LIFE OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM

This is a time for honoring what's deep inside my heart...
Overindulgences are a thing of the past and i've taken out the trash
that had long kept me away from the "here and now"...
I refuse to wear a watch and i'll never look at the time 'cos IT'S ALWAYS AND ONLY "NOW"
FOR ME...If i have a studio session,a gig,a meeting or a class to teach,tell me when to be there and i'll
always show up in the NOW!!!
Nobody's chains are holding me down and i'm no longer my worst enemy.
I guess i'm also more flexible and open to all the new opportunities that life seems to be
throwing my way lately...
One surprising thing has been the way i've been finding it easier to deal with any kind of authority-quite the stretch for me as my closest friends will have you know!!!-
When the powers that be decided to take off my records from the shelves and stop playing
my music on the radio or even stopped returning my calls some years ago...i started dying a long, slow and
painful death...it's a wonder i didn't go back to the bottle...i relocated to Toronto instead...but
we'll get to that story later...
Going back to dying...I DIED TO THE OLD MARC...and i guess that's when i switched to MARCA...and altered my given ARSENAULT last name to ARSENO....
The "O" represents me coming full-circle...MARCA is an abbreviation, also my WARRIOR NAME...nothing to do with me losing my head and becoming another persona...
Somewhere around 2005, after the XM SATELLITE RADIO gig i stopped looking for any kind of meaning, i quit gathering useless information from the outside world and retreated inward.
Folks started to wonder about my mental health and thought i was going thru a severe depression...and i guess for a little while i was...and i lost a bunch of so-called friends, but then i started writing like crazy again...
a good sign things were getting better and i was going to be ok...
What happened was the ultimate spiritual investigation for me...
I began investigating the inner workings of my true "self" and something clicked...
Overnight, i became obsessed with finding out what really made me happy...
Where did my joy come from and how was i going to reacquaint myself with it?
I did all this by developing some form of daily routine,getting up at dawn was one of them,
cleaning up the apartment,stringing my guitars,taking long and reflective walks on Mount-Royal,
and writing a complete and yet to be released french album as well as some of the RAVEN-BLACK EYES OF FIRE songs...
I was a man on a mission!
I was going to defeat this restlessness once and for all...i was going to kick this boredom right
in the arse and prevent it from sabotaging my life as it had done in the past...
It wasn't going to stop me in my tracks anymore...i was going for the deep plunge...this time i was going all the way ...but OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM...
What i eventually came face to face with was a renewed sense of freedom and empowerment,
a new and creative version of my life was taking shape...right there before my very eyes...