Landmark Day

Today I can celebrate the biggest invitation I've had yet... an invitation to a concert that even people outside my indie territory might have heard of. Hell, maybe my dad has even heard of this band.

Hello Danielle~

I hope you've been well!

The SMASHING PUMPKINS will be performing Tuesday, July 6th at the House of Blues in Cleveland, OH.

I wanted to check in and see if you would like to attend or have any coverage in the works for the show.

You know, this is kind of cool. But it is on a Tuesday night, and I would have to drive downtown (see how I'm already making excuses for my stupid corporate job life?), and I'm not even sure I know more than 3 Smashing Pumpkins songs, which would not really qualify me to "review" this sort of thing.

I guess the point in this entry is this: I can write and write and write, and never find a journalism job. Yet as a little tiny writer for an alternative paper and a small blog, I can get some pretty cool places.

This is the future we are living in - a future where bloggers and freelancers rule and actual paid journalists are clutching to their jobs with every ounce of strength they have left. (It can't be a lot, if they've been in the game for a while. Who can deal with threats of salary cuts and layoffs and endless furloughs for so long and stay positive?)

Cool, yes. Depressing, MAJOR YES. ("Ground control to Major Tom" also just popped into my head.)

In reality, I want to live in an age where this kind of work can make for a solid career and not some side-hobby that you have to balance of your shoulders along with 7,000 other side hobbies in hopes that it will one day pay off and materialize into something so much greater. It's easy to get jaded. And it's easy to get jaded very quickly.

Especially in Cleveland. I promote this city to everyone I talk to. But much of the time, I sit here and wonder how much longer I can exist with a soul intact in this town. (To be fair, I live in a moderate suburb of Cleveland with a bunch of old people and babies... so it's not exactly the "hip" part of town. And I spend 45 hours a week in a grey cubicle with artificial lights.)

Let's leave this post on a "Danielle's not going to go off and slit her wrists" kind of note.

Two songs to stay on top of the world with.

Nada Surf - Blankest Year
Janelle Monae - Tightrope

Oh, and this:

Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 (Live)

I had to. Hell to the yes for middle school nostalgia and my first mp3 player, which only held 10 songs at a time. This was one of them. Thanks Uncle Mike, for my lame mp3 player and the excellent variety of music you gave me on my first (very first!) data CD!