Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

my music

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and i’m just sitting here. i’m not much of a prayer, but i’m working on it; after all, she hasn’t even heard about the song i unintentionally wrote about her. whether it be for my selfish singersongwriter heart or the more direct version of the issue, please care.

This tiny trouble finally got the best of you
and made a nest in your heart and a lump in your throat
all that you possess will never mean as much to you
as that one small chance you missed
nagging at your heels just like a dog
trying to chew up the cover over what went wrong
because all of your excuses will expire eventually
tiny creeping wrinkles tucked into the corners of your eyes
a simple smile does not comprise a suitable disguise
a flick of the wrist a wrinkle of your nose
won't fix this although we all watch Bewitched sometimes
but no magic act can change the fact
that you got hung up on oh so fast
the phone in the cradle as fast as your able to put it down on the table
set the alarm for 5am just so you can get up with the sun
as if the brightness can drown out the din of all the worries in your head
you take the keys off the hook so careful there's no sound
and get in the car and drive around until you pass the playground
but it's too early for children to be appreciated
so you sit on a swing and you contemplate the situation
cause mourning doesn't hold all the answers
and you shudder as you feel the kick of that missed chance
and you use your feet to drag to a stop
but what will you tell them
what will they say
you shove your hands into your pockets
and your so afraid
it feels like days have gone by and you're still there waiting
just inhaling and exhaling that air that contains you
but your so afraid to dilate
to open up
back in your room at 6am
not a moment too soon for you
you close the door so nobody can see you
and pull that letter out of the drawer
to you it reads "don't bother trying anymore"
but you rip it to shreds
and go back to bed

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4476785/

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Songs are continuing to ambush me. Two weeks ago “Necessary Evil” came to me in the guise of a riff consisting of a single half-step and a bluesy first line that i won’t ever do justice. Before that were two other ambushes… “Up & Down” with it’s rough and tumble sexual upfrontness and “This Tiny Trouble” pretending to be a song about vintage sitcoms. Somewhere inbetween exists the still-forming “Destination,” which portrays something near the opposite emotion from REM’s “Stand.” All four for unintended, unexpected, and anything but premeditated.

Tonight the fifth song in this merry ambushing band came to me without a warning… with literally only a few seconds of idle time between the first and final lines (most of which was spent looking for my poetry book). The unusual thing about this one is that i wrote it before… last week it came into my head while crossing the street and i could really hear was the melody and a pattering drum machine. Taken out of context it seemed entirely irrelevent so i filed it away under things to “sing in the shower” by the time i reached 36th street. But, tonight, i wrote two lines neatly clipped from Ani DiFranco americana songs like pictures from a newspaper, and they somehow led straight into that pattering song i found in the middle of the street. It’s not about me or anyone i know, but i can easily see the people inside of it, and it was a lot like “This Tiny Trouble” in that it seemed as though i already knew the ending, i just had to remember it. There is a kiss. There are bodies side by side in the grass. There are shoes wet with morning dew. Though it is still newborn and all-at-once incredibly wrinkly and cute and entirely awkward and unformed, it might even make it onto Dawson’s Creek…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4384930/

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I keep putting off my initial trip into the studio, but as a result i have forced myself to commit to a roster of 40 songs to make my attempts from. It’s just too damned hot. Of course, the more i procrastinate the more this is going to involve sick days and barricaded studio doors, so i should probably be producing some sounds this week. The first cover for the project has been confirmed, but it might only wind up a beeside. 25 songs + beesides… i’m turning into Tori Amos. All of my friends have heard about this and they seem generally unimpressed, which just goes to show that i am so musically omnipresent that they just assume recording two albums in one month must be old hat for me by now. Ha!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4330795/

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Songs are sometimes very uncooperative. I just sat down with my guitar and banged out five different variants on a very simple progression in dadgae in the key of G, but none of them beckoned me to speak lyrics to them. It’s so funny, because inbetween writing songs i forget what writing songs is like, and i think i can force it. Sometimes i might have a line or two, but i can’t engineer a whole song worth listening to out of one line – that’s how the crap in my old poetry book mostly occurred. All i know is that it’s supposed to be the polar opposite of the sentiment of a lullabye (if not the sound) and it’s a second cousin to Under My Skin. But, i’ve tried to write this song once before, with 0 results. And, i can’t even articulate what it’s about… making people feel the opposite of a lullabye, i suppose. Riled instead of rested. Blah. Aren’t i supposed to be recording things?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4331529/

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We’re getting new computers in the office and it’s not as though it’s the most interesting event ever, but it keeps bringing up such fun little interactions with people that i can hardly spare you each and ever one of them.

We’re supposed to move all of our files into a single folder on our desktops to ease the pain of all this computer switching; all of our folders will be moved onto a network computer and then we can individually get them back after the new pcs get hooked up. My folder consists of a bunch of Admissions silliness, a backup of Crushing, the installation file of MusicMatch, and full-length mp3s of my demo cd. So, today the computer woman came around to all of our desks to check in on if we have our folders ready (i feel like i’m packing up for some kind of alien abduction), and upon seeing the contents of my folder she immediately started in on the harping, obviously relishing her role as the raining on my tech-parade.


“You can’t bring programs with you,” she reprimanded me sternly. “Yes, i know, but this is the extracting file for it, not a program.” “Oh, well, that’s not allowed either. And, anyway, it’s for entertainment purposes,” she obviously ad-libs (the no-programs policy was aimed at people who didn’t know any better and were trying to bring Outlook and Filemaker with them; and, furthermore, i had MusicMatch because i was imbedding sound files into powerpoint for the Director of Admissions). While she tried to complain further about me wanting to bring a program with me, i opened up ws_ftp and uploaded it to Uprush where i can retrieve it later with no fuss and deleted the file.

“There, see, it’s gone.”

At this point Ms. Computer-Woman was not pleased with my ability to neatly avoid her crackdown on my electronic life. Searching my screen for her next target, her eyes widened and she exclaimed with some amount of glee: “You’ll have to delete those mp3s!,” to which i responded “But, they’re mine.” Here i could tell she was going in for the kill and so i let her have her moment of glory “University policy on Napster blahblahblah (gee, do i have Napster on my machine? That’s a negative.) blahblahblah fair use policy.” After she finished her (obviously rehearsed) speech i fixed her with the calmest stare i could possibly muster and replied “I’m sorry, maybe you didn’t understand my meaning. I own the lyrics, music, and arrangements to these songs as well as their copyright. They’re from my last album. They belong to me as much as my Annual Report Statistics spreadsheet does. I could show you my handwritten first drafts of them if you’d like.”

Her mouth opened and closed like that of a fish and then we exchanged the hugest neon smiles that ever existed on earth, and she flitted away to suck away all of the entertainment for her next victim.


Ms. Computer-Woman – 0. Technically educated sarcastic singer-songwriter bastard – 1.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/06/4289697/