Pacing Pl*net F*tness

There’s a lot in life that you don’t get to opt out of. Having a job; driving to it. Playing “Uno!” with your family for quality time while waiting for someone to die. Going to sleep; waking up. Paying your parking ticket. Sometimes this is all fine, and other times the weight of all of this obligation is crushing.
I think it would help to know what it’s all for. I often wish someone would tell me what to do and what to believe in. I’d love to believe in God, or join a nice cult, but I’m too much of a skeptic. Also cult leaders are always these horrible old men that I would never want to follow. I’m more into hot nerds. My parasocial idols include Ira Glass (This American Life raised me) to and American Chess Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky (there was a period where I couldn’t go to sleep without watching his youtube videos).
This album has several love songs (“disclaimer,” “Mastering Positional Chess”, “Things we bought tickets for”) with no clear target. I guess that’s called yearning. I sometimes feel like I have a lot of love to give and I’m not sure what to do with it. One of my goals for this album was to be earnest. I get sick of my whole irreverant non-chalant thing sometimes. There is one bonafide, literal love song on this album about my very real partner, “True Crime,” and I think it’s the most romantic. I heard somewhere that being in love is safety and freedom at the same time. I think I’ve captured that feeling.
This album isn’t not about grief and loss (“Pl*net F*tness” is about dealing with the logistical aftermath of my dad’s death from lung cancer in 2023). But as I tend to do, I have focused on the mundane details of death. Cancelling subscriptions. Cleaning out the house and the computer. Making doctor's appointments and phone calls and waiting and waiting and waiting. All the stuff in between the parts that seem important.
Sometimes I want to be a thoughtful person who tries, and other times I want to turn off my brain and disappear into the television. On this album, I am alternating between the two with not-exactly-ease. “Advertising” reflects my struggle to try and like the things that I feel I am supposed to like because other people say they are good and smart and important, instead of the garbage that I actually like (see “Love Island”). “Never Go Down” is a reinterpreted version of a Mr. Rogers song for children (“You can never go down the drain”). My version is about giving up on thinking and submitting to the big stupid cult leader in the sky. I love Big Brother and garbage TV.