ace sides.

hi, hope this finds you well.  happy new year.

redundant chicanery originally started as a way for me to legitimize my budding music journalism career.  i was a staff writer at okayplayer.com when it began and i wanted to be paid to talk shit about music.  so i practiced and put in my time to "build a portfolio."  of course, nobody read it and i just started to treat it as a regular random blog with a semi-focus on music.  throughout its tenure, i've lost both of my parents (for better or for worse), seen ron carter play live more times than i can remember, gotten divorced twice (once legally, the other in spirit) and, for the first time, really started to completely understand the severity of my mental health problems (as a peak through some of the archives around non-music posts will confirm).  i don't have a lot of photos from the past fifteen years, so it's the best personal document i have.

suffice to say, i've learned a lot about myself during that meantime.

i said all that to say all this—

eventually, you have to confront it (whatever "it" is).  and it's not a bad thing.  i don't even consider mine a "confrontation."  it's just a thing that i didn't understand about myself.  i didn't understand because, like too many other things in this life, i was told that i was required to put myself in one of just a handful of boxes.  

if i didn't fit into any of those, there must be something wrong with me.

truly how i've felt most of my life.

but in understanding that i identify as a romantic asexual person, i've found that the only thing wrong with me is that i was disinformed.  which, upon further reflection, is no fault of my own.

you can't reach the destination if you are purposely given an incomplete map.

it is with immense gratitude that i am able to say that at least i'm getting there now.

i love you all.
—gaa

PS—
andy and j have a short little ep coming soon.  it'll be on the main austinato bandcamp probably in the next week or so  (UPDATE: "free and pretty, just for you." © andy).  here's the cover art (nice one, andy!):

and here's a sneak peak.  j's new arrangement.