So Much Left Unsaid That We'll Never Get to Say

As is almost always the case, I've been feeling a crazy pressure to write lately, but don't really know where to start or where to focus my energy. Posts on here to keep me going? Focus on the zine? Go back to work on short stories? Start doing academic research again to buff up my CV?!

Working a (mostly) 9-5 job makes downtime a precious commodity, so even if I'm devoting time to one specific project, I can't shake the feeling that I'm letting myself fall behind by not working on songs or demos or whatever of the above-mentioned things I'm putting to the side for the moment. It doesn't always shows outwardly, but I put a fair amount of pressure on myself to keep up a steady creative output because I am terrified that if I ever stop I will lose everything that makes me interesting to people and become boring and useless. I know that stashing a black ball of anxiety pressure in my gut isn't necessarily the most healthy approach to life, but I also know that I need it to help push me into writing. It's a give and take where I occasionally need people to remind that it's okay to relax and not fret over the fact that I haven't finished my zine or EP, but I'm also well aware that without the self-inflicted pressure to meet deadlines I won't do shit.

As you can definitely tell, I'm mostly coaching myself through my thoughts. I need that sometimes too.

I've recently been on a big Descendents binge that immediately turned into an ALL binge. They're both in the pantheon of "Timmy Bands", as has been well-documented on this blog, but they sort of fell to the wayside recently until I had a moment where a couple of things clicked and I remembered that there's a spot in my heart that only those two bands can fill.

The Descendents are faster, gritty and silly whereas All has slower, more heartfelt melodic moments that would never fit in the other band. Both have their place with me, but the latter in particular has really been vibing lately.

I'm going to pull a very classic I, Musical Genius move and end my post with an ALL song. I used to like this song a lot when the main things I had to worry about were being poor and sad about girls. Now this song just makes me think about my dead dog. Kind of wish I could back to a time when problems were smaller and manageable.

Who Sucked Out the Feeling?

A Few Times

In order to keep both of I, Musical Genius's readers abreast of what is going in my life and to frame the post that will follow, I will give the following bit of news: I did not get into any of the doctorate programs that I applied to for this year.

This has been weighing on me a lot for the past month. I was really looking forward to going back to school and I've sorrowfully missed the academic environment since I've been out of it. I feel like teaching is my "thing" that I am good at and I feel like I've never been better at it than when I was in a university classroom. It sucks.

Now that my plans for the future have been altered, I've been thinking about what I am going to do and how I am going to deal with the way I feel. In general, there has been two main ways that I have done this:

1. Try to write a song about what you're feeling. It usually amounts to scattered phrases in two notebooks, one or two riffs and very little thought given to melody.

2. Write a post on here to work through things. I don't always directly address things that are happening in my life, but they are generally the inspiration for what goes up here, even if it seems like the ties are tenuous.

This all made me think about when I first started I, Musical Genius in the winter of 2009. I was having a hard time dealing with my feelings and I treated this website as a garbage dump for the young, dramatic mess that was in my head at the time. A lot of posts were short and over-dramatic and I might as well have stamped "JUST DUMPED" on my forehead. I was young and silly and needed a way to exorcise those feelings, so even though a lot of the old stuff on here is pretty mortifying, it did serve a purpose at one time. 

Coming forward and being honest about where you are at mentally is the first step in terms of having a healthier head and IMU was my way of doing that at the time. It's also not enough to just open a valve and let emotions gush out either. You need to have tact and understand how to deal with them rationally.

That leads us to today, where I am writing a post that comes from a similar place as my early ones, but instead of posting a break-up song or vague allusions that I thought were poetic, I'm being more direct and mature (I think). That's a tangible example of at least a little growth as person, so please remember that you're doing all right, Tim.

In order to make this a true classic IMU post, I'll end with a song. Am I finally coming around on Untitled? No, but you must respect that this one is a banger.

Flags Fly Forever

I’ve recently had two separate trains of thought returning to my mind and have only just located why.

The first is that baseball is back and I have been thinking a lot about it. It feels good. I’m already rediscovering the routine of putting on the game while I make dinner, passively soaking in what’s happening while I’m preoccupied and then reading articles by John Lott and Andrew Stoeten the next morning about the night before. Rebecca is already outraged that The Boys somehow manage to be on the radio every time we get in the car. It’s familiar and comfortable.

But while it is comfortable, it feels different. The character of this year’s team is much different than last year’s and that is due to a huge turnover in players, which was the biggest since the now-legendary trade deadline acquisitions in 2015. I knew that this would be a “new look” team taking the field but had underestimated how much the change in players would change the experience of watching the Toronto Blue Jays play baseball. It’s slight, but noticeable. Not everyone is gone, but many of the big players in Toronto’s 2015 march to the playoffs have steadily departed and been replaced by players who, while still capable, do not seem as dynamic at first. As I was trying to pinpoint what exactly was at the root of this feeling, it came upon me like turning a corner and hitting a tree:

Jose Bautista does not play Right Field for the 2018 Blue Jays.

I suppose that I had expected this sort of impact to come after a franchise icon left the team, but I was still surprised by it. Sure, David Price led the march to the playoffs and Josh Donaldson won the MVP, but make no mistake, the Blue Jays have been Jose Bautista’s team since 2010.

This was brought up by second thought, which was me reflecting on the story “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” written by John Updike for The New Yorker in 1960. His story follows him as he goes to Fenway Park in Boston to see Ted Williams’ last game for the team he played his whole career with. Updike’s piece is masterpiece and perfectly sums up the career of one of the greatest to ever play the game. Not only running through Williams’ extensive list of accomplishments, Updike also does an amazing job of covering exactly what it means to be a franchise player. You are never universally loved by the fans. You are criticized by the sporting press for not coming through in every high-pressure situation you face. You are deemed greedy for… some reason. There is an ebb and flow to periods of intense scrutiny when you are not singlehandedly carrying the load of an entire team and then even more intense affection when you miraculously manage to do just that.

In hindsight, many fans manage to forget the bitter feelings they used to hold when the occasion for a celebratory farewell comes along. Updike describes Boston coming together to see off Ted Williams, all of them realizing the significance of the situation. Similarly, last year I was present, standing, and applauding as Jose ran out to right field by himself for the last time. Fittingly, Marcus Stroman ensured that the P.A. played Drake’s “Trophys”, which was long Jose’s signature at-bat music, for the occasion.

Saying farewell to an athlete is a unique and intimate situation. It doesn’t carry the finality of visiting a dying relative or going to a funeral. They aren’t dying. They aren’t even going away, necessarily. They are just stopping to do what you have grown to love them for doing. Seeing Jose play his last game at the SkyDome instantly reminded me of all the great things he accomplished for the team. Essentially, you are watching the end of a hero, only instead of a hero valiantly dying, like in the movies, he retires to Florida to play golf.

This past weekend, Rebecca and I visited my parents for Easter dinner. As always, the Jays came up in conversation and shortly after that, Jose. As of this writing, he has still not signed a contract for the 2019 season, so he wasn’t playing baseball. My mom rued that he hadn’t simply retired as a Blue Jay in 2018, which was the right and honourable thing to do in her eyes. She said that that would have been a perfect way to end his time with the team.

This struck me as weird because in my mind his farewell was perfect. It was an organic response by the fanbase and incredibly sincere. Everyone understood the importance of Jose Bautista and giving him an earnest, emotional send off. We stood and applauded when he was introduced, before every at bat, and once more when he was taken out of the game in the top of the 9th inning. To me, there was no way to better honour his legacy with the team.

I started to think about “perfect situations” and whether they exist or not. It certainly would have been great to have pregame ceremony in which his name was added to the Blue Jays’ “Level of Excellence”, permanently adding his legacy to our park, but that was out of the question given the circumstance and him not retiring. The reality is that even if you meticulously plan something out, it will never come out completely perfectly. Perfection is achieved by being present. It is only in hindsight that we can look back on something, disregard any flaws and accept what we received as perfect.

Useless History

In a past life, I was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1957. I started to smoke cigarettes when I was 12 years old. I started drinking and smoking pot after my older brother brought me out with his friends and we listened to Led Zeppelin II. In 1975, I drove home drunk from a Cheap Trick show and died rolling the car over in a ditch on an empty highway. My best friend died with me that night.

In a past life, I was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1904. I started working as a brick-layer when I was 15 years old, the same job as my father who immigrated from the south of Italy shortly before I was born. As a young boy, I fall in love with the Brooklyn Robins. As a young man, I fall in love with the youngest daughter of a Dutch family. I went to lots of games with my son at Ebbets Field. I died of a heart attack in 1953.

In a past life, I was born in Reading, England in 1830. My father worked for the Great Western Railroad and sent me to study in London when I turned 18. I studied literature, took an interest in art, and travelled to Paris twice to see the Salon. I wrote a novel, The Line, about the expansion of the British Railroad and it was unsuccessful. I worked my whole life for a publishing press. I lived for 71 years, had four children, took three mistresses, and died when I fell ill with the flu.

In a past life, I was born in Paris in 1764. My father was a baker and my mother took care of our Third Estate family at home. My father read the newspaper aloud to me every day. In 1789, I participated in the storming of the Bastille and was shot in the leg. In 1790, I briefly joined the Jacobin club. I fathered a daughter with a woman I knew and did a bad job of supporting them. In 1792, my lame leg caused me to trip at the Tuileries and I was trampled by the crowd and died alone.

In a past life, I was born in Valencia, Spain in 1602. I grew up on a family farm and then started my own when I turned 20. When I was 17, I married a 16-year-old girl from my town. When I was 22, she became pregnant and died during birth. The baby also died. When we bought our farm, we got a Spanish Water Dog puppy and named him Diego. He lived to be 13 and was my best friend. I died at age 50 from skin cancer.

In a past life, I was born in Changde, Huang in 1535. My father was a rich aristocrat and provided for me my entire life. When I was 24, I met a young girl from another wealthy family and our families arranged for us to be married. We took to each other immediately and she made me very happy for my entire life. I died of respiratory problems at age 74. I considered myself very lucky when I got to look at my wife’s face in my last moments.