If you can remove the proper nouns and emotional content from a bit of communication, and end up with a statement that could apply to anything, you know you haven’t done your homework.

“_____ is a perfect example of song writing.”
“I had a wonderful time.”
“You look amazing.”

Elaborate. Quantify. Support your shallow, flattering statement.

Let’s hear a customized message instead of a Hallmark Card. Show that you’re paying attention, not just copying and pasting a cliché.

The next time someone does a great job, don’t just say, “Great job.” Tell them exactly WHY.

Here’s a trick: after your do your L.A. thing, follow it up with a silent “because” and see what comes next.

“The food was delicious. (Because…) This rice has just the right combination of spices. Most people don’t get it right, but you did.”
“You look great. (Because…) Your new hair color compliments and draws attention to your eyes, which I always thought are your best feature.”
“Cool song. (Because…) You were clever to use those chord inversions in the chorus. It shows a level of sophistication with music theory and blends the voices together, in contrast to all the parallelism going on between the voices in the verse.”

It doesn’t need to be entirely analytical — all you’re doing is providing some evidence that you mean what you say. And it’s not being manipulative, it just trains you to be more conscious and sincere.

So whenever you can, take this step towards Authenticity. (Because…) It creates stronger personal connections, it shows you’re not a fake, and you just might learn to appreciate people and experiences on a new level.

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If you want a simple answer, look at YouTube’s Most Watched Videos, Ever.

You might notice Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky aren’t there. Instead, it’s Miley Cyrus, Shakira, Lady Gaga, babies, and this annoying piece of shit at the top, which has gotten over a Quarter Billion Views:

I don’t often pay attention to pop culture. But when I do (like I just did five minutes ago), I wonder what this civilization has become. I’m observing a culture that I don’t at all understand or like. This is what you people clicked on and voted for, to represent you? These “Artists” are The Best Among You? You really think this simplistic, amateur-rhyming gibberish is GOOD? That’s the best you’ve got to show off? I had never even heard of Justin Bieber until today. Where did… who the… let me get this straight, you people took the money away from these guys…

…and gave it to people with no talent?

My wife says, “All teenagers should commit mass suicide for liking a two-foot tall kid that looks and sings like a girl.”

So there. I’m just warning you: it’s getting worse.

And now, back to my anti-social essay.

For the past few years, I’ve often said “I hate music.” And it’s absolutely true. I’m not kidding or trying to be funny.

Some people have asked me to explain it. I’m not sure I understand it myself, but maybe by typing out some thoughts and observations, someone (maybe even I) will learn something useful.

As a kid, I was a quiet little robot with few emotions and no interest in anything going on around me. I watched as the other kids got involved with things I didn’t understand. I was supposed to be interested in dating, smoking, committing petty crimes, fighting, cussing.

That stuff just wasn’t for me.

I wasn’t really good at anything, and didn’t want to be. I had done some computer programming, tae kwon do, sailing, and skateboarding. Beyond that, I was a giggling kid who liked Star Wars and Mad Magazine. My sense of humor made no sense to anyone, and beyond that, I was nothing special.

I discovered the “magic” of music just as I was going through puberty and finding out who I was (or who I would become). At that time, my family was self-destructing. It was one personal tragedy after another.

The music of Steve Vai appeared in my life right when I needed it.

Steve was a positive male role-model — it didn’t matter that he dressed and danced like a woman. The dream of becoming a rock guitar virtuoso like him gave me a system I could apply to my life. I found out that if I practiced, my fingers moved fast, and Vai’s playing was within my understanding. I couldn’t pay attention in school or do my homework, but I could read every Steve Vai magazine interview a thousand times. His albums were my only friends. He helped me believe there was something beyond the mundane school system I was trapped in. He talked about things that none of my teachers or classmates had heard of. And while other guitarists were talking about finger exercises and gear, he was talking about aliens, astral projection, and lucid dreams — things that became real in my life during that time. I connected with his music on a level that had nothing to do with technique.

Once I started playing in local bands, girls would talk to me. I had no clue what to do about that, but it was awkward at best. As I got older, I would have “girlfriends” but I’d never spend time with them, and I felt I had to protect my music from them. I believed females were out to destroy my paranoid little life. I was convinced that all women just wanted to get pregnant — so that I’d have to give up music, get a horrible day job and end up with kids I didn’t want. Why they were out to do that to me, I don’t know. The idea of having sex terrified me. I was sure they would somehow get ahold of my sperm and end my potential creative career.

Because of that, I wasn’t willing to lose my virginity until I was almost 28.

It was the same with alcohol — I was convinced that if I even had one sip, my life would be over in an instant. I’d never play music again, because I’d get fat and ugly and psychotic like everyone else who drinks alcohol every day of their life in a small town. That never happened, even when I drank wine every night for months.

And it was the same with owning a car. In my mind, cars suck and break down, and I’d end up going to work just to fix a piece of shit machine that exists only to transport me to work. A vicious circle. (Nevermind the fact that everyone around me has one and does just fine.)

Now I’m 35 and I still won’t buy a car.

You can try to convince me otherwise, but I believe those three things were put on earth to destroy my dreams. They’re still deep phobias. I don’t know why. Maybe I was Amish in my previous life.

Back to my point: since I didn’t have the things that other young people had (sex, fun, transportation), music was everything to me. I was never going to succeed at anything else, didn’t belong in this world, and music was my ticket out of failing in a normal life. I was sure I’d end up working at Wal-Mart selling car tires, and being really bad at it. (I still worry about that every day.)

Music gave me a vocabulary for understanding the world. In my universe, criminals were people who got rich by playing bad music. I projected everything through that art form — all of my likes and dislikes… I experienced my friends and enemies only in that little mental bubble.

I was so committed to the fantasy, so obsessed with escaping who I was, that I actually developed a second identity or ego called Sir Millard Mulch. He was everything I was afraid to be, to extremes. In my everyday life, I was meek and shy. Inside, I was full of a dark power that would someday destroy the solar system. But I couldn’t own it, so I gave it to Mulch, a made-up character. He was free to write anything on the internet message boards and never suffer consequences.

The thing that tortured me was this: the “better” I got at music, the fewer people liked it. If I could write and play such complex music so well, why didn’t it make my life better? But why were only Steve Vai, Trey Spruance, and Devin Townsend acknowledging me? It was a curse. Why did I still live at home with my mom, at 30 years old? Why was I getting these great reviews in magazines? I convinced myself that any success was a fluke, and that it was just my imagination. I’d end up at a day job again, broke and lonely. Why was I stuck in the small town of Venice, Florida? Would it go on forever? Was the story over?

Was it all my fault? Or had someone done this to me? How can I fix it?

No one had the answer.

The people around me didn’t believe in the dream. Regardless of what they’d say, even when my friends would try to encourage and support me, it was all a lie. They believed success was a delusion, and so did I. That’s how it is in Florida.

Shortly after I turned 31, instead of committing suicide, I decided to just leave town. I quit my job, left everything right where it was, and got in a car with a friend who was heading to the west coast. If my life was going to be over, I’d rather it end somewhere else, in a more unpredictable way.

I started over in Los Angeles, built a new life, and music is a part of what I left behind in Florida. That form of expressing anger, frustration, and confusion aren’t necessary anymore.

I still have my temper tantrums over fonts or lighting or microphone placement, but as long as it’s not music, I’m insulated. I’m OK with losing. I don’t have to take it seriously… because like Patrick Bateman, “I simply am not there.”

You see, for ten years, I didn’t write music out of reverence for beauty or happiness. I wrote it because I was in pain. I had more in common with a criminal than I did with a composer. I hated myself and the world around me. Something was fundamentally wrong — I didn’t fit. Things didn’t add up, and that’s what my music was about. My own failure to become a successful musician in the industry became the sole inspiration for my music.

It was jealousy, low self-esteem, and most importantly… a quest for revenge.

My process of musical composition was effortless, because my fury towards life was a perpetual motion machine. It was never about 7/8 and the lydian mode, it was about that horrible meaning I wanted to share. I wanted normal people to be as confused and alienated by me as I was by them.

What I did was a form of punk rock, or came from the same place — but the cheesy synths and silly voices were an unconventional way to express it all. Anyone who thought it was about “music” wasn’t in on the joke. In fact, most of the shredding and rhythmic complexity was only a parody.

I tried to take Sir Millard Mulch to the next level with Dr. Zoltan. The problem was a lack of credibility for the name before I tried to sabotage it. An ineffective act of self-destructive self-marketing. I made some videos that failed to achieve what I wanted, which was to become a folk hero, champion of truly progressive rock — instead, it only made stupid people more angry at me. Dr. Zoltan hadn’t first proven himself.

I tried, for a time, to let the fury go. I felt indirect pressure by some people I respected. They urged me to evolve, and I agreed: something had to change for me to grow.

But when I tried to write music that wasn’t fueled by all of that bad stuff, it didn’t work. After two and a half years of years of trying to make a new album that was only about music, I gave up. I released what I had recorded and walked away.

These days, if I listen to music too much, I get upset. I feel panic. I think about how music is a form of superficial entertainment, in an industry that only rewards dancing sluts and poser businessmen. I think about how it’s a tool for advertising useless products like alcoholic beverages and pharmaceuticals. I think about how popular music expresses sloppiness, ignorance, and hedonism. I think about how the art form has devolved to untrained amateurs banging on things and grunting. I notice that the only substantial music that has any commercial success is the music stuck in the background of stupid movies and television shows.

Frank Zappa described his own music with one word: “Personal.” And that’s exactly how I took music. A way to express myself. Therapy.

But I couldn’t protect it from the external bullshit and corruption. Over the years, it lost every bit of magic it had.

I don’t like the idea that I wasted all of those years of my life, studying something that will never matter to the world around me within my life time. My days are much nicer without having to go there. It’s better than watching my sacred craft destroyed by people who don’t get it.

So, they won. I quit. Maybe forever. I don’t see any point in going back. How do I feel? Heart-broken.

I feel the same deep sadness when I listen to The Shaming of the True by Kevin Gilbert. That album isn’t made of melody, chords, and rhythm… it’s made of failure, loss, and death. Kevin accidentally killed himself while recording it. It’s a prophetic rock opera about Los Angeles, where a talented kid is ground up by the machine. To me, it represents the end of music. Maybe because albums don’t need to be made anymore. It’s possibly the last album that will ever mean anything to me.

Is there a place left in this world for drama, sincerity, and passion? Or are you snickering and rolling your post-modern, self-referential, ironic eyes that I take this all so seriously?

“It’s just entertainment, dude! Embrace it! It’s brilliant marketing! Imagine if you could do something like that, you’d be set!”

No thanks. I hate music. Because it reminds me of music.

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This is my public blog. I have nothing else to type right now.

The above photo is about half of the four-hour line I stood in.

On Friday, July 23, 2010, I attended Comic-Con in San Diego. I only had a one-day pass because I didn’t want to go badly enough to buy a weekend pass far enough in advance.

When the time came, I had never been to San Diego or Comic-Con before, and I didn’t want to drive down there from Los Angeles for only one day and not have a “mission.”

It turns out the Editor of Creative Screenwriting Magazine needed some help with recording audio from some panel discussions with famous screenwriters (one of them being Joss Whedon — whose Astonishing X-Men graphic novels I am in the middle of reading). Along with that, he gave me a list of other shows he wanted, and I was happy to contribute to making one of my favorite podcasts.

The trains from Los Angeles to San Diego were sold out already, so I rented a car and started driving at 4 a.m. On the way there, I picked up a guy named Chris from Craigslist. His car had broken down, and he only wanted to go for one day. He pitched in some gas money, did some navigating, and helped me stay awake on the way there. No problem with traffic at that hour. We parked in Mission Valley and took “The Trolley” which is not a Trolley. It’s just an above-ground train like they have in San Francisco. Phh.

Now I’m just going to cut right to my personal criticism of the event.

It sucked.

Not because it was actually bad, but because I had experienced something so much better.

I had attended Dragon*Con in Atlanta for almost ten years in a row: 1997 – 2005.

In those days (I don’t know what it’s like now), it was held in two conjoining hotels in Downtown Atlanta. Most of the attendees stayed upstairs from the convention, which gave it a feeling of, “I live here in this crazy place for the weekend.” If you wanted to, you could stay awake for 24 hours and find something to do. There were restaurants, bars, and all-you-can-eat buffets mixed in with the convention.

My favorite place to spend 18 hours a day at Dragon*Con was an area called The Concourse. It was the center of all spontaneous energy. It was a 3 (or was it 4) story place connected by escalators going up and down. On those escalators was an endless parade of costumed freaks. Atlanta was very big on Goth culture, so people went all-out, 24-7. It was also where bands set up merchandise tables and you had groups of zombie cowboys from Texas mixed up goth fairy singer-songwriters, just hanging out all day and talking. My “band” had a booth there for a few years in a row, and we’d meet so many strange and creative kids: Flick and Roo, Henry and Cynthia, some pre-pubescent kid named Frank (who we watched go through puberty over the years, THAT was crazy). They’d often come and hang out with us for the whole weekend, and I’m still in contact with some of them.

There were also late-night dances, costume balls, and a drum circle (which I actually attended late one night when I couldn’t sleep). No one was really in a hurry to get to anything, because there was so much to do, and the best part of it was standing around and watching / talking to people.

The panels and event programming were so dense and eclectic (3500 hours of it, TEN TIMES that of Comic-Con) that anyone could find something to follow all day long, whether it be a complete curriculum of how to run a comic store to how to freeze your head with cryonics. They had organizations like 2600 Magazine, Church of the SubGenius (I was on the panels for a couple of years), and I think Cacophony Society even had their own track at some point.

These were things you could walk into at any hour of the day, because Dragon*Con was a self-contained community of strange and smart people engaged in spontaneous shows, lectures, meetings. They even set up a small stage on the concourse with an open mic for anyone to draw a crowd. Some bands generated a loyal following and became regulars just by playing there at random times. Of course, I hated most of them, but I still appreciated the fact that there was always something unexpected happening. To the right, a girl making her own, real, chain-mail armor to wear later in the evning. To the left, Dangerwoman. Downstairs, the biggest room full of table-top strategy games you’ve ever seen.

It’s kind of the midway point on the spectrum, if you think of The Normals at Comic-Con on one end and the Counter-Culture Suckers at Burning Man on the other.

At Dragon*Con, more people were in costumes than were not. I’m sorry, San Diego, but Atlanta really knows how to dress up. Those people are committed to their strange lifestyles, and aren’t there just to buy stuff. They’re immersed in it all weekend. Many of them bring several costumes to wear every day, and return to their hotel rooms every few hours to change into some other wild contraption. There’s passion there.

It’s just one huge party where everyone gets along and sees new things. (There, I said it.)

In comparison, the overall vibe of Comic-Con was mainstream, vanilla, consumerist. Everywhere I went, guards blocked my way, telling me which direction I was allowed to walk down hallways. Signs telling me what I can’t do. I stood in line for FOUR HOURS to get into the 45-minute Joss Whedon Q&A. When you first enter Comic-Con, they hand out gigantic wearable shopping bags (covered in movie advertisements) at the front door, to encourage you to buy buy buy — and then kick you out at the end of the day!

Is Comic-Con “Bigger?” Yes. Comic-Con might have more “customers” than Dragon*Con but they’re not as engaged in co-creating the event / environment. Everything is formulated, pre-meditated, contrived. After only an hour of being there, I thought, “This is as boring as standing in line to watch television at the mall.”

Now that I’m done trashing Comic-Con and telling you why “my” convention is better, I’ll say this: there is still a lot of opportunity at Comic-Con for professional networking. I didn’t see any proof of this, but I suspect most of the good stuff happens at private parties after they kick you out the convention center at night.

Maybe next year. I’ll be sure to practice my So-Cal, “Amaaaaaaaaayzing!”

The above photo was taken on Friday evening, around 7 p.m. near where all the “events” happen. Does San Diego Comic-Con know how to party, or what?

This is my public blog. So what?

Yes, I do take my “freedom” for granted.

It’s the natural state of being. It’s not a plot of land, a holiday, a flag, a government, or a philosophical piece of paper you’ve never bothered to read.

Sorry about all the young men and women who wore a team uniform and shot each other just because a leader convinced them to.

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. …voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
-Hermann Goering, Nazi Leader

Sorry you’re not a conceptual thinker, and that you don’t realize the horrible things that happened a while back will happen again. Not because the world is inherently a dark and malevolent place… but because not that much has changed, you haven’t been trained to defend yourself against propaganda & advertising, and maybe celebrating while being lied to is hypocritical.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
-George Santayana

Sorry we’ve been at this whole “freedom” thing for 234 years and up to 15% of the people in major cities in California aren’t allowed to get married because of their sexual orientation.

If you truly value independence then consider staying home tonight and using your mind (I recommend reading a Dunlap Broadside for the first time) instead of getting drunk and blowing things up in the sky.

Or you could write a song, start a business, learn another language, publish a magazine, travel to a strange land, study both science and your own spirituality, open a library, give a political speech, invent things, start a revolution… you know, the stuff that the Founding Fathers hoped you would do.

Every single day.

“Independence requires eternal vigilance.”
-Benjamin Franklin

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This is my public blog. You can also Join My Cult!

I just blogged a Creativity Philosophy idea every morning for six weeks. Now I’m going to take a break and focus on my long-term passion, Animation Screenwriting.

My daily, informal blogging will now happen in The Secret Club. I’ll post on this blog once a week… for now.

A couple of weeks ago, I used MindNode to create a diagram of my life. Much of my time is spent as a freelance producer and project manager, “Helping Those Who Don’t Want Help.” I need to spend more time on my own creative projects.

A valuable lesson can be learned from observing one of my favorite entertainers, Andrew WK: we pay attention to things that move and change. Don’t do the same thing for too long, or everyone (including you) will stop paying attention.

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Every art form has a learning curve. When you see these clichés, you don’t have to look any further to know someone is an amateur.

Film & Photography

Performance

Typography & Layout

Writing

Music / Audio Recording

Of course, these can all be broken, but only on purpose. (And at the risk of looking like you made a mistake.)

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Religious fanatics and Atheists make the same mistake.

Creative inspiration, the paranormal, God — these things can’t be analyzed, systematized, controlled.

They’re faster than light, don’t like eye contact, and our logic is the fence than keeps them safe from us.

(Ah, see what I just did?)

So put away your Monster Manual. Let the mystical be what it is. A collection of experiences beyond our understanding.

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Expecting that I’ll be surprised and delighted that the good guys smile and dance and hug at the end of the movie is an insult. It’s why I quit college, won’t try hallucinogens, and never read the final book of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

The story has to know more than me.

Otherwise, it’s just a bad magician.

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I’ve been writing abstract blog entries lately.

When I wrote my most recent book, I chose to use a voice that made as much sense as possible. I didn’t want the writing itself to be the focus. I wanted it to be so conversational and relaxed that you’d forget you were even reading.

That meant:

Get the author out of the way.

No big words. No long sentences. No showing off.

The subtext isn’t, “Behold! I shall bestow my superior intelligence and esoteric knowledge unto thee. Plethora. Utilize. Lest, thus, indeed!”

It was helpful that I studied screenwriting for a year. That sure shut me the hell up. I recommend it to anyone who thinks they know what writing is about.

My previous book was a complex artistic mess. For that voice, I followed my intuition, invented words, and used every trick I could think of to be kooky and mysterious. I even copied and pasted spam emails into the middle of random pages. Readers called me out for grammar and spelling mistakes, not getting the joke.

I do a lot of Lateral (not Literal) Creation.

Sometimes the “point” I’m making with my blog posts can’t be found in only the title, body text, links, or the video — but in the way they harmonize. Or I’ll just smash them together to make an ugly chord.

As an exercise in communication, it’s fun to use a headline that has nothing to do with the body text, and see what kind of reaction that gets. I’ve written essays that are about an ex-girlfriend, with a title that makes the reader think I’m insulting Tool. It proves that no one is paying attention. Knee-jerk insults, condescending answers to my “questions” and death threats are something I’m used to.

I like art that argues with itself. Makes it more alive, I think. Some people can’t stand it, but Fictional Philosophy (instead of Philosophical Fiction) is one of my favorite genres.

There’s just no place for that in Instructional Videos, Recipes, and Encyclopedia Entries.

Sometimes the strange things we eat only require a spoon.

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There was a comedian at the Tomorrow Show — name was Kyle Kinane — who said something like, “When I get into a debate with someone with a lip piercing, I figure… well, if you made that mistake, why should I listen to anything you say?”

Along those lines, if you haven’t solved something important… like the problem of mankind’s corporeal mortality, or that we have to play the mundane and illusory socio-economic game that is modern survival, or that we are required to reduce an entire planet of happy little life forms to food and afterwards shit them out… it pretty much invalidates whatever philosophy you preach.

Over a Hundred Billion Humans have been created and will probably be destroyed. And most of them never realize they are only cells in a larger Organism that they can’t see or understand. After a short time, they reproduce, try their best to pass on their knowledge, and die. (Frank Zappa’s kids are proof that it doesn’t work.)

It’s fun to point at the other cells and believe “that guy is the conspiracy, not me.” But from outer space, we’re not all that different from each other. (So don’t get too excited about how enlightened you are, because the aliens might not even be able to distinguish Joel Bauer from The Chosen One. I know I can’t.)

Maybe we really are just silly Sneetches.

To the universe, the earth might be a concrete, steel, plastic, sodium, and carbon monoxide factory, getting ready to ship its product. And maybe all we’re doing is arguing over the fastest way to get there.

Can we learn to enjoy our ride through space, while working in this factory? Is that the point of it all? Should we narrow our focus to the context of gossip, entertainment, and sports to distract us from The Question? Give up and take some medication? Pretend we don’t know this is all a joke? Pretend we think the Monopoly money is real?

Or should we keep searching for something bigger than our imagination?

Because we know it’s there.

Right?

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