And Now It's Time For Something Completely Redundant

     I have recently come to the conclusion that I lack the discipline needed to carry out any sort of creative endeavor.  My habits and routines fall apart very easily and without much of a push from the outside world.

     Through a combination of laziness, illness and an unquenchable desire to watch The Wire from beginning to end, my creative output fell to zero rather quickly.  No words written, no photos edited.

     Skipping several shows and not leaving the house unless it involved going to day job was also counterproductive.  When trying to write about my “adventures” at shows while taking pictures at said shows it may be helpful to the enterprise if I actually went to the shows more frequently than I do.

     Having to be at a desk at 7am for some arbitrary reason followed by eight hours of I don't even know what certainly puts a damper on the proceedings.  By the time the traffic monster coughs me up onto my driveway I've either got myself a headache or I'm just flat out exhausted.  Getting to a club to put up with the behaviors of my fellow humans is no longer something I could bring myself to give a shit about.

     I normally try to keep a few finished articles on the hard drive for those times that the schedule doesn't line up so I would still be able to meet my self-imposed deadline but those dried up rather quickly or became outdated and need to be rewritten.  Now I'm back at square one and have to rebuild.

     Luckily, I have reached that time of year where I am now sequestered for a few hours every weekend at the Carnegie Museum's cafe while my daughter is somewhere in the building learning about and creating art.  I get ripped out of my mind on caffeine and mash my face against the keyboard and see what comes out of it.

     This desire to have some sort of creative output is my way of pushing back against the oppressive mundanity of my day to day life.  Trying to build a body of work to at least say that I was here and to leave evidence that I was more than my pointless day job.  Succumbing to a no impact existence is a fate worse than death and I am trying to run away from that fate as best as I can.

     Taking pictures at shows is my way to say that these bands were here too.  Documenting their existence to prove at a later date that they were here and should not be lost to the ether of time and short attention spans.

     The reason I have built up in my head for taking stills instead of video is that if you wanted to see what took place, you could have been there as easily as I was.  In reality, it's a sound quality issue but I like to think that it's a loftier idea than that.  And besides if you really wanted to see what happened, there are enough people posting their shitty cellphone videos all over the internet before the show is even over.

     I have reached the point where I don't care if anybody reads this nonsense or if it's any good. I am grateful if people read it but I need to do it as a means of survival.  A way to use my brain in a manner that has nothing to do with how I almost pay the bills.  Drooling over my laptop in an effort to form sentences or trying to make an out of focus picture look halfway presentable is more draining to me than it should be but it's worth it to keep that part of my brain moving.

     For the life of me, I can't figure out how “normal” people are satisfied with only having an unfulfilling day job and then going home to their Ikea furniture.  I guess that's what booze and Jesus are for.  Fuck it.  It's time to put on some records and chase these blues away.