Introduction and clarification

12 February 2011

This blog used to contain a "work-in-progress" fiction novel entitled Epic Tales of Cynicism Management. The text is currently being revised and finalised, so due to practical reasons I've decided NOT to publish any more of it here, and all the old draft chapters have been removed. The "online" blog version of the novel has been discontinued. Anyone who'd like to read the complete draft of the novel when it's finished (probably in a couple of months) and possibly comment on it, please drop a comment here or e-mail me at cynmanagement[at]gmail.com. Any input will be very much appreciated and taken into account at the finalisation stage.

The blog has been redesigned and will, until further notice, only contain posts relevant to Cynicism Managemen (the band). To listen to their enchanting tunes use the music player above.

On "Cynicism Management" -
the Actual (Real) Band 

Cynicism Management is a brainchild of seasoned musicians who keep getting even more seasoned with every passing year, but who have, to date, nevertheless failed to write any worldwide hit singles. Hence their latest endeavour: Cynicism Management, the newest attempt at global domination.

The initial scheme started out in late 2008 as an experiment – the whole affair was to be an "ongoing online literary musical". At its core, the idea was quite simple: to gradually write a fictional "blog" that would, hopefully, eventually develop into a kind of a novel. As the novel was to focus on the epic tales of a band called Cynicism Management, the blog would also contain original tracks written and recorded by this fictional band. Should the idea gain more momentum, any additional materials produced in the context of this project would be included in the "blog / novel", ideally resulting in a comprehensive work of, perhaps, interesting dimensions and format.

However, as this cunning plan was undertaken by people who are musicians to their very core, it is perhaps not surprising that the music soon became their primary concern. Thus a live lineup of the band had been established before the "novel" ever saw the light of day, and is already starting to perform live, which was actually not a part of the original "strategy". Naturally, at this point it would be completely idiotic if the real band insisted it was in fact some other, "fictional" band.

The real, tangible Cynicism Management band consists of the following troops: 

Monika Fritz - vocals
Aljaž Tulimirović - guitar
Enej Demirović - guitar
Samo Pečar - bass
Borut Praper - drums
Aljoša Mislej - sound engineer, laptop & knobs

Initially the literary experiment lagged behind the music somewhat - at the start of this blog (17 February 2010) all of the music for the first album had already been written. At this point (12 February 2011) the album had already been mastered, but has yet to be released, while the novel is just about to be finished.

As the novel is currently nearing completion, the "online" literary experiment has been discontinued until further notice due to a large number of revisions and changes bound to take place in the next few months.

On "Cynicism Management" -

the Fictional Band /
Plot Outline of

"Epic Tales of Cynicism Management" -
the "Novel"

Towards the end of 2008 Finnegan Frotz, an anonymous and extraordinarily pale black artist/musician and compulsive cynic of German-Scottish origin (don’t even ask), moves from Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, to a god-forsaken backwater of a little country in the northeast of Italy in order to join his occasional fling and co-artist, singer and would-be expert in English literature, Amalia Winegirl, as well as her half-brother Randy Jiggler, the self-proclaimed bringer of the English spoken word unto the unsuspecting aboriginal population and a reasonably lazy bass player who’d prefer to live in the Netherlands. Despite a firm belief in meeting the natives and forming a resounding Eastern European band of Western origin, Finnegan only manages to meet an unusual crowd of peculiar foreign individuals, including Bogomyr Yadvig, an exotic dancer and guitar player from Ukraine and part-time depressed vampire with suicidal tendencies and an inclination towards compulsive cynicism and melancholic lyrics (much like Finnegan himself, and that inclination results in many fascinatingly depressing dialogues between them); Kip Ducker, a balding metalhead from Alice Springs, Australia, the second guitar player; and Largo “Fidel” Cabaleri, a drummer and sofa revolutionary hailing from Trieste, Italy.

 
Apart from this colourful crowd, Finnegan also comes across an untold number of sexy people and stumbles upon heaps of quite unbelievable events (in the eye of sober individuals), while he and his associates join forces with the local sound engineer, producer and beer aficionado Boris Birman and pump all their efforts into creating what can only be described as a “worldwide smash hit single, smashing by means of uncanny, eerie and enchanting melodies, slightly eccentric odd time meters as well as delightfully intriguing, though a bit morbid, lyrics”. They do so despite having to cope with their inherent hopeless cynicism, sarcasm and downright bitterness, but at least they can name their self-help group Cynicism Management.

 
Compulsive cynicism and the resulting cynicism management self-help group may not necessarily be a pretty sight; but it’s fun, at any rate. At least for its members, of course.

[NOTE: THE "ONLINE" VERSION OF THE NOVEL HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED.]