I didn’t go with a Pax but I have Mighty and Crafty+ that are great. It allows for less herb to be used which kinda helps pay for the device but my favorite part is the flavor is nicer.
Got both second-hand with new mouthpieces as I hate spending money but they’re dope. Irony is I’m trying to smoke less or just stop but it’s 2026.
I love a good Aes’ shoutout.
While this may be AI, we can at least know This wasn’t.
So I’m not going to argue because again, I said: I understand where the sediment comes from.
I want to address what concerns me about this type of agression. When someone does something for so long, it becomes part of their personality, their being. So insulting the military can come off as insulting the person rather than the role/entity. Especially for Americans, who do not have much outside of propaganda being fed from every angle and barely an education, many barely read anymore. If they can barely critically think, do you think they’re at fault or are they raised/trained to just believe it? This is the general population, not elite class who have better education purposely.
The middle class in American just a mean of the lower class and upper class, the stat you’re referencing is basing it around any household 50-100K - household, which means two parent income. So two parents making 50K would be low income in my opinion because each person is making 25K which is about 12 an hour. The lower percent was 85K and up I think showing that below 85K in an household leads to more enrollment in military. It’s just that the phrase “middle class” doesn’t exist like it used to as prices have rose and driven that class further down. This study even polled and it shows similar in 2025 so I’m supporting the data you read with the thought that people are surviving well on 80K and below. The main statistic that I want to point at is a majority joined for money and education.
Now to touch on that part about class, the elite class has no law to follow in the US. You’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it. So why bring up Epstein? It’s linked but not relevant to what we’re speaking about. Yes, he’s a criminal and a pedophile and deserved to be punished to death but that doesn’t relate to poverty stricken individuals who I referenced resorting to a life of crime by societal standards. This type of conversation diversion is used by right-wingers like Jordan Peterson and the rest of the grifters to avoid talking about the actual point. Again, it’s reactionary - you’re using pedophilia crime from the elite to compare to poverty related crime which is galaxies away on a morality spectrum. Killing someone from being on the brink of death for a way to survive is different than owning an island and sex trafficking humans. The reason is to get a reaction in the moral play. You can read why it’s reactionary due to the chain of you acknowledging the relation of poverty to crime and military by stating the statistic of the military being middle class so why mention a upper class criminal again?
Again, I understand your sediment. I’d just rather work towards deprogramming others who may be leaving the military or whatever relation to it with some grace in conversation (mostly in real life as this is what online banter is nowadays and probably always has and will) rather than attacking and letting the right (that can be reasoned with, I know some can’t be reason with) grow larger due to more alienation.
While I get what you’re meaning, I am going to ask a question: do you treat criminals the same?
The way you see military, many of whom are from low income without many means of survival, as monsters because they join a government system that promises social services that harms so many. So a means to an end.
A criminal will steal or murder for similar reasons a person joins the military - except instead of social services, they’re taking what they need to survive. So do you think they deserve humiliation and degradation? Heck, prison food is similar.
Both are forced into making morally wrong choices that affect others outside of themselves but instead of anger at the system that creates these situations, you insult the people. It’s reactionary.
This from someone who knows multiple leftists who changed because of the military. So I see belittling them online as counterproductive to any type of coalition being made as it separates them from others who may hold similar if not the same beliefs.
Similar story.
I make music and keep exploring all the ways I can creatively express myself in a medium that I only halfway know (still studying scales constantly but that’s ADHD) but I started in audio engineering, that just became sound design then I decided to make electronic hip hop and since I live in the south - I decided to rap on it. I plan on learning to sing this year as well just to expand my skills.
All in all, I’ve made enough to support the hobby and have met my favorite musicians from networking and weirdly enough, might collab one day soon but I still won’t make a lot from it but younger me would love my music so I release it.
I work in sales as my day job which isn’t doing hot due to tariffs and shit, so I may have to figure out how to make money in music one day soon haha.
Wolf pack mental made home in the snowcaps
Neural paths stray from the roadmap
We’re all just the same in our own way
Dad used to tell me be grateful there’s so many others
Who would trade anything for your low days
I keep that in mind when I hold pain
Eyes Wide Shut by Sadistik
These bars lately are helping me go on in life.
I scrolled to find Aes’ - I wasn’t disappointed.
Aesop Rock, Andre 3K, Lupe Fiasco and Sadistik are four lyricists who rotate in my life depending on mood.
While the movement is piece of the past, I would argue that the fight for equal rights continues to this day.
What you said thought doesn’t add up to my knowledge though — Civil Rights was fought for roughly from 1950-1960s. The Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964 when Boomers were turning 18 and the last year of their generation. This would mean that the people in the streets protesting and/or voting weren’t boomers but the silent generation and their parents.
I’m a Trumpet player at heart but it shines in my vocal deliveries more often than not. I rap and I tend to get more Danny Brown with a microphone than say El-P. Danny was a Trumpet like me and El-P played sax. Love the prior’s lyrics more but Danny has energy.
I write on a keyboard and a Push 3 by Ableton. I can’t play keys great, my grandfather (abusive) broken three of 5 fingers so I had a rough time playing Trumpet. I actually had my right hand operated on which caused complete relearning of how to use my fingers again during my time playing Trumpet and keys. My left hand became a cheat and I obviously can get bass lines down even though I feel I can’t. I write melodies left handed still though.
The Push helps as it’s a Linnstrument with a keyboard layout from left to right and a guitar layout in a 4x8 matrix. It’s also more closely together so my badly healed broken fingers can jam on a melody and play easily without breaking my hands. The MPE makes it feel closer to a stringed instrument as well so I tend to play it closer to a guitar.
In total, all instruments influence how we play but we also influence the instruments. Black Sabbath’s guitar player made metal because he couldn’t play after loosing his finger tips but used plastic to continue playing, the looser strings made metal a genre but also made the plastic tips of his fingers stay on. J Dilla turned off Quantization on his MPC and gave hip hop GROOVE. So they do influence us but we influence them as we figure out how to get the sound we like.
Edit: Came to say, I play the Push in a C Major layout since it looks like a keyboard and I follow it like I would any other instrument. I know it can Scale lock but I don’t like doing that to a device I see as an instrument.