Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1450
Mom update, garage cleaning, gardening, attic work, daughter QT, Fix: The Ministry Movie, making a plaque, a GMHHAY clarification
Good morning. Hello. How are you? Good weekend? Mine was okay. Well, in terms of me, and my immediate surroundings and life, the here and now right in front of me, it was fantastic, actually. In terms of things a bit further afield, like my Alaskan family, we’ll go middling. My mom is improving a bit. That is promising. Still a ways to go, and no guarantees. Thank you again for your concern. Lotta tests and meetings today that should tell us a lot.
And, of course, further afield, well. Has anyone done the Gibsonian adage applied to the current state? Well, then, let’s do it:
Fascism is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.
This is a minor one in the panopoly of fears, but I will state it nonetheless: I fear that as we go more down this path, the point of GMHHAY will be mistaken. The point is not head-in-the-sand, the point is not to “just try and ignore it.” We do not ignore the bad over here.
The point rather is about the toxicity of overwheening ambition, social isolation, the toxicity of large chunks of the internet. The point is to show a path toward creative and social satisfaction without, you know, being a toxic jerk and ruining the country and planet. Try some freakin gardening, Elon. God. If you can’t keep a flower alive why should anyone trust you with a stinkin’ country.
Join the GMHHAY slack! Reply to this email and ask for an invite if you’re a human who likes chatting with other humans about topics such as these within!
We are listening today to an electronic musician named Marie Davidson. On Friday I had a few minutes free time so I popped over to Pitchfork, went through all the reviews and added ten or so albums to my listening queue that had decent scores and compelling two-line article summaries. So far they have all delivered. This album, City of Clowns, ends with a Soulwax remix. And you know when an album ends with a Soulwax remix, it is going to pop off. God does anyone remember that Soulwax Night Versions performance in the dance tent at Coachella in, mm, gonna say 2007 or so? So good.
Anwyay, the weekend. Much lovely time spent with my daughter, A+, no complaints. Lots of breakfasts and typing words together and snuggling with stuffies and attempts at getting her to join me in gardening. She’s in a golden era right now it is awesome.
A neighbor (and GMMHAY reader. Hi Selin!) came over and is using the greenhouse for some seedling planting, while Emma did some landscaping at Chore House because she is appalled at the state in which I left the topiaries. I moved a lot of dirt. I also wired up the new oscillating fan for the seedlings so they can grow sturdy and strong. Do we think two bouts of 20 minutes each, a day, is enough? Should I adjust?
I am, this year, using a digital, internet-connected timer. I am somewhat sad about this. I love my analog dial timers. But the problem is they stop working? Or the power goes out and then they are all off. It is weird to me that, in this instance, a digital option is more reliable than an analog one. This seems rare. But a digital timer can get the time off the internet when the power has restored.
I also vacuumed up a ton of leaves, cleaned up the front of Chore House a little bit: moved some ugly stuff so that when the Neurodivergent Affirming Pediatric Speech Therapists and their interns park in front of the house, it isn’t so ugly. Plus, you know, leaves make great compost. If you chop ‘em up and let em sit there for, oh, three years.
The big garage door at Chore House got fixed. $600, jesus. Two giant springs needed replacing: one was broken, they were in the wrong place, they were mismatched. Now it opens and closes like butter, which is so much more convenient for the materials handling on the attic.
Speaking of the attic I only worked on it for one day this weekend. I spent two days doing other chores at Chore House. Because the garage door was fixed, I wheeled every single thing out of the garage and cleaned the floor. Then I dusted every single thing before I wheeled it back in. It is so clean. I am so proud of myself. Plus! Now that the door’s open again, I can do all my OSB sawing outside, and not get sawdust all over the garage. I mean, I use dust collection, and I bought one of those little dust blockers for your track saw. But dust still escapes. But now the garage is so clean.
While I was doing this I worked on a silly project I have been sort of thinking about for several months. When I moved Timehop out of its office in Tribeca (don’t make me do that caps nonsense), I saved the office door sign. I had been envisioning mounting it on a wooden plaque for ages, but I finally got around to it. Sanded to 180, Odie’s Dark with Black a smidge of Black and Red Wine pigments, three coats of Polycrilic spray lacquer gloss. Yes, the plaque should be bigger, to give the thing a bit more room to breathe. But no one needs a novelty plaque that big. Anyway, I am very proud of it. Behold:
And then, yes, on Sunday I worked on the attic. Only got three pieces of OSB replaced but what a three pieces. I am working in an area underneath an HVAC duct, right up against the wall, interacting with the eaves. It is a pain. But I got it done. Well, not the whole area. But a lot of it and enough of it to know exactly how I will do it, which is always the scary part. There are lots of scary parts to this project, but it is always really satisfying when you get through one.
Over three partial evenings, I watched the 2011 documentary about Ministry, Fix: The Ministry Movie. It was.. not a good documentary? It’s not really a documentary, I mean it is, but it’s not a career-spanning one. At the very end, in the credits, it said something like “a snapshot of the hell of touring” and that is a far more accurate description of the thing: a lot of footage of the 1996 tour, a lot of intravenous drug use, a lot of footage of Al acting like a lunatic, and a lot of really amazing interviews of band members (though few not on that tour) and other associates: Trent Reznor, Lemmy, Maynard James Keenan, etc. The interviews are great. The live footage is amazing. I guess maybe sort of worth a watch but also god, it drags, lotta drug use. Seriously. So much. Lot of David Yow’s schlong for some reason. A lot.
Today in the car Waiting for the Man came on and I explained the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed to Jane, she knows “Pale Blue Eyes” from Grammy and “Walk on the Wild Side” from First Wave, so she could put it all together pretty quickly. I told her that quote about “Only a thousand people listened to the Velvet Underground but they all started a band” and explained influential to her. That was nice. Then she drew some flowers and we got a Wordle in three, seriously, domestic life is so nice why do people have to have ambition and work at scale on a larger stage whenever anyone says those words, run for the fucking hills, mark my words.
Synthpop playlist for you today. Som real gems on here. Mandy Smith is not really “modern” but the remix was a bit later, so we’re gonna count it. Molchat Dama is old too but recently re-issued. Oh and Etienne Daho that is old too. But the rest? Brand spankin’ new. Ish.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.