Grrrr. I have been trying to listen to podcasts. Because, you know, since I’m doing some, people suggest ones I might want to listen to. That makes sense, right? I might learn something, which would be a good thing, since I’m pretty much making it up as I go along here.
There are several problems with this, however.
1—I do not listen to things. I do not watch things. When I’m working the only sounds are Moe’s adenoidal snoring and the baying of the bloodhound who lives down the alley and is slowly, slowly driving me fucking insane.
(Yes, I’ve called Animal Control. And, when that did no good, the police department (as a noise complaint), and apparently the next step is to file a complaint. Like this is something I actually want to do, you know? With people who live mere houses away from me. People who do not care that their dog is unhappy and calling for attention/help/a bitch in heat.)
I do not listen to music in the studio except under specific circumstances. I don’t listen to audio books or tv or the news or TED talks or radio or iTunes or ANYTHING in the studio. I need silence, with just the incessant chatter of my brain to keep me company.
(Wire in the Blood had an episode the other night (watched during dinner, which is a whole nother thang, of course) in which The Token Wacko Guy wouldn’t speak and wanted total silence so he could hear the voice in his head (which turned out not to be in his head after all, which is both reassuring but also scary and, anyway, has nothing to do with me, since the only voice I hear in my head is my own, sadly. I keep hoping to channel Richard Pryor, but I’m not sure that’s going so well: I hear a lot of “motherfucker” in a voice that sounds vaguely like his, but that could just be my own brain having found some secret stash of crack that I know nothing about.))
2. Podcasts suck. No, not all podcasts. Some, I’m sure, are marvelous. Many, in fact. Maybe all of them except the ones I’ve listened to! OK, maybe even THOSE don’t suck; maybe it’s that I don’t understand the Art & Science of Podcasting. Yeah, that’s it. I’m clueless. I’ll concede that. But here’s the thing: if a podcast is supposed to be about Person A, somebody to whom I’d actually like to listen, someone I know or would like to know or who might have something interesting or informative or entertaining to say—if the podcast is advertised (and we use that word loosely, OK?) to be about Person A, and then I go and tune in/download the podcast, and it’s got 13 goddamn minutes of self-indulgent rambling and giggling and self-promotion and odd bits of music by someone who obviously just enjoys the hell out of hearing their own voice amplified over a headset?
Well, honeys. Life is too short for that. I don’t know if there’s anything more annoying on the planet than being forced to listen to someone who thinks their voice is a combination of crack and Audio from The Porn Line—like they’re both sexy and exciting, and that because of this, they don’t have to actually say anything of value.
One word for them: voiceovers. There are jobs out there that need voices. Please find one. You’ll be happy, we’ll be happy. There will be happiness across the land.
And then there are those podcasts/shows that I’ve bitched about before, the ones where the host talks more than the guest. If I wanted to listen to the host, I’d look for a podcast where someone interviewed her/him. I would NOT look for a podcast where s/he was the host. Right?
OK. I’ll stop here. I’ll just say that I am not going to be spending a lot of hours listening to podcasts. Not any hours, actually. I’ll be missing out on a lot of interesting stuff, and I’ll be missing tips and techniques that would make my own podcasts ever-so-much-more interesting to listen to, but that’s just going to have to be my problem. I’ll keep doing podcasts as if it’s my job to get artists to talk about what they do and stay the hell out of their way while they’re doing it, and everybody else can do whatever they do. Isn’t it great that the world is big enough for that without requiring that I spend my time listening to stuff that makes me grind my teeth? And that they can go on doing what they do and entertaining the people who love to hear them do it?
And then: self-indulgence takes even more sinister forms! Yes! Last night our across-the-street neighbors, who moved here last year from Skanksville, had another fight.
Oh, lord. How to make this short? These are the people who, when they first moved in, would sit out in the front yard and barbecue and use “The N-Word” loudly when we were on the front porch. People came, people left. We haven’t heard that word after the black guy moved in with them. We still marvel over how that one happened. When I forget to Focus, I entertain myself with various possible scenarios, which I will keep to myself. You’ll thank me for this.
These people walk up and down the street to the house down the block that used to be a half-way house and now serves as apartments for an endless succession of people with habits. We know this; a relative lived there for a while. Cops are there all the time. Ambulances. You know. Lots of Drama.
So. Lots of walking back and forth. Lots of sashaying down the middle of the street by the young women who live across the street. And I’m not using “sashaying” as in “I’m an old woman who hates it when women younger than I walk down the street looking cute.” No. I mean, “What the hell is she doing with her butt? Is there something wrong with her? And why is she doing that in the middle of the street?” We’d think they were hooking, but the middle of the Historic District at 10 on a Monday morning in July just never seemed the venue, you know?
They have fights every couple of weeks. Some of the women and some of the men will get out in the yard about 11:30 at night and start yelling and hitting things and cussing, with lights on and with much running back and forth. And then some of us will call the cops. I’ll call, and they’ll tell me someone else has already called. I foolishly believe that, if we call every time they do this, they might, as some point, get the idea that it’s not a good thing to do it out in the middle of their front yard. The Very Religious Hispanic Couple across the street will go next door and try to witness to the skanky white people, but the SWP are way, way too wasted to take it in. Plus monolingual, so it’s kind of a failed proposition all around.
In short order, half a dozen police cars will arrive. Last night one of the guys ran, so they had to chase him. They searched one of the vehicles (parked on the lawn, dontcha know?) and must have found something exciting in it, since they called a huge-ass tow truck, one of those really giant ones they drive the car onto for transport, and that make noise and light all over the street until after midngith.
Yeah, we were watching. You would have been, too.
The point? Their behavior is pure self-indulgence. They like the drama and the excitement and apparently know of no other way to get it. I’m guessing they don’t have studios. They don’t care that it disrupts the entire block, wakes up the dogs, scares the cat sleeping on our porch, makes the cops go on high alert. No. They don’t give a shit about any of that. They get drunk or high or both (slurring, staggering, yelling) and then go outside for an audience. If they’d do it inside, where no one could hear them, it would save everyone a lot of time and energy. But no: they’ve got to have an audience and some attention and some Big Drama.
And I want to go over and smack them.
Self undulgence is just another form of lack of self-discipline. I don’t care what your problems are—alcohol, crack, a bad boyfriend, gum disease, limp lifeless hair—whatever your choices are, grow up and deal with them. If they’re making you miserable, get away from them. If you like their drama, fine. But keep it to yourself.
You can do whatever you want to do by yourself, if you involve no one else. Go into your house, shut the door, and go crazy. Yell and scream and tear things up, call your significant other a “lyin’ motherfucker,” I think it was, and fall all over the floor in various dramatic and energetic postures. Go for it. Knock yourself out. Perhaps you might want to videotape it for later enjoyment?
But when you take it out in the street, out in public, out where you’re waking up people and irritating the animals, then you’re just being an asshole. It ceases to be your own business and becomes the business of the people who have to listen to you cussing and worry about whether or not you’re going to Put A Cap in His Ass for real, and the people who have to spend their time coming out and hand-cuffing you and searching your belongings and chasing your friends. You’re bothering lots of people, and that’s nothing but self-indulgence.
[You know, it’s like the toilet paper in our alley yesterday. It was used toilet paper, lying in the alley. Used as in: smeared with fecal matter, is what I’m talking about. I tweeted about this, and various responses bemoaned the sad lives of homeless people who had nowhere else to shit. And I’m like, “Huh?” Because I don’t care how destitute and pathetic and desperate you are, if you’re taking a crap in someone’s alley and then wiping yourself with Charmin (it was, indeed, a thick, embossed, bright white toilet tissue, none of the newspaper-ish stuff from public restrooms that someone might have stolen from the facilities at the public library for just such an emergency)—if you’ve got the toilet paper and are wiping your butt with it instead of, oh, figuring the rabbits who live in your underwear will clean your ass for you, then, by god, you have the fucking presence of mind to PUT THE TOILET PAPER IN THE DUMPSTER. Not doing that is pure self indulgence. For whatever reason, you let it lie where it drops, figuring it’s now someone else’s problem. Which is, indeed, exactly what it becomes.
In truth, I think the toilet paper came from someone’s trash, which means that someone in the neighborhood doesn’t quite understand the concepts of “toilet”and “flushing,” and that’s a whole nother scary thing. But we won’t worry about that now. Tomorrow, maybe.]
So. What do podcasting and domestic disturbances and toilet paper in the alley have in common? Self-indulgence.
If you’re doing something for entertainment, all by yourself, you can do whatever you want to do. Emote. Flail. Indulge your many impulses.
But when you take it out into the street/alley, you involve others. You have to consider them, think about their wants and needs and the lives they live. You have to put on your Grown-Up in Public face and try not to make other people miserable.
Huh. Doesn’t this all come down to what I preach again and again and again?
Consider Your Audience.
If you do whatever you do for you, by yourself, then you can do whatever you want. But once an audience in involved, things change. You have to consider them, what they want, what they expect.
Well. I didn’t even know that’s where this rant was going, but it sure did, didn’t it? Got there all by its own little ol’ self. So I think I’ll leave it there and go get ready to go to a wedding. Oooh: dress-up!
But only a little: it’s not my show, now, is it?
Day Dreamer with Botticelli Barbie and Rat Patrol.
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