. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .: November 2008

You know, my mom always said that if you ignore someone long enough, eventually they'll go away. Hopefully, that hasn't happened to all of you.

I could come up with numerous justifications for my spottiness on the blog in the past few months, but the root cause of all of them would be the same: I have been afflicted of late with a severe lack of motivation. The minutae of day-to-day life has been taxing me in a way that it never used to. By the time it occurs to me that I need to post, I'm either too tired or there's just NOTHING THERE. Or there's something I desperately want to comment on or share with you and I run out of time and/or energy.

This has been a recurring issue over the past six months or so. Both on the blog and in general. My summer goal of writing 10 complete new poems to start taking to the mic at Bowery Poetry Club's weekly slam was stymied by a near-crippling lack of inspiration. Every time I sat down to write, I came up dry. Maybe a line here or there, but nothing with legs. The spectre of the empty page. Drop a quarter in the well, wait for the splash, hear nothing. I wanted to shrug it off, chock it up to this or that, but after a couple months I began to realize that I was simply DRY. I had nothing. Rattling stuff for a creative person.

At first I figured it was just the all-consuming nature of the apartment hunt and subsequent move. That was immediately followed by taking a permanent position at AmEx only to be told two weeks later that we could all be losing our jobs BUT that we wouldn't know until the end of October. Both of these things took up a decent amount of brain space for sure, but they weren't "IT" by any stretch. The underlying reason has proved to be something (probably) deeper and (certainly) more elusive. And in the wake of this perceived drought, a sharp lack of output has followed. Somewhere in the world, Julia Cameron is shaking her head.

Suffice to say, in the meantime my blogging has suffered. My contributions have been inconsistent and tossed-off, at best. In fact, it just occurred to me as I am writing this that I think CYPJN!? has a birthday coming up. (pauses to check archives) And in fact, uncannily, it does. It's tomorrow. Wow. So, there you go. This blog is TWO YEARS OLD. And I totally forgot. So, yet another example of how far up my ass my head has been lately. (pauses to amend subject line and change post photo)

I have spent the past month or so musing on exactly what kind of creative kickstart I need. Discussions with a few close friends about what the prescription might be have ensued. (For those of you who feel compelled to make one, insert cowbell joke here.) There are various immediate options just to get the wheels turning again (improv classes, etc.), but I've been feeling a grander gesture is in order for the long run. Something deeper, bigger, riskier and altogether more foundation-shaking. I have some ideas, but I'll save an expansion for a later post. Bottom line is, a major overhaul is in order.

And how does this relate to you and CYPN!? It simply means this: I have decided that I either have a blog and I want people to read it and I genuinely feel I have something to offer that merits an audience beyond my own bedside journal ...OR... I don't. And if I don't, then I need to say goodbye. Thank you all for listening and pull the plug. But if I do... then it's time to re-engage and stop tossing cotton candy at you every two weeks or so as if it were a regular meal. It's time to deliver.

I'm choosing the latter.

SO... In that spirit, below is a bullet list of things I've been meaning to make mention of for the past couple months. Rants, raves and updates. And a promise to make CYPJN!? a place you want to come back to again on a regular basis.

The Election - After watching Barack Obama's keynote address during the 2004 Democratic Convention, I said to a roomful of friends, "I want THAT GUY to be my president." And two months from now, that guy is going to be my president. We only had a couple friends over to watch the returns on election night, but it was still one of the most joyous occasions I can recall in recent history. I can only imagine how that joy would have been amplified if I'd received the news in the middle of the Grant Park crowd. I am so GODDAMN THRILLED. I am so READY to have a governing body that at least knows I exist. I'm ready to have a president who's SMARTER THAN ME. I'm ready to put at least a modicum of trust back in the democratic process. I'm ready for the squandered promise of Jack & Bobby to finally be fulfilled. I'm ready to treat the neo-cons and the Religious Right with the condescention and smug dismissiveness they deserve now that they've finally been relegated back to the fringe. I am ready for Democrats and common sense Republicans to start working together for real. I am ready to have a president who will actually START LOOKING FOR THE GUY WHO KILLED 3,000 U.S. CITIZENS AND THEN LAUGHED ABOUT IT ON TV. Yes, it's about change. Yes, it's about hope. But more than all of that, it's about positive action. Forward movement. Citizen engagment. And trying to once again balance the scales that have been knocked so definitvely askew for the past eight years.

My job - I still have one. After months of speculation and uncertainty, word finally came down company-wide on October 28th. Thankfully, I was not one of the 7,000.

Turning 35 - Yup. Did that.

The Sisters of Mercy at Irving Plaza - This one was a big WTF? The Missus and I have both been fans since teenagerhood and were STOKED to finally be seeing these guys live. I have to say, I've NEVER been more disappointed by a show. What a circlejerk. Muddy sound, terrible lighting, undecipherable vocals, cheeseball 80's guitar solos, off-key backup singing by guys who looked like rejects from a Ratt tribute band and a smoke machine that apparently goes to "11". Unbelievable ledtown. We stuck around for about five songs, but the middling karaoke rave-up they tried to pass off as "This Corrosion" sent us packing.

Albums - I'll do a proper music post in the near future, but a quick rundown of what's getting heavy play on my iPod this month is: Kings of Leon "Only By The Night", David Byrne & Brian Eno "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today", Fucked Up "The Chemistry of Common Life", Frightened Rabbit "The Midnight Organ Fight" and Antibalas "Talkatif". Old Siouxsie, New Order and Bauhaus have also been in pretty heavy rotation.

The Missus - The Chrysalis Year is nearing a rousing crescendo. Next month, she and Vic will be hosting a screening of the "Off The Radar" pilot episode. It's been a Herculean task that has taken up just about every last wink of their free time. Picture locked last week and I'm currently doing some music supervision for them. The show looks great and I am ridiculously proud of them. In addition, K got accepted to The New School and will be starting classes in January. The woman is a freight train.

That's the Cliffs Notes. The salient points. There will be more to come. And on a more regular basis, I promise.

Thanks for sticking around...

Talk soon,

-IMBA