Michael Angelakos is a Trainwreck Pt. II

Preface to Three Laps Around the Block, the second installation of this series

Three Laps Around the Block in Brookline

There’s this one aspect of my very annoying personality that I love to share with people, which is that oftentimes the most mundane and simplest antidote or cure for any ailment or bothersome thing is the very thing that I want go on and on about not needing, or having already considered, or something to that effect. And the instant I figure it out, I do not feel silly, but I more often than not go to the person who suggested it, or share with a friend or even a stranger, and preach the good word.

Things worth noting, written in way that speak to how unbelievably obvious and profound they are only in their silliness and so forth

1. walking is amazing

2. geez, I feel so much better not snorting a billion grams of ketamine (early 2018 escapade—be careful, everyone, for it’s no joke)

3. a day off makes such a difference and will not result in six weeks of being in bed watching every show I’ve ever watched for the 90th time in a glacial depression, causing a weird issue in my hip and a massive crater in a bed I never bothered to flip

4. vitamin D + k2 is a real thing—I have insanely low vitamin D because I’m Greek and need that particular type of sun

5. water!!!

6. salads are fucking incredible!!!

   1. especially for the benefits of fiber and the regularity of a certain type of movement

   2. nice source of water, too

Anyone who suggested these things, especially like a healthcare provider, some kind of advisor, a friend with good ideas, usually goes “yay!” or “hell yeah, dude!” And I am genuinely so stoked, walking around saying, with absolute honesty, how I live to be proven wrong. My doctors certainly would agree with this, and the fact that I am alive and writing this to you should be proof enough but if you think I don’t know the majority of people in the public eye or whatever are full of shit, you’re nuts. I used to be full of it sometimes, too—but in the annoying ways in my personal life, never when it came to positive messaging or sharing my stories.

I am not going to talk about Take a Walk here, but, yes, okay? Walking is a huge part of my life. In upstate New York, where I live, I need to quite literally drive to walk. It’s not what you think—this boy is up in those woods and that isolation doesn’t always render songs for a chick named Emma.

If I am not walking around a city, then I am pacing around an apartment, and if the apartment/house is poorly lit because I am stubborn and don’t find redecorating very inspiring, then you bet that that my messiness in a well-lit room (which is still pretty bad) pales in comparison to said dimly lit one. Everyone of my friends and co-workers has seen this—actually, I mean every single person who has been around me for just a mere few days during a creative period knows they’re going to be stepping over piles of things and mounds of whatevers; a hellish manifestation of my calamitous mind in physical form that would make one think of Wall-E—but even that seems pretty organized now that I think about it. Don’t even ask my friends or co-workers or whoever about moving, setting up gear—except the ones who do it for a real living or are, you know, just kind…

I’ve heard it all, and in some ways I deserve it, with or without clinical excuse. All my life, my mother going on and on and on and then finally…realizing that it’s just beyond me. Partners began to think that I just expected them to clean up after me because they would because it would drive them crazy, and then naturally that would end up with me nervously and furiously cleaning the house, sometimes well and sometimes almost going to greater lengths to make future cleaning even harder of damn near impossible—or even causing permanent damage, and I take the hits.

Yep, every partner in some way, shape, or form dealt with it. My current partner helps but has seen me so emotionally moved by their help that it inspires me to literally scrub down bathrooms to the point where I consider actually offering my services to air bnb hosts in the upstate area that I live, especially considering my current financial situation Most of them, even the not-so-great ones, just found a system that helped me and didn’t make me feel so ashamed.

My assistants, god bless them all, like my current one

Caitlyn

, and the many, many other employees in the past and god willing into the longer future have all found or are findings ways to just prevent me from even making things worse. That’s just because they know my mind, and the truth is that my mind is elsewhere, and that elsewhere is why we all were out working to begin with. Without them though, that elsewhere would be nowhere to found were I to seek it again—ideas need execution, and that’s another reason people with disabilities and any kinds of gifts are especially prey to eye-watering high overheads that, to us, are just a day’s bills. It’s worth it if it means I can be elsewhere, which is where I am needed and where I belong.

The elsewhwere is life, and as an artist, essentially, you are an observer. I know a lot of cannibalizing writers/artist who take other peoples lives and make their stories theirs, and I love the ones who bitch and moan about other artists doing this and then I come to see them do this very thing but with such malice and contempt, watching them sit and wonder why maybe things aren’t working out for them. It’s always everyone else’s fault, and I remember being like this when I lacked a richer, inner life, or an elsewhere.

I do remember that I mentioned during the first show at Deluxx Fluxx that I thought it was kind of gross how songwriters can write about people they know in certain ways and not have to deal with liferights issues, just on principle alone. Maybe that’s a weird take, but whatever. I take other people’s stories way more seriously than other people do because it’s weird to, I don’t know, date people and then write about them and place themselves as the victim and walk around insulated by their enormous wealth and command of the industry (read: fear). I also have decent manners—actually, depending on the situation, very good ones but I also don’t have much of a filter, and I don’t really care much about that either these days—and I also think that respecting other peoples’ stories is maybe what people who receive really good medical care, therapy practiced with professionals who teach you structure and respect for your private life which in turn leads you to at least become a bit more respectful of others’, though everyone loves to gossip (who is bored and typically boring). That show on April 28th in NYC, by the way, I loved, and it was was received so well that about 4/5ths of the audience left and a bunch of people decided to call me insane. Oh, I thought, no big deal.

Unfortunately, yes. In the background, the turmoil it caused for many people in my life and the impact it has had on my business is **a really big deal**, and none of that has anything to do with a show being bad because, trust me, if the show weren’t there, we wouldn’t be booking the fuck out of the next two years—as in, no one would want me. As to how it has affected the people who love me and who love _and_ work with me, even at the top levels, trust me: these people have my best interest in mind. It has effects that are sometimes even provable.

They can keep it up, because it’s just making my tireless fight to flood the zone with consistent messaging a kind of hobby at this point, but it is such a waste of time. I never thought I was going to have to do this, at least to this extent. I suppose it’s making it that much more invigorating. I knew it would be impossible for the average Joe, Jen, or Jezu to think to even imagine that the guy who makes the very calm, easygoing music under the Passion Pit moniker could, even in good health, maybe be a pretty wild and weird guy. Who is trying to have fun. And is a nerd. And dare I say sensitive.

But all my new music reflects not my “inner demons,” a way of describing mental illness that, as a stickler, I think would pretty much be a fantastic way of describing schizophrenia, which is devastating. Oh, I have problems, but I wouldn’t say I am problematic. I am extremely stubborn, I am not great with communication (thought I belabor this point and seek to find ways to resolve conflicts that arise due to this, almost to no avail), and the things I do take personally do not feel like the same way as all the things—pretty much everything ever—that would happen or be said about me that I would take personally. But my lyricism, as many of you have read or heard, projects outwards. Unquestionably, in the opinion of namely my therapist who had initially a literature background, this has been a fun biomarker for me and my maturation to say nothing of wellness.

The three laps around the hotel I am staying at are evidence of what happens when I go elsewhere. I will be using other names and also redacting certain identifying information, but these encounters were so unbelievably beautiful, it’s really impossible to not go into greater detail. I will do my best.

Lap 1
coming soon

Lap 2
coming soon

Lap 3
coming soon