Ridiculous Opinions #192
I’m all alone!
Well, I’m not actually alone. It’s just me and the cats, but the cats don’t really care about me until it’s food time, and then they meow at me constantly. After I feed them and they ignore me again.
Tracey has taken a fourteen-hour flight to Toronto to be with the girls, and much as I want to be there with them, lounging in that wonderful city in that wonderful country, I have chosen to forgo the long, uncomfortable journey and stick around here, where I am being hyper-productive and not leaving the house at all!
What are you doing that’s so hyper-productive? you might ask.
Well, a few weeks ago, an old friend from my hometown sent me a text. He said that a buddy of his had a vinyl record company and they were wanting to put something out. My friend, with whom I used to record music back in university, said I should start writing some songs. I haven’t written any music in over twenty years. This was going to be a challenge.
I knew that Tracey would be gone, so I said yes, with my goal of writing and recording one song per day for each day that she was gone.
Now, a couple of caveats here…
I am, by no means, particular about recording. I might sing a bum note or play the wrong chord on a song, but that never stopped me from any of it. This is probably an issue, but I am more about volume rather than quality. If I write 20 songs and two of them are good, then that’s a good bit of work.
Nothing has changed.
What do I mean by that last statement? Well, it appears, in the recording of this music, that I have not progressed artistically or musically as a musician or songwriter in over twenty years. My voice is still the same as it was thirty years ago when I first started writing and recording music. The songs that I produce still have a really weird quality to them. If I were to describe it, I would say that you should imagine really traditional music filtered through the brain of a person with some kind of mental disorder.
I honestly try to write traditional music, with verses and choruses, and even places for guitar solos. In my head, I create music that is rockin’ and fun. But once it gets out of my head, it’s just…weird. My voice is weird. The way I play guitar is weird. The way I layer my songs together is just…weird.
It’s really hard to describe what this is like to experience for me. Ever since I stopped recording music around the birth of Harper, I always thought, I’d like to try that again! For some reason, I thought that age and maturity would have a profound effect on my songwriting. Without the self-consciousness that I had when I was younger, I thought I’d be able to write some good music and sing it with conviction. If I decided, twenty-years later, to try to record music, would it be better? How much would I have changed? How would that improve my songwriting?
The answer? Not much.
I’m still the same, old, one-trick pony. I actually like the songs that I’m writing and there’s a level of fascination that I have with my own music that I think is ridiculous. I like listening to the music that I create. That’s a weird thing to type, but it’s true. I actually sit back and marvel at some of the songs I write (even the bad ones) because they’re just odd. Honestly, they’re unlike anything that you would probably ever hear, because they’re all filtered through my strange brain.
I’m sure some of you are chomping at the bit to hear what I’ve been doing this week, but the truth is that you might listen to it once and go, He’s right…that is weird. And then, you would quietly judge me as you never listened to anything that I would do again. But I’m not sure that anyone else would be interested in them.
The bottom line is that you will never hear any of this music. It’s going into the hands of my friend from the past, where he will be able to manipulate and change it until his heart’s content. And when/if it ever gets released, I will never say a thing about it on this newsletter. And I will ensure that it is released under a different name than my own. And even if it did get released, it would only appeal to a very, very small subset of people that are all probably into really obscure stuff.
It’s been a fascinating experiment. It will probably be the last time I ever do it.
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!
I have written a movie this week.
Yes, I wrote a movie in a week. Actually, I’m about 75% of the way through it, but I will finish it this weekend. The movie is called Feral Hogs and it’s a horror film. I was reading this article about feral hogs and I thought, That would make an interesting film. But just like with everything else that I do, this film is not what you would expect.
I have a rule as a writer and it goes something like this: If I think of idea, then I must abandon that first idea because it’s too easy.
So, my initial impulse was to write a film about a town terrorized by monstrous, feral hogs. Lame, right?
Since I abandoned that idea, I had to think up something different. Basically, I turned the story into a modern version of The Lost Boys and Stand by Me. It involves feral hogs, of course, but it also involves cabins in the woods, witches, zombies, and the fulfillment of a fifty-year old curse that plagues the small town in which it’s set.
Basically, it’s a lot of fun and I have to be honest with you in that, as I’m writing it, I get the creeps because I’m all alone in my house at night, imagining horrifying things that give me the shivers.
And best of all, the movie is called Feral Hogs.
So, that’s what I’m doing this week. I hope you enjoyed this window into my brain.
The truth about all of this is that nothing will probably come of any of it. I will record this music and it will go nowhere. I will write Feral Hogs and it will forever remain on my computer. So, why do I do it?
Because it’s fun. Because you only live one life and you have to take advantage of every opportunity that’s given. Because rather than sitting around, playing Fortnite all afternoon, I have chosen to bring something into the world that did not exist before I woke up! That’s my every day goal and it’s a wonderful one to have. Every day is a joy and I appreciate that I am lucky enough to get to do the things that I do.
Hopefully, your week is going as good as mine.
