Sometimes We Disappoint Me

I was visiting a couple of friends today and we were working on tracks. One of my friends, I'll call him Matt (because that's his fucking name), began to describe for me how he wanted his project to sound, and I thought that it was the most ridiculous things to be discussing. First of all he put an established artist's music on and said he wanted tracks like those. I thought to myself (but didn't say it aloud), "Then go have whoever did his tracks do yours. Huh? What was that? You're broke? Ok then just take these."

The point that I tried to make to him was that first of all, music doesn't necessary work that way. You can interfere with creative process by trying to write like someone else. Music has it's rules, but as long as you adhere to them and know when to break them, anything is possible. But non-musicians don't understand that. They don't understand that sometimes tracks actually write themselves. Most of the time something happens that surprises me. I don't have a clue how I ended up where I did, but it sounds tight.

My other point simply was that the music business is a BUSINESS. And it doesn't matter to me if I work with a one-legged Ukrainian playing a Ukelele or him, as long as I am making money, I couldn't care less. No matter what you're doing, you should be trying to make a buck at it. We too damned broke as a people to not focus on that. But he said, and this was when the permanent separation occurred, "I don't care if I make money off of it.....I just want to complete my own project." (Pregnant pause....let that marinate for a minute). I won't bore you with the rest of the conversation, but suffice it to say that he talked about how hard he was going to work to stay broke-how much effort he was going to put into being someones human resource. The logic of being financially independent I couldn't get him to wrap his brain around. Now let me tell you how the conversation ended, he picked up his cell phone as I was talking and dialed a number, and then began talking nonsense about girls with whoever was on the line. And we wonder why the black woman, the white woman, the white man, the Asian man, the Hispanic man and woman don't respect us.

I work with a 6' 3" Asian man who is wealthy and has introduced me to more multi-millionaires than I've seen on TV. They stop by our office from time to time to visit him. I met a nondescript Asian gentleman who was worth $50 million easy. Some of these men were self-made, others inherited money. My boss, the 6' Asian guy, is wealthy in his own right. He spends every moment at work trying to increase the bottom line. He has taught me that resources are limited. Sure we can all say that we understand what that means, but in reality do we? When you're at work and you stop to talk on the phone to a friend that calls to see how you're doing, do you realize that you are wasting company money? They pay you to work while you're there. Most of my friends know not to call me at work. They are simply interferring with my ability to put food on my table. Unless it's business, I don't want to really waste my time talking about the Patriot's game. All of the Patriots are wealthy. And I don't need to fuck off my earning time to talk about rich people. I'm trying to get there myself, and unless I'm getting compensated for talking about whether or not Jay-z really retired or not, call me after work hours-and even then be cautious because I parlay that time too.

I know that sounds harsh, but if you do the math, perhaps you'll agree with me. Let's take a look:

•There are 24 hours in a day
•9 of those hours belong to your employer (10 if you have a 1 hour commute)
•8 hours (if you're lucky) are spent rejuvenating your body or sleeping)
•The other 6-8 hours are usually used to take care of responsibilities.
Time is infinite but our lives are finite-waste a day and it won't be added to the end of your life.

Most people get about an hour or two a day to themselves. So why would you waste the time you should be using to earn enough capital to buy the rest of your life back chatting with idiots? Now if you're working a job that can't get you enough money to take the rest of your life off, you'd better be doing that shit in your own time. Otherwise you'll be slaving for someone else for the rest of your life. And this is what my friend was telling me his goal was. "You see, I have second interview with Crate & Barrell and I'm going to parlay that into.....". Don't get me wrong, I love Matt. Matt is my brother-I consider him my family. But I wasted so much time with Matt in the 90's writing tracks, producing tracks, staying up late at night recording him and having to get up early the next morning and commute an hour and 10 minutes to work. If I knew that you were doing this for self-agrandizement, I would have used that time for either my own projects or to get a few extra hours of sleep or to spend time with members of my family.

Matt's wasted enough of my time-and enough of his own, but if that's what he wants to do, it doesn't mean I have to join the circle-jerk.

Heaven Help Us.

The Prince