Back in 1943, Woody Guthrie wrote an amazing list of New Year’s resolutions. Make sure you check it out, now. Despite my opinion that New Year’s resolutions never work and are therefore a total waste of time, I still make a point to ponder upon Woody’s “rulin’s” at the start of every new year.
As the year rolled over to 2019, I found myself struggling with the future of my breakfast show. I wanted to continue doing the show, but I didn’t know the best way to approach the details. Taking a cue from one of my hero’s, I wrote the following list of New Year’s resolutions.
Regarding the rules:
- The most important thing in life is to show up. Doing a show everyday was tough and time consuming. But, that is not why I have pulled back to weekly episodes. The nature of our fast and disposable culture causes things to be visible for a moment and then gone forever. I want to make work, even on Facebook, that is able to hold up over time. My blue collar approach dictates that I show up everyday to do the work. Showing up every day doesn’t mean that I have to do a show everyday. Weekly shows feel right for now.
- I am a songwriter that performs original music and enjoys filling the gaps with cover songs. Doing a daily show created very large gaps that required many cover songs. This helped me to get better at learning and adapting new songs. However, it also took away from my focus on original material. I want to be focusing more on the songs that are important to me.
- Repetition doesn’t equal boring. I was obsessed with doing a new song every day. I was worried that repeating songs would make me look lazy, uncreative, unimaginative, and unprofessional. Rule #2 should motivate me to write enough new songs that repetition won’t be a problem. However, if a song can’t be enjoyed twice, it probably shouldn’t be done at all.
- This show should be engaging and entertaining. Rule #4 is pretty self-explanatory.
- I like breakfast. At this point in life, I rarely consume anything more than black coffee prior to noon. However, breakfast time is still my favorite time of day. Being a morning person makes it tough to be a musician. Playing bar shows late at night is rough. Morning is the perfect time for me to sing a song on the internet.
- Mrs. Brother Jack thinks I have a tendency to ramble a bit. If I plan out at least a couple words beforehand, I will do a better job of presenting myself in an engaging and entertaining way.
I hope you enjoy Breakfast with Brother Jack. If you don’t, it is ok. Some people put cream and sugar in their coffee. I won’t make fun of you even though you deserve it. If you like us, thanks. We will do our best to continue getting better. We will continue bringing our weird folk music and story telling to your Saturday mornings. Spend some time with the family or anybody that is around. Talk about your week. Let us be a catalyst for consistently sitting down together. Thanks for your support. Until next time, you all be fantastic.