I know I shouldn’t nominate myself for the award. But I am a very determined hard working individual who has endured some tragedy and triumph over the years. My goal growing up was to be remembered for something I’ve accomplished in my lifetime. For the friends and acquaintances who known me from Cal State East Bay, aside from majoring in Philosophy, I am a local San Francisco Bay Area rock musician who plays guitar, sings and writes most of the original music in my solo band Heavy Sigma. I also dabbled and wrestled with acting here and there as a man approaching his 30th birthday. I’ve battled a lot of hardships over the years as an artist and human being, and of course, it took me seven years to complete my college education and earn a degree. But hard work, confidence, being humble and my perseverance enabled me to accomplish a couple of things during the 2010s before and after I graduated from Cal State East Bay four years ago.
If you don’t know my story, I was born in a lower middle class Asian American family who struggled with financial and cultural issues living in the Bay Area. We weren’t exactly the “model minority” that America and especially Asian Americans place ourselves when it came to that category. My parents were immigrants from Taiwan and China respectively and worked long hours in order to support and raise me and my older brother Ricky. My parents also had a rocky marriage in my early years because of the stress of raising a family with dead end jobs and having to experience others in our community shaming us because weren’t like everyone else expected us to be. I lost my beloved grandfather when I was four years old, and truthfully, he was the closest thing to a father I had in my early years. Losing him was one of the hardest things I had to go through early on in my life, and it’s something that hasn’t left me to this very day. As I grew up, I was always the guy who stood out in the crowd. Dreaming of being destined for greatness, and greedy for respect from my peers. I grew up listening to a lot of late 80’s and early 90’s hard rock, alternative, classic rock and hip hop as a child. The first thing I was ever good at growing up was playing sports. I played basketball, baseball and I also was a skateboarder. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, but whenever I came into contact with people I grew up with. That’s what I pretty much did. But I experienced a lot of injuries as a child playing sports and at times spent nights in a hospital room recovering from some injuries.
When I was in middle school, that was the beginning of the turmoil that motivated me to change the game and make my impact on the world. I went to Rooftop Alternative School located at Twin Peaks in San Francisco. I was the only Asian American male attending a predominantly Caucasian middle school. San Francisco thrived itself on being diverse and open towards everyone. But that illusion I’ve always believed growing up proved to be false during my time at that school. I was constantly bullied by my peers and didn’t fit in with anyone or any group where I studied. I felt alone during those four years I’ve spent attending Rooftop. But an epiphany dawned on me around the time I was 12 years old.
I attended my first rock concert in mid 1997 as a tween. It was Australian grunge band Silverchair. Watching my favorite band onstage left a huge impact on what I wanted to as I got older, whether it made me successful or not. Seeing three cool long haired guys playing guitar and drums to a live audience of other teenagers who can totally relate to the music you’re making on that stage. I finally found my calling! I was getting injured too much playing second fiddle as an athlete, so I decided to annoy my mom and ask her to buy me a guitar and amp. That’s where it all started for me!
Of course there were two things that were on my mind. Being a musician someday, and of course, getting a decent girlfriend. I know some people out there find my goals and ambitions rather pretentious or something that’s not understandable, but I always wanted to bond with someone of the opposite sex who can appreciate me for what I’m worth and I would do the same for them. My bad experiences with not attracting the right people and being unfairly critiqued when it came to the competition made me more desperate, yet more determined to find the right woman. I always was a fan of those old cheesy romantic television shows and movies as a child. Believe it or not, I had strong friendships with the girls in my grade school. Plus I am totally against racism and homophobia, things I’ve witnessed and experienced first hand as a student in middle school. The idea of interracial dating fascinated me, even as a 12 year old boy reaching puberty. I saw all these beautiful and photogenic Caucasian and Hispanic women on television growing up, and man, I just wanted to go for it! Of course in 1997 compared to 2015, interracial relationships and dating were considered taboo and unfashionable. Especially for Asian American men. For many decades, the Asian man was always the underdog and finished last or didn’t get the girl at all. But I was determined to break down the wall, and accomplish something that eluded me for most of my life. Which I will get into detail later in this esssy!
After I got the heck out of middle school, I attended Raoul Wallenberg High School. Located in Lower Pacific Heights in San Francisco. This is where my road to being destined for greatness started. When I was a freshmen, I met two childhood friends who became the foundation of a on-and-off again Bay Area rock band I played with for the last 14 years called the Patrick Lew Band. My two good friends Tommy Loi (drummer) and Eddie Blackburn (lead guitar). Of course at that time, we weren’t a great band. But we loved playing and recording original music together! The thing that worked well with the Patrick Lew Band was that me and Eddie were influenced by the same kind of music and we both started playing guitar when we were pre-teens. We weren’t the most technical musicians out there like Eddie Van Halen or Nuno Bettencourt, but we had taken music classes as children, but learned how to play our instruments and write and record music on our own time and space. Our first gig was a local Battle of the Bands charity in San Francisco. Of course! We weren’t the best band onstage and we sure as hell weren’t like the Rolling Stones live, but we managed to pull through. Believe it or not, one of our friends snuck in a tape recorder to the show and bootlegged bits and pieces of our performance. This was the days before tablets, smartphones and GarageBand on Macbook Airs! You can hear a 2002 performance from this show of one of our first songs “Shadow of Your Face” on one of the Patrick Lew Band’s websites (http://www.soundclick.com/patricklewband). Go look for it!
Of course the Patrick Lew Band endured many hardships since the last 14 years. From lineup changes, a slow pace in musical output in the studio and of course. The thing I’ve dreaded since day one. The people who didn’t believe in us and the scene who didn’t see our potential. A lot of people on the Internet and in the music industry generally speaking never gave us a glowing reception. The music critics hated us. Mainly, the older generation and jaded Millennials who are still stuck in their old ways of thinking. They thought we couldn’t play, and that we were tone-deaf and I was a horrible singer who never sang in key most of the time. But interesting enough, there were also people in San Francisco and some people in the independent music scene who appreciated us for not selling ourselves short, having our own unique rock and roll sound and being true to ourselves. Of course, they knew we weren’t the best band out there. But they appreciated us and respected us for being unique and true to ourselves. They knew we had it rough, but they knew we were in this band for the sole purpose of performing and creating music and thought we were one of the most underrated bands in the Bay Area rock music scene that should get noticed. I’ve even heard people compare the Patrick Lew Band to the 70’s British punk band The Sex Pistols and overwhelmingly, Jimi Hendrix. In early 2010, an online independent music podcast reviewed our track 925 and pointed these things out with what I just wrote. Listen to it here. ( http://www.reverbnation.com/patricklewsband/song/22727186-googly-ears-reviews-patrick-lew) In 2006, I met one of my best friends prior to attending CSUEB at a community college by the name of David “Stitch” Arceo. He is one of those rare people who changed my life and became one of the best friends I ever had throuhgout my 30 years of living. He replaced my good friend Tommy as the Patrick Lew Band drummer and has been the longest tenured member of my on-and-off again rock band. Because of him, I invested in the latest gear to create music with. Like computers and stuff like Line 6 ProTools. Aside from being one of my closest friends as an adult, he brought a whole another element to the music we were making. His sense of beat and groove as a drummer, along with his hip hop and electronic dance music influences, evolved our sound in the studio. Plus, we were putting ourselves out there more and more on the Internet and the local Bay Area music scene as time passed.
You can find numerous accomplishments and press regarding the Patrick Lew Band if you Google in “Patrick Lew Band” on your computer, tablet or smartphone.
We done an interview for a British music magazine in 2009, an interview with Absolute Punk in 2011 ( http://absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?p=92101692) and was ranked #2 locally in the Punk genre on indie music social-media site ReverbNation in September of 2011. We also support our local music scene and encourage positive outlooks and inspiration on social-media, especially the people who follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. We encourage our fans and friends to be open-minded, stand up for what they believe in, never give up during the struggle and go for their dreams. As a band, we do everything ourselves. We never had a manager, promoter, radio, record label or television handling our music. So we do everything ourselves. We put ourselves out there on social-media like YouTube and Facebook. We meet and talk to people about what we do locally. We put numerous amount of flyers at Amoeba and Rasputin of our band. We handmake our own CDs and t-shirts. We handled the business side of music on our own, and while we’re still learning, we’ve done good so far. Right now, I also play in another band called Heavy Sigma! Which is like outtakes from the Patrick Lew Band that I do on my own home studio by myself. And I play all the instruments and produce everything! (http://www.reverbnation.com/heavysigmaband). The Patrick Lew Band is obviously an underrated hard rock band that not many people know of, but so far, we’ve self-released five or six self-produced studio albums. We went on tour in 2011 right around the time I’ve graduated. Which some of our performances can be found on my YouTube account (http://www.youtube.com/djaudiorage66). And music journalist Heath Andrews wrote a story about us too.
Aside from music, I graduated Cal State East Bay in June 2011 with a B.A. in Philosophy. Since then, I’ve done a lot. I traveled a bit. Reconciled with my parents. Met many amazing people on social-media and locally. I’ve been working full-time as a merchandiser in the San Francisco area since late 2011. I’ve rebuilt my confidence and reinvented myself as a very humble, open-minded and down to earth individual. I also wrote a short story for a 2011 film Journey of a Paper Son prior to graduation (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3621955/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1). I’ve also been an advocate for the future of television and supportedTVFreedom.org in improving and spreading the gospel on digital over-the-air television in America. In case you didn’t know, I also am an enthusiast of television. Particularly, the art and science of television programming, the industry itself and the technology of the perhaps the greatest invention that came out of the 20th century aside from the Internet. Or maybe Les Pauls and Marshall amps! My love for television and supporting the technology such as digital antennas, streaming video players and others landed me an endorsement with a television antenna maker based out of St. Louis, Antennas Direct (http://www.antennasdirect.com/blog/patrick-tv-lover/). I also acted in a few plays while I was still in college, and still have that drive to do acting again. I also donated some of my hard earned money to social causes such as supporting people with mental illnesses, cancer research, Blue Cross relief funds and not to mention, the music scene I found my muse in.
I was always the underdog when it came to many things. Whether it was being a musician or looking for a decent girlfriend to be with in a mature responsible serious relationship. I admit, I had deal with a lot of bad people and awful situations when it came to my journey. I admit to being a little bitter it didn’t happen to me sooner. But maybe I wasn’t quite ready for the challenge and opportunity yet. Last year in August. I met an amazing and beautiful Mexican woman named Pitalu on Facebook and created a wonderful long-distance yet committed loving relationship that is still happening more than half a year later. I made the promise to myself to never follow the mistakes of previous relationships that ended on bad terms, and be the extra humble and loving supportive boyfriend to my girlfriend Pitalu regardless of the distance, the haters and all other odds stacked against me. I just recently flew out to Mexico City to see her. And it was the first highlight of my 2015. I do miss her, her friends and her family. But like Arnold from The Terminator, I will be back! But we’ve managed to maintain a strong and healthy relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend because of social-media and Skype. And I couldn’t be any happier!
So that’s my story guys. Why should you nominate me? Well. My life so far can’t be summarized in just one paragraph but telling you about who I am, what I’ve struggled with and how I persevered and remained consistent shows you many reasons why you should put me in the ballot. They say the underdog never wins. But in my case, I overcome all the odds. Of course there will be more struggles in my life yet to come and many more amazing moments. But I want to be remembered for my legacy, being the awesome guy I am and the accomplishments I received in my lifetime. There’s definitely more to come! But there’s one Patrick Lew.
