Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Creative

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I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with a reader who actually listens and responds to my Trios named Grant since i got out of the hospital, and it’s brought something about myself to light that is central to my current unhappiness. In short, i am imprecise. It isn’t because i lack attention to detail, or the intelligence or skill to see such details through, but because they require too much time and energy. Why do i like to act but not to do shows at Drexel? Because i like the thought of acting as getting on stage and portraying a character, but i don’t like doing the same lines and the same movements the same way every time.

Of course, in almost any semi-professional theatre the entire point is to assimilate the direction and be able to replay it in a consistent fashion. Last night the roomies and I went to see Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Wilma Theatre, and i was in awe of not only the acting that i saw, but the very precise physicality of the acting. The flounces, the scoffs, the deep breaths … all things that add tremendously to a performance, and all things i tend to gloss over without noticing.

I don’t pretend to be much of an actor; in fact, i quite hate it. Looking back at all of the shows that i’ve done i cannot honestly say that i enjoyed a single role that i’ve portrayed. In each occasion my happy memory is connected to the people i produced a show with rather than my performance itself. As such, i can hardly fault myself for not enjoying the intracies of acting … i simply don’t give a shit.

Where Grant comes is is my songwriting. I might claim to hate acting, but i don’t think anyone can be convinced that i dislike writing and performing my own music; in fact, most of the time it would seem to be the only thing i like to do. Grant has been listening to my songs in in his last email he posed the following question: What do i have against finger-picking? My composing is, almost as a rule, devoid of all riffing and picking unless it’s been specifically inserted. In fact, any song of mine that has acquired a set pattern of picking is by definition in a higher stage of evolution than a song without (see Under My Skin vs. Tangling, or an older Never Say Goodbye vs. its demo version).

My first response to the question was simple: i don’t like to finger-pick. It’s something i’m capable of, but if you listen to my musical influences they are not fluttery pickers — i don’t like the shimmery sound of it. However, there are a vast majority of Peter Mulvey and Ani DiFranco songs where they punch out precise riffs in the midst of their frantic strumming, and of late these riffs have been absent from my songs (examples of which can be found in Lost or Bridge). Suddenly my defense just isn’t; in the past i’ve riffed and rocked, so why don’t i do it all the time?

I don’t know where i was going with this. I don’t fingerpick; i don’t like to fingerpick. I don’t act; i don’t like to act. So, if i’m not doing the things i don’t like, why am i so miserable?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/7703915/

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I have a slim gray book with wide college ruled pages that serves as my lyric book; most of the time i know how to sing what i intend to play, but on some occasions it’s nice to know i have a tidy volume to back up my occasionally unsure memory. Heading into Freshman year i decided that my old, red, spiral-ruled book was due to be retired; i had aptly filled the entire front section of it just as classes began, and i wanted a set of fresh pages to start all of my new emotions in. I literally put my creative impulses on hold for two months while i shopped for the perfect vehicle for my words, endlessly reiterating a practice set of “Bridge,” “Other Plans,” All That’s True,” and “Deadweight” while i held out for a new place to write. Finally, on a trip to South Street, i found the book. It stayed empty for a few weeks… i had this phobia that if i started it off with something terrible that it would always be affected by what dreadful thing i set down on that first blank page. So, i kept holding out.

It was a poorly constructed dam on my feelings, and eventually they burst out onto the margins of my anthropology notes — hardly heeding my attempts to herd them in the direction of my empty gray book. Each snippet just delayed my marking it up even more, because they were just that; snippets — nothing up to snuff. Ironically, it all changed the day that i skipped Anthropology, at the urging of Megan, who was skipping out on the 9am class we both had preceding it. Somewhere in the routine of talking to her and skipping class i managed to lock myself out of my room for a couple of hours with only my bookbag to keep me company, and i wound up in our lounge staring out into a gray and rainy day. That past weekend i had been to my first college party, and i had drank my first drink and smoked for the first time, and i had this endless swirl of feelings in my stomach … feelings just starting to develop about Laurel, feelings about what i had done, and feelings about what was to come.

I intended to have my slim book with me, but life is ironic; i gave birth to my first set of college lyrics sloppily on the backside of Anthropology notes, uneven and ugly. It didn’t seem like very much of a song, by my standards, but it felt like it should go into the book — it didn’t mean very much if i just read what it had to say, but it felt just like i felt.

Eventually Kenny returned from his class and let me into the room, and i promptly retrieved the book, my key, and my Ashland guitar. He was headed down into a nap, and so i headed back into the lounge. A capo here, a string retuned there, and suddenly it happened.

The book is plenty different now. By last fall i had already become too afraid to set any fresh thoughts directly into it for fear that they might besmirch the excellent average of quality material that i had established in my unprecedented streak of decent songwriting. I began to cheat — songs began on my computer, and if they were worth saving i would copy them into the book the next day. Soon i fell behind on my copying, and by last Christmas i had a sheath of songs stuck into the back of the book when i boarded my plane for Florida, hoping to get it all caught up to me.

Now the book and i work in shifts… sometimes there are a few consecutive songs that were obviously scrawled into it as quickly as i could think up lyrics for them, and then there are carefully printed ones that have been sung scores of times before i put them into penciled words. There is a difference, though, as i found in rereading it today. The bits from Freshmen year were… different. Frank. Reactionary. Unedited. Even the quality songs that i still play appeared in virginal and unretouched version that betray my original intentions for them. And, then there are things i don’t remember writing… my accounts of my misguided cancer scare, seeing Anastasia over Christmas break, and auditioning for Hair. Things that would never make it past the most basic of neurons let alone down to my fingers and out into the book.

In fact, my life hardly ever makes it into the book anymore… oddly enough, it stopped doing that at nearly the same time i started doing this. Which makes me wonder… where is my life going to go after i get tired of copying it down into here long after it’s already happened? Makes me wonder…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/11/7360081/

Trio: Season 2, #6

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Season 2’s Trio #6 came from an unexpected place; i meant to do some sort of fun event with my newly reclaimed 1960 electric hollow-bodied guitar this weekend but had the bad fortune of losing a solid half of my upper vocal register to the various parties i attended. Tonight i sat down to Trio a new trio of songs and found myself utterly disconnected from all three of them… they were in the wrong range, not the right sort of aggression, and not really what i was feeling. And, so, 4 days of careful planning got the flush as i dropped a D and raised a C, and suddenly i found myself smack in the middle of an unusual fifteen minutes.

I had a similar experience with Trio #5 last fall, where i was too stuck to do anything but meander my way through a familiar group of songs. The difference was that here i was actually reinventing with force rather than meandering aimlessly, and having fun in the process. “Lost” was awarded an extra refrain so it could mold itself to the year and a half since i wrote it, and ends in a mock thrash; “Crashing” akin to its beginnings on my bedroom floor, emerging with the most spectacular ad-lib section i’ve ever mustered (short of when it unexpectedly broke into “Say My Name” last summer); “Under My Skin” was classically playful and free — i even venture into a superbly flat falsetto at the close of the song. Electricity and fun are somewhat unusual feelings for me, but tonight they clicked.

Very unusual. Especially the electricity. Give this a listen… what sounds different to you?