It seems like the majority of artists that I have heard or talked tend to write from their own personal point of view. Many can connect each piece they’ve created to a particular experience or set of experiences in their life. I guess it makes sense that this would be the natural mode of operation for most people, but it never has been for me. Even when I was in ninth grade, just beginning to write poetry and stories, what excited me about writing was the opportunity it gave me to put myself in someone else’s shoes. Back then, my writing obsession was violent criminals. It seemed to me that people constantly wrote them off as simply “crazy” and left it at that. “Crazy” doesn’t explain the thought processes people have, it almost implies that there is none. I figured even if the logic is wrong, there must be some sort of logic, so I set out to try to figure it out in several stories that were written from the points of views of murderers. I remember a classmate of mine who admired my writing and began writing his own violent stories. I never liked his stories because he wrote about violence for the sake of violence, and that was obvious from reading them. Typical teenage male attraction to delinquency was not what was behind my writing.

Fast forward a bunch of years, and I realize I’m doing the same thing. I still generally don’t write from my own point of view. I constantly and naturally create characters and then try to figure out what they think and feel. Even when a song is inspired by my own emotion or experience, I create an extreme caricature out of it. For example, in the song Get my Gun on Reverse Psychology (Click to check out the lyrics), my character is observing the problematic aspects of our modern society and battling with the contradictory desires it arouses – one to help make things better, and another to protect himself from the messed up world. Sometimes trying to help others can affect you negatively, whether it’s by putting you in physical danger, inconveniencing you, or overtaxing your resources. This is definitely something I have battled with, but for the song, I took it to the extreme. My character is so conflicted that he is willing to wield a weapon to help uplift the world, not recognizing that in doing so, he is becoming a threat to that which he wants to save.

My interest in imagining different perspectives has not decreased since ninth grade, and now I also feel like extreme caricatures are so much more effective for exploring emotions and ideas than more realistic characters. I could have talked about my own inability to balance philanthropy with supporting myself, but I think the picture that Get my Gun paints is far more compelling and universal. The thing is that my life is complex and arbitrary in many ways. If I’m trying to make a point or discuss a particular idea, it seems to me that my relatively unfocused life has a lot of extra stuff that does not belong in the conversation. Taking things to the extreme is kind of like stripping away the fat. If I want to write a song about being disappointed, I might start with my own experiences of the feeling, but then remove any opposing feelings. I have been disappointed before, but I have also had my hopes fulfilled before – but in the song, there is just disappointment.

That’s all I have to say about that.

All kinds of things have been happening on my main website that I haven’t talked about here. Here are the updates.

• Back in May, the site got redesigned a bit.
• Album information for Reverse Psychology has been added to the site. Click on the album cover to get detailed information and complete lyrics.
• Since April, I’ve been handing out Rough Drafts, a free EP. I also made the EP available for download. you can get 4 of the songs individually, or download the zip file to get all 6.

In addition to the website updates, there is album news. The order has gone out for the artwork and the very last finishing touches to the CD will be taken care of today. Reverse Psychology will be available for purchase on or before August 24. It won’t be available online for a little while after that – CD Baby takes a few days to set up a new CD – but by September, it should be available online as well.

To celebrate, there will be an album release/listening party during the September edition of ThorTakeover’s monthly Mic Check Thursday.

Mic Check Thursday
Thursday, September 61
0pm – 2am
@ Liquid Charm
1207 Race St.
Philadelphia, PA

On Tuesday night I went to a small open mic night. The vibe was different than what I’m used to. Lately I’ve been performing for people who came out specifically to see underground hip-hop. On Tuesday, it seemed that most of the people came out for the event (free food, open bar, etc.) instead of the music. On top of that, the first performer went on stage and rapped about guns, money, and hoes – typical mainstream hip-hop subject matter. The crowd seemed to react well to him. At the other events I’ve performed at lately, the crowd would have not-so-subtly stepped outside to socialize until his performance ended. I was second. I got up there and performed Resistance (from Reverse Psychology – which should be out by the end of this month) . It didn’t start off well. The DJ scratched it in instead of just playing it, so I lost track of where I was supposed to start. During the first verse, the music was way too low – the DJ did not seem to be paying attention to levels throughout the whole night – and it’s hard for me to get into the song when I have to concentrate just to hear the beat. Some of the people in the crowd were paying attention, but I knew I could do better. During the chorus, I signaled for the DJ to turn up the music, and I put my heart into the next two verses. It worked. I got their full attention. Lesson learned – just because people like music with no content doesn’t mean they won’t respond well to music that attempts to be thought provoking.

Towards the end of the night, when the host said he was putting on the last MC, a girl went up to the stage and corrected him – there was one more MC who wanted to perform. The MC who had been getting introduced offered to allow “ladies first.” She said “hold on, let me get a shot and then I’ll be ready” and walked away. The guy went ahead and performed. I don’t think he had been serious about letting her go first, but still – lesson learned – do not make the crowd wait for you while you do something completely unrelated and unnecessary.

So this girl had already called attention to herself when she approached the stage. When it was her turn, she went in the back to conference with the DJ while the host did his best to stall for her. Finally he told her she’d had enough time and she needed to do what she was doing. Apparently, she had been picking out a beat. She came out on stage and the audience gave her a welcoming round of applause. She corrected us, saying ,”like this,” as she raised her hands in the air and began snapping. I guess clapping wasn’t Nuyorican Cafe enough for her. As the music started, she told the audience that she had just written what she was about to perform. She then began to rap from a paper. Performing poetry from paper can work because there is no music to keep up with. Singing from paper can work because singers’ lyrics are usually less dense with more room for pauses than rap lyrics. Lesson learned – rapping from paper doesn’t work.

Her lyrics were full of awkward pauses as she figured out what was on the paper or as she realized that a particular word was too early or too late. It was not going well. Finally, about half way through, she stopped and told the DJ that the beat was too fast. “Do it acapella!” the host yelled. So she did it acapella. What followed was a mediocre, at best, poetry performance. I would have been a lot less harsh in my judgment of the final poem if this girl hadn’t made a big scene out of approaching the stage, making people wait, and insisting we snap for her. With all that build-up, her performance should have been amazing. Instead it was simply anti climatic. Lesson learned – do not make a big production and draw tons of attention to yourself when you’re about to suck or be mediocre.

I’m gonna start using the non sequiturs to end really deep and involved conversations.

For example, imagine a few people having an intense discussion on the existence of God. I’ll chime in “don’t even let me get started on the greenhouse effect.” During the awkward silence that follows as everyone tries to figure out what I’m talking about, I’ll walk away.