Do it for the memories and for Baltimore

Chapter 5

“Alright. I’ll go and check everything out then. Have a good day” I said waving to Pete and grabbing an energy drink from the fridge by the secretaries desks and leaving for Studio 4. Even though this was considered one of the smaller studios in the building, it had a fairly big lounge area and still an impressive sound booth, which is what we’ll need since they’re just writing and arranging instruments and not recording anything today.

It was 11:40 and Breaking Instinct had just entered the lobby and I greeted them as they filed in. They even looked like a typical punk band. Spiky and coloured hair, chains and studs, and their girl singer even had flame and tribal tattoos on her arms and chest. We went to the studio and chatted casually for a bit, this being the first thing we have to do when meeting new artists to try and understand what they want to say with their music. After gaining an understanding of what music they want to put out, they started showing me some songs they had already started writing and arranging.

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“Okay, but what if instead we…no, that won’t work with the song. How about??…No. Nevermind that’s just ridiculous.” I said to the band who were becoming almost as frustrated as I was. We had been sitting around on the couches and chairs all afternoon and it was nearing 4:00. We were all having major cases of writers block, trying to edit what would be their debut single, and I was trying to make it the absolute best for them, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen today.   

“What if we just don’t start off with the auto tuned vocals and start with a simple guitar riff? I’m sure we could come up with a good one in no time.” The singer, Natasha suggested hopefully.

“I know that’s probably a good idea seeing as we don’t have much else to go on right now, but you usually want the listeners to hear voices first, especially in your debut single.” I said negotiating with them. They seemed to understand, but not much work happened after that.

“Alright guys, time to clock out. I’m sorry we didn’t get as much as we thought we’d have done today, but, tomorrow’s another day, and come in earlier so we have a bit more time than today.” I said to the band, as we all started to pack up our things. They agreed to come around 9:30 tomorrow morning, giving me half an hour to set up and get ready for them. They left the studio and I headed out the door shortly after. The entire walk from the studio to the train station was filled of stressful thoughts swirling through my head. I have never had writer’s block so bad working with a band, but for some reason, it just wasn’t working today.

Shortly after I sat on the train, my sister Alanna called me.

“Hey how’s the ‘Crab State’ treating ya?”

“Pretty damn good so far if I do say so myself”

“And how’s your job? I haven't heard anything about that yet”

As I was talking on the phone I saw that the brown haired stranger was once again on the train in his spot. On the ride I didn’t even bother to look over at him and continued to talk to Alanna. I talked about how stressful today was and Alanna tried to assure me that it’ll only get easier after today. I did eventually find myself looking at the stranger for a quick second as I was talking, and he was actually looking back at me, with sort of a look of sympathy, probably wondering why I was stressed.

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Wednesday January 22 2014

Dear diary,

Well, today was a tough one. Both the band and I had trouble working things out and got very little work done. I did see the ‘mystery man’ again and he looked great today. He did make eye contact with me once on the way home, probably curious of my frustrated voice on the phone, and I was REALLY stressed. I’m gonna head to bed early tonight, I’m gonna need that extra sleep.

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*The Next Day*

I woke up later than usual, but I made it to the train station with probably just a minute to spare and I was now entering the doors of the studio. I was pleased because I saw the handsome stranger once again, we did make eye contact once which made me kinda happy seeing his gorgeous face looking at mine. I pushed it aside for now as I was starting with Breaking Instinct in half an hour.

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It was another stressful day once again, but not as bad as yesterday, giving me confidence in both mine and the band’s abilities. We had written and arranged 2 full songs that I thought would be some of the more popular songs on their album, and we completed the song we were stuck on yesterday. By the end of the day, the band was very satisfied and so was I. I was entering the train, proud of what we accomplished today. I looked over at where mr. mystery man was sitting and he looked at me and offered me a smile, and that was when my mouth formed a smile of it’s own. The trip was quiet with minimal chattering from others on the train, when all of a sudden:

“Alex pick up you're goddamn phone. It’s Jack, you idiot!”

I was shocked to see that that noise was coming from the gorgeous stranger’s phone, who I now know as Alex. I smiled and chuckled twice to myself at the goofy ringtone his friend obviously set without him knowing. He looked around the train, his ringtone gaining a few looks in his direction from the fancy dressed business men and women and other train riders. He looked my way and noticed me smiling and chuckling at his ringtone, and smiled back at me and shook his head casually. The ringtone played for a third time, but was cut off halfway through as Alex answered his phone.

“Dude, when did you make your own ringtone on here?!…yeah…oh crap, I guess I did…well you know I’ll be at your’s tomorrow and I don’t need it tonight…you’re an idiot…shut up dipshit, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hung up with his friend and laughed to himself looking at his phone. Some seconds later the train stopped and he looked up noticing it was his stop, and exited the train.

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Thursday January 23 2014

Dear diary,  Today definitely was better for a few reasons.    One, the band and I got further along with the writing process and things are starting to look better.    Two, I just found one of my favourite movies, Now You See Me, on tv, and who doesn't love Dave Franco :)     And finally, I had learned the name of the man that I had been crushing on today. His name is Alex. This wouldn’t be the first time I had fell for a boy named Alex, but that was a different Alex and we were in third grade when my friends dared me to kiss him. I think this kind of crush is different. Even calling it a crush seems not as mature. I could use lust, infatuation, desire…but it feels like a good desire. I think I won’t give up on this boy just yet.