when I started out, I decided I was going to get a gig at a famous club in New York City. its purple neon beacon, hanging three feet below the century-old pressed-tin roof, blared two city blocks, a kind of downtown iconography.

this was the kind of place where you could just feel the years, the presence of all those wanderers and dreamers who took the stage there. I wanted to stand on the same small stage at the end of the long room of brick and wood as those artists. I wanted to see my name outside on the hand-drawn marquee.

I went there every Tuesday, for months, and waited. and waited. months turned into a year.

I got to know the owner. he would listen to me audition and say, no, not yet, kid. he had a few suggestions, too, like, learn how to use the mic and your voice is too weird for singing covers, stick to your own stuff. and I would say, well, thank you, but when am I actually going to get a gig? and he was, like, um, no.

after a year it occurred to me: go to a different place. I was so determined up until then to sing there that it never really dawned on me to try somewhere else.

finally I did, at a place a few short blocks away. it was a hole in the wall no one famous ever performed or probably heard of. but the audience: they seemed to want something that I could bring them. they were my kind of weird. suddenly I knew who exactly I was there for. and just like that I began to resemble someone who wasn’t waiting around anymore.

sometimes you just have to get out of your own head and move from over there to over here, because they keep saying no over there. you can always change your spot and move to someplace warm.