Where I've Been and What's Been Goin' On

The other day I checked with my bank and was dumbfounded and a little paranoid to find a charge of 10 bucks to my Regions checking account from Google. Whaaaa....? What can you buy from Google? Has the search engine I use every day -- whether it be as an important tool for research or as a completely trivial time waster -- become so good now that one might be able to type in something so private as, say, "Mike Boody's checking account number" and withdraw from it footloose and fancy dandy? I sat on this mystery for the day -- trying to remember what the hell I have bought off the Internet -- much less GOOGLE -- in the past month. I never buy anything off the Internet. I think the last purchase may actually be a sampler pack of Cigars I bought two months ago.

Then, it came to me. Oh, yes, of course -- it's mid-May, and time for my domain name, midnightcitizen.com, to process its annual renewal.

I felt like miserable crap. Here I am, paying 10 bucks for a web site I haven't used in almost a month. Why? I don't know. As a blogger and podcaster, I've always taken pride in the consistency with which I churn out material for your eyes and ears. The Midnight Citizen is an important project for me, because it allows me a creative outlet to which I am the sole employee. Unlike other projects I've worked on in my life, I don't have to rely on anyone to produce something. Unlike movies projects I've worked on, for instance, there's no folks to wait on to put up lights, or secure a camera for shooting, or whatever have you. No. If I have a few hours free, I can sit down and do a show, or write a blog. And in the last month, I've really let myself down.

It's become an utter impossibility for me lately to focus my creative juices on producing something for your consumption. Even as I write this, I'm strapped down to my chair in the "studio" (really a computer set up on a bookshelf and a chair stolen from the dining room table), securely tightened to the feeble wood with a seat belt strap I nabbed from the car and one of those Clockwork Orange masks that force your eyes to stay open. It's an experimental rig that, as far as I can tell, is actually helping me to write out a full blog.

So, here it is -- my attempt to isolate what might be the problem in production for The Midnight Citizen.

1.) My job.

If you've listened to the show, you'll know I've been working nights, or early mornings, for the last five months, delivering newspapers for The Birmingham News. It's an old story, but you gotta do what you gotta do in this economy. Actually, I've really been lovin' it. It's a recession proof job -- in that, you can't get fired because you're an independant contractor, unless, maybe, you get caught wizzing in people's mailboxes. As a night job, it allows me time during the day to focus my efforts on projects, which was working really well up until about a month ago. Really, in the last four months I was constantly putting myself to work during the day on catching up with my reading, doing podcasts, and writing in a way that I've rarely been focused before. But now, all that has come to a teeth grindingly screeching halt. After work, I can't help but come home, climb into bed, and sleep until 1 or 2 pm. Today, I actually consider myself an early bird. I woke up at 12:30. I know -- I need to sleep some time, and better to sleep all at once than in chunks. But once I wake up in the afternoon, I feel like the whole day is shot, and better just to move on to number 2 on our list...

2. Time Munchers (Stephen King called them The Langoliers)

If you've ever read the story (I recommend listening to the audiobook read by a wiley Wilem Defoe), you'll know the Langoliers as being those hideous triangular-shaped monsters who chew up the present as it drifts quickly into the past. The only way you can avoid them is if you're a part of "The Big Picture" -- in other words, keep working, keep producing, keep moving forward, or the Langoliers will get ya.

My pal Josh and I were talking yesterday about hazardous time wasters that start as innocent time fillers and quickly chew up huge chunks of your day until you're left with nothing but mandatory, benal trips to Wal-Mart and cleaning out the cat box. For Josh, this was Facebook; not as much so for me. I am on Facebook, but I have never been able to get into the way many people do. I'll log on a couple of times a day to see what folks are saying, but otherwise, it's no big deal to me. My big deal, however, is Netflix Instant. Oh my God!

How many views of old B pictures and Mythbusters episodes does it take to satisfy my thirst for fleeting entertainment? Usually, I'll get a flick in my mind -- I have no idea how it gets there. Before I know it, I'm putting it in the search field up top, and if it comes up as instantly available to watch, I'll spend the next two hours in the process. And of course, after you finish this, Netflix suggests other flicks you may like -- "Hey, Mike, if you liked The Stepfather, then brother, you're gonna LOVE The Paperboy!" Oh my God!

And of course, if Netflix doesn't have it, YouTube most likely will. The other day, I gave a quick frown that something I suddenly and randomly had the desire to watch wasn't on Netflix, so I went to Youtube, and, dang it, I spend the next 80 minutes watching...Maniac Cop?!?! Really?

Before I know it I'm a big fat ass, laying on the bed and desperately seeking other trivial celluloid disasters that might be up there for my immediate consumption. What better way to avoid owning up to Number 3...

3. Feelings of Inferiority

So let's get all Woodsy Allen and talk about what's really keeping me from churning out any new stuff. Many years ago -- a long time before I ever thought about taking up a domain name and starting a blog myself -- my brother-in-law mentioned to me a recent author's thoughts about blogging and sharing your journal with the world. Margaret Mason's No One Cares What You Had for Lunch was an indictment of "boring, useless" blogs -- those trivial updates of the average person's life that are flooding the Internet. I've never read the book, but the title was strong enough to invoke in me a sense of resistence to instituting just another blog.

The problem is -- I like boring, useless blogs and podcasts. One of my favorite shows of all time is Frank Nora's The Overnightscape, an almost daily account of what is on this guy's mind. Often, he ponders what he will be having for lunch that day. It's some of the most fascinating entertainment you can pump into your ears.

Earlier this year, I joined Frank Nora's network of like-minded podcasters who believe every day life is perfect fodder for audio showcase. The Overnightscape Underground has been a great creative outlet for me, and, especially, a great outlet for me to connect with other folks who do shows just like me. It's nice to have this kind of moral support from people all over the world who believe it's perfectly fine to come on the air as they walk around the streets of New York City, or drive to work in the morning, or sit in their backyards with cigars in hand, and philosophize impromptu about what it means to live in the early years of the twenty-first century.

However, these guys are so good at focusing their ideas and turning them into words that I don't know if I can keep up. As self-inflicting as it may seem, my shows are so few and far between because I want to make sure each episode is perfect and pleasing to my original vision of it. And often, kind of ironically, these shows do not usually meet my standards because I am so slow about producing them that I forget to talk cohesively, and they usually, to me, just end up as a mish-mash of thoughts and ideas that are scattershot with a slew of scrambled-up "You Knows". I do, however, believe, that my better shows are ones that follow in quick succession of each other, because I am used to talking into the microphone and quickly organizing my thoughts into more or less meaningful expressions.

Still, however, it takes so much for me to sit in front of the microphone and press record. Why? It's one of the only things I can do right now that is absolutely free, and whatever I record, I know it will only be for myself, and whoever else might want to listen to it probably knows me or knows my show and what to expect from it. The truth is, everytime I feel like today is the day, I think -- maybe they've got Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 on Netflix. I'll watch that, and I'll do a show tomorrow.

Tomorrow, yeah....

I love ya.

So what's in the future?

I honestly don't know. This is certainly not the end of the show. I have never thought that, and I never will. I just need to think of a way to re-tool the show in a way that is more interactive. In other words, now that the show is centralized in a "studio" after a year of being itenerate between four or five locations, I would like to figure out Skype, and a way to actually have more people on the show so that there will be more variety.

I am be making a resolution as of now that I will devote two hours a day to creating. Maybe it will go up in the future, and I will spend more time with a pen in hand, or my hands to the keyboard. One thing is certain, though; two hours is the minimum. Whether it be blogging, or recording, or writing, for two hours a day from here on out, you will find me in some sort of creative projection.

Let's see, I've been blogging here for the last...37 minutes...so...damn it. Is it too late to retract?

And finally, I am going to stop beating myself up about making everything I put into the ether perfect. While some of my true inspirations were perfectionists, I don't have the time to dabble in such stunted output. I need to think of my projects as spaghetti -- boil em', throw em' against the wall, and see what sticks.

And finally, part 2: I am going to stop beating myself up about sleeping until 2. Make no mistake about it, I am your Midnight Citizen. You don't want me up before then -- all grouchy and groggy-eyed. I may turn into a conservative.