Today (or whenever you read this. Well, I guess that would also be “today” for you so it works fine. I didn’t need to tell you that or write any of this but yet, here I am doing it anyways. Get on with it!), I’d like to talk about one of the cruel ironies of Covid. There’s been many terrible things about it but I’d like to talk, or more accurately, write, about one that has been of particular bother to me as a musician. Obviously, I’ve missed playing live shows, which are starting to return since the weather here in North Carolina is already starting to turn. It’s one of the nice things about living in the South; outdoor show season is basically mid-March until November, which is insane. Growing up in Wisconsin, we basically had six months of winter, one month each of Spring and Fall which were still kind of shitty and roughly four months of Summer which were suitable to plan outdoor activities; unless the mayflies were particularly horrible, then it was down to three months. So, I’m loving this. I don’t always love it when it’s 99 degrees and I’m chugging Gatorades between sets to get through a three-hour outdoor show, but I’ll take it over not being able to play because it’s -15 degrees outside. But, I’m not here to talk about the weather. Small talk over.
No, I wanted to talk about how cruel it was for Covid to both give me so much time but also viciously snatch it away. Covid giveth and Covid taketh away. What I’m referring to is the fact that I was given all this extra time to do some of the recording projects I had long hoped to accomplish but never made the time for, but was simultaneously in a constant state of anxiety, depression and fatigue so as to render that extra time useless. The hours and minutes were there but I had no energy to use it productively. Yes, I am still close to finishing a couple projects, but I thought both of these would come out sometime in 2020; and yet, here we are. My second Asperger’s/autism record was originally planned for this April, which is autism awareness month if you didn’t know, but will now be delayed until next year. A second EP is in the works and probably 85% done but I haven’t the energy to finish it yet. I’m hoping to wrap that up and release it this summer, but who knows…
So, why haven’t you released more music during this time?
Having most of 2020 to work with, you’d think I’d have been able to get out a couple solo EP’s fairly easily. Being solo projects, I wasn’t bound by having to postpone due to quarantining or anything like that. Also, I write, play all the parts, produce, engineer and mix/master the projects myself, so I wasn’t bound by anyone else’s ability or time constraints. No, the only thing that could stop me was me. Oh, and the fact that my bedroom window faces a dog park. That, too.
So, what has been stopping me? Lack of energy. Like I mentioned above, and like many others during these trying times, I’ve struggled with anxiety, depression and fatigue, likely from the constant anxiety and depression. Those things turn into a cycle that just keeps cranking and cranking and wrecking my mental health, which then affects my physical health, which then affects my mental health, and so on and so forth. I couldn’t tell you, literally (and by “literally” I mean “literally” in the literal sense), how many days over the past year have gone exactly like this:
wake up 10am
lay in bed and read the news until like 11am
finally get up and make coffee
read more news while I drink my coffee
do some podcast editing work (which I’ve taken up to help supplement income. I didn’t know what to expect when I started doing it, but I’ve come to find it pretty enjoyable. It’s not the same rush you get when building a beautiful song, but I really enjoy the process of getting that perfect, invisible edit or getting the outro music to line up with the words in a way that probably only I think is cool. But, I digress…)
work out
eat a late lunch; usually two eggs, each on one half of an english muffin with a few tortilla chips on the side
do some more podcast editing or, if I’m all caught up, I’ll try to do some recording for a few hours
cook dinner
eat a late dinner
have a few bourbons, plan out my next day (which is always the same anyways) and watch TV
go to bed sometime around 2:30am after the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia reruns on FXX are over unless I still can’t get tired because my brain is still going a hundred miles an hour. Then, I’ll switch over and watch Frasier reruns for a while while I continue to wind down
That’s most of my days this past year. There’s the occasional show and typically a band rehearsal sometime during the week, but apart from those, it’s just that same routine, over and over and over again. Which is both good and bad. It’s good in that it allows the Asperger’s part of my brain to hunker down and just get through it by adhering to routines. But, it’s bad in that it allows me to just continually perpetuate this weird feeling which falls somewhere between being completely lost and completely overwhelmed. It feels like there’s simultaneously a million things happening and nothing at all. I guess, technically, both are true. But somehow, that dichotomy is extremely taxing on me, and, I’m sure, many others.
So, based on that daily itinerary, there’s roughly 20 hours per week I could be using to create wonderful new music. It’s insanely frustrating to think of all that time wasted. And then, here comes the second incredibly unhealthy cycle that pairs up well, like a nice wine with a beautiful charcuterie plate, with that anxiety/depression cycle: the shame cycle. Just as the anxiety/depression cycle gets going, it’s almost like the shame cycle gets jealous. It wants in on the action. “But how?” you may ask. Well, it gets picking at your anxiety/depression and starts making you feel bad about it.
“What’s your excuse for not recording today? You didn’t have anything else to do, you lazy piece of shit.”
“How come you still haven’t finished writing that song you started two months ago? What else you got going for you? Can’t even finish one song during quarantine can you, you stupid piece of shit.”
“You’ve wasted so much of your life, you stupid piece of shit. You should just give up music and go back to working in the paint industry. I’m sure Sherwin Williams is hiring, though why would they want a lazy piece of shit like you?”
“Why don’t you just lay around, get drunk and watch TV again? Haven’t seen this rerun of Rick and Morty in a couple months, you stupid, lazy piece of shit.”
I could go on but things are best in fours, since that’s my favorite number. Once those two shitty cycles converge, it’s game over, for a while. But eventually, and this could be after a few weeks or months, those voices in my head start to work against themselves. Slowly, I will start to use them for motivation.
“Suck a dick, I’m gonna fucking record for nine hours straight before realizing I haven’t eaten yet, my fingers are killing me and I haven’t pooped yet today.” (ADHD can be a bitch sometimes, but sometimes it can be extremely helpful. I have read that some doctors are pushing for it to become “variable attention disorder” which is much more fitting to the actual symptoms as I’m either the “squirrel!” guy or like I mentioned, I’ll go nine hours without using the bathroom since I’m just in the zone.)
“Ha! I didn’t just finish the song, I wrote two different versions of the lyrics and a second song from one of the discarded lyrics from the first one.” (This is often how I write songs. They tend to come in small groups with interconnected themes, characters, etc. since I so often want to say more than is possible in one song, lest all my songs become eight minute opuses like “JUST LIKE JON FICKES.”)
“Give up music? I’m a fucking golden god. You haven’t even heard the new songs I’m working on with the band, they’re some of the best I’ve ever written and are gonna blow your fucking socks off.” (This is, in fact, just a statement of truth.)
“And yes, I will get drunk and watch Rick and Morty…as a reward for my hard work today.”
It’s weird. My wife likes to tell me that I’m such a pessimist but in reality it’s more of that weird Asperger’s thing my brain does where it takes diametrically opposite things and makes them true simultaneously. Yes, when I look at a situation I immediately thing of all the things that could wrong so I can figure out how, to the best of my ability, to mitigate those outcomes. However, the other half of brain is an eternal optimist, never once thinking any of those things will actually happen.
The reason I bring this up is this all collides when I record, which is why I’ve been pseudo-avoiding it for much of the past year. The anxiety/depression cycle, the shame cylce and the optimistic/pessimistic conundrum all come out to play whenever I click that “Pro Tools” icon. With every flawed vocal take, every flubbed guitar note, every bad synth part, etc., it turns into a giant tornado mixed with a hurricane of inner voices. First is the anxiety and pessimism of remembering all my bad recording sessions and saying “here we go again.” Second is the optimistic “yeah, but this next take is going to be amazing,” which I truly believe every time. Third is the “why aren’t you better at this? You’ve hit your 10,000 hours and you still can’t sing or play guitar for shit…” Fourth is the “holy shit! This is starting to sound like the best thing I’ve ever recorded!” Fifth is “yeah, it’s good but you can do better.” Sixth is the “OK, one more take. This is gonna be the perfect one.” Seventh is the “yeah, that sucked. Go again,” and the cycle starts over.
Oh, is that all?
Well, no. Apart from all that emotional/mental/physical baggage, there are the many logistical issues that have cropped up since this mess started. One is not having the physical space to feel like doing something creative. I live in a fairly small one-bedroom apartment with my wife and cat. I’m grateful to have a nice apartment to spend this time in, but since the start of this Covid thing, now one year ago, I’ve had exactly FIVE HOURS of alone time in my apartment. That’s it for THE ENTIRE YEAR. For an introvert like me, that is extremely trying. As my wife has been writing a book recently, I’ve been trying to give her little pockets of time here and there. I’ll run the errands for the week to give her a few hours. My band rehearsals typically give her like six hours a week or so alone in the apartment. Normally, my wife would go on coffee dates with friends or to conferences, maybe go shopping for the afternoon. But since things were either shut down, not safe or we didn’t have the money, I haven’t really had time when my wife isn’t just on the other side of the wall when I’m trying to record. Or I’ll get going and my cat decides that’s play time and starts running around and banging into things (she’s a very clumsy and dog-like cat. Her favorite game is to play fetch with this little sparkly, blue cottonball thing that was probably a Christmas tree decoration at some point. I’ll throw it or flick it across the room and she’ll sprint over and try to hit it under the bathroom door before picking it up and trotting back with it. It’s weird but cute.). Then, I also have to plan around the dogpark outside my window. No recording of vocals or acoustic guitars from 12-1:30pm or from 5-6pm or so or Benji’s got the background vocals covered.
I know these things sound trivial, and compared to what’s going on, they are. But they all feed on each other. If it’s not my own depression stopping me, it’s my shame from feeling depressed all the time. If I actually am motivated, I can only record at certain hours to avoid the dogs or being too loud for my wife to also work. When I finally do get to work, I have to avoid beating myself up too badly to keep going. If things are going well, I have to try and not get too excited or the next session will most certainly be a disappointment and then the cycle starts over.
Anyways, sorry for the downer post but it’s what’s been on my mind the last few weeks as I’ve actually been recording somewhat frequently. I’ll definitely have something to show for this sooner than later. I will say it’s been exponentially easier to get to work since that entire year of election nonsense is behind us and the end of this Covid nightmare is in sight. We’re almost there people, see you on the other side…