Deadlines

Student

I am currently battling an arbitrary time constraint, better known as a deadline. Twenty one thousand words on subjects ranging from linguistics to philosophy and poetry to comedy. But no one’s laughing. Although if my philosophy essay turns out to be incorrect, and there is indeed a God, then he’s probably sniggering smugly down at me. Deadlines, by their very nature, are enforced by a boss of some kind. Unfortunately, my boss is the university, so ultimately, because I’ve chosen to be here, I am my boss. So I can’t even cheat. It’s pointless. That’s what I need to convince the university disciplinary committee anyway.

I’ve gone from bingeing on alcohol and sex to overdosing on the library. Well, I was drinking a lot anyway. And the thing about living in a library, is you spend far too much time around librarians. And books.

A peculiar phenomenon, and a byproduct of boredom, is the rapid rise in smalltalk. I find myself talking to the same person I crossed the road to avoid talking to last week. Then they remind me why I crossed the road, so I mumble an excuse about work and return to BBC News to see whether they’ve released a picture of Osama yet.

Yet, the overriding feature of spending everyday working in the same place is that the smallest things make a massive difference to your mood. So, when the abrasively posh rugby lad, who’s always strutting around like a shoe salesman at a centipede farm, trips over in front of a large group of girls, that’s a good day. But if you sit yourself next to the same girls who won’t stop talking about boys, bags and Justin Bieber, shark wrestling seems like a viable alternative. And when the quality of facebook activity you engage in becomes a barometer for the quality of your day, you know something’s got to change. Maybe I should get a real job. But an easy one. Maybe I’ll become a musician…

Musician

It takes as long as it takes, I’m sick of deadlines and time constraints. Music College hours are over and the days of handing in a song under a strict deadline have finally passed me. Of course as a paradigm to the rest of my schooling experience, Music College was no different, it’d be handed in rushed, shit, and still 2 weeks late. And of course when I say ‘passed me’, it was indeed a massive lie.

Welcome to real world music, where under the rule of major record company suits, there is no time for the straggling songwriter. And by setting up a studio in your own living room, you are boldly saying ‘I can handle this pressure and I can not and will not palm my creative problems to my slick, trusty, and admittedly overpaid producer’. Or at least I wish someone had told me that before I agreed to navigate the tsunami.

Creativity is a drug the body decides to get high on whenever it feels to. From weeklong binges to one-night stands, I have no say in the matter. ‘Tell that to your boss’ I howl in my withdrawal. The boss comes back and says ‘stop taking drugs’. He’ll never understand.

A deadline you work from home is the worst deadline of all. There are enough things on the Internet to keep you entertained for the rest of your life, and because of that fact, my music is not one of them. Sky Plus – the devil of afflatus. Where would I be without The Apprentice and Entourage? Answer – writing a fucking song. Shakespeare never had this problem, what hath he for distraction? ‘The town’s most beloved lute player has a gig tonight, fancy coming down?’ ‘Nah, you’re alright’. Boom. Hamlet. Now the town’s most beloved lute player just so happens to be the world’s favourite Jay Z. And I’m off. Notes unwritten, pages unturned. The best I’ll do is come back and figure out if there’s potential for a cool acoustic version of Bonnie and Clyde. Shakespeare wouldn’t have stood a chance.

So I guess this is what frustrates me; playing, learning or listening to music is essential for a working musician. ‘But it isn’t writing it… is it!’ Perhaps that’s why they pay the big bucks to those who successfully do it. Maybe I’ll stop blogging and get back to that song…