I suppose the underlying theme of this project is frustration. Not so much with myself, or any one person or thing in particular, but with the contiguous futility of days that blur into weeks fading into months decaying into years eroding, it feels, a life.

NiT GriT – Euthanizing A Dream

I have given serious thought, both practically and theoretically, to giving up. Dwelling on the former for any length of time almost necessarily precipitates the consideration of the latter. Leastways in my brain.

While, for the sake of brevity, I must leave this as an extraordinarily abstract concept, I will posit the highly-disputable premise that most of us have some notion of what constitutes tangible success, and how it is we are supposed to go about achieving it. It’s the amorphous American dream that you can and should have. If you don’t, the only problem is you.

All it takes is a little elbow grease. Good ol’ perseverance. Never give up. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Although it’s not entirely clear if his maxim can be applied to this specific context, I am inclined to believe that Yoda would present a definite argument to the contrary.

There is no try.

Which is probably not so much to say that trying is impossible, or even an entirely erroneous endeavour, but that it’s not a place in which we can live. There is a hearty amount of robust wisdom in recognizing when we do not rather than do.

The fact of the matter is that while we’re trying we’re not doing.

Or so I recall Brad Goodman saying at a seminar in Springfield many years ago.

But regardless of who said what, it has been my observation that, in an effort to get serious about my life, I’ve tended to shutter all those things that make my life my life.

Recently, I’ve been throwing around my resume a lot more. It’s an exercise that, despite my current tone, I take seriously. I invest more than just time and effort into every application I make. As one might be expected to do when chasing a livelihood, I invest myself. I invest my hopes and dreams that tomorrow might be better than today. So it’s not at all lightly that I am able to dismiss those genuine aspirations as, to say the least, misguided. Especially since, in accordance with our mores, these actions are prioritized above such things as the writing I am doing right this instant. It is (at least a large part of) why my last post was dated June 5^th.

My longstanding orbit around this uncomfortable paradigm has begun to decay with accelerating haste. And truthfully, I find myself in a problematic situation where I can no longer even guess at workable, let alone ideal, solutions.

All I have to go on is the reality that the very best of my grown-up efforts have resulted in nothing, while this frivolous foray of fancy is at least something.

Bambu – Just(Us) (Knorsq Remix)

If you produce music, and you distribute it on the internet, name and tag your files.

I’m tempted to get really mad about this and scream in all caps, but really, if you’re an artist and you’re doing this it’s not anger that I feel for you, it’s sympathy bordering on pity.

You have just invested a considerable amount of time and energy expressing the deepest stirrings of your soul. You want people to hear it and, presumably, know where it came from.

If you’ve ever posted a stellar composition to soundcloud as a free download, but labelled it “Track 1.mp3” and not included any metadata in the file, you should know that I might be writing about how great that track was. Except that I only know it as Track 1 and have no idea how I would go about sharing it with the world.

This one time, I heard this awesome music. No idea what it was. But trust me, it was great. I guess you just had to be there. Drunk on the internet at 4 in the morning on a Tuesday saving everything I could click my grubby little mouse on.

If you’re using a format like mp3, tag the shit out of that motherfucker. ID3v1 and ID3v2. Plaster it with links. Multiple links. If you’re a DJ and you’re releasing a mix, put the tracklisting in the comments.

Ideally, I want to see an artist name and song title in the file name. And you can go ahead and add more shit in there if you like. Fuck any anal retentive filenaming style vanguard who tells you differently. You’re giving away your work for free. Make it identifiable.

This is especially critical if you’re distributing wavs. At the very least I need some words I can google without needing to go through more than, say, 20 pages of hits.

I like music, and chances are good that I like your music. I don’t mind if it’s hard to find because it has a generic name like “Jim – Crunk.mp3”. I can listen to 50 tracks with that exact same label. I am, however, physically incapable of sorting through every Track 1 on the internet. So meet me half way.

Until then, I’ll be out here googling random words that I think might relate to whatever the hell it is I’m listening to now.