Howdy Family,

My emotions are askew, my crew. Not bad, not good. Different. Important. Confused. Rumbling like a car backing out of a gravel driveway. Sinking like a captain with her ship. It’s just a right now feeling. Nothing worth long term concern or alarm. Just acknowledgement. Validation that it exists. It irrefutably does. In 10 minutes or two hours or three days it will be different. Somehow evolved through time and the experiences time allows to pass in between.

My childhood home was a house in California, walking distance from Folsom Prison. Suburbs, small-ish town, safe. Like left-our-front-door-unlocked-at-night safe. But I didn’t feel safe. I was anxious. Scared. Not so much of murder or burglary or high cholesterol foods. Scared picturing space expanding to infinity. Scared of the sun exploding in 5 billion years. Scared of being alone. Being unloved. Being unliked.

Being the center of attention helped. Class clown. Theatre kid. Middle School President. Y’know, focus in on myself so I don’t have to think about the universe dying and all. Plus I was kind of funny, and kind of funny looking. I didn’t mind being picked on or made fun of. Attention was attention. No such thing as bad press. The more people who knew I existed the more valid my existence was. One day I told my mom I dreamed of walking down a street where everyone would come up to say hello to me. I just wanted to be known.

After my first heartbreak I decided I can’t be known. Not past a superficial level. Even if we know someone through their actions, we can’t know their intentions. Even if they tell us their intentions, we can’t know their thoughts. Even if you’re psychic you can’t — well, oaky, fine, but you’re the exception to the rule. There’s always an exception to the rule.

I like listening to Elliott Smith. I like listening to Of Montreal. I like listening to The Front Bottoms. I like listening to Tom Waits. I like listening to The Magnetic Fields. I like listening to The Velvet Underground. I like listening to The Beach Boys. I like listening to Shel Silverstein. I like listening to music. Have you ever been listening to a song and it relates perfectly to whatever you’re doing, like someone added a soundtrack to your life? I like that feeling. 

I’m feeling better now. I think I just needed to ramble. Thank you for listening.

Until next time, your loving son and brother, 

tell me what you're up to too: teppersaffren@gmail.com

P.S. If you know anyone who you think would appreciate this kind of fortnight feed, please share my newsletter and ask them to join the family.

Journal Thoughts
Thank you to Lucas Mattuson for picking this date and giving me the memories of a beautiful life we lost.

11/14/16
"Another lovely young artist has taken his own life. Travis E. Green. You will be missed. I wish you had stuck around. Your voice would have become stronger. People would have listened. You posted your works on a blog two days before you took your life. Perhaps you thought you'd be immortalized. Perhaps people will look now. Or perhaps all is lost with the life. I will love on, my friend. I will carry pieces of you with me. Your path will be continued. I'll pray for you. I'll pray for your family. I'll work. I'll work my a** off. I'm trying. I'm trying to be the hard worker we once bonded over. I am the workhorse. I wish your thoughts and ideas and word could have grown further, but perhaps it was your time. You seem far more tortured than I. I don't understand, but I love you. I wish you nothing but love."

Featured Fortnight Artist: David Russel of River Records

David Russel musician, artist, all around cool human. He is the face behind River Records, which he'll tell you a bit more about in this brief interview. Be sure to check out their website and like them on Facebook to stay updated. Enjoy!

Tepper: What is River Records?
 
David: River Records is a channel for music/art/words. Based out of San Marcos, Texas, River Records mission is simple: create a colorful archive highlighting creative happenings in San Marcos and beyond. We serve as a digital bulletin board for local musicians and a variety of artistry. The website hosts an ongrowing catalogue of bands, linking streams for their music, social media pages, and a calendar of upcoming shows. We also live streams many of our local shows and exclusive performances. Starting in fall 2018 we will be publishing as a quarterly magazine: The River Record, full of articles from our online writing column.
 
T: What are you most excited for?

D: Right now I’m thoroughly mightily extremely stoked for the Rusty Dusty tour coming up this August. We’ll be gracing the East Coast from central Texas all the way up to New York and back. I’ve wanted to tour ever since ever (in my current life) and this summer brings the first time that this dream will truly come to fruition. River Records is sponsoring the tour and will be sharing much of the adventure (from the stage to the road) via live streams and column articles. I am so lucky as to play bass and sing with Rusty Dusty.
 
T: What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever done?

D: Probably hosting and performing at Schwab Fest, a house festival we put on the last day of my junior year of college. Nothing invigorates the soul like feeling a room shake with the vibrations of the band playing and the crowd reflecting those sounds via dance and thought. To see the castles of rock n roll collapse and rebuild before your eyes within your own home is exhilarating to say the least.
 
T: What is the change you want to see in the world?

D: I’d love it if the current momentum of impact that’s being had on the environment reversed and the preservation of the earth received more energy than the destruction of it. Humanity is slowly digging its own grave; it’s a matter of time before the backlash of the planet is more powerful a force than our population can withstand. I’d love to live in a world where we all live in tree houses and ride tigers to work. A world where the air is clear and the ecosystem has room to breathe freely. Perhaps I’ll get to be a caveman in my next life.
 
T: Anything else you want to say?

D: Thanks to anyone that’s putting forth creativity via any medium in their life. You’re adding to the pool of inspiration. Whether you write songs or poems or doodle in a notebook or do yoga or think imaginatively or cook dinner with a passion. To create art, whatever your form of art may be, is to use your individual mind as the blessing that it is. Shine on crazy diamonds. And thank you thank you thank you for shining. It gives the rest of us more to reflect.

Tepper's Two-Cents

1¢ — Ask yourself, “Why?” Next time you’re stuck, whether on a work assignment, a writing prompt, deciding between ordering the veggie burger or the seitan strips, just pause and ask, “Why?” Why am I doing this? Why am I stuck? Why am I having trouble deciding? The answer may lead you to a bigger issue that needs solving before you are unstuck with the task at hand.

2¢ — “Contentment is allowing your entire being to flow with the rhythms and harmonies of the universe.” — Fortune from The Ayurveda Cafe (my favorite restaurant in New York)