Stone Smile 003 — Possible Gossip

Sometimes I get patience confused with laziness.

Sometimes I get productivity in some areas confused with a lack of productivity in others.

“Possible Gossip” from my last record, Derecho, is about this.

If possible gossip is getting you down

If possible keep both your feet on the ground

Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up with the thing you think you should be doing and ignore the thing you actually should do. A lot of this “should” is about the feelings of other people. And a lot of that ends up being about speed. When you do something can feel as important as the actual doing.

Movies are a great example of something that simply takes a long time. Coming to filmmaking from the freewheeling and often slapdash world of making records and going on tour, I had some trouble getting acquainted with the near-geologic timescale of making movies. Patience and fortitude are not obvious bedfellows, but my favorite filmmakers—my friends Fernando Andres, Lance Oppenheim, Jacob Roberts, and others among them—exemplify that unique combination.

“When” is big in music. There’s so much cache associated with simply being young or younger, new or newer. The music industry at large fetishizes newness. Why is there a Best New Artist category at all? Why do people glorify the so-called “27 Club” who can never not be new? It’s a tragedy. If your first record flops, most labels won’t support the second. It all contributes to discouraging longevity, that wonderful ambling discovery of patience. All musicians get caught in the dragnet of youth, and only a lucky few manage to wrangle out.

Filmmakers, and especially film scorers are every age. My longing for a more patient scene was one of the factors that drew me towards filmmaking. The horizon feels longer and calmer.

It’s easy to carry away all of your time

‘Til you run out of line

Gossip encompasses more than the rumors of others, it gathers the rumors we tell about ourselves. At its most insidious, gossip is a purely internal system. We make the gossip that we fear and feed it back to ourselves. It’s a dangerous loop. Social media is at the heart of this, but you knew that already.

So beware

If possible gossip is there

You gotta believe in yourself to be clear with yourself about everyone else

They don’t care

When are times you confuse patience with laziness? I run or bike almost every day and sometimes feel lazy for not going out in the rain. That’s not laziness, that’s patience. I’m going to play the guitar until I'm dead, and I aim to improve all the way there.

A few more orders of business:

1. We here at Specific Records are readying a re-launch of our physical zine. This time, it’s themeless and chock full of regular contributors and serialized columns. We’re hoping to publish at regular quarterly or bi-monthly intervals and distribute it through a subscription model. Look out for a more formal announcement in the coming months. Reach out to me at aw@specificnorthwest.info if you’re interested in contributing.

2. I feel like there’s at least one more order of business, but for the life of me I cannot recall.

See you next week.