Tag Archives: music

1 January 2015

MIStakes, HEARtbreak & true love.

By andpantomime

I will not ever forget the fact that I had “The Future Freaks Me Out” by Motion City Soundtrack stuck in my head from 2005 to 2010.
That was five years. One song. Others made only curt appearances, often in the form of catchy lines (“this shit IS bananas…b-a-na-na-s.”) The first line of “The Future Freaks Me Out” is very simple, “Betty can’t stop listening to modern rock, oh!” and then it enjambs “oh” to the next line, “Oh! She hates to be alone.” And for me it was those two lines that set up a whole history of needing to feel both of those things. It was five years – I truly could NOT STOP listening to modern rock – and, oh, I did hate to be alone. I say it set up a history because in more than one way, I have grown out of trying to be Betty. I listen to different music and I love to be alone. But, that song came with a whole album, and that whole album came with my impending history.

Recently, I asked my little sister Shannon what kind of music she was into in high school. She had just moments ago posted to Facebook that she was listening to M.I.A., & since I listened to M.I.A. a lot more in high school it got me really curious as to how Shannon just now fell into that trend, and also what trends she picked up on when she was teenagery. She said that she liked Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday, but mostly folksy stuff like Iron and Wine. But that she only listens to Fall Out Boy now when she’s angry, because they are so angsty.
I was trying to draw a correlation. For exposition’s sake, I should say that Shannon has had a fairly steady relationship for a number of years, even though she is two years younger than me, and that even when she and her sometimes-boyfriend are not together no other men really (seem to) enter her picture. It’s something I admire about Shannon. She got all the stick-to-it genes and all the I-know-what-I-want genes and she also has the best butt of the three of us. But the correlation I was trying to draw was between her music and her relationships. I perceive her to be level-headed, slightly romantic, and patient with people. Which is exactly what I think you must be with folksy stuff, like Iron and Wine specifically. You have to be patient, slightly romantic, and level-headed to enjoy what they’re doing. Me? I still get mad when people try to play Iron and Wine around me. That shit is just not panicky enough.

So, in high school for me it was a lot of Motion City Soundtrack. The second line is from the narrator’s perspective, “I try to compensate her lack of love with coffee cake, ice cream, and a bottle of ten dollar wine.” &, in true-to-Betty form, I looked all around in high school and college for men who would compensate my lack of love (with sweets and eventually alcohol). Failing that, in true-to-Betty form I eventually just did the third line. “She says ‘Hey! I rock the Haro sport, I rock the cowgirl blues, I rock too fast for love; I’m footloose in my velcro shoes’.” For me, that was most of high school and all of college. I wore a lot of crazy clothes and didn’t fall in love and acted like I was better-than.

But the album came with several more notably unpleasant occurrences. It had a main-character/semi-omniscient narrator who got into all sorts of romantic and interpersonal and introspective scrapes. “Indoor Living” is about not being able to express yourself because you find life exhausting. The problem is that someone, whether the narrator himself or someone spending time with the narrator, desperately wants him to express himself, but he’s afraid of disappointing them so he cannot. I went ahead and did that to my first boyfriend…constantly telling him that I didn’t want to let him down, and that I wanted to run away screaming to keep him safe. This album is even titled, I Am the Movie, and guys I AM the movie.

It feels that way, at least, when I remember my life in relation to specific lines. “You said we were an accident; you’ll always be my favorite one” is for the gay guy I loved in high school. “I’ll be back tomorrow, I’ll be back in the ballroom swingin’, I’ll be back with my superman action and I’m off to save the world,” is for all the time I spent trying to manage my weird peers…like being in choir, and in marching band, and in theatre, and then eventually in a real band with the aforementioned boyfriend and a bunch of schmucks who needed a mom. And “I like the red dress,” is just ’cause I needed that boyfriend to like me in a red dress. This album deals with trying to write, trying to relate, and trying to reverse your wrongs – as did I then, as do I now.

This phenomenon in my life got much more serious as Motion City Soundtrack got less abstract. I won’t go on and on in a blog about Commit This to Memory because I CAN’T. I simply cannot put it into any more words…I’ve used up a lot and they all run dry until somebody asks me, with some sincerity, why I am so close to that album. But let’s just say I wrote my only screenplay ever from it. And let’s also say that Justin Pierre, lead singer, dealt with a lot of suicidal desires in the next three albums and I painstakingly did that with him.

Last year (technically it’s still 2014, so in May of 2013) I was graduating college and moving to Colorado. I was part of a marketing firm that was gonna send me shooting straight into the metaphorical American “one percent” and I was gonna give away all the money to all the people. When I drove from Denton to Denver, I was adamant with my father (who rode along) that I would not listen to ANYTHING except The Format. I had two full albums, a live album, B-Sides and Rarities, and 2 EPs, plus an album by fun. (also Nate Ruess of The Format) and that album again but live. And it was all I wanted to hear! Songs about traveling away from people you love, songs about trying to make your career work, and songs about missing people. I still associate “Oceans” with a friend who just got engaged. Those were the brunt of it, but what was I supposed to do with a song like “I’m Actual”?

This song starts, “So can we take the next hour and talk about me? Talk about me and we’ll talk about me. Talk about me, and we’ll ONLY talk about me.” What I didn’t expect, when I moved to Denver, was that Justin would show up and love me. So I have, again, painstakingly, put him through some of the worst parts of these albums. I have expected him to shut up and listen to me for too long (an hour? Really?) “Dog Problems” is about moving in with someone too soon, and then moving right out…which I almost did to Justin. There’s a song about a girl who sleeps around (“Dead End”) and lemme tell you, I was into that right before getting out of college. “She breaks for the summer so she can find a lover, she thinks that they are bottles of wine. They make you dinner and they sing you to sleep…but in the morning? Find the bottle is empty”. I went on countless dates with people I didn’t like after two hours, and sometimes got carried away with those people. When she, the song’s character, does find a lover, this is his take on the whole situation, “I’m looking for a dead-end song…I love it when you talk so much and act like nothing is wrong…We sit and find the flaws in everyone. I wanna keep you right by my side, holding up tidal waves.” So I think I am that girl now. At a dead-end, holding up tidal waves, talking so much to pretend nothing’s wrong, and pointing out the problems of other people in order to feel good about my relationship.

But at the same time as The Format there was a lot of Wilco. Wilco shouts right into your heart, like “Nothing’s ever gonna stand in my way!” which helped me find a job and “I’ve got reservations about so many things, but not about you,” which helped me love when I wanted to leave. I was listening to all of that over a year ago, in a panicked sort of way. I couldn’t listen to enough Wilco. Like I needed to ingest and digest and expect what they said when they said, “I am trying to break your heart” and “I’m worried; I’m always in love,” and “Every little thing is gonna tear you apart.” I am worried, I am in love, every little thing is tearing me apart sometimes and I know I am trying to break hearts. But “Jesus, etc” has this line, “Jesus, don’t cry! You can rely on me, honey. You can come by any time you want,” that I know Justin emulates. He doesn’t get why I’m sad when I’m sad, & he knows he will always be there for me so none of the trivial crap matters. Later in the album is “If I could you know I would just hold your hand and you’d understand; I’m the man who loves you,” and that’s what I feel about him. Always fighting to make it clear who I am and what I am to him.

Somewhere in me, I know there’s a part that should be saying, “C’mon, these are good artists just because they plugged into universal human experiences. Nothing special, and they haven’t brainwashed you.” And I believe that! But I also don’t believe that I’m deciding what to listen to based on who is a good artist. Really I like anyone in my vocal range. I mean, I still like every fabulous piece of shit Fall Out Boy puts out because Patrick Stump and I could hang in the back of the choir. But on the other hand, I feel like they are emphatically telling me what not to do and I just keep making the same mistakes that end in heartbreak. If the album is a playbook then you are meant to first reverse all the directions, but I never got those instructions.

So, I’m making a conscious decision to look at what I’m feeding my subconscious. I’m listening to Anais Mitchell sing about couples who grow old and in love and never quite measure up to each other’s expectations (“The Shepherd’s Song”, from Young Man in America, is about a woman who is so stubborn that she dies in childbirth, but she loves her husband and their farm and their future). “Tailor” is about deciding who you want to be based on what someone likes about you, which is only reasonable if you think somebody brings out the best in you. And apart from Anais Mitchell, not much is sticking. “Betty [still] can’t stop listening to modern rock” but what really sticks is the stuff that sounds new and different and the stuff that sounds like a future I’d like to have. At this point, I’m convinced that what I listen to is life-changing. But, like Shannon, perhaps I could slow it down and listen to some Iron and Wine and focus on patience, level-headedness, and romanticism. Because what lacks in the angsty stuff, in the Fall Out Boy and Motion City Soundtrack (and M.I.A. and Against Me! and Dr. Dog and Andrew Jackson Jihad and The Format) is a desirable, romantic, peacefulness.

I need peace like we all do. Peace be with you.

Sincerely,
-M

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9 January 2013

And the wanting comes in waves.

By andpantomime

i am just a little tired of the small annoyances i feel. primarily those which stem from not being perfect, picturesque, or even very traditional.  it’s been a week now that I’ve worked here in Colorado, and while the business has perceived a change in me – namely an ability to adapt and make sales – I have gone, night after night, to bed a feeling of helplessness that is truly uncharacteristic.  usually, just work is enough for me to feel fulfilled and enthusiastic – even impressive. But tonight again, I’m hopelessly hopeful for a heart-change. as some people can be “in love with being in love” (like my favorite Format song, “Inches and Falling”), i temporarily desire to desire. what do I have to blame for the fact that I wish I were more or less romantic? more romantic in the sense that I be vulnerable and charmed and feel undeserving rather than entitled. and less romantic in the sense that I stop idealizing my business potential as if it’s all I need. I guess the observable truth about love and work is that it all depends what you make of what you have, whether or not happiness follows clo

se behind is more or less all dependent upon your capacity to be satisfied. Now, me? I am not satisfied. I feel cheated by the relationship I do or don’t have. I feel cheated like a princess with a frog – or at least like a Sandra Bullock character who ends up with the I feel uncontrollably angry that I did not bring my computer and so am forced, frustratedly, to type on a phone which has zero continuity-editing capabilities. All my sentences are strewn about pell-mell and all I can do is hope for the catharsis of posting a few angst-riddled “paragraphs” in a forlorn hotel bathroom. I just want to have somewhere safe to sleep naked, grocery-shop, and change my contacts. It could be here in Colorado if onlt I weren’t leashed by an unfinished degree and a bad mood and insomnia. supporting actor. nd this dissatisfaction has been done to me by all the mediums I like best. Music makes me desirous. Movies make me desirous. And, heaven-forbid-but-it’s true, evei also feel uncontrollabn the most popular television makes me wish I were more normal, more easily swept-off-my-feet, or at least that a broom were nearby.
Truthfully, I am rambling. I see no harm nor benefit in either rattling or not rattling on about the fact that I need more stimulation. Everywhere from business to the boudoir. I feel insatiable and still. I feel lovely and lovable and useless and infamous. I also feel

I’m annoyed. Mostly at the feelings I have of stagnation, and also oddly annoyed at the audacious nature of why I feel annoyed, if that makes any sense.

I don’t have any right to feel unfulfilled. I am, now, in Colorado on a business trip and I’ve had 5 straight days of incomparable success. I’m making money, I’m training someone amazing, and most importantly I’m overcoming the kind of obstacles that would ordinarily be holding me back in a two-week rotation. I also, not to mention, get to sleep in, get off work early, and I don’t have to spend any of my own money for gas. It’s a dream, right?
But I’m bothered nonetheless. I feel so still that I’m uncharacteristically melancholy. I’m not still or stagnant at work – obviously – but there are other parts of life that give me the breathless feeling of struggling to catch up with the everyman.
I hate to admit this as a source of my frustration, but I didn’t pack my computer for this trip so I spend a few minutes each night scrolling the only web app on my phone: Facebook. And here it is, a new year, and I see half a dozen people getting a new start – a fresh start – on something that will absolutely define them for the rest of their lives. People within a year or two of my age are getting married to the right people, starting work as teachers, moving to California and Germany, and man am I jealous. Not of any of those three things specifically (definitely not of being married or being a teacher, and I don’t think I am ready for California or Germany although they’re in the long-term plan), but I am definitely envious of the kind of heart it takes to want those things. It is

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14 December 2012

Make me something somebody can use.

By andpantomime

I have so many things to be grateful for, especially lately, and I missed out on pointing them out over Thanksgiving. But I feel like it’s never too soon to look at the year in retrospect. Or to make some New Year’s resolutions. Tomorrow’s a brand new year if tomorrow is when I start to count to 365.

December 2011, I wrote the lyrics to a little ditty for Chris Redmon, Ben Noe, and Hunter Cannon, and called it “Jim from Accounting”. It was the beginning of a short-lived, but well-loved membership in Death in the West, and while my biggest contribution was probably just that song, getting in with those guys challenged and shaped me. I learned that making music is a difficult labor of love.

In January, I volunteered for the media team at a Chi Alpha Christian conference called Salt, and I got to run slides for a congregation of a thousand and star in three short films. As a ninja, no less. I met a filmmaker named Nathan Cole and one named Vladyslav Alexander and they made me feel good, helpful, important, and loved by God.

In February I met Anthony Foreman in a creative writing class. He’d had experience with one hard-hitting poetry professor, and along with his infinite patience and interest in people, he has film experience too. We have film classes together and a lot in common which helps us edify one another.

In March, Mallory married her best friend, Chris Redmon, and I was there to be a part. A month later, Mallory got me my first full-time position and the career choice I was seeking so desperately – one that would carry over after graduation. I was safe, and this pair had once again proved to me that they are a family to me that I do not even deserve.

In June and July, I worked and I met people. I developed strange but loving friendships with people who work, of all places, at a CostCo in Plano. I felt safe and needed and encouraged and, again, I felt challenged. I also started to think, for the first time, about leaving the University of North Texas Phonathon. I did my first interviews. I trained my first teammates.

In August, I celebrated my birthday with the inimitable Glenn Boisvert. He makes me laugh, he teases me, he meets me halfway, he puts up with all of my crap, and he thinks I’m worthwhile. I told him he shouldn’t expect more than capricious flirtation from me, but he has ended up with so much more.

In September, I had to leave Death in the West so they could find a better bassist, and it was a lot like amicably breaking up a relationship. But at the same time, I made huge strides in my work at Phonathon and I met a kid who was ready for someone to take him under their wing.

In October I had the luck of shooting a movie with this kid. Along with his fellow actors and Phonathon employees – Ryan Lowery and Michael Incavo – I have to give huge props to Ryan Tatum for being an intelligent, moving, and impassioned young man.

In November I started and finished my first non-silent student short film. We had no lighting, I was a bad camera person, and the editing process took several weeks (and turned out black and white), but I had unbelievably good cast members like Wraychel Fobbs. Kimberly Marshall was my lovable production assistant. And it was Glenn’s story.

It’s December, and I finally had to retire from Phonathon after three years, because now I’m looking forward again. Tomorrow I go back to work full-time, and I’m motivated. I have had a changing, challenging year. Some people have been constant throughout it – family, my best friends from all over space and time.

But now to my resolution. All I want, next year, is to cease to be so selfish – or at least cut back as much as humanly possible. I want to do whatever is in my power to just make other people happy and better and empowered all the time. Nothing needs to be about me unless it’s about them first. After all – I owe it to everyone. If all of these people can love me and support me for a year, then I can do the same for so many others.

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24 November 2012

I’ll keep you warm and won’t ask you where you’ve been.

By andpantomime

It is unconscionable how much of my life is determined by my feelings over The Weakerthans’ lyrics and Buttercup Festival comics.

Before I talk about Him, I should note: I am a FATALIST because God is SOVEREIGN.
I’m madly in love with God. I don’t spend a single moment without rejoicing in something He has created. That being said, I don’t believe that it is critical to my salvation that I do anything except perpetuate His love, understand His grace, and put all my faith in Him. Yes, it is a broken and fallen world, but He planned it this way that He might one day put it back together, and every part of that plan is beautiful to me, and perfect. I cannot be made to hate anything in His design.

There are some phrases, full-fledged quotes, and wonderful lines I’ve heard in my lifetime which I desperately want someone to repeat to me. They are these five as follows:
“Who TALKS like you?!”
“Well you obviously have a rich fantasy life, which I must say is an excellent plus.”
“Tell me how could you compromise yourself like this? Tell me how can you blame anyone else when you aren’t really committed? Tell me – where was your head when you broke that promise to yourself?: the one where you don’t forget every last lesson that happened BEFORE you arrived.”
“You’re all the metaphors I can’t create to comprehend this curse that I call love.”
“You’re too perfect, you’re too wonderful, none of us can keep up with you! You know that’s probably why all those other guys bolted as fast as their Birkenstocks could carry them because you’re – intolerable! And no one wants to be preached to! No one wants to live with a saint!; saints are boring.”

This is what I know so far:
I quote. And I can contextualize anything. I am happy with, for, and about myself. I am a working-, rather than a work-in, progress.

I care more about words than anything THIS world has to offer. Precision of language is my passion, so if I annoy you when I describe or expand upon the efficacy of a joke or lyric, tough; you’re not going to enjoy me. Also, I like my vocabulary and strive to utilize it to its full extent. I am a rapacious logophile, grammarian, and figurative linguist. I usually say so much at once that my listeners get lost, but I also try to say something beautiful with every syllable. I care quite a lot about lyrics, and will criticize harshly when I find them insufficient. Here is a critique of some attempted parallel structure (by one of my favorite bands, nonetheless):
“When she walks, she swings her arms, instead of her hips. When she talks she moves her mouth, instead of her lips […] When she wants, she wants the sun instead of the moon. When she sees, she sees the stars inside of her room.” The first verse is perfect and is set up with special attention to rhyme (talks, walks), multiplicity of verbs to illustrate separate movements (walks : swings :: talks : moves), and synecdoche (arms and hips representing bodily movement during transit/mouth and lips representing facial movement during speech.) The second verse fails in all three of these important aspects. “Wants” and “sees” do not rhyme, “wants” is used twice, as is “sees”, and the synecdoche is absent completely. These failures, as far as I’m concerned, greatly diminish the power of the song’s descriptors by showing the weaknesses of the writer.

Anyway, I can improve your artistic proofs if you ask me.

“Can anybody tell me why God won’t speak to me? Why Jesus never called on me to part the fuckin’ seas? Why death is easier than living: you can be almost anything when you’re on your fucking knees. Not today – not My Son – not my family. Not while walking is still honest…and You haven’t given up on me.”
Although God’s mostly a concept to me, I hope to one day have a relationship with Him. I want Him to hold my hand and kiss my forehead when I’m tearful, and I want to do everything through, for, with, by – and lots of other prepositions – Him. I struggle every day with Genesis 1 and 2 because I believe in evolution. I just don’t see why God creating the earth over millions of years, and then animals, and then man, has any effect on the validity of the Genesis story. It has been suggested to me that I don’t understand the power of God, or have enough faith in Him – simply because of this belief. If you’ve ever truly asked me about my understanding and faith, not my beliefs, you’ll know that’s not true. Thanks to Christianity, I have misery for homosexuals and I don’t understand where they fit in the plan. I do know that, as of now, I don’t believe wholeheartedly in bisexuality. I subscribe to three levels of male/female identity. 1: Anatomical/chromosomal sex. 2: Mental gender. 3: Sexuality. If any of this offends, ask me what the Hell I mean.

Against Me! is one of my favorite bands, mostly for the dozen or so songs which I actually know. And for the retro-anarchic epiphany which I know occurred in the band members. I believe that anarchists and liberals are under the false impression that they are the most emotionally-sensitive people who exist – that they care the most – and I appreciate that, because it makes beautiful music.
I value Motion City Soundtrack most highly of all bands. Justin Pierre has struggled for five albums with real depression, and he writes about it in order to understand it. In order to understand how it has affected his relationships, his friendships, his day-to-day life. The other musicians are creative, talented, and their instrumental sound is clean and pure. Every vocal line (“vocal” not necessarily meaning that of the singer) has a very specific intent, which I tend to pull apart for meaning until I can feel it in my heartbeat.
Finally, mewithoutYou is well-loved by me. You may not realize you’ve had to struggle your way through faith until Aaron Weiss articulates some of your thoughts, praises God for WHO He is rather than WHAT he does, and rejoices in everything from Jesus to Aesop’s fables.

I wish I could play an instrument, and I wish I had the time, money, and instruction to learn. It’s been a desperate wish my entire life, and is yet unfulfilled. I only accept humor in music as a brief interlude rather than an entire purpose to a piece. This is because I revere music too much to endure one using it as a medium for something as menial as rhymed, rhythmic, or melodic humor. I think humor requires more freedom of inflection than music can afford it, and is rarely capable of that when used in every line of a song. The last two lines of this set of stanzas contain one joke, which is absolutely hilarious through its juxtaposition with passionate, poignant lyrics:
“I get lost, messed up and bored when I’m alone too long: I can’t sleep, function or eat when I’m not with someone. Late last fall she ended it all and moved to who-knows-where, just like that, she vanished and packed and never even called…Do you feel a certain sense of synergy between yourself and me? A kind of macabre and somber Wonder Twin type of harmony?”
The hilarity, of course, is the allusion to the Wonder Twins. It’s out of place amidst this earnest, emotional appeal; thus: funny.

The last time someone realized they were falling in love with me, the revelation was incurred by Turk’s monologue to Carla in the episode “My Blind Date” of Scrubs, season 1. I believe that there is immense, accessible power to teach in showing the process of a lesson as it happens to others – including people who don’t truly exist. This is why I want to write sitcoms. I want to deliver therapy to the masses through the comedic and dramatic stories of fictional characters – twenty-two minute psychiatric sessions once a week for the cost of your monthly cable bill.
Turk: “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and, you know…we’re past that whole new, exciting relationship phase, and…all that’s left is us. Baby, I gotta tell you: You drive me crazy. All right? You take my french fries; you–you boss me around in front of my friends-”
Carla: “You said strong women turn you on!”
Turk: “Forget about it.”
Carla: “Look, we all know what you’re gonna do, so why not be a man and do it so I can go home?”
Turk: “Okay. I love you. You annoy me more than I ever thought possible, but…I want to spend every irritating minute with you.”
Carla: “Me too.”
Turk: “Yeah.”
Carla: “I love you.”

I believe in love at first sight, and I’ve experienced it once. He was visiting from Ireland, it was Disney World, and we exchanged grins. I want to fall in love again, apart from with myself and with God. I fight the idea of “one true love” because I don’t believe anyone exists who is perfect for me. Why not? Because there’s too much he’d have to be, and to even begin the guy would have to be a musical prodigy who excites easily and cares penultimately about rhetoric. He’d have to be a Christian endowed with the power to lead a rogue like me. He’d have to love the way I look AND the way I think – not one more than the other – and he’d have to be able to understand both how I’m pretty and how I conclude anything. Since I don’t yet believe in that guy, I’m gonna date myself and the Lord for as long as it takes. So if you want me, figure out what makes you incomplete – go find yourself. You’ll soon realize that I’m not your beau ideal, but instead your femme fatale. Especially because I would rather break hearts than have mine broken, thank you very much. I’ve made the mistake of romantic, devotional concession twice and the primary result is anger and disappointment. I am jealous. I torture and punish myself. I give of myself too easily.
“Fuck unrequited love. You’ll have a lump in your throat for years when you think of him, but today, you’ll think of him a little less than yesterday. Kick today’s ass and make out with a girl.” – Dylan Nelson
I’m very forward for a girl. I’m not a feminist, but I would rather propose to my future husband than he to me. When I want, I reach, and when I reach, I grip. So, basically, I’m groping for happiness and unashamed to admit it. When people leave me, they tell me I’m “too smart, too pretty, and too nice” or that I deserve someone who fully appreciates and is similar to me. I think I just deserve whomever I want, and that they should be brave enough to keep me. I need to be romanced, but more so, I need to be listened to.

I want you to be my friend and admire me, because I admire you. I’m gorgeous, and you are too. I probably think you are funny. I love everyone as fast as possible, which is usually after about ten minutes of one-on-one conversation. I tell everyone everything I think about them all the time immediately. You can ask me anything. I will befriend anyone. I am often glued to my phone, because I just want to talk. I hope you sincerely like me. I will speak to you in the imperative and sound extremely pretentious because I wish I were better than you somehow, but please know that deep down I’m aware that I’m not. If I am ignored, the hurt is long-lasting. Please don’t lie to me, even through omission. I try to allow you to be yourself. Please try to allow me to be mine.
Zach Zoet: “Megan, if the world existed like you wanted it to, if everybody was like you, there’d be a breed of superhumans. And everybody else would be dead.”
Me: “Yayyy.”
My respect is hard to earn, but my courtesy is not. For instance: I don’t pay attention in my classes unless I respect the teacher, and I rarely do. But if I respect the teacher, even if I don’t respect the subject, I will pay attention – as I have done to Dirk Lindemann (a history professor) and Brandon Smith (a theatre director).
“In the 19th century we didn’t call economic depressions ‘depressions’. We called them ‘panics’. I think I like that better: economic PANIC.” – Dirk Lindemann
“We’ve all faked the fruit at some point.” – Brandon Smith
I have studied theatre in a way that helps me understand my love of rhetoric and scripts. But ultimately, I hate performing someone else’s work on a stage. I do, however, love public speaking and am terribly good at it. A contributing factor is that I love to write essays.

I smile.
I make clothing, not from scratch, but through unique alterations to otherwise complete pieces.
I sing. I love to dance.
I cook.
I may not be a political activist, but I vote in more than just presidential elections.
I wish I wrote more. When I write, I press hard on the paper and have huge handwriting. Graphologically, this proves that I am aggressive and confident.

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21 October 2012

Bicentennial Man

By andpantomime

We read so much about our heroes, if we have them. We’ll chew on all the information we can about their successes, their talents, their lives, and occasionally we’ll be fascinated by some fact of failure in their “past”. Even if you don’t have heroes, you’re surrounded by the mythology of America; the Horatio Alger, rags-to-riches, I-overcame-adversity-by-the-skin-of-my-teeth mentality. But what we inherently miss the importance of, and what we should supremely value, is what the myth lacks in its superficial structure:
Failure, failure, failure, and more failure.

I only have a few examples of the people in whose presence I would feel myself a jackass. One of them is Joss Whedon, who – chronologically – has done one thing after another that I (and his paychecks, no doubt) call enormously successful, but which others might call categorical failures. Let’s face it: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was campy, Angel a spinoff, Firefly was canceled, Dollhouse ran less than 3 seasons, Speed and Serenity and The Cabin in the Woods appeal to niche audiences and the opposing kinds of audiences for each are always highly critical due to their misinterpretation of the text (e.g.: the layman’s review,

OH BUT OH WAIT. IS ANYONE LOOKING. GUY CO-WROTE TOY STORY. AND AVENGERS. 3RD-HIGHEST GROSSING FILM OF ALL TIME.
And yet he doesn’t qualify for universal respect. Shocking.

You know, I’d also feel myself a real jerk if I were sitting in a room with Thomas Edison. Say what you will about Tesla, but Edison was a badass as well. For as long as I can remember, so from at least the time I was 7, I’ve had this time-transcendent crush on Edison. I don’t know why, but I grew up always consuming biographies about people with disabilities: Louis Braille, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller – blind, deaf, blind and deaf. I won’t talk about Edison and the Lumiere brothers, or Edison and Tesla (though if you want an informed and balanced opinion, measure this: based upon your own scale of authorial ethos).

What I will talk about is Edison and his work on Bell’s telephone. He is, to me, an example of invention and entrepreneurship – which, damnit, is the hardest balance to strike but probably the most necessary. It never, ever, EVER matters what you do or make if too few people know you’re doing or making it. This starts with lies – who cares if no one notices? And ends with telephones – thank you, Edison and Charles Batchelor, for phonograph parlors. ()

Edison had ear infections growing up and was so deaf by the time he worked on phonographs that he had to bite the instruments and hear sound through the rattling of his skullbones (). He cared so much about other people hearing things (and marketing those things to hearing-abled people!).

Me, at present. I’m reading a book by John C. Maxwell called Failing Forward. It’s encouraging business and self-help propaganda that most would probably quietly regard as goulash. But Maxwell makes a few key points as he succeeds in teaching me to not be afraid of my screw-ups:

The difference between people who achieve whatever they want, people who achieve whatever, and people who don’t achieve is this: the ones who do whatever they want perceive and respond to failure differently. It’s usually not a, “pick-yourself-up-dust-yourself-off” attitude, but more of an, “I do not need time to recover I will just do whatever I planned to do, immediately.”

It’s the essence of YOLO, really. Carpe diem. Passive versus aggressive. One of the problems my cohorts frequently cite when talking about why they haven’t done something – anything! ask a girl out! write a book! – is fear of failing. But, c’mon. I, personally, wouldn’t love Whedon so much if he weren’t a bit of an underdog. He is made so much BIGGER to me by his “big”, so-called “failures”. We love that part that’s missing in the myth. Like Edison –  some deaf inventor guy who spent his life literally chewing on the phonograph. You remember your teachers buying those well-marketed posters from Mardels Christian Bookstore and all they said was some bastardized version of, “Success is this: ‘I have not failed 1,000 times.  I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb,'” and we hemmed and hawed and ignored them or just kept quiet and colored?

Well sheesh. I wanna be one of the 1 or 2 of every 100 people who DO what we say we’re going to do. Who GETS what she wants because she doesn’t care (i.e., is fearless). And everybody can have a copy of my every screw-up along the way, because I want us all to to know exactly how big and great I am by how much I’ve ignored and bullied through.

I only hope I can pick up and drag and push and pull and tug and tussle with as many people as possible in the wake of my success. I wanna teach people to take chances. Raise the stakes. Risk and risk and risk and risk until risking 1 thing becomes so easy that you have to risk something else instead. The first thing you’ll always risk is your pride – whether you want to be a musician, an entrepreneur, or an auteur. The average of 98 to 99 out of 100 people is the risks they have in common: they risk losing themselves in relationships, marriages, careers with soulless bosses, mindless jobs, having kids, or – worse – losing themselves in complete inactivity. If you’re going to risk something, don’t risk all the shit that makes you who you are (or who you want to be). Risk a little time, a little money, a little money, a little pride, a little energy. Get bigger than your obstacles or risk not getting big at all.

You’re just gonna die whispering, “I have this one idea, but no, no – I can’t explain it.”

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