Jason “JKokonutz” Kokoszka

I’m watching TV on my phone in bed, as I usually do, but there’s this weird knocking sound and I have no idea what it is.

Composing with Constraints. I worked through that book quickly and it featured several concepts that were new to me. I’ve composed in the past using random numbers but that book renewed my interest. It was a bit different than Belkin’s Musical Composition, but both were quite informative. (2)

I started creating chordal studies (some with melodies) using randomized numbers from Random.org. It’s kind of like a game with several parameters. Maybe I’ll make use of this technique in other compositions after I explore it a while longer. This idea was partly inspired by Variego’s book, (1)

Meme format with "Baby, do you remember the money we saved to buy a house?" along the top Followed by three panels, two along the top with a man covering a woman's eyes then taking them away revealing a surprise The bottom panel is of the USS Flagg GI Joe aircraft carrier toy

🤣

For some reason, the past couple of weeks have flown by, but I don’t know why. I haven’t been any busier than normal. It just seems like the days have been very short recently.

I finished working with Belkin’s Musical Composition (I skipped a couple of exercises from the last chapter). I think I’m going to work through at least part of Composing with Constraints by Jorge Variego. I got these two books with a third containing compositional prompts about a month ago.

It’s embarrassing that other nations are penalizing people who have ties to Epstein, but we aren’t doing that here. Why the hell not? Wealth? Power? We need to stop letting the upper echelons of society get away with crimes. I can’t believe this isn’t a universal stance on the problem.

It’s snowing again and it looks like there might be some accumulation. I’m ready for it to warm up a little. My gas bill for last month was higher than the previous bill, so I’m sure that the colder temperatures made my heater work harder.

I think I fixed it. I reset the settings and now I’m getting the Google home page when I open a new tab.

My Google Chrome has become corrupted, despite restoring the system, uninstalling and reinstalling. It shows a generic search page when a new tab is opened instead of the Google page. I might try to restore from an older point, but who knows if that will work. It’s very frustrating.

I’m currently working on an exercise from Belkin’s Musical Composition, which is a challenge to write a piece in rondo form (ABACA). I’m having trouble developing the necessary material and I’ve been distracting myself a lot. I think I have 5 chapters left in the book.

Our Wins Of The Week While ICE’s reign of terror on the streets of Minneapolis has been horrific, Alex Pretti’s murder on Saturday by ICE agents has broken through in ways news stories rarely do.

The deaths of Alex Pretti and Renée Good are devastating and deeply troubling. The strong national response this week shows Americans will not let these losses be ignored or swept under the rug. thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/week-progr...

Billionaires Are Trying to Defeat Rep. John Larson—Social Security’s No. 1 Champion | Common Dreams ​The uber wealthy hate the Social Security 2100 Act—and the man who wrote it. That’s why they are backing Rep. Larson’s primary challenger, corporate lawyer Luke Bronin.

Rep. John Larson (D-CT) is leading the fight to make billionaires pay their fair share into Social Security.

The billionaires are scared — and that's why they are trying to defeat him.

Our country, the USA for potential foreign readers, is such a mess right now. Alex Pretti was murdered, and my guess is that no one will ever be charged with that crime. The administration has lied so blatantly about the situation despite lots of video evidence to the contrary.

I dreamed I was getting lost in tunnels beneath a college. I met up with some shady characters who led me down there and they kept going when I was ready to return to the surface. There were some pretty unusual spaces and we ran into other groups down there. I woke up before I got out.

This is terrifying. I don’t know what I’d do without SSDI.

I dreamt that Paul McCartney wrote a song based on an idea I had about AI. It came from “All You Need Is Love” (which I know was one of John’s). I had been working with all the Beatles; it was lunchtime when I pitched it. The fact that Paul put effort into realizing my idea was extremely gratifying.

Black graphic with text "ICE out of Minneapolis NOW"

ICE and CBP agents are out of control and put everyone in danger.

We're calling for ICE agents to withdraw from Minneapolis, and for Congress to rein in ICE’s abuses in our communities.

she, my sister, and her husband don’t talk politics when the in-laws visit, but it’s awkward because the in-laws talk about Trump. My sister doesn’t want to have a perpetual argument with them. I definitely have mixed feelings about both my sister’s situation and mine. (2)

I have a friend on Facebook that supports Trump, which makes no sense to me, but I haven’t cut ties because she’s been very kind and supportive towards me. My sister is in a similar situation: her in-laws are Trump supporters, but they have a pretty close relationship. My mother told me that (1)

It appears to be working but the indicator when you select someone doesn’t highlight anymore.

Immigration officers claim sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, memo says The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant

This is what fascism looks like. Use the word. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/immigration-officers-claim-sweeping-power-to-enter-homes-without-a-judges-warrant-memo-says

I think something is wrong with Facebook. There is a way to limit your audience for posts but it doesn’t seem to be working properly. I mostly use that feature to keep serious posts from my mother. She “likes” everything I post and I think some posts would worry her. Hope they’ll fix it.

me, and when I woke up, I felt disturbed. In real life, we never had a heated exchange. I don’t know what prompted that to happen in a dream. It was really out of character for him. (2)

I had a dream about a guy I was good friends with and we were doing homework together at his house. Somehow I lost my pen, and my friend did a cursory search, finding nothing. Later, I asked a second time and he got really angry and said he didn’t want to hear about it anymore. His anger shocked (1)

Hopefully it won’t lead to kidney failure in the future. My doctor never said there is anything I can do about it. (2)

I had an intake with a new med provider today and when going over my medical history, she mentioned that I have stage three kidney disease, which I often forget. It happened because of the overdose I took as a suicide attempt in 2019. But I didn’t realize it the severity for a long time. (1)

Is it wrong to consider myself a musician if I’m neither very good nor play very much? I have been focused on composition for a while but I’m not great at that either. I also still think of myself as an artist although I haven’t made much for a long time.

It must be really cold today because my apartment is only 61 degrees. My hands feel so cold. I hope it warms up a little.

I had a dream with an amusing (albeit disgusting) incident, and it was the first time where I later told someone about it in the same dream. Kind of unusual.