Good morning. Hello. How are you? #739
Owning five different copies of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The incredible expanding Nevermind anniversary editions. Doubts about the Twitter deal. Blonde Bomb.
Good morning. Hello! How are you? I am good. Sleepy. Woke up too early because Jane was terrible to me last night, so afterward I had a tiny wine with Emma while watching an incredibly tense Andor and an also incredibly tense Bake Off, and then the tiny wine made me have to pee so it made me wake up early, so I went and peed and then went back to bed and thought “this is great I’m going to get two more hours of sleep” and then… did not get two more hours of sleep, my brain decided that it was awake and I needed to go downstairs right now and tell you this:
It is time I confessed that I have purchased a second copy of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier on 4k UHD blu ray. I have no purchased this film, legally, five separate times. I own a VHS copy, still. I don’t think I actually own my DVD copy anymore, but I still own my Blu Ray copy, and I still own the first 4k UHD copy I purchased, as part of the 4k UHD Star Trek Original Films box set. The copy of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier included therein had the teeniest, tinyest of scratches on it. It seemed like a nothing scratch. Specifically, it was such a small scratch, barely visible to the naked eye, that it seemed inconceivable that I could actually return the entire box set, some three weeks after I purchased it. I suppose a better man would have gone that route, but I am a schmuch who apparently does not want to offend the return robots at Amazon and decided it would be better and easier to purchase a second copy (though this time, just of this film).
I should pause here and call out this amazing error message. When you’re trying to rip a 4k UHD Blu Ray using the MakeMKV software, if it encounters a physical error on the disc that prevents you from reading the media, it spits out an error message with a URL. The URL leads to a page that says this:
You were directed to this page because MakeMKV encountered errors during processing. These errors all fall into one category usually caused by a single failure. The detailed error description is below.
Read error
The ONLY reason for this error is inability of the drive to read the data from the disc. This is caused by a damaged disc, failing drive, or both. The error comes from the drive before MakeMKV has an opportunity to look at the data. Nothing else can cause this error - no protection, no software issue - only physical disc or drive damage.
Despite such easy explanation, usually the first user reaction is denial - "the disc is pristine clean", "this disc plays perfectly on my friend's player", "I've copied 100500 discs with this drive" are usual responses. Still, this doesn't change a fact that the read error can be caused only by inability of the drive to read the data from the disc.
(Man I really do not know why Substack has decided we don’t need the blockquote button anymore that is really weird).
I can imagine this guy got a lot of pushback about discs being clean before writing this really great, clear language error description.
Through all of this, of course, it should be said that Star Trek VL The Final Frontier is not a particularly good movie. Many call it the worst Trek movie. They are wrong. The worst Trek movie is Into Darkness, the worst “old” trek movie is Generations. Shatner directed The Final Frontier. It’s not his fault. The original rock monster concept art looks lit, and it’s not his fault ILM was too busy to work on the film, or that they didn’t have enough money to even pay the lower-budget VFX house they used. It’s not his fault that Paramount shied away from the more daring original script. Oh god now I’m sticking up for Star Trek VL The Final Frontier what is happening.
Clearly all of this is punishment for owning a Kraft Star Trek V Marshmallow Dispensor I am not worthy.
I bought that thing in the 21st century. At least fifteen years after the film came out.
(and yes, that is a “The Rock” bobblehead and three Lord of the Rings film cells I know, I know, this collection is amazing).
Anyway, hopefully this new copy, which arrives today, will rip.
Intermission.
Here are a few sentences that I had a vision of turning into whole GMHHAY segments, but I’ve come to accept that they will not happen, so I’m just gonna clear ‘em out now, because they’ve been in my notepad for way too long:
Every ten years the Nirvana Nevermind anniversary box set gets bigger and bigger. The 20th anniversary was four LPs. The 30th anniversary is 6LPs and a 7”. What will the 40th anniversary be, I wonder? How many more hidden and unreleased tracks are there? Will the 50th anniversary come with strands of Kurt’s DNA?
Our cat Keely snores. She does these little kitty snores and it is so cute. They should make little cat CPAP machines. That’s the whole joke. I wrote it on my notepad. “I gotta write it on my notepad for GMHHAY,” I said. “It’s one sentance, there’s nothing else to write,” Emma said. She was wrong. I got five sentences out of it. I took a little movie of her snoring. The snores aren’t as cute sounding on video.
I’ve come round and I am thinking the Twitter deal’s still not going to happen. At least, I think there is a very good chance it won’t happen.
Pertinent fact one: Elon does not have $44 billion. At least, not in any way that is accessible to him.
Pertinent fact two: He’s managed to make the whole deal desperately uncool and while I will never underestimate Elon’s ability to make profoundly uncool things seem cool to a certain cohort of people, and a cohort of that cohort being profoundly rich, I feel like they all got burned by this exact deal already. And if you can only get a measly single billion dollars out of the seventh richest person in the world, well, your “potentials” list dries up fast. Looking at the eight other richest people in the top ten, Gates and Bezos ain’t gonna do it, he’s burned those bridges, Page and Brin aren’t gonna do it, seems a stretch for internet johnny-come-lately Buffet, so that leaves… bernard Arnault, Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani. Cool. A bil each. Shit. Give a bill each to the next ten (Except Ballmer and Bloomberg, big lol nope from those two), so you get 8 more out of the Kochs and the Waltons wow this is looking great and in any case, you now still have 31 billion to go, and Elon Musk does not have $31 billion free dollars because of
Pertinent fact three: the economy sucks now, everyone’s lost a shit ton of money since this deal happened, the deal’s eventual potential return, even factoring in the Elon shine (which is diminishing rapidly but we’ll be generous and ignore that) amd ignoring the very real deterioration of Twitter’s business (really deserves its own pertinent fact heading but we’re gonna skip that too) has markedly deteriorated. It’s just not the deal it was.
Pertinent fact four, it’s also a waaaaayyyy less good deal because Elon just spent months shitting all over the company. Elon may have decided in the last week that he doesn’t care about pertinent facts two, three, and four, but that doesn’t mean everyone else will suddenly stop caring about them.
And, most pressingly, pertinant fact five: the banks. The banks must desperately want to cancel their financing. Banks lost a half a billion closing their financing obligations on the recent Citrix deal, roughly comparable in size to the Twitter deal, except the interest rates have gotten worse since then, the markets have gotten worse since then, bond buyers have lost a bunch more money since then, and…seee pertinant fact four, Elon’s made this deal toxic. If the banks pull their financing, it’s one of the few iron-clad, legal paths Elon has to getting out of the deal. I’m sure the banks have some vague legal obligations here, but… man, I don’t know. It’s a lot.
I dunno. It’s spread over a lot of banks. Maybe they’ll just say “gulp” and do it as a direct investment, instead of selling it off and hope for the best. If Elon wanted them to do it, I’m sure he could sweeten it by throwing some Tesla or SpaceX work their way, or maybe they will just suck it up because Tesla or SpaceX is already a client? It all just seems an incredibly large wild card.
And then! Even with their financing and $13 billion from Kochs and Waltons (lol), Elon still has to come up with nineteen billion more dollars. He technically “has” it, but… man. You are digging deep into SpaceX and Tesla stock then. Plus taxes.
There is, of course, the chance of a white knight. A DGAF Doug Leone or Marc Andreesen who’s up for the LP lawsuits or, haha, the Saudis. But none of these change my new thesis: There is still a ton of absurdity to go here. Delaying this deal into these markets could still be the single biggest individual financial mistake of all time. It’s be a shame to see that happen to such a kind, humble person.
Watched Blonde the other night. Even despite the amazing, scorching New York Times review, I didn’t think it could be… that bad. And, I mean, in some ways it wasn’t. Ana De Armas is so, so good, even though she still sounds Cuban and not like Marilyn Monroe and it is a little weird but you can choose to ignore that because she’s amazing. The rest of the cast is rock solid too. Adrian Brody especially is really good. It’s edited well, it’s visually beautiful, but… my god. It’s just… not good. It’s waaaay too long. It doesn’t know what it’s going for. Maybe a beautiful Syd and Nancy? It’s definitely a film about falling into oblivion but… it has nothing to say about this that isn’t a visual effect or camera trick. It really is a bummer it could have been good so easily. So close in so many ways but so bad. The director, Andrew Dominick, is a collaborator of Nick Cave’s these days, having done the last two Nick Cave “concert” films and… those are similar in a way? Gorgeous but empty.
And this whole pretending a real live human is fictional is so weird. It’s so weird! Why would you do this? Other than being poisoned at the well of narrative. Imagine thinking Marilyn Monroe’s life doesn’t make for a compelling narrative so you gotta spruce it up so much you have to proactively, defensively say it’s fiction. The whole thing is lunacy. And this isn’t even a more slimline or compelling narrative! Bah!
W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe playlist for you today. Did anyone in Boston go see Stereolab last night? How was it. They’re playing here next Friday and I think I’m gonna go. Man this show has been scheduled and rescheduled for, like, two years. I’m excited. Actually if it was bad, don’t tell me. Mix of old and new otherwise here. Checked out the new Bjork and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, they’re both good but I don’t love them. The advance singles on the YYYs record are the best songs. But it’s good. The Bjork is, you know, difficult and complex and honestly I should give it some more time. I will do that.
All right have a lovely day talk to you tomorrow.