Good morning! Hello! How are you today? Thursday is it? All right, I can handle a Thursday.
First I would like to apologize for the typo in yesterday’s GMHHAY title. I in no way intended to call you “yo.” Please forgive me.
Next I would like to bitch about my optometrist again, who a) still has not provided me with my desperately needed reading glasses prescription, the very reason I went to the optometrist at all, and b) called me yesterday, making no mention of my three separate calls to the optometrist, to inform me that they could not, in fact, make my glasses, because my lenses are too big and shitty and they won’t fit into the frames I chose. Which is what I told them to begin with. But they said they could do it. Some special extra-thin lenses. So now I have spent $400 and they want me to come in and pick a different, smaller pair of frames, which I do not want and I could get at Zenni for $80. And I still don’t have my reading prescription.
And I like these guys! I am, despite all of this, still convinced they are a good business.
They just owe me $400 and a prescription.
My depression is lifting (well, this particular bout, it stays with you, it stays with you), thank you for all your kind words yesterday. Truth be told it was already getting a little bit better yesterday, which is why I finally had the fortitude and strength to finally write about it. Which is always weird, when you finally write about something and you get all these amazing words of encouragement you desperately needed earlier, but you didn’t manage to write about it yet. Kind of a catch-22. I used to be really good about writing within the throes of a bout of depression, and man, that was some dark stuff. I still write, obviously, I wrote to you guys every day, but I try not to dwell on the dark stuff until I see a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel.
In a Slack group I am in, someone (I think it was Rex) sent this article around yesterday, and I am officially blaming my depression on this: The Earth is spinning faster than usual and had its shortest day ever. We might need to have a negative leap second. This explains why I am tired, clearly. Because I missed out on 1.59 milliseconds of sleep last month.
Man I was sort of spending a lot of time reading Twitter yesterday but for this bad habit I was so richly rewarded by watching in real-time the complete and utter debacle that was Alex Jones’ trial for damages related to the Sandy Hook trial that he lost. This is the stuff of legend. This is the countroom antics that writers on TV courtroom dramas would pause before committing to the page, wondering if they were too over the top. If you missed it, it turns out that Alex Jones’ amazing lawyers accidentally sent over an entire copy of his cell phone, two years worth of emails, texts, depositions, the works. They sent this to the Sandy Hook lawyers. In Texas, when you send something over to the other legal team, they have to give you a chance to take it back, or to declare privelege on it. They give you ten days to do this. On top of sending the entire cell phone, Jones’ lawyers did not take it back, and did not declare privilege on it, so three days ago all of its contents became fair game for the Sandy Hook lawyers. It is not immediately clear why they didn’t do this, but it probably has to do with the something along the lines of that this phone had been requested in discovery and not sent, and so sending it now means that it did, in fact, exist, and should have been sent earlier, and so if they tried to take it back, it would prove they were, you know, not complying with the discovery process, which is bad.
Right off the bat this resulted in two very clear cases of perjury for Alex Jones, who had stated under oath that he didn’t use email, when in fact, shockingly, he uses email. A lot of it. And he had stated under oath that there were no texts on his phone related to Sandy Hook when, in fact, there were, shockingly, plenty of texts related to Sandy Hook.
But it gets better than that because the phone also has extensive details about Infowars financial situation, which is highly relevant here because Alex Jones, like Purdue Pharma, has declared bankruptcy — and a special form of it at that — in order to shield his assets from the Sandy Hook suit. But of course the dude is not broke, and now they can prove it. And now his ex-wife is subpoena’ing a copy because, you know, dude probably lied to her about his finances in his breakup, and a copy will, of course, go to the feds and any other law enforcement that might have some vested interest in it, like, oh, the Jan 6 commission, though let’s face it, Alex Jones is so small time and so obviously a carnival barker vs an idealogue I suspect even the Trump clown car can tell the difference. But still.
Alex Jones is so fucked.
Poor guy.
Also my absolute number one favorite Twitter account, @thisisnaomie Tweeted yesterday. She (if it is a she) doesn’t tweet every day, but she’s been on a roll the last week or so:
What does it mean? This is all Naomi Elizabeth does. Post sexy photos of herself with completely incongruous, nonsequitur captions. They are the best. They make no sense. I have legitimately no idea if this is dada performance art, ESL shenanigans, a serious attempt at being an influencer or what. She never breaks character.
I will go weeks forgetting about the account, then wham. Instant joy. Thank you, Naomi Elizabeth or the weird, high AF team of three internet users in a trenchcoat who comprise you.
The Andor trailer looks pretty good, not gonna lie. I have been saying for a very long time that Star Wars needs to do a Tinker Tailor-style show about how the Bothans got the plans or something, just cerebral and non-violent tension with life and death stakes and no explosions or shit. This is not quite that by any stretch of the imagination but it is at least an adult-ish looking show that is not all space explosions and kids. I had low hopes for it but they are, against my will, getting somewhat raised. I think I like this amount of Star Wars in my life, though. I mean, really, what’s the alternative? None? A movie every 3-4 years which may or may not be any good? Sure the new stuff is (very, very) hit or miss but there have been some solid hits. Experimentation is welcome. I am not overly precious about my “childhood” and whatnot. Try shit out. Go for it.
Also I think it’s hilarious that the showrunner of Andor was like “this is the first new Star Wars to not use the Volume,” referring to ILM et al’s magical new immersive computer-based film studio that allows people to not use greenscreen. The thing is so cutting edge, like four years old or something, and Disney and ILM are so proud of it, they have made like six documentaries about it, but here we are, just a moment later and someone is like “no way man, let’s be real.” I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables. I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.
Jane is being better, thus raising the spectre that she and I are locked in some sort of mood bond and if I am depressed she becomes a holy terror. Again, thank you for your kind words and suggestions and, mostly, just empathy on the topic. Of course, last night was Emma’s bedtime, and tonight is mine, so maybe she’ll be awful to me again — she has definitely said a few times in the last week that she emphatically prefers mommy bedtime. But hey, maybe not. She also got her vaccine booster yesterday and she was a total trooper about it, didn’t complain, didn’t throw a fit, handled it very well we are very proud of her. So that’s not nothing. I gotta remember to give her baby motrin as soon as she wakes up. If the last vaccine was any indication, she’s probably gonna feel like shit today. Poor baby. I will take care of you.
Just a mix today, old and new. House of Love is reissuing their Fontana years stuff on Cherry Red, who really are doing great work reissuing some much-needed stuff. Unfortunately Cherry Red is putting out CD boxes and no vinyl, which is weird in this vinyl-obsessed world, so that’s a shame, but the good part is everything is getting remastered, and the House of Love Fontana stuff desperately needs it, as evidenced by this non-Cherry Red released version of their late-career Fontana hit. Man, they played Boston like three times in a year and Jussi and I were so excited, went every time. That House of Love / Catherine Wheel show was so good. And the House of Love show at the Middle East Upstairs. Come on. “Christine,” played that the Middle East upstairs. So great. Been re-listening to the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Methadrone a lot this week, hands down my favorite BJM album. Every track is a winner. If ATP were still around I’d totally go see a Don’t Look Back of Methadrone. RIP ATP. Man this paragraph is probably Greek to my non-musical friends, sorry. And this AJJ song is so, so good. One of my all-time favorites. I think about it often. What the perfect encapsulation of a feeling. As I mentioned before I spent all day yesterday listening to the entire recorded output of the Wolfgang Press, and Mass and Rema Rema for good measure. What a great band. Mike reminded me of when we saw them play at Avalon (or Citi or whatever it was called then) and got to, or at least tried to, talk to them afterwards. So good. SO GOOD.
Have a lovely day send me all the raccoon memes you happen to have handy, will you? Thank you.