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I guess it's worth watching, huh?

You are observing a man, a black man losing his grip on all things tangible. Or at least it feels that way.

You are reading words of a man who knows what he wants but is unsure and uncertain about if he'll ever obtain it. I have 2 wonderful job offers on the table here in Chicago and an opportunity to record music and possibly get out of the struggle by siging my life away with a label. For the past couple of months, other than writing for my album project, I've been plotting relocation plans to the south. This was based on my various trips spitting poetry and visiting kinfolk in Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta and Indianapolis. I noticed how easy life was for most in these places. Even when I visited the DC/Virginia area and broke bread with some old friends last fall, I noticed that things move a little bit slower than they do in Chicago.

I also felt as comfortable as I ever been in my life on a visit to the ATL in March. I remember last having that feeling when I lived in Alexandria back in my service days. I had just left home for the Army and for some strange reason I felt so at home in my new surroundings even though I was a stranger to those parts and there were these big ass plantation style houses. And plus, I knew many a negro lost sweat, family and life in this area.

The people man, I really dug the people and how they did.

digressing...

Now, living alone in Chicago without a family of my own, no current love interest and no real career opportunities that can provide a proper retirement (loyalty is a lost art) and no viable options to promote the music I work so hard to compose is the reality I exist in. Happiness is fleeting, but it's not discouraging to keep reaching for it. Of course after witnessing and participating in many episodes involving setbacks, death, job changes and various adventures with friends and family, I've been wondering when it would be my turn to be in an episode. It seems that I've been a supporting character in a lot of other people's lives, got a few Oscars for em but never my own script. Got a strange feeling the writer's think I can't hold my own movie...

So now I make serious moves to cure all that ails me. I have 3 tremendous job offers on the table, 2 here, 1 there. I feel like I've been instructed to be someplace else to prep myself for successes outside of corporate America, so I'm packing and making boxes, planning on leaving a whole lot behind in Chicago. I like the fact that the offers came from mammoth corporations. I've already probed into relocation with 'the bank', seeing as they want to pay for my series 6, 63 and 24 licenses and relocate me by giving me $2500 to assist my travels to the south. Series 7 may happen there as well with no commitment to this company. Wow.

Big ass telecommunications giant' wants me in a division of their tech sector (might finally use my pieced together degree), but the focus here is sales, retention and maintaining clients on their core products. I'm being courted to be a middleman and liaison to keep the client happy, doing whatever it takes to keep the giant's products as a part of their core of services. We talked relocation, but they have territories. Company first, then we'll see. No big training here, just jump in and keep clients happy, and then cross and upsell the extra stuff on the site visits. Write new business and increase profit, and they'll let me go wherever...

The third is actually what I dream about. A label with local ties and a few major acts have renegotiated their deal with one of the big three. They have money, a new game plan and room for me to be a recording artist on the label. Thing is, I gotta give up 50% of my publishing (damn near all of my mechanical royalties) and they had difficulty with a few prominent artists that did extremely well before coming to them. The label is working with an industry leading incubator specializing in indie labels. A few ten million dollars or so, new personnel on the label and access to the major's phone bank, marketing and promotions as well as new distribution... Hmmm.

And I'm trying to relocate...

Decisions, huh?