This week started out rough on Monday with a severe emotional meltdown, as you can tell from my previous post, which has been caused by feeling exceptionally powerless this summer as our nation struggles to juggle Trump’s treason and his cult’s denial, inflation out of control, global warming frying us, the fact that powerful men can divide the whole country over what is truth due to our blind worship of them and my personal issues from spending a decade getting lectured off and on about what Churches should focus on to bring in members as well as how serious certain rules were to them compared to my understanding of reality. I worry Christianity as a whole will get persecuted in this country for so many people proudly displaying their homophobia in violent ways unapologetically and that the Twitter pages that have given me comfort will be killed, erased or changed to be anti-Christian, blaming me for the sins of Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Kirk Cameron, the Senators and Governors and of course, Trump himself. People tell me not to fear, but attendance is down to a minority, and this how people reacted when the most well-known Muslim to Americans was Osama bin Laden.
All of this makes me want to do SOMETHING. Spend money on people who make good songs or Tweets about what’s going on in this country, financially and verbally support LGBTQ+ musicians, post screenshots from video games of inclusion, friendship, camaraderie and same-gender relationships. But I’m just one man who doesn’t even make $1000 a month and over $400 of my money goes to bills. I can’t make enough noise. All I’ve found I can do is share opinions on voice actor projects, show how much I like their characters and side projects and fanart of their characters and get likes and sometimes comments. I sometimes, rarely, get likes from musicians. I’ve found Tara Platt, Yuri Lowenthal, Xanthe Huynh, Abby Trott and Jeannie Tirado to be friendly on the voice actors’ side and also once got likes from Colleen Clinkenbeard and Colleen O’Shaughnessey, and I’ve gotten likes and small dialogues with Rudy Sarzo, Joel Hoekstra, Glenn Hughes, Grace McKagan and Tegan and Sara (and one time, a retweet from Billy Ray Cyrus and a like from Dee Snider) in terms of musicians. More often, I get praised for my musical opinions and insight through likes, and as such, it can be devastating when I get a comment that I’m wrong, like I said Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads and Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were the best frontmen-guitarist duos ever, and someone replied that Randy Rhoads wouldn’t be memorable because he’d go back to college after the Diary of a Madman tour, or when they asked what was an underrated song and I replied “Never Thought I’d Fall in Love With You” by Billy Ray Cyrus (it’s a straight-up rock song and has one of the most killer guitar solos I’ve ever heard, I once called it the best guitar solo of the 90s), “Don’t Call Me Angel” by Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Lana del Rey (they didn’t specify it had to be rock and I heard it got “lukewarm reviews) and “Another Shot of Whiskey” by The Gits (Seattle area Grunge band that faded too fast because its woman lead singer was murdered just before the second album was released). Someone replied “That ain’t rock” and got likes and that was enough to crush my confidence for a week, that and I posted a pro-Amber Heard tweet and a Depp stan sarcastically retweeted it, saying “Love it, Amber Heard is a liar.”
I’ve tried to stay away from this, but since it’s not going away, I need to say it. Amber Heard’s performance as Mera and pun-laden Twitter page showing her as a goofball single mom made me happy during times when little felt right, and I know my sister-in-law loves Captain Jack Sparrow, whose actor, according to some documents and news articles from sources I trust, repeatedly violently and crudely assaulted her while making and releasing the first Hollywood Vampires album, no less, a brilliant covers album starring Alice Cooper and Joe Perry and featuring Zak Starkey, Joe Walsh, Dave Grohl, Slash and Paul McCartney. I don’t want to listen to it anymore, I don’t want to be reminded of Pirates of the Caribbean anymore, I don’t want to see his face anymore. I know to some, he was the victim, she was the aggressor, but my mind cannot marry the pun-geon master single mom to an abuser as it can a survivor, and the fact is, Heard has third-party evidence, Depp only has stories, yet his Cult of stans is so vulgar and violent you cannot post any criticism without blocking responses. It reminds me too much of Trumpism, which wounds me greatly.
What’s gotten me through it is the hope of buying Tara Platt’s 3 MP3s when the month is over and hopefully seeing the 4-band concert at T-Mobile Park. Honestly, though, I feel like such an emotional wreck I worry I won’t enjoy the concert. Hopefully, things will change in a week. I’ll post about the music of this past week tomorrow.
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