Good morning. Hello. How are you? #839
More Elon whining, more whining about Jerome Powell, more non-alcohol stuff, more Daddy Jane dance party stuff really just a bunch of rehashes if I'm being honest.
Good morning, friend. How are you? All well? I do hope so. I am good, thanks. Listening to some band called shame (lower case S) that I’ve never heard of but apparently it’s their third album and they’re on Dead Oceans. They have an absolutely perfect anthem to Adderall called… “Adderall.” Pitchfork said their first album made them “darlings of the UK press” and once again I am struck by how you can relentlessly endeavor to listen to new music, to the tune of 600 albums a year, and still get nowhere. People out there are turning music into gold. So many people have bands, it is just great. It’d be awesome if everyone was in a band. Being in a band would be a great form of therapy for a lot of people. Elon Musk could use the experience of being in a band. A lot of bands, probably. Because of course his first band would be in the Spiritualized/Wilco vein where it was “band” but he was the leader, because he doesn’t know anything else. But of course people would constantly be quitting that band, and it would be wildly unsuccessful because the songs would suck. So if he wanted to keep being in bands he’d have to either, you know, learn to collaborate with people, or, like, just be a sideman in someone else’s bands and both experiences would obviously be quite good for him.
Though I suspect the guy is irredeemable. I used to worry about this, because I thought he was really important in humanity’s quest to get off of fossil fuels. But the key word there is was. I’m not gonna completely belittle his past accomplishments, the world needed a kick in the pants to get every automaker off of the teat of big oil, and he provided that. Or, I suppose, more rationally, his fanboys did, by sending TSLA 0.00%↑ into the stratosphere and oh my god I just typed a dollar sign and Tesla’s stock ticker and Substack swapped that out for an actual ticker which is I guess kinda cool but also says a whole lot about what Substack thinks is important I doubt they would auto-replace the name of a book or film or activist with a helpful link. Anyway, my point here is that Elon’s time in the sun for saving humanity has passed. Tesla makes fine cars, I guess, but so do almost every other automaker out there (except Mazda, those bastards). Tesla is a non-player in solar. I guess we still have them involved in utility-scale storage environments but that’s fine. Whatever. And I don’t care anymore if humanity makes it to space, the lefties have convinced me it’s all a capitalist plot to ruin the earth and continually oppress the masses. Thanks, Manu.
Man I really didn’t want to talk about that bastard today but Jesus the things he said to that nice Icelandic man in a wheelchair who’s mission is to install a bunch of handicap ramps. That really was beyond the pale, never mind the violation of like six labor laws, and that’s just in the US where we barely even have any labor laws. It’s just rotten to the core. Just go quietly into the night, Elon. You only own 13% of Tesla these days anyway. Just walk. Just walk.
Jerome Powell went to the hill and testified to the Senate. Well, not testified but did his twice-yearly little confab Q&A with Senators. Elizabeth Warren was all like “what would you say to the 2 million people you dream of putting out of work for no good reason,” and he was all like “well you know, inflation is evil and I just hope they’d understand.” And then he basically completely denied the dual mandate because inflation is the worst thing in the world to him so basically he told everyone he’s going to raise interest rates again. Meanwhile my HELOC’s interest rate, which is floating, has gone from like 3% to almost 8%. But the curious thing is that it’s still basically impossible to find a single bank offering an interest rate on a savings account over 2%. They’ve really nailed this one. As Jerome continues to raise interest rates, you and me, we all have to pay more interest but it’s impossible for us to earn more interest. I mean I guess for T-Bills. Shit. I guess I should go buy a bunch of T-Bills.
Tried the non-alcoholic Guiness last night and it was legit. As with all of them, you notice it most on the first sip, that lack of a throat kick. But by the second or third, you’re enjoying a Guiness. It really is remarkable. The can has the little cartridge thingy in it (look I am not a Guiness expert here. It’s a thingy). And it didn’t quite have as much of a foamy head but it still had a solid foamy head. But that might also be because I never really knew how to use those cans. They have, like, a method that I’ve never really cottoned to. Someone please educate me.
So I had one of those, two fake Buds, a fake Athletic and a small glass of fake Amaro. I went on a fake alcohol bender. I would not say I had a difficult or bad day at work but I definitely had a long day and I wanted to unwind. And I did. Emma and I had a great time talking through projects and plans and the summer and whatnot and I quite progressively more tipsy like I was on some sort of mid-week illicit bender and it was just so much fun. And once again I woke up without a hangover and my god it’s all the best. Can this continue? Is it weird that I am drinking more now, except it’s fake boze? Like in my January and Feb where I was “drinking too much” I was having, like, a half a bottle of wine. Now I’m having four beers and a small glass of amaro, albeit fake. Well, not every night. But definitely an amount! Is this a problem? Am I overthinking it? Is this a phase? Is my body going to… get used to fake alcohol? How does any of this work? Myserious! Exciting! I’m very into the idea of feeling transgressive and rebellions by drinking 50 calorie flavored waters. It really is something.
Daddy Jane dance party is also introducing some pretty profound, paradoxical health questions. As I do an extra thirty minutes or so of dancing each night, will my body ever adapt? Will I stop feeling pain? And if I never had a kid, never moved to Chapel Hill, if I still lived in Boston and still went to dance clubs four nights a week for the last decade, would I still feel this much pain when I danced? Hello Boston friends in their 50’s that have still been going out: does dancing hurt this much these days? It’s really a mystery. I gotta do a bunch of wind-down stretches after Daddy Jane dance party these days. I feel so old, and I feel so old because I am… getting more exercise. It’s odd.
But I do love them. Yesterday we did more Pet Shop Boys, did a little Cure, whom she knows well but we’ve never done in our dance party. Tried to show her Mazzy Star but she was not having it, didn’t have a beat you could dance to. Moved on to Samia, who she loved, and Kacey’s “High Horse,” that she loved, and then “Thank U, Next,” which she loved, then Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” which she liked a swell. Then we went back to the Best-Of, and she asked for Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own,” which considering I just introduced her to in the last week, I consider that a win. Then we ended with “Shake it Off” again because it really is a great video and if you like dancing there are just so many great styles in it.
Finally, some important Walmart radio news for you. My friend Nick is in Texas and he went to the local Walmart in the Rockport Fulton area pretty late last Saturday (Sunday?) night and they were playing the Sisters of Mercy. I suppose this might not have been actual, official Walmart radio but I like to think that it was: that it was either taken over by a rogue employee or they just get a little crazy on Walmart Radio in the night time. My Walmart used the pandemic as an excuse to permantly rid itself of it’s 24/7 hours, so we don’t really get middle-of-the-night Walmart Radio in these parts. If I were a grad student I would do a methodical antropological study of Walmart Radio throughout the country and at different times of the day.
Jasta mix for you today. Man it is absolutely crazy that I do this every day. I am busy! I raise a child at home 24/7! I do every breakfast and 2/3 of the bedtimes! I have a very difficult job! This is so much work. Anyway, this has that Adderall song on it which is great, and another new band I like, well, shit tons of new bands I like. I am enjoying this Cola band don’t know anything about them. And the new Boygenius tracks, even if they’re slowly dripping out the whole album without actually releasing the album. And Grace Ives and the new Margo Price and I love this Mary Elizabeth Remington I don’t know who hipped me to her but thank you. And a bunch of classics on this one too. Yay De La Soul on straming. Bought a vinyl copy of Mind Bomb recently so been listening to that a lot.
Talk tomorrow!
so while i never was sore from dancing before my surgery in january (after which i was essentially sitting for a month), i’ve now had two marathon dance nights on consecutive weekends—and after each, i felt SO sore, as if i’d had a major “leg day.” like, literally muscle soreness from my butt down to my knees—it really caught me by surprise! i expect that’ll start to lessen now that i’m more or less back to my previous activity level. or at least I HOPE.
MOVE IT OR LOSE IT, baby!