The Late-November Early-December Dal Report

Hey everybody! I’ve had a busy few weeks here, and I have a lot to yap on about. Feel free to skim/skip entire sections.

Aquarium (11-13-2024)

Cass and I went with our friends Sam, Max, and Emory to the Newport Aquarium. It was a lot of fun! I hadn’t been to the aquarium since I was a kid, so it was a lot of fun going over there with everyone. Below is some of the highlights from the trip! I’m still wary of showing anyone’s faces, since I have no real way of knowing who’s reading this. But! Cass and I use an image hosting site called Immich, so here’s the entire photo album where you can see all our faces and such!. Reach out to me for the password!

This will probably be my solution from here on out on out when it comes to sharing images of people’s faces. I wouldn’t be so wary of it if this weren’t a public site. And I do want it to remain this way, I like the idea of anyone online being able to find and read this. Especially as I begin writing more essays and - sorry for the pretentiousness - think pieces. I have some stuff planned, which I’m very excited to finish and get posted.

Anyway, here’s some photos of fishies lol:

Various Album Releases

Over the course of the last couple weeks, three major artists released some great albums! One of the most notable for pop culture reasons are Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, which I listened to and of course love. And then one of the most anticipated albums of the year also released, with Linkin Park coming back for The Emptiness Machine. And, most importantly to me, is Poppy’s Negative Spaces. Negative Spaces specifically I’ve been so hyped for for awhile and I’m so happy it’s out now!!! Poppy is one of my all time favorite artists ever, I’ve been a huge fan since 2022? But I’ve been vaguely aware of her since 2017, when she blew up on YouTube. Negative Spaces is so.. god I love it so much. One of her best albums since I Disagree, at least her best metal albums. It’s brilliant, I have been almost nonstop listening. If you’re a fan of metal, check it out, it’s great.

Speaking of nonstop listening, GNX by Kendrick is also great! But if you’ve been paying any attention, you’re probably aware of that fact. I don’t think I have my finger quite enough on the pulse of pop culture to have anything worthwhile to say about it. At least, anything more than “it’s good”. reincarnated is my favorite. And some lyrics from wacced out murals actually ended up inspiring my last blog post, On Discipline.

“Yeah, nigga, go and up your rank
Know you a god even when they say you ain’t
Yeah, nigga, keep your feelings out the way
Never let no one put smut up on your name
Yeah, nigga, keep your head down and work like I do
But understand everybody ain’t gon’ like you
Yeah, nigga, if they say it’s love, you’ve been lied to
A couple rules of engagements, here to guide you”

- Kendrick Lamar, wacced out murals

There’s a lot of reoccurring themes in Kendrick’s music that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Mostly about masculinity and discipline, which to me are two things that go hand in hand. I may have to expand on this further in a different post all about masculinity, I have such a love hate relationship with how a lot of people think of it just as a concept. Obviously so much of it has been tainted by the internet Manosphere and figures like Andr*w T*te and others like him. It’s something I’d like to go further in depth on, and maybe it’ll give me an opportunity to fully explain what the obsession with cowboys is.

And then there’s The Emptiness Machine. I liked it the least of the three albums here, but I didn’t dislike it? I had never listened to Linkin Park before, so I listened to The Hybrid Theory before the new album. Which was a huge mistake, I should’ve known better, it’d be near impossible to follow Hybrid Theory up with anything. But, even thinking of The Emptiness Machine alone on its own merits, it’s just.. fine? It’s not bad, nowhere near bad, it just feels like it came straight from the mid to early 2000s. On one hand, as a recovering emo kid, it’s really nostalgic and a trip down memory lane. But on the other, I prefer a lot of intense experimentation in my music. I don’t like listening to someone if they sound like anything else I’ve heard before. I can think music is “good” or “fine” if I’ve heard it before, but I’ll never think its “great”. Not unless the artist is an absolute master of their craft, which Linkin Park on the Emptiness Machine is not. To be fair on them, they’re probably playing it safe, considering the elephant in the room: Chester Bennington being replaced by someone else. Granted, Emily Armstrong is great and sounds great, but it does feel like the band isn’t quite ready to do something new with their new member and instead feel safer rehashing territory they’ve already covered. And I get it. Either way, I’ll be keeping an eye on them. Hopefully the next album goes up from here!

Graffiti (11-16-2024)

So, my grandma recently sold my grandpa’s truck to my brother, Andrew. Probably about a month ago? So he hasn’t been driving around his old truck for a few weeks now, it’s basically been sitting in the street outside our house not being driven. At some point, some kids must’ve noticed and they spray painted the back of it.

Luckily, Andrew just happened to have some white spray paint and covered the graffiti up. Much to the annoyance of our parents who told him he should’ve gone to the police immediately. But he shrugged and said it was just a one off thing and it wouldn’t happen again.

WELL! IT HAPPENED AGAIN!

So, this time he did call the police and we found out that several other houses in our neighborhood were spray painted, as well as a few street signs. Really fucking weird, but definitely some kids being bored. Still haven’t heard anything back from the police, and probably never will honestly. Although we are curious to hear theories on what DPR stands for. I think it would be so hilariously stupid if DPR was this kids initials. Our other theory is it was someone from our neighborhood? I can’t really demonstrate why we think this exactly without doxxing myself, but our neighborhood is really tiny and far off the beaten path. Our street is off a road I used to drive every day, but I never noticed it before we moved in. And since this seemingly-abandoned truck was the only vehicle to get tagged, it feels like it demonstrates the vandals had hung around the area long enough to notice? I don’t know, I’m just theorizing because honestly at this point we’ll probably never know.

Library Haul

I’ve been going to the library every week or so for the last bit. I really fucking love going to the library, I try and do it absolutely whenever I can. It’s one of my favorite places to be, and I always feel so meditative and at ease no matter what I’m doing there. I could be working, or reading, or scrolling on my phone and it just feels so. Peaceful. Here’s some books I picked up the last few trips! Maybe next update I’ll give short review on these books..? Or maybe I won’t read them at all and put them off for a few months. Who knows!

Spotify Wrapped (12-5-2024)

Spotify Wrapped is back! I’m excited to share it, I look forward to this every year. I’m such a nerd for data and music so this tickles me so much. I’m also on stats.fm, which is basically like Spotify Wrapped but year round whenever you’re curious. Anyway, here’s the highlights from my wrapped.

The Sad Stuff

That’s about been the bulk of the past few weeks for me! At least all the fun stuff, other things especially with my family have been.. not rocky, nothing truly bad is happening, just a lot of changes that have really thrown me off. A few months ago, my dad suddenly lost his job. He was really high standing in the company, the only people above him were the CEO and CFO. He found out on a Wednesday the company was dissolving by that Friday. The other 100 employees found out on a Thursday. So he’s suddenly lost his job, income, and insurance and had less than 72 hours to do literally anything about it. Luckily my dad’s good at what he does and has been doing it for 30 years now, so finding a new job wasn’t difficult. He had a lot of offers all over the place, one in Cleveland, one in St. Louis, one in Frankfurt. But he went for a job in South Carolina. Even further now from all of us. My mom is going with him of course, they sold their house just a couple weeks ago. My brother and I drove up and helped them pack and get ready to let the next family in. It was more bitter than sweet. I feel very bad for my mom about it all, she had only just finished putting up little decorations and furniture throughout the house before she had to pack it all up again. I even made a comment to her just hours before she’d tell us they were moving, that “It finally looks like people actually live here now”. It’s about a 7 hour drive to where they’re staying now in SC. They got an AirBNB until they find a house or apartment to stay in. They haven’t been house hunting yet, they’re trying to wait until after the holidays.

Obviously it’s not about me. But I’m really, really sad they’re so far away. And I’m really sad they had to sell their house, I really loved it for them. I loved coming up on weekends and spending most of it napping in their living room with a window cracked open. They had a small pond with fish as well, so my dad and brother were always out there trying to catch something.

The other sad update is my brother got broken up with. I wouldn’t be so upset about it if it weren’t for the ex girlfriend’s daughter. She’s 3 and I really considered her my niece. I loved being an uncle and spending time with her. She’d always ask me to put these fake glasses on her face so she could look like me. I’m sad I probably won’t be talking much to the ex (I’m avoiding saying her name, not trying to be disrespectful) ever again, but not seeing my niece just really hurts. And obviously she has the right as a mom and as an adult to come and go from wherever she pleases. I don’t blame her. I don’t really know why they broke up, I just know she was the one who initiated. But after living together for the last year and knowing her for the last 3 years, it just sucks. It makes me so miserable looking at old photos and knowing I’ll never see this little girl grow up. But I have no real attachments to her other than emotionally. We’re not related by blood, and Andrew never proposed or adopted, so not by law either. I don’t know. It makes me very sad. But again, it’s not about me and I can’t imagine how my brother feels now. He was never perfect, but he really did step up with the kid as much as he could. As much as could be expected. He loved her dearly. I can’t imagine how sharp the loss must feel.

In general my mental health has been yo-yoing. I think its just all I mentioned above plus the season. I love the holidays, but its really hard to not think about the people I won’t be experiencing it with. Words still aren’t big enough to talk about the people I miss so dearly. Not after a few months since my grandpa passed away in May, not after almost two years when my Uncle passed on Valentine’s Day ‘23. And not the decade since my maternal grandparents passed just months away from each other when I was 10. There aren’t words big enough.

Conclusion?

Sorry for leaving things off on a sour note. Except I’m not really sorry. In the endless rants about how much I hate social media that I’ve subjected my friends to, I’ve heard a lot of people agreeing with me, but also saying that don’t like how social media isn’t “real”. I never understood that thought, mostly because I’ve only ever posted “real” shit to socials. Despite all my issues, I’ve never struggled with seeing the Internet as “real”. Obviously it’s real. I have blood in me, and I’m warm to the touch and I am talking to you in a way that is personal and unique to me. Obviously I’m real, obviously everything I post is real, and theoretically you are too. The realness of social media I struggle with is the rampant amount of bots now, but I don’t think that’s what my friends are talking about when they say they don’t like how un-real socials are. It’s more about the lying, or the only showing the good parts of life. And I always thought that was confusing because they never showed when they were struggling on social media. How can you claim you hate something and then proceed to do the thing you hate? I mean, I get it when you say you hate corporations and then work for a corporation - you need money. “But you have an iPhone” is a dumb argument to make when someone rightfully stands against child slavery.

But it really feels like people who complain about the Internet being fake are more fake than the celebrities and influencers they cite as being the cause of their disdain. I mean.. honestly, you’re frankly stupid if you think Kim Kardashian even knows the password to her Instagram account, let alone is thinking hard on what events to exclude talking about publicly. Celebrities and influencers are entertainers. Their whole job is to be entertaining. They’re not pretending, or hididng the “real” shit. They’re working. I can’t walk up to Walmart customers in my blue vest and tell them I’m really really sad because its the holidays and I miss my family.

I go to the outlet where I talk to all my friends at once and tell them all about it. And about the cool fish I saw, and about the music I’ve really been into.

Conclusion.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this update! I’ve been typing up a really long essay retrospective on my favorite artist’s music the last few weeks. I’m hoping it’ll be the next thing I end up posting? I have a lot to say about it, so it may be divided up into multiple parts. We’ll see, I guess! I’ve said before that within the next few years I’m going to have a mental breakdown bad enough I start making YouTube videos - quarter life crisis type beat. The more I think about it, the more my essay now reads like a script for a visually uninteresting video essay. Maybe I’ll finally jump the gun and do it? Or, maybe not. On one hand I’m grasphing at any out I can see to avoid Walmart and job hunting, and in our generation the idea of starting a YouTube channel, or live streaming, or making skits, always and forever lives in the back of our minds as a theretical option. I don’t know.

Anyway, I need to stop typing or I”ll make this even longer. I thought I ran out of things to say two hours ago. Catch y’all later.