Shuffle

I'm still a big fan of the album. I think that, when it's well-crafted, and the songs are ordered in a certain way -- either by creative strategy, or by accident -- the sum of the whole is greater than the parts. 

I think the perfect example is Slayer's REIGN IN BLOOD. Taken by themselves, there are a few very strong songs, like "Angel of Death" and "Raining Blood." But, on a song-by-song basis, it's no match for something like Metallica's MASTER OF PUPPETS. 

As an album, though, I find REIGN to be the stronger of the two. It creates a mood. It creates a world that you live in while it's playing. "Raining Blood" is about on par, on a song-on-song basis, with most everything on PUPPETS. However, after I listen to the entire album, "Raining Blood" becomes something incredibly more powerful than it otherwise would be as a stand-alone song. 

This is the main reason I'm not that big on iTunes and buying singles and whatnot. I'd rather go to Amoeba and buy cheap-ass used CDs. I realize they're becoming an outmoded medium, but I still find the album to be the more interesting form.

However... just to experiment, I've been spinning tunes on "shuffle" this past week. And suddenly -- I get it. What I lose in the smooth build of musical chapters an album provides, I gain by hearing songs outside of their usual placement. I'm running into some really cool and interesting juxtapositions along the way... Slayer to Pailhead to MC Lars to Fear Factory to Ice Cube to Dragonforce to Jay-Z to Minor Threat to Tenacious D to the Bloodhound Gang to the soundtrack to ROBOCOP to AC/DC and on and on and on...

The songs and artists are different. But at the same time, I'm finding commonalities I hadn't before noticed. 

Now... I realize that, in 2010, discovering the joys of the shuffle feature is a little like finally figuring out how to use a microwave. 

I bring it up only because, at the same time I'm approaching music in this way, I'm shopping two very different spec scripts. One is an action-comedy, the other a thriller. They're both very good. There is some crossover in terms of commercial approach, but not much. 

It's interesting to approach the town from two directions and, along the way, finding out the different needs of the various companies. I get a clearer idea of where the town is at in this specific moment in time than if I'd just been shopping one or the other. 

I've found it's always valuable to appreciate things for what they are, but also to try seeing things from different angles. By inviting a fluidity of thought, the collected perceptions become a sum that is greater than the whole.  

A Little Bit Better

I woke up this morning and ran scales on my bass. I've been doing this for about a week now, just jumping on it in my first minutes of wakefulness, and I like how it starts the day.

I'm still taking my time, progressing up the major scales, slowly getting my basic skill set back.

But today I realized that I was just playing the scales... I wasn't taking the time to understand the notes that built them. The fretting is great for bringing back muscle memory, and the work helps rebuilt hand strength and dexterity. Yet... if I don't know what I'm playing, it's just going through the motions.

I started over again, this time going slowly, saying each note out loud as I played it, finding the commonalities between the scale structures. I re-ran the scales in different ways that I'd learned while I was at SIU. There was a period of time that I was pretty strong in sight reading and understanding the building blocks of music. These days, I'm still mentally counting frets. Paying attention to the notes and taking it slow still helped, though.

I worked... and worked... and worked... and then I went to the gym.

I took yesterday off, and apparently my body used the time to rebuild itself a bit, because I was able to hit some goals I haven't been able to achieve since I'd gotten back from the holidays. Not saying I'm going to the Olympics anytime soon -- this is a very slight, incremental improvement. But shit... I'll take anything.

While I worked out, I listened to Strapping Young Lad's The New Black. I hardly heard it, though...  I spent the whole time mentally running the same scales, paying attention to the notes. I visualized the fretting, and after a half hour or so I was able to silently name the notes up and down the majors from E to C, where I stopped.

I came home and, just to try something out, I picked up my bass. And I played the fuck out of those scales.

When it comes to music, learning your scales is the most fundamental of exercises. It's the pathway to learning everything else.  But interestingly, there isn't an analogy to scales in writing. Of course, there's structure, grammar, spelling, etc. But that's a bit to the left. Those are rules, not exercises.

The closest comparison to scales I can think of is kata in martial arts. There may be something similar in other sports... would those be drills? I've never been a sports guy, so I wouldn't know.

Also... Directing? Editing? Not really, or at least none of which I'm aware. All of those are run by rules and inspiration, not exercises. For instance, there's a "grammar" to direction, but I'm not sure that going out and shooting wides, OTS and ECUs counts as the directing version of a "scale." And do improv and breathing exercises and whatnot count as the actor's version of "scales?" I don't know.

It's interesting to me that music has this unique bridge between a very physical activity - sports and martial arts - but is considered an art. Like a physical activity, it relies on muscle memory.

As Hagakure tells us, we should be better today than we were yesterday, and better tomorrow than we are today. For a long time, I only applied this concept to writing and producing. Now I'm seeing that it's possible to apply this basic concept to every area of my life.

Music is Life

After a long absence, I've gotten back into music. 

I'm not even approaching songs, yet... I'm rebuilding my skills from the ground up, playing scales a hundred time a day, woodshed stuff like that.

But let's look at my instrument, the bass. Specifically, the electric bass. Even more specifically, a Fender Jazz Bass.

There are many, many ways to interact with this thing that produces nothing but noise: smashing it, throwing it, jumping up and down on it, whatever. Even if you actively tried to make music with it, unless you developed some skills, it would still sound terrible. Noise. 

This isn't just some object. It itsn't a punch bowl or a jackhammer or a tire iron. It's a musical instrument. But the only way to find the music within this inanimate object is to handle it in a very specific way -- in this case, placing your fingers on the frets in sequence and striking the strings with your other hand -- and to do so with a degree of skill... skills which take hours and hours of effort to develop.

My point is... a bass is a bunch of pieces of wood crammed together, not unlike a piece of furniture. But it doesn't function as furniture. Its only function is to make music. And yet, that music will only come if the manner with which you interact with it is very specific in nature. 

It makes me thinks of us, as human beings. We're a collection of cells, not unlike a lamp or a rock. You say we're alive? Okay... what's the difference between us and an ape or a pig? You say it's because we have intellect and souls. But what good do those things do us if we don't use them? What if you're just a biological machine that does nothing but consume beer and make babies? 

Within each of us, we have the potential for music. But, like an instrument, we must be handled in a very specific manner. We can't be broken in half and jumped upon, and be expected to create notes. No... we have to be touched, and with some skill.

This, I believe, is the function of love.

Mike's Good Deed for the Day

So the majority of my life right now is consumed with the task of selling a spec action-comedy called YOU'RE DEAD MEAT, PIPLOWSKI, by Samurai MK client Alex Drummond.

I got up at seven am to update my submission list. I brewed coffee. I got to work. It was hectic, as these things are... but I don't mind. Taking a script wide is my very favorite thing about this job. It's the same level of energy as when I used to play in bands. It's the dragon I've been chasing for the past seven years. Win or lose, I love it. And it certainly helps to get behind a project in which I believe.

That aside, I was taking calls until about 7:30 tonight. It was fun, but I was beat. I'd been on the phone and staring at a screen all day. I needed to look at something besides pixels.

I went to the gym. But it was during prime time... There were no lockers, and the place was packed. I've gotten spoiled by the ability to go at three in the afternoon. Four months into self-employment, and I'm already a ruin.

No sweating for me, at least until tomorrow morning. I admit, it pissed me off. I've already become a gym rat, addicted to a daily infusion of naturally produced endorphins. So it was straight to the booze. Nothing crazy, just a glass of red, and home.

I walked back to the bike, and there was a dude with another Honda Rebel parked right next to mine. Same basic make, maybe a couple of years older. Anyway, the battery was dead.

He asked me, "Do you know where the fuses are?" Fuck... fuses? I don't know shit about motorcycle maintenance. I'm not that guy. I'm a total civilian when it comes to that kinda thing. Pop a hood on a car, and I'll nod and say something like, "Wow... looks you got an engine, all right."

HOWEVER - in this laser-specific situation, I was able to be of assistance. This is because, when I got back to Burbank after the nightmarish Christmas during which my dad almost died, my bike was dead, and I had the iPhone and was able to youtube up a little video on how to push-start a bike, I push-started my bike and was on my way.

Anyway, I ask this cat, "Did you try push-starting it?" He's like, "huh?" And like I'm some fuckin' expert (if your last name is "Preus" or "Ratkovich" you're probably laughing at me right now) I tell him: "Shift into second. Run your ass off about a hundred feet. Hit the starter. It'll start."

He does that... and it ALMOST starts. He does it again... and VRRROOOM!!! Again, like I know what I'm talking about - and in this specific case, kinda do via personal experience - I tell him, "Drive it around a bit to charge it and you'll be cool!"

He yells, "Thanks, man!" And he takes off.

That's Rebel riders helping Rebel riders, my friends.

But this whole thing isn't some cheesy bullshit like I'm paying it forward or masturbating my ego because, for once, I can give someone some advice in a mechanical situation and it actually works.

No... It's for the same reason I go to the gym every day. Doing that won't make you indestructible, but that daily effort will help you avoid really avoidable problems. You try to do a daily allotment of good in order to hold off the day-to-day type of bad. I think it's the same way with how you deal with the world as a whole.

Hagakure tells us there are four rules to affix in your heart before you make ANY decision. The fourth - and biggest - rule is to act with compassion.

And the thing is... I think if you just try to put some good out there when you can, it's like going to the gym... It doesn't make you bullet proof, but you're avoiding the really avoidable type of bad that's out there. Besides which: why would you want to do bad? What joy does that give you?

Shit, I'm flawed like everyone else. If you look long enough at anyone, you'll find the bad and the crazy. But that's no excuse. You should always try to be better.

Sure, you can't be a chump. There are people who take advantage. Once in Chicago (and it's weird because this is another Mike-the-mechanic story...) I hung around at B-Boy's old place watching Hong Kong action movies. I split late. It was night.

I was walking down Irving Park road, back to my car. I passed that gas station right under the Kennedy off-ramp, and some dude was there. He said his car had broken down. He said he "needed a hose." And -whaddaya know? This hose cost twenty bucks. Could I spot him twenty bucks?

I knew this guy was full of shit, so I decided to fuck with him. I told him I didn't have twenty bucks, but he was in luck... I was an ASC certified mechanic, and I'd be HAPPY to take a look at his car for him, free of charge! "Where's your car, dude? I'll help you out."

And, you guessed it, here come the excuses... "No, it's okay, man. I just need to hose." I'm like, "You sure? I don't have anything going on. I'm happy to help. Lead the way!"

He "talked me out" of helping him. What a sack of shit. If you're gonna be a con man...? Learn some new tricks, besides the same crap people have been using for decades. The other one I love is: "I've got my kids in the car, and I ran out of gas..." Yeah, blow me.

My point being: it's the real world. You have to use discretion. But discretion doesn't have to turn you into Scrooge. Lemme tell ya... when it comes to fixing motorcycles, 99.99% of the time, I am not the guy to call. But in this .01% situation? It made the black and bitter lump of coal that passes as my heart happy to help.

Ride on, noble Honda Rebel rider! Ride on!