Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1158
consulting producer credit and 2 points on the backend. TikTok ban. I need four more June Ovens. California Raisins.
Good morning! Hello, Thursday. Hello, readers. How you faring? All well? Yes? No? No, of course not. It is never well. But you know what was swell? My sweet-ass dream where I did nothing but till garden soil for hours. Moment of Zen indeed.
Jane was great this morning, no problems, thanks for asking.
Listening to the self-titled album by a Texas-based (Austin?) band called Night Beats. Kinda dirty, 70’s tinged psych rock. Very much enjoying it.
Some housekeeping items:
I fucked up and forgot to wish AUG STONE a HAPPY BIRTHDAY. You are a prince among men, Aug Stone. I hope your birthday was a solid one.
Correction: My friend Miranda does not play guitar on the Hidden Skyline album. She does all the backing vocals.
While we are on the topic of Western-Mass-based musicians, I would like to wish a fond get well to Lloyd Cole, who had to cancel his June Cat’s Cradle show here in NC because of a virus interacting with a previous medical condition or something like that. I hope he gets better. Was really looking forward to it because I haven’t seen him in, like 20 years, am regretting skipping his last Carrboro show, and it was going to be a seated show at Cat’s Cradle, which is something I’ve never been to before and I always love seated shows at club venues. Alas.
And thank you for all your kind words about my Star Trek pitch ideas. Unfortunately I do not have the bandwidth, connections, or knowledge to “develop” them. So, you know, if any of you want to get them greenlit at Paramount you can just give me a consulting producer credit and 2 points on the backend. I don’t know what “on the backend” means but they always say it and it sounds smart. HELLO WORLD HELP A BROTHER MANIFEST BETTER TREK.
I wish there was a word counter for iPhone. Like it ran in the background and counted the number of words you wrote on your iPhone each day. I wrote like four emails and five long GMHHAY comments before 7 AM. I want word credit for those! Also I bet that many of you who tell me you can’t write write a lot more than you realize, and that word counter might inspire you a bit.
Just a thought.
Lotta debate and drama over the TikTok Ban. First off, it’s not a ban, despite those knowledgeable people going on about how it most certainly is a ban. It’s a forced sale. This is not new! They did this with Grindr! People have short memories. And sure, US Government institutionalists can grumble over the differing legislative framework of the two deals, wherein in the Grindr deal the congressionally created and congressionally mandated CFIUS forced the sale, whereas this time congress just mandated it themselves, directly, but that seems pretty much like splitting hairs.
Aside from the exact framework, this is not new at all. It happens all the time.
You can talk about how all these people — ranging from far right Republicans to lefty democrats — are banning TikTok because of campaign donations or how they don’t like that pro Palestinian content is doing well on there or whatever but, um, the largest American shareholder of TikTok is Trump’s largest campaign donor and suddenly Trump has mysteriously come out against the ban.
And I don’t really see how the free speech argument is relevant. People are SO into this one. It’s like saying that because a mall is being shut down the first amendment is being violated because you can no longer speak at the mall. And there is another mall next door that is substantially similar in every way but not as “cool” and owned by Simon Malls instead. You can still say what you want. The first amendment does not have a geographical or logistical component. The first amendment does not protect your right to say something by, say, painting it in toxic ink on the side of a preschool. It just protects the words.
And then there are the people who are like “no one will buy it.” Lol. People are going to be lining up to buy it, there will be so many bidders. There are, of course, anti-trust concerns with some buyers, and there’s this whole thing where comically maybe Donald Trump will, in the end, as president, get to decide the buyer, but that is still gonna mean it’s going to sell. Unless the Chinese government refuses. And then you gotta ask yourself why.
And the do this to us all the time! All the time!
This is not an internet issue! This is not a free speech issue! This is an issue of letting a repressive state walk all over us!
The argument that bothers me the most is the false equivalency argument about how Zuck can have all our data but China can’t and how that is hypocracy. This was actually core to the Grindr deal: China and Silicon Valley are not the same. Silicon Valley is still (barely) under American rule of law. There are people still in the closet! Mark Zuckerberg is not going to blackmail closeted homosexuals to give him secrets. China absolutely 100% routinely does this. There is a difference. Pretending otherwise is hugely indifferent to the safety of marginalized groups.
Is this happening, right now, with Tik Tok? Probably not? Probably not.
Here is a book I recommend reading if you are curious about this sort of thing: Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy by Erich Schwartzel. It is about Hollywood and not Silicon Valley. But the tactics are the same. And it is… Man it is amazing the things they do. Oh, also, the Google book by Steven Levy. I think you would be absolutely amazed how far they took things with Google. They outright stole their source code! Full-on hacking and spying and embedding their agents within the company. Forcing local partners on them, on everyone!
Anyway, the best social network is newsletters to your friends and a select few strangers. No one trolls you, no one seems to ever assume bad faith and grief you for ill-formed, still developing opinions. Nuance is not lost. My god I wish all my close friends wrote newsletters. Okay maybe not daily but… monthly? That would rule.
I am slowly coming to accept that I will never be able to buy another June oven. They have stopped making them. They are popping up on eBay but they are going for more than original retail. It is clear to me that the people I am in competition with for additional June ovens are other computer-nerd types, probably also friends with the company’s former CEO, except all Bay Area computer nerds that are, therefore, far more wealthy than I. There were two on eBay this week with buy-it-now prices for 2x asking. I watched them both. They are both already sold.
This hurts. It was such a remarkable invention, and I am unaware of any small smart oven that is even remotely comparable.
I would kill for… four more. One for Nick (his son Henry loves it), one for Chore House, one for Somerville, and one backup in case one dies.
My life is so hard.
So do we all agree yet that “American Requiem” is the best song on Cowboy Carter?
Who remembers the California Raisins. The California Raisins inspired the skit I did in church when I was 1986 or so where we did a version of “I Heard it through the Grapevine” about how the three wise men heard about the birth of Jesus Christ. I had completely forgotten about this until Emma mentioned the California Raisins a few weeks ago. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. I think I wore one of those white mullet-shaped turbans and had a shepherd cane.
The California Raisins released four albums. In Europe, the albums were released on Trevor Horn’s ZTT label, best known for the Art of Noise and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Checks out.
Had their own TV special.
And apparently this is how they died, according to Wikipedia:
The Raisins were discontinued July 31, 2002, with the collapse of the California Raisin Advisory Board; members of the grape farming industry were growing alarmed at the increased fees, driven by an ever-escalating amount of money being spent on the California Raisins campaign.[9][10] The structure of the campaign had resulted in all of the profits from the campaign being funneled back to Foote, Cone & Belding for more commercials and merchandise, creating a vicious cycle.[4]
Another sin to lay at the feet of advertising. We really are the worst.
Today’s Media of the Day is the album Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee. I have been listening to it for a week or two now and I am obsessed. It is only available on Youtube or on Geocities1. It is not on streaming. Part of the album was recorded here in the triangle, and Cindy Lee is playing the Pinhook, in Durham, on my birthday, and I want to go so bad. But it is sold out. So, you know, if you have a Cindy Lee ticket for the Pinhook hook a brother up and take me as your date. This album is two hours long and it is never boring. Really just fantastic. Like in that way everyone said the Brian Jonestown Massacre were in the Dig! era or when everyone was insanely obsessed with the Strokes. The new American “it” sound, I guess.
Go to the Geocities page. Download the tracks. Paypal them $30. It’s worth every penny. Please god, come out on vinyl someday.
All right, don’t be a b***ch come take it to the floor now.
A long essay could be written about how everyone is calling this “a Geocities page” when it is not, strictly speaking, a Geocities page in the 1990’s sense. It would be an essay about hommage, Marissa Mayer, private equity, graphic design as a political act and much more. I may eventually write it. Or you can write it if you give me a consulting producer credit and 2 points on the backend. I don’t know what “on the backend” means but they always say it and it sounds smart.
I have been listening to the Cindy Lee album in doses. It really is amazing. Also the cover art is gorgeous and sends me wistfully back to my cross-Canada road trip in 1993.
People forget how big the California Raisins were. It's insane.
Any newsletter that mentions Cindy Lee, the California Raisins, and (via Image block) James, is a social network I'm happy to be part of.