Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Insane In The Membrane (Insane In The Brain!)

So I wrote gobs of stuff yesterday. I stayed up the night before puking out sheet music. I slept for almost five hours, then got up and spent the day puking out more sheet music and writing more songs. I felt manic. I felt inspired. I felt a little bit like a crazed lunatic. I took a few breaks to graze on various things in my refrigerator. A friend knocked on my door and brought me Vietnamese food. I left the room a couple of times but mostly I just let myself get lost in the saga of Goat Man. It was really great.

Today hasn't been as great. I overslept and my plan to clean/rearrange my room so I can use it as a recording studio tomorrow turned into quite the complicated affair. I even ended up leaving my cave (and my project!) for several hours to see some old friends from college that were briefly in town. I'm glad I got to see them, but all of the conversations were about practical, adult-type things like grad school, finances, and interior decorating. I sat there in my new fur beret and felt like I was on a completely different planet.

Here in the commune, we refer to "normal, functioning members of society" (those with corporate jobs, practical life plans, spouses, houses, children, etc.) as "balloons in orbit." I have never really fit into that "balloon world," but now that I'm living in a community of artists and am pouring hours of my life into writing a rock opera about anthropomorphic goat men, I feel as thought I've fallen out of the orbit completely and am floating around in an entirely different galaxy.

That sounded a lot more cosmic than I intended it to. But you get the point.

In other news, as I was cleaning my room today, I discovered that I still had a pile of crap belonging to Tweaked Out Elvis Costello. We really only hung out for about a week and a half, but somehow that was enough time to acquire the following items:
- a broken amp
- a shorted guitar cable
- two bad microphones
- a stove top

For whatever reason, he stopped talking to me and I hardly ever see him. But I still had all of his junk. So I piled it outside of my room with his name on it and sent him a "COME PICK UP YOUR CRAP" text message. The pile disappeared sometime early this afternoon while I was in my room cleaning, so I can only assume he picked it up.

But the pile was there long enough for The Poet to see it and ask me about it when I was in the kitchen making tea. "Okay, kid, I get why you might have his amp, but...a stove??? What the hell was that all about???" he says, raising an eyebrow.

I am laughing so hard that it takes me forever to tell him about the time Tweaked Out Elvis Costello insisted on bringing his stove into my room to cook spaghetti.

"Lauren!" says The Poet, laughing so hard he can barely talk. "Next time there's a boy, NO STOVE TOPS AFTER A WEEK AND A HALF!"

That sounds like a really good rule to live by.

Aaaaand now I should get back to Goat Man. I think I'm ready to focus again. I think I feel another episode of the crazy brain thing coming on. Time to rock and roll.

Over and out, comrades.

10 comments:

  1. Is that why you were cooking spaghetti on your toilet? All makes sense now!

    And, I feel like I'm somewhere between balloons in orbit and wherever you are. I don't think I could ever fully let go and focus on my art or anything...I'd be way too scared to do that. I keep searching for that perfect balance - a way to have a comfortable life and do something I love. Urgh.

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  2. Yes, that is why I was cooking spaghetti on my toilet. That is not an activity I naturally partake in.

    Yeah, I'm probably going to have to step into the orbit a little bit sometime soon and get a job that supplies me with a steady source of income. It's not easy to balance living comfortably and doing what you love to do. Haha, look at me - I haven't had hot water since the 22nd! :P

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  3. are you an elvis in love?


    sorry, I feel like a gossipy teenager all of a sudden.

    ps: the balloons in orbit thing is perfect. I finally feel like I'm out of a world where people want me to be a "balloon in orbit", funny how leaving new york could do that to me. :)

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  4. Congrats on escaping from the balloon world!

    And haha, no, I am definitely not in love Elvis, nor is he in love with me. However, his ego is so big that he is convinced that the newest song I wrote and recorded is all about him. Naturally, Old Hippy Poet shared this bit of information with me and I laughed for about a half an hour afterwards. Then I wrote a song entitled "That Song Was Not About You, But This One Is." Lyrics include "I don't want your stove and if your broken amp sits there one more day, I'm selling it on the Internet."

    Hopefully that meets your gossipy teenager needs. :D Hehe.

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  5. Cooking spaghetti on the toilet??!! That sounds wonderful!! Talk about multi-tasking!

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  6. Man, I love creative rushes like that. I actually wrote three songs in one day earlier this month after not writing for almost four months. It felt great. Anyway, what I actually meant to say was that I want to hear some more of your work!

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  7. Old Hippy Poet has the best one-liners. And apparently words to live by. A week and a half is the rule of thumb - i think i can live with that lol

    i'm really need to google/wiki what a rock opera really is so i'm more aware as to what exactly you're writing. but either way, i'm excited for your potential famosity from it ;)

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  8. Justin - Thank you! :) And your comment about being on acid was so fantastic that I had to read it out loud to my hippy friends last night when it rolled into my inbox. I think maybe the entire world is tripping out except us so it seems like we are the crazy ones. It's a likely hypothesis, right? Haha.

    TbR - I do plenty of fridge-gazing as well. It's generally foreplay to fridge-grazing. And Old Hippy Poet has become one of my favorite people here. The things he says are often pretty profound.

    Bi - I don't know if "wonderful" is the word I would use. But there is photographic evidence: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nIBfM-fEYb4/TMC5lS_itdI/AAAAAAAAAiI/KdWlVLcv7m0/s1600/IMG_0665.JPG

    Matt - Nice! I want to hear some of your songs sometime!
    And maybe I'll put some Goat Man stuff up here. You know, if I feel brave.

    Daniela - A rock opera is a close cousin of a musical. Actually, my project is turning into more of a full blown musical. I don't know if there will be any famosity involved, but we'll see what happens. Haha.

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  9. You can find some of my stuff here. This is all I have available anywhere. None of my "rock" work is anywhere yet because I haven't formed a band, so this'll just have to do.

    http://www.last.fm/music/Serrulata

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  10. "That Song Was Not About You, But This One Is" sounds like a really great song. Any chance we'll get to hear it?

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