Christmas came early this year, and it comes daily.
3 o’clock is must see TV and if you’re not home during the day as I am set your D.V.R. to ABC. Why?  Oh man, because James Franco is on General Hospital.
Yes, dead serious.

I caught wind of it last night so I hit my record button in disbelief. Even those of us who work from home need to actually work at 3pm, but at 4:30 I was ready.  Perched on my favorite seat in the house in front of my flat screen I hit play and braced myself.
Sure as Sheila there he was, critically acclaimed, Hollywood heartthrob, actor on the rise, James Franco.  I was stunned, ok, and giddy.
With gritted teeth and flared nostrils Franco (..the name of his character. YES I AM SERIOUS) huffed out these lines: “always treat people with respect especially when they invite you into you-rthey’re…(mistake) home, and prepare food for you….or at least buy you stuff..”
The actress he was doing the scene with kept looking over her shoulder, I imagine for someone to call cut.  It was AWFUL!!!  Franco looked like he’d learned the lines as he walked on set.  Personally it seemed to me like he was being purposely over the top as if he was making a mockery of the whole genre.
I have to say that this feels like a stoner’s bet.  (Mind you, I have only heard of such things, but am certain they exist.)

Somewhere in an apartment near Columbia University where the actor is studying for his master’s degree there is a group of guys huddled in a room at 3pm every day laughing their faces off at Franco taking what was no doubt a dare after smoking a doob.
If I’m wrong so be it but I’m getting the hardest laugh of my life.

If it was meant to be hilarious….I totally get it.
If it was meant to be serious…I’m totally scared.
I’ll be watching either way.

Thank you James Franco.
Thank you.

Got gossip?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, wearing a blindfold and earplugs the answer is invariably yes.  Because gossip no longer solely resides in the pages of The Enquirer adjacent to the three-headed baby or whispered on the wind over your neighbor’s fence, you can get the daily dish on CNN, from your 11 o’clock news, and on any morning show.

Gossip has become a loud and proud part of our culture.

So when did it become so acceptable to talk about each other’s private business? And when is it fair game?  The cult of celebrity gossip is rapidly growing it seems and whether we like it or not, it’s here to stay.  There was always a measure of scrutiny that came with the job of being famous and from the outside looking in it appeared the risk weighed far less than the reward.  But how far is too far and who is off limits?  Politicians? Athletes? It’s obviously open season on actors and musicians but why?  And do we truly have nothing better to do than to discuss the parenting skills of Balloon Boy’s Mom and Dad or the sex life of an ESPN analyst? (Please ask yourself now why you even know who Balloon Boy is).

Richard Heene the infamous Balloon Boy father wanted attention and I suppose this would be a case of be careful what you wish for.  But would we have even heard about this story for so long much less at all were it not for the media’s insatiable appetite for dramatic, gossipy, “you be the judge” journalism?  I don’t want to be the judge.  Why must we judge?  It’s becoming a bad habit. Keep it about the work, that’s what I say.  

What is it about our society that loves to build people up to tear them down?  And we say it just like that too, “Oh, you know, we like to build people up to tear them down.”  Really? We do??

With childhood hunger on the rise and growing casualties overseas isn’t there a better use for our time and energy?  Not to mention the airtime. We have more power than we give ourselves credit for.  These shows and stories only exist because we consume them. Say no and watch how fast they disappear.

The next time you find yourself engaging in the misfortune of an actor who was caught cheating on their spouse ask yourself; Is this is really the world we want to leave our children?  Picture Falcon Heene in 20 years speed dating and the girl across from him asking “Hey, aren’t you Balloon Boy?”

Perhaps it won’t cause you to donate all those plastic babies to Goodwill and you’ll still be Octomom for Halloween, but maybe, just maybe you’ll throw out that TEAM KATE t-shirt.

I had my first Manhattan apartment well over a decade ago on 90th and Central Park West that I shared with another girl, we were just entering drinking age and both waited tables at Houlihan’s on 59th and 5th.

When not slinging beers for the 5th Avenue elite in need of a quick burger and brew, our evenings were spent trolling New York’s bar scene. I was single back then, and while never naïve my friends and I were slightly carless with our attire, showing more skin then maybe I would now and characteristically unconcerned with the “what if’s” that living in the city held for young attractive women.
We knew to walk fast looking straight ahead with purpose, and a lot of us attached pepper spray to our key chains, come to think of it you don’t see that so much anymore. Hmmmm?

The one common thread though stringing us all together was the subway flasher. We’d all seen one at some point. The lone man sitting across from you, full car or empty, afternoon or night, he’d stare at you just long enough for you to notice and when you did there it was, his exposed member glowing beneath the fluorescent bulbs. Some stories are more horrible than others and I am happy to say that that mine went pretty much as I just described it. Not pleasant, yet hardly traumatic. But there are men who have done unspeakable things on a busy subway when fronts are pressed to backs and well, let’s just say they, left their mark on an unsuspecting female.

Yes, that is correct.

So this supposed new string of flashers has grabbed the attention of a city and perhaps that has made it front-page news but I promise you this is nothing new. The only difference now is the invention of the camera phone so flashers beware. If you wish to be spared the embarrassment of the world knowing what New York women have known for years. Keep it in your pants.

And ladies, I’m beginning to see a light at the end of the flasher subway tunnel.
☺

Watch Cassidy performing “Runaway” live at the Roots Festival in Paola, KS!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Click Here To Watch!

I’ve just hit the bottom of my giant cup of coffee as the sounds of city living are beginning to spill through my window. I stare at my keyboard and ponder…

By now some of you are realizing that the new studio album is in fact the unreleased AR album from two years ago. For many of you this is a good thing, even a great thing considering how wound up we were about it, and how we’ve been playing those songs, both as a collective unit and on our own for as many years. For a while we made excuses about why it wasn’t coming out and smiled through our disgust. Then we simply stopped talking about it as it became just too painful.

There are a million reasons why bands break up, discourse, desire to explore creative liberation, babies. It feels like an untimely death most of the time, fraught with innuendo and unanswered questions. There is usually no right or wrong, only interpretation and either way people always believe what they want in the end.

Being in a band was my choice. Spending years on the road with women who essentially didn’t like me was also just that. I made mistakes out there, big ones. But I left a piece of myself on the tarmac where thousands of vans carrying musicians roll over me everyday.

I spent 18 months after leaving AR trying to correct the past. I tried through phone calls, emails, letters, lawyers, mutual acquaintances you name it. For the first time ever in my life I didn’t get emotional, I asked the right questions, went through the proper channels and remained calm. I asked and asked and asked until I could ask no more. Talk to me, sit down with me, let’s have it out. Let’s say what we need to say, and finish it. Let’s get this album out. Let’s put an indelible period at the end of this didactic run-on sentence.

I got nothing.

Silence.

A resounding “no” by way of total avoidance.

Then I tried Starbucks.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

For 18 months, my work and my heart lay in a box on a shelf. Some of us took out loans so that album could be made, we stopped working, I went to Nashville and to LA to write those songs, then sat in a studio for weeks again, with women who did not like me to make that album. To sing it the best I feel I ever have on tape, and give with love for the final time with AR my heart and my creativity.

So…..after two years of nothingness, of realizing that the world goes on as I go broke. As yarns are spun and judgments are made and I realize it will go on like this forever if I do nothing. I took my final $1000, copied the album, put it on iTunes and decided to let the chips fall where they may.

Anything is better than being ignored. It had to come out under Cassidy Project because I am alienated from AR totally and I knew I couldn’t use that name. It was just necessity, that’s all.

I hope you love it, it was made for you and no matter what happens now, it is where it belongs. I’m not getting rich off of it. Everything I ever earned went back into AR, this is actually the first dollar I have made off of that band in years. And trust it’s only dollars. It’s not about that and never was. It’s about the work and hours spent creating something that you should have had a long time ago and realizing that if I didn’t look after it myself, no one ever would.

Not sure what happens next, but que sera sera.

With Love & Respect,

Cassidy

Can we tawk? 

No seriously, something’s hitting me right now and I must share.

Family.

What’s up with it, I ask you?

We’re all different when it comes to family.  Some of us are close knit, traditional, totally conformed to the expectations of the group.  Proud to be a….what? A Smith, a Wilson, a Rodriguez a Salerno.  Whatever, you got my meaning.

We call, we show up for holidays, christenings, bar mitzvahs, birthdays, all of it.  Some of us never leave the nest, we remember to visit Grandma, call our Mother’s, our brother’s, sisters, we stand up in the wedding, carry the casket, the whole deal. We are family MEMBERS.  And we’re good with it. That’s how we were raised.  That’s what you DO.

But some of us were black sheep. Right? Misunderstood, outcasted, railing against the tribal imperatives.  Some of us can’t communicate with our families, they don’t get us, they don’t get…..anything.

No formal holiday’s, no hugs, no “I love you’s” or “Atta boys”.  When was the last time you were all in room together? Too much drama. Right?

Yeah, I can dig it.

Some of us have no family at all.  Is that better or worse?  Is it safer to have a blueprint to follow?  Examples to base your moves off of, to shape you? Or is it better to not know where you come from, to be without limits…without parameters…to be able to shape your own identity without any frame of reference? A clean slate to write the story of your life on.

I was raised Italian American. Old school, Catholic school. Don’t talk back, respect your elders, family comes first, work hard, expect nothing. DON’T TALK BACK. New Jersey. Italian.

And I was adopted.

Yes I’m serious.

So, I go back and forth between wanting to make meatballs and babies, or music and history, pretty much daily. 

I went to Catholic School. I loved the bible stories and gospel songs yet defied every Nun I came in contact with.  I love my family, I’m up on all the current events and happenings in the inner sanctum but there’s a reunion going on as I write this and I’m home….writing this blog.

Not sure why. I’m conflicted, always have been.

When I was growing up no one looked like me.  Being adopted I saw myself as this unique creature incomparable to anyone else’s beauty or lack there of.  I had nothing to compare myself to so therefore I had no limits.  It wasn’t until I met my birth Mother 5 years ago that I saw my own mortality and it was hard to face.  We’re technically family.  We look exactly alike and yet we have nothing in common despite our greatest efforts.

What’s that old saying?  You can’t pick your family? So what?  You pick your friends? And how have you been at doing that?  Just wondering.  Personally I can count on one hand the amount of friends I’ve picked that are still around, that would really be there for me.  And I’m lucky. I actually have around 3 or 4 true friends.  That’s a lot.  A real lot.

Most of us are lucky if we have one.  I also have my brother.  And Butch.  So I’m sorted out pretty much. 

We like to replace our family with friends.  We make people our Mom’s and Dad’s.  Have you ever become someone’s parent? I’ve been the recipient of some unresolved Mommy stuff pointed right in my direction, and man, I hated that.  But I guess we all do it.  I’ve played out Daddy rejection before, I never trusted anyone….it was pretty unfair now that I think about it.

But family,  that’s where it all ends up for me.  The love and guilt and unfulfilled needs we project onto everything in our lives. The repetitive cycle of unfinished business.

This nagging thing in my stomach because I haven’t seen my cousins daughter since she was born a year ago…..that urge to call my brother. 

I wonder every day what kind of Mother I’ll be and if I’ll have worked out all of my unresolved parental garbage before dumping it on my kids.

Oh God, that’s scary.

So much of who I am is because of how I was raised and by whom.  For better or worse. We are our past.  And as fast as we may run we face it every day.  So I ask you….

Who’s your Daddy?

So here’s the thing about working with your family, friends and lovers.

It’s tricky because most likely they are working for free which of course you appreciate and chances are you can get things done at all hours of the day or night which is a nice perk. God knows since Andrew has been doing my web stuff I have changed the look of my site 16 times, put up multiple videos, and even began Tweeting over a year ago WAY before it was cool. But the catch is when something goes wrong it’s almost impossible to complain because they don’t need to be changing the colors of your myspace page every week for free you know, they get PAID to do it.
You feel me?  :)

So, this is what happened….last year I started blogging again, after I left the band. It was a sort of outlet, a way to express the many churning emotions bubbling up within, and a way to stay in touch with you all. Now, I didn’t write every day or even every week, but a lot for me and frankly, I thought some of the blogs were pretty good. Kinda funny, smart-ish, insightful I guess….I felt pleased with myself, I’m not gonna lie. So it was a bit of a blow to my well, ok, somewhat fragile ego when almost none of you commented or wrote back to me at all. Considering there are A LOT of you who actually get this blog and I thought you liked me…..you really liked me. I was hurt. Could it be that SO many of my once loving and expressive followers have now jumped ship because I decided to try something new? Is it possible that asserting my independence sent so many running in the other direction?

Umm. No. As it turns out, that’s not possible.

Yesterday, my love, my friend, and now my betrothed (Oh yeah, didn’t I mention it? He popped the question.) came home and got on his computer, which is not the shocking part of this story.  After about an hour he casually announced over his shoulder that the recipients of my blog have been replying directly to the blog email and there is an ACCOUNT FULL of responses to all of my blogs over the last year.

WHAT??????????????????  I thought quietly to myself.

So, I casually, but not  casual on the inside say….”oh, so, you didn’t know this was a possibility when you set up the blog?”  Eh hem…keep smiling Cass.
He said….”oh yeah, well, I guess it was a possibility but I didn’t think to check.”
I paused. Remembering how hard he works. How many weekends we have sat in front of the HTML or PHP or whatever you call it, fixing dark photos, cropping, clipping, posting, changing…OHHHH OK.

So I say, “Alright, why don’t you forward them to me and I’ll just write them back now.”  Thinking, how many could there be? 

Fast forward to an hour later and my inbox is inundated.  I am still reading them and there is no way to answer them all.   You ARE all still there!!!  Sending your love and support.  Commenting away.  Asking me to write a book, to come to Florida, to Texas to San Fran.  Big sigh.  I KNEW IT!

So all at once may I say, thank you thank you thank you.  And I am so sorry. I knew you were out there…..we just missed each other.

For future, if you want to comment on the blog, click on the title of the blog in your email which will take you to it on my site or go to akacassidy.com/blog and you can post where it says comment on the actual blog you are responding to.  If you only want me to see your comment email me at cassidy@akacassidy.com.

Also…Mid-Westerners, we’ll be in Kansas City at the Paola Roots Festival on 8/29 with Marc Broussard and Robert Cray!  I would love to see you all out in full force!

Check cassidyproject.com or akacassidy.com (same thing) for all info. And did you hear about my Gap campaign?  Well, go to the site and read all about it!

Thanks again everyone, for keepin’ the love alive.

Cassidy

Check out Cassidy’s latest video at www.CassidyProject.com/blog!

Check out Cassidy’s latest video at www.CassidyProject.com/blog!