Good morning. Hello. How are you? #466

American Dreaming, pandemic nostalgia, Jack Antonoff malaise, California recall, we need an investigative reporter on the Simon Gallop beat, musings on tech, hubris, blockchain and cults.

Good morning. Hello. How are you? I am okay. Thank you for all your kind words about our anniversary. We spent the day pretty much exactly like we always do. I failed to give Emma a massage. I messed up her order from the Mexican place. I cannot say I delivered a fantastic anniversary experience. And yet we are, currently, a successful married couple. Go figure. Day six of no nicotine. Is not especially easier. Mostly unpleasant, nicotine withdrawal is unpleasant. But manageable. There is a zit growing on my nose. This shit again. I opened a new pack of flushable wipes in the bathroom, big news, big event in this house this week. Yes, I use flushable wipes on a septic system. We have a garbage disposal on a septic system. Six years, get it checked every year, everythings fine. You know what the secret is? Get a larger septic system. That’s it. Bob’s your uncle. Got four people in the house? Get a six-to-eight person system.

I’m listening to someone named Caroline Peyton, whom the Numero Group has told me passed away recently, that is sad, though I had never heard of her. I am enjoying her. She’s like a crazier, piano-driven Mary Margaret O’Hara. Yesterday’s big musical discovery was Sonny Sharrock, that guy was fantastic.

Also if you’re a once or future goth, there is a new Dead Can Dance live album that is really, really good and furthers my secret believe that “American Dreaming” is the best Dead Can Dance song fight me.

Yesterday it hit me hard that I am absoulutely, 100%, going to look back on the pandemic with fondness in not very long at all. Probably not a year but almost certsianly two years. I will open my Timehop and see pictures of Jane at a certain age, coloring or going on a walk with us and I will think “oh my god what a great time that was.” To be clear, I am absolutely not happy about this and think it is bullshit, but is also 100% true. This revelation seems obvious but it’s also kind of thrown me a little bit. I mean, I’ve known that there are good things about these days, mostly how much time I get to spend with Jane at this incredibly cute time in her life. But still, the fact that I’m going to look back fondly on this, against my well, well. Crap.

There’s a new Lorde single out, the third of the album, and it’s another Jack Antonoff situation and honestly this is seriously getting to be a problem, this man’s death grip on our pop stars. It is worse than Max Martin’s 90’s death grip, more comprehensive, and so much less fun. I am so tired of mellow drums, light fuzz, delicately shimmering synths just so in the background. I just… I swear to god in ten, twenty years people are going to listen to this stuff and it will be the Bread of its day. And I fucking love Bread. But this is enough. St. Vincent got the memoy. Thank you. I admit Jack is doing wonders for Lana. She can keep him. But Clairo, Taylor, Lorde, Sia, Carly, they need to leave this man behind. The madness must end.

I know the new Lorde is a pastiche, a send-up of self-help culture, but the video gives me PTSD. This video reminds me of being in a weird dojo in the basement of a luxury chalet at a private ski resort back when I was a VC and it was not pleasant. I know it looks pleasant in this video, ignore the sexiness and focus on the zombie eyes. Oh god the zombie eyes. I never want to go back you can’t make me.

So this California recall election. This is madness. How can this be legal? Newsom can lose the recall with 49% of the vote, but those 49% of the people can’t vote for Newsom to be governor, and some yahoo with 10% of the vote could become governor. How is this legal, how is this fair? It looks like he should pull it out, but it is ridiculously close. If you live in California, please, please vote. Look I’m not happy that Dianne Feinstein has decided she’s just going to die in office and doesn’t care who the governor is that gets to replace her, but losing the senate because of the California recall election is just too much. I can’t deal with this stress this needs to be decisively handled. Please. I beg you.

Oh god the stress. I really thought I was going to get to go 12, 18 months without obsessively looking at Five Thirty Eight but nope.

And then we have Stephen Breyer what a bastard I mean I know that is not fair but it is also completely true.

In the good news department, yesterday Nick Cave sent out a Red Right Hand files email and the questions the readers asked were about the vaccine and something called Ivermectin and I thought oh god, this is it, this is the day that Nick goes off of the deep end for me and becomes irredeemable isn’t it I don’t want that there’s a song on Carnage that’s one of the best things he’s ever done I still want to be able to listen to Nick Cave I know he’s problematic with his blinders about PC and Cancel Culture but he hasn’t crossed the line yet please no.

And lo and behold, Nick Cave delivered! Thank god!

Thank god for that. Thank you thank you thank you.

Speaking of problematic pop stars, what the world absolutely needs is a Ronen Farrow-level genius investigative reporter to immediately get on the Cure beat and tell us what is going on with Simon Gallop’s resignation from the Cure. WTF does “just got fed up with the betrayal” mean? The thing about any rock band departure is that there is a nearly 100% chance that at least one person involved with the feud has a substance abuse problem, but you often don’t know which person involved has the substance abuse problem. Also in this case it’s fairly easy to write up scenarios in my head where each party was at fault. I mean, I have never thought of Robert Smith as being a tyrannical monster but suddenly this seems completely plausible to me, the entire entourage around him terrified of his abusiveness and mercurialness, but they need to, like, you know, keep their jobs. Conversely it’s easy to picture Simon as some sort of lunatic or drunk who dashed these tweets off from his local pub and felt free, free, free after doing it. Who knows. This is, to be clear, absolutely none of my business whatsoever yet also, we — I am speaking for many of us here, I think — absolutely need to know.

In my constant background cycles in thinking about cults, Q-Anon, big tech complicity, etc., two things bubbled up to the forefront in the last few days. First is this very compelling article from Harper’s that Noah sent round, about the sort of symbiotic relationship between Big Tech and anti-Big Tech. I am simplifying a bit, the article is more complex and nuanced than that. And I don’t 100% agree with the article — I am mostly a believer that advertising works, it is just a weak force. But it’s a good read nonetheless. But it does lay bare a few things that rattle around in my brain: if the internet’s responsible for radicalizing us and making us join cults, why is it worse with the old people who watch Fox? What’s with all of these people who become millionaires working at Facebook and then make a new living becoming a pundit critic of Facebook don’t they have kids or hobbies to attend to with their new millions?

But the thing it mostly crystalized for me is that my distrust, default dislike of big tech isn’t super rooted in its mythical, magical ability to radicalize us. I mean, one thing I hate in this realm is their absolute inability or snaillike slowness to fix even the most basic problems with the platforms when it comes to propaganda and state-sponsored manipulation, but, then, they can’t fix the most basic problems of anything on their platforms quickly. Facebook notifications to iOS have been delayed about 10 minutes for millions of people for months now, and Twitter’s had a bug for weeks now where scrolling is broken on your main timeline.

What I really dislike about big tech is their hubris. Their egos, the move fast and break things mantra that leads to massive security holes in all of the tools we humans have to use, their anti-competitiveness, their bullying of smaller companies, their love of lobbying, their structural racism and sexism… their profound uncoolness. These are all as much or more a part of my distrust of big tech than their crazy-making.

Heck I almost love them for their bullshit jobs production. I disagree with David Graeber on part of his bullshit jobs thesis. I think they exist, but I love bullshit jobs, I think they are a perfect opiate for the masses, puritanical, generally healthy, self-selected and helpful at keeping us all from too much navel gazing. Big consumer tech used to be great about bullshit job generation, and large swaths of the greater tech ecosystem still are, but the big FAANG companies forgot the first rule of bullshit job creation: “first do no harm.” The job needs to be bullshit not toxic.

The other thing that hit me the other night, as I was sitting there, reading about the Afghan crisis du jour, and feeling so completely impotent, was that this feeling of impotence in the face of crisis is universal. I mean, we all know that. We all wish we could do more. But what I hadn’t connected before — and this is probably obvious — is that this is how people join cults. There are just so many people out there who are a beehive of anxiety and desire to help, to act, to be a part of the solution, to do something. The tech companies, I don’t think, create that, but I think they can harness it really well. Our own sense of charity becomes weaponized by these platforms. For while I do believe their propaganda and radicalization prowess is overhyped, I also don’t believe it’s zero. I think the anecdotal evidence is too strong to ignore completely.

People just want to help. So they become radicalized. Join cults. God, what a depressing thought. It’s so much easier to demonize them.

Anyway. I felt very vulnerable in my sadness and aching over the plight of Afghan women. I felt in that moment like someone could have come along, right then, and weaponized those feelings against me. Taken advantage of me, hacked my system and taken control. And I don’t watch Fox but I sure use the internet.

One more passing thought about tech today. May as well get them all out in one day. I have often wondered, “what is going to make me a luddite?” Like for years, running a digital marketing company, I had to “keep up” on all of the tech. And these days, well, I mean, I sign up for things like Tik Tok and check them out but think “nah, I’d rather read a book.” But I still get it, I still chuckle, I don’t hate it. But you know what is going to 100% make me a luddite? Anything Blockchain. Anything Cryto. I just don’t care. No, that’s not true, I actively loathe it. I’m content to not make money of it. I get sad when I see people talking about how it’s the greatest thing, or the next big thing, or fun. I think DAOs are laughable and I cannot wait for one to crumble in the face of the first court judgement that tosses the entire absurd conceit out the window. God I have so many actively negative thoughts about blockchain and crypto every day. I will never, ever use it. Even though there is something completely useful at the core of a distributed database, maintained by many parties, I just can’t stand the whole thing. This is what’s going to make me the lunatic old man who just doesn’t get it. This shit is going to take over the world and I will be the the curmudgeonly old dude saying: no. I have found my hill.

Finished John Lewis’ March: Book One last night. It was lovely. I mean, painful and necessary but also lovely and uplifting. Strong recommend.

Okay running out of time here gotta go get Janey out of bed (yay!) let’s do a mix. Ooo a new goth one FUN. Lingua Ignota is terrifying and beautiful and I am newly obsessed. There is a new Peter Murphy it is not bad. Yeah, this is a great mix. Put on some black — who am I kidding the odds are 80% that most of my readership is already wearing black. Enjoy. Or, rather, feel miserable. Goth, man. So great. My wife has a fantastic shirt that says THIS IS NOT A PHASE on it. She has another one that says DEAD INSIDE. She wears them when we walk around the neighborhood. Fantastic.

Okay! Have a lovely Wednesday! Talk tomorrow!