As 2021 began I lived in Texas, and my exercise consisted of jumping up and down for about 4 hours a day as part of my two live streams, during which I’d swing the occasional kettlebell.
I'd reached the best place I’d ever been mentally and spiritually, after finally conquering a gang of dragons that I’d been at war with my whole life.
But there was something missing.
When I was a little kid I liked comics and music, I got in fights with bullies every single day, and was literally that kid who got picked last for the football team. I got the impression that people like me didn’t DO sporty stuff, so I didn’t, and when I left home on the eve of my 16th birthday, I launched myself fully into the excesses of what I thought, from my reading and cultural exposure, creative people did.
You can imagine how that went. I’ll write a book one day.
It wasn’t til my early 30s when I was preparing to move to the USA that I thought to take my physicality seriously. By day I worked on my DJ library, and by night I ran on the beach and did pushups. Soon I was in the best shape of my life.
Then I moved to LA and became a club DJ, and the accompanying lifestyle of shots and afterparties soon had that best shape of my life fading away.
Presently, I invented Meaningwave. And as I integrated the lessons from the music, things changed fast. I made JBP’s Drinking Song, which said alcohol is a shortcut to random adventure. So I chose my own adventure, and soon that LA DJ lifestyle too faded away.
As '21 began I lived in Texas, and had been finally granted my new visa. We had to vacate the US immediately, to visit an embassy and get our passports stamped. We flew to Mexico. Due to an international pandemic of foolery, the Embassies were booked till 2022. It was OK. We loved Mexico. We made friends. Found the perfect local coffee shop. Next door to the coffee shop, a gym. I wandered in one day, and took a CrossFit class. I didn't even know what CrossFit WAS.
I've been going 5 days a week ever since.
As 2022 begins, I'm in the best shape of my life. Stronger, healthier, happier than I ever even knew possible.
Here, in Mexico...
I finally found that missing something.
Timelapse of me drawing my new avatar
Tools: Procreate on iPad with Apple Pencil
Own the NFT at https://opensea.io/akirathedon !
BACK WITH ANOTHER BANGER FROM BERTON AND THE DON!
TELL THEM NOW!
With lyrics adapted from Berton Braley's poem of 100 years hence!
STREAM https://go.meaningwave.com/TELLTHEMNOW
Art by me!
Own the NFT! https://opensea.io/akirathedon
An odd thing about knowing things is that once you know something, you immediately forget you did not always know it, and then strangely, default to assuming everybody else knows it too.
This is my experience, at any rate.
Somehow I often manage to completely forget the decades I spent flailing around not knowing things that I now take for granted… like the fact that picking up heavy things and putting them down again makes you feel amazing, skyrockets your confidence, increases your mental abilities, and connects you to the transcendent and divine in a manner that serious 1990s ecstasy devotees could but dream of. I only worked that out relatively recently, due to some errors in my upbringing and the devious and evil propaganda I suffered, that convinced the young me that artistically inclined types like myself didn’t engage with physicality, and the sorts of people that did were dumb meatheads (inversion as usual, the people I meet in gyms are typically the most wise and cerebral one could hope to encounter). No, what I ...
STREAM & DOWNLOAD: https://go.meaningwave.com/ONESHOT
From the album GET SOME: https://go.meaningwave.com/GETSOME
VINYL: http://igg.me/at/GETSOME
MERCH: https://www.meaningwave.com/products/get-some-ft-jocko-willink-men-s-cotton-shirt
Often, people write to me saying something like, “I love you and Jocko’s song GOOD (https://fanlink.to/jockogood)… but how can I reconcile that with death?”
The song goes some way to answering that. EVEN IN DEATH (https://go.meaningwave.com/EVENINDEATH) is a highlight from an album that is all highlights, GET SOME (https://go.meaningwave.com/GETSOME), and was one of the songs I spent the longest on. It started as a simple string coda, carrying Jocko’s words like a calm ocean, building into a storm of tsunami intensity as drums and guitar were added, and finally the glory of the full string section.
The video features footage from Ninja Scroll, which I have loved since I first saw it as a child, and remains one of the most powerful films I have born witness to.
...
STREAM: https://linktw.in/ZgWLJi
DONATE: https://www.meaningwave.com/pages/donate
Rapper, broadcaster, political slash cultural commentator, and designer of excellent hats An0maly, who used to come and dance like a very tall Travolta at my epic Saturday night sessions at No Vacancy in Hollywood invited me onto his show to talk about being locked out of the USA like Novak Djokovic (https://twitter.com/LegendaryEnergy/status/1633563997537705984). We spoke about how my family and I got locked out of the USA, what LA was like during lockdown, our new life in Mexico, and much more.
Lots of you have been asking how you can support Meaningwave and help us get our stuff back and all that, which is very nice and floods my heart fit to bursting. You can always cop merch, join the Patreon, and send one of donations, and there’s a page with all that info here.
LOVE TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!