Hey you.

I’m trying really hard.

Chances are good you are too.

It’s just you and me right now. No ChatGPT, no Midjourney. No marketing, no angle. No funnels or conversions or content or bladdybladdy bloody blah.

I haven’t written for myself in a long time. It’s funny, being here and getting to commit myself to the page in such an indulgent way. It feels weird, to be honest.

But the truth is, I’m not able to write something worthwhile at the drop of a hat. Or at least, I very much doubt I can. Instead, this will be the place where I can whisper secrets.

Let’s imagine you and me at the bottom of an empty well. The darkness between is near complete, save for the circle of light far above us. We’ve come all the way down here so that I can share parts of myself I have never shared with anyone. Anyone. You are the first to bear witness to any of this.

Can I trust you?
Are you listening?

Then let me start with a memory.
I wrote this 8 years ago, about a show a further 8 years before that.

Sound Asleep, 2009(?)

The kitchen was crammed, a press of bodies enjoying physical contact that came with additional body heat and perspiration. Everyone was sharing their presence, their heat, their sweat, mixing and pressing into each other, a human palette. 

The gear was stacked above the stove. The carpet which usually found itself comfortably under the table in the front living room of the house was now crushed under the weight of the drum kit. The three musicians were ready, just some minor last minute adjustments. There was that buzzing and familiar feeling that a number of drinks, that warmth that sat comfortably at the top of my stomach, allowing the cresting emotions to be dull and swimming, riding waves of the euphoria of being free from the worries and cares of the outside world. 

Here, in this small room, where dishes with mold and ages forgotten food scraps piled up to the cabinets, where garbage bags and paper towels lived with rat traps and rotting wood, this was the sacred ground where the tendrils of responsibility were kept at bay. 

Here was where the costume and pressure to assimilate fell away, and the joy and ecstasy of being together with others who felt so alone could flow freely. 

Here was where we constructed our altars, and sacrificed our eardrums to the greater good. 

This was where all sense and semblance of need and want could dissolve into hedonism. This was where life was good, and tomorrow was just a filthy word, a squandered promise at our age. 

We would live forever, and we had not yet made our worst mistakes. I had not yet made mine. 

The band began to play. This word does not describe the excruciation that the music contained. The trio were an endurance test, both for the crowd and for the walls of the house, which reverberated so violently the cabinet doors opened of their own accord, poltergeists in the form of sound waves wreaking havoc through the young men's den of iniquity. The beer in my hand felt like I was holding an electric shaver. Despite the earplugs, I was stood in front of three full stacks in a space barely large enough to qualify for a single bedroom, let alone a venue space where 20 or so people had crammed themselves in. 

Here, in this small room where families had made dinner and shared stories, we gorged ourselves on violence and noise. 

That’s all for now.

Yours,

Lance