Bear's Monthly Mayhem - July 2023!
Archived from BearWiseman.com
Half of my summer festivals are now behind us, as Tuska Festival and Kosmos Festival are pleasantly over. That means it’s just Dark River Festival this year left, though I’m working at merch instead of writing a report… but we’ll see if I end up feeling like writing something up or not.
A little warning, but this monthly blog is going to be a bit… heftier than normal. A lot happened in the last month.
I had an amazing time podcasting with Helena Haaparanta in June—it’s always nice to find a kindred spirit, especially in the arts. If you’re not familiar with her or any of her history in music, you should definitely look her up. She’s an absolutely spectacular vocalist, but that’s not all she does, so there’s lots to explore! As well, my August podcast guest, Jouni Koponen was also an absolute blast to talk to, we went for so long, so August’s episode is going to be the longest one yet, be warned!
Perhaps the biggest thing that happened this month was that I officially stepped down from my post as Editor at Tuonela Magazine. I’ve been tossing and turning all year on the idea and it was a deeply hard decision to make—stopping something you’ve spent so much of your life on is a hard thing to do—and making said decision resulted in a very weird breakdown that day, but ultimately, I wasn’t happy there for a multitude of reasons. It wasn’t bringing me joy or giving me much of value, it was adding work onto my plate that was ultimately, more than anything, just deeply distracting from the things I want to be doing, and I don’t feel like it’s been very fulfilling—I’ve made what feels like shockingly few friends despite the amount of effort I’ve put into supporting and promoting others for a decade (legitimately, if I’ve met you through the metal industry and you consider me a friend, you should probably let me know because I probably assume that you think of me as a journalist who can help promote your music and nothing more, because that’s, frankly, how I’ve been treated most of the time). In case you’re not aware, journalism doesn’t actually make me any money and never has—I’ve been doing it for the past 10½ years out of the goodness of my heart and because I loved live music. It’s hard to say goodbye to something you’ve spent so long building (truly, a good third of my life), but it was time to recognize that it was holding me back more than it was helping me. So, my chosen successor, Jani Lehtinen, is going to take over as I ease myself out of there and move on to investing my time in more lucrative endeavors.
On a positive note from that front, I am still continuing as a journalist there, but my Unleashed series is moving over to this website! I’ve only ever done five or so articles that deep-dive into the stories behind concept albums, but I’ve always loved doing these features, so I hope to continue to have the opportunity to do them over here, if the artists will have me, of course.
The second big thing that happened this month was experiencing a form of true peace. I won’t go into detail because it’s a weird thing to describe, but I can’t imagine a better timing for that, because it happened 3 days before I found out that my adoptive son had passed away about 3 weeks prior.
For those of you who haven’t heard the story, well, I’m not going to tell it in this blog, but if you’ve heard these strange whispers of me having an adoptive adult son and/or someone that I lost in the last year, yes, they were true. I met my bear cub in November 2021 and haven’t talked about him outright in order to respect his privacy. But… for about 8 months, he was my whole world. He was very poorly cared for in his life and I was in a place where I wanted someone to love and care for. We clicked immediately, instantly, and became the closest people in the world. He trusted me implicitly, loved me in a way I’ve never been loved before, but also appreciated me in a way I’ve never experienced before. He shared parts of himself that he never shared with anyone else except exclusively with me. We never found our proper synchronicity with one another, but we had our own language and he gave me the most important and meaningful moments of my life. I’ve been trying to tell the story for a while, but now that I know that he’s gone, maybe the story is completely different. I’ve lived the full last year of my life in a way that was 100% dedicated to making sure he and I would reconcile when he was ready and I guess he didn’t have enough time left for that. My poor bear cub suffered a lot in his short quarter of a century of life and since we stopped talking, I’ve missed him every single day, no matter what he did or how much he hurt me. He was my family and I love him endlessly and I will always be grateful for what he showed me, both in myself and in the world. I have no idea if I’ll ever be able to emotionally adopt someone again in the same way, but I will never forget what my time with him gave me. I promise there will be more stories about him, and that the full tale will be told one day.
So that’s all for the heavy stuff. I’m deeply devastated that he moved on without saying goodbye, but I’m so glad that his suffering is over and he’s at peace now.
Okay, so I’m a little emotionally tapped out. Here’s some links and my astoundingly lackluster Best of 2023 playlist, as well as a video of my bear cub and his band, the last time I saw him (he had invited me to stay for the show):
GATHERING OF GEEKS ft. Helena Haaparanta (S01E10)
SHOW REVIEW: House of the Dragon
FESTIVAL REPORT: Tuska 2023 @ Suvilahti
FESTIVAL REPORT: Kosmos 2023 @ Ristiina