I’m not a Republican or Democrat.

As an artist and businessman, I take a scientific approach to understanding my work. For instance, when a guitar has a problem with its intonation, video footage looks bad, or my vacuum cleaner shits itself, I do my homework. I gather empirical evidence and integrate it with theoretical knowledge before I come to a conclusion. Rather than accepting a popular belief, I like to be certain.

I state all of this because I am not certain when it comes to politics.

But I would like to share some thoughts on last week’s Presidential Debate.

Obama got caught up in what my old sales boss would call Intellectual B.S. To avoid breaking Godwin’s Law, I won’t give credit to the author who wrote: “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.” The point is, people who care about checking their work are easy to confuse when presented with data. Obama froze up in a state of “analysis paralysis.” Or what actors call, “Getting in your head.” Was it intentional? I don’t know.

Romney established himself as Alpha Male by breaking the rules, horsing around, walking all over the moderator, and doing his best impersonation of Fonzie. What Romney has on his side is called “illusory superiority” — or the deeply rooted premise that he is right no matter what. Just look at those scary eyes. It’s known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, and is popular behavior among Republicans.

There was very little debate beyond, “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Pointless on the surface. All of the action was in the subtext, as a revelation of character.

I thought, I’m back in High School: Obama is the nerd. Romney is the jock.

It’s an “evolutionary psychology” thing. As Osama Bin Laden said, “when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.”

It’s sad that our society hasn’t grown up. We’re still easily tricked by our own tribal survival mechanisms. We have an automatic urge to divide ourselves into teams and fight. My team is good, your team is bad. Everything we say is true, everything you say is false. We will win, you will lose.

It’s childish.

And with the increasing power granted to the executive branch these days, I’d prefer not to have an abusive bully as my dictator. I imagine his unrepentant choices, how many world leaders he would piss off, how many wars he would start.

On that basis alone, I’ll take the weak horse.

Here’s what I think. The answer is psychological.

Most musicians fail because they want to remain teenagers forever.

(The definition of failure, of course, will be the first thing everyone wants to debate. Have fun with that.)

Regardless, the few who achieve a long-term career in music are those who, at some point, grow up and become adults. Meaning: they take responsibility for themselves, they do their homework, they plan and prepare, they follow through, they show up. So many musicians are flakes — it’s as if there’s no competition if you treat your career, at minimum, like any other day job in the world.

The fact remains, the music industry is a terrible place to earn a living, especially if you’re a musician. It’s the law of supply and demand. Too many musicians and no demand for them.

There is, however, demand for a few remarkable musicians. And even if their original creations can’t find their way to a general audience, they can usually achieve base financial survival by doing clinics, lessons, recording sessions, instructional videos, and playing in sophisticated bands for 20 drunk dudes eating potatoes in a barn in North Hollywood.

And it still won’t be easy, even for the greatest among them.

The rest of the so-called musicians are NOT motivated by survival in the adult world. It’s hard to do rational, everyday business with them. Go ahead and try. They have such a strange relationship with money that even the mention of it can trigger spasms of paranoia and self-sabotage.

Yet… musicians are motivated by money — but only large, lump sums of it.

It’s easier to seduce them with these things:

1.) Freedom. They don’t want to care what time of the day it is, or even what day it is. That’s where the large, lump sum of money helps.
2.) Fame / Glory. They’ll only do things that their heroes did. “Paul Gilbert went to Musicians Institute, therefore, if I go to Musicians Institute, I am Paul Gilbert.” It’s called the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle, and it applies to everything in the music industry: venues, record labels, magazines, joining established bands, etc.
3.) Sex. Because they figured out way back in high school that playing music was the only way they’d be at all tolerable or attractive.

Yep, they’ll take action for those things, but not much else.

They won’t take a job or gig that requires sustained action or steady commitment. They don’t want to work. Meaning, they don’t want to have to trade goods and services with other members of society in order to support their own survival. They think they’re special. They expect to have all of their needs met by the world in return for playing, which is a convenient term to use here.

In a lot of cases, they either hated or were, at the very least, disappointed by their parents. And often subconsciously, they made the choice that being an adult would automatically make them like those people. Those miserable alcoholics, those losers who never followed their dreams, those boring mowers of lawns.

Musicians are often those teenagers who used their guitar as an escape pod. And they were lucky. At the time, it was their only hope for not becoming their parents. They just don’t realize they don’t need to spend the rest of their life in it.

Puer Aeternus is Latin for eternal boy, used in mythology to designate a child-god who is forever young; psychologically it refers to an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level. The puer typically leads a provisional life, due to the fear of being caught in a situation from which it might not be possible to escape. He covets independence and freedom, chafes at boundaries and limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable.

Later on, it manifests as needing to prove to their parents and everyone else that they can have a job that’s “cool.”

In extreme cases, they move to Los Angeles, The Peter Pan Syndrome Capital of the World. Hollywood itself is a big, dirty Disneyland for perpetual teenagers. Kinda scary to see how many people are sucked into and drown in the “making it” quicksand. So many poor choices they make…

But they do have the choice to learn and grow, to continue along the natural path of maturing as humans… to become powerful, wise, strong adults. The secret is to try something new: overcoming the fear of responsibility. To avoid that is truly pathetic.

Photo: me petting an emu named Yoda, who has since passed away.

I haven’t posted a “personal” blog here in a long time. I’ve kept the audience at a distance, maybe. Or only shared information that seem relevant to strangers.

I have nothing life-changing to report, but I feel like writing. And this is my website, and I can do what I want, so here goes.

I’ve been under a ridiculous amount of stress for the past few weeks. Overwhelmed with projects and work. I’m not proud of it. I say ‘yes’ to an inhuman amount of things. Running the studio has taken all of my energy. As much as I’ve never wanted to have a child, the studio is like a screaming creature that needs to be fed and paid attention to 24/7. Several wise sources have advised that I should hire more people. But it’s just not the right timing for that. Maybe in 2013.

It’s Saturday and I’m exhausted. As an irrational coping mechanism for the stress, I’ve been eating bad food that tastes good. I’ve gained weight. When I look in the mirror, I think my body is saying, “I really want to be in shape, but you’re pushing it, buddy. I can only take so much.” I saw some overweight guys yesterday when I was out on errands, and I felt better, knowing I am NOWHERE near that. In fact, I could probably just drop 10 pounds and look great, and a lot of people would wonder what the hell I’m complaining about. I overestimate how bad I look just because I feel so bad, physically. And I’m definitely not depressed, just fucking tired.

(For those who’d say I’m a hypocrite for not following the advice I wrote in my book, let me remind you that it originated as a list of things I wanted to make sure I’d remember. I don’t think I even have my own copy of the book, so I guess I’m screwed.)

My wife, Belén, has been extremely supportive. I come home at the end of the day a total zombie, and collapse. She takes care of everything, gives me a peaceful place to return to, a feeling of safety and home-ness.

Good news in the Morgan Ågren Documentary department. Morgan is coming back September 10-15, and everything is falling into place. Well, not that easily — I’m FORCING IT into place. But that’s my job as producer. There’s a *tiny* voice in my head that says, “You’re going to ruin this whole thing, it’s going to fail!” But looking at the evidence at hand, it’s a pretty spectacular success so far. I’m not even sure how it could be better than it already is, because I’m achieving everything I’ve set out to do. Morgan is, as Mike Keneally says, a total “sweetheart.” He goes along with almost every idea I have. And what makes it better: he has a million ideas of his own, and emails me probably 10 times a day, making sure everything is taken care of. I couldn’t ask for a better creative / business parter for such a project.

Tomorrow, I turn 37, I think. It’s a prime number, and I like those. I don’t feel old, but I feel mature. For most of my 20s I wondered what it would even mean to become an adult. I think acquiring so many responsibilities has done it. With so much going on, I have no choice. And it’s a welcome change from the days of being a musician and living with my mom, where all I had to do was stay up all night, record weird songs, and eat fast food. I look back at those days and just shake my head. Fear kept me in a tiny box, and I’m glad I broke out of it and grew.

I sometimes think about my old friends from Florida, and I have to admit I don’t feel like I relate to them at all. I’m not saying I’m an ideal model of humanity now, but in the old days I was a traumatized kid who desperately wanted to escape what he was born into. I can’t entirely blame my old friends for it, because they were just playing into a game that I subconsciously set up. They reinforced my own lack of confidence and obsession with failure. But they helped me through dark times, just by being there. They played the role of parents, which they weren’t capable of doing at such a young age. It truly backfired! We were a bunch of kids, and we tortured each other, because that’s what kids do. My 20s were a huge delusion of preparedness. We were idiots. Still, I’m glad I found a few people at that time in my life who could somehow inspire and influence me. Through all the bad, there was a willpower in me, and I made the right choices (even if they seemed insane at the time) that got me to where I am now. And there are some things about me that haven’t changed, and I’m proud of holding onto those things.

Friendship has taken on a new form. It’s no longer based on having grown up in the same stupid place. It’s about sharing a sort of “peace” in the midst of responsibilities. We no longer have energy to waste.

Speaking of which, some kids gathered outside my window by the lake last night and screamed horrible young-person-songs and banged on an acoustic guitar. They were just teenagers doing what teenagers do, probably feeling great that they were out there in the dark on the weekend and having fun. My first reaction was anger, as I was trying to relax in peace and quiet. Then I tried to be thankful for and respectful of their youthful energy. I spent maybe a minute on that. Didn’t work, so I shut the window and watched Community.

Side story: back when I lived in Florida in 2004, I was a fan of a personal blog of an extremely negative and funny guy. No one else I’d show it to thought it was funny. At all. He had a story about a sick kitten he brought home, and various blog entries about getting dumped by his girlfriend / fiance / whatever. (Edit: Holy Shit, I found it on Archive.org!) I’d laugh forever at that thing. The site eventually broke and disappeared. The following year, Will Maier took me to a party when I moved to Los Angeles. It was there that he introduced me to a drunk guy hanging out by himself in the kitchen, who happened to be Dan Harmon. I still had no idea who he was, (in L.A. terms, that means how famous he was going to be) but I shook his hand and told him how much I loved his website, and that I wish it was still up. He was really nice to me, and seemed so happy that anyone had even read it. In my mind, if Dan Harmon is a writer, then no one else deserves the title. He’s honestly a virtuoso. A few years later, I saw him eating at a restaurant, and was star struck. Of course, the person I was with had never heard of him. My point of all this is, I’m pleased to finally watch a TV show he made. It makes me laugh! It’s good natured and smart, lifts my spirit. It doesn’t make me feel that there’s no hope for the human race. I don’t feel insulted watching it.

Back to what friendship is about these days, at least for me: maybe the people I identify with most have lots of responsibilities, and maybe they’ve run into some inevitable health problems. Maybe we realize life isn’t all about entertainment or chasing a fantasy. And instead of being preoccupied with making symbols to represent who we are, we just live.

What’s next for me? For the first time in my life, I don’t know, and I’m pretty OK with it. I have no 10-year grand scheme of “becoming.” There’s nowhere I’m trying to reach, no vague goal of “making it.” Maybe that will change, and if so, fine.

I’d like to spend more time with the family at home. I think I’ve already done so much creative work / art in my life that I’ve learned it’s an endless cycle, a treadmill I’d run on to avoid committing to being alive in society. Yet I feel every day that I don’t get to play with my dog or spend time with my wife (or get attacked by my bird) is a day lost.

If you’ve recently made the switch to Adobe Premiere Pro and are using AVCHD, here’s something that can save you a lot of frustration.

1.) Some AVCHD Cameras (in my case, for a current project, a Canon HF-G10) record in a mode called PSF, or Progressive Segmented Frame. It’s very much like Interlaced, except the fields don’t dance back and forth. Instead, they’re displayed simultaneously — but they’re still split, from what I understand. So they record a Progressive video INSIDE what is actually an Interlaced wrapper. Even if the camera says 30P or 30PF in your menu settings, you should check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_segmented_frame
2.) Some editing software isn’t always able to figure that out. Adobe Premiere is one of them. It might only see the Interlaced wrapper, and it will try to De-Interlace the Progressive Footage (!), making it look Aliased / Jagged. (Note: I used Final Cut Pro 7 for years, and never had this issue.)
3.) The solution is this… first, make sure your Sequence settings are Progressive. Then right click on every MTS / AVCHD footage file in the Project Window and Modify > Interpret Footage > Progressive. You’re forcing it to recognize it correctly.

That’s it! No more aliasing!

Special thanks to ComputerNovice25, Jim Simon, and Stephen_Spider for their help on the Adobe Forums.

What is the essence of being a “Geek?”

Here are some common mistakes:

• Purchasing and displaying a “Geeky” brand of printed materials
• Wearing T-shirts displaying “Geeky” fictional characters or phrases
• Wearing a particular shape of “Geeky” eyeglasses
• Memorizing trivia and dialogue from “Geeky” movies
• Participating in “Geeky” games that are definitely not physical sports
• Attending “Geeky” pop culture events with 150,000 other “Geeks.”

In other words, spend your money in a certain way, and you’ll be a “Geek.”

Oops, someone forgot:

The essence of “Geek” is being a Social Reject.

(Have fun arguing about the definition all you want, but it all comes down to that.)

So it seems Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, and Olivia Munn are confused.

You can’t be Extremely Likable, a.k.a. Popular, a.k.a. Famous — and also be a Social Reject.

Therefore, if people pay money and stand in line just to meet you and tell you how awesome you are, you’re not a Geek. You’re just another Mainstream Celebrity.

Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these so-called “Geeky” things, either. At least in my opinion. I have nothing against the people named above, because I’d be happy to play D&D with them. Like them, I’m thrilled to watch any corporate-funded sci-fi / fantasy / adventure movie. My studio has a life-size Stormtrooper poster on the door. I even wear black-rimmed glasses.

But I am most definitely a Social Reject. A Social Reject from Geek Culture, because I’m not on T.V. And I’m not on T.V. because I’m not good looking and / or funny enough. I’m not into offensively playing games of Social Dominance. It’s High School all over again. And isn’t making up for High School what Celebrity Geek Culture is all about?

Help me, Sylvester McMonkey McBean.

(P.S. I wrote a 30-minute animated TV show pilot about this.)

I’d like to expand on an old blog post called Creativity: Crop Rotation. (http://www.carlkingdom.com/creativity-crop-rotation)

Especially if you live in Los Angeles, there’s a lot of pressure to give yourself an Industry Designation. You’re supposed to decide on some narrow job description like Guitarist or Photographer — and make sure it’s clear on your business card and in your email signature for the next billion years. You’re expected to climb that ladder, work it into every conversation you have, just in case a stranger can get you a gig doing it. And never do anything else, unless you want everyone to think (know) you’re an amateur.

If you happen to love doing more than one thing, it must mean you’ve FAILED at one of them, right? Or the thing you did AFTER the other thing is because no one thought you were any good at it and you gave up.

In 2008, I took a lot of interest in programming WordPress sites and CSS. It fascinated me. So I bought some books, learned it, and did it for a living. It was extremely funny to me that a client once asserted that I couldn’t know anything about audio because I was just “a web design guy.” I didn’t bother correcting him.

Over the years I’ve studied and succeeded in graphic design, music, marketing, advertising sales, writing books, directing videos, editing, producing, photography, web programming, animation… so when someone at a party asks me what I do, I can’t give a simple answer. (If they instead asked me my favorite food, I could at least answer with one word: Burrito.)

I get good at things because I get serious. I honestly don’t think I have much talent, and I beat myself up a lot for not being good at socializing or meeting people. But what I can do every single day is study a subject until I understand it. I buy books, look up the definitions of words I don’t understand, read websites and forums, watch training videos, listen to podcasts, ask advice from experts, and go to stores & seminars where I can experience the subjects up-close. I believe I’m capable of mastering something if I just invest the time.

I master things and move on, then learn how to mix them together.

Frank Zappa called this “The Direction of Many Things.”

I have no idea what I’ll be doing in a year or five years. Hopefully something where I can keep doing many things in parallel and series, because I enjoy it.

Hooray! The answer is Yes!

Why?

Because you wanted to know. Extroverts don’t care!

(Well, sometimes they do. 1% of the time. But only because they want to know what’s wrong with you.)

So you don’t really need to wonder anymore. You don’t need to take all these Myers-Briggs personality tests. It’s the opposite of what Louis Armstrong said when he was asked what Jazz is. “If you gotta ask, you’ll never know.”

If you gotta ask, you already know!

-Carl.

P.S. My 10 Myths About Introverts has been read by over 1 MILLION people, so I know what I’m talking about. Also, that Frank Zappa image above is from my Business Lesson With Frank Zappa Cartoon. Someone else posted it on YouTube, not me.

I’m in the process of producing a documentary film about Swedish drummer, Morgan Ågren. I decided to answer some questions about my “how” and “why.”

Q: $10,000 sounds like a lot of money. You’ve already reached your goal. Why are you asking for more?
A: As of right now, the budget for the entire project from beginning to end (from the pre-production and renting of gear to the hiring of a crew to the pressing of DVDs and BluRays and release) is estimated to be $11,842.80. That does NOT include contingencies, which are unexpected costs. Equipment explodes, people get sick, sometimes the director will get shot by a “not significant” bullet. So we might just about break even if the Kickstarter campaign ended today. It’s been remarkable that hundreds of people have supported this project, because we would have no way to make it without their help. I personally came up with and spent $4,000 at the beginning of the project just to get through the first week. So $10,000 disappears very fast, in reality.

Q: Why did you decide to make a movie about Morgan?
A: I’ve had a war in my mind for a decade. I look at every industry, and I notice there is something fundamentally wrong with music. For example, the best basketball players in the world make millions of dollars. There’s no question that they are the best. Anyone can see them win on TV. Same with many other professions. If you are the best, you will come out on top. But with music, there is a point at which you become overqualified. Except for a niche audience of maybe a few hundred or a few thousand spread out across the planet, people no longer want to listen to your music. You get accused of being “too complex” or a “shredder” or “wanking.” Or of being “on drugs.” The fact is, there is very little music education in general audiences, and there’s so much to experience. So much more to enjoy than what most have heard. Music has become a background sound that people bob their heads to, so those musicians and composers who explore too far become worthless. And we have an industry where musicians go to places like Musicians Institute and Berklee, practice their asses off to play all sorts of interesting stuff… and then throw it all away and play simple radio music. It’s bizarre to me. And I’m not talking about those freaks who fly up and down scales as fast as they can with a metronome with complete disregard for every element of music aside from tempo. I’m talking about musicians who might play classical guitar. How insulting is it, that some poor bastard studies his whole life, all of the technique and theory just to play in the background while assholes are chewing their food and talking? Morgan is one of those musicians who really deserves to be heard and understood by more. It’s a subject I’m passionate about, and I take it personally.

Q: Why did you get into filmmaking instead of doing more music?
A: I’ve always been interested in combining multiple forms. I don’t see music as being any more magical than drawing or writing books. They are all ways to express yourself and share your message with the world. And I like to combine them. Filmmaking gives me a way to use these multiple forms. When I get bored with the writing side of things, I can work on visuals. Or music. And so much of the things I learned as a musician apply laterally to visuals. And I also enjoy Producing, which is a whole other holistic skill that not many really understand.

Q: What’s the difference between a Producer and a Director?
A: The two overlap quite a bit, but I see it as Parent and Child. As a Producer you can’t concern yourself with just the creative aspect. Your creativity can’t run freely. You have to be an adult, concerned with the brutal reality of the project. How much will it really cost, who is going to watch it, how long is it going to take, what gear and crew can you afford, where is the funding going to come from, how can you make all parties involved happy, is this thing even worth doing to begin with? A Director is more like a little kid with an endless imagination. The Producer’s job is to say “No, we can’t afford it — find a way to make it work with what you’ve got.”

Q: So isn’t being a Producer an uncreative job?
A: Not at all. It’s actually making something that would otherwise be impossible, possible. As a producer you create the opportunity for a project to exist in the real world, not just in someone’s imagination. My mentor once took me into his office and closed the door and said, “If I rented you an office, hired you a staff, got you the phones, computers, and equipment you need, paid all the bills — could you make it make money?” I of course said, “No.” He replied, “Well I can. And that’s the difference between you and me.” Then he opened his office door and gestured and said, “Now get back to work.” It was a powerful experience for me. For whatever reason you want to believe, this is not a world where all artists are able to make their beautiful art and survive off it. It’s a matter of finding a way for the artists to connect with and make some sense to more people, without compromising their vision. You don’t want to cross over that line. Or at least I don’t, because I also have my own uncompromising creative projects. And I wouldn’t want someone fucking with them.

Q: Anything else you want people to know?
A: I would like to see the drum community getting behind this project. It’s not often that we get to see movies about drummers, and what they really have to offer the world. I feel that drummers are underrated by default. They’re treated like they’re just monkeys banging on things and keeping a beat. But in fact there is a great deal of nuance and focus required. There’s so much physical training and mental coordination, using the whole body — training each of your limbs and muscles in a different way. And then beyond that, it can be such an expressive and melodic instrument. Morgan is one of those drummers who will try anything at any time. He takes chances, and that’s what makes dangerous art.

Please Pledge Now to help me make this film as good as it can be.

Please donate to my Kickstarter Campaign. Even if it’s only $1, your name will be in the credits!

-Carl.

Here are seven simple steps, because I like prime numbers. Do them in exactly this order:

1.) “Stay home. Read a book.” -Nomeansno.
2.) Post a blog, not about the book, but about your own personality traits. Wonder if everyone will see through it.
3.) Forget about it for 3 years while no one cares.
4.) Overnight, get 23,000+ hits after being reposted on Stumbleupon.
5.) Receive sincere emails every day about how your blog made people cry and changed their lives. Try to keep up, then realize it’s not possible to sustain a genuine tone responding to that many people. Feel guilty, but instead spend your time on making more stuff.
6.) Get reposted on Wired.com and Owl City.
7.) Reach 1,000,000 views as Introversion becomes trendy at Forbes, TED, and Time Magazine.

There you have it. I never expected 10 Myths About Introverts to be looked at a MILLION times. But it’s officially the most popular / famous thing I’ve ever made. At the time I’m writing this, I’m the #3 Google Result for “introverts” — after Wikipedia and About.com.

Pretty impressive these days for something that requires reading.

For the techies:
90% Unique Visitors
Average of 5 Minutes on Page
84% Bounce

Most of those one million views took place between April 2011 and April 2012. Before that, the page was getting under 10 views per day. The biggest day was December 13, 2011: 26,000+ views.

I might seem irreverent about this topic, but it’s because the process of creating and releasing material to the public is absurd. It can’t be taken seriously by an artist. I wrote 10 Myths About Introverts in an afternoon. By comparison, I spent a whole year investing my soul in a fiction book called Cuyahoga! Sometimes people care and sometimes they don’t.

Why?

“We don’t know!” as Jim Rohn once yelled, in his Idaho farm-boy accent.

He also said: “The things that are easy to do, are also easy… not to do.”