Context – not working

Guys.  This is album 200.  Two Benji’s worth of posts.  Most of them crap, a lot of the music also being crap, but some real gems in there.

This experiment has been a struggle–the ambition of daily content, let alone the pipe dream of daily worthwhile content, has proven to be more chore than habit forming.  I long for the day when I can give up on this and get some of my brain space and sanity back.

Which is interesting to me, considering that more than half of my posts evoke the Short Post Promise and therefore aren’t that taxing.  Something about the obligation of sitting down and doing the thing.  Something else about the fact that I probably indulge too much in self-proclaimed relaxation therapy supplements and lose all interest in anything that isn’t Diablo III or re-watching Patton Oswalt’s stand-up comedy specials.

It hasn’t all been bad, though.  I really enjoy finding the gems like Solange, NAILS, Modern Baseball, and AJR.  I really enjoy an excuse to get even more hyped up about new releases from old standbys.  I really enjoy having a record of my progress.

But there are still plenty of days, days like today, where I yell into the abyss “FUCK I FORGOT ABOUT MY BLOG!” and pull another handful of hair out of my head.  I wonder how long I can keep that up.  I also wonder how much hair is left on my head.  Still too many to count.

This lamenting and griping is not to suggest that I plan on giving up on myself.  This is a slow grind, and I enjoy catching the flows more than I dislike feeling stuck in the ebbs.  I made promises to myself to do this for a year, and I’m working on keeping my promises.  That way when I run for President in 20 some-odd years I can at least feel good about promoting my sense of integrity.

The run-off from this blog has been fruitful, if not as yielding as I had initially hoped.  I have to constantly remind myself that I wrote a pilot script with two of my friends this year, although that reminds me I have to make some edits to that thing and send it out for some peer review (not in the official capacity, just in like I have peers whom I would like to review this).  I have ideas for future projects, even if I don’t know entirely what shape those projects will take.

Overall I’d categorize my experience as a positive one.  Even if I don’t review an album a day in 2018, I will probably keep listening to a new album every day and keeping a record for myself.  Who knows what form this blog will take after I complete this thing I’ve signed myself up for.

So in honor of reaching 200 posts (which is much farther along than I thought I’d last, if we’re being honest with ourselves), I thought I’d write a bit about my favorite album, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me.

Instead I wrote a lot about my progress report, so you get a good old-fashioned “10/10 would buy again” on Amazon.

What else did you expect after 199 of these?