😌I forgot to eat breakfast!
I'm saving up, baby! I'm saving up!
I'm burnin' up, baby! I'm burnin' up!
This bra is unfortunately too small. I need small cups for a wheelbarrow chest, you know. Not something to ki about unfortunately.
And unfortunately, I am coming into myself again, after I had an opportunity to hang out. It is with a heavy heart I admit that I might be one of those people. I need to hang out with my friends, or I will literally die. It is the most important thing in the fucking world. What they never tell you about Michigan is that everybody is really nonchalant, it sucks for me specifically. It's great when it's like, other people I don't care about, but it sucks when it's my circle.
If I can get food in my stomach, I might be able to actually write with diction. This is the opposite of drunk me; if I have nothing in my system, I turn into a Walgreens Pharmacy Drive-Thru attendant.
Maintaining my self-worth is something I find difficult to balance with my attention to the communal/global. It's difficult to reconcile the idea that I have to work on myself while trying to do my part in learning and acting towards the betterment of the entire fucking planet. Because sometimes it really does feel like, "who cares about your songs and your city job? People are dying. The gestapo is in Chicago right now. They will be here soon."
I am remembering what he said. I am trying to remember what he said. I have to keep trying. I don't know how he managed to give a shit about whatever the fuck I was texting him about. My music or whatever. It seems so stupid cause, like, they tear gassed him, and he has those little pepper bullets lodged in his skin, he said. He said a rubber bullet fucked up his leg and he's limping...
All of these things happened to him while he was covering the police state occupation of Chicago.
Lord, give me the strength to not care about this. I really wish I could just be like "cool" and move on. Maybe I am a bad person. I don't think I have the calories in my system to properly convey what I'm feeling right now. That man with the spray tan is lucky I'm doing well and enjoying life. Because billions of people are not, because of him. Billions of angry people who know his face and his voice. Nothing more to say about that man right now.
People in the strip are starting to become desperate, just like the first few months. More brazen, a little more shameless, and it is necessary. I ask you, what would you in their situation? If you needed money to prevent your children from dying of hunger or sepsis, would you be concerned, chiefly, with keeping your pride intact? What is more important?
Palestine is a nation made up of people, real people. People who may not be a perfect, picturesque movie idea of a courageous victim who never complains and pulls themselves up or whatever the fuck. I have people being very overly hawkish and persistent in my Instagram dms about getting donations. It doesn't matter if I already donated a few times, they need more money (real). To be honest, I get it. In that situation I think I would also throw privacy and respect out the window. "You, random person, give me money right now. Stop giving other people money, give me money now. Why are you not doing what I need you to do? I'm dying. Please be my saviour."
We're not talking about someone trying to scam you on Facebook Marketplace. We're talking about innocent young men and women who are, frankly, traumatized and malnourished.
I follow a few people who live in Sudan and Congo, and I see from them more of a hesitation to demand support from their followers. They have some videos where it seems clear to them, they know that people will not care about what they're going through, that their plight may not seem as significant to us western people. You know, there was that one video where the guy in Sudan had to clarify that Sudanese people also have pluralistic views and beliefs, and that anyone who doesn't support people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, etc. needs to get the fuck out and leave him alone. I think about that a lot. It's all connected.
I think about how all of the struggles are connected. The RSF in Sudan is funded by the UAE and Israel. One of the biggest contributors to the slavery and famine in the Congo is the UAE. It's all connected. Capitalism is the machine that drives this curse. We must dispel it, must dispel it. We have to dispel this curse, it is too much to think about, too much to experience.
The idea of doing something for myself feels more and more useless. I know that feeling is not constructive, it is not true, but it is pervasive, consistent.
I keep trying to remember what I said about checking myself. About how it's not enough to just have the right politics and stuff, I have to check my behavior. I have to be cognizant of the effect my behavior can have on others, I need to know when I'm doing too much.
I keep hearing footsteps baby... in the dark...
Guy just walked past the front desk with that song playing on his speaker.
We're in a more solemn, sobered mood today it seems like.
What creature do I kin today? What mythical beast do I feel the spirit of right now as I write?
I'm not sure. My mind was first drawn to the Nidhogg, chewing at the roots of the world slowly, ever so slowly. My heart was then reminded of the great sadness of Amalthea, the titular character from The Last Unicorn. Amalthea is a genocide survivor. A creature who experiences depersonalization and has to mask their identity to protect their life. A loss of the self, a journey to rediscover their own majesty. And I thought of The Questing Beast. A sickly creature born of a carnal greed, a lie. A lot to think about. It's like my brain drew some arcana for me.
I've gotta drop something soon, I think. A single. How can the world be reminded of my magic? I wonder.
One of my ideas for a tattoo was of the logo of one of my favorite restaurants, Pegasus. That's something I think would be cheeky, it'd be cheesy enough to love. But I was thinking about a more esoteric one. One idea was the symbol on Amalthea's forehead she would bear while transformed into a human woman. Another was... I forgot. A million people called in with boring questions, and I forgot what I was talking about. While they were talking about whatever, I was reading an article about Quiet Storm radio music. It's something I have mixed feelings about. That style of laid-back RnB was genuinely the bulk of what my relatives and elders all listened to and put on when I was growing up. Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Smokey Robinson, Anita Baker (the best one), Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross, all that stuff. That stuff is so baked into my system that I don't really feel a need to seek that out or listen to it anymore.
Like... please do not throw on Peabo Bryson if I give you the aux, that shit makes me feel like I'm brain-rotting at Vacation Bible School watching Chatter the Chipmunk. It's funny cause those are all all-timer artists, but I can barely stand most of that stuff. I've heard it so much so often throughout my life that it doesn't even register as music to me anymore. It feels like the sort of fundamental, primordial milieu from which everything is already supposed to be composed of. And thus, I don't feel a need to put it on. This is me essentially revealing how Black I really am, I guess. For me, a song like Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me) by The Temptations feels less like a smooth RnB/Soul song and more like a church hymn I have memorized through dogma. For a long time, I assumed most people were simply just... aware of the existence of Patti Labelle. It's like, this kind of music is so fundamental to the Black American experience that to not know about any of that stuff feels genuinely alien to me. I honestly think it is a bigger culture shock that anything else I've ever seen or experienced, as a Black person. Because y'know, niggas are people too, so I've had a taste of all shades of personhood even just within my community. But music is different.
I think you all know this, but the entire planet has been pretty permanently altered and influenced by Black American culture and music. It's everywhere. In the way people talk, in the way people dress. The food people ear. Modern music is Black music. Jazz, Negro Spirituals and Blues are the bedrock for which the vast majority of modern and contemporary culture takes influence from. I'm not even gonna argue this point because I feel like everybody knows this is true, and to pretend otherwise is like trying to argue that humans are not animals, or that the Earth is flat.
There are some high watermarks within that musical space, from all of those artists, but I think Sade is the best artist that gets lumped into that category, Quiet Storm. She seems to be one of the few big RnB figures that seems to give a shit about anything that matters. It might have something to do with the fact that she's not an American. I've always sort of resented how vapid RnB has become these days. I blame R. Kelly. Let's all just blame R. Kelly for things we don't like from now on.
I really need to eat some food.
Anita Baker is better than most of her contemporaries because she understands the dynamics needed to create a more provocative sound between the band and the singer. She's not just singing on top of a track; her voice is as much part of the accompaniment as they are part of her performance. Sade does this very well, too. Luther Vandross was also good at this, which makes sense. A straight man could never come up with that (this is a joke, almost all of The Beatles were straight). But therein lies the factor, right? Bands. Performers. musicians who work with the singer as part of an ensemble. That is missing right now.
The thing about James Brown is that a lot of his songs are actually JB songs or Famous Flames songs, with James featuring on top. This is mean of me to say, because he is literally interacting with the band during the track, and speaks to them as part of the vibe of his funk. But the motive of his songs is their oscillations.
Hmm. I'm getting bored of writing. I'll be coasting for a bit, I'll see you guys soon.
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