I think my idea of writing, as a teen, was to just write down the things that my brain sometimes said to me that maybe sounded cool or were clever or were something that captured the headspace of a moment as opposed to the physicality of a moment. The idea of future nostalgia was always somewhat present. A future me stumbling upon these relics and smiling wistfully, thinking, "ya scamp, ya."
They also served as words I would think to myself while playing music with friends and eventually the filled notebooks or word docs would be from which I'd pluck phrases for records while working on them in pre-pro or actually during recording/producing.
At some point, though, I began writing for writing's sake; knowing that the band I was in would never create as many songs as necessary in order to give these words a home. The idea became that I'd use these vignettes later when piecing together a fictional narrative. Some sort of opus. A life's work. The Great American Novel.
So here's an evolution.
I wrote this first thing on tour in '04.
capacity for nostalgia: virginia beach 3:00am holds a piece of me that i will never be able to get back. everything is finite. even memory. sad to never be able to feel it again. coming down off the drug of virginia and philly, and long beach, new york and north carolina, and athens, georgia and el paso, illinois and now covington, kansas. the drug of tour.
And these two other things at some point in '05, most likely, thinking about that time in '04 at Virginia Beach.
army of ghosts: the pixelation of the memory disintegrates, fading sense by sense. no longer so vivid and moving. now it’s timid and soothing like a movie you watch as you fall asleep. fighting through an army of ghosts to jog through the fog that has crept into your recollections.
sand on your feet: as the mouth of the ocean sings a most familiar tune of hourglass sands and of a thousand beaches’ déjà vu. Handing me a music note to gulp down and feel warm.
When trying to construct some sort of flowing fictional narrative in '07 or so, I looked at these notes in order to inform what a moment might have looked like if given the gift of a clear, simultaneous, perspective and these became this (this still was to be worked and worked but I gave up at some point in '09 or so).
We hit Virginia Beach one night while staying with a friend. I take off all of my clothes to drink more beers in the ocean. The water is the temperature of my body making me feel one with its jelly-like mass of undulating motion. I can’t tell ocean from sky, body from water and it feels fantastic. I’ve become quiet and withdrawn. I realize that everything is finite…even memory. The pixellation of the memory will disintegrate, fading sense by sense. It’ll no longer be so vivid and moving. It’ll become timid and soothing like a movie you watch as you fall asleep. You’ll forever be fighting through an army of ghosts to jog through the fog that has crept into your recollections. You will never feel this feeling again – I keep telling myself. Your memory won’t do this moment, this night, this life any justice. 3:00am Virginia Beach will forever hold a piece of you that you will never get back. This starts bumming me out. It’s like coming down off the drug of Virginia and Philly, and Long Beach, New York and later North Carolina, Athens, Georgia and even later El Paso, Illinois and Covington, Kansas. It’s all the drug of tour I think as the mouth of the ocean sings a most familiar tune of hourglass sands and of a thousand beaches’ déjà vu. Instead of enjoying the rest of the night, I reflect on it, reflecting on the present and it depresses me.
Now, this was all autobiographical. This was a moment I lived and thoughts that I thought then and then tried capturing/writing down later.
When I started another musical project with my songwriting bro in '10, I looked to these words again when he played me a couple ideas he had on his shitty acoustic guitar. I shaped them into the thoughts of an addict's conscience. I made them more about someone trying to get back to a mindset that they once had, about getting clean, I guess.
Army of Ghosts – The pixilation of the memory disintegrates, fading sense by sense until it’s gone. He’s jogging through an army of ghosts just to feel again, what he must’ve felt when he was young. He tries. He tries. He tries to be that kid again. He tries. He tries to build that bridge again, from guilt to innocence. No longer vivid and moving, it’s timid and it soothes like a movie that you watch then fall asleep. The fog that’s crept into his recollections is so thick. He’s coming down. He’s no longer clean. But he tries. He tries. He tries to be that kid again. He tries. He tries to find that path again from guilt to innocence. And he’s no longer innocent.
You can listen to that demo here. We never ended up finishing the song because we realized that we had ripped off a 30 Seconds to Mars (I know! What?) song for the verses. It must've slipped into my bro's subconscious because he had only heard it at the very end of one of their videos (I may link to it when I find it).
And, anyway, in 2012, like, last week, I was taking a walk with my son and these words were in my head because I was thinking about the various layers of memory and how sights change, sounds get forgotten, smells transform, touch evolves, taste gets numbed etc... while walking through this place that I had held dear at various parts of my life: as a child with parents, as a drinking teen, as a nostalgic twenty-something etc... And these words were most easily communicated and repeated within my synapses as this last variation, this last melody.
So, I thought of different ways to combine these things for a blog post (which I guess is another form of posterity but is also, primarily used as some sort of dissemination channel): an image poem involving spray paint, a nature film I had shot in 2000 with this demo laid over it. I might still do these things but it leads us here to this blog post. Because sometimes I just want to say these things as they are.
Time going by is fucking weird.
