So there’s the mp3 for this week, and it’s a freebie, so all you non-members out there can enjoy. I’ll probably only leave this up for a couple weeks or so, though, so get it now while the gettin’s good.
I recorded all of this today on a four-track cassette recorder, and I wrote the music a couple months ago in an hour before a performance, which is almost exactly the same way I wrote the music for the Soulja Boy cover. Sometimes I don’t want to be bothered writing lyrics, and so I just write music around another set of lyrics, but always something that would be as surreal as possible. Sometimes it’s easier for me to translate whatever I’m feeling when I don’t have to translate it into words along with music. I always agonize too much over lyrics, so if I just use some other ones, everything happens so much more quickly.
Oh, and this marks the recorded debut of the harmonium I got for Christmas.
And I think it makes a perfect Valentine’s Day gift. From me to you.
Instead of whining about loneliness or the capitalist motivation behind this holiday, I’m going to take a close look at the official neuropeptide of Valentine’s Day: OXYTOCIN. Let me make sure to disambiguate early: I’m not talking about Oxycontin, the candy treat enjoyed by children everywhere, or OxiClean, the cleaning product made from the ashes of those who have donated their bodies to “Science.” I’m talking about the neurotransmitter that makes you feel LOVE/ATTACHMENT, the one yr brain squirts out when you’re unmistakably in love, or when your baby thirstily devours milk from your upper torso, or whilst cummin’.
I’ve always considered myself to have something of a problematic oxytocin addiction, even before I knew what it was I was addicted to. There’s something normalizing about the effects of being in a pair bonding relationship, for me, and not necessarily a romantic one. I have always felt more comfortable when there is someone I talk to every day, someone with whom I feel no social stress, some sort of “partner” who feels the same way about me. Sometimes it’s a girlfriend, sometimes it’s a female best friend, sometimes it’s a male best friend. Of course, my preferred source is a romantic partner who can overload me with that specific oxytocin high, and to whom I can offer the same overload. Of course, this is always more or less unpredictable, and sometimes one person in the pair bond stops producing oxytocin as a natural response to the other, leading to certain trauma and tragedy.
(A brief note: I know very little about the specific neurobiological activities being discussed here; it’s something I’m trying to teach myself to understand but it’s very dense and difficult. On this blog I’m just making broad conjectures relative to my own subjective experience. It’s not JUST oxytocin involved in the pair-bonding process; there’s all that vasopressin as well, but I’m pretty sure my simplified version is close, just very low-resolution)
I’ve known for a while now, having compared my own experiences with love and attachment with the experiences of others, that I must have a strange relationship with oxytocin, that perhaps there is something different about my processing or generation of “the love chemical.” About three years ago I went through an obsessive phase of research on oxytocin, having had an event of severe and immediate attachment to a person I had just met, and then enduring traumatic withdrawals from her when we ceased contact. I became convinced that other humans are, in a way, DRUGS. Other people alter the way I operate, at least. I feel like a different person around different people, and that’s what drugs do: they alter the way one operates. I was convinced, however, that some people actually cause chemical changes in the body, chemical changes that can be severe, euphoric, and genuinely consciousness-altering. After a bit of research, I began reading about oxytocin, and found that my conjecture was pretty much spot-on. Oxytocin affects CNS processes related to opiate addiction and cocaine addiction, and one can have withdrawals from it. And I’ve discovered recently that if I go a long period of time without a hefty dose, I start going sort of crazy.
It isn’t particularly a matter of “feeling happy being single,” but a matter of a cessation of feeling normal after long enough. I can hardly operate socially outside of a pair bond, usually, and having gone months without such a bond, I’m starting to feel hopelessly trapped inside my own mind, with no means of escape. There have been many times in my life I’ve been “happy being single,” but during those times I had a best friend and creative partner, the other kind of pair bond. Now that I have neither, I feel somewhat stuck in a spiral, trying to find an anchor point outside of myself, but failing, and growing more frustrated with myself for failing, as though it’s my fault.
This week I was reading an article on PopSci.com about dangerous technology under development, and one such technology was the use of oxytocin for various purposes, some of which are scary, some of which surprised me – apparently oxytocin has come under consideration as a treatment for autism. I could scarcely believe that with all the reading I’ve done on both autism and oxytocin, I had never seen anyone mention that the two were linked, but a quick google search proved that I just hadn’t looked closely. Apparently people on the spectrum have abnormal relationships with oxytocin and vasopressin, and oxytocin levels are typically lower in autistic subjects than they are in the general population.
Discovering this was like finding that one puzzle piece you knew was there on the table but, for all your close searching, you could never find, to the point that you concluded that it must be missing, and the puzzle is no longer worth doing, because you’ll never get the satisfaction of finding that piece. It was just stuck in the couch cushions.
So all of a sudden, my increased normalcy when I have someone I’m pair-bonded to makes more sense than ever. If I have a natural oxytocin deficiency, then it stands to reason that “treating” that deficiency through pair-bonding and subsequent oxytocin generation would increase my sense of normalcy and decrease a lot of my negative autistic behaviors, the same way that intravenous oxytocin improved said behaviors in individuals on the spectrum in this study.
I’m not sure what all of this means, but it sure is bizarre to suddenly find what I considered a crackpot theory about my own functioning to have some basis in scientific reality. I have spent a lot of time mentally self-flagellating because I don’t know how to “be happy on my own,” as I’m constantly told I should be able to do by others. The only time I was able to do this really was as a child, when I was content to exist in the complex universes my mind generated, but something happened when I hit puberty, some schism that made me feel like a whole piece that was also one half of something else, and would feel a void without the other half. I’ve written songs about this idea since I was fourteen, contemplating the concept of an ideal other.
Heh, that reminds me a whole lot of the lovely metaphor put forth in “The Origin of Love” from HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, so I’ll go ahead and leave you with that video, which I absolutely adore:
I’ll post this week’s mp3 later tonight or tomorrow morning. I still haven’t decided if I’m gonna post something old or try to finish something new that’s close to finished…
Posted a demo from summer 2006 up in that member zone. I’ve always been unsure as to how to expand this song, and I’ve always wanted to, but I think it still works pretty well just with guitar and vocals. But I’ll let YOU be the judge of THAT.
I’m drowning in perfectionist tendencies. Even when my intended goal is to produce something imperfect and fleeting, I get half-done, become frustrated with the imperfections, and then I just stop. I’ve been trying to write blog entries, and I have five or six two-paragraph false starts. I’ve been writing songs and recording some demos, but I get to a point where I really don’t know what’s supposed to come next, and even when something feels right, I’m nagged by internal questioning: “What if this isn’t the IDEAL melody/harmony/chord/instrument/key?” Complicating that frustration is my logical half leaning in and murmuring “John Paul, you know that nothing is ideal, right? And you can also go back and edit things if you really feel you need to…” And I know that logic is sound, but it doesn’t change anything.
So I’m going to start making blog posts every Friday. They’re going to be disorganized and imperfect, and will likely ramble into numerous side-notes and tangents, and will rarely convey a coherent thought when taken as a whole. However, I am not writing theses, these are BLOG ENTRIES. I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be fleeting and imperfect. Also, I’m going to start posting songs every Sunday. I have enough stuff done (or close enough that I’ll finish over the next two weeks or so) that I can stick to this schedule, as long as my equipment holds up, which is seeming less and less likely as time goes on.
Today’s topic on the Real Frogs blog is: AUTISM. This is what I’ve wanted to write a blog post about for a few months now, but I have been terrified to discuss this too openly, and terrified to write an imperfect summary of my thoughts on this subject. But it’s happening right now.
I suppose autism seems like something of a non sequitur as a topic for my blog on my little music site, so I’ll offer up my explanation: A few months ago I became extremely fascinated by autism and determined to understand as much as possible, so I spent most of my free time reading about autism spectrum disorders, and eventually I started reading first-person accounts of what autism is like subjectively, which was the thing I was most curious about, and most wanted to understand. Reading these first-person accounts was somewhat perplexing at first, because most of the autistic thought processes seemed completely normal to me, but the more I read, the more specific quirks of my behavior and thought process were mentioned, and I had that grand bizarre moment of uncanny realization: I’m autistic. Just a little bit, of course, but it’s there. If I presented myself to a knowledgeable psych-professional and asked to be evaluated, I would probably be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (though I prefer “mildly autistic”). I’ve spent months overanalyzing this now, for fear of coming off as some sort of fraud, as I haven’t been diagnosed by an Official Health Professional, but I’ve done boatloads of research and I’ve also lived inside my head for twenty-six years and I know everything that goes on inside of there, and it’s funny to replay memories in my head with this new knowledge, like the flashback montage after some unexpected twist in a film, because all of a sudden SO MANY THINGS, so many perplexing things about my experience and my existence now make sense because they have been placed into their proper context.
People who know me personally will likely scoff at the idea of me being autistic, but that is mostly due to misperception of the condition itself, and partially due to one of my lifelong obsessions being human behavior, which strengthens my theory of mind and my ability to “act normal.” Thus in face-to-face social situations with neurotypical adults, I probably come off as a big strange and bouncy, but that’s all. Inside my head, though, it’s usually a whirlwind of near-overload, trying to land upon the right thing to say. Social interaction is mostly at least challenging and usually stressful, and sometimes I have to avoid it as much as possible in order to stay sane. I do a ton of post-processing of my social interactions, and this lasts for hours, and usually leaves me feeling stupid or inadequate and completely misperceived. I can always figure out how I should have acted in order to properly communicate, but I can’t do it in the moment, and this has ALWAYS been frustrating. One would think that this would make communication a lot easier through email or facebook or what have you, but I’m pretty sure I’m even worse at those; there are so many doubts that fly through my mind when I even think about writing someone I haven’t talked to in a long time, doubts about what to write, how long the letter should be, how personal, how many questions to ask him or her, how to communicate how much I miss people without seeming overaffectionate or creepy or something, etc. Obviously I end up never writing or calling or anything and I seem self-important and kind of like a jerk, and believing myself to be perceived this way by old friends has been extremely painful, and yet I do nothing, because I am frozen.
This grand freeze also applies to me promoting Real Frogs, as I feel like even asking anyone to “check out my site” or something like that is annoying and egotistical, and if I am perceived as annoying and egotistical (as I believe I often am by those who don’t know me well), said person is much less likely to be interested, and I will have miscommunicated entirely. I suppose that’s why I’m starting to write blog entries, in the hopes that more content will generate more traffic and more people will hear what I’m doing. If I’m writing and posting things, there’s an imagined audience to me, even if no one is reading or listening. I just have to stop imagining myself as having to perfectly please some imagined ideal audience, or else I’ll never get anything done.
…and I’m trying to discipline myself into writing here at least every other day. The past month has been overwhelming in a number of different ways, and they are all things I should be writing about here.
I realize that I’ve got tons of mp3s to post before the month is out, and they’re on their way; I’ve spent too much time writing and not enough time demo-ing, thinking that everything I record and release needs to be pristine and perfect, forgetting the charm that a quick four-tracked demo has. Thus I’m currently in the process of getting a lot of these new songs demoed and posted up on this here website.
MEMBERS: There aren’t that many of you, but I need you to know how thankful I am. I apologize deeply that I’m not consistently dropping jamz, but there’s going to be a sizable chunk here in the next couple of weeks (and just in time for Christmas!), and in 2010 I plan on squirting out an mp3 every Friday, a consistent schedule I can follow.
Had a great time last night at Eclipse; those shows tend to be either extremely fun or extremely frustrating, and last night was definitely the former. Many thanks to everyone who showed up and listened; having a great audience is what makes the difference. Sue Scrofa opened, and that set was so good I felt a little intimidated; everything was tight and clean and the sonic palette was broad and interesting, plus them songs are just so damn GOOD… the scruffy little man in the t-shirt with an acoustic guitar and nothing else must pale in direct comparison…
But despite that unexpected sense of intimidation, I felt unusually comfortable. Sometimes I’m able to completely drift off into the world of what I’m doing, where I’m not thinking about the mechanics of playing or singing, or really thinking about anything at all. It’s in this complete distraction-free zone that I feel like I’m my best as a performer, but I almost never get to this point when I’m practicing. It’s only with an attentive audience that I get that weird feeling of leaving my self for a few moments to just inhabit the song. I’ve heard other performers talk about “totally losing themselves” in performance, and had always kind of thought that was corny or contrived or some sort of marketing tool used as a signifier of authenticity, but after I had been performing for a while, I realized that this was actually a real phenomenon, an uncanny feeling not particularly communicable through words. It reminds me a bit of when I was an actor and I would let the character’s emotions flood over and momentarily overwrite my “real self,” ultimately, in some place in my consciousness, forgetting that I was performing and allowing the metaphysical performance space to become my dominant reality. When I’m playing a song, I like to feel like I am no longer myself, but rather a song being played through the esoteric movements of the body I inhabit. Performance shouldn’t elevate the ego; it should dissolve it. It’s a hard thing to do, though, it’s hard not to think “HOW IS THIS PERFORMANCE GOING? HOW ARE MY FACIAL EXPRESSIONS BEING PERCEIVED? DO THEY LIKE ME? WHAT ARE THEIR FACIAL EXPRESSIONS TELLING ME ABOUT HOW MUCH THEY ARE ENJOYING THE SHOW?” These are all clearly ego-centric thoughts that never occur when I feel like I’ve “become” the song. Songs can’t worry or think, they just manifest themselves, and it’s possible, in performance, to allow this manifestation to overwrite one’s sense of self temporarily. I think it’s a feeling I used to get in church when I was a child, the sense of not only some metaphysical Other existing, but being a part of that entity itself. Lately I’ve been able to think of songs as little else than manifestations of aspects of some metaphysical Other, and I’ve found a renewed excitement and enjoyment in the process of writing and performing because of this. I want to be able to lose my sense of self entirely when I perform, because that feeling can transmit itself to the audience, and it becomes a palpable presence in the room, and it’s something beautiful that everyone shares equally. However, how does one hone this skill? How do I practice onstage ego-death? Maybe I just need to play more shows…
This makes me wonder what metaphysical space I’m disappearing into when I lose myself in the Soulja Boy cover.
SETLIST 11/14/09
Warm for a While
No One’s Listening
Cricket Girl
Catapult-Rocket
Crank That (Soulja Boy)
A Neat Disaster
Radio Hit Musical
Ordinary Girl
Rubbing Arms and Setting Fires
Dangerous Drugs
Making Faces in the Mirror
Violets
Balloons and Confetti
I’m A Dog (Gucci Mane cover)
Coming Apart at the Seams
Sinister Magic
Les Enfants Dorment
I’ll Be Your Elevator
Fluid and graceful, she grew out of your waist, threw her hands on your earlobes, those half-formed fingers spoke through a bear made of stars pulling sisters from her heart, laid upon the Earth to hold your camera, beautify the memes you hand her, resonate the places she can find / Stupid and hateful, a self defined in pain wasting day after day in an existential play, till the Earth, made of art, burrowed tunnels in your heart, and uncomfortable, you shake your body, steer it where the feeling started, feeding from some loaned, endearing mind / Here I am to hold your camera, beautify the memes I’m handed, resonating every piece I find / And then the stars sing ‘hello hello hello,’ though no one’s listening, ‘hello hello hello.’
________
Playing what might be my last solo show for a while with Sue Scrofa tomorrow night (SATURDAY the 14th) at Eclipse Coffee and Books in Montevallo. Smokers, bring your nicotine patches, ‘cuz you ain’t gonna wanna miss a moment.
Sorry posts have been so sparse lately; I’m probably going to start journaling my daily insanity in this blog, so stay tuned…
And here it is, boys and girls, the release date of the Actual EP.
Members can download it now over in the ol’ Members’ Area. Non-members can purchase both a digital and hard copy by joining the website and sending me their address at realfrogs@gmail.com – that’s right; for a limited time only, all new memberships to real-frogs.com come with a free physical copy of the Actual EP.
This is mainly because I haven’t figured out how to integrate my shopping cart into WordPress, so the offer ends when I figure that out. So if you’re thinking about joining, boy howdy, now’s the time.
I realized that there are no images of me, the actual person, on here, so this morning I did a little self-photography, and was reminded how much I loathe taking pictures of myself. I managed to fire a few short bursts while looking around the room so that I wouldn’t make a face when I pressed the shutter, and managed a few decent shots (DECENT):
After several days of rigorous and maddening recording, writing, and layering in an uncomfortable, steaming hot attic, I finally have something to show for my work. I’m still tweaking the mix here and there, and I may hear some things that will get changed before the final version, but there it is. You can also stream it from the player on the sidebar, or go to the download area if for some reason you want your link surrounded by different text.
I have uploaded 33 mp3s to the members’ area, and some of these are going to be gone eventually, ‘cuz they’re just early rough demos and some of them are mildly embarrassing, but I gotta give you early subscribers something a little bit extra. It’s five bucks for 33 mp3s (and at least 15 new ones over the next three months, though that’s a minimum that will be exceeded) and half off physical merchandise when it becomes available. Presuming the music is any good, that ain’t that bad, is it?
It’s such a strange, nervous feeling to send this out into the world. I’ve put a lot of myself into this material, and it’s so weird and exciting to try to disperse it as widely as possible. I’ve been writing and recording for almost twelve years now, and have never really tried to bring any attention to myself. I’m terrible at self-promotion. But now I’m trying to change that, so here we go…
If you like what I’m doing, please join and tell your friends, tweet this, social-bookmark it, help me get word out, if you think word deserves to get out. If I can make even part of my living doing this, then my time gets devoted to music, and when my time gets devoted to music, I write and record a lot of it. That’s the ultimate goal here. And that means a lot of music for you.
02.15.2010 | | Posted by John Paul
