Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1116
True Detective Night Country's Alaskaness, Bobby Gillespie and Yanis Varoufakis, boring stuff like dreams and music and kids
Good morning, comin’ atcha live from Chatham County, NC. Jane is back in school. She is wearing a wacky outfit for wacky outfit day. She is wearing a soft of kid’s safari Kenyan themed shirt that says TOGETHER on it, some pink leopard-print pants, orange socks, a blue spiked bracelet and blue lego glasses. Am I slightly concerned that the combination of faux leopard print and Kenyan-themed shirt on “wacky” day might constitute cultural appropriation? I am, yes, slightly concerned, not gonna lie. But the lego glasses really are the part that makes it wacky. Or maybe I thought the message of TOGETHER would compensate. I dunno, man. We live in a world of greys. Daddy tried. The PTA lady who helped her out of the car liked it at least, and if you have the approval of white moms what else do you need that will carry you all the way to the white house despite multiple indict — never mind.
We got there early, she let me brush her hair, that was great. Mark Kozelek’s (sorry) cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” came on that made me simultaneously miss melodious and uncancelled Mark, Leonard, living on Clinton Street, Jill, and my friend Liisa. Jane liked it, though. After dropping her off, the music decided to play Jeanne C Riley, Sopwith Camel and Adriano Galante for a really lovely diverse “oldies” set. Then it played another song but we are saving that for Media of the Day.
Had a great dream taking place entirely within an aging luxury hotel that spanned two entire New York City blocks: like the size of Penn Station. It was a mix of the Park Plaza in Boston, the New Yorker, a Vegas casino and maybe the Waldorf. Best thing about it is that it had a bar on every corner. It had several more, but a street-level bar on every corner of the hotel. That was awesome. Each had a different bartender doing a different style of bartending, and they all had different adherents in cultures. Justin Baum was there. There was midnight yoga in the lobby. The hotel had history.
Oh and eventually the Russians invaded and WWIII started no biggie. I may have gotten shot.
Pretty sure I’m sick, I dunno, Jane is feeling better but I am rundown AF and have been sleeping tons and have a constant headache. Had a single glass of wine Monday night and so all day yesterday I couldn’t say for sure if I wasn’t just old and hung over or not, but last night I was a paragon of virtue, got tons of sleep, and I still kinda feel like shit today. On the other hand, an anonymous friend has shingles right now and is sending me photos and describing the sickness in detail and my god, my god, it sounds fucking terrible. Someone explain to me why the shingles vaccine isn’t available to people younger than 50.
Shingles, man.
We started True Detective Night Country a couple nights ago. It takes place in Alaska. It is in a fictionalized town named Ennis. What is Ennis modeled after? Unclear! It’s basically every town and city in the part of Alaska north of Anchorage rolled into one. It is too big to be any town other than Fairbanks, but it is clearly nothing like Fairbanks (no birch trees, no trees at all, no hills). The coordinates put on screen at the beginning of episode one have it located somewhere near Kotzebue, but the night skyline scenes make it clear it is way, way bigger than Kotzebue. There is some weird liquor obtaining stuff in the show that you only really see in the villages, but Kotzebue does have some pretty strict regulations around liquor (the city owns the only bar and the only liquor store!) so I guess Kotzebue. Except it’s too big. And pretty. Occasionally you see some exterior architecture that does look like those austere buildings on the coast of Nome or Kotzebue, but mostly the buildings are too pretty. Oh also there is no coast, so, like, it’s some weird interior town I guess.
I don’t know what the deal is with two state police forces in the show — the very real Alaska State Troopers and the mythical APF. Which is weird, because Kotzebue, Nome, Fairbanks — basically any town that could be the town in the show, and any town of that size in Alaska — have their own police forces.
The actors who play the Native Alaskans by and large look nothing like and speak nothing like Native Alaskans, except the two played by Native Alaskans, and they are obvious. But the real character problems are the white people, especially the men. None of them mumble. None of the rednecks have that trademark Alaskan redneck mumble or the trademark Alaskan redneck faux southern drawl.
There are not near enough huskies. Or dogs in general. That part is real weird. So far, one dog in the show. They keep going into people’s houses and there are no dogs.
There are no arctic entryways on any of the buildings.
All the snow on the side of the road isn’t brown. No brown snow anywhere actually. Or gravel.
No frost in any of the windows.
No fog. All their snowy nights have beautiful flurries and no fog. And there are colored lights everywhere. I guess it’s Christmastime, so okay, but in general the whole atmosphere is way too pretty.
There is none of that ugly 70’s panelling that was probably shipped to Alaska by the boatload, and even though it’s been 50 years, the state is still ridding itself of it, and it is still everywhere.
All the fixtures in the kitchens and bathrooms are way, way too designed (not surprising, the show was mostly shot in Iceland).
Only one stoner that is weird.
People have solid wood headboards on their beds and shit and that generally doesn’t exist in the wealth classes being presented. Unless it’s Alaska-made, and then it’s obvious.
No baleen on any of the walls.
The show did leave me with two questions:
What’s the deal with the state’s new(ish) pot legalization and dry villages? I assume villages can vote to keep pot out just like they can keep liquor out?
In what year did all the police forces in America redesign their car livery from cool old-fashioned shields and serif fonts and mottos to the new Nike-inspired swoosh and bold italic san-serif fonts? I feel like it swept the entire country all at once. I would put money on it all being because a single graphic designer retired at some police car outfitting company.
You may be wondering what’s up with all the projects but c’mon man it is the workweek, I have work. I had so much work the last two days but I think I am in a good place now. Everything is in someone else’s hands. That’s the thing about management: you do your part, you hand it off. It comes back to you, you do your part, you hand it off to the next person. Okay that is not the thing about management, but a thing about management is knowing when it is best to just do it yourself and knowing when it is best to delegate, and taking into account both the immediate short term ramifications and the longer-term ones. A balancing act.
Anyway if everything goes great I might be able to sand that wall today. And vacuum. Definitely need to get those two things done by Friday.
Bobby Gillespie of Primal Screen did a regram of Yanis Varoufakis yesterday, and this makes me very happy because I wrote a song about Bobby Gillespie, entitled “Hats off to Bobby,” about his stridency and commitment to leftist political causes even in the face of increasing rock stardom. It’s a great tune if I say so myself. My late friend Andy Shea loved it, so good enough for me. Anyway, one of the lines in it is about Bobby Gillespie attending peace conferences with Yanis Varoufakis, yes, I rhymed “conferences” with “Varoufakis” in a rock song and I am very proud of it. This was like five years ago, so I am pleased to see that Bobby is keeping it real. Primal Scream once turned down a tour touring with Springsteen because Bobby said “it would be too much work.” Steven Van Zandt said Primal Scream coulda been the biggest rock stars in the world but that Bobby didn’t want to do big tours.
Semi-relatedly, Primal Scream are supporting Alice Cooper this summer on a big tour. Does this mean Bobby isn’t lazy anymore? That he secretly doesn’t like the Boss? Your guess is as good as mine.
Today’s Media of the “Day is Dance till we Die” by Lana Del Rey. Song came on this morning and damn. So good. Could be a Leonard Cohen song. Timeless. Could be a Dolly Parton song from the 70’s. And that ending!
All right well Ima gonna let you go, you take care of yourself, all right?