#5. in reference to

12/30/24

i spent 22 and three quarter years living in a black suburb of atlanta, georgia. six months ago (june 1st to be exact) i moved to nyc after coming and staying with my best friend Mei for couple weeks a few times a year starting in 2022. i've watched the city change, my city change, the internet change, and one thing i've noticed in these changes is that i seem to always be right in my head; everything only gets worse. to put in simple terms, even as an outsider shit does not seem very live. this isn't exclusive to any place. i left cuz it didn't feel live where i was. at least in the ways i wanted.

i feel like my tendency to overanalyze things eats away at my humanity sometimes. it's like watching a movie as a film maker and you become the asshole that says you consider everything differently. except its for your entire existence and others. it's almost like always minimizing yourself but this minimization gives you a lot of clarity when looking at other people and seeing how they operate; and you feel like you need to because you just can't seem to figure it out on your own.

i'm not sure if it's more reasonable that my neuroticism minimizes my humanity, or that i never seemed to feel human in the first place. i've always been looking for answers in my interactions, and how i can turn them into ones that make me feel good too. whatever conditions got me here and who i am are one in the same.

this year i have had so many unique experiences at levels i haven't since i was probably a child. but at the same time these observations aren't revelations. i knew how the world works. my parents showed me. my surroundings showed me. what parts of myself that i felt i was missing out on whenever i visited nyc versus when i was at home showed me. i knew the city was just a playground to people coming in, and that made it hell for people from there. i've watched gentrification happen to places i grew up around. i already came in with the realization that moving into the neighborhood i did, i would be doing exactly what some of the most annoying people on earth were doing.

but i still tried desperately for 4 months to get a job through any means i could, fake resumes getting forwarded, lying about degrees, going up to random drugged up barbacks at 4am asking if they're hirng, etc. but i honestly am glad for how things played out, in that nothing happened; i was able to get by by tabling with Lola and Jupiter (Junglenetwork), freelancing, and DJing.

nyc is racist as fuck like every other place in this country, and i didn't move here because i wanted to be a nonbinary barista. i did because i'm attracted to chaos and know i can fit in lots of places, depending on how i present myself. i can also deal with the cognitive dissonance of leaving one hellscape that i could simply not adapt to, and going straight to another theater of class and social warfare. i also knew that deep down moving anywhere else would simply be an attempt to slow down the inevitable. i needed to test my humanity, and here i knew that i had friends who i was comfortable with and could help with that.

i can say i have an even greater understanding of how the world works, and ability to appreciate how blessed i truly am to be where i stand inside of it. i also i think i'm finally also able to say that i have never seen myself as a part of any of it. i exist at the intersection of multiple abysses... all of my thoughts have been simply how can i get by based on what i've seen staring back at me. staring, but unable to acknowlege or fully comprehend. hard to live without feeling like a complete freak unworthy of most things except being stared at. it has just led to a certain bitterness.

all this studying of how people work, but i still want to fail whenever it's time to take the test. maybe its my ability to analyze divide and criticize everything i see that has made it impossible for me to comprehend any of the world's tests. or maybe it is this ability that has made it possible for me to see how the world is always failing me.

i may or may not be human, but i think the world may or may not be real. sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, just like sometimes i am, and sometimes i'm not. the only difference is that more people can see the world as real than can see me when i'm human.

this is less of a year in review and more of a review of everything up to this point. despite my negativity here, i'm as happy as i have ever been. i appreciate everyone in my life greatly. i would like to spread this happy feeling how i can to those who are open minded enough to understand where i'm coming from.

#4. mulu- smiles like a shark album review

12/29/24

this is something that i've meant to do for a while, and usually with stuff like this it's whatever. it's been in the back of my mind for months, though. usually if I enjoy something i'm willing to just save it for myself; unless i'm cool with you. but this is an album that makes me want to give my opinion on it. i'm gonna start writing more tumblr just for this album. it's like a soundtrack to a month long mid season finale. and you just hit the 52 episode rule even though you have a cult fanbase that will complain for years until they get a revival that sucks, and exists as another symptom that begins to dominate the entire media landscape. and then becomes representative of better times that never truly existed, and are used to fuel an increasingly divisive and anti-creative social imagination that will ultimately lead to a technocrat power grab. that exploits these leftover aesthetics in order to influence us into believing that things are made and not carved out by nature and the material world.

the 90s were a crazy time. Mulu sings almost in a confident white women voice that lets me know that niggas were not worried about shit. bjork levels of white woman swag. it's sickening. i would say this album is a perfect encapsulation of the break based 90s electronic evolution skill tree. perfect end of the night or lounge music, but like its got the backbone of something Else. it came out in '97, a year after Walking Wounded and 3 years after Dummy. It's got that depressing diva shit that triphop does great, but also some ravey elements. but these elements are very strict; like it's holding back it's full power a little bit. especially in tracks like Sink, Pink Pony Cafe, and Desire (crazy 3 track run btw). they sorta feel based in very deep jungle songs. almost as if your inside a tree and the water veins got water swishing around. not everything needs a reaction. sometimes you have to sit and observe. drum and bass sound thats not too up it's own ass. Laura Campbell. DIVA IDnB.

it's interesting to where this fits into the evoluton of trip hop. like this album feels like sort of a missing link between the albums i listed before and Mezzanine by Massive attack. (not to say that Massive Attack aren't the OG's)... but the apathy feels sort of similar. Massive Attack for girls almost. sassy purgatory. (Trixter especially) Esthero if she time traveled to 1997 and heard Everything But the Girl drop and decided that she needed to team up with King Kooba. or actually if Tracy Thorn just did instead.

it is trip hop but in a very free, lush, foresty, junglistic way... which means lots of translucent pads and sometimes offputting drums. offputting is a bit generous though, since this is a squeaky clean album. it has it's moments, it just feels very post everything too. not particularly innovative, but very confident. i wasn't touched at times because of the familiarity, but it knows how to overindulge. it's interesting too, watching from my perspective 30 years into the future. finding this album on a whim after people have exhausted the late 90s / early 00s cultural mines...but still somehow have not gotten to this (only 1,445 month listeners on spotify as of writing this). but honestly, i feel as though i'd be about as tired then hearing this as i am now. but somehow, i'm not. it's very good at preserving a feeling. this album is a black hole of ideas, but they're ideas that i enjoy. like if a show got hit with the 52 episode rule; but the show probably didn't need to go on any longer and now exists as a moment in time instead of a shifting entity that would have gotten a little weird and unenjoyable because the writers start adding certain personal vendettas and fetishes. this album narrowly avoids jumping the shark by becoming the shark that smiles and enjoys the moment to the max..

#3. Day 297 Unemployed..

9/6/24 (8/27/24)

Day 297 Unemployed.. today im going to see chiikawa. i will not introduce you to him; you should already be aware of who he is...


now normally i'm not in the loop when it comes to these things. this popup is something that my friend wanted to go to really badly- and it looked cool. i love cute shit and have had my unhealthy share of plushies and tchotchkes but i've never been to a popup for something like this before, or even a mall in nyc so i was hella down.






his glory...



struggled to pick between the two..


[disclaimer: this was after a weekend of ego tripping] tremaine emory did not follow me back.. which is devastating because i took the time to follow him. Now i have to unfollow. i have to assert that i'm not a dickrider in any shape or form, i'm just very friendly. however theres still a chance im inside of the archive which i find very funny...


ANYWAY after chiikawa we went to 2 other malls in flushing. they were all about what youd expect from post covid mall... the last one was kinda interesting tho. like imagine a gentrified chinese mall. lots of stores w chinese but theres just like MARSHALLS and OLD NAVY randomly talking up most of the space. kinda hard to explain the vibe. like imagine ur in china and they put a chinese restaurant that sold burgers right next to a mcdonalds. but the mcdonalds was there first and sells chinese food also.







they were all fun, lots of stuff and people to look at etc.. absolutely bombed at ddr for like 2 rounds then locked in and got almost almost perfect scores. saw an erect badtz maru. queened out and weebed out all at the same time. cutie pie swag with the nenet was strong that day. getting to look like weeaboo trash is epic sometimes maybe i would not feel stupid and basic if i went to japan.





elongated badtz...

(ノ•ᴥ•)ノ ︵ ┻━┻

#2. Womp Womp!?

8/13/24

I don't have any real updates. I just love talking. My brain has exited it's time to shut the fuck up mode. I have been doing a lot of thinking, though. About art and reality.

I'm currently couch surfing... which has been fun in a lot of ways. Not as "fun" as staying in the east village and being 20 minutes away from literally everything; but fun in some very necessary ways. In the boring sort of strange ways. For the last couple of weeks i've been in a deeper part of Brooklyn. Highkey lowkey it's been a great escape from fantasy land. It's definitely not purrfect [kinda like the only black person within a mile radius sometimes] but the time i have spent living in this basement has still caused my brain to undergo metamorphosis. Or maybe it could be black mold idk.

It's crazy cuz again, nothing even really happened or changed. Still on my 10 month strong entry level retail job search. Still can't afford an eighth... [but somehow end up smoking evryday] Still nawt getting everything i desire as soon as i think about it... Like IDK whats up with me still feeling this good right now but it's kinda epic.

Some of it might just have to do with where i am as an artist in this. And having a feeling of what i want to do with all this brain. Cuz like personally, i don't have to be consistent with making art; i can just live and it'll show in my work. Like literally getting EXP in a game. Kind of why i like to float and observe a lot. Not everything needs a reaction... I don't think that's rare either. I think it just comes from knowing how you want to express yourself and letting what you have to say come out. Like my brain takes every idea it sees and studies it as art... and mixes it in with whats already there.

So that meant that when i first moved here and was fucking around in LES and fairytale bk, all of the stimulation and distractions were just constantly being absorbed like my brain was on that metaphorical candied yuppie cocaine. It's an awareness that i'll sort of start feeling anytime i'm in the city doing shit for more than a week honestly. But i mean, thats what NYC does to artists, it's what it's for, right? I can admit i'm sort of drawn to all the stimulation and chaos and bearing witness to pure evil. Well,,, to a certain extent. But also of course tf nawt. Cuz it's like all this city is. Especially when it comes to music and art, where it's like all the yuppie cocaine foreign exchange transplant guarantor accumulated old money slave wealth is tossing quarters back at certain individuals for their n1993r fetishization and "culture" with an infinite appetite for novelty. Do you really think any good art comes out of catering to an audience like that? It gets old for everyone pretty fast, whether they realize it or not.

TBH i don't even know if I should be saying this as a technical "transplant"... but like im sure most of my native nyc friends would agree... and also they fuck with me so fuck literally anyone else's opinions. Like no way good art can be made if the audience is trying to extract something out of it. Whether it be consumed for its current relevance, "swag", or industry clout from writing about it, or even online mythology building. As an artist, DJ, or performer ur supposed to be there to take the audience on a ride. Like u can tell the difference between someone there who understands and is down for the ride, v.s. somebody just taking up space.

Like once the audience is mostly just people taking up space, is it not joever? It's a tale as old as time itself... I mean the artist has technically won, since they're probably getting paid by that point. Also, in this contempoorary age of hustle it is very hard for selling out to not be the main goal. Honestly there are some pretty good justifications for it, especially if you're getting opportunities in your hometown, escaping poverty, etc..

A shitty thing thats stupid and sucks also is that theres this kind of feedback loop from people taking up space, which sort of ends up infecting non-yuppies who aren't just there to take up space. If i had a nickel for everytime i've gone somewhere and the people there had no idea what they're listening to or watching, i would have way too many nickels. And nobody likes having too many nickels. You'll get them confused with quarters sometimes.. it's an outdated unit that's too small to be viable in any realistic shopping environment. Not as iconic as pennies either. But i digress...

Like if the show is dead or just a bunch of white dudes moshing to shitty [redacted] BPM [redacted] might as well just get fucked up and fall asleep in an uber or something. So now ur on ur phone recording not because you want to remember this fun moment, but because you subconsiously know that prolonged drug and alcohol use is destroying your ability to think. Which is leading you to record in the first place, because recording ruins everything. Very counterintuitive, i agree.

Like honestly this makes me empathize with the strictness of being in some neighborhoods... not the ones on sum racist or queerphobic shit but just the closeness and immediately questioning certain things happening that could uproot their life. That obvisously comes with a lot of its own baggage... But like, I lowkey understand where they be coming from. The world operates on multiple levels with multiple possibilities at all times. People will simply react how they think they should... Sometimes also still being wrong as fuck. But I think being strict and more intentional /secretive is cool honestly, and would encourage more boundaries to start being made in these creative spaces. With a big emphasis on different people w similar interests coming together for a specific reason. Cuz i mean honestly just the fact that there is shit for everybody, and stuff to build on is impressive coming from ATL... esp with electronic stuff. I just feel like if pretty much all real world institutional money is just gatekept and distributed by your ideals and ability to conform to certain spaces, how hard could it be for the same thing be applied to counter culture spaces by the people who create them?

i may not even be the right person to ask these questions... but if i won't blog it, who will!?!?!

#1. Hello Again!!

8/11/24

It's been almost exactly 2 years since I made my first website. Everything has changed. I am different. The world is different! But ultimately i would say my relationship to the world remains the same. In that I am #real asf and tha wurld is fake.


I already have a blog. Those posts are like literal marijuana demon gremlin rants tho idk. Now I am #outside so I gotta keep things shorter and sweeter. These blog posts will be less meaty. I want them to function more like travel diaries too, so maybe they'll occaisionally just talk about shit that happened to me or whateva. My life is sort of silly RN.. am currently on my Ibn Battuta/ Miyamoto Musashi (Vagabond) / Emanon shit. Might even rip off Nekojiru and add lil drawings or smth!!!


To kick this #TotallyNotARebrand off, I just want to speak on how wild it is to go with the flow. Its like something you either can or can't do, until you decide to. I think its important to fight the flow, though. Conflict can bring clarity. Even trouble on the horizon can help show what's currently what. I have been experiencing a lot of what the world is for what it is recently. I've always ran the risk of becoming detrimentally nonchalant but i think that has made moving to nyc from atl not too hard of an adjustment. Not really trying to get too much into that RN, maybe later... but I do want to shout out mi friends Mei Lola (jungle network too!) and Daze for being goated.


Anyways, I'm like totally not going with the flow. The flow would be like having a car or something. Or 401k or any concrete goal. I just wanna make stuff and see what others make. From wat I can say tho every scene is cooked... Not even stating it as a fact, but that's what my lifetime and perspective have concluded. From the animators chained to their desk being paid in ketchup packets to to my experience nightcrawling. Not saying that everyhting sucks; but to me it does. Ok not actually. I just wonder how much of culture has reprocessed itself. Especially to fit a modern society that emphasises different things than before. I feel like other artists who like to dig and can see the future know where I'm coming from. I think it's a ticking time bomb all connected to money. We're already in the early '10s. What will happen when the singularity occurs!? Will be awesome to watch tbh!! Or maybe I'll be too busy watching and supporting down to earth artists...


Anyways I'm done rambling byee