We Bacc (and a Little Ramble Sesh About my Future)

I had to take a hiatus from this site for a minute to finish school, and because of that I got out of the habit of checking in so often. It's safe to say that getting off the site didn't necessarily help me pass Junior year with flying colors, especially for algebra, but I was never a numbers guy so I can live with that.

That having been said, now I gotta consider what non-numbers type thing I plan on doing with my future, because the funny thing is that I am about half a year from being what a new-gen would consider a "grown-ass man," or otherwise an "unc," which I'm already being called, no thanks to my goatee which I have no intention of doing away with, so I guess I'm bringing it upon myself.

So what does my future have in store for me?

Well, for starters, I think I'm comfortable ruling out an art career because, for as much as I love to draw and doodle and learn to make art, I instantly became discouraged from making art for school when I took my portfolio development class. I am perfectly happy letting that be a little side-hobby I do on my free time.

I do make music; I could be a musician. I'm an aspiring drummer, guitarist, maybe even singer (I guess I sing pretty okay), I'm gonna try to learn the piano a bit. I compose music, I have a little bit of experience as an audio engineer thanks to a class that my school offers. But that comes with its own caveats - the music industry seems a little too in-group-y, and not being in it is the biggest barrier to getting in it. Furthermore, I'm not really keen on signing away my rights to my music just for some label to fuck me raw in the ass by feeding it into an AI and rendering me obsolete and paying me peanuts and pocket lint for royalties. I'd have to make a name for myself as an indie artist or make my own label/multimedia business (I'll get back to this one).

I do write a lot; I'm currently working on two main projects - EMBERS, a superhero thing; and IDIOTS, which is a kind of neo-noir thing. Both of these I've been working on since I was in like third grade or something. I'm getting into poetry, but I won't tend to post those here since I want them to be open for competitions and shit. Maybe I can write a couple throwaway ones that I'll be comfortable posting. Anywho, I'm not ruling out a creative writing or an English degree, because with an English degree I have more options, like writing for publications or even becoming an English teacher, all of which will still pay me peanuts and pocket lint, but its something. 

I could be an architect. I've always kinda had an interest in building things, though I don't do it much, but I'm around builders a lot, be they my dad or my girlfriend, and I do want to someday build my own cozy home for me an my girlfriend to live in (I have a very traditional destination for my future, surprise-surprise.) However, that has to do with math, which I've already established I'm not great with. Maybe if I get into it then the math won't be so bad because it actually means something to me this time. 

Acting is a thing I discovered more recently having been peer-pressured into my school's theatre program, and I've been having a blast with it. More importantly, people seem to think that the acting thing comes naturally to me, which I think says quite a bit since I only started this whole acting thing on my Sophomore year musical "The Drowsy Chaperone," because dancing and singing was the perfect way through which to get an awkward-ass pussy like myself into the swing of acting. I wouldn't say I did to bad with it though, but I wish I had started off with the fall play prior. 

In addition, I've also been writing scripts and screenplays for my little stories, and have helped write some other projects, like my buddy SingPiano's entry for the Newgrounds Hello Kitty Collab.

(Side thing: contact me if you want to collab with me on any of your projects, I'd be happy to help. Within reason, of course.)

Remember what I was saying about starting my own multimedia business?

I've always been told to be the change I want to see in the world, and if there is anything I want changed in this world is this hierarchical, ever-intensifying corporate culture that defines late-stage capitalism, especially the harm it has on the arts, where everything now gets paid by overworked and underpaid and unhappy workers despite huge budgets which cause studios and labels to want to appeal to the broadest possible audience in order to make sure they get all that money back. All it does is homogenize art and leaves people either burned out on the production and/or consumption side. I see a company like Valve, though, and it would appear that the people who work at Valve aren't completely and utterly miserable, and Gaben seems like somewhat of a genuine guy who makes his money off providing a good service to customers on Steam and even Valve's games which tend to be of pretty good quality; why do you think people still play the classic Half-Life games and "Team Fortress 2?" Even their recent releases have been good, like "Half-Life Alyx". Happy workers make better products and that leads to happier customers and that justifies the money being brought in, and the fact that so many CEOs and shareholders are so short-term minded that they can't get that through their heads is beyond me, unless there's something fundamental that I'm just not understanding here. 

For that reason I want to start a kind of multimedia company that kinda lives up to that philosophy. Obviously I have to start small, be that through a small record label of sorts and build up from there - make a movie division, animation, video games, what have you. I intend to do that all while only collecting from it what I need for me and my life and making sure I can pay the people who work for me a fair bit because Lord knows I don't need more than even a hundred million to myself. With that, I want to make sure that art is made that resonates with the group of people it wants to resonate with as opposed to the broadest possible demographic, which is the reason so many movies and such wind up falling flat on their face. This is something I don't ever plan to make publicly-traded, because that's how you get bought out by money-first investors and private-equity firms which will ultimately bastardize the business. 

So yeah, those are my out-of-reach ambitions. Hopefully I can make something of myself before I become doomed to serve as a rusting cog in the corporate machine.

-R.C.