ROFL

"YEAH. That was FUCKED UP. And it ripped off SPEED."

Looks like a rush job or a favor. Probably both.

Just pulled up this thread solely to find and elsewhere use that .gif. You have done well.

That'll only give you the chat link after you've logged into the forum?

Yep. "Hid" the full chat link during my Reddit / 4chan madness so I'd/we'd have a safe place to talk about it. Since nobody gets registered to the forum without my approval, it's basically a gate that keeps outsiders out. They can see the forum, but not the chat.

Loved it.

Nobody listens to Felix!

Awesome.

Reviews are coming in. Some bad. Some good.

Ha. I kinda like that. Write the best five songs I can, put 'em on an album called "Five Things That Happened To Me."

• Samuel L. Jackson Almost Got Me Killed And Then Saved My Life

• The Best Balloon Artist On The Eastern Seaboard

• Trademark Say What

• Smokin' With NPH

• Banned From The Ballooniverse By A Bitch Named Twinkles

• George Takei Briefly Wanted My Nuts

• I Didn't Win An Emmy, But I Kinda Won An Emmy

• Shia Labeouf Bought Me Tacos (And All I Got Was Tacos)

• Snuck A Cute Girl Into A Stranger's Mansion For Lovin'

• Worked On The Same Damn Web Film For Ten Years (And I'm Not Even Trey)

• Lived To See Someone Do A Rail Off Of Naked Boobies

• Doing Magic On Television Pt. 1 (Sleight of Hand)

• Doing Magic On Television Pt. 2 (The Collapse of Stonehenge)

I can see the platinum from here.

Throughout my current weirdness - Samuel L. Jackson screwed up my life for a week, long story - I've been writing and fiddling with music. Today I had a chat with Andy and Alex, and sent them what I've come up with so far.

It is so astoundingly god-awful that I don't even know what to do with myself. I decided to try wine.

We start recording on July 15th. I have one month to fix this. Right now, I'm standing in front of a great big abyss of "no idea if I'm gonna pull this off," and not exactly sure if there's a eureka-moment coming.

The biggest problem I've been having is simply that I never write songs for myself. Mechanically speaking, I know how to write a song. I know how to convert a directive into a song. This makes writing songs for musicals pleasantly easy, and it makes writing a song around some organic joke in the spur of the moment even easier. In the case of a musical, you're writing someone else's words, and you know what they're supposed to say. In the case of a joke - even "Doritos Aren't As Bad For You As the Apocalypse" was written in this style - you have a punchline for a premise, and you fill out the set-up in verses. The point of the song is to be a musical version of the joke, not a statement. Plus, for either, you can do it in any style or genre you want.

In the absence of a musical number or a "quick funny song" prompt, you're just a guy with the ability to say something to the world. What do you say? How do you say it? What are you going to sing about, and by the way, pick a style.

I never write songs for myself. It doesn't come naturally to me; as weird as it might sound, I don't express myself in song. I express myself musically plenty, but my heart doesn't react to the world in musical terms. I really have to fake it. Faking it doesn't ring true - and ringing true is my goal.

The easy way out would be to write witty, self-aware, too-cute-by-half jokey songs. I could do that in a second. But I don't want to, I want to write stuff that's... good. Song-y. Not joke-y. Somehow, despite having all the respect in the world for Tom Lehrer and Tim Minchin, I feel like going that route is too easy. I want to communicate something. But every time I try, it feels obvious. There's something inherent to Writing A Song that makes it seem like the subject of the song is very important to the songwriter, and every thought I have strikes me as pedestrian. I don't want to hang "Important" on any of those thoughts, because I feel like it's giving myself a bad rep. "He thought that was a huge observation, what a tool."

You know?

I wonder if the problem is that great songwriting is a desperate act of trying to explain something in a way that's impossible to articulate, and I've never had a problem explaining myself. I don't have this insurmountable need to try to tell you something, because I've never had trouble doing that in any other medium. It's not burning.

It's also possible that "fun, catchy song" is a form best suited to jamming with other musicians, and not stressing out over chord progressions by yourself.

Ugh. I don't know what to do. If I don't have a good answer in a week, I'm gonna say fuck it and write a concept album. Anything to give me a direction to go in. Until then, I hope I figure out how to be a songwriter and not just a musician.