Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1588
No Kings rally in Pittsboro, Legendary Pink Dots at Cat's Cradle
Good morning, hello, hi howdy. Happy Monday? Ish? Maybe. Jane was not feeling it this morning. Didn’t want to wake up. I had to go up and get her. She said “I hate Mondays.”
I said “Like Garfield.”
We both laughed.
Excellent weekend, though. Action packed. Even though I slept ten hours a night. Best of both worlds. Boy I wish I could have weekend like that every weekend.
Update from an issue last week: Marc Benioff has apologized for saying the National Guard should invade SF. He has not apologized for, you know, offering out of the blue to help ICE recruit goons. So, do with that what you will.
Went to the No Kings protest in Pittsboro on Saturday. Excellent time. This year Emma and I have gone to protests in Boston, Fairbanks and Pittsboro and Boston was fun, but the small town ones are the best. Small towns are so fun. And purple and red towns are great places to have a rally. Liberal people see they’re not alone, everyone feels so much better, cheers people right up, gives them hope that something can happen, that they’re not alone.
The largest single-day protest in our lifetimes. Well, assuming you are my age or younger. Wikipedia says that Earth Day 1970 brought 20 million people out but it feels very thinly sourced and I am dubious. In any case, well done everyone. The largest single-day protest in our lifetimes (said again for emphasis). That is really something. Five of the ten largest protests in this history of America have been against Donald Trump. The right wing does not have a single successful large protest in the top ten. Those Tea Party protests that the mainstream media stuffed down our throats were one twentieth the size of yesterday’s rallies. They are nothing.
People say the protests don’t do anything, but I disagee. I’m a marketing guy, or was, much to my embarrassment and chagrin. And I view them through the message they send people. The protests are telling people who are on the fence — who just vote the way they think “everyone else” does, don’t really think about it all that much — that it’s okay to not like this orange turd. That there are other people who don’t like him. That it can be cool and socially acceptable to not like him. That is huge. That is how you change the margin of votes.
Seven million people, more than 2% of the population of the United States. That is crazy.
And here’s to the next one being even bigger.
Our amazing, wonderful, local news outlet got a picture of us at the rally and posted it on their insta, so that is fun:
Note the Union of Concerned Scientists shirt. A guy at the Bojangles complimented me on it. That was nice.
Love Jane down in the corner playing with the bubble machine.
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We are listening now to the new Skullcrusher I love this band so much I am very excited about this new album, And Your Song is Like a Circle. It just started, though, I’m on track one. Just finished up the new Peel Dream Magazine album, Taurus. It was nice. I liked it. Didn’t star any tracks yet, though. Will need to re-listen. Lotta new stuff this week, lot to get through.
Last night we went and saw the Legendary Pink Dots in the back room at Cat’s Cradle. I have not seen the Legendary Pink Dots in, oh, twenty years? Maybe more. I did not particularly enjoy the show twenty-ish years ago, so I skipped a few tours. They passed through Chapel Hill a couple years ago and for these reasons and laziness, I skipped them, but as soon as I did, I felt profound regret. And now, in this era of seeing all my old favorites one more time as they enter their seventies, I figured this might be one of my last chances, so off I went.
The crowd was about seventy-five people. There was a ratio of about 6:1 (if I am being generous) male-to-female. There were exactly six people not wearing black. About half the crowd was my age, a few people noticeably older, and a fair number of “young” people, i.e. 30’s? No kids, I don’t think. Not a single kid.
Continued my t-shirt run and the sound guy complimented me on my Bardo Pond shirt and we had a good talk about them and Flying Saucer Attack and this is now the second time a traveling merch person complimented me on a band t-shirt at Cat’s Cradle, after Mary Timony’s merch woman complimented me on my Bedhead shirt. I’m huge with the merch people.
Also, two t-shirt compliments in a weekend I mean, who could it not be the best weekend.
Anyway, the Pink Dots were great! Much better than I remember from twenty years ago. Not as great as the lineup from the early 90’s where I saw them so many times, in Boston, in Montreal, in New York at the Limelight. But this was a solid lineup and I enjoyed the harder, more synth-driven sound, which sounds weird because that sounds a little cliche’d, like Gary Numan’s industrial stuff or something, but it still very much maintained that inherent weirdness that make up the Legendary Pink Dots.
Someone told me back in the 90’s that Edward had a great memory of people, so I tested it out in 2000 or so. Back in the 90’s we met several times, I took him to Taco Bell once, and we’d hang out more or less each time he passed through town. When I saw him in, mmm, gonna say 2000 or so, he did indeed remember me. But I did not test this theory out last night, because a) I did not recognize him before the show, and b) I had to leave during the encore because I am a parent and I had to get up at 6:30 in the morning.
They played exactly one old song, from The Golden Age, and the rest was new. The thing about the Pink Dots is they do not really have any “hits” per se, and across their something like seventy-five albums. I mean I guess “Just a Lifetime?” But it only has a million streams on Spotify not, like, a hit hit. And they had, like, 20 albums when I got into them in 1990 or something. So, like, your favorite Pink Dots songs are just that – yours, not really hits, not really any one else’s favorites. So you can’t really expect them to play your favorites. I mean, I could write a setlist of 10-15 of my favorite Pink Dots songs and that show would rule to me but it would be as unkown and opaque to every other Pink Dots fan as last night’s show.
An excellent night out a good time was had by all and I made it to bed more or less on time.
Oh and good news. I can clap now. It hurts, but the surgery has healed enough that I can actually do it. That is nice.
I also did a ton of satisfying gardening and studio and general home improvement projects but I think we will save all that till tomorrow’s issue, as this one already grows long.
Jane was great this weekend! Was great at the protest, loved the call-and-response, loved shouting “No Kings!” over and over. There was a bubble machine, so she was in heaven. Eventually got a little too hot so we had to go find shade under this beautiful old tree that was probably over a hundred years old. She got lots of playground time this weekend, spent five hours at the playground Sunday with multiple waves of friends. I can see why she was so pooped this morning. Cranky AF and whiny this morning, but didn’t throw a fit, didn’t resist. Just moped and whined.
I will take it.
Justa mix for you this morning, mostly new stuff. Except for the Pink Dots’ non-”hit”. And the old Taylor song that Diane Warren co-wrote that is better than anything on TLOAS and didn’t even make the cut on 1989. I am very very into this Automatic band and their new album. New Doves already which is kind of exciting. Still not as catchy as the best Doves but better than the last album, I think, or at least shows promise. Enjoying the new Beths, love this Milly Nilson album, still listening to the new Jens Leckmen which just keeps giving great little stories it is a lyrical gem, that record.
Talk tomorrow have a lovely Monday.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.