While working at home today, inspired by Jason Molina [Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Company] I started singing my various actions in InDesign while I worked. I give you 2 bars of Designer’s Worksong:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
In 90 minutes I will be 38 years old. I feel like I should have something to say about that. I feel like I should have some wisdom to convey. I should tell you what it’s like to grow up in this culture at this particular time in history. I should tell you that I feel 38 is a significant milestone. I should tell you how I feel about mortality and the way people change and how they do not change as they age. I should tell you something that will make you fear becoming 38, or make you remember with longing and regret of when you were that age. I should tell you how far I’ve come, how I am not where I thought I would be in life, how many dreams I’ve given up on and how many experiences I’ve had that I never imagined I would have.
And I will not tell you any of these things.
I sit here at my desk in the dark drinking an Old Fashioned on a warm October Friday evening. I am occasionally distracted with the dissatisfied-sounding meows from my cat. I am feeling sorry for my girlfriend who is upstairs in bed trying to sleep while fighting a cold. I am thinking about going to bed myself, because I’m going to get up relatively early on a Saturday to go visit the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. I am wondering what the future holds. I am aware of my life, that I am simply living it, and there really isn’t anything more to it than that.
I am thankful. I am lucky. I can and will do more. I appreciate all the experiences I’ve had. I love my friends and family.
That’s all turning 38 is.
There is so much these days, that I can barely manage to open a blank text document. There’s too much to put down, too many points to be made, nowhere specific to start from. Like all maintenance gone neglected, tasks undone multiply, the severity of symptoms worsen, infections spread and weeds grow out of control. My mind procrastinates and places escape from its stresses at the highest priority. I’m not even talking about the stresses of everyday life: work, survival, general health and nourishment, or social responsibility—I’m talking about the stress of having ideas.
Given a moment away from true needs that require attention, ideas come to the forefront of my internal dialog for examination and analysis. But ideas unwritten or unspoken, much less untried, linger like ghosts of a killing field—with constantly increasing population. Each new spirit’s haunting call contributes to an increasing cacophonous din that becomes louder as a whole while lessening the ability to decipher the message of each individual.
So I must write first about an abstraction that is my dilemma of being too overwhelmed with thoughts I need to write. I have a chronic bad habit of writing consecutive introductions, preambles and histories as preface to a subject that I will write about at some future time—which often never occurs. I’m better at beginnings than endings; questions than solutions.
My blog is like an invitation to dinner where upon arrival you are served an aperitif as I speak of my difficulties with selecting a meal. I give a little culinary background both personal and historical, and the challenges and possible complications each recipe could hold, which may or may not help me decide what I’m actually going to cook. And this goes on from aperitif to cocktail after cocktail until we both care much more about sleep and conclusion than the meal. And a rain-check apology is made: “Next time.” Next time there will be a meal.
I started using Twitter for reasons I imagine most people did; I was amused with its novelty. I just wanted to try it out, and therefore gave myself the user name “LazybonesMcGee” as an indication of my casual/skeptical interest.
As a “follower” on Twitter—my first reaction was that I enjoyed the feeling of connection with friends and acquaintances while we weren’t together. This gave me a feeling that I was not fully missing out on their company. To a small (illusory) degree, Twitter collapses time and space and fulfills a desire to be everywhere at all times; unburdened by the choices our individual lives require. Of course, any reasonable science fiction fan is certain of one thing: NEVER mess with the space-time continuum; it always comes to no good.
Aside from staying connected with friends, I also began to follow people I didn’t know. I followed them for entertainment. But as entertainment, Twitter sometimes, if not often, disappoints. Everyone has a different motivation for posting to Twitter, and often each tweet from a single user has a different intent. How can I be disappointed by Twitter as entertainment when not all users are trying to entertain? And if not then what exactly are they trying to do? That changes user by user, tweet by tweet, leaving the intention of each tweet open to interpretation.
Good understanding requires content to be delivered within a context. Here, Twitter is the context. It is a non-sequitur-machine by nature, which is part of its initial charm. But add to that the end-user’s ability to customize the presentation of the content and the result is information camouflaged nearly to abstraction. You have what amounts to a stick figure which some may see as a biological representation while others read into it emotion from gestural nuance. “What are you doing?” is Twitter’s attempt at providing a unifying context. But to paraphrase my friend Buzz, “The great thing about Twitter is that everyone uses Twitter differently.” In my opinion, this certainly is what makes Twitter a broad success, but it also is what makes Twitter suck. By being almost anything to anyone it can never be entirely what any individual wants.
When I reconsider the original feeling I had of feeling connected to my friends through Twitter, I now feel quite the opposite. The nature of Twitter actually removes any real personal connection between individuals. When my best friends tweet, they aren’t talking to me and they don’t sound like they are. They’re talking to their followers. Reading their tweets adds nothing to our relationship and when I see them in person, we don’t talk about our tweets, we talk about what we’re thinking at that moment and we’re having a real live connection. Depending on the style of the user, the Twitter follower may have the unique experience of hearing intimate friends speaking as if they were strangers, and strangers speaking as if they were friends. The inverse is also true, when you post to twitter you are aware that you’re using the same words to speak to close friends and complete strangers; a situation which, if it were to occur in real life, would be viewed as a performance, never an authentic version of yourself. What kind of connection does that create?
At the other end of the spectrum, reading the tweets of strangers has not made me feel connected to them personally. The removed generalized phrases broadcast to their followers emphasizes disconnection and separateness as any form of voyeurism would. And when I meet someone in real life after having followed their tweets, the fact that I have followed them provides no real foundation for the kind of interaction we have in real life. At most, Twitter may provide a reason for introduction, but that is where the connection ends.
It must be remembered that “connection” is a facilitator of something. A freeway junction connects traffic, plumbing connects water flow, the internet connects users to information, but “connection” is not an end in itself, connection is not understanding or even communication; it is not an emotion or an experience. Twitter is a connector to information, not to people.
I’ve released my first album. Literally, a collection of songs I recorded in 1990 on a Casio keyboard with my parents’ home stereo. Hidden from the world for 18 years, now freely available via Last.fm:
Hopeless Endless Relentless by The Crash Case
Re-listening to the first music I ever recorded, I’m full of pride and regret. I regret I never had the courage to stand by the music I made. I don’t know what I’m doing; I don’t read music; I’m not making the music I really want to make; I’m using a keyboard as a guitar because I don’t know how to play guitar; This music is intolerable to the ear for more than 5 minutes. These were the reasons I had for essentially being too afraid of rejection to believe in what I was doing.
Now, nearly 20 years later, I’m proud of this work. I think it’s good. It still expresses something worth hearing. I hear in it my biggest influences: Joy Division/New Order, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Cure and various action/sci-fi/horror movie scores. On the other hand, it also sounds like the sort of noise-punk music that I never really liked much–to the degree that I can’t even name a band this music sounds like. I wasn’t trying to be punk rock, I wasn’t even trying to be original. I was just doing the best I could to make something that sounded cool with a cheap cheesy keyboard.
I’ve played tape of these songs to maybe a half-dozen people, only if I thought they were weird like me. All because, though I liked it, I thought it would be hated. It’s an intimidating precipice to stand on—being proud of something you created that you believe is unlikable; and frankly I don’t know if I would have done anything differently. I never really wanted rock star fame, I never wanted to live the life of a touring musician. But it seemed to me the general rule that if you made music, there was one way to go and that was to play shows, which I didn’t want to do. Maybe that’s like someone who likes to cook large meals but will never serve it to anyone—ridiculous and futile. Or maybe it was simply something that I considered private.
Now, much has changed. The internet makes it easy to be what I am–not a performing musician, but a recording artist. And I’m older, and though I care what people think, I can handle however that makes me feel. I have no intention for this music to bring me anything and I don’t expect it to take me anywhere. It really isn’t that good. But it is a part of me that I no longer want to hide or deny to people who know me. It’s something I have to share, for whatever that’s worth. It’s a story I’m ready to tell.
Tired of gossip, drama, and the millions of screaming opinions that come at you every time you open yourself up to the internet and television; I find myself really relating to this song right now.
People say I’m crazy doing what I’m doing
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
When I say that I’m o.k. well they look at me kind of strange
Surely you’re not happy now you no longer play the gamePeople say I’m lazy dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I’m doing fine watching shadows on the wall
Don’t you miss the big time boy you’re no longer on the ballI’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it goAh, people asking questions lost in confusion
Well I tell them there’s no problem, only solutions
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind
I tell them there’s no hurry
I’m just sitting here doing timeI’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
The Internet…unlike the printing press…giving everyone “a voice,” as the Internet boosters boast of having done, is not only very different from enabling the most creative, intelligent, or original voices to be heard. It can also be a way to keep the most creative, intelligent, and original voices from being heard.
Lee Siegel, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob –2008
I know dream-posts are rarely interesting to anyone but the dreamer, but last night my brain decided to give me a Freudian Theory skit.
Last night I dreamt that I came upon a scene where a fight had taken place and I was listening to someone describe what happened.
As far as I can tell, this is a textbook illustration of:
I.c = Id
I.b = Ego
I.a = Super-Ego
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This was recorded in February of 2007 for the RPM Challenge. I titled it “Pretty Much Great Heights” because it’s essentially a cover of Such Great Heights by The Postal Service, but I took such liberties with the music that I’m not sure it’s a true cover, nor am I sure how far you can push something away from its original for it to still be considered a cover. Lyrically, it’s certainly a cover.
Honestly, the real story is that I just started writing a song and had no lyrics for it and I started hearing Such Great Heights to it. So I just decided to sing the vocals over the track, it’s not even the same melody really. Only at the end of the song did I intentionally add some of the notes from the “beep beep beep beedee-deep beedee deep deep deep deedee deep” part. So I don’t know. It is what it is.
This track is from 1990, composed only with the harpsichord sound on my Korg O1/W.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.