I’ve come to be a firm disbeliever in the notion of The Individual. I simply cannot see the actions of one person as the product of a unique set of motivations, ambitions, longings, deficits and surpluses. Each of us is but one moving part in a vast machine. And I don’t mean this in the Rastafarian “there-is-no-you-and-me-we-are-one” sense.

I’m talking about the “every-action-has-an-equal-and-opposite-reaction” kind of interconnectedness.

Someone has all they need because someone else does not. Someone goes hungry because someone’s belly is full. It’s a balancing act that is fundamental to the physical world. Newton showed us this in the 17th century and it’s still the first thing you learn in any physics class almost 400 years later.

In other words our lives and our places in what some like to call “the grand scheme of things” are physical, quantifiable things with predictable, real-world results. I am of course not speaking on a micro level. I mean, whether you decide to go to work, or call in sick, whether you let the car in front of you in on the morning commute, whether you choose regular or decaf isn’t going to cause a rice shortage in Asia or a surplus of new births in Russia or something like that. I’m not talking about your day-to-day. The Butterfly Effect was an interesting movie and whether there’s a grain of truth to the notion is irrelevant because there’s no way to quantify it. But there are quantifiable results of the fact that you are a middle-class American citizen of Generation X, or an Italian teenager in a culture that’s not too old to forget the schizophrenic pull of fascism on one side and communism on the other, or you’re one of the last living speakers of a dead language, stamped out by imperialism. To paraphrase: who you are, your place in the vast, moving body of the human machine is no more or less than an equal and opposite reaction to the other moving parts.

So, yeah, we’re connected, we are one. We are each integral and we are each culpable. And yet we are, on the whole, desperately alone. We live inside our heads and I think we are often so appalled by what we see there, and so sure that nobody would understand it, nobody would accept it, that we are, by default, estranged. Or, worse, we are so baffled by the world in our heads we must surround ourselves with people who function largely as a sounding board for our existence. A little network of human mirrors that we train to reflect the things in ourselves we love. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to tell if those things were even lovable. Without them, we might not exist at all. You know, the whole tree-falling-in-the-woods thing.

So we seek human connections. After food and water, that’s probably our most fundamental drive. We create microcosms of friends, family, lovers, coworkers, and we use those to produce meaning in a world that is indifferent to us, to our victories, our failures, our strengths and our paucities. I’m often struck by how much we share ourselves, but even more so by how much we conceal. It’s the reason why Showtime’s Dexter is such a compelling character. We don’t love him because he’s an exception. We love him because he is us. Although very few of us are that good-looking and charming and clever, take away the Hollywood glam and glitter and we are all that alone, that lost, that strange, that monstrous. And still, somehow, we are strangers to one another, especially the ones we love.

Then again, I spend more time alone than almost anybody I know, and I’m probably not the world’s foremost expert on human relationships. This is just something I think (obsess) about a lot. What do you think? Let’s connect ☺

~Justin

P.S. I’ve only made it through two seasons of Dexter, so no spoilers, please ☺

First, let me tell you a little bit about the venue. You probably didn’t even know the Pioneer Underground was there, being awesome all by itself in its subterranean cavern below the Pioneer Center. And it is rather awesome. In fact I can’t think of a venue within, say, a 200-mile radius where I’d rather do this show. Here’s a photo:

The guy who runs the place, Wayne Wright, owns a company called Reno Tahoe Comedy and they put on great standup comedy shows there several times a week. And the reason the room is great for standup comedy is the same reason it’s great for music: it’s intimate enough even at its capacity of 175 to really make the audience part of the show; but it is a theater, and theaters have a certain weightiness, a certain seriousness, that tends to command a sense of respect. I don’t how to explain it better than that. Oh, and the seats are really comfortable. And there’s a full bar.

I’d highly recommend checking the place out. I’ve only seen one of their comedy shows, but I was really impressed. Their schedule is here: www.renotahoecomedy.com.

Okay, I actually have to tell you a little bit about the record before I can explain what the show will be like. I’m sure you’ve seen several solo singer/songwriters make good use of a loop pedal. You know, the thing that lets them layer several different parts on top of each other and loops those parts together so that one guy can sound like a band? Well, that’s kind of what Joel did on my record, only with mandolins and guitars. A lot of them. Okay, it’s actually just one mandolin and one guitar, but you get the point, right? One song has four acoustic guitar tracks, a mandolin track and bass. A couple songs have as many as five mandolin tracks. The goal with the release show, then, is to have the same arrangement on stage that we have on the record. Which definitely means more than one mandolin and one guitar. Helping me accomplish this will be Joel Ackerson, Zack Teran, Tim Snider and Ed Sheets. (I’m aware the math doesn’t quite work out, but trust us, okay?)

AND, kicking off the festivities, will be Reno’s own Tyler Stafford. In case you don’t know him (doubtful), go here and listen: www.reverbnation.com/tylerstaffordmusic

Seriously, do it now.

Look out for the forthcoming Facebook invitation to the show and when tickets go on sale (soon, now), be ready. I expect to sell this show out before go-time.

Alright, where was that proverbial carrot I was talking about? Oh yeah, here it is:

In the next two weeks I will be giving away some stuff to some lucky (and diligent) people, including a signed, commemorative plaque with a free pre-release copy of “Second Chances,” free tickets to the release show, free mp3s and even a free house concert. Of course, everybody knows the deal with free stuff: it’s never really free. Here’s what I’ve got on the table:

Justin McMahon’s Second Chance Sweepstakes
(I made the title up just now.)

I am enlisting fans to hit the web and recruit new fans. Prizes for those who can get a certain number of people to either Like my FB page and/or join my mailing list. New recruits must reference recruiter for recruiter to get credit (i.e., post to my wall or send me an email). All NEW fans will receive 2 free mp3s via email from my first record, Worth the Wait. 

Grand Prize (1 winner; 100 or more new recruits; in the case of more than one qualifying entrant, the one with the most recruits wins): Free house concert for you and however many friends and family you can fit in your living room (within 300 mile radius of Reno; winners anywhere else must provide airfare), free signed, commemorative plaque of Second Chances, free pre-release copy of Second Chances, 2 free tickets to the release show.

1^st Prize (2 winners; 50-99 new recruits; in the case of more than 2 qualifying entrants, the two with the most recruits win): Free signed, pre-release copy of Second Chances.

2^nd Prize (4 winners; 25-49 new recruits): 2 free, pre-release mp3s of your choice from Second Chances.

3^rd Prize (8 winners; 10-24 new recruits): 1 free, pre-release mp3 from Second Chances.

This contest begins immediately and will run until 11:59pm on Friday, January 20^th, at which point the results will be tallied and the winners announced.

Ready, set, go.

~Justin