Replacing my blog at http://pablosmoglives.wordpress.com
3 Oct 2021 11 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.03
Last week, I was kidnapped by members of the faculty of the Escuela de Cantautoristas de Pablo Smog in Veracruz, Mexico. Some weird, dirty, unemployed-looking guys pointed their guitars in my face and shoved me in the back of a van and drove me into...
28 Sep 2021 8 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.04
Mexico is big on Whatsapp. I've heard it a few times, "not having Whatsapp down here is almost like not having a phone." I can see the uses of a cellphone, especially if it's the cheapest one on the shelf at Oxxo, which is the Mexican 7-11. I'm on...
26 Sep 2021 2 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.02
Hello, My name is Amoobi. I am a Nigerian songwriting student, currently studying at the Escuela de Cantautoristas de Pablo Smog in the dangerous port city of Veracruz, Mexico. I arrived several months ago on a songwriting visa supposedly issued by...
16 Sep 2021 4 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.02
Mexico is celebrating its Independence Day today. I'm watching it on YouTube, the livestream of an empty Zócalo in Mexico City, where the president spoke and said "Viva México" several times from the balcony, and rang a bell. He's wearing a purple...
12 Sep 2021 4 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.06
In a recent article, I said one of the reasons I came to Mexico is burn-out. I mentioned how I left before the election, not thinking it would matter who won or lost. I'd like to clarify why it never mattered who won or lost, and why Trump was neve...
10 Sep 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.03
Compared with eternity: Money compresses time and performs a thousand years of destruction in an hour. Art is an empty, meaningless clinging to a small, inflatable dinosaur in a kiddie pool of sharks. Love is a game of telephone among people who spea...
30 Aug 2021 3 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.01
I just read an article on Winepress News about songbirds dying off in the U.S. Anybody who's been following me for more than a couple hours knows that I've been writing about this topic for years. Many people think I'm a broken record about it. It...
22 Aug 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.02
Not everyone who can play has a talent for songwriting. I've known many great players over the years, great musicians who were masters of their instruments, who couldn't write their way out of a wet paper bag. They all make the same mistake: Think...
19 Aug 2021 3 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.03
Looking back is more than merely inadvisable, apparently. It's not so hard to avoid, when you realize how many bullets you dodged. Like I used to tell people when I was a cabdriver, who thought it looked like "fun," driving drunken, abusive halfwit...
17 Aug 2021 2 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne $0.02
One of the reasons I came to Mexico is burn-out. As a musician, I've been living on the front lines of the socialist "give your work away for free" movement for nearly 20 years. I sympathize with everyone who's lost their livelihood since the Freed...
