So who is Cynicus?
I am many things. I am the culmination of the events of my life, which are many and varied and, well, rather storied.
I was born in Cleveland, Oh, a little over 40 years ago, at about noon in the very middle of the year. Often it was said that I was a quiet child, that I didn't really speak until one day some 3 and a half to 4 years into my life, and then it wasn't small words (child words). I just suddenly started speaking full sentences. Since I don't really recall the day I started speaking, I can neither confirm or deny this allegation . . .
Throughout most of my childhood I was shy and reserved, a trait which I really tend to have yet. I am not saying that I am the wallflower of life, hiding in shadows and the corners of the dance hall, since I am not. I tend be very vocal about my opinions and my ideals, and won't hesitate to share them with the world. I am a performer - a musician, an actor, a writer, and an idealist. Sometimes though I don't know about the idealism, as the whiles of this world have eroded my senses, and the borders become grey and indistinct. But what of that? How did I get that way?
I was the typical picked-on kid in school, small, goofy looking. I was an artist, drawing pictures every moment I could, and playing out scenes from my favorite movies (Star Wars, of course being the most influential in my youthful years). In fourth grade they herded us all into a little room and gave us musical instruments to try and make sounds, and I found that a trombone was the one I seemed to be good at. My dad had an old trombone in the house that had come home from a house he had done work at, so it seemed only logical that I play that instrument.
My brothers were both musically inclined, I think we got that from my father, and they played guitar while I was growing up. There was an old piano in our house, it was once a player piano, but the automated mechanism had long since been taken out. Many of the keys didn't work, and the strings were horribly out of tune, but that didn't matter much to me as I banged out tune after tune learning what notes went with which, and developing a bit of manual dexterity.
I sang in the school choir, played in the band, learned the piano on my own, sang as often as I could. There came a time in middle school where I almost gave up music, but one of my teachers kept me going, wouldn't let me give it up. I don't know what he saw in me, either potential or spirit, but he wouldn't allow me to surrender it so easily.
High school was a turbulent time. I started it off in the way most geeky kids start off - in the background. Here is where one would usually say that I found my first love in high school, but that really isn't true. My first crush was while I was still in grade school. Actually, I think I had many crushes in grade school, but only two of them stand out in my memory. Debbie and then Denise. I wish that maybe I had found a way out of the timid shell in which I had grown then, but I didn't, and my love stayed only in my head, where it was eventually overgrown by Tie Fighters and Darth Vader.
On to High School . . . . .
I met a girl name Lynn there. It was my freshmen year, and despite my lack of proficiency in trombone at the time, I managed to get into the yearly musical we called Big Show. During one of the rehearsals one of the gals in the pit orchestra called my playing a "dying cow". I guess that was the teenage equivalent of a rock being thrown or something. Well it got my attention in any case. Over the course of the next year the two of us developed a relationship. Things progressed as such relationships progress. She was a year ahead of me in school, but that didn't really matter to me. Somewhere in that time I lost my virginity to her, and our relationship degenerated.
Her mother had been on kidney dialysis and was divorced, and the domestic relationship with her father was a poor one, and when her mom passed away the day after Christmas in my junior year, things began to be bad. We had become engaged late in the year afterward, but the relationship had fallen from anything pure and became only about sex really, and when I no longer really desired the sex from her anymore, things got worse. I was fairly deep in the situation, and she was horrifically controlling, and I suffered from some emotional problems I didn't know about at the time, and I had no way of pulling myself out of the mire that was our relationship then.
I found myself in a mental hospital in senior year, after a particularly devastating encounter with Lynn, and that began the course that eventually led me away from her.
I had traveled to New York, Orlando, Washington, Boston, Nashville, and New Orleans in high school with music, and travel would continue after. My mother spent a great deal to send me to Europe with a program called American Music Abroad. It was a fantastic time for me. I really think I developed my love of history while there.
I met a girl while there and immediately fell in love with her, but due to the horror inflicted upon me in high school, I abandoned that relationship after only 3 days, and it haunts me even now, 22 years later. My love life has not improved in that time at all. But those are stories for another time.
Coming back from Europe and not having an acceptance into the school I wanted to go to, I turned to another course. I had won the USMC Semper Fidelis award for Musical Excellence in my senior year, and I figured maybe that was the way to go. My father has served in the Navy, my uncles all had been in the service, and I thought maybe I needed to try it. I of course could not go, due to the issues that had sequestered me in high school. They don't need Depressed, Bi-Polar, Anxiety prone soldiers after all.
I did finally get accepted to college, where I studied music, and 5 years later left with out my degree. It was a stubborn argument on my part, since one of my 2-part senior research courses hadn't gotten registered and the college refused to admit it was their fault. So I left without my degree. I set music aside.
Without music, I attempted, vainly, to pursue a course in life of the 'normal' person. Got a job, got fat, and got depressed. A few years after that I found myself attending a Renaissance Faire in Michigan (I hadn't yet dropped sci-fi and fantasy out of my life, I was still a geek), and went to a tarot reader there. She hadn't even turned over the first few cards when she looked at me and took my hands, and said "You aren't doing what you love".
I swallowed my pride and went back and got my degree.
From there it is an all downhill journey to where I am now, and stories more suited for another time, but suffice to say that I found my way back to a path of performance. I am a performing musician, and a suffering one as well, since, in this economy, my career has taken a few very hard hits, including one from a recent ex who felt it necessary to destroy my career by a campaign to destroy my reputation and my business partnership.
But all is what it is, and I have to simply soldier on.
A brief glimpse into the world of me. I am still searching for answers, still looking for a clear path, still searching for the right companion to walk with me on that path. And so here I am.
Where will I go next? Only the wind may tell, and usually, only when I have gotten there. Stay with me, and I will tell you more. More of what?
Only the wind may tell.
I am many things. I am the culmination of the events of my life, which are many and varied and, well, rather storied.
I was born in Cleveland, Oh, a little over 40 years ago, at about noon in the very middle of the year. Often it was said that I was a quiet child, that I didn't really speak until one day some 3 and a half to 4 years into my life, and then it wasn't small words (child words). I just suddenly started speaking full sentences. Since I don't really recall the day I started speaking, I can neither confirm or deny this allegation . . .
Throughout most of my childhood I was shy and reserved, a trait which I really tend to have yet. I am not saying that I am the wallflower of life, hiding in shadows and the corners of the dance hall, since I am not. I tend be very vocal about my opinions and my ideals, and won't hesitate to share them with the world. I am a performer - a musician, an actor, a writer, and an idealist. Sometimes though I don't know about the idealism, as the whiles of this world have eroded my senses, and the borders become grey and indistinct. But what of that? How did I get that way?
I was the typical picked-on kid in school, small, goofy looking. I was an artist, drawing pictures every moment I could, and playing out scenes from my favorite movies (Star Wars, of course being the most influential in my youthful years). In fourth grade they herded us all into a little room and gave us musical instruments to try and make sounds, and I found that a trombone was the one I seemed to be good at. My dad had an old trombone in the house that had come home from a house he had done work at, so it seemed only logical that I play that instrument.
My brothers were both musically inclined, I think we got that from my father, and they played guitar while I was growing up. There was an old piano in our house, it was once a player piano, but the automated mechanism had long since been taken out. Many of the keys didn't work, and the strings were horribly out of tune, but that didn't matter much to me as I banged out tune after tune learning what notes went with which, and developing a bit of manual dexterity.
I sang in the school choir, played in the band, learned the piano on my own, sang as often as I could. There came a time in middle school where I almost gave up music, but one of my teachers kept me going, wouldn't let me give it up. I don't know what he saw in me, either potential or spirit, but he wouldn't allow me to surrender it so easily.
High school was a turbulent time. I started it off in the way most geeky kids start off - in the background. Here is where one would usually say that I found my first love in high school, but that really isn't true. My first crush was while I was still in grade school. Actually, I think I had many crushes in grade school, but only two of them stand out in my memory. Debbie and then Denise. I wish that maybe I had found a way out of the timid shell in which I had grown then, but I didn't, and my love stayed only in my head, where it was eventually overgrown by Tie Fighters and Darth Vader.
On to High School . . . . .
I met a girl name Lynn there. It was my freshmen year, and despite my lack of proficiency in trombone at the time, I managed to get into the yearly musical we called Big Show. During one of the rehearsals one of the gals in the pit orchestra called my playing a "dying cow". I guess that was the teenage equivalent of a rock being thrown or something. Well it got my attention in any case. Over the course of the next year the two of us developed a relationship. Things progressed as such relationships progress. She was a year ahead of me in school, but that didn't really matter to me. Somewhere in that time I lost my virginity to her, and our relationship degenerated.
Her mother had been on kidney dialysis and was divorced, and the domestic relationship with her father was a poor one, and when her mom passed away the day after Christmas in my junior year, things began to be bad. We had become engaged late in the year afterward, but the relationship had fallen from anything pure and became only about sex really, and when I no longer really desired the sex from her anymore, things got worse. I was fairly deep in the situation, and she was horrifically controlling, and I suffered from some emotional problems I didn't know about at the time, and I had no way of pulling myself out of the mire that was our relationship then.
I found myself in a mental hospital in senior year, after a particularly devastating encounter with Lynn, and that began the course that eventually led me away from her.
I had traveled to New York, Orlando, Washington, Boston, Nashville, and New Orleans in high school with music, and travel would continue after. My mother spent a great deal to send me to Europe with a program called American Music Abroad. It was a fantastic time for me. I really think I developed my love of history while there.
I met a girl while there and immediately fell in love with her, but due to the horror inflicted upon me in high school, I abandoned that relationship after only 3 days, and it haunts me even now, 22 years later. My love life has not improved in that time at all. But those are stories for another time.
Coming back from Europe and not having an acceptance into the school I wanted to go to, I turned to another course. I had won the USMC Semper Fidelis award for Musical Excellence in my senior year, and I figured maybe that was the way to go. My father has served in the Navy, my uncles all had been in the service, and I thought maybe I needed to try it. I of course could not go, due to the issues that had sequestered me in high school. They don't need Depressed, Bi-Polar, Anxiety prone soldiers after all.
I did finally get accepted to college, where I studied music, and 5 years later left with out my degree. It was a stubborn argument on my part, since one of my 2-part senior research courses hadn't gotten registered and the college refused to admit it was their fault. So I left without my degree. I set music aside.
Without music, I attempted, vainly, to pursue a course in life of the 'normal' person. Got a job, got fat, and got depressed. A few years after that I found myself attending a Renaissance Faire in Michigan (I hadn't yet dropped sci-fi and fantasy out of my life, I was still a geek), and went to a tarot reader there. She hadn't even turned over the first few cards when she looked at me and took my hands, and said "You aren't doing what you love".
I swallowed my pride and went back and got my degree.
From there it is an all downhill journey to where I am now, and stories more suited for another time, but suffice to say that I found my way back to a path of performance. I am a performing musician, and a suffering one as well, since, in this economy, my career has taken a few very hard hits, including one from a recent ex who felt it necessary to destroy my career by a campaign to destroy my reputation and my business partnership.
But all is what it is, and I have to simply soldier on.
A brief glimpse into the world of me. I am still searching for answers, still looking for a clear path, still searching for the right companion to walk with me on that path. And so here I am.
Where will I go next? Only the wind may tell, and usually, only when I have gotten there. Stay with me, and I will tell you more. More of what?
Only the wind may tell.