Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1398
Is Bill Belichick gonna live in Governor's Club? Battle of Unnumbered Tears is a BS Translation. NC Republican's evil-ass shenanigans. Idaho. Holiday cards and AI. Lunch noodle soup. Helena's interview with Amit Gupta.
Hello! Morning! Thursday! Yeah! Good news, everyone. Looks like we only need to bring in 2,000 cubic yards of fill dirt to fix our sunken bog spot on the boat and rv storage facility construction site. That is a relief. Dirt is expensive. Man. Dirt is expensive.
First things first: If you want a Webbles holiday card, please fill out this form. (Webb+Welles=Webbles, get it? People ask about this all the time but I suppose after 10 years there are people who don’t know Emma’s maiden name). One of your annual benefits to being a subscriber to the renowned email newsletter Good Morning. Hello. How are You? It’s a good one this year. Handmade by Emma. Well, you know, not hand-printed, hand-designed? No AI, is what I’m saying. Which sucks. I keep telling her she needs to put “no AI was used in the making of this card” because it really is a virtuoso illustration performance, but people are just gonna assume she used an AI and that pisses me right the fuck off, my wife is a great designer.
We are listening to Idaho this morning, last side of the last album from their newly released box set, The Devil You Know [1992-1996] out now on Arts and Crafts Records. It is awesome. The last side of the last album is awesome. This track might be the best track of the whole box set. “A Sound Awake.” Has a bit of a Mogwai feel. Or Rockets Burst from the Streetlamps, what with the big rock freakout finish at the end. Love it.
We made good progress on clearing out the “To Investigate” playlist for the end of the year. We have 46 hours left, which is a big improvement over yesterday. If I can put that big of a dent in it every remaining workday of the year, I will make it. We just finished up a re-listen of Brat and its completely different but also still brat and, man, that album is exactly as good as everyone says it is. All the versions with the guests? So good.
Next up: Acid Bath.
As I finished yesterday’s essay on going into a cathartic nostalgia K-Hole at a Ride Show, the most recent Red Right Hand Files by Nick Cave arrived in my inbox, and it seems we were channeling the same muse yesterday, albeit from opposite sides of the monitors:
Live music is a ritual that evokes a common emotional response to which we attach our singular experiences. When I perform on stage, I can see these unique and particular feelings play out on each face. This is one of the great privileges of being a frontman, and it is why I spend so much time close to the audience. I love to watch the emotions on people’s faces - joy, sorrow, yearning, laughter, fear, rage. The concert becomes powerfully and empathetically transactional as we experience together the therapeutic nature of the music. As the show evolves, a to-ing and fro-ing of kindness emerges, energised by our mutual regard, and the healing begins.
A live concert can feel overwhelming, even frightening, because its emotional power can suddenly bring our most buried experiences to the surface. But feelings are meant to be felt - that’s what they are for. We heal by acknowledging our emotions and test our heart’s resilience by lingering within the unbearable. It is something music can help us do. We find our hearts are much stronger than we presumed, and what we thought was unbearable was nothing of the sort. Music draws forth these subterranean feelings and simultaneously rescues us from them.
I haven’t gone in for Nick’s writing much lately — a bit too showily concerned with the stifling effects of cancel culture or some shit. But he can still knock it out of the park from time to time. And it is quite convenient because I do not feel completely up to writing today. Boy, must be nice to only write an email when you feel like it, Nick.
Let’s do an NC update shall we?
Item 1: Bill Belichick is gonna be the new UNC Football coach, so I guess I can theoretically run into him sometime? I wonder where he’s gonna live. Is he gonna live in Governor’s Club? That would be fuckin’ hilarious. But honestly, where else is he gonna live? Dean Smith’s house was for sale a few years back, just an absolute gorgeous MCM masterpiece, immaculately maintained. But it was only, like, 2,000 square feet. But, then, he will still have his seven other houses to keep him in comfort. So maybe something more modest. I wonder if being a college football coach is like being an NYC cop and you can live anywhere, don’t need to be, like, a member of the community you work in. Probably.
Item 2: The Republicans have passed a bill to take away a ton more power from the governor. In both of the last two elections, they have lost seats, and both times the outgoing Republican congress passed a bill to remove power from the governor. They lost their supermajority before, then Tirsh what’s-her-face needed her moment in the sun and gave it back to them by flipping parties. Now they have lost it again and they are doing the exact same thing. It got vetoed, they overrode it. It will get challenged. Some will stand, some will get ruled illegal. It is dodgy AF. They love dodgy AF. Speaking of which…
Item 3: In addition to losing their supermajority, and the governorship, the Republicans lost a Supreme Court seat race, and they just can’t handle it. They keep insisting on recounts and every time there’s a recount, they lose more votes (hrm makes you wonder). In another race, they are trying to get a bunch of votes disqualified, but only for the specific race they lost, not for other races on the same ballot, by the same voters, because then they might lose. They do not care about vote accuracy. It really is something.
Items 4 and 5: Donny Benet is coming to Cats Cradle. So is Peter Hook. Not together, sadly.
Item 6: There is a cool new drive-in cafe slash EV charging station chain concept launch story thingy opening in Cary in a week and I am going to go I think.
Item 7: It is Winter Market at Chatham County Elementary tomorrow — crafts and gift booths and food and a glazing decorations art activity thing wait that is probably a craft huh? Looks like it will be fun. Will I go? Or stay home and watch Youtube videos while my family goes without me? Could go either way, not gonna lie. But it’ll be Friday, best chance for being in a good mood.
Other non-NC-related items on my mind these days:
“Battle of Unnumbered Tears” is a bullshit translation for Nírnaeth Arnoediad, the battle where Morgoth totally wins and completely takes over Middle Earth Beleriand. All tears are unnumbered. If there was really a historical document talking about Nírnaeth Arnoediad, and scholars were translating it, well, it’s been a hundred years and Tolkien’s translation — extending this make-believe to him being just a translator — well, it sucks. And some young turk hotshot, sympathetic and clever translator would definitely, by now, have introduced a definitive, modernized translation of the source documents (which are, I guess, the tales of Tol Eressa but the frame story is a bit muddled in the first age). Might I suggest “Battle of countless tears” or, even better, “Battle of Endless Tears,” cuz that shit lingered.
Every day I make this little miracle of a lunch noodle soup and it is so good and no one gets to experience it but me and I really wish you could enjoy my lunch soup with me. It really is just a joy. And in the process I am using up the countless packets of noodles that have been filling up my pantry for years — rice vermicelli, whole buckwheat soba, all sorts of noodles. Finally getting eaten. In a delicious broth that is part ramen, part tom yum and man it is so good. Oil and water? Turns out they do mix. They mix and make deliciousness. In a soup.
Finally, because I am lazy today, in addition to St. Nick’s writing, I leave you with another piece of writing, this time from my friends Helena and Amit. Helena has, for the last couple years, been writing a now-and-again newsletter about Founders. But she is stopping doing this. And she just sent out her last one, an interview with another old friend of mine, Amit Gupta. Amit’s story is amazing and brilliant and harrowing and inspiring, and then! on top of that, at the end of the interview, Amit turns around and interviews Helena, who’s also had a harrowing, intense journey through Silicon Valley. And the whole thing is just amazing, laying bare a lot of the absurdity of the valley. Well, I guess just a small slice of the terribleness of that place. But enough. Really gives you a sense of the human dimension and cost. Just brilliant, both of them. Loved reading every word. Read it here.
Jane is very into getting to school early this month it really is something. I had been talking to you about how she did not grasp the link between her actions in the morning, at home, and when we got to school, but boy she sure gets it now. She barely eats her breakfast, just tells me to pack it up. For the entirety of this week, we have been to school 15 minutes before she can walk in the door, we’ve never been less than 10th in the dropoff line. She loves it so much. Just like she loves Christmas and dressing up for Christmas. Her outfits have been a hoot all week and I wish I had the wherewithal to remember photographic most of them. Her elf outfit yesterday was truly iconic. It is hard for me to remember to take pictures in the morning. I gotta get better at this.
And yesteday. I swear. We were having a conversation — her, Emma, me - about dinner plans: the week’s schedule is out the window because of this winter carnival tomorrow. And there were moments that I swear to god, this little first grader, she sounded like an adult. Jane’s diction, her enunciation, her thinking process. It is just insane for her age. It really is something.
She’s also very obsessed with her two pet cats in Minecraft, who are exactly as uncoopoerative to her desires as our two pet cats in the real world. It is weird to me she wants to replicate this relationship.
Those cats, man. They do not bend to her will. This is probably character building.
Got a moody and quiet playlist for you today, best playlist series, volume one hundred and sixty four. Are there three songs in a row from the new Red Hot compilation, TRANSA? Well, yes. But it was a really good compilation. Everything else is pretty new except for The Hated: got the two Numero (re?) releases of their stuff and listened to them this week and man, that band was so good. A high school friend of mine recently asked the tough question: Fugazi or Hüsker Du? I think the answer might be The Hated? Crazy that guy went on to do Ida. There was a TWO SHOW hated reunion a few years ago, kinda wish I somehow magically managed to see them. I would travel for them.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6fjuPl1jkWEDKY3yx6kW02?si=290a80377f73473b
I keep forgetting this week to say goodbye at the end of my GMHHAYS, after the playlist. So, today I say, from the bottom of my heart: Goodbye, friend.
—
Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.