Well hello there how are you this fine morning what is shakin’? I am good I need to go to Walmart this morning but I don’t have any time and I don’t know how I am going to fit it in. There was this bird yesterday, after I finished writing to you guys. I was still the only one awake in the house, and there was the bird just slamming into the window in Emma’s office, over and over. It was very disconcerting! I tried to ignore it through breakfast, but I could hear this thump… thump… thump… coming from downstairs and I couldn’t unhear it. I went outside to shoo the bird away with a broom, and off he flew, but within a minute he was back. thump… thump… thump… I thought maybe turning off the light hanging in the window above Emma’s desk would help, and I thought it did, but later Emma found the bird just banging into another window. She was far less freaked out about it than I was.
Anyway, the light is on a light switch but it’s one of those semi-high-tech LED lights that comes with a remote control where you can turn it on and off and change the color temperatue and stuff, except now, even if I turn the light switch back on, the light won’t turn on. So I assume the battery in the remote is dead, and my god there are so many different batteries in the CR-series of small, flat, round batteries. We checked our very ample battery stores and had CR 2016, CR 2032, CR 1620, a few others but no CR 2025. Looking at the Wikipedia page of battery sizes, there are twenty-seven batteries in the CR line. How is this a thing? Real dropping of the ball by the ISO here if you ask me.
Anyway, I did this so I would like to, you know, make good.
Ummm what else. Crap. I do not have any other little writing prompts in my notebook for today. Well, that is a lie, I have a ton of old ones that I am never going to get to, because the moment has passed, and now they just clutter up my notepad with little strands of lost writing possibilites. Hrm. Maybe I’ll just clean them all out right now, with zero cohesion or relevance. May as well start this vacation with a clean slate:
For a while when I had long hair, like three weeks ago, I decided I was going to get a giant barrette and start wearing my hair like Harriet Wheeler of the Sundays, and I did it for, like, one day and it brought me great joy and then I stopped before I ever got around to writing to you guys about it. I had some vague idea about writing a little piece about changing your hair as self-nurture when you were feeling very down, but that seemed really obvious. Also I might be the only person who has Harriet Wheeler burned into my memory but, then, the Sundays were my first concert when I got to Boston and also I love them a whole lot. Reading Writing and Arithmatic goes for over $100 on vinyl now. If you can find it. There are only two copies for sale in the US on Discogs, one is a reissue for $200. I do not own a copy and that is endlessly frustrating to me.
I had a whole long essay planned about XM First Wave and Richard Blade and I was going to make fun of him a lot because he there was some event and he really wanted to go and he was publicly fishing for an invite on his radio show and that just seemed really extreme. But then he got a star on the Walk of Fame, so, you know, good for him. Sluggo is the best XM DJ. He had a funny joke, like, four months ago I was going to recount but I forgot. It is interesting how XM Lithium still plays early Beastie Boys and boy have those songs become problematic with time. Jane is very good at turning Morrissey off whenever she hears it, except for “How Soon is Now” because I can’t convince Emma to ban that song which is a shame. Also there was going to be a sort of East Coast/West Coast rumination, how First Wave is overly influenced by West Coast New Wave and they don’t play enough Chamelons, for example. And a section on the songs on First Wave they play that came out in the 90’s because they pretend thast 1990 is the cutoff but they break the rule all the time and it’s really enlightening. Seriously, this XM First Wave thing was going to be an entire dedicated entry to GMHHAY, but it is never going to happen and I am very happy to check off those notes.
A while ago we talked about Kindle vs regular books and the resounding opinion of the vast majority of GMHHAY readers is that they prefer regular books, which is very interesting to me because I vastly prefer the Kindle, for it’s adjustable type size, ability to read in the dark, syncing of highlights and notes, ability to carry ten-plus books around with you everywhere, and not cluttering your bookshelves up with garbage genre paperbacks. I still buy physical books of things that I think are worth owning — especially friend books — and will last the test of time, but genre books, technical manuals, politics books that will age, etc.? I prefer those on the Kindle.
The Faberge exhibit has come to an end in England and the Victoria and Albert is now faced with a decision on what to do with Victor Vecklesberg’s Fabergé Eggs. Vecklesberg is under sanction, but he donated the eggs to a Russian Museum associated with the Hermitage and there is a law saying they need to be returned, so the museum is stuck between a rock and a hard place and as of this morning they have not said what they’re going to do about it. Well, that’s not true, they still say they are going to return them but no one really believes them and everyone assumes someone is going to stop them, but, then, no one has, and as Felix has mentioned, the law is pretty clear on this point. But there was a wrinkle as it turns out the museum does not actually own the eggs, they’re on loan from some mysterious Panamanian corporation, so, not promising! We shall see, we shall see.
My god it feels so good to clear these topics out. What else.
I was gonna post this great New York Times article about people in the Alaska bush getting DoorDash and Uber Eats, but then later that afternoon, Deve Pell from NextDraft posted it so it felt like I’d be cheating posting it.
I have a lot of really mopey notes I put in here while I am sad and then the next day think better of it. Seriously, wow, I really spare you guys a lot. One — written before Mike passed — simply says “I am running out of time,” which was going to lead to a long, panicked discussion about all I still want to accomplish in life and how I can feel my time running out but big nope. I have one that says “Every day I seriously consider calling out sick because of parenting. I would just say ‘I don’t feel so well’ and it would be true! Or I would say ‘sorry, parenting emergency’ and it would be true! I consider this every day but I never do it and I deserve a medal.” I have one that is sort of a disjointed note that says “when I’m old: when your mind is going. Staying on task. Staying writing. About new things. A Plan,” which was sort of a to-do item to develop some sort of Memento-like system to keep me remembering the important things once I inevitably get Alzheimers. I put that one off though. But it’s percolating in the subconscious, oh yes it is.
I had a few snarky notes about Substack because they run their business fairly poorly but then I decided to let those go because not my problem because I am doing all this for free on here and they’re not getting any of my money so whatever, I’m just a vampire around there.
I had a note to write about the NFT backlash from brands that was months old but other people did that just great and now it’s moot because NFTs are dying so whatever.
Oh this is new, from last night. Last night I read about how Don Mclean, singer of American pie, is married to a 20-something year old former Playboy model, Paris Dylan, and he is super into it and super happy even though everyone thinks she might be taking advantage of him. But then he explained that her desire to travel the world resulted in him getting off his ass and doing a world tour to a bunch of places he could never be arsed to go to before, so even if she was gold digging for a world tour, he ended up making money on the whole affair, so he was fine with it. I thought that was interesting. Then he said that Jack Nicholson once said to him that “people dont’ want to be emotionally moved by their art anymore” and I thought that was really interesting and for a second I started thinking like an old person like Jack Nicholson and Don McLean and I started thinking about “the kids these days” and mostly thought of, like, dumb club songs or something, and thought maybe Jack Nicholson was on to something.
But then I remembered earlier in the evening I watched a weird 27-minute film Olivia Rodrigo just posted online, The Sour Prom which is a sort of short feature film on Olivia Rodrigo going to a highly-stylized version of a high school prom and singing several of her hits, including “Drivers License” through the whole thing and, man, what is Olivia Rodrigo except for emotional experience and catharsis in music. Then I realized Jack Nicholson and Don McLean were trying to sucker my suggestable fifty year-old self into their world of cynicism and DGAFedness but I did not fall for it, no siree. So thank you, Olivia Rodrigo.
I gotta say, this book, this Exit Stage Left: The Curious Afterlife of Pop Stars by Nick Dueden really did deliver. That whole Don McLean thing is from it. As is this great quote from Stuart Copeland, when talking about the Police reunion tour in 2007:
It was only when the actual end was in sight, that final hour, that we realised just what a great time we’d had, and were still having.
Man, I feel that. How many times have I been there.
That tour was great. Fenway park, went with Fitts, we had great tickets, not far from the stage, on the field. Fantastic.
I had one that just says “audit” where I think I was going to ramble to you about how financia audits work and the absurdity of some parts of them but god that sounds boring. I had one that just said “The Call” but I think you all know at this point how underrated I think The Call are. And I had two that, looking here, now, I think I might just keep!
OMG that is so exciting. Goodbye lingering, crufty topics. It is a new day!
All right just a mix today, weird one. It barely flows, but I think it does? That second Sigue Sigue Sputnik album needs a remaster it is very quiet.
Okay! Talk to you guys tomorrow!