1. I am starting to feel a little paranoid. You know what Kurt Cobain said about being paranoid…
2. I’m actually doing really well today. I’m going through some old tracks of mine, and I just figured out that it would be a SUPREMELY ill advised idea to rename ALL of the files because then the program that used all those file-thingys to… uh… do stuff with (does this sentence even work anymore?!) … would get all… uh confused and I would want to hurl the computer into the sea. It wouldn’t be the macbook’s fault. But I would, nonetheless, blame it once again. So I was an ace of a coolkid, and took a PAUSE. Smart me!
3. I went to La Flor and saw a friend. He called me mi amor, and I felt all Austin-y. The tacos there are outstanding, and he is in a band. Being in a band is like breathing. We all can do this. It’s everywhere.
4. I can DO THIS!
5. Everytime I “get online” just to take a break, a little something upsets me for reasons of my own sensitivity. It’s gotten to where it’s even too difficult to explain. To explain would take too long a conversation, or be too embarassing. You know that Jewel song, the one about her being sensitive and wanting to stay that way? That’s kind of how I am feeling right now. I feel kind of bruised and weird.
6. It’s always different, unexpected stuff, coming out of nowhere. And it’s not like I’m not strong, or don’t have goals, or know what I want to do. It’s not like I don’t know who I am. I know exactly why I’m here. The stuff I expected and signed up for, that doesn’t upset me.

I will provide an example for illustration.

I was just in a song contest and got eliminated. It stung to get eliminated, but for me – it did not really sting for the reasons one might expect. The reasons I got upset about it were my own, and are complex.

The surface reasons: what were said about me in reviews, where I hit in rankings, the pure MATH of the situation … if it were *real business life* and an actual paying situation, and not a simulation … like a magazine or a rankings list, or for money or charts or something … I would have to accept these things. This is what people do. This is how it works. I have done this before, and I remember it. I remember doing it in school, other places. You take third, or worse, fourth. There’s reasons for it – good reasons. You take LAST after your FLAWLESS performance. It’s cutthroat.

I remember what it is like to Not Be Good Enough in a place where Not Being Good Enough is pretty damn ridiculous. I still have not quit. So I think at this point that’s saying something.

We are way beyond doing this for personal enjoyment. We are into phycosis.

I was reading an article that an interested and concerned reader tweeted. I think we’re gonna have to go for a combination of 2 and 1b.

Left brain doesn’t entertain the notion for a second that right brain doesn’t have plans.

Dear Internet (but not really)

1. I have a gig. Today this isn’t a good thing. Missing it isn’t an option.
2. I’m starving. But eating isn’t really an option either for the same reason that missing the gig isn’t an option. Or rather, eating will cause the missing of the gig. Which is unfortunate. I’ll do what I can.
3. Writing and checking in with writing all day has calmed me down. I know that I’m disconnecting, because I’m not even all that worried about the ning thing. Not even enough to post a link to the letter. Not really even enough to post links to anything.
4. I have no feelings for anything about anyone today. I am feeling really cold and unaffected and clinical.
5. Why did I title the post this? Oh yeah.

I have a lot of work to do right now. I counted up the projects. There are 32 active projects. That’s just stupid. They are not all marked “urgent.” Many of them are just mine … just things I am doing. So many of them are different things for people, one person doesn’t really know about the other, different aspects of my life, blah-blah-blah.

I think there are really just 12 things that HAVE to get done. Maybe 7 that need doing by this weekend’s end. Oh wait … no eight. That’s not too horrible. That’s 8 music things. Not eight life things. I still have to function and be a Productive Wife and Member of a Family and Human Being in a Community of Folks Who Give a Rat’s Ass.

(by the way, Mike does not put these ideas in my head. he is very nice. i am a goober.)

[aside. my iPhone just totally FREAKED OUT on me. it's sync-ing with my brain!]

But I will have to get stuff done, is what I’m saying. And if I feel like I’ve got the loose ends I have to say something. So I’m writing a letter to “myself” which is up here now so that I can say, “enough already” … if you’re distracted Mz. D, it’s Enigma Variations time. You’re grounded from the internet. There is too much stimuli. Because what if there’s a hostile takeover or something. An asparagus shortage. An alien landing and they don’t care about us but they have only come here to steal our mayonnaise. Gah! That would be a tragedy!

(why would the aliens need mayo? couldn’t they make it themselves?)

This is less a blog right now than a chronicle of my slow-slip into insanity! I really wanted this to be A Professional Thing. I am A Professional.

Hah. Not So Much. But my songs are hardly professional either, are they. And all the while I do this, I’m working in the back of my skull.

I suppose I should take the good with the bad and just let it happen as it does and do what I need to do to care for myself. Whatever is distracting.

Whatever.

more me

1. I practiced. I’ve been kind of practicing to practice.
2. I flirted. With my computer. I haven’t done that in a while. I looked at it and I’ve been neglectful. I’ve mostly been paying attention to the internet and not really to all my nested folders and my lists, and all my little tiny corners where I keep things.
3. I thought briefly about just quitting and doing it all for me. How bad would that be?
4. I wondered why I do this? This music thing.
5. I started thinking about making my duet into a solo, simply because it is going to be SO emotional to write. I’m trusting the process and its safety less and less. I am remembering. I am listening to old recordings and remembering just *why* they were never released.
6. I’m having fun with the concept of collaborating, but am starting to resent a cloud over my head that I have felt before – where I feel like I have to learn and play covers or die. I don’t mind doing my friend’s material, but other people’s material in excess starts to feel … like another situation that didn’t work and was awful.
7. I’m casting about and wasting time because I’m, once again, not really committed to a course of action. I am at that point where I need to remember that I can trust myself and my old plan, because it was dependent on an old plan of just me doing the things I JUST needed to do.
8. All the talk online gets into my head and makes it mushy. All the constant updating gets addictive and is hard to wean from. You start to wonder things. Many of those sentences begin with the words, “why,” “why not” and “why won’t” and end with “me.”
9. I’m getting pretty frustrated with things online, actually. I don’t think I’m getting my point across here. I don’t think I have really made my impression really stick in people’s minds. I’m going to have to regroup somehow, and think about this a bit more.
10. I know who voted for me, and why I won. I’m proud of myself and grateful to them.

a long overdue post

Okay. So I’m going to go ahead and blog now. I haven’t been blogging for a while. This is mostly because I live in fear. Or because I live in a cave. Which is not as nice as living in a cafe. It’s easy to slip up, and type “cafe” when you are trying to type “cave.” It is thoughts such as these which make me believe that perhaps I should be “in bed.”

I’m thinking of REALLY reviewing the FU. Like, as in all three rounds. Including shadows (I know someone who would be happy about that). I think this because I am starting to care less and less about what people think. The reason I am starting to care less and less about what people think is because I am stupid.

I am not going to elaborate on that, so just let it go.

Suffice it to say that humans are mostly stupid creatures. We have hot, surly emotions that well up in our bellies that are uncontrollable. I get mine out through songwriting. Tomorrow I will go to a cafe, smoke cigarettes, and reorganize my folders before I have to go to a rehearsal with my duo partner on Wednesday. I am emotionally unprepared for this meeting. I cannot rely on anything wonderful to happen to me Tuesday that will gear me up for Wednesday, nothing that will make me strong or superconfident. My husband is not going to save me. I am not going to get discovered accidentally at Ruta in some random posture typing on my computer … just so and be whisked away to fame and fortune. I cannot rely on devotion or followers or … adoration. Or votes.

But, I will record my video, because I have a surprise and I’ve been practicing it all night with my excess negative energy.

All I can tell you about the negative energy is that when you think you have more of a safety net than you do, or you think that you are more aware of your surroundings than you are … it’s little things like texts and unfamiliar/familiar surroundings like internet and listening parties and even just driving that freak you out. I felt like I was in a sea of weird all day without a benchmark. I have forgotten the first rule, and that’s that I cannot rely on anyone else to think that I’m wonderful, fabulous, or awesome. And this is ironic, because I am in:

first place.

That’s right folks. So I have hella people that think I’m awesome. Tons of people who even TELL me that I’m awesome. So I know this is just stress. This is just the demons coming up. This is just fear of things that have happened years ago. Fear I’m going to screw up my life in some unfathomable way. Fear that …

… i don’t know. I’m just ALWAYS afraid. But I’m not afraid of my piano, and practicing for four hours tonight felt like coming home to where I was supposed to live. EXACTLY.

Internet, expect less of me

more about me and my process than you care to know

1. I think in 140 character or less segments. This is a Problem. I think that I have become attention seeking and desperate. I don’t know if this is because of the music business, chat rooms, or both. I suspect a little bit of both.
2. I have stopped completing songs with me in mind. I think that I USED to complete songs with “me” in mind because I used to keep myself in kind of a forced isolation mode. While this was not exactly healthy, I did control the stimuli around me. I could think and I could write. Things weren’t good last year, and they were better in 2005 production-wise.
3. I think that maybe my husband being home all the time is affecting me somehow. I’m not sure how. I think that maybe it is making me NEED to be around people ALL THE TIME. Even on the internet. When he leaves, I don’t let out a huge sigh of relief and start running to the piano. I run to look to see what someone else has posted. I think this is because I know that I’m not going to get a 6 hour block of time to work. I don’t think that this is anyone’s fault. It is what it is. So I’m trying to do the type of work that one does in these short bursts. The practice-practice can come later I suppose.
4. It’s going to be a little hard for me when he goes back, because I’m going to have to go right back into being the person that I used to be who is more focused. There will be less of me … around … all the time. I’ll be sitting at my instrument for 5-7 hours at a time. I’ll be sitting on my computer, and it will be disconnected because I’ll maniacally be in the folders shifting the lyrics back and forth. Because I have hours of time to just be thinking in clips and poetry. I won’t be going on YouTube and getting ideas. I won’t be immersing myself.
5. I’ll probably stop listening to other people’s music for a while, which I’ve gotten some raised eyebrows for. But I know that I’ve actually just isolated and wiped everything off my iPhone, and put maybe less than 100 tracks on there from time to time (I have less than 100 tracks on there now). I don’t really like music in a traditional way. I don’t feel like I have that luxury. I think about music in form, I think about it in flows and feelings. It has to make me feel a certain way. I will pick out a simply AWFUL song which I hate because the first eight bars of groove makes me feel ABSOLUTELY turned on. Then I will just rewind it over and over and OVER again to that and only that.
6. I’ve become obsessed with covers and gigging, which I didn’t use-d to be (bad grammarandIdon’tcare).
7. I like the way I talk, and write lyrics. I doubt I’m going to be changing this.
8. I had a strange moment in the studio. I went in to help with pianos and … [EDIT] …I was going in for tech reasons, because I have cool pianos. I’ve “rendered” (that’s what I call it – I think you actually say “modelling”) a bunch of pianos with pianoteq; and I thought they were really great. I use them in my work. I also made some synths and some little wurlys. Some little cute organs and some other things. I practiced a solo for one of the songs, because I thought – {edit, “maybe I’ll be called upon to do something on amother song on this record; and”} … it will be {edit “something“} with an instrument like this. But I went in [EDIT-OUT]

The {edit: “person who ended up playing the piano on the track that WAS worked on that day is a different sort of player to me. I wouldn’t have fit into that song, had I been called upon to play it. So it’s good that they had another player. But it does make me realize how much I really don’t get the vibe sometimes, of other people’s music. How differently I interpret things.”}

I am not really a masterful fit anywhere, but with my own music. This happened in the TMA as well. Well, it happened in a specific project in the TMA, and I had to kind of negotiate around that. Typically, I thought it would end in disaster, but it just ended in an interesting relationship that is strange to say the least. I’m full of strange relationships. The other collaboration I did is more confusing, because I fit into it so seamlessly that I’m still thinking about it and it bothers me a LOT. I didn’t play an instrument on this one.

I write in this blog because no one is really paying attention anymore. I can read the signs of when people get too busy and kind of tell. I got a lot of votes this time in the Song Fu, but this is a good time for me to keep flying under the radar. At least, I hope so, because I think I’m getting to that point where I’m starting to slip and to lose myself.

Plus, and this is a big worry – I don’t know how many (really), of my votes were “shiny votes of the other sort” and not really votes I would have gotten with a song of my own complete effort. I’m rather nervous about the next round. Maybe I made too much of a good decision. I’ve never been so grateful for the support of Austinites, and never been so SURPRISED at them crawling out of the woodwork at the last minute.

Now, I suppose that I will have to do a quick video – going against everything I believe – explaining a silly thing I say. I’m part of a community whether I like it or not. I can’t really explain this weird little family that we have. It’s pretty intense to say the least. I don’t really know my role in it either. I guess I worry too much about stuff. :S

Listy McAllister wants to barf on her computer.

I have been feeling SUPERcalisuckaliciousmegacrappadocious today. Gack (that’s an “ack,” but even stronger. Reserved for those special times in a girl’s life where it’s really cold and SUPER SUCKY!)

1. I cannot get my #$&(% together on the video-creation front. I have audio in one channel. I’d like to throw iMovie into the sea. Everything Mac will not work with my Apogee Duet, and I don’t understand anything. I’d just like to videotape myself. Yes, I know that we are not calling it “videotape.” I’m not a doofus. I was born in the 70s. Get over it.
2. My house is a mess, and I can’t find the cable to my good videocamera, which is where all the Harry-Watermelon footage is stored.
3. I’m doing charts for some TMA thing, but my heart’s not in it today. I’m making dumb mistakes on a scratch track that I should be able to do in my sleep. I think it’s because it’s cold and dark in my house. And because nobody loves me. Or I don’t love myself. Or because Finale won’t let me delete the last blank stave, which means that no one will love me, because it’s a simple frickin’ thing, isn’t it???
3&1/2. I need to stop posting random stuff all over the interenet, because no one is paying attention.
4. I need to do the dishes.
5. I need to clean my room.
6. I have four people that I need to stop net-stalking. Seriously. Get a frickin’ life!
7. I want my husband to come home and entertain me.
8. I need some friends that are interested in me.
9. I need some local gigs at cool places that interesting friends will find … uh … interesting and that I will not want to barf when I play there.
9&1/2. I need this subversive thing that I’m doing on the internet which I will not talk about for fear of being made fun of for the rest of my life to get “another installment” so that I can get another “fix” and be happier. It’s not as bad as net-stalking but it’s close.
10. I need to figure out how to blog and write about myself without wanting to barf.

I need to not click publish, but I’m going to and that’s just too bad …

THIS WAS POSTED at my TMA profile

It’s Today. Today is the First Day of a New Decade. This you Already Knew. But it Bears Repeating. In Capitol (records) Letters. Like a VeryImportantPart of a VeryNutritiousBreakfast.

[subliminal messages ... off]

I will now communicate in lists. One of my (non)-Resolutions is to blog a bit every day. There are no rules to this.

Anyway. Here are six and a half random things about me that you did not know.

1. I like to get tattoos in quick spontaneous bursts of … uh … spontanaiety. When I got the one on my wrist, I knew full well that I was dressed like a middle aged housewife that day, and that the artist thought I was gonna crack-n-cry. I stood stock still and didn’t move a hair and we had a very entertaining conversation. I was very, very proud that he thought I was a bad ass, and considered trying out for Mötley Crüe later that day.
2. I would rather be tortured a little bit than have to fold laundry all day or deal with cockroaches. I may have revealed these things in lists before, but they bear repeating.
3. I used to have a (backup) email address that was theweaselofaquitaine@hotmail.com. It’s no longer active. Neither is the first one that I ever had, which I chose before I really *understood* what an email was supposed to be:
inside-the-denise-brain@mail.utexas.edu
[they are both inactive]
4. I’ve been using Finale for a notation program since before 3.7 pre (1997/98). Probably since about 1993.
5. Today I will eat five black eyed peas.
6. This year, I will win ..

DENISE’S IDEAL DAMN DAY

1.Wake up. Drink some coffee. (awesome example)

2.Play some random piano for quite a while.

3.Do some writing.

4. Make sure I eat breakfast. While I do this I can catch up on all the reading I have to do. The online stuff. I have a tunna subscriptions, websites, MyTwitBook, all that stuff. Then I need to call venues.

5. Then I should write, and record, and rehearse. All day. If I have to run errands, I run them. But mostly, write, record, rehearse. Maybe clean.

 

So I need to time my internet time. That’s just how it needs to be. It needs to get done, but it needs to also be left behind when it starts to take over my life. It’s eating my brain. So ironically, I’m blogging about it. Sheesh …

 

 

Something new and Interesting

I have started publicizing these blog posts on Twitter. Sigh. This is my last ditch little effort to be cool. We’ll see how it goes. At some point I will finish writing music and maybe make some videos and stuff. I got a camera and some Worthy Ideas of Entertaining Meritoriousness.

Yeeah!

So that this post is not a complete waste of your time, I will put some goodies in here.

There’ll be something first for the Vegetarians, but if you’re not into this – when it starts smelling like Bacon … well you’d better flee! It’s all rather suggestive so if you don’t like it … bolt now

I’m at my Engineer’s house. I can finally talk about him and his going-s on more freely. Like that he has a girlfriend who massages stuff. I don’t like to talk about people freely because it’s really none of other people’s business. That’s my philosophy on blogging anyway.

She actually massages people. That sounded really bad. She’s a professional. We’re all professional here.

Anyway, one of his projects is the Disciples of Sound. He’s doing their CD. He asked my opinion after he played a track. I had just gone to see them live at Headhunters a couple days ago. Headhunters is a club that is located right next to Hoboken Pies somewhere downtown. Apparently, my friend says that it’s the sweet kind of New York pie, rather than the salty one. And that the water makes the pizza. Not here in these pies, but in actual New York. I told him to bring pizza water next time he went to New York to visit his parents. I’d tell him to get his parents to bring me some pizza water, but this guy has sent his extremely classy mother my extremely UNCLASSY list of our compiled horrible band names. When they come here, they fly here in a very small plane. They think that I am weird enough.

I have this fantasy of Mike and I tossing perfect pizza in a pristine kitchen that looks like a lab though. I slide down the fireman’s pole from my library into my studio. Then I go into the conservatory (where the piano is) which is of course connected to my little studio (my studio is not very big because although I am an awesome and famous song-writer composer-performer chickie, I am kind of still a dilletante engineer – having no taste for numbers and no attention span for album names or band statistics or gear specifications). I go through the secret passageway in my conservatory into the kitchen. Why yes, it does look like the one in Clue.

The opinion I gave him on the Disciples sucked, and probably didn’t help matters at all. I can’t give a good opinion of harder bands. I’m feeling pretty shitty about my engineering skills lately you might-could-tell, which is probably why I haven’t really been on the ball about setting up my studio. The lack of fireman’s pole or secret passagway or light-filled-conservatory-with-BadAssed floor-which houses-a-Fazioli could also have something to do with this.

… I haven’t really been doing anything about anything other than learning to play jazz piano. I’m not really finishing songs. I’ve started looking at venues, but you kind of have to comit to that intention. It’s a step. People all around me are mounting major video making campaigns. I’m NOT on the band wagon. I’m freaking out about this. Ack!

But it’s good that I’m learning to play jazz piano. It’s turning me into a bad ass piano player. I know though at some point, I’m going to have to crack open Cubase and deal with my damn problems. I’m going to have to book gigs, and take photos of my self, and videotape things. And have a real recording made of myself.  And finish cleaning out those two rooms so I can put up the friggin soundproofing, which has been sitting there like a constant reminder of how I suuuuuucccckkkk.

He’s editing drums now. Not the Disciples of Sound. It’s funny how he talks. Watching him do drummy-druminator thingys (not the technical term for what he is doing, and part of my problem), leads me to understand a few key things:

1. Saying “cockn’balls a lot may turn me into a better engineer, over time.
2. I really can’t give good feedback on stuff that is “heavy  music.” Seriously. I have nothing meaningful to say. I just smile and look like I have the IQ of a champagne grape. This will not turn me into a better engineer, over time.
3. It would be real helpful if I had two large monitors in my life because having everything out on huge-o screens it AWESOME for big, fat editing.
4. I’m happy I’m a Steinberg girl still (even though I know not what I am doing), and ProTools can still suckit.
5. I LOOOOVVVVEEEE Leslie speakers