Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1409
Getting GMHHAY of Meta continued, LA fires, starting work on the studio in earnest. A slick Tolkien reference.
Good morning. Wow. Woah. I am muddled! I had a terrible, splitting headache this morning, so when I got home from dropping Jane off at school, I went back to bed. Two and a half hours more sleep. Headache is gone, which is good. But boy, I am not my mental self. Feels like a dream writing this. Gotta clear my head.
LA fires: terrible, terrible. Many friends have evacuated, couple have lost their houses. Apocalyptic. Heart goes out to everyone.
Is this the one? Is this the end of LA? Those fires look huge. They are, like, waaaay bigger than previous years, right? Always thought it was gonna be an earthquake that got LA. And, like, if it’s not this year’s fires, are they gonna be commensurately bigger next year? Just insane. Horrific.
A comment from my friend Doug that captures some of the surrealism we experience from afar from this situation:
One weird thing about the internet and working is that you can have a group of people working on the same project, and one of them is like “I have to go my house is going to burn down, here’s a video” and everyone else is like “holy shit stay safe!”, then a few minutes later “OK so the hat, is it pixel style or a vector?”
It was like this with the Ukraine war too. People dashing off their work then heading to a bomb shelter.
It is not like that with the Ukraine war anymore. hrm.
This comment was made in a private chat group. Because private chat groups are where it’s at.
Funny response to yesterday’s GMHHAY exploration of leaving Facebook. All of the readers who read off of Facebook commented, emailed, had all sorts of opinions about a nice group chat somewhere and I don’t think a single Facebook reader commented on any of it. Coincidence? Sometimes GMHHAY issues just don’t get the algorithmic juice, and it was way down in the body of a generally bummer edition.
But I think it’s coming. And I think it’s gonna be Slack. Opinion was divided about half and half between Slack and Discord, so I’m going with Slack cuz it’s my preference and Discord reminds me of crypto and I don’t like that whole thing with weird usernames and that other whole thing with “gas” or whatever they call it when users pay.
I wish Facebook would let you turn off comments. I have been deep thinking for 48 hours now of the morality of “just posting a link” to a Meta property. Like… I wouldn’t post the whole GMHHAY entry, just a link. I think that could arguably be moral, it just encourages people to leave the property. But with comments, it doesn’t fly: everyone sticks around on Meta and has a big ole conversation.
It’s such a minor thing but it really is striking to me how starkly this situation is a battle between morals and self gain. I like my friends, even the silent stalkery ones. I know I am going to lose a lot leaving Facebook. But my ethics absolutely demand I leave Facebook.
And it fucking sucks.
Just yesterday I heard from a friend I love love love whom I never hear from, they are not a big writer, who is, you just know it, absolutely not gonna move to Slack or anything, or even sign up for a newsletter. And they still read GMHHAY on Facebook. And it was amazing to hear from them just great. And I’m scared this move will sever that sort of connection and it will suck.
And then there’s Facebook messenger, which is, like, the only way I have to stay in touch with, like, 1,000 people. That alone makes the whole thing undeletable.
But contributing content, content which contributes conversation and comments and active time? That feels a bridge too far in supporting this monster.
It’s funny, though. I am just as pissed at Apple for a host of reasons (topic for another day) but I am so stuck in the Apple ecosystem it’s not even a wisp of a thought in my head to leave them. I can’t. I am absolutely captured.
Although unlike Meta at least Apple makes a few good brilliant, joyous products still. They just do so underneath a layer of malevolence, blindness, monopolistic predation and disregard for, you know, democracy. Awesome.
He says, as he awaits delivery of the 40th or so Mac to enter this house.
God. I wish all these companies were broken up. It is so obviously the solution. Imagine a Youtube not connected to Google. Macs not attached to fucking ad networks or even your phone. Threads not owned by Meta.
My friend Emily is encouraging and plotting all her friends to get off Facebook at once and most of the comments are either “let’s do it” or at least nominally supportive: “I can’t but I wish I could.” But there’s always that too-smart-for-their-own-good person who’s like “they’re all bad.”
No no no.
Number one: they are not all bad. Stewart Butterfield is no Mark Zuckerberg. I have the luxury (well, curse) of being having many mutual friends with these people it’s night and day. Yes, being a billionaire is toxifying but some handle it better than others.
But more importantly, number two: Size matters. A large company’s evil is way more damaging than a small company’s evil. Even if fucking Buttondown (the small company delivering you this newsletter) gave a million dollars to Trump (they did not!) it would not be the same level of environmental, political, human rights damage. Buttondown could endeavor to be the most evil company on the planet and Meta would do more evil in a day, without breaking a sweat, than Buttondown could pull off in a decade.
I think my time in Silicon Valley, my time knowing these people, my time being at the shores of Cuiviénen when the companies awoke blinded me to this fact for a while. I still think of Facebook as, like, ten people who recently left Boston for the west. I still think of Apple as that company that was on the cover of Wired with the word “Pray” cuz it was on its last legs. My god I viscerally, physically miss pre-iPhone Apple. Twitter was a bunch of plucky friends making something fun. And I, personally, made vast sums of money off of these companies when they were small and not evil.
(Sweet Tolkien reference there, huh? Last night I laid in bed with The Shaping of Middle Earth and an actual parchment map of Beleriand and I felt like a kid doing one of those Ultima or Bard’s tale games, it ruled.)
I have known they’re all irredeemably evil for a long time, but I have been too complacent about it. I thought public shame would keep them in line, and for a while it did. Until Elon showed them all how to act without shame. His toxicity covers the earth.
Anyway. It’s gonna be Slack, it’s gonna be, like, next week. There will be a transition. I will post links only to Facebook for a couple weeks with big notices. But it’s gonna happen.
Let’s talk about something more pleasant: I AM NOW OFFICIALLY WORKING ON THE STUDIO. Started last weekend. HVAC is done, insulation is done, it is now time to work on the floor. I am tearing up the OSB floor, replacing the fiberglass in the floor joists with Rockwool Safe N Sound and then putting a new OSB floor down: first two of what will be 8 layers. While doing this, I will be working with the plumbers to figure out where to put a bathroom (there are two possible locations, both will be left unfloored until a decision is made).
I put the first four packs of Safe n Sound into the floor last weekend. I cleaned up the mess from the spray foam people, I set up my workspace, I figured out what tools I need to do the job quickly. I am excited. I hope to get at least one full day each weekend working on the attic. This weekend, since I don’t need to do the setup, and I have OSB at the house now (or will, in a couple of hours when the delivery arrives), I will have an idea this weekend how much I can get done each weekend, and can project out when this phase of the project will be done.
While cleaning the attic last weekend, I found the original blueprints for the whole house. Very useful, though would have been nice to find before I meticulously measured the entire attic. But they will still prove useful as I continue to work on exact placement of vocal booths, guitar cab booths, reverb chambers, bathrooms and all the double-walls. But I have plenty of time to work all that out since the floor will take a while.
Anyway, it is thrilling, it is the greatest thing going on in my life now and I am very very happy about it.
Will keep you apprised.
Man what am I gonna end these on the day Jane stops wanting her picture on the internet. It’ll happen.
Shoegaze playlist for you today, all newish stuff except Ride, because I saw Ride last month, but Jussi saw them three times, and at a show I did not get to see, they played “Unfamiliar” and I am very jealous, though I have seen them play it since the reformation which is amazing cuz they never used to play it before they broke up but boy it would be great to see it again so you could all avoid this run-on sentence.
Until tomorrow, friend.
—
Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.