you are your own extractor

good morning ~

(click the link / murder to listen)

My Big Breakyou are your own extractor

today's track is a fat buttery pancake stack of jazz chorus amplifier and signal noise

wanted to mention the upcoming album by Brewster, a band of twangy New Jersey rippers - "Honey Shake Me" is out April 7th, the first single just dropped (it goes), and the band gave me an unusually wide creative berth in writing the liner notes. keep an eye on 'em and maybe check out this nice music video they whipped up.

also next Saturday in Albany it'll be my third ever DJ gig - - me and my sweetie friend Max Mellman spinning our goofiest in a tiny space. Come wiggle with us :)

It has been let's say not so good lately. Warped into a bad-for-me pattern by legal circumstances - I fall asleep dreading the emails we have to write in the morning and then I can't start my day until a gaggle of lawyers have been scolded like kindergartners, typically to little or no effect. A constant tummy ache! As soon as I hit send I start to sweat.

Most conversations with my sweetie partner revolve lately around different ways that we can check up on and legally annoy different involved parties. If we call this guy before 8am every day for a week, will it ruin what little progress we've made? If I simply go and knock on the neighbor's door to try and bypass the billable hours middlemen, will I get fucking shot? These are actual questions we've asked of each other. We have both taken to saying the phrase "he's a slimy little barnacle and I'd like to hear him pop under the weight of my boot" with a smile on our face. Another fun thing we keep saying is something along the lines of "he's the most full-diaper boomer I've ever met." The private slander (which I'm now sharing with you, I guess) is fun and a little comforting, in its way.

And then there is this indignity: the foulest and most obstructing lawyer in the gang of cruel idiots we've been backed into a corner by writes godawful poetry on the side. So badly do I want to name names! Maybe when we finally get the keys I will send you the links. You can watch him unconvincingly waggle his milky digits and read his absolutely limp dick verse on his YouTube channel. It is truly, utterly wretched.

I recognize that complaining about real estate chicanery is a wildly privileged position to take - what percentage of people that I know will ever be so lucky as to be fucked with by slimy attorneys? But that's exactly why I've found this process to be so infuriating. It is the being fucked with that that is the mechanism of exclusion. In our first impossible attempt at real estate we have found no kindness, no good faith, no easily explained minutia, no ease, no apologies, no mercy. Up where we live people buy property in cash for 100,000 dollars over the asking price - how can anyone but those with the fattest of stacks compete? Then, miraculously, let's say your offer is accepted. There are mountains of paperwork, a thousand go-betweens, any number of minute details that can totally derail your plans, however solid. Real estate in America is an arcane, totally outmoded system that coerces those audacious enough to try and buy something into a series of enormous gambles that may or may not ruin your life, a capricious and unnecessarily financially violent house of cards not unlike receiving emergency healthcare. You cannot anticipate the final cost and you cannot adequately prepare for the stack of unforetold fees. And if something really bad goes wrong - like something really wrong with the house eludes your inspector, another enormous cost - it's probably your fault for not having enough money and also fuck you, just for good measure. Who but the most soft-handed of easy bank account jerkoffs or the cruelest of megalomaniacal money hoarders could ever be expected to give it a go?

I also recognize that many people have - sorta condescendingly - told me that this process necessitates aggravating and unnecessary delays. It happens to everybody! Oh, you'll work it out! they say, batting the air before them in dismissal. Well, in one way they're correct - we are going to work it out. But that was never a given. It is only through rageful frustration and our willingness to be annoying little shits via phone calls and email that has granted us even the possibility of closing. I have no doubt that this little glimmer of opportunity could have slipped through our hands entirely. These assholes were absolutely willing to let a tiny little technical hangup derail the whole process. If we had stuck to the advice of the people supposedly on our side, we would without a doubt be without a place to live in a few weeks. And hey, you know what? It might still go that way. I wouldn't put anything past anyone at this point. As I wrote in one of these stomach-turning emails this week: "I refuse to believe that we are at anyone's mercy." It is only through our blatant disregard of legal counsel, advice from realtors, and general polite business behavior that anything is getting done (which is perhaps an important life lesson: needle at the fuckers until you get what's what, you are your own extractor).

So badly do I wish for this all to be resolved - for the keys to be handed over, for the terrifying 25-year contract to be freshly inked, for the tummy aches to finally leave me in peace. It's all been quietly tortuous and somewhat understandably it seems like a lot of people in our lives can't quite grasp how hard it's been - you're trying to buy property, they say to themselves, of course if sucks shit. It sucked for me, too, buddy! Or if they're not familiar with the process themselves, a different kind of indifference: you're trying to buy property, must be nice for you to be able to even dare to do so. Neither are wrong, really, but I wish people could really hear me when I quote our realtor - "this is some of the most blatant brickwalling I've ever seen."

The most frustrating thing: treated so inconsiderately by these older men of pooled power, I grow angry and resentful, bile that bubbles over. This is not my way typically. For the past month or so I've felt like I was walking around with someone else's leathery heart. A system of cruel exclusion requires cruelty of us. So for now I only hope that when these barnacles finally pop - and they will - I only enjoy it a little bit.

But what about you? Who is obstructing you from getting what you need, what you're owed? How leathery is your heart? Are you needling the fuckers until they pop?