Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1347
New York emo shit, bitching and moaning about Open AI, an Anaïs Nin bit, Eric Adams, dreams of the salvage industry.
Hey hey good morning, not. Sorry I’m late. Back from New York. Was out with my wonderful friend Flood for one last night of my favorite bars in the Lower East Side. Whiskey Ward is now Sophie’s Ward or something and they made it all fancy and it was deafening. Sad to see it finally change. Different bartenders too. The lady who’s been my bartender for a decade plus was not working at the Magician, my college friend who bartends at Iggy’s was not working last night. But it was still nice to see them all one last time. It will be a while. Although I did realize that if I do (when! be an optimist, bro) I won’t have to stay in SoHo for work so I could theoretically stay in the LES again. Or even brooklyn! Want to go to that Anaïs bar at some point. Maybe bring my xerox of Anaïs’ handwritten pages that her editor Gunther Stahlman used to make The Diary of Anaïs Nin, with both her handwriting and his in the margins as they cut out the most scandalous parts of her life to make it suitable for publication, not to be restored until the 1986 publishing of Henry and June. I assume the bar is filled with fellow Anaïs scholars, and no doubt Kim Kirzan maintains a residency there. As a bonus, we could talk about Before Sunrise and why she did not work on the sequels.
Fantastic work, Krizan’s A Spy in the House of Anaïs Nin. Wonderfully revelatory about Anaïs’ later life, past where the unexpurgated journals have been published. Also I wish someone would pick up that mantle. I found Trapeze, covering ‘47-’55 to be among the best. But I digress.
Oh shit it turns out there are two more editions of the unexpurgated diaries that I totally missed, someone revoke my Anaïs scholar card: The Diary of Others covering ‘55 to ‘66 and A Joyous Transformation covering ‘66-’77. I am all about reading about Anaïs’ aging this is going to rule. Both have been purchased digitally and in print. How did I miss this. The Anaïs network isn’t what it used to be RIP Anaïs: An International Journal, you are missed.
Was really sad leaving New York! Really sad! I cried last night, walking through Nolita and Chinatown, my old walk from 2006 or so from Tribeca to the LES. Sad! I will miss so many things about it. I made some notes as I walked: I will miss tourists taking pictures of cobblestones I will miss influencers posing in hotel doorways that aren’t even that exciting. I will miss the delivery guy eating soup in the stairwell of our office building, all the workers and their little secrets about places to take breaks or use the bathroom. I will miss the red Bank of America awnings why the hell did they change them all white, that is sad. I will miss people bringing paper towels home two rolls at a time because no one has the room to buy in bulk and Amazon is a pain to get delivered.
Goodbye to all that, etc. etc. I will never know why all of the sudden so many women are wearing kerchiefs, how it is that redheads are suddenly out of style what the hell does that mean? Why, exactly, does Vuarnet still have that store in SoHo are they just waiting for another Vuarnet craze, biding their time for forty years hoping that lightning will strike twice? Why is it V-U-A and not V-A-U who can ever know. Will I ever set foot in the wooden ladder store again or figure out what that store on Crosby actually sells that has all those weird tincture bottles in the window? Could it be so simple as that they actually sell perfume? I don’t think so, kinda like that weird store that had 500 lightbulbs in the window for a few years on Broadway I think they sold clothes.
Lotta posh fast food in the Meatpacking now. I do not complain about the change, that the kids go out in Bushwick or Dimes Square or wherever and the Cooler is gone and the Meatpacking is clean. Things change and evolve. But man, so many Taco Bells in custom luxury colors.
Even if I go back it will probably not be the same. I will probably no longer get to stagger tipsily through the LES in the dead of night. I will probably no longer meet up with people after midnight (sly Taylor ref).
I basically wrote the same entry yesteday didn’t I? Well, then, I apologize. We will move on. We miss things, even when we know we are making the right decision. people often don’t have enough sympathy for the dumper vs the dumpee.
Oh I would like to apologize for the unfortunate typo in the subhead of yesterday’s GMHHAY. It was fixed in the Threads syndication and on Substack, but the email went out with the typo entact. It was supposed to say “goodby to an office and an era,” instead. Profound apologies.
There is a new song by the Cure out today, the album is out in November. I am excited. I liked the song. It could use a bit more reverb but it will grow on me it is probably somewhat daring to keep the production in the first half so minimal.
Look it’s true I have too many emotions, I am emotional about everything men are so emotional it is not rational, this massive anger I have at the profound stupidity of OpenAI and the absolute moral repugnance. I mean, sure, they will probably end up ruining the planet (please be wrong about this Rick, please be wrong, you are often wrong!). But my god, completely hijacking a non-profit and turning it into a for profit, I mean, even if the non-profit managed a 0.25 acre park in a suburb, doing that very act would be despicable. To do it to one of the most powerful, fucked up and borderline evil companies is absolutely unhinged. It’s like bringing a raging pit bull to a kindergarten playground, watching it jump and pull at the leash and then just shrugging and letting go of the leash.
How is there an independent board in support of this? How is this happening? It is fucking insane.
Open AI is so repugnant they make me think that Elon might have had a point. Elon! Open AI is so repugnant that it makes me think that the woman who literally stole the whole internet for funsies and profit might end up being on the right side of history.
It would be so nice if there were a single human being in a position to stop this trainwreck that had a soul. But it seems there is not.
On the other hand, Eric Adams is getting indicted? I can live with that. I was a good 60% into my sobbing pity party about the end of my New York Life last night when Flood texted me the news and boy it cheered me right back up.
Man the salvage industry seems so awesome. Dudes who cleaned our office out brought a crusher. A carpenter took apart the desks, they salvaged the hardwood tops for reclaimed wood and crushed all the metal legs for salvage.
First thing they did when they got to the office is go through and pull everything with wire in it, put all the copper wire in a single basket.
The whole thing was such a great, fine-tuned operation. I loved it so much. Those dudes worked 12 hours and seemed happy the whole time.
Someone in the world please expose Sam Altman to the joy of physical labor before he ruins the planet.
I haven’t seen my daughter yet, she was already at school when I got home. We are doing a semi-quarantine for the next three nights that I’m back, so I won’t get to see too much of her. But I had a couple close COVID calls in the last week. Still testing negative but don’t want to get my family all roped into my germy bullshit. But i miss that little girl. Hopefully we’ll do some outside hugs today. Oh and it’s Thursday which, weather permitting, usually means outdoor dining for us, so that is nice. She can tell me about her day and we’ll make plans for the weekend and I’ll forget I ever cared about the new bars on Rivington Street. I can start regaling you with tales of pools and RV and Boat storage again instead of the mean streets of Lower Manhattan.
Everything is gonna be just fine.
Club mix for you today. Smalltown Boy remix is lit. Sorry I did not acknowledge Brat Summer until Summer was officially over. Oh shit I am just seeing there are two Jamie XX songs on here sorry, slow album rollout. I do also make time for his former XX bandmate Romy, though. The Kim Deal song is a breath of fresh air. Fun times.
Byeeeee.