04/14/2026
🥹 Music is pretty much everything in my life — it’s brought me a lot of beautiful connections, shared experiences, and new friends…💗 AND for the first time in a while, I’ll be performing a featured solo set at at Wednesday night’s open mic, performing some solo songs I’ve recorded and have NEVER released alongside originals written for ! 🤠 I’m currently in the studio working on a social justice / protest song, which has dominated my heart and mind as of late — my goal is to get it onto the radio EVERYWHERE! 🐊💭
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Anyway, here’s the deep cut: It’s been a tough time for me, mostly financially. I haven’t had the money to record much of anything, let alone pay my bills or buy groceries, etc. I’ve also had multiple car problems while struggling to make it into NJ’s Alternate Route program to become a high school art teacher. [After spending almost $500 on the cert…and feeling really confident about my teaching and professional experience…I then found out they require specific courses to have been taken at the college level for art teachers; I basically had to go back to step one and spend another $1,000 PER COURSE as a thirty-something year-old adult who has been part-time teaching at the college and high school level for five years.] Money is everything in our society. Nothing is free. Education and skill training are expensive. Talent seems next-to-worthless if it isn’t related to making a company millions in profits. It sucks that companies and/or government entities don’t invest in humans to build a stronger economy (INSTEAD OF AI). I now have a full-time job but am about to have to start working another part-time job / waiting tables again just to pay the bills. In the southern New Jersey area, there are hardly any opportunities for original bands excluding “play four hours of cover music at a bar”) — it truly is a cultural desert outside of certain historic cities…and even those have one or two festivals per year to hire bands and art merchants. I’m on the edge, but I’m grateful for some truly wonderful human beings. 💪😪✌️ Let’s change things
