#RAWTHOUGHTS 10.24.25-On authenticity

-the past two decades seem to be defined by the search for authenticity. probably moreso post covid. the k graph or whatever the fuck it’s called is probably the defining image of this era. you have pure(as much as i hate this term) slop on one end and whatever counts as substantial at the other. of course that’s all simulacra. shein and its ilk are shit but there’s nothing authentic about say, kapital or orslow or any of the expensive workwear simulations they sell at say chcm. like i’m kinda tight i didn’t catch that margaret howell peacoat when it was on sale but that’s not real. neither is buzz rickson lol. griselda has its moments but it’s not the same. joey badass sure as fuck isn’t. i guess tyler is a good enough dupe of the neptunes.

the vintage industry is kept afloat by this. i just bought a bundeswehr field jacket a couple weeks ago from church street surplus(who i’ve written about). probably the best item in my whole wardrobe actually. but haphazard curation has led to stuff like the y2k trend and indie sleaze and fashion is kinda built on inauthenticity in storytelling and so on. it’s a shitshow. at best it’s everyone going for the same couple of things, you know carhartts, nascar jackets, orange tab levi’s, idk wrestling t shirts. at worst it’s ppl dressing like billie eilish dressing like mannie fresh.

of course there’s the military surplus world which i’ve broached on before. i want to get a french f1 jacket and maybe some authentic gats but those are hard to come by. not to mention that all of the sites that are semi reputable and have stock are run by survivalist psychos preparing for the race war. i don’t know how isolating yourself in the dakotas or montana while using nonce tokens(crypto) to get by is going to help you strategically in a race war. especially since you’re as far away as possible from the races you want to fight. maybe not in the dakotas? i don’t know exactly how these guys feel about pine ridge but it’s probably not good. at best paternalistic.

but maybe these guys that hate jews but are ambivalent at worst towards israel know something i don’t. they sure as fuck know how to get an austrian m65 coat that’s in near mint condition for a good price.

i suppose this search for authenticity is why ppl are amazed by curtis sliwa. my entire life i knew him as a charlatan, a psycho, a weirdo, a pathological liar, a bigot and so on. his beret serving as a symbol of cap. but he still has a recognizable accent and due to his time in the new york public school system he knows how to talk shit. it helps that he actually seems to like the concept of living in a city. fascism isn’t as cut and dry as people make it seem. sliwa’s is more palatable and more... humanistic for lack of a better term than cuomo’s antiseptic asset manager glazing(since old ass sliwa likes to stay up on the new slang)

-i’m in long island city as i type this, the archetypical example of asset bubble urbanism in new york. probably worse than downtown brooklyn. worse than hudson yards in some ways. in the latter two there was previous structure and history that developers, although given a long leash, still had to conform to. in hudson yards case there’s a mall attached as well as office space. but lic...

it feels like someone passed out in the middle of downtown dallas and tried to rebuild it from memory. just dogshit urbanism. it looks like lululemon chinos, fleecy vests and aime leon dore on the weekends(speaking of simulacra and terrible attempts at authenticity). it feels like “hmm this seems like a sound investment” every fifty feet. a fake neighborhood for fake rich people. a complaint often made about urban planners for decades is that they’re trying to build cities for people that hate cities. in no neighborhood in ny is this more apparent than lic. just impersonal skyscrapers everywhere, streets are completely haphazard and terrible to cross. all of the supermarkets seem like they’re designed for doordash or ubereats to pick up deliveries instead of going in person. i think that’s what you use i never use those.

i see why tech ppl and ppl trying to escape xi jinpings property ownership laws flock here it reeks of middle class upper middle income nonsense and sad peacocking. people of means trying to get more for their money.

i still want to fanute the housing connect apartments by the water though.

-all this stuff about tyler the creator has me trying to listen to igor again. more than flower boy it seems like that was the break off point as far as image and audience goes. i still feel mostly the same way as i did when it came out which is ehhhhhhhh. it just does nothing for me as far as actual songwriting goes. production is great because it’s tyler and he’ll always deliver on that front as the kobe to pharrell’s jordan. it’s... very of its time in a bad way. i guess because tyler has shown that he can be a very visceral artist and the whole album seems like that one ikea bisexual couch that went viral years back. it’s an auditory “be gay and do crimes” sticker from etsy. it reminds me of that one summer dudes just wore camp collar shirts, i don’t know why.

that freestyle where he was talking about having rough butt sex with flex was classic. maybe top 5 tyler moments ever? that seemed more authentically tyler than him singing “i think im in love”. maybe that’s my issue, it just seemed kind of phony. the songwriting, i mean.

i like call me if you get lost a lot more. it seems more real. it’s probably my most listened to album of the year surprisingly enough. probably telling on myself with that but oh well.

that’s about it. in the words of john mclaughlin,

BYE BYE!