Hurry Up and Wait

I need to remember that this blog is a way for my past self to teach my future self by chronicling my present self's failings.

There's something oh so wrong about that sentence that makes it feel oh so right.

So... um... hubris much?

I'm starting to right again... wow...

I'm starting to write again.

Mistakes make us human. Mistakes are the good stuff.

Mistakes are why a computer will never be able to create a truly beautiful work of art.

So... um... pretentious much?

Is there anything I've gone all in on? It's so much easier to have an out, to spread yourself thin, to do just enough to get started and then falter once you really come up against it.

Case in point: I'm talking to Rachel while blogging while Facebook messaging with Dean while cruising Promotive... and also thinking about the song I'm currently working on.

So... um... distracted much?

Lesson of the day?

FOCUS.

Items On A Desk

An iPhone box. Hand sanitizer. A clip of three of my business cards. Burt's Bees lip balm. A bag of personalized guitar picks with my son's face on them. A FedEx branded chocolate mint. A SanDisk 2GB memory card. A 2010 nickel. An Eric Karros Upper Deck rookie card.

These are all items sitting in a cubby hole. The cubby hole is part of my wife's computer desk. The computer desk houses the computer upon which I type this blog post. The blog post is part of the internet. I'm not sure where that progression was going, but it appears to have gone to wherever that is.

Unrelated items? Yeah. Or maybe not so unrelated.

After all, they occupy the same space now. They're all neighbors. Some of the items are touching. I'm sure some of the items were probably manufactured in the same country.

They all cost money. To produce. To purchase. They're all commodities. Well, except the nickel. But isn't money a commodity nowadays, too?

Why am I writing about items on a desk? Am I that lazy? Or am I that genius...?

Unrelated and unimportant and uninteresting are the new related, important, and interesting, are they not? If they're not, they should be. Because I say so.

It's a pattern, you know. Starting with some sort of vague intention and then devolving into a nonsensical BLob Of Gibberish. You're frustrated. You're annoyed. You're bored. Reading what you've written has made you bored. Listening to the songs you've written... bored. Or unintentionally entertained because you're biased. Bias is not good. Bias blinds you...

Bias can blind you
Especially when you are
Creator and crowd

Why do you like haikus so much? Because they're easy? You like a lot of things that are easy, don't you? Don't you ever want to push yourself? Don't you ever want to set out to do something where you expect to fail... so you can prove that expectation wrong? Aren't you capable of that? Can you answer that question without pushing yourself to that uncomfortable place? Is this paragraph of questions Socratic or another symptom of you liking things that are easy...?

Pretentious. Lable this... pretentious...

I used the French spelling of label because I'm feeling cultured tonight. Fine dining at classy joints can do that to a man... make him feel cultured.

I figured it out. Why this blog feels forced. It's because I can't see the ending. Because I couldn't see the beginning, and the middle is definitely out of sight. Because I can't see the moves. Am I even making moves or am I just treading water, waiting for a lifeboat, taking in water and gasping for air and endlessly moving my arms and legs to barely keep afloat.

I need to learn the moves. Which I guess is the whole point of this blog, this job, this life.

I just wonder... when do you stop learning and start doing?

All this from items on a desk? Am I that lazy? Or am I that... genius...?

*sidenote

Winter is winding down.

*sidenote: I live in California, so saying that "winter is winding down" is purely chronological and has nothing to do with the actual season. It's 77 degrees outside and sunny and beautiful and why would anyone want to live anywhere else in the world? Oh... people live in a bubble out here, which can make it difficult to find something "real"? Hmmm... I didn't know you were so pretentiously judgmental, Glynn.

Winter is winding down. We'll be losing an hour in 8 days.

*sidenote: Sure. We lose an hour in the morning, but you gain that hour in the evening because the sun will still be out when you leave work, so if you want to, say, go for a run or walk to the store or cruise to the beach for an hour, you can because there will be glorious daylight until 7:00pm. So quite yer complaining.

Winter is winding down. We'll be losing an hour in 8 days. I can't wait to start a whole bunch of projects.

*sidenote: By "whole bunch" I mean three. 1) Record my acoustic stuff. A split EP with the wonderfully talented Lexy Baeza. A solo album. Literally, cannot wait. 2) Run. 1st 5K of 2012 is in 5 weeks. And running also means I'll shed some poundage, which is always good for the old heart. 3) Blog more regularly. I need to write more. Not just songs or emails to angry customers but creative bursts of intellectually stimulating (or not) prose.

Winter is winding down. We'll be losing an hour in 8 days. I can't wait to start a whole bunch of projects. And now it's time to go play guitar...

*sidenote: Thanks for reading this...

People are genuinely friendly

But are rarely rewarded for being friendly. They get taken advantage of. They get ridiculed. They realize that it makes more sense to be cold and selfish and only concerned with number one.

Or maybe... just maybe... they realize that being friendly is not a character flaw but one of the fundamental and communal aspects of humanity.

It would be nice if that were true...

We're All in a Blender

There are lots of things that would be interesting if you could combine them in a blender.

Genres of music. Sports. Political philosophies. Parenting methods. Religious beliefs. Ethnicities. Cultural traditions.

Our world is an ever evolving blender. People try to keep things from being mixed, but, without fail, ever more complex combinations occur.
 
One day we will all be the same. If we aren't already...

The cliche...

... is easier to believe than the truth.

Montages in movies are a cliche. They're not the truth. The passage of time is never more blatantly misrepresented than in a movie montage... Really...? The protagonist betters herself that quickly...? Right...

The truth is there are no movie montages but in order to feed the narrative device of exposition in an expedient and proficient manner, the montage is employed.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd... pretention level red. Abort blog... abort blog...

The bar...

... should not be the goal.

"Above the bar" should be the goal. "Way above the bar" should be the goal. "So high that you have to squint to see the bar" should be the goal.

If you reach "the bar" and it was easy..., you just cheated yourself out of being remarkable, which is one step away from "might as well have not reached the bar".

Yes, this is me trying to push myself. Yes, this is me hoping that I don't settle for "good enough". Yes, this will take weeks and months and years of training and reminders and effort and slip-ups. And, yes... it feels good to acknowledge the fact that I'm hoping to fly past the bar and straight into outer space...

Things I Love

Rachel

Chase

My family (Moo, Daddy, Ricker, Julie, Sha, AD)

Guitars (especially my Ibanez acoustic-electric and my Gibson Les Paul Jr. Lite)

Drums

Songs that make my head nod

Golf

My job (sometimes)

This blog

Interestingly enough, each of the things I've listed, at various times, can elicit a much more negative emotion, bordering on hate (but "hate" has such a strong connotation...).  It's in their abilities to bring out the worst in me that makes me most sure that I love them.

Except for "Songs that make my head nod"...  I don't ever really hate them.  Which is why I've stricken them from the list...

don't make me feel pain
unless you want me to want to forget
don't give me too much
unless you need me to never need you