The New Invaders

Everything feels like a product because everything is a product. People are merchandise. Personality is marketing. Nobody is human anymore. You're lucky if you can take advantage of the slavery. Some get lucky to just be an accessory. A Dixie. The Confederate States of America. There are Confederates in every nation in the world. It's got nothing to do with Hitler. Fascism persists because it's fun. People love to kill. People love to see heads explode. It's not chic to be a person. We have to kill you eventually. Maybe it will be fun when it's you.

We'd only be so lucky to have our history. Watergate and Equifax, Panama Papers and Mueller Reports. Epstein files, whatever. It's always been available to us the facts of the matter. What good is information in a society that doesn't read? You start to understand the cynicism, the vulgar conceit of the Leninists. You can't wait for everyone to make it happen. The burden of the community minded, the proletariat, good hearted ones especially, is they will always agonize over it. So much that they might never do it. Millions of youth are rising up, are banding together, are taking arms. But because this is a human struggle, not a mechanistic subroutine, it can't be dictated in a manner suitable to the capitalist interweb.

Millions of leaderless collaborators. How do you write a puff piece on that?

The old world carries a closer memory of change. Cultures persist from regime to regime, century to century. The people of Palestine can envision a world without Israel, because it already once existed. They have existed before Israel, and they can exist after. The imperial courts in the days of old in many nations, like Japan, Iran, or Nigeria have all fallen by the wayside... and yet the people's of these nations still exist.

The United States does not have a touchstone to imagine itself through, as a culture that can endure the fall of one regime. The United States is a colonial project, and the favored classes of this nation have forgotten their place as usurpers. Pretenders, yes.

I remember Foucalt wrote of a similar reality that shook me. We just don't have that psycho. To be able to put everything towards the needs of the cause. That's unfamiliar to us. We kill plenty of people, usually other strugglers. Usually underclass, usually colored people. Every now and again one of our kids loses it, y'know. It becomes too much. The system works again, and they kill each other. True Americans, Red Blooded Confederates, have never killed for the right cause. The founding fathers were confederates. Napoleon was a confederate. I'll choose to be meatheaded with my terminology. Why not? The best gringos, the ones you like. Dr King, John Brown, Malcom. Nikki, James, Angela. Not just political leaders, even our entertainers. I'm a big fan of Jack Kirby, right?

Americans are at their best when they harness a simplicity, a sort of meteoric race. Everybody sit at this counter and don't move. Throw a shield at Hitler's face. Tell the slavers to die. Kill them!

You know, that's why I think it just has to be a collusion of minds. We can all communicate what is important to us. We can't get each other to move at the same time, so maybe let's all start burning and shooting at the same guys, and we'll figure it out later. Lets get hamfisted. I'm endorsing the wrong mindset. That seems more American. I have a conceit that is founded in the same stuff Kant said like a billion years before me. That "a priori."

A certain part of what we know is the same. Maybe tap into that sort of anima, as I would say. Let's just clarify the targets first, and we can all find our own ways to murder. Organize our minds, and take advantage of our strengths as monsters. Gringos! Because we all know the culture war conceits are fake, right? We will not hurt each other. It's money that rules this country, right? Find that first. Substantive harm, not identity. Don't be so colonial.

The Natives already figured it out, and we're just clawing our way back to their aptitude.

Something is always missed. Some of my friends in Gaza appreciate my expedience in communication, my desire to publicize and serve the interests of a million people at once. Others find it concerning. "Take care of yourself, my friend." Believe me, I'm trying. I've a shooting pain in my back. I have to buy new needles today. I have to take out a loan for a new car. I have to save up for some iron. Rent will be coming up, that's more than half the check gone. So how will I find the time for just violence? What would the Qassam Bridgadiers encourage? I wish I could have met them.

How do you mobilize a culture of meatheads? You get louder. Americans like characters, not people. Become the Fishman, pick up a shield, slap on a Domino mask. And just start punching. Be stupid for the right reasons. Organize to make a full brain out of single cells. Let me get this iron and I'll have words with you all.

2/16/26 - I Me Mine

The black ichors of my being trickle through the crags of the summit, dripping into the quarry below. The dark liquid of emotion glazes the rind of an ethereal stone, humming with the sickly melodies of heartbreak.

Doldrums, doldrums, I sit aside the water and see my reflection.

Spongebob... I need you to buy a gun. And I need you to kill me.

I'm getting tired of this. Oh, my days.

But, it's okay. Its okay.

By "this," I mean the ever shifting sands of a talking stage. I'm tired, boss.

The stale air. Mother Gaea's geomancy pulls us closer to the mantle. The sexual austerity of the plains whistles against the tall grasses. A voice heard in the weak winds of winter... Re'em... Re'em

But! Here's the thing. She did not do anything wrong. In fact, I'm certain I'm at fault for misreading messages, right? Right?

Idk man. 

It's like an on-off switch is flipped with this sort of thing. I wish her her well, but like HOWWW did she take the progression with such grace if she had a man the entire time?

Ser Robert would find the proclivities of his merry men to be an annoyance. "Not for a character of deviance," Little John said, "No! Robert knew of their fantasies, aye. One too many whispers of a ruse to the tavern maids. There be a thousand Robin Hoods in this realm, for no one man could carry such a romantic pull towards the hearts of dames so fair... none but him. Ser Locksley is burdened by such an appeal, wouldn't you know?"

"It's only natural, isn't it," the Friar pondered 

"It frustrates him to know that, in his heart, Marian could be the only one. So how could this folly stand afront his truth? A man so possessed with purpose... it sickens him. God smiles too kindly on his heart, and see how it debilitates him. Providence bewared, his sign stretches across all livelihoods, does it not?"

My mindset is, (if she is straight, right?) then it's entirely possible that she did not read my actions as being romantically coded. 

Like, given the possibility she doesn't have a tranny liking bone in her body, it makes it my fault for believing she actually-

Gun.

This happens to other people. This is not supposed to happen to me. I hate you, Chappel Roan. Be less... human, please? Do me the service of being trite, not so timely, not so relatable.

Lady Stardust sang a song of darkness and dismay...

I POLITELY. GRACEFULLY. WILLINGLY. SOUNDLY choose to remove our fair lady from the roster.

Like picking teeth.

May God bless her, AND her man. 

He's not even ugly is the thing, so I can't even do any ad-hominem attacks. That makes it less frustrating on one level, but silencing on another. Like, okay, I get it. No, that's understandable.

"Let me warn you of that which I can't stop, Lieutenant. Off the record, my word."

The lieutenant moved his ear closer to Admiral Bright, heeding a wisdom he then had no reason to doubt.

"You're only lucky that you haven't felt that spark yet. Do you know what I speak of?"

"I'm sure."

"It's one thing to feel it in your instincts towards combat. As a pilot, that's become common these days, as difficult as that might be to stomach...

But I've observed something more terrifying in my years in the federation.

You will find, at some point, a soul within your enemy. That spark, it might compel you to feel deeply for the enemy. This is your conscience, come manifest in this incarnation of our very own human race. This is, in all seriousness, your heart.

I tell you now, not as your commander, but as a human being: you must ignore what your heart tells you, in that moment.

I've seen it too many times. There cannot be co-existence in this veneer.

Let go of this woman. For her sake. For yours."

But you see, class... the thing is, I'm mutuals with him on my main account as well. 

It's interesting. This is what gets me, right? If she really was aware of the vibe of our communications, yknow, my mindset towards her and her whole deal, right? She would have told him. Her boyfriend, right?

"This trans girl from out of state is trying to flirt with me on Instagram and it's weird."

If it was like 2 weeks of development it wouldn't matter... but reader.

Since September last year this has developed. It's February.

Because why am I on *her* close friends too? She let's me follow her spam? I have her number? These are not the permissions one would give a casual Instagram mutual. Like... no, she's smarter than the average bear. So I KNOW that SHE KNOWS that I KNOW she knows. I KNOW she's read this blog! I'm very chalant! I've done all but mention Persephone by her real name, right?

Ugh.

I don't think that smart phones should have been invented.

I really don't care for the things. I don't.

All through the day

I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

All through the night

I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

Now they're frightened of leaving it

Everyone's weaving it

Going on strong all the time

All through the day I me mine

I have to elaborate on an element of this. I have known she has a boyfriend for a few months, right? But it wasn't outright obvious. She bareeeeely posts this guy. I was moving like Motherboard from CyberChase to glean this in the first 3 months.

And now that I have learned what I need to know... I know enough to make a decision.

Persephone is henceforth honorably discharged from Adri's scroll of yearning, with honors.

Because she's cool and and I fw her as a person and shit. You gotta understand, Persephone is still like... yearn-worthy. I just cannot ethically yearn for people already involved fr, you understand.

There's some new figures in our midst as well, you know. I'll see you all soon. Ciao.

Praise Be The Spiders!

I wonder what it will feel like to give into it. To relish it. What'll it take to get that looseness, y'know?

I guess it's like giving up on my character. I don't have the capability to give up, as of this moment. I don't got it in me. What a shame, that I still believe in good. That I see a world, not a country. Not a dollar.

What a faggot!

I guess I don't really know what other people are. I'm finally starting to lose my empathy. I'm finally starting to lose my religion of love. I'm loving it.

You're not supposed to document a character assassination of the self. I think it might be more useful for a kid who doesn't speak English to translate what I'm saying, to know who they've got to kill.

Because those empathetic, those loving enough to murder for the right reasons, are not gonna be in the USA.

God would have to do miracles again. He doesn't seem interested in doing that in any way that matters. A foreign kid better than me will know well enough to know that I'm wrong about everything, and I hope that one day that kid has the balls to take me out.

I'm gonna keep saying "I." I'm gonna be selfish today.

That's the first step. I'm gonna learn to be selfish, I'm gonna learn to be something other than myself.

"I don't care anymore. I don't want anything anymore." That's the character I'm looking to play.

I guess I'm waiting until I'm 30. They're saying that's when it all starts coming together. I'll realize my potential as a nazi.

Everybody becomes a nazi. Hatred is the future, that's what they're saying.

Contrarianism is the white man's favorite game. To be above it all, that's the sexy thing for the young capitalists in our midst. Fascists have got the coolest cliques, they're like a well oiled machine, y'know.

"Cloudbusting," what a track. It seems impossible now. Who could have that kind of focus? You can never be lithe with your sound these days. Everything is like an ankle weight. But no, I don't think I'll engender myself towards Miles Davis. That guy was in a world I won't engage. A world of anima and cortisol. Real stuff, right?

I gotta move towards being stupid. I gotta move towards forgetting how to read. I gotta move towards talking like you. I gotta feel like you do. I'm halfway there already, can you hear how hateful I sound? I'm starting to understand you more and more.

I'm gonna be an American.

I check the headline again. They're making another stupid center. It's gonna make sure the water has got enough stupid in it. And they've got the best weapons, now. You don't gotta clean up the body parts after, right? They just wipe you out. Vaporized. There are thousands of cultures and tribes that used to exist that none of know about anymore. What's a couple more?

Everything... will finally be stone again. Everyone will be a monster. I think ONE might have nailed it. Ooh, enough of the fun. Enough of that.

They wiped away another town in Sudan, because they have to. Need space for the stupid center. Those guys in the UAE didn't get the Vapor Bombs yet. The stupid people, the good people of the Six-Legged Spider, will have to lend then a few.

Your face, y'know... you ever notice how real people look at you? When they can tell you came out wrong?

I see that face every day. Now, with the power of AI, we can scan your fucked up looking face, and we can show you how to fix it.

You know that real people can sense that you're a freak, right? The way your mouth moves, the way your eyes sit on your face... terrible. People are supposed to look only one sort of way. People are supposed to sound one sort of way. You're not one of us, so you have two options.

You should either kill yourself, or make yourself normal. Do the latter so we can take you to the show.

You are not regular enough to sell the idea of being unique, so please, do yourself a favor and follow a little Hitler of your choice.

The banana I ate today was probably harvested by a slave, but who gives a shit. The clothes I made were made by a slave, but who gives a shit. I'm a slave owner. You gotta learn to love being a sort of demon, right? Put it in your nose, huh? Y'know on the 7th, way back then, they were having a rave? How fun! Outside of the concentration camp. They get it! Have fun with the slaughter!

I drove a car and it made a funny smell. I love it! I'm gonna put my mouth up the the exhaust, I just LOVE the smell of it. The world is being killed, and I have the gun!

I have a gun! I ate two burgers yesterday! They have to rape the animals to make the food! All my produce, all my veggies, harvested by slaves! Look at my machine! Look at my machine! Isn't it sexy? Don't you wanna fuck this robot?

The military doesnt gotta tell you about the smog, smart guy! Killing is fun! Put the tar in a cup and drink it! Drink, drink, drink, drink! You're an American! You're English! You're French! You're German! You're Russian! You're Indian! You're Turkish! You're Canadian! You're Emirati! You're a border! You're a demarcation! You're royalty, that fit is so puss!

All those losers over there still give a shit, right? Come ON, guys. It's not like you're gonna kill me, right? You aren't a go getter like me! You're a wage slave, you're worried about your little... oooh, so sad! You little slave, boo hoo! You're scared we're gonna kill you? We're gonna rape you? And you're mommy, and your daddy? And your little Playstation, you're gonna miss that too? Aww... aww... clap if you give a fuck.

Rent paying little slag cunt. Thought I heard something.

I'm coquette. I'm chic. We're indie, we're so obscure. Here's fifty billion dollars. Kill me, now.

I'm standing directly in front of you with a target on my head, and you still care about dudes fucking dudes. Somebody with a penis is wearing a skirt, and now you want to buy a gun and murder people. You're so fun, you're like GI Joe!

You're such a peasant. You think there's a guy up there that's gonna punish you? There is no closure after this. You were like... supposed to do something NOW. Like US, get it?

The Nazis are the ones who have fun.

God is real and he's worth 23.7 trillion dollars. We're gonna buy it, but you gotta let us pump up the numbers first.

So are you gonna actually shoot me, or what? You're just gonna go home and masturbate. Loser.

You know animals do that? But they also do... all the useful stuff, too. You don't! Yeah, some animals are gay, but at least ANIMALS make for good meals. You guys don't even taste good.

Having this much fun only comes from loving all this evil stuff. Every rich person rapes children because they know they're not supposed to. That's the whole point. Everybody knows it's wrong. Everybody. But then again... what are you gonna do about it?

Exactly. So please 🙏 go back online and call Black people subhumans so I can write an article about how fucking my AI girlfriend with a nearfield connected fleshlight is "punk-rock."

Unless... you're gonna shoot me? I'm biting my tongue, slave. Please, please, put the barrel on my forehead. Do it, for me? For me? Just do it.

I like it when you get mad about culture. Do it again. Culture is dead! Why would you want to talk to another person? Love is GAY and STUPID. Like yeah, you can have culture without hating people or excluding people, but like... why would you want that? Half of fun is in killing somebody different. You want to... not do that?

People aren't people. You should want to fuck everybody and never talk to a soul. Oh please, don't ever actually get sensual, that's gay. It's meat slapping. That's it.

And... don't even do that, either. Don't get smart with your feelings, either.

Young man, hear me.

That girl, you either have to love her, or fuck her. And every single girl around you, they are not people. Not like you. You can't be friends, they're fuckmeat. You need them to make another you. Every interaction with a girl should be fixated towards determining whether you can fuck them or not, okay? If they don't want it, ignore them.

Anybody who tells you this is wrong is gay.

Woman. Listen to me.

You are god's favorite little device. You're a Rolex. You're a 2023 Ferrari Roma, with a Rosso Corsa interior. You're a stand mixer. You're a lacquered mahogany table. You're a pair of tailored tartan trousers. You're a silk sock.

Oh please, do choose to destroy yourself. You can choose to not be a machine, that's okay! But, um... I don't know if you know, but... a new iPhone came out. The iPhone 57R! And you're a 6s. So... um. We're gonna be ending support.

Good luck with that.

Oh my god, baby... you bought that Beretta just for me? Are you gonna shoot me? Please?

Please?

Okay, this is exhausting. What is it gonna take? Do I gotta tell you what my son has planned?

I don't wanna! I don't wanna!

Just kill me, fuck! It's drying up, wagie! You sexless fucking chop. Have fun with your morals or whatever. Have fun with your "friends" and your "community" and your "conscience," and all the Mr Rogers Neighborhood bullshit.

Fuck you.

2/3/26 - Throbbing Gristle

Zahr and I had a row about the whereabouts of Manal. She believed that Manal is intentionally avoiding me bc she just wants to use me, and like... maybe? Okay? Remas tells me she's okay and that she just can't get hold of an E-Sim. Which has happened before, a much more sobered explanation.

Manal has not ever demanded money out of me, nor has she ever been cold or angry. Hard to believe she would use some kind of strategem of avoidance to not get her own donation money. That just doesn't really make sense. It's not like I ignored her or said anything weird. I don't think she's actively looking to avoid me as much as it is likely very difficult to live in a tent and provide for 3 kids and retain communication via E-Sim all at the same time.

This wouldn't be the first time Zahr has engaged in catty or vindictive behavior. It's important to remember that most Palestinians are just regular people like the rest of us. They're not all Qassam Brigadier Super Soldiers, that would be too awesome for real life.

This living cycle is atrophying my brain, though. I need a change sooner rather than later. I gotta do laundry later, I believe this might help a tad. I feel that the world is stuck is a sort of fog. It's not easy to see the future. Pray for the superheroes of Minneapolis. I retain faith in a better world, and I believe the tide will turn when we are all ready to fight. I will not be shaken.

Singed by it, pulled around of my blazening

(Pulled round)

Eyes on the usually science of cherry-colored

(Trousers)

Limelight not the music it's plain as as can be so

(Tighter)

All of the time I improvise by making sure

(Tighter)

It's to wait for you

Rounder

Pulled rounder

Pulled rounder

Pulled rounder

It's a lot easier to be a defeatist. Not me.

On the 6th I gotta see about going to the Anti War meeting. Hepburn is about all the way finished. I just need to start on Roman Holiday.

Roman Holiday is a follow up LP meant to be less laser focused in its sound and subject matter. I decided the vocal tracks are better suited to RH than Television Pirate.

The only vocal track I'm adding to Hepburn is The Man.

"Oh yeah that's one of Nirvana's best songs, its called... uhh... yeah."

2/1/26 - Lord High Roller

I often have to course correct myself from maladaptive daydreams. Most often I think about what my family and friends would do if and when I pass. It's not a healthy thing to ruminate about.

Hard to forgive myself for the error of being alive, I guess. I do love myself, maybe too much, and a lack of stimulation creates an insular sort of fixation.

An unhealthy thing, yknow.

Reversed the tracklisting, it sounds better that way. I'm getting positive feedback, but two friends I sent it to haven't said anything on it. I fear they're being too nice, they must tell me what they don't care for.

I can't demand or demean, is the thing. I need to look towards a better way.

I'll ask Cronkite anyways. I've only good things to say about Cronkite.

Peter doesn't really like me, he's a bit of a fairweather friend, but I don't care. I've a bit of a sick taste for social subterfuge. I get a kick out of irritating him, out of making him feel guilty for being a flake. He's got a hard life, I know he only entertains it because we're too alike. He hates that about me, I know it. And yet I think he knows, he's not got the upper hand on anything. There are no debts between friends, only love. Whether he likes that or not.

This album is a bit too good. I don't think it's accessible for most people. It's silly that I feel that way considering that friends I met on the internet seem to support my work more fervently than some of my day ones. Hmm.

1/28/26 - Forty Five

I am trying not to let this week consume me. I haven't gotten any sleep. All I do is work. All I do is serve, and I'm not getting anything from it but the grace of another day. I am fully equipped to weather the atmosphere of the working class nightmare. I just wish I had something I could touch to bring me respite.

Music is what has saved me in this trying time. I was listening to 45 by Kino. I believe this is my favorite of Tsoi's work. As much as I love the later stuff, there is a genius in these tracks that is undeniable.

I am trying so hard to weather this cold, but my life has been prohibitive of leisure lately. My sister has problems with their blasted shitbox, so I have to drive them everywhere... again. This is just like in College and High School, and that was the worst. Mom was expressing to me how she thinks I sound like her back then, and I agreed. All I did the last 3 days was drive. Drive, drive, drive. I sleep three hours because the world doesnt not want to give me a chance to get ready and do my routine as its supposed to happen. I am supposed to have decent time to shower and clean and shave and do my skincare the night before, but I have been having to run back and forth on errand duty into the wee hours. Sometimes I fall asleep in the bathroom forgetting I was meant to be in bed.

I laid down midi for all the next batch of songs, but only The Man has the lead vocal laid down.

Yesterday was a good day, despite the fact that it wasn't. On Monday I saw a Coyote in the snow when driving back to the apartment, and it made my day more bearable. I love animals, you know.

A lot of my spirit tells me that I must find a way out of America. Not just the working class grind, out of America. I must go somewhere else... anywhere else. I don't want to leave my sister behind. I just want to get out of this blasted hellhole country. I love Detroit, but the ICE Agents are here, and they are taking people in the southwest neighborhoods to the concentration camps. This is not the city I love. We cannot let this happen to our people.

If they plan a full invasion, I will not flee. I will have to join the fight, and I expect I will get hurt. I'm used to being injured and bruised, that's nothing new.

I believe everyone affected and hurt and killed by the fascists are my brothers and sisters, and their fight is mine. I only specify an attention to my city because I cannot travel. If I could join the fight in Minneapolis without losing my job and getting evicted, I would. I want to find a way how. I truly, truly mean this.

I need to get more sleep... I am not able to write as freely and as eloquently when I am so fatigued. My face, even, is appearing more and more weary by the day.

I am still thinking of all of my friends, all of my family. I am still wanting to know they're alright. I am still wanting of a chance to see them, to have a hug one again. I feel like I am losing it, and the only thing that helps is being able to see a smiling face. At work I helped the Detroit City FC people bring in their stuff just to see them smile. 

I just can't take any more cynicism, or posturing. I need to have a laugh with someone who sees me as a real person, as an equal. My parents like me, and they see me as an equal, despite their reservations about my transgender identity. My sister does not view me as competent person. I try not to make it a habit to winge and complain too much in these entries anymore, even given my right to express my feelings, so I won't go into detail. I respect my sister, I love my sister, but they are not always kind to me. Not at all. That's all I will say about it.

I love the winter, and I love the snow. I just wish life was easier to me in these months, y'know. In my seasonal cycle, Winter and Spring are the easiest to get through. Life is still hard, but in these months I am fully capable of persevering. I see the beauty of it all in these months 

This is not the case for the Summer. I wish it was not the case, but... I loathe my summertime depression. I do experience difficulty in the fall, but the occupation of that quarter helps supplement the pain. The summer is always a time of suffering for me. I live in fear of those days. In my life, these seasons are always the worst. Always the harshest, most brutal. Everything sort of comes out in those days, I guess. It's a shame, because it is a most beautiful season, and yet I learned when texting Remas that I have never had the summer "off" before, not in my life. My summer is characterized by isolation, labor, assault, and a loss of agency. I can remember the physical element of the stress and pain of all those years.

I'd have panic attacks every other day. I'd get migraines so bad I couldn't move. Just trying to breathe felt like being stepped on by an elephant. It was usually during these times I would starve myself and attempt. I guess that's the real reason I need my life to change. I have a feeling that if people do not like this project... if I cannot at least get a better job to supplement the lack of attention... I might attempt again.

I'm choosing to live above my heart at the moment. We'll see if I can do this. I am the most capable person alive, I can survive anything. I'm not sure if I want to, though.

1/27/26 - Vanessa Redgrave

No matter what words I use I am not angry enough. In my heart I want to reject what I know. I want to reject the truth that violence is power as much as community. In Minneapolis I choose to see hope. In myself I choose to see unease, restless hatred. In my heart I choose to see sadness.

I don't know how much longer it will be. I am waiting for my strength to die. I fear I will hurt myself. That I will throw myself into the wandering eyes of the machine. In my heart I fear it is certain.

I my heart I take refuge in continuity. I take refuge in knowledge. We are that which was born from the fall before us. And humanity prevails every time.

How much longer until we lose that providence? If God is electrons and quarks, what does it mean to ignore material constants? Is there nothing she can tell us?

I gotta do an update to the GFM if she can't hit back soon.

Not her fault.

Pad Thai is good, but I question whether chestnuts are good enough to warrant roasting in the more festive capacity. I'll have to run it back on a brisk Christmas Eve someday.

I'm stepping out into the discovery phase again, I'm trying to expand my tastes some more, as I feel that Television Pirate needs to be informed by a wholly different cultural lexicon than what I feel has been afforded to us under the current Fascist regime. I've been listening to a lot of East Asian and Russian music alike, of course spurned by my attention being turned to Oidopuaa Vladimir, Kino (Viktor Tsoi was so fucking hot) and Molchat Doma by the online music community. The internet can still be a great way to connect people around the world! I'm also keeping some Lebanese and Egyptian contemporary on rotation. Yasmine Hamdan and Sherine are favorites, the former's ambient pop album from last year has really taken my heart.

I'm listening to some Fela Kuti again, and I've decided... I'm gonna let the Jazz demons take me again. I promise myself I'd resist, but breaking promises has been, for ages, an American pass time.

My conversation today with Remas... I believe I felt the providence and warmth of God for the first time in years. I told her I dream of surfing one day. I told her of my childhood stories of the cold winters in Michigan. We joked, we comforted each other. She spoke of checking on her daughter, of swimming at the beach... I told her of my friends in danger.

I was reminded of the meaning of life, I guess. It's other people. To be a friend, to talk, and comfort, and laugh. To love. Its sappy lame bullshit, but it's true. All of the other stuff... bullshit. Gets in the way.

I spent so many hours driving, today.

I spent hours listening to songs, listening through 6 (?) albums today.

Here is what I heard.

Blood Type/Gruppa Krovi by Kino

A Star called the Sun/Zevezda po imeni Solntse by Kino

بنسى وبتذكرI Remember I Forget by Yasmine Hamdan

Gone Again by Patti Smith

Divine Music from a Jail by Oidopuaa Vladimir Oiun

Singing With Echoes Through The Universe by Oidopuaa Vladimir Oiun

Oidopuaa's story was very compelling, his constant imprisonment as a result of (debatable???) racial profiling in the Soviet Union gave him the limitation that spurned his choice to master his unique style of Kargyraa throat singing and bayan playing.

But of course I was listening to Gone Again while reading Patti Smith's book about her relationship with Robert Maplethorpe, Just Kids.

I Remember I Forget was something I had been meaning to check out for a bit, but I didn't realize I already knew one of the songs from the project. I am glad to be now properly acquainted with the art of such a creative titan as Yasmine Hamdan. I wish to go to Beirut some day.

Viktor Tsoi is a figure I have become enraptured by. I had heard of him many years ago back in Middle School, but I didn't know too much about him, and I never actually listened to any of Kino's stuff. All I knew was that he was a big rockstar in the Soviet Union that meant a lot to Gen Xers over there.

I have now become gripped by the allure and inspiration of his character, what his words and image meant to the youth of the late-era Soviets. The moment of "opening" that spelled the end of the superpower, the time in which Kino acted as flag bearers for an entire generation... seriously motivating shit. To think a guy like that was ever real... and it scares me, too. Is the fact he died so tragically, so quickly, the reason he will forever be that youthful presence in our minds? He never got the chance to be a mentor to anyone. He never got the chance to grow old and see what had become of his brothers and sisters he inspired through his work.

In Gone Again, Patti wrote a song about her respects and honor for Kurt Cobain's time on earth. I think about how, at the time of releasing Divine Music from a Jail, 33 of Oidopuaa's 55 years of living had been stolen from him in prison. 

I believe it is a horrible thing, what our world does to its young.

ICE is murdering children and raping prisoners. I must remind myself, that the holocaust is happening in my lifetime, in front of my very eyes. And I must continue to speak, to act, to stay aware. I can feel the gaze of God on the back of my neck.

I will not look away. I have to remember love.

And I will not sit on the sidelines. I will invade the banal lens of the everyday evil. I will make sure that every single person I can muster is able to see the colors.