Picture from Carry the Gun
While I have been writing and attempting to finish several things at once, I feel as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders since I abandoned my New Year Resolution and no longer feel under obligation to myself to do something creative every day. My big problem was the fact that I considered myself something of a late starter and thought that I had a limited amount of time in which to get everything done. While it pisses me off that I have several projects that have been around as ideas for several years, I have decided to slow down and stop worrying about how much needs doing. I could still hack my way through 90% of my to-do list for 2015 if I apply myself, although four episodes of Moonage Daydream might be stretching it a bit - I might be able to do one due to the amount of time they take to produce from writing/researching to recording. I have a couple of audio books to do and hopefully some filming but an addition to this year's work is of course The Sunday Alternative Live, something that wasn't even a consideration until a few weeks ago, so at least I am still keeping busy. On the subject of The Sunday Alternative, I have been throwing some ideas about to expand the name involving the music scenes in other towns and cities but these plans will require time that I don't have so will stay in the notebook for now. Another thing I have been doing is attempting to pitch the show to some radio stations as a way to run in tandem with the podcast once I get it back up and running.
To return to the subject of being a late starter, this is the cause of my anxiety regarding my career and the ongoing stress that my to-do list causes me. My ambition has been there since I was a child, or a teenager at least. I remember saying I wanted to be a journalist when I was at school and I used to make home-made radio shows using two cassette players when I was about nine years old, even teaching myself the art of talking right up to the first word of the song, something that ironically I don't do when I am on the radio as not only do I consider it disrespectful to the artist (similar to talking at a gig) but also it is a redundant task now because it was used as a way to stop people taping off the radio and nobody does that anymore. Somewhere along the line, life got in the way and my creativity remained bottled up and although I have had ups (fatherhood, finally meeting the right person) and downs (homelessness, a destructive relationship, an even more destructive marriage - both of which I was the victim in), I can't complain about my lot in life. I have worked and supported myself since I was eighteen and became a dad at twenty three, something I do not regret in the slightest but I concentrated my energy on earning a living. Fast forward over a few false starts and I first got into radio and fulfilled a lifetime ambition at the age of 34, after years of trying and wanting I fell into it by accident. In fact, most of the way my career has panned out since then has been caused by a series of happy accidents and determination along with the fact that the Internet has made things easier with regards getting your work out there, if their had been such a thing as podcasts and e-books and the like when I was a kid who knows what would have happened.
Someone, and I wish I could remember who, posted a link on Facebook to an article about people who found success later in life, and I have to say it gave me a bit of a confidence boost. Although I have a successful podcast among other projects I am quite happy to drift around on the fringes rather than take centre stage. Being famous was never part of any career plan, getting my work out into the big wide world is important to me instead. If I'm perfectly honest I don't worry about the impact my work has had, it's the creation that I am interested in. As I turn 39 this summer I was starting to worry that I didn't have a lot of time left, for some reason the number 40 was concerning me until I read about several people who were also late starters. Ricky Gervais for example was 40 when The Office became a hit, and although Richard Herring had early success in his late twenties it is the last few years that he has made something of a name for himself as a pioneering figure in the medium of online content. Stan Lee didn't start drawing superheroes until he was 40, and Rodney Dangerfield (pictured) was 46 when the decision to kick the day job paid off as he made his debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. Even older people include Colonel Sanders starting the Kentucky Fried Chicken business at 62, Buster Merryfield (Uncle Albert in Only Fools and Horses) turning professional at 57, and Susan Boyle auditioning for Britain's Got Talent and becoming a world sensation at 48.
With these stories in mind, perhaps I should stop worrying so much and enjoy the work I do.
No podcast this week.
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May housekeeping
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