You deserve better and I'm gonna give it to you. Hot. Wait, no, I just mean. Ah, fuck. I mean give it to you, sexually, or emotionally...
Sitting here in the Marriott Fairfield Inn in (ha!) Moses Lake, WA watching THE HIGHLIGHTS FROM GREEN BAY'S INCREDIBLE WIN OVER THE DALLAS COWBOYS one more time, drinking some Jim Beam Double Oak (not as good as the Jim Beam Black, but better than the White Label for sure. We'll know definitively based on how I feel tomorrow morning), OK, well, drinking quite a bit of Jim Beam Double Oak, I can't help but feel lonesome; so I decided to write to y'all. This Packers win reminds me of THIS WIN and THIS WIN, the second of which I WROTE ABOUT HERE. Today is good day. So why am I still so depressed?
I remember when I first starting traveling a lot, both I and the people I knew thought it was so cool to be in different cities, staying in different hotels (and often shitty motels) and seeing more of the country all the time. But, it turns out, like anything, it was both exciting and extremely dull. It turns out you don't get to see much. I wish I could spend more time in each place. The ones I visit often, I find I have more fun in. I get to see and understand the local landscape, where all the cool bars and restaurants are and it helps me find the places I want to play at next time I'm around. Some of those cities and towns turn out to be amazing, and some not so much. I remember seeing Moses Lake, WA on HGTV (yes, I watch a lot of HGTV. Yes, I like it. No, I don't feel bad about it. Chip Gaines and Jonathon Scott = thumbs up, Joanna Gaines and Drew Scott and pretty much everything else on HGTV = thumbs down, but I still watch because I'm too tired and too much a germaphobe to grab the remote and change it. Also, I'm usually too fucking drunk to care.) and thinking it looks so beautiful, until I realized I've been there many times and I know better. Yes, there are beautiful parts but I would never move there. It's where my good friend Jon Fickes grew up, who would go on to make MUSIC LIKE THIS. But, I love shitty TV. I need the noise because I'm terrified of the silence and darkness.
True story: I'm fucking petrified of the dark. I cannot sleep in total darkness. I lined my apartment with nightlights (read: I bought two. I have a small, shitty apartment). But, it's probably not for the reason you may think; unless you also have Asperger's and are a depressed alcoholic with more issues than Sports Illustrated (remember when you would wait all week for the latest issue and when it came, you would sit in your room and read every word so that you could spend the next week discussing it in depth with all your friends? Yeah, now that's a tweeter or whatever the kids call it and it's discussed for like fifteen minutes until the next one comes along. Sad..). No, it's for a different reason. You know the movie "Inception?" Well, that's how I dream; every fucking night. No joke, it's fucking awful. It's always a dream within a dream within a dream. I can't tell you how many times I "wake up" only to find I'm just in another dream. And they're always fucking terrible dreams that only end with me dying in some horrific fashion, only to start back at the beginning like "Groundhog Day" from hell. Some nights it gets so bad that I intentionally try to kill myself in the dream, just to get out. Never helps. But, just like in "Inception" I always try to find something that is just a bit off, so I can tell if I'm still dreaming. Sometimes it's the time when I check my phone. Sometimes it's the coloring of the lights when I flip them on. Sometimes it's the toilet when I get up to take a piss. But something usually tips me off and I'm back into the darkness and back into the hellish nature of my dream, until I die and get to start back at the beginning; so I can live it all over again. When it's completely dark in the house, I can never tell if I'm awake or not and I panic. I know, alcohol probably doesn't help. But neither does lying awake all night because you're terrified of the dreams you'll have after you fall asleep. Is it something a therapist could fix? God, I hope so. I need one, but it turns out it's hard to find someone on my shitty insurance who understands Asperger's, which, it turns out, is a whole fucking challenge on its own. Wait, why did I start writing this?
Oh yeah, I wanted to let you know that I'll FINALLY be writing these on a consistent basis. I know, I know, I've said that before. BUT, I will be posting one of these every Monday, rain or shine, depression or not (like that is ever a "not"), drunk or sober, full of ideas or just rambling. I'll probably just want to talk about the latest Packers game and my week. What was good, or more likely, what was bad.
Well, this week it's pretty fucking good, for once. I saw Feist this weekend. If you haven't seen her live, she's far more badass, more fucking Rock N' Roll, more guitar Goddess-y, more fucking genre-exploding-ly awesome than you can imagine. JUST CHECK THIS SHIT OUT. She's every bit the singer you would fathom from the records, doing shit that others wish they could only think of with her voice but she's an amazingly awesome guitar player and performer as well. I'll probably always remember her for THIS, but I know I'm wrong and just a stubborn Asperger's asshole. Which, sounds funny and I should probably trademark. "Asperger's Asshole" sounds like a fucking hipster band who doesn't understand how debilitating it can be for a person (or, more accurately, the person who loves a person with Asperger's and has to deal with that bullshit). Or, my Feist is also defined by THIS. And, of course, it only matters what I think. God, sometimes it sucks to have Asperger's as I actually believe that. Just ask my poor girlfriend. Or, any of the past ones. Not fun; for them especially. I've now been asked by every single girlfriend of longer than a month or so if I'd rather be the lonely singer-songwriter and have that story than them. It's nothing I can do, it just seems that way. Of course I wouldn't. I haven't wanted that any of the many times, it just seems that way as I cannot express my level of Catholic guilt/Asperger's not wanting to change anything in a way that doesn't include me being angry and resentful towards people who accuse me of things. I wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish I didn't seem like such as asshole, because I'm not, in my heart, but, alas, it certainly seems so, and the more I am pushed, the more I dig in. Not fun for either of us...
Also, I'm feeling like a failure as I don't think I did enough to promote my record release. Now, for sure, it didn't go poorly and we've been getting good press and initial sales. But, since I was in a car accident and concussed a month and a half before and up to and through the release, I missed some critical time. I wasn't right til after the release. I feel guilty about it and wish I could've done more, but when you can't see, hear or think straight, it's hard. Concussions suck fucking ass, but I know two things for sure:
1. I wouldn't have not played sports knowing the consequences. I loved every minute, including the four previous times (that I remember, could be more) that I got my "bell rung" (two in football, one in basketball, which included a torn achilles, and one in baseball, which included a broken nose).
2. I'm predisposed to head and brain injuries as when I was a baby I had a chunk of my skull removed and then re-connected due to a bone growth deficiency. Imagine my poor mother trying to keep a two year old from hitting his head on shit, as it could cause permanent brain damage. Not fun. Two year olds fucking run into everything. My mom had to turn our whole house into a padded, blanketed wonderland so I didn't turn out mentally retarded or worse. God bless her. Seriously. I could never imagine the stress she was under as her child had no skull protecting part of his brain for like a year. I owe her my life and everything. She's a saint...
The guilt I feel over not giving this release my all is intense and I'll probably never forgive myself for getting into a car accident that was 100% not my fault (I was rear-ended at a red light). But it'll help motivate me over the next year or so to work harder. I hate feeling guilty, which is why I don't go to Catholic church anymore. That and the fact that if God wanted us to go to church, He wouldn't have invented Football and Nascar. Yes, I'm a Nascar fan. No, it's not just fucking turning left, as people assume. And I love Bill Elliott's kid, Chase Elliott. And Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as I've met him a few times and totally got my ass kicked by him go-kart racing. True story.
OK, with half the bottle of Jim Beam Double Oak gone, I should probably wrap this up. I'd like to claim that THIS WAS ME but, apparently, there's another Brad Wik. Fucking dick. Stealing my thunder as being the awesome-est Bradley Wik. Well, let's be honest, I still am the awesome-est and maybe that is me (the video is inconclusive and I don't really remember high school, so maybe!). Well, for sure THIS IS ME and I'll leave you with young Bradley Wik singing folk songs in open-D tuning for some reason, while playing at the venerable Cafe Wha?. Still can't remember why I decided open-D was the best decision since I never played those songs in that key before or after that show, but so be it, it turned out alright. I love y'all, and I'll see y'all Friday, October 13th (spooky, I know) at 9pm EST/6pm PST for my next live Periscope show. Search "Bradley Wik" (@bradleywik) on the Periscope app or CLICK HERE to follow on your computer. Good night y'all. See you on Friday and talk more next Monday...