Of a hungover Sconnie Morn
Lazy
“Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.” —Dr. Johnson
Faux Friends & Lollygaggers,
One day way back in 2008, a nice man named Jason contacted me on a social media platform called MySpace and asked if I had any songs that I’d been working on that I might like to record at his studio.
“Heck yes!” I said.
I had just started to figure out how to record myself on a Mac at home and was getting excited about some of the songs I’d made up, but I was recording everything using the built-in PowerBook mic and it sounded like crap—my own beautiful, hissy crap, but alas…
Jason said that he had some really nice microphones and a couple decent acoustic guitars that I could use if I wanted to come over to his place in Wisconsin and lay some things down.
Amazingly enough, he was willing to do this for free.1 (Mind literally blown.2)
A date was set (I believe it was an early Saturday morning) and I vaguely began to think about what songs I would record.
The night before the recording session I ended up working till about midnight at the restaurant3, and I was stressed because I hadn’t adequately rehearsed the material, let alone decided which songs to record.
When I got home from work I made a list of songs and started practicing while sipping on a bottle of Cava that I had purchased from the wine steward at work.
I had a gay old time communing with the songs and the spirit of the bubbles.
I turned in at about four in the morning, excited about the prospect of the next day’s session.
When the alarm went off at 7:45 a.m., it felt like someone had driven a train spike into my head and dumped an ashtray into the resultant crevice.
I drove to the studio in agony.4
It proved a magical drive up the Kinnickinnic River Road with heavy rain, thunder and lightning. The sky came low to the ground.
It was a wild summer storm to match my wildly throbbing headache.
Creeks were raging, culverts were gushing.
Thinking about it makes me home sick.5
By the time I arrived at 9 a.m., the storm abated some and the prairie wildflowers were calling the sun out for service.
The headache was still splitting the hemispheres though, it seemed.
Jason was a gracious host and welcomed me in to get set up.
His wife and kids were there in a nearby cabin and we had hotdogs together—it may have been the best hotdog I’ve ever had.
That old Sinatra quotation came to mind as I began to feel less crappy with more water, coffee and hot dogs.
Jason and I retreated to the studio and began to record songs.
On a few occasions he asked if I would like to try to record an alternate version. I said that I felt bad using up so much memory. He said that he had several terabytes of memory available at the studio. (Mind literally blown.) I still refrained from alternate takes.
He had a nice Martin guitar and a sweet Gibson guitar and I used my own Guild for a song or two.
The microphones were fancy and it was a lovely space with high wooden ceilings and large windows looking out onto the prairie.
At the end of the day he gave me a CD with ProTools files of all the songs and wished me luck. I was so grateful to him and remain so.
Thank you, Jason!6
At that time in my life I didn’t really know how to take those ProTools files and do anything with them, so I called on Bryan Hanna, who had produced “Kiss Life on the Lips,” to see if he would consider mixing these files—these mixed-up files—and adding a little reverb etc. etc.
He agreed to do that and the song that I am sharing with you today is the result of this chain of events.
I hope to release an album with all of those tracks someday, but for now I will share this song: “Lazy.”
The poetics of this song might seem weak, rhyming crazy with lazy, but when I wrote it I felt it and the feeling seemed real.
And listening back yesterday to a whole bunch of songs to see what I would include in this week’s version of “From the Mixed Up Files of Mr. Matthew T. Schindler,” this “Lazy” sounded good to me, if not a little crazy.
So please go to the Bandcamp page and listen to this song and my lazy ego will be gratified.
That is all.
I remain your humble servant
OX&C,
Faux Jean
Here are the Lyrics:
LAZY
She thinks I’m lazy
It’s all that I am
Won’t life a finger to save my own skin
Save my own skin
It’s so thin
So thin…
Baby
You’re crazy!
I think she’s crazy
It’s all that she is
Tries to live through me and all my mistakes
And only mistakes
That she sees
In me…
Baby
If I could just lose my mind
And you could learn to waste time
Then maybe we’d be okay
but still I don’t know…
Baby
I might be lazy
But you are crazyyyy
See previous essay about my being a lucky bastard.
My eleven-year-old son’s figures of speech are creeping into my own usage.
I was working at the 112 eatery at this time.
A hangover from Champagne can be especially vicious in the headache dept.
I currently live in San Diego where it does not seem to rain.
He also gifted me an AKG microphone so that I might improve my home recordings!