Captive Audiences, and the Things They Read

That thing I was working on? That thing that contributed to me assessing myself as "physically and emotionally shattered"? That thing? Yeah, that thing wrapped up last week. There was much rejoicing. The rejoicing looked and sounded very much like sleep.

Since I haven't had much time or energy to do anything since my last post, here goes a bunch of random thoughts. You, dear reader, get to deal with it. Ah, the power of the writer over his captive audience. You are captive, right? Not going anywhere?

Singing solos be hard. I'm still working on convincing myself that yeah, I really do know my part, and I should damn well sing it right, cuz nobody else is going to. I think it'll all work out in the end. Also, high E flats can go die. Everything should be at least an octave lower than that.

Which reminds me, why are there so few baritone or bass rock singers? Hell, outside of classical or theater, there just aren't that many. The only bands I can think of with singers in my range are Type O Negative, Crash Test Dummies, Stone Temple Pilots, and Great Big Sea. Everyone else is a tenor. I can't sing along with that. I need to start my own band, or at least figure out how to play guitar and start transposing stuff down a few keys.

I finally got around to listening to Arcade Fire. I should've done this before. I also started re-listening to Great Big Sea and Counting Crows. Now I remember why they're two of my favorite bands. August and Everything After was also one of my very first CDs ever.

Chasing Amy is still a really good movie, but it shouldn't be. Back then, Kevin Smith would just set up a camera, put an actor in front of it, and have said actor rattle off this long soliloquy that no actual person would ever really say. Yet, once they get into the actual relationship between Holden and Alyssa, those soliloquies somehow manage to totally work. It's still a really good portrait of how humans being human will consistently manage to take something beautiful, and only figure out what they did wrong after they've already broken it. Silent Bob's speech is still one of the best scenes in anything, ever.

It's amazing how you can have so much stuff, think for years that you need it all to be complete somehow, and suddenly realize how little of it is really worth having. I guess the trick is to remember that when you see something new and shiny that you think you want to take home with you.