Oh god, its been over two months. Sorry everyone, kinda left you hanging on a rather depressing note. I honestly have not forgotten the blog. I actually blame my last post in a way. It’s not because I was depressed or anything, it was just that when I looked over it, typos and all, it was (and still is) easily one of the better things I have written in quite some time. Feel free to laugh at my perception of good writing if you want. I just know that I happened upon a metaphor that described my situation perfectly. So afterwards I was sitting at the computer, trying to come up with the difficult second album, and it just was not working. I kept going in expecting for another odd essay/story to be perfectly crystalized in front of me. Today, however, I have hit the “fuck it” stage and have decided to ramble, and hope something substantitive comes out again. Ok, the apologies and explanations are done with.
There is a problem with trying to polish things sometimes, be it a piece of writing, a drawing, or even a piece of music. By trying to get rid of the imperfections and rough edges, you lose the inherent energy of the work. the personality, the emotion, the original intent of what you were doing in the first place. Sometimes it is that imperfection that is what saves you. For example, one of my favorite movies is Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, which by most accounts is the equivalent of a cinematic clusterfuck. The story is aggrevatingly obtuse at times, there is no real (intentional) thematic thoroughline throughout the film, as it jumps from idea to idea without having a coherent thread tying it all together, leaving most people who see it wondering why they spent money to see it. If you are looking for a good time, try read the imdb plot synopsis, as this movie is ridiculousness pushed to 11 and then fed into another AMP. Kinda like my hyperbole. But it is for that reason that I love it, because from what I can tell, it is Kelly’s view of the world around him during the latter years of the Bush administration, taken to its illogical extreme. It is a singular vision, seemingly so untouched by focus groups or studio execs that actor/playwrite Wallace Shawn admits in interviews its the first movie he has done where he did not understand his place in the actual plot. It is something that I could not see anywhere else. If i wanted something that had been force fed to focus group and polished to a blinding sheen, I would go watch Transformers again. Its the same reason the live show is almost always better than the album, because there is an energy and enthusiasm that can’t be captured by recording the same song multiple times to find the perfect version of that guitar lick. Its the flaws and sketchiness of it all that is so much fun. I am tempted to try and expand this idea to how it affects my life, but I do want to write again sooner rather than later, hopefully on more topical things. Nite!
