thee doldrums
Hello subscribers!
Here it is February and there's snow on the ground. Melting though cuz today it's 40 degrees out. I think I'm deeply into mid winter hole up and shut in malaise mode. I'm finding it challenging to motivate myself to do much of anything. A lot of blanking out and staring into space. Even now while I write this. Yesterday I had something important, or that felt super important to write about here. But now I can't remember what it was. I have very little to share, but decided it was best to do one of these things just to attempt to make it a habit or something.
In general, daily staggered by:
the ideological selfishness that is foundational to us as a society. Our refusal to act out of care for anyone who is not us. Our completely twisted idea of the concept of freedom. The idea that any aspect of participating in society that is the slightest inconvenience to us is an infringement on our freedom to live. Freedom is only me being free to do what I want. If any of you do what you want that I don't like, that's an infringement on my freedom. If anyone asks me to act in ways that benefit society or the earth or nature, you are standing in the way of my freedom. FREEDOM.
the largely unimpeded rapid growth and mainstreaming of theocratic christian fascist ideals.
all the racists who now know no fear.
all the scared white people who are unafraid to attack everyone they do fear for not being cis het white misogynist christians.
all the adults who terrorize trans kids for existing.
It all breaks my heart and kills me every day.
***
In album update news: I have finished the vocals and mixing. I am mostly happy with it but find myself bizarrely considering having someone master it. It's bizarre cuz that's not something I've ever considered having done to any of the music I've released. I don't know if it's because I feel like more confident about what I'm making now or what. Whether I have it done or not, the new album should be ready to officially be shared in the next few months. I still need to do the packaging of it - song titles, cover art, etc.
The other thing that I have been devoting a lot of brain space and creative energy to is an oral history/interview project about my friend Alex who died last January. It has been a long year of grieving and accepting. An additional challenge for me was not being super connected to Alex's general social life. So I didn't have many opportunities to experience grief in real time with his other friends. In December I started contacting other people in Alex's life to see if anyone was interested and the response has been positive. Just hearing from all these people and communicating with them a little has been healing/fulfilling. I'm hoping to at least make a zine from the project, maybe something else too.
Sharing!
Beware! The Radio continues. Amazingly, I haven't run out of steam for the radio show I do every other week. Although there are definitely days where I 100% do not want to talk on mic. But for better or worse I make myself do it.
You can find the most recent shows here at this unwieldy url: https://www.mixcloud.com/discover/flux-capacitor/?order=latest. Listen, if you feel like it. Note, there is a gap in the archives. This is because I deleted some shows while I was cleaning up my hard drive before I remembered to upload them to mixcloud. Oh well. Ephemerality.
Into it!
Iggy & the Stooges On Stage 1967-1974 – Per Nilsen
Bioluminescent Baby - Fiona Benson
Black Lizard – Umetsugu Inoue
Super sixties Japanese criminal/detective sort of movie. Camp perfection. Includes a surprise musical number!
Cassandro el Exotico – Marie Losier
The French Dispatch – Wes Anderson
Tord and Tord, Bath House, The Burden, and Something To Remember – Niki Lindroth von Bahr
Wonder Woman Vol 1 - George Perez
This is so, so good. Like peak classic comic book style writing and amazing art. This came originally came out in the mid 80s. I think Eric Thornton was singing its praises the entire time I worked at Chicago Comics and I'm finally now reading it 15 years after leaving Chicago Comics.
Everything Festyle - Ifeanyi Elswith
https://ifeanyielswith.bandcamp.com/album/everything-festyle
Random GIF from thee Junk Drawer!
