Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1566
Imagining the current world economy trying to make a decent product, Jane's cherished sequin, For Those I Love, my new Bikini Kill shirt is the envy of the household.
Good morning good morning. Greetings from Chatham County, NC, USA woo woo man I love living in the country it is so sophisticated and interesting.
There is a new article about the new third Shaker at Sabbathday Village, but it is paywalled. I am sad. Down with corporate media.
ABC aka Disney cancelled Kimmel, or at least temporarily paused him, for the most milquetoast, middling jokes about Trump. To be clear, the Chairman of the FCC instigated this, so it is actually a 1st amendment complaint, and not just Disney folding to crybabies. It is folding to government crybabies. I do not know why I am still surprised every time a corporation or organization caves to Trump. Virtually all evidence shows that if you show the slightest bit of backbone, he will move on. It is very obvious Disney should have told this FCC chairman to pound sand. Also it would be hilarious if the FCC tried to revoke ABC’s broadcast license. Bring it on. But they did not do this. They caved, like so many other companies and people do. It really is something.
Many people have said this, but I too am stunned at the rapidity of capitulation in this country.
Really is getting to be time to boycott everything. Only real effective, moral move we have is to completely drop out of this economy, huh?
I am down with a boycott of Disney, I think. They can go fuck themselves. And I say this with a 2nd grade daughter. Challenge accepted. Plus Disney missed its moment with the Mandalorian movie. We only thought The Mandalorian was good because we were so parched. Andor put that myth to rest, The Mandalorian won’t cut it anymore, and there will be no more Andor so there is no point.
Star Wars Starfighter, though. I’m sure it will be oh-so-very good and moving and powerful and amazing what with, checks notes, the director of Night at the Museum and Ryan Gosling. And in any case it’s not due till 2027 and we’ll have hit armageddon by then.
But I guess buying used shit is allowed, right? Shit directly from bands? Barter?
Speaking of which, there is a Braun Audio 300 for sale on eBay, first in a year or so, only twelve hundred euros. Good price. I am tempted. Shipping will kill it, though, and it will 100% arrive busted because, fun fact, no one on eBay knows how to ship anything heavy unless that’s all they deal in. This seller only has three items. All vintage Braun audio, all gorgeous, all gonna break in shipping.
And I got a new Bikini Kill shirt, that is pretty exciting. All proceeds go to benefit World Central Kitchen. My whole family was jealous. Jane wants my Bikini Kill shirt, Emma wants my Bikini Kill shirt. I am the coolest person in the family today. It’s sold out, sadly. Can’t buy my family matching Bikini Kill shirts.
That was probably a mistake, in hindsight.
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We are listening to the new (well, May) album by For Those I Love, which is, I think, one of my favorite bands of all time I love this band so much. This album, Carving the Stone, is their second album. Their first was all about your best friend dying, it came out in 2021, I had lost a lot of friends in the previous year, it really struck a nerve. This one seems to be more of a love/hate letter to Dublin, the thrill and brain-death of living there, the terrors and joys. It is intense and moving and I am an absolute sucker for any music that re-works “Amazing Grace.” I only learned about this album two days ago, because I thought to myself “I wonder if For Those I Love ever made another album” and, reader, they did. This year. It is very exciting.
Longtime readers of GMHHAY will recall the major efforts in 2021 I underwent to obtain a copy of FTIL’s debut album on vinyl. It took me, like, six months had to order it from some weird-ass Irish record store I had never heard of that had a barely-functioning online presence. Eventually, though, it showed up. This one? I ordered it directly from the band. Nineteen Euros. Bob’s your uncle.
Also the main guy in FTIL is named Dave Balfe, which is also the name of the keyboard player of the Teardrop Explodes, who went on to sign the KLF, Blur, Jesus Jones, managed Strawberry Switchblade. Sold his label to EMI, Blur wrote “Country House” about him, he was a Labor MP for a while.
But this is a different Dave Balfe, though that would be awesome.
My god I just love this band so much. Music, man, it can still do it.
When I am really sad during a workday I get up from my computer, go lay face down on the massage table I keep in my office for existential crises, put my head in the amazing head-loop thing, drape my arms to my side, so my neck and shoulders are all without tension…
… And I listen to “For Those I Love.”
You know what I want? I want a thin electronic box, kinda the size of a cheap Canon printer you can buy at Walmart. It has a slot on the top for paper. You put it on top of your shredder. You drop paper in there, and it scans the paper right before you shred it, it uses OCR and AI to figure out what the document is, and it files it in the appropriate folder on your NAS. I have this giant pile of paper in my office, old bills and tax notices and stuff and…
Hahaha my god can you imagine if someone made this? I can picture the whole process, from the young founder’s epiphany of an idea, through her pitching to VCs, getting his first seed round, her stint in China working with OEMs to get the thing made, the A round, the shitty-ass marketing on TikTok and Instagram, the distribution deals with Walmart or Sharper Image or BestBuy (no win scenario, there).
I can picture every little nook and cranny of an opportunity to enshittify the product along the way, and how every single one of those opportunities would be exploited.
The gap between the solid, effective, durable and reliable product I can envision in my head, and any product that this culture, this society is capable of making and the gap is infinite. Every single version of this that the current planet would make — it doesn’t matter whether it was American, European, Chinese, Russian — every single version of it that is actually capable of being manufactured and marketed at this moment, by this planet, would be absolute garbage.
To be clear, there are absolutely zero engineering or technical challenges to make this product. Every single part of it is a known quantity. Humanity is, in theory, completely capable of making this product. Had I time, no kid, no multiple jobs, no crippling depression and too many other projects, I could totally make this myself.
But if our current economy made it, it would be garbage and end up in a landfill in the Ivory Coast within a year.
Jane had gymastics yesterday. She was getting frustrated about not being able to do a, get this shit, cartwheel on a balance beam? I mean, that is fucking insane who can do that why would anyone be able to do that. She came close, though. There were big pads on the left and the right of the balance beam, and on her last cart wheel, she did it all on the balance beam except her one hand juuuust missed and planted on the adjoining mat. But it was close enough. She was so happy. And I liked that. It wasn’t perfect, but it was borderline super-human for a seven-year-old and, thus, good enough for her. I wish she always had that level of non-perfection.
But I think maybe she just didn’t realize her hand missed.
One of her friends wears a sequin leotard to gymnastics. This is a whole drama: everyone wears gymnastics outfits except Jane. She goes in normal clothes. Heck yesterday she did her gymnastics in pants.
But yesterday her friends’ sequined leotard dropped a sequin and Jane grabbed it and saved it like a holy relic.
I think she might have slept with it.
Got a rawwwwwwk playlist for you. A rare one, only done nine ever. Been working on this one for ages and it was almost done and I just finished it up, kinda cheated, add a NIN song and Pigface song, neither quite rock enough for a rawwwwwk playlist, but I guess I am lowering my standards today.
Righty-O. Jolly good. Carry on.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.