Wydbot / Promotion - Tiktok - KFH - Gopchang - Irish Moss

I’ve spent too many days emerging fuzzy-brained from hours long binges at 4AM asking myself with deep regret:

What did I do with all my time?  

Wydbot is a tool I built to help me answer that question.

Wydbot in action

The data for this past week. Note that I deployed the project on Friday (2/19) so we have just a few days of data in this graph. For subsequent weeks we should have full weeks of data.

How it works

Wydbot texts me through all of my waking hours (9AM - 3AM EST for a bit of leeway). Upon receiving that text I respond with what I’ve been doing for the past hour. This message is logged to a table and at the end of each week I take that data, run it through a data analysis tool and get a graph of how I spent all my hours the past week.

How I built it (skip if you don’t care about coding stuff)

I use AWS Lambda as the brains of the tool. I use a cron job via AWS Cloudwatch that calls this lambda function every waking hour. Upon being called the lambda function calls Twilio to text me asking what I’m doing. Once I respond to that message Twilio calls the lambda function via webhook integration which then logs my status to Airtable.

At the end of each week I import the CSV generated from Airtable into Jupyter notebook where I use Pandas to process and visualize the data. Note that for status entries that have multiple statuses I split the weight of the status by the number of statuses. E.g. “tiktok, eat” —> 0.5 hours tiktok and 0.5 hours eat

Hope this makes sense. If it still seems like gibberish to you and you’re interested in learning more details lmk.

Thoughts

• I’m pretty happy with the way this turned out. I think it’s a big push towards the right direction. I know I generally waste a lot of time but now I know exactly how much time I waste and where I waste it.

• The time tracking wasn’t too difficult after all. I thought it might be tedious to log an entry every hour but it ended up pretty easy. I like the text aspect of it. Makes me think about it less and it’s almost like I’m responding to a real friend actually asking me what I’m doing

• It was interesting to segment out my hours like this again. Real throwback to my high school days where we’d have 1st period, 2nd period, etc.

  • I wonder what this segmentation of time actually does. For the past few days, at least, I was definitely more cognizant of how each hour was going by knowing that I’d have to log my status for that hour.

  • I’m generally a fan of segmenting time into meaningful intervals. Up until the end of college I’d lived my life this way. Four years each from middle school, high school, to college. Now that I’m post college I think the lack of segmentation has led to a sense of formlessness?

  • To that end I wonder how effective it’d be to segment the rest of my life into meaningful intervals. E.g. for these four years I accomplish X, for these next five years I accomplish Y, etc.

• We’ll see how I end up using the data to make changes to my life. Is it just a pretty graph or will I end up actually changing my habits? Will be interesting to see the graph after a month of data or so too

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Besides all that stuff, here are this weeks highlights.

Promotion
I got promoted at work! I was out with Chynna at 5ive Spice (great pho) when my boss’s boss messaged me saying I got promoted. Feels great in the sense that I get more money. Feels weird in the sense of what’s next? Try to get promoted to the next level? Enjoy myself at my new level? Also feels kinda weird to get promoted when we’re all WFH. Would have been nice to go out for drinks or something.

Tiktok
I got really into tiktok this week. It all started when Sherry told me she’d been using tiktok and tried to catch me up on all these random tiktok trends. After that I downloaded the app and started as a lurker but—to my surprise—I also ended up making a few tiktoks myself (1, 2). Pretty fun for a while but I think I’ll tone it down a bit this upcoming week. There’s just way too much information out there and using tiktok is like being blasted in the face with information from a fire hose.

I feel old when I use tiktok. My first tiktok took almost an hour to make. Technology is making the generations go faster. Before a generation was maybe ~30 years apart. Now even people 10 years younger than me (I’m 26 now) seem almost un-relatable.

KFH
Met up with KFH, an old high school friend. We hadn’t been that close back in high school so I was a bit surprised to hear from him but it was great seeing him again. To think I hadn’t seen this dude for roughly 8 years is a little mind boggling. I’m sure some people drastically change but KFH was pretty much the same. A deeper voice and a new beard, sure, but personality wise he seemed pretty similar. We caught up over ramen at Ramen Danbo and talked about the people we used to know. I was astounded to hear that KFH is currently managing an artist and finalizing details to sign the artist with a label. He’s promised to give me tips on releasing my music in the future so I’m grateful for that :)

Gopchang Story
Went to Gopchang story with ToAnnie. The food was great. Super heavy but delicious.

Pretty much a platter of any kind of offal (large intestine, small intestine, tripe, etc.). Kinda disgusting to think about but hands down delicious to eat.

Does the idea of eating this disgust you?

If so, then grow up and join the rest of us in the new world. THIS IS WHAT WE EAT NOW.

Irish Moss
This was the first time in months(? years?) that I tried a drink I had absolutely zero context on. Picked up this Irish Moss drink from a Caribbean restaurant. Delicious flavor. Interesting texture. The flavor was peanut butter and condensed milk (I think). The texture was significantly goopier than I expected. The can instructed me to shake which I did but even then there were pockets of goop that hadn’t been well distributed. Overall fascinating drink that I’d try again.

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Vocals rant / Opentable reunion

Back at it from the intermission.

I buckled down and really try to finalize my vocals for an upcoming song. Man oh man are vocals a pain.

Not only do you have to sing it well and record it well (both of which are an entire field of study on their own) but you also have to comp the vocals and tune it and align it with doubles and harmonies. And it takes a lot of time.

No wonder I’m punting the rest of this song to a mixer…

Anyways I am really really really close. Just have to finish the vocals for the intro and flesh out the rest of the outro instrumental and we’re good to go. Decided to go back on Trello for the remainder of this project (shoutout to my boy Andrew for the suggestion) and it’s moving along pretty well.

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In terms of other life stuff…

I did end up doing a video chat with some old friends I interned with years ago at Opentable. What a trip. I hadn’t talked to most of these people since 2016.

And it’s not like we planned for a reunion or anything. We only did the video chat because one guy randomly messaged the group chat asking if anyone bought GME (😂).

Anyways it was cool seeing everyone. Not sure how much we’ll still continue to keep in touch since everyone is kinda scattered across the country. It is a sad idea that once you leave a place (work, school, group, whatever) you will never really have an opportunity to be with that same group of people again. People will get busy and drift apart and roam etc.

I had trouble falling asleep a few nights ago because I kept thinking about my Berkeley days. I wondered how different it would feel being on campus without all the people and friends I met during my time there.

But then again I realized that’s a little melodramatic. You will hold onto the people you want to hold onto and if you don’t then that’s your fault dummy. And it’s not like we live in the olden days when a letter take months to travel the country.

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Other news from this week:

• Met up with Frank. He just started this new healthcare company. Apparently there are a bunch of doctors that are tired of being part of the system (due to overwork or misaligned incentives where they’re encouraged to treat patients to optimize for more money vs patient’s wellbeing) and work entirely outside of insurance system. His idea is to create a marketplace connecting these doctors with patients

• Got BBQ from Hometown BBQ with Tony, Annie and Dan (ToDannie?). We got the brisket, ribs, mac n cheese, lamb banh mi, and cornbread. Great meal.

• Walked around a bunch. Tryna close out my Apple Watch rings

Random beautiful church I found a couple blocks from my apartment

Sundown at Fort Greene

[intermission]

I’m taking a lil break from writing today. I’ll write a new post tomorrow!

Harsh / Oh Brother II: Vegan VVeekend / Master Plan 2021

Good week. Busy week.

Saw Harsh for the first time in two years. I can’t believe I’ve known this guy for almost 8 years. We met my freshman year at Berkeley where we both lived on the first floor. What a time.

I didn’t particularly like freshman year. I think it was a year of insecurity and wandering. Trying to figure out who I was as a person and the people I wanted to be friends with. Not to mention it was a lonely year. Didn’t have many close friends and found myself floating from friend group to friend group using each group as an excuse not to get closer to the last group.

I bring up this tangent because as I was talking to Harsh I found myself wondering at how little he’d changed. Maybe there were some inward changes in him that I hadn’t sensed over the years but on the outside he seemed like almost the same dude I knew back in freshman year.

Made me wonder how much I’d changed from freshman year. I’d say I’ve changed a lot.

Definitely happier. More confident. More certain of what I want. More debonair (wink wink). But then again I wonder if my friends would think the same thing. Maybe I appear the same unchanged Woody from freshman year to them as well.

Anyways, it was great catching up with him. We ordered some ramen from Tatsu which I’d been looking forward to trying again since I returned to New York. Unfortunately the courier forgot to pack my soup so that was a bitter disappointment. Harsh kindly split his veggie soup with me so the meal was partly salvaged. We went up to the rooftop lounge of his swanky temporary Midtown apartment that Facebook’s covering while he settles into New York. Them views man… Pretty fun night.

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Later that night Harry (a.k.a. Chimpy Chimperson a.k.a my brother) came to visit from Pennsylvania.

He’d mentioned over messenger that he was trying out veganism and this weekend I was able to experience that veganism in full force.

We started Saturday afternoon at Guevara’s with some vegan nachos. Veganism aside it was a great plate of nachos. Super crispy chips (always always always gotta start with great chips) that—hallelujah—stayed crispy despite the load of toppings. Didn’t find myself missing the meat at all. We also ordered the chilaquiles which were also good but unfortunately got a little soggy. The chilaquiles came with some vegan egg which fascinated me by tasting decently eggy.

The fun thing about eating vegan is seeing how close they can get to the real thing.

In this meal alone we had: vegan cheese, vegan sour cream, vegan eggs, vegan beef crumbles… all of which were pretty convincing and tasty.

After Guevara’s we walked over to Heatonist in Williamsburg to pick up some hot sauce. This elusive flavor escaped me yet again as I discovered the Williamsburg location was sold out as well (the Manhattan location was sold out when I checked last week).

The view from Williamsburg close to Domino Park

Later that evening we went to Two Boots to get some pizza. I got the Bayou Beast (spiced shrimp, crawfish, andouille, jalapeños & mozzarella) and the Hogwallop (bacon, BBQ chicken, scallions & cheddar on a white pie) while Harry got the VCBGB (Vegan Chicken, Broccoli, Garlic & Basil pesto and Daiya non-dairy cheese). My slices were fire. Would try again. The vegan pizza was interesting. The cheese was slightly gummier than regular cheese (oddly not in a bad way… almost more satisfying texturally to chew through) and I wasn’t a huge fan of the vegan chicken but I could see it satisfying the pizza itch for a newly turned vegan.

It snowed again! Our walk back from V Spot. So BEAUTIFUL

We rounded out our vegan feast the rest of the weekend with vegan cookies and cream from Van Leeuwen’s and a Chicken Parm/quesadilla from the V Spot. Harry also turned me onto this documentary about veganism. Pretty interesting watch with the TLDR that veganism is healthier than meat eating in almost every way possible including: lower cholesterol, faster physical recovery, and better sexual health.

There’s a scene in the documentary where they draw a parallel between smoking and meat eating. How back in the day tobacco companies created misinformation promoting the claim that tobacco was safe and even healthy for you. I wonder if we’ll look back on meat eating the way we look at smoking now. I’d guess not. Maybe excessive meat eating can be a problem but there are plenty of elderly people that have lived long, healthy lives even as meat eaters.

In any case I might go partly vegan. Harry’s doing it for a month to see how he feels. As of this writing he claims feeling healthier (which he acknowledges might be the placebo effect) and also reports a rising sense of vegan based moral superiority 😂.

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Also spent some time working out my 2021 Master plan (linked on the In Progress page as well). My plan for the rest of the year is to check in weekly on my different priorities and update what I’ve done towards each priority (probably in a Google Sheets that I’ll link next week). I shall be as meticulous about this as possible and see where this year goes.

In other final news:

• Got an Apple Watch! Pretty happy with it so far and wonder if I’ll be able to fully replace my phone with it someday (no need now because I’m stuck at home most the time anyways)

• Watched the Super Bowl with Tony, Annie, Karen and Karen’s roommates. Also ordered Mala Project which was delicious but I was punished digestively the next day :’(

• Caught up with some ex work friends (Chris, Chynna) and Naveen over Google Hangouts. Was fun seeing everyone again and I’m glad we’ve kept in touch despite not working together anymore.

Sardines / Winter Storm

I’ve been really into sardines these days. It started in California when Dad brought home a six pack of sardines from Costco and it stuck with me all the way to the present in New York. It’s a near daily staple for me at this point.

The way I eat these days: banana, berry, kale, protein smoothie for lunch. Sardines with mayo and dijon mustard on toast for dinner. And I’m good to go (at this point in my life I don’t care if I eat nearly the same thing every day during the weekdays).

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On a side note: I read this article on fat loss recently and it inspired me to start counting my calories just for a while to see how much I’m actually eating. A bit naive to say but it really surprised me how much of my calories go into random things like sauces and mayo and olive oil. I don’t plan on counting calories religiously but it’ll be interesting to track what I eat while I’m stuck at home anyways.

For reference I’m budgeting ~1700 calories per day. Another interesting point—the article recommends eating 1 gram of protein per pound that you weigh. That’s a whole lot of protein damn.

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Anyways back to the sardines. After a bit of trial and error my favorite pack of sardines right now is King Oscar’s Brisling Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil (5/21 edit: I’m over the King Oscar Brislings. Too oily. My current favorite is the olive oil packed Bela Sardines)

Once you’ve been in the sardine game for a while you kinda get a feel for what you like and don’t like in a can. There’s a good amount of variety here.

First is the type of sardine. You may not realize but sardine is a term that covers multiple different species. You could eat a pack of sardines from one company and it could be a completely different species from the next.

This leads to the sardine packing. Depending on the species of sardines in the pack you choose you might get a big species where 2-3 filets can take up the entire space of the can OR you might get a small species where you can squeeze in at least 12 individual fish before you start running out of space.

Once you get past the species and size you also have to decide whether you want skinless and boneless or you want the sardine as nature intended.

And finally you have to decide about the pack filling. Common flavors include

• sardine in oil

• sardine in hot sauce

• sardine in lemon sauce

• sardine in tomato sauce

• and so on…

Some other things I like about sardines:

• High in protein

• High in fish oil, vitamins and all that other random good stuff

• AND because they’re low on the species chain they contain a significantly lower amount of mercury compared to something like tuna.

There truly is a world around sardines. People like to collect them like you’d collect Pokemon cards. I stumbled on this blog (started in 2011 and still going strong to this day) that’s dedicated to collecting and reviewing different cans of sardines. At last count this guy has reviewed 634 different cans of sardines.

I’m probably not going to do this but I can see the appeal of collecting different sardine cans. Some of these can designs are pretty aesthetic and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a museum of canned food art somewhere in the world that features them.

Another fact that really surprised me: You’re probably aware of vintages in wines where people collect and prize older wines from certain years.

This is a thing that exists in the sardine world as well!

Certain companies (like my current favorite King Oscar) will set aside the best of the best cans in a certain year and release them years later as a vintage. On an individual level there are collectors that will set aside some cans for years (they just have to flip the cans every once in a while so the liquid covers the fish from top to bottom). Apparently the longer the fish is in the can the better the flavors get to know each other. Here’s an entry in the sardine blog where the writer eats a 32 year old tin of sardines.

Last bit of sardine trivia for tonight: King Oscar runs an annual sardine Haiku contest where winners can receive some of these coveted vintage sardines. I hope to enter next year.

From all this sardine research I walk away with the desire to one day visit Portugal (one might call it the sardine capital of the world) to check out the sardines. Maybe tour a cannery if they’re open 😍.

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Besides my research on sardines this week has not been very eventful (perhaps evident by the amount of research I did on sardines).

Some highlights:

• Went to my annual check up at a new doctor. The view from her office is almost beautiful enough to make me want to go to the doctor’s office.

• Got KBBQ with Tony and Annie in Koreatown. Literally my first time in Ktown (or midtown for that matter) in almost a year. They set up these heated tents that almost gave me a pocha vibe. Tony—for some reason—was fixated on the brisket so we ended up getting at least 6 servings of that. We also got a somaek tower which ended up being pretty fun. Will miss these guys when they move to the bay

• Discovered a new spot for beef patties. I took a walk Sunday afternoon in the hopes of experiencing the winter storm that was projected to hit NY. Wandered over to 3D Bakery where I had one of the best beef patties I’ve had in a while. Super flaky crust. Flavorful warm beef filling. Great way to experience the cold.

• Took a walk after the winter storm came down. I have not seen this much snow in a long time.

Quarantime / Wine Night

I’m trying to think of how I spent my (quarantine) week but the days seem to have melded together.

All I can really remember is playing a lot of Ring Fit on Nintendo Switch. I’m surprised by how much fun I’m having just jogging in place and squeezing a ring every once in a while. Maybe this is how I end up getting a six pack ;)

Another highlight of the week—I’ve been making hella smoothies. As someone who’s dreamt of owning a Vitamix over the past few years I am so happy I pulled the trigger on this. I might go so far as to call this a gamechanger? Life is peppered with notable events that break down the timeline into befores and afters. This is one of those notable events. Before I was nothing. Now I am a smoothie man.

I don’t think I’ll let this take over that much of my personality but it has definitely become a small part of my identity hahaha.

Besides that I’m back on the habits. No more neverending sessions of watching Youtube laying down on my sofa with my laptop propped on my chest like an otter eating a clam. I’m back on the media purge, baby.

New rules where I keep a media purge Monday thru Thursday. I’m trying to be a little more lax this time around so I can actually maintain these habit changes longer than I could before.

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On a different note I went to a Tony and Annie’s wine night. It was great seeing everyone in person for the first time in months. The four of us (including Dan) met up earlier in the day. We grabbed ramen from Jun Men Ramen bar. I got the spicy pork ramen which got the job done but didn’t really hit the spot. Still wish we’d gone to Tatsu ramen for the chicken broth…

We also got cake from Harb’s. Japanese style super light n fluffy strawberry cake.

After eating we went to Maison Kitsune where I saw this very cute chillax fox that I one day wish to own but damn this stuff is super expensive. I guess it’s good to expose myself to this kind of fashion that I’m not very familiar with but a scarf for $260?? Don’t got that kinda money…

Tony and Dan bought some stuff and we went back to Tony’s spot in Chelsea. Then Karen came over with two of her friends (that I hoped might be girls but nah of course that didn’t happen) and we started drinking.

At that point of the day I was feeling pretty socialed out and the two newcomers were the nail in the coffin for me. They were nice but I felt like I couldn’t handle any more people and was pretty much out of it for the rest of the night.

I took an uber home and spent the rest of the night watching Curbed Your Enthusiasm, Binging with Babish and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia clips on youtube.

MLK Post Binge

Well howdy. I’m officially back in New York. Living out that quarantine life. A whole lot of Youtube, Nintendo and a bit of reading. It was a good week overall.

A general theme I’ve felt these days is that we’re running out of time.

Running out of youth.

With so many people dying in the world—running out of life.

And with that mindset I’d feel bad when I’d spend a week like this. I’d get that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I should be doing something more productive with my ever shortening span of life.

BUT I now think that’s such a heavy way to live. To rush around and force productivity out of yourself because of this vague notion that time is running out. The way I want to live instead is to acknowledge complete ownership of my time. I’m not on the clock to be productive (outside of my work hours of course). Whether I waste it on a week of mind numbing video games is completely up to me. I owe that time to no one but myself.

So yeah—long winded way of saying I don’t regret the way I spent this week.

I am, however, starting to get bored so I think I’ll transition off the heavy Youtube, Nintendo routine next week.

In terms of this past week—played a lot of Hades. New video game where you roam dungeons killing enemies and get power ups along the way. Pretty fun but it wears down on you every time you start a new run because you have to start from the very beginning of the dungeon. Also played some Mario.

In other news—I bought a Vitamix! Been making hella smoothies (kale, blueberries, peanut butter, bananas, oat milk, protein powder). A Vitamix has been on my list for years at this point so I’m glad I pulled the trigger (although it’s super loud when I turn it up…). Next up a KitchenAid??!?

Lastly—finished a book called Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. A memoir written by a therapist about her experiences giving and receiving therapy. Pretty good/entertaining (but lengthy) read. Before reading it I was pretty unfamiliar with how therapy worked so it was a good way to familiarize myself.

And that’s about it for this week.

Lazy Bum

This week I was a lazy bum and I loved it. Well maybe more of a love hate.

Didn’t work on any music at all this week. My schedule mostly comprised of working (just a little) and watching Youtube or Netflix afterwards.

Things are very up in the air at the moment when it comes to work. My manager ended up having an early delivery and left for maternity leave about a week earlier than expected. This happened right at the start of the year and I haven’t received any word as to what the next steps are.

It’s been so very long since I haven’t had a manager. As a result, the first few days—especially after coming back from OOO—I was pretty lazy. Not to mention the whole attack on the Capitol happened and I’ve been somewhat glued to the news and distracted as a result.

This year got me shook. It coincides with a point in my life where I feel like I’m shedding my youth and losing that feeling of youthful invincibility. Life—and pretty much everything else—feels a little too fragile right now.

Rona got the world doubled over. Wildfires ravaged California. Shootings doubled in NYC. The government keeps throwing curveballs. What a fugging shitshow of a year.

Even after all this resolves (what do I even mean when I say “all this”? There seems to be more and more happening day by day) I think most of us will remain changed. Too much time has passed. We will remember ourselves as the people we were pre-2020 and the people we became post-2020.

Well—as so many people are quick to remind me—it could be worse. But it feels good to complain too.

So yeah, back to this week.

Watched a lot of TV. A few more episodes of The Uncanny Counter with my parents. The K drama that I’m starting to lose interest in but will end up finishing where a bunch of people become grim reapers after near death experiences.

Watched a lot of Mythbusters clips on Youtube. RIP Grant Imahara—dead of a brain aneurysm this year at the age of 49. Made me a bit sad every to see him pop up on the show every once in a while. So much potential lost in an instant. On a separate note Mythbusters did some crazy stuff back in the day. They have an episode where they test out the Chinese water torture on one of the hosts…and it works! After an hour of water dripping on her forehead she starts freaking out—almost out of nowhere. Fascinating that the torture actually worked. Doubly fascinating that they actually greenlit and aired an episode where they torture one of the hosts.

Also watched a lot of Diners Drive-ins and Dives. What an idyllic time when Guy Fieri could just cruise across the country from joint to joint eating his heart out.

In addition to the TV I read a buncha stuff too. Finished a book called If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now where a Washington Post journalist moves from DC to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota. It’s the embodiment of that recurring question of what would happen if I gave up city life and moved to the middle of nowhere. It works out decently well for the author. He has the revelation that people there are not too different from the people you might meet in cities. He paints a picture of slower living, deeper community and a lot of time saved.

I still don’t think I could personally make a move like that but it’s nice to daydream. What if I moved to the middle of nowhere with a remote software salary? Would my life be fundamentally different? Would I live at a slower pace? Form deeper bonds with my community? Stop and smell the roses?

I think that at the best of my times at Berkeley I definitely felt that way and I haven’t been able to replicate that same magic since my college days. So maybe a gamble like that is worth exploring.

I. DO. NOT. KNOW.

Reminds me of that Vonnegut quote I read a few weeks back:

”Human beings have had to guess about almost everything for the past million years or so. The leading characters in our history books have been our most enthralling, and sometimes our most terrifying, guessers.”

ANYWAYS… on a final note—leaving for NYC tomorrow. Gotta get some stuff in order as my lease comes to an end. As much as I love my parents it’ll be nice having some alone time as well.

Waiting First Final Draft / Hamilton x A Man Without a Country

So another year has passed. This week also flew by. Finished my first draft of Waiting:

Took about a month and a half to get to this point. Towards the end of the month I was burning out a lil listening to the same song over and over and over again so I’ll leave it for now and let it marinate. Overall happy with how it came out for the first finalized draft.

Definitely worth finishing it up to this point.

A myth I subscribed to earlier (and still sometimes believe) is that perfectionism will push my songs towards greatness. But lately it seems like the opposite is true. I really think that pumping out songs on a regular basis (to a level of quality I’m happy with) is the key to improving.

The act of finishing something is in itself something to be practiced. Someone once wrote somewhere that everyone has shit songs within them and the best artists wade through the bad ones to find the good ones. But (I think) you can only wade through the bad ones by finishing them.

Now that this song is at a certain level of completion I think it’s ready to stew in its own juices. The slow cooker approach of assembling all the base ingredients, letting them simmer and allowing time to meld all the flavors together. Give it a few weeks, pop the song back in the DAW, adjust a few flavors here n there and I’m that much closer to actually finishing and releasing the song.

Anyways, for the next few days at least I’ll be participating in this songwriting challenge. It’s a forum I found where a buncha producers have a little less than a month to create a song based on a randomized prompt and genre. Past examples include:

• prompt: how are you / genre: lofi hip hop

• prompt: spread the love / genre: contemporary pop

• prompt: there’s a pogo on the dance floor/ genre: ska

And so on. Each month a buncha producers compete and vote for their favorite submissions. The top three get to choose from a pool of prizes.

The prompt for this month is a little different. I’m allowed to produce any genre I want but every sound in the song must be generated from a predefined set of samples. It’s like the musical equivalent of Chopped where they give you a set of predefined ingredients you have to make a song out of.

So far it’s been pretty cool. I’ve been learning about some sound design stuff. Playing around with granular synthesis (through Omnisphere) which is kind of like playing different slices (or grains) of audio to create a new sound from the source sound.

And spectral synthesis which is like selecting certain frequency tones from a sample and warping or replaying it to create a new sound from the source sound.

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Besides that been biking, reading, and watching some TV over break (on hiatus from my media purge over the holidays).

Finally watched Hamilton and it lived up to the hype.

Read Kurt Vonnegut’s short autobiography A Man Without a Country. Pretty interesting read. It was written in 2005. He mentions living through Dresden through WWII and talks shit about the greed of men that causes wars in modern society. He talks about the degradation of the planet and the foolishness of the Bush administration and all that. He talks about luddism and how the world is moving too fast. He talks as if the world is ending (or at least very well on its way to ending).

First thought as I read—wow even back then people thought the world was kinda crappy. You always look back at “simpler times” as better times but even back then people were dissatisfied at the state of the world. To be fair there’s a lot of good stuff that’s happened since then and now BUT it also feels like we may be on a downward slide (even without Corona).

Second thought—it’s been a while since I’ve wanted to improve the world. Reading someone talk so much shit about 2005 and realizing 2020 is worse was a bit of a wake up call. The last time I felt idealistic about changing anything was back in college.

Back in college I thought education was the cure all. The more you educate people the better their lives become—especially now when misinformation seems to have caused so many problems. Anti vaxxers, anti maskers, global warming deniers—doesn’t that stem mostly from ignorance?

The more information you give to people the better society becomes. But that’s complicated when people choose to ignore the information you give them. But why do people choose to ignore the information? Probably due to mistrust or fear—both of which is stoked by the people that have the most to gain by doing so.

But end of the day education will never not be a good thing.

Anyways I’m tired and rambling. Goodnight!!!!

p.s. definitely want to read the biography that inspired Hamilton and also the Power Broker while I’m at it.

Christmas / Waiting progress

Hello friend! It’s been another week. The days fly by even when you’re doing nothing.

This week—as you already know—was Christmas week. I’m lucky enough to be home with my family during these times.

It’s been an unprecedented season of gifts for me. I’m not really the type to give or receive gifts. For a while I oddly prided myself in this trait.

“God I’m so zen. I don’t have any needs or desires” was my way of thinking.

But my philosophy on this has been changing lately.

It’s like when someone asks you where you want to go eat for dinner. Just because you reply “I don’t care” doesn’t mean you’re zen. It just means you haven’t thought enough to develop an opinion which also means you may be a dull person :(

Is that fair to say? Yeah sure…

Anyways, this year I was a dull person and didn’t actually want or ask for anything. But somehow—against all odds—I ended up receiving a bunch of gifts.

In order of when I received them:

• A mug, beanie, socks, coasters from my company

• A customized beanie from Cara. In the past I’ve often texted her sg2w (sounds good to wood) and she sent me a beanie customized with those letters. I was touched by the thought and cannot wait to wear it in the cold NY winter

• A handwritten letter from Jess and a postcard from Rupert. I love receiving mail that isn’t bills or ads and try to be a good penpal in return

• A book from Apollo (Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut). This was very unexpected given we hadn’t ever exchanged gifts or even talked about Kurt Vonnegut but I was thrilled to receive it. I am convinced that it’s a great idea to start sending books to my friends for special occasions

• A display box from Andrew T. Our group did a small secret santa and he gifted me a box to display my leadership stones. What are leadership stones you ask? When Andrew and I went to a company leadership conference a few years ago they handed out a bunch of random colorized stones representing different leadership traits. Courage, Communication, Truthfulness, and so on… To this day I have kept my leadership stones and—thanks to this box—will never lose them

• A jacket from Harry. Super warm and I’ve been wearing it for the past four days

Thanks everyone :)

I spent the rest of Christmas week eating n repeating, watching a new Korean drama and reading Player Piano

For my eating n repeating:

• Dad’s company treated us to a free meal from Mastro’s: ribeye and NY steak, along with mashed potatoes, lobster mac n cheese, salad, ice cream, and cake

• Homemade pizza. This is a new tradition I’m trying to make. Every Christmas I make pizza dough from scratch and we bake customized pizzas for ourselves. I don’t know if it’s an immigrant thing or an Asian thing but our family just doesn’t seem to have many traditions. This saddens me and I’m actively trying to change this.

• Cookies

For the K drama: I’ve been watching Uncanny Counter. It’s aight.

Lastly—Player Piano. The book is set after World War III where—after having automated a bunch of stuff to support the war effort—most people that aren’t engineers or managers are out of jobs. The story focuses on a branch manager overseeing a factory. He’s ballin. Got hella respect, money and a banging ass wife but he starts to doubt his place in the system.

Good read overall. Was surprised by how prophetic Vonnegut was. He got so many things right:

• automation displacing actual human beings

• human beings losing a sense of worth/purpose

• class divides widening between people who had been displaced by automation and those that hadn’t

• And this part: “Things, gentlemen, are ripe for a phony Messiah, and when he comes, it’s sure to be a bloody business… Sooner or later someone’s going to catch the imagination of these people with some new magic. At the bottom of it will be a promise of regaining the feeling of participation, the feeling of being needed on earth—hell, dignity”

And he wrote all this back in 1952.

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Also spent time working on Waiting. This week I got to recording the vocals. I had an issue with a corrupt Logic session so I’ve had to backtrack a little.

Every few days I get the feeling that I’m wasting my time with this song. I think from very early on in the process you get a feel for whether the song will be good or not. I can’t say I imagine this song being much of a hit.

After days of doubts I realize that even if the song turns out shit I still want to finish it. There’s merit in finishing songs—even bad ones.

So I shall power through.

With the vocals recorded and the session restored I think I can aim towards getting a final draft by next week.

Habits / Waiting Score

Sup fools. Another week has gone by. Work has quieted down with the holidays approaching. I bubble back up to the surface to breathe in some air again. Life is calm and quiet and good.

I am now 26 years old. With the years come wisdom. I spent all of Saturday afternoon dispensing invaluable wisdom to my friend over vchat. She seemed to appreciate it. Ahh the innocence of 25.

What happened this week…

I finally solidified my habits. Years have gone by trying to get some very basics down. I rally myself with a spurt of motivation only to forget or give up weeks later.

What’s different this time? A C C O U N T A B I L I T Y.

Running a habitshare app with my dear brother Chimpy Chimperson. So far I’ve decided on the following:

• Media purge every day besides Saturday

• Exercise 3x a week

• No porn (ever)

• Music daily

Each one of these habits a part of my grand design to revolutionize my life.

Media purging because I feel as if I’ve wasted too many years behind a screen. Living my life behind a screen instead of embracing the world around me. Escapism. When the world gets too hard or boring just go into a binge. Don’t want to live my life like that

Exercising because damn I used to look sexy. I’m not bad looking now by any means but now that I’m 26 I realize I only have a window of opportunity to look the very best I can possibly look in my lifetime.

Avoiding porn because (I’m not trying ethically lord myself over anyone… if you like porn no judgement here) I think too much of it can kinda mess me up. I know it’s widespread and socially acceptable BUT I wonder in the back of my mind if porn could turn out to be the mental equivalent of cigarettes a few years down the line.

And music because DAMN I’ve been moving so slow. Waiting for Waiting.

I had a perfect week of habits last week. Media purge really lends back a lot of time. When I wasn’t producing music I would listen to a buncha podcasts (shoutout to This American Life) and read through my list of unread books.

Finished a novel called Let the Great World Spin. Really great writing. Can’t say I really got the point of it all but the writing was very good to the point that I didn’t care whether I got it or not.

Can’t really think of anything else that I did this past week. Mostly spent the time working or working on music.

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In terms of music: I am sorry to report that I don’t have an audio update for this week. I spent a lot of the week playing around with different piano melodies to accompany the vocals.

Throughout the week I kept entering this trap of opening my DAW and messing around with a few elements and opening it up the next time to realize I didn’t really like what I wrote.

I’m changing my strategy this upcoming week where I’ll sit down with pen, paper and memo app and score out the piece. Similar to how I’d score out a scene during my acting days—break down the piece line by line and think out/design what I want each section to feel like or evoke from the audience.

At this point in the piece I need to have some sort of intent for the song instead of twiddling my thumbs and improvising and hoping I hit some sort of creative jackpot.

Well I guess this week wasn’t that much of a loss. Did get some good melodies in that I’ll reuse next week. Also solidified some sound selections. Going into this piece I knew it’d be a pain in the ass getting the piano to sound great. But I think I’m going with Spitfire’s Felt Piano. Love that soft tone.

Misaeng / Birthday Eve

Not much happened this week. Last week I started watching Misaeng and that carried into this week.

Pretty great show overall. I think I got in 3-5 episodes per day (making good use of Netflix’s new 1.5x speed feature). I can’t remember the last time I was so invested in any characters on TV.

I laughed, I cried. And at the end of the show I was genuinely (somewhat) saddened that the show was over. For the unfamiliar the show follows a guy working in a korean trading company. This is the first office job he’s ever held and he has to navigate work life, office politics and the pressure cooker of Korean society.

Watching this reminded me of the existential dread I used to have during my college/internship days. My very first office job (2014) was doing data entry at a boutique travel agency that catered to higher end clients (we were proud to claim Kate Upton as one of our clients). Hours spent at that desk manually entering excel line by excel line and filling invoices wondering if this was what my life had to offer.

I was really angsty back then haha. Here’s an excerpt from my journal after my first day of work:

At the beginning of the day, I had parked in a 2 hour parking zone because I didn’t have a parking pass. At a certain point, I started looking forward to the times when I would have to walk out into the blazing sun just to climb into a furnace of car and repark to a different location. These 2 hour intervals were oases of opportunity where I could temporarily escape from the 8 hours of zombifying myself in front of a screen as I trudged through stacks of tedious data. 

Ahh the good old days. Luckily during that first office job I eventually finagled my way into building the company website instead of data entry and subsequent internships/jobs have been software focused. But those feelings persisted.

The WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE feelings were very strong from 2014-2018. After getting my ass kicked by my job in 2019 I didn’t have the luxury to keep second guessing myself (or maybe I just stopped caring as much). As of 2020 I only ever get very light pangs of existential dread.

I think it’s important to feel those feelings as much as you need to. They definitely drive you to live differently. I’d rather feel those feelings now rather than a few decades down the road.

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On a different note—I’m writing this on the eve of my birthday! I am turning 26.

As birthdays go I think this one will be a little sadder. With coronavirus still going on there isn’t much to do. But all in all I’m glad I’ve made it another year.

Personality wise—I don’t think I’m the type to naturally enjoy celebrating my birthday. I also think it’s important to force yourself every year regardless. Force yourself through the attention. Force yourself through the awkward sitting in silence while people sing to you. Force yourself through the “how do you feel now that you’re ___ years old?” even if you don’t feel any different.

Those are the days I end up remembering.

Well thanks for reading this far. You’ll notice I don’t have any music related notes and that’s because I spent too much time watching tv vs making progress on the song. Tune in next week though—I’m going back on the music grind.

Waiting Lyrics / Fire Chinese Food

Man oh man. Week three of writing lyrics… I am moving sloooooow.

Oh well—it is what it is. I could say that I’m running ragged from my day job which is kinda true but I also think I’ve gotten a tad bit lazy.

Getting right to it. Here’s the update for this week:

Changes for this week included rewriting some lyrics and getting the second verse in. I’m happy enough with the verses for now and am confident to move on to the instrumentation/arrangement. Here are the printed out lyrics in full as of today:

[Chorus]
Dog won’t shut up
Nothing in my cup
I done drunk it up
While I was waiting
Tick in my tock
There’s piss in my crocs
Oh shit I forgot
What I was waiting for
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait a minute wait
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait a minute wait

[Verse 1]
Gathering up all my feelings shout into the void
Neighbor’s yelling back at me it’s 2AM so please go on shut up the noise (shut the f*ck up)
At the end of it I find myself at it again
Waiting on a thousand things undone a thousand words I never said
Fly on the wall
Kills me to say
Right in the moment
I’m feeling so lonesome
So lend me your ears
And lend me your wings
Take me to flight
I could use a lil distance
Past the hazy nights like this one
Nothing ever happens here
Waiting yet again for something
Wonder what it’s like on the other side

[Chorus]

[Verse 2]
Oh clock would you stop
Just for a moment
I’ll figure it out
Where this is going
I think that I got it this time
Oh wait now I’ve gone and forgot (whaaaat?)
Slipping my fingers
Right through the cracks
All of the moments
I’ll never get back
What was I doing 
When I had the chances
The music was playing
But I never danced
Been playing fool
Been playing a loner  
Drunk on regret
I wanna get sober
Wake me up when
All this is over
Don’t know where I’m going but the

[Chorus]

That’s that for now. Excited to get into the instrumental part.

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In terms of my personal life, what happened there? Always kinda hard to remember sometimes… My memory must be shot from all those late nights of bingeing random ass tv way past a sane bedtime. Woody don’t do that no more (in general) BUT I have started watching a new K Drama called Misaeng.

I’m only on episode 4 but it follows a guy working in a high powered office job for the first time in his life and navigating the pitfalls of modern work life in Korea. Like a low stakes Game of Thrones set in Korea without any magic (unless you think work friendships/relationships are their own form of magic <3).

Do I feel kinda bad getting into a K Drama when I’d ideally be working on music? Absolutely.

Besides starting the new show I ended up biking with Papa from Ventura to Ojai (the same ride I’ve been doing since I got to California). On the way we stopped by at AJ Chinese Express for some FIRE Orange Chicken. I don’t know if it’s because we were starving (hunger is the best sauce they say) but it was top 3 Chinese food I’ve had all year. On par with my local Chinese spot back in Brooklyn (shoutout to Autumn Asian restaurant).

The ride back was beautiful. The rolling hills in the cool gentle breeze of a California winter.

Beyond the biking I also finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. For the unfamiliar: it follows a young girl growing up in Williamsburg during the early 20th century. Poor family. Beautiful mother that works her ass off providing for her two children. Handsome father who’s overall likeable but too much of a drunkard to take care of his family. The story takes place over several years as the girl grows up into a young woman.

Pretty good overall. Kinda long. It sounds insanely privileged to say this but I’d never realized how much desperation there is in growing up poor. Throughout the book the characters inevitably circle back to the belief that education will raise them beyond their means/capabilities.

Yeah good book.

Waiting [Week 2] / Big Sur Thanksgiving

Here’s the newest update on Waiting:

For this week I switched out the chorus to a chorus I’d written earlier this year with my associate (and brother) Chimpy Chimperson. We’d been bumming around at home for the past few months. This was around May or so during the height of the pandemic where it didn’t make much sense to leave the house that often. I came to him with the piano instrumental playing in the background and asked if he wanted to write a song with me. He came up with the following lyrics for the chorus:

Dog won’t shut up
Nothing in my cup
I done drunk it up
While I was waiting

Tick in my tock
There’s piss in my crocs
Oh shit I forgot
What I was waiting for

We cracked up a bit about how sad the speaker is but it hits home in some ways (besides the piss in my crocs bit…).

I spent the bulk of this week wrapping up the first verse and starting on the second verse. My process for writing lyrics these days consist of rotating the following methods:

• Lock myself in with the piano, my journal and my pen. Keep playing out the instrumental to test out different flows/words

• When I hit a wall with the first method I recite my lyrics as if poetry (or a monologue) and try to wring out the direction of the next few unwritten lines

• When I hit a wall with the second method I play the full instrumental (the existing working version I have set up so far) and vibe out to the instrumental until the space of the song fleshes out more

I think it’s a juggling act between

• Writing lyrics that make sense

• Writing melody/rhythms that are pleasing to listen to/sing

• Writing melody/rhythms/lyrics that fit the emotional score of the song at that current moment in time

In terms of the overall song’s progress—I plan to finish writing lyrics and arranging the song structure by the end of next week. From there I’ll spruce up the production and move into mixing.

Production wise I’m debating whether to keep it very simple and straightforward—almost ballad like—with just a piano and maybe some light drums OR to let myself get kinda carried away with foley, different vocal effects (like the one I have set up on the “wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait a minute” part), bass, etc. I’m leaning towards the second mainly because I think it’ll be more interesting and I want to fully flesh out where the singer of the song is located/singing from.

On the other hand I’ve been listening to Michael Jackson’s Love Never Felt So Good (Original Version) and it sounds incredible. If I force myself to make songs sound great without throwing so many bells and whistles—relying mostly on the emotional score of the vocals—that would be a good skill to learn… It truly blows me away how good this version of Love Never Felt So Good is. The version with Justin Timberlake is amazing as well but it relies so much on the instrumental to bring up the energy. On a side note it’s incredible that there’s three (third one) separate released versions of this song. All similar enough but different enough to show what a difference the production can make.

If I had to choose a favorite I’d pick the original version. Such a simple arrangement (just piano, vocals and snaps!) that works because the underlying song and lyrics and emotions are on point. Another point about this song—the mixing sounds super cohesive. You can imagine yourself in the room with the singer and the piano and the finger snaps.

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That’s it for the music updates. In terms of life updates—it’s been a fire week. The full family set (me, Mom, Dad and Chimpy Chimperson) was present to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. I was outvoted by the family and we decided to go camping in Big Sur this year.

I—as most of my friends may know—am a reluctant outdoors person. Years of growing up with adventurous parents have led to forced excursions on hiking trips, skiing trips, and camping trips. Every time I protest Mom tells me to get off my lazy ass and prods me into going. I usually end up enjoying it when I’m actually there.

This trip was no exception.

First we stopped by to see the Elephant seals.

Beautiful majestic creatures! Wonderful kings and queens of the sea that humble us with their presence and remind us that perhaps we are not the alpha predator in every single setting after all, right?

WRONG! Here’s what surprised me the most:

• The size: Possibly the size of a Mini Cooper. If one of them lay on top of my I have no doubt I’d die from suffocation

• The smell: Imagine rotten fish sitting in a compost bin in the middle of a very sunny summer and you’re at a fraction of how bad they actually smelled. First time in a long time I considered throwing up on a smell alone.

• The laziness: maybe it was the time of day or year but they just lay in the sand very occasionally making a sound or throwing sand up onto their bodies

Seals aside the rest of the trip went more or less as expected. Big Sur was incredibly beautiful:

Then we came back on Sunday and cooked a late Thanksgiving meal. I cooked mac n cheese, Chimpy cooked stuffing and mashed potatoes, Mom cooked broccoli salad and corn and we finished with some pecan pie.

We wrapped up the night listening to this wonderful Thanksgiving song made by what appears to be an up and coming new artist.

California (cont.) / Waiting [Week 1]

Life’s been good overall. I’ve just finished 1.5 weeks in California. Here’s the daily routine:

• Wake at 9AM EST

• Music till 1030/11AM

• Work through 630/7PM (or later depending on the day)

• Eat with Mom and Dad

• Take a walk around the neighborhood till 8/830PM

• Music for a couple hours

• Read before falling asleep

Slight variations (I sometimes watch a lil too much Youtube—been bingeing on Impractical Jokers these days) but more or less the same.

Beyond the repetition of the weekdays I was able to go biking on Saturday. We got bikes from Ventura and rode towards Ojai. Mom was exhausted halfway through (to be fair the bikes we rented were pretty heavy) so we stopped in a small town called Oak View. I literally had no idea this town existed until that day we went biking. Small town seemingly in the middle of nowhere with not much besides a few mom n pop restaurants and a grocery store.

It was in this grocery store (OV Ranch Market) we found a barbecue spot called Q Time BBQ. I love it when there are restaurants running out of random places. We got the Tri Tip sandwich, Pulled Chicken Sandwich and Burger. Pretty fire. Not the easiest bbq spot to reach but I’m glad we went. Made me realize that even in these dreaded suburbs there’s still a lot that I still haven’t discovered.

The following day I got lunch with an old high school friend. Probably one of my longest running friends? It’s been 10 years (WOW!). Lucky for me he’s back in town living with his parents while rona goes down so at least I have a friend to hang with while I’m back home.

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In the music realm: I put up my song on Spotify! It’s been a small dream to hear my music one day on the platform I use the most swirling around with all my other favorite music. And there’s nowhere to go but up from here—partly because I’m starting at the very bottom (just hit five followers!) but also because I believe in the trajectory of my music.

There’s a whole world of releasing music I hadn’t realized before I put my song up. First you have to go through a distributor—these are companies that are set up to help you put your music out on all platforms. Some of them provide additional services like marketing but the bread and butter is made by helping musicians get their music on platforms. Especially during corona times it reminds me of that saying

“you can mine for gold or you can sell pickaxes.”

Beyond the distributors the next step seems to get your music on playlists. That seems to be the single best method to grow your listeners. Makes me wonder if that’s reshaped the way we make music. If getting your song on a playlist is the easiest way to grow your listeners are you incentivized to craft pieces that might have better chances of making it onto these specific playlists?

After having put my music on Spotify I do feel more motivated to consistently put out music. Now that I’ve finished the first song I have a better idea of what it takes to put a song out there.

On that note I’m currently working on my next song.

Here’s the rough draft:

Still have a ways to go with this one. All I know is that I have a beautiful piano part that I want to squeeze in there.

California / Pre Thanksgiving

I’m back baby. Back where it all started. California here we are.

Arrived on Wednesday. Flight back was meh. Amidst the Coronavirus United Airlines had decided not to institute social distancing rules (booooo) and I ended up with someone sitting in the row two seats away from me. I fell asleep and found out she had moved away while I’d been sleeping. I think my snoring got to her.

Newark Airport killin it with the pandemic safety ads

Watched Onward and I Love You Man on the flight. Onward was pretty good. Made me sad for them that the timing hadn’t worked out for them since they had opened at the start of the lockdown (March 6th!!!).

Can’t believe it but it’s been 11 years since I Love You Man came out. It’s aged relatively well and I’m still a fan. Good job Paul Rudd. Good job Jason Segel—I still remember the time you visited campus at UC Berkeley and sat on a bench by yourself. Everyone was freaking out and wondering why you were here just randomly sitting on a bench by alone.

Upon arrival I wanted to go to In N Out but the lines these days never seem to end. They seem busier now than I remember them ever being before the pandemic. Instead of braving the lines Mom and I decided to go to Benny’s Tacos & Rotisserie Chicken. Great California Burrito. Really struck a great balance with the fries to meat ratio. Got the carne asada—super flavorful. I sense a new LAX arrival tradition forming.

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Being home is great. Feels like I never really left. Besides working a lot (trying to reach a deadline with some new feature before the code freeze) I also focused on finishing my Thanksgiving song. I’m proud to say that as of 11/15/2020 I am finally finished!

I’m starting a new segment called Song Stories to provide more in depth thoughts on each of the songs I make. Here’s the first one!

Pre California

The time has finally come… My last week in New York before going home to California for the holidays. It’s been a pretty eventful week.

Monday: I can’t even begin to remember what I did on Monday. Pass

Tuesday: Meet up with a friend for her last day in New York. We grab a delicious bowl of pho at 5ive Spice (a huge fan of their food but not a fan at all of the way they spell their name):

Probably my favorite bowl of pho in New York (so far). Pretty rich in fat and left me feeling very satiated

I actually get the day off for election day and make plans to hang with the girl I’d been seeing these past few weeks (henceforth known as C) to watch the election news. We grab pizza from my favorite neighborhood spot (Brooklyn Homeslice). I also take some edibles and end up zoning out for the rest of the night—not a big deal since nothing really happened that night…

Wednesday/Thursday: Cannot begin to remember what I did this day either… Probably just work and music

Friday: end up working later than expected (7pmish). Afterwards head over to LES to hang with some ex-work friends. We drink (espresso martinis and white claws) and order Lions Tigers and Squares Pizza (which I was super excited to eat before I left New York) and generally enjoy vibes on the rooftop. It saddens me a little to think of all the people I used to work with that have gone on to other companies. It feels like we’ve been robbed of our times together and our goodbyes by the rona but you gotta do what you gotta do. I’m grateful at least to still keep in touch with these particular ex-work friends.

Saturday: I wake up earlier in the morning and squeeze in a good amount of producing. In the middle of my session cars start honking like crazy. Whoops of joy. Sounds of celebration. I check my phone and confirm my suspicions. Joe Biden has won the election!!!! Feel relieved and happy and am surprised to realize that this is the first time in a long time that I’ve seen so many people celebrating something at all. I feel good for a while until the incessant honking starts annoying me…

Two friends visit from Chelsea (finally! Living in Prospect Heights I don’t get that many visitors willing to come all the way out here). We order Hometown Barbecue (often called the best bbq in NY) and order the following: spareribs, queso mac n cheese, brisket, honey cornbread and banana pudding. Not usually a fan of ribs but these are the best I think I’ve ever had. The brisket is pretty good too.

We eat all of this on a bench in Prospect Park and waddle back to my apartment to hang for a few hours before my friends go home.

Sunday: Bike down to Bensonhurst to hang out with C. We grab dim sum in Sunset Park and walk around after food. It’s my first time visiting the Chinatown there. Although the streets are significantly wider than the Manhattan Chinatown, I’m surprised to find that they are as (if not more) crowded than the Manhattan Chinatown ones. We end up at Sunrise Market and decide to talk about what’s next for us. She’s definitely looking for something more serious while I’m not. We sadly end things but decide to remain friends. I bike back taking the long way home.

I make it back home in time for a video call with my friend.

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That’s most of the life stuff. For a long overdue music update… Been making consistent progress on my Thanksgiving song. I have most of the vocals comped and tuned and aligned.

The vocal process for this track was a huge pain in the ass overall. I think I went a little overboard on the layers and tried to add way too many doubles, harmonies and backing vocals. I’m still not certain I know how to record vocals that well—which at this point seems hands down the most important part of the process. But I tried not to overly obsess on the little details and really pave my way through to the end of the song. I will say—thank god for Melodyne and Vocalign. Vocalign alone saved me probably hours of time in terms of making sure all the doubles and harmonies were aligned with the lead.

Anyways—here it is:

At this point I’m in a race against time. I still have to set up the second verse and mix the song in general as well. I’m trying to get it done by Wednesday (or end of week at the latest).

Ok bye!

Livin it up

It’s been an eventful week.

Monday: work through my sleep deprivation and call it a day. Tired af

Tuesday: I do not remember exactly what I did on Tuesday. I think I probably worked on music a bit.

Wednesday: meet up with some work friends. We meet up at Mala Project and get drinks at Jackdaw after. This marks my first time going to a bar during Covid. Pretty chill since it’s not crowded and we’re seated outside. While we’re at Jackdaw I unfortunately hit my tooth against the glass and a very small piece of my tooth chips off (probably a millimeter or less). For the rest of the night I couldn’t help but to run my tooth along the chipped part because the texture was so weird. Kinda grainy/coarse. Overall had a good time though

Thursday: Video chat with some friends.

Friday: Take an edible and train over to Chelsea. Hang out with some friends and order food from Saigon Social. I get the garlic noodles. They are good but way too thick. Probably won’t get again

Saturday: Wake up at 7am. Meet up with the girl I’ve been seeing these past few weeks at 8AM. Get to JFK by 9AM. Rent the car and hit the road. The drive over is fun. We listen to music and talk about random stuff. Swing by a rest stop. Pick up some pepperoni pizza combos and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (what is a road trip without road snacks). Hit the road again. Stop by at New Paltz for food. She gets a grilled cheese and allows me to take a bite. It’s one of the best grilled cheeses I’ve had in a long ass time. I get a chicken panini and peanut butter noodles. The noodles are cold and slightly overly sweet. The panini is ok… Hit the road again. We pull up to Mountain Minnewaska.

I’m not really the type to initiate a hike. If someone were to suggest hiking my immediate reaction would be naaaah.

But once we got to Mount Minnewaska I was glad I went. Snow draped over all the trees (on October 31st!!!). A beautiful lake. Views on views on views. Good call.

The first half of the hike was pretty straightforward. A clear path through a winter wonderland of snowy trees. It was very beautiful for the first 30 minutes or so but then got repetitive af. The second half of the hike was much more interactive. We had to walk through a stream and hike through a semi secluded forest. Neither of us had expected there to be so much snow in the middle of Autumn and hadn’t brought waterproof shoes. By the end of the hike both of us had soaked feet. We also ended up seeing a porcupine!!

We start driving back around 6pm. In a fitting end to a Halloween hike the moon is huge and almost Orange on the drive home. After a few hours of driving we arrive in flushing for hot pot around 9pm. It’s AYCE and she turns out to be one of those people that view buffets as a battle between them and the restaurant. I tap out after a seafood pancake and a couple platters of beef. She keeps going and ends the buffet with a bowl of udon.

Sunday: Rest from the day before. I end up forgoing all my plans/errands and just laze out on the sofa watching Youtube for hours on end.

All in all a great and eventful week. When I first got to New York I wanted four things:

1. Work on music

2. Go on dates

3. Experience Autumn

4. Hang with friends

Not the most perfect track record but I think I’ve done well enough in each category.

On the music front—still working on the Thanksgiving song. Just in the last steps of getting vocals. After that do some mixing on the song overall and I should be good.

Supbud

Sorry for the delay faithful readers. I was busy yesterday and missed my Sunday writing session. DAMN.

The days just slip by. As I write on this Monday morning—sleep deprived and hungry af—I cannot remember much of what happened this past week.

I can tell you what didn’t happen. Music :(

I’ve been slipping.

I did spend this week trying out different recording configurations—swapping out mics and repositioning the mic stand.

Besides that I rode my bike a lot and went on some dates. Ended up riding from Prospect Heights through Sunset Park to Owl Head’s Park to Fort Hamilton.

That was a beautiful ride. I really wanted to ride over to Staten Island (haven’t been yet) but it turns out there isn’t a bike lane on the Verrazzano Bridge. If I wanted to get to Staten Island I’d have to ride to Manhattan through Jersey into Staten Island…

After the ride I hung out with the girl I’ve been seeing these past few weeks. Went to see her place in Bensonhurst and got coffee. The following day (Sunday) we got brunch, walked around Brooklyn Botanical Garden, and got ramen at Chuko afterwards.

Pretty fun weekend. But I gotta buckle down and finish some songs :)

Jafeel

What a week. In the aftermath of my brother leaving I had a bit of a rough time getting back into my usual mode. Before he was here I was doing a media purge where I’d limit the media I consumed (pretty much no Youtube, Reddit, Netflix, etc. and only watching “essential” stuff like mixing or plugin tutorials). I attempted to do the same this week but failed miserably. I have a terrible habit of laying in bed before I sleep with my laptop propped up on my stomach watching Youtube until I get sleepy. I’m slightly ashamed to report I ended up doing this almost every day of the week :’(

Well… I’m much more optimistic about this upcoming week. I spent all of today (Sunday) pretty much easing back into the media purge and not really indulging too much in my media urges.

Highlights of this week:

• Went on two dates. First date we went to a board game cafe and got ramen. Second date we went to Mala project and hung out at Washington Square park for some people watching

• Hung out with some friends. Rode from Brooklyn to LES. Got some Malaysian food and went to Ice & Vice for ice cream afterwards (my friend wanted to go because it’s going out of business soon).

A few different things have been happening that made me think I should shake things up a little.

First, I’ve been getting reports from a few of my friends on their travels across the country. One of my friends is living temporarily in Hawaii. Another has been roaming across the pacific Northwest.

Second, some of my friends have told me that they’re not coming back to New York after all. I’d been under the impression that one of my friends would come back in the Spring (he even has some stuff stored at my apartment) but that’s no longer the case… He’s just staying out in Jamaica where he’s been for the past few months. Another one of my friends also just said that she might end up living in Taiwan a year or two where she’s been living with her family for the past few months.

Third, the repetitiveness of life has been getting to me. Most of last week I kept bitching to myself about how repetitive (and sometimes pointless) it all felt right now. Rona life…

All this came to a boil when one of my friends asked me where I saw myself in five years. First I asked her if this was a job interview. Then I realized I had no idea where I saw myself in five years. After thinking silently about it for a couple of minutes I responded saying that I either 1. wanted to be out of tech or 2. wanted to be in tech but at least have released a few of my songs and pushed them as far as I could.

I still don’t know if that’s the most accurate answer but the question made me think that at each stage of life you’re in a sweet spot for something.

High school—like it or not—is time to grind for your best shot at college. So few people really find out who they are during this time so might as well just work hard and see where you end up. 

College is time to relax a bit. Fuck around. Learn about yourself. Experiment. Meet different people, different things. 

20’s is an extension of college with a little more responsibility sprinkled in. Nothing has been cemented. You still really have to figure out who you are as a person, what you want and how to get what you want. I’d imagine that for most people this is also one of the last times you’ll have so little responsibility/accountability. 

And then 30s—idk haven’t really thought about them so far.

Anyways my long winded point is this: I think I’m in the sweet spot where I have some of the least responsibility I’ll ever have in my life along with the most resources I’ll ever have in my life. I owe nothing to no one. I don’t have to support anyone but myself. I’m ballin out.

I think I’ve gotten so complacent doing things the way I have but I keep forgetting that if you don’t shake things up the way you want now you’ll probably end up having a mid life crisis and fucking up your life in your 40s or 50s.

So long ass story short I think I’m just gonna travel more. Once my lease is up in February I want to travel around the country and the world living in each place a couple of months. I don’t know exactly where I want to go but I think Korea (get in touch with my roots), Toronto (just seems like a smaller version of NY with more Asians and great food), and the Pacific Northwest (haven’t been yet—want to see what it’s like) would be a good start.

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Ok. Back to the music stuff. This month I’m rebooting an old song that I never finished. It’s a song my collaborator (aka Chimpy Chimperson) and I started a few Thanksgivings ago. The idea was to create a Thanksgiving carol centered around romance.

I’m pretty happy working on this song because it’s so low pressure. With my other songs I sometimes feel I’m taking myself way too seriously so it’s nice to be able to goof off on something like this. I figure it’ll be great practice for mixing and a great opportunity to get better at recording vocals. The prechorus and chorus are the first vocals I’ve recorded in my new vocal booth.

One little tip I ended up using was to compress the guitar and piano at the prechorus (0:45) with a slow attack and a fast release. I saw this in a Bob Powers mixing video where he makes the attack slow so that the transients come through but the sounds immediately after the transients are squashed. This gives the impression that the sound is more dynamic (maybe even a little louder too) and just a lil more poppin. I’m still kind of a noob sometimes when it comes to compression but I liked how it sounded after following his tips.