*I'm Back*

I’m back!

…

Ok, maybe some qualification is needed here, but let me first extend two things: first and foremost is my sympathy for anyone who is currently either sick or feeling the effects of this fucked up virus going around right now. A lot of people have lost their jobs, and some have lost much, much more… a tough time, but we’ll get through it. Secondly, I’d like to apologize for ghosting everyone who reads my shit here on Tha Soup Dude’s Kitchen; I know I have some real readers here, and I definitely appreciate anyone who has stuck with me and will continue to stick with me.

While I’ve been gone, I’ve sort of disconnected from the ever-flowing river of music coming out and relaxed for as long as I could. But, as things have it, the universe had other ideas, and decided to hit us with a global pandemic, throwing everybody’s lives completely out of wack. Now, a little bit of interesting information about your boy: I work at a grocery store. When this shit hit the fan, people went nuts and bought *everything*, so for a couple weeks there I couldn’t do much of anything besides work my ass off and be tired as hell, and probably would have taken a break from this place regardless if it was still being updated at the time. I used most of my free time to get back to some gaming, getting through Red Dead Redemption 2 again (masterwork of a game by the way), and I’m currently getting through The Witcher 3 for the first time (I know I’m late to that party).

So let’s talk for a minute about Tha Soup Dude’s Kitchen, where it’s at, where I’m going to be keeping it for a while. To save an ass-load of explaining, I’ll wrap up the feelings I was having around the time I left as “overwhelmed”. I wanted to really make something out of this website that I just simply couldn’t do by myself, and I got to a point where all of the writing and listening and preparing was taking up the entirety of my free time. Maybe I should take things at TSDK more seriously, but, if I’m going to be real with y’all, I just needed time to breathe and to think about what I wanted this to be. It involved being real with myself about what I’m capable of, what my goals are here, and how I can support this whole thing financially.

With that being said, I’m “back” in a somewhat limited sense. As of right now, I only have plans to do the Weekly Fixes like I was doing, to at least get people on the same page as me with what I’m listening to every week, because at the end of the day this whole thing is about getting the music from out there in the world into your ears. I’m also going to put out a piece on some projects that have come out while I was gone that have spoken to me, probably in the same format the midyear would be. But, with everything going on, and people around me losing their sources of income and the situation getting more dire financially, I had to make some cutbacks on all fronts, including some things I’ve funded here around the website. I had to cancel my subscription to Apple Music and Buzzsprout, so both the Playlists posts and my Podcast (which was already sort of on the backburner anyway) are indefinitely on hold. I may get back to the playlists soon with just Spotify and YouTube, I’m still thinking about that. The Write-Ups aren’t “on hold”, but I’m not going to be investing nearly as much time into churning out piece after piece like I was doing. Two Write-Ups a week was unsustainable, and more than anything the time spent on these was killing me. We’ll see how often content like this comes out once I started picking up where I left off in February music-wise.

Finally, as an overall change that will take some stress off of me, I’m not going to be sticking to any kind of schedule anymore, and focus more on listening, writing, and releasing content at my own pace. That means that following my social media (Facebook Page, Twitter, Instagram), checking in on my RateYourMusic page, and subscribing to the RSS feed here on the main page will really help you all keep up with things around here.

I’m also going to be trying something else, and that’s possibly getting more people to contribute content to kind of fill up a good week. If you are interesting in having some music-related writing you’ve done featured on here, contact me at my official email thasoupdude@thasoupdude.com and maybe we can work something out. This is entirely if you’re interested in having your work seen by more than just you, if you’re comfortable with some light editing from myself, and understanding that there is no money for you here. Just throwing it out there, let me know if you’d like to work with me.

So yeah. I’m back, ready to get into some music and give y’all some dope shit to listen to. Again, a HUGE thank you to everyone who’s been wondering where I ran off to, for your patience and your return.

Let’s do this thing.