Identity bereft.
Over the past weekend, at a family reunion, I found myself defining myself in pretty much the same terms I’ve come to do this over the past year. Or should I say, how I explained myself was a good six months out of date. I am no longer simply a producer or beat maker, composer, whatever. I still enjoy those things and even spent yesterday pocketing some music for three tracks I will be mixing soon and arranging a third track that I will be pocketing in the next week.
One thing I failed to mention, is I am now amongst my various roles as a musician, a book publisher. Pack Animals is merely the rough draft for what is coming although, based on the reactions I’ve gotten from the chapbook, it was a rather valiant first effort with a few poets saying that it barely qualifies as a chapbook because it is of a higher quality than the chapbooks being pushed by most Los Angeles poets at the moment. This of course, doesn’t do my identity its full justice either. I have made some strides in my film oriented ventures as well from a pre-production standpoint. I will be directing and writing again beginning with my visualized pieces of my poems. I began pricing animation paper yesterday, so along with the live action stuff I’ll be unvieling over the course of time, I will also be a traditional animator. The acting part is already happening again with me moving to the theatrical stage with my group UnOccupied.
So for now, I’m not sure what the short answer is when people ask “What do you do?”. Sometimes I feel like asking them back “What don’t I do?”. The only thing that stops me from doing that is my personality is annoying enough with my usual barrage of smart-ass comments.
I keep coming back to my explanation I gave during one of Tim Sweeney’s exercises at Music Strategies. I am an Explorer. At my core, that simply seems to sum it up best for now I guess. Now. To bring my explanations up to date on what I’m exploring? That is another matter.
