just keep swimming

Summer TVB is upon us! We’re going cafe rave this time and turning Beverly’s into a daytime dance party. RSVP in events section!

But First! RANT!

I’ve (still) been reflecting on the internet as a whole, and on a timeline. Perhaps this is naive, but it feels like the history was at first linear, where now its future is fractured. While millennials love to joke about how we partied without our phones in the late aughts and early 10s, for me that was not the case. We posted pics taken by Nicky Digital, the Cobrasnake and Lastnightsparty.com, from our sidekicks and iPhone 3G’s. We shared pre-party pics posing with outfits, drinks, our pets, and always a peace sign, maybe some duck lips.

Between then and maybe about 5 years ago, we posted EVERYTHING. Meals, coffees, cocktails, clothes, vacations, hauls, unboxings, there was no limit. We became ‘street furniture’ for people to slap their ads on. And slap ads on us they did.

They made us so compliant in selling for them that many of us even cut to the chase, becoming ads ourselves. Making sales content without an assignment (or a contract) is a modern phenom. Sure, a review is a fun content project, and I do reviews every single newsletter, but let’s be 2000% clear—its a sale. I’ve also pointed this out before (v v self aware😝)), but I’m a professional sales person whether I like it or not. I have training and education in and on the things I choose to ‘sell’ by discussing, referring to, or reviewing them, but that doesn’t grant me better access to audiences or commissioned work, so content and reviews are often initiated by me.

What’s creepy is how the everyday person is now a content sales person, even if its just sometimes. Its the way we are tagging brands, making unsolicited reviews, or accidental commercials by having products in our unrelated content. Sometimes it’s gold, like Nathan Apodaca’s famous Cranberry Dreams clip, which was clearly just an ‘organic moment’ for a guy having a bad day, but probably turned into millions for Ocean Spray.

Our feeds are STUFFED with ads, and now we make them for brands, for free, too? Oftentimes, this unprompted marketing is severely cringe, but not always because of the content itself. Its because we willingly do this, as a society. We use our pets, our children, our homes, our jobs, our personalities, our tragedies, and by default our time and energy to do so. We sell for them and unless you ‘make it (go viral)’ what do you get by soliciting sales for a company that doesn’t even know you exist except as a targeted ad recipient? What do you get for serving up a product rec a quick scroll away from a child amputee? What do you(we, me) get for doing this?

I can say in my case it’s 100% unpaid, unless the copy or content is connected to a paying publication, and I have begun to seriously reevaluate how much of my non professional time is spent ‘selling’ goods and services to the people around me, instead of selling the future we desperately need— one without a 41B federal enforcement agency and plastic tchotchkes shipped overnight. 😈

LATEST WORK: 😎

Got to play b3b with Vitamin B & Dirtyboogie in June, what a time! listen to my house heavy opening set here!🥂

INFLUENCED: What 2 buy 📲

TERRAZZO COOKIES

This month, I’m plugging my own product! Born in Oakland where I cooked away the second lockdown, these delicious cookies are a mosaic of ingredients that don’t seem complimentary, until you taste them.

Extremely delicious, delicately infused with home grown herb, and baked fresh to order. Use the QR code or click the button below to taste for yourself!

EEEEvents

Check out these fun events in NYC and beyond!

Links to Love 💕 or Hate 🫀

Is this how I tell the chat I also got this life changing diagnosis? I’m still processing it, especially in the DOGE RFK shit era we are in, but the headline and descriptors were SO striking to me. I have spent a lot of worrying and post worrying about how people perceive or treat me, from family right on down to the workplace. Every new ‘weird’ thing I discovered about myself didn’t explain this behavior towards me, until now. I feel like I will continue to be misunderstood, but it doesn’t feel like my fault anymore? It also explains the late bloomer, 15 careers ass vibe I bring to the table. 🤣

People have been saying this for decades, hell we even almost elected the head dork of one of these jerkoff firms to the office of the president, and he seems lucid and capable compared to the blistered boil we have in their now. Why do we let private equity get away with gutting businesses? Because business is seen as some insulated world, where you’re protected from consequences, as long as you’re the one who caused them, just not the one suffering them. It’s like not taxing churches, it becomes a haven for bad people who use the good as a shield.

We could do better, but these are the private jet purveyors flying Supreme Court justices around the country who then decide cases with bias. Why do we revere those with money that they essentially siphoned from successful operations? The healthcare stories in this piece should have been shocking enough on their own to move legislators back when, but they’re too busy at the lake and beach houses of those same private jet and private equity people this weekend to give a crap what we think.☄️

I’ll let you come to your own conclusions with this one, but “techno-capitalism has conditioned us to believe that we’ll find satisfaction from the sheer act of consuming and staying productive” really summed it up for me.⚡️

This was an interesting and albeit not brand new read, being from January 2025. I found it after I happened to be walking past the Morgan Library, and despite its vintage charm, was completely disgusted by its presence. The Robber Barons may have made museums and libraries and turned philanthropy to a rich man’s game, but they robbed left and right, rich and poor. Mostly the poor, who physically built all of the structures and factories and libraries and museums and banks and oil companies. Its these same men who would instill panic over immigration, socialism, alcohol, and even cannabis. They killed the poor, through neglect, repression, and business malpractice.

We’re in robber baron 2.0 times, and a quote from an INVESTOR BLOG on ‘these times’ says plenty, and relates to the previous link, too: “Today, people are celebrated for being rich, no matter how shameless they conduct their business or how they got their wealth. Indeed, today, some people become rich by being infamous, rather than being skilled or creative.”

DJ SCHEDULE

• MOST FRIDAYS all summer from 5p-9p at Beverly’s in the LES!

• Saturday July 12th 6-10p at Vacations Rooftop in Bushwick

• SATURDAY 7/26 TVB IV: Caffe TVB with big++bad and special guests TBA!

• More music on Mixcloud

Ciao amici 😘😘