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.

1/22/26 - Something In The Way

I'm not comfortable with the idea. I don't like the sound I'm looking to create right now.

It's the same thing I machinated with Ave and Banshee. I'm looking to let the sound build itself. I'm starting with a more gestalt approach of naked bass lines and voice, and I'm gonna master those together. Bit of low pass on those, but leave the drums alone. I'll let them sit atop the mix, but they won't get as much gain. I'm gonna record in BandLab rather than Ableton. I don't like Ableton for vocals, idc.

The songs I tend to write with lyrics are a little jangly sounding. Which I don't hate, I'm still stuck on writing what I want to hear from myself. Which isn't congruent to what I should really be making. I have to think a bit more morose.

The feeling of the sound is resonant with the tones and colors of the most bittersweet dreams from my childhood. The same stuff I wrote about in undergrad. My professor liked those writings. I'm not sure I fully understand what it was about my musings with the autumn haired woman that piqued his interest. I'm not sure I understand what people like these days. I don't make what I make to suit that fascistic pageantry; what I know to be pleasing to others. I don't move towards that anymore. I make only what possesses me.

I do write with such a rancor of prose, it's a mess of repetitions. I can only hope to exacerbate this affliction of words. I don't want to lose it. I can't.

ICE kidnapped a toddler and used him as bait to put his family in the concentration camps. The lives of those taken are lives that rest within me. I don't have the ability to compartmentalize and forget. But I'm not helpless... I can't deny the pull. I feel as if I should do something reckless again. It feels like I'm lacking in some essential faculties. Every single other person my age has it figured out more than me. I don't care to remember how that is certainly not correct. It feels true, regardless.

I don't want to wear this face anymore. I don't want to be known anymore. I like crowds, I like the gridlock of the city. I don't like being alone.

I can't committ to staying off socials, but I might do it this time. For good. I might never be on there again. I'm hoping I'm as wrong as always. If I'm truly to leave, it won't just be from social media. It would be from the world as we know it.

It would be finally getting a remote job. Something menial, something pointless. And then I could stay away from everyone, and everything. There would be nothing to attatch my face to. I'd send the money to my sister, and they wouldn't have to know where I am. I'd just be nothing.

Soon, everybody I know would forget my face. Everybody I know would forget my name. They would forget the sound of my voice. I can be something less than a memory.

I can't allow myself to act on emotions like this, so I "blog" them out of my mind. I set them aside from my heart.

I wish I was a better person for her. I wish I wasn't me.

Just pathetic sad bullshit, I'll get over it. I'll go to work tommorow and forget everything.

I'll always forget.

1/19/26 - Blue Monday

Getting through the gruff of the blue monday is always exhausting, a psychosexual tax on a mind that ever wanders.

Power went out in my building for hours, I took a nap. I was struck with the correct vision for the middle track of the project, Vampires Wearing Cardigans In Michigan. More Grouper, less Sonic Youth.

The malaise of a new beginning... the dirge like slurry of urban conflict, the morrow pressing against the mountains of stagnation. Peppered morsels of knowledge sitting on this plate in front of me, but it's presented on a most unserious dish. 

It's the Niagara Falls Rainforest Cafe plastic plate that my Mom bought my sister and I, from back way back in my early childhood.

And yet I've had a lot of fun in the days preceding this nothingness. I made a new friend, and got sushi. I gossiped and joked around for hours with some dear friends on Saturday. I looked over the savings totals for the donations, I want to transfer soon. Manal needs something. Anything.

I need to be more vigilant of the urgency. I've let myself enjoy everything too much.

... That's not gonna stop me. I'm too tickled to quit my musing. I know my worth, now. I haven't felt depressed in two months. There are times where I believed I was in that season again... I was wrong. There is such a different resolve within me, these days.

I put up posters downtown in the freezing cold. Nearly frostbitten, I taped ads to the people mover pylons and lamposts. I'll do it again, soon. I will. I will....

And that's not the end of our campaign towards recognition. We will be painting. And we will be braver: we will be busking, soon. In the cold, of course.

I am determined because I know the value of this project. I know what I have is worth the grace of reaching many ears, to mobilize millions towards a future for culture. I believe it. I think maybe I must dabble in a bit of narcissism in order to motivate myself towards achieving this dream. I wish that wasn't the case, but oh, it is fun, isn't it?

"Adri we love having you over," is a sentence I never thought I'd hear. I think life can be good, sometimes. Sometimes God shows me something like this, something that heals something I didn't think was broken.

I loved Trumbullplex too... what an essential place. What a holy place. We must protect places like these.

I do like this version of myself. I will never go back, oh, I could never tiptoe towards a diminished presence.

I want to... no. I wave like Princess Diana, and see myself out of the room of delusion and longing. I can work out the funk of it, you know... this is Adri on the phone. Yes, I can hear you.

Tell me about your worries. Let me loosen that knot in your heart. I want to offer you the strength to do what you'd like. Even if what you'd like is to leave me. I want to reassure your sovereignty.

I will begin reading Patti's book about her bond with Robert Mappelthorpe. I want to understand that sort of connection again. I want to engross myself in that reflection.

In the vocal production of this project, I find an undeniable likeness in approach to the Beach Boys on some tracks. Not a joke. I need to have a little hum harmony under it all. It makes it all make sense.

I'm still scrimping and saving, still doing my part to keep good on money. I'm saving to visit some friends, for as cheap as I can muster. I'll pack almost nothing, to make it work. A bomb shell for a carry on, that'll be fun.

https://aje.news/38eu3q

Try to read this for me.

I'll see you guys soon.

1/18/26 - The Jangling Man

And I am just a jangling man, been in the cold too long, a-long, a-long

And I live with a Raggedy Ann, we never had any money, is it really so wrong?

I feel the spirit of the age, man. I'm within it. I cannot subscribe to the mindset of my betters, my parents and family, to be above the world system. I must relish in the humanity of the world system. And I want to try my best to change it. I have to understand the world, I must be in it.

I hear a somber sound in my mind. The last two tracks come together. The last two tracks make their mark, yes. 

This will be a short entry. There is only one thing I think about.

Despite the Hinge hangout going well... I met with some friends again... I put up the posters, listened to some Starship...

I'm still thinking about her. Persephone stays on my mind, I can't stop thinking about her. I just want to know her. It would be my honor to finally meet her, to kiss her hand.

Anything for her. I just know it.

1/14/26 - Embolism

Yesterday after work I messed up taking my injections, and I hit a major artery. I was bleeding so much, I managed to eventually staunch it and get a bandage. I still feel tingly and lightheaded, this has never happened before. There were two weeks before I had help taking injections where this never happened. Yesterday was the first day I went that wrong.

There's a malaise of unease and disgust that has infected the air surrounding my person. I've been visiting my parents a lot in the first half of January. I love to he with my family, yeah... but I also like being around them because they seem like the only people that arent disgusted at the sight of me. I just don't understand it. I don't like being in my apartment. I wish I was an introvert, it would be easy to keep it all in.

Every time I open my eyes, whenever I blink, I see news of another holocaust in the works. Maybe this is just what God wants right now.

I don't get the feeling that my personality or presence is wanted anymore. All that I learned from last year is to be arrogant enough to know that I'm an incredible person, even if I don't have anything to show for it right now.

Part of me wishes I let myself bleed out a little longer. It would have made things so much easier, I guess. But it's not the right thing to do. I have to finish this album. I have to finish giving this one all my energy. It's the only thing keeping me alive. If this album doesn't provide... something, that might make me feel like an actual human, I might just have to give in.

I don't have the ability to maintain an honest lifestyle anymore. I haven't done anything bad enough to justify feeling this way, but I know that I have it in me to one day be a truly hateful individual. I sometimes wish I could allow myself to be less human.

I was able to play soccer with the kids at work yesterday, that was the best I had felt in months. Working with kids is the only thing that made this job bearable, and the lifeless white walled dome I'm working in effectively stripped that away.

I could never keep all my thoughts and emotions to myself. It feels like drowning to force myself to do that. Keeping a private diary feels like sewing my vocal chords together. I'd rather die.

Sometimes I think God wants me to act as an example to my peers. Like I'm not really meant to make it, I'm meant to be a proof of concept on the failures of my personhood. Something to avoid. Like... maybe it would be something teachable if I could just die. I dunno.

It's mostly dark bullshit with me right now. I'm gonna cut this one short and right a nicer blog post after this.