Martin Spitznagel Pianist. Composer. Writer. Filmmaker.

(Lack of) Organization

I think I’m in need of an intervention. I went through all of my CDs this weekend. Not a single disc matched the case that it was in.

If Bryan were a character in a video game, he would be called "The Archivist"

Josh Groban was in Jo Ann Castle. The Chieftains lived with Dave Matthews. Scott Joplin lay with John Williams. Bon Jovi was stuffed inside Michael Jackson. Honest to God it looked like someone had deliberately gone through my stuff and messed it up to screw with me but, no, this is my natural state. When it comes to organization I am, as the French say, a hot mess.

They say opposites attract, which is why I’m friends with Bryan Wright. His CD collection is alphabetized, prioritized, cataloged, categorized, displayed, diagrammed, digitized, duplicated, researched, registered on the list of Historic Landmarks, and indexed by Google. He can find any CD, record, recording, research paper, picture, piano roll, or page of information in a manner of seconds and tell you exactly what it is, where he got it, why he owns it, how much it’s worth, who collects it, and which needle to use on his record player to play it. He’s like RoboCop with a spreadsheet. He might as well have x-ray vision, because being that organized seems like a superpower to me.

I don’t know why I’m so afflicted. I don’t come from messy people. I clean up well, when I dedicate myself to it, but inevitably it’s going to plunge into disarray again because the behavior that causes the calamity, my je ne sais quois, is hard to change.

Nowhere is this more evident than on my computers, where the accumulated detritus of 14 years years of papers, stories, scripts, pictures, videos, compositions, and recordings is spread over five computers with 12 hard drives and 3 terabytes of storage space. After tackling my CD collection (and by “tackling” I mean shoving it back in the box and stuffing it in the closet, horrified), I’ve been slowly aggregating related files into folders and trying to simplify, simplify, simplify. Having made it this far with absolutely no backup strategy whatsoever for my most valuable files (e.g., the irreplaceable pictures and data associated with my SW movie), I’ve begun to hurl my adult money at RAID arrays and other toys that will give me the illusion of organization and security while actually just giving me more storage space in which to hide things. It feels like I’m being proactive.

That counts, right?