Good morning. Hello. How are you? War weary yet? Some guy on Twitter said that if you were feeling trauma from the war because of social media, it wasn’t real, you were just a person on Twitter too much, so now you know. Twitter guy says Twitter feelings aren’t real. Helpful, that guy. World really needed his opinion.
My backlog of topics in my notes file has grown very large, and I’ve noticed that a goodly percentage of them are just notes ahout rants I should do. So I think I’m going to do a Tuesday morning news dump here, and just clean out the topic list, little blurbs on each. This is, of course, self-defeating, as I will no longer have any topics to write about, and I hate it when I’m in that position, but what is my entire writing career other than self-defeating.
So here we go!
Fuck Disney for deciding it is a smart move to build an entire new town in the Coachella valley where there is not enough water. Why do people keep building towns in places where there is not enough water. What is it with these companies where their environmental commitment only extends to the marketing department. Also here’s a picture of Celebration, Florida I took on a visit. Place is creepy.
On that note, fuck Warren Buffett, who is 91 years old and will not have to live with the consequences of his actions, and fuck Berkshire Hathaway, and fuck the horse they rode in on, for deciding last week was the exact right time to increase their investment in an oil company from 9% to 17%, even as Carl Icahn decided it was best to get out. Seriously, when Carl Icahn looks like a paragon of virtue in the situation next to you, maybe you should reconsider. What is it with these people that they can’t stop investing in fossil fules? It is fucking maddening.
On that note, I know I say this from a place of privelege, but bring on $8, $9, $10/gallon gas. We’ve all known it was coming for decades. There are myriad ways to avoid it these days: you can walk, you can move to a city, you can work from home, you can get an electric car. I know there are people in poverty relying on their cars still. I know this. But that is not enough reason for an entire nation to have a suicidal, planet-killing policy anymore.
On that note, it’s really hilarious how Republicans are the party of small government, limited interference, open markets, capitalism, supply and demand, until they sense an opportunity to attack democrats, then suddenly they’re Galbriathian price fixers and the government shoud upend the global capitalist system. I mean, yes, sure, but…
This is a total white-whine first-world problem, but Ford can go screw. Ford took 20,000 reservations of the F-150 lightning in the first 12 hours the day reservations opened. I was one of them. In fact, I made my reservation in the first five minutes. Let us assume heavy frontloading, half of those reservtions were in the first hour, half of those in the first half hour, that would still put me in the first 1,000 reservations. Let’s call it 5,000 to be safe. Not that Ford tells you your number, which is stupid. Ford is making 15,000 F-150 Lightnings this year. And I am not going to get one. This is stupid. There might be a reason for this, but they don’t tell you. They sent one of those emails that said “we promised to keep you apprised and here is what’s happening” then said absolutely nothing other than “nope, you’re not getting one.” This is also the first and only email they have sent explaining anything about the situation in the eleven months since the reservations happened. It is maddening. I am tryign to assume good faith here and figure there’s a reason why one of the first people to reserve a unit can’t get one, but I have no idea. My friend who works there says it has something to do with dealers placing lots of orders, but of course, that doesn’t matter since presumably all of those orders would be either a) built into that 20k number or b) placed after mine. He also said to email the dealer, and I did, but the dealer’s like “I can’t get any cars, and unless Ford lets you build your order I can do nothing.” Also, I did not choose my dealer, you did, and you knew these dealer allocations from orders when you allocated the units to the dealers. And it has nothing to do with them making, like, the expensive trim levels first becaue they haven’t asked me what trim level I want. And sure, maybe all 20k orders were placed in the first five minutes, in which case, a) your marketing department really missed an opportunity there, b) just fucking say so. Just explain what’s going on. Give me a place in line, give me an idea. If you can’t do this as well as a complete social misfit like Elon Musk, who, I’m sorry, has level-set base expectations about waiting in a queue to order a car, then don’t bother.
Waaah waaah waaah I’m sorry.
Attentive GMHHAY readers will already know that it turns out that a ton of the Russian Fabergé eggs are currently on display in England. These eggs were donated by various Russian Oligarchs back to the Russian Hermitage because Putin basically orered them to. Turns out you can’t, like, confiscate stuff on loan from governments to museums, even in times of war, because treaties. What I think the English should do is hire a secret agent to rob the V&A. You know, off the books, plausible deniability, that sort of thing. Then the secret double-oh agent can put them all in a storage unit (please tell me storage units have swept the UK like they have here) and they should just chill there until there is a new regime in Russia. Please option this plot line from me, if only so all of the journalists on Substack get pissed that they are not the first people to get their Substack optioned. And even though the plot is about 40 minutes. But that’s the point. There’s not much plot. It would be one of those technical-thrillers where the complex mechanics of the heist itself would be a huge part of the plot. As would the kranky proprietor of the storage facility, played by Keaunu Reeves in a Neon Demon-esque cameo.
Jane’s relentless negging and no-ing is soul-sucking and it is so hard when she decides that for an entire evening, the first words out of her mouth are going to be “no” to everything you say, no matter what. I can handle it a lot better emotionally than I used to, but it really does drive me insane. And I can’t stand the way every night she methodically boundary pushes, completely ignoring the words out of my mouth while she does something she is not supposed to, knowing full well she isn’t supposed to, and only finally stopping when I have to exhibit high-levels of irritation, ready to pounce, in a decidedly non-chill parental way. Like she waits for it. And it’s all going to be so much worse when she learns to say “I don’t love you.” And she is a good kid. Why do people do this.
Speaking of Jane yesterday after I wrote to you I went upstairs to get her for Breakfast and she was not there and I freaked out before remembering that she was at Janet’s. I am old and my brain is going.
LCD Soundsystem posted a long Facebook post about their recent habits of live playing and such, and it really was kind of interesting.
Spiritualized is playing Cat’s Cradle this fall and I am so, so excited I can’t even tell you. You should come to the show. It’s going to be awesome. Also their new song, “The Mainline Song,” is so freaking good I am so excited for this new album. It is very satisfying when your favorite band of the last thirty years, since you first saw them on the Rollercoaster Tour with the Jesus and Mary Chain at Citi Club in Boston is still making good albums. I didn’t love And Nothing Hurt to much (but “On the Sunshine” was awesome) but this one is looking to be stellar, and Songs in A&E was fantastic too. Cat’s Cradle! Spiritualized! Amazing.
Charlie XCX was on SNL this week and that new song is fantastic but I wish she had Rina Sawayama with her, because the two different videos they made for “Beg For You” are both absurdly hot:
Karate is playing the Sinclair in Boston in July and I aspirationally bought tickets and I am excited even though it is… maybe 50-50 I make it. But you should go if you live in Boston. Maybe I will surprise you!
I hope all of Boston enjoyed Wet Leg last night they really are just fantastic.
I still get spam from the company who printed the matchbooks for our wedding and every time I get some, it makes me happy. I can’t bring myself to unsubscribe.
This fantasy author raised $18 million to release some books he’s already written, and good for him, I say. Though this one passage in the Time article made me LOL:
I just do all that with my wife and my friend Lisa, with a full-time job and raising a kid, without $18 million. Who’s the sucker.
I have a giant, gross scape on my leg from building the Birdie’s Beds and I am using liquid band-aid on it and the stuff stings but.. it’s kind of awesome?
Speaking of the Times, I’m not gonna re-hash the whole thing here but if you’ve been following the whole drama with Taylor Lorenz and her ex-employer, I would just like to plant my flag in the ground on Team Taylor. The Times’ coverage of the internet has suffered massively with her departure (and Charlie Wartzel’s) and they have no one to pick up that slack, and asking for help with, you know, cyber bullying and protecting sources does not seem like a totally crazy thing to want help with. Also I think it’s very telling that now that Taylor has mentioned personal brand, everyone jumps on her about that, but when she was talking about cyber bullying and protecting sources, none of the highly-paid, old, parents-with-blue-links-in-wikipedia reporters came to her defense on that part. It does not seem a winning long-term strategy for the Times to prattle on about “safe spaces” when people are getting voluminous death threats and suffering massive, actual health problems because they work for you.
Speaking of which, have I mentioned yet another new theory of mine about why the internet sucks? No? Oh, this is getting long. We’ll save that one for tomorrow.
Okay I just made this mix right now, it had three songs in it, all from Matthew Schnipper’s excellent Herb Sundays playlist this week, the accompanying story in which brought made me cry like a baby because… my god. Anyway, the rest I just made right now. I hope you like it. Listen to it for the new Spiritualized song, it rules.
All right let’s get through this day of repairmen invading our house and grocery delivery and too many meetings and geopolitical hell. We can do this.
tickets acquired for karate—yayayayay!!