A Quick Introduction Seems to Be in Order

To get things goin' on the good foot.

So here’s the thing. As you may be able to glean by carefully observing the relative emptiness on my Substack home page, I’m brand new to Substack. A beginner. A noob. A mere babe as it were. I admit it freely, I’m definitely lacking in Substack experience. Not so much in life experience, though. Some may call me old-fashioned, others may prefer to get straight to the point and simply call me old (and not very fashioned). Be that as it may, here I am, with yet another adventure in the works. Let’s get substackin’!

A little bit about myself, if I may make so bold. My name is Casual-T. Although most people who know me, and even some who don’t, simple call me T (as in the esteemed British beverage, only not quite spelled the same). I have spent most of my life as a professional musician hustling and bustling my way through the NYC scene. My career, if that’s what you want to call it, consisted of some national & international touring, a hot stint on Broadway, plenty gigs with wedding and party bands up and down the east coast, and an innumerable amount of club and bar gigs all over the city, many of them at The Bitter End and The Red Lion down on Bleecker Street, usually lasting into the wee hours. I also spent some time in LA as a film composer, sort of (but that’s a story for a different day).

And then 2020 came and brought COVID lock-downs with it, grinding the city to a complete standstill. Theaters, bars, clubs and music venues were closed until further notice (We all know how those 14 days to flatten the curve went!). Like millions of people, not just in the city but around the world, Mrs. Casual (a professional singer) and I were dead in the water. No clubs. No music. No dancing. No work. No money. Our decision to move had been a long time coming, and the COVID lock-downs were merely the straw that made the camel huff and puff, pack its bags, and move to greener and a lot quieter pastures. We still make music—recording, composing, producing—it’s just that now I don’t have to worry about waking the neighbors.

The fam and I have been doing our best trying to figure out how to navigate rural life. Boy, what a different life this is, from a small NYC 4th floor walk-up in the Bronx to an old farmhouse in southern Indiana. One can actually hear the grass growing, out here. It’s been over three years and my head is still spinning, trying to adjust to the change in pace. Nowhere to get Sushi at 3 AM around here?

Besides not being able to get any Wasabi infused late night snacks, the biggest change was the fact that, even though there are occasionally bands gigging in the area, there is no way to make a living at being a full-time musician in the vicinity. At least none that I can see. All I ever wanted to do was to work as a musician and earn a living by doing so. And that’s what I did… Not gonna happen around here. Isn’t there a saying about life? Ah yes: If life gives you lemons, get a better life.

So, what to do?

Since moving, Mrs. Casual and I have ventured out of our comfort zones quite a bit. Among other things we’ve added yoga instructor, vocal coach, woodworker, pen turner, market vendor, German-English translator, photo editor, videographer, wedding photographer, children’s book author, and illustrator, to our list of professional skills. It’s been quite an interesting ride, and there’s no indication of it slowing down anytime soon.

With change seemingly being the only constant in life, it’s nice to sometimes find a more constant constant. One thing that has been with me for many years is that I have always enjoyed writing (as well as reading). Over the years I’ve written stories—some short, some not so - some good, some (perhaps) not so—poems, flash fiction, and various other things of a somewhat literary nature. Currently there are two novel ideas floating around my computer as bits and bytes in various stages of completeness, as well as plans to publish some of my stories, poems, and flash fiction in book form.

And that’s where we come to the main reason why I’m starting a Substack. I don’t enjoy the current offerings of social media with its content-by-any-means-necessary business model. There’s simply too much noise, too many ads, too much distraction. And, let’s be honest, most people on traditional social media aren’t there to discover interesting articles or original stories. Substack seems to be a much calmer and more relaxed experience with a somewhat old-school approach to the written word. Maybe it’s my age, but I’m definitely digging the slower pace.

So, having said all this, I hope to be able to build a little (or perhaps not so little) audience for my various attempts at stringing words together in a hopefully amusing, interesting, or, at the very least, palatable fashion. Reading, learning, conversing, exploring, discovering, while honing this here craft of writing, is what I aim to do. And if you, dear reader, have made it all the way to the bottom of this page, proving that you have not only ample stamina but also extremely good taste in authors, I would be ever so glad if you were to hit that subscribe button and join me on this adventure. I’d love to share it with you. There’s much more to come.

Onward & Upward,

-T