💙 Dispatch #11: Fado

How a Portuguese musical form describes this moment in time.

The Shape of Punk to Come

It’s the 4th of July in 2025.

I currently live in Berlin, Germany - but there are pieces of my heart that still live in the United States.

As of yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed the “Big, Beautiful Bill”, a monstrosity of a piece of legislation that gives tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, destroys American clean energy programs, strips healthcare and food assistance from millions, inflates the federal deficit, and represents (in this author’s view) one of the largest-scale betrayals of the (non-ultra wealthy) American people in history.

And, it has the dumbest fucking name I’ve ever heard for a bill, so it’s nice that so many will die and wither under the banality of an evil that can’t even have the decency to sound intelligent.

When I was a child, I used to go with my family to Washington DC every 4th of July for fireworks. In what years we had together that felt good, those memories stood out. I remember visiting the Jefferson Memorial, reading the history, and feeling inspired. I was proud to be American. I trusted in the goodness of my country. I had this feeling that no matter what evil arose, the principles the country was founded on would prevail.

I was wrong, and that feeling is gone now.

I’m not sure how I’ll celebrate “Independence Day” today.

I may cry a bit more.

I’ll certainly have a drink with my partner at some point and look at the trees, maybe watch some Berliners go about their day looking more free than any American I’ve ever met who didn’t live in an off-grid cabin somewhere in Western Texas. There will be no fireworks, hot dogs, John Philip Sousa, or nostalgic reminiscing about my time the armed forces. Maybe I’ll think about what Germany had to go through in order to get to where it is today, and reflect on how easily history repeats itself.

Photo by Brandi Alexandra on Unsplash

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An Aside

It’s funny. I was thinking recently about the first day I learned Donald Trump was going to run for office.

The year: 2014.

The place: Tonepah, Nevada on a short military project to build a fire-control training structure for firefighters stationed on a base there that is DEFINITELY NOT AREA 51.

The scene: a quiet lunch after a hard morning of foundation digging. All of the TVs, of course, have Fox News on because the virus had taken hold long before Trump’s first term.

The Republican primary candidates for 2016 were being displayed on the TV in a grid. I think 16 of them? And Donald Trump was one of them.

I remember thinking, “there is no fucking way that clown gets elected.”

Welp.

Here we are.

Funny how little we know.

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Summerholidays vs. Punkroutine

A recent vacation to southern Portugal in the Algarve region of the country brought me to a restaurant to celebrate my partner’s birthday. Our AirBnB host Sarah had highlighted this restaurant in particular because they had authentic “Fado” music being performed every Tuesday night.

She warned, “the owner of the restaurant will sometimes sing, but he would never get hired to sing anywhere else. Sometimes a woman sings; she is much better.”

We kept our fingers crossed for the woman and ended up getting both she and the owner. That’s life for you.

Fado is a blues style of music. The Portuguese culture can be broadly described as somewhat melancholic. For the Enneagram enthusiasts reading, there’s a real “Type 4” energy of noticing what’s missing that permeates. Not in a depressing, Elliot Smith kind of way. In a way that honors the full range of human experience, and how this can involve grief along with joy.

Fado is the purest cultural expression of this melancholy. Think of it like the “Good Friday” before Easter Sunday. A way to embody what it feels like to crucify a savior even though you know resurrection is coming. The songs are mournful, powerful, deep. You get taken to a place.

Sarah (AirBnB host) said it best: “The culture here can hold joy and sadness at the same time. It’s okay for them both to exist.”

Even in the beauty and other-worldly quality of a Portuguese beach, that edge of melancholy can exist hand-in-hand with the sheer awe and joy of getting to witness the raw power of untamed Nature.

When I think about my home country that no longer feels like home, Fado is the only way to capture the feelings that swirl around in me. The rage, the grief, the despair, the hope, the charge of mission, the collapse of the body as sobs come through.

Fado holds it all and doesn’t try to change it.

It sees it.

Values it.

Let’s it be there without it needing to be different.

Because of course, the feelings shift.

More unfolds.

The sleeves roll up.

The work continues.

That work moves towards the creation of systems, patterns, rhythms, and ways of being together that restores the primacy of a human being as living poem, not a resource to be exploited in the name of increased profitability.

Today is not a day of celebration.

It’s a day of Fado.

And maybe the day after.

But soon Fado will pass.

And it will continue to be time to keep building what comes next.

Not for us.

No, not for us.

Our time is over.

For our kids.

For their kids.

For their kids.

For their kids.

Happy? Independence Day.

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New Noise

Here’s a Fado playlist if you’re looking to steep a bit in the melancholy.

If you’re feeling a bit punk and ready to get to work, here’s your soundtrack.

There’s some fucking cursing in it.

It’s funny how I re-launched this Substack as a “poetry publication”.

Is this poetry?

Who knows.

Oh, yeah. Because I’m a man of the people, here’s your nature eye candy from a beach on the southwest coast of Portugal. It’s a magical place. Do visit at some point.

See you again soon.

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