The Battle For The Living Room

This is “Case Zero” in which I began to enforce the new boundaries I am building. Chi was now getting zapped as if running into electric fencing where there had been nothing before, as I got more and more committed to clearly setting my intentions and asserting my newly-developing boundaries. 

 

“Raining, Crying” and “Lullaby For Terrorists”

The agonizing situation persisted with the tug-of-war of priorities between my need to have Chi out of my house and out of my immediate personal life, and the big-picture need to get as much of our vast repertoire recorded at broadcast quality; with the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head as to whether the Hawaii thing would actually come through, or if Chi’s criminal record for abusing me would send that sword crashing down on my head as my financial situation got more dire by the day thanks to Chi’s continued occupation of my balance sheet and concurrent failure to secure any sustainable employment. 

 

Music and Me? Now What?

As I mentally distance myself more and more from the toxic marriage and consciously project the reality of ending it, I explore the topic of my relationship to music sans Chi.  

 

The Holding Pattern

The strong, stable creative phase that Chi had been in since around May 2013 was still ongoing, and this put me in the untenable position of being trapped between wanting to complete the process of preserving the creative output that we had produced up until now while developing and recording the new material he was continuously composing; and wondering how much more damage and stress I could withstand. Is this even worth doing at all, given that I am trying to do it with the human equivalent of antimatter? 

 

First Strike and the Missing Link

I was still at the steep end of the infinitely frustrating, crazymaking learning curve trying to figure out audio engineering and then added insult to injury with another maddening ordeal of learning how to do drum programming while Chi kept on inundating me with more new and increasingly complex music he was composing. This was also the point where it became clear that there was a vitally important missing link that would enable me to overcome some major technical issues that were making progress unnecessarily difficult. 

 

The Zodiac Suite

The creative kick Chi had been on since spring continued through the summer, and the music he was composing was a distinct departure from what we have been doing to date. I was very excited about it, and while the ordeal of trying to figure out audio engineering on my own so we could record it was driving me to the edge of genuine madness as was still having him here in the house, I was game to keep going. 

 

Tax Time Again…LATE As Always….

On putting off the overwhelmingly tedious hassle of doing our taxes. 

 

Why the Phrase “We Value Creativity” Pisses Me Off

A lot of things have been pissing me off lately.  This is one more…. 

 

Summer 2013

After our run of gigs during May – June finally wound down, I rolled up my sleeves and had a go at trying to set the Salvation rig that our former producer Steven had given me back up so I could begin the process of trying to learn how to do music production/audio engineering on my own since Chi sacked Steven. What with all the new music Chi has been composing lately, I couldn’t just leave that lying on the ground and throw him out. Since we were so close to being able to do real recordings at home, that became my mission over the summer. 

 

Various Disruptions and More Progress

Following Chi’s dismissal of our erstwhile producer Steven and decision to start working with another producer/musician instead, various things came up that disrupted a variety of processes that were underway.