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Something about 2008 (10,000) seems so raw and blank, like having a long, involved dream about the weekend only to wake up and find that it’s Friday morning.
I’m thinking about curtailing my alcohol intake. It’s not a problem or anything, I’ve just gotten quite good, I think, at being both drunk enough to have fun around a crowd of people as well as sharp enough to TC any B that needs a steady hand— so good at it, I guess, that I really have no idea exactly how Rjyan-right-now would deal with the challenge of trying to navigate the social functions of Y10K without the spirits. Maybe I would be doing more myself to facilitate exciting social functions were I not so satisfied with going to whatever’s happening and getting wasted? It’s hard to tell if this is an innocent, curious part of me trying to explore what I’m made of or if this is a whip-cracking, dictatorial part of me looking for ways to hotwire more “productivity” by making me feel less relaxed/”normal.”
(Can I use this many “quotes?” I’m not trying to illustrate ancient hand-gestures or indicate a sarcastic tone of voice, it’s just my shorthand for when I use a word with dubious cultural connotations, ie: it’s “normal” to be wasted at 99% of large social functions, but it’s also “normal” to eat neon-colored cheesy snacks which have a few inches of impronouncable chemicals in them instead of any actual cheese or to keep a little electronic device that shoots invisible waves into distant satellites next to your nads.)
It’s definitely not that I think the social functions have been worse for the alcohol— maybe you don’t know about it, but Ba’al timor is in a really leisurely, almost decadent place right now. Besides the twice-monthly semi-secret Weedsnake feasts (I think ANP Quarterly has done an article on these?), it seems like more and more events revolve less around standing and watching people play instruments and more around huge banquets of delicious food. I’m talking about stuffed quails and roast venison and sautéed shark and I am not even kidding a little bit. I went to a birthday party two nights ago with piles of pierogies and huge cigars and jugs of Jameson on the table— oh, how satisfying it is to look down a long table and see between forty and eighty people eating and talking, it’s basically just impossible to come dark with a full belly. Feasting really cuts through all the complicated behavior artsy freaks have used to structure social gatherings throughout my life and hits a place that feels quite old and natural.
Anyway, what I suppose I’m trying to get at is that I’m not thinking of foregoing alchohol in public for the same reason I did for all the years prior to 2002— it’s not out of aggro disatisfaction wth the world around me, but I guess because looking at Y10K from where I’m standing right now, everything looks like it’s going to be easier than it ever has been, like this is a year for building castles on the beach instead of treading water all day where the sharks hang out. For some reason, at times in the years before this one it seemed like it was impossible to figure out what I wanted because I was being bombarded by things I didn’t want, whereas this year it seems like what I do want is actually very, very simple and as long as I don’t waste my mana trying turtle up against everything I don’t want, it’s going to be a chill ride.
Ignoring trends and fads and all that really does seem to be getting easier the more desperately they’re visited upon us. So many big abstract things seem to have collapsed inward or just fallen out of my peripheral over the last few months. I guess my vision is just in focus— focused on the crafting of sick beats with a long laptop and inexpensive secondhand audio equipment. Everything distant is the sounds of cars driving and I can’t hear it all. I’m right here, just as I have been for the last ten years of my life, in a little room with a pair of big speakers and a stop-sign-sized antenna that gives me digital access to pretty much every album that’s come out in the last 50 years. I live in a primo pomo dojo, studying the art of using sound, trying to make captivating tracks and learning how to do it better every time I try. In a way, all the anxiety of the past few revolutions, battling brainside to align the choices that would keep my stomach and my conscience and my relationships in good health, it feels far away this morning, it’s like being some place where you can’t hear any cars.
Truly, though, the most comforting part of this fresh comfort is this: it didn’t come from making one right decision, or doing one big album or track or tour or getting one big gig or one big write-up— in fact, it’s quite the opposite, it’s from sticking with something for years and years, and doing it again and again, and the unavoidable and irreplaceable growth that comes from grinding on right through the hectic, flickering present into something whole, into the big sky, the big picture.