on learning opportunities

If there really is some superior force out there in the universe, who has a hand in our actions, I can only assume that this semester, he/she/it has been occupying his/her/its time by seeing how much he can test me. Really, with the pseudo-gout, kidney stone, and now intestinal virus (which I got from my wife, who must've caught it from one of her advisees), I have felt the toll of the year. Luckily, though, for each strike against me, there is a learning opportunity.

Today's lesson: before work, I had to stop by the grocery store to pick up some medication to control my...um...outbursts. Here, I learned several things:

1. While I thought the store greeters were monotone before, the ones who work the morning shift are positively comatose. I do my best to talk to them as if they're people, and the greeters usually respond. This one? I strongly suspect he was a fairly bored robot. The lesson? There's always a more boring job out there.


2. While walking back to the medicine aisle, I saw that they are now selling McDonald's K-cup coffee pods. The idea of the pod coffee system (one that removes user control of all the key elements) is bad enough. That people buy a $125 machine which takes specialty coffee pods which average $25-50 a pound is worse. That people then use that to replicate the coffee they get at McDonald's? Bleedin' frightening. The lesson? Sometimes, the William Randolph Hearst dictum "It is impossible to underestimate the intelligence of the public" seems increasingly true.

Of course, take all this with a grain of salt. In addition to getting five classes-worth of portfolios in to grade by the end of the week, I am also sick in a relatively gross way. But hey, that's another lesson there, huh? That having chronic diarrhea tends to make one negative?

Some lessons are admittedly better than others.

if I were a filmmaker

I like to dabble in a variety of arts. Guitar playing, cooking, singing, songwriting, photos, writing...these are all things which I take frightfully serious...to at least some degree. However, I do not do film. I'd like to, but I am nowhere near having the time to do so.

This does not mean, however, that I don't like to arm myself with the knowledge to do film...if, at some later date, I magically find myself with an excess of time and money. And if I ever do, you can bet I'm going to apply these lessons:

on the temporary reemergence of a rock band

Currently, I have no regular means of playing electric guitar. I love playing solo shows...but being a troubador is a completely different skill set. I play in an awesome band, but I play banjo. No distortion there.

Distorted guitar is important. It calms me. It makes me open up, creatively speaking. It's energy, it's catharsis, it's antidepressant, it's so much more I cannot come close to vocalizing.

I have a solo show coming in January, and for the set, I've assembled a rhythm section. I will break out my Reverend Jet Stream and my new tube amp. I will be able to bring distortion. I will be able to solo again. Just the very thought of it is...well, it's glorious.

I will be only able to have this version of my backing band The Antidepressants for this one 30 minute set, though...then it's back to the world of acoustic instruments. I'm trying not to think too much of this, however.

So, friends in rock bands, I have this one message: don't take your musical situation for granted. Ever.

on interesting times

We live in what can charitably described as interesting times. I just read a story about how protests of the Eric Garner death have turned violent. If you don't see why this is strange, reevaluate your morals.

Let this roll around in your head a minute. An unarmed man was choked to death by police. It was all caught on camera. The cop was not indicted. People are protesting. There was violence. And somewhere, this is considered news.

Is it really outside of the realm of expectations that someone protesting cops violently strangling some guy on video and getting off without an indictment might say, "hey, maybe chanting and holding a candle might not do it?"

on lyrics and past feelings

I don't normally share lyrics here, but I think this is a good exception. Last night, I had a song pretty much fall out of me. I was using the restroom, and a chord progression popped into my head. A vague mumbly idea of lyrics quickly followed, and within about a minute, I had the full chorus assembled. I rushed out to the living room and wrote down the chorus. I had a verse about two minutes later...then another...then a bridge...then a second bridge..all in about twenty minutes total. And they were actually pretty solid lyrics, too; when I typed them up today, I hardly had to change anything.

It was lighting quick, yes--something I wish happened more often--but that's not why I'm telling you this.

If you've read anything at all on this blog, you know that my personal failures on the job market have been a recurring issue. It's one of the reasons why I started this blog: to remind myself that, after so many failures, I still was at least a good writer. Over the years, I have reached a place where I am completely at peace with my career. Honestly, I hardly ever think about it.  The other day, though, as I was walking through the building to my car, I saw one of the 80 year old professors in his office...from back in the day when newly minted Ph.D.s were pretty much guaranteed a tenure track position by the time they graduated. Could I, I wondered, ever hope to convince him of what it's like nowadays, where the job market is a crap shoot at best?

I wasn't consciously thinking of this when I wrote the song, but nevertheless, it was obviously bouncing around in my grey matter...because the song is entirely about my failures on the job market. My favorite lines:

now the battle's long gone

and we're the bodies on the ground

ours was but to do or die

victims never make a sound

but I see no poetry

from the fodder's point of view

if I could have the romance beaten out of my head

they can sure as hell do it to you

This is, I wanna make clear, coming from a pretty good place. As I said, I rarely think about it anymore...but I think I needed this distance from those feelings to really capture them. Now hopefully they're out of me.

Let's hope this is one depressing topic I'm done writing about.

on stupid, stupid rat creatures

When I first encountered Jeff Smith's Bone series, I found it to be revolutionary. Not for the wondrous artwork, surprisingly funny dialog, or the unexpected depth of emotion, narrative, and complexity which continued to reveal itself to the reader. It was for one reason: the inclusion of the stupid, stupid rat creatures.

For those unfamiliar with Bone, I do pity you, but a bit of orientation is required. It is the story of (to employ the brief movie pitch description) three creatures who get lost in a strange valley and find themselves in the midst of a war between several magical species. One of these species is the rat creature. Bone introduces us to them with two deserter soldiers, who are fierce, a little scared, very hungry, and quiche-obsessed all at the same time. From that point on, though, most of the rat creatures are soldiers, dedicated to wiping out the opponents. While the first two are cute in a way, the main body of the rat creature army is downright frightening. None is more scary, though, than their leader: Kingdok.

When I first ran across the drawing of Kingdok, I stopped in my tracks. It was not just because of the excellent character design.  What truly struck me was Kingdok was the closest thing I've ever seen to capturing how I feel my depression monster must appear.

As soon as I realized I suffered from depression, I started to look for metaphors to help explain how the disease makes me feel. It's not easy, because depression is much, much more than feeling sad.  I feel like my body is being smothered with a heavy bag pressing down on me.  I feel the weight on my head and shoulders.  I feel the doom and sadness flowing down on me.  It doesn't matter how I feel about the particular depression triggers, whether they make sense or not.  It's coming to get me, and there's little I can do to avoid it.

With all respect to Toby Allen's wonderful concept, Kingdoc is the perfect embodiment of my depression monster. He inspires the right amount of fear to set me on edge, but he's also imposing enough to know there is no escape from whatever he has planned for me.

I've been battling the depression monster this week. This time, there are many triggers at work, some I'm open about (the failure of my last surgery, another impending surgery, the financial hit of this all, falling behind at work under a pile of never-ending grading, not being able to get solo music shows, not one person I know taking an hour out of their Friday night to come see my band), some I don't want to discuss. And there would be value in discussing many of these.  However, when the depression monster comes, all that goes out the window. Instead, I just feel doomed.

Stupid, stupid depression monster.

on questions better left unasked

In one of the Hitchhiker books, Douglas Adams introduced the idea of "questions where, if you think about them too much, the answers will only drive you insane." One of the major advances I made after my 2011-2012 mental break was to adopt this concept and make it my own.

You see, I've always been a moper. I've been the kind of guy who will dwell on the negative and the difficult, often in a possibly fruitless search for a way to conquer a difficult or nigh-impossible obstacle. This is almost certainly rooted in my depression, yes. But it was not without its benefits. It made me tenacious and bull-headed in my quest to get in and through grad school, for instance.

Part of the problem, though, is that there are walls which one cannot push through, obstacles that, for whatever reason, cannot be overcome. My magnificent failure at the academic job market is a sterling example. I did everything I could do...yet I was crushed by the market regardless. My tenacity could not overcome the dwindling opportunities for scholars in general. And, as I was a dweller, I could not quit analyzing my lack of success...and consequently blaming myself. Being able to shove the whole thing into the "if you think about it, it will only drive you crazy" folder took a very long time, but I eventually learned to let some things go...and became a much happier and healthier person as a result.

But every so often, I have days. Today, on my way from the university to the hospital, I started to think those thoughts even though I knew they would drive me mad. I couldn't stop myself. I don't know if it was the last 4 days grading until 10pm, my current social isolation, or that I was listening on the drive to an album which was on regular rotation during the adjunct hell years. Maybe it was just one of depressive turns. I dunno.

Sometimes, I wish I could just cut certain things out of my brain. Maybe I should just listen to more pop music.

on being a pseudo-rock star

It occurs to me that, while I play in a cool band and am a solo musician with album, I additionally have a surprisingly extensive pseudo-career.  If you want to get technical about it, I am officially in two other bands: a screamo/experimental heavy band and a folk/metal comedy duo. Neither of them have done anything at all to this point, up to and including playing together. I think in each case we still actively plan to do something, though, so these exist more in the realm of quantum possibility. 

Others are more nebulous. I have also agreed to be in a backing band for a singer/songwriter colleague, but as the singer joined another band, I'm beginning to suspect this won't ever happen. The other singer in my last band had asked me on at least ten other occasions to play with him in side projects. He has now (according to his own claims) "quit music forever."  I'm not sure why anyone would make such a proclamation.  Personally, I don't trust anyone's judgement when they say they will never play with people at any point in time until the day they shuffle off this mortal coil. However, I have to accept such a statement as probably spelling the death of all these side projects. Nevertheless, I still really feel the need to count them as elements in my pseudo-career...for whatever little that is worth.

It is strange, though, that the catalog of probably-never-gonna-come-to-fruition acts is so sizable.  I wonder what this says about me.  Is playing with me the kind of thing that sounds like a good idea right up until the point one sobers up?  But this sounds like a candidate for the ever-growing list of "if you ever thought about it, the answers would only keep you up at night" questions. So I'm better off just moving to other things in my mind.

Still, though, I can't help but wonder what it would be like if I could move any of these possibilities from the quantum realm into the actual world.  Shame my math skills were never good enough to allow me to become that kind of mad scientist.

on lazing on a Saturday afternoon

Every single time I have ever been in an emergency room, there has been at least one person making weird noises. One time, it was an old woman's constant whining ("I just want a glass of water" for 30 minutes, then "I just want someone to take away this glass of water," then "I just want to get out of her," then "I just want to go up to my room"). Today, it was someone making random moaning and whirring sounds.

The nurse was nice. The first doctor was nice. The attending physician in charge came in and told me (pardon the language), " You look like shit." He also kept calling me "boss"... but was nice in spite of these quirks

There were procedural issues. They started testing me for the worst-case scenarios first. The primary contender for the "what is ailing Mike, 9/27" award was scary enough: the frightening (yet still a great possible band name) Testicular Torsion. They told me if they caught this early enough, they could probably save the testicle. This was...encouraging. It was even more interesting (?) when they told me if we were lucky (?), then it would be a kidney issue.

These words...I don't think they mean what you think they mean.

The pain was...painful. It rated a pretty high interger on the 1 to 10 qualitative scale...at least until the hospital drugs kicked in. Then, after various random  prodding exercises, getting wheeled through the hospital whilst lying on my back, a surprisingly dignified genital ultrasound, and a torso CT scan, the doc came in and told me I didn't have a kidney stone...I had been growing a boulder.

So here I am...dosed up on legal oxycodone, watching Futurama. Thank goodness for my wonderful wife for hauling me around and not getting sick of my whining, and for my wonderful daughter for kissing my hand when not chasing imaginary balloons around the waiting room.

Just think that all I planned on doing was eating a bagel while heading to the farmer's market.

In some ways, that would've been better.

on musical integrity

Someone I know on the evil social network posted an article about how to turn a good song into a hit song. One of the suggestions was to pick an intriguing name; it suggested that one word names were particularly hip right now. The rest of the suggestions were equally numbing.

Now I am fully aware that art is always a negotiation with the audience. The article, though, moved beyond suggesting negotiation and into the realm of pandering. It was disturbing, and it made me glad I am a "never will be famous" musician. How does one take something loved and turn it into a selection of PR decisions? Particularly when there is such a miniscule chance of a payoff? Could anything get more disheartening?

There are benefits of being an underground musician, even one so far underground I sometimes feel like a mole man.

on being an adult (sob)

My daughter goes to day care three days a week, and I have her the other two weekdays.  We generally have a lot of fun.  We play with her Hot Wheels, we paint, we break out the Lego.  I try to get her out of the house at least once, and she particularly loves the Simpson Garden Park (she will tell me "after we look at flowers, we get a milkshake. Yep, she's got me trained). Unfortunately, most of our day trips tend to be going to the grocery store, as it seems we never have enough stuff.  That's okay, though, because she seems to really like going there as well.  I just like spending time with her, and I'm pretty sure she likes spending time with me.

Fridays, she's in day care, and I'm home.  It's a work day for me, the only day I can use to keep up with my online classes.  I go to campus the other two days this semester.  Every so often, though, my classes do all their work via the internet, and I have a day where I don't have to go in.  Today's one such day.  My kid is at day care, and I'm here.

Here, however, is the conundrum.  I've got two classes of grading to do.  However, I grade in my study...which is the same room where I keep all my musical stuff. I've got this grading to do, but I keep looking over at my guitar leaning on the futon...and I'm having to fight the desire to play guitar and write songs all day.

Growing up and being responsible sucks...particularly when one still has the heart of a kid.

on black blood of the earth

No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater than coffee

--Azrael (paraphrased)

I love coffee.  I love the way it smells.  I love the way you can sense the terroir in each batch. I love the way it tastes.  I love the way it feels when the coffee buzz is just at that perfect point.

I am serious about my coffee.  I buy my beans from a local coffeehouse which roasts its own.  I buy them whole bean, of course.  I grind them myself in a Hario burr hand-crank grinder. I brew in a French Press.  I have a wonderful thermos to keep it perfect for ages.

I love the process.  Preheating the thermos, grinding the beans, stirring the mixture before they steep, slowly pressing down on the plunger...all of this relaxes me.  I'm not normally one for sentimental thoughts and acts, but I do enjoy the ritual of coffee at a level only matched by the ritual of a good cigar or a good martini.

I love my coffee black.  I understand intellectually that some people prefer with cream, sugar, or both...or even whiskey or Irish cream...but I just can't bring myself to accept such things.  If their coffee isn't good enough on its own, they should just get a different variety.  That they don't is confounding.

Let's not even talk of instants or those one cup brewers.

If there's one thing I don't love, it's that my body doesn't do as well with caffeine as I would like.  I cannot drink coffee every day.  If I have one micron more than the French Press can provide, I am destined for the shakes and a crash.  I know this, so I force myself to exercise control...but still, I don't really wanna.

This semester, I don't teach until 10, so I can enjoy the coffee rather than relying on it as I would for an 8am class.  However, this does mean that my coffee runs out about 45 minutes into the class.  When my coffee runs out, it always makes me a little sad.  Knowing that I physically shouldn't have more coffee anyway doesn't help.  And now I have to hide that minor depression so that it doesn't affect my teaching. I cannot, in other words, take it out on the students.

Coffee.  She's a harsh mistress.

on probable omens

This morning, I had a dream that was somehow about family vacations, monorails, food samples, and nuclear accidents. Then I woke up with the Counting Crows song  "Recovering the Satellites" playing in my head. Now, I gotta wonder what kind of day I'm going to have.

on pointless innovation

In light of my conversion to mostly vegetarianism, I have, out of necessity, been revamping my cooking. This has involved getting new cookbooks, updating my crappy saucepan, procuring a better food processor, and so forth. The latest step was to get a new omelette pan, as the non-stickiness of my old one had degraded to the point of annoyingness.

When I took the cardboard sleeve off the new pan, I noticed a sticker on the pan itself. Stores and manufacturers seemingly have an addiction to putting stickers on pretty much everything. Moreover, making said stickers nigh-impossible to remove seems to satisfy some deep, deviant fetish of said sticker's designers. When I got my ricer, for instance, removing the clearance sticker required 16 minutes of scrubbing with rubbing alcohol, vegetable oil, and a scouring pad. Much cursing also occurred.

The sticker on the omelette pan obviously could not handle the scouring pad, but it did require 15 to 20 minutes of scraping and scrubbing. Normally, this would've pushed me into a fit of spasmodic rage. However, this time, I had instead developed a grudging admiration for whomever designed and manufactured a glue which could stick so ferociously to a non-stick surface. Sure, it was utterly pointless and counterproductive innovation. Still, you had to admire the sheer effectiveness of the pointlessness.

Someone make that designer an administrator or bureaucrat, stat!

On lifestyle changes involving meat and beer

I honestly thought this would never happen, but it has, so I might as well admit it to the world. Be advised, though: it is shocking news, and I don't want to scare anyone. So here goes:

I am giving up both beer and meat.

I know this is kind of shocking news, so some explanation is in order. Three weeks ago, I woke up with my big toe on my left foot in some serious pain. Yeah, i know what you're thinking: Ooh, a toe! Agony! Well actually it was. It felt like in the middle of the night, somebody had come and smashed it with a sledgehammer. Honestly, it felt like it was broken. And that, quite frankly, sucked.

Three days later, it had not improved. I want to see the doctor, and he told me it was most likely an attack of either gout or pseudo-gout. I'm not really sure what the differences are between the two, because he said that they have the same symptoms and are treated more or less the same. Secretly, I'm hoping it was the pseudo variety, because that seems like it would be a lot more sci-fi.

The drugs he gave me work very well. In fact, by the end of the day, I felt pretty much better. The doctor, though, told me that he was not sure how frequently I would experience flare ups. He said it could be only in every so many years, it might not reoccur until I was much older, or I might have outbursts relatively frequently. I was cautiously optimistic but preparing for the worst.

The next weekend went quite well. Then I lasted about another week before my foot started hurting again. Honestly, it wasn't as bad as the first time. However, it eventually became really, really horrible. Try walking around on a foot that feels like it's broken. I know I am getting older, but I'm just not ready to feel like I'm in that much pain all the time.

Due to my desire not to feel crippling pain on a normal basis (how weird of me!), I decided I needed to make some real changes in my life to make sure this didn't keep happening. So I looked for a list of triggers for gout (because I could find surprisingly little on pseudo-gout...only pseudo-information), and two of the biggest were red meat and alcohol, particularly beer.

Of course, I had the same thought that most of you are probably having right now. Is life without beer and steak really worth living? Now don't get me wrong, because I love these 2 things as well. However, I hate the pain that much more. And I also realize being healthy can be a good thing.

So here is the bottom line. I will be going primarily vegetarian in my food intake. I am NOT going to be one of these people who gets high and mighty about it. At least, I don't intend to be that guy. And I'm not going to say I will never eat meat, because an occasional animal might slip through. But I will be mostly vegetable and fruit eating guy. As a result, I am more than open to any suggestions anyone might have for how to cook this way. Recipes are also welcome.

I am also not going to be drinking. They say that alcohol is a severe trigger of this, and that beer is particularly bad at it. Because of my intolerance to pain, I'm going to give this up for a little while too. I'm not going to say I will never have a beer or a scotch or whatever, but it's not going to be a major part of my life.

This is the one which is a little trickier for people. Please do not think you need to tiptoe around me. This is just going to be for my own benefit. I will not preach. Also, I'm not doing this because I have a problem, need to rehab, or can't handle temptation. I'm perfectly fine. This is just something I need to do to not be in abject pain and horror all of the time. So I am more than happy to go out with you, hang out with you, or join you in any alcohol-based environment. If you play your cards right, this can even be a benefit, because I am more than happy now to be a designated driver if you wish to include me.

So where does this all end? Well, I can really use some advice about the whole vegetarian thing. Other than that, I just hope to get healthier. Maybe in a year or so of this, I'll even become trim and gain movie star good looks! I promise not to let my hopefully upcoming stud-muffin looks  come between us.

I know a non-drinking, healthy me is not what you've come to expect from me...but bear with me, and we'll get through this together.

on today's view of humanity

Even in my most optimistic days, I do not dream of a perfect world. I have never set my sights on a perfect world. Its always been obvious to the perfect world is way beyond anything we could actually achieve.

What I do wish for, though, is a world which is at least somewhat moral, ethical, whatever you want to call it....a world were we care for others. A world where we consider others. A world where we don't look up on other people as impediments to we can become. In short, a world where responsibility is something to which we strive.

Such a world, though, does not exist...no matter how wonderful the possibility might be. It seems too many people or more interested in their own freedom, and what that means is not personal freedom but freedom from any responsibility, freedom from caring, freedom from considering other people.

What this forces you to do, if you're smart, is to become self reliant. And there have been many, many things which have pushed me toward self-reliance. I'd like to think I've gotten a lot better at it. And this is a good thing, because it means that I'm better able to weather the storm.

Self reliance is a wonderful thing to have. It's a shame, though, that it's necessary.

on technology and decency

I love technology. I am more than 1 computer in the house. I have a kindle and a tablet. My mp3 player is pretty much invaluable this point. I stream my entertainment. So, when I say this, this is not coming from a Luddite.

And I also want to make this clear: while what I am talking about used to be referred to as manliness ("Act like a real man!"), this should, by any reasonable measure, be universal.

There is still great value in face to face. There are still many things you should not do via electronic communication. It comes down to common decency. There is real value to looking someone in the eye and speaking directly to them. This is what adults should do.

As I said, I love this technology as much as anyone else. However, there are times when you just have to put down the damn keyboard, meet somebody in person, look him/her/it in the eye, and talk to him/her/it. It's called being a good, real, honest person. Rants solve nothing. Talking to people, allowing them to hear your words directly, and trying to come to some mutual level of understanding are the only real things that separates us from the animals.

Except maybe Wombats...they got this down already.

my weekend

This weekend, I got to play music 4 days out of 5, debut my solo band at a music festival, hang out with a friend, go swimming with my family, eat pizza, and watch my daughter do her elephant dance.

My life can beat up your life.

out of the mouth of babes comes context

Yesterday, my loving daughter said to me, "I want to bop you on the head. Can I?" So I leaned over her, she pushed my head away, I fell backward dramatically, and she cackled. We did this a few times, and then she grabbed my arm. She then told me rather sweetly, "I'm just gonna eat you."

And this, friends, is why context matters...because in other circumstances, "I want to hit then eat you" wouldn't be this sweet.

what i'm writing, Nashville be damned

I'm at my favorite bar for what started as midweek social night but has kind of morphed (evolved? devolved?) into sitting, drinking, thinking, and lyric writing night. I can't help but miss the fun and interaction the old Tuesday night group of comrades used to bring, but they are all gone now...either across the country, across the globe, or, most unusually, to my enemies list. I was actually shocked to find out I have an enemies list, but there you go. I don't really like the way having one makes me more like Nixon, but at this point, I don't really know what to do about it. At least I don't have his jowls.

Writing night, however, has become frightfully productive. I have a solo album coming out (more about this later), sing about five songs for my rawk band, and have about ten other originals...and they, for the most part, come from my Tuesday nights. When I'm on, I can get two songs a night.

I'm writing so fast, though, that I'm in danger of overload. This morning, I realized I had a writing night coming up but didn't actually have anything on deck. Then that tiny part of my mind which always tries to get me in trouble remembered the country song I started to write 20+ years ago as a mental exercise.

So that's what I'm up to tonight...writing country music. I doubt it will sound like country when I'm done, though. I have no idea how to describe my style to anyone. I know I have a style. Labeling it? That's harder. But I do know two things. First, I know that eventually, they all come out sounding like me...whatever that means. Secondly, whatever I do isn't country music.

Anyway, I am quite comfortable admitting I'm not exactly Nashville material. For one thing, I'm too fat. Also, as my daughter has made clear, I have a big head, and I'm too broke to order a custom cowboy hat.