BREAKING MY NECK

I broke my neck yesterday.  Well, not really, but it feels like it.  I 
spent all day, just about, looking for free music sites to use as 
resources for my audio drama projects.  I know, you immediately think 
of Jamendo and the like for this sort of thing.  I know about them, and 
value them for what they are, but they're more than a bit of trouble for 
me to work with in this regard.  Sure, it's all Creative Commons 
goodness, but, as you know, not all CC licenses are made alike.  I 
license my own stuff under Attribution ShareAlike 3.0.

Now, notice the lack of an NC clause there.  I require that all the 
music and sound effects I use to have a similar or even more permissive 
license, so as not to restrict any further (theoretical) distribution 
methods that may be used by others.  And I need very specific pieces to 
correspond with the scripts and characters I've written.  This is a 
challenge, to say the least.  If I was writing a different kind of show, 
it might be very simple to find appropriate music.  "Eddie K", though, 
requires that "big band/nightclub/Rat Pack" sound, and, I have to tell 
you, finding music like that, with a license I can use (or, really, 
under almost ANY license) is not easy.  So I broke my neck yesterday, 
sitting in the living room, using my eeePC to search out links.  I found 
a fair number of them (each of which only have a few pieces of music 
that I MIGHT want to consider, but collectively, it's not a bad haul), 
but the pain it ended up costing me from sitting in that position for 
hours on end, squinting over this tiny netbook, has proven excessive.  
It's almost comical, in fact -- like I'd survived a cartoon throttling 
-- but it's entirely my own fault: I didn't HAVE to sit there all day, 
after all, and I've had enough experience with this machine to have 
known better.

The contrast between sitting comfortably and otherwise relaxed, and the 
excessive tension put into one's hands, neck, and eyes, for hours and 
hours on end, using a machine designed for a wide variety of functions 
(but definitely NOT comfortable use), certainly makes for some very real 
pain and suffering.  On the flipside of this, the convenience factor of 
working in the living room yesterday seemed to trump everything else.  
Looking back, I realize that my main machine would have been much easier 
and faster to utilize, and I wouldn't now be in such pain had I done so 
-- but there were logistic issues at play, since my desktop unit is in 
another room, and Little Bronx seemed to need me close.  His machine is 
in the living room, as you've doubtlessly deduced, and there are days 
when he requires that corner-of-the-eye proximity out of me.

So, I'd like you to remember how I'm suffering now.  If you listen to my 
audio efforts at all, it might not be apparent how much time and effort 
went in to such inane stuff, but I assure you that there is pain and 
even some heartache connected to them.  I mean, I can be as dismissive 
as the next person about things I encounter online which hold no 
interest for me, and I don't necessarily need to consider someone else's 
efforts when doing so -- but it doesn't hurt to stop once and a while 
and consider just how much labor most of us put in to present content of 
one stripe or another for the planet's collective enjoyment and/or 
offhand dismissal.  It's entirely willful, of course, and not, in the 
least, a one-way street, but, in this regard anyway, I reject for myself 
the category of "Consumer".  It makes it sound like I'm giving nothing 
back.  Regardless of what you might think of my personal endeavors, it's 
a fact that I'm working hard to present them.  And YOU are doing the 
same for your own stuff -- blog posts, active conversations in social 
media, or other work that might require even more time to produce.  
People use their Internet connections in order to experience and 
participate in the kind of give-and-take that happens here.  GIVE and 
take.  By simply reading this, you are giving it your time -- and never 
forget how irreplaceable that is.

Distributing my silly audio stories may well be the least that the 
Internet has to offer me, but it is a part of it that I hold dear.  The 
the social connections we form and dissolve in this environment are 
likely far more important.  And we are all content producers in that 
regard -- even if that content is consumption; after all, without 
someone to read our posts, to look at our photos or fine art, or even to 
listen to our ridiculous audio nonsense, none of it has value beyond the 
personal.  Now, don't get me wrong, the strictly personal is of 
TREMENDOUS value.  But it is only one part of the give-and-take process 
-- the genesis of the give, as it were, the motivation of the take: just 
one part of the purpose, function, and result of an online life.

So, I'm giving you my pain, right now -- and you can take it or leave 
it.  Either one's cool.  It all works.

Sunday, November 20, 2011
(c) 2011 lostnbronx
CC BY-SA 3.0
lostnbronxATgmailDOTcom