Where I Be.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I’ve been working a ton this week. I don’t know if I put this on here, but I got the job I’d applied for. No, not the Xpress job, but the other one. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it’s at a non-profit just down the road and I work helping people finding jobs. So far, I really like it (although with me being a night-owl the 7:00 AM start time is a bit challenging).
The job is nice, but it’s just a small bit of change that seems to be happening. I don’t know, maybe it’s because of spring erupting all around me but I have spent the past week or two examining and reexamining what I’m doing, why I’m doing it and what I want to do. After much consideration I’ve decided that I really don’t like the whole peddling my writing for dollars thing.
Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy writing. I enjoy it so much that even now as you read this I am probably writing. I just, over the past year to year and a half have really hated the “freelance writer as street urchin” lifestyle: looking for entertainment and art in cities that vaguely interests me, contacting a newspaper editor in that city or town, agreeing to write about it for a price, contacting the artist in question and talking to them about it, writing about the art and sending it to an editor. The whole process seems rather trite and dumb to me right now. I think right now I want to worry about the art and artists in my own neighborhood and work with them. I don’t want to try to make money off of someone else’s creativity for the moment. I want to make money off of my own brain and mind, off of my own ideas.
Right now that means writing things for me: this blog, a comic book (hopefully something online that I’m scheming right now with a really talented artist that a sibling of an ex girlfriend introduced me to), some small bits of fiction and even some music. That’s right, music.
I’ve been playing about once or twice with my friends John Biggs and John Starling. It’s been rewarding and challenging just getting down into the music room and making a noise. The best part is that the noises aren’t like the noises I’ve made in past bands. Instead of writing three minute punk rock songs, these are rhythmic and complicated pieces of music full of dissonant guitars, funky bass, and rock solid drumming. The songs we write aren’t songs per se, but just blasts of creativity that only exist when we are playing them. I don’t know if we’ll ever play a show or record a proper song, but the music we do create is some of the most satisfying stuff that I’ve ever been a part of.
So, I know that I do one of these State of the Bugg entries every few months here, but just keep an eye on this blog. It is growing and changing along with me. I hope the few of you that read this will stay along for the ride.
Blocking out the bad
Sunday after work I came home in a terrible mood; nothing I’d done all day seemed to work out for me, work was awful and reminding me again why I want out of there and the aforementioned job kept me inside on what was a gorgeous day that was hard-earned after what has felt like three straight months of sub-freezing temperatures.
I came home, gave my wife (whom I hadn’t seen since late Friday night) a big long hug and sat down on the couch.
Suddenly, everything got better.
Saturday the 28th!
Here’s the latest flier for the show my band is playing with Everything Falls Apart and Hoss. Do me and yourselves a favor by stopping by, saying hello and maybe sweating off some of that turkey.
My costume for this year’s Halloween came together less than 24 hours before I put it on, and I have to say that I look damn good as a fat, belligerent Clark Kent.
In other news, NaNoWriMo is moving right along, and I’m plodding my way through the intial parts of my planned novel. It’s funny, I planned something action packed and pulp-y, but it’s starting off as a quieter dialogue driven thing. I hope that someone reads it and likes it as much as I am enjoying writing it. I’m already behind on my 1,700 words a day, but I’m sure that this weekend I’ll hit a groove. Quality over quantity, I say.
I’ve got so much on my plate right now, what with real life work, articles, trying my best to update Fuzztone every day, an idea for a web initiative for Flagpole that I hope they’ll like, this novel project and the impending Glaze show at the end of the month. Also I will finally be getting my bass guitar. Yahoo!
More to come tomorrow. This is my new warm up zone.
Before they Kept It Weird
Those stairs probably mean nothing to most people, but for me they were a huge part of being younger. They were an obstacle coming and going, they were a place to hide from the noise, a dark corner to write in a notebook, a launching pad for schemes between my friends and I, a place to be challenged to fights by Dave Holstadt, where I sat with Jessica on a date back in 1996 and awhere I did my first (and only) interview as a musician. It was Vincent’s Ear and I was too young to realize what exactly it meant to me and the city.
Tonight I chatted with a few friends and wrote down some thoughts about Asheville in 1999 compared to today, and I thought I’d put them here so that the three or four people that read this blog can reflect on what an awesome time and place Asheville and Vincent’s Ear was.
For Dirk…
This blog is probably no different than any of the previous blogs over the course of the last month or so, but it is different in the sense that I am finally writing it from my computer once more. There’s something comforting about this ancient piece of crap that takes ten (10!) minutes to boot up. It’s mine, and when I use my ergonomic keyboard I feel like the ideas and thoughts come out of my head quicker, and with less hand cramps. I’m sure the keyboard has nothing to do with the former and everything to do with the latter. So in honor of my computer, I wanted to put down some thing s that I currently give it up for:
- hoodie weather: It’s approaching my favorite time of the year- the time when I get to wear a hoodie and shorts at the same time. There’s something about this weather that wraps it’s big, hairy arms around you like a muscle bear in the bathroom of a club and makes you feel warm, slovenly and comfortable. These are positive qualities. Well, except for the muscle bears, but then again, Jessie could leave me at any time, so it’d be nice to keep my options open. That’s right, bear community, there’s still hope!
- Routines and the fight against them: I know those two things may seem contradictory, but there’s something comforting about embracing a routine. Jessie and I cook a lot of the same meals from week to week and even watch the same television shows together (Seinfeld at seven on the SuperStation, bitches), but it feels like the aforementioned arms of the big muscle bear (let’s call him Dirk) gentling patting me on the back during a tender hug and telling me that it’s going to be okay (Dirk calls me “big fella”, right afterwards, but I will omit that for clarity). But the fight against those routines is sometimes nice. I think as the dust we kick up in our twenties dies down in our thirties, it’s real easy to resign yourself to being settled down and scared, to not want to challenge yourself, to play it safe, and to write off those things that you indulged in at a younger age as youthful exuberance or dalliances. But I think those things are important. That’s why I’ve started a band again. That’s why I haven’t sold out just yet and joined the square community. It’s why middle aged men play sports. I just think that the battle to stay vital and young has to go hand in hand with growing older and leaving some of the turmoil of youth behind.
- Billy Joel: I have never been a fan of the guy, he seemed like a pedestrian Springsteen, but lately, I’ve really been digging the guy. His music is still pretty blah, but I dig the hell out of it. I really think that I’m starting to suck.
- My job: yes it’s a corporate hellhole counter job, and some people who have read this blog and found out what I do for a secondary source of income have made fun of me for it, but I really love it. It’s nice to talk to people all day about something like books. It’s nice to see people’s reactions to writing and it’s nice to be out of the house and amongst the living.
- Sleepovers: Because of my job being a few miles away from home, I’m spending a few nights a week away from home. It sucks because I don’t get to be around Jessie, but it is nice because I get to hang out with Bort. We usually don’t do much of anything, but it is comforting sometimes just talking about mundane things with the guy. I miss living with him and it’s a nice thing from time to time.
- My new band. I don’t know if we have a name yet, but so far it’s been nice jamming with the guys. It’s not as much of a big muscle-y rock band as I’ve been in before. Instead we do this nice surf guitar/early R.E.M. thing that I dig.
This probably wasn’t the most exciting entry, but bear with me, I came home from work rather ill today, and I don’t have the energy to justify myself or to make this entry sing, like Dirk did on that summer night all those months ago.
Until later, be good.
