may not surprise you to learn I'm a systems thinker...probably because I played with K'nex as a kid.

in case you don't know what that is--I get it, kids don't even play with physical toys any more, which is kinda effed up--K'nex are essentially a system of rods and joints that could be snapped together into whatever shape you liked...build a bridge half a room long into the box fortress your Power Rangers live in, think together some six-wheeled urban assault vehicle, engineer up a Ferris wheel that our heroes can ride once the evil crown is toppled and songs of freedom fill the streets.

wasn't QUITE an only child, but I was basically in junior high by the time lil sis had anything to say (and boy did she never shut up but I digress) so I had a goodly few years to entertain myself in the nigh-screenless world of the late 20th Century.

as a result, my thought process is based largely on parts, pieces, steps and stages...how does this lead to that, how can I take this pool of resources and make it look something like the spotlighted model slowly rotating on one of the elevated platforms in my mental showroom floor?

see, there is no instructional guide to the advancement of a band...and even if there was, I would only kinda glance at it to see what could maybe blow my fingers off or whatever if done incorrectly.

still, after spending pretty much my entire conscious life carefully considering how to achieve the desired effect with whatever I am fortunate enough to have at the time, something of a roadmap has begun to coalesce in the ol' thinker.

I can definitely identify the first milestone in the process...a tantalizing glimpse of the future came the very first day, 1 November 2023.

somehow I talked this debuting band, maybe 5 rehearsals old, into a featured spot at a local festival...it was my first ever public performance (as a musician, among my other performance resume entries are "writer," "poet," "orator," "theater kid," "customer service rep," "luchador," and many more!) and ya know what it was good enough.

that day marked one of the first times in my life I was paid to party--yes, getting wrecked on free booze and broadcasting my political beliefs into a microphone is my idea of a good time--and demonstrated the viability of the design.

just a year or two later came our first consistent gig...it's not just beer and hat money now. the thing being built has taken a recognizable shape, even to the casual observer...nobody had to squint or imagine to see a real band any more, we were being paid to live as musicians.

(much love to Sanctuary for making that a reality...it's definitely "OUR HOUSE" since we pay the rent there lol)

...but until recently, I spent a lot of time wondering what the next step in the process was.

like obviously the endgame is be kicked off Saturday Night Live for telling the truth on network television by 2030 and make enough cash to bankroll a grassroots mutual aid network along the way, but what does the scaffolding even look like on that build?

well at the very least, as of today I am ready to share the next step with you, and even more delightful, to tell you that it is within reach:

we are now getting paid to play with bands that we would pay to see.

like, I don't wanna look past the next few weeks or anything--after all, EL MUNDIAL DE BEER PONG is Friday night!!!!!--but with June more behind us than not, it'll be August before either of us know it...and those are exciting times for sure.

by around this time two months from now, we'll be rolling into Edmonton (what?!) for an especially funky stop on our cross-continental route: back-to-back nights in the province's capital city alongside face-crinkling grooves laid down by Stonejoy and the charismatic keytar chaos of the incredibly named Fn'A...packed clubs, chaotic bodies, late nights, a neon road trip summer.

now that sounds like the band life I imagined...but it would have never had a chance of happening without all the times we played our hearts out to about as many people as there were in the band or got canceled at the last minute or got paid less that the venue agreed to...sometimes that particular element of the design needs to be reconsidered.

doesn't mean you scrap the whole schematic, just break that piece off and try again.

that meter-wide space station suspended with shoestrings from the drop ceiling supports in your bedroom doesn't form in a linear fashion, it comes together through a long process of trial and error, sagging structures and collapsed supports made sturdier through process of elimination.

the first, much less glamorous step is rooting around in that container of components, imagination sparking flintlike as your fingertips run across the edges of each piece.

only time will tell if we have skipped two steps here to the "paid handsomely to play with bands we would pay to see" stage of the process, but you can at least clearly see what this is now.

it is a vehicle built to bring us to you, wherever you may be reading this.

all power to The People.

--Flor!