I’ve been trying to write for the last few weeks.
Every time I start an article, I don’t finish it.
And as of late, that’s been a theme in my life.
As I try to go back and reflect and review my work. My art, my writing, my music. Any of it. All of it.
It just seems unfinished and well underwhelming.
But that mindset is self-defeating and that’s something to combat. And it’s the very reason I’m here, now at 1:12 am drafting this.
I have so much other work to do and to an extent, it scares me. As I think about what lays ahead the apprehension is worse than the work itself. But as of late, I’ve made some progress on this. I’m not the best at maintaining the necessary amount of focus to complete everything in one go. A lot of my progress has been patch work. Everything coming in small steps slowly chipping away at a major block. It’s been brutal and rather painful.
One of the things I’ve been working on as of late, I’ve been pushing to finish my edits for the LFG episodes. This isn’t a straight forward process. A great deal of note taking and back and for goes into it. I have to weave together graphics, through in clean transitions and put a great deal of effort in managing the rhythm of the story telling in the video to keep it engaging.
All that, and really, I don’t consider my self much of a videographer.
I do it as a by-product of the market I am in, media and entertainment, and the need to have these skills at my disposal is essential.
For some time, I felt significantly under-served by my education and the opportunities which did or did not emerge from graduating at SJSU. By that I mean, there was nothing waiting for me after SJSU except Starbucks, PetSmart, Safeway and so forth.
And anything I did find, in entertainment as a media coordinator/journalist, was at the least—deceitful.
Coupled with the fact, no one gave a shit about my art. Or my music. Or my writing.
And that left me in the years following my graduation, listless and rather depressed.
So when I was editing another LFG episode, the one with Josh Carrenca, I was surprised and somewhat delighted by his story. Which basically involved the same amount of tedious suffering and work, I have endured, but with significantly more success and recognition. No one really bothered to educate him about traditional art or advise him on how to advance himself in his desired career path (as a concept artists). The full episode will come soon and I’m hoping to do some work on the video edit to give it momentum.
The first third is Josh spending sometime talking about banging his head against a wall to just learn art. Something I deeply associate with. I was discouraged from going into the arts and my father demanded that I either become and engineer or a plumber. I went to SJSU as a Civil Engineer, that didn’t last long.
Similarly Josh went to UCSC for their videography and media department, a nebulous title for any type of college department—which should be a warning to avoid their program. Lack of focus in a program is the death-knell of so many aspiring artists. As Josh went on about the politics of the art department (favoring post-modernism) I found myself laughing. I know on the of the faculty members from UCSC who has very few kind words for those particular members of the university who have hijacked the focus away from traditional means of art.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for gallery art, or other post-modern styles in the University System, but charging students tens-of-thousands-of-dollars for an education which is ultimately unemployable is—effectively—theft.
Josh spoke about his own education, which effectively amounted to theft, and having to make the most of a department which falsely advertised itself.
On a funny side note, the grass is always greener on the other side. In 2012 I was applying to transfer to UCSC from SJSU. I had had enough of the city and was burnt out on the environment I was in. I felt there was nothing for me at SJSU except the shame of my own past failures.
I didn’t get in due to a dip in my GPA which happened when I sustained a major injury to both of my arms (RSI) which caused me to have severe pain in my hands. This interrupted my ability to complete my work and also paired with a major depression cycle basically threw me completely out of the game for my education for about a year.
And sometimes that’s how it goes. There are times when you get to take a break and there are times when you just have to tank through it and stick the landing.
Getting back into school after a semester off (to recover) wasn’t too difficult but I had to change departments and stick with whatever I had left at my disposal. This is where Journalism came in. It offered me a pragmatic series of skills in mass communication and story telling which enabled me to eventually build The Acid Drip.
Josh’s education was a bit similar, though without the injures, there were setbacks and so forth. He talked about how he worked around those issues and continued with his goal of becoming an artist. Which is largely the biggest thing that separates the path he took from my own. He had a greater depth of focus. My path took me across a breath of fields and disciplines and required not necessarily mastery but competency in a series of seemingly disparate skills.
Josh sat down and focused.
I have to say, I envy and admire his focus.
For three years he was on the grind trying to build himself a portfolio which would turn the right heads, unlock the right Baldwins and open the door he desired to step through. It was three years before he got a legitimate job in his desired field.
For me, I’ve been at it, on-and-off, since 2009 and I still haven’t landed. But starting The Acid Drip in 2017 was my way of saying Fuck all of You. You won’t pick me, fine, I pick me.
However it is you get there, doesn’t really matter. What does is, you give yourself the chance. Which is what I’ve done in my own manner.
Josh, did so and he had a bit more luck than me. Luck occurs when discipline over time meets opportunity.
Which really means, Josh worked his damn-ass-off. He won a major competition for a Dark Souls games, where his armor set was chosen to be in-game. As a trophy he got a 7-foot-tall rendition of his armor shipped to him on a pallet.
Can’t help but feel like a bit of a jelly doughnut right now
But that’s okay. It’s part of the process.
Because I learned quit a bit from watching his episode with Amir. And a lot of what Josh has talked about, has been on my plate for some time. And as I’ve said, I’ve been chipping away at it.
One of the things my guitar instructor Chris Lee taught me was that—you have to be able to celebrate other people’s successes. If you can’t, what are you going to do when you fail? When someone else has a win, it’s a positive outcome. Their work paid off and if you’re the type to wish that (internally or externally) for their failure. Or for their success to have been yours, what you are really doing is wishing no one to ever succeed, ever. If what you wish were true (to undo their success), and if everyone were to do this, then nothing would ever be accomplished. It would all be zero-sum.
Which is why you have to celebrate the success of others. People, generally, work for what they have. Barring some of the more obvious bullshit that goes on, this is how most of society functions. You work for the rewards.
And sometimes it comes sooner. and for others, sometimes later.
But it comes. That’s the point of faith.
And it did for Josh.
Which is why I found the episode meaningful. He’s more of a 3D/CGI artist than I am. Most of my work is pen and ink or if it is in the computer, it’s vector based and quite a bit different from what Josh does.
However, there’s quite a bit to learn from a guy like Josh. When he talked about lighting, in the section about the Bakugan cards he made, that peaked my interest. Lighting is a universal concept, much like color theory, which is another idea Josh touched on. Same with value or tone, which is a bit of a rabbit hole that I won’t go into here [Hey Josh, if you’re reading this, maybe this is your shot to start a channel which teaches your tricks to others, just an idea].
These are things I studied (at College of San Mateo, not BACAA, but I plan on taking courses at BACAA eventually) with Noah Buchanan—who happens to be one of the faculty members at UCSU who taught the traditional figure drawing course Josh had wanted to take.
And not everything Josh has done, currently works on, is… glorious. The part when he talks about working on Covet Fashion, is somewhat depressing. That game, like most freemium games, is a money pit and a trap. At least when I by over-priced plastic minis, I physically own the item I am buying…
It’s good to have peers. Most of my life has been spend working in isolation and it’s only been as of late that I’ve found somewhat of a peer group. Not exactly a tribe, but peers. In the field of TVI, in general in the B/VI community and in education as a whole. Likewise, I am finding this in Art, Music and hopefully soon in my writing.
LFG has brought me several opportunities and focusing the show on guest speakers, rather than myself or amir has really pushed the horizons of the show. This is something I always wanted to do with the Acid Drip—and did do for sometime—but with little success or external support. I think with Amir on the team, it helps a bit and it seems he’s ready to make the push to start employing other staff to help with the episodes. I can’t do it all and so far LFG really has been 90% my effort.
That’s largely because I build the site, edit all the videos, booked the initial guests, wrote the initial email style guide, brought a black-book to the table, made all the graphics, logos and designs. I even helped pay for the studio and other related materials.
But Amir and I have worked out a rough agreement about him talking over and actually owning and operating LFG as his own venture. This is something I am willing to push for because it will take the stress off of me to produce everything. Likewise, I think when Amir owns the venture outright, he will be more committed to building it out.
And as for glory, or credit.
Well, if that’s all I’m after, this will likely fail.
Because I can’t really run a whole podcast, The Acid Drip, work as a TVI and do other basic self-care things. Largely because it’s too much for one person to manage and building a team, really is the next step.
I think Amir is the right partner for the job and letting him step-up and take ownership of the podcast is going to be the necessary step to letting it grow and attract more viewers.
Which in turn will bring more eyes to my own work.
Which goes full-circle back to what I said earlier about celebrating the successes of others. LFG needs to be built on the spirit of celebration. Even when addressing more controversial topics, which we plan to do in the future, such as feminism, dating, sex/gender, race/culture politics and other BIG hot-buttons, it can all be done from a stance of amicability.
There’s too much polarization out there. Too many wishing ill on each other, envy, jealousy and bigotry.
The coming election cycle is going to stir the pot and LFG can’t be silent on it. But at least we can avoid contributing to the shouting.
That’s my hope at least.
All the while, I’m going to keep chasing my own art. My own music. My own writing. Even while trying to contribute to others. Whether performing water-rehabilitation services, teaching students to walk, feed themselves or clean themselves. Whether teaching the blind to read or the sighted to draw through art therapy.
It doesn’t matter. I can work to support myself, I can work to support others and I can celebrate the small and big victories others get to enjoy—all while building towards my own.
Because it’s not a zero sum game, even if I haven’t had a win in more than six-years.
I’ll get mine eventually. I just have to keep at it.