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Where I am…

Despite the internal debate raging in my head about the worth of writing this, here I am. I’m in the sandbox, as my friend Pat Walsh called it once, which is a euphemistic way of saying I suffer from severe depression and right now I am in a long downswing. I can’t really begin to tell you how long I’ve been dealing with it because I don’t know, but it’s certainly been for the past 6 or 7 years now. I’ve been up and down in that period, I’ve been on various meds and I’ve had 5 different therapists. Also in that time I’ve grown very tired of saying, and believing, that I thought I’d turned it around. Invariably a month or so later the sudden upswing fades and I head downward. Like an addict, except without any kind of temptation involved, just one day I realize that at some point I’ve fallen into the hole again.

One of the strangest things about it is the way that, whatever state I happen to be in at any given time, the other state doesn’t seem real. When I feel up it seems like the down periods are all just whining and moping or not even genuine. When I’m down it feels like THAT is my genuine state and my up periods are merely a pretense I put up when I have to be able to get by in any interaction with other people.

I should clarify that ‘up’ is an extremely relative term. For me the past couple of years it just means ‘able to go out in public’ or ‘able to accomplish small tasks,’ while ‘down’ has worsened lately to bouts of sudden, abject terror or finding myself on the floor crying uncontrollably (both of which usually come about with no trigger whatsoever). In between those states I tend to be kind of level, though on the low end. I have a lot of trouble with focus and concentration and there are days that pass where I honestly don’t really understand how I got to midnight from noon. Not that I black out, but that I just couldn’t really tell you how in the world I passed 12 hours that day.

Anyway. I’m typing all this because I know I’ve become an even bigger hermit than, well, the other times I’ve been a hermit. I’ve switched meds around, which is a process that tends to take about 3 weeks or so for me to know how it’s going to affect me (this is the start of week 2, in case you’re curious). I’ve also started seeing a new therapist, after about a year without one, I think. In the first session I mentioned being tired of telling people I was doing better only to then not be and she told me I shouldn’t concern myself with more than just ‘right now I feel okay.’ So the past few weeks I’ve just tried to accomplish what I can in the moments when I feel okay. This is one of them.

I realize I’ve cut nearly everyone out of my life lately, and while the urge to try to explain comes frequently, this is the first time I’ve felt up to actually trying. Possibly more to the point, it’s a rare moment where I think anyone will actually give a damn (it’s not you, it’s me, don’t take it personally). This isn’t about trying to get anyone to prop me up or garner some pats on the back, which is why I’ll be leaving the comments off. It’s about the fact that if you’re reading this you deserve more than an unexplained disappearance. “I am in here,” as the book says. I’m just trying to find my way back out.

It seems hollow and disingenuous to say I’m sorry for having gone quiet, but I am. I hope that everyone reading is doing okay.

(Hey, this is “future-Paul, circa 2012.” Would you like to know where all of the above led? Read on…)

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Iran and Traditional Media

Today, the Washington Post posted an opinion piece on the role of Twitter in the current situation in Iran.  It was at best ignorant and at worst deliberately misleading, so I tried my best to tell them so.  I’m posting my response here, as well, because come on, it’s not like anyone is reading this!

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This article is awfully disingenuous and almost comes off as traditional media whining that they still matter.  No one is claiming Twitter will bring the revolution.  There is no Green Wave manifesto floating around Twitter in a thousand 140 character sections.  What it HAS done is allow some of the demonstrators to organize when every other form of communication (apart from word of mouth) has been shut down.  It, along with YouTube, has allowed these same people to inform the rest of the world what is happening on the streets, something that traditional media was initially indifferent to and by the time they realized what was going on they found themselves locked out of the country.  Even now nearly every bit of timely news that appears on CNN, Fox, et al is coming directly from YouTube and Twitter and Mousavi’s Facebook page.

You’re correct in saying that Iran could simply attempt to pull the plug on the entire internet, it’s really the only thing they CAN do to stop it.  The fact that they haven’t is telling in its own right.  Yes, the government has begun spreading disinformation through Twitter, but it’s worth noting that it took them almost three days to think of doing it, at which point the trustworthy sources were already well known.  It was too late, and therein lies the real point: Twitter is a tool, one that has helped to facilitate what is going on on the ground in Iran.  It did not bring it about.  Is there anyone here who thinks these protests wouldn’t be happening if not for Twitter?  What it DID do is make this entire situation more complicated and more dangerous for Ahmadinejad.  It made the movement more powerful than it would have been otherwise.

The other real lesson here is that the people on the ground will always be one step ahead of entrenched governments in using methods of communication that cannot be silenced.  Yes, at some point governments will understand how to stop Twitter as a tool, but by then those who are using it now will have already moved on to a newer method that those in power won’t understand until it’s too late.

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Susi French Connection @ Eddie’s Attic (Atlanta, GA), 13-Jun 2009

w/ Herman Put Down The Gun

Well, the show was a blast, like always.  It’s always pretty relaxing playing something other than my stuff, even more relaxing when all I have to do is sing.  I sang on Styx’s “Lady” and ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down.”  “Lady” is a song that I can only sing a couple of times before I can’t hit the high notes any more, so with two sets and two songs in each I was a little nervous I might not make it through (the first time we did “Lady” my voice was completely shot on the second set).  But somehow it all went smoothly, apart from botching the words to a verse in the ELO song in the first set.  I will admit, too, that in the late set, when I came up onstage the crowd kinda… well, they really cheered loudly.  I was caught off guard, to be honest.  Anyway, I can’t thank the band enough for continuing to have me at these shows.

The opener for the late show was Sonia Tetlow‘s band.  I told them repeatedly after the show that I was totally amazed by them, god knows if they believed me.  I realized that I’ve known Sonia for about 10 years or so; Radiant City played a show with her at Dottie’s (a now-gone club in Atlanta that I could not possibly describe, let’s just say at one show we found a bullet on the floor, at another I helped break up a drunken fight in the parking lot).  I’ve been on other bills with her over the years.

Local bands are a short-lived species for the most part.  It’s rare enough for one to last more than a couple of years and rarer still when you get to actually watch them grow as artists.  Sonia’s show Saturday was just incredible, her music has really evolved over time.  I don’t mean for that to sound condescending, but if you heard her the first time I did, and then Saturday night, you’d never know it was the same person.  I don’t just mean talent, her sound has really matured, it’s much more melodic and nuanced.  The change is really noticable, even between now and the show we played last year.  I remember seeing the same change in the Gentle Readers, after they’d been doing shows as Susi French Connection for about a year or so.  Sonia, on the other hand, spent the last year or so playing with Cowboy Mouth.  I think in both cases the extracurricular bands are a big part of why their sound made such a sudden leap forward.

Anyway, it was a good night all around, helpful to me for trying to recall why I liked doing it before.