The first thing I noticed as I made my way out of the mountains during my move to Reno, NV was the smell. I had been letting the desert’s midnight breeze keep me awake as I made way towards my mother’s house. As the dazzling effect of the lights subsided I noticed a slight decaying smell, a smell that belongs to wet cardboard and compacted refuse, and I knew I was lost. This place that is so different from where I called home, from the people I knew, from every move I’ve done previously, I had no other goals beyond get to Reno, and smell the sights.
I had tried to put the same feelings I have now into song for an entire year and the culmination of that entire experience only edged the anxiety and apprehension I have now. The places I’ve known before never smelled this terrifying. I don’t want to decay here like the garbage that I know lines the bottoms of fences from the fast flowing winds that sweep in from the mountains. I keep trying to relax, trying to breathe, trying to plan before I act and stay present, but I am not here.
My mind and heart are elsewhere, the home that I didn’t know I left my heart despite not being sure I had either. My mind is toward my future, floating in the void like the brains from Futurama. I’m trying not to stress-eat my mother’s well-stocked shelves or bitterly ignore everyone as I huddle in the corner of a casino, never to be seen again. I’m lost and it smells and I want to go home.
If you like simple, heartland rock-style acoustic music then check me out! I may not make it to the actual tiny desk but I’d like to think my songwriting could get me half way.
This November we are taking a look at a few smartphone apps including Featurepoints and Surveys OntheGo.
Finally getting into the rhythm of things. There’re a few hiccups in the editing, but I wanted to keep to a deadline for this thing. Expect a new episode the first of every month dedicated to finding your Hot Dollar.
Also, if you have any suggestions feel free to drop a suggestion in the Tumblr blog or leave a comment on SoundCloud. I will do my best to check everything for inputs.
This is another one of my schemes to take over the world. I know I like to blog about music and stuff but I figured I’d also try my hand at podcasting about something.
They were there first, but now Native Hawaiians have nowhere to live | Fusion
[…] At last count, there were 7,260 homeless people in Hawai‘i, giving the islands of Aloha the highest rate of homelessness per capita of any state in the nation. Hawai‘i Gov. David Ige on Friday declared a state of emergency to help the state speed up the process of building a homeless shelter for families.
[…] Twenty-eight percent of individuals using the state’s rehousing program were Native Hawaiians or part-Hawaiians, even though they make up 10% of the state population in Hawaii.
Natives being disproportionately affected by homelessness isn’t unique to Hawai‘i. Nationwide only 1.2% of the population self-identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native, but they represent 4% of persons residing in emergency shelter or transitional housing.
(Read Full Text) (Photo Credit: Top | David McNew/Getty Images, Bottom | AP)
A new book by Erika Lee explores how systemic racism has pervaded the Asian-American experience.
In 1928, an Indian immigrant named Vaishno Das Bagai rented a room in San Jose, turned on the gas, and ended his life. He was thirty-seven. He had come to San Francisco thirteen years earlier with his wife and two children, “dreaming and hoping to make this land my own.” A dapper man, he learned English, wore three-piece suits, became a naturalized citizen, and opened a general store and import business on Fillmore Street, in San Francisco. But when Bagai tried to move his family into a home in Berkeley, the neighbors locked up the house, and the Bagais had to turn their luggage trucks back.
Then, in 1923, Bagai found himself snared by anti-Asian laws: the Supreme Court ruled that South Asians, because they were not white, could not become naturalized citizens of the United States. Bagai was stripped of his status. Under the California Alien Land Law, of 1913—a piece of racist legislation designed to deter Asians from encroaching on white businesses and farms—losing that status also meant losing his property and his business. The next blow came when he tried to visit India. The United States government advised him to apply for a British passport.
According to Erika Lee’s “The Making of Asian America,” published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Immigration and Nationality Act, signed into law on October 3, 1965, this swarm of circumstances undid Bagai. In the room in San Jose, he left a suicide note addressed, in an act of protest, to the San Francisco Examiner. The paper published it under the headline “Here’s Letter to the World from Suicide.” “What have I made of myself and my children?” Bagai wrote. “We cannot exercise our rights. Humility and insults, who is responsible for all this? Me and the American government. Obstacles this way, blockades that way, and bridges burnt behind.”
Bagai could have been speaking for the mass of Asian-Americans—Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Hmong, and Filipinos—who escaped colonialism or economic hardship at home only to encounter a country rancid with racism. Racism, as Lee shows, was the unifying factor in the Asian-American experience, bringing together twenty-three distinct immigrant groups, from very different parts of the world. It determined the jobs that Asians were able to acquire, the sizes of their families, and their self-esteem in America. If Asian America exists, it is because of systemic racism.
A few weeks ago, Donald Trump climbed a stage and crassly mimicked a Japanese (or was it a Chinese?) accent, in supposed admiration of the old stereotype that the Japanese are soulless, rapacious businessmen. This was just after Jeb Bush defended his use of the term “anchor babies” by saying that it was “more related to Asian people” than to Latinos. In September, the F.B.I. finally dropped all charges against Dr. Xi Xiaoxing, a Chinese-American physicist at Temple University arrested, in May, for passing on sensitive superconductor technology to China. The F.B.I. had claimed it had blueprints of the technology, but when independent experts examined the blueprints, they found that they weren’t for the device in question. “I don’t expect them to understand everything I do,” Xi told the Times. “But the fact that they don’t consult with experts and then charge me? Put my family through all this? Damage my reputation? They shouldn’t do this. This is not a joke. This is not a game.”
These are just a few recent stories, of course, but they stand in for many others. Asian-Americans are still regarded as “other” by many of their fellow-citizens. And yet one finds among some Asian-Americans a reluctance to call out racist acts, in part because of their supposed privilege in comparison with other minority groups. Meanwhile, much of the history of Asians in America, a history that now spans nearly half a millennium, has been forgotten.
I’ve been seeing some news about Gilmore Girls returning to the screen as 4 90-minute movies to Netflix. Supposedly the show will be rebooted with both Lorelai and Rory under the creative direction of Amy Sherman-Palladino. One sad thing I’ve heard is that Sookie wouldn’t return because of Melissa McCarthy’s rise to fame. Well, if I can’t get more fun fights between Sookie and Jackson then here are 5 things that I will need:
5. Hep Alien
Though Lane and Zack had to take some time off to have the kids near the end of the show I hope to see the return of one of my favorite fictional bands. Hopefully, if they get another shot in front of A&R reps Zack will leave his tambourine guy and headset mic at home.
4. Paris and Doyle
Call me crazy but I love this couple. From the snippy lovers quarrels to the sporadic Krav Maga bouts I want to see more from. They were two characters that I never enjoyed until I saw them with each other, it just worked. How great was it when Doyle vowed to follow Paris forever? I want to see how that turned out.
3. Ghosts of Lorelai’s Past
I may be holding another unpopular opinion here, but I really didn’t like that Luke and Lorelai ended up together. The relationship was always supposed to happen and it may be so even after this revival, but there’s no reason we can’t have Chris stir the pot a bit again, maybe get Max Medina to swoop in at an opportune time.
2. Friday Night Dinners
I want to be dropped right back into a healthy relationship between Lorelai and Emily. It may not be the tightest, possibly have Luke joining in for a few dinners and fitting a bit better than the last dinner he had there. Depending on how they play the new drama for the series I think it would be great to start with a clean, albeit smudged, slate between mother and daughter.
1. Jess Mariano
Jess was doing so good the last time we saw him and though I don’t want him to dump any of his success’ for Rory I want him back. I hate Dean, Logan was too arrogant, poor Marty didn’t have a chance, we need Jess. He could come in just as things may fray between Luke and Lorelai and keep some awkward ties between the blood again.
What does everyone else want for these new stories?
We all want to feel the sun. Let Sad Giants in your ears and enjoy a sympathetic shot of 100 proof South Dakota songwriting. Bonus: The record has been set for the longest introduction. Check out more tunes from Sad Giants at sadgiants.bandcamp.com.
Please like, share and spread the word about Songs From A Couch! Every new viewer is another piece of power that helps us talk more cool people into doing this.
This is not a joke, this is an observation that I believe had such a slight impact on an entire nation that we have snowballed into a brand-based country of highs and lows. This idea is hard to explain in a sound bite or blurb; I think that the extreme marketing of the past has had a direct impact on the hyperbolic nature of my generation and the heated atmosphere of the culture today.
The 90s were full of Xtreme products and top lists of everything under the sun. The seemingly explosive rise of technology into the 00s gave us no time to adapt our lives to whirlwind of change ahead. Speakers got bigger, phones got smaller, snacks got saltier, candy got sweeter, we tried to fight what we could but that just spawned 5 different types of diet coke, low-carb diets, and cross fit. The solutions to our problems have all become as extreme as the problems themselves as we now look into a history laden with quick fixes to small problems.
We are now steeped in the aftermath of this extreme culture, a new shooting every week, a hyper-sensitive race culture that sways wildly from violent to peaceful, and two of the most extreme presidential campaigns that have ever been seen between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Our culture loves “nerding out” or “being chill”, we are marketed hyperbole to the point that just liking or disliking doesn’t seem like enough in the “OMG Need” or “Kill It With Fire” culture.
Is there a way to undo extremity? I hope so, all I can think is that our cultural pendulum will keep on swinging wildly from one side to the other if we keep slapping it each way. This is not a call to a war on extremity, I will not fight extremity with deprivation but I will work towards a reserved life.
I’ve been speeding through the past few weeks trying to finish songs and keep to the deadline that I didn’t even realize how quickly I was ending something really dear to me. Not many people are dumb or crazy enough to force themselves to mass produce something for a whole year but after a while it becomes a muscle memory thing. Not that the muscle isn’t tired and needing a rest but I’m going to miss twitching it.
I started this project as an idea to keep a diary for myself that I can always go back to and feel what I felt that week. I wanted to use this last year to find who I was musically, sure, you can think out a whole album over two years and tailor the sound to be radio friendly and get your spotify plays but what comes out of you after you’ve already written a whole album or two or three? I found out the hard way. Never have I dug so hard into my own roots then in the past few months and it has shown me a lot, I can definitely see the blink-182 in there, the Front Bottoms and Against Me influence I’ve been picking up.
I hope to get even better than I’ve already gotten. I hope to never stop getting better and to never stop changing. I am constantly running into the impressions I’ve left on others whether they be positive or negative and I want to always challenge those notions they have of me as a fuck up, a loud mouth, an ignorant oaf that does nothing but say inapporpriate things and drink too much. What happens over the next year is all for me though.
Drinking is a social crutch for many a millennial but sometimes we don’t realize how much we’re using it until we start exclusively having to drink to have any fun. In college I didn’t live in the dorms, I only to the general classes in the beginning and everyone seemed to know each other and form cliques quickly. I joined a fraternity (I’ll get into that another time, don’t do it) and then from then on I can’t remember hanging out with anyone without the heavy hand of alcohol squeezing us for all the fun we had.
Shit, I love drinking. I used to chug bottles of Devil’s Cut whiskey and crush cans of bud light night after night for a few years but now I’m buying discount Vodka so I can get smashed before doing anything. Granted, I never drove drunk and I’m glad that I never picked up that habit that almost seems to be a sport among many idiots in my circles. When I was hungover for more than a day and literally started shaking because I hadn’t had a drink in over 24 hours I knew my crutch became my legs.
I had always been warned from both sides of my parents that drinking runs deep in the blood of the whole family. When your a 20 something you just say fuck your family, fuck my family, and fuck everyone who isn’t holding a beer right now. I still have that mindset most of the time. I don’t want to quit drinking, I mean, I saw how great it went quitting prescription pills I hadn’t been taking for even half a year and that spiraled out of control quickly. I just know that I have to look out now before I end up one of those asshole drunks that only sings about PBR and always smells like yeast.
If You Spend All Your Time Busting Your Own Balls Then You Won’t Be Able To Sack Up When You Need To
I have had many self-defeating thoughts and it really is a problem. I always thought it was just part of my mind and I would live like this until I ran into the kind of people that wear self-deprecation like a badge of honor. Why would you be proud about being bad at something or be proud about not ever being able to make it that extra inch to something. It really is an annoying habit once you witness it second hand.
Not that I’m arm-chair psychologizing, I’d hate to be that kind of person too but if you would rather talk about how self-defeating you are and then use that as the basis for your personality then maybe it’s time to find some new hobbies aside from constantly crushing yourself under the weight of your own neuroses. Don’t smile at me and say things like, “I’m so self-deprecating so obviously X.” Well maybe think about what makes you think you can’t do something or change the thing about you that annoys even yourself.
I know what a lot of you might think. It’s so easy to just tell someone to look at themselves and change. I know that it isn’t that easy but if your entire persona is based around being unbearable to even yourself and then looking to others to then bolster your self-broken emotions then you should seriously look at what makes you hate you and work on it.
I made it 17 weeks. Is that enough? I feel better if that makes it okay. Please consult your doctor if you blah, blah, blah. I know you’re not supposed to quit your prescription drugs cold turkey but I also really hate being held to the orange bottles like there’s something wrong with me. I guess there is something wrong with me and I thought I wanted to change that but my real problem was being present. Thanks to my wonderful late therapist I learned a good deal about myself and the exercises for my brain to combat the negativity that I have worn like a shell to take the easy way out of certain situations.
Fuck, that is all so vague and painful to read back through. I’m no psychologist so I have no real basis in the knowledge I’m trying to convey but just know that this song is what it feels like to go through Lexapro withdrawals. I mean, I wouldn’t think that I wasn’t present in a situation and then suddenly I would be zapped into the present like I was being Quantum Leaped back into my own body. I’m so glad that coffee is a thing because I would have just wanted to be dead again without it.
Don’t ever quit your prescription drugs if a doctor has prescribed them to you. This worked for me because I got really good at navigating through my own broken brain without any major peril for many years. This is not a success story, this is a mere regulation of my own mental state from an unprofessional.
I have always been a weird kid. I think I love Bob’s Burgers so much because I am constantly reminded how Gene I’ve always been. So, in high school anatomy we had to dissect feral cats to identify muscle groups and then do a big project at the end of the year to show what we learned. Instead of doing some normal and boring powerpoint I decided I was going to write a medley of songs about the muscles of the cat. I know that I had a group around me during this presentation so I can’t for the life of me remember why they would just let me do this to their whole grade but I wrote a 5-minute parody-filled opera about cat muscles.
If I had to pick a favorite piece in there it would have to be the Butt-Leg-Head-Neck section. I can still see the look on several students faces as the recording chanted those words and flashed images of each on the screen in perfect synchronization. My teacher, Ms. Baxley, was just sitting at her desk in the back laughing riotously because I’m assuming this would be the first and last time she would ever get a submission like this to her classroom.
Am I proud of the quality of the songs? Not particularly. Am I proud of the parody styling? God No. Did I get an A? Totally. This song is probably the most embarrassing musical thing that I’ve ever done in my life and the fact that I could put it on the internet is wonderful. Thanks internet. I probably mispronounced so many of those muscles.
The rain was dripping through the ceiling onto my shoulder literally the entire extent of this recording. This is one of those songs that just came out of me as a result of the time and the surroundings I had. We had been getting steady rain for quite a few hours if not the whole day and I had shivered through the whole night. I wanted to capture not only the atmosphere of the room but of how I had been feeling over the past few weeks since going on a vacation with my family.
I’ve had many cathartic moments over the past year but they have paled in comparison to the week I spent with my mother who I don’t spend much time with and seeing the lavish life that I always wished I could have. Seeing that extreme and then going to the other by acting like a teenager again; borrowing my dad’s van so I could meet some old friends at Warped Tour. The day went fast and I had to leave early to make it back up to Washington for time with my extended family which was interesting in its own right. I just remember feeling like I was picking up things exactly where I left them even though the strings of each relationship had grown so long.
The rain came down on the roof like each thought tap dancing it’s way into my head while the slow tapping of water hit my shoulder like a reminder to keep moving. Keep moving, when you turn around it will all still be behind you if you want it.
I Wanna Piss Off My Cis Gendered White Republican Family
Alright, so I had the opportunity to visit my extended family. Bad choice. I mean, how can you possibly think that Donal Trump is a solid person? Also, just because they show a picture of a black person on Fox News it does not mean that they are automatically a “thug” because I highly doubt you even remember who Michael Brown was. Also for a second can we just stop it with the other n-words that people are using, I think that it’s great that we can live in a country where dragging colored people behind cars is no longer a pass-time but not everyone wearing a hoodie is a thug, they aren’t ghetto, they aren’t suspicious, hoodlums, or punks.
Living in the midwest has never made me feel more racist and I hate it. I don’t want to feel like it’s me versus whatever “them” that I am perceiving. But holy shit you can only be asked so many times what tribe you’re from, be asked what language you speak at home, be asked where “I’m from” like it’s going to be some simple answer. In all fairness, my ethnicity is not an easily attainable fact just from face value but I do not need everyone trying to piece together some sort of box to put me in before they know who I am.
So this song that I wrote is not from extreme prejudice like it may sound. It is in response to extreme prejudice that has been injected into the veins of this country and can’t just be ignored because it will eat at the heart that connects us all before we all succumb to the disease that rages behind it. Racism is a disease in this country, it may be passed down genetically or picked up from strangers on the street, or gotten in solitude over many years of circular thinking. The only way for the wound to heal is to rip off the band-aid we’ve been wearing so long and getting at the infection before it spreads to another generation of hate-mongering individuals who only wish to spread discontent from their miserable lives.
