Too much writing

The irony was, of course, the week after I write about having nothing better to do but listen to records was incredibly packed with other things to keep me busy. Just as well to have the distractions, though, since in one week’s time, my life will be a directionless, paralytic crisis. Did you know that the Chinese ideogram for “crisis” contains the character for “opportunity”? It’s really too bad I speak English.

One of the things I was busy with was a five-page research paper on internet music piracy. I haven’t written a five-page paper on anything since I graduated UCB, but I haven’t had such a vague assignment on an issue of such complexity since high school. The idea of coming up with an intelligent statement in two weeks’ time and presenting it in such a brief format was so ridiculous to me, I decided to put very little effort into it. And lo and behold, my writing reverted to high school prose. It was painful, but brief. Y’know, positive and negative.

It led me to believe form and content are inextricably linked. Like with text messages, I’m always tempted to remove vowels for expediency’s sake, but typically I can’t bring myself to be so… euhm, pedestrian. The other night, I indulged my temptation, and whatever semi-intelligent question I had was replaced with “wll thr b htt grlz?”

Therefore, the ultimate question is, can I be a good writer without having anything good to write about? The other day, I leafed through the classic Mball Vegas zine, and I have to say I was impressed. The text was driven by more inspiration, talent, and wit than I ever remember having. I was struck with the feeling that my best days and my best writing have come and gone. But I’m afraid this blog is not the place to pontificate upon such self-pity.

So anyway, last night, I got irey and watched Top Secret and Highlander. It was hell of awesome.