Gordon Tebo is a singer/songwriter living outside of Chicago. He recently released his new album, “Exotic Fears”, which served as a sort of exorcism of anxiety and grief.

PHYSICAL

• An acoustic piano. Not a digital piano. Nothing you have to switch on: it’s always on—that’s the feature! It doesn’t even have to be a piano. A guitar works great, too. Even if you don’t know how to play an instrument, it doesn’t matter. The presence of the instrument in your apartment, house, life, is enough. A friend comes over, sits down and plays a song. Kids come by and noodle mindlessly. It’s a piece of furniture, and it’s not going anywhere. It’s not a liability: it’s a major organ in the living organism you call home. Get one, used. Play it first before you buy it. Get the one that feels right. It will change your life.
• The Peak Design Travel Backpack 45L. Good backpack design is like conceptual origami. How did they seemingly include every conceivable useful feature, spanning functionality, security, and accessibility, into a package that looks sleek and feels great? It’s masterful. I just went to Philly on a 3 night trip and it was overkill. I could travel for a week in this thing comfortably. I want to travel even more than I already do because it makes travel fun and freeing. Thoughtfulness, resourcefulness, and thoroughness: it’s what makes things great.
• My beater 2014 Toyota Highlander. I had been contemplating buying a newer car on the grounds that this car is now over 100k miles, has taken some hits, doesn’t have the best gas mileage, the tech is ancient, the turning radius is terrible, and the back hatch takes forever to actually open on its automatic mode. But then I got thinking: I drove my family across the country on a move. I took my aging and sick dog on its final car ride. I drove my second newborn home from the hospital in it. I can bang it up and it doesn’t care. I don’t stress about this car. No one probably wants to steal it. No one even notices it. In fact, someone drove into it at full speed because they didn’t see it (they were on their phone). I thought it was totaled but it came back to life and I swear it drives better now, and maybe even loves me back at times.

DIGITAL

• Bear (notes app). Here’s where I do all of my writing. Lyrics, random thoughts, poems, beliefs, dreams, recipes, drafts, everything. It’s nothing special, but it works. It works because it’s not trying to be anything more than a good notes app. It’s minimal yet not lacking features. It’s sleek yet it’s not trendy. Everything I’ve done that took a little bit of planning and turned out great in the past 5 years started right here in Bear.
• Infinite Loops podcast. Like all podcasts, you kind of have to forgive the host. They don’t know who’s listening, or how many times they’ve listened to one of their episodes. They often repeat the same things every episode, tell the same stories, and you know what they’re about to say before they start talking. But that’s not what makes a podcast. The guests make it or break it, and Infinite Loops has great guests that span all sorts of disciplines and offer all manner of thoughtful opinions and measured ideas. Their heads are screwed on tight but they still provoke deep and useful thought. And the host is pretty good, too.

INVISIBLE

A sense of humor.

“Humor and self-righteousness are mutually exclusive” … a classic Alan Watts observation.

This quote is a useful tool for being alive right now. I can get mad that things aren’t going my way or the world is spinning out of control more than yesterday, and my feelings are valid, of course. But one has to balance out those feelings with awareness. And the funniest thing a person can say is what they firmly believe to be true. That’s the funniest damn thing! Try it sometime with someone you trust and love. Once you out it, you pop the bubble in your mind that was holding it all together and you realize you don’t actually know anything other than how you feel inside right now. And that always makes me feel better. Laughing feels great too.

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