jacobthespaceguy

[jacobthespaceguy]

Mystery

Again, I wrote this post months ago and I left this in my drafts. I hope you enjoy my previous thoughts.

I wrote Mystery for a reason. Mystery is about being in love with a person in your dreams and despite how much they mean to you, you'll eventually wake up and it will all be in lack of better words, "just a dream."

It's sad. So sad. On one hand, I love these dreams because I get a moment to be happy with a girl for a small amount of time, but on the other hand, I have to wake up and feel the wave of disappointment of it all being just a dream. I've explained the meaning of this song many times in the past and I will never get sick of doing so because believe it or not, I think this song is the song that I relate to the most.

I've been single since 2015 I believe. Back in high school, after an on-again, off-again relationship with my one and only girlfriend, we eventually called it quits officially. (Before you ask, I broke up with her and I will never get into specifics). This relationship to say the least was a learning experience for me. It gave me experience in a relationship so I won't go into it completely blind in my next, however, a freshman year relationship does not hold up to adult relationships. At least it shouldn't so I know so little of what I will be getting myself into when it finally happens. My last relationship of pretty toxic to be honest and she probably thinks I was a bad boyfriend (which I probably was, it was new to me) and in my opinion, she was probably a bad girlfriend to have as my first experience. However, I still cared for her dearly and we're still friends to this day. She's been in a relationship with a pretty cool guy for the last few years and I'm happy to see they're still doing good!

Ok, back to my story. Now that you have some insight of my personal life which I may regret to tell, I will say that I've romanticized the idea of being in a relationship since late 2015-2016. Ever since then, I think about it all the time. As a 20-year-old who's gone this long in single life, I will say that it has been easier to forget about it and focus on my priorities and most of the time, I'm not really seeking relationships anyway. However, like clockwork, I'll go through bouts of dreams and lust for relationships and it'll takeover my life to a degree. Right now is one of those times. As of lately, my dreams have gotten more realistic and easier for me to remember which is good and bad since it's fun to have these realistic dreams of being with a girl but bad when I have really violent dreams. It's been a coin-toss of which kind I get lately and it scares me. I just finished watching as show called Invincible and I believe that's what's causing my violent dreams.

Anyways, my last dream that I had a week or two ago, I was in a coffee shop in line waiting to order and these 2 girls who were at a table behind me were watching my friend struggle to order and I made some kind of one-liner and the girl sitting to the right at the table laughed at what I said and followed along with the joke and we started conversing. I then ordered my drink and walked back to their table to talk to her some more. We were hitting it off. Then it came time for me to walk off and go about my business and this girl told me, "Now is the time where you would normally ask for my number," or something along those lines and I fumbled a bit through it but I did it and got to walk away knowing I actually scored a girls phone number. "Finally!" I thought, "I got a girl’s phone number and I'm not as much of a loser anymore."

You know how time makes no sense in dreams? Well moments after that, in my head, it was days or a week later and I went to call this girl up and ask her out on a date. However, as quickly as this dream went, is how quickly I woke up and realized I did not have this girls number. Well, I had her number in my brain so I decided to give it a call in person. Turns out my dream girl's number is the IRS and they're still wondering if I'm going to pay my 2019 taxes. I probably won't since I don't know how to pay taxes yet. (For legal reasons, I must clarify that this entire IRS bit was made up to humor you and make me feel better about being a loser)

I hated waking up and knowing it was all "just a dream," even though it felt so real. It was vivid. I told Austin, my best bud, and the rest of the Cosmic Cast about this dream and Austin understood me when I said it felt real and it hurt to have it ripped away from me. Imagine how Meghan from Drake and josh would feel if the entirety of iCarly was a dream she had in a coma and woke up to realize there was no iCarly, nor was there a Spencer, Freddy or a Sam. I tear up thinking about it.

Anyhow, life goes on and I go back to producing music, sleeping, and crying like I usually do. Fast forward to last night, it was a Friday night/Saturday morning dream. A girl I had a crush on that I used to work with at an old job was at my house to play piano for my brothers for some reason. So she was downstairs and I was upstairs doing god knows what. Probably listening to Angels & Airwaves or playing Spider-Man PS4. All of a sudden, my crush, who I'll call Amy for the rest of this story (her real name is not Amy) came up behind me at my doorway and looked so sad, tears in her eyes. Kind of like a sad puppy. I instantly get up and went to go hug her to comfort her. I put my arms around her waist and asked her what happened. To sum it up, she said that playing piano for my brothers was a disaster because she didn't have a real piano... (Look, I'm not saying dream logic holds up in the real world at all so please disregard how silly this is)

So as I listened to Amy tell me this story in a faint sad voice, I had this awful feeling in my upper gut/lower chest. I felt so much pain for her because I cared about her so much and I hated to see her this way. So I consoled her and offered to buy her a piano. After talking some quick specifics of what she wanted, her face filled with cheer and she was the happiest person I've ever seen. With all of this joy and excitement we felt in that moment, we both went in for a kiss. It was a beautiful and passionate kiss. It felt so real. Surely this was real.

Just like the last dream, all of a sudden, it was days or a week later and I was at a place. I honestly can't remember where but I think it was a big barber shop. No like seriously, a barber shop but it was huge and for whatever reason, it was a hangout spot. I was with Amy but I couldn't find where she was in the shop so I went to call her on my phone. I was so happy that I was in a relationship and was with a girl I had a crush on and was in love with. It felt so real. I was so happy. But then... it happened...

I woke up with my eyes closed. The first time I can ever recall waking up but my eyes still being closed. I was so confused. "What happened?" I thought. I opened my eyes and saw the reflection of my face in the mirror.

It was just a dream.

I couldn't believe it, it felt so real. To be honest with you, after typing this out, I actually felt a small feeling of sadness remembering how happy I was in my dream. I have to remind you that despite how much pain these dreams can cause, I love that I have them. I think they motivate me in some way. I'm not sure. It beats having no dreams or stress dreams. We'll have to talk about how much I hate stress dreams in a different entry. Every time I wake up after one of these dreams, my first thought is my song Mystery. This is literally why I wrote the song in the first place. This is why it's probably my favorite song from me. It's an odd thing to relate to, but I want you to know that if you're on the same boat as me, I hope you know that this song is for you and that we'll be ok in the end. We're gonna have our moment one day. These dreams keep us in check I think. Or, they remind us that we're single and alone. Maybe the brain does this to motivate us to find a partner and reproduce because there's a lot of primal instincts that out bodies still have despite how long humanity has been in a world of technology because it's simply how we were programmed. Crazy to think about.

Here's my favorite quote from Mystery and I think it's relatable.

"the clock takes away our precious time my feelings for you are so sublime and though I confess that you’re not real just meeting you was beyond surreal"

I changed the "so" to "just" in the final line because the remastered version was changed to that. (Wait! There's a remastered version?) Not yet. But it may or may not be coming. It’s releasing 10/15/21. Only us blog people will know about it muahawhawhwhawhaw

The quote perfectly encapsulates the entire struggle of being in the dream and trying to get the most out of your short-lived love of your life. It may not be fun to deal with the aftermath of these dreams, but in my eyes, they're still worth having. Not that I have a choice or anything. My brain is funny. I wish I could change some things about it though.

If there's any takeaway from this entry, it's this, these dreams are healthy to have. I think. I don't know, do I look like Mr.DreamGuy or something? But I have these dreams all the time and I'm sure some of you do to and that's ok. They’re just dreams. If you get sad over the dream, then at least you can drown the pain with my song! That's what I do. If you hate my music, then Ghost on the Dance Floor by Blink-182 is a good alternative. Let me state that I've never heard this song before I wrote Mystery, but the concept is the same I believe. At least in my interpretation. Don't be surprised if you see further entries on here about dreams like these. I love to write down the good ones because they're fun to remember. I hope you learned something about Mystery. I don't know how else to end this so just go listen to my song. Or turn off your computer, get a coffee, and take a nice drive down the canyon listening to your favorite songs to clear your head for an hour. Just be sure to roll the windows down, and sing along as if you were the artist and on stage singing for a crowd. Or if it's late at night, drive down to the beach or some kind of alternative and spend some time clearing your mind. Maybe a partner of choice will coincidently have the same thought and you guys meet each other for the first time and hit it off.

I’ve romanticized relationships over the years. I wonder if my expectations will hold up or if I'll end up disappointed. I don't know. I just don't. But I'll keep waiting until the time is right and I find someone to fall in love with and someone to build a life together with. I don't think I could ever be a casual dater. It's just not in my source code. A girl can so much as smile for me and I wonder how us building a life together would look like. That's a bit of an exaggeration but it's true to a lesser extent.

It's 2 AM. Goodnight to you lovely readers and goodnight my future love. I hope you're doing well. Ok, that was weird. Goodnight for real this time.

I hope the IRS doesn't know I'm screening they're calls. Hey Siri, what's the punishment for tax evasion? Wait, my words are still being ported over to the blog. Stop it. Stop writing what I'm saying, please. STOP STOP OH CRA-

[jacobthespaceguy]

New life, new computer & new perspective.

I wrote this half a year ago and forgot to post this. Enjoy.

Dear Cosmonauts,

Greetings! It’s me, your boy! Did you miss me? No? Yeah, not too surprised. To be honest, I would be genuinely surprised if anyone actually read these. It’ll never stop me though. I love using this as some kind of escape. I think I’m trying to say that I’m officially back to blogging! Well actually, I never was in a state of, “blogging.” I just simply make a blog post every once in a while. So instead of being back, I guess I will simply start blogging more often. At the very least, try to. In an ideal world, I would create entries at least once a month, that’s not too much to ask for... just a few paragraphs every month. Sounds easy enough... On that note, it probably isn’t. But maybe it is. It depends on your personality.

Laziness. Saying laziness defines me is an understatement. I don’t want to be lazy nor do I wish I was. I’m honestly not too sure why I'm so lazy. I think this pandemic just made it really bad. Working from home 3/5 days of the week changes you. Early on, I figured I would be able to use this extra time to work on more music and I even started being a mixing/mastering engineer for a friend of mines. However, I ended up using this extra time to stay in bed and be useless. Some would say I'm being hard on myself but I'm not. I stay in bed and I waste my time, my friend's time, and overall, I'm just a useless human being. I feel like a failure sometimes. However, I do hold on to the hope that I can change. I want to change. Some days, I tell myself, "I'll be productive this time," but then stay in bed half the day. By the time I'm up and eaten breakfast and done my whole morning routine... it'll be 2 o'clock and the day is practically over. It's not really over, but it'll feel like it. It sucks. Now the pandemic is ending and I'll probably have to go back to work full time soon. I have no idea how I'm going to cope with that. I'm already depresso mode from things changing so much around me that I feel like a hermit and want to hide under my desk for the rest of my life. I hate change. I hate it, hate it, HATE IT. I know change is good and if my music career takes off, then they'll be a lot of change. Although, I would rather endure that kind of pressure than have to go back to work. Every day to get to my work is a 40-minute drive there, and an hour drive back since traffic is so bad. I know other people have it worse, but with how tired I am after a shift, I have days where I lay on my bedroom floor doing nothing and or nap until I finally get up to shower, eat dinner and finally get to the home activities I wanted to. However, at this point, it'll be 7 PM and I'm too tired to do anything other than watch YouTube videos until 1 AM, and then it's finally time to go to bed. It's a struggle and I can't seem to escape it.

I don't even know what I'm writing anymore and lost track of where I was going with this. I guess it's to complain about hating work and or my laziness? I originally started writing this post with the intention to talk about my new computer and how writing a blog post with it is a vibe. I bought a mid-2017 MacBook Pro back in August of 2019. It was the most absolute base model and only had 128 gb of storage and 8 gb of ram. WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF! I loved the flexibility of having a decent laptop for when I travel, but this was a bad purchase that left me financially ruined. I want to say that it was a terrible machine and I hated it. However, it ran decently most of the time and I must confess that Apple just knows what they're doing when designing computers. I can't argue though, since I started this blog, I became an Apple fanboy and I'm seriously buried in the Apple ecosystem. My phone, laptop, tablet at one point but sold, my credit card, my watch, earphones, and tracking devices are all connected to Apple and they basically run my life. However, my main machine will likely always be a Windows desktop.

Back to the MacBook Pro, my 2017 laptop having 128 gb made the machine unusable for me. Apple offering a 128 gb machine was a cardinal sin and I do the happy dance every morning knowing they no longer exist. After downloading Reason and Logic Pro, I had about 8 gb for any else I wanted to use. I couldn't even have all of Logic's sounds installed. Ugh. I never used the machine because I resented it so much. However, I recently started using it to record my vocals because the fans (despite going up 1000 db when I record in Reason) were quieter than having my desktop fans on when recording so I opted to use my MacBook Pro to record instead. In addition, it was really nice to have when I was on the go and needed a computer. Despite being a baseline laptop, it ran the project file for my song, "Nothing Was The Same," decently enough for me to get some mixing done at my Dad's house late last year. It still chugged pretty bad when I was traversing through Reason's sequencer. My final straw was when I wanted to try a vocal plug-in that refused to work on my PC so I pulled out my MacBook Pro and installed it on there and it worked perfectly. I was like, "Man, I wish this MacBook Pro just had a little more storage so I can actually use it efficiently." That's when the idea came to me, "Holy crap, let's just buy a new MacBook."

I would constantly go to Apple's website and look at their newest 16" MacBook Pro. It's when Apple finally let go of the butterfly switches on their keyboard and went back to a scissor-switch design and improved the heck out of the performance. It was a beautiful machine and I wanted it ever since they announced it. So I went back on Apple's website last week after testing that vocal plug-in and was reminded of the horrendous price. $3,000 for a decently specced computer was just too much. Someone on Reddit was telling me how great Apple's refurbished computers are and that they're basically brand new aside from the regular box it comes in. So I decided I wanted to get a refurbished MacBook Pro. However, the next morning, I decided to do a little more research and I thank God I did because after a little research, I saw how much better the new 13" M1 chip MacBook Pro was over the current 16" Intel MacBook Pro and that it was the best laptop to buy. Even better, it's cheaper. So after more research, I decided to buy a refurbished max specced out M1 MacBook Pro. I finally have 2 tb of storage. 2 TB!!! I have more storage on this laptop than on my Windows desktop. I also went with silver over space grey like my other MacBook simply because it looks so much cooler. I don't care for space grey anymore. Something about the classic silver is where it's at. Also, this keyboard is amazing! I'm using it right now to type this. The Touch Bar is pretty cool too. I thought it would be a weird adjustment but it was actually pretty seamless. My only complaint is that it's easier to tap it and do something while typing on the keyboard. Happened to me twice while typing this. Although, all I did was open the emoji window so it wasn't even an issue. However, I think I type a bit in an unconventional way than most of you reading this do so just ignore me. I would also like to brag about how quiet this computer is. I haven't heard the fan once and it's dead quiet. In fact, the M1 MacBook Air doesn't even have a fan, that's how good this new Apple silicon is. Lastly, I haven't had the computer heat up at all yet. I'm typing this using safari with a few tabs open, Logic Pro in the background and there's no part of the computer that's hot right now. My lap would've melted if I was using my 2017 MacBook and it's in great shape! I want to say this computer is a beast but, to be honest, I haven't had a chance to stress test it yet. I've had the computer for less than a week. I will definitely keep you all updated.

Wow, I can't believe I typed all of this simply because I imagined Adam Young in his basement late at night with his MacBook Pro writing his magnificent blog posts that inspired me to start this blog in the first place. For whatever reason, it's a real vibe for me and as I was fumbling through Logic Pro, I had the idea to write a blog and all of this entry just poured out from my brain to this text box. I sincerely apologize to anyone reading this far and to my future self who probably just spent 20 minutes proofreading and fixing errors I made. I'd imagine all the run-on sentences are probably infuriating. I think I spent 40 minutes to an hour just writing this.

In conclusion, I'm writing blog posts again and plan to release new entries at least somewhat often. I have quite a few ideas of things I want to talk about, so you guys will get to pick my brain soon enough. In addition, I may go public about this blog. It is public but I announced it a long time ago and I wasn't very big. But with my podcast and additional following over the years, I may finally get some readers. I'd be surprised if more than 3 people have seen my blog which I'm not upset about. I'm treating this as my personal time capsule and it's fun to go back and read. In addition, I'm going to die someday. I don't know when and how, but it provides a little bit of comfort knowing a potential love one may find this one day after my unfortunate death and get hours of personal content that they can read over any time. I don't mean to get morbid and I don't mean to say my blog is the second coming of Christ. I don't know what I'm saying other than I hope you enjoy it. Anywho, I plan to make blog posts more coherent and not so all over the place. I went from being lazy/hating work, MacBook Pros, and then to my death, all in the same post. I just got so excited once I started typing and couldn't stop. More posts to come. Thank you and goodnight.

-Sincerely,

Jacob McDonnell

[jacobthespaceguy]

Angels & Airwaves

If you know me at all, you’ll know that I’m a pretty big fan of Blink-182. Don’t get me wrong, Owl City is still considered my favorite artist by default, but for a while, I couldn’t get enough of Blink-182. I still can’t sometimes. Shortly after getting into Blink circa 2016, I obviously did my research about the band and learned who the band members were. They go by Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus, and Travis Barker. The cool thing about that is that I realized Dementia by Owl City was with Mark Hoppus, who’s from Blink-182 which was very cool! I knew Adam Young (Owl City) was a fan of Blink-182 but I didn’t think much about it at the time. Now I knew that I liked Blink after hearing I Miss You from the past. I soon realized that I’ve heard All The Small Things and Dammit before and I got really excited when I realized it was Blink-182 who made those songs. My first favorite after this was First Date.

While this happened, I learned that Tom DeLonge was no longer a member of Blink and that he had his own band called, you guessed it, Angels & Airwaves which is dubbed AVA for convenience. (I hope I used that term correctly, I never said I was a pro blogger/writer). Anyways, I decided to check it out since I thought Tom was a cool guy and the first song I heard was Anxiety.

“OH MY GOD! WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS VOICE?!? WHY DOES IT SOUND LIKE THIS!?! I don’t like it.”

So I gave up on AVA right away and went back to being a Blink-182 & Owl City fanboy.

Fast forward to late 2017/early 2018, I got into a Blink song called Up All Night, which featured Tom’s deeper voice like he used in Angels & Airwaves. After that combined with the crippling anxiety I’ve been accumulating over the years, I decided to listen to the song Anxiety since I thought it would help calm my nerves. It was actually a really fun song to listen to while I scootered myself to school in the morning. I would listen to Owl City’s new songs from Cinematic and Anxiety every morning.

A few weeks later, I graduated high school and I was busy working on my own music and listening to Owl City’s new album. I still liked Anxiety but you can only play a single song so much. This is when a beautiful discovery happened.

I believe it was sometime in July of 2018, I was doing something on my computer and had my headphones on. I was either working on a mix or listening to other music... Hard to remember. Well, one thing led to another and I decided to try out more Angels & Airwaves since I like space stuff and I’m a sucker for a cool name like Angels & Airwaves. Well, the top 5 songs on Spotify contains a song called Everything’s Magic. I decided to play it and I was met with a fun drum loop and a familiar guitar riff that plagiarized another one of Tom’s Blink-182 songs called Anthem Part 2 which was a song I really enjoyed. For that reason alone, I decided to give it a listen and sure enough, I was a fan of another AVA song. 

This would lead me to watch a music video for Everything’s Magic and one of the recommended music videos to watch after was Hallucinations, also by AVA. I remember being unsure of the song the first time but intrigued enough to listen again and then I became a really big fan of the song. For awhile, Hallucinations was my favorite song by AVA. I remember listening to Hallucinations the night before my driver's test. I failed. I’m sure it was unrelated though. One of my favorite memories working at Target during the holidays was driving my stepdads car to an 8 PM - 12 AM cart attendant shift while listening to Hallucinations. I remember the cool air and the almost dark sky. I would often get Taco Bell since it was in the same lot as Target before my shift. Good times.

I would go on to listen to the occasional AVA song and after Hallucinations, my favorite song was Letters to God Part 2. Tom DeLonge has another project called Box Car Racer that released one album is 2002 and it’s really good! Anyways, Letters to God and There Is were my favorites off the album so that got me excited for Letters to God Part 2 from AVA. I again didn’t like it at first but now I like it more than the first. 

Believe it or not, I wasn’t the biggest fan of AVA until earlier this year, 2019. My best friend Michael Drake got me the record “Love Part 1 and Part 2″ from AVA for my birthday and I finally forced myself to listen to the entire record and it’s obviously one of my favorites now. I can finally say that AVA is my second favorite artist. That’s right, Blink isn’t number 2 anymore haha.

I got to see AVA live a few months ago and it was the coolest! I had an absolute blast and it was so cool to see Tom DeLonge live in front of my eyes. That’s my favorite part of seeing artists live. You should’ve seen my face when I saw Adam Young in real life and I was nowhere near as close to the stage like I was for AVA.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m just a really big fan of Tom DeLonge and everything he does. My mom thinks I have a crush on him or something but I promise I only find him as a favorite artist... Well, you just can’t beat Adam Young. Sorry, Tom.  Also, I’m a heterosexual so that’s not compatible. 

So that’s my story on how I became an AVA fan. I hope you enjoyed! 

[jacobthespaceguy]

This Is My Story

Well, after a year and a half in the making, my collection of 8 songs titled “Late Night Apartment Lights” EP is finally done and going up everywhere in a couple weeks. Remember that blog post from well over a year ago that I titled “Late Night Apartment Lights?” Well, that’s when I knew that it was the perfect name for the EP I was working on and stuck with it. That’s funny, Dreaming From Scratch came from a world in Minecraft I created and now Late Night Apartment Lights came from a blog post title that talked about girl problems.

This EP really is a big deal to me and I want to take a second to tell you why. One and foremost, being able to sit down and be a genuine musician excites me. As a kid, I wanted to be a singer. (As in wanted to be a singer, I mean I told my mom once I wanted to be one, kind of like when a kid says they want to be a firefighter or an astronaut). I forgot about it the next day but when I got older and started getting into music, I got into an animated band on YouTube called YourFavoriteMartian. You see, YourFavoriteMartain made comedy songs about balls, stereotypes and beer puns. However, they also made a handful of serious songs and quite a few love songs. As a 12-year old boy, this sparked my interest and from there I wanted to make music. At the time, it was just an idea and nothing I ever thought I would pursue. I really only wanted to be “YourFavoriteMartian.” I wanted to make funny songs and be famous on YouTube. Who doesn’t? I eventually forgot about being in an animated band and focused on YouTube.

About a year or so later, my one of my all-time favorite games came out, Grand Theft Auto 5. With that game's release, came a band I discovered from the trailer song for the game called “The Chain Gang Of 1974.” Keep in mind, at the time, I was not yet into Owl City. I was familiar with who he was from Fireflies and another song of his called Alligator Sky. I quickly became a huge fan of The Chain Gang of 1974 and this is when I again became interested in making music. I eventually got a version of Sony Acid 7 and attempted to make a cover of his song Sleepwalking. My gear at the time was an old weak MSI laptop and a Blue Snowball USB microphone. This obviously went poorly as I couldn’t sing, nor did I know what I was doing so I never finished working on that cover. I did record the vocals, however, and I wish I still had a copy of it somewhere to show you but I, unfortunately, don’t. (Is it unfortunate?) I eventually did some research on how music is made these days and learned about DAW’s and how everything is made on them. I did a little more research and decided to pick up FL Studio 11. I opened it and I didn’t understand a single thing. Like at all. I quickly learned that I couldn’t even figure out how to make a single sound. Nothing made sense. I exited to program and never looked back.

I once again got over wanting to music and I decided to go on with my life.

Fast forward another year or so later. 2015. March. I was a freshman in high school. I was thinking to myself in the shower about not having much music to listen to anymore since YourFavoriteMartian had to quit making music (long story, legal issues) and The Chain Gang of 1974 only had 2 albums. I was thinking about how I love space and listening to songs that sound like “space” and singing about space. (Light bulb) “Wait, Owl City makes music about space and stuff. Fireflies is very dreamy and Alligator Sky is literally about space.” So I got out of the shower and got my HTC M8 and went on my music player. At the time, I always had a collection of random songs I enjoyed listening to and remember earlier when I said I’ve always liked Fireflies and Alligator Sky by Owl City? Well anyway, I listened to him and was reminded that Owl City songs are the exact type of music I’ve been looking for. Without further ado, I googled Owl City and was looking at a big list of Owl City songs. I would search up any of them that had a cool sounding name and listen to it. This was an explosion for me. This whole time, this artist has been in the background creating all these wonderful songs that I’m enjoying and I had no idea. All I had to do was search up his freaking name and I never did. I remember staying up so late that night with my old apple earbuds in my ears, just listening to these dreamy songs. I quickly started loving songs such as Shooting Star and Vanilla Twilight. Vanilla Twilight would almost instantly become my favorite song and it is to this day my favorite Owl City song.

This is when I once again, sat down and said “This guy looks so cool with his keyboards and is a talented musician... I want to make music. I want to be this guy. I wish I could be as talented as this guy. I want to make music and everyone to be impressed with me.”

This is when I decided to open up FL Studio 11 again and decided I wanted to learn how to make music. For real this time. I started looking up basics on YouTube and I started getting into it. I even went as far as spending time when we weren’t doing anything in my freshman seminar class (which was a pointless class that we were required to take. However, shout out to Mr. Earley, he was a cool guy) and I would just watch FL Studio tutorials on my phone. I was getting the idea and I started making music. The school year ended and summer break was here. I spent the entire summer making YouTube videos and making really crappy beats in FL Studio. I don’t have a lot of memory of this time anymore because nothing too significant happened, but after a certain point, I got Reason 5 because I learned that Owl City used to make his music and made hit songs such as Fireflies and Vanilla Twilight in Reason 4. So I got Reason 5 and didn’t use it much at first but eventually got really into it and stopped using FL Studio all together. 

Here’s where the story starts getting good if it wasn’t already.

As I started getting a little more comfortable with music production and more of a fan of Owl City, I finally produced and written my first official song that would end up on my debut album Dreaming From Scratch. Santa Fe. Granted, it sounded like garbage, but it was my first and I was proud. At first, this song was produced in Reason 5 and since Reason was not yet an official DAW yet and couldn’t do direct recording, I recorded my vocals in FL Studio 11 and attempted to pitch correct my vocals using Melodyne. Just like Owl City. It wasn’t much. I would go on to get Reason 9 via 30-day free trials and I would have to create a new email and completely redownload and install Reason every 30 days. However, it was worth it because I was a big Reason fan at this point and continued to use it to create Dreaming From Scratch. I kept making music and that was that. I still struggled a lot at the time.

Come summer of 2017. I met a great guy who is now one of my best friends. Austin. He goes by IronyAmI on YouTube and World Famous Secret as his artist name. After a tweet I made asking for someone to master my music (It was kind of as a joke), he offered to do so and that’s when we officially got to work. You see, I’ve always been the main producer, the only writer and main mixer on my music. However, Austin and helped a ton and is practically a co-producer on my music. He helped 100x more in regards to production on Dreaming From Scratch than Late Night Apartment Lights. We got to work on an album and I kept making music and figuring it out on the way. I also upgraded to Reason 10 doing the same 30-day trial technique during this time. We eventually had a collection of 12 songs and I titled it Dreaming From Scratch and released it January 5th, 2018.

I’d say about 2 weeks later, I was already hard to work on a new song and that song is now “Mystery,” which you’ll be able to hear on August 23rd. Since I released Dreaming From Scratch, I graduated high school, became an adult, got my first car and my first job, then got let go, got a new job and now leaving this job to start my career in facility engineering. A lot of growing has happened since DFS and now I have this series of 8 songs to prove it. I’ve gotten so much better at my craft and I’ve become a lot more passionate about it. I left a lot of details out about spending countless nights sitting there in the dark in a new Reason project trying to make a song. I’d ultimately wind up looking for kick and snare samples for 15 minutes, get bored, tired and frustrated and quit the project without saving. It was a huge struggle. It took time and patience and a little help from a friend who knows what they're doing to get to where I am today. I am in no means an expert at this. You’ll learn just how truly in-depth this craft gets and how many ins and outs are required to make a genuinely crispy polished song. My music is nowhere near the level I want it to be, but it’s a lot closer than it was a year ago. That’s my story. My story on how I became a musician. I also forgot to mention that around 2016-2017, I got into Blink-182 and picked up an electric guitar. I already had an acoustic from being into Owl City on a Christmas. During the making of Late Night Apartment Lights, I got a bass guitar at a pawn shop and I love it. I actually recorded bass in my song Clocks On The Wall that’s coming on the EP August 23rd. Look out for it! I also officially bought Reason 10 last December when I was working at Target since I had money and was impulsive. Best investment I ever made!

With that said, that’s the end of my very long story. I probably left some details out, but it should be mostly there. I hope you enjoyed! Thank you, everyone, who has supported me in any capacity over the years. It really does mean a lot to me. 

Until next time, 

Jacob

[jacobthespaceguy]

Midnight blackberry river hue

The color of your beautiful eyes. I like to rest my head on my hot desk caused by the afternoon summer sun and daydream of us being together, laying down in a field of flowers. I usually imagine it being a field of white flowers. Your breath fills the air as I drift off into a dream about driving my car in a starry night. You’re there alongside with me as I drive us down a windy forest road. If it wasn’t obvious, we would end up driving past many beautiful animals. These majestic beings would take us back a moment because we have to realize that they live a simple life that consists of eating and avoiding being eaten. It’s all a sick game they’re forced to play. However, they’re still beautiful as they blur right past us as I’m driving slightly too fast down the windy road. What can I say, I’ve gotten confident with my driving over the year. We finally arrive at the creek and I shift my car to park. As we sit there and watch the slightly rushing water go downstream, we both look at each other and gaze into each other's eyes. You’re the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, I thought. I reach in for a kiss. Just one gentle kiss in the front seat of my scratched up Chevy Cruz. Before I grasp your lips with mine, I start to daze. That’s when I’m hit with a wave of heat and light. The heat is from my desk which I have been resting my head on for the last 5 minutes. I’m in a pool of sweat. I woke up. Although it may have been a dream, you’re very real to me. You’re beautiful and you mean a lot to me. Until we meet again.

[jacobthespaceguy]

The Time Is Here

You may have noticed I haven't written a blog entry in about 11 months. Did you think I left Tumblr? Nope, I never did and I never forgot about this. In this age of social media, I'm always posting somewhere and it's hard to find a topic that's good enough to deserve a blog post. I try to do these rarely for a reason. What I think is really cool about the current theme I use for this blog (hopefully you're reading this on the notebook theme I have on) is that it looks like I'm actually writing in an aesthetically pleasing journal.

I have to come out and say that life after high school has been pretty strange. Since my last post, I graduated high school, Cinematic by Owl City came out, Spider-Man PS4 came out, I got a drivers license, started working at Target, got a car, Red Dead Redemption 2 came out, met my new best friend, got let go from Target and then got a new job in a grocery store. I'm still waiting to get a tech assistant position in refrigeration but there's no word on that still. It'll suck either or because a nicer job would, in theory, mean better paychecks and getting ahead in life. However, I'll have less time to work on music and make YouTube videos and other projects I want to pursue. I'm currently working on an 8 track EP that should be announced soon and I'm really excited to do so. I want to talk about it more but I plan to make that it's own blog post when the time comes.

I've also been stressing out a bit about money lately because they're plans of myself packing up and moving out from my parents home. It's not that I'm in a hurry to leave or anything. You see, my friend is here from Flordia and is currently living with 3 roommates that are often from out of state. Their lease is up in August and all of my friend's roommates are moving out after that and my friend won't have anywhere else to do. He has no family here and as you may know, living in California is too expensive to live on your own. So my friend would need a new roommate or two to live there and help pay rent. I also have a good friend in high school who is currently living on friends living room floor and doesn't have anywhere else to go either. He's being kicked out at the place he's at soon but I believe he has somewhere to go. Although, that place is obviously somewhere he can't stay at forever so he'll need a place to live meaning he would be moving in with us as well. With the money I make now, moving out is literally impossible. I was supposed to be moving onto a real career by now but that obviously hasn't happened yet. I'm saving a little bit of money here and there into a savings account, but I'll have nowhere near enough to help me move out much. I want a nice rainy day fund in case something were to happen. My main concern is my car because it was 3,000$ and had 92K miles when I bought it. It's a pretty decent car. However, it may last me 2-5 more years... or it could last me 2-5 months. Even smaller things like needing tires or batteries would be a nice hit to my savings account. I also forget that I'm currently living at home with next to no bills and still freak out whenever I spend money.

For now, I'm trying my best not to worry about it because I can't really do anything until I get a better job. I just don't want to let down my friends and possibly watch both of my best friends move away. I care about them deeply and would love to live with them. It would be really cool to live on my own in general.

Hope you enjoyed my vent. If ever have any questions, I'm on Twitter... obviously. Don't worry, you won't have to wait too long for another post. I'll be posting soon again whenever the EP gets announced and I get to explain some things I've been wanting to talk about. - Jacob McDonnell

[jacobthespaceguy]

My Tedious Love Life

Whoa whoa whoa, a blog post I’m not writing late at night? What is this, a crossover episode? (Bojack Horseman reference). It is, however, 10:30 PM, so it’s not quite early either. Anyhow, I’m going to tell you all a story that perfectly describes my high school dating life.

Stale. The last girl I dated was back in 2013-2014, which was 8th grade through freshman year. After that, my dating life went very static. I’m sure you don’t care about a 17 year old’s love life, but bear with me, I need to vent. So after that, my luck with girls have plummeted. To be honest, other than the fact that I occasionally act autistic, I’m not sure what I’m doing so wrong. I mean, sure, we can blame simple things like my looks or my personality... but I’m not so sure. I suppose I don’t put myself out there enough.

I completely agree that I should just wait until after high school, but for some reason, I have trouble doing so. However, I graduate in like 40 days, so I basically have no choice at this point. Anyways, back on topic.

Almost every girl I’ve ended up having a crush on from 10th grade to 12th, have always happened to be be dating someone. Like honestly, give me a break. I guess that’s the high school dating scene for you. So why do I care? I don’t know... I really don’t know. Someday’s, it’s hard to sit there and think “Who cares if I’m not dating anyone. I have too much on my plate to worry about that stuff.” I just can’t control myself. I’ll be honest only because I’ve told myself I’ll always be honest on the blog and no one reads it anyway.

I literally met a girl like 2 days ago, and for some reason I crushed on her on the spot. (Never happened before). She seemed like she may have been into me as well, and in fact, she ended up following me on Instagram the same night. (That LITERALLY never happens to people like myself). I thought it was a really good sign. I then find out she started a relationship LITERALLY the day before. (Dammit, what are the odds?) I’m fine with this, and it’s not really a big deal. However, it got me thinking about my love life, and motivated me to say screw it and write this blog post, so I hope you enjoy me being personal. To be fair, I think I probably take every little interaction a girl has towards me and I always think, “Hmm, maybe she’s into me.” Which is a terrible mindset to have.

Now that my venting is over, I wanna talk about some good news! I’m starting a podcast with my friends IronyAmI and this dude I met recently named Ary, who goes by SuperGaming Dude on YouTube. The first episode premieres tomorrow, May 5th, 2018. I can’t wait to see where this goes! I’m also about finished with my second demo for my upcoming EP, and I actually commissioned a guy off Reddit to make the cover art for me! I saw it earlier today and it looks really good! I’m just waiting for him to give me his PayPal email so I can pay him.

I think this is the end of the blog post, thank you for those who read this! It’s now 10:55 PM, so I just killed a bunch of time. I’m waiting for this podcast to upload anyways. It would have been uploaded earlier, but I had to leave my house and cancel the upload. So I’m now using my uncles computer to upload the podcast and to type this up. Alright, time to proof-read, post, and share it on Twitter! Again, thank you for reading tonight’s post! This blog is keeping me from insanity. (Not really, but it’s nice to have laying around). Have a nice night! Or day if that’s your thing. - Jacob McDonnell

[jacobthespaceguy]

What’s Next?

To be perfectly honest, I’m not even 100% sure where to start this. It’s been awhile since I last posted here, and I have a lot to say. Do note that I don’t neglect this blog, I just wait for perfect opportunities to compose a new entry. If I have to be honest, I put more effort into writing the perfect blog post than I do completing an AP English assignment. 

So again I have a lot to say, so here it goes. My last post was clearly about a girl. More specifically, a crush I had. I don’t even remember what I said, but I don’t want to read it right now. So let’s hope it wasn’t too edgy. Anyhow, I’m a senior in high school now, which is still unbelievable, and the school year is literally half over. Since my last post, I released my debut album, Dreaming From Scratch, under the name of Lucid Domino. It has been my dream for a long time to make music. One day, back in late 2016, I was sitting there. I was doing nothing more but experimenting in Reason 5, seeing what kind of music I could make. At that time, I’ve already written Santa Fe, and Beauty and the Stars (now known as Without You), and that was around the time it hit me. I want to make an album! I want to be like my all time favorite person, Owl City, and try this music thing out for myself. I soon upgraded to Reason 9 (lot’s of free trials) and continued to produce music. I eventually met my now good friend, Austin, A.K.A. IronyAmI, and he helped produce the album with me by mastering my tracks. It was so much work and so much fun! I stupidly gave myself a deadline of January 5th, which we did end up meeting after all. There’s nothing wrong with a self-driven deadline, however, I felt like more could’ve been accomplished with even just an extra month. I think the album came out great and I’m excited to announce that my album will feature across many stores and streaming sites like Spotify really soon!

I will have to admit, I wasn’t the happiest when I released the album originally. For a moment, I felt as if I made a mistake. Like, maybe the album wasn’t ready yet. I think it’s a weird dynamic when you go from a track that sits there quietly on your computer for only yourself to hear, and then to just suddenly release it for the world... I felt like I was sending my kids off to college. A combination of that sense of melancholy and pressure of returning to school after three weeks off to finish the semester, lead to myself going on a “leave of absence.” It’s been about 2 weeks, and honestly, my video was a little more dramatic than it needed to be. Even if I never declared my leave of absence, I still would not have posted since school started. I’m just too busy right now. I need a B average to start learning how to drive a car, and I basically have that. I just need to pass the finals tomorrow and Friday. (I’m supposed to be studying right now, not writing a blog post). So, I’ll likely be back to posting within a month, but no guarantees. I might take some extra time to work on myself a bit. Also, I want to start planning the process of creating another record. 

You see, as much as I’ve enjoyed taking a break from making music, I miss it so much! I crave it. I just have so many small ideas in my head that are rushing out and want to be layed out onto a canvas. I’ve recently discovered an artist named, Tracey Chattaway, and I’ve been in love with her music. (I’m actually listening to it as I type this). She makes instrumental music, and it’s beautiful. It’s inspiring me to create a new album. I want my next album to have a more melancholic vibe to it, with creative sounding instrumentals and lyrics with more imagery and a little less descriptive. There’s just one problem. I don’t know how. I’m afraid I’ve developed too much of a pattern while producing Dreaming From Scratch, and I don’t know how to take my music further. I’ll admit, I think Dreaming From Scratch sounded good, but I don’t really know how to write anything different. However, I don’t want to create the same exact sounding music again and again. Obviously, I’m not talking about genre. I love this Owl City sounding electronic music! I just don’t want to be too repetitive. I want to treat the new record like it’s my first. I’ve learned that from Travis Barker (the drummer for Blink-182), and I believe it’s a good philosophy. So, I have no idea whenever I’ll have more music available. However, I’m not going to limit myself, and I’ll do whatever I can to deliver an amazing, new sounding record!

That’s the end of this post. I just spent thirty minutes typing it. It’s now 11:43 PM. Appropriate. I really felt like venting somewhere and getting this off my chest. So here it is. Thank you for reading! You deserve a cookie.

TL;DR: My last post was me venting about a crush, I was in a bad mood that night, forgive me. I recently released my debut album called, Dreaming From Scratch, under the name of Lucid Domino. I then took a break from YouTube. I now crave music production and want to start a new record. However, I have no idea where to even start. I’ll try my best though. I’m a senior now. Halfway done with high school.

[jacobthespaceguy]

Late Night Apartment Lights:

Nothing is perfect. Nothing goes according to plan. No matter I want something... No matter how much I strive to advance towards my goal... There’s always a good chance that it’ll fail and knock me down to the cold, wet ground. Concrete to be specific. I’ve never been able to enjoy more than a month of my life before something hits me. Sometimes it’s insignificant and I’m melodramatic about it, and sometimes it’s a meteor crashing into the depths of the earth. This isn’t a cry for help. I’m not sad. I have no reason to be sad. However, I’m just not quite happy either. I really don’t know what I am, and that frightens me. I’ll have moments where I can sit there and create, and genuinely enjoy what I’m doing. Other times I can sit there and no matter what I do... Nothing is good enough to me. Sometimes I’ll grow attached to something, but then I’ll realize it doesn’t work out and it’ll break my heart. Am I allowed to feel bad about this? Or am I just an asshole? I don’t know, and I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering. Why am I doing this right now? Seriously, It’s 12 at night and I can be sleeping or listening to music. But no... I’m sitting down, writing an edgy tumblr post. Do I feel happy for doing this? No. Will it help me sleep at night? It might actually. If you ever have heartache, just find a way to express your emotions. It can be a song or a Twitter post. If it soothes the pain, then do it. Expressing your emotions into something creative is the best way to get the feelings out and help you heal. If you’re hurting, try creating a blog or a Youtube channel. It’s a fun way to express yourself and let others be relieved by indulging into your content. It may help you sleep at night because it helps me.

[jacobthespaceguy]

Here, it begins.

Here it is. The fresh start of a magical journey of blogging. Just something new, exciting, and fun. I’ve always considered making a blog, I once tried to make a blog on Google’s blogging service they have. Nonetheless, I have finally done it... A BLOG!!! OFFICIALLY!!! It feels good having a place to go to when you want to blow off some steam or something along those lines. It took me forever to get this setup, and after so much time trying to get the “Basic Theme” to work, I just said, “screw it.” and found this “Little Leather Notebook” theme. Probably won’t keep it. Only because it doesn't fit my theme/name of the blog, “JacobTheSpaceGuy”. However, I really like this theme, so it stays until I find something better. For future reference, as I’m writing this post, I am 16 years old, and I’m a junior in high school. It’s October 28th, 2016, Friday night at 11:30 PM. Yes, I’m a teenager in his last few years of high school with raging hormones at a computer on Friday night, creating a blog. Hey, this is actually a really fun process. It’s not like I don’t have plans after I’m done writing this post. Ok, since when was jumping on your bed and watching Breaking Bad on Netflix, not a fun plan? It’s a really good show, this is my second time watching it. I’m on season 4, episode 9. Anyways, this blog was created primarily on boredom. I made this because I figured it would be something fun to do. Also, 140 characters on twitter aren't enough to say what you need to say sometimes. Enjoy yourself on here, and thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. (Props if you’re here from the future and took the time to dig here and read this).