The Midnight Stroll

i haven’t been watching the olympics that much, but i have been watching. the week and a half with no computer made me watch more than i probably would have if i had my trusty (not) mac by my side.

i watched enough to get this off-putting sense that the commentators really hadn’t a clue about a lot of what was going on. maybe it’s a tall order to be able to watch so many different kinds of athletic events and speak about them freely while they’re happening live. i can understand that. but there have been times when it has just seemed downright ridiculous. and then there’s only so much to talk about. two people on each side of a volleyball net making the same plays again and again–not that much fodder for commentary, really. at a certain point i’m just like, “yeah, they’re fucking amazing. i get it. can you shut up so i can watch them be amazing without your stupid chatter to distract me?”

in baseball, they have to go for hours. but those people know baseball. and they have all those important statistics to fill in the numbing boredom that generally is what it means to watch a baseball game. like, this is so-and-so’s seventeenth at bat since he hit a home run off so-and-so’s only curve ball in [fill in team name here]’s fourth away game versus [fill in opposing team name here]. but these olympic games, man. who are the announcers? i mean, maybe they have credentials. but they seem feeble to me, at best. has anyone noticed this?

i wish i had recorded or written down some examples. but i just don’t care that much. judge for yourselves.

so i’m not so much a lousy blogger this time; rather my computer crapped out on me again and had to go to the shop. i don’t know whether to feel comfortable or throw at tantrum at tekserve. most of the people who work there seem gentle and like they are from the same planet as i am (i.e., not your stereotypical computer dorks) but then again they seem to know almost as much as i do about whatever might be wrong with my machine.

anyway, i have been without my macbook pro since a week ago last wednesday, until today, that is. and here i am, blogging away.

the thing is, i really did miss my mac, and especially missed being able to deal with emails, and work on recordings. but at the same time i didn’t miss it. like, for real. i walked around the city more than i have in a long time. i worked on lyrics by hand, native-like, with lead and papyrus. ok, not really, but pen and paper, yes (which is how i work some of the time anyway). i realized, also, the few times i went to the internet cafe and swiped a credit card to get online so i could deal with email emergencies, that a lot of the stuff in my inbox is not all that useful and that only a handful of the hundreds of emails i get are actually truly honestly important. it almost wasn’t worth the weird embarrassment of being that dude who doesn’t have a laptop at the internet cafe where everyone else does. i imagined seeing me, if anyone noticed, as something like the way i feel when i see people using payphones. why are there still payphones?

and not recording: that was ok, too. because i have the demos i’ve been working on in my ipod anyway. and because i found myself sitting and playing and writing more, in a basic way. no midi controller and cables all over my bedroom, and going from guitar to bass to vocals to scribbling (typing) lyric changes and adding plugins, tweaking sounds, tweaking out. sure, i need and love this stuff. but i can live without it. and that is perhaps more comforting than spreading out in our beds of technology, where all of it, every program, every file, every kilobyte seems necessary.

anyway, i am back in action. my inbox overfloweth. i have a week and a half of catching up to do. i almost want to give the computer back. though i do not want it to break down again. this fix cost me a small fortune. at least for me right now.

the death of jason brody: we are enduring massive growing pains. the “we” may out of necessity have to change. i love what we have been and how far we have come. and now i think a new chapter is in the works. don’t worry. it is not the death of the death of (though that is amusing to me). it is just a new era, musically and otherwise. i am really excited about these new tunes. there are a lot of them. slowly they are getting done. next time you see me/us, it might be just me onstage, or three of us, or four, or six, seven. i don’t know. but i am starting to like the idea that TDoJB is not a static entity, but more of an amorphous one. the spirit is always there, but there are times to stretch out when it comes to personnel, and there will be times to reign it in. let’s hope we all (including me) like where we’re going. i think we will.

so i’m plugging away at some new songs, really trying to dig in. it fascinates me that most of the time (knock on wood) music comes so easily to me, but i labor over words sometimes to the point where they become meaningless, and where i risk killing the magic of the song they belong to because i am focusing (obsessing?) on them so intently. so what happens is i am left with an incredible wealth of musical material and a lot of it is kind of in a stalled state because i’m fighting for that perfect chorus or whatever. and then i think about all the terrible, truly awful, music out there that sometimes enjoys success and is so totally devoid of meaning and wonder what i am doing obsessing all this time. i don’t even know that anyone pays attention, or if the words i agonized over are even that good in the end. but i know that i tried, and i can’t NOT try. but i wonder what would happen if i just stopped trying. you know, like sat down and did it all from scratch, all in the moment, and never looked back, just called it done right then and there, and let it stick. because the truth is that everything creative can go on forever if you let it, if you won’t put it down. songs, stories, scripts, prints, films, paintings, anything really–all can go through a million rewrites and permutations and edits and do-overs. and how do you know that you didn’t have it already? that you didn’t actually fuck it up at rewrite #8, ’cause #4 was really it. i guess some people are great at letting things lie, committing to them. but i am one of those insane rewriters. over and over again. a word here, a line there. a whole new direction here. but perhaps i am on to myself in this, wiser. and perhaps from that i can stop myself from going overboard.

and it’s interesting how life is the opposite of that. you can’t redo a damn thing. it is finite and complete every moment you’re conscious. everything in our natural makeup fights against this impulse to constantly revise. and yet we get bogged down. it’s not enough to make something, leave something behind, capture something momentary and beautiful. we have to leave a legacy. and it has to be perfect. right? or maybe not.

anyway, these tunes are coming along. i am doing weird things here, playing piano parts all of a sudden. faking lap steel parts with my hollowbody electric guitar across my knees. programming weird drum beats and synth lines. these are just demos, but there’s a lot to work with. and as torturous as it can be, it’s fucking fun, too. i hope to share some of this with you soon.

Continuing my whole what-is-this-blog exploration:

Is it just about the music? I mean, this blog is linked from my band’s website. I could conceivably talk about my band/music on a very regular basis and that would be all well and good, I suppose. Should that be all? I mean, for many, that’s enough. Perhaps my problem here, and maybe in life in general, is that I long for more truth, which in my mind means more complexity, more dimension. And maybe there’s a time and a place for that, and here ain’t it. Blah blah blah.

I’ve decided to challenge myself with this whole blogging thing a bit more. In other words, to actually maintain it, give it all the de rigueur bells and whistles and what have you, and–and here’s the really tricky/iffy part–make it honest. Oh, and regular, too. This is a tall order and in the interest of honesty I have to say that I am not sure I will have the time or inclination to really make this thing sing in a way that I can take pride in, or even take an interest in. The thing is, blogs are a dime a dozen, and I feel like I have more exciting things to share and to do in the world than sit here and share all of my musings with an anonymous and probably meager throng. I like actually talking to people, looking them in the eye. Or creating things that are a little more complex, and therefore a little more interesting. Spilling words into the void isn’t really my thing. But at the same time I find this whole blogging experience fascinating. And I mean that pretty self-indulgently. All these questions arise about self-censorship, about how much of yourself can actually be (safely) shared in this medium. If I were honest with you, dear reader, I would also offend most of the people I’ve ever known at some point, I’m sure, and I would offend myself. And who wants to do that? So, if I’m not here to be honest, or to make enemies, what then?

I don’t know. But I am enjoying the journey. And even if this becomes a blog on the nature of blogging, then that’s cool, too. The blogosphere is kind of a toilet, anyway. I don’t know that my mess needs to be added to it.

i am attempting to register my blog with technorati.com, and to start actually sprucing it up a bit. we shall see…

Technorati Profile

Tonight is TDoJB’s first trio show in–well, as The Death of Jason Brody, which means it’s our first trio show ever. I am excited that we’re playing out again even though I suspect the venue accommodations will be less than stellar. No biggie, though. This is some sort of contest thrown by Original Sessions, which does seem legit enough. We shall see. Anyway, it has been interesting picking up after letting go a band member, and we have challenged ourselves to continue down the same path sound-wise while stripping things down a bit. So we’re all triggering this, looping that, in addition to playing our regular parts and singing. In the song EMERGENCY, for example, I am playing the keyboard part in the verses while singing and throwing some guitar jabs in there, too. Geoff is stepping up and playing some piano bits here and there. Even Mr. Olson has a new toy that he’s using during the set to generate other sounds on top of his drum parts. Sometimes I feel like an octopus and wish that we were your standard-fare rock band, a power trio, whatever the fuck that really means. But mostly I like the challenge of what we are doing and I cannot wait to apply all these new moves to the new songs I am working on.

Speaking of, I have really been pushing to be on a more serious/rigid writing schedule and it is paying off. There are around 20 songs in the pipeline right now and we are about to start tackling them as a band. In addition to the stuff that we recorded at Headgear in February/March (EMERGENCY, YOUR REFUGEE, LOW LIGHT, HAPPIER WAYS (aka THERE WERE HAPPIER WAYS TO GO), some of these songs will hopefully comprise the rest of the next TDoJB release. Judging by the reactions we’ve gotten to the new recordings so far, this should be a record that we can be really proud of. So in the face of change, great things can blossom. I’m sticking to that for today.

And yes, we’re still gonna make a record, at least that’s the idea for now.

I write this from an undisclosed location. After feeling stressed out of my mind for the past few months I decided to get away for a bit and clear my head as they say. I nearly brought the kitchen sink with me, but I am glad I didn’t. Yes, I left the computer at home. I am writing this with a pen, in a book that a certain someone gave me what seems like ages ago. It fascinates me that at home I sleep restlessly even with help of a pill now and again, and booze, yet when I get away I can sleep like the dead in a strange/unfamiliar, uncluttered room. I slept for twelve uninterrupted hours last night, and I needed it. I feel rejuvenated and inspired today. It fascinates me how I’ll do things I don’t normally do when I am away from home. I ate fish and chips last night. Something I don’t think I’ve ever ordered in my life. I am smoking American Spirits as I write this (well, just one), though I shouldn’t be smoking at all. Where I am it is quaint and unadorned, and that works just fine for me.
It has been a whirlwind lately, I feel, with the band regrouping/recuperating after parting with our guitarist/keyboard guy, with my technological life in upheaval, with trying to wrap up the affairs of my dead relatives, with trying to manage and not destroy various relationships—my expectations of them and what they ask of me. And trying to make a living, etc., etc. Our worlds become so small as we come into them. It is the thing about life that I can never be comfy with—how quick we are to define ourselves and what we do to the point that all the other possibilities and variations fall away and become unavailable to us. Some people recognize this effect as a product of living in a city like NY, but I see it more as a byproduct of adulthood in general. It is a challenge to maintain one’s free spirit and see past what’s right in front of us as we develop our lives, careers. And maybe it is not in every heart to wander. But it is very much in mine. I have never been able to not feel that ache, the pull of something other, more, different. I never want to let go that sense that there is always more out there to see, that I am constantly growing and changing. There are some who would see this as a sign of immaturity. But if being “mature” means willingly ignoring the infinite expanse that lies outside our increasingly narrow existences then I never want to grow up. So there.
Anyway, things feel ok after some rest. TDoJB has already recorded what could be a killer four-song EP and I am excited at the reactions we’ve gotten to the music we have played for people lately. After some flailing about, our duo/stripped-down thing has finally found shape and direction. And after the chaos of parting with a band member it seems like some promising new candidates are entering the picture. We are getting back on the horse and booking some shows again. I am keeping my fingers crossed that things are going to come together in the next few months in a way that trumps everything that came before.
Along with this new chapter is a wealth of new music that it’s in my hands to finish. Part of why I took some days away was to refocus my energy on that. So I should get back to it. Will write more later.

i’m really thinking about this whole blogging business a lot lately. here’s the thing. i just don’t know what this blog should be. in some ways it feels incredibly dishonest. as someone who is trying to elevate his artistic career, there are a great many opinions i have that will go unshared, a great many words that will go unsaid. and i have to acknowledge, along with that, that i don’t NEED to blog. i am not wanting for means of self-expression. i write songs. i have kept a journal for probably half my life or more. i wrote fiction at a point, and i will write more of it. and i can barely keep up with all of those ideas, those that are honest, genuine nuggets of who i am. this is not my chosen/preferred method of getting it all out there. so what is it? do i have a blog because i’m supposed to, because everyone else does? do i have it to connect with fans of the music i make and to attract new ones with my witticisms and wry observations and clumsy stories? half the time i just want to write movie reviews in here. sometimes i would use it to publish some lyrics in progress. sometimes i could write surreal open letters to people who are dead or otherwise no longer in my life. or even to people who are in my life–how creepy would that be? but really, now. i wish you’d help me take a direction with this thing. because i think part of the reason i’m not workin’ it is because i don’t know what “it” is, so it’s more of a chore than an inspiration to put something down here. yes, part of it is a function of time. but really, how long has this taken me? ten minutes? i don’t know for sure, haven’t been keeping time. but let’s say ten minutes. and this is the most inspiring blog entry i have ever written, for me personally. so tell me, what is the direction? who is reading this, and what do you want to know? is it a place for women i’ve dated to check up on me? is it a place where creepy TDoJB fans come to get some strange fix? do my bandmates read it to make sure i’m not totally losing my shit? seriously, who are you and what do you want to know? i will pen it if you will tell me. just curious if anyone’s listening out there, and what you’re looking to hear. blogging is fucking weird, friends.

my question to you is a genuine one. if you want to weigh in, email me. jason.tdojb (at) gmail (dot) com. i’d love to hear your thoughts. and if not i’ll just keep wrestling with it, i guess.

so now that i have finally seen the movie i realize it is owen wilson in it and not luke. i don’t recall why i thought it was luke, but i guess it makes the UK reporter who got the cast wrong slightly less braindead than i thought he was. i liked the movie, yes. it was your typical wes anderson collection of bratty adults with somewhat lousy/irresponsible parents struggling with adult responsibilities and milestones and coming to grips with who they are and where they come from. if i can be so general about his films. but i like his films and i don’t think it’s a bad thing that i feel like they are relatable and that i can understand in a concise way what they are about. many filmmakers i love tell the same story over and over again in different ways, folding it this way and that, turning it inside out, etc. i just bought Blue Velvet on DVD and i haven’t watched david lynch in a while, but he’s a similar sort of auteur. and i love my david lynch. Darjeeling Limited wasn’t as good as Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums but they can’t all be masterworks. still a fan. maybe there just wasn’t enough bill murray in this one. or maybe it was too much of a sausagefest compared to his other works. but still, worth checking out.