Good morning. Hello. How are you? #836
The Sting Effect is now the Roger Waters effect, my southern redneck EV ambassatorship, non-alcoholic Bud, NC Medicare expansion, Gravenhurst revisited
Good morning! Hello, there. How are you? Issue number 8:36. This is exciting because a) I will probably be writing this still at 8:36AM, given my late start, and b) because of my old friends Buster and Kellianne’s old project (exact provenence is murky in my failing memory) 8:36PM, where we all document(ed) what, exactly, we were doing at 8:36PM. It’s a good time. You might still be working. You might be at dinner, at a party, at a show, alone, watching TV. It might still be sunny, it might be dark. Lotta variables. I think a few people are still doing it. I stopped when my life got very samey, but somedays I consider starting it up again. I am, after all, a sucker for daily habits.
Just back from the Walmart/McDonald’s/Collection Center run. What do I have to report? The trans worker was not working at the McDonald’s drive through today, which is sad. I like them. They are great. Utterly normal NC redneck stoner type except transitioning. Make America great again. More redneck trans workers.
I did not have the new sticker for the collection center, which in fairness shipped in, like, January and they have been patient but today they put their foot down. So we had to call in to county HQ for a one-time (not one-day, they made that very clear) pass. They looked up my name and address. They did not ask me to prove anything, I just gave an address, they asked if my name was Richard Webb, I said yep, and that was the end of it. So, you know, if you’re ever in Chatham County and need to illicitly dump some recycling, now you know the trick — er, sorry “hack.” Look someone up in the phone book. Er, sorry, “Google.”
The guy then proceeded to ask a million questions about my Lightning and that is just fine I am all about convincing rural NC Republican dudes to switch to electric trucks and honestly, every time I tell ‘em the tow capacity, horse power and range, they instantly want one. These dudes do not go on long trips. They haul stuff.
I am a one man rural south F-150 Lightning ambassador. Quick someone send the Times for a trend piece.
Walmart was fine, very quick, had everything, in and out. A nice run. I give it an A. No complaints. They had Yakult, which I have taken to downing one a morning since the colonoscopy to, you know, get the little garden growing again. And they had non-alcholic Budweiser, since Emma and I are not drinking in March. Well, this is really an act of solidarity for Emma since she barely drinks anyway, but I am not drinking in March since, well, January and February were pretty f’n wet. Anyway, non-alcoholic beer rules. I’ve been drinking the fancy stuff, Athletic, thanks to my friend Doug. Also had the Heineken which tastes disturbingly exactly like Heineken, which I hadn’t had in, like, twenty years. Doug said “man it’s so weird there are Heineken drinkers in the world” except he said it more poetically cuz Doug has a way with words. Also had the Bud before, which is great, it’s like Bud light. It’s just the best. I don’t know why it took me like 30 years to get on this trend it rules.
Now I just need non-alcoholic whiskey.
Two songs of note on the drive this morning. I thought about starting my Friday Spotify Release Radar in the truck but I have a good system of Apple Music playing the hits in the truck and Spotify playing the new stuff in the office and I didn’t want to mess it up. So the truck played “Mother” by Pink Floyd and I have to say that Roger Waters’ recent antics are really starting to sour old Pink Floyd for me, or at least that specific period of Roger Waters being in charge of Pink Floyd. And I guess that’s okay, the Waters era was always my least favorite era. The definitive ranking of Floyd eras is 1) Gilmour, 2) Barrett, 3) Waters so, you know, I’ll live. I mean, I guess if you count, like, post Barrett up to Dark Side as “no leader” Floyd, when Waters hadn’t yet asserted his dominance over Gilmour, Mason and Wright, I would call that the best. Then Gilmour. But if you disagree with this assessment go listen to Madcap Laughs, Delicate Sound of Thunder and Pros and Cons of Hitchiking and tell me which one is best. Come on. I love Barrett too and he is a trangic genius but that specific brand of English surrealism has not really aged super well.
Anyway, Waters which his tedious Ukraine views about how if anyone in Ukraine even glances in the general Western direction, or if anyone in the US even utters the words “NATO” an “Ukraine” in the same breath it is suddenly America’s fault that there’s a holocaust going on and a country being dismantled piece by piece. Jeffrey Sachs is like this too, the recent interview with the inestimable Isaac Chotiner really was something. Multiple times Chotiner asks Sachs something along the lines of “but what about the desires of the people of Ukraine?” And not a single time can Sachs answer that directly. Waters is the same way. Russia bad, America started it because NATO never mind what the people want, and they don’t want it anyway because America did coups. The fact that the Ukrainians are, you know, vigorously defending their country to the death does not in any way lend credence to the possiblity that maybe they don’t want this.
I had previously called this the “Sting effect” because in my hauty-ass head, Sting’s late period melodic, intricate, wildly popular but not edgy music “ruined” the police for me. This was a bullshit position and I hereby retract it. I’m not gonna go so far as to say I like late-period Sting, but, I mean, it’s fine. Whatever. He’s doing his thing. Sting is not, notably, excusing Russian agression in Ukraine, nor is he a Trumper, and, shit, the dude is like 70 years old and still at least a bit of an activist so, I mean, what more can you expect. Also my Googling tells me he played Christchurch, New Zealaned last night so that is kinda cool.
Anyway, Sting is absolved, it’s now the “Roger Waters” effect.
Anyway then came on the song “The Collector” by Gravenhurst. Beautiful tune. Gravenhurst was the solo project of Nick Talbot, and English artist and journalist who died in 2014 at the age of 37. Wikipedia says the cause of his death is undisclosed. That is fine. I had heard it was suicade years ago. I’m actually glad Wikipedia says that because I was sitting in my truck at the light listening to that song and getting so sad about Nick Talbot, such a beautiful voice, lost so early, and wondering if my relationship to music created by those who have committed suicide has evolved over the years. There used to be a morbid transgression to it. Now it’s weary resignment, I think. Just as poignant, more sad, less edgy. Too familiar.
Hot on the heels of medical marijuana leagalization, the NC House and Senate appear ready to finally embrace Medicare Expansion. There are a few Republican shenanigans in the bill, like the fact that it doesn’t go into effect until our Democratic governor Roy Cooper signs the budget, so the Republicans can put a few pet projects into the budget and hold a bit of a gun to Cooper’s head. Don’t know what’s gonna happen with that but it seems unlikely they’ll never pass a budget so, you know, on this issue, as well, we seem to have some progress.
Feels like this is a national trend? Republicans have given up using Obamacare as their cudgel. It wasn’t a good cudgel. They never cared one way or the other about the actual law, they just needed their cudgel to browbeat us all with faux culture war bullshit. And now they’ve settled on transphobia and homophobia and made a little progress on abortion so they can just stop pretending on this particular issue, which always had a bit of a drag on their popularity.
I am over my anger with lawyers by the way. I kinda had a revelation. Law firms are, if you think about it, insane. They’re kinda like agencies, like, like my old agency, except instead of clients who come to you with an RFP and a budget and timeline, and understand things can’t get done immediately, all your clients are constantly coming to you out of the blue and needing everything right now. I mean that is no way to live! It must be so stressful. And yes, it’s like $500-750 an hour compared to, god, I don’t remember, I think our highest rate was maybe $250, but it must be a resource management nightmare.
Also they sped up and I got what I needed so now I feel like I threw a fit to get something and I am always pretty mortified with that feeling. SORRY LAWYERS.
I’m mostly over yesterday’s crankiness, it really spread everywhere. Read another chapter of Zinn, this time about the atrocity that was America’s actions during the Mexican American war. It really is unending. I can see why the world needed this book but I know all this and it’s fucking me up and I’m only maybe 30% of the way through and it’s March I could be at this all year. This could be the only book I read this year. Horrifying.
Okay moody and quiet mix for you today, I mean, what else is it gonna be when I was talking about “Mother” by Floyd and “The Collector” by Gravenhurst. Also my Release Radar gave up a 1993 re-working of Sting’s “We Work the Black Seam,” a song in solidarity with the Coal Miners. I mean, it’s no Test Dept A Good Day Out in terms of artistic quality of English miner protest songs, but we’ll give him a pass.
Have a lovely weekend talk to you Monday!
I just finished dry february and tried a few different nonalcoholic spirits. this is pretty good in the bourbon family: https://spiritless.com/products/kentucky-74-non-alcoholic-bourbon?adgroupid=102438713166&adpos=&adtype=&campaignid=10430823042&creative=529808074756&device=m&devicem=&g_acctid=705-010-1311&g_adgroupid=102438713166&g_adid=529808074756&g_adtype=search&g_campaign=Branded%20Search%20-%20CPA&g_campaignid=10430823042&g_keyword=kentucky%2074&g_keywordid=kwd-922533023503&g_network=g&gclid=Cj0KCQiA0oagBhDHARIsAI-Bbgf2DkxCd3EnWjhmypFnYD57l9RK_Iqn-EG8hyna-ryfRxXXXHEJwKkaAlWEEALw_wcB&keyword=kentucky%2074&locp=9061115&match=e&network=g&pl=&url=%7BunescapedIpurl%7D