17.6.09

How now, a rat!

What have I been up to, eh? Well, not much. Just hanging out with friends and working, mostly. Lots of band practice. Big plans though. I guess this'll be an art post.

Planning a variety of projects for this summer. First, hello blacksmith will be recording and releasing our EP, which will be good, since then we can give those with t-shirts their cds, and sell both at once! Anyways, we played a show last Friday at The Basement, and it was probably the best show we've done so far, and we think we're ready to record. The settings have been difficult to ... set ... but otherwise, we have a rough take of all our songs (minus the one without a drum track). We started writing new material this week, and we're looking to get an opening set at Eclipse sometime this summer.

On the subject of shirts, it's my hope that we can restart the "production shop" to get some more, and new, shirts out there. The gangsta penguin shirt is a fan favorite, but we have some other ideas we'd like to see put out there. Look for the other half of our 'record label' name, for example, and don't be surprised at other animals appearing as well...

As for my personal projects, I'm writing more acoustic music. I'm considering fooling around with recording, we'll see where that goes. I've discovered that I get rather impatient with the recording process -- I'm that guy that just wants to play the guitar. Now. Please. Still, it'd be fun to try. I'm also wary of what I sound like when I'm not singing punk music. I don't have a lot of confidence in that respect.

But life goes on. We've got a can of spray paint that I plan on using in conjunction with some stencils on my new water bottle and my pickguard. Should be cool. Also, poetry. Slam poetry, regular poetry, lyrics, whatever.

I'd like to collaborate with people more this summer, too. I got a few responses, but one of them is in Maine and another is always wary of doing things with me (running, for example). I do have a joint poem to revise though, with this gal. Oh, and apparently I'm getting skyped for some team slam poetry. Although... he's sort of dropped off the flats of Texas, so we'll see.

12.6.09

Hence shall we see, if power change purpose, what our seemers be.

Big problem:

I can no longer post poetry.

The reason?

Policies like this, which are not uncommon for 'first serial rights' submissions:

"Work that has appeared online is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted."

Facing this realization has caused me not to want to post at all. If I can't post my own poetry for fear that it'll get crawled and archived, and thus be available 'on the internet' for all time, how can I feel free to post anything at all?

How can I share my work with my friends and loved ones if I can't physically give it to them, and cannot post it somewhere?

And further, where does a policy like this stop? "[H]as appeared online" is incredibly vague -- obviously publishing on a serious website would be a problem, but this idea encompasses more than that. This blog has incredibly low traffic (I've been tracking it, it's pitiful), but still counts. If I upload things to dropbox, are they "online"? How about an even more ubiquitous example: can I even use GoogleDocs to type up my work?

10.6.09

Scarce confesses that his blood flows, or that his appetite is more to bread than stone

More tomorrow. I'm addressing one of the other issues that has caused me to stop doing blog updates.

I'm looking for collaborators on creative projects. If you're interested, send me an e-mail. I do visual art (not very well), poetry (much much better), slam poetry, prose, limited composition and guitar. I also really like reading. :) That's more of an aside though. =P

9.6.09

Thou, nature, are my goddess; to thy law my services are bound.

I wanted to apologize for the general overshare going on here at the moment. I'm trying to deal with things and this is a pretty good outlet, it seems. I'm reading again, at least. :) Still, bear with me while I figure things out.

8.6.09

2 step

Another issue that has been occupying me recently is my own lack of motivation. I've been getting tired very easily, and the answer to that is to eat well and exercise. But that takes time and more energy, and so it all just sort of spirals down into not doing anything and being tired. This is similar to my loneliness spiral.

It makes it very difficult to do anything when I'm always tired. It also makes it difficult when I have very little personal time (due to work), and even less time personal creative time (due to hanging out with people). This means that I don't get anything done creatively and get frustrated about it. Hello Blacksmith is currently where I get most of my creative energies out, which is cool, because it's hanging out and creativity at once, but I also do more than play punk music.

I write music, poetry, lyrics, I draw, I sing, I practice spoken word.

All of those? Haven't happened.

Sitting outside enjoying the sun? Nope.

Reading? Hah!

Time only factors into the motivation issues. Time is not the problem. Motivation to use the little time I have for creativity is.

Now I know why people never leave school. It's a completely different structure for your time.

Updates from the sidelines

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've had a lot on my mind. This may turn into a "thinky" post, so watch your step with the ellipses and mind the gap.

Still working. Life's still ... half working. We're hitting a slow spot at work in terms of the "development life cycle" (not the best picture). We're stuck in design, as this is a large project, and there are still a lot of things we haven't talked about yet.

I mean... we did go through the cycle once, and got our first super-rough test site up. The basics work, but now it's time to move on to a lot of other things. Our basic functionality is there, but all of the other "basic" functionality people seem to want needs to be implemented, but first, designed, and that's where the difficulties are.

All of this just leads up to the fact that I'm not too enthralled by work right now (hence, writing a blog post). And I still have to be here and wake up and be tired and all that big band. People being home means that I spend all my time seeing them, and I'm ... well, I'm still in school mode, specifically school mode without constant companions. I'm used to having and taking personal time whenever I feel like it. And I'm not used to people planning things -- the folks I started hanging out with at the end of the year just called and we did stuff, there was no planing stage.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hanging out with friends, and seeing people. In fact, I've started getting lonely when I don't see people, and then my "must be independent of all people, ideas and objects" psyche feasts on that and forces me into deeper troughs of loneliness.

Last week was really difficult for me. If you know emotional difficulty, fill in the blank.

This all leads up to a friend telling me to "cheer up, emo wench!" Which makes more sense in context, but it was still sort of not what I thought I needed to hear. It did work though. I felt much better that day, and in subsequent days.

So I guess ... thanks for startling me into trying to fix my life? Turns out you know me better than I do.