Milk and Honey

Life is all about calluses. If you're not willing to build them up either literally or figuratively when it comes to what you wanna get better at, chances are you'll stay pretty bad. Not 24-karat wisdom, to be sure. But true, I think.

I'm having an awkward time spinning the acting and songsmith plates simultaneously. Well, in truth, I haven't done much for my acting career since arriving in town. There are tons of excuses to be had, and none of them deceptively winning enough to show up here. Suffice it to say that way too much of my life has lately been sapped by unimportant projects (my job). Nevertheless, I came out of last week one song lighter (I guess I should say heavier...but when I write something new, I feel a lot more buoyant and a lot less cumbersome), and the show I was helping out with is -- thank the merciful heavens and even-more-merciful jars of tupelo honey that have imbued me with sufficient sugar rushes to charge, broken-axle and off-kilter, through this week --is done! Now I gotta get back to earnin' me some songwritin' and buskin' calluses.

Had one listener tonight who never said a word to me but made a nice donation and gave me multiple -- if somewhat grave -- thumbs-up. I wouldn't think to do that in a solemn way, but then again I didn't think to pay off my monthly college loan payment on time this month.

The new song (I even need a working title!) was a scrap of something I started writing two years ago, if I'm not mistaken. I hadn't forgotten about it, but I had forgotten a chunk of it after I came up with it, and in a sacred effort to summon the ghost of the missing chorus back to the realm of living music, I nobly left it my its lonesome for way too long. Now, sidestep for a second: I've been really into this artist Laura Veirs (I mentioned her a few posts back). I haven't really fallen headlong for an artist's stuff in a while, so being won over by her performance and music brought a much-needed sense of refreshment. More on her stuff another time. At any rate, I read an interview of hers regarding songwriting...she was never super into music in high school (can't say I shared that trait), but music of all manifestations -- including songwriting -- hit her towards the end of college. She's since become a champion of songwriting, insisting that "anyone can do it", and going so far as to teach private songwriting lessons in her hometown of Seattle. One of her pupils was an elderly German guy (if I recall correctly) who adamantly resisted the notion that he could write until Laura sat down with him and helped him string some chords and phrases together. Once he saw how easy it could be if he just allowed himself to toss the fear of failure (or success, as it may be) aside, he was overjoyed. But he soon descended into huddling over his lyric scraps, protecting his ideas...basically becoming one of those "classic cases" as Laura says.

I'm totally one of those guys, and I hate it. Songs don't need to be these malnourished tubors that I labor over for ages, providing just enough water to keep them alive but preventing them from growing. That's like fucking veal. And I hate veal. I'm not going to write veal!!!

Anyway, I finally finished that song. It's far from perfect (I fudged some lyrics today at 50th St), but until I really really really get in the habit of working on songs (I'm only up to one and half reallys), I shouldn't be expecting a smooth, polished shoe of a song. I'm fine with Chuck Taylors for now.