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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The cool thing about this (other than how my typing speed and accuracy increases when i’m drunk) is the excellent time that i had. I saw friends. We made dinner. We exchanged gifts. I was dressed in a coordinated fashion until i started stripping on the dance floor. The entire affair made me feel entirely adult, complete with multiple wines before dinner, discussion of skiing over entrees, planning a trip to Spain over cocktails, and an excellently played game of chess throughout. Though most of the attendees are still undergrads, we definitely have found a way to have fun that isn’t just some beer-soaked party, and that manages to be witty and still just drunken enough to remind us we’re in our golden years.

It’s been a good week.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8427274/

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So, like, i might be just a little wee bit intoxicated. Nothing to worry about, i assure you. It all started with our pollyanna dinner, where i unexpectedly scored the White Stripes album that’s been topping critic’s polls and Dance Hall at Louse Point, which i’ve neglected to buy for quite some time now. By the time of gift-unwrapping i had only imbibed a glass or two of wine, and so i made a trip to the kitchen to ask Ross to upgrade my liquor intake a bit.

That’s where the downward spiral began. About two hours (and four double-strength mixed drinks later) i’m el-trasho.

The road to el-trasho began innocently enough with orange juice, peach schnapps, and orange Grey Goose vodka, but soon thereafter it seemed to involve several of my friends circling the room in clown-sized bicycles and someone starting a huge fight with a large loaf of french bread. A drink later and i was playing power air-chords to Dookie, swinging around a riding crop in the air, and dueting with Kate on vocals. The next drink (a “bullfrog”) found me MC-ing tracks 1 & 3 from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in spectacular fashion. Then there was a lot of club music (the dance moves during which may have earned me a death threat from Lindsay). And, then, just when they thought they were safe, i found a copy of The Immaculate Collection.


Let’s just say i still remember all of the choreography to “Vogue.”

Ross was terrified. Kate was stunned. Lindsay was sure i was gay. I was breathless.


After that i might have climbed up the bars on the front window, but the important thing is that i made it home in a coherent state and managed to log on to the internet. Rock on.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8427205/

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The only good bit i can locate in all of that is that it looks as though my co-assistant-stage-manager is none other than…

Yes, that’s right, the girl from the date. Could life get any more like a WB drama?


By the way, if you want the previous four posts to make the proper amount of sense (or, at least the amount of sense i intended them to make, which may or may not add up to a proper amount of sense), read them bottom to top.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8396198/

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Blogging is not a daily column. I don’t even have to post everyday, as one of my readers just reminded me as i lamented my headache-induced writer’s block. I don’t have to post every day because i’m only posting for me… i’m putting up the effort, and the editing, and the $30 a month that keeps my website functional as my bank account gets inexorably smaller and smaller.

Are you starting to see where those other posts were headed? I am tired… tired of having to learn all of the foundations that lay beneath the successful artifice of art, and having to be responsible for them all on my own. I am tired of spending endless hours programming my site and weeks in the studio just for a paltry 100 copies of my demo and a thousand readers a week. I am tired just at the thought of having to create a new layout or having to mix down another demo. I don’t want to do it. I just want to play, and to write, and to have an amount of attention paid to me that has some relation to the effort that i put into my work and the quality that emerges. Even double the readers, or five times the listeners, probably wouldn’t be enough for me … because even after my in front of the scenes work is paid adequate attention i’m still stuck behind the scenes like the Wizard behind the damned curtain, sweating away as he produces such a spectacular show.


I don’t think this means anything… i’m obviously not quitting or going away. I’m just so tired… tired of having to spend a year on music courses so i could have a key to the studio that i hate, and tired of earning A’s in programming just so i can properly sort out the PHP i program the site with. Tired of having to beg to be a mere assistant stage manager when we all know i’d rather be in front of any curtain, anywhere. I just… i don’t know how i’m supposed to be heard at all, otherwise. Maybe you could call it paying my dues, or maybe it’s just my own particular burden (and not such a bad one, at that), but the charm is wearing off … what was once exciting is now my dread of quarter inch to eighth inch cable adapters, and my absolute dread of photoshop, and my remorse over spending half of my education learning how to make what i want to do work, instead of doing what i want to do.

Conclusion? Who knows… either one step closer to sending out demos, or one closer to subway busking. Two steps forward, two steps back, same old me.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8396050/

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I’m going somewhere. I am.

I am nothing but frustrated thinking about my 2002 demo. I am a faithful student of the Ani DiFranco school when it comes to songwriting, and that means that when i have enough songs to track an album i have to start actually tracking the album. Of course, for me (and Ani), this tends to result in having a surplus of songs once i get to recording them, but that just makes the selection on the record stronger.


I am not frustrated because i’m going to have to leave songs that i like off of the album, though. I am frustrated by the thought of recording. I do not want to go through a repeat of last year… locking myself sweating and cursing into the studio for an entire week of claustrophobia and flubbed starts and sweating and hunger. It isn’t fun. The whole act of keeping my wires straight and making sure i have all my volume knobs right and setting up the compressor totally drains me, and all i am left with is the urge to get down some solo performances as fast as i can. It doesn’t make me want to play any more music than i have to play.

Having developed a downright fear of the studio (which i (lamentably) have to enter eventually if i ever want to hear the single i recorded this summer), i am suddenly interested in making other plans. Plan A is to set up my home computer with a new sound card and buy a microphone and just do the whole thing in my room; i could work on it at any hour, and make endless edits and and overdubs. I like the idea… it seems like the way that excellent playful records are made, and i’m sure i would wind up with much stronger material if i got the chance to take more than a handful of shots at each song.

On the other hand, i don’t even want to worry that much… i want to just give up my power and send out some three song demos to record labels both small and large and wind up signed with a producer who can worry about what tone the bass need to complement the acoustic guitar and what side it should be mixed to. Of course, that goes against everything … against my possessiveness of my songs and against all of the independent music i listen to. However, there comes a point where i am tired of trying to be heard all on my own, and i just want someone to be able to listen to me… and sometimes the easiest road to that isn’t sitting in my room recording Trios.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8395796/