today’s ride 🚋

i've been thinking about the color of my skin lately, mainly because of an incident that happened a few weeks ago when my band was playing an outdoor show here in chicago.

porchfest is an outdoor mini-festival in the city where different homes literally offer up their porches to local bands and artists to play across a few neighborhoods. it’s a sprawling, beautiful endeavor, and an especially splendid way to spend a weekend in the summer here.

my band, tenmonthsummer, recently played this year’s instance of porchfest happening in the roscoe village neighborhood of chicago. roscoe is by no means the artistic epicenter of the city, but it is a quaint place primarily made up of families. in the last few years, the price of homes there has skyrocketed, and it is known to be a more affluent area of the city.

despite this, there is plenty of friendliness, community, and compassion in the square blocks making up this northside neighborhood. it was on one of these porches where charlie (our rhythm guitarist) and i were running a 45-minute acoustic set for the fest since our full band could not perform.

if you are familiar with the musical stylings of one, tenmonthsummer, (and if you are not please get on that imminently so that our label stays pleased with us) you’d know that our music is not very acoustic friendly given we are a band of the emo/shoegaze nature. still, we pressed on with the prettiest attempt of our songs as stripped down as we could until we reached into the latter half of our set.

this is when the incident™ occurs.

charlie is tuning to play our song “broken fist in a boxing glove,” which is a politically charged battle cry to rally the audience, because it is exhausting to exist in a world where our wages do not outpace inflation, a world where almost half the population lives under $7 a day, a world where earned money from citizens are funneled to create and supply wars and genocides of horrific proportions.

naturally, as charlie tunes, i fill the audience in on why we wrote this song and believe in its message. much of it is fueled by the fact that i am the son of muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, and then grew up facing the harsh realities of a post 9/11 world. as i joke with the crowd that i am not white, i notice that a couple on their bikes on the other side of the street who, mind you, have been bopping along for 30+ minutes, start shuffling and get ancy.

we know where this is going.

i tell the crowd my feelings on our current administration (cuss words aplenty, let your imagination run wild) and that is the precise moment when this couple can no longer take it. incensed that i have described the literal actions of our government and the discrimination i have faced my whole life, this couple, who are both roughly double my age begin pedaling away huffing and puffing. the man briefly turns around to scream “MAGA!” (but he pronounces it like, ‘mog-a,’ which is its own baffling mystery") and in turning his body, swerves on his bike, almost hiting a parked van.

if i were writing the script for a modern, in-your-face-about-its-politics sitcom episode, this scene would feel horribly cliché and tastelessly written but, alas, this is no sitcom. it is, instead, a hilariously embarrassing moment for this 50+ year old man to be yelling an acronym at an emo band playing a porch. yikes.

let me cut this steak for you as i say this: where you stand politically does matter. and i am not speaking about what party you support. if you’re here, you’re either hate-reading this or you like me enough to some degree to listen to me ramble. i, and many others, have no choice in the identities we must embody. when it comes to what you support, you do have a choice. so i’m going to say it again. where you stand politically DOES. MATTER.

this administration wants me dead.

that is not an exaggeration. we are seeing government-sanctioned violence here in the states and overseas against all ‘othered’ bodies (that basically means if you’re not white or straight, and also often not a man). it shouldn’t take thinking of me or someone you love wrongly held in an ICE detention center, or jailed for speaking our mind about our rights as citizens, or killed by some vigilante coward afraid of melanin to make you consider our humanity.

i know, sadly, that some of you reading this might still not care enough to consider your stance despite that. i mourn that for you. i have been on this earth for over three decades now. that’s not an incredibly long time, but it is damn certain long enough to know that we should be championing a world of connection, not chaos.

part of my preamble for our song is that in the face of all those who desire to erase us, against the fatigue and exhaustion of having to prove our humanity, there is a deep power when we decide to ball up our fists and swing together.

i urge you not to stay silent or immobile. i urge you to find your community. i urge you, even though it’s hard, to swing, swing, swing.

from our last haiku, one of you ask: “does it ever feel like being a front[person] is rehearsed?”

at first, it kind of did. but i try to think of a few things when i go through the flow of a setlist and some of the ‘banter’ on stage.

(send in your questions to [email protected] and maybe your question will be the star of the next newsletter!)

this week’s song is "broken fist in a boxing glove” by, us, tenmonthsummer, a lakeshore emo band from chicago.

if you've ever had a moment where a stranger made it very clear how they see you, be it on a porch, on a train, in a comment section, wherever!!! i want you to know that however you felt was valid. i think we all carry these moments alone more than we need to, but it’s a weight we no longer have to shoulder in solitude. boxing gloves on, we got this. 🥊

is this little bit not enough?

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