linky?

What Makes Us Happy?

June 29th, 2009
Who says a month of rain is so bad?

Who says a month of rain is so bad?

This is a question that I often think about. Whether someone comes to me with an issue of their own or it’s an internal issue within myself. What makes us happy? I’ll offer up a list to try to make more sense of it.

1. Start with a solid frame

Build something special inside of you that you can share with the world. The more stable you are on a day to day basis, the happier you will be and it will radiate. Try to appreciate things.

2. Appreciate things

Think about what makes you happy and everything that you have in your life. This simple act can instantly open up incredible channels of happy that you never even knew existed! Think about it. If you had something to be appreciative of each day, might you be happier overall? Try it now! YA! What do you have in your life right now that may have not been there before? Now take 10 seconds and only think about that one thing. I’ll wait…seriously, do it…OKAY! How do you feel? I feel happy!

3. Spend your time wisely with the right people

Lets face it, spending time with the wrong people can drag you down. We all know it, though it is not often enough practiced. Try to spend time with people who you get along with. Less drama and arguing is good for your soul, seriously. Ask me about it if you see me on the street, I’ve got stories and I love to share!

4. Do what you were made to do

True fulfillment comes from this. Did you happen to know that there is a purpose to your life? This has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with doing the things you love to do every day because they simply make you feel good. Even the simple act if FIGURING OUT what you were put here to do will send you into a whirlwind of amazing things that you’ve never even dreamed of before! Take my life purpose for example -

The purpose of my life is to create music to make myself and others feel emotion, to be inspired by the life around me and my experiences, so that I can be fulfilled and inspire others to live a better life than they’ve ever imagined. To be completely fearless in my approach and appreciate the beauty in life on a daily basis.

Are you creative? Do you love math? Are you a good problem solver? This is for you to figure out. Ask yourself this one question – (It could contain your answer!)

What makes you feel the happiest in life?

Now, go do it!

5. Find the person that was made for you

So Comfy!

So Comfy!

Oooofh, this one is tough. I believe that most people often spend their whole lives without the person that was made for them. Either settling into something that is less than they deserve, or never giving themselves the opportunity to get out and see what the world has to offer.

Luckily, by some act of god, when I needed someone the most, she was dropped right in front of me. We communicate without words. We call/text each other at the same time. We think the same things at the same time. We give everything inside of ourselves to each other. It’s all effortless. THAT connection is what you’re looking for. To me, it’s the only natural way to be.

My only surefire way of attaining this is to follow the rest of these well. Create an incredible place inside of you that your perfect person will not only want to share, but contribute to. It’s the only way.

Final thoughts

I’ll leave you with this, my latest massive realization from last time I went down to the water to think -

Give everything inside yourself to everyone around you and make sure to surround yourself with people who fill you back up.

This constant cycle of giving will expand your self worth infinitely! YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH INSIDE YOU TO GIVE TO OTHERS.

If you take away one thing from this post. Keep that one.

If you’d like to discuss, hit up the comments! I love you all, see you soon!

Kev

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Posted in Inspiration, Not So Musical | 4 Comments »

Mar Mar, New Vigor Song, and a Video!

June 12th, 2009

Happeeeeeze artists

Happeeeeeze artists

So there’s this girl…

Hey everyone! I’ve been missing for quite some time again. Turns out my thyroid levels were off again(still are) and I seem to get quite distant from everything when they are off like that(maybe it’s good that this happened? Music always comes when they’re off. After all, there is opportunity in everything!). Don’t worry though, I’ve been making music more than usual!!! In the past month I’ve demo’d 2 songs and wrote another one last week! It’ll be demo’d shortly and we played it last night at the fitted shirt show! Check the vid below!

That gets me back to that ol’ header up there. The new song that we played last night is titled “A Song For Mary’, I wrote it about my wonderful girlfriend. We were talking last Friday night and I felt inspired so I picked up my guitar to jam on a riff that I had written 5 mins before I left for our first date. That riff turned into a few more and before I knew it I was singing along and typing up some lyrics. I busted out the lyrics pretty quickly! Once it started to flow out of me I couldn’t stop it and I was caught up in a whirlwind of AWESOMELY happy and beautiful things!

marmar

This pic reminds me of Great Expectations, one of my fav movies, so pretty!

We went down to Boston last Saturday to go eat at Maggiano’s. It was beeeeauuutiful! She showed up at my house with an incredible dress on and her hair all up and awesome. She made me play the song for her(she also requires that we lay around(cuddle) for 5-10 mins before we do anything. (This I LOVE…best rule EVER! What’s that I hear? TMI? You’ll find someone like this someday and understand…trust me.) So I play the song for her and she loves it. The next day I play it again because I had decided that I want to play it during my mini Vigor set at The Fitted Shirt Show(last night) and I needed to practice it. During one of the chorus’ SHE STARTED SINGING ALONG!!!!!!!! This was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced in my life. I really don’t know how to explain it. It’s kind of like this equation – My life purpose(music) + Beautiful girl with a crazy connection singing along = amplification of my life purpose! How’s that for growth!?!?!?! It’s like a natural extension of my life. Woah…this is awesome!

Speaking of “A Song For Mary’, The Fitted Shirt guys were really awesome with this song! I took it to practice thinking that I’d be doing it solo cause we might not have time to learn it. We played it twice and they had all new parts made up! Two Take Tambourine Tom even played the drum part that I had in my head for it, that I had yet to mention!!!!). Two nights later we played the song that they had only heard and played twice before! You can see this awesome experience in the vid below!

It’s like a natural extension of my life. Woah…this is awesome!

Back to that date! We went down and walked around in fake Central Park(The Boston Common) for a while and then made our way over to Maggiano’s for some EXTREMELY wonderful yum yums!!!! I can’t believe how incredible the food was for the cost! The atmosphere was wonderful. Some magical things happened. Funny thing is that most of it wasn’t even spoken, just simply, understood. Mar mar was super excited that they had grated cheese on the table when we got there! hahaha. It was fun to see so many happy people on the common. It made me want to live in the city. I couldn’t be happier walking around with this incredibly beautiful woman. We’re so funny when we walk around. It seems to make other people laugh and smile. We radiate happy!

Another cool thing about mar mar is that she’s good to bounce ideas off of. We think similarly so we have great conversations. She’s great with understanding thyroid levels and the hell that comes with it!

It feels AWESOME to be doing the right things in life. If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing the right things, hit up the comments and let me know! I’d love to discuss!

I LOVE MY LIFE!!!!!!

Kev

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Posted in Inspiration, Performance, Studio, The Fitted Shirt, live | 4 Comments »

Unlike The Way I Used To Be / What I Learned From My Lawnmower Breaking

April 27th, 2009
If you don't live your life, you don't get to see amazing things like this.

If you don't live your life, you don't get to see amazing things like this.

  • I used to get angry instead of figuring out what the problem was
  • I used to take too much medication
  • I used to be scared of things
  • I used to withdraw and say “no” a lot

Many things have happened in the past year(and preceding 11 years). These are a few of the significant events that pushed me to be a better person. Some people ask my how and why I am such a happy person. This addresses that as well! Here they are in chronological order -

“You are what you’re missing”

  1. 2007 – The main thing that got me to wake up and get over my fears was having and beating cancer. That opened me up to seek means of possibility outside of my comfort area. That was only a start.
  2. 2007 – Tony Robbins’ Ted Talk and “Get The Edge” program provided me with the knowledge that there is a life way more fun than what I had previously been living. It also taught me to explore the feelings that I feel and why I feel them, giving me more control over myself and ultimately letting me choose happy over anything else(it’s way more fun than sad or scared, right?)
  3. 2007 – A conversation in which my friend Megan asked me over and over, “What do you get scared of?”. To which I finally responded, “I don’t know”. She also said “You are what you are missing”. The next week I found myself comfortably out of my comfort zone. I am forever thankful for that conversation.
  4. 2008 – Benjamin Zanders’ Ted Talk and book, “The Art Of Possibility” taught me to believe in things again and be curious like a child. To simply BE. Favorite quote, “You can always find the answer to any problem within yourself”.
  5. 2008 – Playing live music again. “Nothin’ like the ol’ life purpose that you haven’t done in 8 years!” – me, to myself, just now. Playing music for people is the greatest anything  I can feel. It combines my favorite things in life, Music and sharing. I spent years only HALF living my life purpose. That half has become whole and I am now musically complete.
  6. 2009 – Happiness

In the past year I have opened up like a Saigon whore. Ok, not that dramatic. Still, I feel amazing and love everyone around for supporting my (no longer used) silly reasons for not doing things. I love making people happy and feeling whole. I rarely say no to anything these days. Saying yes to things opens up incredibly endless opportunities and possibilities.

About that lawnmower…

Yesterday I was cutting the grass and the ol’ lawnmower was acting up again. Turns out, it wasn’t self propelling anymore. Which isn’t too bad, I don’t have a problem pushing it except that since it’s supposed to go by itself, it was adding resistance. I only had a few hours before I had be in Lowell. I start to get frustrated. Want to beat the crap out of this thing. Anger building, anger building, which is my usual response to things like this…until now.

After a few more passes up and down the yard. I think to myself, I should explore this feeling. Why am I so angry? Well, this thing isn’t working. Why isn’t this thing working? (stupid machine, why don’t you ever work!) Well! If I had taken care of it last year when it wasn’t doing well, this wouldn’t be happening. BAM, my bad. What next? Well, I still have an hour and a half before I need to get to Lowell. Ok, maybe I can take it apart and figure out why it won’t self propel any more? Sure! I go inside and grab my tools and get to work. Take it all apart, learn tons of stuff about how a lawnmower works(awesome!) and get it back together. Turns out the problem was in a split outer shell of the hose that contains the line that gets pulled back to engage the the self propeller-ing. I rewrapped the line so it had a bit more tension coming up the handle, finished my water, and jammed the bottle in between the line and the handle, giving it enough tension to work. I think it can be fixed with a couple hose clamps. EASY!

When you figure out what emotion you are having and why you are having it, the right thing to do will present itself to you.

Take away – When you figure out what emotion you are having and why you are having it, the right thing to do will present itself to you. I got to learn and I had a good time doing so, and still got to Lowell on time!

I love my life!

ps, the reason for this post was to explain how I’m cutting my medication AGAIN and soon will be taking NONE! Didn’t quite get there, so there ya go!

<3 Kev

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Posted in Not So Musical | No Comments »

Updates and Another Fitted Shirt Show!

April 17th, 2009

Hey all,

Saw this today, I want to play here!

Saw this today, I want to play here!

Site Updates

My apologies for the lack of updates in the past 2 weeks. I’ve mostly been doing work on the music section around here, so there hasn’t been a whole lot to report over here on the home page. I’ll post up when that section is done and filled with musical goodness! Currently, you can check out a few songs on the production page. More will be added soon! Other than that, I’ve been doing some general back end work to tidy things up on this site(adding, subtracting, etc.)

Show Tomorrow!

Here’s the juicy info for tomorrow nights show! Come on over for great food and fun!

Friday 04/17/09
@Life Alive, Lowell, MA
7-7:45pm – Christopher James Michaud
8-8:45pm – Clara Berry
9-9:45pm – The Fitted Shirt
FREE!FREE!FREE!FREE!FREE!FREE!FREE!

DREDG!

Last night I saw my 2nd favorite band dredg at The Middle East. They put on such an amazing show. I absolutely love that band. The last song, I think, was the last song of their upcoming album and it was absolutely incredible. No words can describe how I felt when they played that song. It was every bit perfect. I can’t wait to get my paws on their new album in June!

See you beautiful people soon.

Kev

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Posted in Inspiration, Performance, The Fitted Shirt, live | No Comments »

Video!

April 4th, 2009

Here’s the video from our show Thursday. Rockin! Enjoy! Don’t forget to hit HQ after you hit play for High Qualitaayyyyyyy!

As for me, I’m hanging out at my pops house on the cape right now. I love coming here, it’s sooooo relaxing! Tomorrow I’m doing my drum and guitar tracks for The Fitted Shirt album. Wahoo!

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Posted in Performance, The Fitted Shirt, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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