LonelyMAD

Sitting in the train... Just leaving the downtown station... Going back home early (for a Monday) because the mother of my kids needed me to take care of them tonight. She has some sort of activity tonight and after my trip to Mexico a few weeks ago, I owe her a few nights anyway... And since I totally forgot about this, I accepted an invitation to a Creators Club meeting tonight... I fortunately found a baby sitter to take over just before the kids get to bed, because we always have trouble finding time where all members of the club are available... And it would be sad to miss it, it's a very interesting part of my artistic life...

Anyway, this is why I'm in a train so early today... a Monday... And actually, in a train at all, since I usually take the bus when I have the opportunity to work later to compensate for the nights where I go home early to pick up the kids (guess I'll have to find some other time to compensate this week, most probably when the kids are asleep on Wednesday and Thursday, since tomorrow night, is Open Mike Night ;-)... And this is because the trains to my place don't run very late... This is why I usually take the bus if I don't have to go pickup the kids...

So... When I stepped out of the train this morning, after I finished reading the “Last Lecture”, I couldn't help thinking about where my life is going these days... And I felt lonely... Not that I'm all alone... I have great kids, many impressive friends, and I also love my job and my co-workers... And this very cute blond I was following out of the train, almost all the way to the office... She took one last turn out of my way and I had to watch her walk away from me without the slightest idea that I was watching her, and finding her beautiful, graceful, attractive, interesting, and all those other qualifiers that should have motivated me to talk to her... But I didn't...

So... Anyway... I'm not alone, but as I say in one of the songs I wrote for the Khrônos album from the band Continuum that I was a part of in the early nineties, you can be “Living a lonely life, while never being alone.” And that's how I feel these days...

But my first reflex is to push back on this feeling, force a smile on my face and move on with my usual laid back, optimist, positive, easy going and (hopefully) funny attitude... But not this morning... As I have been trying not to push back on other feelings these past few years, I realized this morning that it is OK to feel lonely... And I decided to give a name to that part of me that I've been ignoring for too long... LonelyMAD...

As for ParanoMAD (which I also talked about previously), LonelyMAD is an integral part of me... And I also got to realize that MultiMAD suits me very well, and not just for my multiple artistic creation fields (http://www.multimad.com), it also expresses very well my multiple personalities. Again, as I said before about ParanoMAD, I realized one day that I wouldn't be able to shut him up so I learned to live with it. Instead of shutting him up, I learned to control how I react to its whispering...

So today, I decided I would do the same thing with LonelyMAD. Instead of trying to shut him up as I used to do... I will let him express himself, but I need to be careful, and keep a good grasp at how I let my behavior get influenced by its whispers.

Recently, LonelyMAD has pushed me back to the Internet dating game to help me find the love of my life... Though it is possible to find gems there (some people did it), it is far from being a sure thing (as the bar scene, the coffee scene, the sports scene or any other scene where we can meet people are no sure things either)... So I don't have too much hope about it... But it still brings me some satisfaction to just browse, search and make a few attempts... It gives me the false impression that I'm getting closer... Even though... You know... Still... It's a bit comforting in some way... It kind of help me cope with LonelyMAD...

Note that I'm very confident that I'm a very interesting guy (at least for a good proportion of the female population), and there are many very interesting women out there... I sometimes wonder if there are enough that are single to give me the opportunity of meeting one that will be a good fit for me (and I will be a good fit for her) because, in theory, interesting people shouldn't stay single very long... But I've been single for a little while myself now, so there must be a few women in the same situation... We also become more picky with age and experience so we don't rematch so easily, thus stay single a little longer, so there should be a good probability of meeting her... Yet... it's a only probability... we'll see...

Randy Pausch (the author of the Last Lecture), met the love of his life and mother of his children when he was in his late 30s, and he seems like a great man... So I guess I should count myself very lucky to have met a great woman in my early 20s and have 2 great kids with her even though it didn't work out to be the love of my life... I'm only in my early 40s... I still have a lot of time to meet the love of my life... Unlike others who didn't even live to turn 40, or 50, or 60, or whatever... You know what I mean...

So I would like to finish this post by thanking Randolph Pausch for sharing his great life experience with us, even though he didn't get to turn 50, and didn't get to see his kids grow to teenage... Still... he will inspire many of us now, and generations to come, to live a great life... Whether we find true love... or not...

BYE
MAD
P.S.; Don't worry about me... I'm still HAVING FUN!!! ;-)
P.P.S.: Just feeling a little lonely, that's all...

What am I up to?

sitting in the train... Typing the date and realizing it is April fools day today... I could have used this to tell you a ridiculously foolish and incredible story... But you probably wouldn't have noticed since I already feel ridiculously foolish and incredible in my day to day life... So I will stick to my original idea and tell you about what I am up to these days...

Last night was another interesting Open Mic Night at the Arts Café... we had a lot of fun and I even got one of my university buddies to join in for the first time and he came to play the piano and sing one of the songs he wrote... It was a lot of fun... And I think that this is what life is all about... Having a lot of fun... I told about the three laws of the meaning of life in a previous post, and the 3rd is about having fun... as long as we don't break the second law which is to be kind and even help those around us as long as we don't break the first law which is to be kind and even help the generations to come... as much as we can... of course... because we don't all have the same skill set and energy to save the world, but we should still all do our part...

Freud (and many others actually), have concluded that there two main driving forces that help us make decisions: Pleasure and Pain... We want to avoid pain, because we must survive, and if our ancestors were not driven by the will to survive, I wouldn't be here, sitting in this train, writing this post and you wouldn't be there (wherever you are), reading it... And pleasure... well... we all know how good it is... And the main one, is the pleasure of sex so that we can reproduce... and again... Just imagine if our ancestors wouldn't have done it... right?
So to survive in a pleasant way, we still need to go through some pain (that some of us may find more painful than others), do the grocery, cook, wash the dishes, go shopping, do some renovation, cleanup the house, pay our bills, go to work, drive the kids to social activities (whether they do sports or arts), etc... etc... But we must also leave some room in this busy schedule for our own little pleasures (and not just the one driven by our reproductive glands, whether we take care of it alone, or with a loved one), spend some time with friends, have a drink, sing a song, play games, do some sport, go see a movie, a concert, any kind of show, read a book, write a poem, etc...

Now that doesn't tell you much about what I am up to these days... Well... a little bit... cause if you know me a bit by now, you know that I live through my words... I practice what I preach...

So I go through those little pains that are worth suffering to better enjoy a pleasant survival, like the grocery, cooking, washing the dishes, cleaning up the house and driving the kids around... Note that I didn't put going to work in there... Not that I quit my job (though it would have made an interesting April fools joke :-), but must I admit, I'm lucky enough to enjoy my job and it is actually a pleasure to go to work. So once the choirs are done and the kids are happy (I also admit that having them just half the time helps a little bit, though that "only half the time" I have them, I have to take care of them alone, so I guess it evens out a little bit), I then have some time for myself... So what do I do with it? What am I up to?

As I wrote in my first post on my French blog MADeries, deciding what we do with our time, is the only decision we need to (and can) take... As I said above, we are driven by pain and pleasure, but only to take this crucial decision: "what do I do with my time?"... Time is interesting... Because it is limited, though most of us don't really know how much we have left... Time can NOT be stopped or slowed down (unfortunately), though we can get the impression that its speed varies sometimes (gee... my train is almost at its destination now... Wow... time flies...)... And... of course... we can't go back in time... Too bad... it's done... asta la vista baby...

So what do I do with my time these days... well... music started taking a bit more of my time... I love to go to these Open Mic Tuesday nights (a good thing they are on Tuesdays, I "almost" never have my kids on tuesday nights)... I also need to finish composing the music to go with my Novel... I recently needed to move my music to a new WEB site because I used to have (music.download.com) has closed. So while you are here, note that you can now access my music on Last.fm (I also moved the music of Continuum there). I also took this opportunity to update the Music section of MultiMAD.com.

Ho... and I also wanted to tell you that I have been cheating on you again... Well.. at least... I had given you an early warning... I spend quite a lot of time writing on my vacations blog (in French, sorry, it's very nice language though, you should try to learn it if you don't already know it :-). And of course, uploading, tagging and adding legends to all the 338 photos that I found good enough from the roughly 800 photos I took during my trip to Mexico with GG.

And, of course, I have been continuing my quest for the ultimate pleasure, the one for which we would accept to suffer all the pains of this world... LOVE!!! I have not found it yet, I don't even have a solid prospect... That new book I was exploring is not very responsive, so I get the feeling that she is not as interested in turning my pages to discover me more and I am about her... I'm toying with the idea to push her a little harder to open herself to me... But then again, it might be better for me to put her back on the shelf and browse for other books... More open... Closer... More interested... and yet very interesting... we'll see...

To be continued...

BYE
MAD
P.S.: Never, ever, forget to have fun!!! :-)

Feeling interesting...

Salut,

Laying on my back in my little living room sofa, listening to the silence after the end of the last track of the Dark Horse album from Nickelback... Very good album, I like it a lot, especially the hit single Gotta be somebody, suits me pretty well. And now the washer's buzz is calling me for another load... I'll be back in a sec... Don't move... I'll be back.

OK, so now that the washer and dryer are spinning in sync, and that John Mayer's Continuum CD replaces Nickelback's Dark horse in the sound system, I can come back to what I was telling you about... What was I talking about again? Most probably nothing.... right?...As usual... :-) There is nothing like having chips and beer and talk about nothing while the sun is shining against a bright blue sky... Maybe I should go play outside... I will... I will... :-)

OK, more seriously (if I can), I started publishing the blog posts that I wrote (literally, like... on paper... wow... ;-) while I was on vacation last week. As I said a few post ago, you can find them on http://mad-voyages.blogpost.com. Some people started reading it and are already asking for more... This is pretty cool... An old friend of mine even said that it reads like candy and that I'm about to replace his Saturday morning news paper reading... Cool... :-)

It feels soooo gooooood to know that people find you interesting... At least it does for me... If you read some of my previous posts like A musical feeling or Wanting and/or dreaming, you already know that about me. But come on... We all love to be interesting, right? OK, some people needs it more than others, some people live to attract other people's attention, while others would rather stay un-noticed... But in the end, when we realize that someone truly finds us interesting, it's a GREAT feeling, isn't it?

Some of us sometimes wonder what the hell am I doing with my life? Why was I born? Do I have a purpose on this little blue planet? Some people will turn to god or a specific religion to answer this question... I prefer to look within myself (though some might argue that it's kind of the same thing)... Ho... the washer or dryer buzz again... It will have to wait now... I'm on a roll... :-)

Knowing that some people find you interesting... That there are things that you can do that can touch others... That you can make a positive difference in their lives as so many others have made a positive difference in yours... Isn't this a great purpose?... If my writing can make a difference in people's life, even if it just to entertain them on a regular basis, then my passage here will not have been for nothing (even if I often write about... nothing :-)... As I wrote in one of my first efforts at creative writing, in an essay presumptuously titled "Le sens de la vie" (aka The meaning of life), I see three laws governing our lives, similar to Azimov's laws of robotics:

1. Thou shall help improve society as a whole so that our descendants can live a great life.
   
2. Thou shall be good to others around us now and make their life more enjoyable, but not the detriment of upcoming generations, of course.
   
3. Thou shall treat yourself and enjoy life to its fullest, but not the detriment of others around us and neither to upcoming generations, of course.
   

Isn't this interesting? :-)...
Of course, being interesting for a special someone, is an even greater experience (as I talked a bit about when I was flying to Cuba last year). As Chad Kroeger sings "Nobody wants to be the last one there, and everyone wants to feel like someone cares. Is there somebody else that feels the same somewhere? There has gotta be somebody for me out there."... Gotta be somebody... But it's not from the lack of self confidence or not being interesting enough, or even too picky (as some might say)... And it's not like I feel so lonely, I'm lucky enough to have many very good friends, and great kids... It's just that...

This time I wonder what it feels like
To find the one in this life
The one we all dream of
But dreams just aren't enough
So I´ll be waiting for the real thing.
I'll know it by the feeling.
The moment when we´re meeting
Will play out like a scene straight off the silver screen
So I`ll be holdin’ my breath
Right up to the end
Until that moment when
I find the one that I'll spend forever with
[...]

BYE
MAD
P.S.: HAVE FUN!!! :-)

Open Mic Nights

Salut,

sitting in a café... not the bus the train or my sofa this time... It's a nice little place near my kids school where I used to go often before I switched jobs 2 years ago... now that I can have breakfast at work (including a very good coffee machine) I don't get to come here as often... But this morning, I wanted to take the train. I must come back home early tonight to pickup my kids at school, and also I'll be more comfortable to type the blog posts I wrote on a notepad while I was on vacation...

I didn't get to start that process yet because I worked late on Monday, and last night I went to sing at an Open mic night at the Arts Café... I started doing that about a month ago and it is a lot of fun...

The first time I tried it, I decided to try out the piano. I started playing more and more piano in the past few years (having a good electronic piano with a real piano touch in the living room helps a lot). Also, I learned "Your song" from Elton John recently, and one of my most "popular" composition (Emotion Recall) renders pretty well on the piano (though I also play it OK on the guitar).

Damn! I just tried to give you a link to the recording of Emotion Recall on music.download.com, but they took it down and it now redirects to lastfm.com and the content isn't there, I will have to re-upload it... snif... snif... Ho well... But I do have a recording of my performance for that night, on YouTube.

So back to open mic night, my first appearance was actually a good humility lesson... First, there are a lot of very talented (and very young artists there). Second... I had not practice "Your song" a lot before presenting it there (too confident?), and I missed every second chord or so (but I managed to keep my voice on the right track at least... It's a good way to accept the fact that I'm still a computer programmer as opposed to a performing artist... But it still doesn't stop me from dreaming about it and go back to perform at the Arts Café on Tuesday nights, as often as I can ;-)... And also, I proved, once again, that a good sense of humor can compensate for a lot of things... All I had to do was change the lyrics here and there to insert jokes about my bad piano player performance to still entertain people and make them appreciate my performance.

The following week, I went back with my guitar. I played another cover, but this time I played one that I have been playing for almost 20 years now (Losing my religion). And I played my personal favorite composition (Fais-moi rêver). And after the night, we went to jam at one of the performers apartment... It was a blast... We were 6 guitar players, a harmonica player and a few female signers... Très cool...

So the week after that, I was more confident, and I decided to play the piano again. My friend GG was there to encourage me, so nothing could go wrong... And all went pretty well... I sang a French song that I render pretty well on the piano (Dis-tout sans rien dire) and then played another composition (most people do that, one cover and one original), which is one of the first good songs that I wrote (at least the first good one I wrote in French), and it is called "Belle Isabelle".

So last night, I decided to continue the alternating pattern and go back with my guitar this time... I played, again, two songs... One cover (Father and son from Cat Stevens) and one original (La couleur des rêves, for which I don't have a good recording yet, soon... maybe)... The overall room mood wasn't as exciting as for the last few weeks, but it was still a lot of fun... If you ever find yourself with nothing to do on a Tuesday night... Come and join us... If you like music, are interested in discovering completely unknown yet very talented artists... Or if you feel like sharing your own completely unknown talent... Go ahead... It is a lot of fun... and if you are too shy to go alone... Let me know... Maybe we could do a duo... :-)

Till then...

HAVE FUN!!!

BYE
MAD
P.S.: Yes, I know, some of you can't wait to read about my vacations... Patience... Patience... I'll start typing what I wrote there... Yes... I'm in the train now... I had to run across the parking lot, because... As usual... I got here at the last minute because I was trying to complete this post at the café... As I often say... Ho well... ;-)

Back to reality

Ola,

Sitting in the bus, crossing the bridge, just hung up the phone to tell GG that when I opened the blinds this morning, the sun was shining against a bright blue sky background, as I used to tell her almost every morning for the past week or so... We simply had a great vacation together...

Looking at other people in the bus this morning... feels weird... there is so much clothing covering their body... And where did they put the smiles they all had on their faces last week... Ho.. right, these are not the same people I was looking at last week, and we are not in the same country, with the same weather... though I find that it is a beautiful day today... It was warm enough last week to melt a good portion of the snow that could be seen when we left over a week ago... And even though the weather channel says it is -5 outside (-10 with the wind factor)... I just don't feel it... I traded my usual boots (you know which ones :-), with a pair of shoes and my Kanuk with a leather jacket (a warm one, but still)... And with that bright sunshine and a wall to wall blue sky... How could I not smile...

OK, enough about today, I guess you want to hear about my trip to Mexico... I will just give you a sneak preview cause the bus is getting close to the terminus... We partied all night long, for 6 out of 7 nights, we got a good sun tan, we drank, we ate very well, we laughed, we met very interesting people, I got a chance to sing in front of a crowd a few times, and we even had a magical after-hours night with a few friends around a piano in a closed (though unlocked) restaurant... It was great...

I took lots of pictures, and wrote a daily blog while I was there, but these will be published on my French traveling blog only... I will let you know when it is ready... Here's an example of how it felt there:

Till then... Have fun... I had a load of that last week...

BYE
MAD

P.S.: I started following a great pair of boots out of the bus... Nice looking hair from what I could see from behind her, but the stalking ended abruptly when she entered where no man has gone before (or at least shouldn't have), the girls room of the bus station... Ho Well...

P.P.S.: About this post title: "Back to reality"... Still... It is a reality that I truly love... So I'm not complaining about coming back to it :-)

About Transparency

Salut,

Another sitting in the bus episode... Though I had the idea while sitting in my car... stopped on a red light... Looking at the slim legs of a teenager waiting to cross the street... They caught my eye because they were shaking... It's a cold morning... And there were two of them (teenagers, not legs, we all have two legs... at least... most of us... anyway)... So her friend... had a very nice butt... And then I said... Ho my god... MAD, stop looking at her butt... She's just a teenager...

So what? Like those beauties I look at in the bus... I don't do anything wrong... I'll never ever do anything bad to these girls... I just enjoy looking at them... Is this a crime? I'm actually convinced that we all do the same... Come on... Who in their right mind don't like to look at good looking people? Of course, I agree that some people may not like to be looked at, and yet, come on... Who wouldn't like to know that others find them attractive??? COME ON!!!

I think the main difference with someone like me, is that I openly talk about it... And even publicly on the Internet (though you are not that many to read my blog, still...). And you should also note (for those of you who may not know me that well) that I am always like that (fully transparent)... I (almost) always say what I think (yet, I still try to be careful not to hurt anyone with what I say)... And I truly believe that thinking about it is not a crime...

It is true that you can get a good idea of who I am by knowing how I think... But it is how I act that truly defines who I am... For example, we, human beings, are animals. As with all animals, the way we live is mainly based on instincts. Our instinct is what got us to reproduce and survive through ages, so we should not deny them. We should never be ashamed of them... Even our most basic instincts... But it doesn't mean that we have to listen to them... The control we developed over our instincts, the sense of moral that our society have slowly built, is what made us (human beings) raise above the animal kingdom.

What I'm trying to get to, is that it is OK to expose ourselves by talking about the stuff that rambles in our head... To expose our emotions on the public place... To talk about our fears or our needs... It is OK... If someone think less of me because I looked at the cute butt of a teenager waiting to cross the street, if that someone judges me without taking the time get to know me well enough to understand that I would have never hurt that little girl in any way... well... too bad... that someone doesn't deserve to be my friend anyway...

Let's not judge each other too quickly... Let us be ourselves and not be shy to express it... The more we judge others, the less likely they will open their true self to us... And we will miss a chance to discover someone that could have become a good friend... a best friend... and even more...

So just let ourselves be transparent... And live happily ever after... ;-)

BYE
MAD

A post about nothing...

Salut,

sitting in the bus... front row center (well, not quite center, you know)... There are just a few people in the bus this morning... Spring break for lots of people... So I won't be looking at young cuties today... will look forward, where the bus is heading (when I'm not looking at the screen... I've been typing for long enough, I don't need to look at the keyboard :-)... Ho, but I just noticed now that as more people step in the bus, I see them very clearly from here... and there are a few cute ones... :-P

There are 3 spots to wait for the bus in the huge parking lot where I take an express bus to get downtown (when I don't take the train)... And I (almost) always walk all the way to the farthest one, where the bus starts, so that I can get a better seat... No, no, no, I don't mean a seat where I will get a better view on good looking girls, I mean a good seat where I will be able to type, or read my work email, or write my next hit single, or movie script :-)... But I still park my car closer to the beginning of the parking lot, so that I can get off the bus at the first stop on the way back, and get to my car quicker... I prefer to walk on the way to the bus, while it is waiting for me ;-)... as opposed to the way back where I decide when to leave.. Which is as soon as I get in my car (and start the engine, of course)...

Anyway, boring stuff... I'll probably have more interesting things to say next week... In a week from now, I'll be waking up to the bright sun shine of Riviera Maya in Mexico and getting ready for a nice breakfast before getting my beach bum in the sand... But I may write more in French, on my vacation blog.

Now I just raised my eyes to see the bridge in front of the bus as we get on the reserved lane, soon before they close it, there isn't much traffic anyway, since it is spring break... Which is weird... We're not even in spring yet... We still have 3 weeks of winter... I can't wait for spring and then the summer wind... I will get a glimpse of that next week... I think I really need this vacation...

I thought I was tired because I wasn't getting enough sleep (though I was enjoying every second I was awake)... But I have been getting much better sleep recently, and I still feel tired... So it's not just sleep... I need some time to relax, and do as little as possible... Like reading under the sun... Listening to music... Enjoying the view... Having a drink... Food prepared for me... Good conversations with a very good friend... Meeting new people... And keep hoping for the love of my life to show up... and hopefully recognize her...

BYE
MAD
P.S.: Title inspired by the show about nothing ;-)