Fuck Limbo

I have a habit of getting excited easily. I also have a habit of announcing what it is I'm excited about too early in the game. Omiss is one of those things.

I'm sick of Omiss. The way it is . . . it's too complicated, and it wasn't supposed to be that difficult of a project.

I'm thinking about keeping one track, Limbo, since it pretty much covers the gist of Omiss. The rest of Project 2? Let's just say I'm currently looking into topics other than the Limbo of Love for some inspiration. More muses are coming from those areas anyway . . . plus, I think the inspiration for Omiss has subsided in reality for the time being. It's actually made me more calm.

Currently reading Howard Zinn in sort of an observance of his recent death. Maybe I can come up with another "Nebraska" this weekend.

Getting Out of Limbo

I'm hoping to finish the rough draft of Omiss in the next couple of days. I'm also gunning for February 1st to be the first day of the Omiss Sessions. How long it's going to take, I don't know. It was planned to be of a simpler nature than things I've done in the past, but I'm sure there will be obstacles within.

It's really going to rest on my ability to quickly make interesting dynamic electronic drum loops. The rest is pretty simple and DIY.

I had a warm-up session with an old song yesterday and today, a project for my good friend David Nehring. Laying vocals down for a song he and his brother Matt recorded a while back. It was fun getting back into recording after The Lizard People stint in early fall of '09.

Once I find some free time from Omiss, there are also plans to re-record vocals for some reworked Citizens Banned songs, also worked on by Dave. Lots of recording to be had in these wintry months.

One Sided Transactions

Rest does not happen in my bedroom. It happens on the living room couch or at Borders.

The splendid thing about Borders is that inspiration tends to be a byproduct of a visit there. Books are read, the mind wanders, coffee is consumed, ideas sprout. I just came up with album art for Omiss (and my first tattoo design, if it sticks), for one. Now, at home, listening to music on Lala.com, I hope to finish the initial rough draft for Omiss. Two songs left.

Omiss, again, deals with the connection one has with those they become smitten with. Is the connection returned or realized by the other? Does it matter? When should it matter?

I read a book entitled "How to Live" by Henry Alford this afternoon. It wasn't a self-help book, a cheesy cash-in for the coffee/tea drinking proverb seeking intellectual. It was a heartfelt insight into seeking answers to a big question: what is wisdom? And do the elderly hold the answer for the rest of us still attempting to start in our wisdom garnering?

Looking up from my reading, I saw a woman that I recognized at a table across from mine. She is a bank teller at the bank I frequent, a manager, if I'm not mistaken. One day she deposited a check for me, and I was a little smitten with her (having just watched "Catch Me If You Can" last night whilst nursing a cold, I find this funny). She was beautiful, still is. She has an interesting walk, seemingly wrought from walking back and forth in the bank and screwing up her calves from the massive high heels she wears with her form fitting slacks. I couldn't tell if it was her or not at first at Borders, but when she got up to get coffee, that walk was the answer I needed.

I wasn't about to go over to talk to her, seeing as though I have no basis of conversation with her, other than "Hey, you work at the bank! You put my check into my account, once! You . . . also . . . walk cool?"

I took this opportunity to inflict some of the basis and feeling behind Omiss to what I was reading, sending my brain into a fury of theory and creativity. A connection was there, but she didn't know it. Maybe there's one on her end, but it's not noticed by me either. I'll assume she thought I looked familiar, but couldn't care less about me.

But to know that you can have an effect on people, people who wouldn't embark on developing a relationship with you, but keeping you in their thoughts anyway. It's a tier below (or maybe above) celebrity fixation. Living and knowing a person without them knowing you.

Omission.

But omitting on your own accord . . . embarking on a relationship might make you want to forget that person in the end. From having a bad relationship, a boring one, a great one but where you hardly think about the person unless you're with them, they're conveniently around, etc. Omiss-ing on your own accord: could it be the best relationship you never knew you could have? If you were okay not being involved with them, then how many of these relationships might you have coexisting at the same time? And which of them do you walk out of that limbo for, killing possibility and finding either rejection or reciprocation?

I guess I'm asking if this is the best relationship, a quasi-Plato style way of thinking about love, or if it's just an important style of relationship that we tend to not think too much about.

Food for thought this Sunday . . . inspiration chasing . . .

Bukowski Might Have Said This

On my calendar, there's a nice little bunch of blocked off sections of color coded events marked "OMISS WRITING". In this time of no live activity, I've tried my damndest to come up with 3 good songs to record in the next month. Holy Hell, I forgot how much I hated obligatory writing.

You can't rush this sort of thing. All of my songs came to me sporadically, whilst on the bus, doing work at a day job . . . more often than not, while shitting on the toilet. The only song that was forced, like literally forced out of me in an extreme bout of frustration due to booking a hotel room and shacking up by myself for the entire night to write an entire EP's worth of material . . . was "Trachomanic". That was the only time something stuck out of force. The rest came out of the blue.

I've got some good ideas, but they're complicated. I wanted this to be more found instrument based, pots and pans, acoustic, electronic loops, nothing too difficult. I'm currently futzing with a song that has crazy drum loops that change from one section to the next.

How's about we take a break from all this and write when it hits me in the shower? I might just scrap a lot of what I've got for the sake of simplicity. I don't want this to turn into another "Schematics", slaving away for a year in my room. A month at most should be the timetable.

Don't force art. It will turn out shitty. If it has to be forced, set up a strict deadline so that you get creative out of necessity. But it can't be a made up deadline that you make for your own timetable, it has to be something for someone else . . . I can't explain it.

Just cool it, Pete. No pressure.

Moving plans have changed, as well. Solid Gold is moving from the space and forfeiting their keys and cards over to us. We move next week, most likely. We also resume rehearsals next weekend.

This time they won't let up until we have live shows.

She Smiled At Me

She smiled at me today.

I can't call it love, honestly, but there's something there on my end.

I've lost myself in the discombobulation of sex and physicality. I've grown bored of this front. The vaginal walls of "lovers" grow wider with age, stretched with use, and I feel less and less. I'm a loving prostitute, I give you pleasure, but I'm left with the baggage of another checkmark, and a means to get out.

Leave me alone.

I need to know this one before I can touch the ground again. She makes me throw that cursed physical molasses film coating my empathetic heart into the laundry hamper.
I no longer want her as an Omiss. But it could be for the best.

It might be the best for love, but my head won't rest until I act . . .

Project 2: Omiss

Quite possibly the first true to life, all me, present day journal-ish musical project I've ever done. No characters here. No extensions.

All me.

And all her.