It's A Blog Eat Blog World

Curse you, Peter Mamba. You've done it again.
Every time I'm in a good place in my life, you show up and shake the foundation. I lose my foothold…I get my back up. I arm for battle.
It's always been this way.
In Kindergarten, I had a fine thing going. Plenty of friends, a sweet bowl-cut, a solid repertoire of knock-knock jokes. In walked Peter Mamba, new kid in the class, and I was swiftly robbed of my innocence. He seemed to have it all: fancy threads, a wicked lunch box. A bowl-cut so well shaped, you could eat porridge out of it. When Mamba told a knock-knock joke, you were dying to know who was there. He was truly something.
I never realized how much I had, until Peter Mamba came along with more. I was no longer the king of cool…the class clown. This was Mamba's turf, and I was left to sulk in his shadow. Everything I did, Peter Mamba outdid. I made a macaroni necklace; he made macaroni casserole. I brought my new puppy in for show and tell; Peter brought in a baby lion. Everything seemed to be a competition, and I just couldn't win.
In grade three, Peter Mamba moved away to, what I figured were, greener pastures. But it took me several years to shed my competitive skin. By the time I got to high school, I was normal again. I had rediscovered my joie de vivre. I had plenty of friends, and a wicked feathered hairdo. I had made out with a number of girls. I had a fine thing going.
But then Mamba moved back. And when he walked into my grade ten Science class, he was a sight to behold. Tall as a tree, with a feathered haircut so expertly coiffed, he looked like a goddamn quill. If I was the Simon LeBon of our school, he was Simon LeMieux. Always a little better than me.
That old competitive blood started coursing through my veins. If I got an A, Mamba got an A+. I started a Glee Club. Mamba started an Ecstatic Club. I was elected Student Council President. Mamba was elected city councillor. The competition continued through college and after. Guess who was in attendance at my first law school class that I skipped? Mamba.
I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't face the possibility of four more cutthroat years of feeling second best. The competition between Peter Mamba and me was officially over.
I quit law school and decided to become an artist. There was no 'better' or 'worse' in art. No qualitative measures to prey on my insecurities. I could write without judgement or concern for my standing. And write, I did, working contentedly for artists around the world. When I decided last month that I would begin work on my own album, I did so with the confidence of a man at peace with himself, unaffected by others' successes.
I ran into an old friend on the street yesterday. After I helped her get up, she asked if I'd heard the news: Peter Mamba was releasing an album. I turned and ran from her, my eyes to the heavens, my mind reeling: The Grammy Award for Best Song goes to - Surely, my songs aren't good enough. The chords are stiff, the melodies stilted. I must start from scratch. America, you've voted, and your next American Idol is -
My God, is nothing sacred? Is art now a competition as well? Fodder for judgement?
Curse you, Peter Mamba.
I end this week's Blog with another interesting musical fact: