BLOGTIME 2025
DAY 6: June 25th 2025: Today is the cancer new moon tucked in with jupiter in cancer and coincidentally it's also the day after my wedding anniversary (TWO MORE YEARS! TWO MORE YEARS!) and last coincidence is that my dad's birthday is tomorrow. he passed away a couple years ago so - look at me now, I am at my mom's house with my sister and we are going to Remember him by Going Out For Breakfast and Having a Nice Walk and Being Together. i miss my dad all the time but this is the time i get a little sad - basically he died a month minus a couple days after me and beck got married and it was just a complicated time full of every big emotion you can think of! it's funny to me how grief really moves in waves. i remember doig physics in grade 11 & 12 and learning about how energy works - how something that falls into the water will cause a ripple that evolves in a very particular way outward & outward & outward. i'm not sure if that's good metaphor but i can go back to the centre and view every ripple from above sometimes, you know? i miss him a lot. he really made music cool. he made FLUTE cool. isn't that crazy? i'm just always out here remembering how it sounded when he was playing warmups, dig it. anyway here i am - i just got home from sled island - everytime i play a show it feels kind of like maybe its the last show i'll ever play but i don't think thats true. maybe that's the dialectic? being the worst but also the best. the last show of your "career" or the first show of "the rest of your career". idk. career is such an icky word to me. i like the word job. i like the word work. i like the word labour. a career? who is she? life is a series of gigs then u die. anyway. respect to my dad, love to my dad, and i hope he's up there flying crazy high somewhere.
DAY 5 pt 2: June 19, 2025: oh also i got to participate in a research study someone was doing for their PHD about streaming music and grants and stuff - i love that kind of stuff because i just get to yell about how the world should be a better place ie. rent should be cheaper, UBI should exist, groceries should be cheaper, and rich people donate huge sums of money to the arts - because THAT'S how you make exciting art!!!! when you can live like a freak, not worry about what anyone thinks about you, and no one is trying to make any money off of you because no one cares about making money, only about beautiful art, eating fruit and drinking honeyed water!!!! BRING ME ARTISTS UTOPIA where we have some regular problems but at least we don't need to worry about our basic needs! Make Rich People Patrons Again! (anyways) also everyone has a day job in my artist's utopia but that can mean ANYTHING - like maybe you are a florist or you do garbage truck a couple times a week, you know? maybe you help out at an old folks home! maybe you build houses! but whatever you do you always have time to make art! doesn't that sound nice. i'm imagining a post-capitalist world growing from the rubble of society as we know it - for truly, what is an apocalypse but an opportunity for farming to get big again? future star for president.
DAY 5 : June 19, 2025: I'm chillin in my hotel room in calgary. beck is snoring next to me (we are both very tired - yesterday was a LONG day - drove 10 hours from kamloops and then immediately played a show - shoutout to kamra and samantha savage smith who I got to play with, beautiful musicians). so yeah we are both very tired!!!!! yesterday at my show i really got to thinking about the influence of theatre has on the way i think about performance and music making. part of the influence definitely lies in a sense that i love musical theatre - but there's another thing that relates more to experimental theatre and performance art that i don't really talk about alot. and like, ok, part of me is like - it feels lazy? like just in general i feel like part of me thinks about experimental theatre like some people talk about modern art - "my kid could do that!" vibes. and part of the performance art piece of it relates to how i literally cannot get through a set without being messy and without making jokes. but the more i get older the more i feel like i am good at performing even when i technically flop. like there's something about the flop and the rise and the sequence of it that i feel like is part of my "show"???? it's not like i'm messing up on purpose but i am choosing songs that feel risky to play (song is hard, new song, haven't practiced, etc) in a way that almost sets me up to flop a bit. i think there's something of the whole idea of "future star" in that - the idea of untapped potential - working on an unfinished musical - never having enough time to practice - one paycheque away from steppin up or steppin down. to forever exist in a state of edging greatness (lol). when i type it all out it sounds VERY pretentious lol but i lowkey wanna lean into being a pretentious. It's Fun!!!! to act like you know anything about anything?? what a trip! now i know what all those dudes were cookin with when i was 19 and i believed that people generally tell the truth and are right. on another note, i had a dream i was in a songwriting class and michael hardy came to give a workshop and we really hit it off and became instagram friends. i woke up real happy today. anyway, excited to relax today and also check out cassia hardy's book talk thing tonight at shelf life books (cassia hardy - another great hardy). also i'm gonna meet up with my cousin! WOOHOO! ok i'm going to think about music for a bit and then chill xoxoxo
DAY 4: jun 17 2025: I'm in kamloops chilling in a motel and making my playlist for my performances at sled island. it's so fun!!!! it's so fun to plan a set and be like "hmmm will this song sound good next to this song? what is the story arc i'm creating here? what makes sense sonically?" historically i am really bad at giving myself space and time to think about sets and i get super last minute about it - but taking a break from playing has kind of allowed me to approach performing in a new and (maybe?) better way????? its fun to me how you can use the same (or similar) songs in two sets in different order and it totally changes the vibe!!! oh also - i am extremely excited to be playing NEW SONGS!!!!!!!!!!!! like these songs are really exciting to me and i'll be recording themsoon and i'm just AMPED ON HOW THEY ARE STARTING TO SOUND. i'll also be playing oldies/goodies/OG bops but i'm sprinkling these new ones in like parmesan cheese on delicious pasta. any - i should be getting to bed - i have to drive to calgary tomorrow. lots of love, future star.
DAY 3 pt 2: May 22 2025: I've been thinking a lot about radical psychiatry lately. like, the kind of stuff that gets a lot of lip service but is rarely truly enacted in the world of modern psychiatry. i listened to this podcast the other day and it really blew my mind and excited me in a way that i was like "i need to develop more skills so i can do this kind of thing". there's something there!!!!!! that feels really real. i think a lot about relationship and how it's the number one thing that is going to save us in the apocalypse - like our relationship skills (which i believe can be learned! and there are evidence based ways to listen better, and develop empathy - relationship is something we practice and can flex like a muscle!!!!! ok that's all) are going to be determine our ability to keep each other safe. patience can be learned. regulation can be learned. all these things - it's something that i want to continue to prioritize because it feels imperative to me that that's how it is. s/o to bethel house, s/o to ppl with psychotic mental illnesses, s/o to disabled people and etc. i could go on. anyway, keep it real. lots of love, future star.
DAY 3: May 22 2025: i went to go see rilo kiley last night. This is my review: Jenny Lewis is ripped! Like her legs and arms - it's like you lifting girl? whats your routine? tell me more about your protein sources. Anyway, jenny lewis continues to be "the it girl" aka who i want to be when i grow up. like, when i was 16, i wanted to be jenny lewis when i grew up. Now that I'm 35, i want to know how she's getting her macros in. also i loved how everyone on stage was really having a lot of fun! they all have beautiful smiles.
DAY 2: May 18 2025: future star on Bridgerton: an american fantasy of regency era britain, bridgerton ends up being a simulacrum of what it thinks it is. It holds a mirror reflecting the eyes of the average american woman watching pride and prejudice - but embellished with 'improvements'. Archaeologically, I find this fascinating when considering the colonial history of america - like the layers of culture and perception of culture, the cosplay involved in this kind of show.
DAY ONE: May 8, 2025 Today I've been meditating on why I make music. What do I have to say? one could ask. What do I have to offer? also - why spend your time doing something without a clear purpose that consumes a lot of energy and involves certain amounts of risk without clear benefit? It's not making money, it's not really a productive act when you make a song. I have really come to the conclusion that for me, it's basically self care work! Psychic tooth brushing. I think it's something I need to do in order to keep normal. Totally different tangent but that just made me think of the cycle of ASC-IC-DSC-MC. I had a chat with an astrologer who talked about this as a developmental cycle - ASC being the gifts you are given upon entering the world, your golden kiss from the gods; IC being the things you take in from your early environment/roots/caretakers/family; DSC as the self you are when you learn and teach in reciprocal adult relationships; MC being the "mark you leave on the tree of life". I always come back to the fact that everything that has come to me, that I wasn't just given, has come to me through music. So many relationships, so many lessons, a feeling of belonging - feels very fitting in the DSC part of things. My DSC is in Capricorn - maybe this is kind of why it feels a bit like work? haha! It feels like something that needs to be tended and structured and polished and maintained to be at its best. (The astrologer's name is Teagan West and I really enjoy her work!) Anyway, that's what I'm thinking about right now. I'm working on some new stuff, and it's really got me grappling with these big feelings! More soon :) xoxo future star