PicoBlog

My name is Mikey Carnevale this is my stupid blog: Mindsweep.

Since I was 13 years old, I’ve maintained a steady addiction of buying notebooks and filling them half full of lyrics, poems, thoughts, set lists, stage designs, terrible doodles, and unfulfilled life goals. After filling about 30 pages, I would inevitably get sick of that notebook and buy another that would be similarly mistreated and later torn up into paper scraps that I could use as crutches for joints (I don’t really smoke weed as an adult but as one of the slowest kids on my high school cross country team, I couldn’t get enough of it).

I grew up surrounded by great music and even greater people. Those great people just so happen to be the ones who showed me the great music. My parents, my grandparents, family. Once I really started to dig in to music in high school, is when I realized the intense importance of writing things down. I could write something in class that could potentially become music, which could potentially be heard by people, which could POTENTIALLY be the thing that saved my life. It’s ironic and beautiful to imagine what my younger self would think of how it all went down.

At the end of my unimpressive high school career, The Frights came to be. I’ve told that origin story a couple hundred times in interviews that I’m sure you could find on YouTube, so I’ll spare you the gory details: we got lucky. Over and over again we got lucky. But out of dumb luck, my love for writing grew! The things I wrote down DID become music, and they WERE heard by people and FUCK… it did save my life. Despite the fact that the lyrical content of Frights songs weren’t exactly winning me a Pullitzer Prize, it felt good to put pen to paper and have it really mean something.

As the years floated on and I grew as a person and the band grew as a…band(?), my inspiration shifted. I had always loved poetry since my best friend in high school introduced me to the likes of Bukowski, Ginsberg, Kerouac, etc… but as a semi-adult in my late teens, I attempted to find my own voice in poetry and lyrical writing. Oh and before we move on… YES. I was an insufferable high school hipster. If you didn’t already assume that by now, allow me to shoot the ASICS wearing elephant in the room by admitting I only shopped at Goodwill or Urban Outfitters and FUCK YOU I listened to Foster The People before any of you assholes ever heard “Pumped Up Kicks”. We wouldn’t be who we are without our embarrassing past, right?

Nevertheless, I found some sort of voice as a songwriter. It connected with a handful of people and that was good enough for me. The Frights gave me the freedom to write what I wanted and the security of knowing that someone, somewhere will hear what I have to say. I’m proud to admit that almost every single song I’ve ever written has been released to the public. Thats kind of bizarre, and it’s sadly going to make for some really boring deluxe editions of our LPs one day.

Now despite that my songs have almost all been given over to the hands of the internet, there are hundreds of poems, stories, ramblings and otherwise that I’ve never shared with anyone. And that I’m still writing every day. A few months ago, a friend and I were talking about poetry and he asked if I’d ever share some of my stuff with him. I said “of course, I’ll send some stuff over but you know.. it’s not serious, and it’s really bad and horribly derivative of better people, blah blah blah”.

I never sent anything to him. I haven’t showed this shit to anybody. I’m embarrassed by it.

Which has led me to where I am right now: Sitting in Palm Springs with my wife and in-laws, debating on starting a fucking blog in 2022. I worry I've watched Julie & Julia one too many times and that this will ultimately be a colossal waste of time and a crippling embarrassment. But the likelihood that someone will read any of this is low and it can’t hurt. I imagine it’s something a therapist would encourage me to do, if I had one. So i’ll trust my internal, no co-pay brain therapist and give it a shot.

I will be posting poetry, new and from the Moleskin archives.

I’ll tell you some funny stories from the road.

I’ll share lyrics and demos old and new.

I’ll likely write about music, and movies, but probably mostly about food.

And strangely, you’ve caught me right before my wife and I leave to travel the world for the better half of a year so that might be interesting.

THE GOOD NEWS: A lot of this stuff will be available to free subscribers!!!

THE JUST OKAY NEWS: There will be a paywall for certain posts. I am doing this because I want to share this stuff with people, but I will be honest with you all… the past few years haven’t been the most financially satisfying if you know what I mean. I’m sure you can relate. And although I’m perfectly satisfied with cooking or serving for a living, the extra couple of bucks sure can’t hurt and if you do decide to partake in a paid subscription, know that I love you and will make sure it is worth your while!

I’m not a professional. My grammar is shit. I don’t know what the purpose of this is.

I just know that I want to write like I used to. When there was nobody listening.

-Mikey

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