first 50

I've started a goal to write 50 songs. I don't have a period of time set for this, and I don't even know what it will mean when I've written 50 or what the next step after that is. I've just decided that if I'm serious about being good at sharing stories through songs the immediate step for me is to write as much as possible. So far I've written 4! So I'm definitely more than a stone's throw away from 50. Also, I'm including all styles of music in the 50 song requirement, with the exception that jams and other live works will only count if they're played often enough to have the potential to be performed. I'm really just making up these definitions as I go though so whatever there are no hard and fast rules. I just don't want to jam out 3 different ideas one day and have that count towards the 50, because that isn't what this is about. This is about trying pretty hard to write a lot of good material, and to make each song better than the previous one. We'll see how it goes.

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this is what it sounds like

When heroes fall, I am not sure if I should feel shitty because it means that I too must, or if I should feel better because this hero is real, human, and by knowing that maybe I too can be some of what I look up to them for.

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still writing

Routines suck, but I think I've settled into a good one given my situation. My days are pretty much exactly the same.

During the week

Wake up way too late, go to work later than I intended
After work apply to jobs for an hour or two
Go to gym after that
Eat
Play poker
Make music
Play poker again
Sleep

During the weekend

Wake up at 1
Laze around until I drag my fucking lazy hungover piece of shit self to the gym
Lift
Eat something delicious and terrible for my body
Make music
Rage

I keep telling myself I'm going to really commit to writing at least one song every day or every other day or something but mostly I just fuck around. Recorded and finished up a song yesterday though which makes me pretty happy. Recording takes forever but I need a way to keep track of the songs that I've made. I think I might just opt for videos with shitty sound to jog my memory if need be. I used to be completely against recording any of my music, and may never record the songs I wrote back when I was younger. However now I'm realizing that recording songs let's me create them quicker and have more being worked on at once. Tradeoffs...reality is I say I'm going to start at least video'ing the songs but I probably won't even do that and just trust on the good old noggin. Too bad it's pretty leaky, but I like to attribute the leaks to a spaghetti strainer design.

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friday, fridaay

Fridays at work are funny, because it is pretty hard to get anything done. I think most people do very little on fridays unless you really have to, seeing as how our parking lot is half empty come lunch time and even the 68 year old man I sit next to is checking classmates.com in the afternoon. This friday I feel especially lazy, and really don't know what to do with myself. I'm almost so lazy that I don't even want to read reddit or check facebook because it's starting to hurt my eyes. I'm almost at the point where I'd rather just work to get the day over with quicker. Either that or I'll leave early we'll see

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Last weekend, musical inspiration

Played a show last weekend with some guys that I've been jamming with for almost a year. This will hopefully go down as a pretty special show because that was the night that we decided to stop learning and playing covers. We started off only learning covers, despite our collective hatred of the practice, because of various time and skill constraints at our prior shows. The very first show was a salsa party that we started practicing for with one week of preparation time. Have you ever tried to write salsa? It's pretty difficult. Especially for most of us, since we are mostly american. The next shows were very similar in that we started preparing with only a week's notice, and with requirements that we play very dancy music.

I'm not sure what it is that spurred us to make this decision. It may have been that we opened for a bunch of ridiculously fucking good bands who played a ridiculously awesome show. Maybe we were all just sick of playing other people's shit, since for most of us we never played any covers before being with this band. In any case, I'm pretty excited to see what the future holds for us since this group has a lot of talent and a reasonable amount of drive. Perhaps the best part of all of this for me though is it's a way to use my mental energy. Work is still a soul fuck. It's nice to have something challenging to look forward to. It's easy to fall into playing a lot of poker since it's easy to start every day, no need to drive anywhere. I can see myself getting better and better etc. But I'd like to do other things.

Also might start working with some amateur rocketry groups sometime soon. Really hoping that takes off. I can see myself making the drives necessary to do it. Sounds so fucking fun. Man I am yearning for something worthwhile and challenging to keep me busy.

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On Style

Here is an excellent video depicting the importance of style as a vehicle for content, like I was talking about in my last blog. Colbert is able to make about as many points as one can make with O'Reilly, and all because he is using his blend of satire to avoid giving O'Reilly buzzwords that he can turn against Colbert. Even when O'Reilly falls back on his prepared material to discredit Colbert, Colbert is able to deflect the accusations and use their premise as a way to tease O'Reilly's perspective. Awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QquTUR9nbC4

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It's not what you say, but how you say it

I just started writing more music last night with a homie I've collaborated with a few times this past year. It's always an interesting process when you create something with someone, because whatever you create is much different than what either one of you would create individually. I guess that's how synergy is supposed to work. I like working with this guy because he really focuses on, and appreciates, style. I tend to mainly focus on content when I am creating things, and I sometimes think that if I paid more attention to my style it would make my messages clearer...not only that but it would really give life to my messages. The whole point of music and poetry is that the words, and really the whole piece, becomes a mantra to you. At that point it becomes unforgettable. I think I've lost sight of that since I always think about the content when songs hit me hard, which is the point, but the mechanism by which those songs stick with you is the style. I'm obviously feeling a lot of growing pains since I'm changing my writing method so that my words are more flowy, but I'm really glad I'm going through this process. It's also just really good to be creating again...

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I'd be interested to know how other people write blogs

I feel like I have a lot of things that I could write about, since I always seem to have a pretty incoherent stream of thoughts throughout the day. Just in the past 5 minutes I thought about writing how I'm a hipster and hate current writing trends, how I hate when I see people write about mundane things like fitness goals, then I wanted to write about how I'm just a hater in general, then I wanted to write about how maybe I should hate less. Hate's a strong word, which I would have discussed had I written a post about it. Maybe I would have explained how it's not that I hate the people or even the post but rather the choice of subject matter. A lot of people sell themselves pretty short when they write about their trivial pursuits. Maybe these feelings are inspired because I imagined what my own fitness blog would look like.

Week 1 - Lost 2 pounds, ran more than I wanted to and wanted to cry while squatting. Didn't get any stronger. I suck.

Week 2 - Fell off the wagon and gained 2 pounds. Ran a bunch. Fuck squatting that shit hurts I'm just gonna have nice abs and arms.

I guess it's how I feel when people post up covers of certain songs. Life's too short to try to copy someone else's greatness.

I saw an error bar under else's. I hope I did that right. I feel pretty stupid not knowing basic grammatical things. I like how it's okay to point out someone's spelling or grammatical error, or even criticize their command of the language, but not to criticize the fact that someone still believes in sky fairies or that some supernatural dimension exists for people who are on santa's good and bad lists.

I also thought about writing vegas trip reports similar to the poker blogs I've read. This thought was more of a thought blink in my mind. While I enjoy reading people's escapades I'd feel so silly writing one of my own. It's the equivalent of trash tv to me. Might be fun watching jersey shore but I don't think anyone actually wants to star in it.

Dear god I need to learn how to write transitions. I think I know like two transitory sentences. "Another thing I found interesting." Hah. So as you can guess I am now transitioning to the next topic that I thought about briefly when wondering what to write, which is writing the type of opinion/humor/fiction that I tend to fall back on when I do write. Maybe it's my way of peeking out of my shell in a non threatening way. Hard to make fun of a man who makes fun of himself! Can't sling shit on me when I'm bathing in it!

I think the big thing that keeps me from wanting to write about some topics is that I don't want too many specifics about me in any type of public setting. The world and my career have made me paranoid as shit. All sorts of weird shitty people doing nothing all day but sitting ass naked with their dick in their hand wanking at the internet in general. I see you, creepy guy. All those things you heard about people being able to spy through your built in web cam are true. Hi!!

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on hold

 There was a time when I thought my next job would be right around the corner, and that the hours I wasted only felt long - that in actuality it was juvenile anxiety, eager for christmas morning to come, that seemed to stretch my days. Bursting with excitement I'd draft cover letters, gushing at job descriptions that promised challenging occupations in exciting places. I could not be any luckier than to have the opportunity I had to apply to these positions. Days would fly by, because my mind wasn't focused on my work, but was instead fantasizing about the crazy shit I'd design that would change the course of humanity forever. I was so close to accelerating human understanding of life, the universe...you know. Like a bachelor with late night company on the stroll home I was almost there. I'd already done the hard grunt work. All that remained was some delicate maneuvering.

At some point I decided to be prudent and expand my horizons. As years of adventurous experiences have taught me, sometimes the way in isn't through the front. Prudence dictates testing all orifices. While still gushing at job postings, it was the companies themselves rather than the particular positions offered that stoked my emotions. This would be a first you then me type scenario. Not the quickest way but still a way. Stories of heroes on long odysseys filled my heart as I trudged on. "I know I can't lose." The journey is what this is all about anyways right? We do these things because they are hard and all that.

Life is good. There are no worries, no challenges, nothing really for me to bother with. I cruise into work whenever I can drag myself in, amble around, say what's up to people I don't really care about and that don't really care about me but it's just what we do. Why not. Get to my desk and read some news. I like to be informed. Search for jobs a little. Do work as it comes and put on the cruise control until it is time to go home. Thank god! Cruise into my house, eat some dinner. Get to my desk and read some news. I like to be informed. Search for jobs a little. Stay awake for as long as I can because this is me-time. To sleep is to surrender to another day.

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It's been awhile.

Funny pondering this last graduation, as the graduation prior to this I was on top of the fucking world. Had landed the dream internship, president of an organization that I am so proud to be a part of, had just lived through probably the wildest few months of my life in terms of partying and had started winning decent money from poker.

This year's been good, but nothing to write home about.

What I really want to do now is just not lose steam and keep on grinding.

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