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Posts tagged as “The Year of 12 Projects”

Dangerously bored.

I have been walking a mental knife edge recently. Everything has been stressing me out. Work stresses me out. Not working stresses me out. Friends stress me out. Being alone stresses me out. Eating stresses me out. Not eating stresses me out. My body stresses me out. My brain stresses me out. I’m flipping my shit (quietly on the inside) over all sorts of totally trivial bullshit things. Oh, I have to make changes? STRESS. Oh, I’m waiting around not making changes? STRESS. I need to do the dishes? STRESS. I am waiting for someone to call me back? STRESS. I am supposed to meet up with someone? STRESS. I have to pick up my laundry? STRESS. I have to wake up? STRESS. I have to go to sleep? STRESS. Everything. Anything. So much stress over absolutely nothing. It’s all nothing. SO much nothing that I am stressed out about. Get cbd oil body lotion that is a natural remedy and doesn’t give you any side effects, look for products made for organic grown cannabis, here you can find the best cbd oil at dmagazine for your needs. It won’t get you high and will reduce your stress levels a lot.

For example, I am supposed to spend 8 days with my friend JJ in Spain in September which should be an exciting thing. We’re going to a wedding and then we’re going to cruise around northern Spain eating ham and drinking red wine. I’ve spent a lot of the last few weeks trying to convince myself that it is exciting when what I actually feel about it is dread. I am worried about the cost, I am worried about the time spent not earning, I am worried about this little thing and that little thing. Am I not going to go? Of course not. I’ll go. But I am going to spend every moment until then worrying about it.

I started writing something for this site today that is heartfelt and reveals something about me and I felt pretty good about until I spent three seconds away from it and now I am worried that it’s self-indulgent tripe. What the fuck, Joe. It’s my blog, and I can write whatever I want at whatever quality I find acceptable. I’ve put some real trash on this site before and I will in the future. It’s my prerogative.

And that goes for my other writing too. People ask me, “Man, why haven’t you been writing?” and I like to say, “You know, it’s just not coming to me right now. There will be time for it,” which is partially true but I am neglecting to mention that I am always worrying that everything I do is fucking stupid, that all the time I spend working on this craft which is important to me is wasted. That all of everything I create is trash.

I even do the same thing at work when cutting a job. I worry that every rough cut I do is garbage that people are going to hate my work and I don’t sleep and I get paralyzed into inaction and force myself through the process—one which I quite enjoy and find truly rewarding—because I am worried. Stress stress stress. And have I ever EVER had a client see what I’ve done and say, “Holy shit, this is the worst fucking crap ever, you’re an idiot”? No. Not once. In fact, I’ve never had clients be anything but positive about my work. Clearly, real life experience has no affect on whether or not I am going to worry about something.

And then there’s the social anxiety. What’s that about? I am an outgoing person, but I am constantly worried about my relationships with people. Over nothing. I’ve not done anything wrong, but I imagine horrible things I might have done and start to get all stressy pants about nothing. Foolishness. I wake up worried and I go to bed worried. The only way I can sleep is to be so tired I literally cannot keep my eyes open. If I am not periodically losing consciousness, I am not yet tired enough to go to sleep.

This all plays into my theme this year of slowing my roll. I think the reason I get stressed out (har har) about my drinking is that I know somewhere deep down that what I am doing is not in the name of good times or blowing off steam, but in the interest of hiding from these insane anxious feelings boiling around in my head and chest. I hit the bar wracked on the inside with needless worries, but after a few drinks I start to feel better, and then after a few more even better and I hardly remember that I was stressed as fuck over minutiae when I walked in. Then I wake up after a night of heavy drinking and I feel like a fucking asshole, worse than before, and I start getting stressed out about imagined slights against other people, about bridges I’ve burnt, about shadows in my memory haunting me. I still cannot spend much time around Thompson street and West 3rd, and those ghosts are ancient.

I like to fantasize that I will just ditch everything I own and disappear into the mists and that everything will be ok. While this is a seductive fantasy, I know that it won’t help. No matter where I go, there I am, with the same stupid fucking brain stressing me out about everything. Sometimes I want to punch a wall. Sometimes I want to curl up and hide. Sometimes I want to run away, others I want to stay. I don’t know what the right thing to do is and I don’t know how to address it. I feel crazy and it’s not new. I’ve written about it before and I am sure I will write about it again.

Where can I go to take a vacation from myself? What the hell is going on? Why do I feel this way? I do I still feel this way? Am I just bored and desperately in need of change? What the hell would I do differently? Where would I go? How would I fill my time? So many questions and so few answers. What respite is there? Some suggest taking a trip (which I am going to do) but that’s just running away for a minute and not addressing the issue, whatever it might be. Do you people ever feel like this? What do you do? Where do you find tranquility? How do you calm the storm? See, look, I’m even stressed out about how fucking banal this post is.

Creative Projects-June: Oh, Christ, again?!, or, Hello, velocipede.

It’s July 5th now and…wait. What the fuck? Where did June go?! Did this happen again?! Oh Christ. I had a whole month to accomplish something, yet my tally for projects for this year still stands at 4 of 12. Pathetic! Sure, it was a busy month at work and I did a lot of good stuff there, but none of that counts! Curses!

In other news, I’ve done quite well, I think, in pursuit of my other goal of slowing my roll. I’ve not been going out during the week, a new thing for me I assure you. I’m sleeping well, money stays in my pocket, and I feel good. All that is great.

I bought a bike this weekend and I am very excited about it. Not only did I fulfill a goal I set for myself last summer, but it feels damned good to ride around zipping past people. It should come as no surprise that I ride my bicycle like I walk: fast as hell. Why go slowly?!

In summary, not a lot to say this month. Hopefully July is more productive now that I’m feeling nice and easy about not drinking on school nights. Even a single drink is an impediment to my ability to produce creative work and staying dry will help. At the end of June I thought I would not be working again until Ford comes back mid-August and was looking forward to having a bunch of empty days to fill with projects and things, but last week I got all booked up. Good for my pocket book, not good for my free time. I’d rather be working than not, though, so it’s all right in the end.

I’m two behind at this point and something needs to give. My brain is not very creative these days and about the only thing I can think of is jokes in 140 characters or less. Summer time is a tough, stupid time for me. This is going to be tough.

Stay tuned, Black Laserites!

Creative Projects-May: Getting back into the roll, or, Where did April go?!

Ok, right off the old proverbial bat, let us all address my biggest failing of the last month: no Creative Projects-April post. What the hell happened to that? Why have I failed you, my loyal readers, so dearly?! How could I possibly ever make it up to you and continue to enjoy your (conditional) love?!? I blame myself and a couple of other reasons. First, I didn’t actually do anything creative on a personal level in April. Sure, there were blog posts about music videos and some other crap who knows what it was about, but I didn’t engage in any real creative pursuits in the month so I was pretty embarrassed about that, especially since I didn’t accomplish a damned thing in March either. Work on the WBDPE hadn’t continued—though the project has not been abandoned—since it might end up taking a change in direction. I had some other writing ideas that never panned out because I was a stupid asshole for a lot of the month. And then, to wrap up my spat of excuses, I was in Lons Smangeles for a couple weeks working on a big old Ford job which I brought back to NY and kept me busy into May. Add to that a few other jobbie jobs here at No6 and it was actually a pretty busy month for me.

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. So many excuses.

I know it. And, part of this year’s theme, is that professional projects don’t really count, so, though I actually was pretty creative in April, none of it counts toward my tally. They’re my rules and I’ll stand by them.

But May was better! I completed two (2) creative projects which helps make up for the big zeros (0s) in March and April. Let’s discuss them, shall we?

1st – The inaugural The Black Laser Reads. I’d been talking and thinking about and planning this project for a long time, so it felt particularly sweet to execute it. I have the next one planned out and intend to start it tonight when I get home. It will keep me from going to the bar! For a while! Woo woo.

2nd – Two (2) Get Drunk Tonights for Vox Critica. This one is pretty funny because it flies right in the face of this year’s secondary theme of slowing my roll. But the write-ups are fun and good and I think they do a good job of communicating something about me: I have strong opinions about bars. I am not a ranter or a raver (love me some house music though) and you’ll notice that most of the writing about personal stuff here on The Black Laser isn’t long-winded blocks of opinion and information. Some people are really good about that sort of thing and actually have really decent, smart things to say and I enjoy reading them. I have tremendous respect for people who can sit an organize their thoughts into coherent, concise articles about things. People who analyze and consider and weigh data and topics and other opinions and the ramifications of some event or predict the ways things might go based on limited information.

I am not one of those people.

When I get excited, my whole opinion of something can be boiled down to, “That’s awesome!! YEEEAHHHHHH!!!!” and that’s it. I don’t objectively criticize or evaluate or break things down. I’m just full-bore, head-down, running at the wall because I’m stoked on how it makes my head feel to impact the bricks. Even when I don’t like something, my opinions usually akin to, “Sure, I didn’t like this and this, and that other thing was pretty whack, but I guess it’s ok. They clearly worked pretty hard on it.” I basically have to either love something or absolutely abhor it to have strong opinions. As it turns out, I have pretty strong opinions about bars. Who’d have thought? (answer: everyone.)

Writing the Get Drunk Tonights might be the only opinion piece I am capable of writing with any regularity. There are just so many bars out there and I have thoughts about every single one of them. Want to know how I feel about The Woods? Or Union Pool? Or Ace Bar? Niagra? Lakeside Lounge? Off the Wagon? The Mark Bar? Barcade? Duff’s? Pencil Factory? Lulu’s? Alligator Lounge? McDougal Street Ale House? Enid’s? Bar Matchless? 119 Lounge? Motor City? Max Fish? More?!?!?! SO MANY MORE?!?!?! I could easily write you a recommendation for any of those bars in a heartbeat. Well, some of them might not be a recommendation, more of a gentle (not gentle) warning against going there, but the point stands.

Even if it contradicts this year’s secondary theme, I think this is and will continue to be a good outlet for me and a way to help me learn to recommend things to people without just saying, “Dude, what the fuck that place is so awesome!”

Now, what about my stated secondary goal of slowing my roll? April and May were complete fucking washes on that count. After my masterful March, I bounced right back in my stupid old patterns of partying too much. Where are my healthy outlets? Where is my motivation to stay home? Where is my motivation for moderation? Guh. It’s getting bad too. I’m being an asshole to people while drunk that I wouldn’t be normally and I find that very distressing. It makes me feel like a real son of a bitch. I’ve always struggled with being a stupid, arrogant prick. I feel like it is something I’ve wrangled when my brain is firing all cylinders, but once in a while too much purple drank and I turn into a raging prick asshole motherfucker and have to hear about it afterwards from people, usually sending me into a few days of crippling self-doubt, which is kind of a funny way for it to turn out. Not funny haha, funny ironic. Oh, the guilt isn’t nice either. It’s a quite annoying cycle of feel good about myself/drink/do something horrible/hate myself. Why do I do this bullshit all the time? Am I bored? Hopelessly fucked up? Can I learn to moderate? Or should I just lay off all together? And let’s not talk about how much I hate blacking out. Sorry, mom.

We’ll see if June can be better. I just have to stay engaged with some projects, hide out from the heat at home, and keep my head forward. Overall, good creative month, shitty slowing my roll months. Let’s see if we can have both at the same time!! Yay, June!

On the topic of creative goals

I am, without a doubt and as evidenced by this site’s content, a voracious consumer of media. There’s no question about that. But consumption has never been enough for me. When I read a book, I want to write one. When I listen to music, I want to play some. When I see a film, I want to make one. You get the idea. It isn’t about competing or some sense that what I would make is superior, but about this sense that making things is fun and rewarding and I would like to have fun and feel satisfied that I’ve made something cool, something that someone else will take pleasure in, no matter how small. It is not about fulfillment of my ego, but about sharing and inspiring and making people feel better and laugh and sing. That feeling is a driving force behind The Black Laser, for sure. When I see I am getting lots of hits, I am motivated to continue to share things. When someone comes up to me and says they read something I wrote here and they agreed or disagreed or had some thoughts or whatever, I feel encouraged to continue to put things up here. It is a self-fulfilling cycle. I am glad every day that 2 and a half years ago I put this site up as a place to share and vent and comment. It serves that purpose, but it is not my only creative outlet (nor should it be).

A few weeks ago, a friend and I were sitting at Rai Rai Ken in the East Village enjoying a wonderful, warming bowl of ramen after a long had day of museuming at the Met. As happens every time I go to a museum (without taking into account that we spent like 7 hours there), my brain was alight with creative thoughts and notions and directions, buzzing with possibilities as I slurped down my ramen. The conversation took a turn toward creative pursuits and I started going off on some of the things I would like to accomplish in the future, short-, medium-, and long-term. And I recognized that most of them are tied into how they make other people feel. I mean, what is the point of making things if you don’t share them and they don’t affect people?

And so my goals are, in no particular order…

I would like to write a record that makes people want to dance. – I love dancing. There’s no secret about that. I think it would be really fun for my work to be floating around, getting played in clubs or homes or schools or work places or cars, and making people want to shake their asses. It’s my contribution to the obesity epidemic: lose weight by shaking that corpulent rump. It’s good exercise and it’s fun. I’d like to inspire that.

I would like to write a song that people want to sing along to. – Have you ever hung out with me for longer than maybe like 15 minutes? And have you ever been around when a song I really like has come on the stereo/jukebox/whatever? Well, then you know I am almost definitely going to be singing along to it loudly. Very loudly in some cases. There are a lot of songs like that which have had real effects on my life in positive ways. For example, you want to make me feel better almost immediately? Put on Pulp’s This Is Hardcore and not only will I sing along to every single word, but my mood will lift demonstrably. I would like to help people feel the same way. To feel the same way I feel when I’m singing along to Neutral Milk Hotel’s “Two-Headed Boy” or The Magnetic Fields’ “Papa Was a Rodeo”.

I would like to write a collection of short stories. – I’m sort of on the way to this one. I bet that somewhere, buried in the archives of The Black Laser’s fiction section are the seeds of at least 12 decent short stories. I think 12 is a good place to start and then go from there. There’s nothing specific I want to accomplish with the short stories, but I’d like to use the whole collection to explore some themes I wrestle with regularly: loneliness, desperation, sadness, shame, regret. Cheery stuff mostly.

I would like to write a novel. – As long as I can remember, I’ve been a dedicated reader of novels. I love them. I love the challenge that a good novel presents, working to make sense of what the author has laid out on the page. If there’s anything I dislike about writing, it is when you are handed huge chunks of back story or motivations in expository passages. The worst. I like to have my brain engaged with making sense of the fiction I’m presented with, if it is science fiction, literature, fantasy, horror, whatever. I’d like to engage readers on this level too, to see if I can craft a puzzle that is finely crafted enough that the reader can eventually make sense of what I’ve tried to say while being entertained.

I would like to read books on tape. – Or books on MP3 or whatever the next delivery format for audiobooks will be. This just seems like a really fun thing to do and that’s about it. I love reading and I’ve got an all right voice, so why not?

I would like to edit a feature film professionally. – I’ve assisted on a feature film that did pretty well for itself and I’ve edited a feature film for my friend and I’ve edited a few other things both professionally and not, but I would really like to be paid to cut a feature film. This is a professional and creative goal, which, I guess, are the best kind, right?

I think that’s it. A lot of things there, but nothing that is out of reach. And though this post may seem megalomaniacal and self-absorbed, I really don’t think it is. It’s about creating and sharing and inspiring and being inspired. I think those things are important and I think they are things we need to actively engage. I know that I definitely need to engage them or I start to feel lost, floating, unproductive. Adrift. Being creative and productive, as Jesse and I discussed recently, is vital to feeling good about myself. Hell, in the end, it helps me sleep knowing that I’ve accomplished something, even if it is minor. I have something thoughts a’brewing about at least one of these goals, so keep your eyes on The Black Laser in the coming weeks for some new fun material.

Creative Projects-March: Oops, or, Hiatus Ain’t Got Me Down.

Soooo March wasn’t the most creative month on record for me. I got started on The William Blake Dance Party Extravaganza, but have yet to finish anything. April, I’m look at you for that. I am also reconsidering the direction of that project to maybe be a survey of a bunch of poets (Rime of the Ancient Mariner anyone?) rather than just William Blake. Or maybe I won’t do that. I don’t know. I’m crazy like that. April will be a good month for that work.

Otherwise, nothing much happened in March. I worked a lot, which is always good, but not a whole lot of creative work. On the slim side there.

However, I was quite successful in my pursuit of my secondary goal of slowing my roll. I spent 29 days on hiatus which both saved me money and helped me feel better. Instead of spending all the money I didn’t have in March at the bar, I got out without incurring some stupid credit card bill. More power to me.

Anyway, the update for March is tiny because I don’t have a whole lot to say. Looking forward to a productive, (in)sane April without too much weirdo emotional feedback and bullshit. Love you all.

Creative Projects-February: JosephDillingham.com

February was a slow and not-productive-enough month, but I did manage to finish the one thing I absolutely needed to do: get JosephDillingham.com up and running. Getting the site finished has been looming over my head for a long, long time and I am glad to have it done. I even built it so that it is easy to update and add to. Extensibility built right in! People pay for that shit. I don’t have much else to say about the site that I haven’t already, so I leave it at this.

Now that March is here and I am not limited to 28 pitiful days, I hope to have more than just one thing done this month. I’ve also put myself on hiatus for the month which allows for seemingly endless free time unhindered by juice. More stuff to come. Keep your eyes here.

Announcing JosephDillingham.com! YAY!

I very very rarely talk about what I do for a living here. Most of my work-talk is concerned with the things I’m doing for myself, i.e., writing, photos, music, films, &c. &c. Well, I’ve been talking about it and thinking about it for a long time, but I’ve finally gotten something put up at JosephDillingham.com, which is a huge relief because it makes the business cards I got a year and a half ago valid now. Fun! Click the image below to check it out.

Right now it only has my editorial reel on it, but I’ve built it so that I can later add sections for my other creative work. I hope to one day have photos, music, and writing on there as well as editorial. Maybe a director’s reel? Who knows! The possibilities are limitless. Getting this up is a huge weight off my head. I’ve been stressing out about it for a while and I am glad to have it done.

Also, if you are my friend and you have a professional site that I haven’t included in my “Friends” section, hit me up with a link and I’ll gladly add you. I like pimping my friends out. It’s good business.

I made a breakthrough today.

Last night I met up with my friends Ruth and Nik for a “hey we haven’t seen each other in a while let’s have a beer” beer. Ruth and I got to discussing our editorial methods (she is also an editor) versus those of others we have worked with. I remarked that I often found it strange that some people can just jump in and cut without having seen all the footage. That method isn’t wrong, of course, it just doesn’t work for me. I need to see all the footage before I can start putting things together. It’s part of the process. While watching everything and thinking about it, I start putting together cuts in my head. Once I’ve finished viewing dailies, I can slap cuts together with great speed because I feel confident that I am making the right choices. If I haven’t seen EVERYTHING, then I am not sure that I am picking the best takes or reactions or whatever bits I’m picking and that both slows me down and introduces doubt into the process. Again, doing it the other way is neither right nor wrong, I just know what works for me. Ruth agreed with my methods, adding that she feels as though the thoroughness involved with watching everything is an important step.

Today, I wandered off to the coffee shop with my notebook to sit and do some writing for the first time in months. Before meeting Ruth and Nik last night, I found myself in a powerful, crazy funk that I couldn’t shake. I pulled my notebook out and hastily scribbled a couple pages of text and instantly felt better for having purged that bit of anxiety. No, I won’t tell you what it says, but do know that it has been a long time since I’ve written anything of substance and that little writer’s high (I just made that up, feel free to use it) reminded me of how it feels to be productive in that way and how I used to feel during the Y.5k.P.50.S.S. when I was trying to crank out my quota—really really good. Really good. It inspired me to spend some time outside the house today reengaging with my lost love.

With the coffee at Milk & Roses making my blood simmer, I cranked out the beginnings of something that came to me this morning in bed before I woke up to find that my phone had reset itself to the factory defaults (fun). Between chunks, my mind wandered and I realized something: the block I often feel with writing come from the fact that I feel as if I need to know the entire story before I start writing. How stupid is that?! The whole act of writing is puzzling out the story from bits and pieces. If you knew the whole thing before you got started, you’re really just transcribing, not writing. Of course, we can argue about that for about a hundred years, but that’s not the point of this post. The point is that I realized I cannot approach my writing the same way I approach my editorial work. As an editor, there is a set amount of footage to use, a set body of choices to be made, but as a writer you can take your work anywhere at all. The closest thing to that as an editor is the editing of documentaries which can pull from a seemingly inexhaustible body of footage, but even there limits exist. There are only so many news broadcasts of a certain even, there is only so much football footage, there are only so many interviews with former presidents. Sure, you can go out and shoot stuff, but at the end of the day you’re left with a set amount of material from which to work and that’s it.

This is not true for the writer’s craft. Want to be in outer space? Of course you do. Boom. Done. The past? No problem. Want to have you character do anything, say anything, be anyone? Go for it.

You’re only limited by what makes sense in the context of your work. Does it make sense that your main character is a person gone through alcohol detox , has a violent streak who pays his bills as a clown at children’s parties? It does? Cool. Does it make sense that the shadowy body working against your anti-hero protagonist is comprised exclusively of seven year old girls all named Agatha? It doesn’t? Ok, change it then. What should you change it to? ANYTHING. Therein lies the challenge.

But before I go further off on my tangent about what writing is and isn’t, let’s refocus on the issue at hand: how I think about the process. Basically, I just need to let go similarly to the way I’ve let go of my need to have the first draft be perfect. The plot needs to evolve. It is an organic thing, not something rigid and artificial. Let it come and the work will benefit from that.

So that’s my big creative breakthrough for the day. It may seem minor, but sometimes looking at a problem from another perspective is all it takes to fix things. And by sometimes, I mean pretty much always. Let’s hope that this bodes well for the Y.12.P.S.M.R.

Let us celebrate my new perspective with music.

[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/audio/breakthru.mp3|artists=Queen|titles=Breakthru]