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| 9/29/2003 |
| Have You Hugged Your Wunderkind Today? |
Hey, there's a new review of Bryan Beller's soon-to-be-released record, View, that you can now pre-order, and upon which I played on one track, posted over at ytsejam.com. In the review, they call me a "wunderkind." I don't know what that is, but it feels like a nice ego stroke there, so thanks to Jedd over there at ytsejam (which is apparently pronounced YET-suh-jam). I needed a good stroke.
I've given up on September creativity. Too many stresses, too many weirdnesses, too many poverty worries, and a great big trip around the U.S. of A. starting up this Friday. My six tunes from August are just gonna have to do for now. Oh well.
In the meantime, I'm making lists of things one might need when one is spending an entire month on the road. The lists are long.
Hey, I'm gonna co-host on Rich Pike's None Radio on October 6. The show airs live I think starting at 9 PM Pacific. It doesn't matter if you can't listen live though, as it'll repeat over and over, 24/7, for the next week after I'm on. Bryan Beller will be there, and maybe Mike Keneally, I'm not sure about that. I also think Joe Travers might be there, which will be neat, as I've never met Joe and am looking forward to it.
Perhaps I should mention now that I am a life-long Boston Red Sox fan. The Sox are in the playoffs this year. As are the hated Yankees.
I have been a Red Sox fan for far too long to get too excited. But I am pulling for my boys, you know I am. |
| 10:31:38 PM |
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| 9/25/2003 |
| Don'tcha Think? |
BAD BLOGGER. Bad. Bad. BAAAAAD. Yes, yes, I am aware of how long it's been since I last posted in this thingy. September, now almost over with already, has been a very interesting month in a lot of ways - just not in any sense that I've been really excited to share in a public journal. Honestly, I've been feeling mopey and sorry for myself an awful lot this month, and I know how you want to read all that shit.
Not "Oh, Woe Is Me" sorry. I'm not lamenting the state of anything in particular over here. I guess I've been feeling pseudo-paralyzed, stuck in a constant state of "Hurry up and wait." The best thing that's been going on the last few months, the new live rock band, had a great gig at the Fenix on the 16th, but now we're on hiatus while Pete and Lizzy get moved, and until I get back from my big trip 'round the country. So, currently, I don't have the band to get me psyched, I don't have any money, and I can't do anything to improve that last state of affairs until I get back here in November. And I'm such a guy about things like this too, in that I don't want to talk about challenges, I don't want to think about how I feel about things, I want to fix things. Right now. And I can't do that, and it's driving me insane.
The crazy sustained blast of creativity that got me through August seems like a distant memory. I'm still holding at six tunes that I finished up in that month-long span, which is really good, but I'd hoped to have that many more by now. By the beginning of September, the pressure of keeping up that pace started getting to me - tune #6 took a lot out of me, and then I decided to take a day or two off - and here we are, it's the evening of the 25th as I type this. I did at least fire up the workstation and record some guitar tracks on some new things today, but even that felt somewhat perfunctory.
Poverty sucks. It sucks. It's crazy to see myself typing these words, but I cannot wait to get back to work for a while. I am scraping by right now by the skin of my teeth and thanks to a very understanding and patient roomie, Beta Girl. I have learned a lot over these last few weeks, and I think the lessons have been really burned into me in a way that they'll really take this time. I tend to be wildly unorganized and careless in financial terms, and getting the boot from Cogenix and trying to scrape along in the wake of said booting has shown me, at age 33, how that kind of reckless abandon can bite me in the ass. It's part of the curse of being a creative type, this fountain of endless optimism and certainty that I always draw from, often in situations that require a little more realistic and steady analysis. Knowing these things, having learned these lessons, I'm going crazy wanting to act to do something about them. Taking action makes me worry less.
Oh well. Next week I'm gonna go off on a cross-country drive that I can't afford instead. Isn't it ironic? Yeah, I really do think. |
| 7:00:23 PM |
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| 9/15/2003 |
| California Love |
Yeah, so California has been on the brain again of late, as in a coupla weeks I'm going to be making yet another sojourn down that-a-ways. I was actually kinda interested to be there when the recall vote was going to happen, but now there's been a ruling and I guess maybe it won't happen while I'm there. That's sort of a bummer. I wonder if Maria Shriver is pissed that her leave of absence from work might have to go on for a few more months.
And it's not just California I'm journeying to in October, it's all over the damn US of A I'm gonna be. I'm travelling in a giant elipse, starting of course here near Seattle, heading down the west coast to LA, then across the Southwest past the Grand Canyon, into Texas, a scheduled stop in New Orleans, and then north into Georgia. A brief pit-stop in my ancestral home in Northern Virginia, then on up to Rockport, Massachusetts. And then from there back to Seattle. Oh, and I'm driving this route, by the way. It's going to be crazy fun. I'll just pretend that I have my rock band with me and that we're touring and playing shows. SIGH. I wanna do that, too.
But, LA is destination one. While there, it looks like I may be guesting on a couple of Internet radio programs, Rich Pike's None Radio, and hopefully Gruno's Guilty Pleasures as well. That will be fun. I'm going to bring some "unreleased goodies" to play on these shows that will hopefully prove entertaining.
Last night, I saw Robert Rodriguez' Once Upon A Time In Mexico, and I had fun, even if the movie is often a very incoherent mess. But it has Johnny Depp and SALMA (pause to wipe away the drool), and it's often a lot of fun. More inspiring, however, was an interview I just read with Rodriguez in this month's Premiere magazine. Turns out that Rodriguez does just about everything himself on these films he makes in a little compound he's built for himself in Austin, Texas. My favorite quote from the interview is this one:
"The way I see it, you just throw your ass in the fire," he says, kicking back. "You don't give yourself a choice. You either find a creative way out of your situation or you get burned." |
| 11:35:41 AM |
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| 9/10/2003 |
| P.C. Tune #6: 10 Print |
Whew.
Finished up "10 Print" yesterday, finally. I hadn't really worked on music for almost a week, so absorbed was I in the wonders of video editing. I wanted to edit up and construct a DVD of the YHZ show of August 18, and so, I set to work to figure out how to operate the software. It took me a few days, but I was pretty happy with what turned out. But, as I was saying, it kept me from my current fanatical music-writing mission. I guess that's not entirely true - every now and then I'd fire up the workstation and have a listen to "10 Print" where I'd left it, and wheels were turning, even when I wasn't really working that hard on it. But now, it's finished in "rough draft mode." I say that because there's a nagging little guy somewhere in the back of the room who says that there needs to be something... more to it in the third act. I'm not saying I'm disagreeing with that guy, just that I don't want to get pulled into a quagmire with this song, it defeats the stated purpose of the current exercise: keep cruising, keep flowing. I can iron out the kinks later if the band likes the rough drafts enough to work on them further.
It's 4:02 PM right now, and it's DARK in my office... you know why? 'Cause it's RAINING, THAT'S WHY! It feels like summer's losing its grip to me! HURRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY! |
| 4:02:47 PM |
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| 9/6/2003 |
| It Ain't Broke, I Fixed It |
The average artist can not make a decent living solely through making art. You knew this, right? Yes, there is a tiny percentage of artists that do manage to get large corporate backing and sell scads of tickets/copies/prints of their work; the kind of people that the E! network exists to create fawning documentaries about. Most artists are not like those mega-celebrities, instead, most of them are regular people, holding down a day job that isn't their first choice, tending to whatever remains of the idealism they had as budding teenaged art-freaks by night. I think a lot of people with astonishing talent that probably dwarfs that of so-called "famous" artists in culture simply give up. They change their priorities. They move on. I can understand why they do so, even though I could never do it myself. Some people snigger at the very idea of a calling, but I sure don't. Those who do are probably those same people that would complain over espresso to you that they've never figured out "what to do with [their] life." Those who claim to have a calling, like me, know exactly what they are supposed to be doing, and at some point one has to come to grips with what it means to give your life purpose your undivided attention. It means laboring in obscurity, perhaps for a lifetime. It means giving up some aspects what many of your peers would call "a normal life." It means putting up with condescension or being patronized by many of your friends, and even your family. Yet, even with all of that, the message is clear: I must do these things.
I don't mention these things to make myself look (or feel) noble. Heck, I started out typing to tell you this story of how I fixed this thing that broke last night, and how all-fired proud of myself I was for doing so, but instead I went off on the above tangent. If I was a really good writer, I could tie the two threads together, you know, pull out something profound about their juxtaposition; but nah, I'm just a scatterbrained silly person, and I don't know what the hell's going on. I guess I could say that even though when I'm working I take jobs that aren't at all related to what I really want to spend my days doing, I know for a fact that I've picked up some valuable lessons and skills at these day gigs that continue to impact my life AND my art. And the fact that I was able to fix that thing last night stems more from those lessons than anything I've picked up in my artistic pursuits.
So just pretend I'm good enough at writing to get that point across in a non-fumbling manner, OK? |
| 3:23:17 PM |
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| 9/4/2003 |
| Tough Day At The (Office) |
Yesterday was a grind, the kind of dispiriting day one knows one can't avoid forever, yet when it finally shows up, one still finds the means to get inordinately upset by it. Preceded as it was by a seemingly unending supply of happily creative days, I suppose I thought I had found the way, and all would be sunshine and creativity and good laughs and killer hooks from now until whenever the world finally wakes up and recognizes my fabulosity. Pfffft. Oh, how wrong I was!
I'd been plodding away on P.C. Tune #6, making good progress, entertaining myself to be sure. That this new song kept managing to surprise me was a good thing. On the other hand, it's also kept me constantly off-balance, as I really didn't know (and still am not sure I do) where it was going. And I was putting a lot of self-imposed pressure on myself to keep up the creative pace I had managed in August. Add to this intoxicating brew a large dose of financial worry, and I was not a very happy camper. I was easily distracted, and kept walking away from the workstation to do other things: washing a dirty dish, or taking the dogs on a walk. It was also getting to be a very hot day as well, and you know how much I love that.
But, I kept coming back to the song to have another crack at it. I just couldn't figure out what I needed to do to finish the thing, and I wasn't all that into it. Still, I doggedly worked at it, adding what I guess could be construed as a bridge by mid-afternoon. I didn't really think too much of it, but it was time to try and de-stress and walk away from it again. When I came back to what I had done later in the evening, I had some new insights and with about an hour's worth of digital editing, carved a new twist out of what I'd laid down earlier, and came up with a possible final arrangement of the tune.
And today, I took the day off from it completely. It was hot again today, so it was a good day to take a break. I played with some new toys, played with the dogs, tried not to think about money woes. I got a nice review on Garageband.com. Watched a lot of old video and waxed nostalgic.
I really needed this, I think. I'll see if I can't finish song #6 tomorrow. And if I can't, oh well. At least I got band practice. |
| 2:02:57 AM |
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| 9/1/2003 |
| Alas, Alack |
I didn't manage to finish P.C. Tune #6 in time before August officially ended. I have large chunks of it done, though, but I honestly have no idea where it's going. And I'm trying really hard to just follow along with it as I work on it, you know? Because what I normally do when I start putting together ideas I like is let little Voices take over. They whisper in the background, "Well, that's cute, but not very catchy, is it?" Or, "You really should get on with the freaking chorus already." Or, "You know there's no way in hell you can put this on an album with your name on it. It's way too different from what your 'audience' expects from you."
This new song isn't called "Old Ghosts In This House" as I originally thought - it's actually currently called "10 PRINT", of course I reserve the right to change it if'n I want to, you know.
I did the night walk again tonight, I'm pretty sure I saw Mars, the planet that's so very "in the news" right now. It was a bright dot that might have been sort of light orange-ish. For all I know it could've been an airplane. Or maybe a UFO. I'll look for crop circles in the back yard when I wake up tomorrow. |
| 12:47:23 AM |
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