what's with all the facebook invites, josh?

every now and again i get a friend who keeps it real with me and tells me that i send out too many event invites on facebook. i've even had a person or two tell me that it's annoying. and hey, i get it. they manifest on your end as just another pesky notification for something that you're not interested in. it's basically spam to you. you don't use the word, "spam," but that's what you mean. if you had a junk folder, you'd forward it to that.

here's the thing... i'm a dude who likes to tell jokes on microphones in front of people. the more people the better. and that's where the invites come in. i really want as many people as possible to come out and be a part of the audience. i'm sure all other musicians and artists feel the same way. we're not trying to annoy you. we really wanna see your face in the crowd. if there's no crowd, then there's no art form. i'm also highly unfamous so it's not like i got representation or publicity of any sort. facebook's all i got. it's cheap and easy.

and yes, i click on everyone when i send out the invites. why? why can't i at least not include out of towners? because it's so much easier for me to blindly click on everyone's name then it is to sit and think about every single person for a moment. so yes, friends from california, you will from time to time receive an invite for a show in the depths of jersey that i don't expect you to fly in for. all i really expect from you is that you politely ignore the invite on facebook and move on (in my defense, i do sometimes try to seed out the out-of-towners but my method's not perfect).

and you're my friend right? that's the reason we're connected on facebook. or that's supposed to be anyways. if we're not really friends, and my constant invites annoy you, then maybe you should stop with the sham and unfriend me. go ahead. i dare you. facebook became this thing where we accept this connection with people we don't really care about and then get all annoyed when they use this connection to reach out to us. that's really more of a 'you' issue. unfriend or quit your bitching.

also, notifications. i know, some of, if not most of, you have your cellphone notify you of a notification the moment it drops. let me tell you what i do. my cell phone doesn't notify me of facebook updates. why? because i chose to turn that shit off. i'm not a slave to facebook. i utilize it often, but i go to facebook on my time. i'm not willing to jump on facebook every single time my phone tells me there's yet another update. free yourself from those social networking chains that bind you. if my invites annoy you for this reason, then i choose to see myself as a freedom fighter trying to set you free. i'm doing this for you.

i don't expect all of you to come see me perform live. i dropped those sorta lofty expectations some time ago. you think receiving my invites are annoying? let me tell you what annoying is. annoying is performing all these comedy shows in odd venues like bars and basements and not seeing any of your friends come out to support. annoying is going home after a questionable set wondering why no one comes out to support you only to hear someone say, 'ugh, facebook invites are so annoying.' i don't expect you to come out to my shows. i just expect you to not be such a whiny snot every time i invite you to one.

i hope i don't get fired for this post

let's say there was this company that you worked for. and you've been there for years. you've worked in a 4 person dept and the lineup hasn't changed in years... at least 5 or 6. and then one day you walk into work to find out that they're getting rid of 2 people, including your boss, because they have to make cutbacks. you still have a job. should you have gratitude?

i imagine you'd find it increasingly harder to take your job serious. i mean, you can bust your ass all you want, but if cutbacks need to be made again, it's obvious all that hard work doesn't mean much. you could be out just as soon as those other 2 who were just here a minute ago. and now you gotta answer to your old boss's manager and pretend that you really wanna fill in the gaps that will now be missing with 2 men down. but you really don't, right? why would you? succeeding in doing that will only make it look like they were justified in laying off your former teammates and you know for sure they weren't.

and then you'll think about your ex-coworkers. what it's like to be them right now. jobless. you hope they're okay. and then you feel bad. you like these 2 people and you don't wanna think about them in a struggle. and you're now at your job which is the same place that is responsible for putting those 2 people in a shitty position in the first place. and it's gonna be assumed that you'll just smile and move on and try real hard from here on out to be the best employee you can be. but it all feels like bullshit.

you'll deal with vendors and coworkers from other dept's who really don't care all that much that your buddies are gone. that you like them as human beings. that you miss them being there. they'll demand of you whatever it is they demanded of the whole dept a week and a half ago before this all happened. and you'll wanna scream and throw stuff at walls. and a part of you will think that's a good plan, cuz fuck this place, right?

because seriously, fuck this place. this place has just proven that your loyalty and hard work might end in a box to carry your personal belongings to your car. you're pissed. you'll walk into the office everyday waiting for upper management to admit they made a mistake, turn back time, and bring it back to how it was when you still sorta liked your job. they'll want you to forgive them. yea, any day now.

and you like security and comfort. and your job provides both of those for the moment. and you know that if you do something too crazy, it might be the end of all that. and as much as you wanna be the badass who doesn't give a fuck anymore, you can't help but just give a bit of a fuck. and you don't know why because fuck these people, right? and you'll feel like a bit of a sellout. you're trading in your time to come to a place that no longer meets your standards.

i'm glad i like music

i'm glad i like music. i don't know if that sounds stupid. it probably did to me yesterday. but today, today everything changed. today i  had an encounter with a dude who says he doesn't like music anymore. he's an older dude who overheard me and a coworker going back and forth about bands we like. and as soon as that coworker walked away, he grabbed my attention and said, "y'know josh, i just don't like music that much anymore. i used to. but now i don't." he then went on to explain himself, but it wasn't much of an explanation, just reinforcement of his original statement.

i hope i always like music. i can't imagine not liking it. i can't imagine a day i not only don't listen to music, but also a day where i could possibly listen to music and not enjoy the ever loving everything out of it. i don't wanna try to psychoanalyze here... but if you don't like music, at all, something's gotta be screwy with your soul (or whatever you wanna call that inner part of us you can't explain). or maybe it's extremely mathematical and has nothing to do with a soul. either way, something's wrong somewhere. it just doesn't seem natural to me not to like music.

and that helped me to realize that liking music is good enough. some people want to be scientists about music and get into the innards of it and memorize names and notes and that's all well and good, but you don't need to be a know-it-all to enjoy. don't get me wrong, you can be a know-it-all and enjoy it. if that's your thing, knock yourself out. but it's not necessary. i'm not sure what is necessary actually. i don't think there's anyway to truly explain it. it's like it defines itself. liking music is all you need to be able to do to like music. and up until a certain point today, i just assumed it was easy to do and everyone had it in them. but maybe i assumed wrong, maybe they don't. or maybe they do and they just lose touch with it.

either way, i'm glad i like music.