february 12 2024
The fact of the matter is that anyone is capable of anything. And I know this because my guilty pleasure is sensationalist daytime television. When I’m bored or doing my hair, I open Youtube and watch Dr. Phil, Couples Therapy, Intervention, the John Delony Show, Botched, old Vice TV episodes, obscure documentaries about religious cults, and so on and so on. My boyfriend shakes his head and takes a picture whenever he catches me engrossed in a clip.
“This can’t be good for your brain.”
“I’ve done worse.”
I enjoy watching other people’s problems. I find their chaos comforting and compelling. Everyone suffers, I know, but there is a level of freedom that comes with putting it all out there in this kind of way, having the world witness you and your malfunction in all its gory glory. I think it’s very rock and roll but then again, I am in my cynical era.
I listen to the new Kanye West album and I like it enough but I can’t help but get this feeling that we are in the middle of the end of an age. I get the same feeling when I observe the resurgence of “indie sleaze” amongst the zoomers or when I watch the Barbie movie (ugh) or when I browse the New York Times Best Sellers list (lol) or when I flip through what remains of Soundcloud or when I have to type “reddit” after every single Google search or when I open up Instagram and switch to TikTok 2 minutes later or when someone tells me who the US presidential candidates will be. And so on. The death bell is tolling.
And like I said, I’m in my cynical era. I’m supposed to be working on my album but I’m losing my mind. I’ve never had fantasies about music as an industry but I feel more disillusioned than I thought was possible. I try to shake it off. I switch DAWs. I buy a bigger desk for my office. I ignore my emails. I tell my agents no. I go out more. I wake up at 8AM. I think about taking up cigarettes. I write every day. But nothing is sticking and it’s scaring me.
The sky over the West End glows orange. My girl Maria and I spend the evening of the Super Bowl talking, talking, talking. We sit in my studio and crawl through Youtube. We watch old live recordings of artists we listened to in high-school. My lover’s voice floats in from the living room. Grainy, flip phone footage flashes across the screen in between 15 second herbal supplement ads. The past breezes through the room and right out the open window.
