Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

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That almost wound up being a song about a lonely cat. It still might be. There was this line near the end “but the neighbors will come and feed you five times a week,” but i chickened out and replaced it with sappy relationship stuff. Wouldn’t that be a relief to hear me singing a song about leaving to my beloved cat instead of one of the random omnisexual characters that appear in the rest of my songs? But, on the other hand, then it would be a song about a cat. Hmm. Either way, i don’t really think it’s strong enough to make it onto an album, or even a Trio, so it’s sorta moot. But, i’m just happy to have completed it.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3512587/

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#2

my suitcase has laid packed in the middle of the floor
for two hours stacked on top of two days and i am
sitting on the couch thinking it's just either/or
as to whether i'm going or staying.

it's kind of funny how shit like this goes down
all hanging on what is essentially a flip of a coin
but what's funnier is that i have found out
that it's the only way i'll know where to go 

i've got my socks i've got my underwear
i've got a picture of us tucked away with care
between the folds of my memory where no zipper can let it out
and that's how we'll stay for now

my reasoning seems thin if i examine it too closely
but i don't think i can even try to
all i need is to hear the sound of the door closing behind me
or i'll be in a jam, i'll be stuck in a lie to myself

I've got my map of the united states
and i've got my path exactly traced
but eventually i'll point myself back at you
and the sunrise to flatter my eyes
i'll have my guitar in the back seat
and when i hit the brakes i hear the hum of the strings through the case
and i'll know i'm raising the stakes cause i left you behind
i wasn't very kind
and i'm worried sometimes if you're going to eat at all
or how you'll fall asleep without me
i've got a pocketful of quarters and i'll be seeking out
each payphone on each desolate street corner
to sing into the answering machine
cause i hope you'll still want to hear my voice
but either way i won't give you a choice

so my suitcase is still packed
lying in the middle of the floor
the decison comes down to just a matter of either/or
but i hear your key in the door

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3512361/

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I think i’m trying to hard too write Ani DiFranco songs.

Let me qualify that. Ani gave some funny little interview in the last year or two where she said that “Out of Habit” is a bitch to play anymore because it has too many chords. All of her newer songs have less chords than “Out of Habit,” and so to make it match them she effectively chopped out half of the chord progression so now it sounds just like “Firedoor.”


It’s important to keep in mind after hearing this that “Out of Habit” only has eight chords in it, and they aren’t especially hard chords. And two of them repeat. The result of Ani’s elimination of 8-chord songs is that her music is much more hook-ridded then it first turned out, but disappointingly simple once you figure out what tuning and voicing she’s been using. Going through Relief the two most complex songs structurally are “Relief” and “Bridge,’ both of which just tack together several easy chord progressions and riffs to make one decent song. Am i becoming boring before i ever got interesting? Should i be striving for more complex and sprawling chord structures? Should i be looking inbetween the lines for the passing chords? Or, should i just stop second guessing what comes out of my head and enjoy it for what it is? One to think about.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3511487/

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So, i’m an idiot. Did i mention that? All this time i thought the little “battery” light on my guitar’s preamp meant the battery was functioning, when in fact it meant that it wasn’t functioning very much at all. Somehow, reversing the polarity of the preamp solved this problem temporarily, and after fooling around with that for a little while i wised up and bought some 9-volt batteries and now my amp sounds sweet and beautiful like it’s supposed to sound instead of all fussy like it was sounding with the low-battery pre-amp. Right. So, now i’m sitting here having my own spring jam, because it’s beautiful outside and the light shines just right on the middle of my floor so that it seems like a spotlight. This is so much better than that dumb concert i did on Thursday….

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3511365/

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I’m a forgetful boy; sometimes even the most daily and normal things i do get forgotten once or twice a week. Last week i inadvertently left my wash in the laundry room for five days, and the week before i forgot to balance my checkbook, and this week i forgot twice to take my allergy medication. I wasn’t totally crippled because i have a certain amount of medication floating around in my system already, but missing a day tends to impact the next day negatively so having forgotten to take a pill yesterday today i wasn’t in good shape. I felt unfocused, and my face felt numb, and i was physically on the verge of tears the whole morning so much that people kept asking me if anything “was wrong”. And i swear tear ducts must be connected to your brain somehow to make you sad, cause i was in this awful mood to go along with my teary face. For an hour or two i was sure that i was on the verge of some total emotional breakdown, though honestly now i can’t imagine what those problems i conjured up might have been. But, it finally went away at some point when i stopped paying attention to it, and now i’m back to my normal miserable self. What joy.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3496748/