i feel like i’m starring in the truman show except i’m the only one watching.

when i was little i used to imagine that the girls i had crushes on had invisible surveillance cameras that followed me around my house. so even in the privacy of my own home, i always felt like i had to work up some swag. must walk cool down the hallway. must practice piano impressively. tiffany might be watching.

since then, me growing up and also the implementation of the patriot act has helped me either become skeptical or get used to invisible surveillance cameras. but i’ve maintained some of my idiosyncrasies. i talk to myself, especially when i’m in awkward situations by myself (like, “oh it’s okay adriel,” when i accidentally brush someone’s bumper while parallel parking). sometimes when i’m by myself at home, i’ll skip songs that i like because i imagine that it might be annoying to someone else if they were here with me (even though they’re not). my most private thoughts aren’t jotted down in my notebooks out of fear of them being scoured by someone else’s eyes. nothing is private. even my deepest thoughts are at the mercy of my subconscious’ criticism.

at times i’ll see myself either from a third-person perspective, or in a series of black and white photographs. how incredibly self-absorbed–the only time i pluck myself from the innards of my thoughts is when i’m thinking about what it would be like to be someone else seeing me. i wonder how much of this weird self-imposed parole has shaped who i actually am. i didn’t have any older siblings to tell me how to act, just that itch on the back of my neck that let me know when something i just did could’ve been done a bit cooler.

aaaaaaanyway, i don’t know where i was going with this. i just liked the way the very first sentence sounded and thought i’d run with it. i should get used to writing late at night again without falling asleep. poof.

Hey look a bunch of songs I like!

As you may be aware, because of this, this, this, and this, I’ve been in love with robots lately. I don’t think I’d go as far as to cop one of these though, but who knows…where are you Monáezy???

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boredom sucks.
and not necessarily the kind of boredom when you’re waiting in line for hella long or stuck in traffic and don’t have anything to do. i’m talking about the kind that made me lock myself in my house all day to avoid the murky gray weather, yet with no ambition to do anything whatsoever.
my philosophy with boredom for the most part is that only boring people get bored. and in my aspirations to be an exciting person i’ve avoided that pretty well. but i don’t know what it was about today. i swear, i tried to do so many things–write, read, write songs, record, napping, watch movies, sit in front of myspace reloading my inbox…i even took a guitar lesson on youtube…but nothing could hold my attention for more than 20 minutes. there was not a bone in my body that wanted to do ANYTHING.
perhaps it’s my biology rebelling to the massive amounts of work i make myself do. i’ve been following this “well, lil wayne never rests” mentality that has only served me with late nights with my eyes melting in my sockets (btw it’s 3am right now) and waking up groggy as hell.
i’ve placed myself in this twisted position where i feel like my “vacation” happens when i’m on tour…where every night i get back into my hotel room so exhausted from a show that i knock right out. when i’m at home, there’s so much more ground to cover–so much more that requires your attention when you’re not hundreds of miles away from everything and everyone you know.

Here’s a video of a Japanese surgeon using the Da Vinci robot hands (I had no idea what that was until this video either) to make an origami paper crane. Man…if he can do that to a piece of paper, imagine what can be made with some brain tissue:

that wasn’t even funny. suchadork.

Anyone who describes herself as “like Harry Potter but with a vagina” gets my immediate attention. I’m sorry.

Anyway, I don’t know how it is that I spent an entire month in London and despite looking specifically for music that was buzzing in that city I didn’t come across Santogold, Estelle, or Ebony Bones. Apparently, I wasn’t in tune with the underworld enough. Well, check out her new single “We Know All About You” which you can download free at the Fader blog:

Wasn’t that the shittttttt? Now listen to this one, it’s called “When it Rains”:

Now watch these:

how much you wanna bet she’s gonna be on ruby’s GPS radar within the next week??

saul williams says that you’ve gotta eat in order to shit…meaning that you can’t produce art without intaking it. there are a slew of musicians, authors, filmmakers, actors, painters, and artists in general that i’ve been putting off, even though i know i’d really dig them if i took the time to check them out. being that i’m off tour and in production mode right now, i’ve decided to dedicate this summer to studying as many of these artists as possible! yeee!

so perfect timing that stanklin from the wondaland arts society posted up an old documentary on fela kuti, as his song “water get no enemy” has been a sort of an anthem for me and dahlak while on the road. his music has already recently been in my head since cody chesnuTT dropped the fela-inspired afrObama earlier this week.

check out the rest of the doc at the wondaland blog!

I usually don’t like comparing artists by calling them “the new __________” or whatever, but I, like many others, have been privately mourning the fact that Amy Winehouse still thinks of us in Vietnam War-era terminology. So as someone who has been keeping their ears open for a musical rebound, behold Adele! Not as much swag as Amy, but she has just enough Esthero in her voice to make up for it. Oops, there I go again.