#but it feels like the slapped this shit in google translate and read the results

[wittyworm]

the jujutsu kaisen dub is soooo........

the delivery is so strange and the jokes dont hit right its like they didnt even bother to try and make it make sense to an english speaking audience. so many dubs do this now. they feel not thought out. they dont do justice to the source material they just flatten it .

[chornayadrakoshig]

That kind of attitude existed even before AI but that technology made it ten time worse

I'm multilingual. I've been translating a lot of fandom stuff — news & announcements, fanwikis, meta & essays, fanfics — for over 10 years. Closer to 15, probably. While machine translation is getting better each year, it often struggles with a variety of things: unusual character names and locations, typos and quirky grammar, tone, slang, grammatical gender, context. I use it as a tool quite often — sometimes even as a "zero draft" to speed up my work, but the text you get from Google Translate directly can be comprehensible but kinda shitty and it requires heavy editing. If you compare it to text edited by human translator or a text written by a native the difference will be obvious.

So a while ago I worked on one big project. Longfic in progress. The chapters were getting larger, my free time were getting shorter, I could never catch up with the latest update of the original work, I had other stuff to do. Some regular readers were understanding, some kept asking me why it takes me so long and when they can read the next chapter, and I tried to explain that I'm busy and assure them that it's not abandoned and I'm working on my translation behind the scenes when I can.

So imagine how it felt when I got a comment from a regular reader, something along the lines of: "Do you know there is this cool website called Google Translate! Here, let me help you, you can just post that:" — followed with a chunk next chapter freshly from GT just copypasted into my comment section.

(The fic website I was using at the time doesn't even allow unedited machine translations by the way. It's in the rules.)

And while my translation wasn't great at the time — I was still learning the language (I'm still learning, let's be honest) and it was my most ambitious project back then — that still felt like a slap in the face. GT circa 2014 was pretty bad: wonky sentences, inconsistent name translations, half of the pronouns was wrong, etc, but the reader thought it as good as my work, I guess, of good enough to be posted under my name and read by others.

I've managed to politely decline, explaining that I do, in fact, know and use that website, but the result isn't good enough to be posted as is, and I'll keep doing it my own way. I think I didn't even block the user (but I was big mad xD).

So yeah, the approach "I just want to press a magic button for satisfactory results. I don't know how the things I love are actually done and I don't care about people behind it, I just want the dose of my enjoyment" is nothing new, unfortunately. Generative AI just presented new, more horrific and unethical magic button.

Which sucks and I feel very sorry for the OP. I hope using generative AI will become shameful enough that people won't do shit like that anymore.

This is the worst timeline. (x)

[fresh-prince-of-denmark]

Analysis of the Devil Ending: Who Died and Left Aristotle In Charge of Ethics? (Pt 5)

Hello and welcome back to me over-analyzing everything in Cyberpunk. If you haven’t read my other posts, please read those first! (V’s Mikoshi Poem, Johnny’s Mikoshi Poem, The Sun, New Dawn Fades).

This part took me a lot longer to complete. Not because it was particularly long…it was just painful. Jesus Christ. I hated every second of this ending. That shit hurted.

There were a few shards located at Arasaka’s estate that I chose to skip, as I did not find ant that were unique to the location. The three the game seemed to want to draw your attention to were actually not scattered as shards, they were spoken-word. The only shard I was able to find was a portion of The Odyssey. The other two pieces of literature are In Kyoto, which is quoted to V by the guard to takes her to the hospital room, and (what I believe to be) a reference to Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave. This section is going to be super theoretical. Like, more theoretical than the rest. So bare with me please.

Let’s start easy. This is the poem that the guard quotes at V as he leads her out of the operating room:

In Kyoto,

hearing the cuckoo,

I long for Kyoto

(By: Basho, translated by Jane Hirshfield)

Ten words. What could ten words amount to? The saddest goddamn words you’ll ever hear, dammit.  This poem is a feeling more than a concept. Ever feel homesick when you haven’t gone anywhere? Lonely when you’re around other people? That’s V. This was supposed to be a victory, supposed to be what they wanted. But now Johnny’s gone, scorned and betrayed, and no one they calls seems to even be able to give V the time of day. This was supposed to be a victory, their way of going back to the way things were, getting their life back, going home. But we can never go back, can’t ever erase our experiences, what we learn, how we grow. As Misty says, we should not fear change in of itself, but who we might change into. This just goes to show what happens when we betray ourselves by rejecting our own growth: all that’s left is bitterness and sorrow.

The next day when V wakes, you can pick up a shard containing a section from Chapter 8 of The Odyssey. Now, I’m not too familiar with the Odyssey. In fact, I hate the Odyssey. So if anyone wants to jump in here and add something more intelligent, I’m all for it. The Odyssey is the tale of Odysseus, who has been trying for ten long years to return to his wife and son after the Trojan war. Odysseus is basically listening to a bard remind him of all his Trojan War trauma, and begins to weep, at which time time people start questioning what’s up with this guy:

Say what thy birth, and what the name you bore,

Imposed by parents in the natal hour?

(For from the natal hour distinctive names,

One common right, the great and lowly claims:)

Say from what city, from what regions toss'd,

And what inhabitants those regions boast?

So shalt thou instant reach the realm assign'd.

In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind;

No helm secures their course, no pilot guides;

Like man intelligent, they plough the tides,

Conscious of every coast and every bay,

That lies beneath the sun's all-seeing ray;

Though clouds and darkness veil the encumber'd sky,

Fearless through darkness and through clouds they fly;

Though tempests rage, though rolls the swelling main,

The seas may roll, the tempests may rage in vain,

E'en the stern god that o'er the waves presides,

Safe as they pass, and safe repass the tides,

With fury burns; while careless they convey

Promiscuous every guest to every bay,

These ears have heard my royal sire disclouse

A dreadful story, big with future woes;

How Neptune raged, and how, by his command,

Firm rooted in a surge a ship would stand

A monument of wrath; how mound on mound

Should bury these proud towers beneath the ground.

But this the gods may frustrate or fulfill,

As suits the purpose of the Eternal Will.

But say through what waste regions hast thou stray'd

What customs noted, and what coasts survey'd;

Possess'd by wild barbarians fierce in arms,

Or men whose bosom tender pity warms?

Say why the fate o Troy awaked thy cares,

Why heaved thy bosom, and why flowed thy tears?

Reading this made me feel just how tired V must be. All this fighting, all this war, and for what? Much like Odysseus, V has been through hell and back (literally, depending on how you see it). And it never seems to end. V has been fighting for so long, yet there’s always something more; the tests the doctor gives her are endless, and they’re always being asked to do more, over and over again, with no results or end in sight. Odysseus is teetering on despair; nothing he does seems to do will ever be enough, just like V. The world will just take and take and take. It’s exactly what V’s poem asserts in Mikoshi; the world cannot be fixed, and resistance is futile. You can’t change how corporations rule the world, and as a protestor states on the TV in the hospital room, the rich have no boundaries or morals, and we are powerless to stop them from taking whatever they want. They can take not only our souls, but our bodies, devour them in order to prolong their own lives. Johnny would, of course, disagree. Even a slap in the face to The Man is better than submitting to a corpo-leash, even if that is the easier path. And in fact, he may be right, since it seems taking Hanako’s offer is the conformist path, and the only one that leads to Saburo coming back.

But Johnny isn’t there anymore to walk the rebel path at their side. No more guardian angel to whisper when they it most to never stop fighting.

There’s a lot more we could go into here with the Odyssey; comparing Arasaka to the story of Polyphemus and the cave, talking about themes of passion vs. commitment, yadayadayada. I hate the Odyssey so that can be someone else’s problem tbh.

The final piece is what the doctor asks V to read as one of their tests. Now, on surface-level, this is foreshadowing if V will choose to stay in their body, or be turned into an engram. It’s laughing at them, really, both pitying and mocking the fact that they believe they have a choice, since either way they’re once again at the mercy of the rich and powerful:

“And it was a sight to behold, he said, how a soul would choose its life; sometimes pitiable, sometimes laughable at times wonderful and strange. For in most cases, the souls made their choice according to the habits of a former life.”

I couldn’t find where this was from, or if it was a quote from anything. But googling it does bring up Plato’s Allegory of The Cave, which I thinks tracks pretty well. I found a quote from this chapter of Plato’s The Republic, which is strikingly similar in meaning. For the sake of my sanity, lets assume that this quote is referencing this one from Plato:

“And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the cave.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the allegory of the cave, it’s a philosophical discussion from Plato’s The Republic. It’s about how human perception is limited, and so true knowledge comes from the self via philosophical reasoning. Much like humans imprisoned in a cave with only shadows as their entire world, we cannot imagine the true world outside the cave until we leave to see it for ourselves.  Those who are freed from this limited reasoning have a duty to go back and free others, subjecting them to the full experience of awakening; both the pain and the triumph it entails. V starts out with a limited perception of things; a surface-level world, never stopping to see the bigger picture, until Johnny comes along and encourages them to question the status quo. In all other endings, V accepts this enlightenment. They challenge Arasaka, and try to follow Johnny’s legacy and Stick It To the Man. Yet if they accept Hanako’s offer in an attempt to return to “the habits of a former life,” they are rejecting this new understanding, refusing to leave the cave and live in ignorant bliss. This, I believe, is where Johnny’s true feeling of betrayal comes from: not because he’s being shredded, and not because he thinks V doesn’t know any better. V learned and changed just as much as he did, and this growth was something they were able to gift to one another. Johnny is proud of his change, proud to be someone trusted by V, proud at a second chance not to fuck things up. When V gives him control to go with Rogue to Arasaka, he’s ecstatic to prove himself worthy of that trust, to prove that he’s changed. Yet V, the person who aided in that change, is now actively ignoring and rejecting their own growth, and thus is betraying themselves. By not using their enlightenment to actively oppose the status quo and rebel, they are choosing the side of the oppressor by default.

Some of her last words if you choose not to sign the contract are to Goro, “You have no idea how good it feels to be free.” But the truth is, V is not free, and now they will never be free. By walking the path they have, they are choosing willful ignorance, stubbornly clinging to the darkness of the cave because it is easier to convince oneself that they are not a prisoner at all than it is to leave the comfort of one’s chains. Either way, they are caged, even if the bars the rich and powerful build around her are clear instead of solid. Her so-called freedom (and knowledge) is pure illusion — shadows depicted on a cave wall.

[jungshookz]

ceo!yoongi - daddy’s little girl

→ pairing: min yoongi x reader

→ summary: it seems like hwayoung might have a favourite parent, and, spoiler alert: it’s not you.

→ genre: ceo!yoongi universe, fluFF aka jimin and hwayoung in matching teddy jackets, angst because parenthood is hard, lil touch of smut because yoongi n y/n have missed each other and hwayoung keeps cockblocking them womp womp

→ wordcount: 5.5k

→ notes: if you missed the ceo!yoongiverse as much as i did i hope you’ll like this drabble!! i’m sorry it took so long ya girl’s been buSY as heck! anyways i have moVed on from google translate and i have a vEry special translator who i will not expose in case they want to remain anonymous but for those of you who were horrified by the google translate korean from a couple drabbles ago i hope this time around it’s better!! also i couldn’t come up with a better title so get ur minds out of the guTTER

if you have no idea whO ceo!yoongi is, go ahead and read the fic that started it allllllllll anyways i hope you guys like this one! feel free to flood the friCK out of my inbox i love dat shit

or if you’re interested in reading other ceo!yoongi drabbles: the proposal | x | the wedding | x | the first date | x | jealousy | x | baby makes three | x | the fishnet stockings | x | baby min’s timeline | x | the birth of baby min | x |

if u wanna ask yoongs or y/n (or hwayoung?? u won’t get a lot outta her unfortunately) anything u know what to do ;-)

(gif isn’t mine!)

(((and the read more function iS there but most of the time it doesn’t work on mobile :// i am sorry don’t attack me by sending passive-aggressive anon messages)))

you’re pretty sure hwayoung hates you

which is NOT fair because you gRew her for nine months and um also YOU BIRTHED HER

“we’re never going to get this diaper on if you keep kiCking me” you scowl as her tiny foot digs into your (still sensitive) stomach and you wince in pain

how the frick do diapers work

it’s just deconstructed underwear and you can’t even figure it out

which way is the back????

“okay, let me just…” you lift her up a little and slide the diaper underneath and plop her bum back down

hm

no that doesn’t look right

maybe that’s the front???

“sorry, wait-“ you lift her up again and she gurgles when you whIp the diaper away from under her “okay, now i got it”

you’re about to reach out to lift her up again but then

o frick

you sigh frustratedly when her face crumples up and she starts to wail “oH my god girl why are you crying?? what is there to cry about?????? do you want to hang out in a poopy diaper all day???? i’m trying to help you!!”

she starts to cry harder and now yOU want to cry

jesus

your ears are literally about to start bleeding

this girl has a pair of lungs for sure

“hey, what’s wrong? y/n, what did you do?” you turn as yoongi walks into the nursery looking as concerned as ever

“wha- what makes you think i did something??” you scoff and yoongi plucks the diaper from your hand

“오~케이 아빠왔다! 아빠가 기저귀 빨리 갈아줄게! [oh...okay... daddy’s here! daddy’s gonna change your diaper!]” yoongi tuts and slides the diaper underneath her and her wails begin to reduce to small hiccups and whimpers “y/n, jagi, i know you’re tired but maybe you shouldn’t yell at our two-month-old child, hm?”

“i wasn’t yelling-“

“you kind of were” yoongi mutters and you clench your fists in frustration

you can’t help it

you haven’t slept in like a week so you’re exhausted and you feel like you’re about to pass out all the time

your boobs are always just,.., leaKIng

your nipples!!! are so chaffed!!! and so raw!!!!!!!!

all of your clothes are now stained with multiple types of bodily fluids

you watch as yoongi tightens the straps and then sticks the little tabs down

and the whole time

hwayoung doesn’t move and barely makes a peep

she gurgles as he tucks her legs back into the onesie and buttons her little outfit back up

“alright, you chunky monkey” he pinches her thighs and grins down at her “we’re all done! 아~ 내 째깐한기— 누구 딸이길레 이렇�� 귀여운거야? [oh, you’re so cute - whose baby is this cute?]” he coos and tickles her plump lil belly

he rubs his nose against hers and her tiny palm slaps against his cheek

yoongi picks her up and cradles her in his arms and she sucks her fist into her mouth

“how about you go and take a shower? i can take care of her for a bit” yoongi murmurs and yanks her fist out of her mouth

she whines and shoves her fist back in

he doesn’t give you a choiCe because then he’s walking out of the nursery

okay

guess you’re taking a shower

you let out a long sigh as the hot water rains down on you

you don’t know how you’re going to survive motherhood

it’s already so hard

you can’t even put a diaper on

you know what

motherhood is difficult buT you know for a fact it’s going to become easier

yeah

just give it some time

everything will be fine

3AM

the sudden sound of wailing jolts you awake and you sit up immediately

the baby monitor next to you is blinking like crazy

u don’t even need the baby monitor to tell u that hwayoung is crying because her cries are so loUD

you reach over and turn on the lamp and let out a sigh

there’s some shuffling next to you and yoongi reaches over and places a hand on your bare thigh

“i got it, don’t worry.” yoongi murmurs and rubs the sleep out of his eyes with his other hand

“you had a long day at work today… i can take care of it” you bring his hand up to your mouth and press a kiss over his knuckles

“no… no….i…i got it…” yoongi rolls over onto his stomach and flops an arm over your lap

he’s basically fallen back asleep and you can’t help but snort quietly at your husband

you run your fingers through his hair gently before pushing him back so that he’s on his back

you let out another yawn and crawl out of bed

“coming, i’m coming…” you make your way down the hall to hwayoung’s room

goD

you are so tired you could pass out right now

“hi, sweet girl… can’t sleep, hm?” you scoop her up into your arms and she tucks her face into the crook of your neck and continues to sob

you can feel your shoulder getting wet from the copious amount of tears and snoT being produced by your child as you pace back and forth

you spend the next twenty or so minutes trying to calm her down but nothing seems to be working

she keeps spitting out her pacifier

you tried bouncing her and it didn’t work

you cradled her in your arms and sat in the rocking chair and it didn’t work

you even tried singing that stupid tomato song that jungkook and jimin sing to her that she seems to like (u don’t really know the lyrics so it was basically just you saying ‘tomato’ over and over again but in the tune of the song lmao)

“she’s still crying?” you look over your shoulder to see yoongi standing by the door

you’re about to respond but hwayoung lets out another ear-piercing sob

he scratches at his bare chest and lets out a yawn before holding his arms out “c’mere, give her to me”

you’re about to protest because u want to prove to yourself AND yoongi that you are capable of making your guys’ child stop crying but like

your arms are starting to get tired

and hwayoung doesn’t seem like she’s going to stop crying any time soon

the moment yoongi takes her into his arms her cries start to quiet down significantly and you’re like ????????

are u having a fever dream

is this even happening right now

“yeah, there we go… 아이고야, 아기야 울지말거라.....[no need to cry…]” yoongi coos and pats her back gently

a fat tear rolls down her cheek as she shuts her eyes and-

what

did she just fall asleep

she totally just fell asleep

“hey, look at that! easy-peasy.” yoongi teases but the smile drops from his face when he sees that you are very noT amused

“that is so not fair.” you grumble and watch him put her back in her crib

as days start bleeding into weeks you can’t help but realise just how exhausting being a mother is

you can’t even grasp the basic concept of time because you’ve been hanging out at home all day and all night

you only know it’s nighttime whenever yoongi comes back from work

yoongi’s been a vEry supportive and doting husband and father even though you know he’s super busy at work

he offers to make dinner and he gives you back massages when you need it

he’s always the first one outta bed whenever hwayoung starts crying in the middle of the night

jimin and kook stop by from time to time

most of the time they bring food for you which you’re very grateful for

the point is

usually you have someone there with you whenever things get rough

but tonight

tonight is really testing you

yoongi isn’t going to be home for a little while longer

jimin is busy at work with yoongi

jungkook’s hanging out with his other pals tonight

so it’s just you and your baby

speaking of your baby

hwayoung is being especially difficult tonight

more difficult than usual

you can’t help but wonder if she inherited the stubborn gene from you (the answer is yes in case it wasn’t already painfully clear)

she hasn’t cried in two hours which is concerning because she usually bursts into tears like every twenty minutes

that means when she eventually cries it’s going to be the most intense waiLS you think you’ll ever get from her

“you sure you don’t want any milk?” you let out a sigh of frustration as you try feeding her your nipple and she moves her head away before bursting into tears “c’mon, just-“ you try manoeuvring her head towards your boob again and she whips her head away “hwayoung, please, mommy’s boob is literally probABly going to explode if you don’t-“ she starts to cry harder and you’re pretty sure she’s going to pop a lung if she doesn’t stop “okay okAY okay no milk no milk” you shush and stand up and start bouncing her gently

you wince and reach up to cup your boob

o god

your boobs hurt so fuckign much

you need to pump some milk out before you pass out

you haven’t used the breast pump yet because hwayoung’s been diligent with the milk drinking but for some reason she’s refused to drink aLL day today which has resulted in what you think is an ovERProduction of milk in your boobs

“shh, it’s okay, there’s nothing to cry about…” you mutter as you go through the cupboards and- “ah! found it!!”

“mommy’s just gonna put you down here, okay?” hwayoung’s calmed down a bit but you know she’s still irritated because she keeps fussing and whining

you lie her down on the couch and take a seat next to her

you don’t think you’ve ever felt suCh relief in your life when you finally attach the pump to your boob and it starts suCkINg the milk out of your body

“thank god..” you sigh and rest your head back against the couch

all that can be heard in the room is the continuous pumping of the machine with hwayoung’s occasional babble thrown in

see

everything’s fine

you glance over and-

“hwayoung-!” you gasp and imMediately reach out to grab her before she can roll off the damn couch

and then all hell breaks loose

your hand knocks against the bottle attached to your boob when your arms whIP out to grab onto her

the bottle tumbles onto the ground and you literally want to die when the milk spills out and starts soaking into the rug

that was

that was like all of your milk

that was hwayoung’s meal and it’s all gone

“fuckin-“ hwayoung’s shrieking at this point and you have no idea what to do

here you are in the middle of the living room with a boob hanging out of your nurSing bra with your child crying into the crook of your neck

“okay, it’s fine, don’t cry!” you seem like you’re telling yourself that rather than hwayoung

you groan in pain when you shoVe your sore boob back into your bra and you don’t even bother buttoning yoongi’s shirt up because there’s no timE

“okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, mommy’s here,” you try to shush hwayoung as you furiously dab at the carpet with her ducky blanket

she’s squirming in your grip and you wince when she smacks her tiny fist against your face

“-daddy heard your crying all the way from- woAh what the hell” the last thing yoongi expects to see when he walks into the penthouse is the sight of you on your knees scrubbing at the carpet while cradling hwayoung in your arms (who is squirming so much she’s literally about to faLL out of your arms)  

“take her, i need to clean up the milk” yoongi rushes over and takes hwayoung from you and you immediately zip to the kitchen to grab the cleaning supplies

“눈물 뚝... [don’t cry, don’t cry...]” yoongi whispers and bounces her in his arms

she continues blubbering and big fat tears roll down the sides of her face “화영아 울지마... 아빠야.. [hwayoungie, don’t cry... it’s daddy...] no, no! don’t cry, it’s okay!] y/n, what happened??”

“i- it’s fine, everything’s fine, it was an accident,” you breathe out as you come back with a damp cloth “-i was pumping milk and i put her down and i wasn’t paying attention and she was wiggling around a lot and i guess she squirmed all the way to the edge of the couch buT BUT i caught her! i caught her and ended up ripPing the pump off my boob-“ you drop to your knees and start dabbing at the milk

it’s too late

most of it has soaked into the rug and you don’t want the living room to reek of your crusty breast milk when it fully dries

shiT

you should grab the bleach

but this rug was eXPENSIVE

“i’ll go put her to bed, okay? i’ll be right back”

you don’t know if it’s the hormones or the lack of sleep or whatever but suddenly you feel your eyes starting to well up with tears the moment you’re left alone

it’s just

you’re so overwhelmed and so tired

hwayoung hates you

you can’t do anything right

you can’t even put a damn diaper on your baby

you can’t get her to drink from your stupid boob

and not to mention it took you like 20 minutes to figure out how to attach a pump to your boOb

your movements start to slow down significantly when it hits you

you’re an unfit mother

it’s true

you are an unfit mother

“she’s a bit fussy tonight, no?” yoongi jokes as he comes down the stairs

he purses his lips when you don’t reply and continue to scrub fuRIously at the rug “…lemme help-“

“no, it’s okay.” you shake your head quickly and swallow the lump growing in your throat

yoongi kinda stands there awkwardly because he doesn’t know,..,,. what to do.,.,

“okay. uh… do you… want pizza for dinner? cauliflower crust good with you.” he jokes aGain as he loosens his tie

and once again

he’s met with nothing but silence

he feels like this is the calm before the storm

something’s coming

u know what

he’s just going to call the pizza place

he’ll make sure to get extra garlic dip for u

hopefully that’ll cheer you up a bit

you lean back against the couch and look down at the dark patch on the rug

okay well

you got most of the milk out

so everything is fine now

yes

everything is fine

you press your lips together to try and suppress the incoming soB because you know yoongi’s tired and he probably doesn’t want to deal with-  

“i’m a terrible mother!” you burst into tears and immediately reach up to cover your face with your hands and yoongi jumps in surprise

thEre it is

“baby, no! you’re not a terrible mother!!” yoongi’s brows knit together and he drops to the ground right next to you

you immediately launch yourself into yoongi’s arms and bury your face into the crook of his neck

“i just don’t understand why i can’t do anything right like i can’t [hiccup] even change her diaper i don’t know [sob] what the f-front of the diaper looks like and what the back of the diaper [hiccup] looks like and she won’T EVEN drINk from my b-boob so now my boobs huRT [sob] and i know it’s not her fault because it’s always my fault i’m the one who keeps messing up howamisupposedtotakecareofababywhenicanbarelytakecareofmyself-“  

yoongi can barely understand what you’re saying because your words are muffled and you’re blurring them together pluS you’re uncontrollably sobbing but he manages to make out a couple of your sentences

he lets you cry and cry and crY out all your anger and sadness and frustrations for the next ten minutes until you quite literally have no tears left to cry

you sniffle and pull away from yoongi

your eyes are watery and puffy and your nose is red and your lips are swollen “…so how was work?”

“you aren’t a terrible mother.” yoongi deadpans before reaching up to cup your cheeks “how’d you manage to get that silly idea into your head?”

you scoff and reach up to wipe at your eyes “yoongi, i can’t do anything right. you’re nailing this whole being a parent thing and i’m just fucking it up for everyone.”

“no, you’re not! and you’re not alone, you know that! we’re both in this together - last time i checked, hwayoung is half of you and half of me. i have my fuck up moments too! i didn’t tell you this because i didn’t want you to get mad but i accidentally clipped hwayoung’s finger when i was cutting her fingernails and there was a little bit of blood but-“

“you whAT-“

“-not to mention, you have jimin and unfortunately you have jungkook too but the point is you are not alone in this!!! i know things are hard right now because babies are difficult but you are not a terrible mother. you take care of hwayoung-ie so well and you love her so much and i can’t even think of any woman more perfect than you to raise my child. it’ll get better, i promise. but for now, the most important thing you need to know is that you are not a terrible mother.” yoongi holds your face up “look at me and say it.”

your eyes flicker up to him before they look back down at the rug “…u r not a terrible mother”

“y/n, seriously-“

“i am not a terrible mother.” you murmur and reach up to wipe at your puffy eyes

“i would ask you to say it louder but i’m not risking waking the baby up.” yoongi laughs lightly and wipes a stray tear away for you before giving you a sweet lil kiss “you okay?”

“ya i guess so... you still gonna order pizza for us?”

“mhm”

“with extra cheese?”

“yup”

“and stuffed crust?”

“…well now you’re just pushing it buT yes, you deserve stuffed crust.”

:-)

yoongi was right

things got better

“what’s the matter with this film?? it’s about mermaids! i’m sure you’ll grow to like mermaids.” you look over at hwayoung who’s just chilling in her little rocker

since you and yoongi are ~millennial~ parents obviously you guys had to get your baby more modern things

it’s a rocker that rocks itself!!

..or maybe u guys are just lazy lol

hwayoung gurgles and her little arms flail around a bit

“unless you wanna watch basketball or something.” you mutter and switch the channel

you’re sitting on the ground next to her and the both of you are just enjoying each others’ company

once again hwayoung’s pudgy bread roll arms flail around

“what’s the matter, miss fussy?” you coo and pull her out of the rocker gently and proceed to place her on your chest

you lower the volume on the tv because you figure she’d appreciate more silence since she’s tryna go to sleep

“alright alright just gimme a second to get comfortable.” you can’t help but laugh when she lets out the tiniest most adorable yawn

you sit on the couch and lean back a bit and hwayoung burrows her face into the crook of your neck before turning and squishing her cheek against your shoulder

and-

you pause

“…hwayoung?” you whisper and awkwardly crane your neck so you can kINda look at her face

oh my god

she fell asleep

no way

you press your lips together to keep yourself from scREECHING in excitement because she nEVER falls asleep in your arms!!!!!!! EVER

holy shit

ok

oh god

now you can’t move because u don’t want to wake her up

u know what it’s totally fine because the point is hwayoung is sleeping on yOU

“i can do this.” you breathe out as you look up at the ceiling

yeah

you can do this

you’re not a terrible mother

yoongi shuts the door behind him as quietly as he can

the penthouse is eerily quiet tonight and yoongi’s only slightly concerned

he’s tempted to call out for you but he doesn’t want to just in case-

oh

aw

yoongi has to press his lips together to suppress the big fat grin on his face because there you are

there you are

asleep on the couch with an arm hanging off the edge while the other is wrapped around hwayoung

meanwhile hwayoung is sprawled on top of you with her lil cheek smushed against your chest

her little duckie blanket is tossed over her

the two of you are drooling which yoongi finds absolutely endearing

“c’mere...” yoongi scoops hwayoung up from your chest and cradles her in his arms

she stirs in her sleep and her little nose twitches (yoongi wants to melt right then and there because she definitely picked that up from you!!)

he tucks her into bed as slowly as possible so that she doesn’t wake up

of course his head knocks into the mobile hanging above her bed and it jingles a little bit

luckily she’s a deep sleeper

he picks up her little chocolate chip cookie plushie (you named it shooky for some reason which don’t even make any damn sense) and places it right next to her head

and then he just takes a moment to admire her

wow

that’s his little baby

that’s his daughter

he never thought he’d be a dad this young

heck

he didn’t even think he’d be married this young but

u know what

life works in funny ways

and he’s pretty sure he’s the luckiest guy in the world

the floorboards creak under his feet as he makes his way back to you

he bends down and reaches over to move a strand of hair away from your face

“y/n…” yoongi whispers and smiles fondly when you stir in your sleep

there’s that nose twitch

you peel an eye open before reaching over to cup yoongi’s jaw “hey… you’re finally ho-“ suddenly you sit straIGHt up and look down

“i put her in bed a minute ago” you visibly relax and you let out a sigh before lying back down

“she fell asleep on me tonight” you hum happily “i think she likes me”

yoongi snorts and rolls his eyes before getting back up onto his feet “c’mon, you. let’s get you into bed too” you let out a whine and swat lazily at his hand

“i’m too tired to move”

classic

yoongi bends down to pick you up

you wrap your arms around his neck and he wraps your legs around his waist

“c’mon, you big baby.”

he bounces you a little to make sure he has a good grip on you and you hum

this position feels very familiar hEhe

“i thought you were tired” yoongi teases when he feels you begin to plant kisses down his neck as he makes his way up the stairs

“changed my mind” you murmur

one hand wraps around the nape of his neck

meanwhile your other hand wraps around his bicep and you give him a lil squeeze

hoLy moly

“have you been working out?” you pull away from him and yoongi raises his eyebrows

“if by rocking our child to sleep every night for like two hours straight, then yes, i have been working out”

yoongi plops you down on the mattress before settling in between your legs

you wrap your legs around his waist and yoongi can’t help but laugh because he’s trYIng to undo his tie but you keep pawing at him

“what’s gotten into you??” you’ve sat up to unbuckle his belt

you are a woman on a mission

and he’s not complaining

you’re just being vERY speedy

“our baby might start crying at any moment-“

“she sleeps like a log-“

“buT she always starts crying at the most inconvenient time!! it’s like she knows everythING that goes on- christ, you’re really taking your sweet time with- you know what-“ suddenly everything whiRLS and yoongi’s staring up at the ceiling

he blinks twice

what the heck

“now shut up and enjoy the ride.”

god

he really is the luckiest guy in the world

“look, we match!” jimin beams

he has hwayoung cradled in his arms and she’s sucking on her fist while wearing the most adorable teddy jacket

and jimin

jiMIN is wearing an equally as adorable teddy jacket and you’re pretty sure your heart stops beating when he nuzzles his nose into her cheek

they’re both so squishy

she places her hand over his mouth and pinches his plump bottom lip in response and he yelps in pain which then triggers hwayoung to become a giggling mess

“y/n, take a picture!!” jimin hands you his phone and points to you in an attempt to get hwayoung to look at the camera

she keeps staring at him as if she were completely entranced by his beauty which.,.,. is fair

jungkook appears behind you and starts whistling and popping his tongue “정국삼촌보세요!!! [look at uncle jungkook!]”

jimin grins for the camera and squishes his cheek against hwayoung’s as he squeezes her tight

hwayoung squeals in delight when jungkook sticks his tongue out and crosses his eyes and you snap the picture quickly

“got it??” jimin bounces hwayoung up and down while continuing to squish his cheek against hers

you nod and hand his phone back to him expEcting him to give you hwayoung

“i’m taking her for the rest of the day!! i have to show the reSt of the office my baby”

“your baby?? i’m the one who pushed her out of my vagina!” you scoff and jimin puShes past you while baby-talking to hwayoung

“look at you in your little teddy jacket, you cutie! uncle jimin loves spoiling you, yes he does! i’m gonna take you on a shopping spree and you can buy whatever your little heart wants!”  

she babbles back to him and shoves her fist back into her mouth

“화영이 내꺼~야, 삼촌이 더 좋지? [hwayoung is mine~ i’m better, right?]” jimin coos and you watch as he disappears down the hallway

well

you’re probably never going to get your child back now

jungkook didn’t think he’d like hwayoung as much as he does because like

babies are disgusting

and annoying

and loud

and they drool and poop everywhere and they’re just constantly leaking fluids

but bitch

he is W HI P P ED for this baby with a capital wH

“i love tummy time, don’t you?” jungkook sighs and rests his cheek against his fist before looking over at hwayoung

he reaches over to squeeze her bread roll arm

squidge

uWU

“i’m gonna eat ur little bread roll arms yes i am yes i am” he shifts closer and leans down to nip at her elbow and she squawks

you can’t help but snort before returning your attention back to your laptop

you set up hwayoung’s mobile in yoongi’s office and jungkook popped over with your coffee and is supposed to go back to work immediately but here he is lying on the floor with your baby

hwayoung gurgles before letting out a huff and squishing her cheek against the floor

keeping your head up is hard work okAy give her a break

jungkook flips over onto his back and reaches up to whack at the little moon plush that’s hanging from the top of the mobile

hwayoung lets out a muffled whine because her face is currently smooshed against the floor seeing that she cannoT LIFT HER HEAD SOMEONE HELP HER

“알았~어 인제 한번 뒤집어보자? [okay~ how about we flip you over?]” jungkook tilts his head backwards so that he can look at hwayoung but all he sees is the top of her head

he sits up before turning and picking hwayoung up gently and flips her over like a lil pancake

“jungkook, careful” you scowl and jungkook waves you off before reaching down to flick the moon plush

hwayoung reaches up to try and grab it

her chubby fingers brush against the bottom of it and jungkook coos

“you can’t reach the moon because of your sausage fingers, ya loser” he teases and reaches down to boop her nose and she swats at his finger

jungkook is still hooked on this bread roll arm thing (he’ll never get over it for as long as he lives) and pretty soon all that can be heard in the room is him fAWning over hwayoung

“얘는 팔에 식빵 있네! 식빵 사세요!!! [this baby has bread-roll arms! come buy this bread!]” he laughs as he wiggles her plump arm around

yep

caPITAL wH

“and if those papers aren’t on my desk by monday morning 8am you can consider yourself fiREd” yoongi barks before slamming the phone back down onto the receiver “ridiculous! absolutely ridiculous” he scoffs and whips around

hwayoung squawks in the baby carrier and wraps her tiny fingers around yoongi’s pointer finger

“하.. 나진짜! [i mean, seriously!]” yoongi bounces up and down as he continues to ramble on and on “이 사람들은 내 시간 낭비하는게 일인가.. 서류 작성하는게 뭔 어려운 일이라고...??[these people are wasting my time! how hard is it to fill out documents??]”

when the korean comes out that’s when you know yoongi’s suPer pissed

you poke your head through the crack of the door and you’re only a little surprised to see yoongi pacing back and forth ranting angrily while hwayoung lets out the occasional babble

she looks at you like she wants you to save her from this hELL because yoongi’s bouncing her a little bit too aggressively now

she’s got her fingers wrapped around his pointer finger as he goes oN and oN

yoongi looks down at the baby attached to his chest “don’t you think this is ridiculous? i’m probably going to have to start firing people at this rate.”

hwayoung looks up at him and gurgles

“누구 해고하는거 내 마음인데, [i can fire whoever i want] thank you very much.”

“agha”

“얘네 무능하다 [they’re incompetent], that’s why!”

“bajdsl”

hm

this seems like a daddy-daughter moment

you’ll leave them alone for now

“you look like such a dad.” you snort and yoongi glances over at you before returning his attention to the TV

“i am a dad.”

he’s wearing a plaid button-up pyjama top with a t-shirt underneath (because it’s still a lil cold out) and hwayoung is lying on his chest just snoozing away

she’s wearing a matching plaid onesie which is adorable and u know yoongi did it on puRpose

you sit down next to yoongi and peek at hwayoung

her cheek is squished against his chest and you can’t help but poke her little nose

you rest your head on yoongi’s shoulder n he gives the top of your head a kiss

in this moment you can’t help but feel overwhelmingly happy

because you love your husband

and you love your daughter

“…i think hwayoung just pooped.”

…and you love your lil family of three.

[canofcampbellssoup]

i’m back on some google earth bullshit

ok so i know finding weird shit on google earth is not at all unique but this is one rabbit hole i haven’t been able to find evidence of anyone else going down and i need to go off for a minute

so i was looking around the antarctica/south sandwich islands area around midnight for some nice pics of glaciers right but then i come across one image in the middle of the ocean that slaps my soul right out of my body

(here are the coordinates if you want to see for yourself: 50º55'18.52" S 7º00'36.62" E) (also i’ll put a keep reading in here bc i’m having way too much writing this and feeling like i’m in a nexpo video)

once the existential horror of this fish with human teeth wears off, i notice the weirdness of the rest of the image – the dude dressed up like a king riding the fish, the weird anime-looking characters in the stained glass, the (seemingly) random german flag, and the big fancy chandelier that just,, doesn’t match the room at all?? wanting to figure out what the fuck is going on here, i try to reverse image search it – no results.

at this point, i open the image itself in my browser and see it’s called “karnevalsmuseum(2).jpg” so i try looking into this museum and the first thing i’m able to find is this somewhat-sketchy german website (this may just be a weird translation thing but instead of say “accept cookies” it said “accept tracking” which ,, like is technically the same thing but is just an abnormally creepy way to phrase it i feel) that, while not having a picture of this fish anywhere on it, has the same name and some creepy-looking wax figures that look like the same style as the dude riding the fish, so at this point it’s probably likely it’s the right place. but why is a creepy pic from a german museum tagged as being in the middle of the southern atlantic ocean???

so i put the coordinates on this museum’s website into google earth, but there aren’t any pictures of it?? like there’s some pics around it of like stereotypical german buildings and a bit of like the surrounding city but nothing about this goddamn museum.

so i head back to the internet and after a little more digging, i find a more official-looking website for this place by finally switching from duckduckgo to google (look at this point it’s like 2 AM my brain was not functioning at full capacity) and am finally able to find an alternate angle of Him which is somehow less ominous and deeply disconcerting

so it’s confirmed this random-ass picture is from a museum in germany about the history of carnivals in europe (why this resulted in a fish with human teeth i have no idea) but i still have no clue as to why it’s tagged as being in the middle of the ocean like maybe it’s just a glitch but it’s still weird as shit

[rayroa]

Q&A with Tampa punk songwriter Dave Decker

Photo by Marlo Miller.

In its August 8, 2019 issue, Creative Loafing Tampa profiled Big Sad, a new project featuring three Tampa Bay punk scene staples. In an effort to save some time, I’ll be omitting full Q&A’s from any feature interviews that appear on cltampa.com/music. If you’d still like to read our chat with Decker for research, I have posted it, not completely polished up, below.

Forgive me for not knowing, but you're born in Miami and then ended up in Gainesville and Tampa Bay? How does that journey happen? Like, how do you get from Miami? Is there a town in between there? Did you live in Orlando for a little bit?

No, yeah. I was born in Miami, and lived there till I was like around eight or nine. That's when we came to Tampa. I'm, like, fourth generation. In 1910 my granddad was on this river, it was called Palm River down by Tampa Bypass Canal, so we had land and stuff here. My mother was a working single mom and she came up here to be on in this area because my grandparents were here too. They helped out, you know, it's hard to raise a kid on your own. So they were around and stuff growing up in Tampa.

So I grew up in Tampa until I was 17 or 18. I grew up skating, listening to music, going to shows, hanging out and stuff and then I moved to Gainesville in, like, '89 or '90. I was there until, I want to say, like, '94. Then we basically came back to Tampa; I'm giving you like the short version.

We lived in Gainesville for four years. We were always into the music since we were like 13 or 14; you know, punk rock music, rap music and shit. Gainesville was just exploding. At that time, that band Radon was getting big. The Hardback was where people would go for shows, and all these bands were happening. Thee Gainesville bands like Smoke and Radon. Hot Water Music and Less Than Jake weren't even bands yet. They weren't even bands until like around maybe '91 or '92. Then those guys moved up and we were all neighbors;  I played with Less than Jake for one practice.  I love those guys, they're totally good friends, they're nice guys, but I was I was playing Fugazi, Jawbreaker, all that Dischord shit, New York hardcore shit, L.A. punk shit, Berkley stuff. We shared a band room, and those guys, of course, became who they were. So we did bands, and No Idea was the label that put band stuff out around that time, '94; No Idea kept going until a couple years ago. I think they folded or had some stuff happen.

So we moved back to Tampa, like, in '94: Richie, Don and myself. We kept our bands going and still toured. So it's funny that we're actually talking about this because last night I went over to Richie's to work on new Big Sad song. I've played, pretty much, in every band with him. So from 1990, we were in bands together. When I was a kid, he was like one of the older kids that would run around and you know, be in crazy bands and stuff. Anyway, we were watching these old videos of Clairmel tours on old VHS tapes from, God, that's gotta be damn near 30 years ago now.  Videos of shit; just us with other bands touring with no money, drinking, smoking... being in bars. You realize how immature you are.

So we got back to Tampa around '94 or 95 and then pretty much lived in Tampa until now. I owned a business; we all just kind of came here to live. Those guys got married, but we all lived that 9-to-five, but always played in bands. We were always drinking and stuff.

I always noticed that when I would drink, it was weird, because those guys would all drink and just have fun. I would drink to numb the shit. I was like, "I like drinking because I get numb." They were like, "Well, we like drinking because we have fun." Like, "What's wrong with you, dude?"

I was in Tampa pretty much the whole time. I went out to San Diego for like a month eight years ago, but I didn't stay there. I never lived in Orlando; I just robbed a bank in Orlando. I figured it was a better place to rob a bank versus Tampa. I was so stupid. I was like, "If I rob a bank in Orlando, then nobody will find me," and then four days later. I mean, for five days I was on the run. I mean, I remember being in the car and driving away with fucking cop cars right behind me and being like, "Aw fuck, I guess I'm gonna get out of town." I had a bunch of money full of fucking red dye because the dye pack blew up. Money was going everywhere; the shit burns you. It's crazy.

In a rental car, I drove back to Tampa. I hid out out and four or five days later, I'm looking at a cell phone, and I'm like, "Oh, shit." I saw my picture. I Googled my name, and I saw my picture, "Wanted," in circulation on, like, 25 or 30 national newspapers. Chicago Sun-Times, I remember looking at that website, and I'm on the run for fucking four days, but there's my picture. I'm like, "Oh, shit." So I look at another one. The L.A. Times, whatever, there's my picture. It's everywhere. I guess Reuters or some news agency probably got it. That was fucking nuts.

Wow. And I was going to ask you this later. But my assumption is that you're addicted to photography now. But what were you addicted to? That led you to steal cars and rob that bank?

I guess I would say like my drug of choice was probably alcohol; it was my go-to thing you know? Ultimately, whatever drug you're doing; you're just trying to mask a symptom, right? You're just trying, you're just trying to feed this other thing.

They say, "You don't have a drinking problem. You have a thinking problem." The core problem is, "What are you thinking about and why are you thinking about it?" Because all your thoughts are going to translate into beliefs, and your beliefs are going to drive your actions, and your actions are going to drive whatever consequences are the result of those actions.

And they can be positive consequences, you know. It all starts with your thought process; now I understand that. I was always trying to bury my feelings with, you know, booze and stuff. I went through like two years where I got into heavier drugs. I used to experiment with, like, cocaine and stuff. At that point, I was trying to sell cocaine and hustle to stay high. I think I was doing meth. That shit's crazy; you see how people can get so addicted to it.

What's weird about it is that we used to eat a lot of Adderall and drink, but you think about it... they give that shit to kids, but Adderall is an amphetamine. I mean, it's fucking meth, and that's what we're feeding these kids with ADD. Kind of how you feel on Adderall is how you feel on meth, to be honest. It's energy. I was always addicted, honestly, dude, I was always looking for energy.

It seems weird because you have it now in spades.

Here's the fucked up thing. I remember being a kid, 13 to 17, and all you did was skateboard and go to shows. We'd stay out all night skating. I'll go to Ybor for an hour now since I am so into photography right now, learning how to find a narrative or frame a shot with a photo. What I was gonna say is that I'll be walking through Ybor, and I see La Tropicana, and we used to skate those fucking curbs in '87 and '88; we were doing slappys, and feeble grinds, shit like that. I remember being like, 15 years old and skating those Tropicana curbs while Nirvana was playing at the old Masquerade across the street. I had that record, it was called 'Bleach,' I had it and I couldn't even get in because I was a little kid. I remember standing outside listening to him play, I think it was "Floyd, the Barber," one of those songs. Then Jane's Addiction the next week, that Nothing's Shocking record had just come out.

You'd sneak into shows if you could; I remember seeing Jawbreaker at the Volley Club. I was maybe, like 15 or 16; we all snuck into kitchen and watched Jawbreaker. That shit was like a high, it was like being high. We were almost like straight edge kids, I remember being around people that were drinking. They were kind of our friends; there were so many different types of people in the scene.  You did an interview with Edwin; he was always around. He was a guy that I totally looked up to. He had this band called Awake. There were these other guys in this band called Slap Of Reality. The people O idolized were people like Edwin. And like, you know, this guy, Trevor Slimser, who actually does Noisey now. Richie, my bandmate, I looked up to him. It was so cool, because there was always shit happening, so I never really felt like drinking. I never understood drinking cause I was always fucking running around being crazy and creative.

So it's funny. I remember my lowest of lows, getting arrested and being like, "Fuck, this is the best thing that can happen to me because I'm gonna die out here." My game plan was rob the bank, fucking out of fucking money and then kill myself. I had a little .380 sitting there; I'm looking at a gun and I'm like, "Fuck, man. I don't really want to kill myself, but now I'm probably going prison for 10 years. And I'm like, "Shit. I don't know what to do. I don't want to pull that trigger. It doesn't seem like a good idea."  I was like, "Fuck, they're just gonna have to catch me, I guess. So until they catch me I'm just going to fucking ride out."

They eventually caught me; I remember being in the lowest of lows and thinking "This is the day that it's all gonna change." I was like, "I don't know what's going to happen, I don't know how long I'm going to be locked up for, but I'm going to take full responsibility for everything from here on out. I don't give a fuck. I'm alive right now, and I don't know why."

I don't believe in predestiny. I don't believe in God and all that shit, but I just think shit happened.  So I was like, "I am a control what happens to me for the rest of my life. I'm gonna own up to everything I fucked up." I never touched a drink or anything since. It's  been a wild ride from there to here. But now it's it's cool, man.

I think you were arrested like, the middle of January 2014. Did you rob that bank before the New Year, like, before Christmas and stuff?

No, I had robbed the bank. I think I think on January 6.

To take a step back, you were talking about Edwin and stuff, but I think that Richie was also somebody that you looked up to a lot, and that was wondering, like, what were some of the cultural movements, that he was involved in, the music he was involved with that spoke to you?

We were all kind of involved in like the same things. He was like an older dude, if I could nail down scenes, he was into the Berkeley scene with all like, the Lookout bands. There was the D.C. scene with all the Dischord bands. There. The L.A. scene with all the SxE bands and stuff. I'm probably missing a lot here. There was the old English scene, bands like The Oppressed, The Business, The Jam. He turned me on to stuff like that. Then there were bands like, like Dinosaur Jr., the Flaming Lips, all the New York hardcore stuff. He was a dude that was into all that shit. And I could go like, hang out with them, smoke weed and listen to records. I remember listening to old Flaming Lips records, and thinking, "Holy shit," some people called that stuff post-punk. That stuff is so rad.

Cultural movement-wise, there was "punk music," if you want to call it that. It's really just about resistance. I remember being a kid skateboarding; there was no X-Games. You'd be skating and people would try to beat your ass in the street for it. They'd call you names and stuff. I remember in the punk scene there'd be people trying to fight you. There was so much violence back then. There's not violence now like there was then. Richie was the kind of guy who would stand up for himself and stand up for you. I remember skating downtown with one of my best friends who was this African-American guy named Alfred. We were skating downtown one night, skating curbs outside of what used to be called 911. 

On Franklin.

Yeah, yeah, on Franklin. I was a kid, 16 or 17, but I was friends with all the older dudes because of skating and punk rock. This dude, a crazy racist, a gnarly dude comes out and he starts calling my friend the N-word. I was like, "Fuck this dude," but he was big. And Rich comes out, and he's like, "Yo, is there a fucking problem?" He totally pulls a Patrick Swayze, man. He took care of that dude, without getting into details. He stood up for us. We were young.

He knew how to defend himself. He was always doing things for the right reasons. So in that sense, I always admired him. "This is a fucking cool dude, a good guy with good morals." There were a lot of good people around the scene back, and I hate that word "skinhead," but there was a lot of that back then, too. There was a lot of violence.

I know that there's been evolutions of the Big Sad sound, especially with Frank getting synthesizers, but I think of a song like "Hazard," which just grabs you on first listen and subsequent listens, but what bands influence the Big Sad sound?

I'm inspired by a lot of stuff. The top of my triangle of guitar, the people I admire, I guess, would be J. Mascis, Ian MacKaye and my buddy, actually, my buddy Dave who was in a band called Radon. He's a phenomenal guitar player and songwriter. I'm always trying to channel the energy of old Dinosaur. The first three dinosaur records come to my mind. All of the Fugazi stuff. The D.C. stuff always moved me so much. Honestly, there's a band that always really inspired me, a San Francisco band called Fuel, but not that Fuel you always hear about. They were pushing LGBT issues back in the early '90s; their singer was trans. They were badass; they had a record out on Lookout, I think.

How many hours do you think you put in with Frank at Atomic for the six songs on the EP?

Maybe 12 recording. And then he mixed for another seven or eight and played synth on it.

I will say this when you ask about what's influencing the sound. It's kind of influenced by so much right. Every time I go out and every time I go out and I see a local band, I'm excited. I get influenced by just the shift that happens around here. Like I went to that Clang! show, and it's crazy because there's like there was another show happening at the same time that I wanted to be it. It's been happening a lot lately. It makes me happy that there is so much cool shit out there. But I'm influenced a lot by what I see locally, but a band that I really dig is that band Idles. That band is so good.

Yeah, that record’s like a cup of coffee for me.

Yeah, right? It'll get you going, man. Especially if you're dealing with bullshit.

How do you know when a song is starting to grow legs and needs to walk somewhere? What does that feel like for you?

That's a great question. Songwriters all have their process, but for some there is more than one process, right?

There's so there's the process of when I hear something interesting, I write it down and make a note. If I hear opposing ideas in one phrase, or a metaphor, something that moves me or makes me think in a different way, I write it down. We're always searching for the perfect metaphor, but then it's how do we put these metaphors together in prose, in rhythm, and make it work in time? Where do we create melody for that rhythm.

Hopefully, all that's going to happen on accident. In a perfect world that just kind of like, falls out of the sky, and then rains down and fertilizes the roots of what we're trying to create and call a song. When it grows, legs, I feel like it's when we're moving through a part... a lot of times, it's like me just playing and finding notes I like. Turn that into a footpath or something I can tap my foot to. Then I can bring those notes into a timing or a frame. Now I have that melody. Sometimes I hear the music first. And then I'm driving and I've got these lyrics. And I'm kind of humming words, and it kind of falls in. And I'm like, "Oh, cool." Other times, it's like, I'm driving down the road. And maybe something’s rolling through my head; it can be just random thing. So you grab your phone, and then you know, you sing a little melody, and then you know where you're at. Then you put chords to it, and it happens like that.

Whether you do it with vocals-first-music-second or music-first-vocals-second, I feel like it grows legs whenever I wake up the next day and that idea is pulsing through my mind. That's when I sit down, grab the guitar, start singing it and playing it. usually I'll demo it; now it's kind of grown legs, and I'm like, "Let me talk to Richie," or "Let me talk to Shawn."

Like last night, I'm with Richie. We're watching old videos and working on songs, then this morning he's got these ideas. I think it grows legs when I'm not trying to hear it. When I'm in another state of mind, or another state of consciousness, and that song follows me. And that melody follows me. It's in my head. That's when I know that something that I'm going to want to, you know, turn it into something more substantive. It's now following me. It grew legs and stayed in my mind.

You could easily use the same chords 100 times and write a record, but is it compelling? So for us, we're taking longer to write song only because we want these ideas to marinate and cultivate. That's what's so cool about working with Shawn Watkins and working with Richie; they're both songwriters. Sean's a classically trained musician, and he played xylophone. He's a classically-trained vibraphone player, and it's so rad because I'll be working on something or I'll be singing something, and he'll go, "Hey, can you pull the fifth of that?" I'll be like, "Yeah, let me try it." I never heard the drummer fucking tell me to pull the interval of a major scale and sing it. That's pretty cool. Then Rich,  if I got this chord progression, he'll be like, "No, I don't want to play it like that. I'm going to do this." He'll just play some total counter rhythm melody to it. It's cool. If you leave it to me, I'll write some one-dimensional song.

You mentioned that it does feel like four equal parts. I think you just answered it, but Sean obviously is very instrumental in helping form the Big Sad songs, even before Richie got there. And I think you just explained what Richie does when he gets to the songs, but as far as the Big Sad songs that are going to be on this EP, how different are they from the songs that you demoed and wrote, the ones that grew legs and followed you?

You mean, like these songs from like, from the point that I demo them to the point where they're at now?

Yeah.

Oh, wow. That's a that's a great question, too, because the three of the songs are songs that I pretty much had written. They're very different because when I write it's kind of a simple thing. They're kind of like one dimensional, in the sense that I'm not really writing a lot of bass parts. When demo them I just kind of write a base on the traces it. Sometimes they'll have a bass idea, but for the most part, I'll just start playing with Shawn and then Richie will take the idea.

I might write a weird arrangement, and Richie may be like, "I'm not feeling that," or Shawn will  actually stop and work on a pre-chorus. There'll be all these layers and textures to it, rhythmically, so yeah they come out super different. In the old days, I used to get upset about shit like that; 15, 20 years ago I'd be like, "No, I want the song to be written my way." But then you realize, "You know what, I don't have to always be right. And I don't always have to have the answers to everything." That's kind of how I learned to live life. I don't need to always be right, and I don't need to always pretend to have the answers."

The irony of that, or the paradox, I don't know how to say it,  is that in in understanding that I don't know everything about how I want the song to be, it ends up being a better song. When I approach a challenge in life on a daily level, I can look at it and go, "OK, this is what I know about the situation. This is what I don't know, and this is when I ask for help." And that really is cool.

Yeah, they come out really different. And that's what was rad about Frank coming in. I'm excited to keep writing and doing all this new stuff. There are spaces. I'm just one guitar player even though I am playing two amps, but there's space in there now. The idea was, "We could get another guitar player," but we've done that.  What we've never done was filled in that space with like sensing something as you know, melodic and harmonic like a keyboard can produce. He does it on three songs on that EP, and I was like, "Dude, you should do it to all of 'em," but he's like, "Nah, it's fine." It creates this whole new level, a whole new thing. I'm super stoked. I hear these final mixes, and I can't believe that I'm playing in a band that has all these different sounds.

I get that your daughter drew up a logo for you, but what was that conversation Richie had with his 19-year-old daughter to lead to the name “Big Sad”?

We were going to call the band Send Help because Sean has this painter friend up north. He calls his art "Send Help," and he paints this really cool stuff. In fact, I think we're going to call the EP Send Help, and we're going to use this painting of his; it's a crazy fucking flamingo, a fucked up looked flamingo. Then we go on Spotify and Google and there are all these "Send Help"s , so we're like, "I guess we can't do that." So we're trying to figure it out. And I had this idea that I can call it Rekced Division because I did that record called Rekced, but I didn't want to make it all about me. And so we were struggling on a name and Richie's talking to his daughter, and she's really creative, they were having this conversation about Pete Shelly dying at 63 years old, and she said, "Oh that's Big Sad." He called me up and he goes, "I got a name for this band." I was like, "What do you want to call it?" He goes, "We're calling it Big Sad." I was like, "That's fine. Let's call it 'Big Sad.'"

Should we talk about your Gibson guitar that’s been glued back together and reborn at least a dozen times? It’s the one thing you didn’t lose or give away, it plays like a dream, but it’s been through a lot…

It sure has. Actually, it's funny, dude, that video we're watching last night was us playing in Washington, D.C., playing with a band called Gus. Their drummer Sammy actually plays in Interpol now, it's weird, I remember being in New York City with him and sitting in Soho; Cindy Crawford was walking across the street, and he was like, "I'm gonna live up here one day," and I was like, "Yeah, whatever Sammy." That video was from '95 or '96 — some shit like that, and I'm actually playing that guitar. I'm like, "Fuck, man. That guitae has been through so much."

You know, that guitar? It's interesting. It's hard to put it into words how much it means to me because it is just an object. To me, it's a symbol of my survival; I'll keep it for the rest of my life.

It's on a wall now; I don't play it as much because it's been so beat up. I play a different guitar. It's an SG. For Big Sad, I play a tremolo. I don't play it for Big Sad. It's just so fucking beat up, man. Yeah. I always take it's like when I play shows as a backup. I I learned how to bend notes and play tremolo; I just want to try and create these new sonic abstract sounds. But, yeah, that guitar means so much to me. I look at it every day. It's like, like an old friend. It's pretty awesome.

How much does, or have, the Thursday sessions with Sulynn affected the music for Big Sad?

I never really wanted to change my style; I have kind of a box I play in, but I wanted to build on my technique, andreally focus more on ear training and improvisation training so that when someone is working with something I know where to go within the melodic box. Through working with things like triads, intervals, arpeggios, modal shapes, I've learned that basically, a lot of what I do solo-wise... for example, if you ask J. Mascis what he's doing guitar, he'll say, "I don't know anything about music theory." If you talk to people about music theory that love J. Mascis, they'll  tell you he's playing major scales, the majority of what he does is in major scale. So then I realized, that, "Fuck, man, everything I do soloing, and when I'm playing guitar, is in the major scale because it's more melodic. So I like playing in the fifth degree of the C major scale a lot. I play in the fifth shape of that scale.

Practicing with Sulynn has helped me nail down notes that I used to miss. So on the song "Sworn To Protect" I now know that when I go into that solo, I'm playing E Ionion, which is the first degree of the E major scale. I'm doing a two octave run all the way down the fucking neck to get to that last lick and at last note. Then I bring it back and create, I guess a melody form within the space that the rhythm allows. It's helped me understand what I'm doing and where I want to go. It has made it more interesting. In Big Sad I'm the guitar player, so I can't really hide behind mistakes. I have to kind of have my chops up.

She puts me on these assignments; she keeps me plugged into a lot of things. Like, "try an arpeggio in the major scale in shape one. Next week, it might a directional picking workout. Or I might be working with descending string pairs. It's pretty cool, because a lot of that stuff, I don't take to my songwriting, but my hands are so, into different shapes and different phrasing of things that a lot of it starts to bleed into me being interested in other areas of music. I've always appreciated other forms of music, but she's taught me  appreciation and understanding of different forms of guitar playing that I never really understood. It's such a journey.

I love Sulynn, man, she's so fucking cool, man. She's super talented. She's just a really genuine, amazing human being. She's pretty much into any style of guitar. And she doesn't know how to do it, then he's trying to learn how to do it. She understands rhythm and timing in a way that I can't even really grasp. She works hard at it. She's probably one of the hardest working musicians I've ever met. She's definitely helped me out. I mean, she's just a good friend and kind of like a good mentor. It's cool when you know people that are that talented that will work with you.

I want to ask you, you take your glasses off before you play, which I assume has a lot to do with how much you move around, but how much can you still see at that point?

For me a song isn't ever really complete until I can play it and never look at the guitar. It's not complete until I can play it blind.

So are you blind when you take your glasses off?

Yeah.

Can you see  the shapes and the crowd?

Yeah, I usually can. But when we start playing, I pretty much just, kind of black out. I don't really know what's happening with people and stuff. That's why it's hard for me to talk. I don't really consider myself an entertainer. I don't know how to really connect with the crowd, so to speak. It's hard to describe. I like to be able to play the next line because then on, and then I have to focus on singing. But to me, this singing has to be connected to the notes on the guitar. And then it feels more authentic. If I if I'm trying to say and stare my neck, then I'm not really feeling that message I'm trying to deliver.

And as far as that message goes, you talked about "Sworn To Protect" and some of the musical parts, but the first verse of that song reads like instructions. That song has a message. Is there anything that people should read into in terms of listening to the Big Sad EP?

Yeah, so that's Richie; he's my collaborator. Basically that's a song I pretty much wrote. But then Richie started singing, and he had these vocal ideas, right. I had a vocal for it, but he stepped in with something that was that he was really sure of. He wrote all the lyrics for that song. And so he stepped in with something that he felt really good about. I could have tried to step forward and put resistance there, but, honestly, my idea wasn't as solid as his idea. And that was where I was like, "Dude, go for it."

He had these decides this just general idea, and these lyrics. Basically, the message there is that these cops gotta lay off people, man. Fucking beat people up. Quit killing people; quit killing people because they're black. Yeah, you know what I mean? He wrote those lyrics, and I was like, "Whoa, that's pretty rad, man." What I do is I come in and do backups; we talked about where the backup should be, trying to build harmonies — stuff like that. It's both of us singing.

"Empty Falls" is just a nod homeless people. I'm not gonna lie: a lot of my life, I've always had empathy for people, but I just kind of never understood homelessness, but being locked up and seeing homelessness.. while it seems like a choice, you know, when people say, "Oh, you know, that person should get a job," but it's not that simple, man. First off, we don't really know what kind of mental illnesses people have; people are hurting out there, man. A lot of is undiagnosed mental illness, untreated addiction and stuff like that. So, there was this homeless lady I would see every day driving from home from work. Six, seven years ago. I mean, I was on the streets; I remember sleeping, sleeping outside under a bridge. So I see this lady. I imagined having a conversation with her, and I was wondering about her life. Basically that song was me having a conversation with that never happened. I'm just speaking generally about, you know, it's really a song about compassion.

I know, it's a different band, but I wanted to ask you, when did you stop being Evil Eye from some of your other songs? Is Evil Eye dead? Is that person gone?

I mean, Evil Eye is still kind of still there. He's kind of like the alter ego, but then there's the Waffle Face Girl. I mean "Horizon 2 Charlie," those songs that I wrote for Sandspur City, that song would have been a Big Sad song. Sandspur City is still a band, we're just not moving as fast. We're not doing as much. But you know, we've been practicing a little bit lately, but I'm just gonna write songs for you know, for this band.

Evil Eye is dead in the sense that he's never coming back, but I guess the story of Evil Eye and the Waffle Face Girl is still there. More to be revealed, right? He's definitely not coming back; I'm definitely not Evil Eye anymore.

What about a Waffle Face Girl? What's her role in your life now? She seems like a superhero.

She's 12 years old now, man. She's everything to me. She's everything. Waffle Face Girl came to me in my dreams when I was locked up every night and comforted me. Basically, I am Evil Eye. She helped put Evil Eye, I guess, on a shelf. Watching her develop and become a smart young woman in this crazy life... her mother is just a really amazing person. They're my family; they're my girls. We're partners. We're a family again; it's so amazing. I never thought that would happen. But well, I did. I knew in my heart. I mean, that's what our name like when I was I was locked up. She came in my, my sleep. And knowing she was out there comforted me.

When did you get out, Dave?

I didn't do a big bid because I took such a lengthy probation.  They wanted to put me down for three-and-a-half years.

The thing that saved me from like, a four or five year bid was that I had no points, no prior felonies. So I caught four felonies within two months; two F3s and one F2. Basically, it was warrants in three counties. So every time I saw a judge, I would say, "I'm guilty." I didn't try to defend myself. I was guilty. So I only did 13 months, but I took a 10 year probation sentence. For six months, I took this really rigid Department of Corrections regulated... it was called like a therapeutic community. Kind of like this drug treatment thing, and it was intense, man. That's a whole 'nother story. I got through that, and they released me on 10 years paper.

Every time you do a prison bid you get a letter — there are guys with K and J letters, they've been a prison 10, 12, times. When I got out, I was on paper, and I was on the street, but I had to have a place to live. I couldn't be on the street, and be on probation, so there was family that took good care of me, the Pitinos. I owe those people a lot. For like three months, I lived in their garage, and I worked. While I was locked up, I got a job sweeping the floors for the granite company that I now manage. I actually run the whole campus now; I basically run production. My boss is the vice president of the company; he and I work together, and I've got eight guys that I'm responsible for. They had just built a new facility in Tampa, and the owner of the company liked me. So the vice president looked out for me. I was actually in Zephyrhills with the Pitino family. I basically just started grassroots, stayed sober, went to work every day, ended up buying a car. After four months living with them, I got a little apartment.

I think during that time I kind of would reach out to you and talk to you a little bit about stuff; slowly my relationships started mending relationships. With Melissa and my daughter, Waffle Face Girl. With Richie and everybody and then everything's been all uphill from there. It hasn't been easy, but it's got me to where I am now, things are good.

Does that answer your question? I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I didn't mean to cut you off when you're talking about what your wife and Waffle Face Girl mean to you.

It's all good. It's weird, because I haven't really talked about a lot of this stuff lately. So it's cool. It's cool to talk about it because it kind of kind of brings me back to these places. And there's a lot of real emotion there.

And if I ever asked you, if I ask you something you don't want to answer, then feel free to you say you don't feel like talking about it.

I don't mind sharing my story because my story was so public anyway, so for me to just like say, "Fuck it and be private" is definitely an option for me, but I feel compelled to share my story if people want it to to hear it because I want to let people know that if you're struggling, and you're out there, and you're on the street, and you think that you can't turn it around — that I've been there, man, and it's possible. You just got to really want it. You gotta want it more than you want the air in your lungs. You got to hang on to hope and put some work in, man.

And you're still putting the work in today. And you talked about in the past, you were drinking to be numb, when your friends were drinking to have fun. Is it ever painful to not be numb? I know you have a lot of other hobbies and stuff, and you're eating clean now, but is it ever painful day-to-day, sometimes, to not be numb?

You know, that's a great question. I'd been trying to get sober for 20 years. I mean, hell, I owned a business from 2005 to 2010, me and my partners were doing like $1.2 million a year at one point. I was making money, man, I had a house all kinds of stuff. I was still a still drunk; just a functional drunk. And I was doing bands, I played SXSW and owned a million dollar company.

Behind the scenes, I was just a sad, sad, entitled drunk consumed with self pity and selfishness. But I always worked hard. I was selfish and full of self-pity in my mind, but I did care about people — and I love my friends. I would try to get sober. I'd go to these periods where I'd been sober for a little bit, and not be sober; I tried different ways of doing it. I was always wondering where that silver bullet was. It did used to be hard. I used to resent not being able to have a drink because I felt like, "Oh, why can't I do that?" 

In these last six years, it's never hard to stay sober. I don't ever feel that need to be numb because you realize that... for me, with alcohol or drugs, I look at it like now a diabetic or someone who is allergic to peanuts — you can't eat fucking peanut butter because they'll die. I look at it like that. If I'm around people that are drinking I don't even think about having that beer because I know that basically that beer is going to kill me. It's like drinking a glass of gasoline. It never get hard because my best day drunk was a was never as good as my worst day sober. I just know where that shit takes me, man. After, like, five, six years, it's pretty easy. It's not a big deal. I don't really get I don't get too into like groups and dogmatic type stuff. I kind of did that for a little while. You kind of realize — and this is a controversial thing I might say — but I don't believe addiction is a disease, man. I think that it's a choice we make. And if I think that I really need to be sober, then I'm going to make the choice to be sober you know? I ain't giving credit to God or nobody. I'm giving myself the credit, and that's OK, you know?

I do feel that whatever it takes to somebody get to a place where they're happy. And they have you know, peace they can get rid of their irritability, their restlessness and their discontent — whatever it takes and get you there, do it. If it's going to church, do it. If it's worshipping a doorknob, do it?

What did Jeff Brawer’s letter/letters to you say specifically, and how instrumental were they for you as far as turning around? 

I think I actually have that postcard right here. So when he sent me that postcard, I think I'd been locked up for maybe six months. I hadn't talked to anybody, nobody would talk to me. I was kind of an asshole. I stood everybody up on the Fest.

The only person who would talk to me was my friend from San Diego, Jessica. She would send me letters and she was in recovery, that she loved punk rock music and shit, so we would always hang out with her. She's just this really cool, creative girl that I have. I think she had dealt with her own addiction; she had been 10 years clean and sober. I think she saw that I was struggling with it. So she would write me in the jail, and just write me with postcards and letters. 

She was really helpful to me, but then Jeff sent me that postcard. I felt like everybody in Tampa hated me and that I would never talk to any of my friends again. So when he sent me that it just gave me so much hope. I'd never planned on coming back to Tampa, man, I was so embarrassed.

My buddy, Tony sent me a Raw Power postcard; he was trying to set up a visit, and he came to visit me from Tampa, and that was super cool. At that point, I was still eight months from getting released because I had to go o all these different counties and face judges. So that was pretty cool. Jeff's was was cool. in a different way because it was someone I used to play music with. It felt good to know that like that crew of people actually cared. He didn't have to reach out to me. To me, it's a testament to who Jeff Brawer is. He's just a loving, caring guy, man, which is what's cool about all those guys and that whole scene. They have all their bands, Navin. Ave., Old Vices — I just love all those people, man. They're just, they're super talented, and they're always doing cool shit.

Yeah, they're good people.