This is something that I've put off actually acting on for far too long: I'm tired of being a pathetic loser that can't play any instruments in real life and just sits around and goggles at obese cartoon animals on the web all day. Instead I want to be a creepy, annoying loser that writes stupid songs about obese cartoon animals. So I'm starting this experiment I've been thinking about doing for years now (roughly since I stole the idea from Jonathan Coulton, actually,) but thus far, have always wussed out on based on some lame excuse like being too busy, or too tired, or too depressed. So, I'm basically posting this as a way of keeping myself honest about the experiment. If I'm talking about it publicly up here, I figure that will make it a lot harder to cheat on it.
Every day for a year, starting today, February 1 (yes, that's still what day it is, dammit. I'm nocturnal.) I will write and learn to play a small composition on the keyboard. It might not be much (obviously, I'm not going to come up with a whole baroque opera in one day.) It might just be some dumb little 10-second ditty that could be a "level clear" theme from an NES game or something. And I might not post many (or, necessarily, any) of them. (Truth be told, I don't currently have the hardware to record anything in my apartment.) But every day it will still be something, in the sense of "shut the fuck up and draw something." Because if you want to get to be any good at something, that's just what you have to do. There's always going to be one excuse or another you could fall back on, but you know what you have to do to get where you want to be. (And Eris help you if you actually spend any time writing fatuous manifestos about what Real True Art is....)
....So here we are. One down, 9,999 to go (assuming the "everyone has 10,000 shitty drawings in them" rule applies here, anyway.) Let's boogie.
-- Bartolo Polkakitty
Keep the night light on inside the birdhouse in your soul.
