Boredom Killer

The sound of melodic chords ring out against the walls of the small studio as my left hand seamlessly runs up and down the smooth neck of the honey colored, well broken in guitar.  I wasn't playing anything in particular, not some old song that people could sing along to and not necessarily anything that will turn into a song in the future; I'm just letting my fingers manipulate the strings at will, I wasn't even thinking about what sounds would come next, my fingers were literally completely in charge of what was happening. This has always been a favorite feeling of mine, the sensation that the music is just flowing from my fingertips without any conscious thought whatsoever. These moments made me feel alive, it made me feel whole, it made me miss being on stage. My fingers stopped, my right palm landing softly against the ringing strings, effectively quieting them. I carefully looked over the features of the studio as my mind replayed the events of this past year. 2013 has been a good year, I thought to myself. There have been a lot of amazing performances both on the actual tour and one off appearances and I've had the pleasure of meeting new people and reconnecting with amazing people from my past. Overall there was really nothing to complain about so far this year. Sure I had to end a pretty god relationship earlier this year, but that had been for the best for both of us and my attempt at celibacy was working out much better than it had any other time I'd tried in the past. I'd managed to months no without release of any kind, and I felt it was really paying off as I was being as creative as I'd ever been in my youth; yet here I am, one week into this month long break playing guitar in the middle of the night and bored out of my mind. Well maybe bored isn't the right way to put it. It feels more like going stir crazy, there was a lack of people around me, a lack of stimuli; I missed the energy of the performance and the crowds.

"What to do now?" my rhetorical question covered in a loud sigh which echoed against the pleasant acoustics of the room as I stood up and placed the well worn guitar back on it's black stand in the far corner of the room. Smoothing my hands down the front of my black silk pajama set I tried to figure out what to do now. stepping through the doors of the studio I began wandering the quiet halls of Paisley Park. It was nights like tonight I missed the hustle and bustle that seemed to fill this building twenty-four hours a day back in the late 80's thru the mid 90's. In those days if I was here this place never stopped. I could wander the halls at 3am and I would still run into the random wardrobe person working tirelessly on a new piece, maybe a sound engineer burning the midnight oil, there was always someone in at least one of the offices...this place was like it's own little city. Walking through the atrium I was met with the pleasant sound of my doves, the only other residence of this vast city now. They watched me with great interest, singing their familiar song, as I stopped at their large white cage for a brief moment. They cocked their heads to the side, studying me; some days I felt as though they truly understood me, understood how I felt, like I was trapped in this incredible world of my own creation.

"Beautiful girls." I complimented them before moving further into the halls and corridors until I finally came to a door with a long narrow stretch of delicate looking stained glass work stretching the full height of the door right up the middle. Walking into my office, I quickly took a seat behind the simple glass desk and opened my laptop. I passed sometime looking through my emails, finding a few items of interest about on going work I was doing with Warner Brothers and trying to get my masters back, but nothing else worth worrying about this late at night, or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it. After a few minutes of aimlessly looking through my favorite sites I'm struck with the idea of checking YouTube.

"Let makes sure that company is doing what I'm paying them to." I mumble to myself as I run a few quick searches, only coming up with a handful of clips that I don't own, but nothing appears to be posted that I haven't allowed. Finally satisfied with what I couldn't find on YouTube I move on to do a quick google search on myself. I breath a sigh of relief noting there really wasn't a lot on the web about me in general, it seems my attempts at keeping my internet footprint minimal was working. As I scroll down the page my attention is caught by a site I've never even heard of before.