Cashel O'Malley

Thanks to you, dear reader, for tuning into another narcissistic self-pitying struggle session. Eventually I will get around to writing something of substance, I promise. Who am I kidding? No I won’t ❤️

I’m writing this on my phone at work. Writing on the phone sucks, I’m gonna try not to do it again. Work, however, is great. Two people have come in so far today. I’ve read like 50 pages of “Dino” by Nick Tosches, the guy who frankly inspired me to pick up this blog shit again in the first place. He says fuck a lot and I also say fuck a lot so that made me feel comfortable writing again. I’ve wasted a lot of energy looking down on people who forego craft in service of raw self expression. Everyone in theater school seemed to want to be Sarah Kane. Just like, diary entries and fake suicide notes presented as finished work. It’s so raaaw. But also completely inoffensive, and somehow life affirming. Imagine Sarah Kane affirming your feelings. How fucking awful would that be? Thank God that’s not what she did. If you’re gonna do the diary thing, the least you can do is make yourself look as bad as possible. Hypocrite am I, I’m doing the stream of consciousness diary thing. And self flagellating to get ahead of how embarrassing this whole affair is.

FUCK. HOW BORING IS THIS SELF DOUBTING NAVEL GAZING SHIT? At least all the theater school people I look down on are capable of treating their own feelings with enough respect to express them. Someone just came in the store and said “the pandemic is starting up again you should really wear your masks”Lady, shut the fuck up. I’ve been working retail this whole goddamn time. I spent a year screaming at innocent customers to put their masks on because I genuinely thought it might save a life if I did. Maybe it did. But in my experience hawking bullshit to people in New York during a plague, no one who had the power to do anything ever gave a single solitary fuck about our lives. If you didn’t figure that out when they stopped federal funding for testing then you never will. It’s so funny to me that there’s a whole class of people who did bother social distance and stay inside and shit and still think everyone else did it too. I did my best, but let me tell you, you see the whole world face to face working retail in New York and NO ONE fucking bothered for more than a few months. So for the love of God don’t scold customer service people about their masks. They’ve resigned to whatever fate the Lord has picked for them. It feels a lot better than waiting for the Wicked Customer to consider your humanity. I’m not actually mad at that lady, she was nice and clearly concerned for us. She, paradoxically, did see us as human beings and expressed it through a little scold. And on black friday too!

So what was I talking about before that lady came in? Judging 19-year-olds for making self indulgent art. Pathetic. I’m 25! It is beyond time to let go of art school grievances. I really gotta do something with my life. I’ve been a little crushed by disappoinment lately. If the world doesn’t open up for you by 25, the world isn’t going to open for you. You’re gonna have to find another way. I do think I’m capable of finding another way, but I always naively believed the world would recognize my preternatural genius. The legions of faceless consumers would stand up and salute me, 20 years old, hot young indie boy of the week. The algorithm would sweep me to power, and I would give wonderfully acerbic interviews expressing my wholly unique worldview. I, the bespectacled white boy babyface of youth culture, would rule my overeducated milquetoast fans with an iron fist. Well its time to face the fact that none of that shit is gonna happen.

I just read an interview with Ty Segall, a big inspiration to me and a former babyface of youth rebellion in his own right, where he talked about his famous prolific output. He said he put out lots of albums because people wanted to put out his albums and he didn’t want to waste that opportunity. And that really bummed me out, because it got me thinking about just how fucking hard it is to keep being creative without any audience to speak of. Everyone kinda romanticizes the outsider artist grinding away in obscurity, but the audience is the whole fucking point. If your work doesn’t find an audience, how are you supposed to keep doing it? Honestly! If you look at your heroes, they usually found some audience, some level of validation early in their careers. Maybe it was a hundred people, maybe just one person who egged them on, but something. I think of all the talented friends I’ve had who I look at and think “I am going to make you a fuckin star.” I don’t seem to elicit that response from anyone. Sure people are supportive, and think my stuff is good, and that means a lot to me and keeps me going, but I’ve never gotten that “YES you are THE SHIT and we’re gonna go to the MOOON TOGETHER.” You kinda need that to happen I think. And if it doesn’t happen by 25 I don’t know if it happens at all. What a dirty thing to mourn right? My own lost chance at Wunderkinddom.

So basically I’m sad. I’m sad that I’m not a big deal. I dreamed very hard and those dreams did not pan out and now i have to find new dreams. It’s embarrassing, but it’s the truth. My brain has calcified, my neuroplasticity is gone, and I’ve solidified into the person who did not have the gumption to conquer the world. Its too late to acquire that gumption, so I’ll have to do without. I really really want something to work out. I’ve really wanted it for a long time.

Maybe 5 ish paragraphs this time! I’m in 5th grade now!

Nancy Pelosi wraps up her interview and an ad rolls across the screen. Verdant forests, golden plains, a soothing voice reassuring me that this company is laying a foundation for a beautiful future. The ad’s for Blackrock.

I’ve completely checked out of all that shit over the past year. I only ever see CNN turn on when I visit family, and I’m always shocked that this shit is still going on! The pundits are still acting shocked that Trump was mean to someone! Apparently there’s still a market for this. I recall a family friend proudly declaring in mid-2020, “If I turn off the news for a second, He wins.” And hey, I also spent the Trump years in 24/7 hysterics, I can’t judge. I recorded a cover of “Back in the USSR” as some kind of diss to the orange man for being a Russian agent and actually released it for fuck’s sake. (You can’t find it anymore, I’ll own my cringe in text but it’s too painful to let live). Lord knows I’ve got no legs to stand on here. Of course I’ve now convinced myself I’ve escaped the spectacle, I can see through it all, I’m not like the CNN watching sheep. But I’ve just graduated into a more niche marketing demographic, the TrueAnon listening parasocial faux-cynic. It’s been helpful to return to this blog and read that horrible first entry. A public reminder to myself that I am capable of astonishing self-deception. I really thought I was doing something. “Congratulations by reading this you’ve escaped your algorithmic control conditioning.” Jesu Christo! If you catch me saying that shit in real life punch me in the balls please. (Rhetorically).

In the years before my Grandpa died, he would turn on the news and say “Time for the Trump Show!” My Grandpa would not understand what an ARG is if you spent a year explaining it to him, but in his blunt cop-humor he managed to understand that this was all just an interactive piece of entertainment.

I’m running out of steam here. I took like three bathroom breaks over the past 100 words. My stamina limit seems to be about three paragraphs. Like a fucking third grader. A Hamburger Essay. I didn’t even do a conclusion. I really think I’m gonna take over the world with the written word when I’m writing at a Third Grade Level. But I suppose todays third graders are writing at a kindergarten level so maybe my limited capabilities are gonna seem impressive soon. Dear God, thank you for lowering the bar so I might have a chance of getting over it.

Well that didn’t work. Nearly two years later, I’m returning to this blog for the exact same reasons I did before. Nothing much has changed. I guess now I’ve learned my lesson about lofty declarations of intent. So this time, I’m not going to make any promises about how good I’m gonna blog. The fact is, I’m probably not going to blog. I made one post 22 or so months ago, didn’t tell anyone I made it, and promptly forgot all about it. I’ve spent probably $120 on this domain name so far? I think it’s $60 a year? It auto charges my paypal or something so who knows. But it’s a small price to pay to keep some other asshole named Cashel O’Malley from starting a blog under his own name and never posting to it. So if you’re reading this, other Cashel, fuck you.

It’s been a rough two years! I got a band going, played some shows, then it went right down the shitter. We recorded an album that I’m about to start pretending to mix. Just like Fugazi and Radiohead, we’re on indefinite hiatus. (If you don’t know, that’s the band equivalent of staying married for tax purposes). Functionally, we’re kaput. Unlike Fugazi or Radiohead, not many people are aware of or upset by that fact. Our shows had decent turnout, we’ve got a few friends who’ll be excited to hear the album when it comes out. But we never could cross the mystic threshold between “30 people come to your shows” and “200 people come to your shows.” I think we could have if we’d stuck with it, but hey, no point in empty speculation. The album’s really good, I’m probably more proud of it than anything I’ve ever done in my life, but it’s destined to be another thing that just gets thrown into the graveyard of the internet and forgotten. Just like this blog! The fucking internet, man! Luckily, I’m in another band that’s going much better and I’m having a lot of fun. But the experience of having this creative project which I really threw myself into just burn to a cinder has really done a number on me. Now I have semi-permanent bags under my eyes. I kinda like it. Natural eyeshadow. I’m goth now.

As I write, I’m home visiting my mom in LA. (Technically Inland Empire don’t tell anyone). I did spend a few days couch surfing among my friends from home on the west side, and I gotta tell ya, it ain’t bad! I’m really thinking about bailing on New York and coming back. Sure, there’s a Joan Didion type dark hollow underneath the sunny facade of California that consumes the souls of all who set foot in this wretched state, but god damn it it’s MY dark hollow. It’s sooo much more fun to be performatively cynical in LA than NYC. That’s my whole thing! Maybe I’ll make an auspicious return in the next year or two. Or not. I feel this way every time I come home. But maybe after nearly 7 years of coming home that’s something I should listen to.

Fuck! I’ve only written three paragraphs! I’ve been here for like a half hour. This shit is hard. I come from a Blogging Family, this is a disgrace to my forebears. I’m getting bored already, and I’m probably gonna wrap it up. We’ll see if I keep going this time. If not, see you in two years!

Hello everybody. If you’re reading this, you’re probably a friend or family member who has been directed here by one of my social media posts. You’ve made it this far, which means you’ve overcome the algorithms and committed the cardinal sin of Facebook and Twitter, clicking away. My experiment worked, and now I hopefully have your attention.

I’m starting this ~blog~ because I have a desperate desire to escape from the feedback loops of social media as it stands. Social media ostensibly fills a very obvious human need and solves the problem of proximity in human relationships, but this noble core function has been corrupted and weaponized by monopolies. As a result, the internet has severely degraded in quality of experience. Just a little more than ten years ago, the internet was an atomized and wondrous place filled with weird different websites. I was a kid then, and it was fantastic! Now, in the words of some guy from Twitter named Tom Eastman, it is “a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four.” I regularly spend half my waking life enthralled by the shiny lights of the greatest ad-delivery machine ever built, and I’m sick of it. Yet that core function of social media, allowing us to continue our valued relationships without close proximity, makes it impossible to leave cold turkey. So I am turning to the archaic and mystical form of the blog to create an alternative for myself. Social media has robbed me of the internet literacy you’d expect from an elder Gen-Z son-of-a-UX-designer. I’m going to get it back by running a website. I will to scream into the void here. If you care about what I’m saying, you can comment here. It makes no difference if no one is listening. If we ever want to see a multi-layered and diverse internet, we have to break out of the clutches of social media. I’m starting now.

I have also (since attending NYU) been infected with an insidious belief that everything that comes out of my mouth is stupid and not worth saying. This is a paralyzing problem for someone who wants to be a professional creator of art, so my other purpose in starting this blog is to get over that. I’m going to write, and some people might read it, even if it is stupid and bad. By finally committing to doing this publicly, I hope to actually get good at this craft. So this is going to be rough at first. I’m already using too many commas. But stick with me, and hopefully in a year’s time you won’t regret it.

I’ve chosen an extremely basic layout for the site. Graphic design is assuredly not my passion. There will be more pages coming, for acting and writing and music and all the “oh shit I just got out of college and have no artistic prospects” website tropes you expect. But right now the important thing is just to get it out there. I’ll figure the rest out later.