you gotta bring it out there.

you gotta leave it.

when we started this thing in the early 2020s I had a single goal in mind...get the mic and make mfs listen.

Zi has a beautiful voice and all, she's fantastic, a truly talented singer with decades of experience...me, not so much.

...but I got something to say and ain't a mf born gonna stop me. doing this lets me say it. to EVERYONE, IMMEDIATELY, LOUD.

like the guy said, ya go to war with the army you have.

started with stuff other folks wrote--hell, what band doesn't--easier to gain exp with the more important work of ringleadership: reading the room. keeping the crew fed and happy. engagement.

captain gets the last cut of the booty...but I do generally take the first beer.

point is, over the last couple years on the bar circuit I learned all the stuff about being in a band ya can't learn online...overall, not so different from being in a locker room or law office.

as a survivor of both, a lot looked familiar.

see, I studied psychology during my time at the imperial core and the key takeaway is this: people wanna fuckin feel something. feel their voices heard. feel connection, camaraderie. feel they matter...because they fuckin do.

that's why you gotta show up like you fn mean it every time. you gotta go home tired because you poured it tf out. that's the only way to win, really win. like, inside, where you keep all that ego. where I stuff all mine.

3 people showed up? great, I'm ready to be in 3 people's favorite band! let's rock this sht!!!

so last night at WET PAINT when I walked into Gusto to be greeted with a full house--to debut brand-new material in public--I couldn't help but feel things were going to go well...spoiler: they did.

obviously...I made damn sure of it.

Famous Basketball Man once said his signature confidence on the court came from the knowledge that he had done pretty much all he could to prepare...tf was the point of worrying beyond that?

if the challenge or competitor was beyond your capabilities period...well, that's written when you walk in the door. might as well strut through it.

did just that last night...and yaknow, although there were a lot of highlights--folks actually calling back "¡DÁMELO!" by the end of our first time playing the song comes to mind--one deep nod will probably adhere to my spirit indefinitely.

like, I write most of the songs (case you can't tell, I was an English-language writer pre-Crisis) but it was during the chorus to "hasta la chingada"--a examination of gentrification in Spanish with reggae vibes-- I watched a guy in the front row ABSORB and FEEL the lyrics.

that's the kind of validation I drag my 100 kilos out of bed for.

I said what I had to say...to the beat. sometimes through ZiZi.

mfs listened.

did everything go perfectly?

come on yall, the last 5 years didn't show you perfection is just an ad campaign? grow tf up.

...but for the first real show of the new-era Pleasant Uprising, it was just about everything I dreamed of.

we even got invited back for another demonstration real soon.

one gig, one step, one note at a time...this is how we grow. this is how we fight. in my less sober moments, I suspect this is how we win.

either way, ain't this what ya came for?

all power to the people.

--Flor!