Crazy Burghs

IMPORTANT: NEXT GIG IS SATURDAY, June 26th, 10am-1pm in Charleston, West Virginia for Festivall, on the corner of Washington and Tennessee. It's free, so see you there! :D
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One thing I have noticed a lot about Pittsburgh drivers is that most of them drive wreckless and slow at the same time. Today must have been just wreckless day.

1) On my way to a call, I was stopped at a stop sign by my house. I looked left. I looked right. I look left again which must have been my mistake because when I took my foot off the brake, this teenage punk in a blue silverado was flying down the road coming up on my right. By the time I saw his speedy gonzales-ness, i saw him mouth the words "f*ck you" to me as he flew by in the truck his parents probably bought him.

I wanted to follow him to the next stop sign, pull him out of the truck, knock out all his teeth, then have him call his parents, so they can hear him say the exact words he said to me while he was driving 60 mph in a residential area. Considering, I would probably never do that and the words "I don't want to go to jail" started to pop-up in my mind, I just let it slide and went on to work.

2) I pulled out of a gas station later on in the day, and a teenager in an impala swerved into busy, oncoming traffic so that he could pass the dump truck in front of him. Almost caused a big wreck. Smart kid.

3) I was behind a napper van (ya know, the white van you always see in the movies kid-"napp"-ing people?) on the highway today and he had two ladders and about 7 pieces of plywood on the top of his van. It wasn't enough that the van was already swerving from lane to lane, this dude didn't even strap down his wood (that's what she said). For real though! 3 big sheets of WOOD came flying above and around my car. At 65mph, I could have DIED, but luckily i swerved out of the way for the first sheet... the only thing i could do to tell him though was *beep beep* *shrug, point at the top of the car*

Got any crazy traffic stories?

Summer makes for some crazy burghers.

Twitter's 404 page: The Fail Whale.

For the last week or so, Twitter has been saying they are over capacity and that too many tweets have been tweeted at once.

Notice my post is at 6:39pm EDT, so this can't be a planned maintenance.

Maybe they should have prepared for the World Cup?

Updates, A Rant, and Many Thanks

So, wow, almost a year since my last entry. I'm so sorry about that guys.

So a lot of new things:
- New camera: the Canon EOS Rebel T2i (suggested by AJ Rafael) - awesome everything.
- Made a commercial for Kellogg's: "Start The Day" (which actually allowed me to buy said camera).
- I've got a vlog channel where I'm going to be posting some more personal stuff.
- I'm still writing for the new album... I don't want to start recording until it is really right, but all the songs are good. :)
- I'll be playing at FAP 2.0, so please don't hesitate to get your tickets! It would be great to see you there.
- and more... too many to name.

(Warning: this is a rant)
Recently, I've been looking over myself, trying to figure out the weird parts of my life. If you all are keeping up with my vlog, you'll see that I'm on a diet and I'm exercising more. I'm starting to realize that the name I made for myself on YouTube is now a thing of the past. Videos are higher quality, there is a lot of post-production in every video out there... it's really hard to keep up with the flow.

But I'm asking myself, why do I have to keep up with the flow? I'm a singer/songwriter.

I had lunch with a couple of friends a few weeks ago and got to talking about music... one of them is a musician, a songwriter actually. He asked me, "So how is music going, ya' know being a YouTube cover artist." I was slightly offended.

But it's true a lot of us do covers, and covers, and more covers to get more hits, and really -- it's true! A lot of YouTube artists are essentially just doing karaoke. I mean, I haven't released an original song since "Here" (except for "Start The Day" lol). And I feel kind of like a hypocrite because I've been discovered because of my unique renditions of songs, but some people are taking a "diva-ish" twist as they start to become egocentric and less of a musician, and more of a label or brand, if you will.

I dont mind it - hell, i'm just jealous and i wish I could only have a problem like that so I can prove to people that there can be honest, polite people out there in successful land... but when it comes to getting success, you best acknowledge the people who gave you the opportunity, the people who supported you through it all, and your closest friends and family. If you start to ignore them, your support will not follow you, they will not respond to you, and they will not be loyal to you.

I think that is one of the biggest things I'm struggling with - comparing myself with other musicians and putting a price on myself based on how many subscribers I have in comparison. I'm sure a lot of you YouTubers do it too, don't lie. "So and so got 5M hits on their one original and I've got... 700k?" It's sad that this kind of thing could have any type of competition. Before, YouTube was a community of people who just enjoyed sharing their lives on a video medium because it was new, intimate, fresh... now, it's more than commercialized, it has become as (or more) concentrated with professional artists as regular TV. It has become the mainstream. I have to admit that I cannot compete with that.

But I do love YouTube for what opportunities it has given me from a lower-level perspective. It has been almost an extension of my life - my music career, my proposal, etc.

What I have come to find is that I am fortunate there are 46k people out there who I moved enough to hit that little yellow button. I am fortunate to say to people that I am a semi-professional musician because of the people who support me on YouTube. I am fortunate that God gave to me the gift of music. That is what is important - stepping out of the box for a second to look back and see what all has come of my efforts on YouTube and the people who love watching me... and from what I've seen in the last 3-4 years, it is so good.

So for those of you who are still here... thank you. And thank you for everything you done to make me who I am.

See you on the next blog.
-Chris