Good morning. Hello. How are you? #991
Our ten-year anniversary. Covid stats. Break it Up by Richard Kreitner, Sinead's autobiography, American precarity, James Gertz is a billionaire, Skating Club
Got morning, hey hey. We’re the Monkeys. What. Is. Up. How are you? What day is it? Thursday. Oh goodie new COVID stats are out today from the state of North Carolina. Well let’s check em out. Hrm hospitalizations flat after about eight weeks of increases. That is promising. Let’s check wastewater. COVID levels in the wastewater in Raleigh still climbing. Not too too bad, though. But the Carrboro/Chapel Hill district? Closest to my house? As high as they have been at any point in the pandemic. Hit over 40MM PPM. Looks like it is close to leveling off though. Another week or two maybe. But, then, school will be starting. Lovely.
That’s all we get anymore: hospitalizations and wastewater. No county-level at all. Lovely.
Today is mine and Emma’s 10th wedding anniversary. On Christmas Eve 2022, when we got engaged, after she said yes, I asked Emma if she thought we would last. “I give us ten years” she said. So, congratulations, us. We made it. That is pretty crazy. Ten years married. Not a thing I ever thought I could pull off.
Here’s to ten more, Emma. I think we can make it.
Jane asked what divorce was a couple nights ago and I told her and, I mean, we’ve told this girl about death and Trump and holocausts and all sorts of terrible things and she has taken them with equanimity. With the seriousness they deserve, but not with any real fear or terror. But when I told her about divorce there was some real fear in her eyes and I had to hubristically reassure her that we would not be getting one.
Good, she said. You better not. Or words to that effect. I will refrain from quote marks.
Lemme know if you need any more matchboxes from the wedding.
Did you know that Jamie Gertz, star of Square Pegs, Twister, and The Neighbors, as well as the amazing Star in The Lost Boys, is married to one of the founders of Apollo Global Management, and is a majority owner, with her husband, of the Atlanta Hawks and the Milwaukee Brewers, is a billionaire, number 158 on the Forbes 400, and one of the largest philanthropic donors in America? That really is something.
Speaking of wealth, and its antipode of poverty, my friend Rex yesterday was talking on a Slack group we’re in about how a bunch of people from his childhood and whatnot all have very good, comfortable livings, and they all think they are still poor. And I said that I very much constantly feel this way. We talked a bit about it and the distinction we sort of realized is that these people let it rule them, and their politics, and vote accordingly, whereas I sort of view it as a mental illness, like falling in love or depression, and I try and ignore it and stick to my rational understanding of the world that knows I am not really poor.
But man, I feel it. All the time. It can absolutely consume me. It motivates so much, too much, of what I do. And that conversation made me realize in that Slack group that I am sort of rare in this? We explored some possible motives, like Thorsten Veblen, conspicuous consumption, Kahneman and anchoring, but really in the end what I think it comes down to is the utter lack of a safety net in America. I constantly feel like I am one emergency from an utter uplifting of my life. Someone gets cancer, someone needs long term care, the fuckhead North Carolina legislature decides public college doesn’t need to exist (I mean who are we kidding they would have already done this were it not in the constitution). There is no fucking safety net in this country and it drives me and motivates me almost completely. I feel it viscerally. Constantly.
A famous ad executive (pretty sure it was Nigel Bogel of BBH but don’t quote me and don’t make me go look at my Endnotes file it is a mess) once said “we are constantly only two phone calls away from ruin.” And it is 100% true of agencies: two clients fire you, you’re fucked. But it’s also true of every single American. One cancer diagnosis. One state-house legislature vote. One verbal gaffe of one democratic senator tipping a single US senate race and suddenly Obamacare is gone. We all live in a state of constant precocity, the only reality is that some are closer to it. But no one is immune.
It warps my brain and I hate it and I cannot ever capture that hippie Alaskan fearlessness I had as a kid.
Semi-related PSA: If you are an advertising industry inclined person and happen to have a subscription to Campaign Live I wrote an op-ed about GDPR and Apple and whatnot for them and it is not terrible and you can read it right here. Why did I do this, you ask? That is a good question. It is probably time that Nimbus does a little PR and this is a part of it also I think you all know my general opinion of, for example, Apple’s ATT implementation and I generally think everyone is really barking up the wrong tree here and it irks me.
Finished that Break it Up book about people who have, throughout history, advocated for seceding from the United States, and it is a great book for trivia of weird sidelines in American history and draws a pretty compelling thread through all of them. But it’s real triumph is to drive home conclusively something that we all know: that the constitution was a horrible document, a near-fatal compromise with outright evil that poisoned the union from day one, and we are still feeling its effects two hundred and fifty years later. Every “great compromise” you learn about in school, from the constitution itself to all of those involving slavery and the west were not great at all, they were blackmails, they were instances of evil pushing people around to get their way. It was depressing, it was… man. This country. I mean, at this point, there are larger geopolitical issues, I think, that require the existence of the United States as a counterbalance to tyranny and fascism, but god, it sure would be nice if the counterbalance wasn’t so weighed down with its own past evil. But this is the world we live in. We are stuck with the US for the foreseeable future.
Another chief takeaway of this book is that Barack Obama was wrong, we were never one America, we were never united, his uplifting speech that night in Boston was hokum, the premise of his entire presidency was probably incorrect, and I think he knows it now, or at least senses it, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. The tone of his (all too rare) politicking has changed since those days. Those close to him say that he still genuinely believes that stuff, but I believe at this point it is aspirational within him, and not a closely held belief about the current situation.
Well that was cheery.
Anyway, then I moved on to Sinead O’Connor’s autobiography, which I should have read ages ago but didn’t even know existed until she passed. My god, it is amazing. Harrowing, poetic, a singular voice, evocative, spiritual. The fucking pages are scented and they are scented with something that immediately takes me back to the past. It’s familiar and comforting but I cannot put my finger on it. It’s not this but it gives me the same warm sense as Cacharel LouLou, which you don’t get to smell anymore. Anyway it is intense and reading that book in the evening after a day of corporate work is like a detoxifying bath. It really is something. Also I did not know that she picked up the idea of multiple Troys, which I always found kind of weird but amazing, well she picked that up from Yates. I am such a rube. Can we say Philistine anymore? Are there Philistines on the planet anymore? Or have they passed into history? God I am such a rube.
Sinead O’Connor, man. That is a hole that will not be filled for a while. Oh shit just as I wrote that “I am Enough for Myself” by Sinead just came on the ole hi-fi. Crap. Keep it together, Rick. you have a day to get through.
Couple more music-related items before we go:
I listened to the entire discography of Aubrey Anderson’s amazing Skating Club yesterday and it had been years since I did this and my god, they are so good, I just love that band so much and if you ever listened to the Skating Club, you should go give them a listen again and if you haven’t you should go give them a listen again. Beautiful.
And a music-related question: anyone out there know how to get hooked up with Sound Exchange and BMI? I know the money will be practically nil but Rockets used BMI and we registered but we’ve done nothing with it since the 90’s and I don’t think we ever registered with Sound Exchange and it has just been lingering in my mind for a decade or so as something to do but I feel utterly ill-equipped and don’t know where to begin. If this is something you are familiar with, would you mind dropping a line? Gracias.
Jane was pretty great last night at bedtime, A+ no complaints. Spent a lot of time pretending to be a baby, but that was okay because I got to pick her up and sing her lullabies at bedtime and she never lets me do that anymore and it was so wondrous to watch her face remember “the old days” when I did this nightly and find comfort in it and make humans are magic. She also did Daddy Jane Dance Party as a baby which was pretty hilarious and mainly involved crawling between my legs over and over because what else can a baby do.
Man I have so many other great topics in my topic list I cannot wait to tell you about my stove epiphanies. But I think perhaps this is a good stopping point for today. HVAC inspector is coming today wish me luck.
Here have a most depressing playlist. I’m not actually depressed today, or I guess I’m supposed to say something like I’m not actually exhibiting symptoms today or something, but, then, that’s the time where it’s safe to engage in these sorts of songs, right?
Oh shit I see last minute there are two Magnetic Fields songs on here, one added in March, one added in June. Alas. Too late now. You can handle it I know you can.
Until tomorrow where we will talk about THE STOVE.