My Mind Has Been Blown

2015 was a year of firsts for me. I got in front of an audience and told a story and later actually won. I started a zine thereby self-publishing my thoughts and ideas. I wrote a song and recorded it doing the vocals. All were very cool things that I want to do more of in the future. This year I’ve got another first. Allow me to explain. The week before leaving I had found out about the Rutten and Ranallo podcast and subscribed to it. Bas Rutten and Mauro Ranallo were an announcing team for the Pride Fighting Championship, a Japanese MMA company that at its height challenged the UFC for supremacy in the MMA world before succumbing to scandal.

 

Recently Bas and Mauro started a podcast and at the end of it they talked about how they were accepting music submissions from fans to play at the end of the episodes. The night before going on my four day road trip I quickly sent the mp3 file from the song that I had done (Conflict Registered) with some personal info and hoped that maybe in the near future they might play it on their show. Since I was on vacation though I didn’t check my email until yesterday, eleven days after I had sent my song in. However once I read my email I was in shock. Not only did they use my song, they used it on their very next show.

 

My mind was sufficiently blown and after listening to the episode and hearing my name mentioned on this bigtime podcast as well as other info it was completely destroyed. I’ll admit, as I sat there in awed silence some tears almost spilled out from my eyes. That’s how big of a deal this is to me. I’m the guy that has suffered from low self-esteem all of my life, who never thought he was good enough to do a song (or anything else) and despite myself I’ve done it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’ll become famous or anything like that. It’s just that receiving such positive affirmation after decades of doubt and procrastination makes me feel a little bit good about myself. That’s a good thing.

So if you want head over to their site and you can find several ways to listen or even download the eighth podcast episode. Showing them some love is the right thing to do since they showed me some. Going even further go to bandcamp and download the song for free. I’m rather sure it won’t hurt you and it’ll make me even happier than I already am.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.