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.