Comparing Oneself to DJ Shadow Hurts Tremendously

So, it's true, I'm listening now to DJ Shadow's mind-fucking-blowing Endtroducing for the first time in a long time...  After the first track, I felt my very will fall apart.  Damn it.  I lost that scratched up and skipping CD a dog's age ago and so, in the same way that one might replace a blown tire or a book they continually lend out without expecting it to be returned (100 Years of Solitude in my case), I recommitted to DJ Shadow and actually purchased the album AGAIN electronically.

Here's some advice to those who steal from artists: do not steal from those you appreciate.  I know there is a new economy for talent and art.  Live shows vs. label profits, blah blah blah.  But all the same.  Refuse to steal from those you appreciate.  It makes for a better world.  And it makes you less of a dick (slightly).

The album, well, I haven't gotten through all of it, but the start of the album is like a thrust of land into the ferocious, churning waters.  What he has done with sound, I would do with the written word and tabletop game design, if I could.  But seriously, DJ Shadow is a genius, crystallized in this album.  Damn.  If you don't have it, you're missing out.

Endtroducing.  Don't steal it.  Buy it.

So I was thinking about how clumsy my tabletop game was turning out to be and how clumsy the new (and really good) tabletop games are as well...  And so I started to think about how to start all over again...  And I figured it out!

Now I have lots of work and research to do, but done quickly enough, I'll have the burgeoning, nay, bloating tabletop market overwhelmed by my genius!

(Sorry, I'm just trying to pump myself up for once)

The Last Blah Blah

So, it's time to poop or get off the pot, as some say.  The only thing this blog is doing is giving me a false sense of accomplishment by maintaining an uninteresting account of blah blah on a regular basis.  So!  Goodbye schedule and hello meaningful writing.  Hopefully, I can do meaningful writing on a semi-regular basis, but this has been garbage and for that I apologize.

Stay tuned.  Or don't I guess.  I'll post regardless.

A Coupla Daze A Christmas

Upon being a shaky believer at best, a comfortable agnostic, and an atheist that despises the first two, I don't really value Christmas much other than a chance to see family and old friends.  All the same, all the glitz and happiness that floats over the mire of anxiety, overspending, and exclusionary practices of the holiday, well, it  makes me feel good in a fuzzy kinda way.

Problem being that I got nothing done.  Jesus Christ, I have all my shopping ahead of me, and none of the fun.  And on top of that, apparently I'm really really poor now, considering my income.  So go ahead and blame me for not pulling myself up with my bootstraps.

Merry Christmas.  What a fucking world.

A little gift to myself, I'm listening now, as I write, to Sorega Doushita by the Delta 72.  I hope, when I break out and make it big, that I'm not as awesome as the Delta 72.  The trick is to make the scene as an A-.  The Delta 72 was an A+.  And so few know them or miss them now.  I saw them a few times and loved each show.  They were A+ and therefore doomed.

Same thing with writing.  Same thing with tabletop games.  Too much polish makes for slip.  A- is the level to shoot for.  When I wrote about that Game of Thrones thing, did you know that the author wrote about very detailed scenes of sexual activity between a thirty-something man and a thirteen year old girl?  The scenes are there.  I'm not worried.  It fits the world and it fits the world.  But Jesus Christ.

We Deserve Ourselves

"Apparently nobody likes working there but the pay is good."

I wrote that in my last post and didn't find it disturbing enough to recoil like I'm recoiling now. What I said is a pretty stupid thing to consider. Here I am, in one of those wonderful periods of a certain time (now) matched with a certain place (here) when people can make whatever they want of themselves with the least amount of obstruction (early 21st century USA), and all I want is a crappy job that can pay my mortgage and bills? A resound FUCK THAT is in order, it seems.


And I apologize for not realizing that sooner.


I want to be a woodworker. I want to carve beautiful things. I would love to make my own dinner set, table and chairs. I could do that, if I could find the devotion. Now's my chance. The information is in front of us more than any other generation. That's the point. We have an unbelievable amount of free information. How do we use it? Well, I guess that's up to us.


I want to be an author (I'm working on it, I swear). If I could write something that affects someone else like Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (translated, of course) affected me, I would know that I did something great. One year, I bought my bookish family a copy of 100 Years of Solitude for Christmas. Yes, all of them. They've never spoken to me about it since. It makes me worry that I'm not a part of my own family. So be it. If you haven't read the book. Do so, twice, with some time apart.


I want to be a welder. How cool would that be? Not just to mend, but to create. I see the towers of our day and wonder how they could possibly keep standing while the world spins and we all run around inside of them. There is science and art in construction (and why would we every consider them separately?).


I watched a coworker struggle to put together a sample of a certain toy chest we carry. He did it admirably, eventually. "Unscratched and square!" I said in praise. "Yeah," he said, "look at my luck." That's truth.


I want to be a musician (goddammit!). I know the theory to a point, because music (at least in these westren climes) is structured and predictable. These days, music people have the pop music stuff down, totally formulaic. And that's cool. I want to write stuff and sit on a stage at a bar and have everyone ignore me. That's a musician.


I want to do work that is worth doing. The more I think about it, the more I hate gyms. What a fucking waste. Sure, you can run a treadmill, pump deadweights, do classes... Fuck that. Because you could do physical labor for any number of worthy causes. Imagine expending your labor to improve your neighborhood. I know, weird, right?


We deserve ourselves more than anything else.

Dark to Dark

So I worked dark to dark yesterday.  I did again today.  And I will again tomorrow if the bug that's been sweeping through my coworkers doesn't land on me.

And I didn't get that management gig.  Not really surprised.  Basically it comes down to them wanting me to be a bit more familiar with the ins and outs of the store before I start running it.  Fair enough.  Unfortunately I may not be there long enough to learn.

My old buddy who left my old job before I did just called yesterday and he wants to get me a job back doing basically what it was I was doing before at a different place.  Sadly, it is tempting.  Having escaped that life, I am not terribly excited about jumping back in again, if they'd even let me.  Apparently nobody likes working there but the pay is good.  So there's that.

This year's New Year is going to be like no other.  Already, I am preparing for major changes.  It will be spectacular, most likely painful, and totally awesome.  I feel like 2013 is going to be my year.  Why?  Can't say.  Just a hunch.  Maybe it's because of that crazy Mayan calendar.  Just like to world to end on me when it's clearing going to be my year coming right up...

Whoa Whoa Whoa

Sweet Regis, it's two weeks until Christmas and I am not even thinking about it yet.  Time to start thinking about it I guess...

I was at work today and, yes, the discussion was delayed for a reason.  I just passed my ninety days and they want to do my review first before talking about any moving up in the company.  Whatevz.  There's a chance that this can all be resolved tomorrow but I'm not holding my breath.  I was told directly that these weren't intentional setbacks, but again, I'm not trying to get excited either way.  Maybe I'll know by Christmas.

Back to Christmas.  Holy crap.  I gotta get my act together.  Fortunately, I'm broke this Christmas and people aren't expecting much from me.  Phew.  What a relief!

Writing has been going pretty well lately.  I'm starting an old idea from a totally different perspective, which seems to be a more natural direction for me.  The words aren't exactly pouring out, but I'm laying some decent framework down and enjoy writing it.  Speaking of which...

Compliments Are Exhausting

I was at work a long time today and I'm pretty pooped.  Gonna keep it short.  Compliments are exhausting, sometimes.  Two individual ladies, a pair of ladies, and three couples declared with much aplomb that I was "a lifesaver", "the best help ever", "the awesomest person right now" (nice restriction and restraint to that compliment), and "simply amazing".  No kidding.  Another was "so grateful for my help" and the last was "so glad (she) came here so (she) could have (me) help (her)".  I jotted them down to remember.  And I only started jotting them down after a few had come and gone.  One added, "and knowledge is power.  And now I am powerful."  I didn't roll my eyes.  Now that's salesmanship!  

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think I've gotten that amount and that quality of praise since I was potty training.  And these compliments were from total strangers, not my mother.

During my training on the floor, yes, all 12 minutes of it, I was appalled at the salesmanship I witnessed.  Yeah, it was polished, it flowed smoothly, it was knowledgeable and even somewhat witty.  But something in the back of my head was retching.  "False!" it screamed.  And the one major thing I'm worrying about is if I'm turning into that salesman.  I don't think so.  But the worry is there.  I'd like to think that the compliments I receive means that the customers are seeing me as a force for their good.  Because, when it comes down to it, only half of my customers bought something today.  The other half had more to think about and I let them go.  Batting .500 on sales?  Is that good for a salesman?  I don't know.  But batting about .600 for awesome compliments and 1.000 for compliments in general...  Not bad, I guess.

But back to why compliments are exhausting.  It's because I have other things to do at work.  And that's all my bosses see.  For what I make, I care a literal fuckload about how my department looks and whether any of my coworkers need help or not.  But when it comes to measurable metrics in their eyes, constantly doing projects on ladders and carrying heavy objects that others refuse to move and (yes) escorting coworkers to their cars after dark takes up exactly zero time.  And when I fail to do their specific task set for me, they mention it.  "You're right," I say.  "Too many interruptions."  To which they have little to say.

At the same time, yesterday, a cohort in my department told me with a straight face that I do everything right.  I shrugged it off but he reiterated.  That puffed me up pretty good after that for a while.  I know I've written before about being complimented, but it is still a really novel thing for me coming from the workplace.  I went almost ten years either being complimented by people I didn't like or ignored at best by the rest.  There was a real dearth of thumbs-up through my first decade of work.  And I don't think I'm alone.  There are so many thankless jobs out there.  At least mine isn't thankless this time around.  It may be exhausting, and pitifully underpaid work, but it is in one sense very gratifying.

I may be the only person in the world that will be thankful when it's all said and done for having the chance to experience retail.