So I have this story of mine called “Shoot Like You’re Awesome.” The story concerns a cog in the roshambo (read: Rock, Paper, Scissors not Eric Cartman’s version) tournament circuit. I wrote it as part of my MFA thesis in 2007. It’s always been, in my mind, the best story I’ve ever written. Nevertheless, this story has garnered 50+ rejections.
One kind rejection a few months ago, one of those “I loved it but…” rejections, mentioned a flaw in the story that caused something to click in my head. The editor of the rejecting lit mag suggested that though she loved the story’s humor and the depiction of the main character’s eccentricities and single-minded obsession, the ending failed to deliver a punch worthy of the rest of the story. I’d always been reluctant to change the ending. The story is analogous to my own experiences as a writer: struggling to place my own work in literary journals, disappointment, unjustified rejection. I wanted the main character (Westinghouse) to lose and then soldier on, silently, resolute and without emotion. As writers, we’re trained by seemingly endless failure that we can’t get too high or too low… that we just… keep… writing. And for a long time this is how I felt. Resolute. Confident. Every so six months, I contemplate giving up writing altogether but after a few days of inactivity I’m drawn back to the blank page. There’s just too much going on in my brain to walk away. Writing is a disease I endure, for the most part, willingly.
After receiving the aforementioned rejection and another half dozen or so in close proximity, I forced myself to pause and consider that this story I loved so much might need to be retired, for good, and never thought of again. But I couldn’t do it. Not yet. I decided to give it one more edit, one more last ditch effort to save “Shoot Like You’re Awesome.” I considered all angles. And the more I hemmed and hawed the more angry I got about my experience trying to find this story a home. The culmination of this rage resulted in this post back on March 14th: Putting Fun Back in Short Fiction? In summary, I lamented the boilerplate-loving nature of many of the major lit mags who refuse to give off-beat, humorous fiction an audience.
Vader chokes the bitch that steps out of line.
The click came when I embraced this anger and gave myself an outlet for my frustration. The grind of submitting work to literary magazines wasn’t about “enduring.” It was about fighting. It was about raging, but ultimately continuing the grind after coming back down to Earth. Even Steven wasn’t the answer. So instead of the story ending with reluctant, silent hope, I harnessed my more honest recalcitrance so that Westinghouse might rebel, if only briefly, in a fleeting moment of weakness. And there it was. Weakness. I had thought Westinghouse’s weakness had been his single-minded obsession that lead to social and emotional inadequacy. It turned out, his obsessions, like my own pursuit of writing, had been his strength. It could be a tantrum in the wake of failure that would make him human. With this in mind, I re-edited for the billionth time, but instead of cutting (as per every other suggestion) I added three full pages to the short story, pushed the word count over 3500 and slowed down the ending to give Westinghouse a chance to lash out, somewhat irrationally. After the new edit, I sent another round of submissions and went about working on other projects. Hope had been restored, at least until I started receiving those brand new rejections for a story I felt had become stronger than ever.
Late last night, after an epic four hours of watching the highly entertaining The Hatfields & McCoys (coincidentally, a story all about irrational rage), I checked my email before going to bed and received that long awaited acceptance for “Shoot Like You’re Awesome” from the literary magazine P.Q. Leer. Visit their site. Feed them some traffic. I really dig their style and sense of humor. That they had enough sense to publish my favorite story is just extra sauce.
Writers, if you love a story that no one else loves, stick with it. Listen to the criticism but don’t necessarily take it to heart. If you really love a story, there shouldn’t be a such thing as a last chance. Also, Star Wars wisdom aside, maybe sometimes it’s better to give in to your hate, if only just a little while. Also, at some point, make some time to watch Kevin Costner, Tom Berenger and Bill Paxton go all dueling hillbillies against each other.
Taken from an interesting bit about the intersection of creativity/spontaneity at http://the99percent.com/
As much as I like to be spontaneous (I’m really not) and as much as I like to make last-minute, spur-of-the-moment plans (I generally won’t) and as much as I can make split decisions… meh. You get the picture. I often look at a perfect opportunity, last night for example, to escape from the daily grind. Everyone’s got a daily grind, be it a 70-hour-per-week job, a litter of kids at home, a work-from-home situation that feels like the end of sanity. If you’ve read a sizable portion of this bl-g you’ve probably read a few posts that encourage active participation. It’s just so much easier not to do things. To not go see that movie. To not attend a band’s show because I just don’t have the energy. Staying home is almost always easier. But do you make memories, entertain new experiences?
A few weeks ago, I Shazammed a song by a band called Dry the River. I finally had the opportunity to listen to the full record sometime last week. From the very first spin, I was hooked. Full-on, hooks through the gills. I’ve been pushing the band on Twitter (@drytheriver) whenever possible. They remind me vaguely of Shearwater (probably because I’ve been listening to Shearwater a ton lately) if Shearwater were enamored with some Scandinavian folkies like First Aid Kit. They’ve mentioned the influences of Leonard Cohen and At the Drive-In, a comparison I quite like. So yesterday I received one of those concert announcement emails from one of the local promoters. I don’t always skim these things because I’m usually aware of a show before it arrives in my inbox. Well, there at the bottom of the page was a small blurb mentioning Dry the River playing at the Club Cafe, that night. Ugh. Overlooked, likely because they just recently became a name on my radar.
I wanted to go, of course. The rules of Interweb hyperbole permit me to claim that Dry the River’s Shallow Bed is the OMG best m’f’in album of 2012. But I just couldn’t muster the gumption to go last night. A night in which I had nothing doing, nowhere to be, no immediate responsibilities to undertake. And I make these grand speeches about making the effort on this bl-g. I’m a hypocrite.
It takes energy and time to go out into the world. It seems silly but it’s true, especially when days are filled with other responsibilities. Work. Kids. Wife. Coffee consumption. Fiction writing in between all of that. I build myself up for going out. I look forward to my dates with live music for weeks in advance. Could I talk myself up in one day? Ehhh, not so much. All I wanted to do was get the kids to bed, do my workout and catch up on some Sherlock, some baseball watching and maybe paint the attic stairs. Some nights you’ve talked yourself up for a night of nothing whatsoever. And when you’ve talked yourself up for nothing whatsoever that something that comes along, even something as fated as a Dry the River show the moment after discovering the band, just needs to take a night off.
Have you caught up on your Sherlock? If not, stop reading this and go watch some Sherlock! What's wrong with you?
To be fair, I almost talked myself up. The wife even told me to go. After all, I could have written a spectacular bl-g proclaiming my love for this soon-to-be buzzband, touting their brilliant mishmash of folk and rock. I could have marked off another venue on my Pittsburgh concert-going to-do list. Somehow I’ve never been to (or don’t remember) the Club Cafe. It would have been glorious, I assure you. But on the other hand, I’m writing this instead. And while it’s not as glorious as a night out with live music, some contemplative time about choosing to squander opportunities can almost be as valuable. I’ll go out there and get ’em next time. I promise. I might just need someone to remind me about this post, three years from now when I’m complaining about how I didn’t go to that Dry the River show on some arbitrary, ho-hum Tuesday back in Oh-12.
If you don't come to Pittsburgh, you won't get to see the running of the pierogis. I'm just saying.
The prelude to attending the Here We Go Magic and Hospitality show Tuesday night at Brillobox is a tale born from one of the best features of social media. In recent months I’d made a hobby out of reading tweets promoting a band’s upcoming tour schedule and if Pittsburgh happened to be absent from the schedule I’d send a return tweet with an obligatory “What do you mean you’re not coming to Pittsburgh?”
A few months ago I received one such tweet from Merge Records (@mergerecords) regarding Hospitality’s upcoming tour. No Pittsburgh. So I immediately fired back. Moments later I receive a tweet from Merge Records. “Happy now, @30hertzrumble?” with additional tour dates, including Pittsburgh. Clearly I thought that was pretty neato and bought a couple of tickets to the May 15th Hospitality show headlined by Here We Go Magic. I probably would have gone anyway, but the communication with the label solidified my attendance and quick ticket purchase. I didn’t have anyone else offhand that particularly wanted to go, but for the amazing low price of $8, I couldn’t buy just one ticket. In the weeks that followed I plugged the show a few times through Twitter. Two damn fine bands for less cash than the cost of a movie ticket. Each time I received a retweet from either Hospitality (@hospitalityband), Here We Go Magic (@herewegomagic) or Merge Records.
Fast forward to last Thursday. I still had a spare ticket. With the one-month-old baby at home, the wife and I had been swapping solo nights out (as she so effectively described in her moonlight-entry on my bl-g regarding the Imagine Dragons show) and I only have a few gamers remaining in my rolodex (gamers are friends that would attend anything, for whatever irrational reason). As I creep briskly into my thirties, those gamers are dropping like flies as time demands increase, not necessarily for their lack of gaming will. Point being, I corresponded with my general go-to gamer for this kind of stuff with this tweet:
I told “Bert Macklin” that he had to attend now because the band knew about him. He did his due diligence, found a song he liked by Here We Go Magic and made a not altogether unfounded crack about the band sounding like Polvo. A band, quite frankly, I’d completely forgotten about. Here We Go Magic doesn’t ride their guitars quite as feverishly as Polvo but there’s some, if not a heap, of connectivity there.
“Bert” and I weren’t entirely sure about the legitimacy of our names being on the guest list for the show, but we still asked a few last minute people to see if they wanted to journey out to the Brillobox for a live show and while many were willing, ultimately I found no “date” to accompany me. We met at Brillobox and down a few libations from the bar before heading upstairs to the venue. After handing over the tickets, I asked the girl with the clipboard if, indeed, James Patrick and “Bert Macklin” were on the guest list. Sure enough– the 1st and 2nd names on the list. (Side note: apparently they’re not avid Parks and Rec viewers.)
Hospitality had just begun their set. The band sounded tight, and the more I listened to Amber Papini’s vocals the more she began to sound like Nina Persson. She’s got some of the same range and raspy qualities of the Cardigans’ frontwoman and I didn’t pick up on this at all from the album recording. Though they appeared a little rigid performing, the music played big and easy in the space for just a three-member band. If there’s any justice, Hospitality gained a few dozen fans and sold a few more records after their set.
Here’s Hospitality performing, my favorite track of theirs, “8th Avenue”:
Before Here We Go Magic we engaged the swag-table girl in some friendly banter, inquiring about which band member ran the Twitter account and proffered guest-list admittance to the show. She refused to answer our inquiries, thereby leading us to believe that she may, in fact, have been in charge. After all, she knew too much. She knew of our Twitter exchange and knew about the supposed “dates” we unsuccessfully procured. Curiouser and curiouser.
Here We Go Magic arrived on stage and played a lively, rollicking Krautrock-inspired set of tracks. They embellished the free spirit and eclectic influences in their music. Most succinctly, Here We Go Magic sounds like a melding of Paul Simon afro-beat and Krautrock, but they are anything and everything- varying wildly in pace from song to song, mellow to raucous to pysch-folk and something like a jam-band instrumental. Early in the set, vocalist Luke Temple repeatedly requested that their instrument output be turned up, so much so that the sound may have outgrown the room. This really didn’t work against them. This lent the poppier, more radio-friendly tracks from the new album such as “Make Up Your Mind” (Art Garfunkel via Can?) and “Collector” (from the middle album, Oingo Boingo via Amon Düül II?) extra disturbance, roughing up the edges with reverb and distortion. The standout performance, however, may have been the driving and melodious “Tunnelvision,” which also happened to be my favorite Here We Go Magic track (so I might be biased). It’s just one of those songs that can play on repeat, forever revealing new depth. “Fangala” (based purely on crowd reaction at the show) appeared to be the most widely recognized, provoking a listless crowd to relative hysteria and synchronized clapping.
(Normally I’d have played a clip of a live performance of the song, but I love the video too much too ignore. It was made with no post-production effects. Nail scratching and paint on Super 8mm film. Like a music video directed by Stan Brakhage.)
While there was a definite schism between the old and the new, the songs weaved together seamlessly, but the differences made me the consider the identity choices a band makes along its path from anonymity to, well, wherever it is they’re headed, whether it be pseudo-success playing for small but devoted fans or the cover of Rolling Stone. Even if that choice is to be twenty different things all at once, it’s still a choice. If that band chooses to start playing now obscure German rock from the 70s and then slowly try to bridge that into the mainstream, it’s a choice as much as it is a guiding “muse.” But at the same time, a band must grow in order to survive. Criticism solely based on a change or choice that doesn’t alter the inherent qualities of the music is not only lazy, it’s rubbish.
I had a point at the end of that thought, but it became lost and diluted as I surfed through Krautrock videos on youtube and thoroughly mismanaged an evening of potentially spectacular fiction writing. It had something to do with some of the negativity regarding stylistic choices I read in the Pitchfork reviews of new albums from Here We Go Magic (which is clearly their most consistent and accessible offering) and Silversun Pickups (which Pitchfork just trashes left, right and inside-out).
Anyway, the end of this evening is thus: “Bert” and I never discovered precisely who tossed us on the guest list, we had a great time at a show we perhaps otherwise might not have attended. Here We Go Magic or Hospitality aren’t selling out arenas, but the bands are actively engaging followers via social media and by doing so, they’re breaking down that divide between artists and their fans. And for each person that they or their swag-table lady retweets or messages, they’re creating a relationship that fosters loyalty, spreads word of mouth and inspires certain writers to devote an evening of the precious time to promoting a couple of bands that you might not have previously known.
— James David Patrick (@30hertzrumble) May 17, 2012
Odds and ends:
At Brillobox, a bar/venue notorious for it’s hipster problem, I noticed relatively few at the show. It makes me wonder if they hopped on the St. Vincent bus and rode on out of town. I’ll check back after my next show at Stage AE to see if they’re trickling back. Though I have to wonder what kind of hipster following Childish Gambino might encourage.
When Here We Go Magic left Pittsburgh on Wednesday they picked up a hitchhiker somewhere in Ohio that turned out to be John Waters. No goddamn joke. DClist has the story covered. I won’t say any more about this other than I hope the story gains the band extra airplay.
(Courtesy @AvtarK - aka the swag-table lady)
That Here We Go Magic hasn’t painted their van to look like the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine, seems like a lost opportunity. Also, that the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine wasn’t called the Here We Go Magic Van also seems like an egregious oversight.
