Last year on December 31st I posted a Goodbye 2004 entry, listing the good and bad of 2004. Actually, I think I left out the Bad and focused more on the Good …I’m not sure why I was so optimistic then. I just had a good feeling about 2005 …and so I guess it just goes to show that I’m NOT psychic.

Reflecting back on ‘05 , It’s hard not to look at the CRAP. It was anything but boring…

Here’s just a few things that seemed to take up most of my year[the names have not been given to protect the not-so innocent]:

1. Near the start of the year I was asked to put together a showcase for a certain publishing company who seemed interested in working out a publishing deal. [for those of you who don't know what this is, basically it's a deal where they give you a certain amount of money each year and you turn in a certain amount of songs...they place the songs in TV shows, Movies or other artists to record...etc.. with hopes to make the money back. There's more to it but that's the basic idea]. Anyway…The fellow in control of the money wanted to see a live performance so I asked where and when. They gave me a date they said they would come out and I busted my ass setting up the show and performed at The Key Club. It was a great show…the sound was nice and everything was ON. Only thing that was OFF was the head of the publishing company STIFFED me and didn’t show up. I did get a lame excuse of why he didn’t show though…I really expected a little more than that from someone who seemed to be well respected in the music world. Later I found out they were restructuring their company and not taking on new artists.
2. A little later in the year I was offered Record Contract. This turned out to be nothing and to this day I’m still confused over what exactly happened. All I know is that for about 6 months this contract was being dangled over my head and when it was finally handed to me, the deal did not turn out to be such a great deal. The CEO of this company seemed like a nice guy and on the level…he just flaked out on me is all….and turned out to be a smoke blower. I’d send emails, only to get really lame excuses of why nothing was happening. Finally it came to the point where it felt like my emails/calls were pestering him and the last we left everything was him saying "Everything’s still moving forward, I’ll be in touch after Halloween"…MONTHS have gone by and I’ve since written it off. On the bright side, it’s a good thing that I didn’t sign a contract with this company…if it took 6 months to just hand me a half-baked contract, how long would it take them to release an actual CD? I know things take time, but COME ON ALREADY.
3. During all of this waiting game for this recording contract, I had a husband and wife managing team wanting to represent me and send me out on auditions for acting gigs…get commercial agents…all that sort of stuff. [Their claim to fame was once managing Michael J. Fox so they seemed to be on the level...even though MJF called them "B and S" in his autobiography.] The second these folks found out that I was being offered a recording deal, they tried to get me to sign this bullshit contract that basically said they would own 10% of everything I ever do and ever have done in the past. They wanted 10% even if they were NO LONGER working with me …forever…I really tried to come to an agreement all of us could live with but that never happened. The word that comes to mind is GREEDY…I walked away from them and their contract and they COULD NOT BELIEVE that I would do such a thing. I have no regrets.

These 3 things just made my year feel like an internal tsunami. These things were also almost enough to break me and make me walk away from it all. They have sure made me 2nd guess my direction in life….I still don’t know what the future holds…I just know that from now on I’m going to be more guarded and fine-tune my bullshit meter.

If it were JUST this last year’s tornado of smoke blowers…I might be able to stomach it a bit easier but after already been around the block in 2001 with the whole Farmclub record deal experience and dealing a band breakup from hell…well…let’s just say the crap adds up.  [This is a whole other story.]

Anyway…back to the year in review? I really don’t know what the future holds. I enter 2006 being cautious and with a "don’t bullshit me" attitude. From now on, my mentality when it comes to contracts and people offering me stuff is "let’s not talk about it, just DO IT…show me the money". Sounds bitter I know, but I refuse to waste any more time.

In closing, if the saying "what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger" has any truth to it, I should be bulletproof for 2006. Of course, there’s always a job as the break dancing bear

I do hope you all have a great New Year!