The descent beckons, as the ascent beckoned.
-William Carlos Williams

~ It was Thanksgiving weekend for me and my fellow Canadians. Monday morning I scraped myself out of bed and had a shower. When I got out, I wiped the condensation away from the mirror and looked at myself and said, “LIFE HAS NO MEANING.”

Then I gave thanks for the privilege of being able to go back to bed until 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

~ I have a show on Thursday, October 24 at Reflections. It’s the Swordfight Records second anniversary party. I was thinking that it would be fitting if this show were also a release party for a new CD on the label. So I typed up an email to tell people all about the new Spinoza CD. (Spinoza is my one-man band with distorted bass, drum machine and throat.)

But there is no new Spinoza CD. There aren’t even any new Spinoza songs. Spinoza hasn’t written a new song since August 2001. I haven’t been playing the bass as much, ever since I got tendinitis last year. Writing songs on the bass hurts.

Putting out the CD will involve writing and recording at least seven new songs in a week-and-a-half.

I pushed the “send” button on the release announcement and thought, “Let’s see if I don’t write some songs now, by Christ.” Then I picked up my bass, banged out a few chords and promptly broke a string. There were only three strings on the damn thing to begin with. I just sat there in the studio control room thinking, “Music hates me. Why do I try? I’m an idiot. Life has no meaning.”

I sat there and played my two-string bass for seven hours.