that is a horror novel about the power of theta waves and what happens when a girl loses something and turns her anger into vengeance. This is the easy way of describing it, but when it's out, maybe you will pick it up and let me know your thoughts? Along with this, I am a big lover of Japan, in case you didn't notice by the title I gave my company. I even went to the Land of the Rising Sun over three times and did research over there to live, to love, to learn, to explore, and research material for my book! Now I am working on some musical projects and doing my best to offer ordinary people like you an extraordinary opportunity to have a publisher that will actually care about you. Having said this, I decided to combine my ability to listen with my ability to write and now offer services like book editing, ghost writing, and marketing. I have made alot of friends doing this, and not just people who give me a paycheck. I work hard and I am always thinking outside the box to get stories heard. I basically give to you what I want given to me: lots of love!"

So here's the deal. You got a great idea. I mean, fantastic idea, one that is worth what you would consider to be the equivalent of a lottery ticket with seven figures attached to it. In fact, you might even think your idea when it gets translated into words it will amount to dollar figures that can allow you to afford that house in Beverly Hills. So you organize your words into a story, put that story into print form, then satisfied with your edits, you polish it up into what the book industry calls a "manuscript," look up some publishing companies you think might be interested in your work, and then ship your work off to their agents who read everything that comes to them, and wait for a response which will surely be a positive one. You will get a response for sure....Right? WRONG. Here's the deal. We live in an age where so many people want to write and are doing so in record numbers. Your idea may be great, even world changing, but to most publishing companies out there, they see so many manuscripts on their desks that if you can't capture them in a few seconds with a few words, your work is put in their trash bins and they are on to read the next undiscovered work of art that comes their way. Also, if you think you are in the clear because you survive through a tough critical first look by an agent at a publishing company, think again. Your work will get so chewed up and edited that at some point, you might be in for a rude awakening in which you will ultimately be told by a publisher that it needs more work or they just don't feel comfortable putting out your work. That's right....you actually have a better chance of getting accepted at Harvard University than you do getting published. And that's not the only bad news. Suppose you DO get an agreement to be published. Then you have to wait in some cases at least a year before it hits any store shelves. Your work will probably merit you an advance, but if you are expecting some huge number, think again. Average amounts I believe stem somewhere in the hundreds to small thousand figures. Not to mention, your profit per book will not be seen for a long time after sales start to come in. Ever hear of "recoup?" What the publishers spend to promote you they gotta pick up first from your tab, then after that you will get paid royalties, but only from the first few months sales. I say this because that's about all your publishing company will give you to get your book going forward in the right direction. Most publishing companies will spend on average only the first two to three months getting your book recognized. This includes advertisements on their websites, packaging with other bigger titles, and submissions to libraries and other bookstores interested in getting new books to be shelved in their stores. You might get lucky and even get a television appearance, but don't expect some publicist to be assigned to you and take you on a huge promotional run throughout the country. You could get a bookstore tour, but who is going to come without the proper exposure? And unless you are the person with the next Harry Potter, don't expect a miracle like that to happen anytime soon. Most authors fade into obscurity after the first half of the first year they are a published author, and then what's worse is you probably would have signed a multiple book deal with the publisher, so that means you will now on top of seeing your debut book disappear into the amazon gutters of penny book fame, you will still owe more books to the company and meet the same fate. The reasons for this are too many to list as to why publishers do this to their authors, but the biggest is that you are in a very crowded market and only those who produce fast results quick will have any chance of getting attention from a publishing company that they deserve. If you flip to the other side of things, you consider what I have written and decide to yourself...."ok, I will put out my own book then." Easy enough right? NOOOOOO. There are a million Self-publishing companies that will help you. Companies like lulu.com and xlibris.com offer attractive packages for a person to do their own publishing work but guess what happens if you do this? Your book gets printed and published, but you still have no way of getting anyone even remotely interested in knowing you exist outside of your friends and family, and in most cases, bookstores will NOT put your book on their shelves if you go this route because there is a stigma on these companies due to the fact that they are print on demand, meaning there are no short runs of your book, just when it's needed, it's printed. This is a problem for alot of bookstores because they want to carry usually a number of your books at once when they agree to do so and they want to do it at a discounted cost. The problem then becomes yours for the simple fact that it's already costing you to print the books through these companies and on top of this, you are expected to send your books to these stores to be sold at a discount with no guarantee they will sell at all and if that wasn't enough....the bookstores will want the chance to send your books back after so long if they don't sell!!!!!! So you either will go the major publishing route and either never hear back from them or pile up rejection slips, or you will publish yourself and end up with a stack of your own books waiting to find their homes on bookstore shelves. And let's not even talk about marketing! So why publish at all? Well, it's maybe not the WHY that needs answered. That's in many cases a very deep and personal reason that compels you against all odds to put your work out in the world for hopefully as many people as possible to read. Perhaps it's the HOW that needs answered. I propose a THIRD way than the one above. A combination of the two but with a twist. It's my way. See, I am a writer and I have been through alot of the publishing hoops and I can honestly tell you I have learned a few things that will be essential to working your way into the public eye and becoming a relevant author. That's right. I don't care if you want to talk about aliens or a better way to eat fast food, if you want anyone to know you exist, you MUST do certain things past just hoping people will find you out in both the real and digital universe. Being a writer, I can understand your frustration and your sense of being lost when you look at all that is out there for a writer and all the writers out there who are trying to get their works noticed. One of the reasons why I even think it's possible for anyone to have their work read, despite all I just wrote about in terms of the negative, is that most people simply don't know HOW to get their work recognized properly. They don't realize they have everything they need right in front of them, and all they need is some direction and some patience. That's where I can help. I can provide you with a compass for your work. I can teach you the benefits of patience when it comes to watching your book become a well known staple of the book publishing world. I do it by following the simple formula below: FIRST, you need to make sure your work is as close to perfect as you can make it. Don't waste no effort in making sure your words are where they need to be in your manuscript, and everything flows correctly. There's no greater way to have your book ignored by anyon in the publishing industry or likes to read books than to not take time to make it look professional. I like this part of the process and do everything I can to make sure your work is as close to perfect as it can get, and I am pretty tireless about it too. ALSO, you gotta make sure you have a great book cover. I can't STRESS this enough! Did you ever see an ad where somebody beautiful was promoting a product? Let me ask you...did you even remember what the product was when you saw that person? It's the same kind of principle here...I of course want people to buy your book for what's inside, but more books have probably been sold based on what the cover looked like than what the book was actually about. Try this theory out. Go to your local bookstore and look at the books on display.....see what you look at first: The book cover or the Book Title? Point proven. SECOND, you must make a decision on how you want to proceed with the distribution of your book. To me, publishing companies these days are nothing more than glorified distribution lines. With the internet, a person can be in total control of how they release their work to the world. You can even contact companies like lightning source to print your books for you, but good luck filtering through their requirements. Even so, going through a company like mine, all I'm doing is helping you empower yourself to get on the map. If you want to go through one of the major publishers, there are about six of them who control a gigantic percentage of the book distribution lines in the world. They are known as the six sisters of the publishing world, and include Simon & Schuster, Bertelsmann AG, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Penguin Group, and Macmillan. These companies have under them more familiar companies like Random House, Viking, and Doubleday (to name a few), but if you want to get the attention of these companies, you need a game plan. You have to first find out which company best fits what you are writing about. Some of the labels will be better suited to put out your book on drug addiction than a book about wizards and boys who fight them. So a little research is in order. Then after you find some of the companies you think might be interested, you have to find out which ones out of these will even accept your manuscript. In most cases, you need a literary agent who will write the query letter and represent you. The reasons for this are mainly because of the volume of manuscripts these companies see everyday sitting on their desks waiting to be read. By coming through a literary agent, most of which have good relationships to the publishing companies, it comes with an already recommendation that the publishing company and the manuscript might be a good match. Another reason why companies don't take unsolicited manuscripts is because of legal issues....who is to say somebody at that company didn't steal your idea and try to pawn it off as their own? these companies would much rather avoid that sticky mess altogether. So assuming you've crossed this hurdle, you then have to deal with the issue of knowing what to say to these companies. If you end up writing the query letter yourself (Oh, in case you didn't know, a query letter is pretty much a standard letter you write to express an interest in having the publisher take a look at your work), you must make sure it's according to the standards of the company you are sending the letter to. This can include a certain style and format, a partial or whole manuscript, or even a resume style submission. So if you want to go the major publishing route, this is the way to go. You send off your letter and possibly your manuscript, and wait. Another key point which I want to talk about for a second is the literary agent route. I act as a literary agent in some capacity because I am capable of writing these letters and have written them in the past for my authors. There are plenty of literary agents out there and you can even buy a directory of them at your local Borders or Barnes & Nobles. Or heck, look on the net....there's plenty of listings there too. My company in many ways is like a stepping stone to getting your work noticed. I am more than happy to be your home, but I have great hope and faith in my writers that they will outgrow me and what I can offer and move on to bigger and better things. See, that's the idea...you start with me and I get you going, but then you learn and grow enough to be your own representation. So this way when you get picked up by a major publisher, you will have already established yourself as a force to be reckoned with through working with me. BUT you gotta figure out mostly what you want to do in terms of distribution. If you want to do the DIY route and go through an independent print on demand company like Lulu, that's fine too, but keep in mind you will be making it harder to jump to the majors this way. There are plenty of authors who are exceptions to this rule, but keep in mind that nobody will help you if you go this route and I wouldn't recommend doing so unless you have already some kind of knowledge of publishing or you are a DIY kind of person. The other option is me, which I will help you every step of the way, answer your questions, and be a tour guide and an instructor to help you get moving with your book. This is how it should be with all of the companies out there who assume the title "publisher," but sadly, they won't do this for you. It's almost like you are being set up for failure, and that just sucks to me. NEXT, after your book is printed and ready for distribution, then you must consider the marketing. AHHHH...this is where I would say 98% of authors fail miserably and ultimately shoot themselves in both feet with getting their books known. My trick is simple and it's one I want you to hear LOUD AND CLEAR: YOU MUST HAVE AN AUTHOR PLATFORM TO SUCCEED! That's right. Do you realize how many people don't do this and it makes no sense to me! Don't expect your publishing company to do this for you. You must take matters into your own hands on this one! I offer my authors a chance to get a platform going by first creating an author website. This is essential. If you have an author website, you make yourself accessible to anyone with a computer, and from this you can host a blog, sell your book, and contribute your ideas on whatever makes you happy. If you start this right away, you will give the search engines a chance to index it, and hopefully by the time you release your book or books, your site will come up for people to find right away. Still, how should anyone know to look up your name or anything associated with you. The secret? It's simple.....CONTENT. If you put on your site stuff that is relevant and informative, then the search engines will be friendly to you and index you alot quicker! So if you are good at, for example, car mechanics, and your book is about car mechanics, post something on your site that helps somebody looking for information online about car mechanics! Your site then has more value than just a platform to sell your book. It becomes RELEVANT. And that's the key: Making you relevant. Of course you can see where this can go, so feel free to put on your website a million articles about everything you are knowledgeable about? And what do you do if you aren't knowledgeable about anything? Well...I suspect you wouldn't be a writer then, now would you? Another way to market is to think outside of the box. While there's more to say about the author website, I will save that for talking with you personally, as I have other tips and tricks to share with you if we do business together, but thinking outside the box is a great way to get noticed. I mean, having a blog that is popular is great, but how do you get anyone to see you out there again? How about a youtube video that acts like an advertisement for your book? I offer this and believe me, it works. People are so lazy that they would rather WATCH a summary about your book than read one. And if you got somebody who is good looking on the eyes doing your promotional video...well again, see what I wrote about your book cover above! Still, more outside the box ideas should be considered. Ever hear of Half.com? Probably not, being that ebay bought them out and buried them into obscurity, but when they guy who came up with a wonderfully revised ebay, he knew he needed something crazy to get the word out that his creation existed. So he ended up hearing about a town in Oregon that was looking for a new name, and he decided this would be it. If you travel to Oregon state, you will actually find a town named Half.com It made headlines everywhere and in a day, the world knew his company existed. This is what I'm talking about. Be smart. Be Creative. You will be noticed. FINALLY, once you got your book platform set up, and believe me, I have many more ways to set up an appropriate platform for you to consider, the final step is not giving up. Just because your book was released six months ago doesn't mean that you just roll over and forget about it! Some authors write a book that never sees the light of day and it ends up becoming the book they are known for. If you realize the power of the internet, you know that it takes time to build a following but once you do, things begin to take off. If you apply yourself on sites like goodreads.com and partake of the community there (this means don't just sign up for an account and never use it except to talk about your book...get into what others are saying there and be part of their world so they will want to be part of yours), then you will begin to see more interest than you can handle. Not to mention, facebook and twitter have made it easy to get people into what you are doing with just a few clicks of the mouse. The point is you grow. And grow. And grow. I don't care if you are a reclusive Salinger type or not, with the internet, you can get the word out about your book and not waste your time doing it if you make a great author website, join communities relevant to your topics of interest, and have your book easily able to be purchased online through amazon, your site, and your publisher's site. You can balance your online work with going to your local bookstores and asking the manager to stock your book, as this helps you get some exposure too. Contact your newspaper, as they are always on the hunt for content, have them do a feature on you, then put that up on your site and link it to everything you can. Craigslist allows you to get people interested in your work as well, but this one gets a little tricky. You have to know how to place ads, which I do, but I can tell you that with craigslist, it's a great way to make connections with other authors and find book clubs or start one yourself to get interest going. You have to realize that writing the book is only the first PART of the exciting journey of being an author. The fun stuff begins knowing that you have the rest of your life to celebrate your words in print. I know most people are great at partying, so make a party type atmosphere about your book. Most of all, you must realize that this can take as little as a few months to as long as a few years to really get your work noticed, but if you don't give up, you will find yourself selling books consistently and at a rate that will probably not get you rich, but will ultimately make your writing RELEVANT. Trust me, if you are writing to become wealthy, you are better off going to college and getting a degree and landing a career job. Writing is a release of inspiration, and it's my sincere desire to help you say what you want to say to as many people as possible. Let's keep talking OK?

Theta waves

I am sensory deprived at the moment....unable to clearly rest at the maelstrom of depravity that has overcome my recent revelation lifestyle. Indeed, I constantly question the asking process: Why are you sad? What can I do to fix you? Why does your experience, which is in many ways no different than mine, make you so unhappy and unforgiving of yourself and yet with me, I can still smile in the face of an epic slaughter? We both are not really at our home, and each of us struggle with the prospect of sorrowful tides. Do you remember Wataru Tsurumi's suicide manual? Have me and you become Hikkikomori inside our own existence? I have stabbed myself to death repeatedly with the enormous guilt and anguish from leaving the one thing I truly loved. I am coerced into thinking maybe my last real relationship ended because I DID something erroneous or perhaps contributed to breaking the seals of a doomsday plot with me and her. I really thought you would be different, you with your coy smile, five year old little girl laughing sprees, and the unbelievable amount of sexual synergy shared between us. The weight of our relationship was comfortable, but now I am sifting through your grey matter, trying to understand how your anorexic notion of caring became so obvious and immediate to me. I guess this is a possibly maybe moment: I am panning right now, and my theta waves are circulating in the air like jets with no open landing strips. I miss you. I miss my old life. I miss belonging, and I am sorry for thinking you could ever provide me with such a feeling of inclusion. How could you? I suppose you can barely feel a reason to be on this planet anymore. I want to understand you though. I do. AND I promise to be here for you, always. I want to understand you and know that my words or actions are not going to change you, or my situation even. I will hold hope tightly and embrace her as though we could all be involved in a sordid threesome: me, you, and a chance for happiness. I am creating in this moment with my theta charcoal a feverish and passionate sketch of solemn wonder-A hand reaching from an egg that reaches for change. My yoke is love, my morning ritual a reminder of a capable hand you still hold in mine

the fence at lyndhurst

I find my words failing just in a simple recollection of that day. 9/11. Between 5:30 AM and 8:30 AM Mohammed Atta and his team secured their first plane to utilize as a missile that defaced not just tower 1 of the World Trade Center, but eradicated any of the American Visage that was visible to all the nations on earth. Indeed, by 8:46 AM, American Airlines Flight 11 was gone and hundreds vaporized or more appropriately baptized with fire in what would become the new jihad of the 21st century. I was asleep. The rest of the country, it seems, was just waking up themselves. So many people watching the reports flooding into the newsrooms of all major networks, starting with trusty CNN. The lonely images of smoke fleeing the gaping hole in tower 1 were barely registered in our collective minds when United Airlines flight 175 plunged through tower 2 of the World Trade Center at 9:03 AM. This time, the whole WORLD was watching. This time....the simple 1,2, assault wave felt more ominous, more terrible, and more grievous than just minutes before. Any video you watch from the ground level of Manhattan or anyone's home videos from close by will reveal the same shouts of horror. I imagine across the globe similar screams went up to the heavens and so did the lost souls who became ashes in yet ANOTHER moment of fiery destruction. So many lost, so many who jumped to their deaths, so many who burned alive, and so many who went in to fight the fires and never came back. I still was fast asleep. Of course, by this time, the United States is thrown into a state of emergency. One frantic person calling another all over the country. Everyone is suddenly scared that a terrorist might fly a plane into their place of work or school or even their homes. We knew at this time that the planes were no accident, they were deliberate. The news agencies acted as our eyes and ears, shoving in front of us mountains of information to process at an impossible speed. I wonder how much anyone really understood of the facts and the falsehoods that were provided for our consideration. I marvel at the shameful reaction of our government at the highest level and the intelligence groups lackluster response! Still, nobody really had anytime to interpret anything as American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon at 9:38 AM. Not even a half hour later, United Airlines flight 93 is completely incinerated on a barren ground in Shanksville, PA (about two hours from my house at the time) at 10:03 am. AND once again, my eyes never opened. I remember when my senses finally DID get aroused. I was of course late for work at Budd St. Video and Gar, my manager, immediately asked me if I had listened to the radio or turned on a television. I said, very groggily, "no," and I will never forget his words: "America is under attack! This is just the beginning!" I had to wait until 5 that day to see any images being that Gar had no television in his store, just a radio. I called my mom at her work and asked if anyone had tried to hurt her or the kids. I wondered if Sharon would be shut down, if schools would be cancelled, or if I would have to go into work later that night at Movie Gallery in Hubbard. I couldn't remove myself from a television set that day. I watched with stunned silence the imagery over and over and over again. Occasionally I was shown the disgusting video of a jumper. The agonizing and heartbreaking moment seemed odd juxtaposed to the solemnity of video footage taken from the crash site of United 93. I just stared with abandonment. I wondered out loud to myself about the view of somebody who was falling so many stories....what it must look like down below that would soon be the final resting place of that person. EVEN worse, I tried to imagine the scenery of the place where the person jumped from.....and how it could have been so bad that the BETTER alternative to that death was jumping! Likewise, I tried to envision for a moment the sight of a person who may have put his hand on the window facing the oncoming plane moments before it engulfs him and everyone around in a ball of furious fire. I also had to picture the smile of glory and praise that Mohammed Atta must have displayed as his life was vanquished in an effort to break the American spine. Mohammed's mien was probably one of contentment, and the world below him anything but. I couldn't sleep that night. I stayed up, fearful of intruders or hoping to catch a story from the tower wreckage which would indicate survivors. I felt like going to NYC to help. I almost did. I debated my presence in school at Penn State, arguing vehemently with some of my professors regarding their general apathy and attempts to instruct me after the violence of that day. The one saving grace in the days to come for me was unexpected and a grand gesture from an old friend. Marta, a petite Polish girl who I had met on tour while in NJ, knew of my heart's acclimation towards the events of 9/11. We had spent the night together while on tour and in the morning, she made me breakfast and then politely asked if I would go someplace with her, but it would be a surprise. I love surprises, so of course I was more than happy to oblige. As we drove, I can remember feeling a sense of cold that didn't seem to just come from the low temperature outside. I sensed a void that would soon be recognized upon my arrival to a rusty, old fence next to the Hudson. The fence at Lyndhurst. The fence at Lyndhurst, NJ. Not just any fence though. Directly across from where the two towers stood in NYC, this unassuming, chained fence had become a center for many people to place their memories of 9/11. I jumped out of the car and thanked Marta and began to survey all the letters, firefighter uniforms, and personal affects that were taped or tied to the metal wall. In fact, I felt like I was looking at Maya Ying Lin's tribute to our fallen Vietnam Soldiers. Only this wall had no name or recognition...except to exist solely for the comfort and benefit of the people who contributed their time in creating the makeshift altar for our fallen loved ones. I wasn't sleeping anymore. I was up early and I felt the tears fall from my face that morning. I cried for all those who were lost, for all those particular who I examined on the fence at Lyndhurst. I cried for the morning I missed earlier that year. I still wonder if that wall is up. I know my wall of apathy is down. AND I have decided to not care so much about the recent rash of conspiracy theories and government involvement plots that many people have discussed and basically condensed 9/11 to be these days. I was touched by that display of simple admonition. I give thanks to people like the entire cast of Rescue Me who still hold onto that notion of loss which so many families have still from NY, NJ, and all over the country. I believe that everyone should share their stories of that day and never forget what happened. It hasn't been that long since the fateful morning occurred. I dare say we drift off in some way of magical realism. I am reminded of how something so beautiful came from the passion I saw at Lyndhurst and how we can keep memories alive. It's just like the funeral in One Hundred Years of Solitude, to find allegorically among the ashes of 9/11:

"A short time later, when the carpenter was taking measurements for the coffin, through the window they saw a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling...So many flowers fell from the sky that in the morning the streets were carpeted with a compact cushion and they had to clear them away with shovels and rakes so that the funeral procession could pass by." The ashes still lead us on.

a gentle altar

...so i wanted to just release and relate and relent and circumvent all these things that are not in the floor but above and without because of you. I sit here on this bedroom floor trying to understand and compromise again and again what has happened to what could be considered me, though lately i have renovated space next to a gentle altar, and this silent message is kept only to serve you. i really miss us. i really believed that my past happiness as a young boy would really become immune to the future and i was completely suprised that night we were young again caught in a free fall for only a moment but repeated at least five times and how i was made to be seven. a moment really past belief and immune to a need for a prayer just anywhere, just nowhere, just care. this is that last moment before history lets go of me. retch-a-sketch God, it's always these late night urinals that i dump so much waste in! They told me it was just a simple procedure to take out my appendix, but nothing is ever simple with me. I can not even order a milkshake at two different fast food establishments without one claiming their machine JUST stopped working and the other trying to pretend like I never ordered such a delightful goodie in the first place (i.e., because THEIR machine only works if you order vanilla, but of course not chocolate. Who the fuck likes vanilla?)! So the doctor telling me it would be no more than an hour made me feel a ripple of tingles through my distended abdomen. Yeah, I knew i was fucked. AND of course, several hours on the operating table, my diverticulum is taken out and my colon is re-sectioned, plus I a minus an appendix for good measure. THAT began my two week and still counting odyssey of incorrigible pain and bloating and loss of appetite. Am I complaining? Not at all, I am grateful to be alive and out of the anesthesia coma, which let me explain is more scarier than a Black haired Japanese girl crawling down steps and choking on her own tongue. It is definitely a last minute death scene imprinted on the retina sort of situation. I simply can NOT wrangle what happened from my mind. Having said that, i am determined to try and move forwar$d with some kind of purpose or goal that is defined. I am working on my book and it is nearing the midway point. My protaganists have begun their infinite interplay of behavioral cause and effect and with cataclysmic results. Me and Kalin FINALLY got all the songs worked out for virgin universe, our new band, and are recording them. Keep a listen to your tv..we might pop up in a car commercial or apple product (feist anyone?). I am wanting to get back into music but maybe this time as a vocalist. If only it didn't hurt everytime I raised my voice. Lastly, I want to find some kind of tangible reassurance in the arms of another. Maybe her? I do not know.....she is so far away, but maybe she is an accrued savings bond kind of girl? hmmm. I just don't want to retch and fly off the toilet into a wall from the pain in my lower stomach. I want to gurgle my blood and bile and have my lover holding a cup for me to spit in when this happens. I want to be inspiring to everyone around me. I grab desperately above for the lofty to become realized, for a whisper to become a ROAR, for my creative antenna to redirect emotional air traffic. Most of all, I want control to never let myself be that helpless and lifeless again. Fuck 104 temps and bathroom breaks every fifteen minutes. I will swallow death's cyanide future when it is MY decision to flee this existence and say goodbye to the universe and meek earth. I will never be meek again.