What follows is the collected series of letters I published via my personal TinyLetter circa 2017. It's been so long now that I'm not sure I have any unique insight to offer, in retrospect. Frankly, I don't find much of it personally resonant, these days, which - if anything - indicates that I accomplished my goal.
It's been a while since I've checked in with an update, but it would appear that I've now finally succeeded in migrating to Portland, providing things hold up. In the past two weeks, I've had my first real opportunity to work on Extratone in several months - largely because of its extended downtime at the beginning of the year. As a result, I've written a lot in just the past few days, even. In my Editor's Letter closing out our second year, I explained how I'm going to be refocusing my effort on my own work for a little while:
While I’ve been failing to use my energy as a platform for other voices, I’ve understood for a long time how to build my own, so I’m declaring Extratone’s primary goal for the next year to be publishing original, emotionally and intellectually-stimulating work as it comes, while my personal goal will be building my own literacy in both the trade and the subjects which we are here to cover. Though in the now, the latter could not be more at odds with the core mission of this magazine, you can trust me when I tell you that my commitment to building this publication has not waned in the slightest — it’s simply time to figure out another way to achieve it.
I seriously doubt readers or participants in the community will notice much aside from the way I treat my own work. I’ll remain constantly in our Discord, immediately reachable by email, and my enthusiasm for new work will always be huge and immediate, but in the time between pitches and submissions, I’m going to focus on the list of potential works I’ve built up. I doubt also that I will equire more than a few months to figure out how to proceed, and I promised you’ll be exhaustively apprised of my progress in real time.
I then immediately jumped on one of my pet arguments of the past few years: that Google is replacing the church.
When you build a collection of the world’s smartest people in a self-sufficient environment that discourages exploration of other lifestyles and ideas, and you sustain the society with a gargantuan, relatively low-maintenance revenue stream, you create a culture which is not only well-primed for isolationism, but is also extremely inefficient.
And finally, after going to see Solo: A Star Wars Story on its opening night last night, I finished up a whole 5000 word review today, which discusses the film's bizarre maltreatment of some very sensitive themes.
In response to the forced violence between two drones for spectator sport, L3 is completely enraged, and she cries (among other things) “we are sentient!,” but her distress is trivialized as hysterical distraction (see: Django Unchained.) When she suggests to Qi-ra that Lando (who is already illegitimized as a cheating narcissist, and therefore effeminate) is attracted to her, it’s a joke (which many in my audience laughed at) at the expense of her trivialized sexuality. After she triumphs and declares the liberation of her kind to be her true cause, she is immediately destroyed fighting for its sake, yet her ideology is not once acknowledged by her fleshy companions, and her body is quickly gutted for the data on her “central processing unit” as it’s interfaced with the Falcon. Granted, Lando does thoughtfully muse “she’s part of the ship now” shortly afterward, which would be nice, if you’d forgotten his last words were an outright lie. Lastly, it’s worth noting how apathetic the main characters themselves are toward the Kessel miners, especially as they are packing up to leave, when the camera pans over the chaotic struggle between the liberated and their guards in very close proximity to the awaiting Falcon, yet there was not a suggestion that they would even consider letting them take refuge from the violence in their very spacious freighter. Aside from Han’s or Qi-ra’s, Solo treats liberation as charming or amusing, nothing more.
I know it's a lot, but I think a lot of it's quite entertaining, though this isn't much compared to the progress I've made on Blimp's Burden. If you'll remember back to February, I told you I was beginning work again on a novel which I'd originally conceptualized way back in early 2015. Then, I reported that I was just surpassing 10,000 words which is... barely a full idea yet, in novel terms. Since then, I've learned a lot about how I want to write this thing, but I've also inevitably been learning just how much I don't know yet.
Now, though, I am as near as makes no difference at 100,000 words of mostly-polished first draft (no, I still can't help but edit on the fly,) and a good portion of that needs to be entirely rewritten. Still, I have samples which I am eager to share with anyone who'll read them because - as I've said - writing a novel is very hard work. Though showing other people your work before it is complete is commonly regarded as a bad idea, I happen to end up with my best ideas when I'm able to bounce them off somebody, so feel free to reply with any feedback you have about these two excerpts.
Both of these heavily borrow from my original Drywall movie notes, and I think they're the two that still make me laugh out loud during revision, so I hope you'll find them fun, too.
On a more personal note, that sensation I've been talking about that I've suddenly become invisible to the Twitter friends I used to engage with daily has really begun to despair now that I am away from all friends, online and otherwise. Isolation can lead to periods of ultra -productivity in me, which - I must confess - is much more appealing to me than the idea of going out to make new friends. I realize that I should work on a healthy balance now and resist the temptation to keep going.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Talk to ya soon.
David
The new Star Wars movie, progress on Blimp's Burden, the future of my writing on Extratone
I've been humbled a lot in an essential way since I last wrote you in October. I crashed the car I asked you to bury me in, slept in a Lincoln Continental Mk. IV's rear seat for a few cold weeks, and generally fucked up my Oregon immigration enough to warrant coming back to Missouri for a bit to regather myself, but I'll be returning as soon as I can (as soon as my tax return comes, anyway.) Perhaps it was all inevitable, for better or worse, but things have changed, without a doubt.
Last night, I went briefly to see a Denver rock band at a Columbia punk venue called Gay House, which I watched first sprout in the middle of a village of fraternities in the year after high school (that is, five years ago.) I say "punk" - it was, then, but the kids were this time indie enough that they'd have felt real fear seeing the bands that were showing in my era. A single of the original occupants remains and there were three others there from those days whom I've drifted apart from, but the way to it on foot is filled with bright, trendy new businesses where fenced-off alleys used to be, and the big, tall parking garage is center-field in one's vision, now, as they stand where I used to pee. I've mentioned how I've felt time, enormous, since my Big Crucible in early 2015, and how I expected to say goodbye to this place when I moved, but coming back after just a few months has made it clear that Columbia has said goodbye to me.
Coincidentally, Drycast episode 10 was recorded three years ago, today, amidst my peak (I’ve continued occasionally listening back, trying to figure out what I’ve since lost.) Alex Jones is the fastest man on the planet. I ended up showing Honk in its entirety to my friend for the first time, after the show, and I realized how pitiful it is to continue looking back this way. I’m not going to get back whatever it was that made me so sharply, originally (I thought) entertaining, but I’ve gained spades in literacy and depth. In reading David Foster Wallace’s first book, The Broom of the System (which he published at my age,) I recognize a heightened, much smarter form of my own potential wit, and an edgy absurdity not unlike that of the sort I am closer-than-not to losing - the sort that led to a conceptualized novel around this time two years ago which I have decided to commit to pursuing (at a variable pace, mind you) when I have the time.
Barney Blimp's new boss is absurdist billionaire, Theodore Pith, who's ironic buy of his employer (MapQuest) personifies the reality of his mistakes and cements in his psychology the consequences of the listless lifestyle he's led after his mother's death. In the process of his internal reckoning, he loses his sanity to sleep deprivation and mounts a chaotic quest to steal Pith's new pet project - the recently-unearthed, painstakingly-restored Hindenburg II airship from its berth in Hong Kong, where it's awaiting transport to his compound in the Ukraine. Against all probability, Blimp succeeds, and begins a week-long voyage across the Atlantic. Unsurprisingly, Pith is delighted by the commotion, so he seeks out communication with Barney to amuse himself. However, in the hours they spend conversing throughout the long haul, both minds return to reality for the first time in a long while, and find unexpected friendship. By the time the airship actually reaches the United States, the two are co-conspirators, and they mastermind the least sensical attack in New York City's history.
There’s no way I would be able to come up with such a wacky abstract these days, and there’s no way I would’ve committed to the sort of effort long fiction requires in 2015. It’s suddenly occurred to me that I am on the further end of a crucial transition; that all of the unfinished projects with little snippets of genius are about to expire from my vocabulary altogether. My goal for Blimp’s Burden is to rescue (loot) as many of the best ideas from Children of the Corn 30, Fleet and the Furious: Drakesville Drift, Eugenics (the album,) and whatever else I find and utilize them and the skills I’ve acquired since to refine the most original work I can. My hope is that I can use it to finally say goodbye to it all and… truly… move on. I’m nearly 10,000 words in and let me tell ya… Novels are hard, but I guess we’ll see. I'll keep ya posted.
Thanks,
David
Learning how to say goodbye to the past
Unfortunately, I wasted these letters' best subject line yet on this unfinished one, left two weeks ago when I ran out of adderall. It was a particularly fun and restful vacation, but I am once again pilled-up and Ready To Tweet.
Another ("complete") letter will be headed your way soon, I'm sure, but in the interim, there's the first episode of Runnin' Down a Dream to listen to! (That's the show Eryn, Maddie, and have been planning to produce since Spring about our local shenanigans.)
And! Isiah's killed it once again with his hilarious Yelp! bit that's currently gracing the frontpage.
I'll talk to ya soon.
The other night, I was a bit upset over some Very Old News, so Eryn took me driving (God bless,) and I said something really insightful, under the influence:
What ends up important to you is a combination of what was important to your parents, what you never had, and what you couldn't have imagined.
I have to confess... I ended up building a section on the site for these.
Here's this one.
I just couldn't bear the TinyLetter site-bound "letter archive" anymore. It's despicable.
Naturally, you'll continue to receive these emails, but what I created is very pretty.
After years of intermittently smoking weed with horrendously unpleasant results, I had my first positive experience, just a few nights ago.
Friday was an exceptionally beautiful day to travel an hour or so South, to the rural hills in orbit of Jefferson City where my best friend grew up, (as I showed her my equivalent, last week,) and… they’re completely sublime. Perhaps the most beautiful in the entire state - and you know I say that with some authority.
As we do, she drove me in her tiring early-90s Camry around gorgeous gravel roads for hours while gushy dad rock played, taking every route at least once. The green was boundless; the air, stirringly familiar. Residencies were fascinatingly various - several abandoned, 19th-century witch houses overlooked trailer parks and neighboring beige, new money hellcubes.
All the while, she told me stories from childhood - The Full Tour. It’s perhaps the most profound thing you can share with another human being - the images, smells, sensations, and abstractions of one’s past and/or developing mind. When I realized that I was watching the same trees and fescue-wrapped ditches go by from the same perspective she once did, over and over again when her Dad would drive her to school - and that I’d actually allowed her the same, before - I began to feel at home more than I have in years.
This feeling was especially compounded after we met up with her parents and arrived at their railroad town’s community fish fry - another one of those events of which I am deeply familiar, but have been estranged from. A genuine tri-rowed fold-up tables engulfed in elderly relatives and neighbors to meet briefly & politely before slowly hobbling in line, filling your paper plate with very greasy food -type gig. I was once an infamous frequenter of such get-togethers in Emden, Illinois, where my father grew up, and here, too - as the youngest member of the Old Wheels Car Club of Columbia.
Come to think of it, old folks are perhaps the central ingredient. In response to my (relatively modest, out-of-context) outfit, the gentlemen manning the cash register asked if I’d “dressed all fancy, just for [them,]” and I responded (quite wittily, I’d add) with
He was very entertained, which is nice. Despite trying to distance myself and my image from the tropes of my upbringing for a decade, it’s warming to know that I still can’t help but communicate well with working people. Adulthood has proven over and over again that I respect them the most, and that I’d pick over occupants of more ‘sophisticated’ cultures without much hesitation at the end of the day. Perhaps they are the audience I should’ve been seeking out all along.
This lot is a bit different than mine, though. Like Eryn and her parents (though to a much lesser extent,) they seem more intense - a few, almost brooding, and I’d wager it’s all to do with the topographical (and therefore income-related) contrast with my time in the flatlands.
In essence, the high soil nutrient saturation of flat farmland makes for ideal row-crop (traditional) farming of the mainstream crops like corn and soybeans, whereas “farming” on more vertical terrain is a different, generally less lucrative profession, entirely. Astonishingly, there’s still some sort of living made on cattle, swine, hay, and sheep - and that’s about all that’s possible in these rougher regions astride the Big Muddy.
I remember my Missouri neighbors and Illinois relatives as moderate and emotionally distant - almost dreary. When passion was evident, it was most often rudimentarily expressed, and the appearance of levelheadedness was an ultimate ideal. Of course, I was much less emotionally perceptive, but I don’t doubt my observational abilities, really. Any real extremity was borned of insanity, only - an entirely separate paradigm.
I never arriveδ at the horizon but saw of it plenty, in passing
In me, the neeδ to work it
to hanδle it to pull it
to yank it arounδ the yarδ
For myself, the curvature of the horizon was entrapping.
When there’s nothing of any distance away high enough to escape it, one’s world becomes much smaller. This phenomena is a repeated theme in Feebles in Night. Perhaps my urge to depict it was a classical one of necessary expression, or maybe it’s just all I had to say.
It first became evident when I’d be traveling and entirely infatuated with any distance of vision at all. Obviously, it’s still enchanting, and experiencing it in every way for most of an afternoon seemed to somehow add significant context to my internalized meaning of home. Hopefully, it wasn’t just the altitude changes.
On our way home, I decided to partake, and it was… incredible. The divine alteration of sound consumed all of my attention. After changing into my last pair of tacky jeans from childhood, Eryn just said “…Ricky,” unprompted, which is now my thirteen name and a good reason to never ever smoke again.
I did feel different afterwards, though. I feel like I’ve gained a huge amount of understanding as to why so many people my age partake in so much of it, so often. In other news: I am still fucking coughing, and have run through half my adderall way too quickly again.
It’s fine, though because the month’s focus would appear to be our anchor channel and Le Mans (coming up in 10 days!!!) - neither of which require much intellectualism, per se.
Eryn’s mom is definitely Honk ’s biggest remaining fan, which is very sweet. She’s probably the only individual on Earth who’s made it through the entirety of the Impala episode.
“Like your second wife in a 24-hour gym.”
I’m parked on the street in Cherry Hill at the beginning (of this and a few other episodes,) which is literally a 5 minute walk from my house. Having finally immobilized Nevermore last weekend - the starter stuck and burned itself out - I am now without my own transportation again, likely for a more extended period than those few so far this year. As such, I bought my first carton of Luckies yesterday - an accomplishment I do not take lightly - and have been reduced to one place of business - The Wee Hill’s corner liquor store - to stop by and visit. If I’d known I could’ve been daydrinking just down the road in 2015, I probably would’ve perished. Anyway.
If you remember that fucking Bonus Hole thing… The cashier (a very sweet, curious, and wholesome being) taught me how to “play,” and I’ve been enjoying the obscene ludicrousness of it all every time I go. If you’re really curious as to what it actually does, go look it up. It’s not something that can be easily explained without visuals.
I guess this is how I could make my millions… Watching quarters fall (or not fall) into a goddamned hole.
Catch me there,
David
Hey.
My late-month adderall deficit vacation has seemed particularly prolonged, this go around, but it would appear - post- Extratone's first birthday on the 18th - that I required a bit more of a holiday than usual. The first ability to spend significant time with my best friend since last summer (she's been off work for a week) has been a very welcome departure from the balls-to-the-wall lifestyle I've settled for since really picking up the pace in Fall of last year.
It would seem that we are the only individuals in each other's respective lives that enjoy extended, sometimes-irreverent explorations of our proximate rural areas - towns like Fayette, Mexico, Centralia, Hallsville, Fulton, etc. This year, we've already visited all of these, and more, while blasting country music from our childhoods. We've been talking seriously about producing a podcast to encapsulate the stories/sentiments/moods we encounter, which is a very exciting prospect.
Yesterday, we stood in line for an hour at a dad rock-scored gathering at Cooper's Landing - the quaint Missouri outpost which I spoke of in Feebles - waiting for Thai food, and somehow only saw one individual that we (sorta) knew out of hundreds, which is fascinating in and of itself, really.
As the sun began to rise on Saturday morning over a spectacular distant thunderstorm, I showed her the farm where I grew up. The heaviest takeaway from the experience: way too many trees had been cut down for seemingly no reason, which is highly disconcerting. If you have any idea why, I'd very much like to know. Later, we made our way to nearby Mexico and spent a good while admonishing at some of the estates in the old town. I'd attach photos, but I didn't take any, which is a positive thing, considering my recovery from my lifelong obsession with capturing moments and places.
I stumbled upon her copy of Moon Crossing Bridge a few days ago and... wow. It quickly occurred to me that I could never be any sort of poetic authority - "fuck" always ends up as the only response to good work I can muster, it would seem.
We went on a bit of a bender last weekend, blowing $240 and two tires in one day. Thanks to one hell of a warranty, both of my old witch's shoes were replaced at no cost (save for labor,) but one of its wheels was declared Fucked and the other won't quite hold a seal against its new rubber. Also, its right front brake is completely "locked up," destroying itself, and there's apparently a two-finger-sized hole in its main coolant transfer hose, yet... it continues to move.
You should definitely listen to Alexa's rants in the last 50 minutes of this Futureland episode from back in February, and perhaps give me money? so that I can begin paying her to get animated on tape more often. I'm pretty sure it's some of the best stuff we've ever done.
I've now neglected two weeks of The Tone, which is excusable considering the anniversary, I suppose, but certainly not a permanent affliction.
It's occurred to me that my words' strongest audience (including This Very Email) is definitely myself, which is fine. I'm a pretty good reader. I really like looking at the website, and I enjoy going back and reading my own stuff, occasionally, so the most sensible thing to seek next would be a solution to the whole overwhelming and increasing financial deficit thing.
Perhaps I should start selling smack.
I have decided that I would like to be more rambunctious in these letters - mostly because there's no reason not to, and I have been working on getting angry, as of late. Let's start with a "lightning round," or whatever the fuck it's called.
Mark Fuck definitely read my callout from a few weeks ago, and has begun exacting his revenge.
Eryn and I watched Inherent Vice and it was... perturbing, almost, but its similarity (and yes - superiority) to the elements I worked to assemble in Children of the Corn 30 made me feel relieved for the first time that we abandoned the project... It would've actually been redundant, which is encouraging - I don't have to make it, now.
As of late, my days have been mostly spent shrieking about the future and dryhacking specks of mucus all over this goddamn town. I think I'm going to die soon, which is okay, considering my chosen career path and how utterly mortifying it is to read anything online.
As I write you, Hawthorn is writing what will be Extratone's first paid-for words: a 2,000 word, extremely uncivil obituary for... me.
Word is, her basket of words includes fiend, deadbeat, heretic, zealot, vagrant, guttersnipe, devil, goon, disorderly, crook, yokel, villain, rogue, scoundrel, shyster, cheat, swindler, rascal, bastard, miscreant, lowlife, yellow-bellied, etc. Until next time, David.
Since today is Memorial Day, (and though he's not quite dead yet,) I'd also like to emphasize my appreciation for Tim Crossno, my favorite sailor of all time and brother for life.
I Am Still Coughing and Sending Emails to Myself
We've all known that Radiolab is superb since its origin, but I didn't really start taking the time to listen to podcasts methodically again (since I used to listen to Eve Online shows and such) until last year, when my time was opened wide thanks to a series of separations, redirections, and a pink slip.
When I heard David and the Wire, it really hit me: things had changed, and audio storytelling's future is brilliant. I will never forget it.
"The uniform."
"If you do try to capture that moment, you're sort of... out of that moment."
Sitrep: 6 pills remaining for the next two weeks. Semi-frantically scrambling to churn out my 12th Editor's Letter, and trying my best to maintain a state of 100% emotional integrity with myself regarding the one-year anniversary of Extratone's launch.
All available indication has pointed toward a steadily-increasing pitch in just about any curve you can measure of such a thing. I'll save any more detail for the letter, but I did create /cactus for Tim, /dixie for Madeline (which is probably the best subdomain in history,) and acquired bilge.world to forward to the /bilge page I made for myself.
I paused long enough to re-read Feebles in Night for the first time in what seems like ages, and it occurred to me that I should've made the .pdfs of it and the Children of the Corn 30 screenplay accessible to you for free a long time ago. Sorry about that.
All of the sudden, I am sick as hell, which is surprisingly rare, considering the way I treat myself, but - given my rapidly-dwindling supply of adderall (the most effective decongestant I've ever encountered,) and my recent purchase of two unfiltered Camel packs (the town is completely depleted of Lucky Strikes, somehow,) I may actually die tonight.
Farewell forever,
David
One year ago yesterday, I published Johnny Tsunami 6: Separate, But Equal, which is technically - if I'm remembering correctly - the first thing I actually wrote for the site. I spent some time tonight updating it, visually, and I think I'm going to record a reading for Drycast and our Anchor station.
I'd like to restore every piece, eventually, and I continue to have more and more templates from which to do so as we constantly change things up. I think the CrossCabriolet story'll probably be the next to get it. Spending time on my own writing seems a bit counter-intuitive, but growing the contributorship has been slow-going, as you know, and I've decided to focus on my perspective a bit more until going to the West coast, next year.
Yeah. That's why I started this TinyLetter. I do have a standard - if not a template - for their pace and tone, but I've never bothered to actually write it out - partially because I receive very little feedback on them, whatsoever.
Which would be understandable from this crowd - they are just massive walls of text, I guess - but... they're funny!? Of course, I think so.
It's hard to imagine their purpose if it's not entertainment, and I suppose that's why my readership is minimal. (I'm assuming it is, anyway.) If my 'intended' audience is like-minded folks, it would seem I'll never have one, but a significant ideal in the Extratone mantra is... ignoring the audience's wants, basically. I no longer do so completely, myself, but of course - everything is complex.
e
Since buying a laptop for the first time in years, I’ve definitely marginalized the buffer between my mind and the website, but I’m not sure if the effects have all been positive. I’ve been working on reducing the “thoughs,” “of course’s,” “surprisingly’s,” etc, but I think I may have actually taken a few steps backward since I was writing on my phone with a blutooth keyboard. (Yes, feel free to laugh at me.)
None of this is consequential, of course, but I’ve begun to think I should take the opportunity to really assess my own process while I'm still here, considering that I’ve yet to do so in a truly analytical light.
We are 8 days away from Extratone’ s first birthday, which is going to be emotional, for many reasons. I’ve gotten more support than I expected in some regards, and less in others. I honestly thought there were more folks within my network who’d be interested in regularly contributing, but I did not expect so many local friends to be so supportive.
We’re going to the Broadway Brewery - where Tim & I have been frequenting for a good while - and I’m going to bring my laptop to include those of the distant staff who’re interested in participating.
Naturally, my Editor’s Letter for this month is going to be quite long, sentimental, and redundant, but I’ve decided that our homepage will contain nothing but a list of people who’ve supported/contributed to this project along the way, including the handful I no longer have any contact with.
I suppose I should probably get started on that.
For the first time since last summer, Eryn and I spent some four hours driving around rural Missouri listening to country music, last night, which stirred up all sorts of emotions about this place, again, got this song stuck in my head (where it’s remained,) and revealed that Rascal Flatts tunes are actually quite nuanced, often? Other than Life is a Highway, of course.
I wouldn't call Missouri's offerings temptations, per se, but I will no longer be surprised if I find some difficulty in separation. There’s plenty of ignorance, yes, but also a particular kindness that may one day provide a welcome sanctuary for an older, withering, even-more-weary me. I’ve grown to hate Columbia’s increasingly diligent destruction of its identity, but the more rural bits have older substance which I hope I don’t have to mourn, one day.
If you have any thoughts you’d like to retort with, remember that you can simply reply to this email.
Till next time,
David
I've probably already told some of you one or more of these stories, but these past few weeks have been more interesting than usual.
I spent nearly all of today trying to wriggle a podcast episode out of Audacity (my home machine is out of action for the moment,) and then... the audio player on the site kept breaking on every new post. I'm not sure how long I spent trying to troubleshoot it... 2 hours, probably. I spend way too much time slaving over tasks I am not adept for, these days, but here's hoping that changes within the next year.
Perhaps in stupidity, I've been working on another one of... whatever it is that I write for Words of David Blue in Red (the series of ramblings that bred the obsessive tendencies I started this newsletter to combat) arguing that the book of Revelation is - in fact - about Facebook. Ultimately, I think I just wanted an excuse to entitle something Mark Fuck.
Nonetheless, I'm also including a fairly detailed account of an entertaining experience I had at work:
Today, after positing on whether or not a pastry was in fact the namesake of the battleship Bismarck, I was told by its owner - a local woman of a far-from-excusable age - that "[I] should be on that big bang show." Upon such fuckery, I looked her in her eyes and informed her that she'd just changed my plans for the night: I was now going to go home, wrap my lips around the barrel of my Beretta, and blow my brains out. I should've known better than to so jest with a boomer immediately after receiving such glaring indicators of minimal intellectual function, but I fell for the hope - as I often do, to no avail - that such a jarring reaction would encourage reflection on her foul, tragically misled sentiments regarding the general state of youth, and perhaps even spare a peer or two from future tribulation.
Instead, she called the police.
Three round cops found me, an hour later, approaching hesitantly. Strangely enough, they were chuckling - maybe to a little joke about all the recent hubbub on the radio covering a recent wave of blatantly negligent medical care in American prisons, though I hope nervous laughter is just SOP when responding to a suicide threat. As all Columbia cops always are toward me, they were aggravatingly genuine and hilariously understanding. I began by simply recreating my interaction with their summoner, quoting her word-for-word, and - I swear to my new Lord - all three immediately released a choral "ohhhhh" in unison. I'll never know for sure if they actually assimilated the reality of the situation so quickly, but it'd certainly seem that way.
Clearly, I should've threatened her life.
I don't know if it's a joke or not, but I've always found it amusing to greet customers with a sometimes-cacophonous "GOOD MORNING" regardless of the actual time-of-day. According to Tevin, a semi-elderly woman whom I'd subjected to this at 7PM, a few weeks ago, came up to him after I'd walked away and remarked "it's so nice that you all hire retarded people." That's a keeper. I'm surprised my reaction wasn't more severe, to be honest, but then again... I am on more pills again! Last year, after my pediatrician finally forced me to seek a Big Boy Doctor, I went to a local family clinic, and was assigned Dr. Fast (not his real name,) with whom I had an awkward first encounter, for whatever reason. This second checkup, though, was absolutely hilarious.
My adderall prescription requires me by law to be seen every three months. I'm not sure what - if anything - is legally required to constitute a "checkup," but Dr. Fast literally just pokes my chest over my shirt with his stethoscope for like... less than one heartbeat to justify the checkup bit, and is totally no-frills for the rest of the verbal portion.
I told him I was hoping to go back on Lexapro because I want to be funny again, and he began entering the script on his laptop before I even finished my explanation. I also brought up how stressed and scared I am for the first time in my life, and - I swear to God - his parting sentiment was "we'll do our best to get you funny and keep you terrified." The ideal medical professional for me, that's for sure.
I remember having objections to the way Lexapro made me feel, but I can't quite recall what they were... so I guess I'll just need to discover them again. Remind me to write them down, this time.
I've been talking about the past a lot. I suppose that's inevitable when one moves back in to the very house they occupied for the majority of their incubation.
When I take one of the numerous breaks from web administration I require in a work(night,) I often walk the same route I walked to school in first grade... by the building, in fact. Sometimes, I make use of the very swing I 'claimed' as mine at recess, from which I'd shout Elvis songs at my second-grade crush. I've been exempt from this place by my own design for the vast majority of my time, here, and that removal turned out to be quite detrimental for my development. I guess my captivity here is a penance for my childhood mistakes, though I don't think that's entirely fair, considering all my cells have been replaced, since, if science is to be believed.
(Sorry, just practicing for Bible Study.)
In the summer of 2015, I met a girl (we're going to call her Brittany,) who'd been sniped by Amway - a fascinatingly disturbing Christian pyramid scheme that's managed to thrive more or less under the radar by convincing society's most desperate people to buy tickets to various meetings; local weeklies, regional annual conferences, etc.
She got me to go to a few meetings, sign a few documents, and attend a few conferences. It was an extraordinarily surreal time. The young woman I'd grown up with had severed contact with me completely and (more or less inexplicably) just 6 months before, and the depth of my internal emptiness was only surpassed by that of my general detachment from reality. My state of all-consuming apathy was perhaps at its most inescapable, but the first steady presence of real insanity in my life since I cut off contact with my father provided me a very particular sort of fundamental wariness, and I savored it.
I'm not going to tell you there was a single moment when I "figured it out," because I did not care about my use of my time or my wellbeing, in any sense. I was utterly listless... without volition, but - when I sat down in that first meeting, squared away in the conference room of our local, two-star Stoney Creek Hotel - at least enough instinct of self-preservation had stuck with me to recognize the suspiciousness of the whole thing.
Somehow - without spending a dime of my own money - I managed to ride the wave as far as a new 'IBO' ("Independent Business Owner") can reach: Summit. During the course of that weekend-long event - hosted by the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinatti, featuring a very long, very emotional presentation by Duke University's Coach K - I experienced what I'd guess was the most uncomfortable I'll ever be in a public setting. It was the zeal, the constant insistence upon the organization's legitimacy, and the implications of it all on the 10,000 people who surrounded me. Obviously, I'm not all that great at articulating it yet, but I think I'm emotionally prepared to begin addressing it. Amway is virtually invisible to the press upon a Google search, which was the most significant red flag for me, in the beginning. I think I could be the right one to 'oust' it, but I just want to tell the story of my experience. More will come on the topic when I'm able to craft it more formally. Of course, don't be afraid to reply to these emails, or contact me elsewhere. Till next time,
David
Assumed Suicidal, but Impervious to Email Fatigue
I am feeling discouraged and stressed, but that's okay.
Well... that's all I was compelled to write, sober.
Yes, I'm still thinking about why I am doing this whole thing, and maybe that's unhealthy. Perhaps I'm blind to my own misdirections, but I've stubbornly retained the belief that I can think and talk my way through everything. The practice (especially when public, like this) is consistently cyclical. If existing as a witness to one who's constantly repeating themselves is as excruciating as I've always found it to be, I apologize. But - as I've mentioned publicly a few times these past few months - it would appear that repeating myself (within reason) actually nets positive in terms of distribution of my conversation.
My conversation.
That's an extraordinarily lucky segue into the other prime component of my recent internal discussions: *what do I really have to say? * and precisely why, where, and how?
A year ago (to the day, nearly,) Brent and I semi-ironically watched a bunch of Disney movies from our childhood, and I wrote the very first and second works for Extratone, entitled "Stairs, Wiggling," and "Johnny Tsunami 6: Separate, But Equal," respectively.
I think it's possible that they are also the first and second most entertaining compositions I'll ever birth, but it's interesting, in retrospect - even in the midst of some very taunt bitterness - my newfound commitment to incubating my emotional functionality was evident in the way I spoke of Furious 7. It's relevant to myself and my own personal development, which, clearly, is our primary beat, to this day.
And I'd spent 2015 saying some truly hilarious shit on Drycast, Honk, and the off-record conversations I had with Brent, in between, but I'd been under the influence the entire time. During the making of my Toyota Avalon review - debatably Honk's peak - I was high on adderall, alcohol, and some very good cocaine. Brent and I truly became our own, ultra-bitter, highly-exclusive society of hatred and maniacal, recklessly loathsome irreverence. I was sharp, witty, and utterly miserable. By early Winter, my grief was really gaining ground on me. After hyper-focusing for a month and half getting Feebles to print, I ran out of distractions. By late Spring, I'd lost my job and escaped as completely as I could into Eve Online.
And then - in June - I met Eryn, who'd lead me back to Earth, teaching and changing me far more than anyone I've ever encountered.
But that's a story for another time.
I wrote and said a lot in 2015, and most of it's pretty sublime, by my standards, but also entirely useless. Drycast was hilarious, yes, but my then-primary means of hysterical spewing really just served up a realization: while some of my arguments were very entertaining and intelligent, none were relevant. I'm thankful I managed to be as receptive as I was to the new perspectives from friends old & new that were graciously presented to me while hosting that show, but after it'd spun out, I found myself lamenting the opportunities I'd missed in consistently sacrificing any real depth to the idol of entertainment.
I'm pretty convinced that those few months between the last episode of old Drycast and Extratone's founding were the worst I will ever experience, mostly because I perceived my future as in absolute zero status . It was utterly silent, wholly peaceful, and... identical to death, really.
(I recently said something like "Feebles was my critique of peace, and Extratone is my manifesto against it," but it's also a means of finding and providing an alternative, in many ways.)
In the midst, of course, I put many 'a' manhour into my own poetry collection, feeding my obsession with revision with a boatload of adderall to a degree that I forgot to continue drinking alcohol. By the time I figured out what the hell my withdrawals were, I thought I'd just hold out the rest of the way to sobriety, leaving myself with my fairly rudimentary publication, and an empty schedule. And it was on Amazon, there, yet I could not sincerely find it within myself to recommend it to potential customers over Rupi Kaur. I missed my tractors and found peculiarity in my waking post-mortem drear, and so fucking what.
I can't give you a specific date, but something very profound happened, then, while I was left alone in silence with my exponentially growing fear of death: I realized that the legacy of an amplifier and shepherd of relevant voices was vastly more preferable to one consisting of my voice, alone.
In my waywardness, I'd been allowing myself my first opportunities to truly recommune with my punk friends from high school, without my blinding adolescent distractions, and I extrapolated from Feebles 'silence(peace) = nothing but death' argument, determining I'm here, and I want to fucking live, which simply meant existing in the antithesis of death... NOISE.
For the first time since Junior High, I began to explore the prospect of Web Development. The name 'Extratone' was first or second on my list. The Twitter username was free, and the dot com was up for auction. I won it in early April, and the year, since has unquestionably been the most significant of my entire life, to date.
Thanks, WordPress...........
In sincerity, though, I must (continuously) thank you. If you're still reading, you're more likely than not one of the primary reasons I am still here. Heavy stuff, eh? Till next time,
David
Pros & Woes of my Tardy, Existential Childhood
The Pitch: Dirty, Digital, Defective?
They like making up their own datapoints to plug in rudimentary stat formulas in order to produce colorful graphics to show to identical audiences who surely would not be present and participatory without some kind of stimulant in their system.
I am particularly vulnerable to the sort of abstract thinking institutions like TED pervade, which is why I have always been very way of them. Yesterday, I said something insightful of myself to my friend Tevin:
"I'm great at identifying problems, but am utterly inept at coming up with solutions, which is why I am a writer."
In past projects, my failure has over and over been in an overemphasis on ideas, and a deficit of attention to any tangible product. I write my ed's letters in an ultra-meta perspective in the hope that I'll be able to keep myself in check until I'm able to build a salaried editorial team around me. It's also why I have been killing myself polishing both my own words and the look of the site, itself. I want to be sure that - when the opportunity arises to present Extratone to investors - I have a liberal surplus of product to depend on.
I have spent the past few months riding a day-to-day pendulum between I am insane and I am a genius in ever more precarious angles, which you can consider pro-health in my case, I think. I'm just now realizing a use for that passion word in my life, though my rate of progress is not exactly blistering. While I am now Verified Invested emotionally in Extratone, I exist at an inadequate emotional intelligence - in many areas - to handle the consequences of such an investment appropriately. But again... this is a good thing. Though I suppose I couldn't have chosen to improve myself in a single more public (not necessarily popular ) means.
Please get me the fuck out of here.
Tevin and I talked about this on what's probably the best episode of Futureland to date. Our childhoods were both particularly notable examples of the you can be anything you want to be generation. I inexplicably began recording things as early as toddlerhood, and he began playing around with video in his fifth grade. Neither of us ever quit, really, so we both have a difficult-to-manifest body of skills that we acquired in the pursuit of a final product, or by a whole lotta fuckin around.
Now, we are both trying to make careers out of our happenstance proficiencies. Apparently, Tevin makes some money freelance video editing, but he's also a competitive gamer. A good one. He was 13th in the world for Mortal Kombat 9, and he's still very keen on getting good, but remains acutely aware of the reality of it all. Perhaps it's because he grew up black in a Kansas working class home.
I've spent the entirety of my adulthood 'joking' about my ambition and moneymaking, but I've ended up a bit Marxist in day-to-day life, if I'm honest. That said, there's one quote from the girl I used to infiltrate Amway (that's uh... a story that'll still have to wait a bit) that's continued to seem more and more insightful.
You can't help anybody without any money.
I have a lot to offer, but it's almost never needed more than just... cash. I suspect a big reason Extratone's patreon hasn't been more successful is that my friends & audience are mostly 'creatives' and therefore very broke, always. I think we're all capable of being a worthwhile investment for the general public, but I haven't been able to articulate why in a manner they can understand. (Which is one of the reasons I'm writing these.)
Of course, the second I started publicly using the word startup, my YouTube recommendations became ridiculous. I complied with one video, yesterday, and was surprised to hear something personally relatable (if vague) from Stevie Jobs.
...to know that you can plant something in the world, and it'll grow...
Always with the agricultural metaphors. I've never been a big fan of the The Fruit Man, but I feel like I understand him, now, for better or worse. It's strange to be using the same language I've heard from the looniest individuals I've encountered so far in life. Most of them also consider(ed) themselves unique, but really... aren't. Not that the uniqueness of a body matters, just that of what it says,; and I still think my comrades and I have something worthwhile, in that regard.
This is the essence of the divide I have been repeatedly teetering across, as of late: I really am a human being, and I love them, but I am also definitely strange, and find communicating with them to be frustrating, at times. My religion has always been aspiration, though I did know it by name when I was powerless and required to inhabit other churches, as a child. As I've gotten older, I've grown to understand its interdependence with curiosity, and have become especially committed to keeping both alive in myself those whom I care about for as long as I can. After 2015's crises and subsequent alcoholism, I've resolved in this commitment a sort of purpose in life.
Click this bullshit to hear an especially creative track from my latest tape, Four.
I've been playing the piano a lot recently, and even began a Big Ole' Post for the site, detailing my now 20-year-long relationship with The Dear Chordophone. Naturally, there's been internal debate as to whether or not it belongs on Extratone. Coincidentally or not, the story is in keeping with what we've planned for Summer Edition. (It involves boys & trauma.) As saturated as I've become with sincerity, it's still a little cringey to imagine such self-indulgence appearing immediately after I've begun soliciting for subscribers. Here's an early preview.
Let me know if it's too genuine to survive. (You can actually reply to these emails, which is pretty handy.) I now have 60mg of Adderall left until the 30th, which should make for one more productive day. I guess we'll see if I'll be compelled to write one of these without it. Till next time,
David
Pros & Woes of my Tardy, Existential Toddlerhood
The Pitch: Dirty, Digital, Defective?
They like making up their own datapoints to plug in rudimentary stat formulas in order to produce colorful graphics to show to identical audiences who surely would not be present and participatory without some kind of stimulant in their system.
I am particularly vulnerable to the sort of abstract thinking institutions like TED pervade, which is why I have always been very way of them. Yesterday, I said something insightful of myself to my friend Tevin:
"I'm great at identifying problems, but am utterly inept at coming up with solutions, which is why I am a writer."
In past projects, my failure has over and over been in an overemphasis on ideas, and a deficit of attention to any tangible product. I write my ed's letters in an ultra-meta perspective in the hope that I'll be able to keep myself in check until I'm able to build a salaried editorial team around me. It's also why I have been killing myself polishing both my own words and the look of the site, itself. I want to be sure that - when the opportunity arises to present Extratone to investors - I have a liberal surplus of product to depend on.
I have spent the past few months riding a day-to-day pendulum between I am insane and I am a genius in ever more precarious angles, which you can consider pro-health in my case, I think. I'm just now realizing a use for that passion word in my life, though my rate of progress is not exactly blistering. While I am now Verified Invested emotionally in Extratone, I exist at an inadequate emotional intelligence - in many areas - to handle the consequences of such an investment appropriately. But again... this is a good thing. Though I suppose I couldn't have chosen to improve myself in a single more public (not necessarily popular ) means.
yes, I am definitely lost, now. pic.twitter.com/3bOxZP49uw
— ⓓⓐⓥⓘⓓ ⓑⓛⓤⓔ (@NeoYokel) April 14, 2017
Please get me the fuck out of here.
Tevin and I talked about this on what's probably the best episode of Futureland to date. Our childhoods were both particularly notable examples of the you can be anything you want to be generation. I inexplicably began recording things as early as toddlerhood, and he began playing around with video in his fifth grade. Neither of us ever quit, really, so we both have a difficult-to-manifest body of skills that we acquired in the pursuit of a final product, or by a whole lotta fuckin around.
Now, we are both trying to make careers out of our happenstance proficiencies. Apparently, Tevin makes some money freelance video editing, but he's also a competitive gamer. A good one. He was 13th in the world for Mortal Kombat 9, and he's still very keen on getting good, but remains acutely aware of the reality of it all. Perhaps it's because he grew up black in a Kansas working class home.
I've spent the entirety of my adulthood 'joking' about my ambition and moneymaking, but I've ended up a bit Marxist in day-to-day life, if I'm honest. That said, there's one quote from the girl I used to infiltrate Amway (that's uh... a story that'll still have to wait a bit) that's continued to seem more and more insightful.
You can't help anybody without any money.
I have a lot to offer, but it's almost never needed more than just... cash. I suspect a big reason Extratone's patreon hasn't been more successful is that my friends & audience are mostly 'creatives' and therefore very broke, always. I think we're all capable of being a worthwhile investment for the general public, but I haven't been able to articulate why in a manner they can understand. (Which is one of the reasons I'm writing these.)
Of course, the second I started publicly using the word startup, my YouTube recommendations became ridiculous. I complied with one video, yesterday, and was surprised to hear something personally relatable (if vague) from Stevie Jobs.
...to know that you can plant something in the world, and it'll grow...
Always with the agricultural metaphors.
I've never been a big fan of the The Fruit Man, but I feel like I understand him, now, for better or worse. It's strange to be using the same language I've heard from the looniest individuals I've encountered so far in life. Most of them also consider(ed) themselves unique, but really... aren't. Not that the uniqueness of a body matters, just that of what it says,; and I still think my comrades and I have something worthwhile, in that regard.
This is the essence of the divide I have been repeatedly teetering across, as of late: I really am a human being, and I love them, but I am also definitely strange, and find communicating with them to be frustrating, at times. My religion has always been aspiration, though I did know it by name when I was powerless and required to inhabit other churches, as a child. As I've gotten older, I've grown to understand its interdependence with curiosity, and have become especially committed to keeping both alive in myself those whom I care about for as long as I can. After 2015's crises and subsequent alcoholism, I've resolved in this commitment a sort of purpose in life.
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 470px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=704108849/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/transparent=true/" seamless>Four by David Blue
Click this bullshit to hear an especially creative track from my latest tape, Four.
I've been playing the piano a lot recently, and even began a Big Ole' Post for the site, detailing my now 20-year-long relationship with The Dear Chordophone. Naturally, there's been internal debate as to whether or not it belongs on Extratone. Coincidentally or not, the story is in keeping with what we've planned for Summer Edition. (It involves boys & trauma.) As saturated as I've become with sincerity, it's still a little cringey to imagine such self-indulgence appearing immediately after I've begun soliciting for subscribers. Here's an early preview.
Let me know if it's too genuine to survive. (You can actually reply to these emails, which is pretty handy.) I now have 60mg of Adderall left until the 30th, which should make for one more productive day. I guess we'll see if I'll be compelled to write one of these without it. Till next time,
David
The Millennial Startup Chronicles #88325632
There are a few entities which continue to validate what I'm pursuing, but Joshua Topolsky and his Outline are particularly worth noting. In search of reassurance, I listened to a podcast he appeared on in February, last night, and also found one from 2013, when he was still EiC of The Verge. Basically the entirety of the first is within the idealism I've risked most of myself for, in case you're curious. I've looked up to Topolsky in a huge way, this past year. He has done - and is doing - many things which I am intrinsically drawn to earn for my legacy, and the presence of his wife on his staff (their few podcasts together are adorable in a very particular way,) is idyllic in appearance, at least. I love the way they talk about each other. I suppose spousal editorial staff is probably the personal hell of a good many people. Perhaps, it's even my own. Listening to him talk on Digiday, though, reminded me - along with a few other works I've consumed lately - that technically, Extratone is a business. Or at least... That it must become one eventually or die forever. While trying to explain my future plans to a friend, I inadvertently layed out some 'steps for growth.'
I guess we're somewhere between 2 and 3 right now. I'm still building a body of written work more or less on my own, which is okay, considering that nobody is paid. I suppose it'd be most desirable - before I move to the Northwest - to figure out how to make The Tone as much of a learning experience for my closest staff as possible. And regardless of all other external goals of the magazine, I think it is more than safe to say that I've learned more in the past 10 months from a fucking WordPress website than I would've if I'd spent that time at the Journalism school.
The first annual renewal payment for extratone dot com just went through, actually. A year ago, I was much more entertaining, but virtually directionless. I honestly can't tell if I feel any better internally, day-to-day, but I know I am at least attaining the capability of real friendship for the first time in my life, and I suppose that's more than worth losing virtually all of my engagement on Twitter.
IF YOU'RE WONDERING, THE STATE OF EXISTENCE AFTER IRONIC TWITTER WEIRDO IS ONE OF UTTER DESTITUTION, WHERE IMAGES PASS THROUGH YOU FREELY
— ⓓⓐⓥⓘⓓ ⓑⓛⓤⓔ (@NeoYokel) April 30, 2016
Perhaps its even worth losing a portion of the freshness in my perspective - the stuff I thought made it worth it in the first place. Especially if my staff maintains it healthily within their own.
I'll admit that - in retrospect, after spending a year reading, writing, and digitally fussing - a lot of my original content smells like edgy nonsense. Some of the work within our network does too, honestly, but it's usually much less so.
Of course, that transition required an excruciating crucible, for me, but that's exactly why I'm incessantly compelled to make as much use of my trauma as possible: so that my friends and staff may be able make progress toward more fulfilling lives without such a massive up-front cost.
As I was writing my interview with mastodon's creator, I kept an eye out for related coverage, and eventually saw what PCMag did, and it's unwanted rant-spuringly aggravating language. I've never been good at written interviews.
For my first assignment of my first news class in community college, my instructor - Heather - assigned me to write up a piece on a local sweets shop specifically because I begged for any beat but food. Looking back, I think it was wise, on her part, but the product could very well be the most tedious and stale collection of words I've ever been responsible for, on the worst website I've ever seen. So now...
I'm going to share it with you.
We'll never know if I'd show signs of improvement, writing about food again. The craft in my interview with Eugen is not very flattering, but I'm working on making use of the vanity to improve it.
For most of my adult life, I've been trying to figure out why publications like PCMag feel it necessary to belittle their audience and their subjects to such a degree. Silicon Alley can't possibly be that vapid as to nix all soul in any story, ever.
I mean... What in the hell is this, even??????
I haven't been a reader since I used to loiter in Barnes & Noble with a pile of print editions in the oughts, but this sort of layout has got to be some kind of digital sin.
I'm not going to bother digging through the publication to compare this work with others for the moment. Perhaps one day, I'll feel the need to polish this rant into an argument and make it more visible. Surely, though, the proximity of this abomination to the word Mag or even Magazine must keep somebody awake at night.
That's not to say it doesn't take some sort of discipline. I doubt I could write in this way without hulking hyper-deliberately over wherever the fuck this dialect comes from. I think it's almost certainly more efficient as an informative device than my piece, or Sarah Jeong's, but the assumption that readers would be so disinterested as to hesitate to even commit to complete sentences regarding something actually newsworthy for a technology publication should be taken personally. (This is going to echo what Topolsky said in both of those podcasts in big ways, but I'll try to keep it relatively brief.)
I believe there is an audience that is craving attention to detail in their stories, a more intimate, longer-lasting, and more invested relationship with a much smaller number of publications. Even a sense of involvement in the process. It's probably a direct result of my longtime consumption of car magazines - most of which still have sizable sections dedicated to direct, public correspondence with readers. It's also cross-platform to a surreal degree. Auto journalists of all tiers will straight up engage with you on Twitter. ( MotorTrend literally prints YouTube comments.)
Sure, the readership is old, and the topic is an outlier (it's fairly common knowledge that 'car people' are waaaay more vulnerable to obsession than other special interest communities,) but the species is more or less the same, and the results are plain as day, any time you care to look. In recently returning my attention to technology journalism, I've noticed an irritating affront to meta conversation with strangers. My theory is that they've been paid for their words so long that they develop a very particular greed towards them, which is why academic journalism institutes are immediately shunned by their alumni after graduation until they are definitely Too Tired to sling copy and begin to climb sortof diagonally through editorial titles until they are stashed away in some hole. Then, after ruminating until their first encounter with Actual Death - if they're still interested in the whole thing - they crawl out to be propped up in front of moderately sized bodies of petrified students to scream in 100% bitterness about The Ethics that plagued them spiritually and financially their entire career at the acolytes as their last joke on the world.
But they won't engage with strangers on Twitter.
As someone who - for better or worse - chose to sidestep the academic route, I will never advocate for any value in withholding information - especially funny stories - about Extratone's operation. If anything, rediscovering relevance is a wholly meta pillar of our editorial bent. (Hence, why Tim calls us The Nieman Lab of Community College. )
I also believe the subscriber & advertising revenue models are directly - if not primarily - involved in the constriction of conversations regarding a publication's operation. It's my goal to cultivate a group of subscribers that are directly invested in the product (there's another new word on my part) financially, intellectually, and emotionally. It's not exactly unheard of, ya know.
Anywho, I'm going to leave you in peace for now. I've really enjoyed this wanton spewing of conjecture, but then... who doesn't love to go on, unchecked?
Is this what blogging is? It's fucking obnoxious.
Thank you for reading and beware the fucking egg,
David
I'm crazy enough to believe that I can - or must - learn the things you're supposed to seek from academia by embarking on a journey to start an online magazine from nothing but an amazing group of people. I have always been very proud, and it's been tremendously misplaced for most of my life. But perhaps - with age - I am recognizing the ability to be proud of something parallel to my efforts to build Extratone. But in starting this, I am taking the steps to realize something I've needed for balance: an outside line.
Before I continue, I have to make a few promises to you about whatever future is in these letters:
There's an obvious common thread, there. I have internalized words as my function, and my pride has long since turned to obsession over my voice. It has all but ruined my ability to tell stories. I may ramble. I may get things very wrong, but I have to learn how to do so, again. I think I'll start with some more intimate works I've been sitting on for a good while. Until then,
David
It looks like I found a friend in Josh - a young j-school student who’s just interviewed me regarding Extratone for a profile assignment, which he apparently intends to follow up on. One who understands and responds to my infinite media industry-related conjecture, which is cherishable in and of itself. I’m rather amused at the thought of journalism professors reading/hearing about my ideological and naive undertaking.
It’s doubtful much more will be done for the site, this month, but the rest I’ve gotten spending time with Eryn will prove beneficiary, I think. I did write Lacky Sleaze in general frustration with Columbia and the people my age (men, mostly) who seem to literally & obviously want nothing but to fuck. We’ve also been going pretty hard on Anchor - added to her song on a more substantial instrument than my upright or keyboard for a while, and we finally managed to sneak into the music school to find a practice room with two identical Yamaha uprights. It’s important for me to play when sleep deprived (hence that one time I actually fell asleep on tape and continued to play.) As I understand it, the brain is less and less able to determine what is and is not relevant information. If I add adderall to the mix, I get much more eloquent (often pretentious) in everything I do - - it allows me to find more when I’m searching, if that makes any sense. My interactions involve both conscious and unconscious decisions, but they’re better when the latter is as great ‘
My ‘performance’ itself was adequate - I think I accomplished what I went to do - but the highlight of the experience began when Eryn started playing around. She just started rhythmically pressing different keys in exactly the same way I first did as a toddler. For whatever reason, I’ve never actually had the opportunity to improvise/add around somebody playing this way, and it was ‘teach’ my nieces and nephews how to play, and the method I briefly tried with Eryn is the only one I’d apply ( ‘lessons’ is whether or not the potential student actually wants to learn, and it’s answer is found in how he/she/they behave when they’re sat in front of an instrument. If their fingers are not drawn to the keys - even after a wait, and/or some time left alone with it, perhaps - there’s not much to be done. If you actually want somebody to “ Listen - it’s those few who observe my relationship with longing (like the subject of the poem,) that need(ed) to be told, perhaps.
Anyway. Playing with Eryn was a real joy - I’ve never been able to share my relationship with the piano that way, before.
In other petty news, Nevermore is officially Out Of Action after its starter solenoid stuck, causing it to run constantly no matter what I did - even without the key in the ignition - until it burned the motor out. As much as I love my car, the funds needed to get it back to Proper Working Order - now some $3000, at least - are not within a reasonable savings goal in the foreseeable future, especially considering my plan do not have that thing that makes mechanics/technicians exceptional at figuring out how to fix most anything. It’s one of those incommunicable-but-immediately-apparent aspects of life. On my farm, I did have experience rebuilding/restoring a 1948 Ford 8N - the subject of To My Little Tractor - but uh… things have changed, for one. I don’t have much option, though - Ricky jeans and hope the endeavor will fit well with my recent snap.
I have continued my experimentation with Mary Jane, thanks to Eryn’s company, and was able to get a few fairly-humorous observations down while high. (No, it is not cannabis journalism, though this story did remind me of its existence, notably.)
I remember shapes of the things in the hallway? in between the garage and the house. I think I remember a specific smell and image of Grandpa's minivan. I see " - the shower and the phones? I obsessively swept the restroom area. ( It was not a building - (* *That's something BMIs may be sophisticated enough to archive for me before I die.)
I wish it was easier to retain memories of the sensation, but - as I’m sure you know - those side-effects dealing with memory, itself, are incredibly difficult to capture. It’d also be nice to retain… anything, really. I favorite listicle of all time searching for images of the 8N to include. Is this young woman who blogs about tractors the Long Lost Love I have been searching for?
The career, of course, not the individual. If combine outside of Eryn’s hometown.
Until next time, David
