wait did we really get this far without talking about the name, like really talking about it?

a mf who voluntarily writes this many words names his band very intentionally.

like, I speak the name a whole lot, I love it--we are The Pleasant Uprising, see ya in the streets real soon!--but rarely do I get a chance to actually explain it.

even though today is only Labor Day in the country with some of the worst riches-to-rights ratios in the entire world of organized labor (it's a long story I told another day if you're interested), it is also the one with our largest public listener base at this time...claiming about 5 percent of the global population and an even larger share of its Anglophones will do that.

today, like most, is a day of labor for me.

I've asked you to read a lot over these first 10 entries so if you're not here to scroll another screed just to find out what "The Pleasant Uprising" truly symbolizes lemme spell it out for ya: we're part of the WOKE AGENDA your dumb cousin keeps going on about. 

like, it's not just a cute, evocative phrase, lip service to cool-sounding ideas entirely divorced from our experiences...this sht could scarcely get more real.

let's dive right in: I was born with a controversial suntan that effectively makes me a full citizen of zero countries. 

multiple members navigate chronic ailments that the built world is not entirely engineered to accommodate.

most of our band cannot visit the nation directly to the north at this time for fear of ending up in an themed, alliterative concentration camp.

...and that's just what I can reveal online, but suffice it to say our very existence, band or no band, is political.

I chose "band."

as a collective we hold radical beliefs such as human beings are welcome on the so-far singular paradise planet widely referred to as Earth (after the thin layer of topsoil that sustains our "civilization")--anywhere on it for any or no reason--and that we should all share proportionate pieces of its cosmically unlikely bounty.

no matter where you come from, you belong with us if we all agree you do. in our world you will be judged entirely on your choices.

we're real egalitarian wackjobs...I ascertained this as part of the vetting process.

like, obviously a big shortcut to the origins of the band's name is to simply remove the "L" from that set of letters. that's for the oppressors to hold anyway...which is why it is often rendered as a lightning bolt. 

hold that, mf.

civilian background in polisci really underscored the power in symbols...that's a bonus quip, take a double-glance at our logo sometime, think it says a lot for what was designed as easy graffiti.

symbology is one of the core aspects of shared culture, transmitting ideas and intentions in about the time it takes to aim your eyeballs in the same direction. there are places in the world where the wrong pieces of flair will get you thrown in a concrete cage or worse...crazy part is, a lot of times that's a reasonable response; some ship sails up to yours flying a skull flag you know what time it is.

hold on, I'm getting off track here...we're talking about the name of a music band here, one that hasn't even released its first full album of original music at the time of this writing. 

for all the digital ink spilled in this space on the evils of authoritarianism and the prison of late stage capitalism, it ain't like anybody's gonna foment a revolution by prancing around in leg warmers brandishing a lightsaber and yowling "Disco Inferno."

...or...wait, actually...

like okay, follow me this far: what kind of party you're having depends entirely on the people attending. their set and setting, the material conditions at play.

you put enough monkeys in one place and give them a reason to get rowdy and they no doubt will. 

think about the streets of City when Local Sporting Club wins the League Championship. wine flows, fires burn, the air vibrates with song and revelry.

a rave and a riot ain't that far apart, are they? 

it is the ASSEMBLED HUMAN POTENTIAL that can make either so intoxicatingly unpredictable...unbridled enthusiasm is the most explosive substance on The Planet, imagine if we could take it and aim it at something that actually matters. 

so we're...idk, a fn pop music insurgency. there have certainly been worse ideas.

see, people get the wrong idea from my whimsical attire...yeah I look like a chaotic imaginary friend, somebody who would turn your whole house upside down on some idle Tuesday for no-ass reason, the proverbial Cat in the Hat...but the thing is I don't thrive on chaos for its own sake...I just see with clear eyes that chaos is inevitable.

my addictive aspiration is controlling the chaos to whatever extent possible. to embrace it with a smile that might look like a grimace from some angles.

I get off on looking at tornados and imagining a steering wheel...perhaps one day strapping a saddle to an earthquake, or trying my goddamn'dest to win some water gun fight by riding in on a perfectly timed tsunami.

chasing my dreams until holes wear into the bottom of my flip-flops.

bringing it all the way to the ground: if you're reading this, you know the fight we both, we all find ourselves in today...the one for our future, the one for our fucking present. you and I both "wish it need not have happened in our time." 

...but "so do all who live to see such times...that is not for them to decide. all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

so let's look at this again: "The Pleasant Uprising." 

delight and resistance are inseparable in my book...it's the cheat code against burnout, actually enjoying the work like some kind of sick freak.

surviving is always a work in progress, thriving...now, that's an art.

when you were born on the bottom like most of us were, daring to dream in a world built to harvest your stress and weave it into golden threads for the self-coronated is a powerful form of spiritual warfare...when anxiety is a state-enforced way of life, your inner glow can be a fiery rebellion.

the name is an acknowledgement that happiness is not an afterthought, it is a helmet...life is tough, you better get a fn helmet.

camaraderie in combat. sweat and solidarity. blood, tears, and fire. fearless jubilation. 

let's dance and shout in the streets, let's flip this truck, FLIP THE TRUCK, FLIP THE TRUCK

enough human hands in concert can tear down a border wall...have done it!

a few more can, as Squidward reminded us verbatim, "dismantle oppression board by board"...so we try not to make fans as much as co-conspirators at these things. we set out to generate electricity...illuminating. dazzling. will burn you to fucking cinders, especially if you really really really ask for it.

let us, one cloudy day, descend upon our oppressors like a few billion volts.

fight does start in the mirror, but once you've won that one the rest are much easier: Fred Hampton phrased it "he who dares to struggle, dares to win." 

if you know anything about the guy, the subtext is obvious: winning is most often a collaborative effort.

...and so bringing it back to the music, this is why our public gatherings are referred to as "demonstrations"...we hope to show that the world we want is achievable, if only within the tiny, ephemeral autonomous zones we aspire to create one gig at a time. 

this means the line between performer and observer is intentionally blurry...don't be afraid to be a part of the moment, if the spirit moves you then fn testify!

last thing we want is people just sitting there looking at us sing and play instruments.

we're asking you to think, to laugh, to cry, to think again.

we are asking you to dance with us...and maybe one day soonish, stand strong beside us.

to load up that fist and shoot it safely skyward (thumb outside the fist and tucked tightly against the curled fingers if your first brawl is in the future!)...for now.

if you're confused, fuck it be confused for a while. confusion is a good starting point. massage that knot on out, we'll be here all year...if everybody leaves our demonstration comfortable, then I probably did a bad job that night.

I don't tend to do a bad job at stuff.

point is if the energy we put out transmits to you--if you leave with your battery fuller--who among us did not win? 

when I walk into Gusto next Sunday night and fire the name of this band into the mic, understand that you are part of The Pleasant Uprising...because we don't have to let life happen to us, we can be what happens. that's a pretty fun thought, right?

I wanna fuckin' win, baby...let's live it out, together.

all power to The People.

--Flor!