Young Carlos

He's the young guitarist you see belting it out, "top of the mountain, that's where I lost my mind" with plunky coastal guitar chimes. He's in a few of my videos. I just can't get that song out of my head, and with no Spanish twang in his voice to color it with. It's just a combination that this kid's got. You get it all just listening.

I'm not sure how embarrassed Carlos will be to see this, but he told me he wants to be the Jimmy Hendrix of Latino culture.

I'm sorry to talk in this music-mag-intro kind of language, this flash and glam, but this is how we pick up musicians. The whole lingo of calling another man 'babe' and 'we gotta' look at A&R and all that. These are why the lingo holds to this day. I'm talking out of my ass here, but what I'm trying to belt out in my overcast muggy Indiana urban draw is that this kid has something. He's got something and it's that magic that the execs talk over their snifters of coy bourbon at 3pm because noon is soooo MadMen.

He comes across as a mix between Richie Valens and Kurt Cobain. He's never heard of the Meat Puppets, but that's OK because he brings much more heat than them. He's got his own thing and I AM 37, so..

I get glimpses of wisdom from him. He looks you deep in the eye and he wants that back from you too. He's got braces and the smooth skin like a pregnant woman and prominent cheek bones and you see this kid growing into something the world needs, but just not this moment. He talks like Americana youth, smokin' bowls and texting her if she won't pick up. Once he corners you for a bit, he shifts gears a little lower and wants to talk about real shit.

About my project, he said something interesting, making a point of the fact that I edit myself into it and how I can make myself look however I want to. Yep.

I thought of my thing being closer to 'new media' a.k.a. 'web2.0', a.k.a. ' the age of social networking', but I didn't bother to go into it because I noticed how this young guy has no attention span and a lack of social graces. All I know is that he's a shitty listener. I told him that, haha.. That's OK, I can deal with that. He's probably going to be reading this at some point if he can sit down long enough for more than one paragraph so I'm not talking behind his back here.

So I showed him my crying video. He called me a yuppie and I see him questioning my motives. He wants to know how authentic I am. Doesn't everybody? What is there to lie about?

(click on Artist Journal for more)