let me serenade you

Miriam Margolyes for British Vogue’s July 2023 pride themed issue: “I wouldn’t want to be straight for anything.”

Hemlocke Springs (alt rock/new wave revival),

the Noisettes (indie),

Skunk Anansie (hard rock/metal),

Tamar Kali (rock/punk),

Valerie June (country/blues),

Santigold (indie),

Bloc Party (post punk revival/indie rock),

O Children (goth),

Lord Scary Black (goth),

Cemetery Sex (death rock)

deepincision (heavy metal)

zulu (metal)

black pantera (rock, metal)

winter wolf (punk, metal)

erzulie (punk, rock)

youth man (punk)

the 1865 (punk)

crystal axis (punk)

pleasure venom (post-punk/hard rock)

the rack (they describe their sound as “hard pop rock”, blends punk vocals and rock)

danny denial (indie punk/rock, queer)

gloom east (alt/indie rock, moody pop blend)

big joanie (synth punk + some more melodic, blues-like tones)

madame st beatrice (gothic, moody and melodic)

shadow age (goth)

saccharin (goth)

the ire (goth, punk)

bastet (goth punk)

yeah, I said "practice". remember how much joy there was in getting a new toy/book/game as a kid, and practice feeling that excitement again. a lot of us had that instinct squashed out of us, and you may not even know that you've internalized the idea that being excited and joyful isn't "mature" or "cool".

fuck that! let yourself experience joy and excitement! part of being an adult is learning that not only should you be able to feel anger/sadness/hard emotions without suppressing them, you have to do that for joy/excitement/wonder too.

Giggle at crows playing in snow.

Catch snowflakes on your tongue.

Coo over and take a picture of the cool caterpillar or colorful bug you come across.

Stare at the sky and see shapes in the clouds.

Jump in puddles

"Oh hey these people have their own style of [language A's word for thing. Say, what do you call it?"

"Oh it's [language B's word for thing]."

[item] the way [culture] makes it. 

If you don’t want sliced bread, you want bread the way Eastern Indians make it you ask for Roti, not bread. Because Roti is bread THE WAY [EASTERN] INDIANS MAKE IT. Like fuck, it’s not that complicated a concept. 

The real point is that you OWN a CD. You do NOT own anything digital you purchase.

Google Play stole hundreds of dollars worth of music I paid them for from me by forcing me to upload it to YouTube Music (or lose it entirely) which is behind a subscription paywall, requiring me now to pay more money every month if I want to listen to MY music I PAID for without constant advertising.

You do not own anything digitally purchased. It can be taken back from you at any time and it is fully legal for big corporations to do so for some reason.

CDs can't be taken from you unless they come into your house or car in person to physically pry them out of your cold dead hands.

Empty cd in the slot

Open cd on desktop

Drag music files in

CDs are useful, my lambs.

Also, you’ve unlocked a bonus story.

I work in a public service. My local school districts are cracking down on cell phones. A teen came into my work to try to burn their first cd.

Their first cd.

They were having some trouble and I was secretly like (this is my moment, holy Shit, burning CDs almost continuously from middle school until a couple years ago is About To Be Relevant, what the fuck, fucking hooray)

And I go over, and I listen to the teen (they bought a cheap stack of 100 READ/WRITE CDS. 100!!! And a single-disc cd walkman!!), and we fuss with it, and I troubleshoot the issue they were encountering.

It was So Easy. To fix this issue. I had to do almost nothing. Media player was grumpy bc the files were not in the folder it wanted them in. I moved them. It started working.

“Oh my god, you’re a MIRACLE WORKER!!”

I will be thriving off that moment for Years.

And before I had to go, I told them, “hey, if you can find a compatible player for cheap, you can fit way more songs per disc on an mp3 cd. We just burned an audio cd.”

They got So Excited.

Rip music to your mp3 player.

The mp3 player can fit in your pocket, your car, whatever, and carry terabytes. It never connects to the internet, so no one can delete the files off it.

(The corpos will tell you to "connect it to the internet/download security updates/do X to allow bluetooth" these are all just excuses to datamine your devices. If they wipe your mp3s, its fine, because you now have the CD at home.)

Wacom recently asked me to talk about why I make queer comics, and given there are multiple bills right now floating around in congress that are effectively "we will kill your livelihood if we get a sniff of queer" I had some pretty strong, simply feelings to relay.