Good morning. Hello. How are you? #359
Garden centers, lost hearing aids, meltdowns, insurance idiocy, Scooter Braun, Mitch's nihilism, April 3 memories.
Good morning. Hello. How are you? I am… eh. Barely okay? It’s been a rough morning. Was a wee bit hung over because I had three whole beers last night and that’s enough to make this once former drinker hung over. Then I stayed up way too late watching a less-than-rewarding show after a very rewarding Zoom chat with some friends. That all went all right. I got to sleep in an extra 40 minutes or so by deciding that I wasn’t going to write this edition of GMHHAY today. I usually skip one weekend day and today, I had decided, was going to be it. So I slept in, and made some hangover ramen (a totally bad habit, thank god I don’t drink very often anymore, but the stuff is still heart-attack in a bowl), and then watched some Youtube videos by Simone Gertz, who I only recently discovered, about her brain surgery. It was really on track to be a great weekend morning.
Then I went and got Jane. Which ended up being a one hour and twelve minute tantrum. Straight. Non-stop. About whatever thing was next in the process. First a tantrum about not wanting to put on a diaper. Then a tantrum about not finding Calico Kitty. Then when we started looking for Calico Kitty, a tantrum anyway. Then I put her down for a spell to just tantrum it out, and she tantrumed it out, all right, and it just kept coming. I figured I’d get some things done while she was getting over it, so I tried to refill the seltzer cans to the fridge, and then that became the subject of the tantrum for half an hour. It was so agonizing. I tried consoling, I tried talking, I tried leaving her alone. It really took a lot out of me. They always do. The weird thing is, though, it took a lot out of her, too. We’re about an hour past it now — finally got breakfast, we’re only running about 40 minutes behind schedule now — and she is still moody and quiet and seems sort of personally stunned by the whole thing. It is not the rapid emotional bounceback we would have gotten when she was younger. Nor was there an obvious physical explanation for it. This is not new. I am just trying to describe a thing that happens all the time. Man. That shit is harrowing.
She was so great last night at bedtime, though. And I missed her so much after her spending the night at Grammy’s and then me having the whole morning off.
Well, no more.
So, for some reason, that made me decide I should do this email today. I don’t know why. I could have written out that description in Sen Fitty (that’s my nickname). But it just made me want to write to you guys. Oh, I know. Probably because I was so proud of getting everything I needed to get done yesterday. It was an insanely productive day. Let’s see. Where did I leave off in yesterday’s missive? Ahh yes:
Anyway, I have an insanely busy day with the morning errands, mom’s doctor’s appointment, and somewhere in there I aspire to get my podcast done so I can clear the decks for the weekend for nothing but gardening and hanging with our visitors, which is very exciting.
So, yes. I did those errands. I went to garden store number one and bought some seed potatoes (which I don’t know how to plant) and some more blood meal and two different Neptune’s Harvest organic fertilizers and six more bags of compost, which is an admission of failure that my composting is not as done as it should be, but also not really because when I set those goals for myself of not using any new dirt of fertilizer, it was before I bought two massive raised beds and several more large planters. I AM making compost. I think I have enough for the volume I planted last year. I just moved the goalposts. Then I went to the second garden center. I had actually gone there first at 9 but it didn’t open till 10, which is pretty crazy for a garden center a week before last frost date. There was a Model X in the parking lot, no one in it, parked by the front door. So I went to Garden Center 2 first (which sensibly opens at 9 and also has super cute baby chickens) and then came back to Garden Center 1. Model X was still there. I have decided it’s the owner’s car and they like to park right by the door because fuck it, it’s their place I guess. Anyway I got a really nice grey planter, a soil testing kit at the suggestion of Abby (I think?) and some bits and bobs. Nothing major. The one thing I wanted that I can’t find anywhere is some ginger root starts. I may try and do it from grocery-bought ginger but I have to research first.
Anyway, then I came home and I did my podcast before lunch, which, you know. I was very happy about, because I don’t have a lot more alone time all weekend. And it is done! Here, have a listen:
Then the fam did lunch (one good thing about mom being here is me, mom, Emma and Jane all have lunch and dinner together every day at the table like it’s the 1950’s or something). Then my mom and I set off to her next appointment, which was at a good clinic that I like. Everything went well, and because we were going to that clinic we could stop by Alfredo’s the really good Chapel Hill pizza place that won’t deliver to us, so that was a nice treat.
Also I got gas for, I think, the second time this year? Driving has significantly picked up since mom got here, but this was the first time I got gas since she got here in February, so, that’s impressive.
BUT. In this process I lost one of my mom’s hearing aids. The doctor had given them to me to hold when they took my mom real quick from audiology to ENT for a quick ear check. And I put them in my pocket. The same coat pocket in which I have lost both a credit card and my driver’s license through the course of the pandemic, even though my pants had a zippered pocket in them because I am an idiot. So, luckily, Jane was occupied with my mom reading her Owl and the Pussycat so Emma and I could look for it, but we couldn’t find it. I even went back to the gas station to check the ground and the trash can because I cleaned out some garbage while refilling the gas. Luckily the can was really empty so it was easy to search but it also told me definitively that the hearing aid was not in there. And I was, like, looking around at the spot I had parked to look, but there was a car there, and it was weird, and while I was peering under the car this giant badass dude, like, easy 6’3” at least, and at least 350 and tough. He comes out while I’m peering under his car and he is not super psyched. So I quickly explain to him what happened and he becomes oddly sympathetic and helps me look, so that was a relief.
I mean, these things are like $1,200 each. I felt TERRIBLE. But it was also kind of ironic because the appointment had been to decide about new hearing aids and we were really indecisive because the new ones would be better, but it’s basically all out-of-pocket and were they really worth that much? And in the back of my head I’m thinking “well, at least that question is settled.”
So I go home and I’m pretty despondent, Emma and I look in the car some more, no luck, I’m just about to give up and Emma finds it! That woman is amazing.
It is only after the fact that I admit to my mother that I nearly lost the thing.
It’s so fucking lame that the entire insurance industry has just decided that our ears and eyes and teeth don’t count. Like why would a person need to eat? Or see? Or hear? It’s so sickening and wrong and arbitrary and complete BS and this includes Medicare, so hey, heads up, any time someone says “Medicare for all,” bear that in mind. Read the actual plan. Bernie’s FWIW, did address this. Or… let’s say at least acknowledged it.
Here. I think you need to see this:
If you are following the news of the Scooter Braun/Taylor Swift world, there is yet another new development, for the second day in a row. Ithica, Scooter Braun’s management company, has been acquired by HYBE, the Korean label and management company most noted for being partially owned by BTS. In Taylor Swift land, this is crazy. The Variety article clearly says that HBYE is buying 100% of Ithica. This, combined with Braun’s recent sale of Swift’s catalog, might well sever the last ties between Swift and Ithica, thus giving rise to the premature end of Swift’s re-recording process of her own albums. BUT, it seems that HYBE is having Braun join their board. And it seems unlikely to me that this 100% acquisition does not include some stock, thus making Braun a stockholder and board member of HYBE. When Braun sold Swift’s catalog, Swift commented that Braun still retained a financial interest in it, so as much as the new owners seemed like nice rich people, she still couldn’t participate. So, the questions, as-yet-unanswered (actually hold plz lemme double check that Swift hasn’t put out a statement yet. No. She hasn’t. She’s in the middle of a promo cycle for a new vault release so it’ll probably be a couple days):
1) Did Braun retain that remaining post-sale interest in Swift’s catalog personally? or via Ithica/SBP?
2) If the latter, does that mean that is now held by HYBE?
3) If so, does Swift care that Braun is a (presumably somewhat) minority stockholder in HYBE? Or does this one-step-remove make her more comfortable?
4) Does the fact that Scott Borchetta, the head of her former label and one the men who sold her out by selling to Braun instead of her, still retains his title as CEO of Big Machine, now under HYBE, and also presumably at least a small shareholder in HYBE concern her?
I suspect all of this is not quite enough for her to bury the hatchet. But we shall see.
Regarding my confusion about Mitch’s strategy yesterday, not long after writing that edition of GMHHAY, the answer occurred to me, and it was so obvious I’m embarrassed that I didn’t actually think of it before: Mitch doesn’t care if the infrastructure bill passes. He doesn’t care if taxes are raised, he doesn’t care about the national debt. He is supremely indifferent to all of this. First, he is in no danger of losing his position, secondly, he — possibly correctly — knows that none of this will really impact his likelihood of becoming majority leader again, which is all he wants, and third, the Republican party is such a mess he can pretty much do or say or not do whatever he wants. The day-to-day tactics are moot. The politics are moot. The policies are moot. None of it matters. The whole thing is in the land of cults and voter suppression. That will work or that will not work, but voting against an actual policy that helps millions of people? Won’t make a lick of difference.
Oh! It’s April 3! This is a big anniversary in my early 1990’s life. It is my ex-girlfriend Jamie’s birthday. Jamie is swell, we’re still friends. Happy birthday, Jamie. But even before Jamie and I dated, April 3 was a big day. I saw Galaxie 500 at their last Boston show ever — their second-to-last show ever — at the BU Walter Brown Arena on April 3, 1991, opening for the Cocteau Twins on the Heaven or Las Vegas tour. I was young and stupid and hooked up with a girl at the show even though I had a girlfriend. And I wrote about it in my journal. And she read it. And she was pissed. It was bad. I was a jerk. I still feel bad about it, even though we worked it out. I still think about it every April 3rd. Lame-ass stupid men hitting on people.
It was a really good show, though. I mean. The Cocteau Twins came to Boston for Heaven or Las Vegas twice. How crazy is that? twice.
Today’s mix does not have Galaxie 500 or the Cocteau Twins on it. I guess if I had seen today coming I could have arranged something but, you know. My transgressions of April 3, 1991 weigh on me, but not in advance I guess. Because I am not a good person. Just trying to be one.
Thank you for all your emails on that topic yesterday, by the way. Really meant a lot.
This is a good mix, though. Lots of synthy goodness. Lots of good peeps out there making lots of good synth music these days. Check em out.
Okay, well, thanks peeps. You guys made me feel better writing this down. It has helped. I am ready to face Saturday, and do some composting and potting up and adding compost to planters and hardening plants and then seeing good friends. It will be a good weekend. Jane is feeling better too.
BTW Substack makes it really hard to put a bunch of buttons in a row, but I got you:
I swear to god that took three minutes..
I didn't realize Cocteau Twins were in Boston twice. The second one, at The Orpheum, was with Mazzy Star, right? I remember going up to the box office the night of the show to see if there were any tickets, and the woman at the counter excitedly held up her finger to wait while she got off the phone and then offered me front row center tickets that had just been cancelled. I was close enough to be able to hear Liz talking between songs to the band and monitor person... and good Lords of Kobol does that woman have a foul mouth on her. Every other word was fuck, hah.