Hey Everyone.
Thank you for contributing to my efforts to get back out on the road. We're still quite a long ways from the goal, but we got the money close enough to the dial to get my car repaired, so I scheduled an appointment with Harry, my mechanic friend that lives in Glendale.
Another musician friend of mine Matt, hipped me to him when I first moved to Eagle Rock around 6 or 7 years ago. Harry tries his best to help us musicians out and not charge out the nose for the work he does.
This repair would cost me easily $1,500 to $2,000 in shopping around to ask, if not more from a certified Honda Dealership.
The engine maintenance I need is not easy work.
He will have my car for two to three days to repair it. I just got off the phone with him, and he laid that knowledge at my feet as well. I was unaware. He said, “this job isn’t like replacing your breaks. I have to take a lot of things apart.” He does. He means the frickin’ engine. He needs to take my engine apart. That’s sensitive work. That’s like my car getting heart surgery.
It's preventative maintenance, but Timing Belts and Serpentine Belts are not things you want to go out while driving a car. It will literally ruin the engine, if either goes out. This maintenance will give me another 70,000 to 100,000 miles of driving a car in good health, hopefully. Holy cow do I need that. Let me further explain.
This is important to me. Why?
Because trying to build enthusiasm and a fan base around music is next to impossible these days. It’s repetitive work, and often thankless.
Music is not something that people champion as they get older. It’s looked at as something one can take or leave. When we are younger, we experience music like a religious experience.
This realization doesn’t make my job any easier.
The way I look at it is that the key hole to a person’s heart is narrow. It takes a conglomeration of events at times, for people to truly pay attention to my hard work. Especially the lyrics of all things.
For example: your wife or husband suddenly leaves you. Sleeps with someone else. You are hurting in a way you have never hurt before.
You listen to one of my songs, and you begin to cry, because you realize that you are not alone in how you feel in that moment.
That is how narrow that keyhole is. It took all these horrible events to bring a person to their knees, to finally listen to the words of a song, that might have popped up on accident in a playlist or maybe was purchased with good intention but never listened to until that moment.
This is humble work I do. It requires me to visit far away places over and over and over again. To constantly post on social media that no one who follow my accounts ever sees anymore these days because of an ever changing algorithm. To gain new subscribers on a mailing list, only to watch them leave as digital numbers that lower with every email out to them. Luckily, they are replaced by new people that I find through my continuous efforts and acts of creation.
So, I thank you for seeing that, because you are helping me to continue the hard work that I cherish and revere and look at in a spiritual light, even if those around me do not.
I do. And I truly believe that with all my heart and soul. I am on my path in life, and it is not easy—but I am here to tell you that I am in it for the long haul.
I think you know that though.
All my gratitude and sincerity and deep love for seeing me, and not an image of me.
If you are interested in contributing, you may do so here: https://gofund.me/a67fcb1e
Mike
WHO IS MIKE VITALE?
I am a storyteller, songwriter, singer, music producer, traveling musician, Jungian dream analyst, all-around curious fellow (Spiritual, Mathematical Historical, Scientific), Taoist, and much much more, based out of Los Angeles, California. I’m constantly releasing new music, in all sorts of different genres. You can listen to me below, on Spotify:
