Just Another Mahalo Monday
Unsure if my dear readers have ever found themselves listening to a 1980s playlist on repeat for 12 hours every day for a month.
I have.
When I was a kitchen supervisor for Sodexo running Chadwell Dining Facility, my line cooks complained about my music choices. I think I had punk/emo/heavy music playing as we finished breakfast and were getting lunch in the ovens. I cheekily queued up a 1980s playlist and walked away. Then having found that the Footloose soundtrack was a banger to me and Guantanamo Bay level torture to the line cooks, I decided this was the new on-the-loop soundtrack for the next thirty days.
So now, every single Monday, in my head I sing "just another manic Monday."
Well, or I did. Until I started here.
Now in the same tone and cadence as I roll into daily huddle every Monday I sing "Just another Mahalo Monday."
When I had my Blogspot blog, the one that landed me in the commander's office standing at attention, I would write little rewrites of popular rap songs and change the lyrics to something about the ongoings in my life or current events.
AI is pretty cool. I was messing around this weekend and made Holly a love song in the style of Bad Bunny based on a love note I wrote her early in the relationship. She said she hated how much she liked it because she knew it was AI. In my last marriage. Which is still my current marriage. At least until Thursday (THANK GOD FOR THE COURT DATE FINALLY APPROACHING). Anyway in my last marriage, AI wasn't this good yet, I actually wrote the song myself, and then commissioned my best friend growing up who is now a professional audio engineer and professional burnout to make me a Wiggles sounding love song. He did it. It was awesome. She hated it. The one for Holly was WAY cheaper and way better received. Funny how that works.
Anyway. I present to you — Just Another Mahalo Monday.
Hello, I have thus returned. It is now 9:04 PM, and per the agreement I have established with my family, and the fact that Holly is currently away visiting a friend in Lafayette, taking much needed R&R (Rest and Recovery for those uninitiated. As an aside, I better be right on the meaning of the acronym since I have made our dear reader suffer another military reference and metaphor for the non dramatic. If R.E. Dacted Jr. stumbles his way here, he can correct me. I trust his judgement of the AFR. Oof — I'm slipping in my distance of the memories. It is something lost from me, I can reach for it but can not grab it. HARD TRANSITION. FURTHER ASIDE.
As I have been revisiting much of the moments in my life that I view as formative, I have been slipping into a trap of my hubris and ego. A journey of introspection at full tilt while operating at full tilt, balls to the fucking wall, in every aspect of life in every way except what matters most, the actual lived experience of it. There is a whole thing about the foolishness of ignoring that you still have not found the answers when you examine the past imagining you know better now than how you did when you last pulled it all off the shelf, dusted off the box, pulled away the top, and selected from inside the memory that was neatly filed away in its manilla envelope. Walking through the case study of the event, writing the update, how we feel today, what it is filed back away as. What used to hold great importance and daily be urgent urgent now becomes filed away in the SharePoint of the knowledge base folder marked HISTORICAL – NON CANONICAL.
I read this thing about how autism can feel like living life as an alien wondering who is navigating your meat suit. I'd just call that dissociation. But like, as a metaphor or parallel, I can accept that argument. Counter argument, I don't have Autism, I have ADHD, I believe it to be a spectrum. I might be on that thing (Autism Spectrum), however, it is not to great extent in any element. I have been tested, evaluated, received second opinions, and the universally accepted clinical opinion is that I have ADHD. I am negative for Autism. They change names, terms, and frankly genders on an annual basis, the SOP continually needs refreshed it seems. In the end, as the person in the meat suit, I believe myself to be ADHD, that when regimented, regulated, and with some scaffolding, excels. I can vibe, vibing is living through my eyes, experiencing the world actively, and not vibing is living and watching my life from a third person lens. Imagine the entirety of existence being experienced as if you were playing a first person shooter video game. The ADHD part of it means while you are sitting back there, you can think about a hundred different outcomes and Dr Strange (or whatever his name is) your heart off. It is generally a very easy way to stick in that cesspool of criticism and making every single action become a piece of something so grand and important that if it doesn't hit, then the world crumbles. All day, every day. It is so much a bummer, but god damn watch me fly. Must be done in bursts.
All my life, I have found that I share a DEEEEEPPPP connection with a few people. People that I feel that you meet and immediately know. Knowing them in a way that feels like locking arms with a person and seeing in their eyes the trust bonded over a thousand generations of experiences shared. It's seeing a person who is entirely different from you, and yet is a mirror to you in the most primal and base ways. (If you have never read the novel Altered States by Paddy Chayefsky, I recommend it. I love the experiment of taking the reader to that layer of consciousness. The dialogue is brilliant in points. Overall the story is meh. Writers can often be brilliant at concept and generally rough at wrapping it up. The only one to ever truly do it in my mind is The Wire. Altered States is a novel that is written like a screenplay that became a movie that should be skipped but watched if you won't do the work to read a book anyway I again digreeeessssssss. I have not been taking my evening Adderall these last few weeks to work to be more present and less of that guy watching this all play out in the abstract. That guy is a genius but he sucks. Anyway the whole point of this writing will be to tell you about music. I'll get back to it. I am holding onto the thought. It's in its envelope in my mind. I have a hold on it. I will come back. We can meander and come home. All roads lead to Rome my boy.)
Hard Tangent. I am frustrated with Dorian. However, I do not know if it is warranted to be, I have not communicated the expectations properly. I need to get back to that.
This would meet the minimum expectations and I would be grateful. This would make me stoked and go above and beyond. This would not and would suck for my day.
123.
On a level, I have an expectation, that people have their own internal standard to be excellent, and so they just magically become excellent. But imagine the hubris in that idea when I stand before you reader as a man who is still becoming and just was unbecoming for such a duration.
God. It is so hard to make a habit. It's almost like we had a book club about it. I am doing it tho. Look at me right now.
I was talking about this idea this morning with Lee, (gym friend who is mentor and also a mirror to me but like older future me if I took a different path — you know, those kinda people. You just see so much of yourself when you look into them that something to the depth of you echoes back. See previous.) Anyway the idea was. EGO death. Gym is fantastic for it on both ends. Some days you're the god some days the weight humbles you. But in life, love, relationship, self. It's all the same. You need to be confident and sure of your footing. But you never need to be so full of yourself that you can't get your head out of your own ass. I have been the latter and not the former.
Hating myself and projecting that cloud everywhere, but doing and saying the right things? Or what in the lens of the moment was believed to be the best right choice that made the least harm and produced the most net good. Doesn't mean it was though. If you weighed me on my intent, gosh golly darn it, you'd sit there and tell me I was just and right. I may well be. You can be right and you can be an asshole. Both can exist. You can be Steve Jobs or Henry Ford or whatever or whoever, or you can be yourself. You decide what you wanna be. I am a person who is smart, hard working, diligent, trustworthy, accountable, reliable, worthy, real and honest in intent, handy, clever, strategic, funny, wise, caring, giving, gracious, and generally working on it.
There is a spider on my computer. It has been a very bad storm today. The outside likes to come inside when it rains. I have a general rule that I do not kill spiders. They didn't do shit to me. This guy is cutting it close tho. Anyyyywayyyy coming back now. Music.
Rome. So who is Joshua and all that yap yap yap? The answer is in who Josh wanted to become when he first thought he could become something.
When I was a kid, and when I lived in Algonquin Illinois we had the coolest fucking neighbors in the whole wide world.
The Ledderers. (I am beyond butchering the spelling but maybe this can anonymize them.)
They were so fucking cool. I was also such a shit head. Unfortunate. Anyway.
The dad ran a series of pawn shops. He always brought back the COOLEST stuff. Their house had the coolest projectors, pool tables, lawn mowers, etc etc. He was the nicest man. He always had a beer in his hand and a cigarette in the other. Constant. They kept a carton of Parliaments on the top of the beer fridge in the garage. The garage housed only MILLER LITE. I can remember this image visibly and to the finite detail. I know this because an eleven year old Joshua used to steal packs of cigarettes and leave cash on the garage bar counter like the boys did to not get caught. I never stole a beer. When I was in kindergarten my dad had me try his beer, I hated it, it tasted to me like rotten sunscreen. Imagine my shock and surprise when I tried it again at 23 and loved it. Now — dear reader, that does not mean I waited until 23. I just went straight to liquor because I am not nor have I ever been a bitch. Anyway I further digress, meander and fail to arrive to the point, but as previously stated, all roads, Rome. You get it.
The oldest son was Blake. Blake was too much older. I think he was 21 when I was 11.
Ty was different. Ty was 16/17. He was the coolest fucking guy in the whole world. I am not too ashamed to admit that for most of my college years (which were Age: 28, 29, and 30 respectively) I modeled much of myself after the image I had of him.
Ty was a California beach kid made for LA but in the Midwest by birth. He was stocky but was fit and could outrun me. Ty would skateboard up and down the hills. Ty was in a band. Ty liked the Misfits and had loud friends. Ty had turtles. All my life he was my neighbor. I knew him most as the guy with turtles until I met him again at adolescence in a new light. His turtles were named after the Mutant Ninja Turtles. Ty had long flowy wavy blond hair and a huge genuine smile. Ty had a beard but a beard a 16 year old would have. Ty was an artist. He was on the front lines of digital art. He had the coolest drawing pads and Mac machines (dad pawn shop) he drew and illustrated in so many mediums. He was just a total vibe. His life goal was to go be an animator for Disney. He was nice to me. He let me hang out. He was a safe place. I could be in the basement when they played GTA3. I could be in the garage when they made a hookah out of PVC. They were cool. They let me hang out. I was cool. Ty bought me my first ever cool pair of shoes with his Zumiez employee discount. I saved up all summer mowing lawns all over the neighborhood. I would ring doorbell after doorbell and offer to mow in the summer and shovel after a storm. I made a killing. I have always had a hustle haha. I asked Ty if he could buy the Adidas Superstar White on Whites if I gave him the cash for my first day of 6th grade? No 7th? Anyway. I thought Adidas was just the coolest. (I was not yet cool.) He did. Ty was dope. The first ever band I truly liked was Less Than Jake. As a general rule, if I am being honest, Ska is TERRIBLE. The scene is fun but we can not pretend that the introduction of brass was a brilliant add. But for me Less Than Jake is always magic. It's magic because it was the first music I ever had that was mine, that wasn't on the radio, the internet wasn't a thing in a meaningful way yet for music, (Limewire did not yet get built. So must have been 6th.) Anyway. Ty gave me the CD. He burned it for me because he was playing it and I liked it. So he made me a CD. I treasured that CD so much. Eventually it was discovered and my mom threw it away. (Not Christian music.) But it was too late. I already discovered something that I chose to be for me.
Then after I graduated highschool, I think I am 17? I have two jobs, I am working on the horse ranch and working 30 minutes up the road in a different town at a Dairy Queen. There are kids my age there. There is a kid there that is JUST like me. But totally different. But just like me. Andy.
Andy and I are still good friends. We check in often. Our lives still echo and mirror each other in interesting ways. One thing of interesting note, the lengths my beard has been at, have all been equally met in length at the same times by Andy. No planning or prior knowledge has been shared. Andy is not on social media like me, at all. It just keeps happening that we decide to go long or short at the same time.
Anyway. Andy. Andy liked emo/hardcore/punk/Electronic Dance music. Andy was cool. Andy was nice to me. He and I would always spend all shift in the back making burgers having an absolute blast together. We both reflect on it as some of the greatest moments of our lives.
I decided that I liked the music Andy liked because I wanted to appreciate what Andy liked so I could share it with him.
It also very much helped that the very cute cheerleader that worked up front named Sylvia McCue also liked that same genre of music and Matthew King and Charlie and that whole group all loved that kind of music too.
Joshua very quickly loved that music too. I still like that music. But it always feels like going back in memory not enjoying something for me.
Sean Hutchins showed me Dave Matthews Band. Sean and I are not mirrors. I will never fully understand him but I get his vibe. He is actually still the same EXACT guy I met at 14 on the ranch.
A burnout who wants to follow Dave Matthews Band on tour. To this day, he is still a burnout who is following DMB around on tour. He is the happiest guy I have ever met in my life consistently. I ran into him during college, I picked him up from the San Francisco airport and gave him a ride to Mission (CRAZY CHOICE ON HIS PART BUT LOL OK THAT'S WHERE HIS FRIENDS WERE.) He offered me a Tupperware of mushroom brownies that HE FLEW ON A PLANE WITH. I declined. I have not seen him since except on Facebook. But now I have something to report anytime I want a security clearance in the future. Anyway. So I like DMB for many years. I still do. But not enough to like get them tattooed on me. (Which — I have a DMB tattoo. Cause 19 year old Joshua wanted a tattoo on a Friday night and didn't have many good ideas. Not many 19 year olds have good ideas for the record.)
My dad would play Celine Dion on full blast. I believe I already told that story.
Anyway. The music I like today is just the music that people share with me that I appreciate because of what they mean to me.
Other than that Footloose soundtrack — I really don't know what music I would say is truly something I love that I discovered on my own, outside of Hiphop.
I am a huge Hiphop head. That was a very core part of my 20s.
I know the deep tracks. It is always a mark of personal pride, that I was invited to cookouts, allowed to use the Aux, allowed to use the barbecue, and allowed to play dominoes and spades.
I would be outside smoking on the dorm balcony, and I would have messengers sent to me, to bring me to a drunk argument over hip hop.
In Kyrgyzstan I led a very passionate argument stating that Kendrick Lamar was a better artist than Lil Wayne with an army soldier. Drunk as hell off Baltic #9s and Issabella wine. With a crowd of strangers cheering me on.
I know ball.
For many years, I would tell you that Kanye West was my favorite artist of all time. I believe that is still true but in a new weird way. I don't listen to his music, I don't watch his content, I don't allow myself to be entertained anymore. I still think he is the greatest of all time. I think he is bipolar. I think he is lost. I see a pretty clear pattern over time. He goes off his medication to engage with his creativity, he starts to become manic, in the mania he produces his best artwork, after, his mania becomes marketing, he does a tour, someone catches him, gets him stable. Take a break.
Repeat.
I decided after Kids See Ghosts and the subsequent great unravel pre-DONDA that I no longer wanted to participate in funding and rewarding that cycle of behavior economically. Not what I wanted to do with my time, money, attention. I just started to see a man suffering and the sad clown is just a mirror sometimes. Then he became a Nazi. Which automatically meant I couldn't support him in any fashion. I am yet a millennial. I will cancel someone and mean it.
I just like podcasts on history or Hardstyle with Tom Platz screaming in my ears these days.
I really do not know how to end a story.
I should not have been so harsh on Paddy Chayefsky.
Same brother. Same. Brilliant ideas. Rough execution. Mirrors.