I used to fill this room with sound so loud it would steal my hearing from my future self.

I used to to eviscerate myself of stage until my white pick guard went red and my strings began to rust.

I used to collapse, wet with sweat, hoping this spectacle would fill the cracks in my mental health with gold strong enough to hold me together a little longer. That I would be able withstand the joy and pain of life and hold all of those I loved inside me without losing a drop of them.

In this room I used to heal wounds.

In this room I inhaled black mold.

In this room I picked at scabs until they scarred.

I spend way too much fucking time thinking about the internet. About technology. About what it all means. Like, what does re-blogging a sexy anime panel say about me personally. Is this misogyny? Is this sexual freedom? Why do I only want do that if the pic is in black and white? Is this a pathetic action for a man in his thirties?

Also, how in holy hell has the internet been used to turned some of my family from folks that loved oil money and jet-skis to anti-vaccine, anti-trans, anti-climate-action zealots doing research on YouTube?

Yes, I did just finish reading Naomi Klein-o-Wolf’s Dogglerganer. Thanks for asking.

I feel like there’s two main schools of thought here:

1. They were always secretly like this and now they can go mask-off about it.
2. They got radicalized during Deep Covid™️.

I think the truth is probably leans towards number two, here. I mean they were always kind of cruel and shitty about how I dressed (elder emo, big surprise), and that has a straight line to reinforcing the gender binary to the benefit of patriarchy, but they honestly didn’t think about it that much.

I am pretty sure the only thought they had about was “haha Goblin looks gay. I should tell him that.” before moving on to crushing their fourth Bud Heavy. They thought politics was dumb, boring, and there hottest take was “Taxes are bad and I don’t like them”.

They also had some worse takes, for sure. I doubt the hardest right of them ever supported gay marriage because they were grossed out by queer folks, but by no means were they picking up picket signs and protesting drag or running in local elections.

This was supposed to about why I care about the internet and look where we are now. I guess that’s where we are at. This blog was supposed to about bikes, but that’s not really happening, either. Here lies tallgoblin (the liar).

I think I care so much about the internet because I believe it’s real. It’s a layer of capabilities that rests on top of our tangible, organic world. It’s not separate. Augmented Reality (AR) is already here, we just have a shitty UI that’s giving back problems and carpal tunnel.

I think the majority of the people I’ve fallen in love with have been people I’ve met online. In high school, I fell in love with hotties on MySpace and Nexopia. I was Emo (well, Scene, but let’s not split hairs here, it was just another name for the same thing, be honest). I only wanted to date Emo/Scene girls and in a town of 10,000, the pool was real fucking small. So I went online.

Did I project my idea of who I wanted onto these people in gaps between their MSN messages and Top 8? Definitely. I am pretty sure they did the same to me. Their #BoyfriendinCanada™️. Not the healthiest choice, but let’s cut everyone some slack, we were teenagers on the internet.

Where the hell I am going with this?

The internet means so god damn much to me and I have this insatiable lust to over-analyze everything and I want to believe the internet could be a nice place to hang out.

Why do I love records and tapes so much?

Because the crackle of a dirty record warms me in the same way a wool blanket in front a fire does? Is it because in the digital silent gaps between songs, when I become keenly aware of my tinnitus and the deep dread of both being alive and the crushing thought of my own death?

Von Dutch by Charli XCX. Sweet reprieve, best not to dwell.

Is it because my distracted brain can’t stay focused for more than 20 minutes without having to jump to a new task and flipping the record takes just enough effort to scratch that itch?

Is it because everything in the world feels like it’s asking me to be anywhere but where I am and pay attention to anything other that what’s in front of me?

Because we figured out how to monetize every fucking moment of every fucking day.

Or are tapes just really cute and that makes they get some likes on the gram?

I have this terrible habit of needing everything in my life to have a deep and Important ™ meaning. Like I am on this sysphisian quest to just be alive and a without a reason for all this struggle I feel truly fucked. Loving tapes can’t just be because, i dunno, they are cool. It has to mean something.

Or else why would I insist on the headache.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve felt like there was a cannonball sized hole missing in the center of my gut. Like behind my ribcage and gut is just a hollow void of wanting. A black hole sucking every positive affirmation or CBT workbook I throw at it. (Ironically, digesting Zoloft has helped significantly).

Sometimes feeling like if I have a purpose, a meaning, it makes the hole feel a little smaller. Or at least directs it’s hunger at something other than my wellbeing for a while.

Hilarious to me that I can give that much meaning to a lo-fi beat tape to chill to. But I do.

I think your early 30s are about realizing progress isn’t always progress and maybe the kids should get off your lawn.

A joke, but … the kids are not doing okay and definitely not touching grass (I also cannot afford a lawn to this is a moot point and bad analogy), and it has nothing to do with my metaphorical lawn. Like misogyny isn’t going to end if MRA podcast hosts just listed to a few slowed down golden-age beats with with a Ghibli quotes thrown in for good measure.

Maybe if they just really listened to J-Dilla, though. Like felt it, man.

I am constantly searching for way to feel soft enough for a good cathartic cry. I watched the first three seasons of This is Us for exactly this reason. I cried hard and alone. I might never be able to live in a cabin napping next to a crackling fire, but sometimes I can trick my body into thinking I am in the euphoric afterglow of felt-body loss.

That’s what records and tapes do to me. In their softness I begin to escape inward, towards softness. Towards tenderness. Towards myself.

On social media, I quickly leave my body, I leave the literal fucking concept of time, and find myself both rewatching my own stories and hating myself. Holy hell, there is such a need to be seen.

Listening to tapes and records is the opposite.

Lost in time? Time to flip the record.

Left your body for a digital-liminal-ghost-self comprised of stress-sweat, auto-correct, and a lack of impulse control? Your gonna have use your hands for something useful and flip the cassette to side B.