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My muscles are wracked. Working inside for 12 hours a day stiffens the body, makes the eyes adjust poorly to natural light, and feeds neuroses that make it difficult to keep up a normal conversation. That isn't to say that I haven't enjoyed working from home o'er these past few months; there are simply some negative physical symptoms of a hard work ethic. As a result, I've considered resuming my work as a full-time preschool teacher. Having sporadically submitted to substitute teaching at this wonderfully progressive daycare near my house, I've noticed that I always seem to walk away from a day at the school feeling better-adjusted.
My last teaching post was hardly as therapeutic. The children, many of whom had physical and emotional disabilities, suffered at the hands of teachers whose rigid authortarianism (with 3 year olds for God's sake!), cluelessness, and professional bitterness permeated most of their actions. Many kids were written off as having ADD, autism, or anger proneness before they could even speak. This took the pressure off of the teachers to appropriately guide the child's social development. I still don't understand why people who don't enjoy this line of work continue to do it; it poisons everyone involved.
Working in that environment was a daily trial. I awoke each morning feeling dreadful and, upon returning home in the evening, was haunted by all the poor situations I'd dealt with that day. Luckily, about six months into my tenure, a new batch of fresh-minded teachers was hired, resolving a lot of the issues and allowing me to quit with peace-of-mind.
Now, Mothfight is in the process of saving up money to go on tour and I'd jump at the chance to spend a few months out in the sun with the kids before leaving for the road. The cost of our South Austin practice space has been steadily rising as well and, though we're probably going to move our rehearsals to a theatre down the street from my house(!), it'd be nice to live more comfortably in the meantime. That'd make me less available for work at Gallery Lombardi but it'd be steady and secure.
Right now we're tracking for a demo CD-R with Michael Landon and Seth from Super Pop Records. Finding a way to best capture our orchestration has always proved to be a bit difficult and I think this has definitely been an opportunity to learn about ourselves and how these songs should sound. This'll be our millionth attempt at Murphysboro 1925, a song composed of three "vignettes" (Crickets/Schools/Tornado) that I've had kicking around since high school. I never knew exactly what it was supposed to sound like until playing it with Mothfight. It's a very difficult piece to record/perform because it ends with these jabs of arrhythmia (the "tornado segment" as we refer to it) punctuated by this huge refrain.
Musically, it's supposed to be a sound poem telling the story of the Tri-State Tornado of 1925.
Tellingly, I only finished the lyrics up last week:
Murphysboro 1925
Go home to Murphysboro
Inkwells and useless kids line the roads
Comb the farms for bits of hair
(Tomorrow I brew, Today I bake
And then the child, away I'll take)
This is not night
Girls who leave their music boxes on from daybreak 'till night
Would mind to keep their windows locked tight
We've a rough mix of it up on our Myspace and Virb pages. It's not quite there yet but you can see what I'm talking about.
