When The Strokes first record “Is This It” came out in 2001 I honestly wasn’t that impressed. I heard that they were going to change and redefine rock and roll and at the time I was a senior in high school and felt I had a pretty good handle on what that even meant. There was a triumvirate of bands being touted as the next big thing with The Strokes at the top, and trailing behind were the White Stripes The Hives and well, we don’t talk about The Vines anymore, but they were there too… I was and still am a fan of The Hives over the other two and even though I love The White Stripes, there’s something fun, carefree and silly about The Hives that speaks to me. I did like “Is This It” for the most part but it wasn’t the rock and roll that I wanted it to be, so I never became a big fan, just casual. In the last 25 years they’ve been pretty putting out record after record and appealing to an entire generation of kids. I’ve heard songs I liked and I’ve even seen them live a few times. In fact, I saw them in 2002 doing a live MTV taping which was pretty underwhelming for me. Their insouciant vibe and lack of crowd engagement rubbed me the wrong way. I thought to myself how lucky they were to be playing this on MTV and to act that way seemed ungrateful. It pissed me off and turned me off to them but as time went on, I realized that’s just their thing. That cool detached vibe sustained and 25 years later they continue to be one of the biggest bands out there as the band members hit close to their 50’s. Early this year, I watched their Coachella set in the van with boys on tour on our phones. Talk about The Modern Age. I realized watching it that I liked them more than I thought and that they had some really good songs and I appreciated that their lackadaisical vibe is something they’ve committed to, despite complaints from those like myself.

The new single “Going Shopping” came out around that same time, we listened to it in the van together driving up to Northern California for some shows. The second the auto-tune hit in the first verse we all laughed and rolled our eyes. “What was this crap?” I didn’t know this cuz again I wasn’t a big fan, but Julian has his own side project, The Voidz in which he uses auto tune quite a bit. It’s clear it’s a device that he likes using. As the song went on, I was obviously plugged in to the direct influences like “Come Back Johnny” by Devo or “Vacation” by The Go-Go’s and musically I thought it was a nice sounding tune and catchy and the more I listened to it the less the auto-tune bothered me. They’ve since released a second single that has a lot of auto-tune and feels like a 6 Minute dirge and frankly, an incredibly boring song, but that’s just me. When the album did come out last week, and I listened to the whole thing and as a lifelong Strokes fan, she didn’t seem to like it much at all, but I actually liked it a bit more. I have noticed the band has had a knack for vibe in their later records and there’s still some catchy hooks to be had. As an aside, I really admire the drumming on this record because Fab is doing what Alan from Devo used to, which is play so tight like a machine but doing it with real hands, but I digress…

Let me get back to the Bob Dylan thing. No, I am not comparing Julian to Bob, but considering how popular The Strokes have been for younger Millennials and Gen Z, they are at the Mount Rushmore of artists, so in terms of popularity and context, I’d argue there is a similarity to Bob Dylan of the mid 1960s. When Bob Dylan went electric everyone got really mad, called him Judas and the older fans gave up, but Bob found new fans and since then he’s been constantly evolving, to the chagrin of almost everyone. Ask anyone who has seen him live in the last 40 years…

As an artist, there is a sense when one becomes popular to stay in your lane and do the one thing that everyone likes. What Bob Dylan did so well was that he ignored that and just did what he wanted. It’s a similar template The Beatles did and a lot of great bands from the past. Generally speaking, it seems now a lot of modern artists tend to ignore that and just do the thing that made them popular, following a path of least resistance. I’m told Turnstile has evolved, but I don’t know them well. The Strokes are somewhere in the middle, putting out pretty similar sounding records over and over again with slight sonic changes, and as I said before, the new records tend to be more vibes based than rock and this edition of Auto-Tune is just another way for them, or Julian, to try something that hadn’t been done before on a Strokes record.

I admire the bold choice to use auto tune, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. There will be ride or die Strokes fans that will appreciate it, there will be Strokes fans who like the original sound and hate it and people in between who just are ambivalent. To me, the risk is worth it. It’s one thing to do it on a side project that isn’t as successful but it’s another to as a million dollar band business to do something that could physically alienate a lot of people I find to be brave especially in 2026. Perhaps the band has nothing to lose because to many they are past their prime and maybe that’s true as well, but I love the “why not fuck it let’s go for it” attitude and if people like it cool, if they don’t, cool. That’s why I had a comparison with Bob Dylan. I don’t know if in 25 years, auto-tune Strokes records are going to be sought after because who knows what the hell is going to happen in 25 years, but it’s there if you want it and if you don’t like it listen to something else.

Reactive behaviors, made prevalent by the internet and social media, make it hard for creatives to do anything different and with message boards comment threads and endless podcasts critiquing, it’s really hard to do something even slightly different without getting some sort of negative feedback or flack. One has to just ignore the noise and do their work, but I can see how it’s hard especially if famous. Could you imagine how bad Bob Dylan would get it in 2026 rather than 1966? Who knows? Maybe all the complaining would have kept him from going or staying electric?

I’ve said it a thousand times here and I’ll continue to say it; If you want to be creative, do what feels inspired to you and if the singular intention is selling records or appeasing commerciality, then maybe that type of experimenting isn’t for you. For others, perhaps Julian Casblancas, the intention is to try things, follow a feeling and experiment. Julian, what other weird thing are you going to do next? Is This It?

Thanks for reading! This was just something I was thinking about earlier today, so I figured why not spit it out?

Now back to homework.

Since today is Independence Day, I thought I’d share a quick interaction I had with someone while I was there while I feel is apropos for the day.

I tend to lean pretty heavily on the left politically, so I am of the mind that this holiday isn’t one to celebrate these days, because frankly to me, there is a lot to not like about America today. I see some pretty vitriolic stuff on my social media feed and that anger I feel is just, but like on the right, some of it can be misplaced and, as it’s been on my mind lately, very reactive. This is all to say that the anger is in the air and I traveled to DC with a bit of a cynical chip on my shoulder, knowing I’d be within walking proximity to a lot of the poisonous vibes.

I called an Uber to take me back to the airport from the hotel I was staying at, The Watergate Hotel, which was very amusing to me. Anyway, it was about a half hour drive to the airport which was enough time to give me a bit of agita as I’ve been stuck in some wild conversations with an Uber driver. Luckily, the driver was a lovely man from Eastern Africa, near Ethiopia. We shared niceties and he asked me where I was headed, and when I said back home to Los Angeles, he told me about the one time he was in Los Angeles and discovered there was a tree that he thought was only native to Eastern Africa. He was very excited to see in Los Angeles and told me this tree is used for many things including making tooth brushes and shelter. He didn’t have the exact name, so I tried to look it up and crack the code, because I was genuinely interested in which tree, but alas because of the language barrier and spelling, we couldn’t find it. (Maybe it’s the Fern Pine? Any reader out there know?) We continued to talk plants, and I told him that palm trees were not native to Los Angeles, which he found fascinating. So, thanks Rosecrans Baldwin!

After tree talk was done, I asked him how long he had been in America and he said about 15 years. By my logic, he had two or three good years here before hell broke loose. I did tread lightly and wasn’t snarky or cynical about how I felt about the country, but we were both in agreement that things could be better. Health care, government spending on the right things, etc were discussed and he juxtaposed it with what he saw in Africa and for him, America was ultimately better.

He told me he moved here for “a better life” and when I asked if he felt he achieved that, he was adamant that he did. He said he liked “doing this and talking to new people” and “feels liberated in America.” America gave him a life that may not have been achievable where he was from. This is the classic immigrant story isn’t it?

With so much precariousness right now, especially for immigrants and non immigrants alike, to be told that America is liberating is so counter to how I generally feel and counter to what I see on social media or mass media for that matter. Yes, things are bad, but apparently not bad enough to still have people come here for liberation and freedom and a better life. The doom and gloom surrounds us, but it turns out that to some America can still provide that and even if I knew that in the deep, dark recesses of my mind, this nice man reminded me that it does. That drive to the airport and that lovely conversation put in perspective that there is still a longer view to choose to see and it doesn’t have to be mired in anger or cynicism. I am happy for this man and happy that he was able to find peace and happiness in a time that feels quite the opposite.

So on July 4th, I think it’s ok to boycott fireworks and not partake in the cosplay and I also think it’s ok to embrace what America means to YOU specifically. It’s ok to feel conflicted, angry, sad because of the circumstances, but let’s not forget there are many people here who don’t feel that way and they shouldn’t be judged for it, so it’s ok to be patriotic too.

America allows for both dissent and desire. Rebellion and obedience. Hot dogs and vegan dogs. We have actual freedom of choice here and isn’t that what makes America “great” anyways? Maybe what I’m saying is, you never know what people think or how they’re feeling if you don’t ask them.

“Freedom is choice is what you got

Freedom from choice is what you want”

Sums it up…

Happy First Saturday of July. Be safe.

Earlier this week, I was talking to some friends about film company A24 collaborating with Google by integrating AI Technologies into their filmmaking workflow (Check this Variety article for context) and the discourse throughout the week around this was vitriolic to say the least. Memes were abound and many friends sent me a video meme of a guy boo’ing the headline, decrying the end of A24 and seemingly the world as we knew it. The video was frankly pointless and to me, spoke to something more than just being upset at million and billion dollar companies working together to be “more efficient.” The video shows to me how reactive as a culture we have become and even worse, that some spend their time making content that is ostensibly a snake eating its own tail, meaning making content that is not just content, which in and of itself can be problematic, but also content that is perpetuating this reactive cynicism that pervades most online conversations. However, popular to what reactive social media outcrying tells us, there’s subtlety to everything. Yes, AI “slop” specifically in the creative fields, is particularly vile and the people who own these companies are as just as vile in certain practices, but there may be ways in which AI can, conceptually, at least, help advance the sciences, treat diseases, etc but we wouldn’t know because we’re too worried about A24, a multi million dollar company, losing their credibility or analyzing the Presidents dopey wish fulfillment art.

A friend brought up the phrase “we need to be creating as much as we consume” and it struck a chord for me. All of this screaming and crying about how artificial intelligence is the ender of worlds, and in many ways it can be, I think there’s still a component most of us are forgetting and that is AI, and the way it’s being presented to us as a way for efficiency in creation, has more to do with our consumption habits and how we spend our time than we think.

Most of us scroll for hours daily and expect to see and consume new content seemingly every second. Perhaps because of Netflix-ification we don’t watch TV shows weekly or one at a time anymore and in fact, many people watch 4 to 8 episodes a day. Music, another art form currently being interrupted by AI, becomes mostly thrown on a playlist and passively consumed and as soon as somebody puts out an album, it seems the countdown for the next one starts. The feeling seems to be “we heard it once and that’s enough, what now?” This is a big generalization, but culturally, we seem to need more and more to satiate this hunger for dopamine hits and distractions and to “keep the hits coming.” The problem is, the creators themselves have a hard time keeping up with our diets, which helps to explain how I see the A24 thing happening and possibly why you see new AI material out there and of course, more podcasts….

A24 is a company trying to make movies and in an age where relevancy equals consistent and constant creation, is one of those companies that has to keep up. In the last two years, they have made upwards of 40 movies, trying to maintain a 20 movie year output. That’s a lot. As someone who has worked in the entertainment industry, I know for a fact that budgets and timelines are not what they used to be and that everything needs to be done in half the time and for half the cost than before, so it makes sense for companies to try and find ways to keep up with that output efficiently. There are endless amounts of streaming channels, cable channels and online vessels that produce content, so it’s not like there is a shortage of work, nor is there a lack of demand, so in theory, you’d think creating more jobs and keeping budgets as they need to be to make this stuff would be their modus operandi, but as it, is jobs are being cut and people are working 3 to 4 times MORE with less pay. I know that there are aspects of my job that have definitely been eaten up by artificial intelligence, and in the time I have worked in this industry, I have seen the rise of digital, file sharing and the decline of analog workflows that have resulted in obsolete or lost of jobs, so this is nothing new. AI and the need for efficiency is to be blamed in many ways of course, but let’s not forget greed. Saving money on budgets doesn’t make the product better, nor does the saved money go to more projects, it in fact goes into the pockets of the men up top and that point shouldn’t be ignored. Any new technology, especially one that eliminates specific jobs, will always be looked upon as villainous and that unfortunately, will continue to happen as has been happening since the Industrial Revolution and greed will continue to perpetuate it.

By focusing our attention on sensationalist dangers, the media distracts us from the systemic issues that cause the most harm.” Barry Glassner (Culture Of Fear)

We need to be creating as much as we consume

Growing up playing shows in a punk rock scene, I made fliers constantly. It started with scrap book style cut and paste and then later, using the very primitive “Preview” application on my laptop. I never learned how to use Photoshop or adjacent software and I still to this day make fliers or posters for events and to say the least, they aren’t the most polished. Regardless of how the fliers came out, I derived pleasure from making them and for me, that was enough. If someone doesn’t like one or thinks it’s not aesthetically sound, so be it. What matters to me is that I put effort into something and that feeling goes a long way.

Unless one is able to afford an artist to commission, fliers are generally made with pre-existing images, from a film, show, or real life and is fact, part of their identity. The creativity is in how the images are used and in many ways we become our AI algorithm, creating our own visual style and view point by using our memories, creative inclinations and mastery, or lack thereof, to make these fliers, turning something old into something new. More importantly for me is that by creating these fliers, I’m stopping life for a few short moments to make something from nothing. It feels earned and to funnel this into a program to easily spit out an uncanny valley image in a split second seems counter to that creativity and time well spent. When I see the anger over AI fliers and videos, I too agree and get indignant, not so much because of the tech itself, but that it’s conditioning us to not stop and think creatively and leads to a sort of complacency, because it’s “easy and efficient.” Sure, AI can be used to comb through past work like we do with fliers, but the touch of someone’s unique point of view is not there and instead we’re given a piece of data made by a committee of a billion preexisting images and not a choice some shot from a film or photo that represents not just the event, but the person making it. There is a difference. This can be applied to music, writing and any creative endeavor. So, why do people spend this free time to create making vitriolic, reactive content? The way I see it, the AI ship has sailed, but it doesn’t mean we can’t choose an opposite reaction and make something timeless, thoughtful and meaningful. Not using it it the greater rebellion, isn’t it?

There is a phrase that is commonly used in AA“…contempt prior to investigation.” Basically, is speaks to the idea that our spiritual growth is stunted the less curious and thoughtful we are with our actions. This contempt for AI, or people who make mistakes, or “hot takes” stems from this reactivity and with it, no follow up. How many of us read the headline, get emotional, tell someone how mad we are before even reading the whole article? This too, is nothing new.

Perhaps if we slow ourselves down enough, bring curiosity to our feelings and reactions and use that anger, passion and effort to make something better, we can challenge AI and the complacency that it may bring. If you don’t like the AI slop you see, make a hand made version yourself. Do the cut and paste flier for your show instead of typing a prompt. Yes, I know because of capitalistic handcuffs we feel we have no time to do much else in the day except work, but even spending 15-30 minutes doing something creative will go a long way both mentally and physically. There are studies showing how logging off and being is actually good for us.

I personally feel no need to embrace AI, nor do I want to engage more than using it to “Google” information from time to time, if at all. The great thing is, we don’t have to engage with it at all and in fact, our engagement is actually what gives it its power, so the less we engage, the less power it has, ideally of course... I know there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but by stripping away the power of some of these tech companies, we can get some the power back by having something that is uniquely ours and not theirs.

So YES, fight the companies that are profiting and perpetuating this because beyond the art dangers, there are also data center dangers, human and nature dangers, as well as the enshitification and idiocracy that comes with an angry and complacent society, so we have to do what we can to not engage with it to not make things worse than they are. In fact, if we turn away long enough from our phones, distractions and fear based temptation, we can the time back we need to think freely and perhaps to create something new. When we create and spend time doing things that give us meaning or purpose, sure even if it’s considered content, we won’t feel the need to drown in cynicism nor feel we have to react to something that frankly has nothing to do with our day to day lives, like a business acquisition. Miles Davis’ quote at the top seems like a dream, but it’s not impossible.

Thanks for reading. I hope everyone has a nice July 4th, whatever the hell that looks like.

ETC:

Im about to start my last quarter of school next week, so things are gonna get hot and busy, but I have some shows in July with to check out before I hunker down.

Thursday, July 16- The Haven in Pomona

Friday, July 17 - Gold Diggers in Hollywood.

(via The Guardian)

I bring up Sonny because I have been having this fantasy lately of going away to some sort of silent retreat, or rehab facility by the beach and not because I need rehab from substance, but rather a rehab from life’s obligations, stressors and deadlines and the need to always be doing doing doing. I long for a quiet place to read, unencumbered from phones, push notifications and news reports about narcissists who crave constant attention and get it for the sake of profit and ratings, but I digress. Sonny Rollins’ story is an inspiration to me not because I want to sit on a bridge and play a horn all day, but the fact that he was able to draw a personal line in the sand, a boundary, and say “I can’t do this anymore. I need a break for my creative sanity” is an inspiration and frankly, just sounds nice.

“Am I playing music for other people, you mean?” Rollins inquires. “Yes I am, in a way. But I’m playing for myself. I have to sound good. I don’t want to make my public feel I’m great if I don’t feel like that. The Guardian, 2022.

I am not paralleling my story with Sonny’s nor am I in any sort of artistic peak that I’m aware of, but his passing and this story specifically had me thinking about my personal situation, relatively. Lately, I’ve been saying to myself “How can I go forward when I’m always catching up“ and that going forward isn’t just doing more stuff and saying yes to more things, it’s literally thinking beyond the day, or sometimes the hour. To take it back to addiction and recovery concepts, I am truly living “one day at a time” with no long view, the sole exception being that I am intending to graduate grad school this year. Maybe that’s just it. I DO have a focus and it’s to graduate, because after 6 years of straight school, I’m TIRED. But because I was in school, it didn’t mean I was stopping all the other stuff I do. I had put out records, worked on a dozen shows and specials, wrote here on Substack almost every week, ran marathons and found time to start working in a new field only to be forced out and back into TV where I find myself currently, at least for the next couple of months. The constant pivoting is exhausting and I feel it in my body and see it in the mirror.

This is all to say that I am making a concerted effort to not so much “do less” but do things more thoughtfully. I wonder if this is what Sonny Rollins felt too, aside from wanting to practice more, maybe he needed a break from the external to work on the internal.

I am not sure anyone who reads this cares that I have been inconsistent, but I do and I realized there were times in which I was writing weekly here just to catch up and some of the newsletters weren’t all that great in my opinion, or at least uninspired and all for the sake of doing it weekly. Maybe this is an excuse, but I feel that I was starting to tread water and each day more things were added to my list and at some point, something had to go, so I stepped back from this. Substack is such a great thing for me to “woodshed” ideas, throw spaghetti at the wall and pontificate or complain about the world and it’s been an incredible sounding board for me, something that I never knew I needed and I love it. However, all my tentacles are all being used by other things and specifically with school I am writing so many self reflection papers that it’s almost like doing the same thing here, except in APA 7 format.

This is all to say that we all can’t do all of the things all of the time, contrary to what capitalism encourages. We aren’t machines and even then, machines need to shut down to continue to work efficiently. When I speak to friends, especially those who are like me and can’t be still, there is this tension and anxiety that they need do it all and there is this great shame if it all doesn’t get done “on time” or to their liking. 9 times out of 10, these things that don’t get done are bonus life things, because after our obligations of life are done, we need some sort of release, but more often than not, there is little time to accomplish much else, so there is no release and the cycle of anxiety, shame and rumination continues.

Certainly, we don’t have time to sit on a bridge all day and play sax, nor do we have time to unplug into a self admitted rehab or retreat very often, so what IS IT we can do to relieve the anxiety? That’s for you to figure out. For me, I take it day by day and if something doesn’t fit, I try again another day and, like here, if a month goes by, so be it because I’m doing the best I can with what I got and that’s all I can hope to do each day. I still have a lot on my mind and will keep coming back but not weekly, at least not for now.

Thanks everyone for the continued support!

ETC:

• The next shows are in July. July 16, The Haven in Pomona and July 17 at Gold Diggers in Hollywood, CA.

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The tug of war with freedom is music is something I am always thinking about, especially after having recently put out a record and, for me, finding ways to keep old songs fresh when played live. I love a tried and true structure of a song, but there is something liberating, specifically when performing live, about veering off the script, even if subtle, and that freedom is something that jazz taught me. In fact, jazz has taught me a lot. I’ve talked this exact thing here before, so lieu of writing a new post due to business, I want to share a post I wrote in early 2025 about jazz.

If you haven’t read the post below, please give it a peep. I hope to bring curiosity about jazz for those of you who may be lukewarm about it. And for what it’s worth, Happy I.J.D. to those who celebrate.

(For more jazz writing check out )

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ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 25, 2025

I’ve always been fond of jazz music.

I feel it can be the most liberating and purest form of music. The scope and spectrum of the genre is so vast that it is in fact genre-less and what you can do with it is limitless when you get below that surface level understanding that many have of it.

As a player of jazz music, you could be the greatest musician or the worst musician and as long as you have something to say and can convey the spirit or the feeling that the music carries. Sure, that counts for any kind of music, but something about the freedom of jazz that reels me in. There are really incredible musicians who purposefully play discordant and unlistenable music just for sake of expression, or conversely those that play tight, focused and beautifully, and I find both to be liberating in so many ways. There is a courage to it that isn’t found in most other genres and it could also explain why I like punk rock music so much. I understand that both genres, all music genres really, have arbitrary rules or templates that many abide by, but I find that in their most raw and purest forms, both punk and jazz are kindred spirits. See below…

As a drummer and performer, I feel both genres have influenced me more than I may l admit. I am always compared to obvious inspirations like Keith Moon, or Tre Cool, which are monumental influences, but behind the showy, goofball rocking out, there is space in my heart for people like Tony Williams, or Topper Headon, both drummers who played in groups that already had preconceived notions of what a drummer or rhythm of that music was supposed to be and flipped it on it’s head. For example, when Tony Williams was playing with Miles Davis, he brought in a cool, funky and rocking back beat, which mixed with jazz basics, painted a really colorful sound that was new for jazz and pushed what jazz drumming could be moving forward. As the second drummer for The Clash, Topper Headon did the same thing, but in a punk context. He layered jazz, R&B, disco and grooves that broadened the band’s sound beyond the rocking and sometimes jah-irie punk sound. It’s the idea of the creator, in this case a drummer, opening a musical palate and breaking norms that appeals to me. A drummer can use all of their limbs and they have that open palate that, if collaborators are willing, can take a piece of music somewhere new. Jazz and punk encourage this, but lately I feel jazz welcomes it more for me.

I started listening to jazz in high school in a real serious way. My gateway was of course Miles Davis and the more accessible records like Dave Brubeck’s Time Out, or Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters and a big early one for me, Blue Train by John Coltrane. Once you get into one record and follow the personnel, you fall into a worm-hole as every player is likely on hundreds of other records, so from there you learn who Lee Morgan is, then Cannonball Adderly and so on and so forth. They’re not “session musicians” they’re stars in an of themselves and with each new combo, they bring their flavor adding to an endlessly flavorful stew…. Or something.

When I was in community college for a couple of years, I took a jazz history and jazz appreciation class and I also played in the college big band, which was basically 15% college age players and 85% players over 50 years old. I learned a lot about how to read charts, but more importantly, how to be the engine of a 30 wheeled truck. The exacting nature of big band arrangement, mixed with the steadiness needed and the focus made me grow as a player exponentially. I liked being in the big band so much that I even showed up unenrolled for a couple of semesters. It was a nice way to spend a Monday night. During that time, the main guitarist and upright bassist from the big band, who were also my age, asked me to start a trio with them, and so I did. I’ll save a post and talk about them later, but from that trio, I learned even more about performance, listening and patience in my playing. We recorded an EP, so maybe I will dig it up and, embarrassing as it may be, share it with the next post.

I stopped actively and ravenously listening to Jazz for a long time, but the last few months I found myself being pulled in by its gravity again. It started with me going back to basics, like Miles Davis, who frankly is someone I’ve never stopped listening to, but I was also going back to my favorite Blue Note records produced by Rudy Van Gelder. People like Bobby Hutcherson, McCoy Tyner and Art Blakey are artists I never grew tired of because of their effortless cool and boundless spirit in their playing. New artists like Jeff Parker, Robert Glasper or Kamasi Washington have validated that there is still excitement in jazz and that it is still alive and ever evolving. The constant change and growth is refreshing in a time where most media feels stagnant, IP based or stuck in a box.

Lately, I have gotten sick of consumer culture, perhaps it’s because I see how Spotify cheapens recorded music and how Netflix seems to cheapen TV, so it’s possible my desire to consume art and media has lessened because of that. Chalk it up to busyness, but frankly there hasn’t been much that truly excites me out there. For a while, I resented music because I wasn’t where I wanted to be professionally as a musician, but I realized that’s not MUSIC’S fault… It’s no one’s fault. It’s just what it is, so with that obvious realization, I am slowly allowing myself to be vulnerable with music again. Sounds ridiculous for someone who has never STOPPED playing music, but opening the door to embracing music again as I did before is something that I have had to re adapt to. It’s been hard, but strangely, jazz music has been that door again. Thinking about it and listening to it lately have given me a little boost of inspiration or maybe dopamine to get me back into the game as it were and start FEELING music again.

I’m thankful that music is always there for me and it’s a friend that no matter how long I go without it, I will pick up right where I left off and there’s a lot of comfort there.

Lastly, it goes without saying, but music has that bonus additive that helps us cope with the world and man, is the world bleak right now. I’m grateful for artists who still create, especially now when it seems like a fool’s errand. If you like an artist, please find a way to directly support them beyond relying on algorithms or taking advantage of the “cheapness” of streaming. See ‘em live. Let weirdness continue. Let jazz and punk and singular voices remain.

Thanks for reading. I hope everyone is happy and healthy.

ETC:

have four really great shows in May

Friday, May 8 - Netflix is a Joke Fest event with Ron Lynch. Mike Voila, Eddie Peppitone and Laura Kightlinger are also featured among many, many more!

Thursday, May 21 - The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood co-headline with Hembree

Sunday, May 24 - Free show at The Fable in Eagle Rock. Reunion for Downtown Union.

Saturday, May 30th - (Stoked for this) - Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown supporting Black Crystal Wolf Kids !

By this point, I’ll be veering off script enough to justify this post. ;)

I wrote this on the official Substack, but I am not sure all of my followers will get it, so I am gonna paste it on here. Enjoy….

Hey everyone.

Just last week we got back from a quick and dirty 4 day tour of the Bay Area and upper mid-ish California, hitting El Cerrito, Merced, San Francisco and Petaluma. The approach to stay in a similar radius was born out of experimentation, curiosity and frankly, a monetary limitation. For a band of our size to do any amount of touring now has become increasingly harder and, dare I say, almost impossible to achieve without falling deep into the red.

Of course we have a strong desire to hit every city in America if we could, especially the cities that have been playing us recently on College radio. Of course, given the climate of the world with gas prices, lack of money going into venues as well as venues being careful, perhaps a bit too careful in my opinion at times, about who to book, there aren’t many guarantees so to spend two or three weeks on the road at this point for a band like us is increasingly limiting with each passing year. So with that in mind, we decided to instead do spurts like we did here, targeting a certain area and hitting some cities that may get overlooked. We hope by the end of the year to add some more out of town dates so please be on the lookout for that.

With all that said, I want to show appreciation for the efforts from Noah who took the brunt of this work and booked us four solid shows that were all great. Here’s a brief recap.

Our first stop was in El Cerrito, which is a hop, skip and a jump away from San Francisco and Oakland. Jake’s old college friend lives there and her place to us the entire weekend which was a lifesaver to say the least. (Thanks, Riva!) It’s the support from friends like this that actually make these trips possible. We played at The Little Hill Lounge, which is a neighborhood dive with a back room staging area that has seemingly been untouched since the 1960s. The carpet was still intact and the low ceilings and dark red lights conjured up images of people drinking old fashions and smoking cigarettes while a sweaty trio played some sort of hard bop. The place was supposedly bought by the person who owned Kon-TIki in Oakland, but rather than making another tiki bar, he decided to maintain that schticky ‘70s red booth, brown wall vibe, replete with vintage Schlitz and Pabst signage. It was my personal favorite spot on the trip and we played with a great band called The Letterwriters.

(Little Hill Lounge. No jazz. Only rock.)

The next morning we got up early and drove to Petaluma to do a live in studio acoustic set and mini interview with their local NPR affiliate, KRBC FM on Brian Griffiths morning drive time show. It was truly a cool addition to the trip to play on an NPR affiliate because it aligns with our values and the team there couldn’t have been any nicer. We played “Came Back Kicking” and “Big Dummy” acoustic with Noah on guitar, me and my snare, Jake’s vocals and whistles and Sam’s vocals and oatmeal cup shaker. Check out the show here (We’re at the 90 minute-ish mark) https://norcalpublicmedia.org/krcb-morning-show-with-brian-griffith/krcb-morning-show-with-brian-griffith-aired-on-april-10-2026

(In sesh)

On the way back from the radio station, we hit Noah’s childhood record store, Watts Music in Novato to see if they wanted a couple copies of the new record. When we mentioned who we were, the owner Darin said “No shit? I fucking love that record. Been listening all week!” Not a bad coincidence to walk into. He bought our entire catalog and had us sign some copies and took pictures that he later posted to his Instagram page. We couldn’t have asked for a better record store pop in. Thanks, Darin.

(Big shots at Watts Music in Novato)

That night’s gig was at a place called The Big Easy in Petaluma. It was another low ceiling joint, but rather than a smokey jazz vibe, it almost felt like a cave or a prohibition era hideout. It was also a nice homecoming for Noah, who grew up nearby and had family and friends there to celebrate. It was likely the biggest crowd of the trip and the most energetic with many dancers, including an almost too good to be true moment during our opener “Thief Of Time” a real cowboy literally slid on to the dance floor and gracefully dosido’ed for us and then just as quickly disappeared into crowd, never to be seen again. We all decided that would have been an incredible video…

Redwood Chrome and Ian Hinkley also rounded out the night. Shout to Don Lewis for putting it together.

(The man, the myth)

(Backstage “art” at The Big Easy)

Saturday was our “long” drive to Merced to play at The Partisan. Due to unforeseen circumstances, both of the supporting bands backed out and after sound check, the power went out on the whole block, so we pondered if this was all a sign… Fortunately, the power did go back on, and since we’re never ones to give up or half ass it, we decided to play two sets to help fill the night out. It worked out well as the crowd was enthusiastic and appreciative, even asking us “Why the hell are you playing here?! Shouldn’t you be in a bigger city?” Knowing we made the evening of a few people who don’t get to see too many bands makes stressors like power outages and cancellations all worth it. Oh, we also visited the only spot in Merced that is on Atlas Obscura, an obelisk monument of a rich rancher back in 1900. Very random, but we had to see it.

(Memories of Merced)

Our last show was Sunday in San Francisco. We played The Knockout for our second time, the first was with The Roxies a couple years back. This was a matinee show, meaning done by 9pm for their reggae dance night. The Goods (who did an acoustic set) and True Companion played and I’d have to say it was my personal favorite line up of the trip as we all sonically existed on a similar plane. KXSF was kind enough to sponsor the show, so we had a nice crowd for an insane and erratically rainy Sunday evening. Two great exchanges happened that night. First, a man came by and told us he saw Watt’s Music instagram post, listened to our record and liked it enough to drive out to the show and check us out before we left town. Another yong trio happened to be walking by during our set and said they “..,were coming back from a housewarming party down the street and we heard you on the street and really liked what we heard, so we decided to pay to get in and watch you guys.” Nice.

The post show excitement kept us motivated enough to drive straight home after the show and just like that, it was over.

These tours, no matter how big or small, feel like a time vacuum and whatever is happening in the “real world” doesn’t apply. We were so busy moving around, focusing on just us and the gigs, that everything else fell away for four days and I mean that in the best way possible.

Live music is all about being present, in the moment, feeling the thumping of the bass or the screech of the guitar or the pounding of a floor tom. For the players, it’s the moments where a song gels and the four of us connect in an almost spiritual way, or the moments where we make a mistake, laugh it off and keep going. It’s also about the moments that we would have never experienced if we hadn’t decided to roll the dice and play out of town. There’d have been no dancing cowboys, no obelisk sight seeing, no reconnecting with old friends, meeting new fans and certainly no stories to tell here on Substack. I’ll speak for myself when I say I’m grateful I get to do this with my friends and wouldn’t you know, after we got home, we got a nice album review in Under The Radar magazine and in it they said, “The best way to describe Never Felt Bitter would be as a record that could only have been written by a group of friends first, and a band second. Rarely does an album sound so strongly like a group of musicians all pulling together in the same direction.”

I can’t think of a better compliment. Thanks for reading!

Much love,

Sean

We are cooking up some more 2026 out of town dates and more, so please subscribe if you haven’t already. Follow us on all the the other things to stay updated, but know we’re always posting news here first!

For now, enjoy some pizza.

Today is all about and the release of our new record “Never Felt Bitter” which is officially out tonight at 9pm Eastern on all the streamies and in stores tomorrow. If you read this Substack at all, you know I tend to ruminate about how I go about things, like this piece I wrote the weekend we started recording Never Felt Bitter:

“These recordings are where I was at that moment and maybe that honestly will show and all of this rumination and whining will be for naught.”

Lol.

We started this December of 2023 and the time and care we put into it since shows. From the dedicated arrangements, production, artwork and overall presentation, it’s clear we were in alignment more than we ever have been. Our last record, “A Company Sleeve” was mostly built in isolation during COVID, so with this we were able to present with it, be together more, plan things out collectively and, to my chagrin, give it the time it needed to be the best it could be. *I also wrote about this and yes, I have a one track mind sometimes…

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This is all to say that the day is come and I am beyond excited not just to share it with everyone and to keep playing these songs live, but to also move on to the next thing. I love the start of a new chapter and if this trajectory continues, who knows what kind of record will be next for us. In the meantime, I wanted to share some promo that we were lucky enough to have in the last few weeks.

• ANTWOOD essay “Are We Even Listening?” - I am so very proud of this essay that the band and Atwood let me write about our attention to music and anxiety in consumption. For you Kierkegaard fans out there…

• “Convent Walls” video - I directed and edited this piece that I hope complemented Noah’s lyrics. I wanted to showcase the venues in LA who took a chance on us and how not everything lasts forever. Sad, but hopeful like most of our songs!

• Noah on NPR - This one is cool. Noah talks Replacements and process.

• New Noise Premiere - The band blurbs about their own process on each song.

• Indy Review - First album review. Kind words. He gets it!

There is so much more to share, but you get the idea.. Check out the band Substack for more!

If you’re interested in hearing it, you can stream it on all the streamies, but we’d prefer Bandcamp if you can and if you wanna pick up a pretty purple or cream colored vinyl, get it from our label Forage Again

Record Release Show is TOMORROW (Friday, March 27) in Pasadena. Tickets are here.

We’re playing in San Diego next weekend and hitting Nor Cal the following for a handful of shows. This stupid war with Iran will prohibit any real touring, so we’ll start small. If you’re at any of these places, holler!

Thanks for reading, as usual. Talk soon.

The host, who was not from the South Bay, asked about the genesis of having shows at this place called Famima in Torrance. Famima (Family-Mart) was a Japanese owned chain of stores, basically a 7-11, that was very popular in the aughts and there was one right in central Torrance where the kids would gather in the summer. As I’ve mentioned here before, booking shows in the South Bay, especially ALL AGES shows back then, was a near impossibility. I had booked a VFW Hall for my 2003 compilation release party, and I also booked a ton of shows at a Comic Book store in Manhattan Beach and of course, we’d all lean on garages, house parties that would have us. But like all things, these were all fleeting moments, so it took some sort of ingenuity and hubris to find a place, ask and make it work, if allowed, or sometimes if not…

I lived near this Famima while I was there buying snacks, I noticed that there was a big vacant area in the back that I assumed was meant, like Chase said in the interview, for business meetings or small gatherings. I asked the manager what it took to book the room for a few hours. I had told him it was for a birthday party, but there would be amplified rock bands, as a way to smooth over the reticence that I was so used to getting from other venues. Without much pause, he agreed to rent it out for a small fee and asked to make sure it was over by 10pm. The fee was paid for easily by the $5 cover fee I intended to charge, but I couldn’t let him know I was charging people to go (it was a “birthday party” after all) so that was done quite discreetly. To my surprise, he agreed without any fuss. Being that I had been booking DIY shows for a few years at this point, this was about 2007, I knew what it took to organize without much nonsense.

The first show there was with my band E>K>U>K, a local and two touring acts who were friends of ours. It was great and a bunch of kids came, so I kept booking shows there. When my other band Vaudeville played there, we covered the Adolescents song “Amoeba” and sang and changed the lyrics to “Fa-mi-maaaa” because that’s how dumb we were. The whole thing was a gas. At the time, there wasn’t this sense of “Whoa, this is Famima, how crazy” nor was anyone waxing poetic. Yes, It was amusing on paper, but in the moment, it didn’t matter where it was because bands needed a place to play and kids needed a place to see bands and this just happened to be the place at that time and so people were just happy to have a place to see shows. It was getting popular enough that the word got out and other promoters and bands started booking their own shows, for good and for bad. For good, because what happened was a new scene was forming. Bands that were on the younger side, like Joyce Manor, were able to book their own shows and build upon the thing that we helped put together and that is gratifying and kinda the point of starting something communal from scratch. The bad is that there were bands either not from the South Bay nor from the immediate scene who did book shows and would break windows, steal things from the store and basically not give a shit that they were in effect ruining it for everyone else. After one weekend metal show, the manager called me and said he is not doing shows there anymore because someone from one of the bands broke the toilet. No, not the plumbing, but the actual toilet was smashed. So, as quickly as it started, it ended and that’s why they say “we can’t have nice things.” It was about 3 or 4 months.

It was around this time or soon after I moved to Highland Park and stopped trying to book South Bay shows. The time that I had there was coming to an end and I was sick of being let down. I would start something and it would inevitably cease to exist just as quickly as it began. It’s only recently that I have accepted the futility of holding on to something that is ever changing and to be ok with all things being impermanent and they become memories. Perhaps writing here is part of that healing…

When the host of the podcast asked about Famima I was brought back to all of these brief memories and it made me think of something that I was reading about recently, which is a concept that originated in literary theory about how there are two landscapes of a story: Landscape of action and landscape of consciousness. The landscape of action is the reality, or the facts of the story. In this instance, bands played at Famima because it was made available to them. The landscape of consciousness however is interpretations of the actions of the people in the story, so basically the meaning of it to the person who heard (or read) the story. In this instance, the idea of bands playing at a convenience store became something of legend, a sort of “you had to be there” type thing and if you weren’t, you missed out. This is small beans in comparison to say, those who were my age and didn’t get to see The Germs or The Ramones at The Whiskey, but to the older punks I know who were there, those shows were just shows to them because they happened to be at that place at that time. So in the landscape of consciousness, it’s the meaning making in retrospect that makes it more than what it was and I just find that to be an interesting phenomena.

Being around long enough to see something seemingly innocuous to me that I had a hand in starting being brought up on a podcast almost 20 years later as something worth even talking about is weird. Perhaps a reframe would be that it’s not so much weird, as it is special. To be a part of something that is remembered, no matter in what capacity, is special. I imagine this will continue to happen as we get older and the more we’re a part of, the more we put ourselves out there and create and do things, the more the world will see it at some point. Perhaps this is just another reminder for me that even though it doesn’t feel like it right now, that life is a marathon and not a sprint. The “Famima era” is just another memory from mile 10 but I still have 16.2 more to go.

Thanks Joyce Manor and thanks Take Break Kazu for the memory lane stroll.

Thanks for reading!

Speaking of marathons, good luck to any readers who are doing Los Angeles Marathon this Sunday. I’ll be cheering from my ZOOM class. Don’t forget to fuel and stretch!

ETC:

record “Never Felt Bitter” is coming out March 27th and we’re playing Healing Force of the Universe in Pasadena with Ben Grey from Dear Boy opening. Tickets here! In Sonic Dreams is co-presenting.

This makes me think of a famous Duke Ellington quote in which he says “I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.” I wonder if he means that without a finish line, there’s no real start, or that a deadline is an invisible goal that allows for focus and clarity to come to light so the thing can get made, whatever it is. Perhaps The Duke himself was a procrastinator and realized without deadlines from record labels, promoters, etc, he wouldn’t be able to fulfill the job, write the songs or gather a band in time. Cynically, I can see this as a mantra for marketing types and upper management to get their staff motivated to do more; however, I also see it another way. This idea of a goal post can be a way to get the creative demons in our mind out if you will, and perhaps the pressure of a deadline allows the work to speak of the moment and not let it stew in the mind forever, because according to science, artists tend to ruminate.

“If you constantly expect yourself to produce perfect “doughs”, then you will become emotionally tied to the outcome. This will cause anxiety or a sense of constant unease.” Yasmeen El Gerbi

Personally, I feel any creative endeavor is generally better served by fear, spontaneity and urgency, which can stem from a hard deadline. My two favorite forms of music, jazz and punk rock, are all about being in and seizing the moment and capturing it in a bottle. There can be a purity and spirited essence that helps to serve the expediency in which the work is created in both genres. However, there are also brilliant records that took a long time to make. For example, The Who recorded the songs for Who’s Next twice in two different studios in full until they got the right feel that helped the songs really soar. Listening to the original versions does feel lesser than, so they made the right call and even though it cost them money and time, they created one of the great rock LP’s of all time and a personal favorite of mine. And then there’s Smile by The Beach Boys. Brian Wilson never actually finished what he started, and the songs all ended up on other records until he rerecorded it with his band many decades later. The point is, there is no absolute right or wrong answer, but there is a balance to be had. I’m reminded of the times in which my intended goal was to get a record done and out as quickly as possible, much to the chagrin of bandmates, as well as the times in which time and care was the intention.

In 2004, my band at the time, E>K>U>K was working on our first official release, a split CD with our friends band The Noise. Conceptually, it was a Godzilla versus Mothra type of conceit in which the songs play out in a back and forth fashion, as a sort of face off battle royale for the most noisy and yell-y and the album art dictated that vibe. Who won? Doesn’t matter…Our singer, guitarist and songwriter Jonathan was honing his home recording skills at the time, and I was working on making Otik Records more of a thing. We were about 20 or 21, and we had the privilege of recording, producing and releasing our own stuff, in true DIY punk fashion but of course since my pre frontal cortex was not fully developed my rational mind was not very rational.

It was the fourth release on Otik Records and one big bugaboo that Jonathan and I always had to work through was that I tended to want to rush things to get them out and he wanted to spend more time with them to get them in as best shape as they can be. I wasn’t really thinking about how this could be better or how this could be looked at through a different lens, it was just this inherent need to rush to get it out. The argument about the timeline didn’t necessarily get heated between him and I, but there is a lyric in the song “I’ve Had Enough” in which he alludes to being rushed to “finish this song” which was inspired by his frustration with me as he admitted it later on. Even the art and the printing of the CD itself was a bit compromised, coming out more pixelated than we would have liked but I had set a timeline and we had to obey it, so the quality was compromised. For what it’s worth, I do think the recordings sound great and I think the band is on fire and it does represent what we sounded like at that moment, but again, the process of creating the CD itself and the rush and the inevitable outcome left a little bit to be desired and my need to rush it out did compromise the effort, but my intentions were arbitrary so there were no clear intentions to communicate. The purpose was nothing more than “getting it done.”

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the experts there are few.”

The above is a Buddhist adage that encourages openness in life and those who don’t know everything, tend to try harder, be more curious and aim for whatever works in the moment. For that release, I was a beginner and I was experimenting with intent and what it took to release an album.

About a decade later, I had started a band called The Do-Its with my ex wife and good friends. The intention of that band was to literally “do it” and do it as quickly but also as efficiently as possible. The mission statement was a reaction to a previous band in which things seemed to move slower than we liked so we capitalized on our impatience, and the intent was to be spontaneous and of the moment, which is vastly different that rushing just to rush like I had done before with E>K>U>K. In the three years of existence, that band, keeping with the intended goal of doing a release each year, produced three releases in three years. That goal was met and I’m still proud of the work we did, but sure enough going back and listening to it now I ask myself “could this have sounded better?” The answer is maybe, but if we had agonized over these songs or the artwork or whatever we did, it would have taken away that intention that was communicated from day one. What was left was raw, simple and fun, but not perfect set of albums and EP’s.

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Being curious and reflecting on these two experiences a decade apart, I am able to see that there is no right or wrong timeline in the way of creating because great things have been made in haste, agonized over, and somewhere in the middle. What I find to be the most important is that the intention and purpose are clear for all involved.

What are we saying?

How do we want it conveyed to the world?

What does it sound and look like?

Perhaps it’s literally a practical reason like a deadline, or money based, but when doing something yourself, with no monetary or timeline barriers, the timeline then must be part of that internal intention or that purpose. Is it checking all of the boxes and is it something you’d be proud to share with the world, even 20 years later?

Duke Ellington’s deadline was likely fiscal, but for a band like , to bring it back home, there was nothing to lose so we took our time because that’s what made sense for the album. I may have gotten frustrated, but I eventually accepted it and I trusted the process, our process, not mine. Realizing that made me more present, more thoughtful and frankly more creative than I would have otherwise been, so I am grateful that I did allow it to take the. time it needed and the outcome couldn’t be better.

I’ll always be impatient from time to time, but I’d like to think I am growing and adapting as my intentions evolve and my patience grows. Carl Jung thought the idea of individuation was not just something that happened in adolescence, but a lifelong psychological process of becoming your true, authentic self.

“In the first half, one is concerned with expanding the ego and “adaptation to collective norms”, such as building personal social status. The second half of life is concerned with coming to terms with death, finding meaning in living and the unique part each one of us plays in the world.”

I can’t wait for the world to hear this record and even though I may have at times annoyed my bandmates to get the thing rushed and put out when I thought I wanted it to, I think we made the right decisions in the end. I fear that because everything in society is happening at a whiplash-inducing speed, we may be forgotten or lost in the sauce, but that’s just a personal existential projection. What if instead of worrying about that, considering that if most things in the world seemed rushed, couldn’t there be space for something to NOT be rushed? Gee, what a concept.

Thanks for reading!

I got to get back to doing homework.

ETC:

Lots of stuff for The Pretty Flowers, including a new single/video

…and album release show announcement.

https://healingforcerecords.com/events/the-pretty-flowers-never-felt-bitter-release-show

Pre order the LP/CD here. Please and Thanks.

Like many, especially those in my algorithmic sphere, I participated in the National Shutdown Blackout strike last Friday where people were encouraged to not go to work, school or spend money. It turned out to be a big success in terms of people on the street and awareness, but I couldn’t find any metrics or stats showing how it affected the economy or if it put any pressure at all on the billionaire class at all. I would guess it didn’t do much because it’s been a week and it’s business as usual. Perhaps it was more symbolic than anything else but at this point, the idea is that the more often we do this (monthly? weekly?) the more we may ideally see considerable change. With that said, there was movement in congress in terms of changing ICE tactics and showing more accountability, because what is happening is clearly not the way. Time will tell.

To ask everyone to not spend money, go to work or go to school can be quite the heavy task for many. I do have feelings about people not going to school and there are many jobs that are needed everyday like teachers and people in health care for example, but I will always stand by the idea of marching in the streets in solidarity with people to highlight the disparities of justice and the lack of accountability there is, especially now with this administration and really, power in general in 2026.

For me, I believe that there is a level of privilege that comes with abstaining from all three, so as it was, I was only able to truly partake in one. I felt work was important because to leave my clients behind would be to defeat the whole purpose. Since I am also in school,I couldn’t not do homework because deadlines are deadlines, right? What I was able to do was not spend a nickel that day. It felt good in my wallet, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I felt weird not spending any money on a Friday, but it was worth it.

There is a fourth component that I felt was overlooked regarding striking and blacking out and that’s social media, specifically the Meta apps like Instagram and Facebook. Meta has been a thief of our time (wink, wink) for far too long and our time spent on these apps is more profit for them and less fulfillment for us. It’s a blueprint built on stealing time and attention, which is time and attention that could go to building a mutual aid group, writing an inspiring protest song, drawing protest signs, literally ANYTHING. Of course, there is a double-edged sword because many use Instagram and Facebook to spread information about things that are happening, on the ground, in real time. I can say without Instagram, I wouldn’t know where things are taking place, when and why and in terms of what’s happening now in LA, where to help neighbors during ICE raids, how to join a kit building group, etc. It’s a news source, albeit an algorithmic, one sided one if you make it so, which is also part of the problem. These apps don’t just waste our time, they actively divide us and as we fall further into our own algorithms we forget that there is an actual world to experience, people to talk to and action to take outside of re-shares and story posts. Yes, re-sharing and story posting is good to spread the word, but at this point, it’s not enough. We need to get our time back.

The time, separation, isolation, fear are all very indicative of addictive behaviors. Shopping and gambling are considered an addiction, so should scrolling, which is based on slot machine machinations and buying stuff.

“ Smartphone apps demand our attention and are so powerful that a tenth of a second vibration in our pocket is enough to make us grab our phones to check, mid-conversation. Our devices are always calling us, even when silently nearby.” - Erika Detweiler, LISW

I have addiction in my blood and have experienced addiction first hand and second hand and my experience with social media and scrolling feels familiar and it’s similar to what my clients, young and old, tell me when they decide why they hit their vape, do drugs or any maladaptive coping behavior really. It’s a compulsion based on deep insecurities within us. I go to Instagram (or whatever app) when I am bored, when I am distressed, when I check for validation and when I am wanting to avoid feeling something. Throughout the day there are moments that I would open my phone and find something to look at as if I was missing something and I’m usually not. If anything, it’s activating a sense of FOMO for something that had nothing to do with me in the first place. Not good for someone with insecurities, so the cycle of stress, need for validation and avoidance continues.

So with all of that said, I made the decision to abstain from Instagram, my worst offender, last Friday. This wasn’t meant for heroics, or an attempt to make a profound statement, nor am I the first to say or do this but I did this because I truly do believe there is an insidious nature to these apps, but more importantly for me, I wanted to maintain my sanity. I have been overstimulated, over-stressed and riddled with anxiety for a while now and I wanted to get my time back and see if it made a difference, even if for one day. I wanted to actually be present, like I am when I’m on a run or on stage playing with my band and I think being present is in itself a form of rebellion in 2026 just as effective, if not more, than a monthly march.

This too was a rad way of showing solidarity and utilizing passion…

Damn. It was hard. In the morning when I wake up and do my routine one of the first things I do out of pure compulsory habit is check Instagram messages or pings (my notifications are turned off) and wouldn’t you know, that Friday the first thing I did out of compulsory habit was open the app. Realizing immediately that I was not supposed to, I turned it right off. It happened THAT fast. This is how addicted I am. The compulsions came and went throughout the morning, but I maintained and by the end of the day, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I wanted to know how the protests were going, if there was push back, etc, but I refrained and I was present, just like I wanted to be. I didn’t know about anything that happened that day until my band mates gave me the update the following day at a video shoot. It felt nice to not have been inundated with 6 inch images all day. I knew that time went on without me and I was cool with it for once.

What I learned from abstaining from Instagram for the day was that I was less edgy, less stimulated, more engaged and in the moment, even if that moment was a short quiet break from work looking at planes fly by. The disengagement made me feel MORE engaged with myself and my surroundings, not what was happening on the other side of town or the world. More importantly, I got time back. I’m not one who spends hours on these apps, but combined throughout the week, I could have engaged in something else instead of making money for Mark Zuckerberg, I could be making money for myself, or engaging in real life with someone or frankly, doing nothing. The kind of nothing that opens my mind up for exploration, which I long for again.

I may sound like a broken record, but with any abstinence or any change of maladaptive behaviors, like an addiction, an opposite action needs to be taken and it needs to be as consistent as the problem behavior was. It needs to build, like a muscle. For me, writing here or talking about it with others on the regular will help push me away from the addictive behavior until the compulsory habit ceases to be, or evolves into a more adaptive one. Time will tell.

Thanks for reading. Talk soon.

ETC:

Pre-order’s are up for next record, Never Felt Bitter (good title, right?) and here’s a post from the band with links to stream it, some press and how to buy it. Thanks in advance!

I am playing drums for my old buddy Eli Taratula (The Monolators) on Sunday, February 15 in Eagle Rock at The Fable. It’s a free show! Why not?!

Sunday, February 15 is also the next Los Angeles Cinephile Run Club event. We’ll be running through Torrance, checking out locations from the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Hosted by Monkish Brewing.

We are being inundated with this information minute after minute and even if you don’t have the most robust news diet, you are still smothered with this information on social media, perhaps in small, but potent amounts. The thing is, even small amounts are enough to drag you into submission, taking you out of your own reality, into the DT Gravitron even when you’re actively trying to avoid it. If you aim to follow and understand, like I try to do, it’s easy to get angry, to disassociate, or sometimes, like me, feel so hopeless that I start to look elsewhere and distract from the feeling. That’s the point though, isn’t it? To overload us with these uncomfortable and heavy emotions so we either act reactively and fight, usually in a comments thread, or zonk out literally or figuratively in an endless doom-scroll on our phones, partake in retail therapy, or basically anything that doesn’t involve higher cognition or any real effort to change things. It sucks, but this is what we are given now. What do we do?

For the record, I’m not using this as a vessel for political discourse, but rather to be curious about and have a conversation about distraction versus activation. It’s not speaking out of school to say however that this age of distraction we live in is being nurtured and weaponized by our president, but it also doesn’t mean we have to jump on the Gravitron either. We have a part in this, sad to say.

Those who read for pleasure are becoming extinct and in a study from University of Florida, it turns out the number of people that read for pleasure has dropped by 40%. Of course, there are a plethora of reasons for this including smart phone distractions and the rise of short form, mostly video, content and the fact that most people just don’t have the time to read and whatever free time we do have, it’s likely used to numb out because life out here is hard. Reading takes time and effort, but unfortunately, the rewards are not immediate, so why wait for intellectual long term gains, when dopamine hits are constantly ready in your pocket? It’s a miracle that Substack has grown because it’s a place for people to read and think about reading, “Notes” be damned. Yes, it’s short-ER form, but it’s still a place for creators to go when they have something to say and share and people participate.

“What do you observe when you see people waiting in line? You see everyone looking at their phones. Nobody just stands there thinking. We have trained our brains to instantly shift to mindless activities whenever we are bored or restless, instead of thinking about the deeper issues in our lives.” - Andrew Gottlieb

This has me thinking about creation, my output, and what it all means right now. I am susceptible to the gravitational pull of the media and I try to stay informed by listening to NPR in the morning and yes, scrolling algorithmically of course, at more left-wing outlets on Instagram, but I’m not the type to constantly check on Reddit to get the minute by minute because that in and of itself is a full time job and I already have one of those. It’s all to say that with everything in our pocket vying for our attention, I find it to be too much. Within an hour of waking up, I am already the guy from Scanners with my head about to explode and some days my head does explode and I’m left trudging through the rest of the day without a head. I need my head and my brain to retain information for school, for my job, for life and all of this stuff in the world is drawing me in keeping me away from what’s actually in front of me and what’s truly important for me and it’s really heartbreaking.

I want to keep creating and I need space, mental space, to do so. I don’t know about any of you, but that space in between, whether it’s for reading, watching a stimulating film or just doing nothing, allowing ideas and thoughts in, has become rarer and rarer to attain. I’ll normally have a couple ideas for Substacks at the ready each week, usually after I go on a long run, contemplating a fun anecdote about a past band, or some sort of musing based on what I’ve learned, but I find myself to be completely overloaded, that my mind isn’t free enough to just think and I chip away at my To-Do’s without the pleasure of creating something new because I ran out of time and I’m tired.

In order to think, to be creative and to come up with something that wasn’t there before, the mind has to be open. There has to be a level of quiet, of emptiness but that’s just not the case for me right now. Miles Davis said “Don’t play what’s there; play what’s not there.” and if you reframe that in the lens of time, the idea is to not get reeled in by the noise and allow yourself to not be there and lose yourself in thought. Don’t think about what’s there. Think about what’s not there. This is how things are created and we need more creation now than ever. Whether it’s here on Substack, or Soundcloud or, fuck it, even Tik Tok, the idea is that these distractions are keeping us from new ideas, new songs, new writings to emerge, because we’re all burnt out and we truly don’t know what’s coming next. If last weekend was any indication, we’re in it for the long haul, so let’s challenge what we’re given and not get on the DT Gravitron anymore. I may be unconsciously trying to pump myself up here, but I know I’m not the only one.

Miles Davis also said “When you’re creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain’t the limit.” Let’s get out of our put upon boxes and create some shit together, shall we?

Thanks for reading! Is it 2027 yet?

ETC:

new single “Came Back Kicking” is out this week via Forge Again Records! If you don’t already, follow us here as we’ll give updates on the regular and share more than we do on Instagram. While you’re at it, pre-order the album now. It’s officially out 3/27!

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“Don’t carry the load by yourself. Even a sheet of paper is better lifted together” - No Other Choice

What draws us to a movie? Is it star power? Is it critical acclaim? What is it about certain movies that stick with us after the lights go up? When I think about what drew me to certain movies in 2025, I considered something more macro than a series of self-contained stories and faces; I thought about the implications about the world right now and even though movies take years to make, the themes on display seem solely rooted in and reflect 2025 in a deeper way. The cliche, which I do believe to be true, is that art is a reflection of our times, but there was something more overt about where filmmakers planted their feet this year that feels different and it was cool that they all did it in different ways. For example, one of my favorite films of the year, Eddington, exemplified modern life in the most honest, raw, brutal and uncomfortable way, which to some seemed either “too soon” or “too on the nose” and then there is a film like Toxic Avenger, which on the surface is silly, but is actually saying a lot about tolerance and how the prevalence of toxic internet culture and bullying are more dangerous than ever, but under the guise of an exploitation shlocker. Both have different approaches, but both FEEL very 2025.

With that said, the consistent theme that swirled around in my head all year was this idea that rugged individualism, “pulling up bootstraps” and going alone just isn’t cutting it anymore and in order things done, be it art, raising a family, dealing with trauma, or starting a political revolution, it must be done as a collective and that individualistic mindset leads to isolation, which can be dangerous. You know, idle hands and all that… Films like Eddington and to an extent, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, show that isolation can create thought vacuums that can lead to anxiety, gullibility and breaks from reality.

We as a collectivist species need a push and pull, a yin and yang if you will, to create conversations, build ideas and work toward a greater good. Even if one feels they’re on their own intellectual island, but can allow others in, it can result in something interesting, as seen in Nouvelle Vague. Without the actors and crew both agreeing with and pushing against Jean Luc Goddard’s flighty and finicky ideas, Breathless would not be the classic is became, or so Richard Linkalter’s interpretation said so. Or what if forced isolation like COVID gave bored but driven friends the time to think outside the box and create something insane, but beautiful together, like building a production of Hamlet inside of Grand Theft Auto, as seen in the film Grand Theft Hamlet, which I feel added a new layer to film making ingenuity. Even Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson in One Battle After Another was forced out of his self induced isolation to re join the revolution he was a part of starting by searching for his kidnapped daughter with the help from his friends, including Benicio Del Toro’s Sergio St Carlos, and of course with a few small beers. Even the sweet Indy the dog in Good Boy knew that life alone without his Dad was not a life worth living. Rose Bryne’s Linda from If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Eva Victor’s Agnes from Sorry, Baby learned that part of healing from trauma involves letting other people in to help process and cope. The point is, as much as we may think or are told we can, we can’t always do it alone and maybe the world is still healing from the collective trauma of Covid, or the current trauma of a Trump 2.0 or we’re just feeling the general weight of being alive in 2025, so perhaps that’s why these films resonate so much.

Is it that, or is that just me?

The desire to be with others, to create, to go on adventures sits heavy with me right now. It’s a cold and rainy Friday night and I am home alone writing this, when really I want to be having a few small beers with friends or waxing poetic about art, or better yet, creating something that didn’t exist before. Of course, I do those things, but in general, I crave it now more than ever, as I feel I have isolated myself in many ways, whether that be necessity, convenience or something more personal. As I binged movies mostly alone these last two weeks and thought about any thematic threads, I am reminded of how important togetherness and being with others is.

With that, here are my top 13 of 2025 in somewhat of an order…

Eddington - Like I stated above, it’s honest, raw, brutal and uncomfortable. It’s also infuriating, fascinating, hilarious and upsetting. Similar to life, isn’t it? This may be called a COVID movie to many, but it’s more future than that. It’s not mask mandates that will separate us, it’s data centers and isolationism. Ari Aster really knows how to upset us.

Sorry, Baby - Another honest, raw, brutal, hilarious and upsetting movie, but also a perfect balance of how we all deal with trauma differently. There’s no one real answer to how, so we do our best and that’s what Agnes does here with the help of her friends and a cute cat.

If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You - Speaking trying our best, Rose Byrne gave my favorite performance of the year; a woman who is so burnt out from compassion fatigue and burnt out from life that we can’t help but to feel it WITH her. Tough watch, but oddly funny at times and quite an experience I haven’t yet shaken off.

Toxic Avenger - “Sometimes You Gotta Do Something” was my quote of the summer. With L.A. being in disarray most of the year, that quote rang true in the most real way for me. This is not just a frivolous remake of an 80’s exploitation film. It’s got way more heart and soul for that, but of course there are plenty of stupid gags and gore to make you giggle throughout. It rivaled Naked Gun (which almost made the list) with laughs per second for me.

One Battle After Another - Everyone has already said everything about this, but I’ll say that watching the scene with the molotov cocktail throwing plant cop just weeks after being in an ICE protest myself and seeing that same thing really happen speaks to how effortlessly PTA managed to make this feel so potent and of the moment. It’s also entertaining as hell.

No Other Choice - Speaking of a film of the moment, this hilarious and deeply upsetting take on the ravages of corporate work and capitalism had me enthralled for its entire two plus hours. Park Chan Wook so effortlessly uses the canvas of film to flitter around genres and tones that I was laughing, crying and recoiling within one scene. The idea of doing literally whatever it takes to stay alive, or in Man-su’s case, getting a job, hits hard in 2025. Our global desperation is on full display here. I will now go and read the source material, Donald Westlake’s “The Ax.”

It Was An Accident - Jafar Panahi’s new film, similarly to Wook’s No Other Choice, can’t fit into a genre box or even a quick explainer such as this. I was unaware of Pahani’s backstory before watching the film, but knowing it after added weight to this heavy story that is surely made with spirit and humor, but it’s also deadly serious about how revenge can blind us to make decisions that go beyond our own reasoning. This may be Iranian, but the echoes of it are everywhere. It sneaks up on you. Be warned.

Influencers - Freddy, Jason, Michael and now, CW. A very worthy sequel to one of my favorites of 2023. The blood, plot and sex gets kicked up a notch as most sequels tend to do, but it’s more that. The twists and turns truly do surprise and the beautiful locations still mystify. How they made this on such a small budget is astounding.

Nouvelle Vague - Richard Linklater’s love letter not just to the film Breathless and the French New Wave cinema of the late 1950’s, but of creation and what it means to make art. It’s less a behind the scenes recreation as it’s advertised and more a good hang movie, which is Linklater’s bread and butter. It made me happy and gave me a Duke Ellington quote that will carry around my head rent free; “I don’t need time. I need a deadline”

One Of Them Days - There is usually one Los Angeles centered film that comes out every year and most are about show business. But every so often something like this comes out and shows other parts of this beautiful, frustrating and expansive city. Many claim Friday as a main inspiration and even though I see it, I feel the comparison traps it because it truly is it’s own thing, which is a really charming and funny movie with really serious subtext about the fears of not making rent on time. Like No Other Choice, both Keke Palmer and SZA’s Alyssa and Druex are forced to do whatever it takes to avoid eviction, even if Katt Williams warns them of the evils of loans.

Good Boy - How could I not love a horror film from the POV of a sweet pup named Indy? The opening scene was close to “Up” for me in terms of waterworks, but my dog did pass this year so it was all too bittersweet. There is a DIY inventiveness to this film and sure, it could have been an episode of Tales From The Crypt and not a full length, but given what it is and how it was made, I was genuinely impressed. Let’s invite Indy to the Oscars…

Grand Theft Hamlet - During lockdown, two out of work British actors got bored and decided to stage a making of and execution of Hamlet within the game Grand Theft Auto. To be honest, I never played that game, so it was a bit disorienting sitting in it for 90 minutes, but what those two created was something special; Not just film making ingenuity and, like Good Boy, a real sense of DIY fortitude, they made something with heart and loads of humor. It’ll never not be funny watching a game character act out the famous “To Be Or Not To Be…” monologue while a random passerby throws a grenade at them. There’s also a real pathos shown here about the collaboration process that I was not expecting. This is true thinking outside the box, even if imperfect.

Pee-Wee as Himself - I almost didn’t add this to the list, although I got very emotional watching it when it came out a few months back. Last week I went to a screening of the Pee Wee Christmas Special in a theater with a crowd spanning at least 3 generations having the best time, screaming when “Year” was said and dressing up in their favorite silly holiday attire or Pee Wee cosplay. Seeing and experiencing joy with that crowd that night made me realize how powerful Pee Wee is and that power I believe, was to share his artistic freedom and imagination that had no boundaries and it empowered those of us who felt different and made us feel less alone. Experiencing Pee Wee group love inspired me to round out the year list with this wonderful documentary.

2024 Hold Out:

Secret Mall Apartment - A fascinating and poignant documentary about a scrappy collective of young artists who built a makeshift apartment in the guts of a newly built mall in the early aughts. See, kids? We had fun before smart phones! It crosses the intersection of “fun on the surface” and “this is really about sticking it to the mega corporations who buy out and blow out parts of local culture for capitalistic gain.” It’s worth fishing for.

Honorables: The first dinner scene in Black Bag, The Mastermind, The Naked Gun, Sinners, Train Dreams, Sentimental Value, Frankenstein, K-Pop Demon Hunters, Fantastic Four (I am a sucker for that property), 28 Years Later, Bring Her Back, Friendship, Final Destination: Bloodlines and lastly because it was charming and a lot of fun and NO ONE is giving it love, Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues.

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Thanks for reading!

“One task in life is synthesis. It is to collect all the fragmented pieces of a self and bring them to a state of unity, so that you move coherently toward a single vision.” - David Brooks

This year was a series of major peaks and valleys, mostly valleys if I’m to be honest, and as I reflect on the last 12 months, I am reminded of a book I read earlier in the year by David Brooks called The Second Mountain. In it, he makes the observation that it takes us climbing a figurative second mountain to really discover who we are, but before that, we must summit the first mountain, which represents individualistic success and other self focused goals. We then have an inevitable fall, the valley if you will, that helps define what is truly meaningful for us and as we traverse up the second mountain, we focus on deeper connections, community and more collectivist ideas.

There is this dissonance at the end of the year where we all tend to reflect on what we did or didn’t do, what we feel should have happened and what actually did happen. This shouldacouldwoulda thought process can manifest into guilt or shame, which I believe is why people buy a gym pass on January 1 or do “dry January” because it’s a way to atone for the years’ supposed transgressions or lack of focus and balance. What happens though, is that the gyms empty out in February and maybe dry January becomes a very wet February, thus the balance is off again. Of course, this is a very generalized statement and not meant to be a slight on those who do these things, but there is something to be said about looking at the past year and being curious about what worked and what didn’t work and to make the attempt to act accordingly as we move on to the next year. This theme of shedding of, or perhaps in my case, reflecting and being curious about my past and finding current and related themes has been prevalent in my writings here on Substack.

Looking back at the year, this Substack has been less fun anecdotes of the past, like it used to be, and now I suppose for lack of a better word more of a public diary. I never had a Live Journal or Blogspot, nor have I had a desire to write prior to this Substack experiment I started three years ago, so I’m still figuring out my rhythm and intention if there even is one. When people send me messages or reply to posts with kind words like, “I really related to a b and c” or “I’ve never thought of it that way” or “you really got me thinking about this and that” really shows me at least that this isn’t just a lesson in futility or ego stroking; It’s a conversation amongst friends, followers, people. It’s a coffee shop hang without the bad soundtrack, high cost of lattes or the anxiety over the awkward silences. We can read, write and share ideas on our own time and reflect on our own time and not rush to react, as we are wont to do in the social media age. Sure, I’d rather have a face to face conversation, but I feel I can make more poignant points on paper because when I am talking, my mouth tends to move faster than my brain. This is all to say I feel fulfilled doing this experiment and to be ok to make it unabashedly vulnerable and honest, which I think is important in the social media age.

To bring it back to the second mountain analogy, I think that this year was indeed a valley. My second mountain is coming and as I summit, I aim to finish grad school, start to collect clinical hours and push toward being a clinician. Also in 2026, will finally release our third record, which I am beyond proud of but also horrified as to how it will be not just received, but if it’s heard at all. I know it will be heard obviously, but I want this to receive the amount of love we have poured into it. This realization, or maybe it’s acceptance, that I have no control over who listens to the record and how is also part of my climb and growth. It’ll be what it’ll be and the point is that I love creating with the band and that internal satisfaction will always outweigh the external… I just have to remind myself of this more often. I want to work on my relationships more given my constraints and build a stronger bond with me and ’s new pup. The treadmill will continue to move, I just need to pace myself better.

My second mountain is upon me, so before I climb, cheers to a year that will hopefully be just a little bit better personally. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, which arguably is a dumpster fire, but the more we can build community and find ways to climb our own second mountains, we can help deal with the dumpster fire a little better, right? So, here’s to a less anxiety inducing and a more loving, thoughtful and caring 2026! If the pigs up top don’t want that, we can at least have it in our little pockets of the world, right?

Without further adieu, I would like to steal an idea from my friend and share 5 posts from 2025 that I am most proud of or that got the most love. If you are a follower or a reader of this, comment and let me know which one was your fave.

#1 - My tribute to Bandit. Hands down, this was my proudest piece. I knew he was on his way out for a while, so I slowly began collecting thoughts in the ensuing months because I needed to step back and see the full picture and not the immediate fears and frustrations of having a dying pet. The reflection allowed for more love to pour from my heart and to be fully and 1000% attentive with him on his last days. Love you Buddy.

#2 - Bieber and Dostoyevsky Walk Into A Bar. This seems to be a constant theme for me: existential fears of a musician who didn’t live up to their expected success. This piece connected something I heard on Howard Stern and got me to reflect on a time where I was given a decision but chose a path that made sense for me at the time instead of following what our band lawyer at the time said was “your big break” and even though I don’t regret it, I still think about it from time to time.

#3 - A Beach Punk Show To End All Beach Punk Shows - This was a nice trip down memory lane for me and I got a lot of good feedback from those who were at this insane party, or were adjacently part of this early aughts punk/indie scene I was a part of. There was some sadness writing it however because, as I mentioned in the piece, some people in this photo are no longer with us and reminded me that it’s not just that scenes and bands are impermanent.

#4 - We Might Get Fooled Again. is one of my favorite Substack writers and even though he writes about the horrible things happening in our world, he proposes solutions at the end that helps the bitter flavor go down and I find it to be more hopeful than depressing. This is sort of a version of that. I felt disillusioned that week (most weeks this year, really) and I took to his style to write something that wasn’t so much a complaint but a conversation where I tried to add some sort of solution hook to the end.

#5 - I Want The World To Stop. Perhaps it’s fitting to end this year end list with a post about time. This is a very consistent and perhaps repetitive theme for me, which is that time keeps moving me on a hypothetical treadmill so fast and before I know it, I burn out. Rinse. Repeat. It’s something that this year has taught me in the least subtlest of ways, but I am aware of it and working on not forcing the world to stop, because it won’t and I can’t. I also liked the car analogy…

If I continue to do this in 2026 as consistently as I have the last three years, I want the conversations to keep going because I really do think we need more “public” forums that don’t feel like an isolated panopticon with ads. Maybe I’m too optimistic about Substack right now and perhaps the other shoe will drop at some point, but for now I feel good about it and I appreciate all the love I receive here and I hope to continue to grow as a writer and a thinker on this experiment. Again, thank you all for reading, commenting and reaching out. You could literally be doing anything with your time and you decide to read this weekly and I am grateful for it. Happy New Year.

pic by Sam Tiger

It’s official. The time has come. Extra extra! Read all about it! Here ye, hear ye, come hither!

Our ( ) third album is officially done, soon off to the pressing plant and ready to infiltrate your ears in 2026. We have a new record label, Forge Againout of Chicago, and a new single out in January.

We don’t want to give everything away yet, so for you Sub-Subscribers we thought we’d share a little something here before everyone else.

I pulled together some photos from our recording session back in December 2023 - 2 years from this week - and I cut together this quick little video which I hope conveys the vibe of making the record…

I have been reflecting on what putting out a record in 2025 is like for a band like ours. Obviously, creating a record is a lot of work, but so is figuring out how to get it out to as many people as possible given certain limitations we have. Sometimes it can feel to me like we’re a tree falling in the forest with no one around. There’s a certain amount of control we have as creators when we are writing the music, doing the artwork and essentially building out and making the “product.” However, as soon as it’s out there in the world, it’s not ours anymore and whatever control we had has completely diminished.

In 2025, it seems success, at least the external kind, is based on metrics. Each app, website or vessel that a band is a part of has stats, numbers and lists that account for how many people listened and how many followers you have. This is very different from what used to be, where the songs, the art, the performance meant something beyond the metrics and the art spoke for itself. I still believe the latter to be true, but it can feel less so nowadays given how everything is part of some set of stats, see Spotify wrapped as an example. I don’t want to come off as defeatist or complaining, I’m just merely observing that the expectations of today are different, but no matter what, we know as a band will do what is best for us. We have no expectations beyond staying true to our values, which for me, are honesty and autonomy. We intend to try stuff and do interesting things with this record in terms of its reach and promotion because, really, we have nothing to lose. How we share it with the world is within our control and with that we’ll maintain our autonomy and present it as honestly as we can, so let’s see how the next few months go, shall we?

We’re going to start booking more shows and playing out of town as much as we can and likely do some interviews and definitely do a little more writing here on Substack because here we can have a direct line to you all and it feels more organic than having you sift through a bunch of ads and other content on the other platforms to get to our posts. We can also have a conversation here that will be more honest and free of vitriol and sass. On Facebook or Instagram we can sometimes get lost in the sauce and we don’t know who sees what we post, so at least here this is direct. With all that being said, we’re so excited to share this record with you all in 2026! More to come.

Peaceandlovepeaceandlove,

Sean

“ We can’t trust ourselves completely if things are going our way all the time. Trust is not based on preferred outcomes trust is based on the commitment to try and to being open to learning which could sometimes mean making a mistake. “ - Mike Friedman

I’ve missed posting here the last couple of weeks not for lack of trying, but because it’s been very busy as I get through finals in school, holidays and general life stuff. What was also happening and why I needed to stop and take a quick look in the mirror was that I was having continuous panic attacks for about a week straight. It’s not uncommon for me to have intermittent panic attacks especially when big life changes occur, which is why I found it a bit ironic that in my last post, I had said in regards to continuing the story of the compilation and the ensuing fest, “...I did put together a weekend long record release “fest” for this comp, which was also when I had my first panic attack” Timing…

The last aforementioned post here was about how I put together a compilation CD with 26 local bands that had been playing out at the time when I was 19. It was a large undertaking-especially for a teenager-but I looked to my heroes like Epitaph Records, SST Records and other punk rock adjacent DIY labels who showed me that this can be done with very little cash and a lot of intention.

Prepping it, getting the bands together, doing the artwork and figuring out best practices for pressing 1,000 CD’s didn’t seem like hard work because I was doing something creative, exciting and doing it with friends. I had a lot of fun during the process, at least that’s how I remembered it. The thing is, when one charts new territory, doing something they’ve never done before and faking it till they make it, there is a substantial amount of stress involved that can go unchecked. As humans, we are meant to get stressed from time to time and in fact, it is a very adaptive trait for us, because releasing cortisol or adrenaline motivates us to run from tigers and deal with bosses. However, when we become addicted to doing things that motivate us, to push ahead, that feeling can make us think that this feeling, this constant motion, is what it takes to be successful, the body and mind be damned. This was my mode and I suppressed the feelings and the warning signs that I was in over my head and I plowed, pridefully going 1,000 miles per hour.

I knew that once the CD was in motion I had to do a record release show to showcase all of these bands in this burgeoning scene. I did a couple fundraising shows to get a head start, but since the train wasn’t going to stop, I decided filling up a credit card was the way to go to get this thing paid for, which gave me my first taste of debt. I always thought of the story of Kevin Smith saying he filled up a credit card to make Clerks, and like many motivated (maybe delusional) teens at the time, that story was inspiring. If he can, so can I. I know now relying on predatory credit card companies is not the smart move, but I was less concerned about that at 19 because I thought pulling this community of bands together was more important and I figured at some point I would pay it off, even though at the time I was working at Tower Records and making $6 an hour. But I digress…

When deciding where to have the show, I knew it couldn’t be a bar. It had to be all ages and we needed full autonomy of the schedule, how we got people in and out, and how it was promoted. I was able to convince the Veteran of Foreign Wars Hall in Redondo Beach to let me take over the space for a full weekend. This venue was meant for banquets, birthday parties and of course veterans, not for what we had in mind. I’m forever grateful for their willingness to take a chance on me and for any venue that did for that matter because, especially in the time in the South Bay, there weren’t many non-bars to play at all.

Assembling the bands to send me a recording was one thing, but to get them to do the show was another feat in and of itself and like Nick Fury, I assembled everyone I wanted, even though a few took some real convincing for some reason, and then it was time to promote.

The hardest thing to do as a promoter is promote and in my head, 26 bands telling some friends would be enough to spread the word and that my job in this department would be minimal, but that was not to be. My adrenaline kicked into overdrive and I fliered, fliered and fliered, hitting every record store, coffee shop and even sat at all of the LA Weekly stands in the area, putting fliers in every single issue I could. I made tickets at Kinkos and even had perforation on them so they would rip like a normal ticket. If anyone pre-ordered the CD at the local record stores, they would get a ticket to the event so I was able to incentivize getting tickets in advance. I covered every base and this was pre social media and smart phones so it was all tangible, physical, real world stuff.

As the weeks led up to the show, I discovered that presales were very low and all the while I was getting berated by a few of the record shop owners because I was green when it came to setting wholesale versus retail prices so I didn’t undercut the reseller. I wanted the CD’s to be $5, no more and that meant the wholesale should be far less. Duh. Lesson learned. Being yelled at, knowing that ticket sales were low, I was having these intense fears of not being good enough, imposter syndrome, and discovering the control slipping away from me really took its toll on me mentally, but again, I was suppressing and it was leading me away from the more activating, adaptive stress and it was turning more into distress because I was overwhelmed and unable to cope with the demands that I had placed upon myself.

This all led up to me having a panic attack the week leading up to the show. I was expressing some of my concerns to my then girlfriend and like a dam bursting, it just came out. I wept, or maybe it was a loud ugly cry, with bonus shaking and hyperventilating for what seemed about 2 hours. She was calming and helped me through it, and even though I know I may have traumatized or scared her, her presence helped me and helped the waves pass. After the panic attack I was activated again and kicked back into gear, without processing or being curious about why the dam burst in the first place.

The problem was there’s only so much I was and am able to suppress and the tension has to be let go like a pressure cooker and since our emotions are like a pressure cooker, they could burst at any moment so we have to release the valve once in awhile. I’ve never been good at releasing the valve and I’m still afflicted with these things today; fear of losing control, deep insecurity and not being good enough. Old habits die hard.

Luckily, the show itself was a huge success. We eventually sold a lot of tickets at the door (which was another lesson learned that most people buy at the door) and everyone had a great time. It happened to also be my band From.’s last show and coincidentally at the same venue we had our first show at, so there was definitely a nice full circle moment there. It was also a very weird mix of bands because I had the jazz band playing right before the hardcore punk band and the goth band playing right before the heavy rock band, etc. That was kind of my point though: to bridge the genre gap and to showcase different bands and artists to build a more diverse crowd and scene. It’s a lesson that I feel is important even today because I feel having four bands that sound exactly the same on a bill is not interesting. Plus from a business point of view, different bands have different crowds so you can maximize your amount of people at the show if you think outside the box a little bit. Perhaps some of the choices were extreme but again, I was learning.

Where this leads me today is this idea that yes, old habits do die hard, but it doesn’t mean those habits hold sway the way they used to. Doing that “fest” and making the CD was in many ways me discovering how to be an adult because I was making big decisions and big investments, especially for a teenager. If I had these big dreams and goals, I had to grow up a bit even if it meant jumping into the deep end and pushing myself to my limits. Here I am 22 years later moving into another huge life change, making big decisions that can alter my life moving forward and again, I am continuing to push myself past my limits. The short term activating stress has long since passed and I am in distress mode, but this time it feels different because I have perspective.

I am reminded of this idea that when people’s mental health is compromised, they lose trust in themselves and when things are going their way, the trust comes back. This can be misleading and misguided. I think we have to trust ourselves more when we are compromised, when the panic or overwhelm kicks in because if we don’t, we slip into that abyss of insecurity, self loathing and shame. If we blindly trust ourselves when things are going right then we have no backup plan for when things are not going right and we further distrust ourselves, affecting our mental health in negative ways. With that, we must trust that the hard decisions we make are ones that will serve us and for the better because if we do, that trust will guide us all the way to the end. If I hadn’t trusted my dream of putting this CD and show together, I would have given up. If I am not trusting that my current life trajectory is for the better in the long term, I’d be in the same rut I was 5 years ago. When we’re in survival mode, it’s hard to take a long view, but if we have a better understanding of what that stress does to us, both good and bad, we can better guide not just our decisions, but how we react to them so the dam doesn’t always burst, like it does and will likely do again for me.

With that said, nothing easy is worth doing.

Thanks for reading ad continued thanks to all of the subscribers. I’d do this without any subscribers, but having you all continue to follow this project give me a bonus kick in the butt to keep it alive. Much love.

I hope everyone is ready to get the hell out of 2025. What a year, huh?

ETC:

• Our Skid Row Food / Hygiene Kit Handout was an amazing success! I wrote a little bit about it on Instagram here . I appreciate everyone who donated three time, money and efforts. It was and is always a special weekend for me.

• I’m doing a random one-off Nirvana/Pixies tribute show tonight (12/11) with some friends if you get this newsletter on time, come out to the Monty in DTLA!

  

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  This song came to mind…

Starting in the fall of 2002, I interned at Epitaph Records for about 6 months. I grew up a fan of the label like most other suburban teens from Southern California at the time, buying Bad Religion, The Offspring and Rancid records with reckless abandon. To “work” there felt unreal. When I was working there, I too decided to start my own label with the sole purpose of putting out my own bands records, the same way Brett Gurewitz did so many years before. Unlike Brett, who left Bad Religion to do the label full time, I had no eye on success with the label, because my goals were to be writing and performing, not running a business. Either way, I still started Otik Records as a way to have my band From. be “on a label” because I thought bands who had CD’s without a record label were amateur, even though I was as amateur as it gets, I still knew that it’s about appearance. So instead of “shopping” From. around (to be honest, we weren’t a very marketable band anyway) we played gigs, saved the cash and pressed the CD’s, just like the way Epitaph, Fat, Hopeless, Vegas and all the other indie bands and labels did at the time.

ASIDE: The name Otik Records came from the film Little Otik, which I had seen at the time and thought was thought provoking and bat shit crazy.

The name Otik, or also Otesánek, loosely translates to cute or childlike felt right, as I was kind of a child at the time, in over my head and hungry to grow, just like the tree stump in the film.

As we waited for From. CD’s to be made, I was thinking about how great it was that bands were coming together each weekend to see each other’s shows, to sit in when needed, to help sell merch and to just hang. It was like a family was building. 1 band turned into 2, turned into 5, into 10 etc, etc. This got me thinking about those compilations that were so prevalent in the 1990’s that the aforementioned labels were putting out, specifically Epitaph’s “Punk o Rama” and for me, Orange County’s Vegas records “Hey Brother…” compilations. These collections filled the entirety of the CD, 74 minutes, and had upwards of 20 songs. It was a bargain and a brilliant way to get a taste of what each label, or scene had to offer. The best part was that they happened to be very cheap, like $5, so a kid like me could buy it. It wasn’t a new concept as this was something that labels did, but at that time the youth movement with punk rock, skateboarding, ska and DIY music in general gravitated to these comps and each subsequent indie label followed suit and so did I.

I felt this was the right time to be able to bottle this thing up and take a snapshot of that specific time and place. I didn’t have the luxury of retrospect or the insight of impertinence at the time, but I knew this had to be captured somehow, someway.

As I started building this compilation together From. had broken up and I had started a new band called Eartha Kitt UK later to be called E>K>U>K so I continued to be “out there” more and more bands would form, or come by and see what was doing and it became pretty clear that whatever was happening had some juice, so my friend Frank, who played bass in the band 2 Minute Hate, later Rock Goggle Fantasy, discussed that a compilation should be put together with all these bands. We came up with the name The South Bay Complication.

The idea behind the name was to showcase the smattering of genres and bands that were a part of this particular scene and that it was….complicated and it wouldn’t be like Punk O Rama where it’s just punk bands, although we did have a lot of them. We wanted to show how diverse this particular pocket of bands at this particular time was. Unfortunately, there were some creative, not personal, differences between Frank and myself and our joint idea fell through but I felt compelled to continue it so I ran the concept and kept working on it.

When all said and done, we had 26 bands featured. Of course we had punk bands, but also indie rock bands, a jazz band, an electro goth band, a joke folk band and all in between and maybe even a Nu Metal band? I forgot…

(The art was kids in a playground and meant to convey what this scene felt like. A punk rock sand box if you will…)

Once I got my 1,000 copies pressed, I wanted to pay tribute to the labels that inspired me and I aimed to charge only $5 and no more for this compilation. This allowed me to give the bands a handful of free discs and sell the rest at shows and retail at a cost that wouldn’t totally make me lose my shorts. Besides, money wasn’t the point and it never was. With this compilation, I wanted to do for others what Epitaph, Vegas and Hopeless did for me and my peers, which was to be a musical equalizer and make something at a price that people who only had $5 could buy so they could get a dose of local music. Ironically, it’s on Amazon and Discogs for more than $5. Don’t do that. If you’re curious, see below…

(Here it is on Bandcamp…)

We had a few reviews, including one in Maximumrocknroll that said how random it was and that the reviewer found himself skipping through most of it. I think that is okay. The idea wasn’t to have a cohesive sonically sound concept record but more a look at a place in time and a tiny piece of history that showed how interesting, weird and fun this particular scene was at this particular moment in time. I too skip through a lot of it, but I am proud of how it came out, especially having done it at such a small scale. I was 19. What the hell did I know?

I’ll leave you with a funny review from SKRATCH magazine…

(“…a good deal!”- Chad)

And no, Chad. East Bay is VERY far from South Bay…

I will save for a later post, but I did put together a weekend long record release “fest” for this comp, which was also when I had my first panic attack… Fun!

Thanks for reading. What was your scene like back in the day? I’d love to know!

ETC:

• Our Skid Row Food / Hygiene Kit Handout is this weekend. If you’re interested in helping, sign up here before Friday, Nov 19. In short, some friends and co-horts of mine come together to build food and hygiene for our unhoused neighbors in Skid Row on Saturday followed by the hand out on Sunday. W are adding a bonus food component for those hit by the SNAP cuts happening at the moment. Every donation, penny and minute spent helping is a big step toward helping those in LA who need it most. We can’t do this shit alone.

I left for the trip feeling wholly unprepared. I had back to back gigs the previous two nights and with work and school in the mix, my packing and preparation felt scant and rushed, with no time for grounding and no time to breathe. We got up at 5am so we could rush to get in the ticket line, to get to the TSA line so we can make it to the bathroom line before we get in line for the gate. Then after a few hours of sitting uncomfortably, we de-board so we could rush to wait again in another line. I am not talking out of school here as this is normal for travel, but I tend to ruminate on the process instead of accepting it for what it is, which makes it all feel frenetic and anxiety inducing. Basically, this scene from Home Alone 2 conveys what is happening in my head when I am traveling.

I sound like an ungrateful Scrooge and maybe I am, but this is my current state and I am being honest because for me, it’s more than annoying: It’s existential.

It’s not like I wasn’t enjoying myself, or celebrating Kelly’s accomplishment. In fact, the marathon itself, in which I ran 14 of the 26.2 miles, was incredible and awe inspiring. Halloween night, where we traversed the East Village looking for punk rock relics like the Joe Strummer mural and happened upon a non profit punk in the park show was inspiring. I even had a hang session with after the marathon and that too was great and memorable and there is another story there too for another day…Needless to say, I had a great time overall.

I have no problem letting go and enjoying myself when I am gone, it’s just I get anxious as soon as I think about how reality kicks back in, and I know I’ll be back on the treadmill without any rest or salt tablets to keep me maintained, running on pure adrenaline in continuous survival mode. I feel there is one explanation for this kind of feeling, one in which things that normally give pleasure do not, where I am constantly tired, irritable and no matter what I do, it’s never enough. It’s called burnout and it’s loomed large over my legend lately, much like Ringo and his drums.

At its core, burnout consists of three core constructs; emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and feelings of reduced accomplishment. Maslach and Jackson (1981)

Beyond your run of the mill, normal burnout, there is also travel burnout / fatigue and as a concept it’s not new, but since COVID-19, there has been research showing that people do get travel fatigue and burnt out quite often. The research brings to light something that isn’t talked about, which is how travel can be maladaptive, or result in negative consequences. This runs contrary to what the media and the world is telling us, which is we should get up and go when we’re feeling depleted and that a vacation will take those woe’s away. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Whatever issues you were avoiding by leaving town will always come back, waiting for you as soon as you land back in Burbank, or wherever.

There is this infatuation with positivity when it comes to travel and when one is fatigued during travel, there can be a sense that maybe something is wrong with them and that can actually exacerbate the anxiety and fatigue, like it did to me. We’re inundated with how travel is the “most fulfilling” and “life changing” thing and it can be, but if someone isn’t ready for it, it can have an adverse outcome. In fact, there is a functionality versus fulfillment situation that can happen to those who travel when burnt out. The function outweighs the fulfillment, which makes the trip feel more like an obligation, which was not the intent. The thing with burnout is that it can 180 your thoughts and intentions without much notice and one is left feeling lost and confused. Those who complain after travel, much like I am doing here I suppose, will be met with “Well, at least you’re privileged enough to travel” and things of this nature. This isn’t wrong, but neither is one’s feeling of exhaustion or fatigue. Both can be true, and one doesn’t lessen the other.

I think back on some of the longer tours I had been on and on a few occasions, I hit a certain point in which the relentless motion would knock me out emotionally. I would, after a week to 10 days out, have small panic attacks, crying fits and this excessive fear that I was stuck and unable to get home and that the days ahead would never end. Travel exhaustion is marked by extensive travelling followed by low motivation for engaging in further travel. As travel ceases to be fun anymore due to the stress accumulated during the course of travelling; this is accompanied by longing for familiar environments, i.e., home. (Yousaf, 2021) I was homesick, but I was unable to handle the distress because I was never taught or shown how. Back then, it was about “suck it up and keep grinding…” because that’s how you get ahead, but if it was now, I’d aim to regulate by finding some adaptive mindfulness practices. I would basically catch the crazy wave until the waters calmed and I got back in. The bottom line is that traveling, keeping consistently busy and moving around a lot requires one to be emotionally grounded. Our minds and bodies work in tandem, as anyone who read The Body Keeps The Score will tell you and if you’re either emotionally drained, or physically drained, traveling might not actually be the optimal choice, especially if what drains you will magnify while traveling, for example, money.

On the flight home, I found myself jealous of the man sitting next to me on the plane. He was alone and contemplatively looking out the window at the vast and brown and green nothingness of middle America below us. He seemed content, he had good posture and he was not fidgeting or trying to do 15 things like I was. (I had to ping pong back and forth between 4 books and 2 movies for school.) Of course, I didn’t know what he was thinking, or if he was going through something and I didn’t need to know, but his presence juxtaposed with mine, made him seem at peace and present, which is something I long for most days. He was being mindful, at least that was the projection.

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There is the phrase “motion is lotion” that I have been hearing a lot lately and I think for those who are stagnant and stuck, it applies nicely. For those of us who thrive on motion and where it’s both a blessing and a curse, motion can be vaseline, making us slip and slide without a way to stop, or to continue with annoying analogies, it can become tar and you’re stuck. The point is, if the motion isn’t working and burnout and fatigue kick in and you notice that things that once gave you pleasure feel meaningless and that you’re constantly irritated, sad or indifferent, check in on yourself. What are you doing that can be lessened, or what aren’t you doing that could be fulfilling? Maybe it’s not doing anything at all, or stopping to stare out the window for 3 hours on a flight, or go for a walk or even meditate. There’s no one size fits all, and what matters is that you’re in the moment. Mindfulness can go a long way and without it, we’ll continue to slip on that vaseline or get stuck on the tar.

Thanks for reading! Putting this stuff down on Substack helps and your feedback helps even more, so thankyouthnkayouthankyou

ETC:

• I am currently in the process of putting together my yearly Skid Row Food and Hygiene Kit Handout and I’d love to have you readers help if you can. We are adding a new layer this year and collecting more food so we can build a second set of kits for the local Community Fridges here in North East Los Angeles. If the Government won’t help those that need, hopefully some neighbors like us can!

• SIGN UP SHEET HERE

  • Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. More info here!

    • Build Kit day: Saturday, November 22

    • Handout Day: Sunday, November 23

      

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When the end of September kicks in every year and the weather ever so slightly changes in Los Angeles, not by much mind you, but enough to see some orange leaves and the sun starting to set a little earlier, I aim to hold on to a feeling of excitement that Halloween is coming. Driving around seeing orange lights flicker, bats and webs in business windows and passing abandoned Rite Aid’s become Spirit Halloween stores is always something I always look forward to. One can see this as forced nostalgia or capitalism, which is true considering most of what Halloween is for many is rewatching films from their childhood and buying newly marketed plastic things from said films, but it’s also a time that bleeds creativity and freedom. Halloween to me is more importantly about expressing one’s self by way of dressing up, loosening up and not having to worry about being themselves in this crazy world for one day. It’s inspiring to see what people can do with very little, creating immersive DIY haunted houses and recycling clothes to make costumes rather than pulling into the said Spirit Shop for a $40 Where’s Waldo striped shirt. BTW, I love going to Spirit Halloween and browsing. Something about the cacophony of the endless loop of Halloween songs and decorations constantly being triggered just feels right for me, similarly to the way Nicole Kidman feels about AMC…

What was once a feeling of nostalgia now feels more like a yearning. This year specifically I am burnt out more than I feel like I ever have been and that has turned into exhaustion and lack of spirit. For many purposefully decided upon life related reasons, my free time has shrunk significantly and even though I do some things in October, each year I do less and less. That, or maybe there is an acceptance that I can’t always fit everything in and that’s why I am burnt out? With that said, I am embracing this exact moment typing and hearing Halloween 4 in the background while I eat a pumpkin scone from the local bakery.

Another reason I lose time in October is because the event lifestyle kicks up a notch, which means for me, there are opportunities to play a lot of shows. And I do… In fact, since 2002, I have put together cover shows on Halloween which I wrote about here and here which included two lockdown-era streaming shows. The reason I single out the streaming shows is because I want to share them again because I want everyone to be able to see them. To take it back to the idea of creativity, freedom and pulling something together with very little, I am proud not just of myself, but all of the bands who pulled these covers together, replete with costumes, green screens and whatever crazy idea they had. I had a silly idea and ran with it and I feel that it worked so well because of the collaboration and the need to create at the time. The lockdown era allowed for unencumbered time to think, reflect and create, which is something that I miss about that time, but it’s how we were able to embrace these Halloween specials. We as people need that space to create and we’re not allowed to get it and we’re conditioned to constantly work, do, spend and distract. Halloween has a strange balance of all of the above, but it’s also a space for creation and even if it can feel forced at times, there is no other holiday in the calendar year that promotes and encourages this type of play. Here they are…

2020 theme was fictional bands, artists and songs from movies and TV.

2021 Edition theme was Los Angeles. Bands covered artists from Los Angeles and all interstitials were LA-centric.

To keep the train moving, I am playing a cover show this Tuesday in Highland Park at an amazing community forward spot called Scribble. They are a non-profit doing community cheap or for free therapy for those who need it. The Pretty Flowers will be doing a whole set of The Replacements and I will also be sitting in with Joe and Jillinda doing The Beach Boys.

On Wednesday, Icky and The Splooges will be at Bamboo Club in Long Beach.

After all this complaining about burning out, I am sure you are rolling your eyes as you read this. You’re right, but dammit I wanna have fun too!

Thanks for reading!

Happy Halloween everyone!

This protest itself was massive and apparently 7 million people showed up. 7 million people with clever signs, clever costumes and a real sense of camaraderie that is again, only seen on occasional Saturdays or when The Dodgers make the World Series. (We got two of two this weekend didn’t we, Los Angeles?) The march began at Grand Park, wiggled its way toward City Hall and then took a big circle up to Grand, Down To Cesar Chavez and back to city hall, about 2 miles total. In those 2 hot miles, it was warm, there was constant chanting, singing along, dancing and because it’s Los Angeles, Ozomatli even played in a moving truck alongside the people. For the people. By the people.

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When I go to protests, I admittedly feel awkward. Perhaps I am too self aware and feel a bit uncomfortable chanting loudly or emoting too much, especially since I am usually at these things alone. So standing there signless feels like I am not doing much and being the shark I am, I have a proclivity to keep moving or do something, otherwise I’ll cease to exist. asked me jokingly “Can’t you go to the protest and just BE?” She’s not wrong, but I can’t seem to help it. I need to be doing something no matter what I do, but her question got me to think about why. This sense of “not be-ing” fits across many facets of my life. I can’t sit still at a party, I can’t play a board game and if I am in a situation where I can be the DJ, do the dishes, or have some sort of task, I jump to it. Perhaps one can see this as a flaw and maybe a way to escape from being vulnerable, as a sort of psychological protective seal, absolving myself from socializing. Instead of thinking about myself negatively, I decided to reframe this notion as something positive, because when I really think about it, all of this is because I like to be of service. I like to help, entertain, and be a part of the forward motion. A core value of mine is to be of service and so for the protests, I went in with the intention of bringing my Igloo cooler and passing out ice water to the marchers and to bring the leftover first aid kits I had made with friends over the summer during the ICE raids. This was something I can come to the table with to be part of that forward motion and I won’t have the awkward feeling I get of just standing there. It helped that I was accompanied by my friend Meggan who helped me lug the cooler and get more bottles when we ran out half way, going to the 7-11 on Cesar Chavez and Grand.

The people were grateful for the water and some just thanked us and didn’t take the water. Just to know it’s there made them feel safe and I felt that just giving that little tiny bit of relief for people and finding any small way to be of service is what I think these protests are all about in the end.

It’s so easy to be cynical and say marching in the streets will do nothing and yes, in some ways you wouldn’t be necessarily wrong. It’s not like Trump is going to see people with signs making fun of him and tell himself “They’re right. Maybe I should change my ways. I’ve been bad, haven’t I? Thank you, guy in frog suit for the reminder…” No he wont… He’d likely as we’ve seen before, double down on his bullshit. So, yes, we as singular people cannot change the system. BUT, we can address our grievances and work together as a collective population to show up strong (7 million, baby) to say we’ve had enough. We do this together, by standing alongside one another. People to people. For the people. By the people.

I truly believe that tech companies, oligarchs and all the pea headed people in government really want us to be separated, isolated and to continue to condition us to put our heads down in numbed state while we buy things on Amazon and watch Netflix as the world burns around us. That may be a cynical take but the more I experience, the more I see and the more I read the more this seems to be true. But if I may take off my cynical hat for a second, I also believe these protests work, not because it’s going to change a billionaire’s mind, but because we all got our heads out of our phones, like I said above, our caves of convenience and we got together because our values all aligned. We were all being of service to those who have been oppressed, maligned, accused and hurt physically and emotionally by the system, which clearly isn’t working for everyone anymore. Strangers were hugging and singing with one another and there was a sense of living in the moment, from peaceful old hippies, to yuppie brunchers to the young and angry spiteful kids liberally throwing up their middle fingers with pride. It was so refreshing to see all of them band together for this one purpose.

If these continuous protests, which I hope they are, change anything, I believe it will change the way we interact with one another and maybe bring us back to a place where we’re supposed to be; as collectivists, not individual people stuck in their algorithmic, tech fueled bubbles. Our bubbles should be wide and vast and full of life and color and people. In Los Angeles the bubble was giant, it was blue for sure, and spread across every corner of this large and strange city. The more I go to these, the more I love them.

I hope whoever’s reading this figures out their version of protest or their version of being of service, or their version of Mutual Aid or collective community outreach. If not, keep trying because you never know how you feel after and you never know who you’ll run into. Hell, maybe you’ll see me passing out water, who knows? I’ll leave with this quote that Michael Ian Black posted just the other day that I think makes a lot of sense.

“Maybe you marched today and maybe you didn’t. There’s no single, correct way to rise in opposition. What matters is doing what you can. Nothing else required. Maybe your contribution is speaking to your neighbor. Or donating. Or writing something. Maybe it’s nothing more than holding fast to your values when so many others are selling out theirs. Today was a day of hope. A reminder that most Americans haven’t yet given up yet on America”

Thanks for reading. More to come this week.

One of the last gigs in this van in 2009 and one of the last times I wore a stupid fedora. This was the only pic I could find…

Because gas was so expensive, I didn’t have money and the tank in the van was gigantic, I got into this habit of running the tank below empty. I was testing the boundaries of the car by saving my wallet and of course all of that emptiness led to clogging the fuel line and eventually ruined the car, but at the time I was rationalizing this behavior by assuming squeezing every last penny out of every gallon was optimal. What I was basically doing was waiting until the car was completely depleted before I would refill it or at least put enough in to get to the next thing and worry about it later. I bring up the gas tank thing because I had a revelation that, symbolically, this is seemingly how I’ve been running my life, like a van with an empty tank, running on fumes. This last year has been peak burnout for me and as I do my best to stop and reflect on the whys and hows, I realize that I’ve probably been burnt out, ahem, out of gas for a very long time.

The analogy of car to human may be simplistic, but a car does need maintenance and when the oil hasn’t been changed, or the tires don’t have air, it’s going to stop working. As an Angeleno, I’ve seen many people push a car to its limits during high speed pursuits and tires can only run its rims for so long before it stops moving.

(it me)

Our mindsets and habitual thought patterns can actually dictate our behaviors and the way we react to events or changes in our lives. Given that my mindset has always been to go-go-go, only to replenish slightly after I burnout so I have enough in me to get to the next go-go-go, it would make sense I would treat my car that way. Coming from modest means also shows that pinching each penny out of each gallon will come up in other ways in my life too. This scarcity mindset, this survival mindset where I’m moving as a way to maintain can only last for so long until I burn out…Again.

Just this morning, I was speaking to an old friend who I’ve known for over 25 years and as we talked about our past idiosyncrasies and quirks, and as I was explaining to her my current long term plan, which has been well on its way since 2020 to become a licensed therapist, she had alluded to the same thing I’m speaking of here about my go-go-go she said it’s “very different than what I’m used to with you.” She’s right. This is different and I want to change.

Every person is different but even if we’re running towards success, or running away from trauma or running sideways into an unknown oblivion by distracting ourselves, the outcome will still inevitably be the same if we don’t allow ourselves to rest and take time to see the longer, bigger picture about what we’re actually doing and why. For me, I’ve been doing all three, running from trauma, running towards success and running sideways into whatever wall I hit, hoping it’s a wall of success, whatever that means.

Perhaps it’s the millennial in me (I am an elderly Millennial, after all) that continues to push this unconscious narrative that every interest in my life has to become some sort of job or vessel to success. The job market, the cost of living and capitalism have made the life that our parents had obsolete to most of us, so that way of living, that trajectory doesn’t really exist for me. I believe because of globalization and the internet, millennials were emboldened to do whatever it took to make something of themselves, no matter the path. They called it hustle, but I see it as a sideways way of running in an effort to get attention from anyone. Its starting to look more like a slog now.

My passion for playing music and my desire to be a rock star hit a wall, but I won’t stop trying to succeed in that world. My interest in podcasts got me to start a podcast 15 years ago that fizzled out pretty quickly when I realized I was NOT very good at it and even when I got stoked on running, I tried to find ways to build something out of it instead of just actually doing it because I liked it. This schizophrenic lack of focus is how creatives can be. We feel the need to create and do everything we can to build something out of nothing, nurturing that side of our brain. The problem is the creative life isn’t very sustainable, so creatives have work many jobs and freelance incessantly and hustle until the gas tank empties and then are faced with continuing on empty, filling just enough to get to the next gig, or to abandon the car completely and do something more consistent that ‘pays the bills’ and mind you, this is all before the creative thing can be shared with the world. If one wants to create, stagnation is not an option.

The irony is that creative people, well ALL people really, need space to think and to reflect because that’s where ideas come from. Ideas don’t come from scrolling or data entry, they come from the 10 minutes you spent staring at the wall, or on your run, or on the toilet. If we can allow ourselves to do this daily, maybe it can help us broaden our views, open our minds and let in natural thoughts and not be told what to think. The hustle and bustle of late stage capitalism doesn’t allow for such things to happen, so we continue to move on, regardless of how much gas is in the tank.

Sometimes, I’d like the world to stop, so I can. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works so I just have to keep an eye on the gauge before I burn out… Again.

Thanks for reading, y’all. Where is your tank?

“Towns’ and cities’ populations up and grow / The workers move to the suburbs / In between I watch and go / I run alongside rush hour traffic and pray for every car.”

GIG CORNER:

Sunday, October 12 - Roman’s Weirdos playing with Agent Orange at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, a real venue run by amazing people!

Monday, October 13 - Sitting in with Eli Tarantula at Slipper Clutch in DTLA

Tuesday, October 28 -The Pretty Flowers are doing a set of Replacements songs for a Halloween fundraiser at Scribble in Highland Park. Im also doing some Beach Boys tunes with my friends Joe and Jillinda.

Wednesday, October 29 - Icky and Splooges playing Bamboo Club in Long Beach for another fun night of covers.