Tales of My Cubawan, I: How We Met
It’s funny how a song can change your life. How one simple tune can drastically shift the trajectory of your entire existence. It’s happened to me many times, but none more so than when a psytrance song came on my friend’s Spotify shuffle when we were driving together one afternoon back in fall 2021…
“Gnorts Mr. Alien” is “Neil Armstrong” backwards, if you’re not in on the joke
As an old metal journalist, people don’t always expect me to like other genres of music, as is the default attitude of metal snobs. However, I happen to loathe metal snobs and I will listen to damned well whatever I want if I like it, regardless of genre gatekeeping, and I love me some psytrance. I love the layers and I love the twists and turns that don’t rely on vocals for storytelling. For reals, I know it’s the generic choice, but everyone and their cosmic space bear loves Infected Mushroom for a very good reason.
So, when I hear something that’s as good as Infected Mushroom, my interest will get immediately piqued. When I asked who this Modern Day Alien was, the friend I was out with mentioned that he knew this artist—a local guy—so I immediately looked him up on Facebook and reached out for an interview.
This was in September, 2021. And to forewarn you, let’s not give any spoilers but this story doesn’t have a very… traditional “happy” ending.
This is a love story after all, and love stories can only end in grief in the end, one way or the other.
I digress, since psych artists are usually independent acts without traditional labels or representation, Facebook seemed like the best place to reach out, knowing that I likely wouldn’t hear back for a while. It wasn’t until November 9th that I got a reply apologizing for not seeing the message sooner but that he would be very happy to do an interview sometime.
I mentioned that I thought we likely had a similar taste in music, and so we got chatting about psych artists. Immediately, I realized that there had been some sort of misunderstanding, because I thought I was talking to the friend of my friend, but that guy was actually just doing A&R for Modern Day Alien, whose actual name was [redacted] Otso.
[redacted]. That’s the name of one of my favorite characters from anything, ever. Funny coincidence.
We traded phone numbers and got chatting, and right up front, he gave me a quick disclaimer, warning me that he is an addict and he’s been very deeply traumatized throughout his life, and so if he has a short temper or gets very reactive, to please not take it personally. I appreciated that, as it showed that he was self-aware, or at least trying to be.
Not long after our introduction, he popped by the house to say hello, since he was on his way to a party north of where we live. Arriving at our door that afternoon was a 23-year-old kid, 186 cm tall with sagging, tired shoulders, scruffy wavy dark hair that had at some point been bleached and dyed pink, but was growing out and hidden under an old pink toque [that’s Canadian for beanie]. He had tattoos on one of his pocked cheeks, as well as his knuckles, arms… anywhere you could see, really. He also had the sweetest, kindest, most exhausted eyes, which really showed the kind of person he was, right up to the chronic insomnia, reflected in the black bags beneath them. He was lovely, in a haggard sort of way.
But what really caught me about him, beyond the appearance of someone who’d never really been taken care of, was what he texted me after he left, which was something along the lines of, “Thank you so much for the warm welcome into your home. It was lovely to meet you.”
I turned to my partner and said to him, “Wasn’t that right about the cutest and sweetest little drug addict you’ve ever met?,” knowing the irony of my words.
But that was just it. He was exactly that. In those first few weeks, he spoke to me openly and honestly about what he had been through in his barely-over-two-decades of life. He would text me from his nights out, drinking, doing drugs, getting into—honestly, quite innocent—shenanigans late at night at the local McDonald’s in the slum where he lived. He was so open, so quickly. I think he liked having someone to talk to who didn’t judge him for his escapades. I’m sure he only told me the more vanilla stories, but he surprised me sometimes with the sorts of things he was willing to share.
I listened with sympathy and amusement at what felt like teenaged antics, if a bit darker, what with the drug use. Generally speaking, though, he was just going out and doing social things to distract him from his painful inner world. I knew that, even if I disapproved of some of it, anything I said about his lifestyle was something he’s already heard a million times and more. He wasn’t stupid or deaf, so it wouldn’t do anything to endear him to me if I was just another judgmental nag. I honestly had no idea if I could help him, but I just wanted him to know that I have a lot of sympathy for what he’d been through, and so I would be a safe space for him if he needed one… because it sounded like that was something he was missing in his life. He accepted this willingly and without question, for some reason.
I liked him immediately, because he had a cheeky sense of humor and he was a real cutie when he was bidding for attention. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with him though, too, and I remember that moment clearly. We were chatting one evening, a week or two into our acquaintance. He was in a cab on his way to visit someone, and was messaging me saying, “Holy shit, this Arab cab driver is SO MAD at me.” [The driver had had a hard time figuring out the meet-up spot, which I get, that building complex was bizarre.] “Huh,” I thought. “That’s racist, but I’ve only known this kid a few days. I’ll comment on that sometime if I get to know him a bit better.” As I was thinking this, he messaged me again saying, “Sorry, this cab driver is mad at me. His race has nothing to do with it. My family are really awful with this sort of thing and I’m trying not to be like them anymore.”
Mind. Fucking. Blown.
This was a kid with more lifelong traumas than I could list in an afternoon, who had still found some iota of strength to rise above the judgmental bullshit that was indoctrinated into him, and despite all of the escapism and drug addictions in the world, he was putting in an effort to actively not be racist. That was the exact way to get me on his team, immediately, no more questions asked.
Despite everything he’d been through, he still cared about the world beyond himself and tried to lead by example in any way he could in order to make it a better place.
I was totally, completely floored. Most kids who are in their 20s and doing a ton of drugs are running so hard from whatever’s hurt them that they never stop and take the time to think about being anything other than what they’ve been made into. But this one? It was the fact that he told me that he cared about who he was and who he wanted to be, and was being accountable for his words and making an effort to not just be a generic burnout, that told me everything I needed to know in order to want to do everything I could to help. With a family that bad, I would have had zero expectations of him to be any sort of a decent person, and yet, here he was, calling himself out to essentially a stranger on his bad choice of words. Amazing.
I mean, look at this kid’s family. His father was a heroin addict who genuinely loved his kids but couldn’t kick the bad habit. You know the stereotype—he was literally the dad who would go out for cigarettes and not come home for 2 years because he had gotten arrested. My cub once joked (wistfully, yet sardonically) that some of his brothers got to spend more time with their dad than he had because they had all been in jail together.
His dad, however, had already passed away 10 years prior, but his remaining family were arguably worse. If nothing else, his dad expressed affection and paid attention to his kids. His mother and older brothers were less kind.
One of his older brothers, for example, convinced Otso to buy him a phone since he was unable to do so due to his criminal record, promising to pay the bills, and then immediately got arrested again and went to jail, not informing Otso that the bills weren’t getting paid. Thus, he eventually found himself getting hounded by collections agencies for unpaid bills, having his minimal wages from McDonald’s cut to pay off the debt his brother landed him with. His brother continuously promised to pay him back and and make it up to him, but never did.
Their birth mother was the real piece of work though. In my effort to understand, I tried to learn a bit about her parents, to give insight into why she was the way she was. He mentioned his grandfather on his mother’s side was a fairly well-known composer, in his time. When Otso was quite young, he had once expressed a desire to learn from this grandfather, as a budding musical creator, but his grandfather shot him down because he didn’t know anything about music composition. As if children pop into the world with expertise already programmed into them. Naturally, this left him feeling rejected and unworthy, even if he recognized later in life that his grandfather was a total dick. I often wonder what growing up with that sort of parent did to his birth mother, because of all the family members he told me stories of, she was the one who did the most damage to him.
This was a woman who scapegoated all of her personal problems onto her youngest son. He had a sister who was a year or two younger still, but he was definitely both the physical and emotional punching bag for his mom (and everyone else). If his sister got caught smoking, it was a slap on the wrist, but when he was smoking he’d get grounded for a month. He was the communal dumping ground for everyone else’s baggage, and no one gave him any love after the age of 5, as far as he could recall. And those first 5 years left a mark as well, making him believe that it was somehow his fault that the love had gone away, that he had done something wrong to deserve this.
For example: his mother got into, I believe, sixteen bad car accidents with Otso in the car with her (he had a lot of nerves when driving because of this), and when something was going wrong, instead of taking the wheel (both literally and metaphorically), she would scream and cover her eyes. Then, she would blame the accident on Otso, for existing. This woman would tell him the accident was his fault because he had to be picked up from school.
That poor fucking kid.
Yet, he spoke so openly and calmly about this traumas and experiences. He told me stories of little Otso, around age 8, coming home to find his birth mother passed out on the couch, unable to handle her life or her children and resorting to alcohol and pills to… well, I’m not sure what her goal was, but she wasn’t surviving life well. So little Otso took it upon himself to provide for his family: he stole her credit card and went to the store to buy ingredients for tortillas. When the rest of the family came home, they saw her passed out on the couch and said, “Wow, even in that state, she’s still providing for us.” When little Otso informed them that it was actually him who made food for everyone, their response was, “Oh, well that explains why the meal is awful.” He was so embarrassed that he swore he’d never make a bad meal again. At age 8. And he was a phenomenal cook, but I don’t know that I think shame is the best reason someone should dedicate themselves to the culinary arts.
This is a small taste of the hand my son was dealt from very early on. So it’s a surprise to no one that my innate desire to help and give love and safety was like catnip to him. Plus, I could meet him at his moodiest. Not only am I a warm and cuddly love bear, but I was still depressed at the time, so I could sympathize and work with a lot of his moods.
After telling me these stories—my heart broken and bleeding all over the floor on his behalf—I was reminded of a night I spent after a festival with some friends in Tampere. Finns, as a rule, are socially awkward and give very chaste, uncomfortable hugs. Hug a Finn and 9/10 times it will be quick, like they think you smell dreadful.
After the festival, one of my newish friends said to me, “Dang, you really hug like you mean it. That’s addictive, I want to hug you more.” Soon I was getting passed around the group, giving warm, affectionate hugs to everyone. Even recently (as of spring 2026), I visited my mechanic about 2 weeks after getting my car washed because my brakes were grinding, and he bashfully asked me for a hug, saying he had been thinking about the last hug I gave him for a week and a half. I hug like I mean it (when people are into it, at least—I don’t force it).
Thinking back on that night after the festival, I said to Otso, “Damn, kid… you know, I’ve been told that I give good mom hugs and it sounds like you never got those. If you ever want to be hugged by someone who means it, just let me know.”
“I think I’m addicted already :3” was his reply. That, incidentally, was an addiction I could endorse.
The funny part was that it still took a few weeks. Not that I saw him every day, but the next few times I saw him, the hugs were just… wonky. He was too tall, I was too short, he didn’t know how to express affection, he was uncomfortable… I can’t really explain it, but the hugs were just weird and awkward.
Finally, there was one afternoon when I was at his place and we had yet another weird-ass hug when I got fed up with it and told him that these were not the hugs I had promised him. He was sitting in his computer chair, which made him a lot closer in height to me, I had to slot myself around his legs just to get close enough to him, and then I pulled him in as close as possible and squeezed him tight (but not too tight), and hugged him like he was the only person in the world who mattered, because in that moment, he was. And then, he hugged me back, matching my force.
That was the moment, in my mind, that he officially became my son. When was the actual moment? I couldn’t tell you. Maybe we joked about it long enough that we both admitted neither of us were joking. But for me, at least, that was the moment that solidified our relationship. I was a mamabear with no cub, and he was a cub with no mamabear, so we decided to remedy both of our gaps with each other.
The term cubawan, funnily enough, was one that I had thought in my mind, but it was, in fact, him that coined it aloud. It’s a portmanteau of cub and padawan, and it worked perfectly for us, because he was my cub, but he was also learning to heal from me, so in that sense, he was my padawan.
To say that meeting him was a profound coincidence would be putting it lightly, but I think I’ll explain why this felt like the universe was playing ball with me in the next installment.
For now, thanks so much for reading the first part of this story. It’s not the easiest thing to write about, so if you’d like to hear more about Otso and our time together, let me know.
Stay balanced, my friends 💞
READ MORE: I also wrote a fair bit of fiction inspired by my cub. The Bear Forge was written about our meeting, its sequel, The Broken Anvil, is about our estrangement, and the finale, Everstrong, is a poshumous letter written from him to his mamabear.
Note: the latter two are only available to paid Substack subscribers.
I See You was inspired by a F(r)iction prompt, “unseen.” Elegy for a Lost Soul was written after he doubled-down on the path of destruction for the final time.
