A Stated Purpose

If Allen Iverson was sitting next to me right now, you, the reader, would be able to distinguishing the difference between him and me. Astounding. But as shocking as this is, I can also provide the necessary information to persuade even the staunchest of demagogues on the matter into my domain. One, in every one of my imaginable recollections of “The Answer,” he is always sporting cornrows. I do not have cornrows. While on the matter, two, my nickname is also not The Answer. The streak was impossible to deny; Bubba Chub on the fast break.

But I digress.

Not only have I no cornrows on my skull at the present, I also once refused to be paid $20USD to get cornrows. True story. The Jewfro provided sufficient attention was and continues to be my reasoning. Then again, I also once turned down an undisclosed amount of money to shave my beard into a Hitler/Chaplin mustache for a week. Alas, I was in a German film class that semester. We were currently covering World War II propaganda. No dice.

At any rate, any rate at all, remember: I am not Allen Iverson.

Three – and by far, by far the most important of the three pieces of evidence – I talk about practice. Those words have been typed proofread repeated correctly: I talk about practice. The tirade, the exposition, the complete...mastery of showmanship...in comparison to this shamefully self-aggrandizing prose aside, the content is relevant. AI, once an established professional basketball player, was so familiar with the actions required to participate in his own profession of athleticism that ultimately became merely an extension of his routine actions. An on-off switch, if you will; akin to those prominently displayed in the world of AM talk radio and stand-up comedy among other “on the spot,” live professions. Practice was redundant to the man. The oft- misunderstood athlebrity could only be challenged and improved upon by immersing himself in the actual task at hand. Amateur hour is to be banished to Saint Helena for the contract's remainder! So sayeth the agent.

Enough waltzing around the issue: as you have noticed, my writing needs improvement.

The vocabulary is sparse. The references are stretched. The style is droning and, frankly, uninteresting - on top of the Black Plague-like wordiness. The line between psychobabble and academia is one best achieved through the channel of punctation.¹ Unlike proteges, I am not naturally gifted. I do believe that I have a knack for a certain few things in life. One of which I tell myself is a moderate to above average command of the English language. And although it may not seem it now, I opt to think that at times in the past my skills have surpassed where they presently lie (lay?).

I know, I know – there is no need to tell me. In fact, I will go ahead and say it myself. It means nothing. Unfounded claims amount to something near the national debt. Nada. Worse even is that I already know the importance of exercising skills and polishing them into proverbial weapons. I am cognizant of the imperative need to always be paranoid of time: the one factor that cannot be controlled and is never guaranteed.

But doing nothing is so much easier.

Which is why, when I came across this passage in 33^1/3 #45 Double Nickles on the Dime by Michael T. Fournier the brain flint was sparked:

A couple of years back, I decided to get serious, stop calling myself a writer and actually do it – try and sit down at the same time, every day, and work on craft and self-discipline.

The vehicle I chose was my CD collection. My New Year's resolution for 2005 was to listen to and review every compact disk in my rack. (37)

How quaint. In this scenario, to practice I literally have to do nothing. At all. The last decade of inaction has not been for naught! While I do have CDs, I also have an obscene amount of digital music files. The best purchase of my high school career was a Western Digital 256GB external hard-drive which serves as an archive to my musical appreciation escapades. I do own a number of vinyl (and no record player), but I do possess an “illegal in 17 countries and Samoa” amount of music. I have music in my abstract ownership from before I knew who Barack Obama was – or Harriet Myers for that matter. Not a multitude of years in between the recent past and the present, but certainly enough time to amass something of a shameful amount of music during the formative years of any human's life. To a certain extent I would even venture to say that in my spare music time I have inconsequentially built a monument to more of a psychological escape in my life than one of entertainment.

Slightly dramatic, I know, but the point to take home here is this: at some point in my life I developed a sense of urgency to collect more music than I could ever enjoy. Why not use it to my advantage? Coupled with the serenely sinister seductress in the tubes that run under the ground, the interwebz is more of an enabler than a public mass transit system. P2P programs, torrent clients, private trackers....mixtape sites, blogs, forums...Chart toppers, historical relics, and obscure & offensively loud. The internet holds so many nooks and crannies that it is said in some circles that a music hoarder started a rehabilitation colony off the coast of Chile. No independent verification on this anecdote.

Not only that, but I do have some experience in writing about music. College radio and a bizarre dedication to introversion has had this effect on lesser men. Yet, this body of work – though pridefully extensive – is nothing to be arrogant about. Not just that, but much like the most idealistic of science fiction literature, music writing is not best consumed in a soft state. So in a wind of brash inspiration I took a turn towards a rediscovery of sports. The narrative is self-producing, the only missing element is the raconteur; the title of best being difficult to distinguish in the match-up of hard (stats) versus soft (narrative). Alas, I do not know enough for “hard” music criticism anyway. An added challenge because the truth is that great music writing makes readers want to listen to the music; not to force a relationship between audience and band or criticize the latter either.

It seems ideal a concept to cut my teeth on. Regain my chops with.

In summation, something of a mantra: I cannot guarantee that you will always be entertained. I am in no position to assure your satisfaction. What I can say with unabashed certainty is that if you make the decision keep up with this in some manner, you are poised to witness something special somewhere either in the festering lands of spectacular failure or the pristine-ness of success mountain.

And a warning too. My tastes in music are, shall we say...eclectic? Also, no rhyme or reason has been predetermined for the impending selections. Some will be known; some will be unknown. Some will be new; to start with, the bulk will be old.

Many thanks for reading.

1And footnotes