Interlude

E: be honest, Bottle, is there a point to all of this? 

B: you know me better than that, Skip. I'm always honest, and there's never an actual point to the points i sharpen. I guess it's kind of implied that a lot of newer albums are going to directly tackle the socio-politiconomic snafu of the previous half-decade, and a lot of older albums will get completely recontextualized in the process, but that's just life. What i can tell you is that the simple fact that i am here instead of out in whatever the road conditions actually are right now is a paradigm shift of epic proportions. 

Back in the day it was expected that you would either get there, die trying, or get fired. Not worth it. Granted, i am in a position of privilege to just take a day of vacation and try again tomorrow, but it took a completely unnecessary and exhausting amount of standing firm and drawing lines in the sand to get there. Some people are workaholics with no personal identity outside their chosen corporate function, and i will absolutely defend your right to be that way if it suits you. I however am a lifaholic and this standardized work-week thing is a counterproductive nuisance i have to slog through because the workaholics value advantage infinitely higher than existence. I, on the other hand, make a concerted effort to not treat people like they are a nuisance, but i think you'll be hard pressed like 3rd run pomegranate juice to find a workaholic who would defend my right to pause my daydream and do whatever menial task is in desperate need of doing at the moment then going back to my daydream. I raise chickens for my own benefit, i unclog drains so they drain, i'll repaint my mansion of a farmhouse by hand so the walls don't fall off, i dig holes with a shovel, i'll write a book or record an album or reshingle my roof for fun and/or necessity, but a large percentage of people look at that and only see the lack of benefit to themselves in my actions. They call me greedy and selfish for minding my own business and attempting to take care of myself, but i would consider looking at people only in terms of how they can be exploited for your personal gain to be the greedy part. I'll gladly stop what i'm doing to help anyone if it's within my abilities, but i have zero interest in polishing the chicken shit off just to sell you a dozen eggs for $1. I didn't move into the country as a business strategy, i moved to the country to get away from urban claustrophobic misanthropy. I love people, but i do not want to babysit the spoiled rich kids for a living. I am of the "money should be used to make life easier for everyone" school of economic philosophy, as opposed to the "dangle the carrot in front of the horse" philosophy. 

E: so you think billionaires shouldn't exist. 

B: the fact that that wasn't a question has been noted, Skip. I think that billionaires don't exist in the way i think you define "billionaire." I presume that you think a billionaire is a person who has a billion+ dollars, and i double-dog dare you to go out and find one. I can virtually guarantee that all you'll find is people who tightly control the flow of a localized billion+ dollar metaphorical monetary plumbing system, but actually have basically the same amount as everyone else in their wallet. Having the ability to redirect and replace my money before i notice is in no way the same as owning that money. I might or might not allow you to do it to accomplish something useful, but you don't get to pretend like you're worth the sum if i'm within earshot. Money is only worth what you can buy with it, and the options are getting slimmer by the minute because all anybody's selling is flashing lights and dumpster food. 

E: and you think a massive record collection is any better? 

B: i'll ignore the hostile undertone. No, i think if we're going to suffocate the world in a plastic bag anyway, at least with records i get a lot of personal enjoyment out of it. Running out of silicone and beach sand too, i've heard. I don't have a solution, i just know that the only way for things to get better is to stop doing things that make it worse. Doing more can't be the solution to all the problems caused by doing more, you're just banning the banning before the banner banishes the bannee, and i think even you'd agree that that's a really complicated path to get to the same place as not even bothering to start. Just recognize that potential future and don't embark upon it. Winning every game of chess doesn't mean you're good at playing chess, it merely means your opponents aren't as good as you. 

I love to draw, read, write, play music, listen to music, i'd love to have the time and money to experiment with building amplifiers and effects, but the only people currently handing me money voluntarily do so in return for me driving a forklift, hauling furnaces and water heaters from one side of the building to another, and picking heavy and/or dirty objects up off the floor. As far as jobs go it's pretty easy, but i certainly wouldn't call it fulfilling. If you squint just right you'll notice that "jobs" are merely the parts of some business that most people don't like doing, namely picking up heavy/dirty things, cleaning up garbage, and counting. 

I am in the general sense an artist, not an entrepreneur. The need for elaborate machinations to solicit pennies from anyone who might casually experience what i do nauseates me, and i wonder how the concept of basic financial patronage in return for free use of all the things my brain tells my fingers to do can be so repugnant. That's all any business actually is; a place that does a thing everyone generally financially supports in some way. What i don't like is the false facade of it all. 

Here's a good example. I say McDonald's and i bet you think "fast food restaurant." Certainly McDonalds was in its beginnings one of many businesses that served food quickly, but that's not what McDonalds is today. Today, McDonalds is merely the trademark protected marketing assets of a global processed food distributor. I don't like and therefore don't eat their food, and that affects them in no way whatsoever. The vast majority of people do regularly eat their brand of food, so it's highly unlikely that you could start your own successful fast food restraunt even if you wanted to. 

Personally, i'd much rather be a one man record label/store, but it's unlikely to ever actually happen. Not enough people share my eclectic enthusiam for audio absurdity/atrocity. I have zero interest in trying to trick anyone into buying records via me as middleman, but that in turn means you'd have to want to buy records from me as opposed to someone else and that's fairly ridiculous. You'd be commiting your hard earned money to pay for whatever bizarrity i actually produce. Plus, you've seen that i'm not bluffing; i'm crazy enough to actually do it. I'd totally do it if you actually wanted me to. 

S: no one in their right mind is going to send you money just to see what you produce with it. 

B: i know, Sandra. That's what i just said, but i would totally hold up my end of that bargain if reality suddenly shifted to accomodate it. In fact, if you just take a step to the left, i think you'll find that is the actual shape of reality under all the clown makeup. You buy a thing you like and suddenly that artist has monetary permission to materialize their next crazy idea, which statistically speaking you probably won't like. All i'm proposing is removing the preliminary popularity contest. 

E: but then people will just do whatever obnoxious thing they feel like without remorse or intelligence! 

B: i disagree, and that's because you're forgetting that most of that obnoxious stuff is a retaliatory placebo for being forced to endure abject psychological torture in the first place. Naughty isn't necessarily enticing for very long or for its own sake, its a reaction to authoritarian nonsense. It's only exciting if it's illegal or taboo, it's merely the adrenaline rush of disobedience that keeps it going. Yes, of course there will still be murder and hate and crime, but there will be much less of it because it won't be motivated by the clash of enterprising intentions. Limiting the scope and avenues for success logically increases the amount and severity of failure. People take out their frustrations in the most convenient way possible, the solution is removing/alleviating the source of that frustration not punishing them for already being frustrated. That doesn't magically turn the universe's frown upside down, but it is progress in the right direction. Making progress is the spark of hope that propels us forward, squashing it to a pulp is what devolves us into animals. No one seriously aspires to be a drug dealer or a car thief or a quack doctor, they end up in that position by having obstacles constantly thrown down at them by the mountain climbers higher up and it becomes the quickest way to delude themselves into feeling like they're moving forward on a treadmill. 

Regardless, if there's one thing people understand about me, i hope it's this: Watching people try to gaslight each other into believing a fictional reality for the storyteller's benefit raises my blood pressure, and the only way i know to lower it again is to loudly proclaim "bullshit!" I'll gladly sell you a story if i know you know it's a story, but i'll never corroborate a swindle. 

So, in that respect i made myself a promise. If you say "hey Bottle, i made a thing," i'll reply "awesome! How can i buy a copy from you?" If the answer is "pay this guy to pay that guy to pay those people so i can keep the change" then there's a reasonable chance i'll pass, but if you ask my friends they will corroborate that i ended up giving them more than they asked for. Conversely, you can take anything i create and do whatever you want with it. Once i puke it out i have very little need or use for it, it's the doing part i enjoy. Pay me what you're willing to pay me, but don't avoid it like you secretly feel guilty if you can't afford it. Avoid it because you honestly don't like it, or just don't have time for my silliness. Not that i think anyone is doing that, it's just part of how i think, like the fact that i try to buy most of the albums i review. I pay for it and then express my honest opinion because you almost have to intentionally try to make something i can't like in some way. I am after all attempting to appreciate it, and i only point out places where i feel like you're flat out lying to me. That's the universal "you" by the way. It's also how we all know that i'm rambling on way too long and it's time to shut my own yap. I wonder what album will percolate to the top of the stack next. We'll find out later, right now i've got more snow to shovel before we take some ibuprofen and give tomorrow another try. Toodles.

Skinny Puppy