Perhaps I made a mistake

I played a benefit last night, and I really have to get in the habit of saying no to benefits. There is a part of me that wishes to help out, but sometimes people seem to have their hand out at the wrong time.

The deal was, some fellow needed money to move to Pennsylvania to be with his children. I want people to be with their children. But upon closer inspection of the story, it seems what he wants to do is move to Pennsylvania, and the women running the benefit seems to be the fiancé of the man.

Once again, I have trouble saying no to people in need. But this seems like something that a person should deal with on their own. You want to change your life? Good, take action and change it. Save the fuck up. It might take a while, but I feel it’s kind of questionable to tax the charitable nature of people.

When I broke my guitar I was in a bind, and asked the Zorch Nation to help out. Because they responded so generously I managed to keep playing. With out a guitar I have no way to pay for a new guitar (talk about a catch 22). Thanks to the charitable nature of my good friends and supporters, I’m still doing shows. When I wanted another guitar to have tuned to DADGAD, I saved up and bought it with the money I earned with the guitar provided for me by the largess of my supporters.

Another thing that kind of made me leery of the cause last night was the fact the promoter of the event kept asking for tips for the venue. I understand the need for venue tips, but when I’m not collecting tips, why should she be holding her hand out?

It nice to help people out, but it’s not so nice when you gotta sit there and wonder if you had been taken advantage of. My involvement may have caused my group members to chip into a questionable cause.

Bottom line, I need to learn to say no. Not only to charities, but gigs I get a really bad feeling about. I remember the disaster at Qwertybob venue. I did say no at first, but the dude was like “Aw come on man”. He turned out to be a huge dick and I hope he’s moved on to his next failed project at this time.

While I’ve spent most of my life in the music field, but this is probably the closest I’ve been to being a Rockstar. While it is a rather virtual rockstardom, it seems to have many of the Pratt falls real rockstardom offers. One of those stumbling blocks is people using you to promote their personal agendas. However as morally questionable as that may seem, the bottom line is it is my responsibility to say “NO”.