Trapped in a never-ending cycle of trying to arrive in a time of ceaceless turmoil. Did manage to scrape together an essay against the age of certitude in the face of crisis though. The world is shifting, and opinions don’t/won't hold much weight.

The backbone of Jungle

It's @subvert.fm launch day today! My most recent project, Her Gang, is up there and I'll be adding lots of other stuff in the next weeks. Global, community-owned platforms is where it's at.

Wrote an essay trying explore the fiction that has underpinned our world for the last 250-odd years. The thought being that its dissolution could help overcome the current stagnation in the face of unprecedented crises.

New essay circling back to an idea that crept up while writing my thesis. Grief and understanding loss as key tools for enacting agency and growth in personal life as well as the current tumultuous moment.

Wrote up some words about the feeling of disconnect with your former life and selves. Happens a lot around particularly intense experiences, but also generally as you move into middle age and beyond. A fairly universal feeling of lost worlds.

Took a while to write this one for obvious reasons. First time talking about it outside of 2-3 times in various therapies. About how that visceral, frightening experience eventually allowed me to develop more understanding and compassion for others.

Reading "the Middle East war" had me thinking this could be a kind of Thirty Year War situation where historians will argue about when it actually started (October 7, 2023? 2011? Nerds will say 9/11), and people will write dissertations on all the factions, sides, and alliances. Either way, chaos.

Essay elaborating on what sounds like a stupid question, but felt was missing. After 15 years of democratic politics defined by outrage and what you’re against, it bears repeating what people regularly risk their lives for.

Post a banger that isn't in English youtu.be/7enQQSa-DD0?...

Saw Rammstein open for The Ramones on the German leg of their farewell tour. Did NOT go down well.

Actually wrote an essay nearly 10 years ago using recovery (from addiction, mental health issues etc.) as an example of how a positive mindset is necessary for any positive outcome. Negative approaches will only beget a net zero outcome at best.

An essay idea that has been lying around for years that I finally finished about how we keep finding ourselves living out schoolyard social dynamics throughout our lives.

Been trying to relearn old songs recently and wasn't really sure why. Only just occurred to me that the anniversary of my brother's death is approaching and they were all songs from the album I recorded about him.

When all the global superpowers are authoritarian ethnonationalist bad actors, it might be a good time to define what democratic resistance looks like in the 21st century.

I had an Austrian-German professor who was a pre-teen on 1 September 1939. He told us about how the invasion of Poland was announced over the PA system at a public pool, and how the reaction was quiet murmuring and bewilderment. People asked "What do we want with Poland?" 1/2

Yemen re-united the same year as Germany. Back to North and South Yemen after 36 years.

It bears endless repeating that Russia is the largest nation in the world, with the largest nuclear arsenal, and the second largest (now battle-tested) military in the world. This is what we call "geopolitical little dick energy" aka classic autocratic imperialism.

Offering up a quick translation of the German-language tirade re. the immigration/migration debate that I've been harassing German newspapers with as of late. Clear sign that I'm reaching peak middle-aged dad.

Has anyone written about or done a study as to why people record their insights/drop truth bombs from inside their cars? Seems like it developed into the agreed environment for a specific kind of information communication.

Wrote something about how my experience working at mainland Europe's biggest refugee center in Berlin led to the realization that no one is actually interested in dealing with immigration as a reality of our world.

Big move means lots of sorting. Gazing at my Nirvana ticket for the concert that never was (long story), I saw that Germans/Europeans have been publicly grappling with the fact that foreigners (Ausländer) exist for 31+ years now. They're gonna come to terms with it any day now.

Keeping the fun and light vibes going. Did an edit of an older essay about the death of my older brother and the insights it gave me re. certain aspects of suffering, trauma, and the shaping of perspectives through conflict.

New long-form essay up. My ode to Berlin. A first-person account of my life there, the places and people I found, the networks of care I encountered, and the ways it has shaped me as a person. Bit of TW on this one, as it covers a handful of sensitive topics.

Trying to put my finger on something I kept stumbling across online. How our media landscape has led to widespread political and cultural amnesia, and what that means for people's general ability to orient themselves and their thinking in the wider world.

This is precisely the world and atmosphere I grew up in. Only realized recently how formative it was to have it simply dissolve and dissappear. Gave me a fair few tools and perspectives that have been useful ever since.

If I talk about decentering myself, am I not just centering myself all over again?

I reworked a 2017 essay addressing war and conflict as inherent features of human societies and behavior, updating and expanding it to incorporate our current drift towards widespread violence. Do we always have to end up here to learn our lesson(s)?

Forget Sun Tzu, get on your von Clausewitz.

Left out the longing for the mundane, but here's a new one thinking about the relationship between analog and digital technologies and what they represent in terms of our relationship with the world around us and how we wish to experience it.

Thoughtful mind cleanser...

After moving a household plus two kids across oceans wide and plenty, working, and recording/releasing an EP, I finally wrapped up this essay. Analyzing the obsession with generational differences and how it relates to the frenetic standstill we have been in since the beginning of the 21st century.

As an American who grew up outside the US, it became clear very early on in life, that when Americans say "the world," they essentially mean "Cleveland."

The "Generational Drama" essay remains stalled due to belongings strewn across hemispheres, but Her Gang's German Graffiti Demo is starting to make the rounds and getting plays/noticed here and there. That's nice. Listed here with hundreds of other great releases.

Things have been quiet due to trans-hemispheric relocations, but did manage to use a few free moments to record some songs for a new solo project. Available on tape at Cardigan Punk or via Bandcamp. I think it's good.

Don't think any name is ever going to beat Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

A documentary where Dave Grohl, Henry Rollins, and Thurston Moore talk at length about something, but it is never really clear what they're actually talking about.

Something that gets omitted when people throw around ideas about Nazism, is how the 12-year dalliance with facism killed up 10 million Germans, destroyed every major and mid-size city, ruptured a cultural inheritance stretching back over a millennium, and is still felt today, nearly a century later.

Looking at some of today's "crises" through a historical lens and drawing parallels to past instances of shifting climate, mass migration, conflict, and a transition to a new geopolitical order.

Promo tape unearthed during apartment clear out. Late 90s... what a time to be alive.

The biggest trick the internet ever pulled was making dorks think they were cool and jocks think they were smart.

More geopolitical ephemera from clearing out the apartment. Picture album of post-war Sarajevo from when my dad was stationed there.

Clearing out the place. Unearthing decades of cultural and sociopolitical ephemera. MSF postcard from Chechnya, 1999. Putin's been keeping it real for 26 years.

Many to choose from, but lots of young, friend memories associated with vibing to this one.

POV: That's not what POV means.

Reviving the Solid Maybe homebase to snych up my essays. Will also have new music going up soon. Hope to get on the imagery and short form again too. For now, my rant on the involution of progress and consuming everything on lease.

I am once again pitching "Russian Windows" as a band name. Depending on how 00s you want make it, you can throw a "The" in there.

Been driving myself crazy trying to write this essay in between massive life plans, baby, and general chaos. Finally fucking finished it, thank Hosanna.

One of the key, late 20th century cultural values to have been lost is authenticity. DIY, street cred, underground, keeping it real...all dissolved. Everything exists as a shallow pool of slop-driven pseudo-emoting coated in defensive snark or desperate pleas for seconds of recognition.

When I was little, our grandparents’ generation was the war generation. Then grandparents were the school of ‘68. The new generation of grandparents are the ones who downed 40 shots of tequila and were still standing. Those were different times, as Lou Reed said.