Category Archives: self doubt and struggle

That fire-e light-en-ing feel-ing Within (written at like 2 am)

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I’m feeling it again.. a kind of warm glowing feeling.. that seems to suggests great power.

In saying shit like this I always feel like a great deal of explanation is required to.. make any sense of.. WTF I’m talking about.. for the general reader.

Neuroscience kids have found that if you stimulate the right brain parts.. you’ll get abducted by aliens… by which I mean archetypes are a part of the structure of.. not only the psyche… but the brain.. our biology… and what have you. So.. this thing I’m talking about.. this feeling.. is an expression of such things.. wisdom of the body perhaps.. or something bigger still.

Symbols are sometimes a more powerful means of communicating then reason.. reason can be.. a bit flaccid sometimes..  because symbols can communicate.. not just ideas and concepts.. but experience it’s self…

And I think of it as a kind of cognitive compression scheme… you know.. how complex it is to learn to ride a bike as a small child.. all the sorta.. kinesthetic calculations involved… and latter we don’t think about any off that.. that stuff is like the basic building blocks that we’ve gone through so much it’s as if we aren’t thinking of them at all.. accept we are.. it’s just that they’ve been compressed.. into something like.. the chemical components of a structure.. that is.. what we now see our selves as thinking about.

So for instance.. how many of us think about digesting our food in order to get them stomach acids a going? Err..

Well anyway…  So.. what this feeling seem to be telling me is something about what I’m doing.. that I’m on the right path.. and never mind my often small minded way of thinking.. .this is big stuff.

I know the bigness because of the holographic nature of the structure via which I’m working.

Errr… that’s a hard concept to explain!!!

Well.. its like this cognitive compression scheme stuff… especially if you consider that at any given time our consciousness is only capable of a limited speed of images.. of limited size.. passing before our inward eyes.. of thought or whatever..   and.. only limited amount of stuff is accessible to us at any given time… but as you sorta look at larger time periods.. larger things are possible.

So the deal is.. that ideas are somehow nested in other ideas… in these complex chains of association.. .I am mentally walking down paths I’ve been walking the entirety of my life.. I know this psychic landscape quite well.. and…

This is the thing… this is really the thing that’s maybe central… for my entire life.. I’ve been trying to do this thing.. and I’m trying to do it still today… and that feeling i’m having.. is the strength… of all the me’s… stretching back to my birth to present.. the strength in me.. of all those moments… as I waded through this land scape… all that strength.. speaking at once.. seems somehow super human almost.

And in a sense.. the way this works is that we program our own consciousness.. and I’ve been a programing a life time.. with this set of tasks in mind.

It’s hard to talk about this stuff.. cause it is so crazy… that one would be so single minded.. from such an early age.. and through so much… adversity.. and to still refuse to let go of this path.. as if it were the same as letting go of your soul…

It’s that kinda bigness in my own life…

And so this burning fire, like the holy spirit it’s self.. saying “yeah bitches, we gotz a something here a brew-n.”

Hmm… I kinda dig this style of writing.. I think I’ll have to post this netx time i get online

Adventures with the darkness within

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It’s almost 10 pm on a Thursday as I write this. Today was “my day off.” Not that I have a job or anything.. but today was my day to stay inside, not really leave the bed, wallow in whatever I might have to wallow in… and just take some time off.

Work life balance is hard stuff sometimes.. I find that there’s some kind of inner equilibrium that I need.. and so it was nice to just kinda.. not do anything.

And here’s a strange thing.. for some reason my ass cheeks are hurting like a mother… well not that bad, but bad enough.. and I’m wondering what the hell I did last night that would have caused that.. I mean.. I went to see Scott Damgaard play at the Angry Hams last night.. I had a few beers.. but had more then a mild buzz on, and most spent it sitting in a chair…  well anyway…

So a major theme I’m meditating on at the moment is how to deal with your damage.. I suppose we all have damage, to one extent or another.. and the challenge is to try and move beyond it, or somehow get it so that it exerts a positive influence on your life.. as a pose to, say, a self destructive one.

Well.. I’ll tell you where I’m at with this kinda thing.

Basically I judge myself really harshly over a whole lot of different things… and.. the thing of it is that it’s my perception.. I say to myself “you should do x,” or “you should be more like y,” or whatever.. and.. I usually think that if other people saw what I saw they would say “why yes, you should do x,” or “why yes, you should be more like y.”

I’m seriously.. you would probably think that.. lots of people have.. and that’s a part of my social anxiety.

This also has to do with the surface, how things look on there face.

I’ll give you an example.. I’ve set out for myself a project… but suddenly I find that for several days… I’m not really moving that project forward. And I’m like “why do I keep goofing off?” And I wonder if the problem isn’t one of needing to discipline myself more.. or.. if the thing is that I have to be more gentile with myself.

And what I’m coming to see is that there is a kind of psychological reality… that is just the way things are.. and.. I feel like the first thing is to accept how things are.. as a pose to trying to discipline myself.. or getting too hard on myself.. just accept it..

And then you think.. “well can we do something about it?”

See the psychological reality could be like the influence of your biology onto your consciousness… it could have a reason for being that you don’t know about.. and yet your going to go around and try a judge that thing… because of how the surface has framed things.

Do you see what I’m saying? On the one hand I’m a kind of abusive victim.. that was abused in the way that I’m describing here.. I am that part of myself that I don’t understand.. and being extra hard on it.. is me turning from victim into abuser.. and the abuse is turned inwards… and thus the damage.. and its effects.. seem like some great immoveable object.

But what what if I said “wait a second, lets take a look around here” every time I judged myself.. and instead of judging try and see.. I mean.. what if I set out to have this as goal.. to do as much of this as possible..

Well then the damage would seem to loose some of its power, wouldn’t it? I mean to the extent to which.. we all are the programmers of our own consciousness.

This, I think, is powerful stuff…  It’s trying to work on your awareness of what is going on inside of yourself, trying to be aware of the chemical washes your neurology is throwing at you.

One of the things I’ve come to understand about myself is that I’m a very fire-ey person.. if I feel like I’m pushed too far I’ll blow up.. and not just a regular person blow up.. a fucking H bomb blow up…  and in a lot of ways.. this is just my sensitivity.. like I get hit hard by these chemical washes.. and its hard to.. kinda try and put it aside..

Anyway…

Well there are some signs of progress.. after God knows how freaking long.. I set about the process of cleaning my sink.. and getting some of the dishes going.. and all this kind of thing.

I should tell that my house is a mess.. to the point I’d rather not let anyone see it… for the kind of shame I feel over it.

But the fact that I cleaned that up.. and have been making stabbing efforts to clean up other things in the house… and today made this mega huge thing of pasta, sausage, meat balls.. an hell.. I even salvaged some peppers.. and cut them up…

These probably sound like little things on the face of it.. but there really monumental.. and there’s a whole lot of implications.

For one the condition of the house is my inward psychology projected out into the world.. for another.. I’ve come to understand that one of my really huge underlying problems, maybe the biggest, is a kind of mortal fear… and in understanding that much.. I can work on strategies for dealing with it… and this, in part.. had the effect of starting some of the cleaning.

Anyways.. I’m freaking stuffed.. and I think its time to go retreat back to the house.. and get back to my wallowing.

From Shame and Depression to Art and Business Strateg-ary

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I have at least a half hour to wait around in this library, so I’m wondering if I can think up something else to post on… I have drafts of some pretty decent stuff still on my Mac Pro.. so.. but perhaps I should try and riff on some of this or talk about.. oh I know……

How about we talk about my shame / life issues / psyche / damage / what is wrong with me?

Yeah.. thats a fun topic

Well I had this conversation with my therapist last Wednesday where she said, on the subject of shame, that kinda the best thing you can do about it is talk about it with someone….  err you think blogging it is going to far?

Well ok, there’s lots of issues…

So lets start with what’s going on right now

My car has this noise.. that is growing worse. It’s scary cause I’m poor, and what is worse is my car is un-inspected.. and I got a ticket for that.. and if I don’t pay it by x date.. I have to pay more.. and that date has gone by and I haven’t paid it.

Now I haven’t paid it cause I’m afraid of putting out my credit card stuff through unprotected open wifi, and I don’t have a phone.. but the point is I haven’t done anything about it.. I mean to message my case worker on the subject, but anxiety over the whole of the situation has kept me from doing so.

So, the car probably needs to get fixed one way or another, and inspected.. but I don’t know how much all this will cost, and have only limited means to deal with it.. plus.. when I leave it off at a garage, and have no phone, not to mention no internet at the house, how do I manage all this? So this stuff keeps getting pushed back, thus making the situation all the worse.

Meanwhile when my internet died, and then my computer.. I lost my calender which tells me when my appointments are.. and I missed an appointment, I’m pretty sure, with my dermatologist.. for which I will likely be charged $80 (remember I have $60 a week to live on?)

I also have shame cause I feel like I’m spending too much money.. and not dealing with any of this stuff, or other stuff.

Then there’s the issue that to find housing there’s an application process to the department of mental health.. and they might actually need the records from the dermatologist.

The result of this, and maybe rainy weather and general coldness.. has had me not wanting to leave the house, or even bed really.. which is necessary for email / internet / all communications with the world.. thus produces more isolation.. and thus makes my anxiety and depression worse.

Fun stuff

So this kinda stuff kinda often happens to me.. where I just kinda breakdown a bit and stop dealing.. and then feel kinda fucked.. and of course have lots of shame about it, which makes it worse… and thus this post I suppose.

Ok, so moving right along.

What I think is at root to all this is a combination of the wreckage brought about my a whole lot of life trauma mixed with a huge about of fear.. sometimes fear just to remain among the living.. but fear that blocks me, or challenges, my moving forward.

The solution to this is to try and be gentle with myself.. and not judge it so harshly.. and try and facilitate my own becoming.. and kinda try and built a supportive world around myself that’ll help me move forward.. but it is forever a struggle.

Strateg-a-ry

Now there’s also this deeper side to this that lives in my art.. a story I have to tell.. which is sorta what I’m trying to do with my art and with promotional efforts of that art.. or.. well I guess this is a long story.

See.. the idea is that a part of how you market something is in the story telling.. and the more drama / the thicker the plot.. generally speaking.. the more compelling the story.. so this is a story that’s to be told.. sorta in the art, in the packaging of the art, and in.. let say the promotional materials.

A combination of.. probably shame and lets say.. the trauma stuff.. and general unpleasantness of starring at the darker sides of your being.. and whatever have you.. has a way of making this stuff difficult to talk about, or even hold inside your own consciousness.. but the idea is that this is what my art is to explore.. or to try and explore.. and thus.. in so doing.. I gain some degree of control over it or.. it helps me to grow through it.. or something like that.

Further more.. the stories that are hardest to tell are usually the most important, most valuable stories.. and this is really the gift I have to give to the world.. assuming I’m strong enough to tell it and get through it.

Yeah.. so that’s looks like a decent enough post?

(still have like 20 minutes of downloading to wait through though)

Fleeting hopes

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I don’t really know what to post about.. I’m just sitting in a parking lot with open wifi and figured I should post something…

I’m in this kinda funny zone.. my loneliness has me wanting to post more.. cause hey, at least I have you to talk to, right? Err, are you even there?

I think I’m making some breakthroughs in my struggle with self.. but.. I don’t want to get to excited about this stuff.. but there is a kind of rising sense of hope lurking about.. hope that I could kinda sorta start feeling human.. or like..

Ok, so there’s a whole lot of stuff in my life, and in my psychology…. my life being in some ways an out ward manifestation of my psychology… that kinda keeps me feeling less then human, or like.. like there’s something wrong with me that keeps me from living a life that would be.. sorta less about pain…

On the subject of this problem… what I’m finding is new understandings of like.. what is keeping me here, and how all this is working.. and it seems like the tightness of the weave, that keeps it all in place.. is starting to loosen up a little bit..

The end of the world: My computer died

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This is the end of the world for me.. It seems like some kind of crazy miracle of the gods that this my computer’s death hasn’t sent me spiraling out of control into some suicidal black hole.

The only explanation I can think of is denial.

To understand how apocalyptic this feels for me.. you have to understand two things

  1. Something about my relationship to technology
  2. Something about My life situation

My relationship to technology

I am a media artist.. which has always meant, and continues to mean, that I need the most powerful computer system I can get my hands on… My need for computation power, graphics power, disk space, and RAM… are huge.. several times that of nearly anyone I know.

My computer is where I spend nearly all my time every day. It is the heart of my studio: it is the tool that facilitates my work and life.

For as long as I can remember, every dime I made went into the studio: I’d rather spend money on the studio then underwear or socks.  If I could find a realistic way to live without an automobile I’d so so in a second for the sake of my studio…

My computer that is now not working.. is.. I want to say 5 or 6 years old.. but still pretty bad ass. A Mac Pro with 2 intel xeon processors.. each with 4 processing cores.. all running at 2.8 GHz.. there was.. I want to say 10 GB of RAM… I had two internal drives set up as a soft raid.. all together.. between the 4 internal drives and a Drobo.. there was more then 10 TB worth of disk space.

Now that my computer has died.. I’ve lost access to the Drobo and the soft raid.. which means the projects I’ve been working on and the digital assets that are of considerable value.. I also no longer have a decent audio interface.. which means recording isn’t really happening for me..

I still have this laptop, but I have no video production software on it, nor the ability to get video software onto it which means my content marketing campaign plans are now a none starter… There is neither enough room on this laptop or a means of installing my sound software to continue my music work, on the level I was working on – never mind that this computer doesn’t have nearly enough RAM or processing power.

My life situation

I’m have several social anxiety.. actually “sever social anxiety,” from a clinical diagnosis perspective, is not a strong enough term.. it’s social phobia(s)… pretty serious stuff… which has me on disability.

My disability check is considerably less then $500 a month.. even with food stamps… The income is not always enough to afford to eat the whole way through a month without going to a food bank / pantry.. where they help feed the hungry…

I’m now in a situation where I’m facing eviction and homelessness.. again.. and I don’t know what the moving expense will look like.

My car has some kind of problem with it.. a noise.. that scares me.. and its un-inspected… I don’t know how I’m going to afford to take care of that, pay the citation the police officer gave me for it a couple days ago, and afford the move.

Living a life of this kind of poverty… every bump in the road, financially speaking.. is magnified by huge amounts..  which means life is considerably more stressful.. and indeed anxiety evoking.. then any other economic strata…

I mean.. you can look at some of the most stressful jobs in the world.. but still..  starvation, homelessness, and utter self destruction are generally not even on the imaginable horizon.

The Heart of the Problem

Basically.. I can’t live like this indefinitely… somehow I have to pull myself up and out of this situation… out of this kind of poverty.

It seems.. I sorta don’t have a choice.. I’m an artist.. and there’s just no getting around that.. and the feeling is that the only way to pull myself out of starvation is via doing the artist thing… which seems like quite the long shot.. but…

Well.. with my computer… the one that died.. I could make my music and art.. and I was hoping.. work on a video centric content marketing scheme.. to try and develop an audience that would help bring me out of poverty and perhaps to attract music business people whom I might be able to work with..

But now.. with my computer not working.. all of that is threatened.. and… with it.. a good deal of the hope I had been clinging to.

The only hope really.. is to somehow find the means to have it fixed.. but how do I find the means? I don’t know.

Self doubt in the creative process: My Remix Project

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So.. its late at night.. and tomorrow is the Boston Media Makers.. which means a couple things… #1 That it’s been a month since I’ve written a blog post.. and #2 I should go tomorrow.. but it being as late as it is.. I may not be able to find it within myself to wake from my comma to make the venture out… though it would no doubt be good for me…

Err….

So right now I have to “pimp” my music.. well actually ask you for your vote. All this amounts to is clicking on this here link….  at the end of which is a remix I did for this contest.. and so what I’m asking is you take a listen.. and if you dig it.. to vote for me… as of my last check I’m 28th out of 184.. although I’m not entirely sure how real that number is.

I guess to limit folks making multiple votes.. they ask for your email when voting…

Marketing is story telling: The Story of the Remix

But I should tell you about this production.. and I should.. or plan to.. do a number of blog posts about the production of this remix.. the story.  It seems that every jump into the arena of music production / art making.. for me.. it’s always a story, a drama.

How good am I?

The plot is many fold and I can’t give it all to you here and now.. But.. well here’s the question “How good am I?” For me.. that’s a question that fills me with a certain amount of dread.. My sorta.. response / thoughts / feelings.. with respect to what I think the answer might be.. well there’s many levels to it.

There is a part of me that is confident.. and a part of me that.. well where my feet don’t always touch the ground and I have these grandiose feelings about my work sometimes… but that grandiosity seems kind of bipolar because.. it also swings down into these dark depressive states of wondering who the hell am I kidding.. to think I’m good enough to even bother really….

And so it is that in making the music, making the art.. its like I find that I have to do battle with this question.. these fears… the demons that lye waiting around.. for me surrounding the question… this is my inward psychological challenge.

The other part of the challenge

The next part of it… is that I have no business calling myself an artist.. or this is what I believe.. if I’m not working my ass off trying to make it happen… Now this part of me sorta believes this question of “how good am I?” is sort of a bullshit, besides the point question. It’s the part of me that doesn’t exactly believe in talent.. but believes in muscles… that the more you work out on a muscle group..  the stronger it gets.. and so the point is I need to really work my ass off.. when it comes to this muscle group of music production.

The trouble is I have to fight my way through the demons of self doubt in order to obtain a state of… working my ass of… I have to kind walk on fire.. and.. all this sorta madness.

The measure of success

So on this level the remix was a success because.. I did indeed work my ass off on it. And not only did I work my ass off on it.. but I believe I also grew a hell of a lot from the experience… so there we go.. two victories.

Of course there’s another part of me that says “Look, it was a full time job that ended up taking about a month’s worth of work, and if you win the contest.. you only get $1000… and is that worth all the work you put in? And when you then see that there’s 183 people that I’m up against.. It starts to seem like a really mad thing to try and do.

But… but.. if I were to win.. that would be powerful.. It would be powerful because I put everything I had into this project… and so it would be a kind of affirmation towards working so hard.. towards putting everything you’ve got into a project… and not only that.. to all the fears of not being good enough.. it would say “um dude, you just won in a contest where you were up against 183 other people.” Not only that.. but then there’s the prize money… and your work getting released on an album where you get some kind of exposure and do some kind of reputation building…

And to the degree to which getting into remixing is something I need to do.. as it could be a source of money.. it would be a hell of a first step.

So of course that’s one reason why I’m asking for your vote.. and hell.. even if I don’t win.. but do well as far as people voting for me.. that would mean a lot to!

So what I intend to do is spend the month promoting my remix.. and a big part of that will be writing these kinds of blog posts.. on the story of the production.

So I guess this is one story.

Anyway… so once again.. here’s the link to my remix where you can vote.

Artist’s Depression Journal.. thing, err. confession?

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I don’t know how to fucking write.

I mean I don’t know how to write something that I’ll actually post.

I’m staring in to my head.. its 7 26 AM.. I haven’t gone to bed yet.. and I’m in a kinda dark place.

I haven’t really been able to put my finger on it.. on what’s wrong.. and still.. Jesus, wtf is wrong anyway? Maybe it’s just some kinda brain chemistry strangeness… I’m not sure that it has anything to do with outward material reality.. to be perfectly honest.. I think it’s just those inward demons.

Often when people talk about Demons it’s vice related.. this isn’t that kinda demon.. Maybe that kinda demon is one you don’t wrestle with well enough.. and so it manifests in your material reality.. confronting you that way.. but this… this is more of an inward thing that.. I wrestle with too hard for it… to materialize totally.

As I say that.. I realize.. who the hell am I kidding.. what is my life if not a materialization of the demonic! I mean lets gets serious.. my life sucks.

Hmmm…

And why does it suck? I mean.. not the surface explanations.. I mean the really deep truth, what is that? Maybe I should just sit down and pray.. maybe that would reveal it to me.

Hell.. I don’t even care what the reason is.. I’d just like to get to a better place!

Anyway… so this is what I’m feeling right now.. the thoughts that are going through my head right now.. it’s.. my sense of things right now…  Accept that to explain it by writing is to be forced into some sorta of linear path to creating an image.. and I’m having a hard time expressing it really.

So.. I’m in bed.. sitting up… my cat by my site.. me sitting here with laptop in hand.. and down stairs.. that’s where the studio is.. that’s where the real shit takes place… or where the real shit should take place.. where it would take place if I could just muster the courage.

Or find the inspiration.

I’m working on a music project.. but mostly I procrastinate working on the music project.

I can’t even tell if I’m moving forward on it at all right now.. to tell you the truth.

I’m not sure about my judgement on it… I’ll tell you. Sometimes I’ll take a listen.. and I’ll think “holy crap, listen to that!!!” It’s like some amazing sonic experience.. something very special that I’ve crafted.. and some times I feel like some master artist.. making magick happen.

Other times? Yeah.. total fucking crap.. or not crap.. just.. just how do I find my way through this problem.

That’s the real gist of it.. all art seems that way to me.. .and epic battle.. you go and try and make something.. and what you make is crap.. and you go “oh shit, that’s crap” and you wonder.. what can you do to transmute it into something less crappy.. or.. why is it crap?

It’s like this puzzle you puzzle over.. and slowly you push through it.. you just keep at it.. and over time.. by a process of confronting the problems.. you eventually remove the problems.

See.. it’s all about your perception as the artist.. your aesthetic reaction.. if you hear it and think it’s great… you keep it, if you think it sucks, you change it.. for every element you work with… unless you get lazy or something..  so what happens is that you’re basically imprinting you’re aesthetic reaction onto the sonic canvas.

Now the surrealism of it is.. the way what sounds you’re attracted to, what you’re repulsed by.. has to do with your mood, your psychology.. and so in this way the music becomes like a confession of your experience… and confession that is not necessarily just the confession of the conscious mind.

And so the problems you struggle with in the work.. those are your demons.

But also interesting.. it might be slightly peculiar to music.. especially when the mix engineering bit is a part of the art it’s self.. that there are multiple paths your ear can take through the sonic experience.. and this is really one of the huge challenges in the production.

What happens is you can loose the big picture focus and dwell on these details.. that may or may not matter at all. Hell.. you might be ruining it as a result…

It’s like there’s this giant multiplicity of potential sonic experiences.. at every moment in the music.. and what happens as you’re working is.. you just get stuck on this one… spot. One pathway through the sonic art.

Err, I’ll get more specific in talking about what I’m doing now.

Basically I started out trying to do a drum and bass track.. but got lost somewhere around the way.. in any event I roughed out part of an arrangement… and now I’m going through and.. creating like.. the next level of polish… But it’s really a whole lot more then polish.

I think… I have these first kinda section nailed down pretty well.. and there needs to be a few more sections kinda worked up a little better.. and I think I need to do something with delays in a few points.. like really huge delay where it sounds like… just some giant space or explosion.

Or at least that’s the solution that comes to me.

But I’m also not sure of what’s going on in the bass frequencies.. or if the snare is hitting through hard enough.. and every time I add a detail.. I get really afraid that I’m muck something up.

So what I’ve started to do is the old “lets make each element tiny so that we can have this lush huge experience,” this is an engineering thing.. if in a given moment in the mix.. there’s just one single acoustic guitar playing.. that acoustic guitar can take up all of the frequency space of the mix.. but as soon as you start adding elements.. you have to take away frequencies from that guitar.. and give it to other stuff.. so the guitar becomes smaller and smaller…

And then.. via automation… what you’ll do is.. make that guitar sound bigger, maybe.. when there’s less stuff playing, and smaller when there’s more stuff playing.. and it’s really just a way of crafting the focus.. you don’t really experience it as getting bigger or smaller if you’re the typical music listener.

The album example I always think of for this is Slayer’s Seasons of the Abyss.. the way the drums.. when they are alone get huge.. or the guitars when they are alone get huge.. and the whole thing is like some giant brilliant symphony.. the way the elements play with one another and the way the music flows…

The Next Night:

I woke up at 7 PM “this morning.” It’s 11 40 AM, and I plan to go unconscious soon.. with any luck anyway.

Today I really didn’t get shit done… DP.. my production environment crashed a few times.. work was lost.. and I worked  to bring in a whole bunch of Absynth patches.. into the project.. but kept running up against this memory limitation.. and it was around this time that I learned that my version of DP… the current version…. doesn’t support 64-bit.. it’s 32-bit.. meaning much of my ram it can’t access.. thus the memory problem.

That pissed me off.. cause it’s like hitting you’re head against a wall.. you realize.. you can’t go any further really.. or you cant go far or.. you’re going to have to fucking figure some shit out.. or wait till the next version comes out and you’ve somehow managed to get the money together for it…

Anyway.. I eventually gave up on the project and went to start a new project… and then sorta drifted back to the old project.. to take another look…

I don’t know.. I don’t if the project’s any good or not.. I don’t if it’s just ok, if it’s great.. if it’s a steaming turd.. I just don’t know.. and I guess I have to live with that.

Whats up in my land.. story of passion and art.

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It’s been a long time since I posted.. have a bunch of crap on deck to post.. but it hasn’t been posted yet, so it might just never get posted… and anyway.. I got about 15 minutes till I gotta leave for my therapist appointment.. so I figured… Why not try and spit out something.

I guess the biggest theme that strikes my fancy.. or just seems important for me to hear and hold onto is “believe.” Believe in the stuff of.. well I don’t know what to call it and don’t have enough time to get into it.. but dreams.. and.. passions.. and who you are in the deepest sense and that feeling of purpose you have about life…  about your ability to get where you need to go.. in order to actualize..

So.. that’s maybe one of the biggest themes.

Another big thing is this whole box of philosophical whatever… I think of it as a kind of toy box.. for the intellectual kids.. right? It’s this kind of complex way of understanding stuff that gets beneath surface phenomenology. It’s some badd ass shit.. and its sorta structured into this kind of critique of society.. including stuff like how we run business and whatever.. like critiques of management theory…. good stuff.

And then there’s the art… which is almost like applied philosophy… Like that’s the best way of putting it… Or its as if the philosophy was the theory and the art the practice.

I’m jumping of a giant cliff into the unknown with my art.. It’s pretty scary stuff in a lot of ways.. but.. I’m starting to see certain things emerge… that are like signs of things to come.. where all this jumping into the unknown is heading…  basically it’s heading to… knowing a whole bunch of new shit.. I mean that’s probably what it comes down to…

But it turns my music into something wholly new…. It totally changes the game.. and there’s a larger integration with the media stuff… I see a really kick ass potential here.

Ok.. so lets move onto points of anxiety….. about the art.

The main thing is i gotta keep at it.. and keep at it strong.. and work and work and work.. and find a way of making this stuff.. a lot of it really is coming down to craft..

Craft is like.. well some art is all about craft.. It’s like genera conventions and its about how well you do that genera.. not what concepts you bring to the table… you can roughly divide up artists, and other types for that matter, into the conceptualist’s and the crafts folk…. and in a lot of ways my work really rocks it on the craft level.. that’s always been a big part of my shtick.. but the concepts.. yeah.. that stuff is strong to I think…

But anyway.. .the craft is the thing I’m worrying about now.

I’ve been looking at a whole lot of dance music production.. the techniques.. how you do it..all the little pieces.. and sorta integrating that stuff into my work.. and trying to move my work in a more dance friendly direction.. but it’s not totally been working out.

And then I guess it’s like bringing the mix engineering stuff to the next level.

And really.. more then a lot of all this.. I’ve been focusing on sound synthesis.. Absynth, Kontakt, Massive, Omnisphere.. those have been my main virtual instruments that I’ve been busy programming..  and really the heart of the craft issue for me is.. gaining some real mastery over these instruments.

What else?

Oh.. there’s the subjects of words.. and they can do.. little captured bits of audio.. of life of people talking of whatever.. cut into the music to tell a story.. and all that goes into that kind of story telling and how it integrates into the music and everything.. that’s big stuff… anyway, lets edit and post.

 

One boring blog post you should probably not bother reading

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It’s important to me that I achieve the basic goal of posting regularly.. which means not letting more then a week go buy without a post.. and really ideally… there probably should be about a post a day coming from me and… I’m not sure of the head space I need.

I guess this is what I always think about with respect to blogging.. or I mean successful blogging… Is that it requires a different kind of head trip then the one I’m on.. and I’m not really sure how to get on that other head trip.. and.. and do I even really want that.. enough to do that?

You know that’s the funny thing about success… we all want it.. but how many of us want it bad enough to make it happen… and I suppose it depends on what level of success we are talking about, and just how we want to define success… and all of that kinda thing.

I mean we’d probably all like to be making millions but..

For me… right now.. success is just putting one foot forward, in front of the other.. and keeping up with the trying.. in making my way through life… and success is doing this without letting go of my dreams. And success is.. growing.. and success is… well…. growing is probably the biggest thing I’m always interested in… more so the economic stuff really.

Trouble is, of course, I need to get the economic stuff stuff in order.. carry on… and without it.. i often grow dark.

Well n e who… not much of a blog post.. but it’s tonights post

Time for Bed

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It’s somewhat late at night… no, I take that back, it’s very late at night.. I should be in bed.. Jesus, I have to get up early tomorrow to… and it doesn’t help that I’m feeling sick.

What’s there for me to write about today?

It’s been over a week since I posted.. which is too long.

Have I posted anything on the subject of all the music work I’ve been doing? This month is National Solo Album Month.. a challenge to try and make a solo album in the month of November.. well.. I’m trying… but I don’t know that I’ll really have anything finished come the end of the month..

It doesn’t help that one project I was working on.. not only did it crash.. but I can no longer open the document.. and that was maybe half a weeks worth of work.

I don’t know about this.. as a project for me at this point.. if it’s quite appropriate for me.. I think I’m supposed to work on these real labor of love projects.. not these scramble to get an album finished in a month deals…

I spend a lot of time, each day, working on it.. and a lot of time procrastinating it.. but.. more or less.. I work from the time I get up till the time I go to bed.. mind you there are hours and hours of not doing anything in them middle there…

And now it’s late.. and now I should be asleep…

And my anxiety is all crazy

And.. I’m not quite functional

and.. I’m not quite sure how to get functional and

Well what the hell.. at least it’s a post.. I should post it!