Good morning. Hello. How are you? #700
Olivia Newton John, Trump Raid, MSNBC Miss Allens, Some George Lucasy BS thing about history rhyming and Goldwater and Nixon and Trump. Holodecks are BS.
Good morning. Hello, there. Wow. Issue number 700. That is nuts. Nuts. I mean, I suppose this means issue number 600 was just, like, four months ago or something, but still. Seems impressive. I wonder how much longer I will do this for. Some days, I can envision myself doing this until I’m eighty. Until I’m dead. Just going and going, god knows what the prose will be like then. Other days I think it’s a miracle I’ve gotten this far and I can’t imagine doing a single other issue and I dream of someday being free. The latter are the rarer days. Mostly I think of this as a gift, in my isolation, in my middle age, to be in touch with you all. So thank you.
What a day for the news, huh. Some day you want to write long rambling think pieces detached from the day-to-day, and some days the news takes you over. First off, RIP Issey Miyake, that is very sad. Never been much of a fashion guy, but my ex Jamie really got me to understand the artistry of it, so thank you for that Jamie.
More personally, RIP to Olivia Newton John. It is impossible to calculate the influence she had on me, Physical was one of the first albums I owned. She was my first crush. Well, probably my second, after Cassiopeia from Battlestar Galactica, but Olivia Newton John had more staying power than Laurette Spang. Though I am happy to learn that Wikipedia tells me that Laurette Sprang is alive and well, though that page looks a little thin and out of date. Anyway, before I ever say Grease, before I ever saw the masterpiece that was Xanadu, I was in love with Olivia Newton John. She has made several appearances on the GMHHAY playlists. I’m not sure that crush ever went away.
And then, of course, we have the big news about Trump, lol. LOL. I mean who the hell knows what’s going on. Do I think it’s just about classified documents? I mean, on the one hand, maybe, because the National Archives already sent people there to get them and if there were more it would look real bad and is simple and easy to understand. But it also seems pretty small potatoes for this scared-ass milquetoast Justice Department to do something this huge, without even notifying the White House first (a move that is right, proper, refreshing, hilarious, and no one on the right will even believe is true). It does seem a pretty fair bet that they had to be highly confident that their search would result in something, and the fact they confined it to a single one of his houses, and not the one he was currently staying in, indicates they must have had some very good and specific intel on where to look for what they were looking for.
I was so excited that I turned on MSNBC while I was doing Jane bedtime last night. She wanted me to play with her some more, which I had been doing, but I explained to her, or tried to, that sometimes big things in the world happen and when they do we watch something called “the news” to learn more about these things. She did seem to think that concept was mildly interesting, at least enough that she understood it would be a little while before we played some more. MSNBC really caught unawares. MSNBC really embraces August, man. Ari Melber out, covered by a new replacement I did not recognize from my Trump-era MSNBC obsession. Chris Hayes out, covered by a new replacement I did not recognize from my Trump-era MSNBC obsession. Rachel Maddow was going to be in, because she only does one day a week these days (check out this fantastic new profile about Rachel Maddow’s new life in Vanity Fair. My overarching feeling after reading it is “good for her” and also “man don’t spend so much time on podcasts.”) But I don’t know why I bothered to turn it on, it was just rampant speculation, and each speculation building on a narrative that was utterly unconfirmed. Really kind of fascinating watching them go down rabbit holes without any evidence. It was nice to see Barb McQuarrie, though, I missed her. She has always reminded me of Holly, on the X-Files, Skinner’s long-suffering secretary who gets her mind taken over by that Cerulean Blue guy and kicks Skinner’s ass in that one episode. I always liked Holly and Barb McQuarrie has always made me think of her. Other than Barb, though, it was, as EM Forster says, a whole new batch of Miss Allens. Different but the same.
Anyway, I shared my theory that it is probably more than “just” classified documents with a Slack group I am in, and my friend Ryan responded with a gif of Keenan Thompson saying “Ain’t Nothin Goin’ Happen,” and that does indeed seem to be a reasonable prediction of all this, though of course, Keenan Thompson’s SNL character would have said that before the Feds search Mar a Largo, so, you know, right and wrong?
It is kind of hilarious how beaten down we all are, though. Like part of me awaits with bated breath to see the drop of the shoe, to see this fucker go down, and part of me is utterly convinced this will lead to absolutely nothing. I’m writing this without really looking at the news yet this morning. For all I know the dude has already declared his candidacy and pre-won the New Hampshire primary or something.
But I will not give up hope completely, plus the fantasies spinning round in our heads of him going down are so, so fun.
Alex Jones’ texts are going to the Jan 6 committee, but we are already hearing that the texts from the weeks leading up to Jan 6 are not there. Which I suppose makes sense since, you know, Sandy Hook was in 2012, how far into the future were they gonna subpoena his phone anyway. Nine years seems pretty long. Oh well. It sure is fun watching that guy implode, though.
I finished my Goldwater book and have moved on to the Nixon book, Nixonland. It sure is weird reading these books while all of this is going on. Two thoughts: one, sometimes, when people lose, they are finished. Goldwater, Romney Sr., Scranton, sometimes these people make their run for President, fail, and… that’s pretty much it. They may keep their Senate seat for a while or something, but sometimes when we watch a dude crash and burn, they really do crash and burn for good. But other times, god, they just keep coming back. You see someone like Alex Jones right now and my thought is that dude is a cockroach, like Nixon, who will never go away. Nixon, man. It is freakin insane how many comebacks that dude made. It was twenty-four years from the beginning of his senate career, to the vice presidency, to eight years in exile, to becoming president, to resigning in disgrace. Also.. the man attacked a man with a hatchet when he was a kid! The kid had a scar the rest of his life! We elected a literal hatchet man!
The other thing I am taking away is how endless these people are, how their tactics don’t change, how they have been doing the same shit for sixty years now. On some pages I feel reassured by this. On most pages I feel sickened. Communist, groomer, liberal, soft on crime (as they scream bloody murder to abolish the FBI last night). They still do the same stupid tricks, those tricks still work, sixty years in and we still don’t have witty comebacks. The endless cravenness eats away at everyone’s soul, whether you believe them or not. And it’s getting worse. Good Republicans stood up to Goldwater by the millions. That was gone by the time of Nixon. With Nixon they still sort of revolted when obvious evidence of crime cropped up. That started disintegrating with Reagan, and is completely gone now. Trump’s Fifth Avenue comment was mayhaps aspirational at the time he said it, but he manifested it. It is 100% true now. I’d be shocked to learn there was a single person in the US whose opinion was changed by the existence of an FBI raid. A single person.
Anyway. Moving on.
Thank you for all your knife suggestions. Ima gonna pick up that knife set some of you recommended. To be clear, though, Jane already uses knives, she has for more than a year. She has her own knife — a recommendation from The Prepared newsletter (which is great and not a prepper thing despite its name). I just haven’t bothered to teach her knife safety. And now she isn’t using my Shuns yet, but she is handling them, as she sets up the breakfast situation each morning. She takes one out of the dishwasher and puts it on the cutting board on the counter and in that little three food walk I feel like some sort of knife fighter as I bob and weave to remain clear of the blade. Really gotta fix that.
(It is fine, she is safe, don’t come after me CPS, this is me teaching it I swear).
Also thank you for encouraging me to teach her how to crack an egg we are gonna do that this week or so. She had a real fit yesterday man. Dinner took an extra hour. Flat-out refusal to wash her hands. Which would have been fine, no hand washing, no dinner. Great. Head on upstairs I’ll be there in a bit. But no, she wanted to stand there and scream sabout it the whole time to us.
She got a lot better for actual bedtime, though, that was a blessing. We played with LEGO and watched Cardboard World, which is the only thing that calms her down these days. I don’t even really bother trying to watch other videos anymore. She is demanding attention and it is right and proper that I give it. Which I don’t begrudge, but she’s doing it in the morning too, so, you know, two hours of work time time and three hours of relaxation time a week just went out the widnow, and changes to a routine as… petrified as mine don’t come easy. No siree, they don’t come easy at all.
We finished The Orville New Horizons this week, which seems an absurd thing to say when Sandman is on. Was gonna start Sandman on Friday and I was very excited, but a neighbor invited me over for drinks so I did that instead Friday and that was nice. Nice to see another human and consume beverages on a porch while discussing human events and relations. He told me a sad story about a friend dying from alcoholism over the pandemic, I told him about Andy and Mike. It was more chill and less intense than those events imply.
(We have started Sandman now, but I try to keep the TV talk limited here so we’ll talk about that another day when we’re further in).
Anyway, the night before we cleared the decks by finishing The Orville New Horizons’ last episode. This season has been so weird, as Seth MacFarlane completely, inexplicably changed the tone of the show from comedy to serious, to a straight-up Trek ripoff vs a parody. It kind of worked, but left a lot to be desired. Hit a little too hard over the head with its moral themes, which is such a weird thing to say about Seth MacFarlane. But the last episode! The last episode was so good! It was the closest thing to plotless sci-fi that I have been dreaming about. It still had some plot elements, but the stakes were, for the most part, comically low. The C Plot did nominally have some high stakes but they were never seriously at risk so it was more of an academic discursion which is so great. I loved it. If the whole season had been like that, I would have been so happy. It seems that it’s 50-50 if there is going to be more Orville, and that makes sense. What, even, are you renewing at this point. But seriously give that last episode all the Emmys.
One thing it made me realize, though, is what BS holodecks are. I don’t mean from a nitpicky science point of view — although, also complete BS from that POV. But I mean from a narrative point of view. A naïf on the show asks an Orville crewmember if they have movies and she’s like “no we have something better” and takes her to the holodeck. Er, excuse me, the “environmental simulator” is what they call their holodeck ripoff. And I’m like okay, look, holodecks are awesome and they have a million fun uses (porn!) but they are not movies, not better than movies, any more than movies are better than books and shit I bet, like, 80% of all Holodeck rental time is people setting up a movie theater and watching movies. Picard’s Dixon Hill adventures aside, I do not want to be running around for a story. Yes we have escape rooms and murder-solving parties here in the 21st century, but their relative popularity compared to movies and books only serves to prove my point here. Don’t bash on movies, Commander Kelly Grayson.
Okay moody and quiet mix, with a childhood Olivia Newton John favorite added, of course, and a college-era Spiritualized favorite and a high-school-era Ultra Vivid Scene favorite, gotta cover all the bases here, and then a bunch of new stuff. So much good new moody music. Seedsmen to the World is a new super group featuring Warren Defever of His Name is Alive and they are great. Florist is one of my favorite new bands. oh I guess there’s an old Wolfgang Press song on here I don’t think I obtained a copy of Burden of Mules until 93 or so, so post-college. Man I have been out of college a long time. Man I am so old.
Anyway, thank you for being here for seven hundred issues, or for a single issue - thank you to the four people who signed up yesterday, that is pretty exciting. Welcome.
Until tomorrow.
Congrats on 700! 🎉