My new favorite part of the end of the month is getting to reflect on my consumptions from the month & seeing the theme that occurred, if there is one. I don’t set out to intentionally pick these things to match a theme. After doing this for months now, it tends to be a mirror of what is going on in my mind or my life. I think that is what attracts me to these things at the right time. I also think we get gently nudged to have interest in certain things during certain times.
This is why I am so protective of the discovery process with art & connection. I believe it is a sacred part of our journeys as humans. We need art & other humans to be able to better understand ourselves & learn. These nudges may come to us in obscure ways, but we need to be open to the process. My taste profile is what actively drives my experience of this human experience. That show sounds interesting & I am really called to it right now? Let’s watch it. That is then a world I will be engulfed in for the extent of the show. That coffee shop sounds good? This is going to determine my route for the day. I think this person is really cool & I want to be around them? That determines who I spend my time with.
As humans we have our built in intuition & discernment & taste profiles to guide us. All we have to do is be open to the discovery process. It is getting harder & harder to be open to it though because of AI & algorithms. I find that things still break through… I can be served so much shit through them & it is still me who determines what I connect with. But it really narrows the input process. We are letting tech companies with capitalistic intentions determine the top of the funnel. & they have actively been pushing it towards things that provide them, their advertisers, their clients the highest chance of making more money.
This month the theme felt really personal. The things I consumed… I would not have had the same appreciation or point of view on them a few years ago. I really got to look back & understand how the journey I have been on & what I have learned about myself… allowed me to see these pieces of art so clearly.
The collective theme is about looking in the mirror & understanding who you are.
This is the fastest I have ever read a book in my life. I couldn’t put it down once I started. Patti Smith, her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, & the way she told this story… perfectly captures the essence of soul connections. The ones that don’t make sense to the naked eye. The ones that seem inevitable & you just know that destiny had its hand in this one. It also represents the unconditional love that comes with it, even as the relationship takes a different shape. When we are younger, I think these soul connections can be very confusing, like the only way it must possibly take shape is romantically, when really not every intense soul connection is romantic or the person you are meant to be with forever. Maybe sometimes the romance & rose-colored eyes is the only way we will see the lesson through though. With Patti & Robert, the romantic side was seemingly the only way a man & a woman would be able to bond that intensely in our society. That was the only way they knew how to express their love for each other or make sense of what they had. Until Robert started to address his sexuality. They went on this journey of being able to redefine their relationship, & then it took shape in a way that you saw it for what it really was. It was like they were the same soul in a different body, walking their own path. There is this yin & yang energy between them that is constantly shifting roles. Romantically, they would be doomed & out of sync, needing to always work to balance this out. They were each other’s catalysts & muses… they were the other half in a sense, but more like a twin than a lover. They even talked about how in photographs of each of them, they could see the other.
The book not only captures their connection, but is a great snapshot of NYC in the ‘70s. For their earlier years, they were in these prominent hot spots for creativity & art & community in the city, but right on the outside. Not fully in the thick of it at the start & Patti was sober, so she was the perfect witness to it all. They were living at the Chelsea Hotel. They were spending time in places where people from Andy Warhol’s Factory would hang out. This part kept me just as intrigued throughout.
Do I think this needed to be 8 episodes? Probably not. BUT I did find I learned a lot about Jay-Z through it that I didn’t know. He notoriously doesn’t do many interviews either so to get to see the way he talked & thought about things was really fascinating. I think Rick Rubin is the perfect person to be able to create space for that environment because there isn’t any ego he is bringing into the conversation & he is obviously known for creating space for artists to be introspective & vulnerable. He understands & respects the creative process & the art, which is what he was trying to highlight here with Jay. How crazy & special Jay-Z’s creative process is, plus how deep & poetic his lyrics actually go.
The Gemini in me loves rap music. I love the wit & the play on words. Jay-Z hiding all of these different meanings in the words & he was so intentional with them. I had no idea he does this all in his head too & how much flow is in his creative process. They both understand the spirituality & channel that happens with art & they were just speaking the same language throughout.
I also find that Jay-Z’s dedication to talking about his past & using his work to process it is such a healthy representation of masculinity. He came out of a place that creates one of the hardest shells, & he actually takes the time to reflect on how his childhood, where he was raised… & how those things influenced him. It is very public that Jay-Z has not been perfect… but I think that is what makes him so interesting because he seemingly actually reflects & grows.
Rick Rubin set out to accomplish the goal that people see Jay-Z for the poet he is & I think he accomplished just that with what he created. & again… maybe could have been done in 4 episodes, rather than 8.
My favorite character arc of this season was Alice Chilton. A new character to Ted Lasso, but one that was the perfect addition. In the second episode, she came in as this no nonsense, dedicated coach who had a chip on her shoulder for not being chosen as head coach for the Richmond women’s soccer team. She knew everything about all of the players & created this super detailed brief of everything for Ted. She was also planning to quit rather than take the assistant coach job. Ted, of course, won her over slowly but surely & got her to stay. She was the person he really coached this season, not the team.
I feel like we saw her open up throughout the season. We saw her look in the mirror & grow. We saw the different ways she dealt with the players from before she got suspended & after. We saw her realize that she didn’t have to be so serious all the time to be respected. We saw how much she genuinely cared about the players. We saw her insecurities. My favorite moment of all though was when Alice was in the room with all the male coaches & Roy came in & they did the Diamond Dogs bit.
Spoiler alert… this paid off for her by the end of the season & she was actually ready now. She hadn’t been in the beginning of the season & needed to go on the journey & learn from Ted in ways that weren’t technical or super tangible. Ted also had to learn from her… she was the one who understood the women on the team, like really understood them, & she bridged that gap for Ted.
My friends recommended this one to me a couple of times & I just got around to watching it. I didn’t intend to… but I watched it all in one day. I was up until like 3am wired because I just couldn’t turn it off. It was a rainy Saturday in LA… what else is there to do.
The show’s theme is all around traumatized & abused women through many different lenses. You have Alice, the FBI agent, who had been abused by her ex boyfriend, who was a cop. You had the serial killer, Catherine, who was trafficked as a young girl. You have Nora, the top ranking FBI agent, who had dealt with the male culture of the FBI & being in a department where she perpetually saw young women being sex trafficked, abused, & killed over the years.
Through these 3 women, we see them all living in the aftermath of all of this, when all of their paths cross. The show does a great job of showing the way that this trauma informs their actions in the show & also how it is impacting & living in their bodies. With Nora’s drinking problem. With Alice not being able to get into the shower & her hand shaking when she gets near it. We see it with Catherine & her own hands… the way she can’t feel anything in them but as she kills or feels safe… the feeling of power or just the feeling comes back in them.
I thought the details in the story were brilliant & getting to see their parallel paths all play out with this similar underlying theme of trauma & abuse underneath it all. You can see both in the FBI, the police force, the trafficking ring, the powerful men… all how power dynamics & toxic masculinity is raging through them whether they are within the law or not.
After watching Furious, it unlocked how much I have loved a good FBI related show over the years. I used to watch White Collar with my dad when I was younger & it was on air. I always loved Neal Caffrey as a character. It’s hard not to. The wit, the charm, the intelligence.
I went back & rewatched it since I hadn’t seen it in a long time. This was my third time watching it so I started at season 3 instead of 1. I saw it in a much different light. The themes that kept recurring were about what was actually right or wrong & whether or not someone can actually change or if they are who they are. Can Neal actually reform from being a con man or is it who he will always be, even after being an informant for the FBI?
We see Peter Burke, who was a very black & white person in the beginning, start to understand nuance. We see him struggle with trusting Neal, but also caring about him so deeply & starting to understand his intentions behind his actions. We see Neal grapple with the fact that maybe he was always meant to be a criminal because of his father & is that just who he is. We see him interact with other criminals that he had worked with before being an informant & him actually move differently as the other person stays a con artist.
I think a lot of people live in this moral high ground as humans, but I am not sure that they have enough life experience to truly understand their moral stance. I find that some of the most moral people are the ones who have fucked up & owned it. Not everyone who fucks up can own it though, which is something I have learned.
So I think the show is really about the shadow sides of ourselves. The ability to use the various traits that used to get us in trouble. Instead of repressing them, where they will just rear their head somehow & some way, how you can work with them & redirect those traits. Those very traits can be an asset when used correctly.
Joy Oladokun + Madeline Edwards
I saw Joy in concert at The Bellwether, where Madeline Edwards was opening for her. This was my third time seeing Joy, & actually my second time seeing Madeline Edwards. I had seen her open for Goldford at The Fillmore in SF in January of this year. I got inside & before I could even see the stage, I just heard her voice. The same thing happened entering The Bellwether… I was like
“oh there she is.” Her voice is captivating. Like chills in your whole fucking body captivating. All to say, I was just as excited to see Madeline opening as I was to see Joy.
They performed Sweet Symphony together & Madeline performed Chris Stapleton’s part, which she crushed. Fun fact, she actually started her career with opening for Chris Stapleton. Those two together on a tour & on a stage just made so much sense to me. Their voices together were crazy, but also just who they are as artists.
They are both living in Nashville right now. & they have both seemingly had challenges with the traditional music industry, in ways that perfectly highlight the exact fucking problem with it. I think each of them has the raw talent that they could probably do whatever they want with their careers, but they aren’t willing to sacrifice their creative control or what they talk about with albums to be mainstream. With Joy, her label dropped her after she pushed to self-produce her album, Observations From a Crowded Room, & again, have full creative control over it. I remember last year, I saw her after this happened & she just went on this small, solo acoustic tour where she stopped at a few of the major cities. I think it will forever be the best show I have ever seen of hers. Seeing this one with the full band was great & all, but that one was special. Now she is signed at an independent label where she can retain that creative control & talk about her experience through music of being a black, queer woman in Nashville & the US right now.
Madeline, she started right off the bat with opening for Chris Stapleton & traveling all over the country. After that happened, her brother had gotten diagnosed with schizophrenia & after that had taken his life. She wanted to write an album about the grief of that & her art is something that helps her process. The label did not like that. They wanted her to be more country pop star & this was too heavy for that… so they dropped her. She then created the album she wanted to create & did it all independently, FRUIT. Now last week, she released another project independently, low hanging fruit.
I think these two are so rooted in who they are as artists & have so much fucking raw talent. Although they’ve had to take a tough path just to show up as who they are, they followed their intuition & I just think the world is going to be their oyster & their time is coming. & it is going to be with them having full creative control. They are a blueprint of what should be in the industry. It is the type of music industry I hope for.
