Category Archives: NaBloPoMo

Pen or Computer?

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Blog prompt from Blogher’s NaBloPoMo

When you are writing, do you prefer to use a pen or a computer?

See, that’s a loaded question. I don’t really have a preference so much for one or the other, it just tends to depend on what I’m writing. Anything that’s going to end up online publicly… Chances are it was all digital after it came out of my brain. Sometimes it’ll end up being drafted on the blog, sometimes a draft will start it’s life in Evernote (if I got the idea while I was out and about, chances are the first notes were taken down via Evernote). Since most of my writing is for online consumption, it’s just more efficient to have everything on the computer to start with.

I pick up the pen for my more personal journaling. I keep a couple of different blank books around. One is for free-form stream of conscious writing, another is a book that I write letters to loved ones that contain things I’d like to say but for one reason or another can’t or shouldn’t. This books are where the most unpolished writing lives, some of it too personal to go elsewhere. They’re for my eyes alone. Sometimes things that started here end up being rewritten for public consumption, sometimes they don’t.

How about you? Do you prefer pen or computer? Do you have a process you use to write?

This is an ADHD Brain on Music

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Blog prompt from BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo, which I’m not actually doing… because I suck at month long commitments. But their prompts are good!

Can you listen to music and write? What song did you hear today?

Can I write and listen to music? I just tested this theory, and I think the answer is no because I started this post two hours ago, then put on some music and then completely forgot about it. But that’s what happens when I put on music… sometimes I just get sent down a weird thought trajectory.

Which brings us to the second question, “What song did you hear today?”

When I started this blog post, I hadn’t fired up the music for the day. So, I got up and went to the desktop and threw on the collection on random.

Tangent! I usually have my playlist set to random. It’s been that way with me since music went digital. I either search for what I want to hear in the immediate moment and then just let the playlist go random after, or if I don’t have any idea, I just click next and let my playlist pick it for me. Though, more recently I’ve been embracing the value of occasionally taking random off and listening to albums (or parts of albums) in order and making playlists (aka the modern mixtape). But anyway…

This morning was such a morning that I wanted to universe at random to pick me a song.

And of course, it picks an embarrassing one.

Bryan White’s “Eugene You Genius” which was the first track on his self-titled album in 1994. Bryan White was one of my middle school crushes. I had pictures of him hanging in my locker. I was a country loving teenybopper, I was.

One of the fun things I’ve always done when listening to music is make up little music videos in my head. The one for Eugene, You Genius involves someone looking mildly like Patrick McKenna cast as Harold Green from the Red Green Show walking down the in the hallway that Grease and the video for “Hit Me Baby One More Time” was filmed in with two bombshell babes on his arms while the ever so handsome Bryan White whines about it with his guitar.

This is what my brain becomes when I listen to music. Seriously. It’s more entertaining that television.

AND WHAT WHAT WHAT?! I’m not even done yet.

James IMs me good morning, which makes me think of last night’s discussion about the show on Friday night, which the details of aren’t important but it made me think of Electric Six, so I switched the music to their song “Vibrator” off of the Señor Smoke (2006), which I’m convinced may be one of the best vibrate your ass and make things jiggle song known to man. I got up and practiced my moves… Important shit to do for a burlesque dancer.

And I turned off random. And after I finished dancing sat down.

So then “Boy or Girl?” and then their cover of Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga”. Which inspired me to get up halfway through and turn it off so I could listen to the original.

You ever just have one of those moments where the lyrics to a song you’ve heard probably a million times just kinda smack you in the head and say, “Listen to meeeeeeee!”

Second verse of Radio Ga Ga:

We watch the shows — we watch the stars
On videos for hours and hours
We hardly need to use our ears
How music changes through the years

Let’s hope you never leave old friend
Like all good things on you we depend
So stick around cos we might miss you
When we grow tired of all this visual
You had your time, you had the power
You’ve yet to have your finest hour
Radio — Radio

Consider for a moment… Radio Ga Ga was released in January 1984. The Wikipedia entry on Radio Ga Ga explains the song’s it’s meaning as “a commentary on television overtaking radio’s popularity and how one would listen to radio for a favourite comedy, drama, or science fiction programme. It also pertained to the advent of the music video and MTV.”

We hardly need to use our ears
How music changes through the years

Which brings me to another famous Gaga… of the Lady variety…. she exemplifies Freddie’s point to the highest degree.

Why is Lady Gaga superstar famous? Probably because she ditched the piano act and now makes music videos that are stunning, controversial and sexy and puts on a visually stimulating stage show. Lady Gaga is about what you see first, and what you hear second.

But that’s beside the point, I didn’t even listen to Lady Gaga this morning.

So thanks to the advent of television, we listen to music with our eyes now and have forgotten how to use our ears properly.

Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. Blah. Blah. Blah.

And then I start wondering about the end of that verse… “You’ve yet to have your finest hour… radio.”

Radio over the airwaves is pretty much a joke these days. My ex-husband used to refer to the radio in the car as “The NPR Box” because that’s literally the only thing that didn’t suck on the entire spectrum. Most of the time the music they featured was better than what you could find on the rest of the dial, too.

Internet radio, maybe?

I don’t know.

Then I start pondering the industry.

And I go back and listen to half of Wakey!Wakey!’s show that was on October 31st in Stockholm, broadcast and recorded by Gimme Indie, an all indie Internet radio station from Stockholm. Rosi Golan opened that night and they recorded her show, too.

So, no… not really… you can’t write when you’re thinking about all that stuff.