Look, We’re On The Front Page! Well, Jeff Is.
I always like to get to the office early, and this morning was much earlier than usual, as Leonard was up (physically and energetically) at 6am, jumping on me, licking me, turning around in the bed, jumping on me again, licking some more, talking (yes he talks, and it’s not my cerebral microembolism imagining the whole thing). I figured he wanted to go out, as Leonard is the “quick pee” type like me, but not even… He just wanted to start the day, which means to have mine started as well. Once I’m awake, it’s showtime. I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anyway, so I went to my work desk – well, that’s what I call the place collecting dust over ALL the items I’ve been keeping for further reference (anybody wants a 2008 music mag? I probably have a few in there amongst other additional artifacts…!) Funnily enough, while my place is a total mess, Jeff’s is shiny and clean. And wait, before you imply that I’m being disrespectful to the collective area I’m sharing with Jeff and Stephanie (the genius maestros behind the incarnations of all my ideas), that you may diagnose me as suffering from a hoarding disorder (over-collecting stuff you can’t throw away), or that I should be more mature by getting my act together, I haven’t been around for more than a year. And you need to remember that my almost-dying episode could have gotten in the way of me dealing with my mess. Ok, it doesn’t explain the previous 12 years before my surgery, you’ve got a point, but recovery is a loooooong process… Whatever you are suffering from. 😉
Anyway, I was at my artsy-looking place at 7am, where I found a copy of the newspaper featuring Jeff’s picture on the whole front page, a real WOW moment I would have liked to share with more people than Leonard who kept on jumping on me to play a kissing game no matter if I was in a totally different vibe. The picture looked amazing, which was highly meaningful to me, as Jeff was holding vinyls we made at our recently opened vinyl pressing plant. The photo accompanied a lengthy interview piece about our entrepreneurial spirit, emphasizing the fact that everything we do, may it be music, film, photography, conceptual art, lathe-cut vinyls, or more recently, its pressed vinyls counterpart, is based on our core values, founded on family, community, and equality. Jeff is a phenomenal verbalizer and an impressive communicator. You can feel his passion and you will leave greatly empowered, no matter if he addresses himself to a massive conference crowd or if he chats with you one one-on-one. His love of people defines his ability to connect with others. It’s obvious from the interview I read this morning, between Leonard’s cathartic desires to go out, get back in, jump on me, ask to go out again only to bark to come back inside 30 seconds after…
Anyway, I was at my artsy-looking place at 7am, where I found a copy of the newspaper featuring Jeff’s picture on the whole front page, a real WOW moment I would have liked to share with more people than Leonard who kept on jumping on me to play a kissing game no matter if I was in a totally different vibe. The picture looked amazing, which was highly meaningful to me, as Jeff was holding vinyls we made at our recently opened vinyl pressing plant. The photo accompanied a lengthy interview piece about our entrepreneurial spirit, emphasizing the fact that everything we do, may it be music, film, photography, conceptual art, lathe-cut vinyls, or more recently, its pressed vinyls counterpart, is based on our core values, founded on family, community, and equality. Jeff is a phenomenal verbalizer and an impressive communicator. You can feel his passion and you will leave greatly empowered, no matter if he addresses himself to a massive conference crowd or if he chats with you one one-on-one. His love of people defines his ability to connect with others. It’s obvious from the interview I read this morning, between Leonard’s cathartic desires to go out, get back in, jump on me, ask to go out again only to bark to come back inside 30 seconds after…
I’ve never craved media attention; we’ve been shunned by our national media for a long time after we started Your Favorite Enemies. It wasn’t truly personal (at least I think!), but more of a political standpoint, since we were mostly expressing our creative selves in English back in the day – you can add Japanese, French, and Arabic now. But that means that the French majority wasn’t cutting it; call it the stigmata of our country’s history divided by the French and the Brits. We had it pretty rough at first, being the only unmentioned artists when they would announce the list of major national recognition nominees. We just stopped worrying about it. My mom used to ask me when I would be mentioned in the local press when I was featured in the Rolling Stone Mag, Prog, or NME… Quite a paradox. I always found it funny, to be honest, especially that one of our first front pages happened soon after we purchased the church that eventually became our Studio HQ. The title was “Punks Are Taking Over the Church”! Punks? Taking over? What?! It was even more shocking to us considering how far it was from the caring and respectful way we managed the whole affair. But that was our initial local limelight… Not sure my mom implied that type of headline when she asked me about it! We weren’t even able to go to the grocery store without people insulting us or being super rude after the paper went out…I asked one woman one day, after she said I was a satanist for bringing rock music to a holy place if she was still attending her local church because I don’t think I would have had the opportunity to purchase it was that the case. “Maybe you should repent from abandoning your sacrament.” End of discussion. Let’s just say it’s not how I foresaw the treatment and all the privileges that come with celebrity!
Our relationship with that major newspaper outlet and its reporters would significantly change for the better over the years, we even became friends with the official photographer, got featured countless times, and after receiving several interview demands in that considerably lengthy period, it’s only after releasing my album “Windows in the Sky” that I found it relevant to share with them, in my name. It was a nice piece, where I could talk about my father, my life-altering journey to Tangier, and the state of Your Favorite Enemies’ future, about which I’m still being asked almost daily. I only found out weeks later that I actually had a full first-page treatment, which was a complete surprise for me, as well as a fantastic opportunity for anyone dealing with grief or mental health issues to know that it’s ok to be broken inside, to be paralyzed emotionally or completely lost in a world that has suddenly been reshaped by a personal or collective traumatic event. It wasn’t “in vogue” to talk about those specific aspects of reality around here only recently, so I was happy if my testimony could potentially shine a light on those issues and help break the cycle of silence, shame, and guilt, proof that media isn’t only about click baits, even though the “Punk takeover” would have been pretty lucrative had it been published in the current state of sensationalist goose chase we are too often targeted by…
I even found out that Jack Nicholson lives nearby…! This is definitely true, right?!
Our relationship with that major newspaper outlet and its reporters would significantly change for the better over the years, we even became friends with the official photographer, got featured countless times, and after receiving several interview demands in that considerably lengthy period, it’s only after releasing my album “Windows in the Sky” that I found it relevant to share with them, in my name. It was a nice piece, where I could talk about my father, my life-altering journey to Tangier, and the state of Your Favorite Enemies’ future, about which I’m still being asked almost daily. I only found out weeks later that I actually had a full first-page treatment, which was a complete surprise for me, as well as a fantastic opportunity for anyone dealing with grief or mental health issues to know that it’s ok to be broken inside, to be paralyzed emotionally or completely lost in a world that has suddenly been reshaped by a personal or collective traumatic event. It wasn’t “in vogue” to talk about those specific aspects of reality around here only recently, so I was happy if my testimony could potentially shine a light on those issues and help break the cycle of silence, shame, and guilt, proof that media isn’t only about click baits, even though the “Punk takeover” would have been pretty lucrative had it been published in the current state of sensationalist goose chase we are too often targeted by…
I even found out that Jack Nicholson lives nearby…! This is definitely true, right?!
