Tag: journalism

Bass Boss

Patrick BernardLeave a comment

So for my devoted readers I decided I need to change it up, and get back to my roots writing about music. It’s something I love, and I get to know the artists on a different level. The first artist I decided to write about was Amadeezy- a Boston fixture on the dj scene, and influential producer on the international level. A dude doing it big like foreheads at a bald men’s convention.

Amadeezy is known as the Bass Boss- a moniker that comes from his breakout track last year released on the German record label FTP. The track was a throwback to the miami bass music that he listened to in the 90’s and the whole record is an homage to that style- a style that is like covid cocaine- dirty, raw, and something you can’t stop desiring.

Through email I went back and forth asking Amadeezy some wide ranging questions of how he developed his style, and how this gorgeous vulgar bass music was developed. First up was everyone’s favorite token question where his inspiration came from? 

“I have a huge range and pretty much draw most of my inspiration from rap music and old school urban dance music as far as production goes. My style comes more from my appreciation of underground music and my punk rock ethos of DIY and using simple music structure effectively. Some DJ’s that really influenced my sound would be a huge list but in a nutshell DJ D-Bert cause I started out my DJ career doing DJ battles in the 90’s, DJ Paul from three six mafia, DJ Screw,  Uncle Luke, DJ Deeon, DJ Magic Mike, Premier, DJ Godfather, Rashad, and more recently my homey Textasy that runs the label FTP outta Berlin.” 

Next I am curious how Boston has helped, and, or, hindered you as far as your career?

“Boston was a great place in the 90’s for underground culture. From punk to hip hop / rap and some of the house music and underground rave parties that occurred I drew a lot of my personal style and kind of mixed it all together to get the Bass Boss sound. As far as hindering me it’s become a really commercial city as far as music goes with gentrification being common in most major cities it’s just become a place with very little appreciation for music outside the scope of the mainstream.”  

What got you into djing? Producing? Bass music? 

Well the movie juice was what originally got me interested in turntablism and from there I eventually got into making music about ten years ago when production equipment became more software based cause it was affordable. I started making music similar to what I do now in the very early days of producing but there wasn’t as much of a market for underground urban club music at that time. It wasn’t until about a year or two ago that I realized that there was a bigger audience for the stuff I’ve always loved like miami bass, ghetto house, juke, baltimore club, electro, breaks, etc.

How did your teenage years influence your overall direction and sound?

Well I grew up in Mattapan and kind of shuffled around the south shore in Quincy and Brockton later in my life. Think hip hop culture, graffiti, raves, and punk rock other than making me a juvenile delinquent just gave me an appreciation of street culture. I’m very much a city kid and having grown up in the hood I was always interested in discovering music and underground culture that was being made by people with a similar upbringing to mine. 

So, with a future that looks brighter than a psychedelic care bear covered in diamonds, what’s next for you?

“My biggest goal is to go and perform overseas. I was slated for my first European tour which would’ve started in June in London, but due to covid 19 everything obviously was cancelled. Right now I’m working on a ton of stuff and am dropping a west coast style electro EP thats an hommage to 90’s g funk mixed with west coast style electro in the style of producers like Arabian Prince, Egyptian Lover, etc. This EP is slated for later this year and is dropping on International Chrome which is Jensen Interceptor and Assembler Code’s imprint. Hoping to also record a full length album that showcases all my musical influences in a cohesive way that best represents all the random ass knowledge I’ve acquired on this journey.”

As far as Contemporaries- who are you listening to now, and who are those pushing you to become even better?

“Partiboi69, Textasy, Big Dope P, Jensen Interceptor, Turk Turkelton, Raw Takes, Cyan 85, DJ Swagger, LUZIE, Sansibar, and so many. Mostly the pioneers too. I’m a big fan of the old school as far as dance music and the pioneers. I’d like to be remembered not as a pioneer by my peers but definitely am hoping to reach that legendary status of American ghetto style production.”

Big thanks to Amadeezy for the interview! Make sure to buy his music including his latest single Jackeveli, and the b side remix that’s more wavy than a sumo wrestler’s belly with a remix of his club killer track Deadly Disco Poison by Feadz! https://amadeezy.bandcamp.com/music

And you can follow him on Instagram.

What’s An Adjective

Patrick BernardLeave a comment

Chapter 6 – What’s An Adjective- an excerpt from my novel from 2008 discussing race, white privilege, and being a white lover of rap music since birth. A man who grew up surrounded by whiteness, trying to write about race. I just tried to be honest- please let me know where I failed.

Like Eggers’ before me I can guarantee to you that when I see a young black man holding a baby I will smile. I tell you this for a few reasons. First so you like me. I really need you to like me so I can be completely honest with you readers. I mean, sure, I am full of anger and prone to drunken bouts of pure asshole, but for the most part I am a good guy. In fact I am pretty color-blind as well. Well, not the bullshit liberal sense of not being able to see color, which in itself is racist as fuck and puts a blind eye to the challenges people of color endure, but in the sense of not basing judgements based off of it.

But I am not going to lie because I make judgments of people every day based on their appearance. It’s why we use adjectives. Us writers love them because they not only put things into cute categories; but they are also a good for use with people. That’s why when I was asked by a black man named D, “What’s an adjective?” It struck me as this could be the beginning of a story. Actually I did not think that at all but we can pretend that right? So let us start over with a story about an adjective. And you are probably wondering the time frame of this is and well we are in spring 2007 now.

This adjective question would be asked by D, a musician from the Marcy Ave Projects, whom I had just met outside a bodega where I had purchased a 40-ounce beer for seven dollars. I would have haggled over the price, but the place had the feel of a storefront where they move drugs, and well, I didn’t need an ass whooping over a couple bucks and I was thirsty after all. (Side note look at my subtle racism believing a bodega was a drug front.) I was at this bodega because my girlfriend Tiffany and I had got off on the wrong subway stop in our search to see the Bonde Do Role show in Brooklyn. Outside of the store we asked a black dude if he knew where Studio B was and he tried to direct us into the Marcy Ave. Projects a couple blocks down. D, who overheard this, jumped in the conversation.

“Yo, you’re saying there is a new club in the projects? I have to see this.”

Now I was talking to, and smiling at two black men, neither of which held babies. D was holding a Styrofoam cup with beer in it, and when he noticed my own brown paper bag gave me a pound.

“Ha-ha, my man knows the deal, brown paper bag and everything.”

After some discussion we figured out the club was not in the projects, but rather toward Williamsburg, and the hipster section of the borough.

D, with no other plans for the night, decided to tag along with us and thus became our tour guide. As we walked the city the landscape transformed. The cleanest projects in the land according to D vanished, “I mean we don’t have any shit or piss in the hallways, or anything like that,” The bodegas had instead been replaced by a Parisian style cafe filled with white faces enjoying wine and large meals.

​“So where you two from?” D asked.

​”Right outside Boston in Manchester, NH. Tiff is from New Jersey, but we both live in Boston now.”

​”Manchester? I have a bunch of boys who moved out there and love it. They were saying it’s cheap as hell, and you don’t have to worry all the time. Around here you want to act tough, you have to be on guard, because people will test you on that and if you’re fronting they will fuck you up. But I am done with all that bullshit. I used to slang, and what not, but now I just concentrate on music. I am bringing rock straight out the projects with my band.”

​”You’re in a band?”

​”Yeah, I play guitar, rap, and sing. I mean, I never been trained to play the guitar or anything like that, but I picked it up on my own from listening to the radio. The only problem is my band never wants to practice and really get down to work. They just want to get high and jam out, and never want to put in work on songs with hooks and shit like that. I mean no rock band has really came from the projects, and that’s a gimmick we can use to get noticed.”

So, here I am walking the streets of Brooklyn with my girlfriend and a black dude from the projects. I am drinking a 40, and D has some sort of drank in his cup, and we are talking about rock music on the way to a show from a group from Brazil that does their take on booty music.

Only in America.

Now here is the important adjective question that D will ask.

“Yo, do either of you know what exactly is an adjective? Is it like an adverb or something?”

​”Nah, man it’s just a word used to describe something else. Like that car over there is red. Red is the adjective because it describes what the car looks like,” I said.

​”All right, I get it, but yo, that’s kind of messed up. Why don’t they just call it what it is, like a describing word, or some shit then, instead of confusing people and calling it something weird like an adjective?”

​I never thought of like that, but D had because he knew he had to look at all the angles if he wanted to get out of his situation he was in. He knew that he needed to use whatever advantages he had going for him. If this advantage was the stereotype that black guys from the projects were not supposed to make rock music then why the hell shouldn’t he use that novelty to get him in the door? He made this even clearer when I told him I booked bands back home.  

​”You should have me come play a show, and you can promote the fact I am a black guy from projects playing guitar in New Hampshire. Hell I don’t care how you want to use me just as long as I can get some money out of it. We both can get paid, you feel me?” D said and then laughed and gave me a pound.

​”You know I am right because ain’t nobody doing what I am doing yet.”

​As we passed the cafe we came up to an art show flushed with skinny faces wearing angular haircuts, skintight t-shirts, and jeans that seemed to be painted on. Each outfit was put together with meticulous care to ensure the image portrayed would actually show how little they cared about how they were dressed. It was absurd, and they used this seeming aloof nature in order to hide their own vanity. Because the only thing worse than not being hip was to admit that you actually cared about being hip.  

​Of course I was also dressed hip; but I was hip just cause I was a naturally fly motherfucker, and I knew by rocking a Big L t-shirt, a dead rapper who is adored and loved in some circles more than 2Pac himself, yet unknown by many of the kids in skinny jeans, would prove just how much hipper I was than everyone else. But it’s not like I cared about anything like that, or would even think about what my t-shirt would represent to others. Hell, let’s just say it was the only clean one I had, so I can continue this story with disdain for those who care how they look but pretend they don’t.  

​”How the hell do you white people wear jeans so tight? You’re nuts must not have any room to breathe.”

​”I don’t get it either. White folks are strange,” I said.

It was funny as I interacted with D we were able to bond over the fact that we didn’t pretend the notion of race didn’t exist, and instead embraced and made fun of it. I was a white boy from New Hampshire, and he was black kid from the projects, and we understood it was a strange relationship but also one that we could use to our advantage. It was like the Dave Chappelle routine where he tells the audience, “Every group of black dudes should least one white guy in it for safety. I am serious, because when the cops come around, someone has to talk to the police, and that’s when that white friend Ernie comes in handy.”

​From the art crowd we were able to find a threesome of hipsters who knew where Studio B was, and even happened to be headed in that direction. We followed them as my girlfriend chatted up front with the two girls, while I lurked in the back with D and cracked jokes about how the one guy with them was probably nervous that we were going to try to jump him, and steal the bicycle he walked with.

​They led us to the club and we stood in line and waited to get in as D told us his theory on why rock music wasn’t as good as it used to be.

​”Man, nobody writes with metaphors and shit any more. I want to be able to think about a song and what the singer is trying to say. All these new bands just come out and say it. I get it you are angry, but find some other way to say that shit other than ‘I am so angry. That’s why I love Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. Think about it-when he was talking about Polly wanting a cracker you had to think about it? And you knew he sure as hell wasn’t talking about a pet parrot of his.”

​”He wasn’t?” I said with a grin.

​”Ahh, fuck you, man, but you get what I am saying though. That’s why I don’t listen to any of that new shit.”

​”What do you listen to then?”

​”Shit from the same time as Nirvana, you know, like Stone Temple Pilots, Green Day, and Tool. The good shit.”

​I cringed at the last three bands he mentioned. First because I am an asshole when it comes to music, and those bands to me represent all the shitty people from my hometown that hated rap, and still listened to hair bands without shame. Well, not Nirvana, I liked Nirvana, but those other bands sucked. But then I realized he had probably never been exposed to any rock other than what was played on the radio (and of course I assumed this because it was an easy assumption, because black people from the projects could not ever want to listen to rock, and yes, I am that dumb sometimes). Cobain to me was a voice for mostly bored and jaded middle-class white kids, and it was odd that he had been able to penetrate into D’s world and impact him much in the same way. And then I cringed at my own thought and realized that growing up I had rejected those bands, and instead listened to rap music which impacted and spoke to me in a way rock never could. Growing up I had always hated when people would ask me why I listened to black music; instead of white music like rock. Even worse were those who had no idea about what rap music was, and would dismiss it as not music because they didn’t play instruments, or even worse as nothing more than just “niggers talking.”

​The line crawled forward and D bounced around with nervous energy.

​”So who exactly is playing tonight?” D asked.

“It’s a Mad Decent show with Diplo, Bonde Do Role, and Blaqstarr. Diplo is this dope ass dj and Mad Decent is his label. Bonde Do Role is this Brazilian group that does favela funk, which in English basically means ghetto funk, or booty music. They are like 2 Live Crew and raunchy as hell and use beats that sample everything from Alice in Chains to that ‘Final Countdown’ song from the ‘80’s. And Blaqstarr is from Baltimore and does b-more club which is like a cross between house and rap music. It will be a real hype show. “

​”I am guessing it will be if y’all came all the way out for it.”

​”Yeah, plus my man Chris Lemon-Red works for Mad Decent, and I used to dj with him before he moved here.”

​”Then why we standing here in line? Go talk to your man and get us in.”

​”Nah, waiting builds character.”

​”Fuck character, I just want to get in there get me a drink, and start dancing with one of these fine white girls,” D said with a laugh.

​As we headed to the front, D seemed worried when he finds out there is $12 cover to get in.

​“I don’t think I can afford this. My budget is kind of tight.”

​”Fuck it, you helped us find the place, so I’ll take care of it as a way to say thanks.”

​After I paid I couldn’t help but think of William Baldwin’s Another Country, and the relationship between the black musician Rufus, and his white friend Vivaldo. Rufus always despised it when Vivaldo would try to help him, and would interpret this as not a simple act of kindness between friends, but rather, a paternal nature that made him think Vivaldo was doing this so he could feel good about helping out the poor black man who would be so helpless without him. Which left me wondering, would I have paid for D had he been a white guy instead? And I realized then, had he been a poor white guy from the projects, I would have been less likely to trust him at all, and even less likely to pay to get him into the club.

​But I soon forgot all those worries as the music rained down, and the bass cleansed me free. The dance floor was a Where’s-Waldo picture of gangly white flesh, and then in the whitewash a black face, D, fearless and with no shame, could be found walking up to any girl on the dance floor.

​I saw Lemon-Red at the merchandize booth and headed over to say what’s up.  He was surprised I had made it out the show, and then introduced me to Diplo.

​”New Hampshire, huh,” Diplo said, “That’s the, ummm, shit. I know nothing about New Hampshire at all. “

​”Don’t worry, most people don’t.”

​I told Lemon Red I would catch up with him later and went back to find Tiffany and D. Tiffany asked me if that was Diplo, and I told her yeah.

​”He is not as cute as he was in the pictures I saw of him, but then again he was doing Zoolander poses in those.” She then left to take more pictures of the folks at the party for a project for a class she was basing on the NYC club scene. Most of the people she took pictures of had no problem mugging for the camera with their practiced look of disinterest.  

​Over the course of the night we lost D, and the next day I would find out from a message he left on my cell phone, where he first apologized for bouncing without saying goodbye, and that he had drank too much and needed to leave before he acted a fool and got himself in trouble.  

​By 4 am the show was over. Tiffany and I left the club and grabbed a couple slices of pizza, and then headed for the subway. Our subway car was pretty much empty except for us, two girls coming back from the club, and a passed-out black man. As we rode through the tunnels of a sleeping city I noticed the girls were snapping pictures of the passed out man and laughing. To them this man was nothing but someone to mock so they could laugh when they showed the pictures to their friends, and put them up on their MySpace and Facebook pages. As we rode they grew bolder and posed with him, mean-mugging and crossing their arms, as if in modern black face; Amos and Andy would have been proud.  

And then I went home and instead of using pictures of me smiling with the black man, I wrote a story where the whole world could see just how much more enlightened I am by my thoughts of race, and how I would never exploit it for someone else’s entertainment, and that I was so much better than those girls at the end who took pictures with the sleeping man. But you, reader, you know better than that. And you are probably thinking of a few adjectives you can call me, and I would agree.

 ​But I think D was right in the end-let’s stop hiding behind vague descriptions, and just say it how it is from now on. But then again wouldn’t that mean Polly really just wanted a cracker? I am all confused now. How about you just take whatever you want out of this story, and hopefully you were entertained, because this was just an interlude in tragedy, a chance to make you laugh for a moment, and hopefully help you understand the narrator outside the context of dealing with tragedy.

I am a human you know, which I think is an adjective for person. Plus, as a young kid, I grew up wishing D’s life was mine, while never realizing he probably grew up wishing he had my life. And in the end, regardless of the bullshit, I can’t blame him. But I do thank him for making me realize the true meaning of adjectives.

Reflecting on what I wrote over 12 years ago I am not mad overall. I rejoice in the reality I was able to recognize my white privilege and not be a slave to it either. What I feel I failed on was my silence. At the end of this story I mocked and judged those white girls for their actions, and took a bullshit moral high ground. It was my unique privilege as a white male to feel superior without having to act. My silence to their acts made me complicit. I too was mocking this man by staying silent and judging those who mocked him. By letting it happen I was just like a cop who lets his partner stand on the neck of a man who can’t breathe. I know I personally need to get better. And I will continue to strive for that. In the meantime I won’t hesitate to call out bullshit behavior- it’s the subtle racism that is prevalent where I am from. When you don’t have to deal with black men in your daily life it’s funny how easily racism pervades. When you can’t be checked for saying the n word in a rap song you won’t be surprised how many white folks say it. I was taught at an early age by Wu Tang to always say nuh instead of that word. It was ideal because it always reminded me I had no reason to utter that world-it was never my right and thus nuh right in saying it. Radio edit for the win.

And the most beautiful thing in this world …and just like that I get in ya.

Patrick Bernard1 Comment

Sometimes’s someone energy can inspire words to flow with the power of Niagara’s Falls. Washing away self-doubt and letting clarity run through your veins. Some call these muses because such beauty is rarely seen in nature. These special beings seemed as if carved from the most skilled carpenters hands, and blessed with those intrinsic values that inspired the poets of yesteryears. Sometimes you find a muse in the strangest place. You can’t seek out a muse- the world seeks one out for you. Mine came from an enchanted forest in a foreign land. A mystic with an elf like joy that cleansed the anger in my soul. With fresh eyes, and a new found clarity the words came back. I realized the sadness that once fueled the pen to paper was bound to flame out like the joy that a simple sparkler gave as the child grows old. The simplicity of that emotion turns to ash as joy now brings the fireworks rocketing to touch the top of the clouds. You can’t control a muse- their whimsical nature leads to a choose your own adventure novel where the ending is never known. Just like the passion they install in you will lead your inspiration on the paper til your fingers bleed truth. A muse is dynamite- it will eventually explode. It is the artist’s duty to ride the ripples to bring such beauty to the audience. A muse is a gift and a curse- just like writing is. Feeling too much can destroy someone so they can inspire many. My words bleed so you can weep with joy. My muse changed my perception so my words can change yours.

Gutter Punk Buddha

Patrick Bernard12 Comments

It’s a rainy ol’ dirty bastard raw day today. In group this morning we delved into depression, and the stigma associated with it. Now I could care less if anybody knows I deal with it- as you can tell from this blog. This wasn’t always the case just because I was fearful of admitting that pain because it would became real. I convinced myself it would be easier just to think alcohol was the only issue which proved false. At almost a year of sobriety having gone through and actively working the steps, running a sober house, and having sponsees I was still miserable inside. It was until I was willing to admit to myself that alcohol was just a maladaptive coping system of what turned out to be bi-polar 2 depression that I was able to truly start to work on myself, and the traumas of my past. As you see this path has had a lot of peaks and valleys. But writing has always been my constant hope.

So today I wanted to share a chapter from the book I wrote for my MFA thesis. A book about my twenty something self’s journey running away from lost love, and the murders that happened to my sister, niece, and nephew- and how music saved and introduced me to a misfit of characters that would influence me for the rest of my life. This chapter features two of the most important people I would meet as a naive 19 year old for the first time in the Bay.

Chapter 2 –All I Saw Was Ugly

I spent the night of their deaths staring at a computer screen while talking on AIM. I am telling my friend Fhrate (pronounced like freight as in a freight train) what happened. He seems like the only person I know who would understand.  

“I just feel numb, just numb.”  I typed to him.

“I understand, man, well maybe not with the magnitude of what just happened, but I feel the same way all the time. I just don’t feel anything, and sometimes I wonder if I even really love my family, or girlfriend. That’s what I miss about drinking, because at least then I felt something. And even if it was nothing but sadness it was better than this numbness that replaced it.”

I first met Fhrate three years earlier in Oakland under a blank canvas sky which captured a yard dead to the world: weeds, soil with no hopes of prosperity, a fence without the guts to stand. This yard led to a house where in the kitchen, sitting Indian-style, was a gutter-punk Buddha, sewing needle in one hand, dental floss in the other, with a hooded sweatshirt adorned with patches resting on his lap. This was Fhrate, with short-cropped black hair, and a fresh razor mark gash on the back of his neck from cutting his hair himself. I was surprised by how tranquil he looked, and how shy he seemed, given the stories he wrote made him come off as a maniac hobo who explored America in a constant haze of drugs and alcohol.

​He put down his needle and approached me with a small smile.

​“Hi, I am Sean.” 

​I was meeting him for the first time, yet, I felt like he was an old friend because of our numerous conversations online, and from reading his stories. Even though I was surprised at how shy he was, I really shouldn’t have been, because the person whom he had written about was a character of his past, a drunken train bum who was kinetic energy in motion, never happy unless in constant flux, realizing the only way to escape life was to be constantly running from or towards new problems.

​His eyes were sad paradises of truth and seemed listless when he talked about his dead-end job.

“This girl, well, woman, I think she’s almost forty. I am not sure if this makes her more desirable, or makes me feel old, but anyway she keeps asking me to go to the bar with her, and my other co-workers, and I have to say no. It’s not fun to bitch about your job when you’re the only sober person in the room. Plus, I have that a whole alcoholic thing to deal with. And I would be left in that weird state of not knowing if I should make a move on her because I work with her, and I wouldn’t be able to laugh it off the next day at work on us just being drunk. Plus, I hate that fucking job.”

Fhrate was sober again, which was ideal for him, but somewhat of a disappointment for me. I was nineteen years old and came out to Oakland in search of this great myth. I had just finished On The Road a few months earlier, and I was ready for this wild adventure where there would be loose women, kicks, and all that other bullshit you fantasize about in life after reading that book. Maybe the problem was I wanted Fhrate to be a character in a book, and real life is never that tidy. He was bored with life because he was living it by the rules of what he thought he should be doing, instead of what he really wanted to be doing.  

​His eyes lit up as we entered his room, and he showed me a map on his wall of all the railroad lines he traveled across America. His face contorted into a grimace when looking at the East Coast, “I have never had a chance to travel that far East yet.” 

​Next to the map was a calendar of different trains, and Fhrate could tell you everything about each one, and even all about the do’s and don’ts of train hopping.

​“All right, first things first-if you can avoid hopping ‘on the fly,’ do so. It makes more sense to get on an unmoving train that one that’s going twenty miles an hour.”

​His voice sounded like a dusty vinyl recording of William Burroughs played on 45.

​“Also, don’t be afraid to ask workers what trains are going where, but avoid the bulls at all costs. Also, I wouldn’t ride piggy-backs.”

​I heard piggy-back, and in my head I pictured two old fashioned hobos, complete with sticks and bandanas tied around each end, attempting to hop a train with one man riding on the back of the other.

​“That’s a trailer on flat car. You should avoid those because there’s nowhere to ride really, leaving you exposed to wind, rain, and prying eyes. And don’t ever get on someone else’s box car. It’s just rule of thumb and travel. It is also a sign of respect and it lends itself to caution. However, in the in the event you do get on an occupied boxcar, just acknowledge your mistake, dismount, and find another open car. The real concern is that, while you may meet some real solid brothers and sisters on the road, you may just as easily encounter some fucking psychopathic assholes. If you get on an asshole’s boxcar then that asshole feels he has certain entitlement, like to your wife, wallet, pack, or coat. “

​For a few seconds Fhrate grew silent, and seemed to be back on the road longing for that one train to lead him to whatever he was searching for, or maybe, he was thinking instead of just the joy that is escaping from having to search for anything in the first place.

​ “If you should be in or around a yard, and you know you’re coming up on a hobo jungle, always make your presence known. The tried and true salutation/announcement is ‘Yo Camp!’ Possibly yelling out ‘Hobo!’ will put the resident campers at ease, if they think you are kindred ‘boes. Also I wouldn’t carry lots of cash. “

​After the train-hopping lesson we ventured to his living room, and watched a Scribble Jam tape from 1999 to kill time, before heading across the bridge into San Francisco, and over to Stef’s apartment. Stef was a dj who, at 40 years old, was ducking the norm of what life told her she should be doing, and instead living life how she wanted to. This may have been fueled by her love of hip hop, and records, as she was heavily involved in the music scene in San Francisco, where she ran a magazine called Vinyl Exchange, and was also kindly letting me crash on her couch for this trip of mine.

​In Stef’s room, through the maze of old rap posters and flyers, was a single rose hanging on the wall. It was a rose Fhrate had giving her. This was a side of Fhrate he usually kept hidden from the world, and this sweetness was first thing alcohol would take from him as it transformed him into a different person that seemed hell bent on self-destruction. That flower sums up the paradox that was Fhrate, and his constant struggle with alcohol, which always seemed to lurk in the darkness of his soul just waiting to fuck up whatever good things he had going at the time. Stef cared about him enough to understand this, and a set a steadfast rule that she would not be around him if he drank. So maybe the flower was Sean’s way of telling her he understood, and was sorry for all his actions, and any time he may have hurt her before.  

​The next night I met up with Fhrate outside the club for the 10th Anniversary Anticon show. Outside the club I met a friend of his named Ian, and his bottle of vodka. He offered me some, so we headed into the back alley to pass the bottle back and forth, while above us the third shift stars went to work. 

​More people joined, and then the bottle was empty. To combat this we retreated to the inside of a convenience store, where Fhrate, the only one of us over twenty-one, bought beer for us. Outside the club a circle formed, and the beers were passed back and forth. Fhrate couldn’t resist, and joined in. 

​ A fractured memory later, drunk, with ears ringing, we decided to keep drinking after the show with a graffiti artist named Demo, who had flown down to the show from Chicago. He was there with his girlfriend, a fiery little brunette, and her honey-skinned friend who just wanted to take pictures of San Francisco.  

​They invited us back to their hotel and by 3 a.m. I was hunched over the toilet puking, as Fhrate was out getting late night grub with Demo. Fhrate never returned, and disappeared after conversing with some homeless folk, and losing Demo in the process. 

    ​As the shadows of morning crept through the blinds I lay awake. From my hiding spot, a hard bed with starched white sheets and mattress springs that scratched and dug into my exposed spine, I noticed the wall was a sickly pink, like a diseased flamingo begging to be shot at the merciful hands of a poacher, and even when I closed my eyes I couldn’t stop my head from spinning and twirling as if I was on the deranged teacups of a dead Disney Land. Out the window was a seedy motel. The proprietor of sin was a dirty soul with a vast paunch belly built on greed. He had an unshaven face caked with gray whiskers and pockmarks. His eyes were wasted on only that which was perverse, blind to the notion that the girls he thought of as whores were really just angels lusting for their wings.

​Silence was broken. Awoke in haze. Commotion down hall. Banging on doors. Yelling, then Fhrate. He wore the results of his slumber on concrete with eyes as red as a brand new kickball. I quickly got out of bed to deal with him, and get him out of the motel before he did any more damage, or woke up any more guests.  

​Fhrate needed more booze, but was broke. Then an idea came to him.

​“I have this fifty dollar Gap card I got for a present, and as you can see,” he pointed to his gutter-punk outfit of Carhart pants, and a black sweatshirt with patches he had sewn all over it, “I am never going to use it, so we can to sell it, and split the money.” 

​We approached the Gap, navigated through a crowded market area filled with sight-seeing tourists with fanny packs and fresh faces, while Fhrate antagonized a homeless man sleeping on the street, and woke him up by kicking him softly.

​“Rise and shine. You can’t sleep all day.” The man grumbled a little bit, but just rolled onto his other side, and went back to sleep.  I was beginning to understand the belligerent drunk side of Fhrate, but yet I was fascinated by his actions and even thought this is what it must feel like to have walked around with a young Bukowski.  

Outside the Gap a Jesus freak was telling the world, “Repent For your Sins,” and “AIDS is God’s cure.” Fhrate approached him with a grin and put an arm around my shoulder, “Jesus wouldn’t mind that we fuck all the time, right?”

​We entered the Gap and I did most of the talking since Fhrate was half drunk, and dressed like an undercover prophet in thrift-shop garb. I approached a lady shopping alone who had an ass that looked like a nerf football stuffed in spandex.  

​”Excuse me, would you be interested in saving ten dollars? I have a Gap card I am selling that’s worth fifty, but I’ll sell it to you for forty.”

​She looked at Fhrate and then looked me up and down. It was the first time I really felt like an outsider to regular folk society, and realized this woman probably thought we were drug addicts who stole the card from a nice young married couple, probably with an adorable new-born, and were fiends dead-bent on going to take this money to shoot up, and would then go on some raping and kill spree like she was taught in the anti-drug movies of her high school days.

​”No,” was her answer as she quickly walked to the opposite side of the store. That scene repeated itself for the next twenty or so minutes until we found a black girl, who realized we were not trying to swindle her, who bought the card off us. As we left the store, a mother and her daughter walked in and Fhrate screamed, “Aid’s is God’s cure for all the yuppies and their children, and I am here to infect you all!”
​I pushed him out of the store, and with money in his pocket Fhrate headed to the corner store, where he bought a bottle of Long Island iced tea, and some smoked malt liquor that tasted like it had been brewed in the womb of a grizzly bear. As we walked Fhrate apologized to the homeless man, and showed him his bottle of booze, which for some reason made the homeless man smile, and understand there were no hard feelings. On the corner a dealer was slanging dime bags of weed and Fhrate, who never smoked, decided to buy a bag off of him.

​Content with his booze, Fhrate and I headed back to the motel to see if Demo and his crew were still there. When we arrived we found just the honey-skinned photographer, who only warmed up to seeing our return after she found out we had weed. Fhrate tried to roll a joint but couldn’t get the papers to stick.

​“You can’t even roll a joint?” she said.

​“Can you?” I asked.

​“No, but I figured one of you could do it. It’s not that hard.” 

​The joint was not going to work, but I had an idea.

​“Hey, do you have a can?  Like a Coke can anything like that?”

​“How the hell should I know?” she said.

​I found a Pepsi can and rinsed it out, and then crafted makeshift bowl out of it. We smoked as Fhrate kept drinking, and by the time Demo came back, Fhrate was freshly drunk. We explored San Francisco for a couple hours until Demo and the girls finally ditched us after Fhrate caused a scene in a pizza place by berating the workers.

​”Y’all communists and Fascist bastards who think they control the world through your three-dollar slices of pizza. My shit tastes better than your pizza, you fucking cunts.”

​We spent the rest of the day wandering the city as ghosts left to haunt themselves. Fhrate kept drinking, and I shambled after him. 

​As the sun started to set, lust hung in the air, billowing like wispy white clouds that hover over the immense Rocky Mountains. I was lusting for knowledge, a lust to end the confusion that engulfed me like the heavy morning Pacific fog of a decaying shipyard. Rusted steamers, cracked masts, torn sails, the ghost of wanderers past: nothing but ugliness and lost dreams.   

Fhrate once told me if you stay up late enough and search long enough under those stars, that the whore we call America will finally show you her beauty. But I was three thousand miles away from home and all I saw was ugly. ​

The night grew cold, and Fhrate became more distant and drunk. We walked to the BART station where Fhrate could hop a boat back across the bay to Oakland. He had already spent all his money from the GAP card on alcohol and weed, so I paid for his ticket. His eyes were hollow, and he seemed like a shell of the person I had met a few days ago. His sad figure haunted me as it disappeared into the darkness, and I wondered how long it would take him to find his way home. I returned to the street only to shudder at my own reflection as it passed me by in a store front.

Reading this back it’s painful because both Fhrate and Stef have passed away. Fhrate through suicide a couple years after I first met him in the flesh, and Stef from a heart attack at only 55. Being so young, dumb, naive, and lustful for adventure I was greatly shaped by their influence on my life at that young age of 19. It’s strange for people, who I physically in person had such limited amount of time with, became so vital in my personal growth at the time, and to this day. This occurred because of the internet’s ability to close the gap of connection. Even through a lockdown one of the blessings of the internet is that ability to stay connected. As I continue this voyage to find clarity knowing I can still explore human connection in this world- and I hope through my writing I can keep connected with you all.

Operation Lockdown

Patrick BernardLeave a comment

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you without a strong story to step to. My dear readers as typical the writings been far and few between. To make this up I am devoting myself back to you. I have put myself in super lock down. In order to battle the bottle I have gone all out- the Navy Seals have been called into to finally kill that terrorist of my life alcohol. No longer will I rant on Facebook, and wake up to the horror of the modern day drunk call showing up in people’s messages. No longer will I wake up from a blackout and do a scavenger hurt to find the damage my kamikaze landing inflicted on the world. So this is day two of operation lockdown- shout out to Heltah Skeltah.

Heltah skeletah – Operation Lockdown

Operation Lockdown is a 30 day boot camp to get my mind, body, and spirit back in order. It’s also a lockdown on any ability to get alcohol. I have heeded the words of Public Enemy and realized right now I can’t trust myself. So I have decided in next thirty days I will not leave my house unless I am with someone else that will keep me accountable. Yes strange times call for desperate measures and when better to do this than during a quarantine. Each morning from 9-12 I have Intense Outpatient group meetings. Then I set aside time for reading, writing, exercise, mental hygiene, and self-care. As I develop a more coherent daily routine I will post about it.

But for now since I am so benevolent, and don’t want to write anymore about myself anymore here is a story about elves- yes elves. I will be the first to admit I know nothing about elves. The beautiful soul who asked me to write this patiently pointed that out to me after she read it. But she enjoyed the story, and maybe you will too.

The mountains were once my curse. Sent there by a cruel father for my refusal to marry an elder’s daughter. I was disowned for wanting to pursue love. I was banished to the remote area reserved for lost and troubled souls. The elves nobody wanted. Constantly hunted by those who hate us for ducking the norm. The treaty for the elder elve’s is the current way of life- the most beautiful females left in the land are paid off to the highest bidder- whether it’s elf, beast, or giant.

Unfortunately for me I fell for the most intelligent, beautiful, and defiant elf – a girl who escaped from a cowardly father seeking true love. She was betrothed to a brutal slob- a beast with no honor or secrecy. A brute who used violence as currency, and cared nothing for her gentle soul beyond his own filthy lust.

She escaped to this foreign land an innocent lamb in a world of slaughter. At first she paid me no mind. I thought I was just a thief for her beauty, and too ugly for her to care about me. She embraced those that were deceitful for those were the men who roamed these desolate lands. She did not know any better. I was determined to liberate her freedom- her beauty was more than a sunrise- it was the radiance itself melted with the heart of the innocence, and combined with joy of lost fire works in an abundant sky.

She was the ideal elf and I knew I needed to protect her from all. I fought off all the sadistic suitors of any kind- won her over finally from my oath of honesty, faith, and devotion. I knew this beauty would never be safe from those that prayed on her purity so I left with dust tinged with red blood at our feet, and fled through the night.

I took her to the highest mountains with nothing more than a notebook in sight. I knew my words would become her delight. Under the underfed stars our romance delighted- nurtured by those same star’s kamikaze lights. I held on to her as the world collapsed. My passion for her was like the stars battling sunlight each morning-never ending and inevitable to happen each day. The sun their mortal enemy for shooing then away. Yet both entities are beautiful and bright in their own way- yet always fighting a silent cold war for which one will be the beacon in the sky that wayward lovers look for when they are seeking out their path to their lover’s heart. The air turns black, sleeping breaths sync, as the wind plays a lullaby, and the world around us closes for the night.

Raw Camera

Patrick Bernard

I haven’t wrote to you my silent audience in seven months. That’s not an apology- just an observation. Not much happened in those months-I felt I was trapped in the Mr. Robot plot line when Leon is watching 90’s sitcoms- so yeah I watched a lot of tv and maybe I can start dissecting down shows for you in the future. You would like that right? But alas me first must go through the drudgery of what got me posting again. First, a month or two before my last post, a brand new med provider, who only knew me from reading a chart from her overloaded casework sat down with me for less than 15 minutes had lowered a dose of meds I was on when I was feeling better than ever because she felt my doses were too high-and well that wasn’t her style. Even though the med combo she changed was giving to me by an award winning psychiatrist when I was in the BCU( inpatient- psyche ward for those that aren’t into the lingo). And before that med drop I had done so much trauma work to find peace with the murders themselves I was feeling better than I had in a decade. The change down in meds led to the depression to return. But it was to me the worst type of depression: the one where you don’t go through a crazy suicidal spiral you can you use to fuse writing, but instead where you just lose interest in all your loves- most crucially my love of writing. Eventually I started living in a purgatory where each day at school working and teaching the kids became a sanctuary where I felt joy- and after the last bell of the day I felt just like Halloween decorations in an attic just existing to be used on a day celebrating terror, masks, and fear. This purgatory led to the anesthetic of vodka to fill the void. Never understanding why I couldn’t figure out my depression, why I was so full of hatred in my gut, and why was I not fighting back anymore. Than around Christmas I had a manic episode where I was living in a delusion where money didn’t matter, and the only solace I found was in cam models online. I wasn’t in it so much for the general idea of their existence- not say that wasn’t an enticement and perk- but it was more to have conversations beyond the character they have to play. At first I mostly talked to a newcomer from Russia who in one of her model pics was reading an Emily Bronte novel. She absolutely hated doing this because she was too sensitive and naively thought she could find human connection with such a job since was young and enjoyed sex. Instead she was mostly treated as someone who literally didn’t exist- just a pornhub video come to life where the person on the end of the other screen becomes the director using her simply as an object for his sexual hang-ups. She soon left- I didn’t blame her. After failing to find a girl that intrigued or interested meet I met a Columbian girl dealing with a dad with cancer, and a schizophrenic brother. She was honest, and soon we became snapchat friends. She was brutally frank with me as she said that I had a very handsome face, but she was worried because I was out of shape and drinking too much, and needed to go to the gym because of my health, and I wasn’t getting any younger. All of this was true- I had gained about 25 pounds since that last post and became the fat John Wick Version of Fat Thor, and I hadn’t hit the gym in months. And just for the record neither model ever hit me up for me to send them money. Anyway after the manic episode ended- or at least when I finally realized it was over- the suicidal thoughts crept back after a year of never having that question flow in my head. I tried to pretend I was fine, and didn’t need help, but the thoughts and impulses became worst so I went to the ER and checked back into inpatient at the BHU(Behavior Health Unit) about a year from my last visit. I was still delusional thinking I just needed a quick detox and med tweak. But for ten of the 15 days I was inpatient my head was pollen flowing through an aimless wind. I heard voices, hallucinations that begged me to believe they were honest, and a mind always on the verge about to collide with a mountain because of the fog. I couldn’t concentrate to read or write, so instead I just spent days walking miles around the unit, doing yoga stretches, and trying not to bang my head on a window to end the pain- or use the pain to stay in the fog long enough to finally succeeding in hitting the mountain to find the peace I was searching for. I only told my work, and my parents I was checking in. I didn’t bring anyone’s phone numbers, nor want anyone to call to talk to me, because I knew in the back of my mind I needed to experience this journey without distraction. Day 11 was the fucking worst. I sat, and walked with my big belly of emotions. I just let them come through me, feeling everyone, not judging, nor interrupting anyone that passed, and just being ohhh so fucking uncomfortable every second of that day. Usually in the past I would try to distract myself from that uncomfortableness; I would talk to a pretty girl, take an anxiety pill, or try to help someone out with their problems. But instead I just walked and let these feelings lash me on my bare back. Tuesday came with comfort and relief. I found a note in a random journal I hadn’t used in a year and that note cut me in half with how they viewed my words with such sincerity, and how I used those words to destroy her delicate and brittle soul in the end out of my fear of losing someone I truly could care about- but that part will be for another day- maybe another story- but it finally made me examine with honest eyes why that hatred was still in me. I had one piece of the puzzle missing left to truly explore. When I no longer could pin-point my hatred, and found healing from my eldest brother murdering my sister Tricia, my four year old niece Gillian, or my two year old nephew James- I raked my brain to find why was I still so full of hate? So I took a sword with a rusted spikes on the end to my belly to see what would spill out on the pages. What I found wasn’t pretty metaphors or gruesome destructions it was more simple. I hated myself and never wanted to feel the loss like I had before so I became a time bomb of self-destruction when anything starting going good. Not wanting truly wanting to get close to anybody, and tricking my brain against all reason that I wasn’t and could not be loved had become ingrained truths in me. I had suppressed so much emotion after the tragedy I had rewired my brain to never want to give anyone the chance to cause me the feelings as losing them had. That simple truth- plus a new med, and med tweak has put me back on track. I know what I have to work on in therapy now- especially in EMDR. I know I have to be more social not isolated, and structured throughout my day. And know I need to return to the gym, and back to my healthy eating style. And I know I have to be faithfully honest to myself, and you my fearless readers. So get ready for some rawness, some beauty touched with some joyous agony, and probably some weird shit too.

I’m Swayze

Patrick BernardLeave a comment

I haven’t been writing much because I am on day nine of a headache that will not leave. I am also on day 33 being sober and fully moving forward with my life- which is just as terrifying to me as any horror movie can be. My past still exists- lurking in a sunken place that would provide a comfort that is all too welcoming in the days when the loneliness becomes seemingly impossible to endure. 33 days is just a smudge in reality- but it does feel amazing not to be in constant fear of alcohol right now. One thing I don’t fear are ghosts- especially ones that would stick around to haunt the this world, because our brains alone can do more haunting than any ghost is capable of. How many days have I stayed paralyzed in fear brutalized by past actions? How many nights have I put all my focus on the days I failed to meet my dreams rather than the days I achieved them? And how many mornings have I awoke being cuddled by the memory of a lost lover- or a lover who is now out of my reach no matter how much I cling to the illusion she is not. Desperation at trying to change past actions is the greatest horror story I have lived. It destroys today, and muddles out my future with crippling self-doubt. I have been the Freddy Krueger of my dreams, the Jason with the blade at the lake, and, hell, even the leprechaun that terrorized Jennifer Aniston. So today I put a stake through the heart of the past. I took a bubble bath in holy water and awoke reborn in today. So today I change what I can, and pick up the shovel to bury the past.

That Day One Sober

Patrick BernardLeave a comment

Yesterday I passed out while drinking a fifth of vodka. I was supposed to be detoxing, but instead of reaching out to the people that care in my life I decided to pour the one thing that keeps ruining my life down my throat. I worry without alcohol I won’t be able to write, be creative, or even dj again. My depression and suicidal ideation doesn’t help- but alcohol only increases these abhorrent thoughts. It’s a sit and spin of increased terror. I am riding deranged Disney tea cups that will never stop until I pass out, and vow once again never to drink. Alcohol has already ruined so much in my life from friendships, to girls I loved, to jobs I gave away for a simple taste of spirits, and finally the trust of my family. So this is day one of sobriety. It’s funny how I think putting this out to the world of the internet will keep me more accountable. And maybe in the end it will, and ideally maybe help someone else who is struggling. Day one for me is usually a lot easier than day two or three. My anxiety stays relatively low, and the guilt and shame from my last debacle usually keeps the cravings at bay for those 24 hours or so. I like to isolate which is not the healthiest, but I did get to see my family for brunch today which helped. Usually I am avoiding the world- specifically social media or text messages- because I have tendency to blackout and send messages that are embarrassing, inappropriate, angry, or a combination of all the above. Honesty will set me free they say. So if anyone is reading this that has received that type of message from me I feel like that Casual song, “I Didn’t Mean To.” That’s for the obscure 90’s rap heads, and it’s actually about him hooking up with a girl with a boyfriend-which does make sense since I did cheat on my sobriety with that devil named vodka. But today I stayed sober. Tomorrow is another day and another test. But I will pray tonight to help me trudge forward with god in my heart, and Wu Tang in my headphones.

Broken Resolutions

Patrick BernardLeave a comment

I am not big on resolutions-especially New Year’s one. I used to have a blog called Drunk and Focused which I wrote about drinking, culture, music, and even reviewed every flavor of Maddog 2020. But it’s the first day of 2019, and my first day sober once again- and yes I know how fucking cliche it is to get sober on January 1st. Getting sober on the first is on some basic as fuck shit that it could be an American Eagle commercial. This also a chance to prove I am not washed up in the blog game. This site will not just be about not drinking, though I will journal each day of my sobriety, but it will also highlight the myriad of many other things fucking up my mind these days. So I will write about the joys of mental illness, rap music, tv, pop culture, rants, wrestling, why you should never Facebook message people while in a blackout, and a place to share my writing to prove all that student loan debt I am in was totally worth it to get an MFA. So get ready for the return of the LeBron James of this blog game- this time with a 12 step habit.