Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

selfy-stuff

NaBloPoMo Round-Up #9: M Defeats, O Redeems

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I originally had intentions of doing M and S tonight, but the Ms really took the fight out of me. It was all I could do to squeeze in Os as originally scheduled and still write a normal post before midnight.

In honor of the nine-thousand and fifty-two mommy blogs i read in the Ms, i actually performed some baking, because i have finally convinced myself that the cookie dough is tastier baked* than raw.

* where baked does not equal microwaved into a smoking heap

Let the games begin. [Read more…] about NaBloPoMo Round-Up #9: M Defeats, O Redeems

Rabbit-Totems and Purple Dragons

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Even before I had the internet I was always interested in connecting to people who I could understand on some intrinsic level.

In my pre-internet age, one of my favorite comics was Sam Kieth’s The Maxx. Many issues of The Maxx had a pen pals page tucked into the back. The idea of it thrilled me – some equal yet opposite alterna-comic fan flung far across the country could trade significant thoughts with a distant speck of me.

I whined and begged my mother for permission to write to some pen pals or, even better, to send in my information to be listed (because, surely each pen pal was reaping hundreds if not thousands of letters from eager writers such as myself).

I was flatly rejected. Repeatedly. Because, as far as my mother was concerned, it was the goal of the entire population of America to seduce me into acquiescing to a quiet, tidy kidnapping. Who knew what kind of lunatic was lying in wait for impressionable young comic fans such as myself to engage them in witty adolescent banter, only to suss out the likeliest kidnappees and stealthily infiltrate their homes in the night.

I shortly and unsuccessfully agitated for a P.O. Box, and that was that.

(Why didn’t I just send in the damn letter with telling her? Who knows. That is how good of a kid i was.)


When I first started Crushing Krisis one of my favorite things was to not only find and link to a new blog, but to get into a longterm habit of reciprocal linking – carrying on a sort of turn-based dialog in a series of blog posts meant not just for each other, but for our entire audience(s). In a way it was like a comic-book crossover.

Sadly, in most cases only my side of the chat still exists – six years of blogging yields quite an attrition rate. Of my virtual pen pals even the most venerable and permanent-seeming blogs I exchanged links with are gone. All but one.

Wockerjabby was a strange creature – six years ago just a clean layout emblazoned with a purple dragon, talking about college and exercise and veganism and astrophysics. Rabi, pronounced just like “Robby” (cotton on?) was… a girl? A girl named Rabi living just a few miles from my apartment? An awesome, intelligent, health-conscious, blogging girl name Rabi going to college around the corner from my favorite malll?

I was hooked from minute-one. And, just a few hours later, Rabi noticed my link and wrote me a nice email. And (nearly causing me to have a heart-attack in excitement) linked back.

Afterwards i started a (somewhat embarrassing, in retrospect) linking campaign professing my blog-love, and Rabi continued to reciprocate, carrying on merry conversations via email all the while.

If the story plateaued there – two bloggers trading links for six years – it wouldn’t be too remarkable.

It didn’t.

We decided to meet – Rabi was the first internet person i ever met. In the middle of a field, actually. Well, at a train station, and briefly in a grocery store, but predominantly in the middle of a field, where I sang songs and she read poetry.

We continued through Blogathonning and late night IM conversations discussing “Peter’s-Head Romantic Gravitational Units,” and a lengthy walk through night-time Philly, and somehow wound up flying together and then road-tripping together to Boston for concerts, followed by multiple iterations of walking the breadth of NYC and Philadelphia, eventually coming-of-age and enjoying martinis in both locations.

All of that from one link, six years ago yesterday. Not only a best internet friend, but a best friend.

Ever since Rabi’s link has always appeared on my link list. And, six years later, CK is still on hers.

It’s hard – still hard, even with blogs and MySpace – to thwart the natural tendency of our social circles towards homogeneity. Your friends will always have something in common with you, because if you have nothing in common the spark of friendship never catches, and a year later you’re left wondering why someone is still on your friends list. Because of the limits of the physical world, usually many of our friends wind up having the same things in common with us.

The allure of The Maxx pen pals and, later, the internet, is the offer of hundreds of different tangential contacts – small intersections of interest. The long tail of meeting people, the joy of which is following that connection to find even more connections.

In Rabi I have found the unique overlap of blogging, of loving music, of eating strange vegetarian foods, of remaining dedicated – even obsessed – with staying vibrant and real.

Probably way cooler than anyone i could have met from The Maxx.


(ps: Rabi, your Trio got usurped because i don’t know how to play two of the songs yet. Consider this your Trio IOU to be redeemed when i have more than a day to learn three songs.)

Don’t Play That Song (A Trio of Links)

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You were supposed to receive the second Influences Trio tonight, but it took six hours last night to get one song right, and we are leaving on our T-Day expedition to NJ in a few hours.

This exemplifies why Trio did not typically include cover songs back when it was a weekly feature (and why it started taking so damned long when it did start including cover songs): i’m a huge music fan, and in almost every case i have an obsessive fascination with the original, which leads me to go through this horrific Sophie’s Choice drama about every little flaw and if i can really give them up to the oppressive, fascist listening public.

So, rather than my still-incubating Trio, here’s a trio of quick-hit weblinks for you:

#1 Yeti Ornament from HungerSite. Dude, if we get a tree i am buying this in a hot second.

Plus, it totally jives with the holiday competition i have with my mother about buying farm animals for each other.

#2 PhotoJunkie’s “One Million Giveaway”. No, not a million dollars. PhotoJunkie is a fantastic blogger who was on the forefront of Photoblogging a few scant years ago. I think i know him from Blogathon (?). In any event, to celebrate his upcoming 1,000,000th website hit he’s giving away all sorts of stuff to anyone who comments on or links to his blog.

I should be seeing my millionth hit sometime before i turn 40, thanks for asking.

#3 Want a seasonal job in Philly? Be a newspaper scab! Our two big (collectively owned) papers are heading for strike, and they’re already fishing for temporary staff. $17-$20 an hour, 60hrs a week, minimal experience required. I say, go for it.

In closing, i feel that you should know that i am eating raw cookie-dough for dinner, and that after a content-lite day for T-Give i’ll be closing out NaBloPoMo with several more Trios and more NaBloPoMo site reviews.

Oh, right, and more blogging.

Edit: Every time i see the title of this post i hear the same thing in my head. In the interests of you hearing it too, here it is: Kelly Clarkson singing “Don’t Play That Song” from Season 1 of American Idol.

The Curse of Smart

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I don’t necessarily think of myself as “smart,” but the evidence often points in that direction.

When I was very young I was always bright. Good grades were effortless, and thanks to that over-achievement I attended one of the best public middle- and high schools in the state (and the country).

It was a shock to my system: my peers weren’t just peers in age, but in intelligence. I was no longer the smart one, just a smart one. I increasingly saw myself in the middle of the hyper-intelligent pack figuratively and, in class rank, it became literal.

College was that shock in reverse – i was no longer surrounded by a crowd of smart.

It took some time to adjust to being above-average again. I expected to still commiserate about having a hard time and getting average grades, because that was who I accustomed to being.

In retrospect, as my confidence and ability increased so did my aloofness as a student – i eschewed or altogether ignored classmates in an effort to insulate my ability to be right without feeling guilty. In a way it was like returning to grade school, where I had free reign to wield my smarts with no regrets.

I have been dismayed to learn that in a post-collegiate world the insulation of isolation just doesn’t work; you don’t get anywhere by eschewing possible connections or alienating co-workers with your know-it-allness.

That’s the curse of smart – everyone respects your intelligence until you are a peer or, worse, a competitor, and suddenly “smart” is a derogative term, and you are left scrambling to cover it up.

As a result, I often find myself feigning misunderstanding or painting myself as a little bit bumbling … handicapping my A-Game just to fit in to this so-called “real world,” and living in constant fear that the facade is starting to stick.

Is that the line that separates smart drones from smart successes? Am i supposed to stop caring about people, and start caring about being right?

I guess i’m just not smart enough to understand.

My Secret Rock Star Life

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I suppose that last post bears some explanation of my secret rock star identity.

It is so secret that hardly anyone is aware of it. Hopefully that will soon change.

I started writing original music in high school as a hobby – not something I defined myself by. In college i was a part of a group of extremely talented actors, singers, and musicians. But, though i could rightfully identify myself in all three categories, i never felt as though what i was bringing to the stage was as valid as what other people did. After every audition or performance I was my own harshest critic, and as a result I slowly disappeared from performances, relegating myself to a off-stage role.

However, there was still one thing at which I was better – maybe best – than everyone I knew: writing songs.

It wasn’t a matter of pride or self-confidence – it was just something i knew. My best five or ten or twenty songs stood up against the songs of my friends, and even the songs on albums I bought every week. I could remain a performer as long as I had my songs, so I labeled myself a singer-songwriter. I played at parties. I recorded songs for my webpage. I walked from my apartment to campus, playing guitar and singing the whole way. As long as i had a song to stand behind i was fearless.

As college wore on, some of the more multi-talented friends in our extended group gained an amount of local notoriety as singer-songwriters fronting bands. I finally had people – peers – to compare myself to, and it was immediately clear that I didn’t sing as well, or play guitar as well, or record as well, or work the stage as well.

This was especially demoralizing because my songs were still great – it was just me that wasn’t good enough. I let it get to me – right down to the very core of me, and as a resultI graduated having not played an original front of people for over a year (with one exception – poorly received), and I had even stopped recording – frustrated that my voice never came out how I heard it in my head.

I decided that for my first year of professional life i was leaving my creative side behind – i had to focus on working hard, and on being a good boyfriend to Elise, because that’s what was important. Creativity, music especially, was a lark I could afford to ignore.

My resolve was strong, and even after the year was over and I starred in a successful bit of post-collegiate theatre i was still holding out on music. I still hadn’t performed anywhere, and even my once-prolific writing had ground to a halt.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when everything changed.

Last December I made my yearly appearance at the Shubin Theatre Holiday Revue. I appear not because of any great talent, but because I am friends of the Shubin family, which includes Gina, my sometimes co-writer. In 2005 I was performing on relatively short notice, and so instead of my typical cover or collaboration I decided to play an original – Seams – a song all about my imperfection, my lack of confidence, my reticence to perform anywhere outside of my own bedroom.

In that tiny theatre with forty or fifty people watching I rediscovered me as a musician. I was singing words I had written, words I still very much meant, and as they left my mouth I could feel – even see – them connecting with members of the audience. At the after party people asked where they could see or hear me perform and, slightly embarrassed, I told them that they couldn’t.

As I said it I realized the ridiculousness of it. I had these great songs – catchy songs, witty songs, meaningful songs – and here I was refusing to play them because I didn’t deem myself to be good enough. It seemed rational to me for years, but that night I realized how unfair it was to the songs.

I am no longer a part of that disproportionately talented college friends – I’m a part of the world at large. And, in that world I am unique in my ability to sing and play at all, let alone with some amount of skill, and I am unique in my ability and willingness to document my life through song.

In this much wider world I am done with hiding my songs in my bedroom, and with that newfound confidence i find that my singing, playing, and performing are suddenly not so bad as i thought they were. I can play in front of friends or strangers knowing i deserve their attention as much as anyone else, and sometimes i even win it.

Today, and tonight at The Sidecar Bar, I am a singer-songwriter. And, it’s not a secret anymore.