Vintage Inspiration

It appears I’m developing a gear fetish. Been feeling the itch to make music again, and my recent acquisition of music equipment is apparently spurring that. It started years ago with a MIDI controller and a softsynth. Then, two years ago, a microphone, an audio interface and a drum machine. Then, in the past year, a mixer, a sound module, and a PC I built for audio work. That got me going for a while.

And then my latest conquests: a 1984-vintage analog synth and a 1992-vintage sampler. When I count those with my 1987-vintage non-MIDI keyboard (from high school) and my 1991 sound module, it becomes clear to me that most of my equipment was not made in this century. Meaning I can truly, without studio fakery, create the Vintage sound.

For the first time in a while, I have sonic and artistic freedom. I have outboard gear that I can tweak and explore. I’m not spending hours getting frustrated with software synths. You turn it on, turn it up, and play; it’s really exciting. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what is possible, and that freaks me out. Every time I punch buttons, I should be pressing “Record”. I started doing that, calling the recordings “Noodle Sessions”, since they essentially are that. But I need to do more. Real songs, complete songs.

And that’s the problem. It’s a Thing now. I need to record. I need to make new music. Glass Door has been rather dormant this past decade, and that’s a travesty. My friend Jared demands new music, and I’d rather like to oblige him. I’d love to get the project flowing again. But I’m having difficulty.

I think one of my problems with creativity is getting it going. It’s that standing friction. Getting it rolling reduces the problem down to rolling friction, which offers much, much less resistance. Having a friend, a cohort, a fellow musician working alongside would really help. It makes sense that some of the best electronic bands are composed of two guys; one bounces ideas off of the other, and the productivity flows.

But the nexus of my creativity problem, though, stems from the source of creativity itself. From which well does creativity flow, and how does it flow? Should it flow out freely of its own accord, like an artesian well, or do you have to draw it out yourself? How do you dip your bucket to draw it out? Once it’s out, should the water pool like a lake, or flow against its constraints like a stream?

Do you punch buttons and play melodies and overlay them until you feel like you’re done, and hope for the best? That seems rather random and subject to the environment surrounding the moment of creation. Do you wait until a good idea forms, and then try muddling your way through it until you get a shadowy facsimile of what you intended? I’m between these extremes, and like the hungry mule equally between two identical stacks of hay, my creativity is dying of starvation due to the indecision.

I can only hope that I make some motion soon before the current urge to create eats itself and dies.

Feaster Unday

What bothers me most about Easter is that it becomes brutally apparent to me how different I and my ideologies are from those around me. There are a few christian holidays a year, and it’s on those days that those in my various circles of friendship, who are otherwise filial and unobtrusive, get irritatingly noisy. Being a member of Facebook serves to amplify this effect.

I have the regrettable fortune of growing up in a largely christian society. It was fine when I believed as they believed, when I went with the grain and became engrained with the monotheistic, evangelical culture. But the moment I dropped out, I immediately found myself contrariwise to the culture and out of step.

The atheists are no better. The christian and jewish holy week leading up to Easter is also the week that the atheists take upon themselves to broadcast their dogma. I don’t mind their dogma. Hell, I’m an atheist myself. But I refuse to evangelize. It’s that desire to make others believe as they believe that makes them exactly the same, in my eyes, to the christians and their “Great Commission” — which is “Go ye therefore unto all the lands and make disciples of the peoples”. It’s still spreading the seed.

When trees spread their seed and the yellow pollen is in the air, you know what I get? An allergic reaction. To hear a person say “Lift up HIS praises” or “HE is risen!” or “Keep CHRIST in CHRISTmas!” induces an allergic reaction in me, and several times a year I fall ill with disdain.

I am an atheist, but only in the sense that I am nonreligious. I choose to not believe anything; it’s as valid a choice as christianity, judaism, zoroastrianism, or pastafarianism. It’s not that I believe that there is no spiritual plane or no higher deity from whom all matter originates; it’s that I just don’t care, and that’s intentional.

I wish there was an AdBlock for religion.

Carrier Feedback Relay

Apparently, the Texas Relays are in town, meaning downtown is supposed to be fucked up with traffic, cruising, and young adults hooping it up after competitions. Whoopty-shit. Hope I can park somewhere near the venue when I go see VNV Nation tomorrow night. Don’t care if I gotta pay ten bucks to do it.

Looking forward to the show. It’ll be a welcome reprieve from the long workdays, even though I’m taking my work home this weekend. It’s a rare thing that I can work from remote, but now I have the need. Fuck my life.

I was noticing that my blog didn’t have any spam in the queue waiting for deletion. “Hmm, maybe they’ve forgotten about my blog” or “Hmm, maybe that botnet got taken down.” No, the answer is more basic: it’s been over 14 days since my last blog post, past the open comments timeout. Sorry about that, comerades. My bad. Spam away.

Remember that short story I was talking about writing, “Lost Carrier”? Yeah, well something weird happened: I finished it. Really finished it. Compiled the first draft and grabbed a cadre of volunteers to copyedit for me and give me notes on what could use some more work. Sent out the draft to the first of the four volunteers three weeks ago. The last delivery was a week ago. So here’s what’s funny about that: I’ve heard nothing by way of feedback. I’m in an information vacuum. Maybe there’s a curse on the story that causes the reader to go deaf-mute.

Realistically, it’s a short time ago that I submitted the draft to my readers. I sincerely appreciate their free help, and I wouldn’t wish to rush their response for fear of getting poor feedback, but I’m anxious to hear something, anything on how I can make the story better. Y’know? I hope for closure on the feedback loop.

Warm Forward Pie

Raise your hand if you’re not ready for the onslaught of the workweek. Raise your other hand if you don’t want it to happen an hour earlier.

Raise your left leg if you like warm spring-like weather. Open windows are a godsend. I took advantage of today’s awesomeness to clean house. Spring cleaning? Why not.

Raise your right leg if you like pie. Pie is good. Save your fork, there’s pie! Also, today is March 14th, also known as 3/14, also known as 3.14, Pi Day. Eat pie. I should’ve eaten some pie, but I’m a nonjoiner. Actually, I had too much dinner to eat pie. So there.

You’re out of limbs to raise, so that’s all I have to say. Enjoy your levitation. You’re welcome.

Fiction Distraction

Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned. It’s been a while since my last update.

See, since I opened my Facebook account, I’ve been paying a large amount of attention to that account as I make snarky commentary and wait for the snarky replies (this is strangely similar to my former IRC habit). So, at the end of the day, my desire to make long-form commentary in this journal is diminished, and I’d rather put on some music, play Mahjongg, then go to bed.

A shame, a shame.

I will confess, however, that I have been writing a short story during the past five weeks. It’s science-fiction in general, futurepunk in specific (I’m trying to avoid calling it “cyberpunk”, given the soured reputation of the genre, even though it technically is cyberpunk). Early in February, I got an itch to lay down a few paragraphs to set a scene. More style than substance, but I knew there was a story there somewhere. The next night, I wrote the next chapter and felt it; I had to write this story to see where it goes. After the third chapter, I had to stop myself and go, “Hey, so…what’s the ending?” And I thought about it, considered some of the options made visible by my writing so far, and I couldn’t come up with anything.

And then I laid down for bed when it smacked me like a ton of lead. “Oh, fuck! That’s the ending!”

The next few weeks was spent carving the path to actually reach that conclusion. The distractions mounted — facebook, work, Olympics, drooling on my desk — but I managed to lay down the final chapter a few days ago. The first draft is finished. I’m now in the final readthroughs to smooth the rough hairs before I send it to a few friends for critique. When they return their notes and I integrate them into the text, I’ll most likely be ready to share with you, my reader.

So, keep close.