Entry by Joshua Hanson. This entry needs artwork!

My name is Dexter Jared Peterson. I am 26 years old and live in New York City. In the last seven years I have lived as 11,577 different people.

A sudden flash of light opened my eyes to the next life. In the first five seconds I determined that I had no clue what was going on. No big surprise there. I stood in a large dark room holding a small blowtorch. Ahead of me was an ornate mahogany box, surrounded by thick ballistic glass and a cage. I looked around for a moment, most of the building was dark but I could see some roped off areas and a few more glass boxes with assorted bits in them.

I looked back at the box in front of me, my thoughts interrupted by a man yelling, “Come on Dex, grab the stupid thing and get the HELL out of there, we can’t keep the security off forever!”

A Thief. Of all the things to be, I had to be a thief. I decided not to question the man and instead reached through the cage only to be blocked by the ballistic glass. “Alright, use your torch on the upper left corner, and the lower right. This should free the pins on the case. Don’t burn that box!” the man ordered through the earpiece.

I did just that, causing the front of the glass box to fall onto the stand it was sitting on with a loud thud.

“Easy, easy! The cameras might be off but the mics on them still work! Just grab that box and get out, we’re already past the deadline,” the man said, slightly frantic. I grabbed the box and slid it into a felt pouch, then started for the door. Just past halfway to the door a heard the automatic locks click into place. If I didn’t have the sense to take this seriously I would have guessed I was on a movie set.

The radio crackled and a woman’s voice came out, “Dex this is Alexandria, we’ve lost the frequency for the security system and everything is reactivating! GET OUT OF THERE NOW!!!”

Alexandria… I half hoped she wasn’t part of this, but then I wasn’t surprised that she was. I didn’t have to be told twice, I booked it to the next exit. I grasped at the handle only to find it locked. As I heard the next door lock I leaned up against the door and sighed. Completely trapped now. At this point I was pretty sure I wasn’t making it out of this life, alive. I guess it isn’t that bad though, thieves don’t really deserve any better do they?

The door behind me suddenly swung open, tossing me onto a flight of stairs. There was a sudden rush of panic as I fell back, but as I landed on nothing but my own ass it subsided a bit. I quickly scrambled to my feet as the radio once again came to life.

“We got one door unlocked but it’s not going to stay that way for long, it’s on the East side of the building, go!” Alex yelled. I heard faint sirens over the radio and somebody else yelling. Seems luck was on my side for once. I started down the stairs three steps at a time, pivoting on the railing at each landing. There was a muffled screeching of tires below me. Something caught my foot and I went head first down the last flight, slamming into the door at the bottom.

The door burst open and I was delivered onto the cool pavement of the sidewalk. I really should watch my step. As I collected the box and took a moment to make sure nothing was broken a grey windowless van came barreling down the street, screeching to a stop a few meters past me. The double doors on the back swung open and Alexandria ushered me toward them.

“Dex hurry up, they’re not far behind!” she yelled to me. Her voice sounded so soft even in the desperate situation. I ran to the back and jumped in as a pair of police cars came flying around the corner.

“Pedal to the metal, we’re getting out of here!” ordered the man who had been talking to me on the radio as Alexandria pulled the doors shut. “Alright Dex, let’s see the prize.

“The man grabbed the bag from me and pulled out the box. In the light of the van I could see small carvings in the wood, which was polished to a mirror like finish. He almost fainted at the sight of it.

“Fantastic! I can’t wait until the client sees this, we’ll be rich!” he sang in excitement. Alexandria took the box and examined it before handing it back to me. I looked it over for a moment then turned to her to ask if she recognized the carvings when everything froze. The image of her face slowly faded into black as I was pulled from the life of the thief.

Entry by Nathan Bedrick. This entry needs artwork!

My joints locked. My eyes itched. My hair bristled. For the first time, she was within reach, and I was me. The first sight I saw was Alex.

I grabbed the fabric tape railing to my side and tightened my throat muscles. My hand hurt. I was in the middle of a coffee shop line. Looked like about the time when I left. I spotted lemon squares- nothing compared to Betti’s cooking. I spied some miniature cupcakes at the end of a stick, and flashed back to one of my last memories before our lives. Seeing the pastry pops reminded me I had just walked in here and spotted the chocolate kind.

My throat was dry. I could use a lemonade, too. I was in the mood for some coffee-shop sweetness after eating Ugali for a week. I didn’t care about artificial ingredients, a lack of home-style love, or even the fact no expertise made it. It was then that I noticed they had a summer-flavored kind of cupcake bite. Didn’t they make that flavor right around when this all began? Did they make it again? Was I back? Was it over?

I restrained my quivering. Was it pain? Was it excitement? It’s been so long since I saw a familiar sight, and even longer since it was in English! I felt like me, I felt at home, and I felt like the chance to talk to Alex was right in front of me. I was certain it was Alexandria. She looked quite different without the burqa, and I’ve mixed her up a few times, but I wouldn’t forget how she held her Diane Goldfarb purse, just like the imitation-Coach bag she toted with her today. They all held their bags the same.

My sunglasses didn’t help, but my gut pushed me. I walked past the cashier and raced to her table. Would she recognize me? She sat beside the window, looking out. It was so quintessentially ‘Alexandria’. I paused, to relish that thoughtful look in this lady’s eyes. Then, I moved. I anxiously looked at her before pulling the seat back. I seemed a bit thin, as the bright, arm-length shirt and gloves didn’t help.

All I could yelp out first, was “Alex!” Her eyes widened, and I felt anxious for only a moment. She looked anxious, as if I solved Rumplestiltskin’s riddle without having been asked.

“Do I know you?” she replied. I felt overwhelming loss and anxiety. How could she forget me? Haven’t we been through this enough? Doesn’t she recognize me? Maybe it’s my hat? Or the sunglasses? Or the gloves? I hastily take them off, whispering a shout as well as I could.

“It’s me, Dexter! Dexter Peterson!” My heart stopped. Her eyes were fixed upon me.

She uttered a shuddering surprise, “That’s quite strange for a woman’s name.” I could feel fate’s cruelty chilling the back of my neck. I looked to my exposed hand… Burned, but feminine.

Coming down from the excitement, I notice pain all over my arms and back. My head was aflame. Pushing back my sleeve, I share with Alexandria a first sight. Burns. Everywhere. My body ignited, as if I was tossed back into the flames for a second roast. My eyes welled up as my strength left me.

I wasn’t me. I wasn’t Dexter today.

Seeing Alex shocked me away from this pain, and now it left. I was defenseless. I fell back into agony. My silent tears ran down to the table. A man whose warm, concerned smile touched me came over and asked about whom I sat down with. He asked why I took off my protection. He introduced himself to Alex, but she excused herself and left. He could see the worry in my eyes, and the pain. He could see the confusion and sadness. He reached out to my shoulder and touched me.

I felt his love, and I felt the scraping of my burn. He told me that fate was cruel, but he still loved me no matter what. I cried out a little bit. He was concerned, and he had a right to be. My gut tumbled, like a washing machine cleaning out the stains this experience left on me. It was then that I noticed me, walking down to take the A train outside the window. Cake pop in his hand.

Who were we?

Holy crap, it’s April? I was just coming to terms with the fact that it was February.

As I sit here caffeinating I’m very conscious of the passage of time. The last three months flew by in a whirlwind of technology and meat. The former because I’ve spent a nauseating amount of time redesigning both my dot com and dot net sites. Seriously, that task alone took up the better portion of… well, honestly, all of January. With some of it spilling over into February.

The latter is a reference to my new partner in crime, Runtt. Moving from a robot to a meat-based drummer was a lot more work than I’d anticipated. Sure, I knew I’d have to rehearse with someone else for once, but I didn’t realize I’d have to re-learn all my own tunes. You just can’t play the same way as a band that you can when you’re solo. A lot of piano subtlety gets lost under the flying lumber and you have to simplify your arrangements to avoid stepping on each other’s toes. With FWA as our debut deadline, we had a lot of work to do and very little time to do it.

And now it’s frickin’ April. And there’s snow on the ground. Dammit, there is fresh snow. All over my van.

Anyway, now that my website is in order and I have a 90-minute show worked out with Runtt, I have nothing planned for April except working on The Lives of Dexter Peterson. No concerts booked, no appearances, no speaking gigs, no road trips, nothing. If I can do this without going broke, I’d like to sit in my studio all month long and finally get the novel up to draft three. And while I’m at it, start releasing full draft-one songs to my hardcore fans. Since I just signed with a booking agent, I’m hoping I can rely on her team to make me busy this summer while I stay busy in the studio.

Don’t know where that relationship will go just yet, but it’s off to a slow start. Maybe that’s a good thing, I’m not sure, but anyone who knows me knows I’m perpetually impatient. Having just survived another birthday, I’m reminded of how fast time can slip by.

Holy crap, it’s April already? I better get back to work.

Now that the big conventions are all out of the way for a couple of months, I’m really trying to focus on the world(s) of Dexter Peterson. One of the things I love the most about writing is the experience of jumping into another person’s life for a while. It’s the cheapest vacation you’ll ever experience, trust me.

Right now I’m trying to become the Dexter Peterson that almost had his head blown off in France. I’m not a military guy, even though everyone in my family has enlisted in some form or another. One of my best friends from high school is still flying C-130′s over the desert and a local friend has been to Iraq a couple of times so far.

Yet here I am, a lifelong musician trying to write 20 pages about life in World War II. Given the nature of the story, it actually makes a bit of sense. Dexter gets no training and no shakedown before jumping into the next life, so he’s as clueless as I am. Every so often- while making a cup of coffee or taking out the trash or something -I’ll stop and think to myself, “what would happen if I turned around and suddenly found myself in a machine gun battle?”

I wonder if regular musicians writing love songs ever have to do this kind of abstract thinking. Shit, how many alt rock albums actually require library research and references?

In the back of my mind I can see crowded theaters and conventions where people waited in line in the cold to see me in concert… Yet I know that I won’t get to that point until I can place myself behind a filthy hedge row somewhere in France, ducking bullets and running like mad for a farm house a few miles away. If you need me, hit me on the radio and make it snappy- I may need to blow something up relatively soon.

I often say that I have the best fans ever invented. I’m not joking around, everything I do is a direct result of the cadre of awesome that surrounds me. Right now the fan that comes to mind is Alan “Isfacat” Farris, someone that’s lit me on fire on numerous occasions.

No, that’s not a euphemism, he totally kicks my ass in TF2. And I’m very flammable.

Aside from being a Matthew Ebel dot net member for a while now, he’s recently volunteered his services as video editor. As I’m working on The Lives of Dexter Peterson, I’m trying to shoot as much documentary footage as possible. I’ve spent entire days just editing a five-minute segment before, so I’m not exactly that well versed in this kind of work.

He is. In fact, he’s awesome. So if you’re enjoying the stuff that I do with my music, please thank your local Isfacat for saving me a whole lot of time.

You can get your face and likeness in my upcoming graphic novel project, The Lives of Dexter Peterson.

Genesis Whitmore

Any VIP or higher members of Matthew Ebel dot net can send me a photo and she’ll work them into the book… somewhere.

Think about it… You’ll be forever immortalized in the tale of a man surrounded by faces- always changing, temporary, and impersonal until he finally sees that one face that doesn’t change. With over eleven thousand groups of friends, enemies, lovers, colleagues, and family, there’s no telling who he’ll meet next. Or who YOU will be in that crowd. The only constant is the mysterious girl who never changes.

Are you not a VIP yet? Sign up at www.matthewebel.net today and put your face in this project!

Image by Imagaday

When I announced on August 1 that my next project would be The Lives of Dexter Peterson, all I was thinking about was the story. I suppose that’s a good thing- thinking about the world of the creation rather than the logistics behind it. We didn’t get to the moon by planning on orbit, rendezvous, docking, and long-term health effects, we got there by pointing up into space and saying “let’s go there.”

But now I’m into that part of the project. There’s a reason they say the devil’s in the details. If creativity is heaven, project planning is the fifth level of hell. This is becoming the biggest project I’ve ever undertaken, way more complicated than Goodbye Planet Earth. When all the dust has settled, I need to end up with:

• A full-length story about The Lives of Dexter Peterson
• A music album based on that story
• A graphic novel based on that story
• Either an audiobook or a radio drama rendition of the story

Suddenly I’m not working on one project, I’m working on four. Gen Whitmore is handling the graphic side of things and my friend Calindy is trying to book convention shows so I’m not doing everything myself, but I’m doing pretty much everything else. Those four projects alone are ambitious enough for the one year deadline I’ve set, but there are always more details. Albums don’t sell themselves, even if you’re U2. On top of creating four finished works by next August, I have to manage all the support projects involved:

• Re-design www.matthewebel.com to better represent what I’m trying to do now
• Figure out where I can get a graphic novel printed in short runs
• Promote the project online. Somehow.
• Spread the word about the nature of the project itself
• Book some concerts so I don’t starve to death

If ever there was a time I needed a management team, it’s now. I pulled off the last major album by myself, but I don’t know how I’m going to create all this stuff, promote it properly, and still perform on stage without more help. The DIY mentality has sex appeal, sure, but there are just some projects that take a real team.

Right now we’re a team of 3. Hopefully that will grow soon!

Get More Every Month…

I am twenty-six years old and I live in New York City. In the last seven years I have lived as 201,573 different people.

I watched another man die today, this one a pirate who personally disrupted shipping around Jamaica for the past year. He targeted my company’s tea shipments almost exclusively, though I can’t imagine what offense this cretin would begrudge me. It’s not easy being wealthy.

I received grave news from the expedition I dispatched to what we’ll call “Colombia” in another hundred and fifty years. All but one man has vanished and I fear the last soul that entered that temple may have disappeared shortly after sending the letter.

God, I wish they’d discover coffee already.

The Lives of Dexter Peterson is Matthew Ebel’s upcoming album, book, and graphic novel scheduled for release in 2011. If you want to know more about Dexter and who he is at any given moment, grab an All-Access or higher pass at www.matthewebel.net