When you’re making money — even just scraps — from your creative work not as an employee of some other company, guess what: You’re running a business.

Maybe we as artists and performers are undervalued. But we try to make it work financially, anyway, because it’s so much fun.

What Pomplamoose has helped me realize is that a different kind of musical career path can be cultivated.

How things have changed in four short years! So now, what do I do? Go back to waiting tables? Work in an office? Have a boss?!

It may feel awkward actually taking money from your fans. Get over it. This money helps you keep going. Every purchase is a vote to keep your music alive.

Every four years, in the early hours of a new or renewed mandate, I do find myself mysteriously yet resolutely standing at a personal crossroad again.

The hard part is the start-up phase, which is the phase that I’m in. I’m doing a bunch of work now that will hopefully pay off down the line.