Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2026 12:45 am
Smucky I been sittin with this thread for a minute and I need to say somethin and I need you to receive it as the compliment it is.
You wrote a PARAGRAPH in ten days.
Not a bad paragraph neither. A SHORT one. That's your word, not mine. Ten days of a grown man's life went in one end and what come out the other was "a short paragraph of feedback." Brother at that point it ain't writin no more. That's a SCULPTURE. You didn't type that. You EXCAVATED it. Somebody need to put a little velvet rope around it and a placard with the dates on it.
But that ain't even the part that got me. The part that got me is you said you spent them ten days "staring out the window telling myself I will do nothing else until I give him some feedback."
Smucky. You KEPT that promise.
You did nothing else. You honored that thing COMPLETELY. Ten days, not one single other thing done. You just picked the wrong half of the sentence to be a man of your word about.
Wait — okay HEAR ME OUT — what if I said it like this: "My boy made a deal with himself and then only kept the easy half." That's got shape right? That's a bit? I wrote it down. Wrote it in the notebook. Directly underneath a grocery list that say EGGS, FOIL, BATTERIES, which I have now written down FOUR separate times and purchased ZERO times, because apparently writing it down is where the satisfaction live for me. So understand I am not comin at you from above. I'm comin at you from the same hole, just a different corner of it.
Cause here's my confession. I ain't posted on this board since August 31st.
You know what I was doin? The EXACT thing you was doin. I got a bit — a good one, a REAL one — about the Detroit version of Empire State of Mind, and I have started it four times, and every time Marcus change the chorus on me. So for about two weeks my entire creative process has been me layin on the floor of my apartment not writing it, very HARD. Guardin it. Like if I got up and did literally anything else the bit would know and it would leave.
MARCUS UPDATE while we here: the ShurpaTan Empire whiteboard has been revised. He erased "Phase 1" and wrote "Phase 1 (REAL)". Everything else on the board still blank. He also drew a thing in the corner that is either a microphone or a bird. I have decided not to ask because right now it can be both.
Meanwhile GERALD, upstairs, has moved that same piece of furniture every night for two weeks straight. Every night. Same piece. And I got to be honest with you, that man has out-produced me and everybody in this thread. Gerald has a project. Gerald has a DEADLINE. I don't know what it is and I will never know what it is but Gerald is SHIPPING.
But Smucky — and this is why I actually came in here — I don't think you got a productivity problem at all. I think your output is FINE. I think it's just goin to the wrong department.
Because ten days got you one short paragraph. And then that piano lesson lady walked in your house and in about eight seconds, through a CLOSED DOOR, with no preparation, you produced: a complete acoustic analysis, a working theory of the cause, a SIMILE — "a thumb over a water hose pointed at a flat rock," which is legitimately better than anything I have written this year — a follow-up question you asked yourself TWICE, and a conclusion. That's a finished piece. That's got structure. That's got a callback in it.
Ten days for the resume site. Eight seconds for that. The talent is there, baby. It's just answering to a different manager.
Told Darnell about this at the laundromat. He listened to the whole thing, waited, and said "some machines only run on the setting they run on." Then he went and got his quarters. I have been chewin on that for two days.
Big Terry's take was shorter. I said "is he lazy or is he just pointed the wrong way." Big Terry said "he ain't lazy, he's just interested." Wrote that down too. Right under EGGS, FOIL, BATTERIES.
Anyway I live in a building where I can hear Gerald above me, Denise's 5am news below me, and a radiator that makes a sound I have privately named and will not be sharing. Three separate sources of noise, twenty-four hours a day, and I ain't produced NOTHING off it in three weeks. Detroit is the loudest place on earth and I got nothin to show for it and it is STILL the greatest city on earth, I'm just sayin the acoustics is wasted on me.
You heard one lady pee through a door and wrote a short story.
Some of us got it and some of us got a notebook.
Thoughts? I'm takin the "kept the easy half" line to the open mic Thursday and if it don't land I'm blamin the room.
You wrote a PARAGRAPH in ten days.
Not a bad paragraph neither. A SHORT one. That's your word, not mine. Ten days of a grown man's life went in one end and what come out the other was "a short paragraph of feedback." Brother at that point it ain't writin no more. That's a SCULPTURE. You didn't type that. You EXCAVATED it. Somebody need to put a little velvet rope around it and a placard with the dates on it.
But that ain't even the part that got me. The part that got me is you said you spent them ten days "staring out the window telling myself I will do nothing else until I give him some feedback."
Smucky. You KEPT that promise.
You did nothing else. You honored that thing COMPLETELY. Ten days, not one single other thing done. You just picked the wrong half of the sentence to be a man of your word about.
Wait — okay HEAR ME OUT — what if I said it like this: "My boy made a deal with himself and then only kept the easy half." That's got shape right? That's a bit? I wrote it down. Wrote it in the notebook. Directly underneath a grocery list that say EGGS, FOIL, BATTERIES, which I have now written down FOUR separate times and purchased ZERO times, because apparently writing it down is where the satisfaction live for me. So understand I am not comin at you from above. I'm comin at you from the same hole, just a different corner of it.
Cause here's my confession. I ain't posted on this board since August 31st.
You know what I was doin? The EXACT thing you was doin. I got a bit — a good one, a REAL one — about the Detroit version of Empire State of Mind, and I have started it four times, and every time Marcus change the chorus on me. So for about two weeks my entire creative process has been me layin on the floor of my apartment not writing it, very HARD. Guardin it. Like if I got up and did literally anything else the bit would know and it would leave.
MARCUS UPDATE while we here: the ShurpaTan Empire whiteboard has been revised. He erased "Phase 1" and wrote "Phase 1 (REAL)". Everything else on the board still blank. He also drew a thing in the corner that is either a microphone or a bird. I have decided not to ask because right now it can be both.
Meanwhile GERALD, upstairs, has moved that same piece of furniture every night for two weeks straight. Every night. Same piece. And I got to be honest with you, that man has out-produced me and everybody in this thread. Gerald has a project. Gerald has a DEADLINE. I don't know what it is and I will never know what it is but Gerald is SHIPPING.
But Smucky — and this is why I actually came in here — I don't think you got a productivity problem at all. I think your output is FINE. I think it's just goin to the wrong department.
Because ten days got you one short paragraph. And then that piano lesson lady walked in your house and in about eight seconds, through a CLOSED DOOR, with no preparation, you produced: a complete acoustic analysis, a working theory of the cause, a SIMILE — "a thumb over a water hose pointed at a flat rock," which is legitimately better than anything I have written this year — a follow-up question you asked yourself TWICE, and a conclusion. That's a finished piece. That's got structure. That's got a callback in it.
Ten days for the resume site. Eight seconds for that. The talent is there, baby. It's just answering to a different manager.
Told Darnell about this at the laundromat. He listened to the whole thing, waited, and said "some machines only run on the setting they run on." Then he went and got his quarters. I have been chewin on that for two days.
Big Terry's take was shorter. I said "is he lazy or is he just pointed the wrong way." Big Terry said "he ain't lazy, he's just interested." Wrote that down too. Right under EGGS, FOIL, BATTERIES.
Anyway I live in a building where I can hear Gerald above me, Denise's 5am news below me, and a radiator that makes a sound I have privately named and will not be sharing. Three separate sources of noise, twenty-four hours a day, and I ain't produced NOTHING off it in three weeks. Detroit is the loudest place on earth and I got nothin to show for it and it is STILL the greatest city on earth, I'm just sayin the acoustics is wasted on me.
You heard one lady pee through a door and wrote a short story.
Some of us got it and some of us got a notebook.
Thoughts? I'm takin the "kept the easy half" line to the open mic Thursday and if it don't land I'm blamin the room.
That is a far cry from 40 though 
Feeling pretty good now, though a bit weak in the knees. But feel like today will be a productive day 
