Where to Next?

I spend way too much time trying to craft the perfect opening line to all of these entries. I start typing and delete. Over and over and over. Until finally something completely different starts flowing, and that’s how I got here. But where do I go now?

It seems like my chapter in California is coming to a close. I haven’t really told anybody that yet, so keep my secret until I tell you otherwise, ok? Ten years after switching coasts to go to college and follow my dreams, it’s time to go back home. At least for a little while. I like to hope these aren’t my last days in California. I like it here. One time while we were working on the Wu-Tang show, RZA told us to pay attention to how we feel when we wake up in new places. Take note of the energy and such, to see where we feel like we fit. I feel good waking up in California. So I’m keeping faith that one day I’ll figure out a way to wake up here again.

For now though, I’ll be waking up somewhere else. Likely back in Hopewell Junction for a little while. Then, who knows? I’m still trying to figure out what works. How to achieve my perfect balance. The work is certainly going to get much harder to manage. Running a two person operation while those two people are generally based three thousand miles apart seems like a tough task to tackle. But when have we ever done anything easy?

I don’t have any lucid insight or a revelation to offer up here to help you walk away feeling nourished. I try my best to always have something to give. But for now we’re going to have to figure out where this road leads together. Scary? Sure. Exciting though. We’re alive.

• J.P.

It’s… Exactly the Same?

“Maintain your ambitions, release your expectations.” Since shortly after arriving in California, I’ve repeated the mantra to myself constantly. 2025 marks ten years living in this absurd juxtaposition - relentless sunshine beating down upon my cloudy soul. I don’t know if I’ll ever learn my lesson.

Sorry, I was watching a documentary about Joan Didion and just wanted to try writing seriously for a second. I’ll get back to being me now.

How far down a road can you go before you can’t change course? I think I may have passed the last exit. I’ll get specific. We’re six weeks into our new series on YouTube. It’s successful in the sense that we continue to show up, and we continue to release new episodes. That is the only success I have ever known. None of my life’s work has been enough to start a career. None of the pieces of ourselves (I won’t call it content) we share have fostered any significant growth. No opportunity has come from working to my wit’s end. In my delusion, I believed in the possibility that our latest effort would produce different results. I believed this because we are doing something different. We’ve changed the terms of our experiment. We’ve tried every idea that’s been thrown at us. To no avail. Why? I’m genuinely asking, why?

The worst part is the silence. No one has any answer, not that I expect someone to, but no one says it’s bad either. Sometimes Un and I will joke to ourselves and say “if it sucks, tell me that.” At this point, I’m finding myself feeling desperate for any response at all. I would love for someone to tell me we suck at this, because at least they had an opinion. That’d be much better than what I’m currently experience, which is essentially the equivalent of giving the performance of my life while unknowingly wearing the Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.

I know that in the grand scheme of my life, six weeks is no time at all. I could look back on this post in December or April or May or even ten years from now and laugh at how desperate I sound. Maybe I’ll look silly because the fulfillment I’ve been chasing is right around the corner. Unfortunately, time is of the essence for me. I’m out of money. Some days I feel like I’m out of ideas. To put it bluntly, I don’t know what to do. Here’s to hoping I will figure it out soon.

-J.P.

We’re So Back

2025. Who would’ve thought we’d make it this far? After a year of rapid succession releases in 2023, we took 2024 to plan for the future, which is now the now. I talked about it a lot when I was posting here regularly, but we often fell short of our goals in terms of reach and growth. Our team, which was effectively myself and Understanding, seriously lacks in digital marketing skills. So we took some time to reflect and try to develop a plan that we can execute better this time around.

In our first go, I was thinking that if “a rising tide lifts all ships” I figured why not put as many ships in the ocean as possible? I’ve come to the conclusion that I was wrong. We didn’t have the time, energy, or resources to develop support multiple projects simultaneously, and also, it’s just really confusing to anyone that might be interested in what you’re doing when you say “oh, it’s actually three different artists… but we’re all the artists.” Silly me, making things hard on myself. Classic Joe. This time, we’re trying to keep it simple. Which honestly, isn’t always so simple, but that’s just like, my opinion I guess.

Our goal for the year is this: recoup on the publishing advance we received some years ago, which gave us the opportunity to start this outfit in the first place and to do it as independently as possible, so we can have leverage when we get to sit down at the table.

With that in mind, I’m proud to present Making Music with Beautiful Idiots, a YouTube series we’ve been working to develop since September of last year. The terms of the experiment are as follows: every week, Understanding and I write and record a new song in one day. The next day, we sit down and reflect on the process - what we liked or didn’t like, what we learned, where we imagine the song, what’s going on in the world and in the studio, etc.. I cut both parts together and voila, Making Music with Beautiful Idiots. Our hope is that you laugh, learn, or listen, or maybe you do all three. It’s a longer form that allows us to be ourselves and have fun and ideally it will bring about more opportunities to make music with more people and give our songs places to live.

I hope you enjoy. I’ll be here every now and then, probably every week, maybe a little less. Whenever I have something on my mind. In the meantime, be easy on yourself. Give yourself a little grace. Watch our first episode if you want 11 minutes of escape. Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you think we can help. Love y’all. Glad to be back. Talk soon. Click on the photo to go watch the video.

-J.P.

See Ya Later

Well, it’s been a whole year. Twelve months of writing, recording, and releasing music under the Beautiful Idiots label. We launched two new artists - Roe’s Garden and the Corner Store. We got our other groups name on TV! Right there in the opening credits, season 3 episode 3: “Original songs by The New Hippies.” In total we released 34 songs. That’s something to be proud of, for sure. If I’m being honest though, most of this year was about learning how to deal with falling short of my expectations. It was a whole lot of troubleshooting, changing plans on the fly, trying to keep my spirits up when I felt like things weren’t going my way. I think a lot of that is reflected in this blog if you read through the year. And that’s ok. It’s just year one. Life is about taking the lessons, I think. IT’s about persevering, finding ways to continue on when you feel a little bit beaten down. It’s about learning how to see things in a new light. Sure, I wish more people would hear our music, and I struggled mightily trying to understand how to market effectively or build an audience, but if I’m going to make an honest assessment of myself, it’s not surprising that I had those struggles because those are never things that I considered my strengths. All the moments we were actually making music, filming our silly bits… pretty much all the time we spent creating, those were the moments that I loved.

So how do we move forward from here? Well, I originally said we were going to put out 50 songs this year. It doesn’t mean that the sixteen that didn’t come out are getting left on the cutting room floor. We’re still working on them for our next project. I’ll put it this way: I went to film school to learn how to make movies, but all these years later, I haven’t made any movies. It’s time for that to change. You might not hear new music from Roe’s Garden or The New Hippies or The Corner Store for a while, but don’t worry, we’re working on something.

As I said, this will be the last post I share here. At least for a little while. It’s not to say I’ll never share anything, but they might be few and far between, and I won’t be prioritizing them. I’ve got to really lock in on this next one. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. My wish for you is that you go fill up your glass with all the life you possibly can. Smile through it, and keep moving toward the things that set your heart on fire. Try to make a note of the moments that you feel really lit up and ask yourself what it was that made you feel that way. I’ll be looking forward to the reunion.

On December 29, 2022 I started this website and posted my first thought, titled “Beginnings.” This isn’t the ending, though. In the words of my grandma, “it’s not goodbye, it’s just see ya later.”

-J.P.

An Excerpt from My 4th Grade Journal

At the request of my Mom and Dad, I went through a box of my old papers from elementary school. Here’s a page from October 3rd, 2003, when I was in fourth grade.

The place I would most like to visit is Hollywood. I would really like to meet all the famous movie stars and singers and all the other famous people. I would stay in a nice hotel and do whatever I want! I would want to go to Hollywood because I want to be a famous singer or actor someday. I think it would be a good experience to meet a bunch of famous people and get some advice on how to achieve my goal and what to do and how to act if I get to Hollywood. I think it would be awesome to star in a movie someday. That would be fun.

Well, I got to Hollywood. I met some famous people who’ve offered guidance. I even made it onto an episode of television. I still think it would be awesome to star in a movie someday. I think I’ll keep going.

-J.P.

The Last Batch

We’ve made it to the final friday of 2023. We released our last three songs of the year today. Two by The New Hippies and one more from Roe’s Garden. A quick thought on the music.

“If You Were Mine” feels like a dream to me. It’s based on a riff that Understanding has played for a while. We actually put the whole instrumental together long before I wrote any of the lyrics. I would listen to the instrumental while I walked my dog every now and again, and the only words that came to mind were “If you were mine.” I would just sing it over and over and over. Then I got the first line, which is a sentiment I feel often. “Wake up, different day, same shit.” Nothing else came for a while. It sat for months while we got some other work out of the way, until I finally just sat in the sun one day and hammered it out. When I listen to the final version, I think the sunlight is captured in that recording, if I’m being honest. The song sits in a really nice register for Erica to sing. Every time we did a Roe’s Garden song this year, I would always like the demo, but when she finally snag it really took the song to the next level. Hope you’ve enjoyed the ride of singles from Roe’s Garden. It was a lot of fun to explore a style that was a little new for us, and writing for a female vocalist has always been on bucket list.

As for the New Hippies, we’re leaving you with a little double single. Simply put, I think “Spaceman” might be my favorite song we’ve ever done. Easily top three. It makes me feel that good. And really, that’s all this is about for me. Whatever happens with the art we make is whatever happens, I just want it to make people feel good. That’s the real value to me.

Zane gave Understanding and I a batch of demos to choose from and these last two songs came from that batch. Not so much is changed from the originals. Spaceman has all four of us on the record and I asked Zane to add the strings at the end, which I think made it pretty epic. I really freaking love that song.

Finally, hidden behind Spaceman is a cool groove called “I Want You,” which I also like. I think we ended the year pretty well with all our artists. The instrumental is pretty simple, and so I tried to keep that theme in the lyrics. There’s a whole bunch of shit going on around us, but at the end of the day I think everybody just wants somebody to love.

It’s been a wild ride, making all this music this year and sharing with anyone who would listen. Tomorrow and Sunday, I’ll do a little more reflecting on what I’ve learned, and then we’ll leave it there for a little while. I want to say thank you, sincerely, to anyone who took the time to listen to our music, to share it with somebody, or danced to a tune, maybe learned some words, bobbed their head along to the beat, whatever a person does with music. It means a lot to us Beautiful Idiots that you spent some time with us in 2023, when there’s always something else to do. I hope we helped you feel good this year.

-J.P.

Too Old to Dream

A Funny thing has happened as I’ve gotten older. I find I’ve had the same number if not more dreams and ideas, but I’m received with much more doubt when I share them with other people. If not doubt, just a general sense of indifference seems to be the most common response. A “yeah ok,” or maybe a “sounds good,” with no questions or, if there is a question, it’s usually just “why,” with their faces all twisted like they smelled something strange. It seems like most of the time nobody cares.

That’s probably true. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but it’s highly unlikely that anyone will ever care about something the way you do, especially if it doesn’t affect their immediate life. That’s fair. I also don’t have such an illustrious track record to this point in my life that would warrant that kind of hanging onto my every word and idea. Fine.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth my exploration. It doesn’t make them less valid. One of the first times I spent any time with RZA, I was about to explain an idea that I wanted to make but he stopped me before I could get into it. He said explaining it would only take the air out of it. So I think I’ll get back to that method. I won’t be continuing this blog in the new year. At least not at the rate I did this year. Maybe if I have a thought that can live solely in writing I’ll put it up here, and maybe the scarcity will make them a little more meaningful, who knows? But for now I won’t be sharing my ideas with people as much as I have been. I’ll show you when I’m finished.

-J.P.

Creating Separation

In football, one of the requisite skills that turns a receiver into a playmaker is the ability to get open. A guy will use his quickness or his strength or sometimes just his sheer speed to make some space between him and his defender, creating a window for the quarterback to deliver the ball. The same goes for basketball; guys develop a stepback or a crossover to get an open shot, or they lower a shoulder into a defender on the drive to secure a lane for a layup… it’s all about creating separation. So most all of my analogies are sports-based. I watch a lot of sports.

I think the same applies to the entertainment industry. It’s a case of different but the same. Music and TV and film - they’re so saturated that it can feel impossible to make a mark. Some people are able to achieve massive visibility through a massive marketing budget, but not everyone is so flush with resources. Even then, you can’t really guarantee the results you want just by throwing money at the campaign. (I think we may have reached the point in time where we have to stop assuming the audience is dumb. This might not be a novel idea, but it’s one I’ve been thinking about recently. Everyone that has a phone or goes on the internet can recognize an ad, and their bullshit meters are getting more and more refined. They live online and are inundated with information so why would you assume they don‘t know what they’re looking at?) The one thing you have to do is find a way to stand out.

“I’m working on it,” I screamed into the digital abyss, head spinning, back aching, and tears welling up, wondering if I’d ever be heard.

I’m just kidding. It’s not that bad. Yet.

-J.P.

…To the Skies?

Hope you had a nice Christmas! If you celebrate, of course. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed your Monday. I had a very nice time with my family. A lot of good food, way too many desserts, and a very long karaoke session. Also a lot of chasing my baby cousin around the house. Kids can really wear you out man.

We went to the mall today to return one of my sister’s gifts. My dad took a route that we take maybe one out of ten times to get there, which took us past the Hudson Valley Regional Airport. To my surprise, there was a new building, the Dutchess Community College Aviation Center, right on the side of the street. I had no idea it was there. But it got me thinking…

I write about flying a lot. Like A LOT a lot. I’m enamored with space. In another life I’d be an astronaut. But it takes experience to write, and it takes living to create. What if I actually learned to fly? It had never occurred to me as an option. But I mean, I have time right? I’m not gonna lie, it’s really piqued my interest.

-J.P.