CHEFILEPTIC

52. time drones

After I’d moved into Amy’s house by the Boardwalk, it took a few months to get any kind of music workstation set up, and I finally began to ‘ease’ myself back into music again. 

I let myself play old simple familiar cover tunes and started trying to sing.  I was a little surprised because my voice did sound good, though it seemed to have changed, and I had to re-learn how to work with it. 

As I waded into the pool of my previous obsession, I knew that beating myself up right off the bat wasn’t the way to get back in touch with my prior skillset, but I had to admit that I didn’t hit the dustiest shelf first—that is, the most recent work I had done.

Somehow, I knew that I was not totally pleased with Next Times, but I did not know why.  So, I procrastinated listening to it as long as I could.  Later, I’d learn that for a number of reasons, I’d have a big cleanup job on my hands with that one.

I instead got into a completely different kind of project, which I was able to do with my computer and a set of headphones (with very little instrument work) because I was using a bunch of material that had been recorded already, back when I lived in the apartment.  For this thing, I was mostly doing editing and mixing work.  The project, which I named Cloning Drones, was culled from about five hours’ worth of ‘noodling and looping’ tracks from when my old how’syerdey buddy Timothy Beutler had visited Santa Cruz from Berlin back in 2011 and again in 2012.  My memories of his visits are pretty foggy, but I’d been dragging the files around for a long time, because I knew I could make something out of them sometime.  Spring of ‘14 ended up being the time.

I got way into making Cloning Drones because I was able to work with something that was already recorded.  It all just needed to be sorted through and cut up and stitched back together, and this gave me the chance to ease back into the world of sound production without constantly being angry at myself for having lousy chops on the instruments. 

Timothy had been living in Germany for years by that point, and I’d decided that I wanted to do this project and surprise him with it, if only because likely by then he had every good reason to think that it would probably not ever end up happening.

It’s ended up being a pretty extreme-sounding and abstract piece of instrumental and electronic work, and Timothy and I agreed after he heard it that it’s unlikely to have ‘commercial potential’, so I just posted it online for free listening.  It’s not music for everyone every day but I felt pretty sure that it would have its time and place for somebody, so I was glad to share it with whoever might be looking to listen to such a thing.  For anyone who might be listening to the podcast version of this book, it’s that crazy stuff that I’ve been using in the background when I describe my seizures.

When it was done, I got ahold of him for the first time in way too long (I think), but anyway I sent him the goods to listen to half-way ‘round the world just to say, ‘suprise brother!’.  I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to have learned with my old howsyerdey bandmate, who had grown into a true music-master over the years.  See, I could remember that kind of stuff, just not…Next Times. 

So, I finally had to take the big step and listen to that one.

Digging through old email helped me figure out that it was started in October 2011 and the CD release party was on May 24^th 2012.  I still seem to be doing really badly with this whole time period in my memory.  I mean, I knew I made the album and who had worked on it with me, but when I finally listened back to it, I couldn’t list any of the details like who did what on what tunes.  In fact, I couldn’t even list the names of the tracks in order.  This damn thing was supposedly ‘finished’ in 2012, only three years before that point, but it seemed like it might as well have been made thirty years before, because I just… couldn’t… recall.

I’ve been able to glean a lot of info about my own history from my saved emails.  In case I forget to mention it later, in my still-imaginary List of Tips For People With Memory Issues, NEVER THROW AWAY YOUR OLD EMAILS would still get the number-one spot for sure. 

By searching through my years-old email, I managed to scrape out some of the details about the album.  I sifted through the communications I could find there from that stretch of time, because I’d used that forum a lot to chat about the project with Mike and my other music friends as I’d made it.

So, I re-learned that I’d begun the project when I was living in that apartment, to begin with.  I’d managed to pay up whatever my debts were at that moment well enough that I’d figured I could both make the album and afford to print CDs of it (if I just compromised a little with the packaging, apparently). 

I was dealing with the whole stopping-driving-thing back then, and was still managing to keep working while commuting with my bicycle and using the bus.  The apartment was cheap, and not having vehicles had at least made life a little cheaper.

I wasn’t using weed or drinking at all during that time and I was clearly bored, lonely, and doing whatever I could to keep away from the pit of despair by coming home from work and writing and recording with my computer.  The apartment, as I explained before, was tiny and basically crammed with music gear.

So, I had recorded whatever I could in the apartment and then arranged with Mike to finish the album by doing stuff that needed good microphoning at quilted fish.  I was able to handle a good amount of the work at home by using my electronic drums, keyboards, bass, and electric guitar all plugged directly into my recording stuff while listening only on headphones.  This had enabled me to work late at night, without disturbing the nearby neighbors.

I guess, as usual, I was hoping at first to make something I could get others involved in, so just maybe they might possibly want to help me out yet a little more by ‘supporting’ the album when it was finished… again, I know I was a hopeless case and all. 

Anyways, I’d poked and bugged former bandmates for help with it, and ended up working most with NAP veterans Wendy (female vocals), Tim Gard (horns, viola, and mixing), and Brett Wiltshire (bass).  Tim Beutler from how’syerdey-times had co-written and recorded parts (melodica, acoustic guitar and vocals) for one of the songs from Berlin.  I’d done ‘critical microphone’ recording at quilted fish with Mike Formenti, and he and Tim Gard had helped me mix it up there.

I know that at the time I made the album, I was running a pretty basic ‘safety-first’ routine.  Basically, the more time I could spend at my place, the better, because flipping out in public would only greaten the odds that I’d end up in the flush-pipe on the whole work thing, and all the other evils that I knew could happen probably then would.  Instead, I kept myself busy with my music and writing, hoping there might be some kind of positive results—maybe even (dare I say) some way to make income that wouldn’t just stop if I spazzed in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the Boardwalk house, I recovered most of the history and details about that album with ‘research and refresh’ missions through my old emails and scraps, which I undertook before daring to re-listen to it.  Reading about it first somehow had to happen before I could listen to it.  I wasn’t ready to hear it yet.

And doing that kind of research–about my own recent past–is always weird. 

Reading back through old email (from this other guy I know was me) from three or four years back is often embarrassing and scary.  I find that not everything in that email history goes along with happy memories, and not all of the memories from making that album were positive–though most were of course, because I was communicating with some really great people. 

Thing is, now that I’m looking back at him, I see the desperate, lonely and bored bum who was bumbling along, trying to rally people to play his tunes.  That guy had apparently thought he could just stroll into quilted fish with Wendy and Tim Gard and nail all the vocals and microphoned instruments for that entire hour-long album having done minimal rehearsal, in a very short amount of time, because the rest of the parts had already been tracked in an apartment.

Then, on top of that, I guess the fool thought he’d be able to mix that all up to his delight and then his good buddy Mike could just master it all up real good in another real short amount of time… of course real fast and cheap and all. 

And finally, that loco man figured he’d just get ‘em all printed up and wrapped up and ready to roll with some low-budget printing company… woo, looks like that didn’t work out easy, either.  Apparently, there were errors with the printing, adding stress because I’d somehow made a stupid deadline by setting up a CD release party. 

So, the project had ended up under the pressures of both deadline and budget, and when I finally did listen, that was of course part of what I heard.

Hearing it was something like when I’d first heard my song “All My Machines” after a long round of seizures years back.  I knew it was me, but it was not, it was he, and it was him.  And even before I heard it, I knew that somehow, he’d let me down with this one–and I was angry at him.

With my other albums, even though they never sold any significant amount, I was always proud of them and glad to push them around as far as I can remember.  But I had some kind of chip on my shoulder with this one.  Was it the material?  The songwriting?  Did I not remember them now because they sucked so much?  Could I not recite more of the material because I was not proud of the core material itself?  I was so far from the material that I could not have told you what all I was displeased about before both researching, and then (finally) re-listening to it.

I had figured that I’d still be pleased that it was mine after hearing it; I was probably mostly just freaked out by the fact that reading the titles did not make me able to play or recall the material very well… it was so damn recent but yet it was so lost in my memory. 

So, when I finally threw it in and listened, I was pleased in some ways, but that wasn’t good enough.

Really, it sounded to me like a project that was going pretty well, but then got rushed together at the end and came off sounding amateurish and short-of breath.  So, it was a disappointment.  I was after all, still hoping that I’d put any doubts immediately to rest by hearing it, and unfortunately that didn’t happen.

I was displeased with a number of details that all seemed to be things I could and should have noticed and fixed up before calling the project ‘done’, yet somehow, I’d let myself call it ‘done’. 

Why had I done this?  I mean why had he done that?

As I studied it with my first close post-surgery listen, I thought of a grand house being built.  Maybe like something Victorian or maybe something ultra-modern; either way, a lot of time and effort had gone into the design, the materials, the craftsmanship, until right at the end when the deadline came up or the cash ran out, and a shitty coat of paint was sprayed over it and a cardboard sign with the word ‘done’ scribbled on it with a permanent marker was stuck in the front yard.  And now, only a few years later, it was standing alone in an empty field with that paint peeling off and it looked like nobody had been around it for years, with the sound of the wind howling as a tumbleweed blew by.

And one sure had blown by.

Since this project had been “completed”, Timothy Douglas Gard, who was not only my roommate but also my musical colleague and co-conspirator, had moved on.  His death occurred sometime in the late hours of August 23^rd, 2014. 

After he’d left Santa Cruz, he had lived briefly in Vegas, and hated it, and then decided to head for Portland.  He had said that he’d thought that the hot weather was bad for his symptoms, and apparently other MS sufferers had agreed with this, so he was going back to the northern realm.  Unfortunately, it appears he was not comfortable enough after a short time there to keep sticking around this life.

I had cleaned up and buttoned up that house we’d shared, and he had returned some of my stuff that his movers had accidentally grabbed when they came to get his stuff.  We were cool.   

He and I hadn’t exactly had a great ‘break-up’ of our roommate situation, in spite of all good intentions and efforts, but we’d gradually had more and more ‘e-contact’ and were even using some humor there at the end.

My last communication with him ended up being a couple of simple texts we’d bounced during that last stretch where I was all wired up, and waiting to seize during that third stay at Stanford.  He’d heard that Amy and I were engaged, and he congratulated me, in his own way.  I remember in the last text I’d gotten from him that he’d said something like “well, looks like you’re going to be all snug-bug-rug now”.  I remember searching for the right words that would wish him well, but I knew he wasn’t doing well–and he could smell bullshit from a mile away–and that text had ended up being our last contact.

As roommates, we’d had numerous conversations about religion and God.  He was ‘too smart’ to believe in any kind of higher powers or greater purposes or designs, but somehow, he’d cut me some slack and for my beliefs.  With both of our mortalities constantly on our minds, I think we both were comforted by having someone to talk to.  I know I told him I thought I’d see him sometime after this life had ended, but he thought that was unlikely.  I still hope I end up being the one who was right about that—I’d love to heckle him in the next life if I ever do get the chance to.

A few of his Santa Cruz friends finally got together for a nice little ‘wake’ for him at the beach on a Friday that November.  It turned out to be real sweet—a bar-b-que at sunset on a west-coast beach kind of a thing.  I think he would have approved.

He’d worked hard on Next Times with me.  He’d played a couple of parts, but mostly he helped with the mix up at quilted fish.  I know that he did, but not because I remember.  It’s more because I did that research, by going over those old emails and notes, of which there were plenty from when the album was made.  Much of the work I still wanted to ‘keep’ when I listened to the album is work that I did with his help.

My scrubbing through my email trail proved that I’d also done a lousy job of promoting Next Times.  I’d gotten a reasonable gig together in downtown Santa Cruz for a CD release and put an ad in the local entertainment paper, and that was about it.  The album hadn’t gotten any real airplay or attention that might’ve justified making it, but then, it hadn’t turned out good enough to deserve such attention anyways.