Aww, babywantabottle?
Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 8:49AM This recent tweet from Sarah Silverman totally nailed it:
Nothing bums me out more than the 50-something never-made-it rock n roller.
So I've been thinking. It would be unreasonable to qualify that statement with "lately", as this line of thought has been an obsession for some years now, but - I've been thinking: How do I avoid being That Guy? It's more difficult than I would have thought ten or fifteen years ago. I recognize that I am still pissed off at the fates and/or certain record company execs that Deathray never "made it". I still carry all this bitter resentment and sadness over what I vainly perceive to be the tragedy of a failed career. And I know this is relatively irrational, I KNOW that. But I still can't even listen to the music we made without getting sad and pissed, and that really, really sucks.
I should just be proud of the weird little albums we made and express endless gratitude for the ride and the people who put so much hard work into that whole project, some of whom I can't even remember anymore.
I thought I had the gene, the "fuck it, it doesn't matter, I'll just pick up and do it again and again because I don't know how to do anything else" gene. But that imprinted, illogical determination just got beat out of me after literally decades of the game. My father warned me once of becoming a bitter old failed musician asshat, and at the time I took it as more negative reinforcement, you know, "screw you old man - I'm gonna MAKE it!". But, and this kills me to say it - he was right, it's a slippery 30-year-long slope.
So the question remains, how can all of that pointless and unproductive narcissism be turned around before it's not just unattractive, but actually pathological?
Hm, I dunno. I'm thinking maybe a band reunion.
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Hey - it's your Well-Adjusted Self From The Future Where Things Don't Feel Shitty Everyday,
Just a quick post: *My* future self just called (I know, right? Weird.) and said: We applied some Advanced FeeYouChur™ Algorithms to the analysis of your life, and it turns out that the universe didn't need any more awkward, mixed-up, marginally talented and massively lazy singer/songwriters named "Gumbiner", of all things. So please, get over yourself, own your faults and try to be a better person. The Poor Old Failure stereotype is soooo 2023.
Also, my Future-future self said to tell you to stop being such a fag. And because he knows what you're thinking, you uptight liberal, he said to tell you that "fag" means "asshole" in the future. I guess he could have just said, "asshole". I don't understand the future-future, either.
Oh, and Future-future self said: "You GO Girl!" That's coming back around, apparently. But for dudes, which is also weird.