Is Burned
For this week, I released a nine-minute electronic dance track. Click on the image below to listen. All proceeds from the track will be split between United We Dream and Trans Lifeline.
You can also read a little bit of writing about what inspired the track over on my blog-site-thing.
Overheard has a show in Kingston on June 27th!! With Bruiser and Bicycle and Emerald Ground Water! Get tickets here.
Misc. stuff I’m into:
Movies:
Paris is Burning [1990, dir. Jennie Livingston]. Wrote a little about it up above.
Tokyo Godfathers [2003, dir. Satoshi Kon]. This was my first film of his and I can’t wait to see what silly hijinx his wacky characters get up to next!
The Phoenician Scheme [2025, dir. Wes Anderson]. I love Wes. Sue me.
Music:
Here’s the May Remnants playlist I forgot to share last time.
After Alan Sparhawk’s fantastic new record from last month, I went and revisited Low’s 2021 record Hey What, which I have come to realize is one of my favorite records of all time. Mimi Parker is so deeply missed.
The Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge 2025 Remix/Remaster My Chemical Romance just put out has converted me into a Three Cheers > Black Parade guy.
Rest in power to the inimitable Sly Stone and Brian Wilson.
Stuff that I am not necessarily into but is important to mention:
Don’t rank disgraced ex-Governor and sexual predator Andrew Cuomo for Mayor please! Tell your family and friends not to either! I’d also recommend Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander for 1 and 2 respectively, but you do you.
Speaking of, no wordle is worth this. Real ones cancel their NYT subscriptions.
I am struggling to find bail funds to donate to. If you know of any, please reach out!
Books:
Been reading Brigitte Vasallo’s Monogamous Mind, Polyamorous Terror, continuing my constant quest to figure shit out. I also finally finished reading Mary Oliver’s Dream Work and have basically been doing the Danny DeVito ‘I get it now’ gif nonstop.
Last Sunday Em and I experienced the joy and suffering of a donut crawl for a friend’s birthday (happy birthday Addie). I was shocked by what was mid, surprised by what was goated, and somehow ended up walking on already aching feet most of the way from Flatbush to Greenpoint, ending the journey at Peter Pan where their only remaining donuts (some stale sour cream cake) were my favorite of the day by leaps and bounds.
The night before, Em and I had gone to one of Lane 8’s This Never Happened shows, an electronic music event where everyone’s phones are locked in pouches so that the audience isn’t a sea of little videos of what’s happening in front of you. After a day on my feet (chanting ‘Bottoms and Tops / We All Hate Cops’ at the Manhattan No Kings protest), and Em having a full day of work, I thought we would be falling apart by the time we got to the event, but as Evan likes to say, the music keeps you going. Lane 8’s DJing and visuals were even better than the first time I saw him back in my first big wild NYC livin’ summer. I found myself holding Em and closing my eyes, letting the love of friends and my partner, the thumps of the speakers, and the roar of synths wash over me, and feeling (as Lane 8’s 2024 album is titled), childish. I like to think I’m better than I was two summers ago too, making incremental improvements, tweaking the filter here and there the longer I live here.
Somehow still not dead from the weekend, I managed to crawl out of my apartment Monday night to see a live reading/taping of Gabriel Diego Hernández’s new musical Quarter-Rican, a tongue-in-cheek send-up of the latinx identity crises that plague me and the friend I went with. I laughed hard, I reflected on my own struggles with feeling like a “real” Puerto Rican, and my needle was moved vis a vis the evils inherent to podcasting.
I know my brain wasn’t evolutionarily designed to experience a constant stream of evil through the electronic rectangle in my hand. But it was designed to experience dancing, music, pretty lights, chanting, a protester’s drum circle, a yearning for the island I came from, and fried dough. Just like music, finding the little joy in a hellscape, moments to close my eyes and feel like a kid on a beach faced with the vast expanse of the ocean, are what keep me going.
Get in the streets when you can!
- Will