Hal Phillips

This is still a “temporary” site, I’m still gonna set it up later the way I want it to be and probably delete a lot of what’s here now, etc. But I’m in the rare “I wanna write a blog entry about random stuff that’s on my mind” mood. So I will. And since I’m the king of verbosity, I’ma use headings, so you can skip around.

1. Stuff about improv.

I still do improv comedy, I still take classes when I can afford to, I still consider myself mediocre, and I still want very badly to be better.

Why I care: partly because I feel like my flaws as an improviser come from my flaws as a person, so when I do improv well, I feel like I’ve succeeded at life– and when I suck at improv, I feel like I’ve failed. Partly because it’s my only active creative outlet. But mostly just because it’s fun and I love doing it. Not being able to do a fun thing well is frustrating.

Lately, I’ve largely avoided going to improv shows I’m not in, or hanging around the improv social scene. That started because I felt too immersed and wanted to reconnect with the rest of my life, but I’m past that by now. Now, it’s partly because I want to be more of a doer than a spectator or hanger-around, and I don’t get to do as much as I’d like, so hanging around makes me feel bad. It’s partly because I used to get into shows for free due to being in a sketch group or a class, and now I have to pay, and I don’t want to. And it’s partly because I feel a bit excluded in the improv world, and don’t want to hang around dying to be tortured. I’ll stick to going to my own shows, classes, and practices, and hanging out with the improvisers who are my friends.

Why I feel excluded, A.K.A. proof of mediocrity: in a community based on collaboration, people seldom seem to want to collaborate with me. I’m in a successful, long-running group– but I started it, making me the one member who didn’t get invited. I started my previous group as well. I want to succeed at improv based on improv skills, not organizing skills. I’m jealous of everyone who gets asked to work on stuff, which is nearly everyone. It’s not that I want recognition; I want quality. But recognition is the only gauge I have for quality, aside from my biased self-opinion.

I’m not complaining. If I’m mediocre, people SHOULDN’T ask me to work on stuff. I want to end the problem by not being mediocre. But as far as I can tell, large numbers of improvisers either don’t think I’m very good or simply dislike me. I don’t know which one I’d prefer. I’m just going to keep plugging away and hope to someday be good enough. I don’t expect that day to come, but I’ll never stop trying. And improv ends up playing a huge role in my thoughts, not because it’s the most important thing in the world, but because it’s the most important thing I’m failing at.

2. Stuff about how I view other people.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’ve gotten a lot better, but I’m socially awkward. There have been phases in my life– roughly ages 12 and 18– when I pretty much didn’t have friends. Because of this, I value my friendships a LOT, maybe more than most people. When a close friendship drifts away, it hurts me. I’ll do anything for my friends, because I’m so glad they exist.

I feel like I’ve fallen out of touch with most of my closest friends. I see them occasionally, but not often. This bothers me. A lot of it is natural, like losing touch with college friends after college. But a lot of people are STILL close friends– just not ones I see a lot. I really want to change that.

3. Stuff about how relationships work.

I’ve been thinking about “relationships”. It’s a loaded word. People attach different connotations to it. I think I can define it. I think I can break it down into three bare-minimum components. If you’re missing one, it’s not a relationship; if you have all three, it is.

1) Close friendship. Socializing, spending time together, talking, confiding.
2) An intimate, emotional, affectionate bond. Caring about each other on a level beyond how you view friends. “Love”, basically– except it doesn’t have to be that, since that’s another complicated word. “Having feelings for someone.” You get the gist.
3) The physical aspect. Sex. Kissing. Cuddling. Whatevs.

I think that’s it. The rest is optional. Some stuff is common: monogamy is the norm, for instance, but an open relationship is still a relationship. Some people add expectations: maybe time commitments, frequency of contact, etc. I knew a couple that broke up because the girlfriend wanted to hang out one night and the boyfriend preferred to hang out with his friends and that made the girlfriend feel neglected and that made the boyfriend feel suffocated. But none of that is required.

If you’re close friends, you have love-like feelings for each other, and you’re sleeping together regularly, you’re pretty much in a relationship, whatever you may call it. And you need all three. 1 + 2 = interested friends who probably should be in a relationship but aren’t. 1 + 3 = friends with benefits. 2 + 3 = I don’t know what you’d call it, I guess an intense fling– but even if you’re madly in love and sleeping together every night, a relationship still requires talking and socializing and enjoying one another’s company. (2 + 3 is probably rare.)

That’s the definition I’m sticking by. “I want to be in a relationship” = “let’s hang out, let’s be affectionate, let’s kiss”. Basically. Anybody disagree?

4. Stuff about what I want from a relationship and why.

I’d like to be in a relationship. I’ve been thinking about what that means to me (aside from the above).

I want: A partner– basically a best friend, and someone to go places with. An emotional home base– someone to sort of keep me grounded, so that even when I’m alone, I’m not “alone”. Mutual loyalty– I’ve got her back and she’s got mine. Chemistry/connection– we get each other, we’re comfortable together, we laugh at each other’s stupid jokes. And finally, affection– I need to able to give compliments, cuddle, be cute.

I do not require: A tremendous time commitment– I’m a busy guy, any girl I’d dig would probably be a busy girl, and I’d be fine with us being separately busy, so long as there was that foundation of knowing we were there for each other, in thought if not in person. Perfection– that’s obvious, but I’ve accepted that everyone is fucking annoying at times, and that’s fine as long as the annoying bits are tolerable. Possessiveness– I don’t need to know where my girlfriend is at all times, who all her friends are, etc., as long as there’s basic trust.

5. Stuff about songs.

This song and this song have lately summed up my angsty feelings about the above. I’m not a big fan of either artist, both of whom might be categorized as “adult contemporary”. I hope I am not getting old and shitty. I hope the act of using song lyrics to convey my feelings keeps me deep enough in teenage angst to balance it out.

6. Stuff about bummers.

I recently had a girl-situation start and then end. I’ll keep personal details out of here. None of your business.

But specifics aside, the part that hurts most is the part that’s most unique: I’ve never felt this way about a girl before. Never connected so strongly. And I know that, at least at the time, it was mutual. It could’ve been something really good and long-lasting, and I’m frustrated that it didn’t get the chance it deserved. And even while I’m miserable, I’m also grateful for having had that experience, if only for a short time. It’s like, I dunno… most of your happiest moments aren’t repeatable, but you’re glad you got to have them. You get to keep the memories, and maybe even be changed for the better.

Sorry, tangent. Anyway, what hurts the most is knowing that I waited my entire life to find that connection with someone, and finally found it, and now I don’t get to have it. If God is real, he really loves to fuck with me.

I kinda wonder where I go from here. I don’t have faith that I will find something like this again. I wonder if that’s a good thing: maybe I cared too much about the little things because I kept trying to find the big thing. I was looking everywhere for some sort of Holy Grail, and then I found it, had it for a little while, and lost it forever. Which sucks, but now I can stop looking. Maybe now I can treat the little things like the little things they are, and get little-thing results from them instead of trying to get something more.

I tend to be at my best when I feel one of two ways: supported by loved ones, or betrayed by the world. I’ve just had both. Negative-sounding phrases like “nothing matters” and “fuck the world” have a bizarrely positive connotation to me: freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, and anger is an energy. Maybe now I can be free to not give a fuck about some of the petty shit that’s held me back, because I can downgrade the lot of it. Maybe if I can stay just miserable enough about finding what I’d always hoped to find and then losing it, other stuff won’t bother me. Maybe the silver lining of heartache is that you stop caring about a stubbed toe.

7. Trivia Contest

Whoever can identify the most song quotes in this post wins whatever random item I find in my room that seems like an adequate fake novelty prize.

8. Stuff about curiousity.

Is anyone even reading this?

I need to get on the ball and fix this site up, and make it what I want it to be instead of the ad hoc angst-mess it is now.

This blog still isn’t set up the way I eventually want it to be. I haven’t “launched”. I have changes to make. Sections to add. Stuff to do. Still just occasionally venting on it.

I’m actively planning an independent run for the city council next year. I’m also applying to law school. I put both plans in motion after I was told I would be laid off on September 25th. It is now November 10th, and I have not been laid off yet, but am still definitely going to be. My employer is holding my life hostage. I should be dealing with law schools, campaign stuff, part-time work, and enough recreation time and social life and pet-project stuff to keep me sane. Everyone I know these days is getting laid off and complaining about how hard it is to find a job, and I’m the one guy that wants a layoff and can’t get it.

I keep reading about super-busy, super-disciplined people who get a billion things done at once. Reading behind-the-scenes articles about Barack Obama, like what Newsweek published recently– that’s a help. I’m not down with the Prez-Elect’s policies, but I like his attitude and approach. Or my usual “do everything” go-to: the Elvis Costello interview I read in 1993 when I first got really into him, about how in one year, he recorded an entire album worth of material he discarded, followed by the album he released, and also wrote an album’s worth of songs for someone else, and also learned to drive, and also learned to read and write musical notation, and also learned Italian.

I try to use my OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder– less rituals and hand-washing than OCD, more list-making and organizing) for good instead of evil. When it works, I’m scheduled and efficient. But I’ve felt so overwhelmed lately by urgent law school tasks and urgent campaign tasks, while also trying to, like, work, that I’ve let all the scheduling fall by the wayside. I’ve been getting less sleep than I should, and then it’s the weekend and I fall asleep with no deadline for wakefulness and end up catching 13 hours at once. Tonight, I may stay up all night, even though I’m tired. Stuff to do. If I stay up all night, I’ll go to the gym around 5:30 or 6, and that’ll make me feel awake again. And then after work, I’ll go to my improv class having been awake for 28 hours, and either be the best I’ve ever been or the worst I’ve ever been.

I’ll say this: I enjoy improv more than I ever have before. Every time I get to do it– class, show, practice, whatevs– I feel like I’m getting a gift. It’s a respite from all of the other stuff. Law school applications and campaign prep are so dry, and so full of errands. Since improv happens at pre-scheduled times, I guess it’s my one major leisure activity right now. I don’t feel like I’m any better at it than I was before my life got all crazy, but I appreciate it more, and feel so privileged that I get to do it. I can’t believe how excited I get when I get to do improv.

It’s amazing to think that these life-changes are the tip of the iceberg. The campaign’s barely started, law school sure hasn’t, and the layoff hasn’t happened. My life will be extremely different from like, one month to the next, for over a year.

This all sounds like I’m complaining, yeah? Not really. Just venting, with some weariness. Y’know, wishing I had a magic wand instead of having to do hard work. The only thing I really have to complain about is the layoff thing, where I’m being jerked around and wish I just had a damn date so I could plan accordingly.

This is a little like late ‘03, when I started a brand-new newspaper at my college. Tons of work. Getting funding, recruiting a volunteer staff, etc., while also working on other stuff, while also still having classes. One night, I wished I had never started, and regretted that it was too late. Then I watched The Muppet Movie, and there’s that scene where Kermit feels the same way, but has a chat with a ghost-Kermit representing his conscience who walks him through the steps he has to go through to remember why he’s doing it. Once again, my man Kermit’s getting me through. I wouldn’t be happy sitting alone in a swamp. Maybe my natural state is to take on too much at once.

Realistically, everything’s going great, and all I really want that I don’t have is more money, a girlfriend, and better people skills (which I’m gonna have to learn on my feet, wicked soon).

Someone suggested that I make things like my blog and my Facebook page private if I’m gonna run for office. My gut says no. I can’t talk about how I’m a regular person who cares instead of a career politician, and then go hiding my regularness. Let people see me dressed as Riff-Raff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show for Halloween; what are they gonna think, I’m not human? I’d rather be honest about who I am than try to play some make-believe character of a politician.

I just get scared and lonely sometimes.

But everyone does. Whoever I’m gonna run against is thinking the same thoughts, and just not blogging about them. Screw it, I’m not afraid to admit that taking on large tasks is stressful and makes you weary. It’s astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll. But listen closely– not for very much longer. I’ve got to keep control.

Let me stop procrastinating, start following my self-imposed deadlines, do all the stuff I said I would do, and be effective, b-e effective, b-e, e-f-f, e-c-t, i-v-e.

This is a rambler.
Just whatever’s on my mind.

I’m learning to like myself.
Learning to see what’s cool about myself.
Learning to see all of my contradictions as kinda cool.
Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve had a desire to “fit in”, I guess– be part of the clique.
That’s not nearly as big a deal as it was when I was nine, but there are aspects there.
Where like, stuff about me that seems weird, I want to hide.
I want to seem acceptable by conventional standards.
I’m getting over that horse shit.
Feeling more like, here I am, take me, I’m mine.
(Imperial Teen reference.)
And feeling like my weirdness, and also my contradictions, are what make me fucking awesome.
I kinda nailed my angle:
Being so many different things all at once.
I can talk to you about my devout atheism and rational science and the separation of church and state, and I can also talk about the occult and times I’ve tried, occasionally with what seemed like success, to invoke various deities and get their advice.
I can talk to you about law school and politics and obscure aspects of the law and working within the system for positive change, and I can also talk to you about counterculture and working outside of the system and pranking the public and waking up robots and how all politicians are evil.
I can talk to you about weird, boundary-pushing music, or about the transcendent glory of generic pop.
And I see none of that as contradictory. It’s all one big worldview to me.
I think that makes me kind of cool.
And I want to stop hiding it.

I don’t want it to be “be all things to all people”.
That way of thinking leads to “try to please people”, and that’s what always gets me in trouble.
If anything, maybe it’s “try to connect to all people”– see the good instead of the bad. Use my ability to see what’s appealing about everything in order to connect with you and find sincere common ground.
I’m bad at that– I always want to go the other way.
If I can like either X or Y, and you’re into X, I always wanna go Y.
Why?
I think its my contrarian nature, which I do like about myself.
And I think it’s my desire to prove myself.
Like, to say, “well, yeah, not knocking X, but Y, too”.
Ooh, nailed it:
It’s my desire to put all of myself out there.
If I’m X and Y, and you’re X, in my mind, it’s like: OK, there’s X, we’re both on the same page there, but there’s also Y, and I want so badly to win you over to Y, so we can share that too.
And I want to share everything with everyone.
I think I often seem belligerent and over-explanatory and condescending, but it’s because I sincerely want to share and find common ground.
Maybe, instead of trying to force Y on an Xer, I should just share X with the Xer– because if I’m saying I have both, why not choose my approach based on the situation?
If you have a bow, and I have arrows and bullets, why don’t I just give you some fucking arrows instead of trying to convince you that bullets work too?

I think it’s just trying to define myself, trying to show my other sides, trying to show all my sides.
I think I need to feel comfortable that I have all these sides.
And just use one at a time, and let the others come out when I want to.
And maybe NOT based on connecting to people– that is a goal of mine and I want to connect to everybody, but I also can’t can’t CAN’T do the thing where I try to become what I think you want me to be and play up what we have in common.
That never works and seems phony.
Sometimes, I’m X and Y, and you’re X, but I’m in a Y mood.
What then?
How about honesty?
How about don’t try?
How about, be me, and if that means Y, we won’t be on the same page that night?
And that’s OK, because I’m on MY page.
That’s what I need to do.

A few months ago, I had a huge breakthrough– probably the only adult moment I’d actually describe as a “breakthrough”.
Can’t say what it is– too private.
But it made me realize how little I value myself. How I always try to be what I think people will want– even within the boundaries of what I actually am– instead of being my awesome self and trusting that people will think it’s kinda cool that I have these weird contradictory beliefs and multiple different paths. It made me START to really GET what I’d understood logically, but never really GOTTEN: that I gotta love myself before anyone else can love me. I knew that, I mean. But I never got how little I loved myself. I always felt like I had to sell myself to people, and never felt worthy of being bought. Like everyone else had it figured out and I had to win them over.

Rob Brezsny is the only horoscope columnist to whom I’ll pay attention. Less than two weeks after that breakthrough, as I was sorting through it and figuring out how it would change me, he hit me with this:

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

It’s finally the right time for you to hear a piece of advice you weren’t ready for before. If I had told you this any earlier, you would have at best misinterpreted it and at worst had no idea what I was talking about. But in recent weeks you’ve recovered a portion of your lost wildness, which means I can confidently reveal the following truth, courtesy of poet Charles Simic: “He who cannot howl will not find his pack.”

HOLY SHIT. I read the first couple of sentences and already felt blown away, like he knew I was in a different place. Then I read the rest. “He who cannot howl will not find his pack.” That’s become sort of my credo. I need to howl to find my pack. What I’d been doing is, trying to howl at other packs, hoping they’d let me join in their reindeer-pack games. I need to just howl. Just be me– loudly and aggressively (metaphorically), unadulterated, in all my fucked-up, self-contradictory glory. And let people come to me. Because somebody, somewhere, thinks that a person exactly like me is awesome. And they can’t come to me if I don’t show who I am. And by trying to please others, I get the worst of both worlds: my efforts to please them seem fake, and I’m not sending the right messages to the people who WOULD like me. It’s a little like “if you build it, they will come”. I need to just… not hide myself. And let people love me or leave me. “If I don’t take you all of the way, then go.” Tom Petty reference. Followed up by: “Good love is hard to find. You got lucky, babe, when I found you.”

Don’t necessarily mean it in a love sense. But that’s where I’m at now. Accepting that all of my bizarre OCD weirdness– a few of which are still too bizarre for me to admit, but I’m working on it– isn’t stuff I should hide. It’s stuff about which I should howl.

When I get this site fully up-and-running, one of the things I want to do is write about certain subjects– including ongoing projects, opinions on favorite whatevers, etc.– and use the Categories features to make them like mini-blogs, dealing with one subject. So it’ll be like a dozen blogs in one. I think I might make one of the categories sort of an OCD Dump. Just… admitting something bizarre I do. Admitting it, putting it in public, not feeling ashamed of it. Having people think it’s weird, but also shedding. I hold so much in. I want to stop doing that. Maybe I can finally feel like me if I stop hiding so much of myself.

Someone I only know a little recently put up a blog entry detailing weird OCD neuroses about feet– like, what they are or are not allowed to touch. I don’t have that problem, but I have weirder ones, and I felt like it was kinda cool that this person put that out there in public. Weird? Sure. Honest? Yeah. Reason to dislike? No way. Respectable? Very, because it made me feel like “you have this thing you do, and you know it’s weird, but you admit it, and why shouldn’t you? Anyone who has a problem with your admittedly bizarre and specific rules governing the comfort level of where your feet go is a judgmental prick.” Kinda inspired me a little.

Look, none of this is a new concept. A therapist said to me years ago, “you can’t sell yourself to people if you can’t even sell yourself to yourself.” But, y’know, you can’t just DECIDE to think you’re awesome. “Fake it till you make it” doesn’t always work. I’m starting to finally, for the first time in my life, think that I am an awesomely unique person with a lot to offer, and that the things that make me different from other people make me really cool, and that anyone who doesn’t see it can suck my nuts.

This site: I still kinda consider it “beta”, but I’m gonna get it where I want it real soon, and then start updating it a lot and using it for what I want to use it for. I also had some technical problems with it and am wicked grateful to Will Hines for helping me solve them.

Law school: I’m probably gonna go to it. Weird, yeah? I’m taking the LSATs on Saturday, and unless I tank, I expect to be in law school in a year.

My job: My company’s eliminating my department and I’m getting laid off sometime this month. Don’t know when yet. Corporate politics and red tape keep causing delays and ambiguous information. Nothing would surprise me at this point. On top of unemployment, I’ll do some part-time data entry for my father from home, plus a little of this or that as I can find short-term freelance jobs, and I hope all of that can get me through until law school (or, if that plan changes, until I get a new job).

Improv: Still doing it. Still mostly considering myself mediocre. Still having highs and lows. Still not at a level where I feel minimally content with how basically good I am. My group Sherpa does shows two Saturday nights a month (with a break right now until late November); I’m in a new trio called Devil’s Haircut that I like a lot that’s getting some shows; I’m in a 4-week run of a show called the Movie (which I hope we’ll manage to extend once the four weeks are up); and I’m starting a class soon with a teacher I like, which I hope will help me improve some more. The Movie debuted tonight. I felt OK about my group’s performance, but iffy about my own, like I didn’t really do much that was funny. But I guess I just accept that feeling as the norm now.

Music: Working on it. Will work on it much more once my job ends (I keep thinking it’s about to, and then they keep changing the date).

Medications: I’ve tried so much weird shit lately. Adderall, Clonazepam, Abilify. I have A.D.D.-like symptoms, but A.D.D. meds don’t work on me, and I guess it’s coming from a different place with me (hypomania?). I’m trying to cram in as many psychiatrist visits as possible before my job and health insurance run out. But basically, I’ve been feeling weird shit.

Self: I’ve gone through some changes lately. I’m learning to like myself a bit, so that’s good. Less seeking approval, more thinking you should seek mine. Getting more comfortable with myself. It’s still in progress, but I like where it’s going.

Other thing: There’s a thing I don’t feel comfortable talking about in public, but I’ll tell anyone what it is if you ask me and if I know you. It’s not a secret, just not public. Anyway, it’s a project I hope to work on soon. And if you know what it is, please, help a brother out with it.

Sleep: Gonna get it now.

I’ve gotten really into a certain type of music– not really a genre, I guess. Just a type of song. Songs that are really sparse, and are probably just a simple beat, maybe some bass or percussion or something, and probably some high-pitched keyboard bleeps. And a lot of empty space. Lots of silent moments. Lots of simple patterns.

Since I can’t describe it really well, here are some examples:

“See A Penny (Pick It Up)” by Yacht. I like this song a lot, and there’s hardly anything going on in it at all. Through most of the song, it’s just that simple beat. There are some variants on it, but it’s still simple and sparse. And then there’s that cheesy synth part that first comes in around 1:11, but it’s still super-simple. This almost sounds like it should just be a backing track, with a lead guitar part on top of it– but fuck that. I like it this way. Around 2:16, even the bleeps stop for a while, and it’s just the vocals and that beat that’s barely even there. I love it. I also really like the vocal harmony in the chorus.

“Hundredaire” by Hey Willpower. This song is a simple beat, some simple keyboard stuff that doesn’t require any piano skill whatsoever, and a bass. This is the kinda keyboard sound I like– almost like something for preschoolers. Also, if you go to Hey Willpower’s Myspace, “Magic Window” is kind of a good example.

“Tiny King Kong” by Kahimi Karie. Another good example. This one sounds like it could come from a video game soundtrack. I love stuff like that.

“Up! Up! Up!” by Prinzhorn Dance School. Randomly saw this on New York Noise. This is not a good example of what I mean, because it’s devoid of blippy stuff, and it has guitars, and it has that slowed-down part– but I love it early on, when it’s just the bass, and that one drum/vocal part. That’s what I mean by sparse. I kinda want the whole song to just be the first 30 seconds, but over and over for five minutes. With bleeps.

And a song I would’ve put up here, except I can’t find it online anywhere, is “Houston” by Soul Coughing.

I had a harder time finding good examples than I thought I would, which makes me think that I should just make my own.

Epilogue to the previous post:

In a scene in an improv class earlier tonight, I had a sax.

Dear me:
Try to remember.
When you’re on the outside looking in at people who have some sort of skill, it seems daunting to learn.
Like, say I wanted to play the saxophone or get really good at knitting.
It’s like, this whole big thing that I have to learn.
But it’s also kind of not.
You just do it, and you do it awkwardly, and you get better.
But even then, it’s not like the people who do know how to do it are magic.
It seems that way, doesn’t it?
Like there’s this thing, I don’t know how it works, and they just do it and manipulate the forces in ways I don’t even know how.
Everyone else’s accomplishments seem so big, even when they’re just fucking around.

Remember improv?
I guess it’s the only thing in the last several years where I’ve really, like, hunkered down and stuck with some skill/craft/whatever.
(I don’t like “hunkered down” but didn’t have a better idea and so I tempered it with the preceding “like”.)
It was easy to do that because it’s a series of classes in a pre-structured system of levels.
I wish everything was like that.
If I DID want to be a saxophonist (and I now feel obliged, since I keep using that as my example, to point out that I don’t), I’d wish there were like, Saxophone 101 and Saxophone 201 and Saxophone 301, and that all I had to do was sign up and show up and follow the instructions.
Maybe I can fucking fake my way through that, by like, forcing myself to set aside blocks of time to practice whatever I’m doing that isn’t learning the saxophone.
Anyway:
Remember improv?
I had an early classmate who told an established performer after seeing his show, “what you guys do is like magic!”, and he snickered and told her she wouldn’t feel that way in a few months.
And it’s true.
And one of the big moments of truth for me was when I realized that all of the talented, established performers that I looked up to, who seemed to know what they were doing and had no problem doing it, were all just motherfuckers and didn’t know what they were doing either.
They knew more than I did and were better than I was, but it wasn’t like, “I have now crossed a line and declare myself competent.” They just fucked around and picked shit up in baby steps until their fucking around got decent.

Other stuff is the same way, right?
If I had a saxophone (it’s a good example, but I keep feeling obliged to insist that I actually don’t want to play the sax, but at this point it’s turning into one of those things where someone keeps shouting that they’re not gay and so you think they’re gay… so yeah, you probably think this is all about saxophones. Fuck you.) (it bothers me that I ended a sentence in those parentheses and then started a new one with a capital letter, but didn’t start the initial parenthetical aside with a capital letter, and now this sentence has gotten bogged down in parentheses and I’ma start over.)
If I had a saxophone, I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with it.
So I’d take a lesson at best, or Google my way through some dumb tutorial website at worst.
And I’d make horrible noises for a while.
Somewhere down the line, I’d randomly talk to some fucker who’d be like “Hey, y’know what helped me with saxophones? When I realized that I should (saxophone advice).” And I’d do that.
And I’d pick it up.
Like with improv, someone would say something in passing and I’d be all “that’s interesting” and I’d incorporate it.
Still do.
And sometimes it’s even a big thing and gets me over some hump.
Other stuff is the same.

Or wait, sketch comedy.
Seemed intimidating before I took a class.
I wrote my first sketch after my first day of class and looked at it on the computer screen and thought “whoa, I just wrote a sketch“.
Like I had achieved some mystical thing.

That’s it… it all seems like abstract concepts.
Like, verbing a noun, when I don’t know how to do it, seems like it should involve arcane knowledge.
But it doesn’t.
It’s quick and dirty and nobody knows what the fuck is going on.
Some fucker with a sax knows some basic shit I don’t know and they make some noises and they’re a little bit pleased but not that much and they didn’t think it would sound quite like that and they just wish they could be Coltrane already.

I always want to do the thing really well.
Like, learn all you need to learn, and then do it expertly.
It’s a nice thought, I guess, but I need to remind myself to do it badly first.
Which sucks a little bit, because I don’t like doing things badly.
Even when they’re in private and no one will ever know, I feel like I let myself down.

Jad Fair doesn’t even know how to play the guitar. He just does it anyway.
That’s what was cool about punk when it started, was that fuckers just made noises to see what they could cause.
Fuck mystification.