Ten Thousand

I want to put this in writing today to provide a little transparency and because according to Paulo Coehlo (author of The Alchemist) “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”

Ten thousand subscribers at ten dollars a month in exchange for Beautiful Idiots LLC merchandise and exclusive content (such as unreleased music, special videos, discounted ticket sales, admission to secret events, etc.). That’s one of my goals for this phase. It would allow us the security to continue to pursue our own creative endeavors while we grow.

So there it is, it’s out there in the universe and on the internet now. If you read this and you think you can help, hit our line. It’ll also be a neat little way to track our progress when we reflect in a year’s time… let’s see if we can pull this off.

-J.P.

Quote Me

Clint Eastwood said something like “when you’re gonna shoot, shoot bro. Don’t talk.”

That’s what Understanding told me just now when I asked him for a quote. Pretty good.

He also just said, “how much do you really wanna revolutionize pizza, ya know?”

He’s really on one tonight. I hope I have some good quotes one day.

-J.P.

Haircuts

Why do I procrastinate? It’s always an easy task. Some simple thing that I could definitely do right now.

Am I lazy? I don’t think so. I get up early and work out every day. I started my own business. I have lazy days, but I don’t think I’m lazy. I wouldn’t call myself irresponsible either. I answer texts and emails. I don’t have any late payments or crippling debts. Still, I find myself pushing the things in my notebook to tomorrow.

So why do I put them off? What am I afraid of?

Maybe it’s the future. Maybe I’m scared to get old. If I get these things done I have to do that over time and that makes me older and that means it’s closer to being over. Maybe I leave a couple boxes unchecked because there’s some strange comfort in knowing that there’s more to do. What happens when there’s nothing left on the list? Maybe I’d like to stick to the devil I know.

I think I’m overthinking this. I just need to get a haircut. It’s been like four months.

-J.P.

Dinner Talk

Today at dinner Bryana said, “some things nourish your eyes, not your stomachs, ya know?”

To which Understanding replied, “Like boobs.”

He later rescinded this statement after Bryana brought up the practice of breast feeding, which is quite literally nourishment.

Then I accidentally coughed in Understanding’s face, to which he said, “Really bro?”

And I apologized because that was gross.

And that’s what happened today. Gonna post a live version of “Invincible” by Roe’s Garden on Friday. Have a good night.

-J.P.

Tragedy and Comedy

Tragedy and Comedy are at a bar, drinking. Drunken and slurred, Tragedy looks to comedy and says:

“I don’t get it. Everybody loves you. And you’re only here because of me you know. I’m the reality. You’re just an escape. I’m the sad truth; you’re swinging dicks and man-eating vaginas. I’m a pair of hell-bent debt collectors who won’t take no for an answer. I kill your wife and children and make you watch before I kill you and burn your house down. You show up after and dump one single bottle of water on it and shrug like you tried your best, then you skip away and trip and fall on your dumb fucking face. I’m Hamlet and you are ham. I twist the knife in your side, an honest portrayal of a sick twisted world; you give titty twisters. Nobody fucking loves me.”

Comedy takes one more sip of his and looks long and hard at his drinking partner before replying.

“You’re funny, you know that?”

-J.P.

Chess

I like chess. I started playing maybe a couple years ago when I played Understanding in real life a couple times. He beat me easily so I set out to learn the ways. I will eventually beat him, but it hasn’t happened yet.

These days I play online just about every day - you may have noticed by now that most things I do, I do quite regularly… it’s fair to set I’m comforted by a routine. Occasionally I play against random people on the internet, but I mostly prefer to do the lessons, puzzles, and play the computers on the chess.com app. It’s my preferred way to learn. I don’t know why, but I get nervous playing against randoms sometimes. I don’t want to be judged in the chat when I blunder and when people are anonymous they tend to be quicker to bully (see all examples of the internet, ever). Some of the computers have a static rating and make the same mistakes over and over again, so once I figure out their weakness I can exploit it fairly easily. When I beat a computer three or four times in a row with respectable accuracy I move on. However, the app also offers the opportunity to play against some AIs. Me vs AI… here we go again.

Sometimes I’m able to hold my advantage and beat a learning opponent, but sometimes they best me. It’s quite frustrating. This is exactly how it feels trying to develop an effective social media marketing strategy. I’ve been posting new content every day for about two months now and it’s resulted in essentially 0% growth. We haven’t gained any followers. All our reels get relatively the same amount of views. There’s very little engagement in the form of likes or comments and again, essentially zero shares. I recently checked my story insights on Instagram to find that only about 4% of our followers even see the stories I’m posting. I don’t say this to complain and I realize that if you’re reading this you’re more likely to be one of the few people who is already sharing and listening so THANK YOU very much and please continue to do so, we appreciate and depend on your interest in us. I just have literally no idea what to do to increase these numbers. These numbers that will determine my fate in today’s society. I am lost in the abyss, screaming into the void, trying to get people to laugh and engage, jump on the train, and eventually to enjoy the music we’re releasing on the label, and I’m fighting and losing to social media algorithms.

I’m not going to let it break my heart. Understanding always says that his dad says persistence always overcomes resistance. Fine then. I’ll just have to find a way to beat this computer too. We’re playing chess.

-J.P.

Nothing To Do

Nothing new under the sun. Nothing to do that ain’t been done.

Might as well do what you want.

-L.U.D.

RELAX

We released “Invincible” by Roe’s Garden yesterday and it’s hailing in Los Angeles so I’m gonna listen to the song and play Hogwarts Legacy all day, and I think you should do something similar.

Everybody needs some rest now and then. Happy Saturday. Listen to Invincible. Share it with everyone you know. Then, relax.

-J.P.

Invincible

“Invincible”, the second single from Roe’s Garden, is out today. Woohoo!

That probably reads sarcastically, but genuinely, I am excited about this song and I hope you find three and half minutes to listen, and if you enjoy the song then please like it, share it with a friend, do anything to pass it on. It helps us immensely and I also believe it’ll help spread some positive energy around your circle, because as most all these Roe’s Garden singles, this song is a labor of love. A little bit of context:

I bought myself a new guitar in November of 2020 - I am in a ongoing struggle with the instrument in general as part of me desperately wants to be a master of guitar but I just don’t practice regularly enough - and in the first week or two after I bought it I wrote three or four songs on it. Invincible was one of them. It sat on my phone a voice memo for about two years. There were two reasons for this. One, the lyrics felt very personal, almost like a prayer or an offering to a higher power than a love song about two people, and two, when I tried to sit down and record an arrangement I messed up the groove so badly that I kind of immediately hated the song. So I put it away and kept on trucking, looking for new ideas that felt better to me.

Then in early 2022, when Understanding and I went back to work on season 2 of Wu-Tang: An American Saga, RZA presented us the opportunity to write original songs to pitch to the show. With this in mind, we tried to write an original song for just about every scene of each episode. My philosophy was “the more shots we put up, the better the odds are that we make a few.” There’s a scene in season 3, episode 1 where Bobby finds Mecca in the bedroom doing laundry and cleaning up. She’s feeling neglected because Bobby has thrown himself so deeply into his work that he rarely ever steps away, even sleeping in the studio most nights. That exchange reminded me of the chorus of Invincible - “I get cold, when you leave me lonely”.

We scrapped the original demo I had of the song and took a new approach. What if Mecca was listening to that song while she was cleaning? It would have to sound like 90s R&B. Luckily, that’s Understanding’s wheelhouse. He flipped the drums and I kept it simple on the guitar and bass. Then we added the secret ingredient: Erica’s voice. Similarly to Where Do You Go, as soon as she was on the vocal the song made sense. We pitched it to the show and it got in, so if you find yourself on Hulu wanting to know the history of one of the greatest rap groups of all time, listen close in the first episode of the third season. Right around 16 minutes in, you’ll hear Invincible.

One more thing about the lyrics. As I mentioned before, it wasn’t about a person to person relationship when I wrote it. Changing the vibe and adding Erica gives it a new feel, and it makes sense as a love song, but originally I was trying to express a deeper love. The idea was if you put your faith into something bigger than yourself, you can exceed your own limitations. Your flame burns brighter when you submit to your passion.

Anyway, this is the second of twelve singles Roe’s Garden will release this year. Hope you enjoy. If we believe, we can all be Invincible.

-J.P.