The Never Ending Writing Project

Yes, we are back to the comic book.

I have not posted it yet. I am looking for a good place, and I have asked for advice from some of my Twitter contacts, but I really don’t know much about this end of things. I know 400-page long fan fiction that is not “slash” has limited appeal, but that’s just how it came out. I still think it’s really good. On the plus side, writing in Final Draft I can save it as a PDF, so it should be pretty easy to upload and download, regardless of where it ends up.

Also, it is not done. I did accomplish my editing goals over the weekend, but there were still some additional scenes that I needed to write, and I was stuck on them but I see how they are going now. I should be able to finish tonight. Of course, I still keep finding little tweaks to make, which is why I want to post it. Well, I wanted to post it to be done with it, and that is not going to happen, but it is in a different way than I expected.

Remember when I got curious about the ration between screenplay pages and comic book pages, and I thought about trying to draw a page or two, but then decided not to because of how frustrating that would be? Yeah, I need to draw this.

A big part of what made writing this as a comic book different from just writing a screenplay is the imagery. I mean, when I am writing a screenplay, I think about imagery and focus and things like that, but here I was thinking about drawings. I would see the best way to convey scenes, and some of the ways to make them more visually interesting, and at some point I realized that I need to do it, even though I am not good at this.

It’s not just that I am not a good artist, nor is it that I want to be a professional writer, and so I need to be writing other things. In terms of sheer scope, I figured out that the ratio was about two drawn pages per one written page, meaning that I am looking at about 860 pages of drawing.

I think I need to do this for three reasons. The first one, and the reason I can’t resist, is just that creative drive. I have ideas in my head, and I am attached to them, and I want to make them reality. That they are coming out as images instead of words is new, but also, they already came out as words, and there are always images anyway; it’s just that normally the images lead to the words and now it’s going back. That should be interesting.

Also, there’s a special kind of energy that comes with drawing, and maybe I need that in my life. I remember once reading a blurb in a magazine about what type of doodles to do based on whether you needed to be focused or creative or other things. I think it was spirals for creativity, but I don’t remember. Usually I only draw during phone meetings, and then I tend to go back and forth between geometric shapes and fruits, sometimes flowers, maybe birds if the meeting is really long.

(Or I draw when a conversations gives me strange thoughts, like catfish in a rocket, a giraffe riding a Segway, or junkie whales.)

Finally, one of the saddest things I have read recently was a story about Berlioz in Musicophilia. He woke up from a dream with a new piece of music in his head. He was tempted to work on it, but at the time his wife was very ill and he needed to earn money by some odd jobs he was doing. To work on the piece would involve neglecting all that, because it would consume him, and then he would need to pay for a copyist, and a staging, and he could not commit to that, so he pushed the music out of his mind. It fought, but he fought harder. It came back once more, and then he succeeded in forgetting that completely.

I don’t want to do that. I do have responsibilities, and I can’t go crazy with my dreams, but I need to hold on to them too. So this is going to be my practice for that. I need to start working on a new screenplay. I need to keep blogging. Okay, maybe those are wants and not needs, but they are important to me, and legitimate, and at the same time there is the job that actually earns me money, and the rest of my life.

This project is going to be my practice for slow, steady pacing. It will not go fast. It will start out very frustrating as my abilities fall below my ambitions, but my abilities will improve. That means that after 400 pages I may want to redo the first 200, because I think I can make them look better. That’s okay. It will be a journey. So, we are looking at something like a 2022 completion date. Don’t get excited.

I have bought some regular pencils, colored pencils, and two 50-page drawing pads. One will be for sketching, and practicing, and the other I will start drawing in. If I get something perfect in the practice pad, I may just cut it out and paste it into the other pad. As I get further along, I will buy more pads, and I will probably need another 16, depending on how much I redo.

It is intimidating, but it is also exciting. For one thing, the text is somewhat unstructured. With a screenplay, you are generally trying to get the premise out in the first ten minutes, and then you expect two plot twists spaced forty minutes apart, and that may sound formulaic but it works. The comic book is longer than three movies, so it does not quite work out like that. However, as I start working it into 50 page increments, maybe its structure will change. There have been snatches of poetry that relate, and putting them into the script did not feel quite right, but putting them as an end not on a page might. So it is really exciting.

And hey, if nothing else I should get better at storyboarding. I’m not even sure how many filmmakers still draw those out, but I saw some for Yimou Zhang’s Hero, and they were appropriately gorgeous for that movie.

What wonders the present holds!

My sisters took a while to get with the program for their MP3 players too. (Actually, they have real iPods, using iTunes, which means we had to create an additional profile on the home PC, and that I am constantly having to reaffirm that I have no interest in downloading Safari.)

Both of the iPods were gifts, and not necessarily things that they would have wanted on their own, but nonetheless with the help of a friend they adapted, and started filling them up with music, and even taking them on trips. (Though they are more likely to play them in their docking stations than to actually wear them, which I’m sure is better for their hearing.)

The most memorable iPod related event for me, was one night when, after the music was going for a while, Julie came out of her room and announced, “I have great taste in music!”

I guess it amused me because it’s funny how we can have so much confidence in some areas and be so insecure in others, but also, I understood what was going on. This was a new way of listening to music, and it was giving her a rush. Normally we are listening to a CD of a specific band or maybe a collection of one type of music, and that is great, but there is a certain sameness. The other option is to listen to the radio, and then someone else has selected the mix. Especially lately, that has been completely unsatisfactory. They keep changing stations, completely unsatisfied. Even Mom, who is much less particular, keeps wondering why she can’t find anything good on the radio.

The magic of an MP3 player is that it is taking only music that you have approved and selected, and then mixing them randomly, so you don’t know what is coming but it keeps being great. It’s all highlights! How amazing is that?

(At least it can be. I suppose you could just randomly put whatever on there. Chick who does not pay for her music from yesterday mentioned her boyfriend loading a bunch of songs for her. She was grateful; I would not trust anyone to do that for me. Obviously, I question her judgment on multiple levels.)

One reason I have delayed getting started on mine is that whole question of choosing and loading. It’s not as big of an issue as just learning how to operate a new toy that I don’t really need, because I always have music around anyway, but it is still an issue. Would I put on everything I own? Maybe I should just put on singles.

Usually I listen to rock, but there are non-rock albums that I love. It would probably be weird to have “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister end, and then have a tango song come on. Usually, I just get in the mood for tango music, and then I play that whole CD.

For the record, Julie and Maria tend more towards singles for their MP3 players, because that is what they buy on iTunes. When they want the CD, they buy the whole thing, and play it by itself, generally speaking. I don’t think they’ve overanalyzed it as much as I have, because we’re neurotic in different ways (it helps us balance out), but still, there are those decisions to be made.

If it hasn’t been clear, these are things that I have been thinking about a lot lately. How do you find new music? (Especially when the radio stations are so disappointing, and the music video channels keep switching to really stupid shows.) How do you best enjoy it? How do you consume music responsibly, thinking about the environment and the economy and support for the artists? How can the internet help? For some of these I have already made decisions, and for some I will keep looking.

Maybe the big goal when I get back into music writing will be to actually pry open that annoying plastic packaging, hopefully without injuring myself, and start loading that player up. There’s at least a month of non-music content before I get there, and that’s fine, because there’s still a lot of research left. I have at least 43 bands that I still need to check out, I am currently on the third of ten books that I want to read for this, and there are thirteen movies that I want to watch, all of which are related.

The good thing is, with everything that people say about life being about the journey, and not the destination, that is especially true about learning and exploring. The things that are coming will enrich what is happening now, and what has already happened, but that doesn’t change that I am finding really cool stuff right now.

And, honestly, I am overdoing it right now, but that should be clearing up after this weekend. I am pretty sure that I will start my Native American Heritage Month reading late again, but I shouldn’t get as behind schedule as I did last time, so it’s all good.

It's not priceless

There was an essay in June that got quite a bit of attention on the subject of paying for music. Actually, the blog post I read was a response to a different post, that was in response to yet another post, and all of them relate. Here are the links:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/05/28/153862651/i-just-deleted-all-my-music-pt-1

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/06/16/154863819/i-never-owned-any-music-to-begin-with

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

I totally get the concerns about trusting the Cloud versus trusting your own storage. If I were mostly digital, I would want backups. Even with hard copies, it would not hurt to have backups. I’ve been writing about apocalypse and living on the outskirts of civilization with significant loss of technology, so I am in that frame of mind now. The other issue is more of a concern.

Actually, it made me think about my book practices, because checking books out instead of buying them does mean less sales for the author. If I had to buy everything I read, I would probably read less, so I’m not sure how it would affect overall sales, but that is a concern. Of course, if I went digital there, shelf space would not be an issue, but I still like paper.

In this case, what I really want is for there to be lots of fully-funded libraries, so that lots of books are bought all the time, and I can contribute to that, both in how I vote and in donations. There will always be people who want to own books for re-reading or for lending or so they do not need to finish within three weeks. I have checked books out and then purchased them for Aaron. That is a workable model.

There’s no equivalent for music, really, and this bothers me a lot.Here’s another link:

http://stereogum.com/1165101/grizzly-bear-are-not-rich/news/

I had never heard of Grizzly Bear before, and I have no idea if they’re any good, but I think they make good points. You spend two years working on an album, and someone isn’t even willing to spend $9? For something they will have forever? Okay, most of my CDs cost $14, but still, for being able to listen to someone’s heart and soul any time I want, it seems like a reasonable deal.

I hadn’t thought a lot about the issue before, because I haven’t been downloading music, but they were talking about concerts on the radio recently, and asking what listeners would like to see, and people were mentioning multi-band festivals like they used to have, and no one can afford to throw those anymore. Bands need to rely on touring for their income now. Why? Because no one buys the records.

You know, touring can be a lot of fun, but it can also be really stressful, and I hate to think of bands working themselves into nervous exhaustion or drug dependency because they hope their kids will go to college. This isn’t even talking about supporting lavish lifestyles for a lot of bands. If they just don’t appeal to enough people, fine, but if you have lots of fans, but those fans only like you enough to listen, not to buy? That’s pretty rotten.

As I said, I am going to be getting into politics and religion soon, and there certainly seem to be some ethical issues here, where people are essentially stealing because it’s easy.

So this is what I am doing. I am using Spotify to see if I like things (because it pays a little, but not very much), and then if I do like it, and will want to listen again, I am buying. I will buy through local record stores. When I go in, I will try and pay cash so they don’t have the service charges.

I value music. I think it is easy to like things without really feeling the value, but that we are missing something if we do it like that.

And I am still undecided about going digital.

You can't touch this

As I wrote yesterday, I love albums. Even writing that, I am not sure that I used the correct term. I suppose someone could think that I meant photo albums. LPs? Basically, those things that contain but are not limited to the singles.

Yesterday I focused on hearing multiple songs by a group, and noticing the structure of the album, but I like the tangible aspects too. I like looking at the artwork, and reading the credits and seeing whom the band thanks, and I rely on being able to read the lyrics as provided by the band, because yes, you can find lyrics all over the internet, but often with errors.

My early understanding that there were quality errors due to sound compression with digital music appears to have been resolved many years ago, and I have already had a few cases where there were things I could only buy digitally, so I’ve done that, but ultimately, I would rather have a physical product. Here’s the embarrassing part: I don’t like vinyl.

I know, I know. I am embarrassed. It’s like there are two separate cool kid tables and I don’t fit in at either one of them. Actually, that feels kind or familiar.

My issues with vinyl go way back. I always had a fear of the record skipping or getting scratched, and then being damaged. What I used to do was buy records then record them on to cassettes, so I would play the cassette and then save the record as a master. Of course the length never matched up quire correctly, but then you could just put your favorite songs on multiple times. (And yes, I made the occasional mix tape.)

I suppose it is still possible to find cassette tapes, but I don’t really want to bother with that. I remember us having everything at one point. The 8-track was only in the car, but inside the house there was a record player, cassette player, and two reel-to-reel players, and what I mainly remember about when the CD player joined the mix is that it was way more convenient than any of those others, and it still sounded good.

As it is, I still need players for most everything. I don’t believe there are any 8-track tapes or reels left (but we’ve been in this house for a long time, and there are places we don’t look that often), but I still have some vinyl and some cassettes, and they are irreplaceable. That’s one thing, where if I had purchased some things on cassette, I would not still need a record player.

Anyone remember X2? Probably not. They really only had one hit, “Strange But True” and if you even try searching on them now you have to wade through a lot of references to the second X-Men movie. It was never released on CD. If they had become really popular, it probably would have gotten a reissue, at least digitally, but that seems unlikely.

Some of my tapes came out before CDs were common, but one is from a band I was friends with in college, and a cassette was all they did, and it was a big deal to accomplish even that. That was one thing that was so great about CDs. CD burners made it very easy for a band to put out their product. I have a delightfully homemade CD that I bought from a guy playing his guitar in front of Lloyd Center. I keep hoping I will find him somewhere else, or that he will have loaded something onto the internet, but so far nothing.

Technically I guess doing so with digital it is even easier, but is that the way that we are moving? That only people who are collectors even need to make space? And honestly, that sounds like something I should be in favor of. I don’t really want more possessions. I used to say the only things I really wanted more of were books and music, and then we started using the library a lot, and that has been great. My shelves are already full. The difference, I think, is that I am still reading a tangible book. I feel the pages, I can heft it, and if it doesn’t require physical storage space permanently, at least it takes up some space while I am reading it.

For my desire for art and acknowledgements and lyrics, the bands should be able to do that through web sites. It does not seem to be happening at this time, but it totally could. There are probably great environmental advantages to going digital, and economic, because there go manufacturing costs. That’s a help. At the same time, then I need more storage space on my computer and I have to worry about backups. Yes, if I buy from Amazon I can keep my music in the Cloud, but I am also trying to support smaller businesses, so I am trying to buy everything from either Music Millennium or Everyday Music.

And that will lead to tomorrow’s topic. For now, clearly the real issue is that I am a dinosaur caught between generations, and I need to choose my direction.

And no, I still haven’t opened up my MP3 player.

I love albums

As I get into this section of the blogging, it is again one where organization is an issue, because I have a lot to say, and a lot of it runs together, and trying to get things in the right order, and cover all of the relevant points, is tricky. It’s going to get much worse when I get into politics though, so perhaps I should just embrace the randomness and have some fun with it. 

When I was thinking about posting album reviews, it was partly to counter bad writing about music, and also because I have thoughts about things that I listen to, and obviously a strong impulse to share thoughts.

For example, let’s go with My Chemical Romance. I think that if you take Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and The Black Parade, and swap out “Helena” and “The Ghost of You” for “This is How I Disappear” and “The Sharpest Lives”, it would totally still work. Both albums are fine the way they are. All it really says is that, understandably, there is some overlap between revenge and death, or between the death of your grandmother and death in general. However, I have thought it, and now I have put it out there.

I know I will spend a lot of this segment (which I think will go through Friday) in cranky old person mode, but I think that while there are some ways in which technology has been absolutely great, there are some patterns that have changed where there is a real loss that people may not even be noticing. In this case, the loss would be only listening to hits.

I think I was watching a “Behind the Music” about the Beach Boys, and they were saying how a lot of bands were just about getting one hit and then the rest was filler, but with the Beach Boys every song was a hit. I get what they were saying, in that they were trying to make an entire album of good songs, but at the same time, sometimes there are wonderful songs that are not destined to be hits. They are a little too quiet or weird or outside of the normal, but they still hold a special place, and when you listen to an entire album you can get those.

Also, there can be really interesting things that happen with structure when you listen to a complete album in order. I am not sure whether I like The Black Parade or Danger Days better—I guess I like them both differently, but the structure of The Black Parade is amazing. The way “The End” and “Dead” play into each other sets the stage so well for what is going to come, and ending with “Disenchanted” followed by “Famous Last Words” is perfect, because for all the death, the final message is that “I am not afraid to keep on living”. It’s not that the individual songs don’t stand alone, and there are probably some things you could change with the order in the middle (though it works really well), but ultimately, there is a journey, and then in case it was too heavy you have a bonus track.

There are similar things going on with Danger Days. There is a real story going on, and the order is not accidental. I can’t view it normally, because I have done so much writing to it and about it and inspired by it, that there is just a lot of extra weight there for me, but I’ll tell you this—I really need “Vampire Money” at the end. It’s not just that it is a really vibrant and fun song, but that they do that soundoff in the beginning, and everyone is good, is actually really helpful.

Switching to All-American Rejects, I really thought I was going to review Kids in the Street. (I also thought I was going to review Beautiful Friction by the Fixx, too. They’re all good. Buy them all.) I was listening to it, but also their other albums to make sure I had context, and one thing that I found was that I don’t think I can write coherently about albums. There are ways in which the production values on Kids are way superior. The sound is cleaner than their debut anyway. At the same time, there is a roughness to it, where they leave in some things that sound like warm-ups and goofing off. It is a less synthetic sound than the previous album, I think, and yet they do throw in some effects, on some songs more than others, and also they do some things where notes that would normally be played are sung instead.

I guess what I am trying to say is that even though it sounds like a polished album, it also seems to be experimental, and maybe what this means is that they are growing into a new phase, and developing a new sound, It’s not a refutation of the previous sound, but it is a maturation of the band. What I feel like is that they can be around for a long time and they will keep being interesting.

One thing that I did find interesting is that something Tyson Ritter said in an interview matched something that MCR said in a different interview. (Tyson’s spot was on Clevver Music, and was about Kids in the Street. I don’t remember where the MCR clip was, but it was definitely about Danger Days.) What they both mentioned was about coming at it differently. Pick up a different instrument, or use your regular instrument, but differently, like using your guitar for percussion. That’s not just accidental growth; that is a commitment to never go stale.

That’s where I’m trying to be too. I am trying to grow and develop as a writer, but also I am really trying to listen better. Sometimes I annoy myself, but there are times when I actually feel the insight growing. I get that!

You can mindlessly consume what a radio station says you should hear, or what television says you should hear, but digging deeper brings some great rewards.

I’m going to close with two quotes. One is from the comments on the 100 Greatest Guitarist List. I captured the quote, because I liked it, but foolishly did not capture the username, and now there are 118 pages of comments, and most of them are pointless:

“But a list like this is just for arguments like this one. I know what my list (sic) and it isn’t this one. Eddie, Jimmy, Jimi and John Lee keep fighting for that top spot and I am the better for it.”

Aside from the refreshing perspective where the horrors of the list were not driving him into apoplexy, I like that thought that not being able to give a definitive answer, but having an idea and continuing to think about it, has something beneficial too it. Music is vitally important, and no less so because it is rock, and even no less so if it is (gasp) popular, so good for him for that.

And also, in the wisdom of Frank Iero:

“I like hearing what a band is up to when it’s not just writing a single. I think that’s when you get to really know what a band is all about. That’s when you love a band and not just the music. There’s a big difference between being a music fan, or a popular music fan, and a fan of a band. When you’re a fan of a band, you don’t have to like everything, but you have to follow them, because they know better than you do what their band is supposed to be doing. And when you do follow, and you do give it as many listens as it needs to have for you to like it or to appreciate it, then that band has opened your mind a little bit, and you’re a little better person because of that band, and that’s why you’re a fan of that band.”

I used to be scared when I would get a new album from a band that I liked, because what if I didn’t like it? And then I would be so relieved when I did. I have also had songs and entire albums that needed more that one listen. Again, it’s that willingness to dig deeper, to find more, and to let yourself and others grow.

Rock on.

Ballroom Blitz

Believe it or not, this post also comes from working on the comic book.

As I was writing about Mikey acquiring his Kung Fu skills, I was hampered by not knowing it myself. That’s what internet research is for, and that’s what I did, but reading has its limits, and I was thinking that maybe I should watch some too.

I was looking for things to watch, and I remembered that Ballroom Blitz was used in the trailer for Kung Fu Hustle. I started watching a badly-dubbed version of that, and could not finish (I do better with subtitles), but decided to at least listen to the song. In the process of that, it hit me. There is no good version of Ballroom Blitz.

I mean, I kept thinking that there had to be, because it is a great song, and I like it, and how could there not be? Do you know how many bands have covered it? But each one that I tried was disappointing in some way.

Surf Punks? Okay, that should be good! But it wasn’t. The Damned with Lemmy? No. Let me add here Lemmy’s opening riff starts with this growl that is pretty awesome, but it doesn’t feel right for the song, and overall it is not one of the better versions, even though all of the participants have contributed plenty to music in other ways.

I could not find all of the known versions for listening (of those I could not find, I am most curious about the Buzzcocks version), but I have listened to at least 19 today, and my favorite is still Tia Carrere from Wayne’s World, which seems wrong somehow.

Eventually my quest shifted from trying to find the best version, to deciding a new version was needed, and trying to analyze what is going wrong. No matter how annoying some versions are, there is still a basic coolness to that song in the drum and bass. Where was the problem?

I think it starts with the original version by Sweet. Guitars and drums rock pretty hard, but the vocals switch between overly mellow and then exaggeratedly weird with some falsetto going on, and those disparate elements work against each other.

When other groups cover the song, they seem to go in one of two directions. One is that they get weird with the vocals also, but the other is they try and change what the instruments. Krokus makes it more metallic, and it doesn’t work. I guess Vanilla Ninja is trying to make it funkier, but that’s not what is needed, and that would be my least favorite version of the Surf Punks cover was not three times longer. (They just stick with silly, but they take too long.)

Ultimately my second favorite was KickStart, and I think that’s because they basically played it straight, and that is probably what I like about the Wayne’s World version, because while there are comedic things going on around it, it’s less of a factor in the performance.

I don’t blame people for going this way. It is hard sometimes to get away from the elements present in the first iteration of a song. For example, I remember hearing “Head Over Feet” by Alanis Morissette, and liking a lot about it, but not the discordant tone. You shouldn’t be so resentful when you find a good relationship. However, when I would try and sing it or even imagine it differently, it kept going back to her way. It’s hard to break from that. I did find a cute 30-second clip of a guy singing it with a Capuchin monkey on his shoulder, and he doesn’t sound angry, but having a cute monkey on your shoulder probably mellows you out.

“Ballroom Blitz” deserves the chance to achieve its full potential. My first thought was the Ramones, because they rocked. The problem with that is that if you take all of the surviving Ramones, even going out on a limb and including Elvis Ramone, you basically have four drummers and CJ. The drums are very important for Ballroom Blitz, but more balance is required.

My next thought was My Chemical Romance, because they rock. I did even go so far as to send a tweet to all four of them, asking them to do a version. As we know, sending tweets to people with lots of fans is not an effective form of communication, so I was not really expecting it to work, but no response. Though, now I guess the third thought should be Gaslight Anthem.

Really, there are probably lots of bands that could do a good job, and if it is only the vocals that are an issue, it could potentially even be really rocked during karaoke. I’m not sure that I could do it, because I think it may require panther screams, but I may look into it later.

It won’t be this week though, because my throat is dry and scratchy, and what is going around seems to be coming around. Last time I was sick it turned into pneumonia and it took a month for me to feel better. Since then I have had a pneumonia vaccination though, so I should be covered.

Update on my Musical Odyssey

It’s an odyssey because I keep getting sidetracked and have no idea when it will be over!

Well first of all, I need to say that I am not going to write everything that I currently have to say about music in this section of the writing. For one thing, I still haven’t finished going through the suggestions from the comments on the Stereogum blog on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Guitar Songs.

http://stereogum.com/10114/rolling_stones_100_greatest_guitar_songs_of_all_ti/list/

I know I have had a lot of time to do so, but there have been a few issues. One is that sometimes I just want to listen to good music, and I resent listening to things that make my ears bleed. I will be listening to something, and just ask myself why, when there is so much wonderful, beatiful music in the world, am I listening to this crap?

Obviously the answer is that I am finding good stuff too. It’s not all awful. Some of it is good, and some of it is innocuous, and some of it I love. A lot of it I appreciate. I don’t think I will ever be a huge Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath fan, but I get why people are now.

Tool I just keep hating more. I still think song length is an issue, like if it ended after three minutes I wouldn’t like it, but it is the additional seven minutes that pushes me into hate. Also, I think it may be gender specific. I remember when guys would try and dissuade me from liking Matchbox 20, and thinking that maybe the band was just for girls. So far it’s been all males defending Tool to me, and girls agreeing with me, so maybe Tool is for boys. You guys can have them. I won’t stop you.

I don’t like Pavement, but listening to them and reading about them, I get why Malkmus is a big deal around here, though he sounds like kind of a jerk. That doesn’t always turn people against you when you’re a musician though. I just ended up feeling really sorry for Scott Kannberg.

That’s focusing more on the negative. On the positive, it is doing this that has led me to Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and to Gang of Four. I can’t believe I have gone so long without knowing Gang of Four existed! (And yes, I concede that my favorite finds being punk bands could indicate that I’m not really stretching all that much.)

To be fair, the song that was suggested was “Love Like Anthrax”, which has been my least favorite of theirs, but I can see how it was the one suggested because it seems to me that their other songs are more bass-driven, and even though a bass is a guitar, no one seems to be suggesting great bass songs for this. Perhaps that would be a different list, and perhaps led by Blister in the Sun? I don’t know—I’m still learning.

And I am learning a lot. For example, I saw “Lucille” on there by B. B. King, and I thought I knew what it was, but it sounded nothing like I expected. What I had in mind was a song by Waylon Jennings. I like B. B. King better. Search and Destroy is on there, and I thought that was a Metallica song I knew, but that is Seek and Destroy, and Search and Destroy is by The Stooges.

The other thing that is slowing me down is the sheer volume of comments. I have made it through all of the single song suggestions, and the ones where people suggested multiple songs by the same artist, and am now working through things where there needs to be some comparison. For example, one person suggested Sonic Youth’s cover of “Touch Me I’m Sick” by Mudhoney. Well, without listening to the Mudhoney version, it would feel inadequate.

Also, there are things that are confusing, because people are not always clear, and I am not usually in the know. Someone wrote Built to Spill by Doug Martsch. I thought Built to Spill would be a song, but it is a band that Doug Martsch is in, which has a lot of songs. That leads to the other issue, when people just post bands. The blogger mentioned Erik Rutan and Teenage Riot close together, so I thought that was him, but it’s not. It’s Sonic Youth and the Ataris, and I am pretty sure he meant Sonic Youth, but I am not sure, so I have to listen to both, and decide what Eric Rutan songs to try.

With a lot of them, I can listen to the band, but am I really finding their best guitar work without guidance? For example, Bowie is on there. He has a large catalog, and some of it is certainly more guitar-driven than others. It’s the same thing with Lindsey Buckingham. He gets a lot of respect as a guitarist, but I never really noticed in any of the Fleetwood Mac I knew. It turns out that band has had a lot of incarnations, and I have only known a small part of them.

So, there is still a lot of listening to do, and also reading and watching of movies. I know I will end up having a lot more to say, and I do need to get into politics because, hey, there is more stuff coming up all the time. So, I am going to get a little into the kind of listener I am aspiring to be, and that will get into ethics, and perhaps that will be a good launching point for some other things I have in mind. First though, I need to address a problem that has been weighing on me. I don’t think I can provide the solution, but I hope that this will trigger some efforts by others.

Also, I keep thinking that I want to do album reviews, and then thinking that’s a horrible idea. Is it?

Is this okay?

I said that I don’t like to repeat songs for karaoke. Part of that is that I like to try different things, and usually the second time I do a song I don’t feel as good about it. Perhaps it is commitment issues, though some of it also seems to be doing it in places with different levels of acoustic quality, which is an issue for me. I guess I also feel that it’s kind of lazy, though, or boring.

I had written some time ago about my love for My Chemical Romance’s “I’m Not Okay”, and my desire to try it, but being intimidated by it. I finally crossed that barrier in January, and it felt great. There is something about just letting loose on a song you love. I was worried about not doing it justice, and about killing my throat. It worked fine and my throat felt fine. I was not hoarse afterwards, which I had worried about. So that was a great experience.

The next time I went to karaoke was a few months later for Mel’s birthday. Mel was throwing a black party. I was trying to think about what to sing, in addition to trying to find something black to wear, and I just wasn’t sure. I did find a black shirt, solving one issue, but this was before I was telecommuting, and things were really hectic, so I didn’t have much in the way of practice time, and I couldn’t decide on a song.

I thought it would be good to do something with “Black” in the title. I considered “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones, and with practice I think I could have done it, but I didn’t get a chance, and also, someone else from another group (there were three birthday parties that night) sang it, so it was just as well.

The next obvious choice would have been “Welcome to the Black Parade”. It is the song that first drew me to My Chemical Romance, and it is a great song. It’s also kind of hard to sing, and I feel like a lot of the chorus is more Ray, which, hey, that part should be on the recording, but it would be easy to sing the wrong part, and I just chickened out and did “I’m Not Okay” again.

The acoustics are weird there, but it wasn’t awful, but I still felt kind of bad because almost everyone who was there in January was there again, which has not been the case for any of my other repeats, so I felt very unoriginal.

(Also, someone told me I was very brave to sing that song. I think he meant that it is like proclaiming myself a mess, but I could not help but wonder if he meant I was totally unsuited to it vocally.)

Anyway, there, I had now done the song twice, and I have never done any song more often than that. (Okay, I think I have done karaoke a total of ten times, usually singing only once or twice, so take that as you will.) Was it time to retire “I’m Not Okay”? I don’t think I can.

First of all, I don’t know that I am ever going to find another song that I love so much, and that means so much to me personally, and that I kind of can sing. It has been my anthem, and I don’t feel like it takes much courage to acknowledge that this song was there for me and has my eternal loyalty, even if I am not at the same point in my life now. It’s not just that the song fit me; it is that the song made me feel better when I needed it. Singing it felt defiant, and exultant, and so there’s a lot going on there. Just hearing that intro I smile, and I am not the only one.

Also, there are things about it that are helpful to me as a performer. I am not a great singer, but there are some things I can do better than other things, and there are some things that are easier to pull off. With “I’m Not Okay”, I don’t necessarily do a great job on the first two verses, but if I can pull off the middle, where you are rapidly changing volume and getting faster and finish strong, that works—people forget any weaknesses from the beginning. Also, it is in the middle where I do my tribute to Ray Toro.

I don’t have a favorite member of the band; they are all my favorites. Sometimes I think Ray is the one I admire the most musically, because he is just phenomenal, but the others are no slouches, and yeah, I really just love them all as musicians and people.

That being said, Ray is the only one for whom I can do any reasonable tribute within a song. I can’t make crazy eyes like Gerard, and I have tried that clicking motion he makes with his hand on “photographs”, and it doesn’t work for me either. If I try and get down on the floor like Frank, I am not getting back up. And Mikey? I am not sure what would be the best way to pay tribute to Mikey, but if it involves suddenly going without glasses, I will not turn magically hotter—just blinder.

(Seriously, that was an amazing transformation. The first time I watched the “Black Parade” video I was like, “Who’s the new guy and where’s Mikey?” And you would think having those questions so closely together would make the answer obvious, but no, I had to check to see if there were any changes in the band lineup before I figured it out. But it was glasses and hair!)

Well, my hair is not going to get styled in the middle of a song either, but my hair is what makes what I can do possible. I can, as that guitar kicks in, take out my pony tail, and shake my unruly curls as I bang my head up and down, and that’s all I can do, so that’s what I’m going to do!

Of course, doing so is dangerous. It gets me a little dizzy. The first time I nearly fell on the way back to my chair. The second time I thought I was doing all right, but as soon as I sat down I knocked a wine glass off the table and it just shattered. Of course, in a way it thereby gives me my most authentic karaoke experience, because I don’t drink but I can still get impaired just like everyone else. It’s really the whole experience, and this song is my jam.

But, you know, I’ll at least try and rotate other songs in and out, for variety’s sake.

Singing practice

The teen at the end of the street is a drummer now. He practices a lot. Truthfully, I usually don’t notice until Mom says something. It takes me back to my attempts at drumming.

Sadly, of the various instruments I have tried, I think this is the one I could have been the best at. I just couldn’t let loose enough to keep practicing when it was so loud. Obviously, I had the wrong personality for it. When Jason’s band was practicing, they got loud enough at least once for neighbors to call the cops, and he was proud of it. I cannot be that way.

Now I realize I should have been practicing on cushions and other things to get the motions down, and then less of my practicing would be noisy, but the real issue was that I just couldn’t share anything. I tried showing some of the songs I wrote to Mike, and then I felt embarrassed and insecure and stopped. I could not bear scrutiny, as inadequate as I felt.

Given that, it should be odd that I love karaoke so much, because then you are really out there, but it’s not like that. First of all, there isn’t really that much scrutiny, but for what there is, you are in the right place for it. It is specifically set up for you do go for it, regardless of talent and ability.

I have been surprised recently to see several tweets by musicians referencing karaoke, because they get to perform all the time—why would they need it? It’s like musicians playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band (which also happens). I guess it’s actually the same principle, in that you get the freedom to do something different. The drummer can play guitar and the bassist can sing and the singer can do songs by an artist who has a completely different style.

Obviously this sort of freedom means you sometimes get some truly horrible performances, and people will still applaud, but I don’t want to do that. My rules are that I want people to be able to enjoy the song, which usually means an upbeat one, and I want to do a decent job, which means that the song is at least mostly in my range. Also, I want to know the words and the tempo well enough that I am not wholly dependent on the screen, so it doesn’t matter if the screen is wrong, and also that I can get into it and feel the song. Obviously, this also means it needs to be a song I like.

Based on these rules, when I have an opportunity for karaoke coming up, I like to have some songs in mind and be practicing them, but in the past there has been an issue with having time to practice. Sometimes I would sing quietly on the way to the bus stop or something, but usually I was saving it for times when I was home alone, and that basically ended up being about two hours every two weeks. Well, telecommuting changed that, and suddenly I was getting two hours weekly, instead of just every other week. Eventually, I got bolder.

Telecommuting changed the way I was listening to music too. I mean, I listened to music a lot at work, but it was always on the headset, and it was only whatever CDs I brought in, or what I brought up on Youtube. Now I have all my CDs here, and I can also run music on the home PC, which I feel better about than using the work PC, though I do use that too, depending.

I don’t use headphones at all. This means that Mom is hearing my music. There were some initial complaints, but I guess she adjusted, and she started liking some of it. That may have smoothed the way for what happened, but really, it all started with “I Wanna”, by the All-American Rejects.

Somehow I had missed it the first time around. Actually, I don’t remember much from their third album. I was kind of living in a hole that year. Anyway, I was listening to other songs, and randomly clicked on that, and it was one of those love-at-first-listen songs. I would be walking and it would just be going round and round in my head, and it occurred to me that it might work well for karaoke, and I wanted to sing it. So, I just started singing at my desk, and life has gone on.

I’m not saying Mom loves it. Actually, I asked her about my music, both singing and playing, and she was not enthusiastic, but I made her actually listen to Fast and Slow (also by the Rejects; I love that one), and then she asked if he had anymore, and then realized that’s what I had been listening to, and didn’t say much after that.

Well, that song is pretty irresistible. I realized a few things from the conversation, one of which is that it is actually really easy to not let music enter your brain, and just shut it out as noise. I told her to tell me if she ever hears anything she likes (which she will forget to do, so I will have to keep an ear out for humming). Also, I have to admit that I have been listening to a lot of stuff that I don’t like lately, just trying to get educated. I finally quit putting off the Ted Nugent segment yesterday. So, there’s that side of things going on.

Mainly though, it is kind of great to rediscover how much I enjoy singing. One of the great tragedies of growing up is we just quit doing things we enjoy because we have responsibilities and worries, and we become self-conscious about things that don’t really matter. A lot of joy is totally accessible if we just make a point of doing it.

So, I sing for about 30-40 minutes a day now. Technically it is karaoke practice, but not strictly. Some of them are just songs I like to sing, and that work for me. I usually do “29” by Gin Blossoms, and that is not one I am going to do for karaoke, because I wouldn’t expect them to have it, and it is a slow song and I still think the upbeat works better for me performance-wise. (If I do Gin Blossoms for karaoke, it will probably be “Hey Jealousy” or maybe “Til I Hear It From You”.)

Others I believe I would perform well, and would be crowd pleasers, but may not be available, include “Dragostea Din Tei” by O-zone (the Numa Numa song), “Lambada” by Kaoma, and “Saturday Night” by the Misfits. I hope I can find “Saturday Night” somewhere though. It will make me sound demented, but it will be awesome. I should be able to find “Accidentally in Love” by the Counting Crows. I do still sing “I Wanna”, and I hope I get a chance to perform it. (Oddly, Mom has called that song “wild”, but never said anything about “Saturday Night”. I guess it’s that old sex versus violence thing.)

I realize there are not a lot of girl songs in there. I have thought about “Kiss Me Deadly” by Lita Ford, but I’m not sure it would work. I had thought about Scandal’s “The Warrior”, and actually did it on the cruise (along with “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World”), but there are a few notes that are problematic on it, and also in the middle there is nothing to do but dance fighting, and that worked in the video but on stage it would just be weird. So technically the only female vocals I have really pulled off were “Never Forget You”, by the Noisettes, and I have already done that twice, and I don’t like to repeat.

That leads to my other dilemma, which I will save for tomorrow.

The Fixx! Live at Music Millennium

Before I made either of my exciting concert ticket purchases, I attended a very interesting live performance that was completely new for me.

One thing I will be writing about soon is trying to enjoy music ethically, and part of that has been trying to support record stores, even with digital purchases. So, when I finally abandoned hope of finding a CD copy of Bullets and resigned myself to just downloading it, I did so through Music Millennium. When offered the opportunity to subscribe to their newsletter, I decided “Why not?”

It turns out that they have a lot of events! They do listening parties and they even get musicians to perform in the store. In two weeks they are having a scavenger hunt for a Trey Anastasio test pressing. Sure, most of the events involve people I have never heard of, because I’m not with it, but they had the Fixx coming up. Initially I thought it was intriguing, but that it would just not be realistic to even try. Music Millennium is far on the other side of town, and from a bus point of view it was too much time in transit it too unfamiliar territory. Then Julie and Maria wanted to go.

To be fair, they didn’t really want to drive either, and so were asking about Tri-Met, where I could only give them disappointing news, and yet we still couldn’t let it go. Then we thought to ask Cathy if she was interested, and she was! Technically it was still Maria driving, but having someone with some familiarity with the area along for the ride was really helpful in terms of giving them the willingness to do it, and suddenly we were there.

The way it is set up is that there is an upstairs area where the band performs, and you can hear them from anywhere in the store, but you can really only see them from between the music racks in the front of the store. Priority standing was given to people who bought the new CD, Beautiful Friction. This was no sacrifice, and I decided to really go wild and buy an Architects CD as well, though I may have picked the wrong one.

I have to admit that it is not the most comfortable venue. It is crowded and kind of hot, and you are standing for the entire time, with no support. Also, someone had bad breath. At the same time, the acoustics were good, and the intimacy gave it some interesting aspects.

For example, we were down there watching set-up. Of course you are hoping to see the musicians, and usually you don’t, but it was a small enough area that we were catching glimpses. Also there was a young man who was clearly a roadie, not only because he was not recognizable as anyone else, but I feel the roll of duct tape around his wrist also designated him as such. I just got a kick out of seeing him tape up the set list, because normally you are not close enough to see little details like that.

And then they came on, and it was a really good set! They did not play my favorite song, Secret Separation, but I can’t fault them for that. They played a good mix of older and newer, and the thing with Secret Separation is that it is a bit more synthesized, I guess, and I feel that would have not gone as well with the venue. Of course, there is more to a good musical performance than the technical aspects, because a big part of it is also the interplay with the audience, and there were ways in which that was easier. They could actually see us, and that worked well, though possibly not as well as I thought, based on a story I am saving for a little bit later.

After the show we could get our CDs signed, and they put Beautiful Friction over the sound system, so we could listen to it while we waited. I was about tenth in line. Some fun things about that included looking at the various DVDs, and seeing Rammstein next to Ramones, and doing a double take because I thought it was another Ramones DVD, and that would not only mean that I was missing one, but that it was a metal one. Also, I got to chat with Terry Currier briefly. Previously our interactions have consisted of me seeing him at Blues Fest and being excited because he is a local treasure, and smiling and nodding excitedly, and him smiling and nodding cordially but a little bemused, probably not realizing that he is famous. But he is.

Now on to meeting the band. First let me say that I was the only one of my party in line, because Cathy, Julie, and Maria went back to the car. I am the most indefatigable of us. However, that did lead to some stress about how long I would keep them waiting, and how quickly the line would go, and so it seemed important to me that one does not hog the attention of any of the band members, but keeps things moving in consideration of those behind you.

Well, it moved pretty quickly, but I mainly only said things like “Good set” and “Thank you”, because again, there are people behind you, and also, what do you say? Gush? I mean, I did tell the bassist, Dan K Brown, that I thought his bass was really beautiful, because I do. Sometimes musical instruments work visually as well as acoustically. But he also looked at me like it was kind of a weird thing to say, which I can’t rule out. (Incidentally, it appears to be the same bass that he was using back in the Secret Separation video. It’s unusually thin, probably quite light, the neck seems longer than usual, and I just like it.)

The weirdest of the encounters was with the lead singer, Cy Curnin. As he was signing, he asked me how I liked the show, and I said I did, but I had the distinct impression that he was expecting me to say more, and somehow that expectation left me tongue-tied.

If you know me only as a blogger, my writing is not because I can’t talk—I am totally capable of conversing. However, I have no gift for small talk, and I had already ruled out actual conversation as inconsiderate to the others, and I can get shy, so I was feeling like I’d been a little disappointing, but also still thinking it was odd. Then as I was leaving the store, I suddenly realized a potential explanation, and here is that story.

In one break between songs, Maria called out “I love you Cy!” This is not unusual for her; she loves her musicians and she is not shy about expressing it. I know he heard, because he said “Thank you. It’s nice to be loved.” I know he saw us, but I assumed he knew it was her, and as I was leaving it hit me that I think he thought it was me. I’m not that loud! Well, okay, I can be, but I don’t do it nearly as often.

Sorry for the confusion Cy. I do love you too. Also, I think I’ll be working out things I would especially want to say to any musicians I like, and how to say them concisely. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

Good things are happening!

This is going way back, but I wrote once about how there were five bands that I needed to see for various reasons. Actually, I may have mentioned it again when I got on Twitter, because I started following them so I could get tour updates and know when my chance was coming.

Just to review, here was my list of heartbreak:

Gin Blossoms—last chance was when I was a broke college student and could not afford the $13 to go.
Maroon 5—Had tickets and was deathly ill, so Maria rounded up a date while I stayed home in bed.
Keane – Had tickets and dates were canceled due to rehab, though I totally applaud people getting the help they need.
Jimmy Eat World – Maria made me leave early one show, and come late another, missing them completely.
All-American Rejects –I discovered them just a little too late, and missed my chance. It’s what I get for not keeping current, I guess.

Suddenly, my luck is changing! Recently the Gin Blossoms announced a date at Grande Ronde. I was disappointed with my last casino show, but I posted about it on Facebook, and one friend encouraged me that they would overcome the venue, and others indicated interest in coming, and suddenly it happened, and three of us are going, and we have tickets. It’s only twenty years late!

When I wrote about it before, I said the Gin Blossoms should come to the Crystal because that’s where I finally caught up with my other two college disappointments, the Presidents of the United States of America and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies. Obviously they are not, but guess who is! The Rejects are coming! And I have tickets to them too!

In a nutshell, in a little over a month, that list will be whittled down to three.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple, because bands that I have discovered just a little bit too late to see them now includes My Chemical Romance and Gaslight Anthem. (Seriously, I know about Gaslight Anthem because I say an article the night of their sold out concert and was curious, so started listening to them.)

Also, I’m not sure if the existing list is still completely valid. I am not sure that I still like Maroon 5. I mean, I don’t hate their new stuff, but it doesn’t affect me the way Songs About Jane did, and I sometimes get this inexplicable feeling that they might be a bit tool-ish. Actually, all three of the remaining bands are bands where I responded strongly to specific albums and have not really kept up, but I am listening to different things now, and learning more about giving music a fair shake, so on the to-do list will be listening more to all of them, and deciding.

I did go ahead and check tour dates. I knew that Keane was touring because of Twitter, but the dates were all Asia and Europe. From the web site, the last schedule show is Miami, on December 8th, so I suspect we will be seeing more tour dates, and getting a chance to see them is still totally a possibility.

Jimmy Eat World does seem to be working on some new stuff, and that can take a while, but again, that’s why I started following these groups on Twitter. You end up getting more than that, which is usually great. I just keep loving the Rejects more, based on their individual Tweets. They’re delightful!

It doesn’t always work. I actually stopped following Maroon 5. I think it was all of the updates about The Voice. I totally do not care. I know people who say the show is great. I’m glad they like it. I still don’t care. Maybe that’s when I started wavering on them. Nonetheless, I will listen to the new album at least twice before I make any decisions. I owe them that, for Songs About Jane alone.

Other than that, just color me excited for October 28th and November 10th.

And obviously, when I do get a chance with Jimmy Eat World, Maria is not allowed, I don't care who else is on the bill.

Give me mountains to climb

For the past few general conferences I have watched with a small notebook, and I note each speaker and a few keywords. Sometimes, if one really gets me, I star it. I do this because sometimes I remember that something was special to me, but not which one, and the notes help me figure it out.

“Give me mountains to climb” is all I have down for President Eyring’s talk. His talk was actually titled “Mountains to Climb”, but he refers to a talk from 1979 by President Kimball, “Give Me this Mountain”, and I guess I combined the two.

I don’t remember having a strong reaction to it while listening, but when I was reading the talks later it started working on me.

For President Eyring, when he listened to the original talk, it impressed him to seek out challenges, and to actually pray for them, so that he could grow. Reading it, my first thought was that I cannot do that. Yes, I have grown from my trials, I am grateful for those experiences and growth, but I cannot seek out more. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I had a friend who was the opposite. I remember saying something to her once about no one seeking out pain, and she said she did, and that made sense, actually, because she had a little bit of a masochist/martyr streak, and a lot of emotional issues, so I did not find her point of view persuasive. I will take the challenges as they come, but I‘m not asking for more.

The first insight came with an unexpected memory of an old Ensign article. It was about going the second mile. The article explained that Roman soldiers could order the Jews to carry their gear for a mile, but no longer. On that first mile, you are basically a servant, but the soldier can only compel you for one mile. So, if you choose to offer your service for another mile, you walk as a free person. It offered a different mental point of view, and a feeling of independence and influence.

It occurred to me then that perhaps the point in this for me was more for a different viewpoint. Instead of being frustrated with challenges and trying to power through them, to try and get an image of how it is going to be helpful before and during, rather than just coming to understand it afterwards. It would mean being more active than passive.

That was one thought, and it seemed like a good thought, and I did decide I was going to do a blog post on it. I read the talk again, and this time I noticed that President Eyring said that at the time that it was too soon for him to pray that prayer. So what had I been worrying about? Except that he still didn’t express regret for it, he still gave the talk, and he still was grateful for the growth.

This led to more thinking, and what I started thinking about was why the thought of new problems worried me so much, and I realized it was a time issue. There is always so much I want to do and read and write and learn, and problems tend to take away from my time for making that happen. That being said, a lot of that is me. I am the one who will get all broody, and then play mindless games or watch television or mope rather than reading or writing or spending time with people. There are times when there are things that you actually have to do, but reacting appropriately can help a lot with the time crunch.

This led back to the whole “powering through” concept. When things are really bad, I try and just keep my head down and ignore it, because it won’t last. There are things that last a while, though, and so there is a lot to be said for being able to keep on functioning through trials, because they don’t all require going into emergency mode.

Taking the long view is also helpful because I am getting better at seeing progress, and noticing that there are areas where I have gotten better. That feels good.

I have read the talk at least once more since then, and I also decided to read President Kimball’s talk. The interesting part about that is that it doesn’t even sound so much like he was asking for trials as he was asking for opportunities for growth and blessing. It was based on the story of Caleb, and the first part of that was that when he saw a good land, he was willing to take it and trust in the Lord, when others were stopped by fear.

Caleb still had to wait the forty years for that generation to die off, but he did not die and his strength was not diminished, and when he said “Give me this mountain”, he was asking for land for his inheritance, and he received it.

Well that touches on important points for me too. I feel like so much time has gone by that I haven’t capitalized on that I have really lowered my expectations for life. To some extent that has been fine, because life has been really gratifying. I am happy to be writing and travelling and enjoying friends and family, and if that comes with being an old maid with a day job until the day I die, it’s still a good life.

What this reminded me is that more is possible too, and the things that could stand in my way are not guaranteed to stand in my way. And that leaves me with one more scripture, which comforts me at times:

D&C 111:11 Therefore, be ye as wise as serpents and yet without sin; and I will order all things for your good, as fast as ye are able to receive them. Amen.

How to have a horrible bathroom

As I mentioned yesterday, this house is 42 years old. It was built in 1970 and we moved here in 1978. Not much has been replaced from then.

I know originally the bathroom was pink, and then it got changed to a green, and that lasted until fall of 1996. Dad had left and I was between jobs, so I painted the bathroom a cream color, and put a border around the top. It looked pretty good, though the paint job was not perfect, and it lasted for a while.

Around 2011 (so 15 years later) we were ready for a change. I can’t remember if it was from my tax refund or from the profit share, but I had an extra $300 and I decided I would spend it on getting the bathroom painted.

I had just gotten a permanent job in 2010, after about a year of nothing and a year of temping, and so it felt good to be able to contribute again. Also, I knew how the economy had been rough, and I thought it would be good if I could benefit someone else with it. Much of this post will be about me being stupid, but I think at this point I was still being reasonable.

I had a friend from school that did contracting work, and so I called and asked about it. He wasn’t going to do it himself, but he could send me two of his workers, and then I would pay them directly, so it would be extra for them.

I guess my first mistake here is that I was not helping him here. Clearly, he did not need the money. However, one other benefit that I felt would come with going through him is that I could trust him. At this point, I was definitely being stupid.

The first thing that should have worried me is that he did not come over for a quote or anything. I said how much I could pay (this was definitely stupid), and he said to pick up the paint we wanted, and then they would just come over and apply it.

Remember that I put up a border. My sisters and I somehow got it into my head that we should take it down. This meant that they went to buy the paint without me, because I was working on removing that. This is another area where a quote could have been useful, because he could have said “Don’t worry about that; we can get that right off.” I could not get it all off and they got it off very quickly. However, the real mistake here was letting my sisters go buy paint alone.

The only recommendation we had gotten on the paint was to use Behr, which is what we used when we painted the house for sure, and might have used for the bathroom the first time. That was no problem. However, my sisters did get the recommendation at the store to get the paint with the primer mixed in. This does not have to be a problem, but I think it may have been for us.

The other issue was color. We had been talking about Aqua. The accents for the new decorating scheme were based on rubber ducks, so something that would look good with that color. I guess they were told that it would dry lighter than it went on, but this was not a reason to go with almost navy. Nonetheless, that is what they got. On the plus side, when they make suggestions I don’t like on anything now, I refer back to this decision and say they have lost their right of input forever.

Anyway, the painters came over, put on one coat, hung out for a while, put on another coat, took my $300 and left. Here is the reason I think the paint/primer combo was a problem. It gave a specific amount of drying time required on the can. They did not wait this full time, but I figured they knew what they were doing. However, as it dried that day, little spots of white started appearing, where I think the paint was pulling away from the primer because of the second coat being applied too soon. I can’t swear that’s the reason—maybe they were just sloppy—but something about that was not right.

There were other concerns about sloppiness. After they left we started finding other things, like that they had skipped a big patch behind the toilet (hard to reach,  yes, but not impossible), there was a big splotch of paint that fell on the floor behind the toilet that had since dried on the floor (it is still there), and another big splotch of paint on the light fixture (that is no longer there because we changed the light fixture). Also, there were questionable judgment calls, like painting over ceiling hooks instead of removing them, and things like that.

I found I was getting really angry. My friend had sent a message, asking how it went, and I responded honestly, and he said it was the dark color and the roughness of our walls. Well, there are issues with that, but my specific complaints were not from that. I wrote back again, feeling like I needed at least a partial refund, and he never responded.

Again, here’s where a consultation would have been good. If the walls are really bad, tell me that, and what possible remedies are. If we are making a horrible color choice, say that. Also, tell me how much it should cost before I tell you how much I am willing to pay.

It was very frustrating. He has had two birthday since then, and I have not wished him a happy birthday, which is huge for me, because remembering birthdays on Facebook is really important to me, and with him, I don’t want to. I know he has used his crew for mutual friends, and been really helpful, and I don’t think he’s a bad guy—I just think ultimately he did not care about me. And I can forgive him, but I can’t really go back to respecting him, because I deserved better than that, and I certainly paid for me than that, and he did not care.

Obviously, a lot of my anger was with me. Why did I let my sisters go to Home Depot without me? That was a problem, and I should have known better, but they performed to the level of their abilities, which are not strong in this realm. In his case though, they should have been able to do a much better job, and there were red flags and I just pushed them down, because there is a friend in this and he knows what he is doing, and they know what they are doing, so it will be fine.

Anyway, now is time for healing. Part of that is writing this out, but also, part of it was repainting the bathroom. I went back to relying on my own labor, and it is a lot better. And it shouldn’t be. They had better equipment and know-how, but I actually cared. I do need to do a few touch-ups, mainly for some places where some paint came off along with the tape. Visitors who use the bathroom are welcome to look for flaws, though residents who complain are encouraged to find their own place. It’s not perfect, but I feel a lot better about it.

I don’t know that I would hire an acquaintance again. If I do, I will have to do it differently.