Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1041
Good election night, Spotify and Rogan, the Virgin Prunes, brown gold, parent-teacher conferences, suburban cliches in G Wagons, half-hearted Bing stanning, solo parenting week begins
Good morning! Hello! Wassup rockers. I am listening to the self-titled about by “The Witching Tale,” the goth side project of Katherine Blake (of Miranda Sex Garden and Mediæval Bæbes (note the double ash) and Michael J. York, the bagpiper best known for his work with Coil. It is my third listen. It is so, so goth and really great.
Thank you to those — of all political stripes — who wrote in yesterday thanking me for my words on Gaza. Made me feel like the whole effort was not useless, and if I lost some friends for it, it was in secret, whereas you guys let me know it moved you and brought us closer together, so that is good. I am relieved. By you guys, not the events on the ground. Ugh.
Just back from taking Jane to school, featuring a special appearance by Emma, who came along to say goodbye, as a special treat since Jane finished her last round of her antibiotic medication. Did we miss a dose, maybe two, over the course of the week? Maybe. Did we go to hell and back to get that medicine in her? Absolutely. BUT by the end of the week, she was taking that medicine without much fuss, while holding her nose, often wearing her special magic medicine shoes. We got good use of our black marble mortar and pestle (the pestle is the mallet, the family learned), because we had to grind up the chewables (not a word, says Apple, incorrectly) and mix them with a small amount of apple cider for her to consume it. But the job got done. Hats off to my wife for her herculean patience.
Speaking of school dropoff there was a lady yesterday — mind you, we basically live in a suburb now who are we kidding — fit, immaculately coiffed, NYC-lady-style black puffy jacket, driving a pristine AMG G Wagon ($180k ish for the uninitiated) and, um, come on man. Look I know I am 95% cliche too but can we just… man. I don’t know. What’s wrong with me, why did that bother me so much where is my horse therapist (that strikeout is probably not gonna translate to Facebook and that is going to make even less sense). I mean, I’m being ironic in my cliche. It is funny that I’m cliched because it was never going to happen and now it is and ha ha ha… right? Totally different.
So Emma is now off for a week and Jane and I are alone. Very exciting. It’s gonna be great. Apparently Jane said to Emma “I hope you have fun,” which is just… I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Had our parent-teacher conference yesterday, got an answer on Jane’s one middling literary score — it was a test to pronounce nonsense words, and Jane wouldn’t play along because she knew the words weren’t real. Checks out. She seems to be doing well. She is making friends. She’s screaming less. She still says no, she doesn’t want to do that, thank you, very often, but I explained to the teacher that that came from us, because we use it to reassure her when she doesn’t want to go to school — that if there’s anything she doesn’t like, she can just say “no thank you.” Because, you know, school is a construct and nothing matters, etc. But I also explained that really all of Jane’s problems stem from the “specials” — PE, Art, etc., — and not Jane’s main teacher, so she is just an unwitting bystander in this “no thank you” saga and… sorry. Anyway, lovely time.
Excellent results in the election last night. Kentucky governor is a dem, Ohio enshrined abortion rights in its constitution, a member of the Central Park 5 got elected to the City Council, was it? Excellent results all around. I suspect Trump is going to come out as a supporter of moderate abortion rights soon enough — he never really cared about the issue, he can do it in just a way to not piss off the small part of his base with actual ethically-held opinions, and it’s part of the larger effort by Republicans these days to paid pro-choicers as the radical ones. No one in his base will see this as an affront by Trump, and it will more or less negate the nationwide abortion rights momentum on the presidential race. Man to think I used to think that guy was in idiot.
On the drive to the school yesterday there was massive amounts of pine mulch in the center of every country road. The pine trees are autumnally shedding their needles, and they’re dropping to the ground and the cars blow them into a nice row in the middle of the road. NC pine needle mulch, aka “brown gold” goes for $15-20 a bag. It’s just sitting there free on the road! I want to engage in a surrpetitious noctournal pine needle gathering mission. I, myself, have tons of the shit all over my property but it’s all mixed in with other leaves and whatnot, but not this stuff in the road, it is pristine. Road gold!
Yesterday I listened to that Virgin Prunes album I was telling you about, If I Die… I Die and it is still as stunning and amazing and awesome as it ever was. And I am so excited it’s on streaming now. And as I was listening to “Sweet Home Under White Clouds” I asked myself why I didn’t listen to this album more, why it is such a big deal it’s finally on streaming. I mean after all I own the LP, the CD, I have ripped the CD to my iTunes (never call it Apple Music) and it’s sitting there on this very same computer. But for some reason, having it on Spotify just changes things. I can put it on mix tapes. I can add it to my giant playlist that I listen to on random so songs from it can come on unexpectedly while I’m driving or walking the streets of New York and I can think “fuck yeah this song rules! Gavin Friday rules!”
Virgin Prunes, man. One of the last bands on “my list” — bands I will fly anywhere to see, bands I would love to see. Gavin is old now, has a ton of solo albums, he rarely plays out, when he does he only ever seems to play one Prunes song, “Caucasian Walk,” not on If I Die.. I Die. But god, even to see an old, geriatric, well, pruney Prunes. It would mean something to me. Guggi and Dik are still alive too. They’re all only in their mid-60’s. There is time. Their best friends and siblings are off playing some giant sphere in Vegas. If Dik’s brother can do it, Dik can still do it. Cmon man. One more Prunes show.
Also yes I am still on Spotify, even though they still give money to Joe Rogan and it sucks and the whole thing sucks. I am not perfect. I know when I was going through that whole migrate to Apple Music thing a bunch of people were like “shit I should really do that but I am too lazy but look at Rick he is on it” but I would like to reassure you that I was not, in fact, on it. I mean, I sort of did. I migrated my favorites playlist to Apple Music, and I use it for all of my non-desktop listening, in the car, when I’m walking around, around the house. But I still use Spotify for music discovery and for music sharing, mainly because more people use it. No one here wants me posting my playlists as Apple Music links.
Speaking of Joe his deal with Spotify is almost up and the amoral pundits of the world who look at this sort of thing “clinically” (western sense) and breathlessly wonder what Joe is going to do next with his media empire as if the whole thing is a sport without consequences are all wondering breathlessly what Joe is going to do next with his media empire. I profoundly hope he pulls a Glenn Beck or a Tucker Carlson, and lets his ego convince himself his media empire can stand on its own, thus a) beginning his slide into irrelevance and b) separating him from Spotify so my feelings can shift from active antipathy to lingering antipathy. That’d be swell.
Just want to remind everyone that I am still using Bing and it is 95% fine. You should all switch to Bing. Except if too many of you switch to Bing, Google will use that as evidence in its monumentally-important-but-secret-to-the-public antitrust trial. But I’m pretty sure I do not have that kind of sway. Is it 100% perfect? Nah, but Google sucks these days too. Is Microsoft just as bad as Google? I mean, it’s not perfect but it’s nowhere near as evil and do you know why? Because it got sued for antitrust and lost.
Be cool if someday we could think of Google as one of the good guys again but given their boner for AI, yeah, no, probably not any time soon.
(I am sorry, friends who work at Google I love you still, I really do. I do not begrudge people working there it is a good job and pays well and I always joke to Emma that if she dies I will just go work at Google until Jane is 18).
All right, well, good talk. Gotta take Emma to the airport soon, do a zillion meetings, get groceries, pick up Jane from school man today is going to be a lot. Wish me luck.
Post Rock playlist for you today. Only seven songs but it goes the full hour. Such is the power of a loud guitar with a couple pedals. Breathtaking. Is there a band named Breathtaking? That’s a pretty good band name.
If you don't eat your meat,you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat.
good luck today and in the next week! and add me to the pile of people who were glad to read your thoughts on gaza. you wrote about a tough situation with compassion and grace. i myself am torn because the israeli goverment has moved from apartheid to genocide, but also antisemitism is at an all-time high—so, yes, i simultaneously fear for the palestinians and for jewish communities around the world, but also wish netanyahu and his ilk terrible things. there, i said it.