Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1547
Abandoning Marx, public school anxiety, dealing with truck repairs, Laika's peel sessions, Mr Plinkett returns
Good morning, friends, hello. How’s your week going? We’re almost there. Man, I am so disappointed in myself for living for the cliche of the weekend, but I guess that is my lot in life these days.
Middle age milquetoast is such a bummer. I can feel myself giving up my ambitions, thinking I would rather just lay around watching tv then, you know, writing another book. I’m overthinking everything into paralysis. It’s kinda a dark time in my mental head I should maybe, I don’t know, get a change of pace or something. Except I just had one.
And I am happy to be home.
Though I suppose I should also acknowledge the difficult transition from hanging out with friends who you met via shared interests, back to hanging out with friends whom you met via shared circumstances. The former always makes one feel more understood and less alienated.
Had to go to Jane’s school yesterday to meet the teacher and find out who is in her class. I am convinced the school manipulates it so Jane is not in classes with any of her best friends, which sucks, but she did get a lot of friends and people she likes. But no Romy, Dakota, Alex, Teddy or Hattie wtf. The crazy thing is, though, none of them got each other either. Well actually I don’t know where Hattie went but Romy, Dakota, Alex, Teddy and Jane are all in separate classes. A conspiracy! Her teacher seems cool, though. She was born in Brazil. Got her teaching degree there.
But I gotta tell you, man — and longtime GMHHAY readers will remember this from two years ago — I am fucking terrified of public schools, I get massive anxiety even stepping foot in one. This year wasn’t as bad as last year, and last year wasn’t as bad as the year before, but it is still fucking bad. They were kinda disorganized this year for some reason — no one to tell us where the school supplies we purchased were, no means of getting the special badge we need to pick Jane up from school, no method of dealing with the fact that we have to pay for school lunch again this year (thanks Trump). Terrible signage. I mean, everyone just managed, it wasn’t that big of a deal. But it really fed into my anxiety. Anger, even.
It’s weird, too. I have mostly fond memories of school, I did very well in school, I was third in my class (owing to a scandal that resulted in a teacher knocking my grade down specifically to deprive me the top spot in favor of my ex girlfriend and our friend Tina, we were all supposed to be tied for first. That is a great story but not suitable for this family-friendly publication). My mom was Vice Principal at my school for my first three years, so I was definitely bullied as a result…
… yeah come to think of it I think my school anxiety comes from two things: some PTSD from the bullying and a giant, near-absolute rejection of all authority.
I don’t think my bullying was that bad, but, you know. That is probably the PTSD talking.
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We are listening to the new pressing of the Laika BBC Sessions. They are so good. Man I loved Laika so much. Plus they include two of my favorite Laika songs: “Bad Times” and “Looking for the Jackelope.” I am so glad I got to see them that one time at TT The Bears and I still treasure my Laika tour shirt, even if it is too small to wear now and the cool silver foil is a bit worn from twenty years of wear.
Maybe I’ll sell it to a Japanese boutique inside of an underground mall at the top of a luxury hotel or some shit.
Dealing with my truck this morning, had to get up early. It has been determined, after a discussion with the local car place, that it will pass a state inspection with its broken door handle. So I will get the inspection done, because I’m on a deadline there, and then I will find a place to fix the door. I am unclear if I should go to the Ford dealership — since the handle itself seems to be an insanely complex bit of engineering and manufacturing electronic kit — or to the body shop, to get the door and side panels replaced. I hope I don’t have to go to both. I am at a bit of a loss here.
But the Ford dealership is far away and the body shop is nearby so I suspect I will start with the body shop.
Had an awesome dream last night where Benedict Cumberbatch played a Glaswegian thug like Begbie from Trainspotting or that guy from Martin Amis’ London Fields, the guy who played darts. Anyway, he was a tour bus operator, in this town that was famed for a star field — like a patch of field that was really good for seeing stars. Maybe sorta like the Marfa Lights. It also had a megachurch (we are watching Righteous Gemstones). Benedict went to extreme lengths with the tour bus company to hide his specific bus every night so he got the same bus every day so he could customize it and love it because the bus was the only thing in his life that he truly loved. He was surly and mean on the tour, but he was passionate about it.
Eventually he got caught by the yard manager and had to return his bus to the pool and rotate like all the other drives and it emotionally broke him. He sat there crying in the starlight sitting in the field. You could hear the megachurch singing a hymn in the background.
Benedict is very good at acting as a tightly wound Glaswegian thug and he should probably take a role in London Fields.
Keith Talent, that was his name.
Reader I must confess to you that I put down Marx last night, I am not sure if I will ever get back to it. I should probably just skip ahead to the part people tell me is good but my god, it is so boring. I mean it is not uniquely boring, it is boring in that exact way that economics tracts are boring from that century: they say a bunch of if/then statements that aren’t true, they make a few half-assed observations about the way commerce works. All fine, but then they gotta try and give it a scientific sheen by adding a bunch of fucking math to it, giant castles of pseudoscience built on top of flimsy-ass if/then statements that are quite possibly not true.
Again, supposedly the good stuff comes later, and I knew what I was getting into. I was prepared to slog through hundreds of pages of tedium to get to the supposed important stuff. But I looked down and saw that after a month I was only 25% through the book and, reader, I wanted to cry.
People keep telling me there is no shame in putting down a book. It is good to hear, but I do not believe that down in my soul.
I have failed.
I am such a bad leftist.
Oh shit bad leftist is a good band name.
Anyway I started Game of Thrones because I am sort of re-obsessed at the moment but that was a momentary panic I may take a beat and read a few shorter books before digging into some dumb unfinished magnum opus. We shall see.
Jane had gymnastics yesterday, saw a bunch of friends, then to the school to see her other friends for the first time in a month. She was very happy and very excited. All amped up, wouldn’t go to sleep till like 10 PM. Two nights of not enough sleep she’s gonna be a pain today, and somehow we need to get her back on a school schedule waking up at 7AM. By next tuesday. Wish us luck.
I don’t have a playlist for you. It’ll probably be a couple days. When I’m listening to vinyl I don’t really work on the playlists. So you will get selections from my Youtube watch history. And this week’s big Youtube news is the return of Mr. Plinkett, who pilloried the Star Wars prequels about ten years in a series of videos that garnered millions of views and then disappeared into the ether. Well, you know. He is an alter ego of a guy that’s on Youtube all the time, but Mr. Plinkett’s special brand of criticism has been in short supply this decade. But now he is back. And it is depressing, but very true. A few major insights into the current state of Star Wars, including how much The Acolyte had in common with the prequels, and how Andor was, of course, too good for Star Wars. But there are some more nuanced insights that will surprise you. And way less scatological humor than Plinkett’s golden age.
Well you have yourself a good day. I will do my best. I give it 50-50.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.