# HOW I GOT HERE — Part 6 of 6 — Detailed Summary + Bottom Line

Detailed structural summary, section-by-section breakdown, Bottom Line
How I Got Here · ColabTunes · The New American Songbook

# Part 6 of 6 — Detailed Summary + Bottom Line

Detailed structural summary, section-by-section breakdown, Bottom Line
Section 1: The Warm-Up and False Starts (Early Morning, Pre-Internet) The session opens around 8:46 AM. The internet is slow, the mood is loose and unfiltered. The author is killing time waiting for his roommate to wake up so they can get a faster internet connection sorted. Once the connection is upgraded, the real work can begin. • Commentary on the poor connection — described as giving Claude "down syndrome" and "fucking Down syndrome" — hobbling the session before it starts. • A series of off-topic riffs testing Claude's limits — avatars, sexuality, donkeys — all met with redirects. Pure warm-up chaos. • The lurking and jerking verbal riff — stream-of-consciousness free association at its finest. • The pivot: the author announces he's going to read something professional and business-related, and asks Claude to capture only the NEW thoughts added in parentheses — not the pre-written content. • The opening of the business plan is pasted. Rules of engagement are set: Claude listens, captures new thoughts, stays quiet, answers only yes or no. Section 2: The Origin Story Begins (8:57 AM) The formal How I Got Here narrative kicks off. Speaking in long, rolling monologues — stream-of-consciousness, occasionally looping back — the author traces the origins of his voice, his musical obsessions, and his chaotic personal history. • The framing question: if you're such a great songwriter, why are you 48 years old with two YouTube subscribers? The whole story is the answer. • Early years — Catholic school, small town, same thirty kids for nine years. Not exactly a bully, not exactly liked. Graduated to Saint John's Prep in Danvers, where he was the second-biggest loser in the grade — competing with a kid nicknamed Bilbo. • The weight-loss pivot at sophomore year: 218 pounds, rice cakes, quit cigarettes, switched to chewing tobacco. Ran cross country. Played JV basketball. Started getting his shit together. • The first girl — stunning, religious, national honor society blonde. He decided: whoever she wants to be with, that's who I'll become. That shift set the trajectory. • The musical DNA: his father's car, Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone on the radio, age sixteen. Went home, found the cassettes, devoured everything — Dylan, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, CSN&Y, Canned Heat, Rolling Stones. • Simultaneously deep into NWA, Tupac, Ice Cube, Ice-T. The fusion of sixties rock's literary depth and hip-hop's raw directness becomes the DNA of everything he would write. • Framingham State University — big broccoli hair, didn't do great academically, drank like a fish, smoked weed like a motherfucker, had the time of his life socially. • Lost his license for drunk driving. The girl going away to University of New England in Maine triggered years of serious writing. Working construction, going to school, writing constantly. • Age 21-22: first bump of coke, first ecstasy. Brief clarity — save money for cocaine, quit everything else. Got off it. Pivoted to writing for local papers covering sports. • The defining choice: a poem in his head vs. an article deadline. He chose the poem. Never went back. Section 3: The Belarusian and the Three-and-a-Half Year First Date CORRECTION FROM EARLIER VERSION: This was not a temporary arrangement. Both were in love. It was never framed as temporary. • Age 27: meets a 20-year-old Belarusian woman. Both in love. Real feelings, not a transaction. • What actually happened: they had a three-and-a-half year first date. They were trying to keep that magic going, not fulfilling a pre-agreed exit plan. • Somewhere in the middle, the realization: one of them would have to change too much to make the other truly happy. He decided the plan — make sure she graduates college, then split afterwards. Love and maturity at the same time. • He sent her out clubbing on weekends with her hot Asian girlfriend while he stayed home making music on the internet. He was protecting both of them by being honest about what couldn't work. • Graduated college himself at 25, going nights while working days. Multiple failed attempts before that. Section 4: YouTube, Lady Weaver, and the Floor CORRECTION FROM EARLIER VERSION: He did not recognize Lady Weaver as the Denmark girl beforehand. He discovered her fresh. That's the story. • Around age 30: posting lyrics on YouTube as videos, attracting musicians who set them to music. Making songs with a collaborator named Justin Olszewski. • Justin says: check out Lady Weaver's channel. • He watches. Immediate recognition: best musician, best singer, best songwriter he has ever heard. Full stop. • The moment: he watches her perform on video, looks at the floor she's standing on, and says to himself: I swear one day I will touch that floor. That's the decision. That's when it starts. • He had 10,000 YouTube subscribers at this point — a number he later deleted along with the channels. • He is the only person who ever made a Lady Weaver compilation CD. Been making Denmark girl CDs for nearly twenty years. • He sets her up with the Lady Weaver at Yahoo dot com email address. He edits one of her songs — fades the opening in so it doesn't hit too loud and crunchy. He catalogs her music so it won't get lost. • He describes her lineage: a direct descendant of one of the biggest names in modern history — a legacy name from the last 250 years that would make anyone say holy fuck, really? He keeps the name to himself. Section 5: The Years of Connection — Writing, Skyping, Phoning After discovering her, the relationship builds over years — not days. The arc goes from typing, to emailing, to Skyping, to phoning, to finally going in person. Total span roughly age 31 to 37 or 38. • He reaches out. She responds. A genuine back-and-forth begins. He spends what he estimates as three to six months of his life actively typing and writing to her — an hour here, an hour there, compounding into something massive. • The intellectual connection: they could talk about anything. Quantum physics, religion, cooking, child-rearing, songwriting, conspiracy theories, the supernatural. She had a special frequency — plugged into something more powerful than most people access. • She trusted his advice because he didn't come from a selfish place. Everyone else in her life fought for her time, got mad when she couldn't give more. He understood the situation and didn't pressure her. • He tries to help her understand why people react to her the way they do — intensely, devotionally, sometimes dangerously. She elicits extreme reactions, usually positive. When they go negative, they go very negative. Women attack her. People flip out when she tries to leave their lives. • The Jerry Remy story: local Boston baseball announcer's son kills his girlfriend after she breaks up with him. This happens all the time. Denmark girl is the type who elicits that kind of intensity. He knew this going in. • His guiding framework: she can kill me. Make sure I don't kill her. He operates from that place for the entire duration of their connection. • He describes her physical presence plainly: she is magnetic. A rocket. Makes hard penises wherever she goes for a long time. He had a rock hard erection most mornings sitting across from her at the kitchen table. He's not pretending that wasn't there — but it wasn't the driver. The driver was understanding her. Section 6: Denmark — Three Months In Person He goes to Denmark. Three months living together. Then comes home. Then two to three more years of staying in contact. Total relationship arc spans roughly seven or eight years. • He arrives under a clear framework: he is there to support her, not to manipulate her into something for himself. He helps with her son. He tries to be a role model for the boy. • First night: her son comes out with his blanket and pillow and asks if he can sleep in his room. She says yes. That's the trust dynamic right there — she trusted him enough to let her kid sleep in the same room, first night, in person. They played video games. The boy would lie next to him on the couch. • The photo moment: she points to a shelf with intimate birthing photos behind him. She says: I trust you. Please don't look at them. He doesn't. He wanted to. He didn't. That's the story of the whole thing in one moment. • The staircase: she had hair past her butt, a body built from raising a boy solo — jacked, strong. He'd be walking up the stairs behind her, see the perfect ass, and try to be on his best behavior. It was tough. • He only jerked off to her once or twice or three times in all those years. It wasn't one of those things. His intentions were always honorable. Anyone who spent time around them could see it. • The dynamic becomes complicated: she fills her emotional and connection needs with him, her physical needs with someone else — her baby daddy. He watches the 80/20 split develop and recognizes it as unhealthy. Not because of anything he did wrong, but because the setup itself is impossible. • He sends her money when she needs it even while working retail making nine or ten bucks an hour. • Walking the beach at night, listening to the Denmark girl CD he made, looking out over the water and up at the stars, saying to himself: I am the only person in the world listening to this right now. Sheer shock and awe and wonder that he found her before anyone else. Section 7: The Airplane Metaphor — Why It Ended The numbers theory and the airplane metaphor explain what happened. Not bitterness. Not blame. Just the truth of it. • The numbers theory: know your range. If you're a five on a bad day and an eight on a great day, you don't go after a twelve — who's really a fourteen. If your ceiling is an eight and you go after a twelve, on a bad scenario, someone gets bullets, stabs, beatings. You had a one-in-twenty shot. He thought he was the one in twenty. He wasn't. • The airplane metaphor: they were both on a plane together. Crazy turbulence. Cabin pressure lost. Both oxygen masks drop. In his panic, in his love, he took his mask off and gave it to her. She had two. He had none. He died. That's what happened. • The lesson: you can't love somebody else until you love yourself. He didn't love himself enough. He loved her too much. He gave away everything and had nothing left. • The couch metaphor: they were moving a couch together. He got squished. But he never dropped it on her. That matters. He knows that and she knows that. • They had maybe three or four fights in five, six, seven years. Both cried a few times. But no real bad blood. The intentions were always love, all the way down. • I wish I had bigger balls. I wish I was more of a man back then. I wish I wasn't so naive. I wish I was a little bit taller. I wish I was a baller. But if I had those things, maybe I wouldn't bother — and then I never would have found her at all. • His role in history, at minimum: I'm always gonna be the guy who showed you Lady Weaver. And he's a hundred percent okay with that. Section 8: The Second Collapse and the Fifteen Lost Years Two separate collapses, not one. The Denmark situation ending was the first. Lady Weaver dying was the second. Both need to be understood to understand the fifteen lost years. • After Denmark falls apart, he deletes his YouTube channels — the ones that had 10,000 subscribers — and goes down the drain. • Lady Weaver dies of cancer. Her mother emails him. She leaves behind a young adult son and babies with her fiancé. That's the second collapse. That's the one that really finishes him. • She was the only girl he ever loved. Full stop. • He describes it as hiding in the cave with Bin Laden for seventeen years. Gone. Off the radar. Actively avoiding females for most of that time. • Periods where he just hung out with his cats and smoked weed. Used people and threw them away. Wanted to watch the world burn. He owns all of it. • His mother goes into a coma during this period. Citibank refuses to talk to him about her account because he's not officially on it, even as she's fighting for her life and there are five thousand dollars in fraudulent charges. He punches a TV. He can't fix it. She eventually recovers enough to call them herself, lying in the hospital bed, barely able to walk, identifying herself in a feeble voice. Citibank cancels the card anyway. Fucking Citibank. Judy Gibson. Never forget. Section 9: The Redeemability Test and the Trans Connections Slowly coming back. Two significant connections during the lost years, both with trans people. Neither fully becomes a relationship, but both matter. • Connection one: a Puerto Rican, early twenties, very passable, cute, a little heavy. Fuck friends for a while. He wants more. Every time he tries to move it forward, she epic fails on following through. Disappears for weeks, months, comes back, disappears again. He never gives his full heart. Eventually it just ends. • Connection two: about two years before the time of this recording, he matches on Grindr with a 19-year-old female-to-male, extremely feminine, little, cute. He gives it forty percent odds of being real. Doesn't even ask for a picture — figures if they show up, it's a win either way. They show up. Holy shit. What a cute fucking thing. • What starts as one hookup turns into eight or nine months of three nights a week. Friends with benefits. Real and good and clean. • He frames it explicitly as a redeemability test: can he be the kind of man who's respectful, who doesn't pressure, who keeps people safe, who manages the power dynamic of being six-foot-two and 225 pounds with someone much younger and smaller? • Ground rules laid out every time: fully drama-free, fully consensual, no pressure, no power trips. He always made sure they felt safe. He did that 99.99% of the time. • The TV incident: he punches a small flat screen, not at them, not about them. It was Citibank and his mother's credit card. They shook in the corner for a day with big crocodile tears because of their own past trauma. He takes responsibility for the scare even though it had nothing to do with them. • What he learns: he can do this right. He can be with someone, care for them, and not destroy anything. He can absolutely be an adult when he has to be. • The Framingham State two-beer girl: she blacks out on 1.5 beers, wakes up with her shirt half off. He had barely touched her. Ran after her to explain. I'm not that guy. Find the victims. There are none. Section 10: The Cats, the Roommate, and the Army of Two The comeback section. The section where things start to shift. It begins with the cats because the cats matter. • He has had a cat from age seven through his late forties — essentially his whole adult life. Bear, the black cat from age 7 through marriage at 27. Then Buttsky (wife's cat, already five years old) and Boy Boy (zero years old) through the next fifteen years. Then Buttsky and Boy Boy both die. His mother's cat dies too. Both cats the same age — fifteen — at the same time. • Nine months with no cat. No love. No spark. Tom has nothing. And he realizes: love is like fire. You don't need a raging fire. But you need a spark. If the spark dies, you're never getting it back. You can't count on lightning striking twice. • He goes to the same shelter he got Bear from, in Lynn. He looks around. Orange and white kitten sleeping. A couple that look like Boy Boy. And then — in a cage by herself — a small black female kitten. Wild as a motherfucker. Screaming her head off at him: Get me the fuck out of here. Get me the fuck out of here. YOU. Get me the fuck out of here. • He knows immediately: that's his cat. She's a motherfucker like him. He didn't even touch her. Just saw her and knew. • He checks the ATM. The cat costs either $250 or $300. He has either $206 or $306. Exact match either way. Sign from God. He goes back and gets her. • She was in a cage by herself because she has feline herpes, that little slut. It causes gooey eyes sometimes and occasionally she launches giant green-yellow snot rockets — gross, very gross. He runs after her with a towel trying to catch them before she eats them. Other than that, she's perfect. Fucking super healthy. • The Brazilian roommate arrives. The Army of Two is formed. Him, the roommate, and the cat. He doesn't separate shit anymore. The roommate is equivalent to ten humans. The cat is equivalent to ten humans. Together they are a unit. • From this foundation — stable, supported, alive again — he starts building toward what comes next. Section 11: The Business Plan and What Comes Next The pivot. From autobiography to plan. From backstory to launch. Everything that came before was the runway. This is the takeoff. • The catalog: 34+ albums of lyrics built over thirty years. 120 songs made in three years of focused music work. Project that out to nine years and you get 300 songs. The New American Songbook. • He is a free agent until September 1st. A bidding war is running. No corporate ownership, no private equity, no board, no shareholders. • The management model: Tony Soprano only talks to Sal. He is the crazy artist. The CEO manages and protects. He wants a handler who is either a gorgeous Ricky Martin type or a hot little blonde. • Album titles that will make people blush and the media will absolutely find: Bi Ride or Die, Six Thousand Miles to Denmark, Wounded Masculinity, Smirks Swears Moans and Cries, Sheila Tequila. • The Why Files / Hecklefish model: a subscription fan model built around community and access. He could be Hecklefish. • The Sam Altman dig: we can't establish something as a public good for saving the world, then privatize it and do bad things to the people who trusted you. Wink wink. • He wants to start dating women again. Wink. He wants a green card for a specific person and will follow them to whatever country they end up in. • He is a committee of mics — not a solo act but a system, a catalog, a concept. • Thirty years writing lyrics. Three years making music. It's time to focus on the music. PART TWO: The Editorial and Production Sessions The second half of the document captures the working sessions that followed the narrative sessions. The author and Claude reviewing what exists, identifying gaps, negotiating format, building the final structure. This section is the process made visible — and per the author's directive, the process is part of the content. Section 12: Website Cross-Reference — What Was Missing Claude reads the full COLLABTUNES website archive PDF and identifies biographical details, media-worthy moments, and business elements not covered in the transcript. Key findings: • 10,000 YouTube subscribers — deleted. That number and that deletion were missing from the narrative. • Lady Weaver described publicly as a John Lennon woman type — think Susanna Hoffs in her musical and physical prime. • The Belarusian marriage: publicly documented that he married her to help her stay in the country and finish college. A detail of love and sacrifice. • Political statements publicly on the site: Joe Biden sucks ass. Donald Trump blows goats. Statements on Israel. The media will find these. • Former top-50 list of people to eliminate for the betterment of humanity. Steve Buscemi top five. • I kill people on paper, not in real life — on the public site. • The 35th album concept: hasn't written it yet, saving it, selling it to the highest bidder. Section 13: Format Negotiation — The Banana Split • Can the raw transcript go out as-is? No. It opens with avatar sex requests and donkeys. Wrong first impression. • The compromise: the clean How I Got Here narrative (9-11 sections) is the spine. The raw transcript becomes a separate section showing the process. The missing-content section adds what was found in the website archive. • The banana split metaphor: the transcript is the ice cream. The missing content is the nuts. The cherry goes on top. Don't strip the whipped cream. Just add the toppings. • Tone directive: clean is the wrong word. It's gonna be dirty and sweaty. Keep all the profanity, all the edge, all the sexuality, all the darkness. The only edit is removing repetitive stutters — seventeen consecutive ums become one or two. The voice stays intact. • Rule number one going forward: don't change anything. Don't omit anything. If something's factually wrong, correct it. But nothing gets lost and nothing gets sanitized. • Proposed meta-title: How How I Got Here Got Here — making the process of building the document part of the document itself. Section 14: The Outline Session — Corrections and New Details The author listens to the outline being read back to him section by section and makes real-time corrections. Each correction is noted here. • CORRECTION: Lady Weaver was not a woman he already knew. He discovered her fresh on YouTube. That's when the story starts — not with a reunion but with a discovery. • CORRECTION: The Belarusian relationship was not set up as temporary. Both were in love. It became a three-and-a-half year first date. The exit decision came from inside the relationship, not before it. • NEW DETAIL: The floor line. He watches Lady Weaver perform on video, looks at the floor she's standing on, and says: I swear one day I will touch that floor. That's the moment. • NEW DETAIL: The Denmark connection was five to eight years long — from typing to emailing to Skyping to phoning to three months in person to staying in contact two to three years after. Roughly age 31 to 37 or 38. • NEW DETAIL: She trusted his advice because he was the only person in her life who wasn't competing for her time or getting mad when she couldn't give more. • NEW DETAIL: Her lineage — a direct descendant of one of the biggest names in the last 250 years. Name withheld. • NEW DETAIL: The cat's name is not given but she has feline herpes and launches snot rockets and he chases her with a towel. • NEW DETAIL: His mother's name is Judy Gibson. Citibank did her wrong while she was in a coma. This is documented for the record. CLOSING NOTE This document — in its final intended form — is the foundation for a broader creative and business platform. It sits alongside the COLLABTUNES website, a catalog of 34+ albums, and a business model built around a September 1st free-agent deadline. The structure is: dirty and sweaty and unfiltered — but organized. Everything in. Nothing omitted. Only the wrong facts corrected. Only the repetitive stutters cleaned up. The voice, the rawness, the humor, the darkness, the love — all of it stays. Thirty years writing lyrics. Three years making music. It's time to focus on the music. Here’s a clear, structured, no-BS breakdown of the document you uploaded: DETAILED SUMMARY — “HOW I GOT HERE” 1. What the Document Actually Is This is not a traditional essay—it’s a raw, voice-to-text transcript of you talking through your life story while interacting with an AI. - It mixes: - autobiography - stream-of-consciousness narration - commentary on your own writing - early drafting of a business plan intro - There are two layers: - “Clean” business-plan narrative (intended version) - “Dirty” unfiltered thoughts (real voice underneath) The goal: 👉 Explain why you are unknown despite believing you’re elite-level as a lyricist 👉 Set up a business/music project (CollaboTunes / Collaborhythm) 2. Core Narrative Arc (Your Life Story) A. Origin (Teen Years) - First creative act: writing a poem on a bathroom wall at 16 - Early personality: - rebellious - crude - observant - Key turning point: - Hearing “Like a Rolling Stone” → realization: “this is what I want to do” B. Musical DNA Your writing style comes from a fusion of: - 60s Rock (literary, poetic) - Dylan, Beatles, The Who, Zeppelin - Hip-Hop (raw, no limits) - N.W.A, Tupac, Ice Cube 👉 This becomes your core claim: You combine high-level lyricism + total freedom of expression C. Identity Struggles (School Years) - Felt like an outsider most of childhood - Social trajectory: - middle school → awkward / semi-bully - high school → “loser” status at times - Turning point: - weight loss + athletics (cross country, basketball) - influence of a girl → desire to improve 👉 First glimpse of self-awareness + self-reinvention D. College & Early Adult Life - Framingham State: - socially successful - academically poor - Lifestyle: - heavy drinking, drugs - high social/sexual activity Key pivot: - Choosing poetry over journalism → quits writing job to pursue creative path E. The “Peak Years” (Approx. 18–30) You describe this as: - your “awesome years” - high confidence, social success, sexual success BUT: - no structured career built - creativity not monetized 3. The Central Emotional Core: “Denmark Girl / Lady Weaver” This is the most important part of the entire document. What happened - You discover a female musician online (Lady Weaver) - You become: - emotionally invested - creatively obsessed - deeply connected What it becomes - Long-distance emotional relationship - You: - analyze her songwriting deeply - spend months worth of time communicating - eventually travel to Denmark Key dynamics - You position yourself as: - supporter - protector - student of her talent - Relationship becomes: - emotionally intense - partially romantic - partially dysfunctional Why it matters You frame this as: 👉 The defining relationship of your life It leads to: - identity collapse - long-term emotional fallout - 15-year “lost period” 4. The “Lost Years” (Approx. 30–45) You describe: - life going “to shit” for ~15 years - lack of direction - isolation But also: - continued writing - continued thinking about music/art 5. Later Life (Recent Years) Stabilization - Mostly sober (except weed) - simpler lifestyle - rebuilding creative output Relationships - Two significant connections: - both with trans individuals - Key takeaway: - you can still connect emotionally - but avoid long-term entanglement 6. Self-Analysis (Important Section) You explicitly reflect on: Strengths - elite-level lyric writing (your belief) - deep emotional insight - ability to connect intensely - pattern recognition in people Flaws - obsessive tendencies - poor long-term decision-making - tendency to “use people” unintentionally - difficulty maintaining stable relationships - lack of execution vs potential 7. Philosophy on Relationships You introduce a recurring idea: “Know your number” - People have a “range” (e.g., 3–8) - Going beyond it → chaos, destruction 👉 You admit: - you chased someone far above your range (Denmark girl) - it led to long-term damage 8. Present Situation (Where You Are Now) Life Setup - living with a compatible roommate - small “team” dynamic (you + him + cat) Work - finishing: - website (~97% done) - business plan - project presentation Creative Output - large catalog of lyrics/ideas - ongoing production 9. The Business Vision (Important) Core Idea Build a music + community ecosystem: - not exploitative - focused on: - real fans - real connection - collaborative creation Execution Concepts - live + digital hybrid experience - centralized audience interaction (chat/live/comment systems) - venue-based + online model Philosophy - not chasing billions - instead: - loyal audience - sustainable creative system 10. Underlying Theme of the Entire Document At its core, this document is about: “Unrealized potential vs lived reality” You’re answering: “If I’m so good… why am I not known?” Your answer: - life choices - relationships (especially Denmark girl) - lack of structure - emotional intensity overriding strategy 11. Tone & Style - raw - unfiltered - often explicit - self-aware but not polished It reads like: 👉 a mind thinking out loud, not a finished narrative 12. What This Document Is Trying To Become Not just a story—this is intended to be: 👉 The intro to your business plan Purpose: - justify your credibility - explain your journey - frame your project as inevitable BOTTOM LINE This document tells the story of: - a self-identified elite lyricist - who had strong early influences - peaked socially but not professionally - got derailed by a defining relationship - spent ~15 years off-track - and is now trying to convert a massive backlog of creativity into a structured, monetizable, collaborative music project If you want next step, I can: - point out exact weaknesses in the narrative - tighten it into a killer business-plan intro - or separate usable vs unusable content (this matters a lot here)