Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

Archives for 2011

Work/Life balance is bad for you

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Editor’s Note: For reasons unbeknownst to me, I never hit publish on this post when I first wrote it on 11/30/11. I have a slightly different perspective on this topic now, having worked at a start-up and become a parent, but I still find value in the thoughts of a prior me. That’s the entire point of this blog. I’ve edited about five words, added about 30, and retroactively published it to the blog at the point it was written. – PM, 6/14/2016

If you are striving for work-life balance as if it is some complex and delicate equation where both sides can be equal at all times you are doing it wrong. I don’t think I would be as happy or as successful if I had terrific and constant balance between the two.

Over the summer I went out to lunch with an intern from outside of our department who I only knew from hallways and elevator rides. While we ate she quizzed me on what I do for a living, and what I do at home. Her jaw dropped as I unfurled my litany of activities and relationships – and this was a super-active student at an Ivy League school!

She asked me what I skipped to keep myself going, and I answered truthfully. “Meals, laundry, current events, going out at night.”

And I love it. Not just my life, but my friends who are marathoners and magazine editors, fundraisers and foodies.

Work-Life balance says we should learn how to keep the peanut butter and jelly of our home and work separated. Stop working after work. Stop bringing devices to the table. Build downtime into your schedule. Do some chores every day. The theory is, if we make more time to live as people at home, we’ll have less distractions to work with focus at the office.

On this, I call bullshit. If I strove for that kind of balance I wouldn’t average a promotion every 22 months, or be on an unbroken streak of playing a show every month for over a year. All that would be different is that I’d have perfectly folded laundry and I’d watch a lot of inane television shows.

That said, I don’t think the things work-life balance experts suggest are entirely wrong. Instead, I think we need to focus on a “passion/passive” balance.

What’s the difference? I think of it in two parts.

1. Work and Life should be interchangeably exciting

Why should we treat the work brain and the home brain as two separate entities, like hoopy frood Zaphod Beeblebrox? Our goal in life should be engaging 100% in what we’re doing at all times – even when we’re sleeping!

If what makes me feel engaged is writing a project plan at midnight, so be it. Similarly, if I didn’t have the passion of my blog or my music tugging at my brain, my creative work would have no urgency.

Does that mean I should skip dinner for a project plan, or interrupt a meeting to post a blog? God, no. That would make me a moron. Do I need work-life balance to not be a moron?

If you let your passion drive your life, both work-you and home-you can be engaged and productive. Instead of listless email checks at night just to be the first-responder, you might whip open your laptop late at night when a bolt of inspiration about a big project hits you.

That’s totally healthy, and totally passionate.

2. Idleness is the holiday of fools.

That’s what the Chinese food fortune presiding over my desk reminds me every day. I disagree with the idea of scheduling daily chores and regular downtime. Do you want to remember your year by the amount of daily chores you did or the amount of time you made to sit on your couch?

Instead, recognize that even when you love life you can’t be passionate all the time. When your passion ebbs it’s time for some high quality maintenance and planning.

A few weeks ago I worked five days, took two classes, played two shows, held a rehearsal, and loaded in and out of a conference. It was awesome – one of my best weeks ever – and I would have never accomplished it if I had scheduled in downtime. But at the end of it I had a Saturday of reading in my PJs, which meant I also had the chance to catch up on maintaining my life.

Everyone is a different blend of introvert and extrovert and we all need a different mix of passive downtime relative to our passionate uptime. Prescribing that we need thirty minutes a day of meditative dish washing might not be for everyone. You can’t prescribe idleness the same way you can recommend how many ounces of water to drink each day.

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In the words of my thought-partner Britt and I, this is “FAME.”

FAME isn’t being famous. FAME is the act and feeling of constantly achieving your wildest dreams (they start small at first, then grow; FAME is never over), and having friends, family, and eventually strangers support you in your endeavors.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Best wishes from your oversharing author and the CK family, here to christen our dining room table on my one carnivorous day of the year.

hours in between

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Last night we had a “play everything” Filmstar rehearsal for tomorrow’s free show at Fergies with Cris Valkyria and the Opponents.

I joke that I love playing bass because only having to worry about one string at a time gives me plenty of time for choreography. It isn’t entirely a joke. When I am playing lead guitar or singing lead while playing rhythm I have no room for other thought. There’s not much room for mindfulness of how I’m standing or if I need to tighten up a rhythm or a change.

Playing bass leaves room for those thoughts. I can actually improve at every rehearsal, instead of simply maintaining.

It seems as though Glenn brings his new songs in pairs. The last pair, “Weight of the World” and “Silence Kills” were both incredible songs that I was lucky to get in on early. As a result, my bass lines are a big part of the backbone of each song, in some cases intertwining with Glenn’s guitar lines or Zina’s rhythms.

His new pair, “She’s Gone Home” and “The Hours In Between” are just as genius, but different. I don’t know if it’s that Glenn was farther along in his process, or that I hear them as more of a gestalt. Either way, I could tell immediately it wasn’t my job to act melodically or contrapuntally on these two.

Sometimes bass must be the basis.

“She’s Gone Home” clicked for me first. One of the first times he played it for us he remarked that it was slightly patterned after “She’s Leaving Home,” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Between rehearsals I listened to the album (never a chore), and realized a driving rhythm that matched Glenn wasn’t the right thing for the song. It would make it too heavy.

When we reconvened I had a neck-striding walking bass line. Glenn’s eyes lit – it sounded like it would fit perfectly with a riff he was working on.

“Hours In Between” is something else entirely. Try as I might, I cannot seem to pin down what it wants from me. I have some of the elements in place – a heartbeat pulse of bass on the verse, a quick hammer on the chorus, scales at the close. Yet, there’s something about its personality that I’m having trouble with. It goes from gray regret to wistfully sunny, and I need to be the ground beneath E as she sings us through the journey.

I’ll figure it out eventually. “Millionaires” used to be my least favorite Filmstar song, both to hear and to play, and now it seems like it might become the lead single from our next EP. How long did it take to figure it out? About nine months. We kept playing it during that time, of course, but I knew that it wasn’t right. One day it just clicked. Now I love the whole mess of it, a sweaty disco protest song.

I know the personalities of these songs better than mine or Gina’s.

As it turns out, not all my spare mindfulness is spent on choreography.

Arcati Crisis @ Studio Luloo

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That was the best semi-unplugged electric rock set i’ve ever played with Zina on brushes for the first time and, technically, laryngitis.

That’s the summation of this story, but it’s not the whole of it.

When Gina and I were getting confident about Arcati Crisis (generally defined as starting with learning “Apocalyptic Love Song”) we made a list of all of the open mics in the area and tried to go to a new one every month. Some of them were utter trainwrecks. Others were so snooty we never really clicked.

Also, there is the possibility that sometimes we were terrible.

In this campaign of taking Philly by storm we happened upon Studio Luloo, which is actually in Oaklyn, NJ. It was a row-home-width first floor with a couch and chairs placed nose-to-nose with a stage area ready for a four-piece band. Owner and host Sara O’Brien cultivated a total open door policy for her local community, which meant we saw studied experts as well as kids playing in front of people for the first time. She also bought us all pizza. The featured artist was our now-compatriot Ryan Williams and their monitor mix was superb.

We were hooked on Luloo. We later returned as a featured artist (maybe around when we started playing “Better”), but hadn’t been back since we graduated to Zina on drums.

A few weeks ago I noticed Sara and co-conspirator John Shaughnessy talking about a new space for Luloo that would allow them to broaden their mission of bringing arts to kids in the community, and I asked if that meant they needed some featured artists. Thus, we found ourselves in Oaklyn last night playing a full band appearance in a Luloo’s new converted retail shop front, adjoining a pizza parlor.

SNJ band Best Wishes, who turned in a cool unplugged set that they abbreviated on our behalf. Can't wait to rock at full length and volume with them at a later date. © Gianna Vadino 2011

(This was after Jake and I mistakenly wandered into a children’s dance studio, where I realized our repeated peeking in to ascertain if it possibly doubled as Luloo surpassed looking out-of-place to cross-over to appearing slightly lecherous.)

The new Luloo is at least three times the size as the old one, has room to talk and mingle, and an actual raised stage with a bonus drum riser in the back! Plus, all the same welcoming vibe from John and Sara, who hold casual chats with the performers on stage and never let them leave without a chant of “One! More! Song!”

While we enjoyed  unofficial house band Best Wishes knock out a special acoustic set, Sara leaned over my shoulder. “You have drums now, huh?” she asked. I affirmed that we indeed did.

Apparently, Sara was easing into the noise-at-night situation with her new neighbors, and we trying to put the rocked up open mic acts earlier in the evening. Except, we are rocked up and the evening was no longer early.

Not wanting Zina’s commute to go to waste, Best Wishes graciously bowed out after two songs to allow us to set up and make with the rocking at the most reasonable volume we could muster.

What made this interesting was (a) I was still on the tail-end of my laryngitis after largely not speaking for four days, so wasn’t entirely sure I could rock at all, and (b) Zina would apparently be playing with brushes, which I didn’t even realize she owned. To accommodate, our electric was turned down to unplugged levels, and Jake was similarly quiet on bass. We were at half the volume of a rehearsal.

It turned out to be a perfect combination. While I was a bit awkward on electric for Gina’s “American Michaela,” our debut of “End With Me” felt incredibly right. “Real End” resolved from a swirling mix of guitars to a swelling rock song. “Better” regained its sometimes elusive sighing resign thanks to the brushed drums and me going easy on my voice. We closed with a measured “Apocalyptic Love Song” less like a lament and more like a warning.

We ended with a full-band interview with Sara (everyone kept stealing “David Bowie” as an influence and favorite album, so my answers were Tracy Bonham and Like a Virgin, respectively). We stayed for another hour or so, until the open mic wound down to friends sitting around a table trading songs. It will take Sara a few months to build the community at the new Luloo to match what she had at the old one, and I’m really happy became a part of it so early.

Studio Luloo celebrates its fifth anniversary on Saturday. It is located at 215 W. Clinton Ave., Oaklyn, New Jersey. It is not the dance studio or the pizza parlor.