Behind the Mask

Isn’t funny how you can tell someone something so farfetched that even if it were true, there is no way they would believe you. That’s pretty much my whole life. My life is filled with secrets, not bad secrets, just things that I’m not supposed to tell anyone…ever. Some people might not like living like that, but without me giving anything away of what I really do, you have to understand its something worth dyeing for in the long run. I’m not a liar, it’s not like I’m keeping a secret because I’m trying to get away with something, no, it’s much more than that. I’ve created my family and friends to think they know who I am, it’s all a cover. I’m not really who they think I am. I’ve created this person, someone that no one would expect that I would be anyone else, because I’m perfect at the person I created. But now I’m really tired of being behind a mask.

I met this girl few months back and I think I might be falling in love with her. And the one thing I want to tell her I can’t because for one; I’m not supposed to and second; she wouldn’t believe me if I told her, which is good because I’m doing my job great. (I should win a freakin Oscar for the role I’ve been playing almost my whole life.) One of these days I’ll be able to tell her and she will believe me, but for now I can’t even though I want to so bad. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s something really bad or something I can’t take back. It’s not. Let’s just say the people that read my blog are the people I choose to read my blog.

Lesson here is: Don’t live behind a mask if you don’t have to.

-Brandon

Best Food Ever!

One of the things I miss the most about Texas is the food, from Tex-Mex, to their bread. It’s the only place to get real BBQ. And they have the best food place in the world, Whataburger. The number with cheese, no tomatoes or onions with ketchup and mayo equals…Delicious. Their breakfast is so good as well; eating taqitoes at two in the morning is the best. I recently seen a commercial about Whataburger, which I thought, was cool because their getting credit where credit is do. And what’s really good to wash it down with even though they don’t have it in the fountain is Big Red. I know they have it every where, but for some reason it taste better in Texas, I don’t know it’s probably just in my head.

Lesson here is: You want great food, go to Texas.

Until next time…

-Brandon

Texas

I moved from Texas to Tennessee going on five years now. And the more I live here the more it beings to become home. It’s not a bad thing; it’s just an adjustment that you have to get use to. But I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t had been a slacker in school. I didn’t really care about school; I thought there were so much more important things out there for me. Ever since I was six years old I started playing the drums. I knew in the back of my head that that’s what I was supposed to be doing. When you start to think about things in life and how God has blessed you, you start to realize that the blessing was there all along. You just have to find the right path to get that blessing, because God knows the path you’re supposed to go down, it’s your choice rather you choose that path or not. Makes me wonder if I chose the drums or did the drums choose me?

Now seventeen years later, I play drums professionally for my band Alvarado Road Show. We’ve done a lot of great things since we’ve moved to Tennessee. Met a lot of cool, crazy, weird people, but it has been the best thing that has ever happen to me. God has blessed me in a way that has changed my life forever. I couldn’t have done it without Him.

Lesson here is: Let God take control.

Until next time…

-Brandon

127 Hours

A couple of days ago I rented 127 hours. His character in a small way reminded me of Emile Hursh character in Into the Wild. Had that same ambition to find something he was looking for. It was an unbelievable movie. I loved how it was really about how awful of a person he saw himself and that made him see myself from the outside looking in. I just don’t know what I would do in that situation. I say to myself that I could probably cut my own arm off. But actually being in that situation and watching what he had to go through to survive, I don’t think I would have that will power. But then again I have never been in a life or death situation before. I honestly can tell you that I have no earthly idea what I would do.

Question here is: What would you do? How far would you go to survive?

Until next time…

 

-Brandon

 

Past Relationships Part 4

Two Halloweens ago I decided to go hang out with some of my friends but bring an old girl friend I’ve known for years. The last time I had seen her was when we both were living in Texas. We had gotten back in touch via Facebook. Ah, the wonders of Facebook, it’s a blessing and a curse. I now find it useless to have one, simply because I have a hard enough time keeping up with myself let alone people that I don’t really know anymore from high school. Facebook has formed into society’s cliché, thank you Mark Zuckaburg for creating a great waste of time. But this girl wasn’t from high school; she was a family friend that fell out of touch in the mix of living our lives.

 

I asked her to go to a party with my friends and I. We were running quite a bit early so we stopped at my friend’s apartment. Soon as we walked in the apartment, my friend’s body language changed like flipping on a light switch. She didn’t want to be there even though we weren’t doing anything bad at all. She felt totally out of place and I felt like I need to make sure she was okay like I always do because I’m a pleaser. (I hate that about me) I didn’t want her to just be there and exist, it just leaves everyone else that’s trying to have a good time in a big funk and that’s not cool.

 

We leave for the party and before we drive off I ask her if she even wanted to go to the party. She didn’t, she wanted to see a movie. I was like its Halloween!! Let’s go to a hunted house or something. No, she wanted to see a chick flick not a horror, I even asked her if she knew what Halloween was about. So me being the guy I am changed my mind and went to the movies instead. The night turned out to be a drag because she wanted to do what she wanted to do. The movie wasn’t a total sham it had some funny parts.

 

The next day my friends told me they had a wicked time at the party. Crazy things went down that I missed out on. I would have been able to enjoy it if I hadn’t of brought a girl along. From that moment on I promised myself I would never let any girl take a great night with my boys away from me, unless she’s my wife.

 

Lesson here is: Bro’s before Ho’s.

 

Until next time…

 

-Brandon

 

 

 

Past Relationships Part 3

A couple of years after the last girl, I met this one girl working as a grip on a music video I was hired to do for a few days shoot. She was one of the dancers in the video. We started talking during lunch breaks and down time. The last day I asked if she wanted to grab some dinner after the shoot was over, she agreed.  I thought she was a cool chick and was excited to get to know her more.

So we are sitting at the restaurant and we start talking about past relationships and for some reason she just unloads all her personal problems. I don’t know why she felt the need to explain everything in that prospective. At the time I didn’t think anything about it, I just listened. When dinner was over we went back to our cars and parted ways. I thought she was cool because we had a lot in common when it came to music. She was a fiddle player and singer, which I thought was so cool. So I asked her out again.

We went out on a second date; she wanted me to accompany her with her mom and grandma to see her perform at a local venue. I thought that was fine. I honestly don’t care if a girl wants me to meet their parents on a first, second, or third date, it doesn’t matter to me, and I have no problem with it. I meet her Mom and Grandma and they are the coolest people. I enjoyed hanging out with them a lot. Watching her perform on stage was really fun, she is a great fiddle player, and I only hope great things for her. When we finished eating and her show was over, she and I went to her new apartment that was empty and decided to write a song. Since we are both in the music industry we thought it would be fun.

We arrived at her apartment and ended up talking most of the night. Didn’t write a song like we thought we would. It was getting late and I needed to get home. I asked her if she wanted me to drive her to her Mom’s house, which was down the street. She said she would stay at her place, even though it was empty. She insisted that she would be okay. So I left her there. Now I’m not a mind reader, but at this point I probably should have been, because the next day she would not return my calls or anything.

She finally answered her phone and basically let me have it for leaving her there by herself. She started accusing me for things that didn’t exist. Almost like she was making up stuff to be mad at. I didn’t talk to her after that until she called me out of the clear blue two months later. She wanted to talk about whatever, pretty much acted like nothing happened. Then she said something that made the blood rush down to my feet faster than a speeding bullet. The two little words that could change your life forever, “I’m pregnant”. Those two little words came rolling out of her mouth like malaises. So after getting my mind together, I ask her who’s it is, she said, “it’s my boyfriends”. So basically she was a slut all along…Oops, my bad.

But the main question is; why would she call me out of nowhere to tell me she is pregnant with some other guy’s child? Doesn’t make a lot of sense. I seen the baby on Facebook and it’s defiantly is not mine, because that baby is ugly.

So lesson here is: Don’t be a slut.

Until next time…

-Brandon

 

The Double Text

I would like to take this time to talk about something that most people need to know, especially guys. When you meet a girl for the first time at a bar, wedding, church, or even a funeral, God help you. Start talking to her the whole afternoon, things are going great, you get her number, ask her out on date but don’t set a date. She just says text me. Those two little innocent words can either make it or break it. Its pretty much a test for men to see how they make their next move, will it be worth it or will it scare them to their very core.

There are things that guy’s do when it comes to texting a girl that makes them want to either change their number, get a new phone because that one’s cursed, or leave the country. You don’t want a girl to think about these things, that’s why I have come up with a solution. Have you ever text a girl a simple “How’s your day”? But didn’t get a response back within the next five minutes, so you text her back again wondering if she got your text. Then another five minutes goes by and still nothing, so you text her back again. If you have ever done this or something like this, well she has moved on to bigger and better things…sorry, it was your fault. I called it the “Double-Text” it’s a big “no no” if you’re trying to impress the girl you’re texting.

If a girl text you back with a reply to your text messages then it’s not looking good. Because if a girl is into you she will text you randomly. If she just replies to yours, she has nothing to say to you other than what you ask her. Never double text a girl when you’re trying to be more than friends. If she’s a friend and only a friend and nothing more will come of it in the future, then text the crap out of her, because if she is only your friend then most likely she is texting you just because your friends.

Lesson here is: DON’T DOUBLE TEXT!!! It’s not cool, it’s annoying. Take some pride in yourself and except the fact that he or she just might not be into you.

Until next time…

-Brandon

Past Relationships Part 2

I dated this one girl for two weeks. She turned out to be divorced and had a lot of issue (who doesn’t). I was leaving to go to Texas for my brother’s college homecoming. The night before I left we went out on a date to see a movie. Before the movie we talked in my truck about her divorce and things she has never talked about before. (This was right after I found out my old girlfriend cheated on me, so I was still in a fragile state) I didn’t really how to be myself, especially when a girl starts crying I barely know, it could get out of hand real fast. I had a lot of issues of my own I needed to sort out before I could get into a something serious with anyone else. But the company was nice to have at this time in my life considering the obvious.

After the movie was over we went back to my truck and she had made a present for me. Now let me remind you, we have known each other for only two weeks and went out probably three times in that time period. She made me a journal because I’m a songwriter, but not just any journal; she took the time to make a custom journal with a decorated cover and stuff. A couple of movie stubs from the movies we saw together, candy wrappers that we shared, things I quoted, things she quoted, it looked like a freakin pimped out piñata. It would have been cool if we had known each other for a month or so. I thought it was a great thought, just kind of weird. And the bad thing is she stayed up for hours trying to finish it the night before. I appreciated the thought, I really did, it’s just with all the baggage she came with from being divorced and doing this, and the crap I just had been through, it just didn’t add up in the long run to be a walk in the park.

We are still friends and she has moved on to become a successful photographer, which she is really amazing at. I enjoy her company and she enjoys mine. We’ve worked a lot of things out over the years and actually have become great friends. And I will admit I wish I could have handled that situation a lot better in that time period of my life. There are a lot of things I’m not proud of that I wish I could take back, but you learn from your mistakes and you only hope you can be forgiven.

So the lesson here is, don’t judge a book by its cover until you read it. You might find some things you don’t want to know.

Until next time…

-Brandon

The Last Four Years of my Dating Life…Kill Me Now! Part 1

It is time that I share my past relationships with you all, simply because it has been on my mind for quite sometime now and if I share it with you all, I can move on and think about other things. So for the next few blogs you will be reading about what went wrong with my last girlfriend four years ago, why I’m single, and why I’ve never been in a serious relationship. So please fasten your seat belts and keep all hands inside the cockpit, because we are about to go on a bumpy ride.

Four years ago, I met this beautiful girl; she was everything I thought I wanted at the time, but being only eighteen years old it didn’t really matter who she was as long as she was beautiful. I was almost out of high school and she was almost done with her freshmen year of college. We were young and dumb and thought we had it all figured out. I was living in Nashville Tennessee at the time and she was in Fort Worth Texas. We spent most of the time on the phone talking about whatever, day and night; we were on the phone spending hours and hours everyday. Looking back it was a completely waste of time, but like I said before, we were young and dumb.

I had this bright idea to drive down to Fort Worth to go see her. I drove twelve hours straight in my truck all by myself. Just to see her for two days. We talked on the phone pretty much all the way there. We were both so excited to see each other considering we are always so far apart. Everything seemed to be falling into place.  When I arrived in Fort Worth I went straight to her dorm. I wanted to get cleaned up before I went over there, but she insisted that I come there first. When I drove up to park I saw her from afar. Beautiful. Wearing a sundress and flip-flops with aviator sunglass. I couldn’t get out of my truck fast enough to run up to her with open arms. We embraced and at that moment, everything was perfect.

That night we end up going to the movies to see a movie that was not something I would have recommended on a date. But it didn’t really matter because we ended up making out through most of it. (Again remember we were young and dumb, making out in a movie theater is a high school thing to do, I know better now)

After the movie we ended up going back to her dorm and hanging out, talked all night about the future. Basically had no idea what we were doing because we were stupid kids with big dreams for each other. I knew this was the girl I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I mean we already told each other we loved one another long time ago, but this was a reassurance that she was it.

After leaving Sunday morning about a hundred times, it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Leaving her there was something I couldn’t bare. I felt like leaving the life I had and start a new one with her, thank God I didn’t. When I arrived at home after another twelve hours back, things started to change. We both started to get the “Out-of-sight, Out-of-mind” symptoms. Life took over for both of us and the emails and text messages were fading and the phone calls were getting fewer everyday. It was only a matter of time for one of us to pull the plug. But she did it in a way that would hurt me for a long time coming.

She ended up seeing another guy behind my back. A guy that looked like he was a bully when he was in school, someone you would not want to take home to your parents house. Being on Facebook and seeing pictures she uploaded of her and her new boyfriend felt like a knife stabbed me right in the back. She might as well of ripped my heart out like Jim Curry did that Chinese guy in Dumb and Dumber, put it in a doggy bag and stomp on it with high heels. Would have saved me a lot of heartache and pain because I would be dead. It took me over two years to get over her. We shared a lot together that you can’t take back.

A year went by and we ended up going out to dinner one night I was in town. I was trying to “win her back”, at the time. Of course she had dumb that guy she cheated on me with. We were older and more mature. She started talking about things that were not interesting, things that didn’t amount to anything. I started to see something in me that I never saw before. I felt like the smart one at the table. Even though she was a year older, I was more the adult. I just stared at her while she was talking about stupid stuff, looking as beautiful as ever, just a dumb person. I knew at that moment she wasn’t the girl for me, no matter how beautiful she was or was going to turn out to be in the future, I just didn’t see us together anymore.

Looking back at all this made me realize that, I really didn’t love her at all. I loved the idea of her. The moment in time is what I loved. The fact that she was with me and that we were doing what we were doing together is what I was in love with. I wasn’t in love with her at all. I thought I was, because of the future we thought we were going to have together. Making a life together was something that was exciting and special we were both figuring out. So I guess the answer to that question is, No, I haven’t ever been in love. But I will know it for sure when I am.

Now she is married to a guy that has two kids and looks like he could be her step-dad. But I shouldn’t judge. I hope she is happy and living a great life.

So the lesson her is; for all the people who think they are in love, be curtain you are. You don’t want to go through the hell I went through. It’s no picnic.

Until next time

-Brandon

 

The Breaking Parts of the L Word

L-O-V-E. It’s a tricky thing. I find myself not understanding it at times. Some may say they have it all figured out and if they do, they’re liars. It’s not something that’s easy said or done, even though it is a common word used in the human vocabulary. But here’s my theory on the four-letter word.

Let’s break it down into four parts. First part: L=LEARNING, getting to know someone, finding out everything you can about that person. Their likes, dislikes, where they’ve been, dreams, goals, ambitious, secrets. Learn about what makes him or her crazy, what drives them emotionally, spiritually, physically. I believe it is important to know everything there is to know about someone and actually wanting to know. I don’t mean pretend to listen so you can sleep with them or hopefully get some boob action. (For the guys) I’m talking about wanting to learn, wanting to know and truly be interested in him or hers conversations. As for the ladies, guy’s try way to hard sometimes we know, but don’t analyze everything just because you have “the power” not every guy thinks about sex twenty four-seven. So don’t be afraid to let down your guard at times because he just might surprise you. If he’s staring at your chest every five-seconds, he’s up to no good. All he’s hearing is static coming out of your mouth. If she’s playing with her phone or looking across the room, she’s either waiting for a fake emergency call or thinking of a clever way to get the hell out of there. If these symptoms happen in the first five-minute of the conversation, it’s definitely not one-fourths of L-O-V-E.

Now, that brings us to part two:  O=Obsession, not in the crazy sense. When you are two-fourths of the way to L-O-V-E you have to have some kind of obsession. As in “I need your comfort” not the “I have to have you”, there’s a difference. You can be so obsessed with someone that it’s creepy. There has to be more of a control about it and tastefulness to it. This is a very fine line with this part because you can either make it or break it in this area. If you go back to the first part about “Learning” you can get so overwhelmed with that to the point it drives you crazy and you have to have that person in your life constantly. That’s where a lot of people go wrong; it makes you look desperate and a loose canyon. Obsession is not a bad thing; it’s a complement if it’s used correctly and not forceful.

Next Part: V=VISUALIZE meaning being attractive to that person in any shape or form. Everyone will change his or her looks in time, either in a good way or a bad way. But when you love someone it has to be more than a physical attraction, it has to come deep within. When you love someone you have to take the good with the bad. That’s called, “Being Committed”. Because waking up to someone every morning of your life, seeing that same person over and over starts to become a normal thing and you’ll forget about their physical attraction towards each other, almost like it has vanished somewhere along the way. It’s still there; they just have grown numb to it in time. Being three-fourth to the way of L-O-V-E really comes down to is if you want to take the gross parts of that person to the next level, otherwise you’re wasting your time and you need to move on. People throw the L word around so much they really don’t know what it means and how powerful it truly is. It’s more than just a four-letter word. It’s God. And most people abuse it.

And finally: E=Equal (no bun intended) you’re almost in love if these symptoms occur. One more part the most important part is this; being equal to that person meaning, understanding that person to the point where there is nothing you don’t know. For instance, have you ever bought a gift for someone and they got disappointed that you got them something they didn’t like? Well, it’s not about what you got them, its about that you should have known better then to get them that gift, because you should know that they wouldn’t like it to begin with. It has nothing to do with the gift; it has to do with the person giving the gift and how the person receiving the gift feels about it. Almost a slap in the face because that person receiving the gift feels like you don’t know them at all. That is where EQUAL comes in, you have to know that person more than anyone. It is your best friend, your right hand, your better half, and your confidant.

Well there you have it. And I’m not saying this is what you have to go by to know you’re in love. This is just my little theory on what comes into falling in love, even though I’ve only been in love once. This is just more of an eye opener when it comes to relationships.  But I do hope you do take the L word seriously and make sure you are in it for sure before you go throwing it around like a basketball.

Until next time

-Brandon