Good news! Weird is cool now!

...as long as its: interesting, attractive, inoffensive, nice, confident, and nonconformist.

Say you care while looking like you dont care while acting like you do care while sounding like you dont care while feeling confused.

And look good, and act like you are on to something, and speak "sincerely" words which you wouldnt say alone.

Just please dont forget that you only matter as much as everyone else thinks you do, and you cant hide from that. nope! no hiding!

dont worry though, cause if that makes you upset, just turn that feeling into a song or a poem or something, and people will care about what you think in no time!

...just make sure that the song or poem is interesting. no one wants to hear you talk about your experiences unless you phrase them in a way that they can understand. The key is to make them think that you arent trying to be understood while actually desperately trying to be understood.

DO:
-make broad statements about ideas everyone thinks about. the big two are having love/not having love (including having/not having lust, friendship, understanding), and experiencing something "spiritual". That just means that when the kids hear it, they feel like you know their darkest, most private feelings. Its easy! just throw some chords together that sound emotional, and then talk about how something feels really (insert emotion here).
-write songs that take what the "unpopular" people do and copy them, as long as they are popular, and merely labeled "unpopular". Chances are, people will think you are being "innovative" as long as what you do has been done before by a few decades of people who also werent popular with parents and other "uncool" people at the time.

DO NOT:
-Actually try and write something "new". "new" is never cool at first. Let someone else discover a new kind of poem or song, then just take their idea and copy it. Its too dangerous, trying new things. Most of the time, people wont like it. And if you think what you are doing is "new" and people DO like it, chances are, its not really new. Sorry.
-Talk about these unwritten rules. everyone will either think you are crazy, or a jerk. plus, knowing the rules might exist wont help, it just makes everything more frustrating.



...

Now go play the game, kids!

d

d

making it work

if I'm going to make this dream work, I'm going to have to spend less
money.

a

a

if these words really don't matter

then why can't I stop saying them?

how do you write a song about wanting to be left alone?

how would it feel to play a song like that for a crowd?

you don't know me, I don't know you

but the bits and pieces we had did something to me,

and now I can't stop chasing that feeling.

being an artist is like having a disease that makes me constantly feel
like I'm experiencing something really new and important that I can't
express.

and I know this is stupid, I know this is wrong

but I remember one time I heard this other song

and I swore for a second he was talking to me

but that uncanny feeling comes from me

and the urge to share it comes from me too

and it's flawed and it's wrong but I'll share it with you.

I can't capture that moment cause it's not a thing

and although you may think a feeling can be

bottled and packaged and interpreted like

you were there, but you were never there, and neither am I anymore

but I try, and here we are.

I'm trying.

if these words don't really matter,

why can't I stop saying them?

Chemotherapy increases the odds of getting hiccups.

...

G

G

The mating call was loud and lonely.

Songs about yearning for love hit us the hardest when we are yearning
for love. The songs do not create the lonesome, piercing, beautiful
longing feeling. The time spent alone immedietly after finding out the
one you love doesn't love you back creates that feeling. And maybe
once you have experienced that very real feeling, it never really goes
away. Maybe it hides inside you. But that song, that fucking beautiful
song, that lonesome tragic song grabs you, gives you a shake, and
reminds you of that time you felt something real.

And maybe the next time I hear a mating call, I'll remember what an
amazing joy it is to be able to feel that lonesome.