Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1612
Dreams, Harry Potter rambling, Cindy Lee, Twisted Metal, looking up health shit on the internet, parental ups and downs
(Originally mis-numbered as 1601)
Good morning good morning. I have just been informed that issue #1600 of GMHHAY aligned with issue number #1600 of Wordle. This will continue for the next two days and then, presumably, will never happen again. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Update: I kept saying Scalia in yesterday’s edition, as reader Mark pointed out. I meant Alito. Mark comments that Scalia loomed so large over the court we still think of him as on it, and that is true. And wise. And depressing.
Also I would just like to say that while Emma and I were watching politics the other night and Kornacki was going on about how maybe don’t lay off all of Northern Virginia if you want the state to vote for you, and Emma said “do you know what percentage of the nation’s entire GDP is government spending” and I guessed a figure and I was within one percent. Cmon man. That is impressive. I deserve a cookie.
Further update: On Sunday we went to bruch with Nick and Meghan and Henry, as I mentioned, and my breakfast burrito took 45+ minites to arrive, as I mentioned, and the server was so hilarious we didn’t even mind, as I mentioned. But also she said “this is free, obviously,” about the burrito. But I had already paid. At the counter when ordering. Well, I want to update you that the charge hit my card yesterday and the burrito was, in fact, free. So that is awesome.
Man it is great when a single person on this planet actually has it together.
Aww fuck two meetings today. On a Thursday. Dammit. Oh man. And a vaccine. Gah.
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We are listening to Cindy Lee this morning, her album Cat ‘o Nine Tails, recently reissued on the W.25th label, no idea. It is her 2020 album, the album before her masterful breakout Jubilee Street. It is different but I still like it. Got four of her albums now, still need Malenkost and Act of Tenderness, but those reissues went out before I got into her. One day, one day.
Man I had the best dream last night. I took over some sort of new media/design non-profit, I think it was called the Institute for Communication Arts, no affiliation with the (former?) esteemed magazine. They had an awesome space and cool programs and I was gonna remodel the space and start so many interesting programs and it was all very exciting. Just brimming with potential. The space was above the Back Bay train station in Boston and was reminiscent of our old Tumblr offices, except totally different. There was an events space and library and workshop and classrooms and it was just so neat and I was so excited to have a new job and I was just bursting with ideas and you were there and you were there and you were there and…
On the way back from dropping Jane off at school today I was thinking about Harry Potter and how we all shoulda seen it coming with Jo when she said that in hindsight she shoulda gotten Harry and Hermione together. Then I was thinking about how absolutely dumb the plot of Cursed Child was and how at the time, when we saw one of the first performances of it in London, I really tried to convince myself it was good even though it’s plot was a dumb-ass time travel plot relying on a Time Turner, which even she had previously said you couldn’t really rely on for plots because it removed the stakes of things but then she went and did it anyway and also the merch was so so chintzy and cheap. Also I can’t remember anymore who Harry ended up with I am pretty sure him and Cho ended things but I no longer remember or care who she just stuck him with to wrap things up. I wonder what sales figures are like for Harry these days they gotta be down, right? I only saw, like, three Harry Potter costumes this halloween and they were all on young adults, maybe older teens. No little kids not one. I wonder if Jo thinks things will get better with this utterly ill-advised Warner Bros reboot. Man I used to want a gritty, TV reboot of Harry Potter but now it seems like the dumbest idea in the world.
It is so weird how people who write characters like Dolores Umbridge as cautionary tales turn into Dolores Umbridge. It is so weird how people who go around doing lectures about the Antichrist turn into the Antichrist. The world is a weird place, man.
When I was in Oregon a couple weeks ago we were in the car and my aunt (I think) said something like “I read somewhere that you should sleep with your socks on, it’s healthier.” Or maybe she said it more confidently like “Sleep with your socks on, it’s healthier.” Don’t remember the exact verbiage here that’s not the point. But of course when she said it it just sorta went in one ear and out the other because what is a health fact these days, health facts are basically unknowable these days what was I gonna do? Remember that and go Google it? Ask Gemini? Chat GPT? Lol yeah right. And it got me thinking how is Fred, the exact same person, had told me that fact in 1988 or 1998 and how different my response would be. Partly cuz I’m older, maybe, but mainly because our information environment has totally changed. In 1988 I probably would have just believed her, taken it as fact, slept with my socks on for the rest of my days, or until I got in some argument with a girlfriend in the late 90’s, where we would have used Google to settle the argument and both agreed with whatever thing we found on Google.
Now? Good luck, man. No way of ever knowing. What am I gonna do? Go read research? Bug my friend Ryan to give me her JSTOR login so I could get to the closest thing we have to truth, locked away behind paywalls and passwords so that only kids paying for college (and, somehow, Ryan, was never clear on that) can learn anything?
What a frucked system.
“Frucked” was a typo but you know what? Might adopt it.
Emma and I are watching “Twisted Metal” on Peacock, a second season if you can believe it. It is simultaneously very funny and so, so dumb and perhaps one of the worst shows I have ever seen but also I keep watching it and I, for one, played the game a ton in, mmm, gonna say 1994 or whatever on the PS1, not that I remember anything. But Emma did not play the game back in the day, and she is also enjoying this oh-so-dumb show. And I mean it is funny but not that funny and I am absolutely stumped why we keep watching it. I am stumped how I keep being disappointed that the characters are not “realistic” and don’t make “realistic choices” even when the entire plot conceit and the characters are idiotic, based on a video game with a burning clown in it for god’s sake. Not like a burned-at-the-stake clown mind you, a clown who sets his own head on fire, routinely, for dramatic effect. But it is just so unrealistic he whined. I am at a complete loss. I am unable to analyze this show with any clear headedness and it is a failing in my media criticism skills and I am very disappointed with myself.
Jane was a terror last night, wouldn’t shower, total resistance, Emma was feeling low because of a vaccine and i had to shower with Jane and also she came home with a mysterious necklace and she wouldn’t tell us where she got it. She said she did not steal it and she did not find it. Wouldn’t talk about it at all. Tried again this morning in the car and I got a few minor things out of her: yesterday was out of order. She does not like EL (one of her lesson segments). She had a bad day. She does not know if her teacher would know about the necklace. That was it. She is so good at stonewalling. I did ask her if she would tell me if I gave her a reward this evening, and she gave an opening and said “what reward” but I legit couldn’t think of anything. So, you know. Frucked that up.
We did have a great time doing Daddy School last night, after the tantrums, stonewalling and unwilling-at-first-but-eventually-had-fun shower. She pulled out her wooden states map puzzle and pulled out each state and I told her a story of me visiting the state. And some of them of HER visiting! She has been to fourteen states. She was surprised. I was surprised. Was a super good time. Got me thinking about old rock and roll tours and ex girlfriends and nostalgia.
Which, you know, now that I am not the CEO of a nostalgia company, I really don’t do that often.
W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe. Volume 97. All new jams. One second short of an even hour. I tried, I tried. I am into this new Baxter Dury. Every single song on this Molly Nilsson album is awesome. Love this new Automatic, new Antlers. Man lotta good new music right at the moment.
Talk to you cool cats manana.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.