Over the last last year, I’ve posted articles here fairly consistently. I think I heard it said once that it takes 6-10 repetitions of a particular activity for it to become a habit. Or was that how often you have to give a child a new food before she takes a liking to it? Can’t remember. Regardless of the statistical support, I’ve made my blog a habit. When Tuesday or Friday rolls around and I don’t have something new up here, I feel that I have an unsatisfied responsibility hanging over my head.

I’ve received some surprising comments on my posts this year. I’ve mentioned the Bacon Brothers, CD Baby and Nimbit, the company I use to distribute my music, and in all three instances, I’ve received responses from those parties in fairly short order. Am I so widely read that my words ripple across the Internet like seismic aftershocks? No. I think those responses have probably shown up on my site because Google Alerts actually work.

Google Alerts work a little like feed subscriptions for a blog or a podcast. However, instead of using Google to interrogate the feed files you’ve subscribed to for the presence of new content, you set up an alert that gives you a link every time your search phrase appears somewhere. Marketing people use alerts all the time to monitor the online image of their products and services. I gather that’s why I can write about the Bacon Brothers and Michael Bacon knows about it. Chances are he’ll get a link to this piece too.

On a lark, I tried to set up a couple of alerts myself. One for New Aquarius, my creative umbrella moniker, and one for Chris Preston. All I seemed to get were links to my own blog posts, to the sites of people selling fish and aquarium supplies and to news stories about footballers in the UK who have the audacity to share my name. Oh well, so much for my effect on pop culture. :~)

The reason I say that alerts are cool, kinda, is that they do get more people to know about my blog. However, when they draw readers who primarily are interested in what I’ve written about them, they have tended to stir things up unpredictably. Michael Bacon seemed pretty upset. Kevin at CD Baby offered to help me personally, which looked good, but in following up with him, I didn’t get very far. (I’ve finally been able to transition the bulk of my distribution to Nimbit.)

I thought my Nimbit interaction here was cool, but then I found out this week that unbeknownst to me, they chopped the photo from my site into a headshot, took quotes from my blog and added me to the “Customers Rave About Nimbit” section of their Press page. They liked my quote, and I appreciated that, but I found being an unwitting endorser on the Nimbit site a little unsettling. I can’t even say why. It just felt odd. Not my style, I guess. They apologized for not having cleared the use of my likeness and words and took me off the page.

Nevertheless, I’ve learned some valuable lessons though blogging. The first and probably most important one is that regardless of the seemingly wild west and infinite nature of the Internet, you never know who’s listening. Another is that if you write more, you seem to swing a heavier ax. I have to admit that I find that encouraging, since I have this blogging habit pretty well established. The last is that interactions with all the people who read my blog are authentic ones. They are not as faceless and impersonal as I originally imagined they’d be. It’s great when someone takes the time to read about what I’m thinking or experiencing. It’s even better when they take the time to comment and validate what I’ve written. Thanks everyone!

Starting last week, I’ve been focusing a good deal of my musical efforts on writing and revising lyrics. Even lyrics I’ve already recorded are being revised. The reason is that in listening to my finished tracks, some of them are still trying to do too much. They are trying to say too much.

I used to write lyrics to encompass a huge statement. An idea and as many of its implications and logical conclusions as I could capture. It was almost as if I was writing mini-albums with every tune. I’ve learned that my best songs, as well as those of the artists I admire most, capture a very small piece of experience. Some even expand on a single instant. I think that as a songwriter, capturing an ever smaller piece of life should be my goal.

When I’m writing lyrics and I feel like it’s getting away from me, most times, I find that I’m trying to capture too much in a single song. I’ve had situations in which my subject matter was so vast that while trying to say it all in one tune, I’ve discovered that I’m actually looking at the raw materials of two or three. The way I see it, I’ll never run out of subject matter for new songs if I constantly strive to capture an ever smaller piece of my experience.

As a celebrator of life and being human, why shouldn’t an instant of life be just as worthy of singing about for me as a day or a year? For example, innumerable songs have been written about women. I’ve written some myself. In fact, I just finished a song about my favorite one last week. :~) I’m smart enough to realize that I could never fully capture everything about her that affects me in a hundred lifetimes. She’s just too much. How could I ever do her justice in a single song? Instead, I focused on one thing I said to her. I was completely in love with her and at that moment, my mind was racing. That was plenty for a song. The real experience amounted to about 30 seconds.

My earlier songs could take a little explaining to paraphrase. The lyrics I’m writing now can be summarized in maybe one or two sentences. Though I’m trying to stay on target, I still strive to be clever without being cryptic. Clever, because I feel that it’s incumbent upon me to provide something more than moldy recreations of what I’ve already heard, and without being cryptic, because I feel that most cryptic lyrics are a trap in that they masquerade as genius. Being a genius is great, but let there not be any doubt. :~)

I’m reminded of that scene in Imagine: John Lennon in which some dirty hippie type actually makes it to John’s castle. He meets John and starts in about how “Across the Universe” was so significant and meaningful. He seems mortified when John tells him that he was just playing with words. Ouch! At least he gave the guy lunch.

This has been a long week for me, full of conflict and revelations. After months of writing about me, I thought I’d give the old chronicle style a rest today and have a laugh.

Here’s something I was having some fun with, entertaining myself with language. It’s the unfinished story of two friends, Rolo and Manfred, who might in fact be enemies. They each represent the dichotomous natures that can co-exist in a single artist. They’re both nuts. Their doctor has suggested that they write letters to each other in an attempt to re-fuse their personalities and mayhem ensues.

Chris

Correspondence Between Artistic Contemporaries

Dear Manfred,

I noticed your photo on the front page of the Pennysaver this morning. Allow me to offer a bit of free marketing advice. Take off that ridiculous fedora. I grow tired of your statements and in a perfect world, you wouldn’t even have been a head to place it on. Alas for me and for all of us in this expansive universe of slush. I also couldn’t help but notice yet another woman of New York society on your arm. It should come as no surprise to you that a girl at my halfway house would like you to impregnate her. Let me conclude with my most emphatic disdain for you both, as I was hoping to impregnate the lass myself.

Your silent aggressor,

Rolo

PS – Fuck you, you arrogant scumbag. You have effectively sealed yourself from my good graces in perpetuity. Even my slashed canvasses are now empty of promise. However, I’m feeling uncharacteristically light-hearted with the approach of the mid-winter holidays and I will accept four packages of Dutch Treats mini-cigars as restitution. Thank you for your cooperation.

~

Dear Mr. Rolo,

Thank you for your kind words and advice. Please relay my regrets to the young lady. I am breathlessly flattered, but sadly am unable to accommodate her at this time due to an overextended schedule of lectures on futility as an artistic subtext. In the matter of my appearance in the newspaper, know that I haven’t been photographed since the riots and even then my face was obscured in the last snapshot behind a ghastly “Irish Need Not Apply” sign. If you’ll recall, I was extending a can of Cool Whip in each hand making a futile attempt to extinguish a grease fire that was raging in a storefront window. I believe the image to which you refer was a half-page ad for an animal shelter, printed not on the front page, but on the sixth, directly beneath the obituaries. To be accurate, the ad appeared not in the Pennysaver, but in a prominent New York daily. For the record, I thought the fedora on the head of the basset hound was a delightful piece of sensational propaganda. If there was any confusion about the subject’s identity, you could very well have spent 10.5 additional nanoseconds to read the caption, which stated quite clearly that the beast’s name was Fred.

I hope your speech therapy is progressing with great success. Should I ever require a thick Southern drawl for the recording of one of my radio dramas, I shall ring you expeditiously. I cherish our past collaborations and the prospects of future ones.

Enclosed is a box of herbal tea, a pot of boiling water and a Photostatic copy of my latest chapbook of cinquains. I took great inspiration from your hang gliding attempt last summer from the main span of the Pulaski Skyway. I understand that the authorities are erecting tall containment fences along the artery and expect to complete the project by the arrival of the Spring winds. Please read for spelling.

Yours in tortured anticipation,

Lyle Manfred

~

Dear Manfred,

Your letters are becoming a terrible bore. It is typically narcissistic of you to believe that I’d answer any calls from you, let alone a call with more acting work. Nevertheless, I must confess that your density never ceases to entertain me. Perhaps your senses have been dulled by fame and womanizing. To clarify, my description of the newspaper photo was my best effort at caricature without gauchely enclosing sketches.

Your insensitivity is shocking. You know very well that my accent is not an affectation but the by-product of my struggle to overcome a debilitating speech impediment. As any in the serious art world are aware, I was born and raised in Kearny, New Jersey. Though I have my faults and eccentricities I should not, even in the greatest scarcity of basic human kindness, be subjected to mockeries from the likes of you. Please forgive the smears of ink across this page. My words are mingled with tears, for though your dramas nauseate me beyond measure, it is your feigned concern for my well-being that cuts the deepest.

Your poems are frightful.

That you ignored my request for smoking materials is of no consequence, as I have decided not to start smoking after all. The tea was delicious but a challenge to swallow dry. As you know, my water is strictly rationed. At present, a large portion of my rations must be used to replenish my palette of browns and day-glo yellows for my new series, “A Study of Soft Bananas.”

With renewed apathy,

Rolo

~

Dear Mr. Rolo,

I can’t begin to express my appreciation for your candor. Should I find a publisher for my long-germinating memoirs, I shall give you special mention in the forward. My first reaction to laconic criticism is always despondence, or at least unfettered rage. However I’ve learned that these are the instincts of lesser men. I’ve found that setting an emotional boundary against such aspersions has served to bolster my self-esteem and strengthen my resolve to thrive as an artist. I can now embrace the emotional entrapments of public life and criticism as a reasonable and manageable sidebar in the story of my loftier ambitions. Your role in my psycho-emotional evolution cannot be understated.

Dr. Morris has mentioned to me that you haven’t been receptive when she has suggested that you confer with me about the trials of a creative lifestyle. She believes strongly, and I agree, that we could benefit from more civil interactions. In the estimation of the good doctor, you and I merely exist on two sides of the same fence, albeit my side green and yours withering from drought and neglect, but the same fence. Though doubtless Dr. Morris understands your complexities better than I, I’m convinced that she shares my sympathy for you. Why else would she have asked for my perspective on your case? I was glad to oblige her for the betterment of one of my dearest friends. Your obstacles are not insurmountable Mr. Rolo. Rest assured that with diligence and the determination of which I know you are capable, you will achieve the renown necessary to legitimize the somewhat rocky beginnings of your career, and your spirits will improve.

Yours in unwavering support,

Lyle Manfred

~

Dear Manfred,

Dr. Morris has yet again proven herself beneath my respect. That she would confer with you about anything except venereal disease is a testament to her having risen to the very middle of the field of psychology. Her wanton betrayal of my confidence has virtually guaranteed that among those in the serious art world she will be branded forever as a novice. Were I not bound by the terms of my release to meet with her daily, I would seek out a more qualified therapist forthwith. You should both be advised that I have no use for your sympathy. You may have it back.

For the sake of the good doctor, whose potentials I cringe to recognize but do nonetheless, I intend to indulge you in the matter of our communication, if only to enlighten you both. My attempts to make clear that I find you completely repellent have been fruitless. Doubtless my mastery of the written word has eluded you. Nevertheless, I have hereby decided to abandon arguments of principle with the creatively and morally bereft in favor of benevolence and a simpler life.

I remind you that the source of my agitation is merely my unchecked idealism in matters of art, not dissatisfaction with the level of my success. I cannot deny that I was found guilty in a European court of attempting to deface a priceless artifact. That is a matter of public record. What those records exclude are definitions of deface and priceless. The sculpture at which I hurled a hammer could only have been deemed priceless by the miserably daft, the sensorially deprived and by vacuous celebrities of the lecture circuit. I seek to put the entire incident behind me, but I would that I had hurled a hammer of the sledge or ball peen variety. The piano tuner’s hammer was an improvisation. Ha ha! The burgeoning neo-fascists of the Roman police failed to see the wit of my statement and have not yet returned the hammer. When my reintegration into society becomes permanent, I have every intention of sending for it. I hope to display it on my mantle.

The idealism to which I have referred is also the fire of my work and for that I make no apologies. I am slowly coming to understand how you, a heretofore foul thread in the random tapestry of American art, might find my passion valueless, for it is based solely on the pursuit of one truly masterful expression deep within me and its ennobling beauty, not in the flesh of untold sums of anonymous women, drenched in champagne. Your rampant pursuit of wealth and position among the dilettante community is to be pitied. Your body of work sorely lacks even a single piece of enduring expression of which I know you are capable. Should you decide to abandon the utter hedonism behind your career as a touring lecturer, the embarrassing persona of a syllable-counting carpetbagger and end your affair with Dr. Morris, you might come to enjoy the endorsement of more serious artists, such as myself. Perhaps our camp can influence you to find your true voice.

Yours in apprehensive cooperation,

Rolo

~

Dear Mr. Rolo,

At long last we’ve begun to chip away that hardened exterior! Though I believe your assessment of my reading comprehension skills was without foundation and my need for enlightenment overstated, I have not taken these comments personally. I’ve chosen instead to be delighted, for it seems that the re-melding of our viewpoints is commencing. As Dr. Morris put it, we are beginning to dismantle the fence. That being the climate of our relationship at present, I feel obligated to remind you that the good Dr. Morris comes to call on you not daily, but only when you become available, which this month has amounted to no more than three occasions.

What a splendid time I had at the university this week! I was given an honorary doctorate for my address, which was essentially a reworked version of “Futility, An Artistic Subtext for the Symbolically Challenged,” the lecture with which I’ve heightened my readership and amassed a small fortune this year for my sabbatical to Molokai. Molokai, as you are no doubt aware, is the most mysterious and exclusive of the Hawaiian islands. With my mounting status in the world of academia, I trust that the privilege of a visit will be extended to me without condition. Perhaps I will take time there to “find my voice” as you say.

I so want to pursue this idea of influence by what you call serious artists. No doubt I would blossom under their tutelage. If we continue in this line of symbiotic confidences toward the balance of the right brain with the left, we shall surely bound into history as the definers of the age. Though on a more personal level, nothing is so stimulating as a life lesson shared between intimate friends. It is the virtue and pleasure of intimacy I’ve been attempting to illuminate to Dr. Morris, who resists me. But no matter, for she has been as encouraged as I by this corner we’ve turned, and as we continue to progress Mr. Rolo, I am confident that she and I will turn a corner as well.

Your friend and colleague,

Dr. Lyle Manfred

~

Dear Manfred,

You are a most impetuous twit. As a gesture to Dr. Morris of commitment to my convalescence, I agreed to confer with you about certain matters. True to the now infamous Manfred mindlessness, you’ve made us pals. I’d rather be slathered in Oleo and set aflame than to be considered a friend of yours, but there are more pressing matters.

Aside from the customary revulsion that you never fail to incite in me (of which I tire of describing, letter after letter) your last missive did include a curious detail of my limited availability that I found perplexing. It’s a point of fact that I have seen Dr. Morris in session after breakfast every day for the past six months. She would attest to this. If you are playing on my weakened condition to confuse me for giggles, I will save an uncomfortable chair in Hell for you and your harlot harem of lovelies.

In exhaustion,

Rolo