Today I started writing music to the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson. A Child's Garden of Verses.

My Kingdom

From Child's Garden of Verses

Down by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,
    No higher than my head.
The heather and the gorse about
In summer bloom were coming out,
    Some yellow and some red.

I called the little pool a sea;
The little hills were big to me;
    For I am very small.
I made a boat, I made a town,
I searched the caverns up and down,
    And named them one and all.

And all about was mine, I said,
The little sparrows overhead,
    The little minnows too.
This was the world and I was king;
For me the bees came by to sing,
    For me the swallows flew.

I played there were no deeper seas,
Nor any wider plains than these,
    Nor other kings than me.
At last I heard my mother call
Out from the house at evenfall,
    To call me home to tea.

And I must rise and leave my dell,
And leave my dimpled water well,
    And leave my heather blooms.
Alas! and as my home I neared,
How very big my nurse appeared.
    How great and cool the rooms!

Why is so much stock put in charisma? Isn't most charisma simply an act anyway? If you're scripting what you say, how is that charisma? Why do we believe that artists need persona's?

I used to feel bad because I don't have the right personality to go up on stage and wow everyone with my clever quips and deep explanations of songs, but in all truthfulness, I don't care. I have no desire to do those things. Do you ask a painter to come out and explain his painting? Is a poet expected to captivate everyone with his/her personality?

I understand that music is a performance art, but what are we performing? The music, right? We are all so accustomed to instant gratification that we can't wait 30 seconds between songs in silence.

There are no commercial breaks.

Sometimes I feel invisible. I am not in any cool clubs. I couldn't care less about fashion trends. I don't have any pop sensibilities.

I work hard to preserve my art by avoiding labels. So when someone says, "That's really good. I just don't like ____ music," I get a bit frustrated.

You can call it whatever you want, just come listen. You won't be kicked out of the cool kids club for comng to one of my shows. In fact, you might realize being an adult isn't so bad after all.