Marion…..

I'm wondering if my life is ever going to go the way I need it too as long as I'm living in Marion.

This town is the poorest city in the state, and I kinda feel cheated into living here and like I was stranded here.

I stay now because my rent is cheap, my space is large, and it gives me a place to set up shop for Skyline Sound Studios. Now that I'm technically unemployed, having a large place to park the studio on the cheap, and also rest my head, is a valuable asset. But here's the problem.

I'm 50 miles north of my target market for the studio, which is the Greater Columbus Metropolitan Area. People in Columbus act like driving from Groveport to Dublin is some monumental trek that you must be insane to wanna make. Needless to say, getting people interested in coming to Marion from Columbus has been a challenge.

I've lucked out on a few occasions. There have been artists willing to make the drive. But on the whole, I hear people ask where I'm located, then act appalled and say they are going to the facility that costs twice as much as I do instead. Do they not realize that the gas money they are spending to get to Marion would be far less than doubling their studio bill?

The obvious answer would be to cater to the Marion area. There are bands here, and a couple of competing studios. But the problem for me is the fact that I was raised in a small town very similar to Marion, and I'm terrified of this town. Let me elaborate.

To say that Marion is economically depressed is an understatement. It was declared last year as the poorest city in the state of Ohio. This causes unemployment to increase, which means that in order for me to cater to the Marion bands, I'm going to have to lower my prices to match this market. That will do nothing to get me out of Marion.

The other issue is the fact that economically depressed areas, such as this, typically have high use of hardcore drugs. In Scioto County, it's hillbilly heroin (a.k.a. Oxycontin). I was raised there, and saw some horrific things. If I lived in Scioto County, I'd put my studio gear in storage 3 counties away and tell no one I was a recording engineer for fear of a home invasion by a crack head looking for things to sell so they could get their fix.

Apparently, Marion's big problem is black tar heroin. So you take an economically depressed area with a well known substance abuse problem, and you have a recipe for a robbery. In fact, my car was broken into last spring, and I lost about $120 that I foolishly left in the car. This was right after Sarah moved out, and rent was very difficult to make that month as a result of the robbery. Now my neighbors bitch that I park on the street instead of in my lengthy dark driveway, but on the street under the street light, my car is in full view of my next door neighbors security camera. My asshole neighbor across the street can go fuck himself with something hard and sandpapery.

So not only was I stranded an hour from my target market, but now that I have a limited income (relying on unemployment), it's hard to justify making trips to Columbus to look for clients. And even if I find them, they may scoff at the idea of driving an hour north to work with me, or I'll hear "my friend has an 8 track. We'll just use that". I'm too scared of being robbed to look for clients in Marion. So the solution is to get the hell out of Marion. This would also increase my day job prospects exponentially.

I was still holding on to hope that I could make my Colorado stress relief vacation this summer happen. It may have to be shelved, and me remain angry, for another year, because I can't continue living up here. I mean, I can, but if my unemployment runs dry and I have no studio business or label income, I doubt I could handle working with those sexist racists on the assembly line at Whirlpool again. My stress level was already to the point of causing me physical ills before I got laid off two weeks ago. With news of Olive's tragic accident, I'm still just as stressed. There's no way I could bring myself to take that road again unless there were no other option……..which is often the case in a town like Marion.

It seems like as long as I live here, it's infinitely more difficult to move foreword.

The shitty thing is that in order to make this move and better my situation, I may have to hold off on some other financial commitments, which makes me hesitate yet again. These would be joint bills to my ex. Part of me wants to scream that she put me through hell, and that despite the fact that I showed her it would be easier to pay off certain bills if she were to stay even 6 more months, she moved anyway and made everything harder for both of us. I offered her a compromise, and she left regardless, which I get on some levels. She had to do what she needed to do to better herself, and in order to do that, she had to tighten the financial strings on both of us. Well, she won't be happy if it comes to that (notice I said "if"), but it may come down to me needing to tighten my financial strings in order to get ahead, and resume payments on those debts when I'm again able. I'm not sure if this will be necessary yet, we'll see. But if it's needed, it's needed. That's not a call to action, just a realistic analysis of what may be needed. We'll see if I can avoid that, because obviously I wanna keep my commitments. But I can't let my commitments drive me into the ground either.

So we'll see. It's clear that I need to get out of this town to better myself and my prospects. A week ago I'd have been heartbroken over losing my Colorado trip, but now after facing Olive's passing, I'm just focused on rebuilding my life as quickly as humanly possible. If I live to see my 5 year goal, barring unforeseen circumstances, the Rockies will still be there.

So now let's figure out how to make it happen.