I said "reeeeeeeemix"!

For those of us who pursue creative avocations, motivation is so often the key. I amuse myself and find myself amused by others who sing the constant refrain "I meant to write x" or "I wanted to do more recording", always followed by an entirely reasonable explanation for why the speaker in fact had time only for drudgery, laundry, needless personal strife (usually with a significant other) and perhaps a stray guilty cigarette or two, but no time for the creative endeavor in question. Slightly off topic, by the way, I am also amused by people who cannot donate five dollars to a musician on jamendo for want of funds, but would not miss the latest installment of Grand Theft Auto,at whatever cost. Prophets without honor, and all that. But I digress.

I like to read about people who do write or compose or create or even build a business. So often they accomplish these things when they have no time, and too much stress. I think, sometimes, that too much unallotted time for anything hinders rather than helps. Leisure is fun, but it can be the enemy--ennui, like a gas in a high school chemistry class, has a way of expanding to fill the available volume.

Last weekend I met up with a poet friend in Pittsburgh. I found this invigorating not only for the fun of seeing a friend, but also for the spur to personal creativity. I've not submitted a poem for potential publication for a couple of years now, and a solid poetry reading by the father of said friend's child along with an invigorating musical display involving a bowed musical saw with fx backing an acoustic guitar got my creative juices flowing. My friend e-mailed me a cool contest by one of those little litmags that's always a pleasure to read but light on circulation because everyone is tapped out buying virtual magic troll-emboldening pellets. I remembered that a goal--a contest, a compilation, a structure, alway helps motivate me. I'll enter that contest, with solid entries created by its July deadline.

I like to find netlabel contests and compilations, too. When I hunt remix compilation and contest opportunities, I frequently find myself with my friend Google, who is a very chatty conversationalist but a bit imprecise.

Yet now I have a new resource to share for those who, like me, like to find new things to remix and different contests to which to submit remixes. It's called:

Reeemix.com

and it's a stylish little weblog of upcoming netlabel contests for the person who likes to participate in remix contests and netlabel compilations.

If your "get up and go" not only "got up and went" but also "became a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Sloth", then get out that guitar (or nose flute), finger out a melody with that harpsichord or Reason 15.0 (or a mouse-connected-to-twenty-five-dollar-shareware), look up an upcoming thing to enter a remix for---
and reeeeemixxxx.

It's hard to learn by doing--unless you actually do. But having lectured enough, I must now find a call for entries, and reeemix.