The Blank

For those of you who have read some of my previous posts and know even a little about me, I consider myself a musician and a composer. My method of composing is very simple: I wait for something to inspire me and I start translate that inspiration into music. I never make it a point to sit down and force any music out; its always very spontaneous, hits me all of a sudden anytime and anywhere and I never know when its going to happen. It can be another song I hear, something someone says, a poem or story I read, an event, or even just a word, and for some reason my brain begins translating it into music. Usually this happens a couple of times a month. I can count on being 'hit' with inspiration often enough that I don't have to go desperately looking for it.

Lately, though, this has NOT been the case. I'm not sure what happened, but about three or four months ago my muse flew the the coop. I didn't realize it at first, but after about a month or so I realized, 'hey, I haven't done any music lately'. I mean, I will still from time to time sit at the piano and mess around, but no solid compositions or ideas have resulted. When I first realized it I wasn't bothered that much; I figured I just had to wait a while and it would come back. That's not working. And when I try to compose or create something its horrible or just ends up being just like something I'd done or heard before. I don't know what happened. I've jut blanked.

I don't know if it has anything to do with what's going on in my life or the fact that I'm just getting older. I've read that schools and education actually hinder creativity in most kids, and that kids get less and less creative they older they get. I do notice my expectation of the world and life getting more and more complicated, and this could be strangling my creative voice. Who knows.

I'm sure this also has to do with why I haven't been blogging as much lately. I'm the type that doesn't like to force things, music or literature. Sometimes I can feel a certain way and have certain thoughts but I just can't find the right words. Is it wrong if a person doesn't want to just force something out that doesn't accurately reflect what he/she is feeling? I know a lot of people can do that, but I just can't see myself doing it.

Anyways, I'm actively seeking inspiration. I'm not going to force music out just because I have to, though. I'm trying to keep my eyes and ears open to anything and everything, and hope that moment comes...

3 January 2011

Well, I thought I would have some crazy dream after falling asleep around 2 AM New Year's morning but, alas, I was robbed. It wasn't until last night that the subconscious creative energies and other mysterious forces of inspiration kicked in for 2011.

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I was taking a trip downtown on my bike, on my way to the Barber Shop where I usually get my haircut and somehow I got extremely disoriented. I knew exactly where the Barber Shop was and I'd been there countless times before, but for some reason, it suddenly was like the entire city had been dumped upside down and I had no idea where I was.

When I thought I found my way, I rode for a little while longer until I arrived at what I thought was the Barber Shop I normally went to. The exterior of the shop looked generally the same, except more of a run down, grungy version of where I normally got my hair cut. I leaned my bike against the old brick wall and hesitantly went to the screen door and opened it. As soon as I looked inside I realized I was in the wrong place, but I had already taken a step through the door and the people inside where staring directly at me.

I sat down in a worn down old sofa directly across from an old man who was getting his hair cut by another old man. They both stole suspicious glances at me from time to time as I tried not to make too much eye contact with them. Finally, the old Barber said, "How ya doin' son?" "Good." I replied. "I'll be with you in a few minutes..." he said.

I didn't respond as my attention was drawn to the many pictures on the wall above the Barber's mirror, faded old images that looked like they'd been taken back in the 1940's and 50's. Some of them looked like the old Barber when he was very young, some of him in military uniforms.

There was also a small television with a black and white picture sitting on a cinder block and wood table. There was a talk show on, one of those where the people on stage have absurd disputes with each other. I didn't know exactly what they were talking about but the people on stage always looked like they were on the verge of having a fist fight with one another while the host just stared with a grin on his face.

Just as I was starting to understand what the show was about, the Shop door opened and an old man walked in. I could tell by his grungy, tattered clothes and his disoriented limp that he was probably homeless. He kept tugging up his pants which looked like they were held up by a rope instead of a belt. He had a beat up, faded black hat pulled down over his head and such an angle that I couldn't see his face. A slightly sour smell floated in the air from him in my direction.

"Joey! What's up, man?" The barber said. I guess he knew him.

"Awww, man, just trying to make it that's all." The homeless man said carefully taking a seat in a cushioned chair at an angle from me. I still couldn't see his face.

"It's gettin' kinda hot out there, huh?" The barber asked.

"Hey, man..." The homeless man, Joey, started, not really paying attention to the barber's question, "You got any blank CDs man? I need some blank CDs."

"Now what you gonna do with some CDs?" The barber asked, chuckling.

"Aw, man I got this song. This song man..." Joey started humming to himself.

"You still trying to play that piano man? You still doing that music stuff?" The barber asked. That's when I noticed the man who's hair he was cutting was still staring right at me.

"Aw, man, this song man, this song..." That's all Joey was saying as he sort of hummed to his own words. He wasn't really addressing anyone in particular, just went on and on, looking down at the floor, tapping his foot. As he continued to do so, he took off his hat, and when he looked up, a chill went up my spine. I don't know how I could tell, I just knew, that I was looking at an aged version of myself. It was like looking into a mirror that adds 60 years to your appearance. It was me, with a long receding gray hairline, wrinkles, eyes that look like life and hope had been drained from them, and a crooked mouth that no longer looked like it could smile. I don't know why they called him Joey, but I knew it was me.

I suddenly became filled with anxiety as my body seemed to be completely overtaken with the chills. My eyes started to fill with tears. My lower lip trembled. I wanted to scream out. I jumped up and started to run out the door of the Barber Shop when I started to hear a heavy bass beat, a strong rhythmic pulse that pounded in my ears.

The last thing I remember hearing was the man in the barber's chair saying, "See, I told ya'll..."

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I was slapping my pillow when I woke up. My allergies have been really bothering me and so I could feel a headache coming on from congestion.

I'd like to send a special THANK YOU to Bleah for checking up on me from time to time. I'm pretty sure that without her support, I would have given up on this blogging business a long time ago.

A Dream, 12-13-10

My mom and I are in some small town in southwest Texas. There are lots of antique shops and I believe the main street is a dirt road. Its late in the day, and the sun is just about to dip into the horizon. We end up walking into this small shop to do some Christmas shopping right before the shop closes.

I don't know how long we were in the shop. It couldn't have been that long, but all of a sudden we were at the only checkout lane/register in the store with this huge (no, HUGE) pile of miscellaneous items we planned to purchase. Now, when I say miscellaneous, I mean completely random, and when I say pile, I mean a serious heap of stuff. There was everything in this pile from socks, to little pieces of candy, to soccer cones, to finger nail polish, to a folding chair, a laptop computer, a fishing reel, a basket of leaves, shirts, pants, belts, watches, bricks, bottled water, a lamp, a car tire, a flashlight, some kind of moon-shaped pendants, just a bunch of random stuff!

So, the only cashier was an older gray-haired man and I think he was also the shop keeper. After scanning about half the items, he shook his head, looked at his watch and said, "Here, you finish up", handing me the barcode scanner, so I guess we were supposed to finish our own transaction. There was also a couple in line behind us; they only had one item to purchase but it was too late to let them go in front so they just kind of stood behind us mumbling to themselves.

I started scanning the items one by one with the little hand-held scanner. Some of the items had their barcodes printed in hard to read areas, like little pieces of candy, and so what I knew was going to take a long time started to take forever.

After some time of scanning objects, with the pile not seeming to get any smaller (I think my mom was adding things to the pile as I was scanning) a familiar voice said in a low growl, "Here, let me finish this." Suddenly, the beast was standing behind the checkout counter, wearing a green and red apron and an elf's hat. He took the scanner into his paw and started scanning items. I blinked once, and my mom and I were suddenly standing outside the shop in the street. The sign on the shop's door said closed. There were about thirty bags filled with the stuff we'd purchased sitting all around us. I ran back to look through the shop window to see if the beast was still there, but the shop was completely dark.

15 October 2010

Yesterday, after I got home around 6pm from a busy day of school and basketball, I layed down on the couch just to rest my eyes. I must have fallen asleep within seconds of my head hitting the cushion. I had the following dream.

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It is the late afternoon, and everything was in black and white, which is very common for my dreams, except for little patches of color here and there where it seemed like color was weakly trying to break through. I was jogging on the shoulder of a highway alongside a woman riding a bike. Her face always seemed turned away from me and hidden by pale blond hair, so I don't remember if it was someone I knew or not. I am barefoot and can feel the warm pavement on the soles of my feet. There is no traffic. We are both carrying large objects, unusually large objects, like heavy pieces of furniture. I am loosing my grip on whatever it is I'm carrying as we race along. I look down at my side where I'm carrying the large object and it has turned into a door. Seeing me struggling, the woman takes the door from me then speeds ahead on her bike carrying both large objects. Watching her race ahead of me, I take a mis-step into the grass beside the road and something barbed, like a short piece of barbed wire, sticks in my left foot in the 3rd and 4th toes. The woman turns away from the highway and heads into a wooded path, like a corridor of trees. I turn in after her, my fight still caught on the barbed object, and find her in the woods fallen off her bike at a bend in the path. I run to her, crying "Oh, no, oh, no, no...!". She says, "It hurts right here," and points to a spot just below her left hip. I see an icon of the sun tattooed on her wrist. I ask if I should call anyone for help, and she says she's not sure I should. I starts to say, "My name is Krys..." but I don't hear her very well. She then takes out a cell phone and dials a number.

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I woke up to the sound of my cell phone ringing. I could hear my mom in the kitchen singing to herself and preparing dinner. I wasn't sure if I was still dreaming or not. My phone rang again. Disoriented, I grabbed my phone which was on the floor beside the couch and answered it. I heard a woman's voice say "Hello", but with an electronic sounding voice, like it was just a recording. I said something like, "Uh, hello? Who is this?" But I didn't hear anything but static on the line after that. I listened for about a minute or so, not sure what to expect, then hung up.

My name is Logan.

7 September 2010

Last night's dream.

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I was in a waiting room, sort of like at a doctor's office. It was me and someone else, an older person, maybe my mom. The other person was sitting and reading something and I was pacing nervously around the room. At some point I noticed through an open door a woman laying on her side on some sort of white examination table. She was wearing a patient's gown that left her back exposed from the waist up. A doctor (I guess he or she was a doctor) was unplugging a large, thick, red and blue braid of wire from the back of her head. The woman shuddered as the wire was pulled away.

The doctor was speaking to her in a calm tone, reassuring her everything was okay. When the wire was pulled completely away, I noticed it had been plugged directly into her exposed brain right where the spinal cord goes up into the skull. When I saw the exposed area I became uneasy, like I would faint, and suddenly very upset. I started to cry and scream because I knew what was going on.

It was some sort of process where people would go into long sleeps and live paradise-like fantasy worlds. I didn't know exactly what was in the worlds, but I knew the people had all of their desires fulfilled and nothing to worry about in the world. Everything there was peaceful and happy, and when they were plugged in the people stayed in that state for several months at a time. When they were finally unplugged for a short while before they went back, the people had to be relaxed and reassured because it was emotionally painful for them to return to reality.

I continued to cry and scream as the doctor gave the woman some kind of a short just above the elbow. The person in the waiting room was trying to console me, telling me that it would be okay and that it didn't hurt much and that I was going to be very happy. But I knew something was terribly wrong with it all. When people started getting the treatment, being plugged into the paradise worlds, it was optional, but I suspect that it was becoming less and less so.

I then started to choke, uncontrollably, like something was caught in my throat. That's when I woke up.

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It turns out I really did have something in my throat, like a crumb, while I was sleeping and that's what woke me up. I continued to cough and choke as I sat up in my bed until I dislodged the thing. It was around 4am. I went to the kitchen, had a sip of water, then went back to bed.

Si oiseau j'etais

This doesn't happen very often, but last night I definitely dreamed I was a bird.

I don't know what kind of bird I was, but I was rather small, maybe the size of a finch, and my feathers were black and white. It's kind of hard to describe, but I knew I was me and I knew as I was flying around that I really wasn't a bird. It felt sort of like I was given some sort of temporary gift, like something was allowing me to see life from the perspective of a bird.

I was flying around someones house (not my own), through a garden, sometimes landing on a wooden fence, sometimes on the roof. At some point I saw a family, in a blurry off to the side sort of way as if I weren't really looking at or paying attention to them. I think it was a mother and her two kids walking out of a garage where they had parked their car.

At some point I landed on a water hose or something long and skinny on the ground. (Probably because I got stung by that thing) I quickly took flight when I saw a large red beetle crawling in my direction through the low-cut grass.

I remember circling a large tree and seeing the sun in the distance. For a moment I felt like I was being drawn to it, like that's where I belonged. I saw a few other birds in the distance flying toward the sun and immediately started after them. But the more I flapped in that direction, the heavier my wings seemed to get. Not only that, it seemed I wasn't going anywhere because I kept circling the tree even though I was trying my hardest to fly toward the sun. I felt like I would burst into tears as a sick feeling started to grow inside me and a weight seemed to bear down on top of me. My breathing became labored. No matter how hard I flapped and how much I tried to change my direction, I just kept circling the tree.

When the other birds seemed to disappear into the radiance of the sun, I heard a sound. It was soft at first, distant. I heard it once, then again but louder, and again even louder. It was the sound of my cell phone's text message alerts.

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And that's when I woke up. I had fallen asleep on the couch, and when I looked down at my phone on the floor there were four text messages received. All of them were from the same person. None of them really were necessary.

Ouch.

So, I'm out riding my bike in the woods behind my house, having a good time, cruising through the trails, enjoying the shade from the sun and suddenly I feel this sharp, sudden sting on my right arm just above the elbow. For a moment it felt really cold and I though maybe a branch had just whipped my arm, but then it started to hurt like the dickens. I look down at my arm and there's a red and purple circle: something had stung me. I don't know if it was a wasp, bee, or anything else that stings, I just know I got stung.

I don't know why, but I find it sort of funny that the 'culprit' was not identified and still at large. That's right, the little creature that stung me for no apparent reason, is still out there in the woods (for all I know), perhaps sitting in his little den or hive, relaxing with a cup of tea in his rocking chair chuckling diabolically to himself, just waiting for my return. I mean, I never even saw him, or her, or it, or whatever. That's just wrong. It's just flat out evil.

Even at this very moment, my arm is throbbing at the spot where he got me. And now, no matter how hard I try, whenever I go out into the woods I am going to be wary of mysterious stinging creatures lurking behind every branch and stone. Maybe that was his plan. Maybe he just wanted to send me a warning, as if to say, "stay out of my part of the woods or else..."