O Gato, O Idiota e O Android
Homens em conflicto
I had most of this piece completed “a while” ago. It was just missing some dialogue on the back end. I finally said “this procrastination in finishing something must stop”, and I then refused to let myself begin anything new. That prompted me to finish it today. The dialogue on the back half has a somewhat dark vibe. The number of animal deaths I’ve discovered in my yard over the years is a bit surprising as the suburban neighborhood in which I live seems more peaceful than violent. But I guess looks can be deceiving. I guess this is in the spirit of what is the month of Halloween. It’s October at the moment I write this.
Some of that is a lie. I intended to finish it today. Instead I finished it tomorrow. Or I hope I do. Or did. Either way it wasn't yesterday.
It has not gone unnoticed by me that I seem to be on a bit of a referential western americana kick lately. I don’t exactly why that is. Probably because the world seems to be all wild west these days. I’m currently listening to the Joy Division Eternal collection. Maybe that‘ll shake things up. Perhaps I can create some clips off that M8 software that I downloaded and do something with that. I‘m sure the results will be pretty happy go lucky with this approach.
Anyways, this one has some acoustic guitar floating around through a lot of it. I kept the percussive elements more simple than usual. I resisted the urge to do my usual “Let’s add one more thing! And another!” Though I did start adding some synth parts that maybe wandered a bit too far over the line.
I have this made up rule that I can’t work on anything for the Canned Parasite “for too long”. It is a silly rule as I have no criteria that defines “too long”. It’s nothing more than a rough deadline that feels like two weeks, but isn’t in actuality anything remotely close to two weeks really. More like a handful of hours spread over two to four weeks and varies wildly depending on the whims of the figurative head quarters.
The rule is intentional. It mimics what occurs out there in a world where made up deadlines come and go and sometimes they matter but mostly they do not. It mimics a fair number of past experiences in that occur in a professional white collar work environments where the only urgency seems to be “make more money, damn the long term consequences!” This artificial constraint provides semi rigid limitations as to “how long” work will be permitted on any given piece. It affects the output in good and bad ways. It creates order. It insures diminished quality. How much of each varies.
There are things in this piece that prompted a consideration to bend that rule, to extend the fictitious deadline so as to “fix and address” them, but that consideration was rejected a cruel boss. Then the underlings snuck back in later in the night and snuck in a bit more. Then it was shipped it promptly out the door in its questionable condition. This was done for no good reason other than “People insist we do such all the time”.
This made up rule inadvertently provides me an entertaining sick and masochistic carrot for me to chase. To misquote Dylan, “One of these days I will paint my masterpiece”. Or make a damn fine stick figure audio equivalent.
