Good morning. Hello. How are you? #706
Happy anniversary, Emma. A humiliating playlist defeat. NC is pandemic free yipee. You can drink in the streets of Raleigh now. Support House Concurrent Resolution 102.
Good morning! Hello there, how are you? I’m good thanks.
I would like to start off by wishing my wife Emma a happy anniversary, it is our ninth. The day we got engaged she said “I think we can make ten years,” so here’s to another year. Emma is great, being married is great. I can’t imagine what I would have done through this pandemic without her, and I am deeply thankful for our life and our lives together. We had a long parenting talk last night and one thing she said that struck me was how much she loves playing with Jane at this age. How she has fond memories of being four and playing and really loves playing with Jane these days. I must confess that for the most part I do not love playing with Jane at this age. I mean, I do it, but to me it is a lot of being bossed around and weird doll plots that I cannot follow. I enjoy our time together but don’t love playing and that does sound, when you write it down like that, kind of sad. So I am very glad my wife likes playing with our kid.
She asked “Well what did your parents do about playing?” And I said “I am pretty sure at Jane’s age we’ve already spent more actual time with her than my parents did in my entire childhood through age eighteen.” That was probably — maybe — a slight exaggeration, but not by much? I am a latchkey kid. I was raised by friends and babysitters and television. My dad work nights my entire childhood, my mom worked. Oh I guess we had the summers, my mom didn’t work in the summers, that is true. But of course, summers were the time for play and running around the neighborhood and whatnot, so we were pretty absentee from the house in the summers. I am not complaining about my childhood or my parents here — they are god parents and I look back upon their parenting fondly. I’m just saying it to say that Emma’s a great parent, she spends so much time with Jane, never loses her patience — well, maybe once in a while, but we’re talking like one-tenth as often as I do — and loves playing with her. I mean come on, that is awesome. Emma is awesome. Especially for someone who did not particularly feel a maternal instinct prior to having this kid. Was never really dying to throw her life into parenting or anything.
It’s crazy to think of how much has changed these nine years. Sometimes I think about how much free time I have gained in my life from the digital revolution, and not spending hours of every week in record stores and video stores. Sometimes I think of how much of my life I got back for other activities when I stopped spending oh, thirty hours or so a week in bars. Though I still sure miss mine and Emma’s solo bar time at Noir. I still work full-time, but other than that, almost all of my time is spent differently than it was, day-to-day, when Emma and I first got married. This is the third city (city, lol. Let’s go with state) we have lived in together. Urban to rural. Apartments to big houses with woods and ponds and yards. We spend an inordinate amount of money on repairmen now instead of trips to rock festivals. But we still get along great. We’ve changed our lives so much but we still work together well, we still get along. That is… a gift.
Which is good because I didn’t really buy any other gifts because I am terrible about gifts. Oh I do have a gift pile, though. Let’s go see if it yielded any treasures. Eh. Nothing appropriate. Look, I am saying here that Emma is great, not that I am. I still got some problems. But I am trying, I am trying. I will try to be a better husband. I mean, that’s one good thing about me, right? Fifty years old and I am still trying to be better.
A correction: Nick Begich III is the grandson of Nick Begich. This should have been obvious by the III. I stand corrected. Thank you, Alaskans, for correcting me. I am getting soft all these years under the southern sun.
A second correction: I labelled yesterday’s playlist August 19 instead of August 16. I apologize for this as well.
NC Governor Roy Cooper has declared an end to the coronavirus state of emergency so good news, the pandemic is over. Never mind that more than 3,000 people died last week. I mean… honestly. I don’t even know anymore. I guess it’s over. I guess I should stop worrying about it. I guess it’s math, right? People don’t decide the pandemic starts back up. So the number of people who are still in pandemic mode can only decline, until you’re the only one left I guess. I hate it I hate worrying about flying, I hate worrying about getting sick from every stupid thing I do, and I hate that it’ll probably be fine if I do but hey who knows, crap shoot, Russian Roulette (is that a problematic phrase? Probably.).
It’s interesting because this pandemic has made me hate airports and flying, separate from the pandemic, and I have a lot of emotions to sort out there, but I fucking just hate hate hate flying now. I hate all the airlines, I hate the ringomorale, the dehumanization, the rubbing elbows with the masses, the absurd financial rip off of airports, the scam that is the multi-level marketing of security access, the sky high numbers on the Aranet while boarding, I hate boarding in general, I hate the hub and spoke system I hate perimeter rules I hate how depressed flight attendants are, I hate how drunk people get on planes I hate having no legroom I hate how self-conscious the whole thing makes me feel about my broad shoulders I hate how long it takes because we don’t invest in SSTs I hate jetlag I hate driving to airports and parking garages and baggage claims and mileage programs and cancellations I hate cancellations so much. I hate getting stuck in some random place because airplanes suddenly can’t fly. I hate what Boeing has become. I hate the way all pilots mumble like it’s part of the job. I hate the way they change your gate without telling you. I just want to drive places. But it takes a long time to drive places. I need to go back to Alaska I actually miss the place, I miss my mom, I want to bring my daughter there but I hate flying and I don’t want to spend eighteen hours on a plane with a toddler and then worrying about fucking masks and the flight killing us on top of it all. Okay not killing us just maiming us.
These are complex emotions for a third-generation airline worker, a million miler, a former profound lover of airplanes. I don’t really want to have them, but hate them I do.
And here I am shopping for an EV, sort-of half-heartedly because it’s essentially impossible and I want a Ford but Ford sucks and won’t even let me place an order for one, and then I think about I am about to spend a bunch of money on a car in which I can’t even drive to see my mom in, because there are barely any charging stations on the Alcan yet. Wait, are there? Hrm interesting. Looks like the Cassiar has some now. And there’s one in Beaver Creek. It’s 312 miles from Beaver Creek to Fairbanks, though. Hrm. Not completely inconceivable. Maybe a stop in Tok and charge with a regular outlet. It can be done. Good to know.
For the last few months, at the invitation of a friend, I have been participating in this thing called “Music League.” It’s a sort of game where a Dungeon Master-type person, a ringleader, makes up a theme for a set of music playlists, and each week the players have as theme and they pick two songs. Then a playlist is generated with all of the music from it and then all the players blindly vote on the songs. And then you get a score. Then you do this seven times (I think) and then there is a winner. I didn’t know these people, just my friend. And she only knew some of them. She did it the previous time and had more friends in it, I guess.
Anyway, it was kind of fun, but boy, I cannot convey to you how badly I lost. I lost so badly. I was in last place, or maybe second-to-last, every single week. I never had a single song break into the top ten songs. I did so badly. The thing is, though: these people weren’t philistines. And I wasn’t trying to be overly obscure! It definitely became clear by round two or so that everyone preferred songs they knew to songs they didn’t. Which… fair enough, I was the same way. My first week’s picks were great songs but so, so obscure. It was also clear that these people had decent musical taste by the second round. Like I wasn’t dealing with a bunch of people who just listen to the radio or something. But what did become clear is that they… did not really listen to new music at all. It was very, very rare that anyone picked a song from the last twenty years, and when they did, it was Beyonce or something. Like they were picking fantastic underground cuts but they were never picking new stuff. So I adjusted again, no more music that I would, for example, put on a playlist for you guys, because they didn’t want new music. And they could be underground, but they had to be a very specific type of American underground. I can’t explain it. As I catered to their tastes, I got a little bit better. PJ Harvey did okay. Low did not. Depeche Mode did okay but Thrill Kill Kult did not. Etc. I never cracked it, though, I did so badly. It really was kind of stunningly humiliating. It made me question why I make playlists every day. Sent me into an existential spiral it did, I am not gonna lie.
And now they’re all planning some in-person get-together in SF (well, not my friend, she doesn’t live in SF either) and I feel like an uncool seventh grade outcast nerd again and boy it is just great.
I am setting up a filter to block all of this from my inbox now and forever.
And to my friend, I do not blame you! I am thankful for the experience! One must stay out of one’s wheelhouse. Which is why I keep trying to listen to new music at the age of fifty. I even learned a couple new artists, for me. Mostly like hip blues stuff from the thirties or something, but still. Valuable!
And, finally, speaking of music, let me introduce you to House Concurrent Resolution 102, introduced by Rashida Tlaib. The bill endeavors to get session musicians (“non-featured musicians”) paid by the streaming services, as they are from satellite radio, though not most other revenue streams. It is supported by the UMAW, United Musicians and Allied Workers. Damon Krukowski, drummer for Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi, who has been an activist in this space for some time, has a great write-up of the bill. Please consider using this very easy-to-use form to write to your congressional delegation to voice your support for this bill.
Speaking of NC (huh?) and music (sort of), Raleigh has just opened up, launched, whatever, their first sip-and-stroll district, i.e., a part of the city where you can buy a drink and walk around with it. If you stay in the designated 12-or-so-block area. And you keep your drink in a container labeled by one of the restaurants and bars in the district. And you pack it up by 10PM. But still, that is a huge step in the right direction. Durham is thinking of doing one too, covering almost the entire downtown. Chapel Hill, of course, will never do it, because the entire town is populated by nightmarish college kids who will turn every day into Halloween or a Tarheels national championship win or something. I mean, that, I assume, will be the thinking. But it’s still pretty cool. If only Moogfest could come back to Durham, and have an amazing lineup, and a bunch of friends could come visit again. And we could walk, unashamed, in the bright glare of the sun, sipping our Blue Sky pilsners. Ah, to dream the impossible dream.
Drone! Have a drone playlist. I am weary from trying to think of popular music. I want to lose myself in the tone, in the single chord, maybe a second chord to change to, but then you change right back to the first chord. No bridges. Heaven forbid you have a bridge. Also Spotify cannot handle recommendations on this playlist. The recommendation algorithm that appears at the bottom of the playlist is only recommending Stereolab. Over and over. Consider addint ten Stereolab songs to this playlist. I mean, maybe not a terrible idea.
All right. Have a lovely wednesday, happy anniversary Emma.
happy anniversary, friends—your partnership is wonderful and inspiring, and i'm so happy you're still going strong!
i simply cannot wrap my head around how incredibly boring it would be to only listen to songs that i already know. like, do i really need to listen to one of blondie's hits *one more time*? no! i NEED new music—and not just old music that's new to me, but fresh, hot-off-the-presses stuff.
Happy anniversary! It’s our ninth too!
Also: Briana and I just spent like a full minute laughing about “weird doll plots.”