Is it me, or did the pandemic roll everybody back?

I mean, it’s not like I was doing anything out of my own ordinary. My only beef with myself was missing the scribin’ and bringing the site back. Yeah, I know, I said several times in the last twelve or so years I was considering coming back, but I don’t know, shit just wasn’t calling me. It kind of was, as I always have stuff to write about, but I don’t know. Shit always got in the way.

I’m writing this on a Hackintosh laptop: A Lenovo Legion Y520 I purchased specifically to make it into a laptop running macOS. It was a funny process while I was in Micro Center waiting for my pickup to be ready. I almost didn’t buy this machine; I had my eye on an Asus, maybe? Shit, it’s been a while; I totally spaced. I was talking with the sales guy and almost changed my mind based on a spec or two, but thankfully I did get this one, because after a few months of attempting to make it right, somebody wrote a killer guide, and that not only saved me, but it forced me to learn everything inside and out. Sadly, the GitHub repository is no longer updated, as its author kind of disappeared, but I’m still rocking Catalina on it, because I’ve got no clue how to install OpenCore to update to Big Sur! Later versions of Clover are also fucking with me. Ultimately, I’ll get a new MacBook Pro, and this guy can go back to Windows 10, or perhaps Linux. Mmmmmm, Linux! I’ll always be an operating system whore at heart, ha!

Sooo, yeah, I, too, have realized this pandemic sort of rolled me back to shit I used to do, you know, prior to the “other things” getting in the way. I’m super happy to be back in audio, specifically listening and collecting records. I believe the ideal signature sound my ears always craved has been attained by diving into tube amplification. That whole audio bit will get its own post o’ love, because there’s some expansion to that, and I will dive further into it at that time. Let’s just say Chi-Fi for me is all the rage. Shit, I have an expensive habit, ha!

I was also able to rebuild my KISS vinyl collection. That was a super big deal for me, because I started collecting records as a child, and wasn’t so kind to my original albums. And again, details of another subject-worthy of a lengthy writeup. My goal was to obtain first pressings of everything from the self-titled debut to “Monster,” but by that time, I already had the record, and like 500 different CD pressings. Hahahahaha, no, I’m kidding; just a few, mostly from Japan.

Music collecting deserves a few posts o’ love, because there’s too many sub-categories to dive through. I’m really digging this “Post o’ Love” phrase, I’m going to utilize it through the site, just wait and see. However, my apologies as I digress. I still love records deeply. I still have all my compact discs; even my cassettes. And I have the means to listen to anything at any given time. While everyone was snoozing on the physical mediums, I kept at it, because that is one of a myriad of things I love myself for: I don’t follow a fucking single trend. Mentioning that shifts me to another subject: Social fucking media.

I mean, I get the concept. People are dumb as shit, and cannot handle how to maintain a website of their own, so they’re more attracted to these micro bits, and call it social media. I mean it started really with MySpace; the website allowed users to be an asshole with this ability to rank how you felt about your friends. Remember that with the whole Top Friends bullshit? Hahahaha, amazing. It also allowed you to be “friends” with celebrities. Oh, shit, you know what? I just realized why I signed up with MySpace to begin with. I had that shit falling out with Mina, and I felt that was the only way to reach out considering I wasn’t getting any responses to eMail. Thankfully, not only did we did reconcile, but now we’re kicking ass and takin’ names together. And I am positively sure I will have gobs of posts o’ love regarding us, because, well, it was already introduced back in the archives. I’ll get those integrated into the site at some point.

Speaking of my appendage, I plan on doing an extensive interview with her. Time to teach these rock and metal magazines and websites how a real interview goes. Fuck Rock Journalism 101. Let’s ask the same questions worded differently when we already know the answers. Fuckin’ stupid.

Okay, again! My apologies for the digressions. After MySpace, I don’t think I was really concerned with social media afterwards, but then being in Apple retail, I was sucked into Twitter. LOL, “microblogging.” Twitter expanded to be a community-driven news, and information source. However, lately I’ve just been posting amusing phrases that I say or happen to hear, lol, and no one knows what it even means except me. My own private jokes.

Of course, one cannot join Twitter without joining Facebook, and how ironic, back in my heavy “warezing” days, I remember someone being in college and joining Facebook, and this was several years before Apple, maybe early 2000s? That’s when the Zuckerburg-verse was only targeting the collegiate. And now in 2009, and I’m Geniusing up in Apple retail, so idiot me is joining Facebook, because that’s what the co-workers were all doing.

And what’s even more ironic, but not really, is that working at Apple was the last time I ever wanted a W2 job. Ever. It was also the last time I ever thought to attempt to be a part of the herd. Fuck. That. Shit. As a matter of fact, I was canned in January, 2012, and after being on unemployment, I sort of rolled into being self-employed, and I’m still doing that today. Mainstream media calls it the “gig economy,” but I am not doing the traditional gig things. No Uber or Lyft or Amazon Flex or Instacart. My title, no joke, is “consultant.” Hahaha! However, I am also a dog sitter, and that’s really what paid the bills, so to speak.

However, I’m still on the socials as what else, but @elevatorium everywhere. OH! How silly of me. I forgot to mention Instaslam Instagram, where at first, the only thing people took too many pictures of was of their food. I mean, seriously, people? You’re taking pictures of… your food? Is that all you consist of? And then it shifted over to the pets, and all the fake, “look at me, I am soOoOoOo happy” garbage posts. Social media basically made everybody faker than ever.

What I love now is how everyone basically pseudo experiences life through their phones. At concerts, people watch bands right in front of them through screens. Holy fuckin crap, really?! Back in 2019, during KISS’ End of the Road tour, I was at Madison Square Garden in the most fucking primo seat of my KISS concert-attending career, and although I filmed a lot and took a boatload of photos, I actually just positioned the camera and then watched not through the flippin’ phone. What a night; by far the absolute best KISS concert I’ve ever been to, and that’s saying a lot considering the various reunion shows and previous concerts.

Okay, so, in other news, I am also in the process of moving, but not far. I’m taking over the first floor apartment in the ‘rents’ house (Ha, see what I did there?). I dub it ‘The Suite,’ because that’s kind of what it is. Even though it’s a two-family home, sadly, and even worse, typically, previous tenants have not been too kind to the space after they’ve moved out. Now I am the permanent tenant, until one day I decide to move onward to elsewhere. So far the place has been professionally painted, and I have these gorgeous new engineered bamboo floors installed, and I’ve got about two-thirds of my shit down, but you know, shit costs money and it’s like, gotta buy this, and gotta set up that, so yeah, it’s taking its own sweet time. I also want to renovate the kitchen, because this is another atrociousness left by such kind tenants who don’t know how to appreciate or be grateful for shit. Once it’s complete and I’m all moved in, we can peep some pictures together. You know, that whole hold-hands-and-enjoy-the-moment shit.

Hey, at least I didn’t lose my sense of humor.

What else? It’s 1:49a right now, and I’m sitting on my “Crazy Nights”-blue colored sofa with my Y520 typing this while playing this gorgeous music and video on the television off YouTube. You’re welcome. I made an MP3 out of it and play it when I sleep. Okay, so I just made it yesterday, but shit, it sounds glorious! It’s a very pleasant, quiet, soft song; it feels safe, yet innocent, yet loving. And ironically, it gave me two hardcore depressive episodes last night, but I am fully okay now. It just has that type of a vibe.

Ah shit, I just triggered reviews in my head again, ha! Man, I miss that shit, too. Did you know I wrote a review for Paul Stanley’s 2006 solo album Live to Win, but never published it? A friend at the time told me a shitty sounding copy was floating online, and I cannot believe I found it. I sent it to him, and we both listened to it, and wrote reviews. I was actually friends with his cousin, but after she committed suicide, it’s like he didn’t even acknowledge who the fuck I was. I’m like, uh, really? We just talked online every night for months, that’s all. Stupid. And now, Paul has a new album coming out; a soul/R&B project called Soul Station, and yes, of course, I’m still a fan girl, and have to buy fucking everything, hahahaha. Ah man, good times. It’s a collection of covers and I think a few originals. It sounds great, looking forward to the CD, and you know the purple limited edition vinyl and the regular black vinyl records when it all comes out.

You know, this is a completely different topic altogether, but this theme, the default for WordPress, it’s called Twenty Twenty-One, and it totally reminded me of an iteration of ECM Records’ website. I love their simple, gorgeous, minimalistic designs. If I remember correctly, I think the background color was extremely similar to this as well. That’s really the initial inspiration of the site. If the WordPress theme resonates with me, that’s it, we’ve got to get it on. And yeah, many have, but now with WordPress being much easier to work with, it just felt like the right time. And you know what? With the pandemic raging for a year already, that’s really all I have been doing. Rolling back into the shit I totally missed doing. And it seems many people are doing that, and I love it. I love that people are finally waking the fuck up. I love that every day I am someone new. I love how people who no longer speak to me don’t not because I haven’t grown, it’s because they haven’t, and they still see me the same way. I love being virtually stress free. I absolutely love, am thankful, grateful and appreciative for the fact that The Universe has my back always. It’s really a beautiful thing.

I was just reading back and tweaking some shit in this post, right, and I just realized how it’s really a funny thing how this site came to light. And you know, to think it started from a dream set to Terre Thaemlitz’s song of the same name, to wanting to recreate that dream as a short film, and then making it into a website instead, except the website ended up not being about the dream at all, just me writing. And from 1996 to 2009, I pined hard for ‘The Boy’ in the dream. In the end, I’m quite happy it turned into nothing, because the dream showed me exactly that. It ended there. And I thought all sorts of things about The Boy, whether or not he was still alive, and if he was, did he miss me? I mean I did see some early visits to the site from him, so that was nice, but ultimately our paths ceased to cross yet again. And that is absolutely okay. I am in such a different place now. It would have been great to me be now back then, but alas, we live and we learn. However, the memories are still alive, and they’re still killer, but for some bizarre reason, I still choose to identify with the word.