Hey all…
I wanted to give you an update on the granuloma just above my vocal cord. I had surgery this afternoon to remove it and am now on complete vocal rest for a month or more. It’s been a very long process in waiting to see if time was an alternative to surgery, but even given two weeks’…
I wanted to share with you a memory of my friend Steve Jobs, a memory that in the days since his passing has come to represent how great of a guy he was, and how good he was to me.
I first met Steve in 2003, over the phone, when I cold-called him to tell him I was a devout fan of all things Apple…
A crowded Harvard Bar. Will and our gang walk by a line of
several Harvard students, waiting to be carded.
CHUCKIE
All right, are we gonna have a
problem?
CLARK
There's no problem. I was just hoping
you could give me some insight into
the evolution of the market economy
in the early colonies. My contention
is that prior to the Revolutionary
War the economic modalities especially
of the southern colonies could most
aptly be characterized as agrarian
precapitalist and...
Will, who at this point has migrated to Chuckie's side and
is completely fed-up, includes himself in the conversation.
WILL
Of course that's your contention.
You're a first year grad student.
You just finished some Marxian
historian, Pete Garrison prob'ly,
and so naturally that's what you
believe until next month when you
get to James Lemon and get convinced
that Virginia and Pennsylvania were
strongly entrepreneurial and
capitalist back in 1740. That'll
last until sometime in your second
year, then you'll be in here
regurgitating Gordon Wood about the
Pre-revolutionary utopia and the
capital-forming effects of military
mobilization.
CLARK
(taken aback)
Well, as a matter of fact, I won't,
because Wood drastically
underestimates the impact of--
WILL
"Wood drastically underestimates the
impact of social distinctions
predicated upon wealth, especially
inherited wealth..." You got that
from "Work in Essex County," Page
98, right? Do you have any thoughts
of your own on the subject or were
you just gonna plagiarize the whole
book for me?
Clark is stunned.
WILL
Look, don't try to pass yourself off
as some kind of an intellect to impress
these girls and embarrass my friend.
Clark is lost now, searching for a graceful exit, any exit.
WILL
The sad thing is, in about 50 years
you might start doin' some thinkin'
on your own and by then you'll realize
there are only two certainties in
life.
CLARK
Yeah? What're those?
WILL
One, don't do that. Two -- you
dropped a hundred and fifty grand on
an education you coulda' picked up
for a dollar fifty in late charges
at the Public Library.
Will catches Skylar's eye.
CLARK
But I will have a degree, and you'll
be serving my kids fries at a drive
through on our way to a skiing trip.
WILL
(smiles)
Maybe. But at least I'll be original. I appreciate your appreciation.
Hey Brittany! Of course I remember you silly! Thank you so much, for all of the above. You’re awesome. Miss ya!
First off, THANK YOU. Hearing and reading things like this fuel me to keep doing what I’m doing. Writers are thinkers. And we have this internal subconscious need to get what’s in our minds and hearts out there, hoping someone else will catch onto it, thus relating and identifying themselves with what we feel, too. And that is the everlasting, timeless beauty of art.
Sure! I hang out with artists that I consider myself a fan of all the time. Just because you consider yourself a fan of my music, doesn’t mean I have an ego and think of myself as too good to associate with a “fan” persay!
Sitting on my ass all day, really. But if you meant career-wise, I’d be in school somewhere working towards an English degree so I could be a teacher.
“Amazing” and “perfect” are really subjective words. Although I truly appreciate the sentiment and you’re much loved for being, well, so loving towards me, I like to think that I have the same ability to be an important contributor to society as anyone else. I’m glad you think I’m nice, and I’m glad we’ve met!
September 3rd. I’m weird with dates. My mind definitely works on some kind of internal calendar system. I can feel the season’s change in my skin, my bones, my heart. I think I’ll always remember September 3rd. And with good reason. A year ago today was an extremely pivotal day for me. It was a day that sparked and perpetuated a period of necessary self-discovery.
The words “maybe we just need a break” never roll off the tongue smoothly, and never come with any great ease. And I think back to how I felt then. How I tried to register and process this feeling of heartbreak for the very first time at 19-years-old. Confusion, hurt, self-pity, self-loathing, anxiety, depression - I experienced all of those and then some. Looking back, though, I’ve identified one tidbit that I don’t think I ever took into account, amidst my crumbling state, was how incredibly difficult this must have been for her, too. I was so entirely self-absorbed in my own little world with all of the above said “side-effects” of heartache, if you will, that I never let myself view things from the other side of the track.
September 3rd. A time period I would never wish for my greatest enemy to ever have to endure a second of. Now, you may be feeling at this point that I am overdramatizing and saying, “Oh, it’s just a teenage break up, it happens…” and so on and so forth. But you weren’t there and you’re not me. If you have ever experienced anything vaguely familiar to my situation, you know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, you will. Trust me.
I became a different person after September 3rd. I was turning to friends and family for solace and advice for the first time, whereas I had always been there as the voice of reason for them. That was one of the first lessons I learned. The tables can turn at any instant and you will find yourself in an opposite state than what you are accustomed to.
The days went by slowly. I don’t think I left my couch for three weeks. Just waiting by the phone, hoping any second it would ring and it would be her with tears in her voice saying, “This is stupid, I miss you. Come back.” That’s when I learned that watching romantic comedies during a break-up period is never in your best interest. Life will never play out quite perfectly as a movie script does.
I can honestly say there were days where I would wake up and not know if or how I was going to make it through the day. I just didn’t see any breach of this thing. I had so many people trying to help me out, too. But I shut them all out. Which isn’t rude or selfish - it’s fine. Mental pain and severe heartache are far more excruciating than any physical pain you can imagine. But heartbreak must heal, like anything, on its own and with time. It is definitely unbearable to watch someone you care about suffer, and taken my state, I can only look back and be thankful for those who were there for me then. In essence, I was a wreck. My family, my friends, her family, her friends - they could all attest to that. And that was the next lesson I learned. No matter how you’ve chosen to shut them out and not heed their advice, there are and will always be people who care about you. This is something I have only begun to realize recently.
But you’re not going to want to heed their advice anyway. And you’re not going to want to have to accept the words “move on” until you’re actually ready to. All of which are completely and totally fine. You’re meant to be a miserable, cranky a**hole. Embrace it. I call this the “‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card” period. You don’t think anyone could ever understand this exact type of pain you’re enduring. I couldn’t believe others and I would get almost offended when they would lay on thick layers of advice. How could they EVER understand what I am going through!? And the answer is they do. They’ve been there. And, now, so have I. I know this now because in the period between these two September 3rd’s, I have had to be the one to console a friend or two in their battle. To be a crutch, but hold back just enough and let them heal on their own.
One thing you have to know is that you can’t run from your feelings. You need to accept them for what they are. If you’re hurt, you’re hurt. There’s no debating that. The only thing that got me off that couch was the fact I had to go back on tour for two more weeks. Being away from home and out of your element when all you want to do is curl up in a ball and watch re-runs of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is a total reality check. I began to see the business side of music better then. Work was work. Whether I was in an office cubicle, waiting tables or on the road. Physicality and distance plays no part in healing quicker. It followed me to California. I spent a good deal of the month of Novemeber in Los Angeles, and then a little time in San Diego. Didn’t change anything. It will follow you everywhere. Anyway you think you are going to expedite the process of healing won’t work, I promise. It is and always will be just time.
I am writing this from a place of healing, maturation and growth. I used to wonder where I would be a year from that day. Now I know. Still standing. Well, sitting. And on the same couch that I had trouble getting off of for those three weeks. I used to be so angry. Angry at her, angry at myself, the world - you name it, I was angry at it. I’m not angry anymore. In all honesty, meeting and dating her was one of the best things to ever happen to me. No one will ever be able to take those happy times away from us. And make no mistake, no one is going to be able to take away the difficult times either. That’s all part of the enduring that no one can scathe by.
I make no promises about the future. For you or for me. Oh, you’re going to have your September 3rd one day. Maybe it’ll be October 12th or March 21st. And, yeah, it’s going to hurt. More than you can imagine, too. “Quick and painless” do not exist in the realm of a break-up, for either side. You’re not going to wake up one day and it’ll suddenly all be over. 4 weeks, 6 months, 8 months, a year. You’ll heal on your own time.
I’m sorry I don’t have the storybook ending for this one. And I don’t know much more further than this about the future. All I could ever want her to know is that she is still an amazing person and I am better for having known her. I know we’ll both be alright.
I am not the person I was a year ago. Nor was I meant to be.
- Corey
“Y'know, it’s hard to talk about songs without talking about relationships. And that’s what people like to talk about. And I sing about relationships, so I have to talk about them - especially if this is called "Storytellers”. So, I hope you’re O.K. with that. I loved a girl a lot and I think I had an experience that a lot of guys have had. Loved a girl a lot, but she couldn’t trust men. And if you trace it back as to “Why?”, the first man in her life she couldn’t trust. And I know this song called “Daughters” sounds a lot like I’m just sittin’ around the house, spitballin’, coming up with some really nice, lofty things to sing about. But, it really is the result of having traced it backwards, trying to figure out how I could possibly love this person. And the answer is you can’t, because someone else didn’t before you. And I know this song, y'know, like - “What does he know? What does this 24-year-old kid know about having kids?” And I don’t, but I would have liked to have in that situation and I couldn’t really get it through. Like, “Im not gonna hurt ya.. I’m gonna do the opposite!” But it’s this culture, y'know? You watch “The Real World” and you see girls getting dragged out of bars, completely drunk, self-diagnosing themselves. Like, I’m diagnosing you as “drunk”. You can’t get pulled out of a bar drunk and talk about how you have “abandonment issues”. You have drinking issues. You have red blood cell issues, right now. Self-diagnosing on “The Real World”. And then Chris Rock had this joke about “keeping your daughter off the pole”. And I think I was in Australia flying to New Zealand and I had heard Chris Rock doing something about “keep you daughter off the pole and keep the clear heels out of her closet.” And I sort of put those two things together and thought about my situation. And I’m really singing to a girl, “Fathers, be good to your daughters” because I can’t love this girl. And I think a lot of guys have had that situation. And if I meet one more beautiful woman, with Daddy issues, I swear to God, I’m just gonna go insane. Beat the crap out of my daughters someday. That’s probably how the vicious cycle started, come to think about it. That’s how it all started. Wow. These songs can actually be very enlightening. And by “enlightening”, I mean ruining your career.“
- John Mayer. VH1 "Storytellers”, November 2009.
Wow, there are so many. “Wheel” by John Mayer is my favorite song of all time. I can identify so many parts of my past with that tune. “Superman” by Joe Brooks is also great. “Caves” and “Swim” by Jack’s Mannequin, too. All powerful, great songs. I’m sure there are many others.
Of course!
Ren & Stimpy, definitely.
Invisibility. All day, everyday!
YES I DO. I got to see him in NYC in May. “5:19” is one of my favorite songs ever. And I love his new record, “Weights and Wings”, too. He is over-all exceptional!
I’ve thought for a few minutes on how to answer this question properly. I could’ve been incredibly impulsive, but truth is I’m just indecisive. “September” was one of the first songs I’ve ever written. And probably the oldest song that I still play, or at least haven’t retired yet. Do I think it’s my best song? No. But it’s still got its special place in my heart.
There’s currently an untitled song for the new record that I’ve been testing the waters with in the live setting - acoustically and full band. I really like it because I think the song itself shows a step forward in a direction that I never ventured into before, nor intended on going in. But I love it all the same. More than a few people have approached me after some of the more recent shows and pointed out that they specifically liked this song, too. I wish I could be less nondescript. But you’ll hear it when it releases.
I wrote a song around a half year ago called “Along The Way”. If nothing else, I believe it is my most honest work to date. It’s about a break up I went through. And although the feel for it is not a sappy, sad break-up song, the lyrics have a lot of heart. It’s a very broken down song, too. It works with mainly just acoustic guitar. As much as I like to jam out with a bunch of other guys on stage to my songs, this song is entirely lyrically driven and needs those minimalist qualities to really set the tone of the story the listener will live in for at least those three minutes.
Ahh, a nicely posed question. I’m going to answer the second question first because of the timeline correlation. I grew up listening to bands like Blink 182, Nirvana and Rancid. I was really heavy into punk and grunge when I was 10 or so. And if I want to date myself even further, I remember rocking out to No Doubt’s “Tragic Kingdom” which was released in 1995. I came in and out of a couple of different musical phases then. I floated around for a while until my mother gave me a copy of John Mayer’s “Any Given Thursday” Live DVD for Christmas, subsequently the same year I began playing guitar. From that day forward John Mayer encompassed all and everything I wanted to be. Those previously mentioned bands were reasons for why I got into music, but John Mayer is definitely the reason I still PLAY music.