Being in a funk is not funky.

I've been a techie-nerd-man for a long time. Most of my life, actually. In the eighties, I would crack open things like telephones and walkman devices to see how they were made. I had no idea what did what, but I found it interesting.

When I got into web design (around 1997 or so), it was like I found my calling. I obsessed over HTML and CSS, and was profoundly confused by Javascript for years, but nevertheless found it compelling. Building something fun and interesting, like a website with dumb articles and interactive goofiness, was my jam. I ultimately wanted to get into game design, but ended up never quite getting there. I hope to someday.

When any new gaming console, PC hardware, or gadget came out, I obsessed over it. The iPhone announcement twenty years ago blew my fucking mind, and I couldn't wait to get ahold of it, as all other phones at the time were crap. I mean, Blackberry was alright, I guess?

Fast forward to today. With AI, vibe-coding, and other slop infiltrating everything, I just don't feel excited anymore. I feel... useless. I've spent the past thirty years sharpening a skill called web development, and in just a few spins around the sun, anyone can build anything without any skill and deploy it willy-nilly. I see articles where vibe-coders will build something, but can't actually maintain it, and will need actual coders to go in and fix the slop.

Gee, that sounds like fun.

All things considered, I've vented about this a bit with some friends, and one interesting piece of feedback I got was something along the lines of, "You can combine your experience with the vibe-coding and get the best of both worlds." I found that to be a little more motivating, but as it stands now, I feel like I have to allow this frustration to pass through me like a violent bowel movement.

On top of all that, there are jerkbags out there releasing music using AI and collecting royalties from it. If you're one of those people, please stop. PLEASE. Same thing goes for people using AI to design shirts, etc. Stop. We gotta make a living here, y'know? At a show recently, some guy who we've known for a long time (and by "known" I mean "someone we've been acquainted with that's super annoying and is only interested in interacting with us to further boost his career") informed us that he uses AI to write his music now. I wanted to break his face.

I didn't. I wanted to, but I didn't.

The only saving grace for the music world, as of right now, are live shows and physical media. AI cannot take over live shows. It can't. So we're having to steer hard into that and keep making things as human as possible.

So yeah, there you go. I think it's totally possible to pull myself out of this rut, and thankfully all of our shows have been amazing on this run. Matter of fact, as I type this, I'm in Sacramento prepping to go on stage at motherfucking AFTERSHOCK tomorrow to sing about beer, tacos, and farts. AI can't do that. So far...

Thanks for reading my rant. I hope to post more often, but as I've mentioned, it's really tough to feel motivated these days.