Tag: Live

Family, Fidelia Hall, Life, Titusville, PA

Fidelia Hall (Spring 2018 Update)

Justin Hoenke

It’s been a little more than a year since I last spoke in depth about Fidelia Hall on this site. Our “we’re really hoping it becomes a yearly tradition” Mother’s Day Plant Swap is right around the corner and with that comes the reminder for an update on all things related to Fidelia Hall.

Long story short: we’re still working on it. We’re a family of five who has one income and with that we’re still living a paycheck to paycheck kind of life. Our big outings these days are to the grocery store (Yay! We can eat!) and occassional visits to the movies (you have to spend a little to have some fun every once in awhile). We spend a lot of time in and around our home and with that we’ve become quite in tune and in love with our little 0.66 acres of land right in the middle of Titusville, PA. You may have read about me searcing for a new job recently. You’re probably wondering how someone so in tune and in love with their home was willing to give it up so easily. Here’s the deal: not everything in this world is so simple. I love my home. I love parts of this small town. I love our gardens. I love the fact that I get to renovate and live in a 145 year old church. I don’t like the fact that I make very little money. I don’t like the fact that I struggle financially to feed my family. I don’t like small town politics and gossip. Combine all those things together, and you get a confusing but very realistic picture of where I’ve been the past year…..At home, enjoying life, but trying so hard to get ahead and thinking about the possibilities out there. A perfect amount of happiness and confusion. A natural curiousity about what is and what could be. A very human thing.

The one thing that has changed is our living situation. 2017 was not kind to the actual house we live in: frozen pipes, leaking walls, mold in the ceiling and walls, and other not fun at all things you want in your house. With that in mind, we’ve developed a plan to move out of our home as quickly as possible and into the hall (aka the old church). While it sets us back from our original idea of Fidelia Hall being a community center for all people, it does something that is needed much more now than a community center: it gives myself, Haley, her mom, Finn, and Aero a happy and healthy place to live. Human beings should not have to live in a home that is falling down, has water leaking everyone, has frozen pipes, and mold in the ceiling. We need to take care of ourselves first before we do anything for the community. SO….we’re moving into a 145 year old church.

With that in mind, we’ve changed our mantra over the past year. Here’s what we’ve been telling people when it comes to Fidelia Hall:

Fidelia Hall is first and foremost the homestead of the Hoenke family. It is our hope that through our passion for family, community, creativity, sustainability, flowers, bees, art, fun, and food, that our contributions to the world will chip a tiny crack in the massive wall of negativity, fear, and greed that drives our culture.

We are not a business. We are not a non-profit. We are not a church. We are not a social club. We have explored every avenue and consulted every consultant and nothing fits. So we’ve decided to just be us.

Here’s a list of what we’ve done in the hall over the past year:

  • The downstairs of the Hall is heated. A big thank you to my father for his work on making this happen.
  • The upstairs of the Hall is heated. A big thank you to Haley’s father and his wife Audrey for making this happen.
  • Half of the downstairs of the hall has been wired for electricity. Thank you to Daniel Stockwell for the work he did for us.
  • My father and I ripped out some flooring and a wall that was damaged due to water. We put in a new floor and an entire new room. Part entrance, part closet, the space is a welcome addition to the dowstairs of the hall.
  • We ripped down the plaster and lathe ceiling in the kitchen. It was crumbling. Thank you to Daniel Stockwell for the work he did for us.

All of these projects were funding by monetary and sweat donations by members of our family. We thank them so much for their love, support, energy, and time.

Here’s a list of what we NEED to do in the hall:

  • Complete wiring the downstairs for electricity. We are so close to being done.
  • Restore water lines to the kitchen and add water and sewage lines to a new bathroom. Basically we have to run water lines to most of the building.
  • Set up an LLC so that we can do some business, run some events, etc as Fidelia Hall.

We still have some stuff to do, but as you can read we are nearing an almost finish line. At the moment, we have some money set aside to get ahead on these projects. If you would like to make a donation that will go towards helping us, you can do so here: paypal.me/justinwilliamhoenke. I don’t expect anything, but if you feel like helping I can promise you that your help will go a long way in helping us get ahead to make the Fidelia Hall space something that we can not only live in but also use to give back to our community.

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For now, we continue being the Hoenke family and doing what we can with what we’ve got. As you can see in the image above, we’re doing our second annual plant swap at Fidelia Hall this upcoming Sunday. We love this event because it not only brings in a lot of people but it also is a good chance to create community, share gardening resources and plants, and all in all it just creates good vibes in the world. If our home falling apart due to busted pipes and the slower than anticipated renovation of Fidelia Hall has been tough over the last 3 years, THE GARDENS OF FIDELIA HALL have provided us with a much needed outlet. Last year I personally became very obsessed with sitting in our gardens watching all of the bees in the borage. The bees gracefully flew around from flower to flower, sniffing and collecting pollen. You can tell they were very appreciative of these plants. It helped me realize just how much of a difference a person can make by doing something simple like planting some borage. Gosh these bees loved it, and in turn I fell in love with Haley’s idea of building magical and inspiring gardens. Heck! I even wrote this song about it:

Curious about our gardens? You can see their growth and evolution here.

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Thank you for your kindness, your love, and your support through the years.

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Life

Routine and Order

Justin Hoenke

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This weekend my mind turned to routine and order in an attempt to understand the world which I see in front of me. I believe that there is a lot we can understand from routine and order in our daily lives. We can then apply what we learned in our daily observations on a larger scale and through that have an impact on our overall lives. All of the things which we come into contact with both physically and mentally are connected. As individuals we can weave those things together into a giant tapestry which tells the story of who we are.

I am a being of energy, and that with my energy I chose to focus on positivity, creativity, and love. But the energy of an individual needs fuel and for me that fuel can come through routine and order. Below are some examples of routine and order that are in my life. These acts are simple but they give me great energy. This energy is needed in order to act as a being of positivity, creativity, and love.

WHEN I AM AT HOME

  1. Prepare and consume tea in the morning.
  2. Shower, brush my teeth.
  3. Spend time in the gardens (weather permitting).
  4. Piddle around in the gardens. Move some dirt, tidy up the area, etc.
  5. Water the plants inside and outside.
  6. Let the chickens and rabbits out to roam freely.
  7. Clean and feed the chicken and rabbit area.
  8. Make sure the bird feeder is full of seed.
  9. Perform or compose music in the gardens.
  10. Sit in the hammock and listen to the world around me.
  11. Unload and then load the dishwasher.
  12. Wash, dry, and put away laundry.

WHEN I AM AT WORK

  1. Set up my work space for a full day of work.
  2. Read and record our daily circulation and visits.
  3. Prepare coffee for the library staff.
  4. Water the plants inside.
  5. Take 1-2 minutes every hour to stretch.
  6. Open the window in the spring/summer for fresh air and to hear the sounds of the world.
  7. Actively observe the library around me when I leave my office. Try to notice something that can be improved for the community.

Routine and order use energy, but at the same time it fills our minds and souls with energy needed to move ahead. When we are aware of the acts that make up our daily lives, we become more in tune with the world. As beings of energy who are in tune with the world, we are able to focus and reach our goals whatever they may be. This is where change occurs. Be aware of the moment and that you have the ability to produce positive energy and in return you will experience significant changes in your life.

Life

WAITING FOR THE GREEN by Zomo

Justin Hoenke

It is with much happiness that I can finally present to you a version of the 2002 debut album by Zomo, titled WAITING FOR THE GREEN. 

Tell us a bit about the history of Waiting For The Green

Back in 2001-2002, Zomo was made up of myself (Justin Hoenke), drummer Dustin Miller, guitarist Zach Watt, and “insert bass player at the moment”. Eventually Rob Felsberg became our bass player in 2002 but from what I can remember didn’t actually ever join us in the recording studio. We recorded the backing tracks to most of the songs with Atom Watt (Zach’s brother) at his studio in Girard, PA. I remember his whole living room was full of sound baffles and drums as Dustin tracked the drums for what seemed like weeks. I can’t recall how long it took. After that, Zach and I began putting guitars on the album and by the end of 2002 and mid 2003 everything just kind of stopped on the album. We all kind of moved on from these songs into newer ones and band members came and went. I think the final nail in the coffin was in June 2003 when Zach Watt left the band. After that we recruited Aaron Davis and for the next 6 months rehearsed and recorded For The Muses.  So yeah, if you follow that timeline then this is definitely our debut album even though we never got it done.

What was the original vision for the album?

It was going to be 14 tracks…7 written by myself and 7 written by Zach Watt. I can’t speak for Zach, but the songs I contributed were: Lucy Gray, The Bells, Tooramalay, Here Come The Demons, Sleepyhead, Cutting the Boy in Half, Breakdown, Giraffe, Girl of My Dreams, Mountain Jam, The Rise and Fall of Joe Walsh Part I and Upon My Sleeve I Wear This Badge. We were going to record as many songs as we could and then whittle everything down to a nice solid debut album.  At the time, we were very much focused on growing ourselves as songwriters and capturing our first songs in a nice debut album.

There were a lot more songs floating around at the time but we held off on putting them on the first record. For some reason, we thought that a lot of these songs would be better for the second album…songs like Pine Away, Alberta, Pocket Symphony, and a few others. In my mind there was a clear “ok, let’s do this set of songs for the first album and this set of songs for the second album” vibe happening. But the songs kept coming so fast and the new ones were so much more exciting than the debut album songs because we’d been playing the Waiting For The Green songs so much. We really got ahead of ourselves.

Why finish this album now?

Well, the album still isn’t finished. You’ve got to remember that Zomo doesn’t exist anymore and without Zomo around there will never be a finished album. To properly finish this thing, Dustin, Zach, Atom, and I have to get into a room for a period of time and do it….and I don’t see that ever happening.

I finished the studio versions of Girl of My Dreams and Giraffe this year based off of the rough backing tracks I had in my archives. I finished them and then relistened to the live tracks you hear on this version of the album. I was blown away by our performance and the raw energy of the songs. I mean listen to Zach’s lead guitar! It’s so freaking good.

I wrote these songs and they mean a lot to me and it was driving me nuts to not have them out in the world. What good is a song when you just keep it to yourself? So I finished things up, relistened to what we had performed live, and came up with this tracklist. It’s not perfect but it is something….and it puts out this great music that we created out into the world. That’s the best thing.

Is there anything else in the Waiting For The Green Archives?

I’ve got other rough backing tracks from those sessions in my archives, but I don’t think I’ll be revisiting those anytime soon. I think the live versions of these songs work much better. Zach’s got his songs as well and I have no idea what he’ll do with them.

What is the future for Zomo?

As far as I can tell, there is none. The band did some stuff, released 3 albums, and now we’re all off on our own living our lives and making music in other ways. It was fun, but everything changes.

Family, Fidelia Hall, Libraries, Library Director, Life, Titusville, PA

Older Colder Full of Balance and Awareness

Justin Hoenke

Yo. I’m 35.5 years old and if all goes according to genetics I may be half done with my life.

Both of my grandfathers lived to 70 years old. They didn’t really take care of themselves (I know they enjoyed alcohol, nicotine, and non-stop never ending work) and I am very much a different person (one beer per month, never have smoked, and I enjoy relaxation very much). I know life expectancy and all that is a crap shoot (I could be sitting on nuclear waste for all I know right now) but it just really makes you think about things and it helps you prioritize how you wanna go about your day-to-day life. You realize that you don’t have all the time in the world and that in order to actually say “yup I’ve done something” you’ve gotta do something.

In the last year or so I feel like I’ve toughened up a bit in my approach to life. Something switched on in my mind and started telling me to not to be too lazy, not to get involved in drama, and instead to just do stuff. I’m a walking chunk of slowly dying flesh and molecules and I’m here to do stuff. I don’t have time nor the energy to listen to or take part in the he said she said passion play that we as human beings love to stage. Longest running show on earth! A Broadway smash!

With this change comes a weird feeling…I can only describe it as “cold.” I am aware of this change and will not let it consume me. I can see how people become bitter and more and more conservative as they get older now. It is a change and it can become everything that you are if you don’t watch out. Balance, as always, is key. The first line of the song below sums it all up.

I am gonna stick it out here on Earth and do exactly what my new motto says:DO GOOD SHIT ALL DAY EVERYDAY NO DRAMA NO BULLSHIT JUST DO IT DO IT SHUT UP AND DO IT. Whether it be in a library, at my home, in my community, at Fidelia Hall, or even just in my mind I’m gonna do it do it do it and not look back. I don’t have time for the games! All I got time for is this moment in which I WILL DO SOMETHING.

 

Libraries, Social Media, Technology

Cincinnati Library live tweets the Grammys

Justin Hoenke

And wow, they did an awesome job!  Click on the image below to follow them on Twitter and see the awesome they did with live tweeting the #grammys!

Cincinnati Library (cincylibrary) on Twitter

Music

I really want to play music again

Justin Hoenke

I want to play music again, and not just in my house while in my pajamas for five minutes at a time.

Am I any good at this?  I don’t know.  I just try to create the music that I want to create.

No, I can’t do this for a living.  I’m the type of creature that requires a steady paycheck to maintain some kind of sanity.

I want to make albums and put them online for free.

I want to play some live shows where people sing and dance.

I’m really scared to do this.  What will people think?  Would I be accepted in a music town like Portland, ME?  How could I get people to play in my band?  Would they want to play my songs?

I am filled with hesitation and doubt.  What do you think I should do?

Listen to the music I have created here: http://belsapadore.bandcamp.com/

Libraries, Music

Leadership and Morale

Justin Hoenke

As I watched Neil Young in Berlin (1982) this morning before work, I got thinking about morale.  Here was Neil Young and his band of misfits up on stage, singing his songs to Germans.  But this wasn’t just any old Neil Young concert. This was 1982 Neil Young.  Some of the songs had that familiar Rust Never Sleeps grunge thing going on.  There were a few acoustic tunes.  But the highlight for me was Neil Young and his band performing songs from his late 1982 album Trans. If you haven’t heard the album yet (you probably haven’t), it’s half acoustic/jangly pop songs and half early 80’s computer Neil Young singing like a vocoder sounding like a robot songs.  And it is amazing.

It got me thinking.  Trans was never really popular as a record.  People didn’t get why Neil Young now sounded like a robot.  I can just imagine how these songs went over live.  “I PAID GOOD MONEY TO HEAR NEIL YOUNG SING, NOT A FRICKIN’ ROBOT”.   How in the world did Neil Young get this group together and convince them that this tour was a good idea?  There had to be some hesitation in deciding to join in with Neil and go out on the road to sing songs that weren’t really popular.  Neil had to be a leader and step it up and build up the morale of the dudes joining him on tour, and from the looks of the video above, their morale was up.

Listen to the sound of the band.  They’re locked in together.  They ain’t some sloppy bar band playing up on the stage.  They’re a cohesive unit that’s getting this robotic music across to the audience.  Look at guitarist Nils Lofgren.  He’s dancing around the stage, aiding Young in sounding like a robot, and enjoying every moment of it.

What am I trying to get at?  I guess what I’m trying to say is that building up the morale of your team comes from leadership.  When it’s there, the impossible can happen.  When it’s not there, your team slides into a muck of lethargy and depression.

Thank you Neil Young, for teaching me about leadership today.