Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

events

The 3rd Annual Blogathon!

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July 26-27, 2003 — Wake up early and stay up late with the third annual Blogathon! Founded in 2001 by Portland, Oregon resident Cat Connor, Blogathon is a revolutionary internet charity drive where sponsors pledge money based on how long they think the participants can last in an all-day, all-night, website updating marathon.

With last year’s event drawing over two hundred websites and more than $50,000 in donations, Blogathon keeps readers riveted with entries from its many writers, all of whom are raising money for their own individual charities. Entries range from the personal to the hilarious to the downright exhausted, with some people posting serialized novellas, telling a retrospective biography via photograph, or even streaming their own live radio broadcasts to garner attention and more sponsor dollars!

See blogathon.org for a guide to the action during the event. Please direct media inquiries to Peter.

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I feel as though there’s something i have to tell you — i really owe it to you. It won’t be easy, but i have to. But, first you should know that when i got back home last night from Lyndzapalooza i felt as if i had bruised everything that i had: fingers, muscles, voice, brain, and heart. I was, as i put it so eloquently to Elise, “a piece of hurt.” Not that it’s any excuse for what i’m about to tell you, but i just feel as though you should have an idea of the state i’m in.

I cried at the end of Armageddon. There, i’ve said it. I cried, not only for the characters on screen, but for myself — for having so knowingly bought in to a written-by-committee tearjerker that barely aspires to B-movie status because of one thing: Bruce. Bruce Willis. The man doesn’t always make the best movies out there to be made, and he isn’t always the best actor that could be found, but you just don’t kill him. Do you understand? Don’t kill Bruce. Because, in killing him, you force him to let loose, to lose control, to unlease all of the pathos and weariness that he has built up during the shooting of countless Die Hard movies as well as the physical emotiveness he reserved while dubbing his voice into the Look Who’s Talking series. And when you let me know that for the entire population of the Earth, including those of us spending our waning hours watching this bland by-the-numbers Bay/Bruckheimer creation, the only thing that stands in the way of our imminent deaths is the noble self-sacrifice of Bruce Willis then by god maybe the end is nearer than we think, because i will be blown into a thousand pieces by errant space debris before i’ll watch Bruce sacrifice himself again to save a pansy talentless hack like Ben Affleck who draw the straw of death fair and fucking square! Do you hear me?!?! Straw of death.

Like i said, i’m not especially emotionally stable right now. Apologies. Hopefully you don’t think any less of me for it.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200308389/

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Victory! Sweet, sweet, blueberry victory!

In other news: last night i played guitar for what has become a routine four hours, breaking only for the penultimate episode of Buffy and white pizza courtesy of Ross’s new credit card. This morning the skin on my fingers is rind-like and impervious to pain.

You could say that i’ve become a little obsessed with my practice regimen, ostensibly because i’m playing at a backyard festival this weekend and have vowed in public earshot to blow away all of the other performers. Really, though, it’s because i don’t know if i actually can. The recently revealed running order of the event finds me sandwiched between a duo of golden-throated music majors and a terrific a cappella group that i arrange for, with the entire day both book-ended and dotted by talented multi-instrumentalists and Philly pub performers. And in the middle is little old me.

At this late stage drilling finger exercises until i feel as though i’m going to vomit if i have to stretch my pinky to the seventh fret again probably isn’t going to do me much good, which is why i typically leave that until just before bed. The regimen begins as soon as i have stripped out of my corporate skin of shirt and tie, sometimes finding me strumming the opening chords of “Tangling” in an undershirt and low rise briefs. The run through the current iteration of my set quickly (and seemingly inevitably) descends into seething about my inability to pick complex patterns or endless fiddling with my amp tone, and rarely features more than a single complete song. Alternately, i could probably just look in a mirror and scream “you are worthless” for thirty minutes to achieve a similar effect on moral.

After this inevitably crushing warm-up routine, i turn to my Bible, The Complete Beatles Scores. What better comfort could there be to my inability to play my own misbegotten songs than to learn how to play some of the best songs ever written? Last night was a medley of Let It Be‘s A-Side, none of which i can carry all on my own. Still, the practice is useful because i am trying to match a specifically scored and recorded sound rather than some elusive cipher of a rhythm that only plays inside of my head.

After a solid run at the Beatles (always including thirty minutes on the riffing of “Dig A Pony” and at least two renditions of “Blackbird“) I am ready to perform my own set, minus the sniffling and whining. Or, rather, the sniffling and whining is restrained only to lyrical appearances. This set is typically much more affirming, though as a rule “Apart” sounds like utter shit. “Under My Skin” is placed strategically dead in the middle to remind myself that, yes, i can actually (write / play / sing) with some modicum of professionalism on a consistent basis. This is necessary, as my shot at “Seams” typically breaks down shortly after the key change.

I end with “Little Love,” because for a month i had intended to start with it and so bootstrapped it up past all of the intermediate levels of (total shit / shit / lyrical Alzheimer’s / inability to cross bridge / endless descent into ad-lib and riffing / constant Simon-Cowell-ing of vocal performance) to the point where i spent an entire hour last week walking around Center City with a guitar strapped on over my shirt and tie playing it and being asked my name and if i could be heard at any local bars or pubs. It isn’t “Under My Skin,” but it allows me to ignore (or, at least atone for) the two dozen false starts of “Apart” from earlier in the evening. It allows me to believe for a second that the forty or so friends that will be enduring me for a precious half hour on Saturday will perhaps clap out of something other than obligation.

Only after that do i brutally work my pinky fingers until my stomach knots with each effort. And then, sometimes, i go to bed.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200290435/

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Kate works in an office where she occasionally has a few minutes to burn between projects, and ever since the blogathon she’s been filling all of those moments with a big heaping serving of Krisis. Seeing as i live with Kate and hang out with her on a day-to-day basis, she is definitely the regular reader most entangled in the actual living i’m doing short of Elise. After skimming for entries about her and then reading some random highlights, today she apparently resolved to read me all the way through, from day one on. I warned her that day one was about as long as June 2002, and she replied with a knowing smirk.

I’ve followed Kate’s lead and delved into some CK written from the old apartment, and it’s downright odd. I don’t remember writing like i did then – in constant fits and starts, or even thinking like that. Now every single post either sends me into a fit of laughter or a state of quiet contemplation, and sometimes both consecutively. And, though i’m sure it’s very amusing and thought-provoking on its own (heh), the highlights for me definitely connect to having been there when they were written… remembering how many times i fell to the ground in a fit of hysterical laughter on this night of drinking with Aim, laughing out loud at the nearly psychic advice doled out in this post, and remembering to read the commented out dream in this one, which i easily recollected almost blow for blow.


As much as i love making other people think, or laugh, or sing along, i think the best part of this is often just looking back and seeing exactly what i was like on a certain day nearly two years ago. It’s truly worth the effort.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/08/85376788/

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Listening to 25/24 on loop for the last two days whenever i’ve been in my apartment, and real music at work today seems positively surreal. You mean, there are cds that exist that i wasn’t on CntrlRm-Out headphones for? Totally a shock.

My life is totally a shock sometimes. I raised just shy of $300 for Planned Parenthood, and i’ll probably write a check for the difference; i figure this probably breaks me even for all of the training i got from them for free when i was a Peer Counselor in High School. Leaving the ‘thon page up seems halfways like bronzing a baby’s shoe and half stuffing a dead pet. Did that just make any sense at all? In a way i feel as though it’s memorializing the first step in what will (hopefully) be years of high quality recordings from me, but in another way i feel like i should be getting back to normal.


It doesn’t feel normal right now, i don’t feel normal. To go from a week of all anticipation to a week all of denouement is jarring, and i just feel like i’m standing in a shadow. I had an honest to goodness panic attack last night, which isn’t exactly a common occurrence around these parts, and to this point i’m not sure why. Lindsay has become fairly convinced by this point that i really was locked in my room in a gibbering mess rather than fooling around with my girlfriend, but i feel like everyone else is looking at me strangely sideways. Not that i went around advertising it, you know, billboard: “Total headcase here, please pull around.” But, i like to be able to talk about things once i’ve got them on my chest, lest i suffocate.

I’m not sure how long this layout will remain or what will follow it. I think it’s simple and pretty and white, and i don’t mind that being my virtual impression right now. But, until i figure out what will be happening after it’s gone i definitely feel like a guest on my own blog.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/07/85296632/