Boston

What happens when I walk into a hotel that I’ve been coming to for at least 20 years? A flood of memories. First one, The Beachboys and us back in 89 or 90, I can’t remember. But every time I get into that elevator I remember seeing Bruce Johnston sitting right in those chairs all those years ago. And I just ran into Bruce in Europe a month ago. connecting the dots.

I was walking down the street a couple days ago and saw the boats that drive through the streets. The duck boats… those always give me a strange feeling because it takes me back to August of 2001. Kayley flew out here with J.J., Connor was only a month old so he was with Mom back home. This was a big deal… Kayley being 14? It the first time she’d take on the responsibility of bringing J.J. on a trip by themselves. He was only 3. We did one of those car/boat tours and it was hot out, of course, right?

I remember feeling funny in that boat. Maybe I was just imagining it but I couldn’t help but think that people were looking at us in that silly boat, well, kind of the way I was looking at it yesterday! With a kind of, “Really? You want to get in a boat that’s quacking and drive/sail around the streets of Boston hearing about history, and if you’ve got 2 kids with you they’re probably going to be fidgety because they probably don’t care yet history?

Well, I now look back at that time of incredible significance because my 2 kids had flown all the way across the country to be with me, on their own, and then they flew back one morning from Boston to Los Angeles on an American Airlines plane.

One month later, there was an American Airlines flight that left Boston in the morning and the world hasn’t been the same since. I am reminded of all those events when I see that duck boat in the streets of Boston. I’ve kept the luggage tags of my kids’ flight back to L.A. to remind me/us of how lucky we were/are.

And I’d like to personally give my thoughts, prayers and condolences to all the people who have been effected by the Sept. American flight. It’s one of those things that people struggle with for entire lives… “Why them and not me?” I don’t try and figure these things out anymore. I’ve also lost the self consciousness of whether I’m doing something with my family that could be viewed as being silly… it’s time to be silly.

Again, as my partner Walt Parazaider told me one of his uncles said when he was a little boy, “Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.”

Alright, on to things maybe not so somber. As I sit here in a food court that had little brown mice running through the planters, (absolutely true… and some folks were freaking and I thought it was cute actually!), I just heard “Daniel” playing on the speakers and I think it’s the power of intention, laws of attraction, all of that stuff… ever since I started setting and writing out goals at the beginning of this year, it’s eery how things manifest. I used to think that was all hocus pocus stuff, until I tried it. The law of attraction is simply when you want something you start attracting it to you… like when you want a certain car, or color, you start seeing them everywhere on the roads and hadn’t a day before. This stuff works. On my site jasonscheff.com I am putting together the books I’ve read that have changed my life. I’m just getting started so there aren’t that many but I can tell you, it’s working.

You see, I’ve lived a pretty charmed life so far and a lot of it has felt pretty spontaneous. I play music and it’s taken me to some pretty cool places… (side note… even though it’s felt spontaneous there has been, and continues to be, a lot of hard work… it just wasn’t focused), but I’m at the point where I’m not comfortable just leaving life to chance. With a little preparation it’s amazing how much more fun and efficient things get.

Starting with feeling like I didn’t have time for the things that mattered… the next thing you know, life has just whizzed by and all I had been doing was trying to just keep it together rather than have the room, clarity and focus to actually sit down and execute a plan.

I’ve been talking to a lot of good folks lately on several of my ideas on how I want to proceed musically in the future and some don’t get it and some do. The main thing I’ve realized is that I have very clear, specific ideas on what I want to do. NO ONE will fully understand what I want to do… nor should they… I need to demonstrate… show… and then those who understand, want to participate and collaborate, wonderful, and those that don’t, wonderful as well! My ideas aren’t going to work for everybody else. They don’t need to… they need to work for me… The right collaborators just find each other… that’s the way it works.

So I’ll close for now and just say that I’m very grateful for anybody who will take the time to read this today. I’m grateful to be in a band that has been good to me for 26 years now. I’m grateful to have friends I’ve stayed in touch with since school days. And most importantly, I’m grateful to my family… My wife, my kids, my mother and father, their mothers and fathers, my 3 brothers, Todd, Darin and Lauren and our dog, Cookie.