Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

meta

Emptiness vs the Slim Grey Book

by

For those of you who are slightly new to this whole shebang, you should know that Trio has effectively become my get-out-of-blog free card. How it works is, basically, I lay my artistic soul bare for you in a 10-12 minute concert that, despite its sound of carefree ease, involves hours of sweat, profanity, and occasional blood to produce. Flush from my artistic efforts an enamored with my new tuneage, I typically let Trio sit at the top of the page for a week (or more) so that my barely-existant fanbase has no trouble locating and clicking upon the special feature repeatedly to satiate their listening desires.

Right.

In related news, I’m having trouble writing about anything lately, because I don’t know what to write about. I am happy. I am sedate. I am routine. These are the makings of a dull, repetetive folk record, not my next rock opus.

Last week I finished my book of lyrics.

I feel just as odd reading that sentence as I did shutting the book last week. The book, my book, that slim grey volume I bought my first week of college, and furiously jotted into that week after I had my first drink, is finally finished. It’s over. Done. Complete.

What’s funny is that I didn’t even know it was full. I knew I had about a dozen blank pages left, and I had been scribbling songs out elsewhere, on other pads, so as not to put any irrelevant junk-lyrics in my book. When I finally piled all of my scribblings up for transcription I realized I had more than enough to complete the book. Enough, in fact, to make a decent start on a new book.

Not only is it full, but the last song that would fit was “A Little Bit,” the (bouncy, self-depricatingly optimistic) song I wrote the day before I moved out of my college apartment – the perfect bookend to “Crashing,” the (plodding, drearily pessimistic) song I wrote after my first college party.

Paging back through favorite songs and discarded lyrics, I realized that I can’t really claim that all my good work came from conflict or tension. “A Little Bit” came from an almost perfect zen, “So Hard” came from a poetic IM conversation, and “Punk” came from out of nowhere. Lately I have mistaken a reluctance to write something for an inability to write anything, but maybe it’s for the best – I have songs I’ve never really finished, or never really learned – why am I in such a rush to add any more?

Anyhow, I need to decide what my new book (my third) will be, so I can move on with my life and writing.

Stalling

by

Sometimes I get so enamored with seeing a particular post come up while I load the page that I abstain from writing anything else just to keep it there (rather than writing another post I’m enamored with, perish the thought). I have a great post composed for you at home. It’s great. It has links in it, and stuff. I just couldn’t bring myself to post it.

Ahh, but isn’t it amazing what boredom can drive me to do.

Why is it so much easier to fall asleep when you’re trying to do something else, like take notes in a meeting or play guitar? Is it just because your attention is already engaged, making it easier for you to drift into slumber, rather than lying with your mind busy working overtime?

I often I fall asleep sitting on our bed, playing electric guitar … sometimes literally while playing – plugged in and everything. The sleep comes so suddenly that I have no recollection of what transpires between playing guitar and waking up (which, I have to say, was a little disconcerting).

On a related topic: carrying a gig bag is a better conversation starter than commenting on the weather or grumbling about the elevators, especially when you are carrying it inside a corporate fortress such as this one. I’ve already lost track of how many people have asked me if I would be “rocking out” on my lunch hour. I’m surprised they don’t just yell “Freebird” at me from across the lobby.

I at once relish and shun these moments, where it is made so clear that I am young and vital and still alive. On one hand, I love the affirmation that no, I will not give into the doldrum routine of adultness. On the other, I fear the doldrum groupthink, where the young one with the shaggy hair and the guitar case must be transgressing because he is not dour enough.

The groupthink intimidates me. Even though I don’t buy into it I still find myself noting when men’s pants aren’t ironed, or when anyone wears an inappropriately casual shirt on a weekday. Why should I care? Rationally, I don’t, but irrationally I just want to make sure everyone is being held to the same standards that I am. I can foresee how looking at someone’s shoes in the hallway transforms into, “Her lunchbreak already came and went – why is she wearing sneakers?”

Now that I have a lighter, smaller acoustic guitar, I’ve been thinking about bringing it with me to play on my lunch breaks. I could learn a new song every day, easily blowing through my standing 50+ to-do list of Beatles tunes. I don’t necessarily want to wander the streets while trying to learn a new song, but I remember the puzzled stares I drew last summer the few times I played in the courtyard. Will the groupthink suffocate my artistic urges?

I think the answer so far is YES, but not in the way that I meant it there. Oh, to be a well-fed starving artist.

Ah, but who am I kidding, I’d still play City of Heroes all day. Hi, do we remember my Senior Project.

Note to Self, Apparently Unread

by

Note to Self: Stop having sex dreams about other bloggers; it’s kindof creepy.

PS: Definitely don’t post about this.

PPS: Well, if you have to post about it, definitely don’t allude to which one. Better not to post about it at all, though.

PPPS: If this should occur again in the future, definitely don’t get drunk with your girlfriend and tell her which one.

PPPPS: Furthermore, if this should occur again in the future and you get drunk with your girlfriend, subsequently telling her which one don’t answer any of her prying questions about the details, but do not phrase said reply as “Get your own sex dreams!”

PPPPPS: Re: Details – You whore!

PPPPPPS: Revise the margueritas ratio; it should not be 2:1 … Yes, you’re a boy, but she holds her tequila better than you do.

PPPPPPPS: You know, if you feel the need to be more risque you could just go back to posting webcam shots of your ass.

PPPPPPPPS: Fine, make the damn post, see if I give you any more advice.

Happy Birthday To This

by

I am not a huge birthday fan.

Yes, birthdays make a good day to sit back and say “wow, was that a year that just happened?,” but they’ve otherwise been turned into the same materialistic nonsense Hallmark holiday as all of those other holidays that I habitually ignore. By this point, my friends and limited members of my family have discerned my general distaste for typical birthday fare, and have compensated accordingly with a recent avalanche of off-kilter gifts, unusual cakes, and the now-annual beer-tasting festival.

Today marks the fourth birthday of my blog. You’d think I’d remember it, or have it marked down on my calendar, or buy myself a gift, but year after year it blindsides me just like the birthdays of my friends and aunts, all of which I typically remember just as they are upon me. I didn’t remember this one at all. Instead, I happened to be at Rabi’s, reading about this year’s Howl festival, and I was thinking about how it’s been exactly a year since I last saw Rabi, and then I looked at my posts from the New York trip and realized that it almost coincided with CrushingKrisis’s birthday, and then I realized that meant that CK’s b-day was once again upon us.

Four years is not the longest time to do something. High school only took four years, thank god. For most people, college only takes four. There are marriages that don’t last as long, and beloved children who are younger. It has been enough time, though, for over 2,500 posts, and for over four hundred thousand words.

CK’s birthday is a good point to look back across that lifetime of posts and words, but it’s also useful for gauging what can actually happen in a year. In a way, this past year’s posts represent even less of my life than they ever did before; they depict fewer moments, impulses, and sudden fixations. At the same time, these few posts reveal more – in my increasing impulse to let thoughts percolate through multiple passes of writing and editing I find a more robust view of my life as I look back over a sparser number of posts. Not as many thousands of words to depict the pictures; less polariods, more portraits.

I sometimes miss “the old” version of this page, but I know that’s it’s unrealistic to expect anything to stay the same. Television shows grow stale. Musicians evolve. Life goes on. For me to decry the state of this page, lamenting that it no longer portrays my minute-to-minute fascination with the minutia of my existence, would be ignoring the growth not of my writing, but of myself. I might still look (mostly) the same and think (mostly) the same, but each post I write has an effect on the outcome of the next one.

I have given myself the gift of four years of identity, thoughts realized and jotted down for me to re-live, re-think, and re-assess. You have given me the privilege of airing that identity, forcing me to repeat, repent, and resolve again and again in an attempt to find something truer, funnier, and realer the next time.

I want to promise you that this year will bring hundreds of interesting links, scores of engaging reads, dozens of awesome new recordings of my song. I can’t. I want to promise that I will be on the cutting edge of blogging, finding new resources and fresh writing to day daily. I won’t.

For all that I cannot promise you, I will promise you this: you will always be privy to a unique view of my life. Sometimes that is represented by a sprawling journal-like entry, sometimes by a new song, sometimes by a brief by-line to a link, and often by lengthy self-assessment, but every time it’s a topic I bring to this page, to you, because it is a key part of this identity. It’s something I’m crushing on, or that’s crushing me.

Thank You, and Happy Birthday to This.