Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1386
Off label zit cream, a shout-out to wiki updaters, Cormac McCarthy, the lifelong endurance of love affairs, Magnetic Fields on Tiny Desk, Figures on a Beach at Alaskan dances in the 90s, my awesome new Chinese phone case, the DOJ's whiff on Google, intervening in your partner's parenting.
Good morning, good morning, it is Thursday hi how are you, all well? I do hope so. I have a giant zit on my nose, right where my glasses go. It hurts, though it is muchly improved since last night, thanks to the magic zit cream I was first prescribed in 1990 that I have managed to carry the prescription through for thirty-plus years even though it is an off-label application. Stuff rules.
Programming note, I fixed the “Man Nub” in the footer, it now properly says “Man Nup,” the name of my fantastic, just amazing wedding planning guide for men. Really ace book if I say so myself. Thank you, wife, for both inspiring the book and pointing out the typo.
We are listening to the soundtrack to Nosferatu, which version I do not know. It is by someone named Robin Carolan, of whom I have not heard, whose gender I cannot say. Here, we’ll do a rare the-photo-of-vinyl-in-the-GMHHAY-is-the-record-we’re-discussing edition here, cus it’s a pretty dope-looking record:
It is a special Sacred Bones Record Society edition, not yet listed in on the album’s Discogs page, which means I have to make a new version for Discogs, which is always a pain: I only do this like once every year, so every time I go up there the UX has changed completely. Actually I just did it last month for the last Sacred Bones Record Society page. Someone else was listing them all, but it seems to have stopped last month. Oh shit am I going to have to be the keeper of the flame? I ain’t got time for that.
I would love to read a deep ethnographic research on the people who are keeping Wikipedia and all the other classic user-generated content sites alive: all the fan wikis, discogs, IMDB, all that shit. It is an absolute miracle that these things are still being updated. It goes against everything we feel about the modern internet. It’s kind of amazing.
Did you guys hear about Cormac McCarthy and his lifelong “muse” in the form of a Finnish-American cowgirl he started boning when she was 17? It is a pretty crazy story, overwroughtedly written, though, I mean, I like a strong perspective. But wow, yeah. Bonkers. At the same time, it’s also… (deep breath for fear of being misunderstood) kind of universal? Not the boning of a girl young enough to be your daughter, though I suppose that is pretty universal too. But the lifelong part, estranged but loved, living decades without being together but still… tied together in some sense. When I was young I thought it was possible to escape a love affair without being permanently altered by it. Without it lingering. Without it staying alive even when both parties pretend its dead. I was so wrong. These two, living proof. Aside from the boning, Cormac arguably did a good thing, running away with this girl, saving her from the hells of domestic abuse. She says unequivocally she would have died without Cormac in her life and it certainly sounds the case.
But c’mon man. 17, you couldn’t wait a few months? Jesus. We’d all be saying ‘tut tut’ right now, but no one would be murmuring “criminal.”
Anyway, lotta would-be McCarthy biographers working overtime tonight.
From an artistic standpoint, not entirely dissimilar to the recent Alice Munroe revelations. I mean, that was absolutely worse, what she did, just absolutely horrifying. But the similarities of how these secret, life-long relational dramas actually colored their entire writing career, how they actually inspired characters that people thought were created from whole-cloth. It is bonkers.
Dying, man. I used to just love the idea of living on through my words. But now it terrifies me. I mean, look. I have not committed statutory rape nor have I turned away at the sexual abuse happening under my nose, but I’m sure there’s something in my eleven million words of journaling that is going to look just fucking terrible after I’m dead. Used to give me great comfort to hand it all to my daughter; if she read it great, if not, that’s fine too, her call.
Now I am… kind of scared? I mean, that sounds like I am now scared of it because of Alice Munro and Cormac McCarthy and that’s not it. It’s more, like, well, the world changes. We are all living in absolute fucking sin, right now, buying slave-made products, hoarding wealth, cohabitating with genocides. I hope and pray that the future finds all of this behavior disgusting. But, of course, if the future does find all of this behavior disgusting, despite our best efforts to mitigate and opt-out where possible, we are still supporting a disgusting system. We will still be viewed as culpable.
I wonder if William Lloyd Garrison treated his wife badly or underpaid his printing press employees. We do know that even that saint of a man occasionally said something not-great about the Jewish people.
Magnetic Fields on Tiny Desk last night. Wonderful to see them in their full-lineup, the tours of late have only had 4 ish of the members. Tony, Stephin, Chris at all the shows, the rest coming and going. Tony’s voice still sounds great. Last time I saw them I pitched a 7” where Tony does “Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” like he does live these days, and the B-Side was Stephin singing a song from Tony and Chris’ old band, Figures on a Beach. They did not say no? Should pick that thread back up.
Love love love Figures on a Beach. Loved them before I moved to Boston, before I met Chris in 1990. They were on Just Say Mao, Volume III of Just Say Yes, released in 1989 and their song on there “Accidentally 4th St Gloria” became a decently big hit at the alternative dances in Fairbanks, Alaska. When I was back in Alaska for first semester of my sophomore year they used to play it a lot at the dances they’d have at upper campus. I think the DJ was Marc from the alternative show on the old KSUA before we rebooted it? Anyway, by that point I’d met Chris in Boston and I just thought the whole thing was so weird. Also I was madly in love with this girl who I would only see at those dances. Her name was Patrice. Never saw her again. And here I am, in 2024, still thinking of those dances, why brain, why.
The Department of Justice has submitted its recommendation to the courts of what it thinks the remedy should be for Google being an antitrust violator. Their recommendation: break off Chrome. I need to read the whole submissin before drawing conclusions, because you know how lazy the media is (okay, that’s not fair, but boy do they skim a court document to get an article out quickly) and how bad headlines are. BUT, IF that is the actual recommendation then my god, that is so bad. I will be deeply disappointed. This is an advertising antitrust case. The correct remedy for breaking Google as an advertising monopolist is to crac k open the trifecta of their advertising power: Search, Youtube and their off-site ad technologies, currently called GAM but you may know it as DFA or DoubleClick. Break those three apart and, no hyperbole, the entire advertising industry is forever changed. Do anything else and you have accomplished nothing. Chrome, jesus. GTFO. I mean, yes, there are some interesting things that will happen, but browsers? Shit browsers are one of the most purely competitive segments of the industry.
Buuuuut, if Google DOES lose chrome, they would probably finally care about, oh, I don’t know, properly supporting Safari with Google Apps. Small consolation, though.
Man I would maybe, actually love to keep working in AdTech for several more years if those three got split open. Wide open, anyone’s game.
After more than a month of waiting, my order from one of the two of the Chinese no-name companies from whence I placed orders has finally arrived. That was a kludgy sentence I should really rewrite it. Sorry there isn’t time. Anyway, my sky-case has arrived, the Z case. And it is… perfect? It is a) not really a case so you don’t have to be depressed hiding your pretty phone in ugly plastic, b) MagSafe compatible, in the good extra way where you can actually charge through the case, c) has a ring that I can put my finger through, a feature I cannot live without these days and d) the ring rotates. This case has everything. It is the best. And, unlike the Zeera wireless version I had on the 15 pro, this one doesn’t require small eyeglass screws to attach to your phone. It’s perfect. Does it inexplicably say OATSBASF on the ring for some reason? Yes. WTF does that mean? No idea. Nothing a sharpie can’t fix. Guilty pleasure. Rick Recommends.
Do I have a Jane anecdote to end this out today? Not really. She was very difficult for Emma last night at bedtime. Endless screaming. I intervened. A very delicate thing, intervening in your partners’ parenting. It has to be helpful to intervene, and it has to be invited by your spouse, otherwise you are implying they can’t handle it. And it has to be in a way that is not ruining the lesson the other parent is teaching. So I made a “bid” via text asking if everything was all right, Emma filled me in on what perceived indignity the screaming was about, and we left it at that for a while until Emma later asked for help. Sometimes double-parenting is a shitshow of inconsistency and playing them off each other. Sometimes it is necessary. Developing a language and framework for the parents to figure out which situation you are in at any given time is paramount. Seven years in and we are… kinda good at it? Most of the time?
That’s something at least.
Playlist, playlist, hmm. Oh looks like we have a Rawwwwwwk playlist today. Six Ws, very important. One of our lesser-released series. Man, I wish I could say “Serises.” It’s such a more fun word. Anyway, it’s 2 minutes short, but we’ll let that slide. Shorter is fine. Longer is problematic. I try to keep these digestible so you are not afraid to take a plunge into a genre that may not be your immediate cup of tea. I have no idea if that has ever happened even once but boy do I put a lot of effort into it. Anyway, this genre is just “songs that rock and keep rocking.” I try to keep it to songs with no breaks, no slowdowns. I cheat a little bit sometimes but not much. You can reliably expect these songs to Go Hard. And, god, yes, I seem to be starting it off with a Pear Jam song I have no recollection of this it was six months ago but I will trust May Rick and say that song is solid. They’re all solid. They Rock.
All right let’s go do our pass on this for bolding for the skimmers. That takes a lot of work, you know. Across 1,000 ish GMHHAY’s, I spend maybe an average of 5 minutes bolding for the skimmers. That is nearly 4 solid days of my life, so you can save time. We aim to serve.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.
Link don't work fer yer playlist!
Also maybe a link for your fancy iPhone non-case?