A Boy Called Marcello

Posted on January 3, 2026 by max

At the airport, like I always am. 
Not really. I’m writing this at my parents’ kitchen table in Kent. Ever since I decided to turn the blog into a book, I’ve been trying to think of a good way to conclude it. I can feel my thoughts on this topic (whatever that means anymore) running out, and I’m ready to move onto Something Else. But a story isn’t a Story™ unless you come back home, different than before. So I thought as a fun Compare & Contrast moment, maybe I could quote one of my blog posts from a year ago, the way I quote my journal entries.

12/28/24 at 7:26PM (371 days ago)
At the airport, like I always am.

***Wouldn’t that be cute?***
A satisfying way to button it all up. 

No, too tidy, too neat. And it’s not even solid kismet. This year, I’m not going back to the airport until the 30th, not the 28th. So to make this conclusion work, I’ll have to bend some logic— okay, well, I always give it ±3 days for the synchronicity to Count™. And I’m also not flying back to LA, I’m flying to Baltimore to ring in the New Year with my friends. No, this ending doesn’t work. The situations are too different. I think a year ago, I would have forced a pattern here regardless. Turned it into a Story™. I can still see the Story™, but it doesn’t ring true anymore. 
So what does that say? Have I broken out of the Infinite Loop? Am I officially Not Going Insane? 
It seems too convenient. That was all it took? One teensy public self-takedown and now I’m cured? No. The Book’s Not Over Yet.
I’ve mentioned throughout the blog that the name “Max Bennett Kelly” came from the original iteration of my journal that I started when I was 11. I thought, Oh Maybe That’s How I Can End This Book. Maybe let’s resolve the Marcello/Max Bennett Kelly/Max Noir thing. I’ve been reading this years’ blog posts back, poring over the type-setting and jerking off over my Beautifully Interwoven Themes. That sounds like a good ending. That sounds like what it’s been about all along. 
Back in LA, I prepared myself to fly back to Kent for Christmas, where I’d get to my childhood home and dig into the ancient hard drive that held the Old Journal. I knew what I’d find there. I was looking for one specific line I could quote for the book: “It was then that my real self and my idealized self converged.”
I imagined what I’d write.
In the days before the flight, I stayed inside and worked on turning the blog into a book. I didn’t do too much living in case something important happened that would force me to turn some life into the blog. I was banking on this ending. 
When I got back to Kent, Dad warned me that he found the hard drive but it was broken. Well, I was determined to fix it. I carefully broke off the drive from its solders. Then, I ordered a SATA-to-USB cable and waited for it to arrive. While I waited, I holed up in my childhood bedroom. I didn’t see any friends, procrastinated the last of my Christmas shopping. I continued to format the book, add clarity here, emphasis there, context everywhere. When I finished the book, I thought, I could do all that life stuff.
The cable finally arrived, and I booted up the hard drive. I sifted through terabytes of disorganized digital chaos. Mom’s work documents, Sis’s homework, Dad’s projects. I found the folder I was looking for: “Chell’s Stuff.” I quickly scanned over mountains of files from my childhood, searching for the inner folder called “Story Of My Life.” It was hidden in a clever maze my younger self had designed to keep out wandering eyes. If you clicked on the wrong folder, you’d be sent back to the beginning of “Chell’s Stuff.” Without knowing the proper way through, you’d be caught in a loop.

***But if you knew the title, you could just search for it***
I don’t think my younger self expected that I’d be the one breaking in. 

The Old Journal was last modified 8/11/2011, when I was 14 years old. It was organized into 10 sections: a Prologue, Parts 1-8, and an Epilogue. Each section was divided into Chapters. The Prologue (Chapters 1-9) was a retrospective, covering my birth up until it caught up with the present-tense narrative, which was Parts 1-8. Parts 1-8 were written, then, in real-time, starting from the eighth grade. Events in my adolescent life were diarized into Chapters, and key milestones would motivate the beginning of a new Part. Part 8 covered through the end of high school, Chapter 64. The Epilogue contained a single, unnumbered Chapter.
The writing in the Old Journal was littered with the seeds of the voice I’d later use to write what you are reading now. Capitalized Phrases to denote my theories and concepts. My crushes’ real names substituted with Codenames. The most important moments of my young life, retrofit and retold and reorganized into a Story™.
The bulk of the Prologue was spent lamenting on being an outcast in the social hierarchy of early grade school. I portrayed myself as a “nerd” who longed to be one of “cool kids” who would hang out at the monkey bars at recess. In-narrative, they were called the Monkey Bar Kids, or MBKs for short. I wanted to be an MBK so bad that I backronymed an alter-ego out of those letters. Max Bennett Kelly was the “idealized” version of myself. Everything impossible that I longed to be. Charming, popular, confident, decisive. He was an imaginary friend that only I could see. Early in the story, when a Monkey Bar Kid would bully me, Max would whisper in my ear the perfect comeback to get the lunchroom laughing. As I grew up, and the Old Journal progressed, I relied more and more on Max Bennett Kelly, and less on myself, culminating in Part Four, Chapter 31, titled “A Fairytale Ending.”
In this Chapter, I recounted asking Codename: Jenny Jones to be my girlfriend, the summer before high school started. This Was Love, I narrated. No More Playground Stakes. I let Max Bennett Kelly take over my body and possess me, fully. Chapter 31 contained the quote I was looking for:
“It was then that my real self and my idealized self converged.”
I became one with Max Bennett Kelly and got the girl of my dreams.
Except, that only happened in the Old Journal. In real life, Codename: Jenny Jones rejected me.
Chapter 31 was written in July 2011. The Old Journal was last modified a month after that.
I kept reading ahead. Chapters 32-64 didn’t exist beyond Chapter titles with brief outlines. They were predictions of story beats that would happen through the rest of my life. Projections based on the trajectory of the story of my life thus far.
Part Five would start with a chapter called “A Memoir, If You Will” that, once written, would supposedly be about how I decided to turn my life into a memoir. 
Part Six would be about losing touch with Jevandre and Michael.
Part Seven would be about fully embracing my dream of being an artist.
Part Eight would be about that dream falling apart and my subsequent cynical outlook on life. It would conclude with Chapter 64, “Understanding What Love Is And Why It Doesn’t Exist.”
The single, unnumbered Chapter in the Epilogue would be called “A Boy Called Marcello” and would be about “wishing I could have the lost time back; a sense of closure, parting ways and wherever the latter may lead; heart vs. home.”
I read the secrets of the universe, just as I had written them in the stars a decade and a half ago. Here it was— the beginning of the Infinite Loop. I had the time and date now. I could finally go back, to the moment right before Max Bennett Kelly took over. So I reached in and killed him, mangled him, ate him, before he could do any of that to me. My younger self went home and deleted the Old Journal. The Prophecy was never foretold because it was never written. My younger self grew up as his real self and was happy. I smiled for him, because that’s exactly what I would have done if it was me.
The End.

***Yeah***
That’s exactly how I’d want to end it.

Except, that only happened in the blog.
This is just the way I turned it into a story, for you to read. The reality is messier, harder to understand, less neat, less elegant. But the reality is the truth.
I real life, once I broke into the hard drive, I found the Chapter outlines. But I couldn’t find any of the stuff about Max Bennett Kelly. How? I remembered writing it. I needed to find him so I could bring him to justice. I pulled out another old computer from the closet. Maybe Max Bennett Kelly was in this one. He has to be. But the computer wouldn’t turn on either. I was bloodthirsty. I started cracking the computer open. I’d bring the shattered pieces to a repair store after Christmas and they’d be able to give me the files. Then I could go in and find the beginning so I could find the end. I just wanted the book to be over, so I could move on with my life. The Infinite Loop.
I stopped myself.
I couldn’t put the screwdriver in the computer. I just couldn’t do it. I was too tired for another autopsy.
I was on the floor of the office when Mom came in to remind me to get ready for Christmas Eve Mass with the family. I didn’t want to go, because the ending of my book was ruined, and I needed to finish this book, because it’s the most important thing in the entire world.
What must it be like to be around me?
Mom reminded me to get ready for church. I had been free to get lost in my own rabbit hole for hours because I knew, subconsciously, she’d do the work to be responsible and remind me to get ready. I’m going to be 29 soon.
What must it be like to love me?
I thought of every woman who ever did, and wondered when each one realized I had turned them into a character in my story. The story I was speeding through to get to an ending I had pre-written for myself, long ago. I don’t think I knew I was doing this. But how could I have missed it? Thousands of journal entries over hundreds of pages.
Am I a narcissist?
It’s the big, scary word this book has been circling around for 200 pages, but I somehow never wrote it down.
Mom reminded me to get off the floor, so I got ready for church.
Father Carlos’ homily was strangely pertinent, but everything is strangely pertinent when you’ve spent a lifetime shoehorning symmetry. He talked about randomness, and how easy it is to feel purposeless at times when life seems like nothing more than a roll of the dice. I could feel myself narrativizing — Maybe This Would Be A Great Ending — but then I realized I was missing what he was trying to say, so I tried to listen. I couldn’t pretend any longer that Father Carlos was speaking only to me. Everyone who congregated here today came with some variation of the Big Question, and they were all living lives in search of the Big Answer. Maybe some of them found it with Father Carlos. God provides a single Grand & Ultimate Answer to any Big Question that could ever be Asked. That story sounded tempting, now. I started writing my own story to find my own Big Answer, and what I found were Tiny Answers that answered the Tiny Questions I had. And then I found some more Questions, and had to find some more Answers. Maybe that’s all there is. Maybe That’s The Real Big Answer All Along.

***The Infinite Loop will return in True Modern Romance 2***
Oh God, please don’t let me write a sequel.

Ah, the old ouroboros. Who am I to stop the snake? I am no Adam or Eve, and even they couldn’t do it. We’ve taken the apple and now all we can do is eat it.

　·　　　.　　　　★　　　✵　　*　　　.　　　　☆•　　　　　　★　　　°　　　•

We got home from church, Mom and Dad and I, and we watched a movie. My parents still live in the same house Sis and I grew up in. I realized I had never asked them why they chose this house to raise a family in, so I asked them now. They told me it was because the upstairs had three bedrooms, so that we could all sleep near each other, and also because it had a basement, so as Sis and I grew up we could hang out downstairs and they could have their own space upstairs. They could have bought a newer house, Mom and Dad said, but they chose this 70’s split-level because it had a big backyard and was in a neighborhood with other kids for Sis and I to meet. They told me this with a sense of casual pragmatism, as if the enormity of their decision hadn’t reverberated for the next three decades.
Did they know that the neighborhood kids would end up starting a band with me? Did they know one of those kids would end up marrying Sis? Did they know that the art supplies in the basement would birth a dream I’d still be chasing, 25 years later?
I told Mom and Dad that AWAL dropped me, but I had a plan, and I’d never stop chasing this dream of mine that was actually an extension of the dream they had for me.
Dad said that if I ever woke up and didn’t want to do music anymore, that he and Mom would have my support in that, too.
But I can’t stop— didn’t he see that? The dream is all there is.
“I used to dream of making movies,” Dad said, “I used to dream of winning the Super Bowl. But now I have this dream where I’m running…” That was all he could get out, because then he started crying, and Mom started crying, and then I started crying. I’ll never know what the rest of the dream was, because all he could get out was, “…and at the end, none of that matters, because I’m just so proud that I raised a good man.”
Am I, Dad?
Mom and Dad fell in love when they were in high school, and forty years later they still hold hands in the grocery store. Mom and Dad are the true romantics in this modern world. Mom and Dad are the exception. I wondered aloud if this path I am on will prevent me from ever having what they have. “Maybe it’s okay if I don’t find it on my own,” I said, “because I am lucky enough to have ever felt it at all.”
Dad pulled me in for a hug, and he said, “I just realized I never gave you a big hug after you and Ella broke up.” This is ridiculous, because he had, a hundred times over, given me a hug about this. But I don’t think I ever hugged him back, properly. Not in a way that said, Yeah Dad I’m Sad. But I’ll Be Okay. 
In my father’s dream, he was running, something happened, and when he stopped running he raised who he thought was a good man. In my life that’s really a dream, I’ve been running, too, and I wonder if I’ll ever stop.

the end
-mbk

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After The Long Dream

Posted on December 29, 2025 by max

I just had the craziest dream.
My childhood band moved down to LA, but a worldwide pandemic happened and they all moved back home so I went solo, not long afterwards my song went viral on the same day my best friend committed suicide, and before I could catch my breath I started dating an actress and we traveled the world together, then we moved in together, then we broke up and I started a blog.

***Dreams, right?***
They’re impossible to piece together after you wake up.

After the long dream, my lawyer emailed me to tell me that the label wasn’t going to pick up the option for Codename: EP3. I knew from the jump that it was a Hail Mary, a 17.3% percent chance of success according to my Neuralink, but there was so much money on the table that I would be Remiss not to put 4 months’ rent into recording, mixing and shooting the promo video on 16mm film. And I am severely overpaying for my rent.
Clev called me to say, Damn Dude Did You See Rachel’s Email? AWAL Declined The Option. Before I could respond to him, I Stepped Outside.

　·　　　.　　　　★　　　✵　　*　　　.　　　　☆•　　　　　　★　　　°　　　•

In my dream, after the rest of the band went home, it was just Spud and I left in the Melrose house with Clev and Devon. It was the third house I’d lived in with Spud, after we had to kick him out of the previous two. We knew he had to Get The Fuck Out of this house, too, the smelly bastard, but we understood that a third time is probably a bit more permanent so we held off. In truth, I was scared. I didn’t want to cut Spud off. He was my friend. Was. But when the time came, I called him to tell him to get out of our lives once and for all. Before he could respond, I Stepped Outside.
I had the strangest physical sensation. An Optical Illusion. It looked like a dolly zoom in a Hitchcock movie, where the background retreats as the foreground stays in place. In front of me, the patterns in the asphalt wiggled and the trees at the end of the block pinned themselves to a vanishing point beyond the horizon. It was like a rift in spacetime, a pruning of a branching path. It was the visual representation of a fearful Possibility collapsing into dreadful Outcome.
The next time I Stepped Outside and experienced this sensation was about a year later, but it only felt like moments in dream-time. Jevandre’s mom called me and told me he had died. Her and I had just talked the night before, concerned about Jevandre’s declining mental health, and agreed to keep an eye out. My friends were at my house, gawking at the numbers going up, up, up on the TikTok we had made the day before. I couldn’t face them, tell them that the Possibility had just become the Outcome. So I Stepped Outside, and watched the trees run away from me again as I circled the block.
A little later on in the dream, or maybe years later – it’s so hard to tell – I got home from a trip I took to Wales to visit Codename: Didi. I unpacked my luggage in the house in Silver Lake that we shared, and the closet was too big and my clothes would never fill it, no matter how much I made a mess and left them strewn everywhere. In the dream – and by this point I knew it was a dream – I prayed that Codename: Didi didn’t already notice the same Possibility that I did. I didn’t want her or I to wake up. It was such a nice dream. But a few days later, she called me and told me she thought we should break up before she got home. We cried and cried, but we also laughed in relief because we both knew it needed to happen, or maybe it already happened and we were just pointing it out. Dream logic. After we hung up, I Stepped Outside and looked back at the house with the red door, and the Possibility of our life pulled far, far away into another Outcome.

***Does anyone else dream about phone calls?***
It really is that damn phone.

A few months ago, when the Lion’s Gate Portal opened, I burned Four Worldly Attachments representing the Four Horsemen of The Defining Forces Of My Life.
1 Object for The Old Band – a flyer from a show we played in Arizona.
1 Object for Jevandre’s death – a page from a journal he bought me.
1 Object for “Happy, Healthy” – a letter from Netflix (long story).
1 Object for Codename: Didi – a list she made of all the reasons she loved me.
Each of these Objects corresponded with the three1 dolly zooms in my long dream where Magic and Destiny and Romance and Ideals stretched until they broke and left me with Machines and Coincidence and Mundanity and Truth. I burned them because I wanted to be released from my lingering dreams within dreams of longing for the impossible Possibility of different Outcomes. You Cannot Go Back In Time.
I guess getting Real Witchy With It worked, because in the dream-time since then I’ve flushed out any remnants of the Four Horsemen.

***In no particular order:***
Because that’s how dreams go:

When Jevandre died, our Pact died. We were in this together. What was keeping me doing music now that my brother was gone? I was so afraid that I was going to end up like him, once I gave up my purpose. Once I realized that there is no purpose, there’s just living, and there’s really no living, there’s just dying. There’s a certain unshakeable logic to madness, and I went down the rabbit hole further than I want to admit. I’ve thought about it, too, going to follow him where he went. But when I let go of the Pact, earlier this dream-year, I realized I was selfishly holding onto a spirit that wanted peace so desperately that it resorted to violence. I was turning his death into my burden. I let Jevandre rest, and began living for myself.
This dream-fall, I finished Codename: EP3, which sounds like The Old Band. It’s full of songs about Arizona, our youth, our dreams of LA. They were my oldest friends, and I haven’t been able to make any new ones since. The last of my youth slipped away from me before I got to say goodbye. LA had become a nightmare. But lately, I’ve been in this new friend group, and I love them so much, and we’ve been going out and laughing like kids, and LA is suddenly what I always wanted it to be, and I don’t feel so lonely anymore.
A few dream-days ago, Codename: Didi called me out of nowhere, unceremoniously breaking No Contact. I knew at some point we would talk again, and I had been building up everything I wanted to say to her, everything I had learned. But instead, we just talked about Milo. There was no catharsis, no answers. But I wasn’t upset. I didn’t need any of that. I had already said everything I needed to say in my last blog post. I had already decided True Modern Romance was over. We talked about the dog, and she was just Ella again, and I was just Marcello, and that was how our story ends.
After “Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted” I got a manager(s), then another manager, then another manager(s). I got a hotshot lawyer, I had all these fans, I got a record deal. I started hating music. In the dream-time since, all the manager(s) left, and now Clev is my manager. My slimy lawyer left, and now I have Rachel, who is a rock and a real hotshot. I haven’t made a hit like “Happy, Healthy” since, and all the fickle fans are gone, and now I have all these new fans who I actually connect with. I started making music I love again, rather than music I thought I had to make, and now I love making music again. All of the things “Happy, Healthy” had so quickly brought to me that I so willingly welcomed, regardless of how ill-fitting they were– all gone. Except for the record deal.

***Clev called me to tell me AWAL dropped me***
And I woke up from the long dream.

Before I could respond to him, I Stepped Outside. In the few steps it took me to get from my kitchen to the front door, I mentally prepared for every fearful Possibility to collapse into its respective dreaded Outcome.
I was relying on the money to pay off my debt, and now I’m going to be broke.
I’m going to be broke, so I’m going to have to get a job.
I’m not just going to have to get a job, I’m going to have to get a full-time job to pay for my overpriced rent.
I’m going to have to break the lease because there’s no way I can pay for my overpriced rent.
I’m going to have to go bankrupt and sell all of my music catalogue.
I’m going to have to go home.
I’m going to have to quit music.
I’m going to have to quit.
I’m going to quit.
I quit.
I Stepped Outside and looked at the trees, expecting them to dolly zoom into the horizon. But they didn’t. The palm trees sang to me. There was a wind, a violent maelstrom. It blew through their leaves and they rustled and screamed. They flung their branches at my face and down the street and into parked cars. Dust devils picked up littered cigarettes and receipts. I watched them dance in the air. I watched the lights flicker in the houses as the wood bowed and creaked. The wind, so angry, so raging, so alive.
I knew it was Jevandre.

5/11/22 at 1:07PM (1,328 days ago)
what is my goal?
nothing to do with plays. nothing to do with music. my goal is to be in charge of my own destiny. the wind is blowing harder than it’s ever blown right now. in solidarity.
maybe it’s you, jevandre. god, please. god please let it be you. i know what happened when you lost control of your own destiny. i cannot let it happen to me.
thank you. thank you jevandre for the sign. the power of the wind. i can do this.
5/4/23 at 3:24AM (971 days ago)
i feel it again.. the wind blowing. yes, jevandre, i know it’s you. i feel it as clearly as that day in santa monica a week after you died. i looked out into the ocean, the sunset and (in my mind) screamed as loud as i could- “til we meet again, brother!”
6/23/24 at 1:11PM (554 days ago)
and to my brother- i still feel you in the wind, three years later. lots to catch up on when i see you again

Don’t ask me how I know it was Jevandre, in the wind, all these times. Maybe it’s not True. But I Know it’s him. Sometimes, you just have to suspend your disbelief.
We live in a world that worships Truth above all else, because modernity is terrifyingly complex and tangled, and Truth is answers and certainty and safety. Truth is hard-earned but often falls apart when you look at it too closely. What then? Truth is subjective, Truth fails. So in the few sacred moments in my life where I Know something that may not be True, you better not fucking ask me how.
You Can’t Just Give Up Now, the wind yelled at me as it raged, Stay On The Path Goddammit.
Jevandre crossed truth and transgressed reality, traveled backwards through the Lion’s Gate Portal against dimensional planes and existential boundaries, pushing the black stone wall across lightyears of spacetime to deliver me a gust of wind with this message:
Don’t You Dare Quit.
This had nothing to do with the Pact. This wasn’t me holding onto his memory as it tried its best to fade away. This wasn’t me co-opting his death as part of my own life’s story. I’d already let all that go. No, this was my brother, slapping me in the face to wake me up, telling me to keep going. Telling me, You May Have Let Me Go But You Better Not Fucking Forget About Me. Two Plural Truths. Can You Handle The Dissonance Kuya? Suspend Your Disbelief.
All this, he said to me in the wind, and after a year of machines and skepticism I shut up and listened. I held out my arms and let the wind run through me, to feel his embrace, because just like I Knew it was him, I also Knew it was the last time I’d be hearing from him before he returned through the Lion’s Gate and fell back to sleep forever.
The wind didn’t stop. Turns out Jevandre wasn’t going to go quiet into that goodnight, he was going to rage, rage. It was his Final Guest Appearance, after all. The wind kept slapping me in the face and throwing dust in my eye so I got in the Mustang and drove, anywhere, nowhere.
Hollywood was chaos. The wind had knocked over a palm tree and there was a traffic jam, police sirens and firetrucks and people honking as Jevandre thrashed and laughed his maniacal, mischievous belly laugh in that particular way I could never quite put into words.
I weaved into the shoulder lane and drove to the diner to see Jess. She asked if I was okay. I was crying because of the dust in my eye but also because I was just crying. I ordered a tuna melt. The diner was busy, so we didn’t really get to talk much, but she asked what I got up to today.
“AWAL didn’t pick up the option,” I told her.
Jess waited for my reaction before saying anything. I think she expected me to fall apart, and I expected to fall apart, too, but I didn’t.
“How do you feel?” she asked carefully.
I didn’t answer, but I knew how I felt. The long dream was over. There were no more branching paths. The Other Shoe had dropped, but there was no dolly zoom. No fearful Possibility collapsing into a dreaded Outcome. Because this wasn’t a dreaded Outcome. This was, secretly, in my truth within Truth that you cannot deny but simply Know, the Outcome I wanted all along.

***How did I feel?***
“I feel freeeeeeee.”

Spoiler alert: Codename: EP3 is called Eternal Underdog. This was always going to be how it went. It was written in the stars, in the place outside time where ideas are born. Eternal Underdog was never going to be released by a “distribution company” owned by multinational megaconglomerate Sony so disingenuously named “AWAL: Artists Without A Label.”
Eternal Underdog was always going to be the story of everything falling apart, the Other Shoe dropping, and picking up the pieces and fighting, raging against everything I fucking hate. Being Realistic™. Growing Up™. Getting What You Get And Not Throwing A Fit™. I’m going to throw a fucking fit. I’m the Quit Your Day Job guy, at the end of the day. And it’s the end of the day. I Am No Longer A Hypocrite.
“Jesus, do you see that wind?” Arda, the other server, pointed outside where Jevandre was still howling and screaming and gnashing and clawing.
I Stepped Outside to join him, and Knew that I wasn’t going to stop fighting either. Even when he did, even when the wind stops.
I drove home and there was still a traffic jam, palm trees were still flying everywhere, and people were honking and sirens were wailing and the cacophony continued as I went to bed. I let Jevandre’s ghost haunt me to sleep, because I knew I wouldn’t hear from him for a long time.
‘Til we meet again, brother!
When I woke up, it wasn’t from a dream into another dream, it was into my life, and I sat down and started making a plan.

FOOTNOTES:
1. “Happy, Healthy” and Jevandre happened on the same day, so it was a 2-for-1 reality distortion.

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True Modern Romance

Posted on December 18, 2025 by max

Dear Codename: Didi,

I thought about you this morning. What are you doing? What are you up to? Where are you living now?
I trained with Milo today — played, really — we practiced sit, lay down, roll over, and paw. We did some threshold training by the door. He’s been naughty and reactive, but I’m not worried about him. He’s a good boy.
I just got back from New York. This was my first trip back where I didn’t go see any of our old haunts. And by our old haunts, I mean places you used to visit when you lived there, before LA. You would take me to them every trip. McCarren park. The Christmas market at Union Square. Smorgasburg. The first time we went to New York, you had to get me a slice of Joe’s Pizza. Do you remember?
In the Uber from the airport, you had the driver stop, but it wasn’t Joe’s Pizza, just some shitty $1.50 slice shop. But out of awkwardness, we went in and got the pizza anyway, and didn’t tell him it was the wrong place. Then you took me to the actual Joe’s you’d go to, on Bedford, and I took a picture of you eating your white slice. You posted it on Instagram, and were upset the owner (Joe?) didn’t add it to the photo wall.
I went back this trip and he hasn’t added any new pictures to the wall at all, so I don’t think it was personal. By the way, I don’t really count the Bedford Joe’s as one of our haunts. The shitty $1.50 slice shop would count though, lol.
I can’t believe I haven’t spoken to you since May! So much has happened. I hate to say it, and I hope you don’t take offense to this, but I don’t feel like my real life started until we went No Contact. I mean this as no shade, or disrespect, or insult towards you, and I hope you don’t take it the wrong way. After we broke up, I was just kind of… around. Waiting. I had no idea how to process any of it.
I thought I was doing okay, because I wasn’t freaking out or anything. It’s like in The Year of Magical Thinking, after John Dunne died, and Joan Didion knew there was shit she had to get done, and the guy at the hospital told her she was acting like a “cool customer.” I was a pretty cool customer after our breakup.
I didn’t want to write any songs about you. That felt disrespectful somehow. Like, we had this real thing, and I didn’t want to turn it into just another art piece. I also knew that if I released any of them, it would feel like an incursion on your privacy, putting it all out into the world there in the way I do (sorry about the blog).
God, your life must be so different now! Where are you spending Christmas? Did you get to travel anywhere fun? Did you have a nice summer in London? I know you’ve been wanting to go back for a while. I remember, back in the old days, we had this sort of hazy plan that I was going to come live in London with you at some point. I didn’t necessarily want to, but I would have followed you anywhere. Plus, I knew how homesick you were. Hell, I felt it when I lived in Hackney with you for that month.
As for me, this has been such a rich, vivid year. I feel like I have so much to tell you! When we were living together, agh, I hate looking back on it, I was such a mess. I was at the valley of a long depressive spiral that started a few months before we met. I’m just coming out of it now. You met me right as I was slipping into it.
Oh, those first few months were so happy, though! Before you had to go away for work, when you had all that time off, I thought our life was going to be like that forever. We’d spend all day just doing random stuff together, it felt so good to be around someone you could spend all day with. We got Covid shots together, do you remember? I got so sick, haha, you made me Magic Soup. We’d do Home Depot projects. We used to go out and dance at El Cid a ton, or do movie nights with Jess and Clev. We would laugh and laugh and talk and talk.
But eventually, you had to go off to work, and I had to get back to work, too. I didn’t want to! Haha. I was so lazy. Back then, I really thought being an artist meant I was entitled to just lay around and do nothing all day, waiting for inspiration to strike. It obviously didn’t work… I didn’t make much music that year, that first year we were together.
But I did make “Junk Male.” When you were off filming, remember? I remember calling you, frustrated, while you were at work, to vent about how I was losing my mind over some EQ thing or vocal take or something. I’m sorry about that, you had just a few minutes of lunch break and I used it all up. Thanks for listening, always.
Eventually, I finished “Junk Male,” though. That was in my first apartment, in Hollywood, remember that place? You hated it, hahaha. I wonder what you’d think of my new place. It’s beautiful, I have this upstairs loft with a spiral staircase, and this giant sweeping window that lets in a ton of light. It kinda reminds me of your Hackney flat, actually. It’s in Hollywood, which again I know you hate, but I swear it’s in a good spot, it’s a house (did I mention that!) and there’s street parking and it’s away from the boulevard.
I’ve been really enjoying making music here, which makes me really happy. Elephant in the room— have you listened to True Modern Romance? I made it for you! Just kidding, I made it for myself, I know that now.
I thought I was making a breakup album, but it wasn’t that, not really. There were elements of our life in there, some scattered lines. But it didn’t feel like our breakup did. I made it too soon after we ended, I didn’t have enough clarity to write about it yet. And worse, I was WAY too internally stifled to actually let any real emotion out or find any catharsis.
I made a whole EP since then, Codename: EP3, and that one was a HUGE unblockage! It’s mostly songs I wrote before meeting you, some during when we were together, and one from after. It’s like a snapshot of the last five years of my life, in all its weird uncanny glory and fury.
But now that that’s out of the way, I’m writing a ton of new music again. Who would have thought? You gotta actually FINISH the stuff you start before you’re rewarded with new inspiration! A lot of the new music has been about you again, weirdly, an EP later. I wonder what you’d think of the songs. They’re a lot more unfiltered and unhinged; they feel really vulnerable in a way that True Modern Romance didn’t.
True Modern Romance as a project, I think, was defined by its inability to be vulnerable. Looking back on it, that’s the thing I was actually exploring. Not how a breakup feels. But how a breakup changes you. How everything becomes so unclear, the status quo so irreversibly shook, your mind so broken, that to delve further into it is just begging for a mental breakdown. I welcomed it. I went down the rabbit hole.
I made a whole bunch of stuff for you (well, for True Modern Romance). I wanted to explore our breakup in a way that respected your privacy, that put all the onus on me, focused on my own part in it. I think I did a good job.
I made this character, Max Noir, you would’ve hated that guy, haha. But he was my reflection of who I became towards the end of our relationship, and especially after. This guy who’d rather get lost in the rabbit hole than accept that he’s in pain. Refusing to be vulnerable. “Investigating” the state of love, and how it “died” in the modern world, desperate to find some grand unified theory just to rationalize why his love ended.
Max Noir was the perfect vessel for how easy and tempting it is to push people away by overanalyzing life and calling it “self awareness.” I explored this character through the music videos, through the short film, through the webseries, and through the blog, sorta. The blog is more of a mixed voice between Max Noir, Max Bennett Kelly and me. That’s the only one of these mediums I’ve been really consistent with. I know you used to read it, but probably haven’t since No Contact. I think I’m going to turn it into a book now! I remember you were writing a book, a few actually, and so many scripts, I wonder if you’re still doing that. I want you to write the Uhaul script, that would be awesome!
Anyways, True Modern Romance is over now. I had that moment of clarity in the shower at Caleb and Curraun’s in the Upper East Side. What a relief! It was like, “my investigation into modern love has reached its end. And… I’ve found no conclusions.” Haha! How ironic.
Suddenly, in that shower, love made total sense to me again. It made NO sense to me after we broke up. Our relationship started the way I thought love was supposed to go, all fate and coincidence and flowers and road trips. But the way we ended made me question everything I’ve ever known about romance.
I’ve tried putting this thought into so many fancy terms over the last year and a half, but ultimately it boils down to this: I couldn’t comprehend that sometimes, love just doesn’t work out.
I was always under the impression that it was the world that got in the middle of love. Love is this unbreakable, primordial force, and the only thing that could ever destroy it was circumstance.
I loved people before you— Codename: Monstro, in high school. But when I had to go away to college, the love had to end. That was sad, but it made sense to me. After that, I loved Codename: Apples, but then she had to go to grad school and I had to go to LA and that was sad, too, but it also made sense.
You and I though, we tried, we really tried. Ours was the only relationship I’ve ever had that crossed over into multiple different phases of life. So logically, I thought our love was stronger than circumstance. But… it just wasn’t working, despite our best efforts, for so many reasons. I know them and I know you know them.
That doesn’t mean the love didn’t exist, though. If anything, that fight was just proof of how much we DID love each other. Because we tried to make it work despite everything. Endless long distance. Work schedules. Financial differences. Conflicting future plans. Families in two countries. We were just not set up for success, and yet we made it work for two and a half years! Gotta give credit where credit is due.
I don’t blame us, anymore, for having to throw in the towel. But I did, for a long time. After that, I wanted to blame circumstance, the way I did with the others. But there was no going away to school for us.
So then I spent the year blaming whatever I could. I blamed the world, I blamed modernity, I blamed technology, I blamed movies, I blamed the industrial revolution, I blamed the first caveman who ever brought a shiny rock to his cave lady, I blamed entropy, I blamed God, I blamed all these things and called them the “machine.”
This idea scared me, but I couldn’t shake it. I desperately wanted to disprove that the machine existed, so… I went on a ton of dates to prove that love was still out there in the world. The investigation begins! Lol. I remember you having some uneasiness about our relationship, because you thought I had never done any real “dating.” How was I supposed to know how any of this worked? I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but now I totally do.
Every time I had ever gone on a date before this year, it had always turned into a full-blown relationship, or at least a months-long fling. I was sheltered, in that regard. But now, I know how hard it really is out there. It’s brutal! Jesus, you’re out there in the cold with the wolves. Stupid small talk, shallow connections, $20 cocktails, see ya!
None of these dates went anywhere. And thus, I proved that the “machine” was real, that love was doomed, there’s nothing out there for me anymore. I really did already have the great love of my life, and anything else beyond you was just empty and purposeless.
I can’t lie, though– I did have a ton of fun. I thought that was some solace, at least. So I just kept going, seeing a ton of people, never progressing anywhere with them or committing fully, just enjoying the giggles and sex and thrills. But all the time, I was thinking about the machine. And worse, thinking about how I was another one of its great mechanical arms. I was the problem.
There was this girl I was talking to for a few months this year, Codename: Annie, who lives in New York. I found the long distance to be romantic with her. Not hard like it was for us. It was so low stakes, more flirty pen pals than anything. The physical distance kept us at a safe emotional distance. But we did have a real connection and I did really like her.
I saw her when I was in New York this last time, though, and this time it was just so obvious to me that her and I were going nowhere. We had our differences, and I couldn’t bring myself to reconcile them. It wasn’t going to work, even though it was fun. It’s gotta be more than just fun. There’s gonna be hard parts, too. And if I’m not willing to work through the hard parts together, then it’s just going to go nowhere, and I’m gonna keep running in circles like the wolves.
This all hit me like a truck in the shower, like I said. “Oh, yeah, DUH.” Like… I’ve been approaching this whole thing wrong. I thought the hard parts were why you and I ended, and maybe there was some perfect immaculate love out there that would be immune to anything tearing it apart. A child’s thought. I’m not going to find love on these dates when the only reason I’m even going on them is to try to prove that love exists. Love is abundant, and all powerful, but it’s also fragile and fickle. And it’s not going to debate with the skeptic.
So yeah, that all makes sense to me again, now. Thanks True Modern Romance! You reminded me of what I already knew. Lol.
I learned so, so much about love and dating this year. And about the world. I traveled a ton this year. That was something I never really did at all, before we met. My family always hung out back in Kent. I found it depressing there, which is why I went somewhere sunny for college.
I thought it was only the weather, but I eventually started thinking the reason people are depressed there is because it sucks to live in the suburbs. Do you remember on our first date, you told me that people in London are depressed, too? I thought, how could anyone be depressed in a city?
You told me that the reason people in London are depressed is because of all the starchy and greasy foods they eat when they’re cold, and because it’s always cold, they’re always eating starchy and greasy foods, so they’re always depressed. You were so ferocious about this. I knew I loved you, then. I remember looking at you and thinking, I’m gonna marry this girl, and I’m gonna tell this story at our wedding. Some time later, I remember telling you I had part of my wedding speech planned, and you were dying to know what it was, and I always kept it secret. Well, now you know.
At the Original Pancake House, in Kent, we got breakfast with my parents. Do you remember? We were all laughing about something, and my mom saw the way I looked at you. When you went to the bathroom, she said, “Chell. You have to marry that girl.” I’ll be honest, Codename: Didi, I thought I was going to. You thought so too, from the beginning. Since day one. You hated when I, or anyone else, would call you my “girlfriend,” because you were “my wife.”
I remember one time, maybe many times, at our house in Silver Lake, you would put on an outfit in the mirror and look at me and say, “look how hot your wife is.”
Do you remember that?
Do you remember which outfit it was?
I think the biggest thing I learned this year, or maybe I’ve ever learned in my life, is that sometimes, things just don’t go as planned. Your career goes in directions you can’t control. Friendships have unexpected ends. You can’t just make things work with anyone. Life just happens.
In retrospect, I think it’s so amazing that we made it work as long as we did. Especially with all the forces in the world pitted against us. That’s something special. But that’s why it felt so dramatic, so tragic, so cosmically significant when we broke up. It was so intense I thought that it must have been some uniquely devastating experience. But now… I don’t think so. I think a breakup of that magnitude would affect anyone the way it did to me. I mean, two and a half years would make anyone go crazy. I guess I’m just more willing to go crazy than anyone else.
I’m much stronger, now, because of it. I think you’d be proud of me. I really turned my life around. This year was really, really hard, day-to-day, but when I look back on the scrapbook pictures I took, I think, “wow, this may have been the funnest year of my life.” It was the first year I ever really lived. It makes me sad when I say that, though, because it was my first year without you in a really long time.
I don’t know when it will be, but I know we’ll catch up at some point, and we’ll have this insane journey to share with each other. I cannot WAIT to hear what a crazy adventure you’ve had this last year. Or, I can’t wait to hear that you’ve found peace and stillness amidst your crazy rockstar life. Either way, I thought of you today, and thought I’d write to you. I really hope you’re doing well!

Love,
Marcello

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The Marcello Rule™

Posted on December 1, 2025 by max

PROLOGUE:

It’s cold on the Upper East Side, but I could wear a T-shirt if I wanted to (I don’t). The leaves are yellow and the breeze over the East River tells me it hasn’t been summer for a long time. It took 9 straight days of drinking to bludgeon out the burnout that built up in my soul like lactic acid. A few of these nights ago, Caleb and I held a socratic seminar on 1st Ave and 89th, brainrot beatniks drinking Beatboxes.

“We’ve been drinking a lot,” we present the First Argument. “But I wouldn’t say anyone is worried about our drinking. How much do you actually have to drink to put yourself in 12-step?” We don’t have time to answer. We have a train to catch, and a Jessica or Katie or Christine to meet.

Later that night, I fly like the wind between Josie’s Bar and Houston, dodging the raindrops. Time slows as I pass Katz’ Deli — it’s remarkable how little interest I have in going inside. There was a gallery event with no art, where I met Rachel on the bathroom line. Instagram acquired. Must go— “I have a date,” and I say no more. The group of us, we scatter like refugees into the night.

When we reconvene, it’s been 2.5 hours but there’s 25 stories to tell. We look older; worse for wear, but smiling. Soldiers, battle-worn, raccoon-eyed, missing hair and lips and limbs. We’ve done our part in the eternal war against entropy, and we’re on the winning side. Must go— “hungry,” and I say no more. Roma’s Pizza is barely open to scrape me together a final chicken-bacon-ranch. Biddy’s welcomes us with open arms; they love me there while the rest of the Upper East Side rejects me. The neighborhood looks at me like they wish they could teleport me to Bushwick with their stares. I’d be fine with that, even past Myrtle-Wyckoff. I’ve reached the weekly maximum on the MTA. I long for a kake udon.

***A childish wine***
I don’t want to go back home to LA.

I’ve figured for a while now that, at some point, I’d have to Grow Up™. I reasoned I didn’t have a choice as to whether or not it happened, but I could at least have some say as to when it did. Therefore, it was in my best interest to delay that as much as possible.

When I was 17, I took AP Calculus BC with Mr. Harp. In his syllabus he instituted a rule where if your grade for the final exam was higher than your current cumulative grade, then your grade for the final would usurp your grade for the class. I saw an Opportunity— what if I did Zero Homework, studied for Zero Tests, and got an A on the final? Work Smarter Not Harder, right? I placed my wager, and lived my year stress-free, blissfully refraining from turning in my weekly homework and making pretty shapes on the Scantron tests. When the time for the final came, the reality of the situation hit me. If I didn’t receive at least a 93% on the final, I wouldn’t get the AP credit, and I’d have to retake the class1. But I knew I could make magic happen— because Things Work Out For Me™. And lo and behold, I receive a 97% and my grade shoots from an F to an A. Mr. Harp honored his word, but from that day forward there was an addendum to the syllabus called the Marcello Rule™: Your final exam score can’t raise your cumulative grade more than a single letter grade. Or, in other words:

***The Marcello Rule™***
There needs to be an upper limit to how much Something you can make out of Nothing.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been mulling over this story about Mr. Harp’s class. It’s the perfect metaphor for how I’ve been operating since… well, since as long as I can remember. I’m always looking for an angle, always trying to squeeze as much Utility as possible out of any exchange with as little effort put into the squeeze itself. The irony is, that at least in the Calculus BC case, by attempting to save myself the stress of daily homework I ultimately created myself more total stress in cramming for the final. I Could Have Just Done The Homework. But where’s the fun in that?

Over 10 years later, here I am in New York, once again cramming for the final. I flew out here to present EP3 to AWAL in the hopes of wooing them and securing my next advance. And I really need the A. Because I haven’t been doing the homework. Let’s spell out the analogy. I should have just gotten a job rather than relying on the advance.

***Hi, I’m Marcello, and I’m an addict***
I’ve been gambling on myself for a decade and the addiction threatens to destroy everything I know and love.

Step 4; made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. In 2021 I was late to an appointment to see Dr. David, my old therapist. In a rush, I parked in the yellow 15-minute zone. When I got up, I told him Sorry I’m Running Late, and he said Why? It’s Your Time You’re Paying For.

I told him, In That Case I Shouldn’t Have Parked In The Yellow Because I Could Have Been An Extra 2 Minutes Later And Wouldn’t Have To Worry About Getting A Ticket.

Dr. David said, Maybe You Should Have, and I realized I never would have done that, because I like parking in the yellow.

I told him, I Just Like The Feeling Of Going Out There And Seeing No Ticket.

Dr. David said, Why Play These Games?

I answer, If I Win I Get To Feel Like I Stuck It To The Man I Guess. But If I Lose I Pay $77. No One Is Watching Me Win And I Only Hurt Myself When I Lose.

***Dr. David said,***
That’ll Be $75.

I’m writing this from JFK Airport Terminal 5 Gate 507. It’s 10:53PM and I’m going to be here until 4:17AM because I missed by 9:20PM flight by 3 minutes. That’s a funny amount of time, because it’s coincidentally the exact same amount of time that I spent outside smoking a cigarette while thinking, “that TSA line doesn’t look too long.”

When you live your entire life parked in the yellow, you live with the constant anxiety that the other shoe could drop at any moment. Well, today I missed my flight, and lately, it’s been feeling like the shoe has, in fact, Dropped. It’s about time, I suppose. I’ve been told my entire life that I’m lucky, that things have a way of working out for me, but it’s always said with a bit of disdain. That’s because while people love winners, they hate cheaters. I’m not “winning” anything. I’m cheating the system.

***And worst of all?***
I’m being cheap.

My Dad is always obsessed with finding what he calls Deals™. This could be a $500 Dodge Neon on Facebook Marketplace or winning a bid on a set of Olympic Ribbons on Goodwill Online. I don’t know if he actually wants to buy these things until he sees them listed for a price that he determines to be a Deal™. In truth, the Neon was a steal. Let’s do Economics and say it created $2000 of Utility while my Dad spent only $500. That’s a $1500 surplus, right? Yeah, that’s the way I always thought about it, too. But I’ve come to realize it’s an illusion. Since my Dad didn’t need a car in the first place, the reality is: He’s Just Out $500.

But to my Dad, and by extension me who we’ll return to, that $500 is a small price to pay to feel like you got a Deal™. A Deal™ is worth everything. It doesn’t matter that when my Dad tried this method again on the Mazda Tribute, he got a lemon. He could still taste the Deal™ of the Neon. When I left Dr. David’s office to find that I hadn’t gotten a parking ticket, every other time I had gotten one paled in comparison to the feeling of that sweet, sweet win. When Mr. Harp implemented the Marcello Rule™, I rode that high long enough to forget all about the week of sleepless nights I had already paid for.

***And now, for my final trick***
I will take out a personal loan for the exact amount of my advance and then pay myself back when I get it.

Yeah, that was stupid. Monumentally stupid. I mean, as far as I can see, the meeting went great and I will re-sign. Amazing. Cool! But that’s not the point. The point is, this time, finally, the stress will outweigh the win. I’m finally disgusted by my actions. I can’t live like this anymore. I’ve gone past the point of no return, the shoe has dropped, I want to learn my lesson. Step 6; were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. I Want To Grow Up.

I don’t want to be a “finesser” anymore. It’s bad Economics. But that makes sense, I also finessed my degree. Ugh. Dr. David was right. The stress of parking in the yellow outweighs the Value of getting away with it because there is no Value in getting away with it. Why didn’t I see it until now? Step 5; admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. The stress of cramming for the Calculus final outweighs the Value in not doing homework every day because the risk of failing the class outweighs the Value in being lazy. Even here, in the airport, did I really want that 3 minutes of a cigarette? Or did I only want to see if I could get away with it just for the sake of getting away with something?

***The shoe drops***
I miss my flight.

When I say I was afraid to Grow Up™, I guess what I really meant was that I was afraid of the other shoe, the way it looms, the way it’s always threatened to drop and squash everything around me. As long as I’ve considered myself lucky, I’ve also known that one day the luck would run out. You can’t beat the house forever. And that would be the moment I would Grow Up™ and face the consequences of my actions. Yeah I know; the whole thing is a landmine of deep-woven narratives and internal biases, because what do I mean “consequences?” I guess, like I was saying before, I feel like I’ve been cheating my entire life. Cheating and gambling. And fucking2. Step 10; continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Ever since I moved to LA I’ve been trying to keep the plates spinning for long enough that some sort of scaffolding magically forms around me that would prevent the plates from ever toppling. What else was I supposed to do? What else had life ever taught me? But one day, you wake up and you’re looking 29 in the eye, and you realize you’re exhausted, and you wish you could put the plates down, but you can’t because you caught yourself in this infernal fucking trap of your own design and now you are cursed with never getting any rest and also never really winning.

Well, I want to win, for real. I want to earn something. I don’t want to finesse, anymore. Step 3; made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. I will let the shoe drop. As If I Ever Had Any Choice… that’s the real punchline in this magical thinking, isn’t it? The horrible, delusional hubris that comes with it? As If I Could Ever Make Anything Happen At All. It’s a comforting thought, thinking that there’s magic out there. That somehow I, with enough finessing, can create something out of nothing. That I, and only I, in my infinite power and wisdom can Beat thermodynamics at its own game. Step 2; came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. It’s easier to be delusional than to let the other shoe drop and accept that we live in a cold, mechanical, indifferent universe where Things Just Happen. The baby I was born as wails his eyes out at the injustice of being brought into that world. He grew into the child that cried himself to bed because Nick Harris had a birthday before him, and he cried because he would never be older than Nick and he cried that it was existentially unfair that even meaningless things cannot be changed. The child became a teenager and the despair turned into a fury and a fire and a rage that one day he would have to grow up and get a job and then he’d die and no, no, no, I won’t do it, I won’t do it, I can’t do it, it’s all machines, it’s all rigged, let me cheat, let me be a baby again, I am incapable, I am screaming, I am scratching, I am clawing, and Nothing Changes.

A wall of black stone stretches in front of you, infinitely to the left, to the right, to the sky. On the ground there is only sand, and behind you is a dense white fog. You are naked and alone. Millimeter by millimeter the black stone wall crawls away from you. You spend your entire life gnashing and clawing and gnawing at the surface of the black stone, squinting your eyes and convincing yourself that you’ve made a scratch. Because if you make a scratch, then maybe you can turn that into a foothold or dig deeper and hook your finger into it, and then you can get a grip on the wall, and pull it back towards you, and keep it from crawling away. You toil away for years, yet the surface remains smooth as glass. And you realize that even if you could hold on, the wall is infinitely wide and infinitely tall and infinitely deep, and you, the naked monkey man in the sand have convinced yourself that you possess even a portion of a fraction of an atom of a quark of the power in the universe to keep it from moving. In all of the trillions of the other pocket dimensions and galaxies of minds and souls that exist in every creature who lived is another naked monkey man who gnashes and bangs his fist at his own infinitely massive black stone wall and every one of these naked monkey men will continue to scream and cry and gnash and bang until each black stone wall reaches its final destination, at which point your wall will still be perfectly unmarred and without even your fingerprints as proof. Your black stone wall is one eyelash of eternity. This is time. This is fate. This is God’s will. And it is not a challenge, or a threat, it is just the alpha and the omega. Every day, as we live, this is what we’re up against, and this is what I fight against every time I park in the yellow and think that I am making any difference in anything at all. Step 1; we admitted we were powerless— that our lives had become unmanageable.

***The wall inches away and reveals 4:17AM***
I remain in the sand as I board my flight back to LA.

EPILOGUE:

The Mustang pulls up to Elie’s. “52 bumboclat pussywagon chicken nugget,” Bat says. Our party favors— the Josh (Merlot or Red Blend)— is paper bagged. I’m nervous here, South Pasadena has a stillness to it, I have to hear me think. I wasn’t going to drink, but I can’t speak. I let the Josh talk. When it’s time to say what we’re thankful for, I pray I’m passed over. Alas— I am intentionally uninvisible.

“I’m grateful for LA,” I stumble over my prefrontal cortex, “I hated this place for the last year, but I’m glad I stayed.” Why did I drive my car here? Why did I think I wasn’t going to drink? Are they going to remember that all I could be grateful for was the absence of hate? Are they going to remember me at all? “I’m grateful for all of you guys, too,” I add without thinking, and I mean it.

Later that night, I’ve drank enough to sober up, and catching up has turned into a pep talk. Devon says if she were in my shoes she wouldn’t still be in LA. Bat says I’ve been through lower lows than anyone here, but he worries about me the least. Grace tells me my future is a decision I made years ago, and it’s too late now to change my mind. Milo shits on the carpet. When I wake up on the couch I’m still here and everyone else has gone home.

I drive the Mustang to a coffeeshop and Matt is working, he gives me a lemon scone. I buy an alkaline Smartwater because Grace made an offhand comment about alkaline water last night and I realize I’d never tried it. I wonder if alkaline water does anything. “Does anything,” I start to get philosophical but I’m too hungover, thank God. I go home and I make the best fucking song I’ve made all year, and then I do the same thing the next day. Once again, making something out of nothing.

Thanks for reading
-mbk

FOOTNOTES:
1. I guess I could have been happy with any grade above a C, but I was shooting for perfection.
2. This is True Modern Romance, after all. But that’s a different topic entirely.

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To You, Five Months From Now

Posted on October 5, 2025 by max

Well, did it work?

***I would never ask you to say it, but in response—***
You’re welcome.

It’s the last day before It All Begins™. You remember. It’s Sunday, but you thought it was Saturday, because yesterday you thought it was Friday. You went to the Farmer’s Market with Bat and bought apples. The guy said it was $8.15, but with cash $8 even, but you only had $7 so he let it slide. It was a simple act of human kindness that let you know you were on the right track and that everything was Aligned again.

In the War of Art, or The Secret, or maybe The Artist’s Way, one of Those, you heard of a concept of Cracked Doorways. You read these books forever ago— back in 2021, when you were first figuring it all out— but this concept stuck with you.

***Alchemized and amalgamated and rationalized into your own words***
“You’ll find the path to Success by slipping through Cracked Doorways.”

You internalized this to mean that life is an endless hallway in a giant house. In this house, most of the time, the Doors are Closed and there’s no use trying to open them. These lead to paths that are not meant to be. 99.9% percent of the Doors in this hallway are like that. It’s nothing personal. “No” is the default state of the universe. You just keep walking down the hallway, towards the light of the Open Doors ahead. These are the “Yeses,” and they’re so rare that you only get a few in your entire life. And looking down this endless hallway, you see the light from a few Open Doors in the distance. Each leads to its own shiny Prize. The Prize behind one Open Door might be as small as a new hobby. Sometimes, an Open Door might actually be a Doorway that leads to a whole new hallway. This Doorway might lead to your family, or a new career. You know you can grab these Prizes or enter these Doorways eventually if you just don’t stop walking. At the end of the hallway is Happiness. This is Classical Optimism, I suppose. You could view life itself as the first Doorway your lucky swimmer shot through to get you into this hallway in the first place.

You could spend your entire life ignoring the Closed Doors and waiting for the Prizes and Doorways behind Open ones. This is, I think, the Intended Path. The “You Get What You Get And You Don’t Throw A Fit™” path. You have faith that these will lead you to a Safe life. A Good-if-not-Great life. Job, Security, Contentment. You, however, are a curious bastard. At some early age, you looked ahead at the light from the Doors already Open for you and thought— what if there were even bigger Prizes and brighter Doorways behind the Closed ones? Who says that these aren’t meant for me? You’ve knocked on every Closed Door just to see what happens. Most of the time— 99.9% of the time— no answer. But sometimes. Sometimes. The Door might Crack, just ever so slightly. This is a “Maybe.”

You’re not just a curious bastard, you’re a greedy bastard, so you’ve been collecting the Prizes behind Cracked Doors your entire life. You’ve left a foot in the Door, reaching just far enough in to grab the Prizes before going back to the Intended Path. They’re like side quests. But one time, at perhaps too young of an age, you Cracked opened the Artist Door.

***Needless to say***
You were blinded by the light behind it.

You got a ton of Prizes from this. The first immediate Prize was Fun. Then, your drawings and stories as a kid got you a ton of Attention. When you started making music, it got you Girls. You saw endless light at the end of the Artist Doorway, yet you always went back to the Intended Path: Family, Job, Contentment. These were your Doors. Art is just a side quest. But each time you doubled back to the Intended Path, those old Doors and Prizes seemed duller than the Doors and Prizes beyond the Artist Doorway. So you kept going down the Intended Path like you were Supposed To™.

You got far enough down to check out the Girlfriend Doorway. The College Doorway. But the Prizes weren’t as shiny, the light wasn’t as bright. So each time, you doubled back to the Artist Door. But the Prizes behind the Artist Door kept getting further and further away, so you had to go further and further in. But by venturing far enough, the Prizes started to become undeniably Great. You started getting better at Art and found Purpose. Even further in, you found Money and Prestige. Perhaps even a tiny bit of Fame. But you never forgot your way back to the Intended Path.

However, each time you returned, you were further back in the hallway than you should have been. Or perhaps the old Doors to Family, Job and Contentment were just further away than they were before. On your last trip back, you convinced yourself that some of them might actually be Closed now. Was the Intended Path perhaps the side quest all along? So as always, you backtracked to the Artist Doorway. This time, all that was left was a tiny of speckle of light in the dark, dark distance. You’ve collected all the Prizes that could be acquired a safe distance in. So you cut your losses. You took a leap of faith, let the Doorway back to the Intended Path fully shut, and you ventured into the darkness.

As you let your eyes adjust, you started noticing some Open Doors that led to further darkness. Naively, you went in anyways. These Doors did not hold Prizes. Behind them was Debt. Sacrifice. Pain. Loneliness. You got lost in these dark hallways and stumbled your way back to the Artist Doorway with the tiny bit of light at the end. As you ventured further towards it, you started— for the first time— wondering what the light really was. Was it a Prize? Another Doorway? You started thinking back to the Intended Path, and the dull light of Family, Job and Contentment suddenly seemed appealing in the pressing darkness. Did I, in my hubris, take them for granted? What about the subtler lights of Friendship and Laughter and Love? Were those now beyond my grasp? Alas— you were fully in the Artist Path now. You couldn’t find your way back to the Intended Path if you tried. And even if you did, who’s to say that any of those Doors would still be open? Would the lights still even be on?

Along your dark and tangled journey, your only solace was the idea that at the end of the Artist Path is the Doorway to Success, and whatever lies beyond it. So you placed a wager. Whatever lies beyond it is something even brighter than Family, Job and Contentment. Sometimes, you thought it was Greatness. Or Riches Beyond Belief. Perhaps it’s even the fabled Happiness. But after enough time in the dark, you wondered, for a time, if this was just delusion. It was so dark, that you started questioning if there was even light at all. You couldn’t even remember why you came down this path in the first place. But you kept walking. And what did I do?

***I kept knocking on the Closed Doors***
You’re welcome.

Lately, finally, after God Knows How Long, the Doors have started Cracking open again. The Door to EP3 was nearly Closed shut, but with a hard enough knock I Cracked it open. It was dark, as usual, but I sensed some Prizes at the end. This was a lonely Doorway. It was a quest I had to do almost entirely on my own. But at the end, I made Something Beautiful for the first time. I just wrapped on Friday, which I thought was Thursday, and I ventured back through the Artist Doorway after two months of Solitude. This time, the light at the end was closer than it was before, and brighter.

***And waiting for me was a Prize I had almost forgotten about***
Faith.

Oh, yeah. That’s what got me here. And now, it was back again, as a Prize. I don’t know who put it there. Maybe someone is out there looking out for me all along. Or maybe they’re looking out for you. I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe you are. Maybe this whole system of thinking is wrong, and life isn’t a series of Doors and hallways. Maybe “No” isn’t the default state of the universe. Maybe this is Pessimism-disguised-as-Classical Optimism. Perhaps “Yes” is the default state of the universe, and it’s not a hallway, it’s a river, and it flows endlessly through twists and turns that pull you further along with nothing you can do to stop it. And perhaps me, in my curiosity and greed and arrogance, convinced myself I had the Control by walking down a stupid dark hallway and checking out these Doors when really I was being swept along for the ride I was meant to be on all along. Maybe. You’ll have to tell me, five months from now, because right now I’m still in the hallway and the light is still beyond my grasp. I don’t think you’ll have found Success as a Prize, because I think now that Success is a Doorway with… Something Else at the end. Like I said, I don’t know what that Something is. I can’t see it. But I choose to think it’s Happiness. And I did all of this for you, five months from now, because if I didn’t, five months from now would be a Dark Doorway in which I run out of money completely and would have to file bankruptcy, SO. Yeah, like I said, I’d never ask for a thank you, because the big secret is even if this all goes to shit, I’ve had the time of my life on my Big Journey and if I have to end up in a Dark Doorway of Depression and Sadness and Misery and Failure because of it, then so be it. I still had the first Prize I ever got from this Doorway: Fun.

***I know, I know***
Trite, but true.

Anyways. Tomorrow, It All Begins™. I become Back Online™ and begin priming my social media for the release of EP3, which I can’t wait to show you guys. The sludge of doubt and disillusionment has been washed off of me by the proverbial river and I charge ahead like I always have even if the path seems as dark as ever. Because today, Sunday-that-I-thought-was-Saturday, a guy at the farmer’s market gave me $1 off of a basket of honeycrisps and I have enough Faith or Delusion (perhaps they’re the same) to think that everything is Aligned again and that new Doors are Opening up for me once more. And maybe it’s just my eyes adjusting, but maybe the future looks brighter than ever.

Maybe.

See you in five months
-mbk

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