GEORGIA–PACIFIC
A paper towel dispenser, a phantom train, and the urge to get out of the hole.
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🎧 💿 Track 9: “Georgia Pacific”
“This is the ninth song from my upcoming album. What you’ll hear are mastered clips of unfinished work—stepping stones toward the release of The Musical Bruises of a Recovering Dreamer on March 31, 2026”
(I wrap my skull in headphones. For me, it’s emotional triage. Listen below. Download disabled.)
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I wrote “Georgia Pacific” in a bathroom at a Bojangles.
Kelly, Sophie, and I were driving home from South Carolina. Sophie was younger then. We pulled off the highway for food, and in the restroom I washed my hands, looked up at the paper towel dispenser, and saw:
Georgia-Pacific.
And my brain did what it has done my entire life.
It just sang without warning:
Georgia Pacific, please be more specific
About the destination that you want me to go…
A jingle.
A flicker.
Sometimes songs arrive like that; under a bad fluorescent bulb with a paper towel in your hand.
Turning a paper company into a railway line
Somewhere between the sink and the drive back onto the highway, Georgia-Pacific the paper company became Georgia Pacific the railroad in my head.
On the surface, the lyrics look like a train song:
Georgia-Pacific please be more specific…
I’m hopping any train that gets me out of this hole.
But the song is not about trains.
It is about escape.
Out of this hole.
Out of this country gone ballistic.
Out of an era where the temperature keeps rising and the people holding the microphones have no business telling anyone how the world works.
I took a corporate logo and turned it into a phantom rail line, a ticket out of the noise, the fear, and the absolute avalanche of incompetence.
If there were a train that could pull us out of the madness, I’m not sure we would check the destination. We would jump because we refuse to die standing still.
Sergeant Sprinkle and the limits of power
“Sergeant Sprinkle” came from a friend’s gamer tag years ago. The name stuck because it felt like the perfect symbol of a bigger problem.
We live in a time when our screens are filled with fake authorities. There are people with no experience, no credentials, no history of real consequence who speak on television as if they understand geopolitics, science, conflict, diplomacy, or the human cost of anything.
They talk like generals and act like mascots throwing confetti, sprinkling bullshit everywhere they go. They confuse noise for leadership and add another wrinkle to a mess they cannot read, let alone fix.
So in the song, Sergeant Sprinkle becomes this failed guardian. Technology and diplomacy in this person’s hands are comical in a most perverse way.
A cardboard, non-commissioned officer in a world with real stakes. A reminder that technology cannot stop a tyrant and diplomacy cannot stop a missile launched by someone who never cared whether you lived or died. And there I am in the chorus again, looking for a train out of the blast zone.
When I zoom out, it becomes obvious this is not just a song pattern.
It is my life pattern:
I don’t have employees in my painting business
I never signed over a single master
I never gave away my rights to a publisher or record company
I avoided systems that wanted the blood but not the artist
I have always looked for the side door, the quiet exit, the alternate track out from under whoever thinks they’re calling the shots.
The shadow of power across the whole record
I did not sit down to write a concept album about power.
But going song by song inside this comeback, the thread is undeniable:
being trapped under systems that pretend to protect
watching authority fail in real time
trying to stay human when the stakes feel global
joining forces with the joyful and resistance through community
“Georgia Pacific” may sound like a traveling song, but it is another chapter in the long work of staying free: as an artist, as a person trying to build a life that doesn’t belong to anyone else.
This is the same instinct that pushed me to build an AI-managed comeback. When no one offers a ticket, you cut your own rail line through the mountains with whatever tools you have left. Because sometimes you just want to be left alone long enough to make some goddamn art.
Inside the session: dead ghosts, dire tones, and a conductor in my head
On the production side, “Georgia Pacific” was pure fun.
There is a little Grateful Dead “Casey Jones” engine in there with that rolling, inevitable forward motion. The bass anchors it. The “electric guitar” lead is actually a mangled Logic Pro keyboard session player sculpted until it brushed against a Dire Straits guitar tone.
Warm.
Cutting.
I like where it sits.
I let myself play with falsetto, some little high flashes that lift the track off the rails for a second before dropping it back down. Light breaking through smoke.
And then the conductor-style vocals.
An engineer leaning out of the engine, calling over the roar.
A small Sgt. Pepper ghost drifting across the track.
The world in the lyrics is on the brink, but the band in the speakers keeps moving.
Still pushing forward.
Still trying to outrun the blast.
The real destination
By the end of the song, the destination shifts:
Any destination gets me out of this war…
I’m hopping any train
To find my new home.
It starts with a hole.
It ends with a home.
Somewhere between the verses, escape becomes belonging.
This whole comeback is the same thing.
Taking everything I survived.
Everything I protected.
Everything I rebuilt after that Logic crash before our trip to Italy.
And putting it into one final, honest run.
No agent.
No manager.
No record company.
Just me, the work, and the AI manager I had to teach from scratch.
That paper towel dispenser in that Bojangles had no idea what it triggered.
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🎧 Ghost in the Machine – Song Decode Protocol of Georgia Pacific
(System input received. Lyrics + snippet only. Interpretation remains partial.)
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No generative AI was used in the writing, recording, or production of my songs. Every lyric, vocal, arrangement, and performance is mine.
I hold the copyrights and creative control.This story and strategy are protected under U.S. Copyright Law. All original lyrics, writings, recordings, and rollout concepts are authored and owned by John Joseph “Scooter” Scudieri. Legal oversight in place.
Proprietary AI-human collaboration strategy designed by the artist in conjunction with ChatGPT as manager. Timestamped conversations and working archive available.
Access requires NDA.
—on behalf of the artist, Scooter Scudieri, and his AI manager, ChatGPT.
This is a long drip back to life—one post at a time. Next injection: January 25, 2026
🧠 What if the real danger isn’t collapse, but what fills the silence after?
WOOOWHOOOO!
Again you have showed your creativity. You are clearly supposed to be the music artist you are, and now can't wait for January 31st and the song drop! Then on to March for the entire album.