I Have an Excuse...

Yeah, right. I'm lazy. That's my excuse.

No, actually that's not it. The problem is that I have 3 or 4 different sets of friends, and trying to juggle all of them equally is a little tough. For example, during the week I see Roger Mexico a lot, since he lives a few blocks from me. This weekend I spent most of my time hanging out with JohnnyB, and ended up neglecting Roger Mexico. Well, that and my pager batteries were nearly dead so I didn't know he'd been calling me.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

JohnnyB is moving back to his hometown in northeastern Ohio for a few months, which is bumming me out big time. Since he was in between jobs at the moment, and his parents were going out west for the winter, he'll be housesitting for them and taking care of the dog. It's a rational decision for him, but I'm going to be in a deep blue funk for a while. I don't do well when separated from close friends for long periods of time. (I've nearly lost it the past two summers when Roger Mexico was working on a cruise line.) Granted, he'll be coming to visit a lot, but...I'm gonna rack up some major mileage on my car, not to mention burning through a couple of vacation days. And I don't even want to think about the phone bills. I see some major emails over the next coupla months.

Since our time with him is becoming limited, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern invited us over for dinner, along with Diamond Doug, another member of our poetry group. Since Diamond Doug is a vegetarian, Rosencrantz did an experimental dinner, and we had vegetarian shepherd's pie (or sheep's pie, as we dubbed it). Yummy. I didn't even pick out the mushrooms. Of course, none of us had any idea what the "brown stuff" was (turned out to be some soy product called Vita Veggie Chunks or something along those lines)....

We theorized that Diamond Doug was secretly Bacchus. JohnnyB rarely drinks. Same with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. (I have no such excuses. I'm not a professional alcoholic, just a top seeded amateur.) With the addition of Diamond Doug to this soirée, we all proceeded to get stupid drunk. Several beers met their demise. So did a bottle of merlot. Rosencrantz broke out the port for dessert. JohnnyB discovered the Absolut Mandarin, and we killed that off. I drew the line when he started chilling shots of Kamchatka vodka. And all the while, Diamond Doug sat there and sipped on his Foster's like nothing was happening.

Anyway....

I went over to Roger Mexico's Monday night full of apologies since I'd pretty much dissed him all weekend. He guilt-tripped me for about 30 seconds, and then we fell into our usual hanging out roles: him at the keyboards composing, me on the couch hitchhiking on whatever sonic journey he's decided to undertake for the night. Most nights, I try to stay quiet while he's working, occasionally interjecting a comment like "I like that part" or "That line is nice."

That night he wanted more specific feedback. Uh oh.

If there's one job I can't handle, it's the role of critic. I know that sounds crazy since I bitch about so much stuff online, but I don't like telling someone what to think. I realize that I'm just offering my opinions, and the other party can do with my remarks as he or she pleases, but who am I to offer up my opinion in the first place?

And yes, criticism can be a beneficial thing. But it gets a bit hazy when you start talking creative projects. There is no cut and dried way to effectively dissect art. Think back to the scene in Dead Poets Society when they read the chapter at the beginning of the textbook about plotting poetry on a graph. I saw this movie when I was an English major, and I was tearing my hair out. Comparing Shakespearian sonnets to e.e. cummings, for instance, is nigh impossible. Apples and oranges, folks.

So who am I to tell Roger Mexico how to write his music? I've always thought of his music as the symphony that plays inside his head. I've seen him struggle looking for the right sound, the right filter, and the right notes to express what he hears internally. I can't do what he does. Not even if I'd kept up with my piano lessons as a kid. So how can I sit on the couch and smugly tell him that the first chord in the synchopated part is all wrong, and he needs to change it? At one point he was running through a series of effects and acted me to let him know if any of them struck my fancy. When he got to the one I liked, I simply said "There." Not there as in "I like that one and you should consider using it," but there as in "That is the perfect effect, and you shall use that one and no other, so say I." How presumptuous of me! I don't even know what I'm talking about half the time. The music theory classes I took in high school can only get me so far, and I end up making up terms to get my point across. "I like that pointy line. Did you do anything with the underwater thingie you were working on the other night?" Jeez.

I'll be the first to admit that I have odd tastes, and I try not to subject others to my opinions as The Law. "Good" and "bad" are such subjective terms when it comes to gray areas like this. And a lot of people don't get that. They seem to think that if you don't like a certain thing, then something must be seriously wrong. For instance, Roger Mexico will not see animated features. No Disney stuff. No South Park, no Simpsons. Zappagirl thinks he's completely insane, but I respect his opinions and choose to watch The Powerpuff Girls at JohnnyB's. (Oh wait. Not anymore. Sigh.) Your opinion is just that, folks. An opinion that you hold as your own. You may choose to use someone else's critical remarks as a guideline, but it never is the gospel truth.

And I will admit it, that beat in Roger Mexico's newest song that I so vehemently insisted needed to be cut has grown on me. That sneaky guy knew what he was doing all along.