Shinybass Journal Entry 08-10-20

I’ve been looking so long at these pictures of you…

I have a confession to make : I don’t know crap about computers. I mean, I own several (which, by even typing that sounds just ridiculous), I use them every day in some form or fashion, I create music and videos seen the world over on them, and I couldn’t fish my way out of a computer barrel if trouble rears its ugly head. OK, that’s an exaggeration – I like to think I am a problem solver, so I can Google with the best of them and do what needs to be done – to an extent.

Developers know me. Oh, they know what I need and don’t need, and how hard it is to get me to move in a different direction, so they steer me down ‘familiar’ paths. I have another confession to make: I am a sentimental fool. I don’t want to throw anything away that will remind me of a place and time, and I certainly cringe if I have to delete a picture of my child. So, because of these two factors, I have multiple hard drives full of pictures, and it makes me sick to know that I may be doing all this incorrectly, yet, here I am with a vault full of vaults, and probably 3 copies of each picture.

I try to explain this process to myself: I have picture files. These files are not the same as photo files. Then I have video files. But these are not videos from my phone; these are my ‘professional’ clips, of which I have a new rule of only keeping 6 months past the end of the project, for the simple fact that I don’t need the outtakes of me playing bass. So there’s files upon files. Then there’s the storage portion of it all.

The cloud. The hard drives (oh, the hard drives…). I go to start a project and I am out of space. No storage space available to start. So then I end up doing a sweep and try to figure out who is ending up in the circular file, and typically lots end up here. Then, there was THE hard drive crash of 2019.

I had a huge video project, working in massive files, and I needed to move some things around. I fire up my big daddy external hard drive – the one that has ALL my professional ‘stuff’ on it for safe keeping – and well, it ain’t so functional any more. Crash. I searched and tried a lot of tricks and options before I took it to some specialists. They said it was now a…brick.

So after a slight spasm in one or both of my eyes, I took a breath, and said ‘You know, maybe this is my reset, my new chapter.’ And you know how much of that footage I miss? None. I can’t even tell you what was on it now. Which leads me to my first point – letting go.

Like I said, I am a sentimental old fool. (If I were a recipe, I’d be equal parts of each), and the idea of picking up an old photo or coffee mug from my travels makes me happy. But when do we say ‘it’s OK to keep a few things, but the other 4 boxes in the garage have to go’?

My Mom periodically sends me things from my youth – letters I wrote when in college, or (soon to be priceless) pictures I scribbled when I was in 2nd grade, and I marvel that she kept this stuff all these years. I have 2 massive tote containers in the garage full of Miles’ and Henry’s work from school. THEY ARE 3 and 5. When do I stop? Do I stop?

I kept a few shirts from my Kong Konga days. I kept them because they are awful. Fashion crimes. I also kept one because I wore it at Woodstock ’99. Now, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame won’t call and ask for it, and my wife asks ‘When are you ever going to wear this again?’ Well, when the band recently ‘Reunited’ I managed to slip in a wardrobe change mid song, and that is the shirt. That keeps it in storage for at least another year. See if you can spot the change… (PS – THIS reunion is an entry in the making…)

And speaking of, is it ironic that ‘Garage’ and Garbage’ are so…close?

So back to this picture dilemma. Back in the day, taking and processing pictures was not convenient or cheap. Over time, it became easier with advances in technology, and taking pictures became really fun, especially the trip to the Fotomat. (Look those up, kids…) Of course now there is a flip phone in every pocket, and for some reason the camera portion is so much more advanced than the ‘phone’ portion – but more on that later. Convenience, ease, and cost effective methods have made pictures a new way of life.

And we all have several thousand pictures on our phones. I think my grandparents had like 40 in a shoebox. So did they not have the monetary means to have pictures developed? Were they too busy oh, reading to their children to worry about taking pictures of their toenails for IG? Or would our grandparents have jumped in like the rest of us, feet first into the deep, murky waters of being lost in the camera phone?

To answer that one, my grandparents were simple, wonderful people who would have rather sat in a circle of folding chairs and talked in the driveway rather than take pictures of, oh, everything. How many pictures of my Grandma’s apple cobbler do we need? ALL OF THEM. And my Mom’s Mom would have rather sat and told stories while we played 500 Rummy as well.

I love my kids – I am a ‘helicopter Dad’, and I don’t have the best memory at times. I take a lot of pictures not to capture the perfect moment, but just to hold that frame for a second to help me later. And honestly, cloud, no cloud, or hard drives, whatever, I am scared to death to delete pictures from my phone. Call me paranoid. Call me old-fashioned.

I yearn for the days of developing pictures again (and when my MC Hammer pants come back into style), just so I can have hard copies collecting dust on the shelves in oversized binders that get pulled down once a year. There is something refreshingly human about sitting around talking about pictures and places, especially a photo (AND WITH THE INFO WRITTEN ON THE BACK). Imagine the stories handed down via cave drawing or animal hide art and how important it all was to the tribe. It seems we pass more phones around now with less explanation into the experience and more about the 50 pictures we took while we were there. And the importance level of what we did gets lost. Really lost…don’t get me started. PLUS – How much anxiety do you feel if you hand off your phone for a few seconds for someone else to see a picture? Think about that for a minute as well…

It seems this journal entry is a tale of two cities. I think the moments are important, to say the least. I think keeping record of those moments are important as well. So what do we do? How do we proceed and keep all this in perspective AND with purpose? Just like anything in life, I think is all about balance. How about a pic or two, and then put the damn phone away? Wouldn’t that be nice? Nothing stresses me out more than parents spending the bulk of the ‘fun’ afternoon trying to get the ‘perfect’ picture.

I do post kid pics to socials, but I guarantee we don’t spend all day taking pics. My trick lately is to shoot 30 seconds of video and screen grab later. So much easier, and more ‘real’ rather than a posed shot. And trying to get two kids to pose is about impossible.

So please put the phone down occasionally, enjoy the people and places you get to see, and remember to enjoy the moments, both in person, and with the story the picture can tell.

And that stuff in the garage? Well, it’s time to sell or donate it, especially if you are not using it, or it does not bring you joy. And don’t touch my shirt!

See you on the…internet?