Good morning. Hello. How are you? #730
Finally finally done with Perlstein's History of Conservatism books, prepping for our trip this morning to Merriweather Post.
Good morning! Greetings from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I woke up with Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” in my head and I can’t get it out and it is driving me crazy. Not even the whole song. Just the same pieces of it, over and over. The worst.
The good news is I finally finished Reaganland: America’s Right Turn by Rick Perlstein, and, thus, all four books in his History of Conservatism cycle. I am free! Free! It took so long! Gawd, let’s look. Looks like I started in early August. So… Just under two months. The crazy thing is, sick me, I found myself at the end of this book — which ends upon Reagan’s electoral defeat of Jimmy Carter — wishing there was another one so I could renew my loathing for Reagan, plus watch his fall from grace with the Iran Contra Affair. But I don’t think I can take anymore. Well. Rachel Maddow actually did a book that had a pretty good segment on the Iran Contra affair. Maybe I’ll re-read it. Underrated book, Drift.
Anyway, Jimmy Carter was wrong about the economy and kind of annoying and too brilliant to bother with debate prep, where Reagan creamed him (“there you go again,”) and should have listened to Ted Kennedy about the economy he probably coulda won. Another interesting thing is that in hindsight we all think that Jimmy lost because of the Iran Hostage Crisis. But it turns out that most Americans believed that Carter was more credible with the hostages than Reagan, and gave him a lot of credit for his unrelenting efforts to free them, even as Reagan constantly sniped, harped, accused Carter of using the hostages for political ends. God. That fuckin guy. Also in my head the hostages were released a few weeks after Reagan was inaugurated, thus giving him a pretense for pretending he got them released. In fact they were released while he was being sworn in, thus making it very clear he had nothing to do with it. Also to my surprise, this book, at least, claims that Reagan did not do any Nixonian backroom deals to keep the hostages in captivity until after the election. And apparently there have been multiple congressional committtees looking at this same question, finding no credible evidence of Reagan’s guilt. To that I say “balderdash,” and I guess I now have yet another political conspiracy theory I believe in along with my beloved MTG and Madison Cawthorn ones.
Another interesting thing about this Carter — ahem Reagan — book is this: they took a survey on election day. A huge one, more than 12,000 participants. It was wide-ranging, but one thing they asked everyone whether they were more concerned with unemployment or inflation. Annualized inflation was nearly 13%, so, you know, five points higher than our current inflation, and it had been higher than our current inflation for over two years by that point. But when polled, Americans resoundingly said they thought fighting unemployment was more important than inflation. By six points. And sure, right now, if you took a poll, I bet inflation would win. It has been of late. But give Jerome Powell a little time to send interest rates through the roof and kick off a recession, and I’m pretty sure those polls are gonna change.
These books deserve some holistic review but honestly I am just exhausted. Reaganland had a lot of typoes, which is so weird, because you would think the latest book is the one most likely to not have relied on OCR for its digital conversion for the Kindle. But my god. So many typos. And I really don’t like Perlstein’s footnoting style, but I have said this before. I want my footnotes cold and hard and immediate. I would prefer to not even wait till the end of a sentance before I get a footnote, much less this un-footnoted prose-style, detatched, unhinged, disconnected noting nonsense. Not my bag no siree. The books make you feel like you really understand the political feel of the times, even as they skip a lot of things. They are not comprehensive histories. They’re histories of the rise of conservatism that do such a good job giving you a sense of the historical times in which these events transpire, that it’s easy to forget that. Their sweep is broad, but their official remit is limited. They are, thusly, narrow in scope even if they don’t feel it.
We are headed to Columbia, MD, momentarily this morning. We are going to Merriweather Post Pavillion and we are going to see New Order and Pet Shop Boys. From lawn seats. The weather looks lovely. Keith is coming to the show. We are gonna see Mia and Jason and their new baby for dinner before the show, which is very exciting. And somehow we are going to see Liisa while we’re there. In the end, I decided not to bring a New Order t-shirt, though I did briefly consider two different ones: the Touring Technique recreation Technique Tour crew shirt I got from New Order during COVID as a fundraiser for their crew who couldn’t tour anymore, and a shirt specifically made for the 2013 Williamsburg show that took place right across the street from my house. Man. That was so awesome. Roll out of bed, walk across the street, see New Order. Also they played “Elegia” and “Love Vigilantes” that show. We will get nothing so obscure on this tour, alas, but that’s okay because you know what? New Order has a lot of really amazing hits. I mean, sure, if I were designing a New Order set I would work in Face-Up, This Time of Night, Tutti Frutti, Weirdo and Douts Even Here, but I will take the hits. The hits are amazing. I am very excited. I don’t even mind that Peter Hook isn’t in the band anymore. This is actually brilliant, what they’re doing. Peter is out there playing all the obscure tracks in clubs, and the main New Order is playing the hits in big outdoor pavillions with the Pet Shop Boys. You get both. Shit a couple years ago Peter came to Chapel Hill and played Autosuggestion, From Safety to Where, In a Lonely Place, and Lonesome Tonight. It was awesome. But this is gonna be awesome too. Come to think of it more bands should do this. Send out a solo member to play the obscure tracks in clubs.
After a week of saying she didn’t want to come to the show, Jane is excited about it now. Grammy was ready to take her in if she was adamant — it was a real moral dilemma, we finally get around to explosing Jane to some new experiences and she says she doesn’t want to go, do you force her? We were leaning towards no, no you don’t force her, let her stay home with Grammy. Which of course would have made the whole thing more pleasant for us, but also more sad. And Keith wouldn’t have gotten to meet her, and he’s excited about that. But in the end, it worked out. Emma got her excited by saying she could pack up her Hello Kitty suitcase herself, so she did that last night during daddy bedtime. Gotta respect a packing job that is one half plushies. Brown Bear, Rainbow Hello Kitty, Poshy, Star, and a Lego Mini Doll are all making the trip. A little surprised that the kitty twins are not coming. I might sneak them in this morning just to be safe.
Jane brings a doll to breakfast every morning. Well, sometimes it is a plushie. Then she proceeds to “help” me with breakfast helping me empty the dishwasher, helping me get the breakfast food out of the refrigerator, helping me cook it. Except it’s not Jane doing all this helping, it’s whatever doll or plushie she has with her. So everything takes a long time, because the doll has to grab the plate, the doll has to grab the egg carton, and these dolls, well, they don’t really have opposable thumbs or, you know, grips. You know how Ginger Rogers said she had to be able to do everything Fred Astaire could do, except backwards and in heels? Well, Jane has be able to do everything I do at breakfast, except with a small doll in her hand.
(As an aside, I really don’t like the terms “plushie” or “stuffie” they freak me out. When I was a kid we called them “stuffed animals” but that is a disturbing term, I’ve come to believe, since it sounds like, well, taxidermy. There is no good term for these things, I’ve come to realize. Plus Toys is too clinical.)
Moody and quiet playlist today, most notable for the stunning return of Spain, been five years since their last album, very exciting. Epic new single. Also very into this Forgiveness band, about which I know nothing. Thank you to whomever recently recommended Graveyard Club and Ethel Cain, they were both great. New Brian Eno is exciting. Threw in an oldie but goodie by Nick because sometimes it helps to remember when he had songs that sounded like… well… you know. Songs not with Warren Ellis on them. Not that I don’t… well. Whatever. Topic for another day.
Okay that’s it for today, it’s a quick one I gotta go pack the car for the trip and get Jane a bit early. Wish me luck. We will probably skip GMHHAY for tomorrow since, you know, gotta get up, check out, drive home. We will return to our regularly scheduled GMHHAYs on Friday, wherein I will regale you with tales of Walmart runs and maybe New Order shows.
gonna need a refresh on your marjorie & madison conspiracies! like, how do such reprehensible morons get voted in? HALP
gonna need a refresh on your marjorie & madison conspiracies! like, how do such reprehensible morons get voted in? HALP