JULY 29, 2020 // SKULLFACE #2. LEARN YOURSELF
Dear Reader,
This is the second edition of the newsletter I promised to put out every two months for two years. As you scroll down you will find artifacts of my work since the May 29th issue.
I watched a movie recently that was a compilation of the home movies made by a musician I liked when I was a kid. He carried a video camera around with him every where, and made his life into a movie. He filmed the ocean underneath a pier, and a graveyard in New Orleans with those fancy marble crypts all tilted in the swamp, and old mafia men giving him life advice in an open air, tropical hotel lobby, and his daughter being born, and his favorite musicians on television when he was young in Indiana, and the same musicians back stage when he played a show with them a many years later on.
The reviewer for the New York Times couldn't have been less impressed. The review was very snide and I assume the work of someone who was jealous and bitter. The guy who wrote the review hasn't done anything as difficult, nor as diligent as the filmmaker has in this case. That's an objective statement based on the laws of probability. Also, the reviewer has never done anything as beautiful as the filmmaker. That's a subjective statement based on my temper's picture appearing on a milk carton shortly after reading the review.
This tendency on my part to get angry is usually unproductive. Now, in a moment of calm, I know that yeah, even if you do the best job ever, some one is likely to piss on your grave. But also, someone will put flowers on your grave, and be inspired by your life. I can't for the life of me see how either matters other than to provide focus for working hard each moment, and having fun while you're doing it.
I've been told that using indignation towards the grave pisser as license to aggressively do whatever I want is obscuring the possibilities afforded by a more equanimous point of view. This makes sense, and I'm working to get out from under my bad habits. It's difficult though, because we all have tactics we used as kids to turn the tables on whatever was happening in childhoods, and those tactics get reached for real fast whenever there's a perceived threat.
Right now society looks to be kicking and screaming quite a bit. We're all living in it. Even so, a lot of people are doing good work and the only way to make it better is to keep on working, and learning from the mistakes. Anyway, you know that movie I was talking about a couple paragraphs back? Well, in that movie, and also in this book I'm reading right now too, the person making both, know the audience they're making it for is experiencing their work, after the person who made it is dead. And they know exactly who that audience person is. It's one person. It isn't a whole flock of watery eyed imbeciles hurling their collective under garments skyward, in praise of false idols, and in search of bloody signatures. No. It's only one person, sitting alone somewhere quiet, in a future as yet undetermined.
Neither the filmmaker, nor the author, are without demons. That is rendered quite clearly in the movie and in the book. The filmmaker has self destructive anger and drug problems. The writer has paranoia and self loathing problems. I suspect the wisdom needed in order to expose those flaws, interwoven masterfully in the whole tapestry, is instrumental to how they pull off the rare trick, of expressing love without being sentimental. "Something isn't sentimental if it's true." Whenever I watch Norm MacDonald say that on the last episode of his friend's historic television program, it helps me to have a cry. It's a non pharmaceutical cry inducing product. I need that because my spirit is too volatile for drugs and therapists. You can't bring a wild animal into a doctor's office. If you're a wild animal you learn to look after yourself, and if you make a mistake, you die.
See ya in two months,
Michael Musika
JULY 27, 2020 // ST + EK IV
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
This is the fourth compilation of songs from a text thread produced by Sleepy Todd. Here’s a Spotify Playlist. Information and supplementary links follow for non Spotify users, and because I don’t like the way the Spotify player looks on this website.
4Peat. XXTENTACION. XXTENTACION Presents: Members Only, Vol. 3.
GREEN. Hiroshi Yoshimura. Green.
School Shooters. XXXTENTACION, Lil Wayne. Bad Vibes Forever.
DIET_. Denzel Curry. Kenny Beats. UNLOCKED.
All Man Got. Pinch, Trim. All Man Got.
Fourth of July. Galaxie 500. This is Our Music.
Fall in Line. K CAMP. Kiss 5.
Running Red Lights (feat. Rivers Cuomo & Pink Siifu), The Avalanches.
We’ve Only Just Begun. Carpenters. Close to You.
SMTS. Jeremih. The Chocolate Box.
Cool Down. Stephen Mallinder. Pow Wow.
YES! (feat. Rich The Kid & K CAMP). KYLE, K CAMP, Rich the Kid. See You When I am Famous!
Introduction. WITCH. Witch: We Intend to Cause Havoc!
Pass Dat. Jeremih. Late Nights: The Album.
Lightspout Hollow. Bibio. Sleep On The Wing.
Train Food. XXXTENTACION. SKINS.
Go. Privacy. Autonegotiation.
Synchronize Vibration. Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad.
Loon. Darkstar. Civic Jams.
Ex (feat. YG). Ty Dolla $ign, YG. Beach House 3.
We Used To Keep Bees In There. Laura Cannell. The Earth With Her Crowns.
POTENTIAL (Sustain). Thomas Köner. Motus.
Park Jit - Mixed. O-WELLS. Kern, Vol. 5: Mixed by Helena Hauff.
BOA. Sam Gendel. Sam Wilkes. Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar.
Mequetrefe. Arca. KiCk i.
Pavan Hindustan - Instrumental. Robbie Basho. Bashovia.
Time (You and I). Khruangbin. Time (You and I).
Part 7. Bill Nace. Both.
Fluff - 2013 Remaster. Black Sabbath. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (2014 Remaster)
Malak Ya Saly. Sharhabil Ahmed. The King of Sudanese Jazz (Habibi Funk 013)
Badly. Jessy Lanza. All the Time.
The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Reprise [The Reflex Revision]
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On [The Reflex Revision]
JULY 22, 2020 // HOW GARDENING + CARPENTRY INFORM MUSIC PRODUCTION
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
The limitations of a space provide boundaries that create form. There is no substitute for time spent in quiet observation. The repetition of a pleasing pattern can be found by measurement and division. The relationship of the angle, to the horizontal plane, guides the eye. Color and texture, used wisely, create harmony. Never find yourself in a position where you need to move a tool to get the tool you need. Cluttered workspaces are the domain of people who don’t have enough time to do a good job. Organized workspaces will be reflected in your results. Abstraction exists for the procrastinator. Nothing is abstract, only unrealized. The materials already at hand, are often worth twice as much as those found far away. Find the best teacher closest to where you live. If you learn a skill well, it will translate to all areas of your life.
JUNE 24, 2020 // SELF PORTRAIT
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORINA
I like the colors and the fact that the subject is in the left hand third of the horizontal frame. I was holding the camera though, and as a result the horizon is tilted. Further there are places where the light pools too flat like how smeared paint looks. This is a result of using the iPhone camera function where you can see what you are taking a picture of while you’re taking a picture of it. Future photos will come out better if taken whenever possible with a DSLR camera on a tripod. Furthermore, it will be interesting to see if the subject not being able to see the photographer looking at the subject, will yield a less puckered and self conscious visage.
JUNE 21, 2020 // LOST SQUID
THE SEA RANCH, CALIFORNIA
I’m completely unprepared. I’m about to have to drive to San Francisco. I’m in Sea Ranch, California on a warm evening. I went fishing today. The ocean was clear. Two big bites. Lost squid. Are you against recreational fishing? I feel behind in my work due to unreasonable standards in terms of rate of progress. The standard is nebulous. The wind is blowing the surface of the sea. I’m distracted. I live with my girlfriend and an old dog. I don’t want the old dog to feel sad or afraid.
Too much internet. No reading and only perfunctory writing. There is a direct correlation between how my mind is working now with my dearth of positive intellectually restorative practices. The pine trees are green. The sky is blue. Bird survey. Long shadow towards the Maricopa tree. I want to work longer uninterrupted without being unreliable or joyless. You should get up earlier. An old nautical clock. Harry Potter books on tape. Chiming in on transgenders and the color of your legacy. If you don’t menstruate you’re not a woman and people got mad.
I’m not Skullface. I’m too tired to get cancelled right now unless you count my lack of alarm for JK Rowling’s gender takes. A two point five hour drive. Schedule for the week. Music. Friends. Stair building. You’re always looking for that golden window where everything you want to get done gets done. That golden window with a sun damaged face. Baseball games, ballets, art museums, funerals, etc. The act of performing is for the act itself. Is it disconcerting to only see my eyes? Coffins, clown make up, and other trappings. Why are you so preoccupied with who’s watching? What should I be preoccupied with?
The eyeball dance. Two eyes times two. Ambitions of a Stunt Person. How old is middle aged? Superstitious. Caution to the wind as years go by. Voice recognition software that doesn’t work has changed the way people talk. God bless, but I don’t care for it. I’m not joining Tick-Tock or the one after that. So much time working on a website that no one looks at. The human race is already gone. Music is a good art form. A paper boat with a candle in it going over the still black water in Japan at night time. Thank you. Mental illness behavior.
JUNE 17, 2020 // YOU'VE FORGOTTEN WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO TAKE IT THAT FAR AND HOW MANY TIMES
THE SEA RANCH, CALIFORNIA
You’ve forgotten what it feels like to take it that far and how many times. Hospital rooms. Funeral Homes. Graveyards. Police Stations. You’re not allowed to talk about anything anymore. What is the identity of this thing? It’s an animal. It’s a method actor. Shut up! I’m an authority figure. Say something topical about what’s going on in the world right now. A boring joke about privilege. Who would you call if someone breaks into your house? I’m so alive. If you clean up your room, then you’re allowed to watch TV. One thing I agree with Jordan Peterson on. I like a clean room, but he went crazy. Definition of going crazy. If one goes bad the others soon follow. I would like for everyone to be healthy. Let’s work on it. I’m not sure it ends with death.
The eyeball test replaced by advanced metrics. Racist time machine. I’m tired of making fun of everybody. A projection on who we can pay the least to do the same job. There’s no positive canary in the coal mine. Were there really eight year old coal miners? I don’t believe in multi tasking, but I have multiple personalities. How many number root words do you know to cut up your soul? Division of labor. Does anyone really think we should put canaries in coal mines? Charles Dickens can’t see the moon nostalgia. Baseball is ahead of the American curve in dealing with societal problems? Money ball is not qualitatively better. The mask of a superficially imposed meritocracy.
Obnoxious antiquated baseball enthusiast. Let’s put that in a can and serve it later. Food metaphors. My great piano teacher. I’m elitist scum. Whenever there is a food reference I think I’m above it. You need food, air, kindness, and a little bit of a weird person staring intensely at you. Witness gratitude. Advanced metrics department call back. Last topic. How many people are watching this right now. I want to talk about topics that will get me cancelled. I’m not being Frank the Italian guy from New York. A graph of maneuver quality versus audience member total. What happens when you get cancelled and why I don’t want to cause destruction and pain. It’s because I like some of the twenty people watching. Saying “nobody cares what you think” is a poor strategy for stopping this guy.
FEB 20, 2020 // I DREAMED I WAS A VERY CLEAN TRAMP, RICHARD HELL
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Richard Hell grew up in Kentucky and ran away from home for the first time as a young boy shortly before his father died of a heart attack. I think it was a heart attack. I’m writing this a few months after I finished the book. Richard starts out remembering his childhood with remarkable detail. He notes the smell of the building where his father worked, the trees that grew around there, his report card grades, and times spent with friends listening to records, and looking for trouble.
I used to find it remarkable when a popular music professional with heavy drug habits has a good memory, and an eye for details that better writers may pass over. Keith Richards, in his autobiography, references journal entries that also served as accounting log books for the earnings and expenses of The Rolling Stones’ early shows. I realize now that this shouldn’t be surprising at all that these sorts of people have good memories. Those who have struck a key in the cultural consciousness loud enough for little old me to hear must have had an above average set of faculties. I know more about baseball than I do about music. That is to say, I’m not studiously in search of the esoteric. What comes my way I catch, but I don’t go out of my way. I’ve been around a little bit though, and I’m quite sure it’s difficult to move to New York City as an eighteen year old, and through the tutelage and selectively good graces of a series of savvy girlfriends, low rent living situations, and dubious patrons, learn to make a living.
The book ends with Richard walking around his neighborhood in New York as a middle aged, sober, retired artist. Before that he did lots of drugs, played in the band Television in the CBGB punk scene, played in a band with Johnny Thunders after the New York Dolls, published poetry periodicals, and was somewhat rude to Allen Ginsberg. My favorite passage was when he compared the George Bush World Trade Center, flag waving supporters after the September 11, 2001 attacks, to the attendees of a March 1967, Central Park “Human Be-in.” I have it underlined in pencil. That’s the first time I remember doing that. I’m making progress in my student habits. The passage goes: “For Bush’s Americans that dubious idea was the virtue of self-righteous patriotism, and for the hippies it was the practicability of universal kindness and generosity. The people joined together by those unexamined assumptions seemed idiotic. On the other hand, my inability to fit in was involuntary too.”
Yeah. I feel that way, and it’s probably why I usually don’t like parties. Richard Hell certainly made a lot of music and artwork. He says that he designed the aesthetic of his bands. By this I mean the clothes, haircuts, and artwork of the flyers. He understood how marketing and image related to understanding the art itself. One must see the utility in being. Even being a junky has utility. Pretty little things like birds with broken wings, and so do wealthy would be uncles, but you have to have the fortitude to sleep with one eye open, for like twenty years or so. This book, like the previous one in this list, was a birthday present from my friend Sterling in May of 2018.