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.

Contrasts (a.k.a. Upon Using Colons like a Smug SOB)

Part 1: A buddy of mine is in the dumps.  He's been there before.  I can understand a lot of what he's saying, not to the extremes he faces, but to a lesser extent.  All the same, I want to be an enabler of awesomeness for him.  It's foolish because I don't think I can really do that.  But I'm a-gonna try.

Part 2: My boss's boss's boss promised to talk to me saying, "we'll sit down sometime next week".  He raised his eyebrows and said: "and I talked to (that person that did your second interview)".  Hm.  "Okay," I said, thoroughly expressing my confusion and disappointment.  Not a good move, but hell, I was confused and disappointed.  Back to that "being a floating ball of patience" thing.  Cross-message?  He told someone that I was on the move, right in front of me.  He can say that and not sit down with me this week.  Great.  I won't condemn the whole company for the actions of one person, but when it's your boss's boss's boss, well, that's not a great sign.

Part 3: I just got done listening to my litter-mate's musical endeavors.  Wait.  If I haven't explained before, "litter-mate" is my term for the people you went through orientation at work with.  Anyway, B and me have been going back and forth for a month now and he finally remembered to bring me a CD of his stuff.  It is pretty good, terribly filthy rap.  I have a pretty good idea of which parts are his.  I listened to it twice and am still working on some of the words.  I would love to be able to go back to work tomorrow and talk to him about some of his riffs or whatever they're called.  I think it's awesome that he's doing what he's doing and am inspired to work harder to do what I do.

Mix all parts, heat to a simmer, then allow to rest.

God, I'm fucking linear.  I could probably give myself credit for being very good at being linear, but all the same...  I put down the above three points and see a triangle.  I want to help my buddy.  I want to help myself.  My litter-mate helps himself better.  I want to emulate my litter-mate.  Then I can help my buddy and myself.  Quod erat demonstradum?  Oh fuck no.

That recipe I published last time had three parts, but do you think you could separate them after they were put together?  Course not.  Any bean you push aside is sticky with cheese and leaves behind some of that "bean juice" from the can.  Hilarious.

Nothing's as simple as a triangle, shapes, one-to-one relationships.  It's all analog, messed-up, untriangulated, chaos.  If you can make sense of it, you're lying.  But that doesn't help anything, so here's my plan: it's time for my buddy and me to have another music recording session.  That's the lesson for tonight.  Here's the twist: I'm gonna dog him to lay down a track too.  Antagonizing friends, well, that can make better friends if done correctly.

I hope.

Books to Read Twice

Just got done with my second pass at George R R Martin's A Game of Thrones.  I read the four books that were out at the time, oh, a while ago.  I let a buddy of mine borrow the books and they've just come back.  I thought I'd crack open the first again, and, dang, it is so much more interesting on the second read.

Already being familiar with the main characters helps a lot.  Also having some time pass before reading the book again let me rediscover plot points and minor characters totally forgotten or never noticed.  I actually laughed a couple times when some obvious foreshadowing jumped out at me or a connection between characters was plainly stated that I didn't notice before.

All this points to the fact that George R R Martin is a great epic fantasy writer.  I'd like to take a stab at the genre sometime, but seriously, there's something wrong with the genre if you have to read the book twice to really appreciate it.  I'm not saying that the first read should always be enough.  There are plenty books out there of all kinds of genres that deserve a second read.  The reader will always pick up on the subtleties that he or she missed the first time around.  But I missed SO much on the first read of A Game of Thrones that the very surface of the story had to hold everything together enough for me to be interested in the second book... and a later second read.  Martin succeeded.  That's craft.  But if that's the standard I have to hold myself to get into the genre, well, I think I might have to approach it differently.  In fact, I know I'll have to approach it differently.

Here's the thing, with A Game of Thrones, there are just way too many people and plots to keep straight.  I guess that can happen to anyone when they write a paperback that's more than 800 pages long.  Yeesh.

Hm.  Might be time to figure out how I'm gonna crack into the fantasy genre.  I figure it's gonna form into some free online serial that just grows and grows.  It would be a first book that I didn't care about (check), it would be practice (check), and it would be out there for anyone to read (check) while playing with the idea of getting people familiar with the grand scale of an epic one chapter at a time.  Hm.  If I get good at it, monetizing options are limited, but I can't imagine that the publishing houses are going to be doing much better than the music labels soon.  They're gobbling each other up already.

Hm.

December

Just got back from a small party where I won the "Appetizer of the Chili Cook-Off Award 2012".  I was a shoe-in, being the only one to actually bring an appetizer to the soiree.  It was glop, yes, glop and chips.  Mm.  Wanna know how to make it?

Glop
One part beef, browned and drained.
One part Velveeta (Mexican is best in my opinion)
One part Brooks chili beans (hot or mild)

Put it all in a pot and melt it down, stirring occasionally, over medium low heat.  Bring a bag of tortilla chips and gorge yourself silly.

There was also one chili entry and one dessert entry.  The chili came off the the internet, a pulled chicken and corn, soupy deal that was pretty good.  The dessert was a crispy, sugary, chocolaty, butterscotchity, peanut buttery something-or-other called, uh, Scotcharoons I believe.  Also good. So everyone was a winner tonight.  The hostess was obviously disappointed at the low turnout.  I could empathize.  This is one of the main reasons why I seldom throw parties.  It's hard to find out how many of your fake friends aren't even willing to come over after all your real friends left town long ago.

December.  Damn December.  I blame it for my poopy mood.  I could say some really ugly things about it, but I wouldn't really mean them.  It's not December's fault that it resembles so many things that I don't like about myself.