Life as a Scatterbrain

Yesterday i watched the documentary Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, a compelling look inside O'Brien's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour," which bridged the end of his Tonight Show run and the beginning of his TBS talk show. The film's above all a peek into Conan O'Brien the workaholic--the man who couldn't sit for six months while negotiating and planning a new TV show (which for most people would be a full-time job in and of itself, i'm sure). No, he had to also put together a 90-minute touring stage show to keep him occupied for what i can only assume is 16 hours a day--more if he gets less than eight hours sleep per night. Even during the documentary, Conan seems to be at times performing for the camera, only allowing himself to not be funny (or at least allowing himself to be pissy--i'm not entirely sure he's capable of being unfunny while he's awake) during brief, humanizing moments.

Today i read this GQ profile on Louis C.K., the writer, director, executive producer, editor, and star of possibly the best, most powerful show on television right now. The man's DIY cred is at an all-time high thanks to banking a million bucks through direct downloads of his latest comedy special, Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater, a show that he, well, wrote, produced and performed himself, then sold directly to the public through his own website, in the tradition of Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, or any of those other bands that came into prominence thanks to major media outlets, then flipped the script by taking their fans with them into the independent wilderness. Of course, Louis obviously got to this point through a ton of work and dedication on his own--as Patton Oswalt glowingly points out in the GQ piece, "There are a lot of comedians who have the same potential, talentwise, that Louis has, but very few have the level of commitment he does."

This week's Monday Night RAW opened with a truly special moment for independent wrestling fans everywhere, as indie mainstays-turned-WWE Superstars CM Punk and Daniel Bryan stood in the same ring, holding the top two championships of the largest "sports entertainment" company in the world after years of toil and sweat as "small" wrestlers who don't have the look of classically marketable WWE superheroes like Triple H and John Cena:



People who follow wrestling have some inkling of what a hard, lonely road it can be to get somewhere and "make it" in the business--heck, only experiencing the peripheral fringes of the biz myself, i can see that while pro wrestling is full of amazing, hardworking people, it's also full of blowhard alpha-males only looking out for themselves, and i'm sure navigating that minefield is as difficult as perfecting the craft itself. But reading Punk's Twitter is like attending an online master seminar in drive and dedication--the dude claims to never sleep (and judging by the ever-present bags under his eyes, i believe it), and he's constantly on the move.

I often get accused of jealousy when writing about perceived bullshit in the world of music--oh, i'm just bitter because my band isn't as popular as the one i'm criticizing, my band doesn't sell, etc. While it's largely an empty, boilerplate critique--i suppose Roger Ebert is just jealous of all the filmmakers he gives negative reviews to, and his entire career is one big snit-fit because Beyond the Valley of the Dolls wasn't a blockbuster--the truth is that there is one thing that i envy in all the entertainers, artists, and musicians that i admire: their tireless work ethic.

There's a lot of creative stuff i love doing. I love drumming. I love writing songs and playing them in front of people (and yes, i also love the validation that comes when people actually connect with what we've done). I love writing. I love announcing roller derby. I loved being on the radio. But for one reason or another, i've never had the work ethic or drive to pick one of these things and pursue it until i collapsed dead from exhaustive excellence. I'm an above-average drummer if we're being charitable, and i play in an above-average band (if we're being charitable) that some people like but most people tolerate and ignore. I love calling roller derby, but i have no desire to throw myself as fully into that world as many of my announcing colleagues have. I loved being on the radio, but not so much that the world of commercial radio didn't send me screaming from the business (not to mention that the prospect of a nomadic life chasing the next rung on the ladder from one market to the next seemed like the most miserable existence ever to a 24-year-old homebody who went to college in Oshkosh because it was close to home).

When i lost my job in May, i suddenly had lots of free time to be creative and do things i never had the time to do. And while job hunting is a full-time job in and of itself, and thus i shouldn't beat myself up too much, there's a part of me that is mildly annoyed with myself that instead of starting work on my book ideas, i started this blog instead. The instant gratification of the "publish post" button is a quicker fix than the certainly more satisfying, but grinding, result of stringing together 50,000 words about one subject. It's a trap!

I do feel like i'm always busy, but instead of picking one thing to pursue nonstop, i picked several, in between lots of reading and watching TV. Jack of all trades, master of none, as the saying goes.

And now i'm starting a new job on Monday, one i'm excited but simultaneously nervous about. I left banking and customer service four years ago and lucked into a job copywriting for a local gaming website because, well, i wanted to do something creative for eight hours every day. When i lost that job in May, i looked for something else in the writing world, but unfortunately this economy wasn't having it. So back i go to customer service, but customer service in the music world, which excites me--working for a music store is going to be fantastic, and after months of going stir-crazy while trying to remain productive, i'm stoked to have something to do for eight hours a day again.

But i'd be lying if impending change wasn't spooking me out just a bit. My new second-shift-ish hours are filling my head with questions: will i still be able to keep up with this blog? Will i still be able to find the time to pursue that writing dream by freelancing for others? Will my shaky, scatterbrained sense of work ethic condemn me to nights of couch-surfing in lieu of maximizing my free time?

I'll never be Conan O'Brien, Louis C.K., or CM Punk. That much is obvious. The window for that obsessive single-mindedness has long closed. But as i start this next chapter of my life, it's important for me to prioritize what i do have: a still-stimulating band, a roller derby league that claims to be glad to have me, outlets for my rants and raves, and last but best, an awesome relationship with someone supportive of all of it. All things considered, living DJ Hostettler's life may not be as glamorous as that of the real workhorse stars in the world, but it's still a pretty charmed life as it is.

"That's the key to the whole thing--Don't touch money!" Bill Cunningham is Punk Rock

Pictured: Punk Rock

Hi.

Posts have been a bit nonexistent for the last week or so; i apologize to the three of you who were awaiting more. I have no real excuse other than a mild bit of lethargic depression resulting from the usual jobless ennui.

I've been struggling a bit lately with my inability to find writing- or social media-based work; i actually had an interview here in Milwaukee for a social media marketing position but lost out to someone that the interviewer apparently knew from a previous job (it's all about who you know, y'all). As anyone who's been in the position of extended job-hunting can attest, it's nearly as soul-crushing as working an awful job that you hate; both have their own patented debilitating moveset specializing in the erosion of self-confidence and willingness to venture outdoors into the sunlight and its rejuvenating Vitamin D.

Compounding the issue lately is the sneaky, invasive thoughtworm telling me that my ultimate dream job--writing/blogging about the music i love--is about as likely as getting paid to perform the music i love, because what i love simply isn't marketable. Sure, i can yell into the abyss all i want about the genius of Police Teeth, Memory Map, Helms Alee, and countless other bands that what can be best described as the "mainstream indie" tastemakers have no interest in (is it just that they can't afford/aren't interested in hiring hot-shit PR firms to push them into the conversation? I'm not sure, but knowing that Memory Map's Holiday Band isn't going to be on many people's top albums of 2011 lists is teeth-gnashingly frustrating, especially when Memory Map's hard-hitting brand of alt-country psych-pop is totally in the wheelhouse of so many Big Blog Writers and Pabst Theater patrons), but it's not gonna pay the accumulating bills any time soon. So, i've been fighting a little bit of "what's the point?" lately. So it goes.

Fortunately, i have awesome friends. My pals Keith and Janet invited Liz and me, along with some other friends, to watch an almost annoyingly inspiring documentary, Bill Cunningham New York. Bill Cunningham is a New York Times style photographer and one of the most punk rock non-musicians i've ever heard of. He spends nearly every waking hour biking and stalking Manhattan, looking for the most exotic, peacockish wrappings on the street, regardless of who's wearing them (he photographs lots of celebrities but doesn't care who they are, just what they're wearing). He's a legend in New York's fashion scene; Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour proclaims "It's one snap, two snaps, or he ignores you, which is death." But if he sees something in a runway show that an everyman or everywoman on the street couldn't wear, he disregards it with a look of disinterest--death by "meh."

His "On the Street" photo column for the Times is a living art collage, spotting trends and styles among the unfiltered populace before the so-called tastemakers even notice. In the film, we see Bill agonize over the column layout as his graphic design assistant dutifully and patiently tweaks and adjusts per Bill's instructions. Is this person's foot splashing a slush puddle across the curb, and does it echo another's leap over a puddle on the same day? These two people are wearing polka dots! Place them each opposite the text column and don't crop their elbows!

Clothes are all Bill thinks about and all he has time for; his spartan, rent-controlled apartment above Carnegie Hall (which provides a plotline for the film, as Bill and the other aging artists who live in the Hall are being evicted and moved to other apartments) contains little more than file cabinets for his negatives and a cot. When he moves into his new abode overlooking Central Park (for fuck's sake), he asks that the kitchen appliances be removed to make room for his cabinets. He is singularly obsessed to the exclusion of all else, even romantic relationships (which the director, Richard Press, asks him about in one of the film's most vulnerable, poignant moments). It's an obsession that's gifted him with a prize that so many creative people strive for and so few attain--the ability to earn a living doing the artistic thing they love.

At least, one assumes that he's getting paid by the Times for his column, even if it's not much. In one of my favorite moments of the film, it's explained that Cunningham refused to be paid by Details when he photographed for them in the early 80s. When the magazine was sold, he refused to cash his check. He gleefully explains in the scene: "If you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do, kid! That's the key to the whole thing--Don't touch money!" I'm not sure how this jibes with his Times gig, but it's a code that he's adhered to as strictly as possible over the years; when photographing fancy-schmancy evening parties and runway shows, he declines free food and refuses even complimentary water. To Bill Cunningham, accepting gratuities or compensation leads to obligation, a philosophy not without merit. After all, how often have we punk rock musicians heard stories about magazines writing glowing reviews for the albums whose labels spend the most coin on ads?

Tim Yohannan, the dearly departed founder of seminal Bay Area punk fanzine Maximumrocknroll, often declared his inherent distrust of the idea of songwriter as a paid career. If you try to make a living from your art, Yohannan reasoned, your mindset was instantly corrupted by factoring saleability into said art. Put money into the equation and you're no longer being true to yourself. You're compromising to make someone else happy enough to throw you the scratch to live. As a musician and writer, the knowledge that your art isn't in any way marketable is sort of freeing in this way; by not even worrying about whether the tunes or words will sell, your only remaining worry is whether or not they live up to your own standards of excellence. It's pure and it's liberating, but it doesn't necessarily sell...which, let's be honest, would be nice.

Bill Cunningham has somehow managed to carve out a living while adhering to a purely artistic lack of compromise. If the documentary has one flaw, it's that the film doesn't spend any time resolving the inherent contradiction in his "don't take money!" credo and the fact that, well, he has to be getting paid somewhere. I'd love to have seen his brain picked on this one, because while his story is completely inspiring, it's not hard to also be incredibly jealous of his single-mindedness, clarity of purpose, good fortune, and totally punk rock, DIY ethics.

Still, seeing an 80-year-old man continue to throw himself into his work with the vigor and vitality he showed as a 50-year-old has helped snap this 37-year-old out of his funk. I've got a few projects for the local AV Club in the pipe, and my first "Chocolate Grinder" piece for Tiny Mix Tapes was posted last Sunday, a blurb about a live performance video by my favorite band of instrument-building art-nerd alchemists, Neptune. And hopefully i'll get back in the swing of things here, too. Now, if only i could work out that whole "get paid to do something" thing...

(Endnote: If you want to read more about the spectacular documentary Bill Cunningham New York, check out this excellent review by Nathan Heller in Slate. I also thank this review for acting as a reference point for details about the film i may have missed since watching it last Wednesday!)

The Dole Rut

I'm about to complete my fifth month of unemployment. Thinking about it, i'm fairly certain that this was the first Summer Vacation in which i haven't worked (for a paycheck) consistently since sixth grade. And it has continued into October.

I've made a hell of a go at the whole staying productive thing. I've blogged; done band stuff; applied (and got accepted!) to write for a fairly well-known music site (no, i haven't written anything for them yet); and of course there's that whole job hunting thing. And it worked for the first four months. Every so often i managed to put together a piece of writing i was especially fond of, and of course, there was that whole two-week tour thing that went pretty well too.

But lately i've been an a serious emotional and motivational rut, one leading to hours of vapid television watching and Facebook browsing and less and less activity that could be construed as "constructive." I can feel the entropy taking hold as the "gap in my employment" that i have to explain on most job applications glacially expands over my fatigued, slipping-into-hibernation sense of self-esteem. My attempts to be productive on days when scary, lazy, self-defeating corners of my brain serve to remind me that i don't really have anywhere to be or anything to do are bring undone by the mental and emotional exhaustion of trying to assign myself busywork for the last five months and not really knowing that it's achieving any goal other than taking my mind off the fact that i'm currently contributing precious little to society while drawing a check from it every week.

Here's something all those armchair quarterback conservatives who think the unemployed just aren't "trying hard enough" to find work don't really understand--the longer a person remains unemployed, the more oppressive their situation becomes. Not only does that unemployment gap look more and more unappealing to prospective employers by the day, but the sense of personal defeat, of personal worthlessness, compounds daily, making the simple act of browsing Big Shoes Network or Milwaukeejobs.com a soul-sucking chore in and of itself, to say nothing of applying to another HR Department that likely won't respond.

I'm not writing this for pity, nor am i trolling for "you're not worthless!" comments--i'm just trying to illustrate how difficult this is on the mental constitution. I'd wager most people i've hung out with over the last few months have generally seen me put on a smile and keep a positive outlook, and overall, i've been able to cling to that. But little stuff is starting to pile up.

I owe my former roommate several hundred dollars in bills that i can't even begin to repay on a weekly unemployment check (not when a medical bill collector is already grabbing $100/mo. for the next two and a half months).

My car broke down in September and i don't have the money to get that fixed either. Sure, i'm using the band van to get around right now, and the band is fine with it, but i still feel like a leech.

And i suppose all the stress of worrying about my father for the last couple months hasn't really contributed in a positive sense.

I don't really have a solution for this, other than get over it and buckle down and keep on the job hunt. Baby steps are the order of the day, i suppose--one cover letter here, one blog post there, one new set of song lyrics here.

So i suppose this blog post, while not a glimmering slice of prose in the least, is at least a start.

It's a Beautiful World...For You, Not for Me

On Tuesday my inbox received one of its periodic emails from the Pabst Theater group announcing upcoming shows at its three Milwaukee venues. The message in this case concerned the Australian indie-electro outfit Cut Copy coming to Turner Hall on September 22. As is customary when the Pabst group posts an announcement like this, it later surfaced all over the local A&E blogs, and several people on my Twitter and Facebook feeds expressed excitement. This was all followed up in my head by what is also a now-customary response in many of these situations: "who the fuck is Cut Copy?"

Apparently, Cut Copy has been around since the start of the millennium, but i sure as hell didn't know that. This happens a lot with me, and has over the last ten years or so:

1) Band announces show in Milwaukee
2) Friends get totally excited because they've been into this band forever
3) I get curious and check out band
4) I am less than impressed and immediately wonder what the hell the big deal is

It happened this time with Cut Copy (i checked out this video and was left thinking "not terrible, but not interesting either"). It's happened before with The Spits, Terrible Twos, and a few other bands that give the Goner Records crowd boners. And it happens a ton with bands that come through Pabst (but not all of them--for example, i'm really psyched by the opportunity to see TV on the Radio and Swans this fall).

Every time it happens, there's a part of me that is convinced that i'm merely getting old and out of touch, or that i'm falling into the classic trap of listening to less music as i get older--something that simply happens to lots of thirtysomethings, as this eloquent crosstalk by my friend Steve Hyden (a fantastic music writer who i have tons of respect for) at the AV Club, and his colleague Noel Murray contends. Steve's side of the crosstalk is accepting of the fact that music fans are more connected to the bands they love in their youth, when they have the time and resources to spend obsessing over all the latest bands. It's something that fades away when day jobs and families soak up the typical adult's attention. That's not what chaps Steve's ass:

What I don’t get is the hostility that new music sometimes engenders among aging fans. I’ve chided friends who grew up on punk and indie music for turning into what they always hated—nostalgia-happy, past-worshiping hippies—because they can’t consider the latest buzz band without going into the same tired rant about how artists today don’t have “edge,” “relevance,” or “originality” by comparison with some overly idealized group from their past. I find that this opinion tends to say more about the listener than the state of contemporary music, which is too vast to be summed up by such sweepingly reductive statements.

I think this whenever I read yet another broadside about how today’s indie rock “doesn’t really rock” or whatever. Based on what? Based on your inability to locate bands that make you feel exactly the way you did when you were 15? Let me save you some time: You aren’t going to find those bands, okay? Because you changed. I guarantee you that somebody somewhere is making a record just as transformative as anything you grew up with; it’s just that you have lost the ability to hear (figuratively and perhaps literally) those records for what they are.

Guilty as charged! Most of the current "buzz" bands that i hear about generally fail to impress. And of course no band that i hear today is going to slam me against the back wall of the club in the same way Brainiac did when i was 20 and had no real awareness of the bands that influenced them (Pere Ubu, Chrome...well, a little DEVO, obviously, but i wasn't a student of their albums yet, having just come from the world of hair metal).

That being said, when Steve says "it’s just that you have lost the ability to hear (figuratively and perhaps literally) those records for what they are," i call foul, because i AM discovering transformative, incredible bands all the time. It's just that they aren't the same bands that everyone else is losing their shit over.

As a member of two active rock bands--one of which has spent 11 years building up a nationwide network of like-minded friends and bands--i'm discovering new music constantly. Unfortunately, i'm also a natural contrarian who is immediately suspicious of hype. I've always been more comfortable on the outskirts. My bands have never been trendy and never will be (we're not accessible enough); the bands i like will by and large never be the ones that a majority of people get excited about. But that doesn't mean i have lost the ability to get my mind blown. In the last year my jaw's been rendered slack by bands as disparate as the Touch & Go Records-gone-trance My Disco, the driving, Allman-psych Memory Map, and the gut-punchingly awesome Helms Alee (who came the closest to triggering a Brainiac-level consciousness-altering response in my post-30 thinkmeats when i saw them level the Cha Cha Lounge in Seattle last summer).

So, i don't listen to the same bands that Pitchfork and AV Club get psyched about--who cares, right? Just like what you like and go about your business. That'd be plenty simple, if i didn't harbor some misguided dream of getting paid someday to write about music. Seeing something like the new Bon Iver album, which i tried to listen to but had to shut off due to finding it absolutely fucking abhorrently terrible, get near-universal praise in a world that i'd like to be employed in someday, is depressing and leads me to feel like there's no room in that world for a differing opinion. One might put forth the argument that i could provide a chance to expand a website's audience, but i don't know if that's true when the evidence points to the contrary (by "evidence" i mean "i can't even get more than 40 people to show up in Milwaukee for a show featuring my current favorite band, Police Teeth, no matter how much i hype them and put their music in front of people." The evidence supports the hypothesis that most people just plain don't like what i like--or the stuff i like just needs to hire better PR agencies). (And to be fair, Helms Alee does get a nod in this month's edition of the AV Club column LOUD, but i feel like AV Club's establishing of a catch-all column for aggressive, noisy, and heavy music is an admission that it's simply not as popular as the lighter, adult contemporary indie stuff. Dan Hanke made what i thought was a brilliant observation when he said that if Archers of Loaf were a new band today, Pitchfork wouldn't give them the time of day.)

But hey, this blog is about me trying to be constructive, so enough sad-sacking. Starting tomorrow, i'll be periodically writing posts about bands that are thoroughly kicking my ass but not getting the blog love they deserve. Full disclosure: a lot of these bands are going to include members who are friends of mine. It's an occupational hazard of meeting tons of bands that i should happen to fall madly in love with several of them. Such will be the case with Memory Map, the band i'll use to kick things off tomorrow. In the meantime, if you're aware of any music blogs that actually cater more toward the noisy, unconventional, and ROCKING, clue me in down in the comments, ok? I'd be ecstatic to discover ways to find out about bands that are up my alley that aren't the EA Forum or the act of Playing Shows.

It's a clean sweep/Baby, yeah

OK. Got the mail. Did my daily sweep of job postings. Cleaned the cat boxes. My mind is relatively clear. Let's do this.

This blog is a continuation of the personal journal i started on LiveJournal way back in 2002, not long after i moved to Milwaukee from the Fox Valley of Northeast Wisconsin (a journal which was also a continuation of one i started on Diaryland way back when, which, holy shit--Diaryland still exists). In the past year or so i've fallen out of a routine of personal journaling for a number of reasons: concentrating more on writing for AV Club Milwaukee and ThirdCoastDigest; a girlfriend who was insecure about showing up in my writing; general laziness and reliance on the Facebook/Twitter brevity model. This blog is my attempt to shake all that and get back into a routine of writing for myself. (It's also a bit of a naked employment search gambit as well, as i keep hearing that all the hep, with-it writer types have their own blogs that they use as a hub for their online presence and their portfolio business, so here it is. HIRE ME, FOOLS.)

Those of you who read me over on the LJ know what to expect--random personal business; political ranting (especially in these oh-so-charged turbulent times in the Homeland); gnashing of teeth about the awful musical taste that most living, breathing humans exhibit; and just about whatever else is pissing me off. No, but seriously, i'm actually quite the ray of sunshine most of the time. Promise.

So! For those of you who know me, how's about we get started with a little State of DJ Update:

The Job:
Not one to speak of, currently. I'm on the lookout for anything in the writerly world of writing, which isn't in any way competitive and should, in a white-hot hub of the creative industry such as Milwaukee, take me mere weeks to find. Right?

Right. Sending my resume and portfolio out has been quite the struggle. My last job--which i adored and miss--was content production/project management and copywriting for a virtual world gaming website aimed at kids aged 8-14. Not the easiest thing to spin into your standard copywriting gig. A friend asked me recently, "have you been writing amazing cover letters?" My response: "Um, i can confidently say that i have written cover letters."

The Bands:
Plural! IfIHadAHiFi and Zebras both exist, to the shock and consternation of many. HiFi's putting a new record out in September. You can listen to some tracks here. Both bands are touring together in August. I will die from exhaustion.

The Girl:



Are we adorable or are we?

One drawback of me not posting in my LJ anymore has been the lack of necessary gushing about Liz. We've been pals for about three years now, and started dating in, well, i guess we decided that our anniversary date is March 19 (NOTE: saving date in post to ensure future memorization). Most of the time we've known each other, she was in another long-term relationship and thus, was not a dating option, and so i directed my attention elsewhere. But one fateful day it became known that we were both single at the same time, and a switch was flipped.

The relationship has moved at a natural pace--ridiculously fast. In most of my other relationships, planning to move in together in September (a mere six months into the relationship! What in the bejesus?) would have been an unthinkable option, as that way normally lies madness. Heck, i can point to two other instances where i lived with a girlfriend: a long-term relationship where we didn't live together until we had already been dating for two and a half years; and a relationship where she moved in at the nine-month mark and broke up with me one month later. Buuuuuuuut, say it with me...this one's different. We've been friends for three years already, so we already know and get each other to a degree that most early-stage couples don't. We've confided in each other about past relationships while they were going on, so we know each other's weaknesses already. And most importantly, we don't feed into them. We've both been in unbalanced relationships where we did most of the emotional lifting and support, and now we're in one where it's on even footing, and it feels...perfect.

And of course, there are the perks: she's cute as all hell, she shares my uncontrollable love for cute animals (we're getting a baby kitty when i move in so Radar has a new friend and isn't lonely), she loves baseball and indie wrestling, and perhaps most amazingly, she gets the whole "band dude" thing, understands my relationship with it, and supports it wholeheartedly, even if our musical tastes don't exactly line up (which isn't even an issue at all). It's only been three months (wtf, really?), but it already feels like pretty much the best relationship i've had in...well, let's just say a long damn time. To say i'm jazzed would be to say that Greg Jennings was reservedly content after winning the Super Bowl.

Next post is going to be way more entertaining, i promise. Why? Two words--NAP JUSTICE.