This year moves too quickly. It used to be January, and now it’s damn near June. JUNE! What is the essence of this faster movement of time? Having never been good with dates, I seldom know when anything is happening. I just vibe through life until it’s time. Hell, I didn’t even make it to I Love Boosters on time. Rare, for how I liked to do films, but I feel like there was a mistake with the timing on this one.

Mike Dynamo and The Dynamoverse live and die by your donations, beautiful people. Night Ledger will be released on May 26, 2026!

We’ll do a Night Ledger listening party at 7 pm CST.

I liked I Love Boosters quite a bit. That giant ball of garbage follows Corvette (Keke Palmer) around. I feel like I missed just enough. I walk in, and Palmer is already dressed up to look like a very large lady to steal many, many clothes at once. Corvette’s friends are carrying clothes they stole off the rack while everyone rushes to the car.

Fashionista Christine Smith (Demi Moore), an Anna Wintour type, calls their criminal group the Velvet Gang. Palmer, and their goal is to steal as many of her high-quality clothes as they can and sell them to the public for a third of the price. Or as they used to say on In Living Color, Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money! Times don’t change, just the amounts.

I think what hit me the hardest was the Demon fucking. That certainly explains the Japanese level of moisture coming out of this woman's body until her skin became crusty shards. That shit was crazy because I assume it really happened. This movie has a lot to say about lots of things and is more than happy to let us figure it out. That period of teleporters and science was fun and so off-putting. Demi Moore is being her best Devil Wears Prada style character with her
”fashion is the art of the body” type thinking, and her upcoming fashion show.

Director Boots Reilly (Sorry to Bother You or the movie where Danny Glover tells LaKeith Stanfield to use his ‘white voice’ to get more sales, and it works), is a very interesting one at that. An openly socialist one at that. One of the other most blatant, elements is when everybody, including Don Cheadle, are asked to get “buttnaked” so the Velvet Gang can sell their $100,000 suits, and those people take all their skin off too. It was basically nine different cases of Rock DJ by Robbie Williams.

Most importantly, Reilly always leaves room for politics. We have the Chinese character Jianyu (Poppy Liu) showing up from China with a plan of her own. Jianyu and her brother are from the China and exist in the lower working class. While goofing off traveling through the vents, they stumble across a teleportation device designed to move clothes that are made in China to the United States to save on any import taxes or tariffs as President Trump likes to call them. Well those kids steal the machine and hide that in the vents. Create a “bag of holding” for Jianyu and send her to American to rob the Metro stories Demi Moore owns. In China, many of their coworkers are getting sick from the stone washing process. In the way to get be the best possible capitalist, Demi Moore is not down to change any part of the process or pay them the 30% more money they need to live.

While Palmer and the Gang are working at one of Moore’s shops in an effort to case it and rob it, their manager, Grayson (Will Poulter), is not interested in anything his employees say. While the Velvet Gang, and actual employees are being chastised in the dressing room, Jianyu uses the teleporter inside her magic bag to clean out the building of any clothes anywhere inside. They all get the “return to sender” treatment and end up back in China at the factory. Meanwhile, the regular Metro employees are getting ready to strike over their own low pay. Metro makes their employees pay for their own outfits, so their checks are around $30 to $40 dollars.

For Boots Reilly, politics are part of the playbook. Employment strikes, stealing from billionaires, slanted buildings, and hallucinated 20ft balls of garbage rolling down the street. The Velvet Gang has to take Smith’s operation apart. Once they hook up with Jianyu, the sky’s (teleporter) the limit (stealing and reselling a.k.a. the “boosting”). Reilly is a socialist and makes movies like one.

Should I go see I Love Boosters?

Absolutely! Do a movie night this week, take a trip to the theater, and give I Love Boosters a watch as soon as you can. It needs you and it’s worth it. The film plays with space in interesting ways. It a story about overcoming the need for revenge and completely ruins a MET-style fashion show. It also has a demon eating pussy until a woman’s skin nearly breaks.

So... yeah. Get outta here, you crazy kids. Go watch Keke Palmer and Demi Moore tear up some interesting roles in a movie about stealing that feels like Set It Off. In the media, criminals never quit after one case. It always has to be a few. That’s why there are three Ocean’s Eleven movies, capped off with Sandra Bullock’s Oceans 8. I suppose if I were making thousands a week from stealing and selling, I would feel the need to try it again. Nobody is going to pay all those brain cancer medical bills. Let the telporter armed, bad attitude, Boosters teach you how the game is really played.

Then, thank Boots Reilly for getting us there.

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Growing older is something I think about a lot. At my age, it’s hard not to. My experience with brain cancer makes that even harder, as I have another MRI scheduled next week. So these ideas of age stay closer to my mind than they ever have before. In other words, this shit is wild...

The one thing that makes me most curious is whether the ways I’ve changed come from a doctor carving into my brain or just getting older. Older people forget things, but so do brain cancer survivors. Older people struggle with their health, but so do brain cancer survivors. Older people are done with going out all night, but so are brain cancer survivors (and everyone over the age of 40).

What I’m most curious about is whether or not my songwriting ability has changed. The two things I’ve done consistently in my life are being a Camp Texas counselor for all four years in college and writing songs. It’s as if I figured my life out at 14 when I wrote my first song, but didn’t appreciate that until I was 34 and choosing songs to bring songs like older songs like Rival City’s Luke Cage to my band, Hypnotic Fist Technique in Cambodia.

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Of course, the entire point of songwriting is that people have different tastes. Some people want to hear 5 minutes of rap lyrics, while others only want to hear Morgan Wallen’s take on country music. Lots of people don’t care what music they’re listening to, and some hate music altogether, like Jeff Bezos. I’ve never liked Jeff Bezos, and now I know why. I’ve never stopped writing songs and happened to end up singing my own compositions on stages with bands. When I went solo with Black Asgardians in 2016, it was strange for me to be in charge of every lyric coming out of my mouth. This is especially true when working with two French guys and being recorded by a German child star. In other words, Cambodia was wild.

Music breaks down into choice. People don’t analyze it in the same way that I do. That’s why I hate Hey, Soul Sister by Train. That “I’m so gangster, I’m so thug” line will always put a bad taste in my mouth when Pat Monahan seems to be seducing a Black woman. I had a long conversation about this on my Mike Dynamo Facebook page. You can find it if you want, but it’s admittedly a silly argument.

In many ways, I don’t know how well I write songs anymore. Looking back, I don’t think I ever knew. Sometimes it just feels right! I pepper current tracks with things I create, remember from the past, or older songs I remember well. I’m a reference machine, but now I’m an OLDER reference machine, and I recognize acutely that I do not know what these kids are talking about. Type shit.

There was a time when telling a woman you were in a band raised your profile a few levels. These women and their friends would come and check out your band. People wanted to be a part of something, and that opportunity was yours to offer. Now it’s hard to get your friends to listen to your stuff. Everyone has kids, and your ranting at the government doesn’t go far enough for people to care or sue you. It’s not nearly as cool to be in a band after passing 40. It’s like I should be buying a motorcycle and taking a cross-country journey with my high school friends. I think women might respect that more.

Regardless of these ideas rolling around in my head, I’ve no plans on stop the ,music any time soon. I love it too much. I held on to ambitious musical partners over the years. Like CIC in Italy, and Dubberman in France. Plus, the ideas keep spewing out of my mind like a broken sprinkler. It is my duty to offer all this to the public. That’s the truth of it. Mike Dynamo will not leave you behind!

Mike Dynamo X Dubberman are releasing a new album called Night Ledger on May 26, 2026. Dubber is the guy who worked with me originally on my first solo EP a decade ago. Night Ledger will be on Bandcamp and the rest of the internet on that day. Go forth and listen, “or the devil, he may take ya.” Why yes, that is a reference from a Thin Lizzy song that Metallica covered. Welcome to my reference machine.

In my head, I’m great. I demand greatness with every line. Despite “best” not being an existing concept, I want my lyrics to be the best. In this particular endeavor, I want to be the best. That is the best goal for an older, brain cancer survivor to chase. I’m still here for it.

Mike Dynamo and The Dynamoverse live and die by your donations, beautiful people. All the music and music videos are on my website.

Mike Dynamo and The Dynamoverse live and die by your donations, beautiful people. Here’s a year's worth of my own music hits right here!

Michael Jackson is a legend.

Michael Jackson would play a show, and people would faint.

Michael Jackson said he needed to hold on to his musical ideas so they didn’t fall to Prince instead.

This was an excellent movie. Best biopic I’ve seen since A Complete Unknown which is about Bob Dylan, a.k.a. a musician I know nothing about other than that his best songs were covers.

Michael is a film about Michael Jackson. It leaves a lot of his life out for legal reasons which royally upset director Antoine Fuqua. Personally, I was too dazzled by my one-time hero’s music the whole time to care. Michael Jackson (Jaafar Jackson) is forced to stand up despite his father being Joe “Ass Whuppin” Jackson. Who cares about Michael Jackson and Diana Ross relationship during The Wiz? I wouldn’t have gone to her wedding either, Michael.

Some things I learned were that Michael Jackson was a pretty good visual artist and loved weird animals. He had a rat, a llama, a big ass snake, a giraffe, and got Bubbles way earlier than I originally thought. We should honestly do a movie based on Bubbles’ outfits. That would be fun!

Michael Jackson did not have much of a childhood, becoming the star member of the Jackson 5 around seven years old. Joe “Ass Whuppin” Jackson drilled these boys until they were perfect. Michael only gets one spanking the whole movie. In the previous VH1 Jacksons film, Joe made one of his kids go get a switch from outside for his upcoming whuppin’ instead. Nothing better than helping out the person about to whup your ass. This movie kept that kind of stuff to a minimum. Ultimately, that’s good. I don’t think Joe needed to be that kind of bastard this time around. Joe just needed to be as intimidating as the electric Coleman Domingo could make him.

Luckily for us, the fans of Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, this movie is essentially filled with needle drops. Real songs from a time you remember, or heard about. There are fun classical versions of Michael Jackson songs, too. Few, if any, people have distributed as many hits as Michael Jackson. He, like Prince and Rick James, was a perfectionist. He’s not leaving the studio until his creation is at its peak. That is the kind of artist he was.

What’s “Michael” about?

This movie is about Michael Jackson and the struggle to remove himself from his father’s influence. Daddy might have given him the skill, but in the end, that skill was Michael’s and never Joe Jackson’s.

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We see a lot of Michael’s life and animals. We see him turn to surgery for the first time after his dad called Michael “big nose” for his whole life. We witness him talk to a doctor about his vitiligo issue. Most importantly, we see what that Pepsi head-burning issue was like from Michael’s perspective. I never thought about how many weeks it would take to get over something like that. There were many. All I heard was that Michael spun so fast he almost put it out himself. Unfortunately, truth is stranger than fiction, and this burning looked painful as hell. Obviously, Joe’s first question to the doctor is about when his son will be ready to tour. Nothing would make you feel used more than a question like that.

Michael has the worst time trying to break up with his daddy. He sends label guys to talk to him. Nope! He gets a new lawyer to talk to him. Nope! Finally, he fired his father with a fax machine in the early 80s. Having a fax machine back then screams “rich” and Michael used that wealth to get himself new management. I can see why he bought the Beatles’ publishing away from Paul McCartney. Michael talks mad smack to lawyers and label heads. He wants to get Billie Jean on MTV and the label head threatens to take all the other CBS artists off the air. With no choice, MTV had their first (technically second, but Herbie Hancock’s video had no people in it) video with an African-American artist on their station. Still, no matter what Michael accomplishes on his own, he has little to say whenever Joe enters the room.

At this point, as many of us probably know, Michael Jackson finally quit the Jackson family band after finishing the U.S. part of their tour. He says this on stage just after his father finishes telling the press about the international parts. For Michael, there will be no international part. He’s largely done with the Jackson 5 after that. Good for all of them!

Things to be aware of when watching “Michael.”

As I mentioned at the top, Michael will be a hard watch if you’re an anti-Michael person. Many people believed he touched those boys in the early 90s. I used to agree, but I’ve run into additional research that makes me think none of the assault charges in that care were real. Michael settled one case to keep it out of court, but when someone else wanted to bring him to court over this, he decided to have a trial over it to prove his innocence. One thing that surprised me about the research I did was that Donald Trump actually supported Michael Jackson.

“I’m gonna stick up for him because nobody else is, and I don’t believe it”. - Donald Trump

I’m not sure what to take from that. My mind is telling me that Donald Trump will protect anyone in his orbit who might be tried over pedophilia. I assume the goal is to build up enough goodwill for when he has his own day in court over similar charges… again.

There really isn’t much else to say about any of that. If you’ve ever been a fan, I think you should relive it in this film. The film has already made its money back, and there’s been talk of a sequel. Maybe we’ll get a Wesley Snipes cameo when Michael does the short film for Bad, just like in real life!

The Bad record will always be another part of me. It was a gift when I turned 6 years old, and I jumped off a fireplace screaming leave me alone. Bad made me feel bad, but like “bad” meaning good. I just couldn’t stop loving the way it made me feel. Even if I felt like a smooth criminal, I knew all I had to do was look at the man in the mirror and make that change, before dirty Diana started babysitting me and spoke to her boyfriend in London for an hour. Eh... at least Diana is not a Liberian girl.

Daredevil. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Matt Murdock Esq. Daredevil has so many names on this show. In fact, there were so many names on this show that I fell asleep. I would turn it on, watch the intro, and fall asleep for half an hour. That is not a good way to watch TV if you want to know what’s going on. Don’t worry, I rewound and watched what I missed, but could never shake the sensation that. Daredevil: Born Again season 2 was... boring.

Your mileage may vary, but as I mentioned on Threads this week:

I stick to what I said. It’s almost like the higher you get in Daredevil’s New York, the whiter everyone gets. Every principal character is played by a white person. Bullseye is a white person. Wilson Fisk is a white person who punches well. Karen, Foggy, therapist Heather Glenn, the governor of NY, Vanessa, Buck, Cherry, and Daniel Blake. That is a CBS lineup if I’ve seen one.

I believe the only Black characters on the show are Kirsten, Murdock’s new attorney partner, BB the journalist (who spends half her time cosplaying Kingpin), and one of the men on Fisk’s ICE-like anti-vigilante task force. There might be more, but I don’t care. There are a few Puerto Ricans on the show, like White Tiger’s niece, Ava, Ava’s mom, Fisk’s aide, and that cool kid who pretends to know you while sliding something in your pocket.

None of these characters are particularly important.

Say what thought wilt, but other than the Avengers, I haven’t seen a show this white in a long time. Am I race-baiting? No. Because I did not invent race. I just live by it.

How Was Daredevil: Born Again Season 2

Daredevil is well-acted. After taking one of Bullseye’s bullets at the end of Season 1, Murdock has fallen off the grid, which is bad news for his legal partner, Kirsten. Daredevil is still active trying to bring down Fisk’s regime as the Mayor of New York City. That’s typically how it works. Start as a mobster, work your way up to Mayor. Read up on the history of the Kennedys if you’d like to more on how that works in real life.

It was at this point that I realized that I don’t know anyone from Daredevil’s rogues gallery other than Elektra (when they aren’t sleeping together), Wilson Fisk, and Bullseye. I’ve been reading Marvel comics since I was 5 years old. You’d think I’d know, but I don’t. Of course, they were forced do every season with Fisk. Despite appearing first in a Spider-Man comic, what other would they choose?

Daredevil: Born Again feels very similar to... every Daredevil, including the movie with Ben Affleck. You didn’t forget about that film, did you? When Matt and Elektra weren’t wearing masks while testing each other’s skills at a playground? Do you remember who Matt Murdock fought in that movie? The Kingpin. Wilson Fisk. The same guy as the show, but he was played by Michael Clarke Duncan. We call that diversity.

Anyway, on season 2, Daredevil sinks a boat filled with weapons, he and Karen Page are having again, and Bullseye is wandering the streets being really nice to old ladies and dogs before murdering Fisk’s goons on Matt’s behalf. Jessica Jones (another white character) shows up after “a government agency” tries to blow Jessica and Luke Cage’s daughter up.

Fisk has Buck kill the captain and first mate for following instructions. Fisk does a Mayoral charity boxing event and beats his opponent up so hard that the crowd stops cheering. Vanessa shows up to the fight after dealing with the governor, but Bullseye tries to kill everyone and Wilson Fisk uses his new championship belt to save his wife’s life, but she ended up with a piece of glass stuck in the side of her head. Now we can see the Kingpin mad at a hospital until he has to squeeze a doctor to death to get his point across.

That’s when we run into the biggest problem Daredevil has for me. In the comics, I get it. Superheroes don’t kill. They make a big point about avoid it. They just lock up bad guys over and over again until they get out of prison with a new grudge. That just doesn’t work on television shows.

Daredevil, we love you, and while it isn’t in your purview to judge who should live or die, you have a secret identity. People who kill your people, need to be taught a lesson from time to time, and sometimes that means they gotta go. In season 1, when Bullseye killed Foggy, you chased him up a building, watched your best friend die in the street, then tossed Bullseye off of the building. Then, in Season 2, you’re helping him get away from Fisk’s Task Force. In Season 1, you teamed up with the Punisher and tried to stop him from killing people. I know all about the Punisher. Nobody stops the Punisher from killing people. This season, when Fisk essentially lost the court case because you won by admitting in public that you are Daredevil by having Matt Murdock throw his blind person stick around and catching it.

After that, Fisk goes on a rampage and punches three-quarters of his 25 challengers to death.

Daredevil, why do you want to save this man? He’s killed so many people, but you want us, the audience, to believe your morals are so unshakable bad guys, even when they pay off the cops, needs justice served. There has to be some point where you recognize they don’t wanna be save, and deserves the bullets coming their way. Do not take a bullet for Fisk ever again. You are a normal human with amazing senses and ninja training. Fisk doesn’t need you to save him, and you did it anyway.

If I lived in your world, I would hate you, too.

Should I watch Daredevil: Born Again Season 2?

If you’re a Marvel fanboy like me, of course, you’re going to watch it. Let’s enjoy this bubble as much as we can. We’re going strong after 17 years, let’s enjoy what we’re getting here.

If people around you are saying this show is good, they are not wrong per se. It’s “good,” in that way these kinds of stories are. Street-level superhero takes down the Mayor. I would love to take down a Mayor if I had superpowers.

However, if you’re tired of shows with extremely white castss, and have successfully avoided CSI, Law and Order, Bones, Yellowstone, and shows like those then this might not be your cup of tea. You might turn it on, but be blessed by the gods of boredom and have yourself a little nap as I did. Only it might be best for you to stay in dreamland.

If I gave shows a “number” like I perfer not to do, I’d give Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 , a 7/10 of 10. Honestly, I prefer my Daredevil from the She-Hulk show. That guy seemed fun! This version of Daredevil embraces the sleep demon too hard. In fact, this show made me stop looking forward to reading Daredevil comics.

Yikes...

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Throw a few dollars at your boy so I can take you to dinner the next time I see you. Check out the Mike Dynamo music releases on Bandcamp and everywhere else on the internet until then.

Anime wasn’t cool when I was a kid. At least, that’s what people say. There are lots of fond memories of Thundercats, Voltron, and, of course, Transformers, which were originally created for the Japanese market.

I was a Speed Racer kid. There was nothing better than souped-up cars taking on impossible races with angry drivers stopping to fist-fight every few miles—high-quality television for a 5-year-old. In fact, my love of that show is likely why I brought a gigantic framed picture of a Jeff Gordon from Austin to Katy for my little brother during the oughts. My car love came from Speed Racer, his car love came from Cars.

For the rest of my youth, that anime love never went away. It’s the same story for my slow crawl to the finish line. It was fun for my friends and me to go to the video store to pick some out. The employees must not have watched them because we’d have never seen Plastic Little, or Guy: Double Target, if there was any animated supervision. Some people watched for the giant breasts; I watched for the stories.

Personally, I think the anime has gotten better over the last 40 years. There were tapes with two to three episodes back then, and we sucked it up and enjoyed Gunsmith Cats. Y’see, in early 90s Japan, “cats” meant “girls.” Talk about things I didn’t understand back then. At least the translations are better. This brings up the main question today. What recent anime have I been watching that you should consider watching as well?

#1: Sentenced To Be A Hero

I can’t believe I’m saying this, I got into this show over the last few days, but I HATED the first episode. It’s about some random guy with exploding knives who allegedly “killed a goddess”, and was “sentenced to be a hero” which will make your head explode if you get out of order.

Heroes are the lowest of the low. It would be better to be a homeless person smoking crack on the sidewalk than be a hero. Heroes have to follow orders and fight stacks upon stacks of demons. Crack seems way better.

I decided to pick this show up again, and I can see why people like it. The way they run through stories and do the impossible is compelling. Plus another tiny, whiney, goddess has joined the angry Hero’s party. Apparently, he also has a fiancée. Meow!

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#2: I Parry Everything

I was surprised how much I’ve enjoyed this show so far. It’s about a boy who’s lost both parents. He tends the farm on his own, but finally decides to live his dream. He wants to be an adventurer!

At 14 or so, he leaves home and heads to the big city to learn that he sucks at everything. He can produce one weak fire spell, and the only thing he excels at is not getting hit. He ends up getting sent home and trains for 10 years and doesn’t get much better at anything other than parrying attacks.

He journeys back to the city, becomes an F-rank adventurer, which is the odd job class. Luckily, the training and bits of magic he’s learned make things easy for him. He uses his parry ability to behead a minotaur and the king gives him a big ass Black Blade. The protagonist thinks it’s perfect for getting gunk out of the drains. That’s the kind of intelligence we’re working with here.

#3: Windbreaker

Growing up, did you ever play River City Ransom on your Nintendo? If so, that’s what Winderbreaker is about. A bunch of badass high school kids proving they’re the best by literally street-fighting the hell out of each other.

The protagonist is odd looking with his white hair and different colored eyes. Nobody’s ever loved him before, so he goes to the town with the most bad news kids in the world. He wants to make it to the top! Naturally, that’s hard to do when the whole town falls in love with you because of how much ass you kick.

Interesting, there are no teachers anywhere in their high school. These boys don’t learn anything, but they protect their turf and beat the brakes off anybody who threatens it.

#4: Jujutsu Kaisen

The internet won. I saw the RDC guys do a hilarious video based on it today. I’ll spare you a breakdown, but nobody was lying. It’s both good and intense.

Boy eats demon finger, boy gains incredible power whenever the Demon takes over. Boy is forced to go to Jujutsu High and lean about curses, spirits, and how they’ll kill him if he doesn’t comply. Add girl with hammer, and boom! Jujutsu Kaisen!

#5: Solo Leveling

Have you ever seen an anime set in Korea? In fact, I think this was made in Korea. “Koreanime”? “Korinemae”? “Koreoreoxenfree?” I don’t what you call it, but it was incredibly interesting.

Gates have opened up worldwide. Sometimes they’ll open on the street you’re driving on. Luckily for humanity, some humans become “hunters,” and their whole job is to go into the gates and kill the boss so they’re entire party can make it out’

Similar to I Parry Everything, our protagonist sucks. He’s ranked E, and goes on harder missions because each group needs a cerain amount of hunters to go in. So he’ll take his E class inside these gates with attached dungeons. Makes sense beacause the dungeons have treasure inside! Who doesn’t like treasure!?

During one mission, after completing their mission. Rather than leave, they find another path and decide to loot that one on the way out. Unfortunately, rather than monsters, this one is filled with giant soldiers and riddles. Only our E-rank hunter can figure them out, but every time somebody doesn’t listen, they end up choking on their own blood. Just as our hero is about to die he solves all the riddles!

Then he wakes up in a hospital and suddenly has interesting video game like abilities. He can do special things. He can level up by himself. Get it!

#6: So I’m a Spider, So What

You watch as a bunch of kids stop palling around and take their seats inside of your average Japanese classroom. That classroom explodes.

Next, you’re in a cave. One of the female characters has been reincarnated as a spider! In that cave she goes through it, but similar to Solo Leveling, there is a video game-like feel as she consistently improves.

After eating one of her own and becoming a “kin-killer”, she fights dragons, learns how to walk on air, and even uses he “evil eye” which lets her kill people from trees in the woods.

After a few episodes, you find out her entire class has been reincarnated in this new universe. Some are “heroes” while others are villains. They’re all humans and elves, including their teacher.

This show has a surprising amount of things going on. I was originally told to check it out by our houseguest. I thought this would suck, but I was completely wrong. I love it when that happens.

#7: One Piece

Don’t let over 1100 episodes throw you off. One Piece has lasted 26 years for a reason. Creator, Oda-sama is slowly ending his pirate-themed masterpiece. It’s brilliant. Take your time. Watch the episodes. Love your life a little more with every screening.

I believe in you.

Of course, if THAT doesn’t inspire check out seasons one and two of the Netflix One Piece remake. Even if you’re the “I hate remakes” type. Give it a few episodes and let me know. The One Piece remake easily solves my Daredevil problem. I’ll let you know what that is later.

Media Mix-Up Complete!

I enjoy doing these Mix Ups! When you watch a lot, you can write a lot! I hope all you anime heads check out some of these if you haven’t seen them yet. The Crunchyroll subscription is worth it.

Get one, go watch, have fun!

This year, I’ve been living through a brand new moment, both for my town and the entire state of Texas. I’d like to say that it hit me hard when this happened, but I honestly had no idea. I’d already decided to stop reviewing movies and was moving on to monthly music releases. Despite it all, I can firmly say that Houston, TX has no more Alamo Drafthouse.

I kept checking the app on my phone. I tuned it to Houston, and nothing came up. I thought this was strange. I watched every movie there since late 2023. I liked most of them! I did not care for Francis Ford Coppola’s “masterpiece he spent his personal money on,” Megalopolis. If you’ve been around a while, you’ve likely read about the Megalopolis disagreement. As always, I’m completely right, and Andrew should listen to me.

Since I don’t do much driving in this city that Exxon owns half of, I had yet to see what they’d done with the old haunt. It was probably filled with Scooby Doo-style ghosts, falling rafters, and broken alcohol bottles. When I finally went down to La Centerra to see the carnage... nothing had changed but the name. Houston’s Alamo Drafthouse has now become Houston’s Flix Brewhouse.

Flix Brewhouse is a place where you can walk in and watch whatever popular movies are out. While you’re watching, you can even order food to your table! I’d never heard of anything so special and cool, and it’s the same as the Drafthouse.

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When I walked in to snoop around, one of the bartenders told me the most interesting thing I’d ever heard about movies and deceased director estates. The Alamo Drafthouse had worked out a deal with Stanley Kubrick’s estate and was allowed to use the carpeting from the film Psycho. I remember how horrifying it was to go in there when they were replaying the film. Those carpets led up to those scary ass twins the Shining kid was looking at while riding through on his big wheel. Funny now... not funny then.

So it’s over now. No more Alamo Drafthouse in dat H-town, but now there’s a Flix Brewhouse. Could be worse, could be better. I’ll never know if I don’t go. Perhaps I’ll check out that Michael Jackson movie people have been talking about.

Not sure if you know this, but my 6-year-old birthday present was the BAD record. My friends and I would put that album on, stomp around the house, and jump off the fireplace. My mother was displeased with the fireplace jump, but we did it all because we were bad! You know it! Come on!

So goodbye, Houston’s Alamo Drafthouse. I suppose I’ll see you in Austin. That was where we met in the first place. I hope those reclining seats remember the feel of my butt. I hope those tables remember how badly I’d have to go during a three-hour movie, eventually forcing myself up and out to the bathroom just before the end. I hope those urinals remember me trying pee and wash quickly and… yknow what. Don’t worry about it. Most importantly, I hope Flix has some sort of deal that lets me see a new movie every day. Drafthouse had that, and for a while, it made my life.

Goodbye Drafthouse, hello Brewhouse.

I’ve put all our tracks into one album called Monthly Melee Brawl. Y’know… like Super Smash Bros. That is a video game I am unstoppable at. Please don’t talk to Sergio about that. Anyway, here’s your new record!

(Charismatic Part 2 (Remix) and So Charismatic are there as bonus tracks. No I don’t know why)

Rather than leave these songs strewn across Bandcamp, I put them together in a very reasonably priced collection.

Listen to it, give it to DJs, comment on it, tell me how great or terrible I am. The Monthly Melee Brawl is a love letter to you. Yes. You. Sitting right there. I’m talking to you about something made for you. Go forth and collect what you’ve what’s yours

The good news is we the music releases on this side will stop for a while, so we can get back to more ideas about life, and comics, movies, and anime. I have watched so much anime. Now that it’s so cool, I’ve got a post coming out about it very soon!

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I’ve been rewatching Daria. Backwards actually. I started on Season 5 and have worked my way back to Season 3. I enjoy the pre-Tom season more than the post-Tom ones.

Still... if I got to re-make Daria this year, what would I do to make a great show better? One of Daria’s big problems was diversity. We had Mack and Jodie, Ms. Li, and a few random ethnicities running around in the background of different episodes. So let’s start there and branch out.

1. Make Daria a one-hour show.

I love a good sitcom, but Daria always had some realness to spit about the way the world works, a world that has only gotten worse since her show went off the air. Making the show 45 minutes to 1 hour would give us more chances to take advantage of her cynical realness. She often likes to say things like this:

This scene is particularly funny to me, because my high school did the same thing. They tried to pump their teens full of a beverage called Surge or SURGE as they say in the commercial. This carbo (no idea what that means) fueled drink was basically a porto-Red Bull. They’re advertisements impress me to this day.

I’m feeling pretty carbo fueled now SURGE!

2. Jane and Trent Lane are Asian-American.

Honestly, these characters already look Asian to me. This change shouldn’t affect my show at all. Jane would still be taller, have the same haircut, and a desire to be an artist. Trent would still sit at home and fall asleep a lot. He would also lead his own band with the same name and try to come up with new names all the time.

3. I would darken up Lawndale.

Brittany would be the same squeaky-voiced white girl she’s always been, only her boyfriend Kevin would be a Black QB and a colossal idiot. He’s no bully, just a dumb, Black jock.

President Sandi, in all her passive-aggressive awfulness, and Quinn still snipe at each other. Tiffany remains Asian, but Staci needs to be pretty and biracial.

Mack and Jodie are still two Black kids living in the suburbs and likely being voted Homecoming queen and king every year. Jodie’s hair would also remain exactly the same as it is in the cartoon. Daria gets Jodie’s hair right, which took video games over 20 years to figure out.

We can make Charles (Upchuck) whatever ethnicity that tries way too hard to get women. Goth girl, Andrea, would still be goth, but also a 6’1” volleyball player.

The teachers would all be very similar to how they’re portrayed on the cartoon. Anthony DeMartino is basically Joe Louis Clark from the film Lean on Me, with a glass eye. Art teacher Claire Defoe could be a white Muslim. Timothy O’neill is also white, while his over-the-top love interest, Janet Barch, is a divorced Indian woman. Coach Gibson is Latino. Don’t worry about these changes. I’ll figure it out with the showrunner.

I know this show takes place in the suburbs. I too, come from there. However, anybody who doesn’t know what the suburbs are like these days, hasn’t been walking around enough malls and coffee shops in their area. I used to have an Argentenian coffee shop up the street. I’d go there and practice my awful Spanish.

4. The Morgendorffers are perfect.

What a family. The cynical Daria, the fashion-obsessed, boy crazy Quinn, the breadwinning, power wife, Janet, and the father-obsessed, ‘consultant,’ Jake are magnificent. The Morgandorffers don’t need any help. They just need more room to work

This show is skittled with problems. Growing up, getting along with others, breaking out of our shell, breaking into your shell, aliens, Sick Sad World, and driver’s education. Daria’s mouthy comments are often heard but ignored by delivery, just like sister Quinn’s. Mom’s too busy, while Dad is angry about something absurd. They are all white, and they are all perfect.

5. Respect the original text.

Alisa Jadyn knows what I’m talking about.

Despite the changes I would like to make, I would create my own version of Daria with a heavy lean on what came before. This show is a classic and doesn’t need anyone’s help. It’s fantastic the way it is.

If they wanted help, it would be my pleasure to create my own version of Daria. I’d need a crack team of comedy and teen drama writers. Some from Ginny and Georgia. A writer from Deli Boys. A Rick and Morty person. Maybe an out-of-work Girls 5eva writer. Maybe Alisa Jadyn?

I don’t know how many writers it would take to make this show work. All I know is they would have to watch Daria forwards and backwards like I’m doing right now.

If you had the responsibility of resurrecting this classic, how would you do it? Let me know in the comments!

Black Daria by Trent Lane

I knew a girl called Daria
She was black like my stereo
She had a crush on me, I think
But she wasn’t old enough to drink

“I’m gonna have to spend more time on that.” - Trent

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The Alamo Drafthouse closed down. Houston and its surrounding areas have no more Alamo. That wasn’t why I stopped reviewing movies, but this fact remains a piercing dagger in my heart. How could the Alamo not do well enough in my hometown? I watched a lot of the movies at earlier times so I could provide a perspective before the day’s end. The flip side is that once I stopped reviewing movies, I saved about $300 a month.

The Alamo Drafthouse is expensive.

Today, The Media Mix-Up will consist of most of the television and anime I’ve had feelings about this year. So, sit tight, listen up, and let me introduce you to:

Wonder Man (Live-Action)

Disney’s Wonder Man focuses on Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and great actor Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) a.k.a. “The Mandarin.” Remember The Mandarin? From Iron Man 3. Arguably the best Iron Man film? Of course you do.

Williams wants to be an actor. He goes to auditions all over town, but keeps ruining his rep by over-explaining things to the directors of his performance of a single line. The first episode is a chroicle of his failure as his girlfriend also walks out on him.

Slattery has just reentered the U.S. and is immediately tackled by the F.B.I. He tries to tell them he served his time. They respond with “shut up... you work for us now.” They actually send Slattery to become friends with Williams to prove that he has superpowers he’s being dishonest about. Turns out the F.B.I. was right.

I loved Wonder Man.

Ultimately it’s a well-acted show about actors and superpowers. Only an asshole who never bothered watching it would be angry on social media about it. This show was very fun and interesting to me, as a long-time reader of Marvel comics in a post-comic book Wonder Man universe.

In the comics, Wonder Man was part of the Avengers since 1964. He was a bad guy turned into an Avenger. Wonder Man was also extremely white, like every other comic book character in the 60s or every Avengers movie that doesn’t feature Black Captain America, Sam Wilson or Black Panther (that includes the New Avengers as well).

People of a certain persuasion pooped all over this show, but it has been renewed for a second season. Also, there’s a black and white episode starring Doorman from the Great Lakes Avengers (or X-men) that was hilarious.

Black Clover (Anime)

Black Clover has been hot for a while, but I finally got around to watching it. It’s a shonen, but split in two. Asta and Yuno live in a world where everyone has magic, save for a select few. One of those few is 5’5” Asta. He has zero mana, so he trains exceedingly hard for the day he can finally get his grimoire to help with casting greater spells.

Yuno, on the other hand, is great with magic from the jump. He’s also at least 6ft tall. During grimoire season, Yuno gets the biggest tome and it has four clovers on it. That means it’s not just lucky, but also the key to incredible power. Obviously, as soon as they leave the grimoire temple, someone immediately tries to take Yuno’s four clover magic tome, but that’s when Asta’s FIVE clover anti-magic blade (that makes him look like Cloud from Final Fantasy 7) forms, and he’s able to save them both. Then they both decide they want to be the next Wizard King and go to the city to make it happen.

The city is filled with nobles with the best magic who treat non-nobles like absolute crap. That’s the political part.

Fallout (Season 2)

I was hungry for more of this Amazon series. I liked the first series a lot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember anything that happened from it. Even when I watched the recap, I was stuck asking, “Who are all these people?” I don’t move backwards, so I kept watching and this season seemed as good as the first one. I think there was more body horror this time.

The Dynamoverse lives and dies by your donations, beautiful people.

All the music videos can be seen on my website or YouTube!

I’ll be releasing new music every month. I hope you enjoy the songs as much as I enjoyed making them.

As it’s out right now, I’ll leave the details to the fans to figure out, but this is beyond solid to me. It also connects very well in look and style to the video game it came from. I love that. A great show from a video game franchise is unexpected due to how bad they were in the 90s, other than the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. That bombshell likely ignited the other movies like Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, and Double Dragon that didn’t hold a candle to the games or even the cartoons.

So I’m a Spider. So What? (anime)

I was asked to watch this series on Crunchyroll, and as he was nice enough to make it possible for me to watch, I unexpectedly watched about 27 of these episodes.

I’m A Spider. So What? is a story where you spend two minutes in an average Japanese high school before the entire class explodes and all the students become “reincarnations” in a new, fantasy-style universe. Now these kids can gain experience and level up their stats. Of course, we only start the show with the story of one reincarnation. A quiet, unpopular girl who gets reincarnated as a spider hatching from an egg. A lot of the other kids were reincarnated as nobility. Totally fair!

The girl-spider is deep in a dungeon. She’s weak and unable to defeat many of the larger beings. She has to work extremely hard to level up her power set. After the first few episodes, we finally get to see what the other, more noble students are doing. The answer is causing wars. Reincarnations are on both sides of the growing conflict. Who will save these lil children!

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (Season 1)

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is one of my favorite shows in 2026. I like to call it Star Trek Academy: The College Years, mostly because actress Gina Yashere is an unkind Klingon/Jem’Hadar, with a blue face who’s married to Tig Notaro’s character.

It’s the students who make the show for me.

I already love an The O.C. style teen drama, and a sci-fi teen drama was every bit as fun as I thought it’d be. Fooling the chancellor, beefing with the war college, and learning to become the best of the best in the Star Trek universe. It was a previous show called Star Trek: Discovery that brought me to this universe after the three most recent films, but I’m very happy to have stuck around long enough to see Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

They are getting one more season for this show, and then it seems Paramount is pulling the plug on all things Star Trek. Once again, the internet badmouthing “wokeness” and “DEI” seemed to have cut off this show at the start. We know which internet clowns did this, we know what this is over, and we know THEY know what this is for. Have fun bending the knee to the president, Paramount.

Internet shit talk does nothing good for anyone.

One Piece (Live-Action) (Season 2)

One Piece has become my favorite anime series. I love pirates. I love freedom. I love a crew that backs each other up at all times. Watching it animated over the last 20+ years has been a mind-blowing experience, but seeing it live action is just as amazing.

There have been bad live-action versions of anime shows and movies. White Piccolo in Dragonball Evolution, or a white Aang in Avatar the Last Airbender That’s all I know, really. I missed a lot of those live-action anime takes. That is what makes One Piece so special. It seems to have a... budget.

I could be wrong about this, but if I were going to make a live-action version of an anime that started in 1999 and remains unfinished in 2026, I’d put money behind it. I’d want accurate characters. I’d use the author’s information to create my live-action versions as close to their anime/manga counterparts. In other words, yes, I would make Captain Smoker smoke three cigars and run around with no shirt just like he does in the anime. I would make Luffy Brazilian, Zoro Asian, Nami European-American, Usopp Black, and Sanji Australian, because that’s what the creator, Oda-san, told everyone about their ethnicities years ago.

Netflix has done all this.

It’s incredible to say, but I have this deep appreciation for One Piece in both forms. I think it fits my own desire for what I want the world to be like. A world of pirates, some good, some bad, living as free as they can. Avoiding slave masters like the Celestial Dragons, outrunning the Marines, eating every delicious thing they can find, declaring war on the World Government, and traveling around looking for treasure with my crew.

Therein lies the politics of One Piece. That is my favorite part.

Plus, it’s very violent. Watch it on Netflix for that, if nothing else.

Media Mix Up #8 Complete!

It’s been fun to catch up on things I’ve been watching. Of course go check out Get Wild On The Yacht on Spotify or Apple Music, or see Johnny Casanova’s AI video on YouTube. That AI guy looks too much like me, honestly.

You’ll also find it on Spotify and company on March 26. Y’see... according to my producer, these numbers matter. The 6 and the 2 make 8, and by something something numerology, it’s important to release songs on specific days.

I have no idea how this works, so you’re getting my ex-Eurovision party anthem right now! There is nothing in the way of YOU checking out NEW music released by Mike Dynamooo, is there?

Of course not!

Still, since I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over, SURPRISE! It’s currently on Spotify too!

You can hear that first song that brought Mike and CIC back together for the first time since the Initial Dynamo project of 2019. Show a little love to our new music production company, Keep It Shiny Records.

Now is the time to party on yachts.

Also, don’t be upset that I haven’t managed to get a song into Eurovision yet. Then again, maybe you should be, because that is the second-to-last goal on my songwriting list. After that, it might be time to give it up and play with my grandkids on an orange farm.

I’ll let you guess what goal #1 is.

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When I’m alone, I start singing that song from 1999. I feel like I’ve gone back in time and can touch my past self. When I open my eyes, I’ve come to where I am now. I’ve aged. I’ve changed. That’s a lot for me to deal with. I hope I’ve found a way.

The day I became “Unc.”

Oddly enough, this happened four years ago while I was in Estonia. I woke up one morning just before the brain cancer diagnosis, and I realized how old I’d become. Cambodia makes expats feel young forever. You make cool friends, find bars to hang out in, and enjoy some cheap drinks and fast food just like you did in college. Suddenly, you’re pushing 40 when you’re not paying attention. Once you leave Southeast Asia, your age starts to follow you. It’s rapid. You are on a different planet than the one you remember.

Being back in the States, post-COVID, you can get anything delivered. At restaurants, you are offered a QR code that leads to the menu. You can pay people to deliver anything. This was not life in Cambodia or Mexico at the time. I stumbled into new countries only to return home to a different way of living that I was not used to. That was when I felt the years passing us by. That was when I knew I had become “Unc.”

“Unc” is an AAVE term describing some sort of sage “old-head (old man)” with opinions and ideas the young have yet to consider. It’s a class. It’s like the time years ago when my friend Shannon and I were walking down 6th Street in Austin and had a conversation with a well-dressed older man. He was an “Unc.” He could see “the pimp” in my friend Shannon and handed him a small book. I assumed carried the secrets of “the Game.” I never read it, but Shannon studied it intently and took it back to Las Vegas when his trip was finished. That is the type of thing an Unc can do for an up-and-coming Black man. He didn’t talk to ME in that conversation. I was just a lowly bystander.

I found out years too late.

I don’t know when Black men become Uncs. I assumed it was before the age of 40, but that was the age at which that attitude hit me. I think it happens when you’ve lived enough to have something to impart to future generations. Brain cancer pushed me further over the Unc line. Seems like Uncitude can happen at any age, depending on the type of life you’ve led. Interestingly, like many, I never thought it could happen to me. I thought I’d lack the advice, and never considered my age. If it wasn’t for the cancer, I might have managed to get “Dad Strength” to go with all this aging. Hell, maybe I did anyway and haven’t had to use it yet.

So I’ll go back to listening to my favorite Whitney Houston song, My Love Is Your Love and enjoying my past. All that’s left to do in the future is prepare to push my last monthly release called, Get Wild On The Yacht coming out on March 26. From there, it might be time to dive into other topics more. We’ll see how it goes. As always, thank you for your friendship and support.

Have them. Treasure them. Those feelings are the first step to leaving your mistakes in the past. Here is Slip Away.

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Something is interesting about making songs like this. In a way, it’s like telling the truth about someone. Telling them why that experience and relationship had to change. It helped me deal with my trauma about a dead friendship, and I hope it helps you in some way as well.

Before I go…

March might be the last monthly release for a while. It’s been a fun year creating these. The next release is scheduled for March 26th. I think that was the song that started this journey back in 2024. The summer party will begin on that day, as Texas has no spring. Reminds me of Phnom Penh.

Thank you for the support. MikeDynamo.com exists for you, and all of my music videos are there, including the most popular one, Corona!!!

I’ll see you guys next time.

I’m 100 percent sure this has happened to you. I think it happens to everybody.

The fates demand your attention, and they demand it immediately.

Slip Away, my new song, can be listened to on my website.

Sometimes, being an artist means allowing yourself to grab the strings fate leaves for you to make your art. To “turn pro” as Steven Pressfield put it in his 2002 book, War of Art. Sometimes I take far too long to write down or record my own incredible ideas, but I agree with the sentiment that even on days one does not wish to work on their project, they do it anyway, even if it’s for a few hours. Starting something is the best way to find your groove and finish. Finishing something is all some of us need.

Our true work is not a joke. It’s necessary. It’s what brings home the bacon, it’s what fills up the coffee pot, it’s what makes us human. So many of us forget why we were born in the first place. I believe it’s to make art. To become a chef, a screenwriter, a farmer, a barista, an athlete, or a journalist. It’s to do the innovative things you love. Even if your parents or spouse say it’s a waste of time. According to Pressfield, those are the words of someone who has choked so hard on Resistance that they use all of their time trying to destroy the dreams of others. This behavior is disgusting. Stop it.

In many ways, that’s what keeps this cancer survivor moving. Writing more songs and making more music. I’ve been doing this since I was 14-years-old. Across several producers, bands, and bandmates, I made my choice to do what I wanted. To become this musical writer that I am. Writing Hip-Hop lyrics can turn people into great writers. Interestingly, brain cancer brought me closer to making these things my career. More importantly, it got me to check the boxes when asked. I now tell people this IS my career.

I’m out here learning new things every day. Forcing AI to work for me rather than me teaching it. A few years ago, I remember seeing many jobs for “training AI.” I figured I would not have any choice but to dive in and teach an AI app how to do my job of creation. It felt like cutting myself away and becoming enveloped in Resistance. It felt like the beginning of balling up my craft and throwing it in the trash. Ultimately, I opted out.

That’s what I do right now. I find musical sync opportunities, I write on Substack, and I hang out at coffee shops that play jazz versions of Colbie Caillat songs. It’s a life. I like it. When I make a ton of money, maybe you’ll like it as much as I do.

Slip Away releases on February 28th.

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I’ll be releasing new music every month. I hope you enjoy the songs as much as I enjoyed making them.

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Slip Away is a song about friendship. It’s about what happens to them over the years. “Sometimes it’s hard!” as Bobby Womack preaches on the song Stylo by the Gorillaz.

If you’ve ever lost a friend, you’ll understand.

Slip Away was created with that in mind. My producer, CIC, came to me with this idea. He asked me to be his voice on this track, and I happily agreed. I understood. I lost some friends over the years, so I wanted to be a part of this.

CIC was over the moon with what he’d put together. I told him that having a woman sing the chorus he wrote would make this song even better. So, CIC went out and found Matrix C, a young, female singer we hope has her own amazing story moving forward.

Based on a True Story

Slip Away is a story of why I had to stop making time for certain people. A story about someone going crazy right in front of me. A story about a time I should have known better, and should have known much sooner.

Life is what life is, of course. I hope you can feel the things Slip Away has to share. There are times when you must get out. People can only mistake your kindness for weakness so many times before you have to think about yourself and what you want your life to be about.

Listen to Slip Away in this post, on the Mike Dynamo website, Bandcamp, etc.

On Bandcamp, this future classic is free to collect until the song itself comes out on 2/28. CIC and I would appreciate it if you downloaded it, added it to your collection of songs, and used it for your videos and online media.

Thank you for being a part of this.

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I have had a great life filled with many grand adventures. Most of my adventures happened when I had little to no money. Oftentimes, those are the best ones! There is great value in being hella broke. These stories are about a few of them.

Close Up! A trip to Washington, D.C. for High School Juniors and Seniors.

It was late 1998. All of the juniors and seniors at my high school were allowed to take a week-long trip to D.C. to meet the people who might have met the president’s staff or whatever! We did hit a museum and had an awesome party at the end. We went to the mall, learned about politics, and how the system works in the United States. At one point, we were pushed out of the way because the Israeli prime Minster Benjamin Netnenyahu was having a conversation with President Clinton. If he were Prime Minister in 1998, Bibi would have been in politics for much longer than he should have been.

I was excited when I got my chance to go to Washington, D.C. with many members of my high school class. The only problem I had now was building up the money I would need to spend a week in a town I’d never been to. My father had an answer for that! He gave me 20 whole dollars so that I could make it for a week. If I could keep it to 2-dollar meals once a day, I could totally make this work. It would be tough, but this trip was worth it.

Luckily for me, my friend’s dad had a stroke! He was rushed to the hospital and given the kind of healing drugs that only rich people can afford, and bounced back in a manner I could not believe. We went to visit him, and his whole body worked with no problems. In fact, he felt so good that he decided to give his son and his two friends $200 that he just happened to have on him in his hospital room.

Why this rich man was sitting on 600 dollars, I will never know. Either way, I now had 220 dollars to go to D.C. for a week! Now I could have 3, 5 dollar meels a day. I went from “financial broke to financial hope” in a single afternoon.

That time, I went to New Orleans with the Orientation Advisors in my sophomore year of college.

I would say it was in college where I started to find my true self. As a freshman, I went from a music wannabe to actually making some sounds in a small band with a few friends. Sophomore year, I met Gregg Sansone, aka Johnny Casanova, over a love of the producer Timbaland we had in an elevator. We started working together, and I started diving into his beats, hoping to become a songwriter and singer.

In addition to making beats, Gregg was also an Orientation Advisor (OAs). Unlike what I did at Camp Texas, where we teach kids about school traditions and did scavenger hunts with those cheap cameras you can buy at gas stations. The OAs are part of Freshman orientation, a process most new students go through, and make their first real friends as well as get more information about their majors.

That summer, the OAs planned a big trip to New Orleans (NOLA). Gregg begged me to come along. I told him I did not have any money. He told me he wouldn’t give me any, but he also told me not to worry about it. Plus, this girl I was into was going, so that was good enough for me, so I went too!

I don’t remember much about this trip save for these few things.

1. I did not get laid or make any progress with the girl I liked.

2. We went to a drag queen show to eat, and one of the performers saw something in Gregg that made them reach down into his pants. He laughed along and played it cool. Good for him!

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3. We went out one night, and I heard a band fronted by a person with the most incredible voice I’d ever heard. From the first note, I wanted to be just like him. This smooth, Stevie Wonder-type voice sounded like a rainbow shooting across the party street. We went over to check it out, and he was a four-foot-tall, cockeyed little person. This event helped me see how important “sexy” is for stars. That singer should be playing large theaters rather than some NOLA bar.

4. One night, a bunch of hungry college kids decided to walk down Decatur to Cafe du Monde, the restaurant that had the most delicious beignets in town. The bengnet is a deep-fried French pastry sprinkled heavily with powdered sugar and tastes like a dream when it hits your tongue. I was already getting ready for bed, wearing a robe and some Superman boxers I bought for about $5.
   
   I wasn’t going to let that stop me.
   
   So I went out with this group walking down one of the busiest streets in NOLA in that robe and boxers to go to a place I had no money with which to buy anything. Plus I didn’t know any of these kids well enough to get them to buy me one, so I just watched the fryers fry, the beignets get pounded, and eaters enjoy without ever getting to try one. Still, I got to walk down Decatur in a robe and boxers, and few of us can say we did that.

The time I attended a wedding in Vegas with $20 dollars.

My friend Doyle was getting married. We met at freshman orientation, somehow went to the same 1 of 6 Camp Texas events, and became even better friends as I used to leave my dorm to go hang out with Doyle and his roommate James on the 14th floor of Jester West. Eventually, they both became roommates with Gregg and I. Many of the friends I made back then are still my friends today. Those first two years of college were unbelievable!

Doyle is a Black man with an unheard-of love of Japan that has nothing to do with cosplay or anime, two things he does not care for. It has everything to do with drinking alcohol without apology and seducing the incredibly skinny girls he wanted to date. After being gone for a few years, Doyle met a lovely Japanese woman and was ready to tie the knot. They decided to do that in Sin City, a.k.a. Las Vegas.

Once again, I have $20 dollars to my name after buying my ticket to get there. Let me reiterate: I’m going to Las Vegas and all its casinos with $20 dollars to attend a wedding. I’m not the gambling type, and ultimately, all I wanted was a Fatburger as I’d had on an earlier trip when I was too young to gamble, yet old enough to play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 with my friends. Of course, that’s another story...

So Doyle is getting married, and me and many of my friends and I have made this trip to Las Vegas to witness it. I once again had $20 dollars to my name, but despite not being the gambling type, I realized I could use those tiny slot machines and potentially increase the amount of money I had. I split my cash into two 10s, found a 50-cent machine, and decided to play a little bit. I could do Fatburger for $10 easy, but what if I had 50? That would make it more easy. I can’t believe what happened next

Guys... I won!

I won so hard I tured that $10 dollars in to $54. I couldn’t believe it! This was incredible. Of course, I realized why I’ve never been a gambling person.

That 54 dollars made me decide to keep going.

That means I am a BAD gambling person.

I used the same machine and slowly lost all the money I had gained, including the $10 I started with. I finally managed to pull myself away from that tragedy box and held onto my remaining cash. I walked around a bit, but for some reason, I still felt lucky. I said to myself, “Self... what if you put your last $10 dollars on a game you understand, like Blackjack. You could increase your Fatburger money and go there after one single game.” For some unknown reason, I thought that was a great idea!

I found the cheap table. I put up my 10 dollars. I was going to do this! I was going to expand my money! Wait… what do you mean I busted! This cardshark scooped up my final shred of money, leaving me to walk around Las Vegas broke before we returned to Austin. Filled with my own doubt and stupidity, I just ate hotel breakfast for the rest of the trip, remembering how I lost everything in one day and received no Fatburger for my efforts. I now have horrible evidence of why the house always wins.

Those are some of the places I’ve been to while broke.

Of course, there are more, but these stories might not be positive, but they each come with their own little adventure. In many ways, that was always the thing I wanted. Incredible adventures. If I’ve had anything in life, it was a ton of incredible adventures.

To all those who are afraid of trying new things, perhaps you should try a few anyway. It might be hard, but it could be great. Maybe you’ll make life long friends as I did. Maybe you can do this too. Based on my own experience, greater wealth does not mean greater relationships, and as they say, “you can’t take it with you.” Stay interested in others, and meet people where they are. It’ll be worth it to you, and could mean a lot more to them than you think.

In other words, it’s worth it. You can go far, and you can be broke while you do it.

I am afraid.

Great Leader Donald Trump’s Shock Troops have made a living kidnapping people and sending them out of the country. All I can think of is how I have heard little about what the Proud Boys and Neo Nazis have been up to. I’m sure it’s unrelated, but as a U.S. citizen and Black American, I have to keep a few things on my person to potentially avoid my own deportation or getting shot in the street by untrained law enforcement personnel like Keith Porter, and those other two white people, Alex Pretti and Renée Good. That’s right. I.C.E. kills white American citizens, too. You thought that would have ended Great Leader Donald Trump’s reign, but it didn’t work. The following is what I keep.

1. My driver’s license.

2. My passport.

3. My passport card.

4. My birth certificate

5. A signed letter from my kindergarten teacher.

6. A list of my American Dreams.

7. Stickers that say, “I Hate Huntr/x”

8. A picture of Nick Fuentes saying, “Your body, my choice.”

9. A 90’s style choker that reads “I.C.E. Are My Friends.

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This way, I can prove I am a citizen during Great Leader Donald Trump’s never-ending administration. Trump may be pushing 80, but his collection of gifted technology will keep him alive another 50 years and cause him to look like those muscular gifs his supporters made him when he was first getting elected.

Melania Trump, Great Leader Donald Trump’s wife, is never seen with the Great Leader. Great Leader’s Wife (her official title now that Feminism is dead), has used her own power to make her film, Melania, run at every theater left in the country, even if no one is there. I have to say it is a great film because I do not want to be publicly flogged by the Great Leader Donald Trump’s Secret Police, Shock Troops, or I.C.E. Agents. I am often stopped and searched by these agents. They never find anything, because I no longer have anything beyond my citizenship paperwork that my less-ethnic-looking friends never have to show.

I don’t keep cash or cards on my person when I go out. Of course, I only go out to grocery stores when I can’t afford the delivery fees. Sometimes my family and I are so poor that we need that extra 20 dollars for more peanut butter and bread. That’s all our stores have, along with a $10,000 Trump Coin statue of Great Leader Donald Trump’s chiseled physique with a bald eagle on his arm. I think that is how Great Leader sees himself, despite people accusing him of wearing diapers years ago.

More prisons have been built throughout South America and a few in the Caribbean. If you get stopped by I.C.E. for looking different, you could end up in one of them. There are two in El Salvador, three in Venezuela, two in Argentina, one small one in Haiti, and a gigantic one in Chile. They say it holds 15,000 tightly packed people. You never know where you’ll be sent, but it will be somewhere you pick fruit or smash rocks to make the prison bigger, or make lingerie for Victoria’s Secret. Due process is out, torturous prison sentences are in.

I wish I had retreated to Europe or Southeast Asia in 2025 as I planned. Great Leader Donald Trump cares little for the environment, so the fracking, oil spills, and coal plants are polluting the water and making it hard to breathe. My family has to sleep in one room with the last airfilter we could find to avoid waking up with a cough. I’ve heard that Great Leader Donald Trump could be releasing his own for $1500. Even if it worked, we can’t afford it, but maybe some of the wealthy people will get some, and we can find a good price on one of their cast-offs.

Sometimes I wish Kamala Harris had won during her political battle (that’s what we’re forced to call elections now) with Great Leader Donald Trump. I thought having a woman leader would have been great, but the United States of Trump Associates (USTA) is a backward place that believes women should be in the kitchen. “Trad wife is the best wife,” they say.

Despite my constant state being a combination of worried, hungry, scared, and harassed, I’m still looking for the good I can find in this crazy world. For instance, I’ve lost lots of weight, I keep my head down and avoid everyone I meet, I still have a smartphone despite watching three ads before any calls or texts, and I can still watch television, though most shows have been replaced with film, Melania.

On the bad side, my family doesn’t have cookouts anymore, as most of our Black and Brown friends have been deported or are staying home to avoid that fate. We’ve also had to deal with work days being extended to 12 hours, and worker’s pay means less than ever due to the constant threat of tariffs. Most countries won’t deal with us at all! Sometimes I wish we’d moved to Canada, but we didn’t in time when Canada was the first country to deny American visas.

I think what upsets me the most of are the additions the Great Leader is adding to his name. He wants to go from “Great” to “Supreme.” He says Supreme is beautiful and sounds much better. So far, he has the following:

• Grand Wizard Supreme Leader

• Hugest Supreme Leader

• Biggliest Supreme Leader

• Uncanny Supreme Leader

• Ultimate Supreme Leader

• Emperor Donald Trump, 1st of His Name, Father of his Line, Forever President of the United States, esq.

I don’t think Great… I mean, Supreme Leader Donald Trump never went to law school, but like Fox News, if he says it, I believe it and spread it far as I can.

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All Mike Dynamo music can be seen on his website or any streaming service!

I’ll be releasing new music every month. I hope you enjoy the songs as much as I enjoyed making them.

Have rich parents.

Nepo babies have many interesting careers these days. Jaden, son of Will Smith, is the creative director at Christian Louboutin, who makes… I don’t know… fashion stuff. Zoe Kravitz and Maya Hawke are famous actresses who look like their parents, along with everyone’s favorite, Maya Rudolph, the daughter of singer Minnie Ripperton, who sang “Lovin’ You” and people break glass with when trying to mimic her.

All you need to become a nepo baby is a false birth certificate. Set yourself up to be the son of an older relative in whatever industry you want. Learn what drink they like, where they went to college, and how they died. Once you do that, boom! You’re a nepo baby! Now go get famous and make a bunch of money!

Seduce a stockbroker or lonely widow.

This can work for anyone who wants to see huge results in a small amount of time. That was Jacqueline’s whole job for the first three seasons of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I’m confident that you can do this too!

Find a person who “plays the markets” or a widow of any age who is rich already. Get extremely fancy, go to where that person is, and let them see you ignore them. Rich people hate things they can’t have, so be unhavable until the last minute. Now date that person. Be with them until they want to marry you. Get married. Hold it over your poor friends’ heads while you live in the lap of luxury.

This plan works even better if you can also avoid signing a prenuptial agreement, but you have to be hot and believable to try that. You could also try blackmail, once you have enough dirt on them. All rich people love freak offs, so check their computers and find what you need. It’s simple when you think about it.

Now go buy yourself some fancy clothes.

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Survive a terrible accident.

No one gets paid more than a survivor of a terrible accident. You might not make as much money, but you could make enough to never work again. You could walk around, hoping to be attacked by a rich person’s dog, or have your legs crushed by a falling piano, but the easiest incidents to survive are the ones you set up yourself!

Perhaps a hang gliding accident from “faulty” wires. You could try a car falling off a bridge that you sneak into once it’s on the ground or in the lake. You could also get shot in a rich person’s house, survive for real, then sue the rich person for the pain and suffering they put you through. Survive for real! Survive for fake! You could make millions!

Make rich friends.

Remember, making rich friends can be a bit of a struggle, but if you’re poor right now, you’re about 75% of the way there. Find the kids putting down huge amounts of cash at gambling on sports or... well, that’s it, really. If someone is gambling on sports, they typically have enough money to make life fun. Make friends with that person. Everyone can gamble everywhere since 2018, and most gamblers, unlike Kenny Rodgers, don’t know when to “fold’em.” That means many of them are often lonely. They’re like lawyers in that way.

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All the music videos can be seen on my Website or YouTube!
I’ll be releasing new music every month. I hope you enjoy the songs as much as I enjoyed making them.

Simply hang out and drink with one until he thinks you’re his best friend. Once that happens, never leave his house. Create a wife who throws you out, or get a wife to throw you out. Stay at your “friend’s” place and take care of him when he’s drunk, which is most of the time. Attend every party he throws. You’ve basically become Turtle from Entorage. Now, you have a terrible friend for life, but you get to live life like a champion the entire time.

Marry a billionaire.

This is a tough one, especially because of billionaire greed being the most exploitative force in the world. Another reason is that most billionaires are men who appear to be straight, on the surface. So this is perfect for any gender. More importantly, that leaves this option open for everyone with the guts to make it a reality.

So, imagine you’re MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos. She was married to this man for 25 years. Their split forced the Bezos money to go in two directions, creating one new billionaire amongst the richest people in the world. All you need to do is be married for 25 years to a man who does not like the concept of music, like Jeff Bezos. Who needs musical memories anyway! You’re good! You can do that Peggy Bundy from Married With Children for 25 years with no problem!

Become a supervillain.

Superman’s archnemesis, Lex Luthor, went from a random mad scientist to one of the richest men in the world! You should be like Lex Luthor. You don’t need the Luthor mind. You just need the Luthor guts, can-do attitude, and unbridled rage.

Once you know WHO to rob, create a good plan, and take their money. Now, you can buy your own high-rise and start ruling over a city like the world’s greatest super villain, Donald Trump!

He clearly used the stories of Lex Luthor and Adolf Hitler to build himself up to be president of the United States twice! He turned out to be smarter than both when he used the richest country in the world as his own personal piggy bank and forced the planet’s richest people to bend the knee! That could be you! A cult-like figure whose chief desire is to run the U.S. into the ground and put Black people back in the fields!

Also, it doesn’t have to be the US. Pull this off in whatever country you live in. You are the captain now. Prove it with the missiles you now have access to. It’s your world, and everyone else just lives in it.

You can be rich!

There you go! Some of the best and simplest ways to get rich. You don’t need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Be like Melania Trump. Do what you have to, to get what you need. Be the change you want to see in the world. Do it with gusto! I believe in you.

I’ve been teasing it all year, which has been 16 days at this point, but Rockstar is the new monthly track from Mike Dynamo, CIC, and Station. We all worked on this song, and it’s coming out right now!

This one feels good to get out because the original work on this track started over a decade ago in my first attempt to start the band, Supercrime. We were a group of talented musicians who actually practiced in a band member’s house to perfect our sound. Then we only ran into one problem...

We never got to play a show…

Rockstar is a song I wrote as a member of that group 12 years ago, and I’d like to dedicate this song to every person associated with the band. Give some extra love to Station, who was in Supercrime with me, and did the guitar solo on this new version of Rockstar. You folks at home put me on track to write a song that definitively throws the kindness in Mike Dynamo’s heart right out of the damn window.

It felt good to be a bad boy 12 years ago, and it feels even better in 2026. Sometimes, I’m a bad man, and I love it.

Rockstar drops publicly on January 17, 2025. Buy yourself a copy on my website, www.MikeDynamo.com

Where did the name Supercrime come from?

As a long-time comic book fan, I thought that name sounded amazing. Plus I had never seen it used before. I was in my early 30s realized how many of the world’s problems were initiated by billionaires. If money were power, then those with billions have far too much of it. So much so, they became completely detached from us at the bottom, as they buy presidents and ignore all the laws they come across.

They have no reason to share, because they don’t think of us at human lifeforms. Then the greed sets in. The only way to get on this 1000-year-long, billionaire level is to exploit others. That’s why billionaires are like cops in terms of how much trust they deserve (1213).

I thought, “If I had superpowers in real life, what would I do with them?” I wouldn’t ruin my life striking out at average criminals like Spider-Man. I wouldn’t take on threats to my corporate billions like Iron Man. I wouldn’t beat up thugs all night like Batman. I certainly wouldn’t be a dress-up doll for the United States like Captain America. In fact, I don’t even think I’d be a “good guy” at all. I’d be more interested in stopping crime at its source. At the houses of the biggest billionaires on Earth. They would all be illegals to me.

I would rob billionaires and split the money with the community. Obviously, I would take a little for my trouble. I’m not Zorro, I’m Mike Dynamo. This crime party needs to run until it can’t run anymore! Now, everyone in the hottub needs to get buck naked and tell me where the jewels are. Supercrime is taking everything!

My goal would be going to the richest humans Forbes is willing to publish, and make the earnings of Musk, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos, and especially Warren Buffet disappear overnight. I don’t care that Buffett has been living in the same house for 50 years. He needs to come up off that dough.

With superpowers, I would be as hated as Martin Luther King was in the 60s. That is my concept for the name “Supercrime.” I’m not sure why we never played a show. I don’t remember what broke us up. It was likely something with clashing egos. We put together some interesting rap/rock tracks that faded away into the ether. It’s sad, but I understand. The world may not have been ready for such a concept. Still... it would have been awesome to pull off.

When I returned to Katy in 2023, Station, the guitarist from Supercrime, lived in Houston. We took advantage of that and made a record called Supercrime, which is where At The Bar, The Cycle, and Ok Now Then came from. Eventually, but I was told by people I trust that the name “Mike Dynamo” had more clout than any new band I could create. I couldn’t deny that. Finally, I had done enough to be a solo talent! Mike Dynamo had dazzled enough crowds at open mics, won karaoke contests, and built a small following. I wanted to respect my own work and make the transition from a person in a band to the wonder called Mike Dynamo. He is I, and I am him (Slim with the tilted brim on twenty-inch rims - Thanks Jigga!).

That’s right. Rockstar started as a track for Supercrime 1.0 and stayed in my memory and lyric book long enough for me to bring it back in 2026. Our version is different, but it’s good. Give it a listen and buy your own copy if you feel the vibe.

Also, don’t worry. I have no plans to gain superpowers and rob any money-hoarding billionaires. Not unless you know when and where I could get the powers... or had a solid plan for a robbery... and could do that Mission Impossible thing with the lasers and hanging.

Just sayin’

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Part of the fun of being home all the time is the ability to do deep research on what’s posted on the Internet. On one trip down the rabbit hole, I found myself in an interesting group of related stories. Where do Black people come from? So far, there are two sides.

1. Black Americans are the descendants of Africans brought over during the slave trade since 1619.

This is the most agreed-upon idea. We’ve found numerous records and information about slaves, including their treatment, beatings, and deaths. We know about the mandingo fights, that George Washington was chewing his food with slave teeth, and how many “sexual assault farms” our ancestors were trapped in.

However, due to the Olmec heads in Mexico, cultures like Gullah Geechee and Seminoles, others have come to different conclusions.

2. Dark-skinned people have always been in North and South America. Long before Columbus came and ruined everything with murder and European filth, Black people were here, just like we’ve been everywhere else.

That is a fun way to think about the origin of things. The idea that kids are taught about Columbus’s discovery of an island filled with people is absurd. The idea that Thanksgiving is a holiday connected to an exiled British religious group hitting Plymouth Rock and meeting darker-skinned natives is absurd. They were too busy burning witches for that. Both of these things should be taught better. I’m not sure that will be anytime soon with Linda McMahon at the helm. Hopefully her heart grows by 3 DEI sizes.

Two things can be true at the same time.

That’s a good point, Caption Mike. Both of these ideas could be true. Since many groups prefer to lie about history, it makes lots of sense to be skeptical about what we’ve been taught.

It is easy to think of escaped slaves finding other people like themselves when they were traveling the American wilds. Having a similar look could be why they were initially trusted. It’s also easy to find pictures of blonde-haired, dark-skinned people. These cultures and persons existed. Multiple things can be true at once.

If I had a time machine, this is what I would go back to find out about. Lots of areas in history would be terrible choices as a Black person from 2025. I’d rather go back before popular Abrahamic religions took over. Check out who’s living in the before times. Find out about the Aztecs and the Incas. I could see what the North Americans were like. I could also find out when the churro was created and take a few firsts for myself. I’m upset that I’ve been lied to about these cultures for so long.

These are the things I think about or watch in my free moments. What about you? Is one of the two reasons true? If so, which one? What sort of things keep you shuffling around the Internet at night? What do you wonder about when you’re on your own?

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