Spare Time

Here's a very entertaining YouTube compilation/montage video:

Here's another:

And here's a far less entertaining blog post about Stewart Copeland:

The Unbehind: More flams than you can shake a stick at!


These all have two things in common:

1) They took a lot of time to create.
2) People like to say "Ha. Wow, they must have a lot of time on their hands to do that."

I know I've heard that in response to several of my posts. And I've heard it whenever I've shared both of those videos with people. By extrapolation people are saying:

"My goodness, man. To take such time and care to cull these David Lee Roth clips from the internet...I could have spent so much more time with my children! And read that Important Novel! And grown twice the crops I already grow for subsistence!"

Yes, sir. I'm sure you would do all such things. And maybe make a macrame owl, to boot.

Or is it... to hoot?

But I've noticed something interesting. No one ever talks about the macrame owls they're making. They do tell tedious stories about books and kids sometimes, for sure. But usually they talk about:

-House of Cards

-Game of Thrones

-Orange Is the New Black

-Breaking Bad (until recently)

I mean ON AND ON AND ON AND ON about fucking TELEVISION.

Don't get me wrong. This is NOT an anti-TV rant. If I had a TV and cable I'd be watching Cops eating Slim Jims and drinking High Life RIGHT NOW.

(One of those things is true RIGHT NOW. I'll let you guess.)

BUT! When someone is going on and on and ON about all of the goddamn shows they're following, does anyone ever say:

"Ha. Wow, they must have a lot of time on their hands to do that."

No. Never.

Why is it that someone can make a really entertaining YouTube video that gets over 2 million views and people think "Damn, what a loser! That guy really entertained me by doing something I'd never think to do or ever be willing to do! I'm gonna go watch some quality HBO TV."

Or my blog post, say. It has 108 views. Got a few Facebook likes (whee!). Certainly have made zero dollars from it. It certainly took many hours. Lots of hours I could have spent getting caught up on Awesome Show X. Alas. I didn't feel like watching TV. And I don't have a TV. And when I wrote that my computer was barely operational. So those are also considerations.

But still.

I really don't give a shit how anyone spends their time. The fact that we have any free time at all is an amazing luxury. It just burns me whenever I hear that comment. You might as well say it every time I write music that has weird notes and no one will ever play it correctly or even want to hear it. Or every time I play a gig that pays junk and nobody listens but at least I'm playing exactly what I want to play, as loudly or as softly as I want.

Maybe next time someone makes that comment about a post or one of my musical endeavors I'll ask them about Game of Thrones, pretend I know what they're talking about, then say "Man, you must really have some time on your hands! WOW!"