By: Ken Boone When I sat down to write today, I was ready to go into a full-blown, 1,200-word rant about all the times and ways I have been wronged in my life. I wasn’t worried because I’m always able to pivot to where I can assign enough blame to me. I’m also able to find the silver lining behind the dark cloud. Even the title of this blog post was my attempt to launch into a “woe is me” aria, but I’m not going to get into who said or did stuff that harmed or angered me. This was supposed to be the second half of an earlier blog post (“The First 100 are Always the Hardest” - March 04, 2019) and I was all set to complain about the perceived disinterest of my friends to what I am posting on social media. Fortunately for me, something went wrong on my way to writing this story. I started to count my blessings. There are people I want to thank for quietly hearing my cries for help, or validation. This list isn’t exhaustive, and I’ve lost touch with several them. But I just want to let them know how much I appreciate them. My wife, Celia, edits each of these blog posts. She does more than just tidy up the grammar; she softens the hard edges of my recollections. She also sharpens my elbows when I need to get a point across. Not for me to retaliate, but to help me connect with readers in relatable ways. She has been an enormously good influence on me, and I cannot thank her enough! My son, Kenny, has my back even when it’s not apparent. I invested a lot in him over the years. I also realize that he’s probably invested even more in me. This guy always picks the perfect gift, no matter the size of his budget. From a $5 multi-head screwdriver when he was in the 2nd grade, to a brand-new truck as a thank you gift, and much, much more. He’s been reading all my blog posts and offers praise and encouragement. And of course, he made me a grandfather! In 2012, Celia had several major surgeries requiring an extended hospital stay. Our neighbor, Becky D., would finish her 12-hour nursing shift and then spend time with Celia before leaving the hospital just about every day. She would also make sure I was ok, since I was with Celia almost around the clock. The friendship just grew from there. In 2019, she still checks up on us and always clicks that “like” button on our posts. In planning our wedding, Celia and I hadn’t considered what we were going to do about the music. Becky O., a life-long friend of Celia’s, stepped right in, driving 2 ½ hours to play the piano as our friends and family gathered to share our wedding. She played “Ave Maria” as the processional for Celia’s walk down the aisle. She also listens to our podcasts and will appear as our first guest on our upcoming podcast, “Songs from the Journey!” The mountains of North Carolina produce the most wonderful people! Also attending our wedding were our dear friends, Jimmy & Robin E. Since that day, we’ve eaten many meals together, shared the stage with them, and supported each other’s ministries. Their generosity is greatly appreciated. From the anonymous love offerings when we would perform, to the donation of a P.A. system, to Robin being our very first Twitter follower, these two have been nothing short of angels to us! My first producing gig since my comeback was a freebie. I didn’t care, because I was just glad to be wanted. I was recording the music for a college film project. The younger brother of one of the project leaders was tapped to lay down a guitar part. Don came in with enthusiasm, a great attitude, and tremendous talent. He made the track come alive! At the same time, I started producing Celia’s debut album and was having a hard time finding local musicians to flesh out the track. Enter Don again, playing guitar, alto saxophone, and putting down some co-lead vocals! We couldn’t have completed the project without him. My buddy, Pete, was gracious enough to take me under his wings and really teach me the music business. It wasn’t through chalk and talk, but through the most entertaining anecdotes. I never wanted to bother him with my small-time ambitions. But when I would, he was, and is, always there with the right bit of wise advice. When he finally sold his record label, he lobbied the new owner to keep me on to produce the royalty statements. When I expressed reluctance in doing that, Pete persuaded me to take the gig in his own special way. Last summer, when I started kicking around the idea of creating podcasts, I had no idea what I was doing. Of course, I went to Google to find videos, articles, and blogs for a crash course. Beth B., our friend and Celia’s boss, stepped in with a couple of situations that really helped me out. I recorded a demo with her and her friend. She gave me my first remote spot. She even hosted the first season of my first podcast. Working with her got my chops up to snuff quickly! The people I mentioned in this post are not the only ones who’ve help Celia and me along the way. I’ll probably end up writing a second post thanking more people later. But these folks prove that when that metaphoric tree falls in the forest, the sound is only heard by special people with a special type of caring and compassion. I constantly must convince myself that it’s not the end of the world if my post may get only a “like” or two. Celia helps me to right-size my expectations. She tells me to continue to strive to produce quality content and let go of trying to control the results. For grins and giggles, I Googled “Descant Music & Ministry”, “Descant Podcasts”, and “Descant Blogs”, and to my surprise, all three searches showed up on the first page of results! In my research, I learned that getting on page 1 of a Google search is of greater consequence than likes, shares, tweets, retweets. It means that the fallen tree does make a sound! And to you, dear reader, we invite you to check us out. You can look us up on Facebook, Twitter, on our website. It doesn’t matter what platform you pick. Or you can just Google “Descant Music & Media Group”. We show up on page 1! But wait... there's more!
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By: Ken Boone They didn’t call it a debutante ball. They didn’t call it a cotillion. I think they called it a coronation march, or some other term that made it clear this event didn’t involve dancing. Apparently, it was a big honor to be asked to serve as an escort to one of the belles. How do I know that? Because mom said so. I don’t remember much about the whole thing, but for every reason I gave for not participating, mom gave me the name of one of “the fellas” who was going to do it. Maybe she thought if I did this, it would give me a sense of belonging or entrance into the clique I called ”the fellas.” Although I was a full-blown truant from school at the time, I finally agreed. My truancy may have been the reason why I hesitated. This was a gathering of the best and brightest youth members of a dozen or so of the “Thou Shalt Not” Churches in New York City. I think I was 16-years old at the time. The first rehearsal was interesting. I knew very few of “the fellas,” and even fewer of the young ladies, although they all seemed to know each other. I thought it was weird that none of the guys I knew took the time to introduce me to the other guys. They stayed huddled up, sang acapella versions of quasi Gospel songs and argued over which branch of medicine they planned to practice. The funny thing is, those guys were in high school at the time. But they made it clear the rest of us escorts weren’t welcome in that huddle, although no of them told us to get lost. For that, my fragile ego thanked you! I was paired with a very nice young lady from a church in Brooklyn, based on height. I don’t think she was in the girls’ clique either, but we didn’t bother exchanging phone numbers. The guys and girls practiced separately the first half of the rehearsals. They may have been teaching the girls how to gracefully walk in high heeled shoes, although all the girls I knew mastered that feat by the time they were thirteen! The guys spent that time marching in circles as if we were in our first week of basic training. “Dub to the left flank, dub to the right flank, dub to the rear….” The second half of the rehearsals, they had us pair up to walk around in circles with our partners. It was weird, but our church taught that dancing was one of many cardinal sins. So marching and walking in circles was the drill until one fateful day that became another pivotal moment in my teens. One night, between the basic training and couple’s marching, the coordinator cut the guys’ rehearsal short and told most of us to take a break. The in-crowd of guys stayed on the floor. I don’t what they did, because I believe the rest of us were shown the door. After a while, we were ushered back in to march around with the ladies. The night of the event mercifully arrived. There was the tuxedo rental, along with patent leather shoes. There was the haircut that halved the length of my carefully coifed afro. It was a lot of money out of my teenaged budget, but there was no one else picking up the tab. As pissed as I was, the cost of my attire was nothing compared to what had to be paid for gowns, shoes, hairdos, and accessories for the young ladies. The event kicked off with a lot of fanfare. The guys, including me, flawlessly marched to the left, to the right, to the rear, then halted. The crowd clapped. Then, we were again ushered off stage, leaving “the fellas” in the spotlight. After an audible count off, they launched into a series of steps that would make any HBCU drill team or fraternity, green with envy. The crowd went wild. The fellas were impressive, but I remember my ears turned red and started to burn. That is my physical response when I get angry. While watching them, I asked myself, “When did they have auditions for that gig? Were they sizing us up when we were marching to the left, the right, the rear? Was there a rule that truants need not apply? Or were ‘the fellas’ just special?” I needed answers but didn’t know where to go to get them. As annoyed as I was, and I’m sure the other escorts who weren’t part of “the fellas” were upset too, we had to go back onstage to march our partners around in circles to waltz-tempo songs. I didn’t want to go back on, but it wouldn’t be fair to the girls to stage a walkout. I said nothing about this to anyone for decades, but I never forgot. I said nothing when “the fellas” were in the starting lineups on the basketball teams at the various church games, even though I was a taller, far better player than most of them. Another rejection, more hurt. I said nothing, yet thought a lot about those rejections from time to time. Eventually I got over it. I realized that the only time I ever got to march was during that church-sponsored event. I never marched in school on any level. It wasn’t because of my truancy. That phase was caused by a sense of hopelessness that I will get into in a later blog post. By the way, other than when I was in high school, I was a very good student. I didn’t march in elementary school because I was on stage playing trombone in the school band. I didn’t march in middle school for the same reason. I didn’t march in high school because my GED certificate arrived in the mail. And I didn’t march in college because I was coaching my son’s Little League team. Eventually I forgot the hurt and anger of being excluded, but it was a sore spot whenever it came to mind. I went on to stumble into a career at a large accounting firm where I wore business suits and did well. One day, I left the office at lunch to run an errand. Weaving through the crowd, I almost bumped in a guy. It was one of “the fellas”. He was in a hurry. He was still a handsome guy, although not as tall as I remembered. I had a quick flashback to the days he was debating whether it was more lucrative to be a cardiologist or a surgeon. That day on the sidewalk, he wasn’t wearing a lab coat. There was no stethoscope around his neck. He was wearing blue-collar blue with his name sewn on the shirt and a tool belt around his waist. Now, I’m not knocking good manual labor here. It’s just part of the story. This fella didn’t recognize me. Hell, he probably never knew who I was. But if he had, I would have asked him if he wanted to join me on my trip to the music store (he was one of the guys singing acapella) and would have invited him to lunch. I would not have mentioned the coronation ball, the medical school talk, singing, or the “special marching” they did that night. I would have shown him the respect that one of “the fellas” deserved. Today I am friends with at least one of the fellas. He’s always been a terrific guy. I also think that one of them became a physician. I am still the guy who’s not in the center of the shot, a movie extra for lack of a better term. Funny thing is, though, today that’s my preferred role. But wait... there's more!
By: Ken Boone The last blog post I wrote has gotten stuck in my brain. You could say it was cathartic. You could also say it was ego-deflating, because it brought me face to face with one of my many character flaws. But since I’m writing this blog, I’m going to take the glass-half-full approach and say it was inspiring. If you recall in last week’s blog post, I told you about a pattern I’d developed over the years where I would habitually put other people’s needs and wants in front of what I needed and wanted. While it felt pretty good to put it down on paper, that wasn’t sufficient to get it out of my system. I knew that, because every time I read the post (which was a lot), I found myself asking, “What am I going to do to fix this?” My college degree is in economics, which means that I studied a great many charts and graphs. In addition to the elementary supply and demand discussions, my professors talked a lot with me and my classmates about factors that were exogenous and endogenous. What in the heck is that? It’s really simple: Factors can be outward or inward. Similarly to when instructors would bring up the “Which came first, the chicken or egg?“ debate, solving it wasn’t the plan. The plan was to get you think about it and to be able to intelligently explain your conclusions. How does this apply to me and why should this be of any interest to you? Well, we all encounter stumbling blocks. Obviously, the first thing we try to do is determine how to overcome whatever obstacle arises. The next step is more of a forensic one. We need to determine if the obstacle was placed by outside forces (exogenous), or did we place them there ourselves (endogenous). For me, and maybe even for you, my friend, this may be a familiar theme. For decades I thought the world was out to screw me over, when in fact I was carrying around an imaginary sign that read, “Please Screw Me Over” along with a defensive attitude that just might have helped bring to bear the rejection I feared and hated. Growing up, I felt like a donor baby. I don’t think I was an “oops” but did feel that one day my parents might strip me down for spare parts. That’s a long story I may not reveal to anyone beyond my long-suffering wife. Sorry, Celia. (Editor’s note: I am thriving, not suffering, with you, honey!) I’d hear coded messages, such as “if we could just combine the best features of you and your brother, imagine the resulting person.” That was warped on two fronts, 1) a trusted loved one is suggesting that I’m either defective or not a whole person, and 2) I was the second born. I still get a little jumpy when I hear a chainsaw! Compliments were not generously doled out in my direction. Whether or not that is true, that was my perception of things. Ironically, while getting reamed out for doing something really stupid, I was praised for being some sort of a genius who could excel at anything I put my mind to doing. Then I would get the swift kick in the ass. In business, that’s known as the sandwich technique of criticism. That technique has proven to be quite successful, except that the positives were the meat and the critiques were the bread, not the other way around. Needless to say, it seemed like I intentionally screwed up and took the berating just to get to the praise and affirmations. That, my friends, is no way to live and develop normally. I think I even did that while working at a prestigious accounting firm for 10 years. They were wise enough to put up with me in order to get the good I had to offer. To this day, I can’t thank them enough for all they did! In the course of my life, I came up with a lot of pretty good ideas. I was also pretty good at a crude form of cost-benefit analysis, where I would run through several scenarios and arrive at whether the idea was viable. That earned me the reputation within the family of being somewhat wishy-washy. I could hear a particular voice reminding me that I lacked “stick-to-itiveness”. Of course that was followed by the old “you can do anything you set your mind to doing”. After which, it was suggested that I may have a call to the ministry. The ministry? How the heck did we get there? After a while, ideas stopped popping into my head. I felt stifled. The only things that kept me from going nuts were watching my son develop as a baseball player, and amassing a bunch of material things. The house in the best neighborhood, the car with all the latest features, and of course, the well-fitting suits! After careful analysis along with reading and re-reading my last blog post, it was no surprise to me why I kept pushing back the release date of my podcast “Songs From the Journey.” I realized that the obstacle was endogenous with an exogenous root. Again, there’s blame to go around, but now is the time to find and get into the solution. This week, I created new artwork. This week, I argued with Celia over the format of the show. Since she’s the co-host, and the sensible one, we’ll probably go with most of her ideas. This week, I identified and reached out to a few people I think would make great guests. When I came up for air, I found that I got a lot accomplished. In fact, I’ve come too far to turn around. I also discovered that I’m a pretty decent graphic artist. And I didn’t need two slices of criticism to find that out. For those who are interested, the show is scheduled to launch on Friday, Jul 26, 2019. It will be published bi-weekly, alternating with Celia’s podcast “ISO Peace & Healing.” I plan on doing a 10-episode season, whether I get 1,000 downloads per episode or just a few. Then, after a small break, I’ll dive into Season 2. There will be no chainsaw sounds, but there *will* be a very cool theme song and “yours truly” will compose it. Do you remember what they say about the one who writes the songs? (They write the rules!) But wait... there's more!
By: Ken Boone Before I recorded our first podcast episode, I watched plenty of YouTube videos, read a lot of blogs, and did spent hours online shopping for that next piece of gear that I thought I needed. I even had a name for the first show, “Songs from the Journey”. That was also the name of the CD I produced for Celia in 2010. It’s a rather incredible title, if I say so myself. It was the summer of 2018, and Celia and I agreed that a podcast was a good way to communicate with our audiences. It was a medium we could use for Celia as a substitute for her seminars on healing from depression and abuse. It was also a means to get our music out there, in the form of a soundtrack for the show. This idea was greeted enthusiastically by family and trusted friends. It was considered a no-brainer sine we’d been musicians for decades. How hard would it be to talk about our experiences and getting fellow musicians to talk about their challenges and the songs that got them through. Our friend Beth agreed to record a demo episode, enlisting the help of a friend of hers to banter into microphones for an hour one Saturday afternoon. She was even kind enough to make her world-famous enchiladas for a post-session meal. The stage was set for success! Of all the best laid plans… Decades ago, I had a reputation of being someone who didn’t finish what he started. “Stick-to-itiveness” was something my mother always said I lacked. After years of trying to defend my decisions to abandon a plan in favor of another, I just threw up my hands and accepted that I was wishy-washy. We weren’t just jumping on the podcast bandwagon; we were all in! And we had a name – “Songs from the Journey”, and it was going to be hosted by Celia and me. We also planned to release the first episode for the end of October 2018. This was going to be the first of several shows the Descant Music & Media Group was going to create, produce, and release in the coming months. A free website was created. A paid site to host podcast the podcasts was purchased. Artwork was created. Content was posted on the website, podcast host, Facebook, and Twitter. On all platforms, “Songs from the Journey” was the first show that was announced to drop first. But somehow, I couldn’t fully get my head around the show. Particularly, where do we start? Celia would always say “… if God has work for you to do, the walls will come down with a gentle push”. When it came to the “Songs” show, I felt like I was beating my head against a wall. It shouldn’t be that hard. Maybe I should watch more videos, read more blogs, or even sign up for an online course. That’s so not me, especially paying for lessons from someone who doesn’t know the difference between a pop filter or a windscreen. Sorry, that was so inside. Meanwhile, I listened to the playback of Beth’s demo and made the decision to create a show for her. We named it “Let’s Have a Conversation” and launched it October 29, 2018, pushing back the release date of “Songs.” So when will our journey begin? With the success of Beth’s show, more demands were placed on our time to meet production deadlines. Beth’s schedule was full, and it was getting harder to find the time to record episode segments. Fortunately, Celia was ready, willing, and able to bail me out with voice overs, interviews, and anything else I needed to make the show work! With a couple of weeks to go before the launch of “Songs,” I realized that Celia is very good behind the microphone! Bright idea – let’s create a new show and call it “ISO Peace & Healing w/Celia Boone”. I’m grateful that she agreed to do the show, because it is by far our most successful podcast. The first episode dropped November 30, 2018, pushing “Songs” back again. So, when will the damn journey begin? Notice a pattern here? Every time I think, or say, or do something bizarre, Celia asks me “what’s the fear?” What are you talking about? I’ll tell you what she’s talking about. I’m putting everything ahead of my desire to express myself, on a podcast, for posterity. Instead, I started this blog in February 2019. It’s been well-received, but it wasn’t the “Songs” podcast. In April, we launched another show, “Can I Say Something w/Angel.” Was I afraid of failure? No, because I’m a performance risk taker. I was afraid that my efforts would be met with indifference. Even with Celia serving as co-host and doing most of the heavy lifting. I admit that I really hate being ignored. Last week, I bit the bullet and released my own podcast “From Grievance to Gratitude”, same as this blog. It will be published weekly, and the episodes will run between 15-20 minutes. Why so short? I’ll go back to another saying that Celia uses: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Sounds disgusting but makes sense. So, when will “Songs from the Journey w/ Celia and Ken Boone” be recorded and released? When it’s ready. It won’t be us pushing a boulder up a hill, or us banging our heads against that wall. We don’t know if we must march around it for six days, or if we must give it a gentle push. We do know that once we get started, “Songs” will happen, and the journey will be successful! Celia and I have expended a lot of energy promoting the gifts of others to the detriment of our promoting own talents, even though people have been telling us for decades that our talents are considerable. We will always be supportive of others, but now when doors open for us, we will be gliding on through, just like we are meant to! But wait... there's more!
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About the AuthorAs owner of the Descant Music & Media Group, Ken is a creator and producer of several podcast shows. He is also a music producer, as well as a writer and an accountant for small businesses and nonprofits. Archives
June 2020
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