Work Smarter
For a very brief stint after I graduated college, I recorded audio and video for senior recitals and audition videos at USC. My boss at the time was very tech-forward and constantly working to expedite his workflow. He would often remind me to “work smarter, not harder” - advice which at the time I would often ignore because I was younger and even more stubborn than I am now.
I think it’s time to reassess what we’re doing here. We need to find a way to work smarter, because the work that our fourth project is going to require is about to get very time-consuming. I want to continue the daily output on social media through the year, but it’s starting to take too much of our time, and it yields very little return right now.
So next month we’re going to make some adjustments. Here’s to hoping we’re getting a little smarter, despite our name.
-J.P.
Input vs. Output
I’m finding myself more and more concerned with the quality of our output, particularly regarding this thoughts page. Perhaps I’m taking myself a bit too seriously, but I hate that I feel like I’m repeating myself, harping on the same ideas over and over. Perhaps I’m taking myself a bit too seriously, but I hate that I feel like I’m repeating myself, harping on the same ideas over and over.
I’m not saying everything we post here needs to be earth-shattering. To have 365 unique revolutionary thoughts in as many days would make for a very tumultuous existence. I do think I need to make more time for input, however. We’re currently in the midst of a long stretch of consistent exposure, but once we reach the finish line I think there’s going to be a readjustment period. Hopefully we will have built ourselves a strong enough foundation to be able to take some time to gather new experience, more knowledge and information. I’m trusting that that time will provide us with new ideas so we can return, refreshed.
Perhaps I’m taking myself a bit too seriously, but I hate that I feel like I’m repeating myself, harping on the same ideas over and over.
-J.P.
Film 101
How do you make a movie? Asking for a friend. Totally not foreshadowing anything that we’re trying to do over here. Not at all. What’s that? Use the degree I got from a film school, you say? Hmm. I don’t know. That hasn’t helped me yet. Maybe, though! Maybe. As the Foreman in “Adventures of the Christmas Elf” (a holiday musical I used to do for kids every year) says, “Time is short. We must not delay”.
-J.P.
Too Many Cooks
Some days, I wish there were less artists in the world, so people would need me more.
What? Sue me.
-J.P.
Say Love, and a Note on Passivity
Happy Friday! “Say Love” by Roe’s Garden is out now and available to stream on all music platforms. I wrote the first version of this song about two and a half years ago, just after Understanding and I signed our Co-Publishing Agreement and I thought we would be selling songs like hot cakes. That is not what happened. Instead, the demo sat on my hard drive until early this year, when we decided to use it in the run of Roe’s Garden singles this year, so we retracked the instrumental and added Erica to it. I originally hoped she’d sing the whole thing but it ended up another duet, which is becoming a bit of a theme for Roe’s Garden, though I’m not sure it’ll continue. Being able to easily distinguish each act from the others is a key part of the Beautiful Idiots plan working out, so having the same voices appear multiple times as multiple artists can make things a little fuzzy.
Anyway, this song is about those times when you’re in a relationship and you both know there’s something wrong, but neither of you wants to say it. All that does is create more distance between you, and it usually ends up worse than it would if the two of you just talked it out when the issue arose. Life could all be so simple, but people have a funny tendency of being passive when they don’t want to deal with the consequences of confrontation. No judgement, I had to learn that the hard way too.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think it really does any good to be passive in any facets of your life. Passivity will afford you whatever is left over. If you want something in life, you have to go after it. That’s almost always going to be uncomfortable, but that’s where the growth happens. If you want something for yourself, I believe it’s your duty to yourself to do all you can to make it happen. It’s in books like The Alchemist, there’s tons of sayings about it, you probably see ads on your phone about it… just go after it. Nobody knows what’s in your head if you don’t say it out loud. Speak up, you’ll feel better about it… eventually.
Hope you enjoy the song.
-J.P.
The Walls Are Closing In
Today is one of those days where I feel like everything is hard for no reason and I can only see the bad in our current situation and the clock is ticking and the stakes are as high as possible. If this endeavor doesn’t pan out I’m essentially left to start over. To be frank, I don’t know how I would handle that. I don’t know where I would go, what I would do, or how I would be able to let all this go if that’s what it came to. It’s very hard to suppress that thought process some days, and this is one of those days. Whatever though, all I can do is everything I can possibly do.
-J.P.
Very Available
I watch a lot of sports. A popular thing to say in the sports world is “the best ability is availability”. I think that’s generally true of life outside of sports as well. It’s similar to the idea “don’t block your blessings”. Be there and keep yourself available to perform and impress or to receive the good fortune and opportunities coming your way. They say “showing up is half the battle” or something like that.
Man, they say a lot of things to say the same thing don’t they? Well, here I am.
-J.P.
Boxes… Again
I think it was a few days ago or so that I voiced my concern that I’ve been complaining too much here and softly pledged to improve my attitude… but that’s not happening yet.
People love to typecast. Hollywood does it. You see one person be the funny dumb guy in one movie and then you see him do it twenty more times. The romantic lead is always the romantic lead. The quirky girl is never the action hero. Very rarely do people get the chance to show their other colors. That’s a bummer in my opinion, but most times there are powers above those performers that have influence that prevents them from taking those riskier swings, especially when the budgets are high.
The thing that’s interesting to me is that people do it to themselves now online. I saw a video of a band that plays hip hop covers on the internet. They had gone viral with one of their covers and people used the sound from their video in their own reels and naturally, since it was successful, the band continued to do more videos of other hip hop covers. Now on the one hand, that’s good branding, right? Branding is the digital buzz word. It literally makes me want to put knives in my ears but that’s kind of beside the point. The problem is, now that’s all people want to hear from this band. Hip Hop cover after Hip Hop cover and they better be perfect. I looked in the comments on one of the videos and these people are nitpicking like crazy about one note that the guitarist played because it’s not exactly like the record. Do you think that any of the commenters considered that maybe these guys don’t want to just play covers exactly like old records their whole lives? Maybe they want to explore their creativity and try new ideas? Probably not. No room for that. The band did it to themselves to a degree by feeding the machine but the machine isn’t allowing any room for variance. Everybody’s stuck in their boxes.
So how do we build a brand that allows us to change? One where we don’t have to do the same thing over and over, where audiences and supporters will allow us to experiment, so we can feel free to do something different. How do we show all our colors and still be identifiable? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
-J.P.
