What I'm Wearing: Jacket, Shirt, Chinos, Glasses - Express Men, Boots - Apt 9 

"To Love Somebody" (Feat. Express)

Dear readers,
I set goals for myself to go out into this world and do everything with love. One of my main goals in life is to experience love in all ways and share the love I receive with a world that truly needs a little more. Through my whole journey every up and down has been filled with love. Not just love in a relationship, but love for the idea of love. Since I was little boy I wondered what it truly meant to love somebody. As I continue to grow and get older each year, I learn more and more about what the truest meaning of love is. Recently I was approached by Express to showcase some pieces off of their new lighter pre spring collection. As winter winds down, i'll be mixing a lot of lighter colors with the dark. Let's face it I have gone through enough darkness, I deserve a little light in my life. As I selected the pieces that I wanted to wear, I thought about the subject of love. Valentine's Day is around the corner and I want to share as much love as I can these next few weeks. There is no better way to kick off a series of love stories than with a lighter classic denim look from Express. 

As I browsed through the new pieces Express released on January 16, 2018, I fell in love with the mixture of light and dark colors. I saw this Distressed Denim Trucker Jacket and knew it was the right centerpiece to go along with one of their Flecked Jersey Crew Neck T-Shirts and Skinny Chambray Chinos. When I saw the whole outfit put together with the final touch of the Blue Tinted Browline Sunglasses, the topic of love became more clear for me. I have a thing for denim jackets. I'm an LA boy with island roots in San Fransisco and denim jackets is kind of a huge staple for guys like me. When I first started dating my best friend P in 2016, there was this plaid denim jacket that became a staple in our relationship. Til this day P claims it, I have it here for whenever we see each other next. The distressed denim jacket reminded me of those butterflies I felt when I first started seeing P. Sometimes you see pieces of clothing and they take you back to those feelings you first felt. My relationship and status of my relationship can be tricky sometimes. One thing that is for sure, what I continue to learn from my evolving relationship with P, is nobody will ever love P like me. I know that is saying something, but there is a certain kind of power in this kind of love. There is a light, a certain kind of light that has never shone on me, until the day P walked in my life. The last 14 months has been a learning experience for both of us. As I said earlier, I wondered what it was like to love someone when I was kid. I never understood it until I became an adult, until the day P came along. You find yourself feeling different. There is a way everybody says to do each and every little thing, but then you begin to realize it does not mean a thing if you ain't got the love of your life with you. You have moments when you shut your eyes and all you can see is the frame of this person you live and breathe for. You start to understand that your feelings for this person is stronger than any other feelings you have for anyone other than this person. I may be blind in one eye, but i'm a man and I know i'm being seen for who I am. A relationship takes 2 to tango. Sometimes the other person doesn't understand the extent of your love, until one day you have to tear it all down and build up all over again. They don't know what it is like to love somebody like the way they are being loved. Love is patient, love is kind and sometimes we have to continue riding the rollercoaster and picking out pieces of clothing that take us back to the start of the line. Sometimes we have to get off the ride to get back on and start again. We can do some of the same things, but we can change a lot of things and do it better, do it right. This outfit from express symbolizes my willingness to start over and begin again. Hopefully we all can learn what it is like to love somebody like the way I love P and always will. 
​
As the month of love quickly approaches, I want to reflect a lot on love and what love has done to contribute to my personal journey. It is important to write about my feelings because they are always changing and growing. As my heart continues to beat, the blood in my veins heat up to fuel that fire in my soul. If a little piece of love can inspire people to love a little harder, then I know my feelings are doing their job. I feel like we should love with no regrets. We need to fall in order to rise. So i'm going to keep falling and falling so I can keep finding a way to rise and be better. I have love for P, my family, my loved ones. All that love comes from the scattered pieces of my heart and the willingness to never give up on love. Love can break us, but it can also heal. As I continue to heal my brokenness, I want to love somebody like they have never been loved before. I want to feel love that is bigger than the thoughts of love in my brain. I want to love "tenderly" and sweet because love is built on kindness.  For a moment in time, I just want the power of love to take over. The world needs a little more love. Maybe if we all learn to love somebody, then we can learn to love one another. Then we can begin to heal the hurt and brokenness within the world that surrounds us. 

Love, Dom 

Photographer: Joanna Wheeler  ​

What I'm Wearing: Blazer - Sakes Fifth Ave, Polo & Sweater - Calvin Klein, Pants - Forever 21, Shoes - Apt 9, Watch - Daniel Wellington

This page is sponsored by Daniel Wellington
Get your own classic DW watch this holiday season for you or your loved ones.
Get 15% now- January 30, 2018 by using my code "BAZA" 

"Who Am I" 

Dear readers, 
We are 3 weeks into the new year and I must say I feel like I have accomplished nothing whatsoever. Why would I say that? Well for starters, I started out the year not feeling well, felt healthy for a hot second, and as I write these words I am battling a wonderful relapse of this horrid flu. So I'm just going to consider January a nice warmup for the year that will actually kick into gear in February. I always felt January was the aftertaste to the beautiful ending of December. It is genuinely a very slow pace start and it is kind of the limbo month. I'm all for shedding my skin and letting go to powerful anthems, but I lay here in bed and wonder what is the rest of the 11 months is going to look like? Who am I when I come out of the other side? That is a question I am dying to get the answer to.

Last week I paced the guest room at my parents house wondering when and how I am going to move out of here. As a young guy who has been stuck on the longest extended vacation ever, I do not know how to move my story forward the correct way. Is there a correct way? I mean, I never followed the rules as written. I did things my own way. Then when I got sick I had to play the game of life by the doctors rules. It is interesting how February is almost here and knowing that is the same month 4 years ago, that my life took a completely different turn and ended up on another path. It is as if I am meeting up with that crossroad I was forced on 4 years ago when I traded the mic, the stage and producers - for meds, a cane, surgery and doctors. This time I have the backstory of both. I still have the voice, in my opinion even better and than before. I also have the strength from the pain. I reflect heavily in January due to it being national Glaucoma awareness month. But 2018 is different. I want to take control of the wheel and guide my story down the path it should have never strayed away from. I can't travel back to that moment 4 years ago and stop myself from going blind. I can however, take that moment and see how it can define me now. I'm trying to figure out how do I live the life I used to live, with the life I live now. I'm always honest when I write, so let's be real. I have no one to turn to in LA. As I start to try and map my way back home, I legit have no on there. I am going to feel like a fish out of water all over again. That makes me a little nervous. I wish I was lucky like some kids who have parents who have/ can make these awesome connections in the music industry. I was just lucky the last time. I feel this time I have to prove myself to so many people. If I were to pitch myself with Let The Music Be Your Guide, they are going to say this guy is pretty young with a fresh and wide perspective of the world. That is all still very true, but there is so much more to me now. My last record was released when I had just turned 19. I wrote it when I was 17. I now have all these songs that I have written since then. There is a whole story that has not been publicly told. Will the music industry accept who I am becoming? I am not the Dom Baza that the cd player plays anymore. I have his backstory but I have a completely different mindset as an adult. I have a complete unheard story as an adult. I have more grit, more layers and much more depth. I was told the songs I wrote at 17 would be timeless.. I believe that still, but are the songs I am writing at 22 as timeless as my older songs? I feel like my story now can be something even more people in the world can relate to. I just hope I am enough to give my story the justice it deserves. I hope I will be enough to live the life I haven't been able to live. 

When I write in my diary here on mrdombaza, it is an outlet to express how I'm feeling. Right now i'm a little all over the place. It is mixture between the cough meds and the uncertainty of the road ahead. I'm ready to let go, I won't back down, but i'm honestly scared to question the future and the reasons why things turn out the way they do. I never question, but I do wonder. I'm given pieces like this Daniel Wellington watch that remind me that time keeps going and moving faster, much to my dismay. How can I find a balance between time and destiny? I have to figure out how i'm going to do things this year. I'm a little bit behind on the schedule that I planned for 2018, so I guess I have to adjust time and give myself a little more room. It is not even a complete month and i'm suffocating myself with the highs and lows of moving forward. Once this flu is out of my system again, hopefully I can start to get my life back on track. I started this journey as a boy with love in his heart to share with the world. "To Love Somebody" , to be loved, and to share that love is still a main factor of this journey of mine. I just gotta find out who am I now, how do all my broken my pieces fit together and ow do I make my brokenness shine within the beauty of its scars. 

​Love, Dom 

Photographer: Joanna Wheeler  

PRESS PLAY
Every post I will include the song that inspired me to build a post around it's title
​

What I'm Wearing: Jacket - Forever 21, Tee - H&M, Flannel - Gap,  Jeans - Adam Levine Collection, Boots - Apt 9

"I Won't Back Down"

Dear readers, 
January. January has many different meanings to a lot of people in this world. For me it was always the first month of the year and a sense of readjustment. Then I got diagnosed with Glaucoma in 2014. It took on a whole new meaning once 2015 came around. January is national Glaucoma awareness month. It is a time where people like me are raising awareness to the disease that is stealing our eye site. I have been very open and vocal about my experience with my battle these past 4 years. I can't believe it will be 4 years as of next month. It is important for me to tell the details of my long journey, in hopes that one day someone will pick up these stories or hear my words within my music, and get the strength they need to fight their battles. I wish I had someone like me when I first got sick. I didn't, I had to become my own guide and my own inner strength with the help of god. It took me a while to accept this disease. I explained in my last "book" on mrdombaza that it's not that easy being green. Green is the color that represents my disease. Over the past 4 years it has become my favorite color. It not only represents the illness I have, but it represents who I have become. It is reminder that I always have that part of my heart on my sleeves. It has been a dark 4 years. Really dark. There have been good moments, and then some of the most painful moments in my life. I fell to the ground really hard. I'm just trying to get back up and stand my ground. I'm taking my story back and will not let any downfalls of an illness or people with higher power try to knock me down further. I can't back down and I won't.

Writing about this part of my life is very therapeutic. I get really emotional thinking about everything that has happened. I always had this thing for leather jackets. I felt they gave me a bad boy edge when I moved to LA. It made me feel like I had more depth to my life. When I see a leather jacket, I feel like each of them have some sort of backstory. I wanted a look that would be rough around the edges, but still show through the hints of green, that no matter what, I'm still a fighter and i'm proud of the faults that make me who I am. I feel like this outfit I'm wearing is a little bit of every part of me. I'm reminded of my stage persona, my blogger persona, and my disease persona. Every part of me meets in the middle, right where my heart is. Since I got sick my heart has not been whole. If I were to take an x-ray of the inside of my chest, it would show the many different cracks from all the various heartbreak I have faced these last 4 years. I remember when I first got diagnosed, I took it very hard. I was terrified. It wasn't fair, I didn't find it fair. I was mad, I was mad at myself for honestly no reason. I hated going to the hospital every week. I felt like I was some broken test subject getting poked in the eye with needles bigger than my fingers. It was traumatizing for me. I was getting to the top of my game in the music industry but this disease decided to take over my life. I didn't really get freedom from the hospital until 2017. That year was not good, but at least I wasn't living in that building 24/7. Since I got sick i've had 5 major surgeries, 100's of doctors appointments, countless medications inserted into my eye, and more nightmares than dreams brought to life. I have to say I got comfortable with the life I was living prior to getting sick. I loved the idea of the life I was about to live. God had other plans though. They say when you get too comfortable living the life you think you are meant to live, a greater force pushes you off the cliff , so you can find a way to rise up to the life you are meant to thrive in. I wear my heart on my sleeve now. The shades of green are the shards from my heart. I don't think my heart will ever be whole again. I'm actually okay with that. The cracks within my heart make me shine, and the amount of love each piece of my heart holds, creates something beautiful. For awhile I despised this disease. Then I realized, I can make something beautiful from the broken inside of me.

My goals in life remain the same but further expanded. I still want a Grammy, I still crave love, I still need my voice to be heard, but I also want to take the journey I have been on, the journey I am on, and make an impact on this small world. It doesn't matter if the person has glaucoma or not. Every one of us is fighting some sort of battle. It can be another illness, family drama, personal regrets, the list can go on and on. I want to be someone who a little girl or boy, who's going through something, can look up to and say, Dom Baza made it. Look at all he has gone through, he found a way to rise up from the fall. Its 2018 now and I'm still trying to figure out "Who Am I"? There are many different pieces to my brokenness and I'm trying to find out what they all look like together, cracks and all the damage. It has taken me longer than I expected to stand back up and keep walking. I have been knocked down more times than I would like, especially in 2017. But i'm still here. I know I was put on this earth for a purpose greater than this life. We all are here for a purpose, we just have to keep living to find out what that purpose is. To any woman, man, girl or boy who has been burdened with this disease, my heart goes out to you. I know what it is like. I know you feel these unexplainable emotions. You'll be sad, mad, and happy, yes I said happy. Sometimes someone will make you smile along the way, cherish those moments and think of them in your darker moments. There will be moments when you are tested, don't be afraid to let your guard down.  The doctors may give you a timeline on how long you have left to see. Don't let that discourage you. Believe that you will see the next day you wake up. Don't ever talk yourself out of the fight, once you do that you loose hope. A beautiful franchise called Star Wars once said "we are built on hope". Never loose it. Tomorrow is a new day, I won't back down, and you shouldn't too. 

​Love, Dom 

Photographer: Joanna Wheeler

PAGE 34
Stories From My Life - Chapter 5

What I'm Wearing: Blazer - H&M, Suit Pants - Van Heusen, Shoes - Calvin Klein, Watch - Daniel Wellington

This page is sponsored by Daniel Wellington
Get your own classic DW watch this holiday season for you or your loved ones.
Get 15% now- January 30, 2018 by using my code "BAZA" 

START OF: Chapter 5


"Let It Go"
​
Dear readers, 
2017 is finally behind us. I am very thrilled about this. As you know from the past 4 chapters, things were not so easy for myself and my family in 2017. I obviously wasn't the biggest fan of 17, I don't think 17 liked me and my family very much as well. As a parting gift, 2017 went all Oprah on us. "You get the flu, and you get the flu, heck! You all get the flu". In the past week it has been a chain reaction, we all got hit with this virus. I actually have no proper voice at the moment and i'm still very congested. It's all good though. I was fine with this whole getting sick at the end of 2017. Better to get it out of my way, that way I can journey on in this new year. It just goes to show that this last year was just a place holder for the much better 2018. It's funny how I titled this page "Let It Go". In Frozen Elsa said the cold never bothered her anyways, then in Frozen Fever, she gets the flu. Regardless, she was still able to get a grasp of the current moment in her life, and let go of all the bad she has faced. As the seconds, minutes, and hours pass on my Daniel Wellington watch, 2017 becomes a further thing of the past. The wind is howling like the swirling storm inside of me, and I will no longer keep it in. 2018 will be the year I stand in the light of day. 

Winter is all about the darker shades, the blues, the classy suits, the warm sweaters, the leather boots or jackets, and the fashionable coats. It may seem like I'm wearing all blue because i'm a little icy towards 2017, but it's the complete opposite. When I was first diagnosed with Glaucoma I watched Frozen on endless repeat. There was something so empowering about Elsa. I related so much to the character. She was shunned away because of who she really was. No one understood her powers or the beautiful things that could come from them. When she sang "Let It Go", I saw a bit of myself in her. When she threw out her old clothes, let down her guard, and transformed herself into the iconic Elsa little girls and boys adore today,  that was everything to me. I know the blue is a symbol for her powers but it's also a symbol of empowerment. Elsa owned up to who she is. In that moment she became proud of who she is inside and out. I woke up on New Years Day and even though I was not feeling well, I felt relieved. Last year was just further proof to myself that I am stronger than I think I am. I always write down how i'm feeling. If that's here in my diary or in my songwriting, I document all my thoughts and feelings. I read a few of the earlier pages from chapters 1-4 and saw so much growth over the 9 month time period that those chapters take place.  Emotions run through my heart and I feel the few moments of joy and the many moments of sorrow all over again. But on January 1st, I let it go. I'm never going to get anywhere if I keep dwelling on what has happened. I will always reflect and expand upon that reflection on my journey. That is why I always jump back and forth from different timelines of my life. Because each event, no matter how big or small they may be, they all connect to who I am in this moment. I am proud of the man I have become/ the man I am becoming. I'm dying to see where the journey goes. Because I honestly don't know. I have a map, but there is many different turns I could take. If no one likes what I do this year, then that is on them. I'm going to let my storm rage on and let it go. Because the cold may make us sick, but the iciness  of the world, never really bothered me anyways. 

I feel as if i'm back in the water swimming to the shore. This time the water is colder, but there is a sense of warmth from the fire in my soul. I have this drive that is waiting to explode. I can look back at the journey, but I'm never going back. The past is in the past. I'm not perfect, people say I was before all of this... well sorry to disappoint, but that perfect boy is gone, he's been gone. I probably will make a few mistakes this year, and that's fine. I will rise like the break of dawn. It's time to see what I can do to test the limits and break through. I look forward to getting stronger and stronger with each passing day, "I Won't Back Down". I look forward to be one with the wind and sky. Let's see what happens as my inner power flurries through the air into the sky. 

​Love, Dom 

Photographer: Joanna Wheeler  

PRESS PLAY
Every post I will include the song that inspired me to build a post around it's title