#home like noplace is there

[thehotelier]

On Housebroken

“Every true novelist listens for a suprapersonal wisdom, which explains why great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors. Novelists who are more intelligent than their books should go into a different line of work.” -Milan Kundera

The subtext of this short quote that my friend posted the other day provided a pretty neat angle for thinking about the job that artists do for society. While some of us are working, making dinner, following up with people, or addressing every little aspect of our lives that are slowly degrading, artists are creating the conditions for profound truths of the world to speak through their bodies for a brief moment and then document it. These moments of oneness with profound truths are not unique to artists or writers, but a good artist is one who can capture that moment and communicate it through their medium, in a way that allows us viewers to access by interacting with their work.

It explains a thought that I’ve had quite regularly about my own work. People say “hey I like this music you’ve made” and my first inclination is to respond with “yeah isn’t it great?!”. If I were to say this aloud, it would probably either confuse or upset the person who would expect an either humble or self-debasing acknowledgement. But my excitement about my work, and part of the reason I had listened to some of my own tracks non-stop, was because I didn’t feel like it was something I had created. I didn’t feel responsible for it existing insomuch as I feel responsible for regurgitating historical trivia or making box mac and cheese. It’s never felt like trying very hard, making music. Not that I’m an expert or anything (I’m a clunky writer and not particularly skilled with any instruments) it’s just that my process has never been about working hard, and has mostly been about creating a concoction of circumstance to allow magic to happen or god to speak through me. And when that happens I’m sort of like “lol cool.”

So to me, a non-god, my “work” is almost certainly smarter than I was when I wrote it. Once I had witnessed this process fruiting many tracks that made me look smart, I tried not to shortcut that process moving forward. However, I figured this out maybe midway through writing Home, Like Noplace Is There and there has always been one track that stood out as blocky because of this, and that’s Housebroken. Housebroken was the first track I wrote for that record and it got a fair bit of play time in the many acoustic sets I had played prior to releasing that record. It was well received then, but I had sort of always felt an inclination to have to tease out the conversation around it.

The song material attempts to unveil the cycle of abuse, trauma, and conditioning. It was inspired by the trap of entering into the public forum to discuss justification for accountability processes, a model that was ahead of its time and kind of still is. Too often call outs of terrible behavior would evoke normies to object with some version of “this person did something fucked up because fucked up things were done upon them.” It was a trap to engage with this logic but us punks and anarchists did anyway because we knew we were on the right path and truth would prevail. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough back-pocket rebuttals handy to truly win those arguments for our apolitical tumblr bystanders.

Housebroken, through an allegory of a naive utopian speaking to a domesticated dog, went on to say that empathy alone is not strong enough to dam the river of harm in which we swim. At least that’s my interpretation. My interpretation, however, has the privilege of being granted the benefit of the doubt by its intent. Some other interpretations were not as generous.

I remember stumbling across a podcast (a flock of men) who were in the business of bad faith critiques of scene music. Their interpretation of Housebroken likened domestication to abuse in the home and abuse in the home to abuse of women by men. Through this lens, the use of the dog as a literary device was describing women as dogs, which is of course not cool, boo-boo.

The common interpretation by those who enjoy the song is actually not even that far off from the one above. The slight deviations come in the form of domestication not necessarily abuse in the home, or abuse in the home not necessarily being abuse of women by men. But even within these more favorable framings, there was still a path to an unfavorable interpretation which some had found in the moment where the narrator kills the dog. For me, this was actually a lazy way of saying “we can’t divert the flow, we can only break the cycle.” But it’s over dramatic, inconsistent, and a cop out. The dog probably should have eaten the naive utopian narrator, but then who sings the ending??

This was where my analysis ended when Hotelier decided to stop playing this song. I couldn’t really reconcile which interpretation should be given the most priority, mine or the fans. We had a couple of odd interactions with legitimate die-hards about this song at the time. I figured it would be a good faith gesture to let them be in the driver seat a bit for this one and we gave out some benefit of the doubt. To some, this might have seemed like an odd choice to give a few fans this much say over our artistic decisions. But I was 22, and truly trying to figure out the best way to navigate these fan artist relationships where the principles of consent do not map so cleanly. Looking back, I still think it was fairly wise to avoid intentionally grinding up against the edges of our fans who were so willingly giving us their vulnerability. And that’s how Housebroken got nixed.

Now admittedly, this is one of the Hotelier songs I felt like I had a hand in writing, that is to say that I wasn’t simply a conduit for messages containing more wisdom than I possessed. I remembered being inspired by an idea, but only having the distance from Akron to our recording session in Chicago to get down. We drove overnight in a short school bus with 7 people drunk asleep, and strewn about on the seats and carpet. I was on the couch in the back forcing that ditty out. Once it was recorded that acoustic version, we just built the album version around it and stuck it in the most likely place.

Every other song on that album was given time, was meditated on, was never written but allowed to write itself. The lyrics were many words I have never said before in any real order. Writing the rest of that record genuinely felt like many therapy sessions. I remember sensations in my body that I haven’t felt since, like being a moment from sleep and being suddenly massively awake and strangely cold, suddenly crying at phrases from a stream of consciousness, and what felt like a rattling marble at the top of my spinal cord. Writing Home was like simultaneously realizing trauma held in my body for the first time and quickly unknotting it. It was pretty absurd. I could have been possessed but it would have been by something pretty nice. I understand why people could believe in angels. Through your own actions, you induce some state of consciousness in which everything makes sense, and everything is okay, and its wise and kind and all of these things that might feel so unlike you. How can someone have experience and be expected to believe that that is just them. In a period of time when we still don’t understand consciousness. Could be angels, babe.

It Never Goes Out was an album that shouted “As long as we have each other, the world stands no chance.” Turns out, the real weight of that statement rests on “as long as”. It’s really amazing the amount of absurd scenarios a bunch of suburban beatnik cosplayers in early adulthood can find themselves in. One of us got kicked out of our home by our parents. I showed up in my underwear to lighten the mood not expecting her dad to come out and try to bust through my car window. I remember us trying to figure out how we were getting home from the mall because the only friend who could drive was having a personal moment in the back seat and not talking to us. Lots of “you don’t get me”. Lots of “I’m going to kms.” I’ll skip a lot of details that I can’t or don’t want to remember, but it was clear we were too big of a mess to change much.

And here we circle back to trauma not as a thing done to us by bad people, but now by people we love with every ounce of our being, people we wouldn’t throw out in front of a moving car. Many people will have their own interpretation of what that means to them, and I’ll let them have it. I’m just the messenger.

#Dreams of Field Records #home like noplace is there #the hotelier

[skeeverboy]

best greens

#cody #joyce manor #you blew it #origami angel #somewhere city #american football #americ anfootball #you’re gonna miss it all #modern baseball #twiabp #the world is a beautiful place & and i am no longer afraid to die #harmlessness #home like noplace is there #the hotelier

[doyoulikethisemoband]

#i’ve been to this house :) #the hotelier #home like noplace is there #emo #midwest emo #acoustic rock #pop punk #indie rock #emo pop #dreamo #bubble grunge #indie punk #new england emo #worcester ma #poll #music poll #musicblr #rate your music

[myspacepunks]

and on new years, you resolved to make your chaos external.

#the hotelier #music #2023 #emo #home like noplace is there #in framing #punk #midwest emo

[pretendpopstar]

Home, Like NoPlace Is There by The Hotelier

#The Hotelier #Home like noplace is there #indie rock #vinyl collection #record collection #pretend popstar #emo music #midwest emo #jk theyre from massachuchu but imma use the tag anyway #american emo

[0verstepping]

who taught you how to hate your self? who forced you to confide in spell? mistook 'pathetic' for empathy cast a stone at the foe, and the stone hit me

i held your hand in ritual to show disarming while you were a weapon inside your self inside your body, oh i can't pretend i can't conceal my apprehension when pressed against the callous of your palm i reconciled, because you couldn't feel me there

and you wore binary like a badge of fucking honor while i struggled dealing with the loss of yet another life in drag

#music #the hotelier #life in drag #home like noplace is there #emo

[maeo-png]

happy birthday home like noplace is there you changed my neurons <3

#the hotelier #home like noplace is there

[slapshot1977]

AMERICAN FOOTBALL? RHYTHMICALLY DEFICIENT????

#riley.txt #just an absolute batshit take from tiktok #we can kid and we can joke and call emo music bad #but calling acclaimed and iconic math rock band american football ‘rhythmically deficient’ is where i draw the line #also home like noplace is there is one of the best emo revival albums of all time the hotelier i’m sorry an ugly ass bitch said this about u

[bee-birb]

tails nine theory - sonic prime spoilers - this is a long one

so we established that the prisms have like, mega energy and are way too much power for one person right? like, dread knuckles got a taste of the power from the noplace shard and went mad over it, and thorn rose also went a bit crazy with the boscage maze shard. afterward, she even said that it was far too much power for one person. eggman went wacko trying to get the whole prism initially, though that could have just been eggman being eggman.

my theory is, nine probably never would have gone as far as he did in s3 if he wasn't exposed to the prism. and not just one shard like dread and thorn, mind you. all of them. he had full exposure to all five shards, and was regularly drawing on their power to shape reality with himself as a conduit. first the new yoke shard, then the grim shard, (both in s1), then as the council collected more shards during s2, he was presumably exposed to more prism energy. (though, i think the energy field holding them in the dome would have blocked most of the energy, but you get my point.) that much prism energy could not have been good for his mind, especially because he's still portrayed as rather young in the series. in fact, we only get the ultimate betrayal while nine is in the presence of four of the five shards. thats a lot of power.

because the prism's energy is so strong, and with evidence from thorn and dread that it makes you volatile, nine probably wouldn't have betrayed sonic over the miscommunication. in fact, sonic had mentioned repairing green hill multiple times before, and nine didn't speak up or ask about it. this could be because he was biding his time to get all the shards in order to transform the grim, but he probably would have made at least a sarcastic comment about it. he also leaves the resistance behind after having the new yoke shard in his possession, the same thing that dread does in s2.

over the course of season 3, we can also see the effect of longterm use of prism energy in nine. he gets tired, falling over atop his citadel, and is always mentioning needing more power. this screams that something else is at work in his subconscious. another example is when shadow remarks that it was always all about power. sonic goes to disagree because sonic, but nine agrees. except, i dont think it was all about power initially. it was about building himself a safe haven in the grim. he was originally going to include sonic in his safe haven, too, as evidenced by the hammock and the palm trees they reference in the citadel. it was about finding a place for him to belong- a blank slate for him to start over.

and after the prism is gone, nine gets far more sympathetic and seems to be more himself. this also could be sonic being, yaknow, on the verge of completely falling apart without prism energy, but that doesn't make as much sense. nine was more than ready to extract the energy from sonic in s3e1, and do so mercilessly- after he had used the prism to create the alpha grim bots. are you seeing the pattern? nine gets steadily more unstable, unsteady, and unfeeling as he is exposed to the prism and harnesses its energy through himself.

and i do understand that hurt people hurt people, and the kid is just doing what he can to make himself a home. it makes complete sense to do anything you can to make yourself the safe space that you've never had before. but the fact that he doesn't listen to reason and facts goes completely against nine as a character- he's the logical one. the thinker. he was the first to tell the council that using the prism would cause shatterverse wide decay. and he flat out ignores all that during s3. its not correlative to his character, hence my theory that something deeper is happening with nine.

now, for those of you saying that sonic never had such side effects- he already has prism power in his being. it wouldn't affect him as much as a completely outside source would.

anygays, thank you for reading my rambles and have a good night. remember, its just a theory- a gAME THEORY-

#sonic prime #sonic the hedgehog #tails nine #theory #thats just a theory #a game theory #sonic prime spoilers #sth #headcanon

[rosescries]

Only Good Things

Idk if you typically get fan-stories here, but after reading There's Still Magic this scene after thinking about Taylor getting tried for her "last stand" just came to mind. Might be OOC but nonetheless, hope you enjoy.

----

Taylor's life had fallen apart. And all at the hands of you. Not even the once liberating feeling of seeing you in a crutch had been enough to soothe her when the judge declared her guilty of...

"Aggravated assault, voluntary manslaughter, and domestic abuse" said the judge, then the gavel banged.

The rest of what was said had been drowned out by the ringing in her ears and tears welling in her eyes. She stumbled from the defendants stand, barely able to make out what was in front of her. Her lawyer tried to stop her from leaving, though she wriggled out of his grip screaming, "I need the fucking bathroom!"

There was a groan from her boyfriend - the jerk - some clamoring from the jury, and even the obnoxious tittering from those damned skeletons...

Fuck her life.

When she got to the bathroom, she immediately found a toilet. Puking like she did at all those parties she attended, though instead of the satisfying feeling of getting it all out, all that came back was more nausea. She was being so loud everyone probably heard her... and were laughing their asses off!

The thought made her retch once more but she held against it. Opting to cough roughly and get to a sink.

She doused her face in water, cooling it down from the puffiness. Then she looked in the mirror, disgusted at what she'd seen. Face all red, hair tousled, and eyes bloodshot. She hadn't even noticed she was grinding her teeth... or the woman eyeing her from the other sink.

"What? " She bit out. The woman smiled pitifully. Cause that's just what she needed right now... pity.

"Bad luck out there..." She sighed, "And you have your whole life ahead of you." The woman shook her head as she began to wash her hands. Though, Taylor couldn't recall seeing a stall used...

All she could say in response was, "Yeah." She hated how her voice sounded, all stuffy.

"Things will only get better, y'know?" The woman said, looking at her with a pleasant smile.

"...How?" Taylor replied, wondering where she was going with this.

The woman shrugged, and her smile brightened, "Nowhere to go but up."

Well, that was something losers only said when they had noplace else to go. But Taylor supposed that's what she was right now, a loser. No money, no home, no boyfriend - assuming the one she had survived prison.

Even still, it was somewhat... nice, knowing someone was on her side.

"Thanks," She muttered, "Miss um..."

"Ah, Catherine!" The woman said, holding out her hand. She'd give her this, her positivity was infectious, Taylor even felt one coming on herself.

Though as she reached her hand out, a stinging sensation struck her cheek, and she was suddenly met with a hard stall door, before collapsing onto the cold floor. Feeling herself shake, she looked up at the woman she thought to be an ally, who was now flexing her hand and wiping it on her leg like she'd just smacked a bug instead of a young woman.

Catherine glowered down at the shaken girl. In any other context, she might've pitied her, but this had been a long time coming.

"That's just a taste of what's to come," she said coldly, "they're much rougher in prison."

Taylor stared straight ahead at the wall before her, not wanting to face the woman as the tears began to well up again. The click of flats signified Catherine's leaving as she gave a final taunt,

"Yeah, only good things to come..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@kurocantcommunicate

Oh! I've never gotten a story before! I like it! Well done!

#submission #theres still magic #TSM #not mine #wonderful art

[skeeverboy]

some days you have to listen to home like noplace is there a million times and cry

#the hotelier #home like noplace is there

[juliens-bakery]

just to give you an idea of how i listen to music, i have i think 3 full albums in my top 100. i also have most of two others (Home, Like Noplace is There by the Hotelier and The Sunset Tree by the Mountain Goats). which explains the broad distribution of songs across very few artists

#spotify wrapped #long post #nat.twenties

[clowngremlin]

been really into listening to "home, like noplace is there" by the hotelier lately.....

#the wretched gremlin strikes again

[0verstepping]

you cut our ropes, left the umbilical and now i carry around this weight of broken hope and i can’t retrace, and i lost my hold and blame myself 'cause that is all I’ve ever known

#music #the hotelier #the scope of all of this rebuilding #home like noplace is there #emo

[beebascloset]

I need to listen to the rest of Home, Like Noplace Is There by The Hotelier but it's eyelid time

[slapshot1977]

do you have blood on your hands? have you had blood on your hands? will you have blood on your hands? when will you have blood on your hands?

#riley.txt #reading an album review for home like noplace is there and this came to me