52songs is my project to write one song every week this year, no matter how terrible. By hook or by crook.

Momma Bear

This week was interesting for a number of reasons.  I hit a number of roadblocks but had some great friends/mentors who helped me jump the barriers (including the ones that forced me into publishing on the very last day of the week).  Here's what this process was like...

I had the basics of the rhythm part, and was working on a melody.  I knew what I wanted the song to be about (or thought I did) and couldn't figure it out.  Then I randomly started thinking about my mom, and that this week was her birthday, and then I realized I was writing a song about her, and things were falling together really quickly.

For lyrics, I sat down and free associated some thoughts about my mom.  Here's some of the things that I wrote down:

• My mom had seven kids, and probably would have loved to have more.
• Last week, I called my mom to ask her about her plans for her dad's funeral to find out that she didn't know.  I don't need to point out that I'm not the most sensitive guy, and I wasn't prepared, so I felt really bad about being the bearer of bad news.
• Mom has probably 5 stories about me as a kid that she tells EVERYONE. I tried my best to incorporate some of those into the song.
• My mom is fearless.  My mom is a momma bear in the best way ever: she's emotional.  Don't mess with her cubs, because whether you deserve her wrath or not, you're gonna get it.

After I got everything together, I suddenly hated this song.  I hated it. HATED. IT.  It was juvenile, and shallow.  Then I thought about my mom, and that she would love it, much like all those pictures that she would hang on the fridge when I'd bring them home from (high) school.  No one else mattered.

And then I thought I needed to polish it more.  GarageBand and Logic are horrible for composing.  Horrible.  They have hundreds of instruments and all sorts of effects.  I got lost in recording this beast.  I'd written the song, but were getting caught up in producing the song.  I had a good friend who sent me an email about it (posted with permission):

Just [expletive] record it.  Use a tape recorder if need be.  Throw out autotune and effects pedals and reverb and drum machines.  Write the song.  Record it. Publish it. Walk away.  Who cares if it sounds cheesy, and you couldn't get the vocals right.  Your project is to WRITE a song a week, not produce an album-ready song every week.

Writers write a book and then it's set in stone. Musicians dont have that problem. Every time we perform the song, it can be a new song. You can keep [expletive] with it, and you should.  It'll suck the first 100 times you play it, and then it'll be awesome.

Just record the [expletive] song.

So yeah, it's a horrible recording.  I learned a lot about Logic, and will probably use it again to do this, although not right away.  Outside of learning to program drums, I think a single-take recording is probably fine.

I suck.

I'm finishing up this week's 52songs song.  It's been good exercise for me, I've gotten to convey the things I wanted to convey, but I can't help but think "This song isn't as great as I think it should be."  It probably could be better.  I could be a better guitar player.  I could play piano better.  I could sing better.

The more I think about it though, I don't write these songs to not suck. I write these songs because it's helping me grow. It's helping me think about music.  It's helping me be creative.  It's helping me put myself out there and be vulnerable and experience that sharing.

I'm reminded of a JFK quote when he talked about going to the moon:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

So yeah, I suck.  But I don't do write music because it is easy. I do it because it's hard.  I do it because (most importantly) it makes me happy, even though I suck at it.  One day, maybe I'll suck less at it.  If I don't, I'm going to continue sucking, and enjoying life sucking.

As with all of the things that break the threshold of my brain enough to be blogged about, this one comes with a change of thought for me.  I don't want to tell anyone they suck.  I don't even want to tell anyone they could "be better."  I want to be a cheerleader for the world.  I want to cheer people on to do things they never thought they could do, and keep trying the things they want to do.

I encourage you to join me on this journey.

52songs is my project to write one song every week this year, no matter how terrible. By hook or by crook.

I'll Go With You by knoxvillerecital

I co-wrote this song with Keaton Simons.  It's technically the first song I've written/performed/recorded in a very long time.  It was the kick that got me writing music again.  I came to Keaton with a chord progression, he found a melody, we free-associated some lyrics, and it all seemed to come together.

We wrote the song for my wife.  The song is titled "I'll Go With You" because her greatest fear is that I'll die before her and she'll be left here.  The song serves as my way of saying "No matter where you go here on earth, I'll go, and I won't leave until you do."

2011 was a great year for me.

Seriously, I think it's been one of the best years of my life.

I changed jobs, and that transition went better than could ever be expected in a new job (I'm still at Canonical, just on another team).  From the end of May to a few weeks ago, I worked on a pretty core feature for Ubuntu One's web apps: music streaming.  I learned a lot about the web, how browsers work, and a lot about myself (including the fact that I can physically work 46 hours straight).  It's been a blast.

I started learning more about business. It started with a misfire in real estate classes, financial consulting classes, and some pretty boringtechnical business books. It continues today with some fantastic mentors, a subscription to Harvard Business Review (which I read every month like clockwork), and a few successful businesses (in a ramen-successful way).

I founded Toyceratops with Jess Smart Smiley and released Skeleton Jump. I have some bugs to fix there, and more levels to make, but we should have an update soon.

I've also created a shelter for all the quick 'n' dirty freelancing I do, as well as all the side projects I've been playing around with.  In general, I'm not just hacking anymore.  I think about what the business viability to what I'm hacking on is.  If it has some potential, I add it to the slew of Amelia properties. If it doesn't, I just stop working on it.  Expect some really great things to come out of it soon.

Amelia and Toyceratops are both *slightly* profitable (assuming Apple eventually releases the funds for the sales we've had).  That's pretty awesome, actually.

I started investing my money this year.  I've managed to do pretty well.  I'm still a bit timid about it, but I'm working on taking bigger and bigger risks.  In at least one case, I was accidentally a war profiteer, as I own some oil stocks that shot up during the conflict in Libya.

Finish off this year with a much needed kickstart to my interest in creating music.

Yes, 2011 has been good to me.

So, about that 2012...

I don't want to set stupid goals.  Every year I set some goals that make no sense 6 months down the line because they're too context specific.

In general, what I do isn't the be-all-end-all of what makes me happy. There were, however, two things that made me really happy: Skeleton Jump and writing I'll Go With You.  Both of those things are very creative.

So what I want to do is this: I'd like to release 4 more iPhone games in 2012. I'd also like to write a song a week, regardless of if the end result is terrible. I just want to "get the suck out".  Being creative makes me happy.  I want to do more of it.

That's it. That's all I want out of 2012. I'm sure I'll get more out of it, but I'd like to have some very high level goals that kind of shape what those little things are.

I've been to more parties this weekend than I have been to the whole rest of the year combined.  I even braved my pseudo-autism sensory overload, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Having gone to all these parties, I've met lots of fantastic people.  However, how do you take a person you just met and make them your "friend" (Facebook friends don't count...)  This made me think of a very apt segment of "Louie" all about this.

My buddy Bronan is a student of "so-called" game.  A person like me doesn't really fit in with that whole idea, since I'm married and have no desire to "pick up chicks".  Bronan talks about this "game" so often that I was interested in the things he was learning at talking about, purely from an academic standpoint.  I borrowed Roosh V's "Bang" and "Day Bang" and read them cover to cover.  Here's what I found.

The Truths

As I read through both of them, I immediately related to a lot of it.  The recurring theme about the "red pill" rings true to me, and I understand the idea of an "alpha male" in our society.  In fact, despite what others think, I would consider myself an alpha male, because I don't blame anyone for my misfortune, and I make my own destiny.  I work hard to achieve my goals.

This recurring theme made me change my mind about these books.  When I borrowed them, I figured they'd all be about how to manipulate women to sleep with you.  They are about that too, but I found that they were also about helping men who have no confidence and no experience talking to people to get out there.  Roosh seeds your experiences with some lines to start conversations and keep them going, but encourages the reader to tweak those lines and create their own, eventually.  He talks in detail about how to immediately tell if you're getting somewhere with a girl or whether to move on.  This, right here, is pretty noble.

Roosh also goes out of his way to point out that you shouldn't 

I also appreciate that Roosh talks about not spending too much time trying to impress the girl you're talking to by building yourself up.  This is a great way to be labeled a douche in my circles.  The reasoning for it is one part remaining "mysterious" and one part manipulative, so I'm not sure I entirely agree with the why, but I definitely feel it's important to not enter a conversation trying to build up your own worth.

The Lies (or, in some cases, the sad truths)

The part I didn't like was the manipulative stuff.  Roosh uses back-handed compliments to tease a target.  It wasn't heavy on the manipulation, but it still happens, and I still felt myself repulsed by it.  There are regularly statements like the following (from "Day Bang"):

When it comes to how you view the girls you're approaching, I'd be careful about having too much respect for them.  While I'm not saying you should hate women, my initial impression of them is that they're lubricated holes that exist mostly for a man's sexual pleasure.

Ugh.  I found that a little too far.  I'm not a huge fan of feminism, but I'm also not a fan of treating women like they don't mean anything.  "Day Bang" is full of these kinds of statements.  It's sad really.

But here's the sadder part: Let's think about game design for a second.  We play games because we like achievements.  If we didn't win, we wouldn't play.  So let's apply that thinking to this "game".  If doing all these manipulative things, and remaining "mysterious" didn't work so often with women, men wouldn't do them.  The sad truth is that they do.

Feminists, you should be educating women more often than going after men with how they perpetuate the cycle.  Men only perpetuate it because it works, and if it ain't broke, why fix it (I completely understand why we fix it, but I'm a little less of the evolutionary 'alpha male').

In the end...

Roosh had some excellent points, and I think that the best thing to take away from his books is how to use artificial means to seed something that eventually leads to something natural, i.e. good conversation, good relationships with people, etc.  He also had some points I don't agree with encouraging, but can understand why he encourages them (read: they work, unfortunately).

I liked "Bang" a little more than "Day Bang" since the latter has more overlap with what I know (I don't drink, and I don't care for bars), and because "Day Bang" left out some of that "control your own destiny and take responsibility for yourself"-type talk that I enjoyed in "Bang".

To come back to game design, I think Roosh and the "game" aficionados are playing the wrong game.  They celebrate every time they beat the first world of Super Mario Bros, and then reset the game and start over to beat the first level again.  They do this over and over, learning each time that their princess is in another castle.  So they reset, and search the same castle and celebrate when they, once again, find they're princess is still not in that castle.

I prefer to progress through the game, let things get harder, and get much better at playing the larger game (a compilation of many worlds that we call "life").

I work at home and am introverted. Large groups of people provide too much input for me (I'm not autistic, I checked).  I tend to like to do things on my own.  In fact, this makes me slightly selfish, and just a little bit grumpy when things aren't exactly my way.

Needless to say, I don't have very many friends.

Or so I thought.

Yesterday, we released Skeleton Jump on the App Store.  The outpouring of awesome comments from everyone around me has been so many times more than I could ever have expected.  Despite my best efforts, I'm surrounded by the best people in the world.

I'm glad to have you all.  Thanks for who you are.

I'm not a very good leader.  The hardest time during my two-year stint as an LDS missionary was when I was in a leadership position.  I do very well with people one-on-one, but I can't lead a group of people.  Because I see this weakness, I've been thinking a lot about it, and reading lots of books, and trying to figure out how I can become a better leader.

Two weeks ago, I went to watch my good friend (I'd venture to say bestedest friend, but he might be surprised to hear that) Paul Madsen play football against Boise State.  I hate Boise State. With. A. Passion.  That really wasn't why I was there though.  I was there to watch my friend.  I've had the opportunity to watch him play on TV, and was excited to see him play live.

Paul is a team captain for Colorado State, as well as an offensive linemen.  He's not the person I would initially think of when I think of a strong leader of a football team.  He's kind and helpful, rather than alpha male testosterone/steroid man.  I giggled as I saw him standing with the other captains, who certainly stood rather broody.  He stood calm and collected while the other captains jumped around and tried to "get pumped" for the game.

Here's the thing though: I never watch offensive lineman (I usually like the defensive side of football more), but I did this time because I had a vested interest in at least one of those linemen.  So I watched Paul on every offensive snap that CSU took.  I watched as Paul would go out on the field and do his job (shove people around), and then come back to the bench and wait for his turn to go back out on the field.

There was a strong dignity about how he carried himself.  I didn't notice how it affected the other offensive linemen until Paul got hurt in the second quarter.  After he left the game, I couldn't watch them anymore, because the offensive line just fell apart.  They were a mess, and the successes they did get were completely serendipidous (the game ended 63-13 to Boise State).

That's the kind of leader I'd like to be.  I don't want to be the in-your-face "we can do it" kind of leader.  I'd rather be the leader that leads by doing my job.  I'd like to do that job with humility and dignity, and I'd like that to permeate out to the people around me.  I think that's well within my reach.

I think it's funny that I learned this lesson from football, since the only other leadership advice that I've taken strictly to heart is from my favorite movie: Remember the Titans.

A few weeks ago, I had an altercation that I had been expecting for some time.  It involved a member of my wife's family and, as family problems go, this one was a ticking time bomb.  Even as we tried to resolve any issues, things just got worse as one of the family members involved continued to spout hatred.  As part of this followup, my wife was told that I was dishonest.  This family member said that I was a liar, and that I was lying to her.  Hurtful things were said about me.  I wasn't involved in the conversation (and technically, this other member of the family wasn't supposed to be either).  It's taken this long for things to sink in, for me to meditate over, and to make some decisions and goals.

Here are the things that I'm taking away:

When receiving criticism, find the truth and let everything else go.  Right out of high school, I got a job working at the same place that my dad worked.  There were a few people there that were terrible at harnessing their emotions, and I regularly got yelled at and blamed for things that were well outside of my fault and endured no end of abuse.  This doesn't sound like an ideal job, but having my dad there mentoring me made it an amazing growing experience.  Oftentimes, when the boss would yell at me for something, there were valid points made about my performance.  My dad taught me that I should evaluate the criticism, find the validity, and don't give the rest a single thought.

I spend some time thinking "Am I dishonest? Do I lie to my wife?"  I've come to the conclusion that while I'm not perfect, to say I'm dishonest would be a gross exaggeration.  Along with that, I can safely say that outside of covering for surprise parties and Christmas gifts, I have never lied to my wife (something I've stayed very focused on since we were married).  It would be possible for me to be more forthcoming, and for me to make changes that could make me more honest, and so I set some goals that way.

The true test of adulthood is whether you can control your emotions.  When it comes to conflict, there are lots of emotions that can come about.  I felt lots of feelings, including indignity, anger, sadness, and judgmental.  I don't think there's much point in feeling bad about those feelings.  They're knee jerk reactions.  I do think it's important to keep those emotions in check.  Responding to emotional input with emotional responses is like trying to put fire out with kerosene.  I've found that it's best to bite your tongue, bridle your passions, and use logic to sort things out.

When your values are clearly defined, a crisis isn't quite so bad.  I spent a lot of time agonizing over all of these events.  I wanted to make sure that any wrongs that I've done were righted.  I wished that it didn't have to explode in powder-keg fashion, and that we could deal with things like adults.  Out of all these things though, I never doubted what I valued.  I knew where I was headed, and while I may have needed some course correction and may have needed to realign myself, I didn't need to re-think my destination.  I think that's the most important thing I can take away from this.

I wish this story had a happy ending.  It hasn't yet, and I suspect it's going to get worse before it gets better, but I feel like I've walked through this most recent test of character and learned some of the lessons I needed to learn.