reading books has helped me make better decisions i think.

monday, may 31 2021, 12:55

on a pink bench @ grand park

the question: how can i be a curator of my experience when im too tired to do or make anything. subsequently, how can i have the time to do or make anything when i spend all my time documenting it.

my past experience with annoying questions like this leads me to believe the answer is going to be equally annoying and frustratingly simple. something to the tune of: do your best with what you have whenever you can.

fuck i hate that as soon as i wrote those words down i felt like i understood them a little better. tbh i think thats kind of exactly what the act of documentation is supposed to do — remind you of things you already know by making them tangible again. put the words under your fingers to remember what they feel like. to give them tactility.

im sneezing like fucking crazy. i think my allergies have come out to play. which is obnoxious cause i was actually doing okay at not having them this year.

i feel like there is a lot i would like to document about the past few weeks — and since im feeling rather stuck and unmotivated today, and because i am already typing and inertia is the hardest part of any pursuit, i think i’ll just try to spit it onto the page now. see what happens.

where to begin…

i have been really struggling with this idea of “cringey people make the world go round” and “be cringey”. i totally understand it when other people do it, and i support it whole heartedly but i cant seem to enact the same feelings of excitement, self-trust, and self-confidence that it seems to yield in my heros.

for example, lately i have been really into rebecca black. she basically leaned into the things she loved over and over and over again despite HOARDS of people telling her she was wrong and bad at what she did and cringey. now she is fucking killing it. because she kept making things that made other people uncomfortable and now she is making cool as fuck shit.

also damn, circle back to the beginning! linkin park! a band that is memeified in how much hate it gets but i LOVED THEM. i still love them. listening to meteora and hybrid theory and living things and all of their albums over the past two weeks has reminded me of just how much of an impact they were able to make both on me and the world. its amazing. i admire the fuck out of chester and mike and phoenix and brad and joe and rob. they sent ripples throughout my entire upbringing.

so… why cant i do that? why do i often stop myself from expressing my most authentic thoughts and feelings? what is preventing me from being out there and being prolific with my thought?

i know i am feeling this way today, but i think its also important to remind myself of the steps i have made so far with the knowledge i have collected this year and all years prior:

• i have an album coming out. soon!
• i am making pop music (which i never thought i would ever do)
• i went to the desert to film stuff
• hell, im reading books

there are also still some things that i really want to get better at. for example i have talked and talked and talked about being more present and active on my youtube channel and i continually fall short. that shit takes a lot of fuckin work and tbh i just dont really know how to dedicate that time right now. BUT i have a rebuttal:

lol i didnt bring my phone to the park so i had to take this with my webcam. (also shoutout austin kleon, page 54 of his book “show your work”) (also i found this book from this youtube video

now i know this excerpt is talking about small shit — its talking about sharing an unedited 30 second video of what you are making, not about making some big long properly edited youtube video. THAT FUCKING SAID, i do a lot with my time that i wish i didn’t. sometimes its justified, other times i let my fear of success stand in my way of doing. just do. just do. just do. if you are tired, doing will wake you up. if you are anxious, doing will calm you down.

ok what else do i want to talk about? my siblings came to los angeles that was fun. i had honestly a fucking amazing time. and it seemed they did to. but i also spent a lot of time in a kind of weird mopey headspace. it centered a lot around feelings of inadequacy left behind by a past relationship, but also i realized after they had left that it was much deeper than that. from what i could gather by crying and talking it out in my car, i think i mostly just miss my community of familiar strangers and non-close friends.

when i say non-close, it doesn’t mean they werent really important to me, we just never hung out much. mostly it was just nice seeing them at parties and on the streets. i loved those relationships because they carried with them a lot of potential. the potential to be deeper friends than we were at that moment. hell, the relationship i thought i was moping about started as one of these peripheral friendships.

i miss being part of a community. i miss knowing lots of people. but heres the thing i realized: by the time i had truly found a community of people that i genuinely fucked with, i was two years deep into living in seattle. hell, i didnt even know i had found my community until after spending significant time with them for the next six or so months.

hose was my family, but the people hose brought about were my community. and that community took YEARS and tons of work to build. i am working to remind myself that it IS POSSIBLE to build another community — to build another family — here in los angeles. but it will take work and time and commitment to connection.

i know it has been difficult with the pandemic, but especially now as things open up, i am done with that excuse. i am working to rebuild my community. and it starts with terrifying cold calls on instagram. sure, most of them will probably not pan out, but at least i will be making progress toward connection. toward community.

i kinda feel like i hit a wall here so i am gonna go back home now and continue this if more strikes me. if i dont come back, i’ll just post a bunch of photos under here. goodbye blog.

monday, may 31 2021, 14:56

tv couch @ dtla apartment

i just had a thought that i needed to add to this. so im sitting here listening to these songs:

and i had this thought which is something to the effect of:

“im so pissed everyone is just jumping on the hyperpop bandwagon. if im honest with myself though, i know that the reason i am mad everyone is hopping on the hyperpop bandwagon is that i didn’t do it earlier and now i feel like i will not be as cool if i contribute. i feel as though if i were to make any hyperpop inspired music that i would just be an imitator - a non artist - a copycat.”

i just realized this is a damaging sentiment to hold. for one it creates a hierarchy of artists that places artists that do “truly original” things at the top, and for two it discourages young artists like myself from contributing out of fear that we will be seen as unoriginal - out of discouragement that what we want to be doing has already been done.

OF FUCKING COURSE IT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE. NOTHING IS ORIGINAL. sure, there were people that pioneered the hyperpop sound, and people like SOPHIE and 100 geccs who brought it to the limelight but THEY WERENT IN A VACCUUM EITHER. dylan brady didnt distort the fuck out of his tunes on a whim, he did it because of the influence of massively distorted music that came before him. SOPHIE is probably one of the most original artists out there, but even SHE had to pull influence from other places. her work in OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES was definitely not something we would call hyperpop by todays standards. it was artists like charli xcx working with sophie and dylan brady that made hyperpop mold into what it is today. and they did it because it was fun. because it was cool. yes, it had been “done before” but in doing something that had been “done before” they created something that had never been done before. and they did it because their creativity as individuals bled into the work they do. its just like that quote in steal like an artist:

just to drive this home, skrillex was trying to copy noisia when he made scary monsters and nice sprites — an album that basically redefined the way all future electronic music was made. by failing to copy, skrillex made something original. so go copy all the shit wilson and stop worrying about how people will think you are a copy cat. dont flatter yourself, you will not be able to copy it perfectly.

ok i didnt have the energy to edit all of these photos so you get iphone quality for todays update. hopefully one day i'll look back and be like "oh thats right every iphone photo did kinda look like that hmmm" someday.

garrett bennett and wilson take a mirror selfie in venice beach

bennett stands powerfully in the ocean

i stare trying to be all cool like at the camera mode in front of a blue and green and pink building. garrett used portrait mode on my phone so i look all cool and pro

garrett bein a noodle in front of the ocean in a cool floral shirt

i felt super dysphoric and shitty for a bit when garrett and bennett were here but bennett said some lovely supportive things and then i took this photo and i realized i looked kinda femme and it was nice. :)

garrett and bennett sitting on a bench in los angeles historic state park right before or after (i cant remember) they gave me a crushing group hug cause i told them i felt kind of alone in los angeles. it was a beautiful moment.

lmao daym was like "yo i gotta get a photo in front of my headlights" and i was like "np ill take it for you" and this is the photo we got and its super strange and taken at like 4 in the morning lol

a cool light leak at sunrise as daym and i drove to the desert

daym falling into the sand while we recorded some clips for their upcoming music video for their song "alchemy"

me taking a selfie trying to avoid getting my phone in the reflection of my glasses while i sit in the back of the prius daym rented

i think thats all i have for today. thanks for reading. and thanks to current me on behalf of future me. i wrote this thing on my houses vision board the other day that said "make things for your future self to enjoy"

.... lol damn it now i gotta go take a photo of that hold on.

ok now i think im done. goodbye. :)