This Is What We Have Become

A friend of mine posted this photo on Facebook this morning. This is the line outside of a local mall, where people are queued up in order to get a wristband that will allow them to purchase a pair of the new Air Jordans that come out today.

Yes, that's right. Shoes. These people are in line for shoes.

But they're not even in line for shoes, they're in line for the wristband that will give them the right to buy shoes. Knowing how things work these days, I imagine this is even a line for a wristband to allow them to buy a pair of shoes that they pre-registered to buy on the internet.

The sad part of it all? I would imagine that at least 25% of these people will not even put the shoes on their feet; either because they want to keep them pristine and in perfect condition in the box, or because they want to flip them for a quick profit. Still, that "profit" comes at the cost of having to stand in line for hours on a Thursday morning for shoes.

When did we become a line-waiting culture? How did this "get it before anyone else can" obsession spread to all parts of our consumer experience? I can condone it for something that has a spoiler aspect to it: movies, books, stuff like that. Yes, you want to see the movie before every jamoke on your Facebook timeline talks about how OMG the ending was, and your moviegoing experience is ruined. I get that.

An aside: usually going to the movies for one of the first showings of a movie is enough to ruin my moviegoing experience. But I'm a curmudgeon.

But shoes? Shoes? I can guarantee that every person in this line has seen pictures and probably videos of the shoes already. Some crazy Nike Jordan fanboys have probably even seen design specs. So what is the rush? Spoiler alert! The shoes are mid-tops! I'm the first to realize, these shoes have laces!

This makes about as much sense to me as all the commenters who flock to online newspapers, video hosting sites, etc. and leave one comment: "First". Because, after all, it doesn't matter if you watched the video or read the article (it matters even less if you have an opinion, especially an intelligent one) about what you read or saw, what matters is that you got there first.

And where does it all lead?

Apparently to a parking lot outside a shopping mall at 7:45 in the morning, waiting in the drizzle for a wristband for a pair of shoes you may never wear.

Conflicted

No, I'm not conflicted about abandoning this blog, I've just been busy with the new job and all.

And for those of you who haven't heard, I got a new job. I'm working as an editor for an educational publishing company, and so far it's pretty sweet.

What I was conflicted about earlier today was a task I had to do for part of my job: I had to pull a book apart. Yeah, it was weird. See, whenever we print a new edition or a new printing of a book, we digitally archive the previous printing, from what I can tell, it's pretty standard operating procedure, and it's good because you can almost immediately pull up any edition of any book to see what changes have taken place and all that. It's just the method by which that archiving takes place that was a tough pill for me to swallow.

For those of you who regularly use a multi-purpose copier/scanner deal, you know there is the glass platen where you can place things, and there is a top-loader that will pull loose pages through and scan them automatically in a large batch. That is clearly the more efficient way to go about scanning high page counts. So today I had to take a reference copy of this book, cut its cover off with an old-fashioned paper cutter, and then pull each individual page from the binding to create individual pages to feed into the top loader, and for a book nerd like yours truly, that is just about the same as doing something cruel like pulling the wings off of a fly.

It got me thinking of how peculiar I assume I must be. I'd imagine most of you reading this wouldn't think twice, but it really got to me. I talked to the book, said how proud we all were of it, and assured it that it we were going to send it to a nice farm upstate where it could play in a big field with other retired editions so that it wasn't worried to take that final trek. I reassured myself that this book was giving its life as a bound edition to assure future generations of better books, but it still was tough. Outside of humans, cars, or domesticated animals, this is probably about as sentimental as I get about stuff like that. I can go to a restaurant and eat veal or foie gras without batting an eye. I enjoy watching chefs artfully butcher and prepare meats, but somehow if it happens to a book, I get all glassy-eyed and have to steel my nerves.

I had a similar reaction with a piece of art that I purchased a few years ago. It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever read this blog that I am a huge fan of Jack Kerouac, and when I saw a portrait that an artist had painted of him for sale at a local restaurant, I bought it right off the wall and carried it home with me that night. However, there was one little part of that portrait that still makes me a little sad to this day: the entire backdrop of the portrait is made up of ripped up pages of On the Road that were decoupaged onto the canvas. It looks great, and it makes an excellent effect, but it also makes me a little sad to know that a copy of my favorite novel of all time was sacrificed for the sake of art.

In summation, I'm odd and you should love and cherish your books like I do. Now I'm off to bed to cuddle with a couple books and assure them that they'll never see a fate like that as long as I have a say in the matter.

Getting Started

I've been involved in a number of conversations with a number of people recently about how I got my start doing something, and I feel like I never have a particularly exciting or insightful answer for the question. It doesn't matter if it's music or writing, I just feel like I found something I like to do and have tried to dedicate my time and efforts to getting in to that practice. 

For music, I was eight years old, I saw the movie "La Bamba" and immediately knew I wanted to play guitar. My parents had tried to get me to play piano first, since my sister had already been playing for a few years and was showing some promise, but I just couldn't get the hang of it no matter how I tried. Oddly enough, I still can't play piano to save my life, so that's something I guess I just have to just throw my hands up and say "oh well" to. I was lucky that maybe a month or two later, a teacher at my school started offering guitar lessons, and I immediately signed up. I was maybe eight years old, and for the first little while, it was kind of hellish: I remember a number of times my parents sent me to my room and threatened some kind of recourse if they didn't hear me playing guitar for at least half an hour. At the time there were probably a hundred things that I would have rather been doing, but now, some 23 years later, I am thrilled that they did it. Because I had a knowledge of reading music and all the basics of guitar playing, by the time I started listening to a lot of music that I wanted to play, I was able to pick things up much easier than friends who were just starting out. 

Since then, all I did was keep playing and playing until I couldn't play anymore. However, I also wonder from time to time nowadays if I have plateaued. It's strange: I don't feel the need to practice much on my own, since I can play what I feel like I want and need to play, but I still always want to believe that I'm getting better at the same time. Similarly, I am the worst person to ask if it is difficult to learn guitar or not: when you start playing as young as I did, you don't think about the challenge, and now that I've been playing for like 75% of my life, I believe that it comes second nature. I realize it doesn't, but I just can't think back to the old days of not knowing anything about guitars. There is plenty of stuff that I can't do, there are plenty of songs that I might never be able to play, but I can play as much as I want to for the time being, and I have to be content with that. 

Writing was a trickier question. You never really take lessons or anything like that, right? Yes, I realize taking English classes is like taking writing lessons, but only a portion of what I learned in school applies to writing that I might do for work (kids, if you're reading this, don't pay attention to that last sentence - school and English classes are the most important thing you can do with your life, ever). 

So when I had a former work acquaintance ask me "How did you get started as a copywriter?" I was completely flummoxed. For me, it has just been a part of self-discovery: I knew upon graduating high school that English and Band were the two areas in which I excelled. When I decided not to major in music, I didn't bat an eye before settling in on an English major. I graduated, I taught for a while, I went to grad school, and all the while, I wrote. I wrote this blog, I wrote lesson plans, I tweeted, I wrote hopefully entertaining Facebook posts, I wrote emails for myself and for my bands; I just plain wrote. It became a way of life. 

Yes, this is the point where you detractors will draw attention to the fact that my blogging has become infrequent at best, and my twitter account has been somewhat neglected, but I have a lot of irons in the fire at the moment. Bear with me. 

Much like music, I don't think of writing as something I work on anymore, it's just something I do. Yes, I work like hell on it, but to me it's all part of the writing process. I read, I edit things that I write, I edit things that other people write, I brainstorm; it's always going on even if I don't have things to show for it. I would like to say that I started writing when I was a little kid and I poked a few attempts at a story on my parents' old typewriter. It was god awful, I'm sure, but it was the first time I sat down and said, "I am going to write something" and sat there until the words came out. It's not unlike what I do now, but now I'm a lot more critical of my writing, and every now and again, someone pays me for the things I write. 

So how did you get your start? Did you determine this path early on, or did it evolve over time? I'm curious more than anything because I don't think that I've asked too many people that question myself, and the more the question rattles around my head and the more I try to formulate an answer, the more I kick myself for not asking of myself and of others sooner.

The Real Cost?

A few days ago I read an article that a local music promoter had put up on her Facebook account entitled "Want to Be a Rock Star? You'll Need $100,000". All in all, I found it a pretty worthwhile read, especially for aspiring musicians.

If you don't want to read the whole thing, the gist of the article is that being a musician is expensive, and if you really want to devote yourself to chasing a dream, you had better be prepared to spend some cash in that pursuit. I fully agree. Lord knows I've spent a pretty insane amount of money on all the trappings: recording, CD duplication, making merch, van rentals for tours, etc. It's not easy and it's not for the faint of financial heart. If I sold off every last bit of gear that I own and gave up the rehearsal studio I love so dearly, for the year 2012 I could probably come close to putting myself through grad school again. Yeah, it's that bad. But I don't, because I love playing music, I love being in bands, and I love the friendships I have developed as a byproduct.

But back to the article. There are a few marked differences: first off, the authors, who are members of a band called Two Lights" are further along the musical journey than I have ever been, and they're significantly younger. They are legitimately up-and-coming, and I respect that. However, the management company they pay for and their booking agent don't come cheap at all. They record in high end studios that cost a lot of money, and despite tracking some stuff on their own, I'm sure they work with at least one, possibly more high-end producers who always fetch a pretty penny. Hello Monster is starting to go down that rabbit hole at the minute as we are finally starting to undertake some recording for our new album, so I am more than aware what the going rates for studios and producers can be. In the meantime, does anyone know how I can sell a kidney on the black market? That might help offset some of the pain.

However, in the article, and this is really the heart of what got me writing this blog tonight, the authors start lumping in some costs that I find much more suspect. They lump in a lifetime of music lessons, totaling about $30k. Yes, I took lessons too, but I did so when I was in grade school and a bit in high school. I learned a lot from instructors all along, but did I say to myself when I was in the 7th grade "Bill, you could keep on learning and possibly become a rock star, or would you rather bank some of that money and have an easier time paying your rent when you're 30?" Of course not, I said I wanted to learn guitar, and taking lessons helped. Having said that, ever since I started playing real shows at about 18 or so, I have never taken any additional training. I've bought books and studied some theory on my own and stuff, but that's it.

They also mention the cost of taking taxis to gigs, and paying a drummer to play with them. Both are absurd to me. Yes, I know, nobody owns a car in New York, and if they do, they never give up their parking spot, but you're in a band. They might as well count the money they spend on the subway to practice, or the electricity in their apartment while they are songwriting, since it's all the same. As far as paying a drummer, maybe they should do what so many other musicians have done with great success: find a drummer who wants to play in your band, not just some hired gun who you have to pay to play.

What's worse, is they talk about the exorbitant cost of living in New York, because being in NY is apparently tantamount to their success as musicians. This is absolute bull. Yes, I live in San Francisco, and yes, I am exposed to much more as a result. But look at a band like REM, at one point one of the most popular bands in rock, and they're from Athens, Georgia. Pavement, the gods of the indie rock scene, are from friggin' Stockton fer chrissakes. In short, if you are good, your music will be heard, and if people like it, it doesn't matter where you are. Your music will be heard and it can catch on anywhere, then you can relocate when a record label or management company is willing to pay for you to live where they want you to live.

Finally, they factor in "lost wages" - since they are spending so much time working on being in a band and making it, they aren't able to work full time, and the older brother apparently even has to turn down writing worth $400 a week. Unfortunately, the vast majority of bands I know don't have this luxury. If my bandmates don't work, we don't eat. We don't have somewhere to live. (yes, the irony of an unemployed man writing these words is not lost on me) I know of two different bands who are currently living in a space that is also their rehearsal space, one of which had it so bad that they all had to get memberships at 24 hour fitness so that they could shower. So don't get me started on wages or making sacrifices for your music.

Phew, now I feel a little better. Everyone who has legitimate aspirations of making it in music also doesn't have the delusions of what the cost of those aspirations are. You spend money on gear, promotion, recording, the whole shebang, and maybe some day you get big enough where you can play all that gear in a bigger room for more people, people who give a damn about your music and might actually be more receptive to buying your merch. But until then, the boxes of unsold CDs will continue to crowd our garages, the epic speaker cabinets will still only live up to part of their usefulness, and we'll all hope that the next person that comes to our show is that person who can finally help us get to a point where we don't have these worries anymore.

Sweet Solitude

This is going to be another one of those posts where I tiptoe around a question because blogging is often a way for me to figure things out. I try not to do these too often, or if I do, I at least try to keep them lighthearted or quirky enough to make them a fun read. Tonight, however, I really feel the need to throw some words up on this page and hopefully some of you read it, and even more hopefully, some of you have an opinion or a take on the whole situation (not necessarily specific to me, just in general).

See, I'm currently reading this book called "Generation Me" which is all about the emerging trend of bolstering self-confidence and entitlement over everything else, and how it is actually making the people it is supposed to be helping miserable by setting up false assurances. Thus far (I'm only about a third of the way through the book) it seems to be very convincing and well thought out, and I'd recommend it to most anyone in my generation. But I'm not here to write a book review, rather, there was one line that really struck a chord with me:

There's also the obvious danger of getting too accustomed to being on your own. If you learn to love yourself and your solitude, it will be a lot harder to adjust once you do find someone to share your life with.

A grim look into my future?

Thing is, for those of you who know me, I haven't had a real serious relationship for some years now, and while yes, there are all sorts of times that I think "I'm a little lonely" or "I don't like being the one single person in the room" there are also hundreds of times where I appreciate being single and only having to account for myself. But my question is this: is that such a bad thing? Is it really detrimental to be happy by yourself? Are we still resorting to judging your happiness and or the fullness of your life by romantic relationships? What happened to self-acceptance and contentment with yourself? What happened to independence? How about friends and family? I got that up the wazoo. I have two excellent roommates, about a sum total of eight bandmates, all of whom I love like brothers. Does this still make me a risk of having difficulty adjusting my lifestyle when I get in a relationship?

My main gripe is that the author is sub-textually inferring that you need to compromise your lifestyle in order to be in a relationship. She implies, rather indirectly, that you need to concede parts of your life you might enjoy in order to build a relationship, which I think is dangerous. Yes, I know a lot of people who absolutely need someone else in their life, and being the singleton that I am, I sometimes have trouble wrapping my head around that, but am I hopeless because I still want to spend time with my friends or my bands when I date someone?

Yes, I know compromises or concessions are made, but that is something we all do in every relationship, don't we? Don't most of us also crave some amount of space from time to time? I love hanging out with my roommates, of course, but I also love nights like this where I can close my door, put on my headphones, and feel like I'm in a house by myself. Does that make me crazy? Am I just a loner? Have I already fallen so deep into this "love yourself and your solitude" mindset that I am jinxing the possibility of meeting someone?

Bah, there I go with all the questions. That's always a good time to stop. Still, if you have any insight, feel free to comment here, call or text if you know how to get a hold of me, or shoot me an email (again, if you have the necessary info). In the meantime, I'm just going to sit here in my bedroom and love my solitude.

The Night Owl Problem

I was first going to write this post back when I was working, but I suppose the fact that I'm starting it at one in the morning on a Thursday should pack the same amount of gravitas.

Here's the thing: I am not a morning person. I never really have been. Given the choice (as I have at the moment) I prefer to turn in somewhere between three and four in the morning and wake up around noon. It's a weird way of going about life, I understand that, but it's just what suits me best. However, whenever I am employed, that whole lifestyle is turned on its ear: I have to be awake and functioning far earlier than I'd ever choose to be, however no matter how hard I seem to try, I can't naturally acclimate to waking up at 7:00 or 7:30. Try as I may to break the pattern, my body seems to resist it. Even if I try to "get to bed early" (read: midnight or so) I still find myself laying wide awake in bed for hours on end until my body is finally ready to rest. Then when the weekend hits, I'm back to my old habits.

This is why, as I fairly broadly advertise, I am a bit cantankerous in the mornings. I have warned people for almost as long as I have known them: if you happen across me before about ten a.m., coffee or not, chances are, you will be met with some manner of scowl like you just insulted my mother. I honestly don't really want to be that way, but it seems like my body is much like a porcupine with its spikes: it just wants to send a clear "do not touch" message to anyone who can see me. I have famously either glared at or nearly flipped off a number of friends and acquaintances who give a gentle honk to get my attention while I'm on my way to work. Perhaps the most notable of these times was about six months back when my friend's brother-in-law saw me as I was crossing the street in front of his car at a stop sign. He gave a quick honk to say "good morning" and I stopped dead in my tracks in front of his car, thinking he was honking that I wasn't getting through the intersection quickly enough. As I wildly gesticulated and yelled "STOP SIGN" at him, he rolled down his window and said hi. Apparently I seemed so irate that he felt he had to text my friend to have him apologize for the "unnecessary spike in blood pressure" he had caused me.

What amazes me more is the fact that, when working, I tend to end up being awake for so long any given day. It could be the reason that no matter how much coffee, Red Bull, or 5 Hour Energy drinks I have, I am still tired until about 10 or 11 in the morning - I think my body just tells itself that it is either still asleep or about ready to go back to bed. More interesting is in the evenings: I can be dead on my feet at 8pm, and almost ready to go to sleep, but suddenly, once the clock gets close to about 11pm, I wake up like an eight year old who just drank a two liter Mountain Dew. It's like I miss my window to fall asleep, and as a punishment, I am stuck awake for at least three more hours. It's uncanny. What's worse is that during that time is hands-down when I am most productive. I'd say most of my college papers and probably at least a third of my master's thesis were written between eleven at night and four in the morning. It's just how I work, so as a result, I feel guilty since I know I'm not as productive at work as I can be.

One other snag in this situation is that what should be the obvious solution of finding a job where I can work nights is that, in all honesty, I don't want to because, again, I get so much done during this time of the day/night/morning that I wouldn't want to use all this focus and energy for work only to be asleep or unproductive during my other waking hours.

In short, I'm kind of a mess and this post has dragged on far too long already. I'll be back in the next couple of days with something that is hopefully a tad more entertaining than this, but as I said, I've had the idea for this post for some time now.

The Closest Thing You'll Get To a New Year's Post

Yeah. It's New Year's Day. (Note: it was in fact New Year's Day when this sentence was written) You know what? It's just a Sunday. I am not a big fan of New Year's Eve or the festivities that accompany, so usually I tend to bow out of most invitations for that day.

I was thinking about maybe doing some kind of music review "best of" kind of post, but the simple fact of the matter is that 90% of the stuff I've been listening to this year didn't even come out this year. (Though I will say that both the new Thrice and the new Manchester Orchestra albums are both worth buying and listening to about a hundred times each)

I was going to try to write some kind of "ten best shows I've been to this year" list, but I realized that would be absolutely impossible. The reason is, I have gone to a stupid amount of live shows this year. So, in the spirit of lists, here is Bill's "I went to that show" list for the year 2011. Seeing it all down on paper kind of makes me wonder if I have a problem.

"I Went to That Show In 2011"

1/22 - Old 97's at The Fillmore
1/27 - This Charming Band and Dead Souls at The Rickshaw Stop
2/8 - Sebadoh at The Great American Music Hall
2/17 - Cake at The Fillmore
2/20 - Godspeed You! Black Emperor at The Great American Music Hall
2/21 - Man or Astro-Man? at The Independent
4/14 - Two Door Cinema Club at The FIllmore
5/1 - Explosions in the Sky at The Fox Theater
5/9 - Mogwai at The Regency Ballroom
5/10 - The Raveonettes at Bimbo's
5/18 - The One AM Radio at Bottom of the Hill
6/18 - Matt and Kim & The Thermals at The Fox Theater
7/21 - Soundgarden at The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
7/22 - The Ogres and The La Teen-Os at The Knockout
7/23 - Audiodub at The Independent
8/13 - Beta State at The Rockit Room
8/13 - Outside Lands Music Festival
8/24 - Motion City Soundtrack at The Fillmore
9/4 - Daikaiju at Serra Bowl
9/27 - Jimmy Eat World at The Fillmore
10/5 - Blink 182, My Chemical Romance, and Matt & Kim at Shoreline Ampitheater
10/9 - Yellowcard at Slim's
10/16 - Treasure Island Music Fesitval
10/18 - The Airborne Toxic Event at The Fillmore
10/30- Cake at The Fox Theater
11/4 - Minus the Bear at Slim's
11/5 - Thrice at The Regency Ballroom
11/11 - Benvenue at Sub-Mission Gallery
11/30 - Rhett Miller at the Swedish American Hall
12/9 - Death Cab for Cutie and The Airborne Toxic Event at The Masonic Auditorium
12/17 - Lagwagon at Slim's
12/30 - Kalifornia Redemption at The Phoenix Theater

I am sure there are others, and I didn't include shows that I personally performed at, which would add another 15 or 20 to that list.

Hopefully in 2012 I will be able to make enough money to afford to go to that many shows again.