Today is going to be one of the more emotional walkie-talkies. Not for a bad reason, however. This walkie-talkie is dedicated to someone who is unequivocally special to me. And if you’ve been reading my site or you know who I am and who I’m married to, you’ll know exactly who that is. We have had some very difficult times lately. We’ve had some major struggles in our relationship, but everything’s okay. We’re good. Anyway, this walkie-talkie is dedicated to my wife, Thomas Slatin. And it’s proper to write about this topic with the fact that this afternoon is the 2025 Grammy Awards, because it has a LOT to do with music!
So, there’s this guy named Paul Goodman who wrote a book called “Growing Up Absurd” in 1959. It’s one of the seminal books of the 1960s when it comes to education. Due to the dozens of notes that I’ve taken on this book, I’m sure this guy going to come up a lot in the future. When Goodman was talking about aptitude, he said that the “present waste is nothing new.” It was in 1959 that he wrote this. The book was released in 1960. The present waste of aptitude was something significant even then. One hundred years after the publishing of Walden, the brain rot was already becoming a cancer. Like, really think about that for a second. Think about how long ago that was. This is now 2025, so it was 65 years ago. That’s before both my parents were even born!
When it comes to aptitude, from a very young age, I was clearly a future singer-songwriter. It was super obvious from the day I turned four. For the first few years of my life, I was a mess. I was bouncing off walls, rambling nonsense constantly. I couldn’t say many words properly. Then suddenly, one day the light switched on in my head and I just became extremely talkative, speaking almost like a normal person. I only became that way because of music, especially John Denver, Boston, James Taylor, and other 70’s and 80’s classics. Also, I decided my name was Amelia, to the great chagrin of my parents.
I grew up adoring country music so much and the stories that were told in it. I loved the way that country music people just were like ordinary people. Some weren’t super talented or even have great voices or anything like that. They weren’t necessarily talented musical performers, but they had stories to tell. And the only way they could tell their own story was to write it down and sing it themselves.
For all the issues I have now with my family and my parents, the one thing that my mom said that has stuck with me forever is if you have something to say, you have to be the one to write it down. Therefore, I’m like, okay, I’m gonna Write It Down in Blue, which is one of my favorite Alabama songs of all time. It’s part of why I write with a blue pen when I have something important to say. (Interestingly, Tom does, too, as our shared favorite color is blue.) You know I love Alabama, because even though they’re from the Deep South, they’re actually Democrats, which is really interesting. They’re not like many other people from Alabama. They’re cool.
Now, I sang like a girl and acted like a girl, because I am a girl. But my parents got angry, because they raised me as a boy. They’re like, if you’re going to sing, you need to sing like a man. So, I trained my voice to sound like a guy, and I was good at it. I used to have incredible vocal range. I could sing androgynously. I could sing like a girl. I could sing like a guy. I could sing like anybody I wanted to. I was like a human jukebox.
But everybody thought it was weird that I had such an unusual singing voice. It seemed the only people that were ever attracted to me were gay men, which is very unfortunate. I love the attention, obviously, but you know, I only like girls. Trans girls, too, obviously, because trans girls are girls. And girls who are boys, and boys who are girls, because fuck the gender binary!
For years, I wanted to be this diva named Amelia, but everybody made fun of me. And I just didn’t have the self-confidence to overcome it. I wanted to have friends, as a pathological people pleasing ENFJ individual. It didn’t help that I was autistic, either, and that’s a whole new can of worms deserving of its own essay.
So, I just ditched my whole singer-songwriter dream wholesale. Yet I kept writing the song lyrics and just called them poetry. To this day they are preserved in my poetry collection, Take My Hand and Lead Me Through the Fire, which is an incredible title that Tom came up with and I love it. So, my songs still exist. I still have the melodies in my head, too.
Still, no one gave me a chance. And when I took my CATs (MROW!), the Career Aptitude Tests, they said I should be a researcher and a writer. Naturally, that’s what I did. This is what I continue to do today. It’s still what I’m good at. But deep down, I still wanted to be a singer-songwriter. And I never gave up on my dream.
What I did was, I started falling in love with all these rando divas. Not romantically falling in love but wanting to be just like them and trying to just glean every single little bit of information I could get from them. Being autistic, it might seem like I’m obsessed. But really what it is, an autistic person, especially one that’s high-functioning as myself, just wants to know something in its completeness, and it’s never meant to be creepy or invasive. You want to know them fully as a person. You want to know how they think. You want to know how their process works. And you want to know how everything they do works. How did they come up with their songs? Who do they work with when they write their songs? Why do they choose the chord progressions they do? Why do they do this? Why do they do that?
Sadly, my musical aptitude went almost completely wasted, because I am a queer. And I was constantly told no one likes a queer. Because supposedly, God hates queers. You’re a child of Satan. Yeah, people wonder how I became a diviner witch…
Moving on… when no one was around, however, I continued singing and practicing my modulation. Thus, I became a halfway decent singer. Then this website called MySpace came around. It was the greatest fucking thing that ever happened to aspiring singer-songwriters. Naturally, I started singing covers. I’m trying to remember the first cover I ever put on MySpace. But I do remember one of my best ones being of a song called “How to Save a Life” by The Fray. To this day, it continues to be one of my favorite songs, because I’ve always felt that at the end of the day, music is what saves people’s lives. That is certainly the case with me.
So, I had this amazing aptitude for singing and modulating and vibrations and harmonies and melodies. And I was a decent piano player in my youth. But I just I gave up on lessons because honestly, I’m like, when am I ever gonna make it being forced to play the role of a boy? I’m not gonna be a concert pianist or anything. I’m not going to be Lady Gaga, even though Gaga wasn’t thought of yet. Like, I’m not gonna be, what’s her name? Tori Amos!
So now let’s flip over to this place called New York City. You know, it’s this little Hamlet that’s by Philadelphia. There’s like 25 bazillion people there, you know. And they call it the Big Apple. I always want to take a big bite out of the Big Apple because that’s just hysterical. I always wonder, why don’t we have the Big Orange? Anyway, I’m digressing.
In this bustling metropolis, there’s this wonderful human being named Tom Slatin, who went through fucking hell in her teens and needed to find a career. She decided, you know what, I’m gonna go into fire and rescue and EMS. On September 11, 2001, Tom got called to come down to New York City immediately. But for whatever reason, the truck wouldn’t start. Because it wouldn’t start, Tom ended up not going until months later. And because she didn’t go, that probably saved her life and gave her another 18 years of career. She spent her career saving thousands of lives. You know what she got for it? Shit on at every fucking turn. During most of that career, she was never in one place long enough to get a pension or anything like that.
Yet, even with all the adversity, she still became Lieutenant Specialist before she turned 40. Thing is, while Tom is obviously fantastic at fire rescue, because of her aptitude at engineering, plumbing, electrical, things like that, she actually got to use what she was good at. She was able to use her aptitudes for the good of society. But the problem is she got paid like shit. Therefore, the only way she could make it was to work 80 or 90 hours a week. Meanwhile, during this exact time, I’m in high school. I was a freshman in high school when 9-11 happened. And I will never forget it.
I was in a film production class. During the next class period, they sent us all home; they even recalled the buses. I came home and I saw the news. And I’m like, oh, great. There goes the whole planet, right? World War III is about to happen. Well, WW III didn’t happen, but it might as well have happened. What happened next was, I got to watch a whole bunch of people I went to school with go overseas and die in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, from that day forward, I always said, I will always respect military and public safety with all my fucking heart. But the government can go fuck itself.
Anyway, so Tom could have easily died in the 9-11 cleanup. I’m so glad she didn’t, obviously. She went on to have a 20-year career, which is great. Meanwhile, back at the ranch… literally, we have a ranch-style house!
Meanwhile, while Tom was literally saving lives in New York City and Queens and Long Island, this little motherfucker was stuck in high school, being treated like fucking shit. I wrote some stuff in my notebook about how much I love public safety and the people that are sacrificing their lives for American ideals. But the government needs to pay for all the lives being lost. I’m like the Phoenix needs to come and burn down the whole goddamn government.
Someone in my class saw this somehow, reported me, and I almost got expelled for planning to blow up the school, which is absurd because that was nowhere in there. Why would I wish harm on the school? That makes no sense! Still, I wish that had happened, because then I would have gone to the vo-tech and learned some useful skills. But anyway, my parents kept me in school by threatening to sue the whole school district, unfortunately. The good news is the superintendent took my side and a fucking asshole principal got fired over it, so that’s cool. I became a hero at that school for that principal being fired, and the assistant principal moved up and was awesome. Anyway, because my parents made the great point that you’re only going after my kid because HE (sad face) is queer.
Whatever! My friend Steve and I were really into this band called Linkin Park. You know, they’re pretty good. Like, I was never into rap, but because of Mike Shinoda, I learned how to rap, which is awesome.
Okay, let’s go back to the waste of aptitude. So, I was writing these fucking brilliant papers, and my teachers were like, who the hell is your kid? Where’d your kid get this from? Because I wasn’t a songwriter anymore, at least not officially, I decided to try to be the next E.B. White and become the next great American essayist and novelist. Thing is, at the time, they were like, you need to write a five-paragraph essay. I’m like, uh, no, sir! Fuck your five paragraph essay; go to hell, fuck off! So, I’d literally get zeros on assignments for not following the directions. There were these worksheets they give you, which have these little boxes and you have to write a whole essay in them. I’d be like, fuck you, and I’d literally purposely write around the sides of the fucking box.
But then, junior year, I had this amazing English teacher named Mr. Gans. (Yes, that’s his real name.) He literally said, now that you’ve passed the MCAS, you just forget the five paragraph essay. Now what you’re going to do at home every night is write a journal entry. They can just be a paragraph each day. At the end of the week, you’re going to hand in five essays. Those journal entries became the beginning of many of the essays that now exist in my archive to this day. Mr. Gans was the greatest fucking thing that ever happened to me in English, and that’s why I wanted to be an English teacher.
What’s interesting is the memory that resonates with me the most from that time – I wrote about it before in Chronicles of Absurdia – basically this girl came to class one day, and she realized she left her folder at home with her journal entries, Mr. Gans was like, I’m sorry, but I have to give you a zero for this week’s assignments. She flipped her shit on Mr. Gans, took off, just started blowing up. Everybody was so pissed! When we left class, everybody’s like, Mr. Gans is such an asshole. I said to my friend Dave, “No, he’s not an asshole, because guess what, at the end of the day, if you show up at work, and you leave your shit at home when the assignment is due, you’re gonna get your ass fired! You’re not gonna get a zero. You’re gonna go work as a fucking fry cook for fucking Burger King, alright?”
So yes, Mr. G is trying to teach an invaluable lesson, so that you don’t fuck up in the future. Then the next year, my senior year, I had one of my favorite teachers of all time, Mr. Tocci, who was teaching psychology in literature. It’s in this class which I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd (which I refer to all the time in my writing), along with a whole bunch of other books, including the Shakespeare play Othello. But my favorite book from that whole class was this book called Heart of Darkness by Joseph Campbell. I’m not gonna go too much into it, because I’ve written about it before, so I’m not gonna go too far into that
Anyway, those two guys, Mr. Ganz and Mr. Tocci, made me as a writer. So, Mr. Gans taught me how to journal, and Mr. Tocci taught me how to do character studies. To this day, I continue to do character studies because of that second class. I will continue to write like that until the end of frickin’ time. Finally, I was putting my aptitudes to the test. The problem was, I wasn’t using my vocal abilities and my musical abilities. At least my bestie Steve and I liked the same music, we were able to just scream and belt and rap and shit. Yeah, I was able to at least use my skills in a fun way. But all that while, Tom was using her skills to literally save people’s lives. Honestly, that’s all I ever wanted to do, to become a star only so I could save people’s lives with my words.
Fast forward past high school graduation, and I go to New Hampshire. It was the worst experience of my life to that point. People were awful to me. But the Writing 102 teacher was actually nice. I don’t remember her name, but she was really cool. I passed that course with flying colors, because you know, obviously, I’m a writer, that’s what I do. My greatest skill is writing and always will be. And I spent two of the worst years of my life at that college. Half the professors were amazing, the other half of the professors can all go to hell.
I did have an awesome English professor named Tom Healy, who was the one who taught me about how the Epic of Gilgamesh literally exposes the Bible as a complete fictional fabrication that stole from superior ancient literature. That Epic is the greatest thing that ever happened in my life. So, Tom Healy was the one who introduced me to the field of forensic reading. Of course, I didn’t end up going to school for that, because I would need to have a degree in it. But guess what you use forensic reading for? Public safety. Why did I want to be in public safety? Because public safety is fucking awesome! Problem is, and I’ve mentioned this previously, the only reason I did forensic reading is forensic reading is not just used in law enforcement. It’s used in the judicial system, and fuck the injustice system! But 98 percent of public safety people, at least the ones who are properly trained, are fucking heroes!
Anyway, let’s move on. After two years of that hell, I decided to transfer to a State College in Massachusetts. Then I suffered two more horrible years. But during the summer of 2007, I was watching CMT. I And there was a video of this gorgeous curly-haired blonde girl with the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. She sang this beautiful song about how there was this guy that she adored, and they were friends. But he went out with another girl. Now, that’s pretty stupid, because of how hot this girl was. Yeah, she was 17 at the time, but I wasn’t interested in her in that way anyway. She was born in 1989, only two and a half years younger than me. That made her my immediate contemporary, so I was impressed how great a singer and songwriter she was. I’m like, this girl is going to end up being the greatest star of all time. That’s because it seems people don’t recognize her, just like they don’t recognize me. This fucking girl is amazing. I want to be just like her!
Her name? Taylor Swift. The song was “Teardrops on My Guitar.”
Because of this song, I said fuck it, I’m doing this shit. I started recording demos left and right, but I never sent any of them anywhere because I’m like, I suck. But that’s only because everybody told me they sucked, because I sounded like a girl, or worse, a gay guy. I simply ended up deleting them. Stupidest shit I ever did.
I will say though, right before I left New Hampshire, I did have one final positive experience. I was in my dorm room singing “Beautiful Day” by U2. And my next-door neighbor in the dorm knocked on the door, he said, “Who was that singing just now?” I’m like, why is that? He’s like, “Because that was one of the greatest voices ever. That girl sounded amazing! Who’s your girlfriend?” I’m like, no, that was me. He’s like, oh, and kind of slinked away, like he was secondhand embarrassed just like the ghosts on the terrace. Thanks, Taylor, for ruining my brain! (LOML reference). Anyway, that guy never talked to me again.
But yes, that is how I fell in love with Taylor Swift. Tay is the reason I needed to pursue music more seriously. Initially, I was going to go for music education at a local college. But at that point, I’d already lost so many credits in the transfer that I decided to stick to something educational. I stuck with English instead of History. Sadly, the English in Massachusetts were the most elitist motherfuckers of all time. I just left and failed those classes out of sheer not attending them. My fourth year I made a couple of really good friends. But then they ditched me for some reason. I don’t know what I did wrong. But at least in the middle of me writing a bunch of suicidal shit, this album called Fearless dropped. “You Belong With Me” became my favorite song ever. That album did OK.
While I was going gaga over Miss Swift, I endured the whole travesty of a fourth year of uni. After a run-in with the last professor I dealt with in my entire life, I quit and went into the building materials industry where I was already working part-time anyway.
So, back to that Tom Slatin individual. This is 2009. Tom is in Schoharie, which is where she was for most of her career. She was with this individual who was abusing her left and right, spending all her money faster than it could come in. Meanwhile, I was working in building materials, doing marketing stuff. Mostly at the beginning, I was doing just mailings and stuff and managing databases. But I started doing constant contact newsletters. I started doing social media. This is when I really got into social media and WordPress, the latter which I use to this day. I learned my most valuable real-life skills from working.
I wasn’t getting paid great money, but I was making significantly above minimum wage. And because the building materials industry was considered necessary during the crash of 2010 (whenever the big financial meltdown was), I kept my job. After all, my mom and I were the entire marketing department for this $200 million company. All my friends were out of work, while I still had a job making 25 percent above Massachusetts minimum wage. And I didn’t even have a degree. It also helped that in 2010, Taylor dropped her most underrated album ever, Speak Now, which had so many bangers it’s ridiculous, especially my favorite from that record, “Long Live!” Taylor wrote and arranged EVERY SINGLE SONG on that record! What a LEGEND!
I worked there for four years, but once I could tell that I was never moving up in that company, I kept looking for other opportunities. But by that time in the marketing field, not only did you need a bachelor’s degree, but you also needed a master’s degree for anything that paid more than what I was making at the time. After three years of the 40-hour week grind, I had a complete nervous meltdown. I ended up having to go off my anti-anxiety meds because they were making me manic. I only recovered fairly quickly thanks to being inspired by one Stefani Joanne Germanotta. LADY GAGA! And KP Kitty (Katy Perry) helped out, too!
Because my meltdown was entirely due to medication, my job let me come back. I was there for about one or two more years. One day, my boss blew up at me one day and I said, I’m done and just walked out. Then I wrote a note to my office coworkers, saying that I love you guys, but I need to move on because I’m underpaid and underappreciated, but I wish you all the best!
Well, a week later, I got a registered letter with a restraining order to stay like a hundred feet away from all the properties of that company. I’m like, what the hell did I say? I wasn’t threatening anybody. But then I started posting on my personal WordPress with a whole bunch of suicidal poems, because obviously I wanted to die after that. They started harassing my mom, and she realized that basically EVERYBODY outside of sales fricking hated me! Besides the salesmen making bank with my efforts, there was only one person in that entire company, an accountant, who I was good friends with. So, I was forced to move on.
By then, this was 2012 and the greatest album I’d ever heard in my entire life came out and it had this song called Holy Ground. It has a song called “All Too Well.” It has a song called “Red.” It has a song called “We’re never getting back together.” It has a song called “Trouble.” It has a song called “treacherous.” This album was FIRE. Like, you would take the CD, and you drop it on the floor because it was burning your hands, and it would light your entire house on fire. It was the absolute fire of all time to that point. That, of course, is Red by Taylor Swift. And it’s funny, I’m talking about this because tonight is the Grammys!
Swinging back around to the topic of aptitudes, clearly Taylor Swift was able to use her aptitudes for songwriting. She never went to college, and she just produced one of the greatest albums of all time. Sure, it didn’t sound country. It was like a country pop fusion, but it was so good. I’m like, Holy shit, Taylor Swift’s going to the next level. So, I’m watching the Grammys like Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. We get to album of the year. And it goes to Random Access Memories, Daft Punk. That’s not a bad album, by the way, but not RED! I literally wanted to go to the Grammys and take the guy who announced it and strangle him. Even though he was just a messenger who had nothing to do with the voting. As it turns out, Taylor Swift took it pretty hard too, as she should.
The whole world cried when Taylor cut her beautiful curly hair down to her shoulders. (Actually, it looked pretty damn good, IMHO.) But as everyone thought she lost her goddamn mind, she then created the best album of all time again, 1989. And I’m like, God, Taylor, stop it! By this time, it’s 2014 and I have been struggling to get freelance work. In fact, the only freelance work I had was two people that I knew through my job. And it was enough to pay my bills. In fact, over the course of a month, it was a little bit more than I made at my previous job.
Also, I was only doing 20 hours a week of work. So, I had a lot of time to listen to Taylor Swift, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Breaking Benjamin, Green Day, The Killers, and so many more amazing bands. Then I started getting sick and kept coughing. I went to my doctor, and he says, you’ve developed bad asthma. I’m like, okay, that makes sense. I have really bad allergies. Well, turns out I had a basketball sized tumor in my chest. Nothing minor. I only almost died.
Well, here I am dying, and I meet this girl online on a writing website where I was making significant money. We really hit it off on Facebook Messenger and decided to meet in person around Christmas time. Unfortunately, I was in the hospital getting chemotherapy the week before the holidays, and she shows up a couple of days before. Soon as I set eyes on her IRL, I fell madly in love with her. I thought, this is the forever woman for me. I’m going to have kids with her and make everything happen.
Six months later, I’m cancer free. I decide to go back to Colorado with this amazing woman who I adored. Fast forward a couple years later and amidst various tragedies and difficulties, a certain album dropped. I hear this great song come on the radio. I’m thinking, this is some good R&B music. Wait, hold on. “Are you ready for it?” This is Taylor Swift! What is happening? Tay’s record, Reputation, just dropped. It’s amazing, and any chance I get, I destroy my hearing blasting that record, especially Getaway Car!
Fast forward to 2019. By this time, Tom had left the fire department in a rather unfortunate way that I’m not going to get into. It wasn’t her fault; they basically forced her out. So, she’s sitting at home, taking pictures while her girlfriend beats her up. Things are going badly in Colorado with me, too. One day after a heated argument, I got in my van, and just took off. I drove right up to Green Mountain in Evergreen, Colorado, and I was going to drive off the edge. I’m blasting the radio, and a song comes on I’ve never heard before in my life. The singer said, “Combat, ready for combat.” OMG, that’s Taylor! It was a song called “The Archer.” OMG, Taylor wrote a song to save me at this exact moment!
After having a good long cry, I went home, and not long later, we moved to a bigger place. A week later, I gave my ex an ultimatum and it was decided it was best if we just permanently parted ways. I moved back in with my parents while I figured out what to do next. On May 8th, 2020, my 33rd birthday (which is also my ex’s birthday) I’m creating my “goodbye” playlist. I have the razor blade in my hands. I know this is really dark, but don’t worry because obviously, I’m still here. I’m putting together this list and I’m looking for a specific version of Katy Perry’s “ET,” but I couldn’t find it. Then I noticed a thumbnail with this cute redhead girl, and I’m thinking, “Who are these kids, First to Eleven?”
I click on it. Immediately, I’m blown away. Holy crap, who are these kids? The guitar player was amazing, the drummer was on point, and the singer was like nothing I’d ever heard in my life. I’m like, they’re teenagers and they sound like adult performers, like what the hell? I learned their names are Audra, Matt, and Sam. I immediately put away the razor blade in the bathroom. I’m thinking, these kids are fascinating! I can’t die now. I need to hear more of these guys! Next YouTube suggests me another cover from First to Eleven of Dua Lipa’s song “New Rules.” I open it up and Audra’s there with Sam and Matt and another guy that I don’t recognize playing bass. Next to Audra was the most goddamn beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I’m like holy shit! And her voice was just like nothing I’d ever heard. I’m like, who the hell is this girl?
I found out that her name is Addie Nicole and she’s from a band called Halocene that had been around for a few years. I’m thinking, why have I never heard of them? Addie’s singing is phenomenal! Thanks, YouTube algorithm for never showing me any of this absolute LEGEND! I immediately look her up and find out that she’s been in that band for 9 years at that point. By 2020, she was married to the guitarist of her band and they had a small son who was born in 2019. So, I’m like that’s cool; they must be going places.
Over the next few days, I went through as many First to Eleven and Halocene songs I could. Both bands had a whole bunch of originals. I’m like, why are they not on the radio yet? What is happening? What is life? Why are these amazing talents not making it? At this point, I gave up on my past career, I decided to dedicate my life to promoting the ever-loving piss out of amazing young musical talents and elevating struggling creatives.
Suddenly, it hits me that we’re in the middle of a musical renaissance amidst the COVID Pandemic and few are paying attention. Then Taylor’s like, oh, hey guys, I just released an album called Folklore. I’m thinking, Tay, you just came out with Lover! There’s no way you could have written an album that fast! I listen to it, and apparently, she’s an indie artist now. What is happening?
You know what, I’m gonna go be the person I was always meant to be. I’m gonna go be Amelia. I’m gonna go be a singer. I’m gonna make it. But first I have to figure out how to pay off my remaining $25 grand of college debt, along with all my other debts. That way, I can hit the reset button and change my name to Amelia. For my middle and last name, I decided to use my pen name for my middle and last name: Phoenix Desertsong.
Anyway, there are these kids that just have amazing musical aptitude. I want to be just like them. The problem is because of my cancer in 2014 and 2015, dealing with that, and getting long COVID around December of 2019, which almost killed me. I couldn’t sing anymore. My singing voice was gone. So, I had to reinvent myself and try to use all my expertise to basically find somebody who was willing to save me. And everybody was calling me a liar about my very true coming out and my expertise. Like there’s no way you have a dozen years. You look too young! There’s no way you could do all that without a Masters! It was awful and made me sad. But I preserved and started doing Writers Lifts on Twitter. Well, that was a good plan.
Then my hero came out of nowhere in July. On Audra’s birthday (July 11) no less. Tom sent me this link from a website, and I read it. It was called “Belong.” I commented the following:
“You most certainly belong, Tom! 😀
“I would have been, and still would be, honored to call you a friend 🙂”
The next day, she sent me another link. It’s called Little Ghost for the Offering. I thought, That’s from REM’s “Man on the Moon.” Who is this person? Why is there a girl named Tom? That’s so strange. I couldn’t believe that somebody like this was in the fire department for 22 years.
She saved my life. I helped her out with social media and she paid me generously for the privilege. Later in August, we met in person at my house in Brockton. We hit it off right away. Soon enough, when we were in Maine, she said, I’m going to marry you and pay all your debts off, allow you to be the girl you’re supposed to be. A year later, we got married on my parents’ anniversary. The next year, Taylor drops another album called Midnights, which has my favorite Taylor Swift song of all time called Antihero. Audra from First to Eleven kills it. She and Addie are just ruining every song I ever loved every week, including making me like songs I hated. Of course, though, the music video for Anti-Hero, directed by Tay herself, is FIRE!
A few months later, Tay comes out again, and says, oh by the way I just released another album called Evermore. These songs are so fire that they literally burn COVID virus from your veins. I’m like, what is this? What is life?
Anyway, that’s how Tom and I got together. Suddenly, our individual aptitudes all aligned, complimenting one another, and I could finally use my skills to save people’s lives again. I saved Tom’s life, and she saved mine.
Also, it’s a beautiful thing that Tom helped me put that poetry collection together, because those are the best hundred or so of my songs that I kept. The bad ones I just destroyed. In fact, I had, like 400 poems, and 300 of them were so suicidal and depressing that I had to get rid of them. I had to have Tom read through them, and I know that when she read those poems, the good ones at least, she fell madly in love with me; like she wasn’t already.
Now, I’m watching all these kids getting messed up by left-wing and right-wing nutjobs alike. We elected this Orange person as president again. You want to talk about aptitude being wasted in 1959, 2009, or 2019? It’s going to get wasted all over again. Paul Goodman was right.
Paul Goodman’s book literally needs to be the number one book you read in education. If you’re studying education of any kind, Paul Goodman’s book literally needs to be downloaded into your brain. It opens your perspective how things in education have been messed up for a long time. But honestly, for me the only thing that matters anymore at all in this world is music. Music is the only way to heal this world.
But there is hope! In 2024, Taylor Swift wrote an album called The Tortured Poets Department! Taylor, oh my god. You just wrote the greatest album ever again. It was a great year for music. Sabrina Carpenter drops Short and Sweet. Ariana Grande drops Eternal Sunshine. Chapelle Roan! Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter! Gracie Abrams! Linkin Park’s rebound! 2024 was the best year for music of all time.
I’m gonna tell you right now, if you have kids, you need to teach them music. Music is the only thing that matters. Because at the end of the day, life sucks. Music is amazing. Also, Tom is amazing. She is the center of my fucking universe, and I’m never going to stop orbiting her, both of us riding Saturn’s rings into eternity. That’s all I have for today.
- The Motherfucking Phoenix
P.S. Hey, “Espresso” won FOUR Grammys! Including BEST POP VOCAL ALBUM and BEST POP PERFORMANCE! GO MAYA! Live Sabrina FTW!
