The 11 O'clock Number

It's me again. I was thinking today as I walked home that I now know why most epic musical compositions climax two-thirds of the way through. Liars and smug "successful" people will tell you that a musical composition climaxes where it does because of the Golden Ratio. That is to say, the first thick rectangle represents everything that happens before the climax, the little off-center line is the climax, and the small rectangle represents everything after the climax. I know now that that's crap. Yes, musicals climax where they do because right when the composer reaches that two-thirds mark, his or her imagination craps out. That's right. It's true. Here I am, having arrived at the climax, or, what they call in musical theater the "eleven o'clock number", and I can't think of a thing. No ideas will come. Nothing. Golden Mean my butt. So, I find myself doomed to aimless wandering, intermittent fetal positions, bad television, and drinking (soda pop), waiting until that moment when, at last,the ideas begin to flow and I can head into the dénouement with confidence. What's funny is that just a week ago I wrote one of the songs in a single day. In a fit of work I wrote a whole song based on an idea I had recorded months ago into my cell phone's voice recorder. That was when "the silence" came.

In good news, though, the Willamette Week conducted an interview with me to promote the show at the Someday Lounge on July 7th. In the interview, Casey Jarman and I talk about pop music, suburban strip commercial architecture, Parks & Recreation, and a bunch of other things. I look a bit pudgy, but anyway, there it is. You can view it at this link: http://blip.tv/file/2168899/

More later.