You can find me on Bluesky here: TheSheepman.
Jan. 22
The world often feels as if it's on the edge of exploding in an orgy of violence. It always has. Yet we wake up, take our vitamins, have a leisurely poop, and do it all again. Which is sort of the key to the whole thing. I remember David Foster Wallace talking about the "myriad of petty, unsexy ways" we go through the motions of our lives, and how doing those things actually keep us grounded, keep us from floating away into an atmosphere of egocentrism. The "myriad of petty, unsexy ways" are what actually connects us to other people. At least in the US, the prevailing mindset is that we have to be sexy and individual and grinding all hours of the day, or else we are dying (think about the analogy of the shark who dies when it stops moving - I'm sure you've heard it and there's a reason for that). The "myriad of petty, unsexy ways," in that mindset, holds us back from happiness and fulfillment. But that happiness and fulfillment is simply a way of getting people to always be unsatisfied. Never loved enough. Never successful enough. In essence, never happy. So happiness, following this, is unsexy. Boring. Petty. This website is boring and unsexy - hardly any bells and whistles and all. It personally brings to mind the drone - not the technological thing, but the audiological phenomenon. Something so simple - a reverberation that settles down into constance - and yet something that has the ability to produce extreme happiness. "But it's boring!" Exactly.
Jan. 24
Signs continuously point me toward some kind of general understanding of how things could be, andthe trick is to be able to 1) see those signs and 2) be able to act on them instead of sneering at the idea of predestination or "magic" or whatever derogatory thing you can think to name it. Usually it is merely paying attention to what you truly want but are too afraid to embrace because it is childish or uncool or seemingly impossible. Or else it will expose you to some imagined criticism of your faults. But as one gets older, one decides that those kinds of viewpoints can hem you in - shackle you to unhappiness because we are intended to believe (somewhere deep down in the subconscious well) that we are not really worthy of it. Yet we are - everyone is. That's the real secret - everyone is entitled to happiness full stop - and the bad stuff comes in when people start making assertions about who is worthy of such an entitlement.
Jan. 24
There are times when I question how often knowledge bests exploration.The paralyzing thought is often something that focuses on gathering more information, understanding something better than we do and having complete control over how it is presented. But at some point we have to stop reading and researching and move in with our hands and bodies to make sure that these things do become real. Otherwise, we risk leaving them in the ether, unmade, unrealized.
Jan. 27
I'm back living in Chicago, in the same room I grew up in, for the first time since I was in High School really. And I'm attempting to approach this city like I am a foreigner - learing the lingo and customs, reading about the political system and the history of the place to formulate an accurate assessment of what it's all about. This is more of a method to avoid falling into traps of nostalgia or depression or even anger. Having lived in different places and traveled around teh world, I feel that I have the ability to approach the city objectively, which is how I would like to approach everything. This isn't 100% accurate of course - there is always bias, always a kind of tendency to lean in one direction or another - but keeping that approach in mind, at all times, is what will keep me from falling into traps. And the older you get, honestly, the more tempting it is to just say fuck it and start hating on everything.
Jan. 29
"God is going to come into your radio." One thing that changed the course of my life was living in Japan and finding Boredoms. I went to a small, cramped live house called Bears in Osaka to see live music, and it was owned by Yamamoto Seiichi, the guitarist for the band. Because it was such a weird scene, I imersed myself in Boredoms music and made any opportunity I could to see any of the members if they played in town. I went to a Boredoms Flea Market at Bears, where the band members sold their random stuff. I bought a Pigman brooch from Yoshimi and a t-shirt that EYE made (that I subsequently gifted to my cousin who liked weird music and kind of regretted because I really wish I still had it). I routnely saw Yamamoto-san at the club, either just hanging out or playing in a band. He was dating the girl drummer from another band I loved called Music Start Against Young Assault (and who went on to join DMBQ and was killed in an auto accident), so he hung out a lot but I never really spoke with him. Anyway, the band immediately broadened my ideas of what music was or could be - they weren't as visual as a lot of the bands I was seeing in Osaka, but their music itself was visual. It had a way of appearing, like a tapestry, waving and changing and expanding and contracting. I had always been interested in improvisation in music, but it took the Boredoms to make me understand what improvisation could be. These 2 videos are from a radio performance in the US, and they were revelatory to me because they seem to be just making noise, but I know that they are playing distinct songs here and it is terribly exciting to actually "understand" that.