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.