Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1380
Slowdive at a shitty club, Wisp, getting old, ice cream cones, being depressed, MSNBC will be gone by 2024, gotta read an entire book of poetry, the journey to help Jane be more kind.
Good morning. Hello. Hi. How are you? Well, I hope. I am sad. Am I sad for a reason? Well, yeah, probably. But also.. no, not really. Being a functional depressive is always a challenge. The Venn diagrams of “good reason to be sad” “things worth worrying about” and “things that you could do something about” are always murky, unknowable.
“Why are you sad?” Well, who knows. There are things to be sad about, but are they making you sad? Which things are worth doing anything about? Maybe just thinking about them makes you more sad, maybe you can’t do anything about them anyway.
I would like to enter a single prediction into the record in this Trumpian hellscape we are about to enter into: there will be no MSNBC by 2028. It will be gone. We all hate them now and we’re probably avoiding them but also, maybe get it while you can. And we’re gonna lose a generation of little old ladies that just love Rachel. That will be sad.
I do look at the news for about 10 minutes a day, I haven’t completely ceded that ground. Mostly against my will, mostly because I forget the world I’m living in for a minute and check Threads or Blusky, and then discover some horrific nominee or something and I just lose it all over again.
It’s interesting being a depressive in a time where it’s completely reasonable to be depressed.
It’s also interesting how none of us are able to talk about it in person. It’s like we’re all too shell-shocked, and also mildly paranoid that the person we’re talking to voted for Trump, and also a little obeying in advance.
I want so badly to continue to resist, somehow, but… what is there to do? What is there to do.
We are listening to (checks turntable) “a rare vocal album by Moondog recorded in his sixties, available on vinyl for the first time since 1978.” Why do I buy things like this. I get some email, I think it’s gonna be some brilliant, Sonny Sharrock-like freakout jazz psych album, and instead it’s like Tiny Tim and not in a good way.
I have been consoling myself too much in capitalism since the election. It is not good. Spending too much money on stupid shit instead of battening down the hatches. Have you seen my Plex this week? I wish I never discovered Grindhouse video. So many quality 70’s erotic thrillers and coming-of-age takes now in 4k. What a world, what a world. What’s next? Someone actually releases Agnieszka Holland’s Rimbaud biopic Total Eclipse on 4k? Someone releases the underrated masterpice Wide Sargasso Sea?
Last night we went to dinner with some of Emma’s friends and their kids and it was lovely, though my ability to be social was handicapped by “my own shit.” But it was nice. Nice and normal. People were sitting at the bar waiting for their friends to arrive and have nice dinners with friends, doing things normal, young, urban, childless people get to do all the time that I sorely miss. Been feeling my age and not in a good way the last couple weeks. There’s a lot of things I like about being old — mostly finally realizing that 90% of all society is bullshit. But the aches — the emotional aches, the actual, physical aches. They are a lot. The memories, too. Those hurt. A lot. This is, of course, deep irony from the former CEO of a nostalgia company but, you know, nostalgia might just be for the young.
At the end of dinner, I got an ice cream cone. Pretty close to a perfect little moment of joy. I am trying to find more of those, simple little moments of joy. Food-based ones are inherently problematic for me because of my body dysmorphia, but man. A chocolate-chip mint ice cream cone in a sugar cone that isn’t too hard, with the ice cream pushed all the way down so you don’t have an empty cone? Bliss AF.
I think a lot about that scene in The Good Place where Ted Danson explains that even buying someone some flowers will land you in hell because of the endless moral compromises. I think about that a lot.
After dinner I went, alone, to see Slowdive at this shitty-ass club 45 minutes away. It was like driving to Providence to go to a show at at some crappy club like The Station. You know, before it burned down.
I liked going solo to shows when I was young because who cares, and plus you got to meet people. But it is a different experience when you’re older, and living in a town where you don’t know anyone. You feel kind of invisible. Though a young woman did come up and tell me I looked like Bill Hader, which, you know, probably made my decade. I used to get Chris Farley when I was overweight but no one knows who he is anymore. When I was underweight I got Kurt Cobain and that was just great god I miss my luxurious long white hair.
Haha it is absolutely insane anyone reads these things.
There was another medical emergency, I am getting these at shows with some frequency now. Disturbing. Slowdive stopped the show just as they started my favorite song, which really took me out of my zone. And then there was just… no security. Like it took like five minutes for anyone to come help this person in need? The Ritz is just not safe. I love all the drunk rockers working there, they are my people, they make me feel like I should have taken a different path in life they all seem a lot happier than me. And I am happy there is a place in the world that will employ them.
But also… not good!
Anyway, Slowdive are still majestic, amazing. There were moments of sublime perfection, having been going to see them for 30 years now, I can say they’re at the top of their game. Only got one song from Pygmalion, which is a shame, but whatever. “Catch the Breeze” was just phenomenal.
I was surrounded by 20-30 year olds, the audience was young, Slowdive are getting bigger and bigger. Lotta vertical video. In my specific area I was surrounded by no fewer than 7 brunettes, all with identical long straight hair, all under 5 feet tall. Very weird.
It’s not obvious from a Slowdive show what a prodigy Neil Halstead is. He is an audio genius, but also a brilliant pop songwriter, amazing lyricist, golden voice. I’m deeply thankful for Slowdive’s resurgent popularity and that Neil Halstead is getting the recognition he deserves. But also I wish we’d get another Mojave 3 tour, or maybe even a solo one again. The guy is just amazing.
Also look. he’s wearing a City Lights Books shirt. Tip Top T-Shirt game, Neil Halstead.
Man this Moondog album is dumb. I am going to sell it.
That’s a thing I think I need to do for a while again. Sell shit.
Wisp opened the show, lady shoezager from LA that longtime GMHHAY playlist listeners would know well. Half the reason I self-motivated to take this ungodly journey to East Raleigh to a shitty club was to see Wisp. They delivered. So good. She could talk louder during her banter but also, why. But yeah, she has the shoegaze thing down, and she has a great band backing her: I believe the albums were mostly solo studio affairs? It gives me hope I may one day see Abriction (a similar solo-girl affair, though in the Black Metal Shoegaze realm, and from New Jersey not LA) with a great band god that would be amazing.
Between bands they played Pale Saints’ “Sight of You” and I just stood there gently sobbing, an old man, alone, in a sea of youth, remembering seeing that song live back in his prime. Probably surrounded by ladies.
For privilege of all this I paid:
$107.96 for the tickets, because I always buy two and then end up going alone. I should really get better about selling the extra, but I like to give my wife optionality till the last minute, because I like going to shows with my wife.
$15 for parking
$24.68 for my single alcoholic beverage
$10.39 for a (admittedly giant) Diet Coke to drink before I hit the road back on the long, shitty drive.
A total of $158.03.
I wonder how much of that went to Neil, Rachel, Christian, Simon and (checks wikipedia) a gentleman named Nick.
I bet Nick got, like, a buck of it.
I forgot to tell you that last Friday at Walmart, I discovered a) They finally have a vinyl copy of the Chappell Roan album. It does not have the awesome die cut sleeve, and it is not a Walmart exlcusive, but they finally have it, and b) after maybe a year and a half, there is a new Icebreakers flavor: Pineapple Mango Sparkling Seltzer. It is not particularly good. They probably need to get off this “sparkling” kick. But I’m happy they are back on their flavor innovation bullshit. Yay capitalism.
We finished Tolkien’s Book of Lost Tales, vol 2 last night. Now I have to read The Lays of Beleriand next, which is just an entire fucking book of poetry, my worst nightmare. Poetry is such a pain in the ass. You can’t skim, for starters, you have to sit there and savor and process every word and that is just not my jam as a writer or a reader, I am more of a pace and flow kind of guy, as I’m sure you can tell from GMHHAY. But people tell me I should “like” and “appreciate” poetry, so, I will read this fucking thing. Under protest.
Last night after dinner Jane was having so much fun she did that thing where she refused to leave, and I had to pick her up and stuff her in the car and strap her in and she kept telling me I was the worst daddy in the world and using that brilliant little mind of hers to think of the meanest things she could say to me. And using that prodigious stubbornness to just not let it go. It works, you know. I mean, I’m self-loathing and depressive as it is, so yeah, I feel it when my kid says these things to me. I try to not let it show, I try to be a proper parent and tell her to not be mean. But also the only thing she responds to in this period is very direct, forceful, brutal truths about how awful she’s being, so then you end up, like, making your kid feel miserable which is just lovely. This morning while we were doing breakfast, I was thinking about how it’s all over every morning, everything is great, I am the best daddy in the world. But one day… it just won’t be over in the morning. She’ll come downstairs still mad. And that is going to suck. I hope and pray that through our combined efforts and different tactics, Emma and I can teach Jane to just be fucking kind before that day comes, but, you know. World is run by unkind people these days. Perhaps its going out of fashion.
But we will keep at it because kindness matters. Other people matter!
Comically rebellious belief to have in this country these days.
Hrm right yes. Playlist. Looks like this Synthpop one is about done. Just the pick-me-up we all need. Some Stock Aiken and Waterman, a nice return to form from OMD, a great Cold Cave track, some Boston brilliance from Andre Obin and Donny Benet is coming to town soon I think? That could be a thing, that could be a thing.
I can’t say “I’ll be better tomorrow,” but how bout this: you won’t notice my sadness as much. Okay? Deal!
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.