The Strange Ones

Happy New Year! "New"... not to be confused with "improved" or "changed" or "fixed" this is a NEW year! A year created upon the back of nothingness forged from the void that vibrates in the belly of BOOM! This year I will dance on that void, create from that void, and if need be go mad from that void. This year I am committed to the BOOM!

It is from this vibration that I am making my first completely crazy and entirely unreasonable commitment...

I am committed to creating, recording, and posting one full song every week for the entirety of the year 2011.

I am what one would call a "perfectionist"... my inner critic does not only sit in the audience, jeering and throwing the occasional piece of rotten fruit, but can also be found backstage and in the lighting booth and in the heads of the producer, director, and every actor involved... my inner critic runs the show while I stand, in some darkened corner, cursing it all. I find myself taking imperceptibly small steps towards the exit, fleeing the temple that was once the source and alter of all my joy, now a house of mutiny. I imagine the twisted smiles drawn on the faces of my reflections as I begin to dissolve into the coal-black smudge of surrender. This is not their temple. This is not my temple. But I sure as hell am the custodian of this sacred space! So instead of dissolving entirely into that smudge, or taking some small and steady step forward and away from it, this year I am committed to leaping, soaring, and sprinting towards the heart of the temple and forcing myself to look the critic dead in the eye, console it like the scared child it is, and then create. Create in the face of it all. When obstacles arise I will create anyways, when the critic in my head sneers and says “that’s not good enough” I will create anyways, when I sit cursing myself for ever committing to something as ridiculous as creating a song a week I will create anyways, and even when the voices in my head recruit fears and insecurities from every pocket of my mind and stage a ruthless rebellion against my creativity... I will create anyways. There have been too many 3-line songs, too many scraps of poetry written for god and torn to pieces by the snivelling voices in my head. Enough. This is the year of the BOOM.

Logistically, I need to lay out some ground rules for myself so that I don’t sniff out the loopholes in this commitment and slip through them when my higher self is not looking.

1. Each song must be completed and posted by Sunday at midnight every week without exception.

2. Each song must be “complete” and not created as a rough-draft or something to be perfected down the road.

3. Each song must be a minimum of 2 minutes in length.

4. I will allow myself to use the scraps of songs or figments of ideas that I have tossed aside in the past as seeds for some weekly creations, however I will not use any song that I have already completed creating as one of my weekly creations.

5. I will recruit the creative assistance and collaboration of my good friends and fellow artists but their role will never go beyond one of collaboration and I will never use their contribution as a way to let my own creative self of the hook.

6. I will not let any “reason” get in the way of creation.

Thankfully I will not be taking this on alone, I have been blessed with an amazing friend and talented musician, Evan Westre, and a remarkable wife, Michelle Dack, who will be essential collaborators and indispensible allies on this adventure.

And that is my first blog entry. It is great to see that my inner critic has already visited during this entry and has tried to keep me from pursing even the description of my commitment to creativity- even now it is telling me to go over this blog entry and change the whole damn thing... I will not do this. BOOM.

Love you all.
J

Oh perfection.
You have bitch slapped my children.
And though I like the color on their skin,
I shudder to think how it got there.

Your microscope,
Your scalpel,
Incisions between the breaths.
Where are the strange ones
You have sentenced to early deaths?