Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1623
RIP Mani, ICE follow-up, Ashes and Diamonds, markets crashing? An eBay hunt for replacement memories, goth ETFs, MBV show, Arcade Fire and Sandman guilty consumption
Good morning good morning. Howdy ho. Just got a message from ClassDojo, yo. Jane received a 3 on “Exit Ticket Representing Numbers in Math grade 2” whatever that means. New fangled math. Three is the best grade, though. I know that.
Just back from dropping Jane off. While we waited in the car, Jane did some drawing, drew some trees, a little forest. Then she clicked out of the drawing app, back to CarPlay, and it defaults to my phone favorite screen whenever you switch back to CarPlay.
“Why do you still have your mom in your phone favorites,” she asked, helpfully pointing out: “she’s dead.”
“I know. But I miss her and it makes me sad to remove her name.”
“Why.”
“I don’t know. You know, some people, when a family member dies, they leave their bedroom or office exactly like it was.”
“So if I died, you would leave my bedroom the same?”
“Well I don’t know if I would, but some people would.”
“Well I think that is nice because then if you had another kid, they would have my stuff.”
“Well. They might want their own stuff, then you need two rooms. But a phone number in a phone is different. It doesn’t cost me anything to leave my mommy’s name in my phone, and it makes me think of her.”
I’m not Marc Andreessen here, I’m not gonna make up what my kid said. She did not say: “Okay I won’t delete your name from my phone when you die.”
But you know she was thinking it.
It is raining. Causes chaos to the student drop-off, the rain. This year, there is a car amongst us five-or-so early arrivers whose kid still needs help getting out of the car. I don’t know what’s up with this, Jane was small for a kindergartener, my truck is way bigger than their little car, and by November Jane could get out of the car in November. Maybe they are special needs. Anyway, parents are not allowed to get out of their cars in the morning, so you gotta wait for one of the parent volunteer parking coordinators to help your kid out of the car. Only they didn’t come. Because rain. So the entire line, hundred or so cars, just can’t move until this volunteer comes. They never came. Parent eventually broke the rules and helped their kid out of the car. What else you gonna do.
Drove off and my shuffle played Cocteau Twins’ “Love’ Easy Tears,” the first Cocteau Twins song I ever heard. I am routinely annoyed about this tendency to retro-assign Cocteau Twins to the shoegaze genre but, man, yeah, the guitar on that track is so Slowdive. Or vice versa. They really were hella shoegaze.
Then an Arcade Fire album track. Holy shit so good they were so good when they were good. Real sad about Arcade Fire. The vibe shift in my brain that has taken place due to Win’s deplorable behavior with the ladies. Makes me sad, makes me feel guilty when they emotionally move me. Apparently Régine finally left Will, quiet press release a few weeks ago, anyone else catch that? Part of me is like “cool some combination of these people can make amazing, cathartic music again and I can listen guilt-free” but it’s not gonna happen. Win was the source of that, as much as it pains me to say. Will’s stuff is great but it isn’t endowed with the same heart-piercing insight. I would listen the hell out of a Régine solo album but I don’t think it’s gonna move me in the same way. Then again, neither do the Arcade Fire anymore, that last album was mostly a dud. The magic is gone either way, was it the revelations or was it the era or maybe you just can’t fly that close to the sun for that long. But damn, when they were on, they were on.
Hrm Régine and Will together maybe oh shit that would be funny do an album with your ex’s brother.
Reminded me of my current Sandman viewing. I am watching season two, alone. It is fucked up. I loved the show, and the comic of course was a major part of my youth. And watching it, now, in the cold knowledge of all of Neil’s atrocities is… intense. The show is still really good. Maybe not quite as good as season one but solid. So it’s this insane emotional rollercoaster where I get wrapped up in and moved, then I feel icky about myself, and then I look at it through new eyes and the whole thing seems utterly absurd and overwrought and then suddenly I’m pulled back in again and the whole thing messes me up.
There’s some new author whom everyone is raving about who wrote a novel about a single day, spent thirty years on it or something. Maybe I will write a whole book about a single school drop-off.
One of the chief characteristics of GMHHAY is we do not dwell too long on a single topic, so we’re moving on from ICE today but I did have a few follow-ups.
First, our boy is in Georgia, his wife is going to visit today, or going to try. I scanned some application forms for them yesterday, made a PDF of them, god, even the forms are terrifying. Fingers crossed he is out soon, but even so – what the fuck. You or I just get… arrested… they’re not going to bus us out of state. It’s all so insane.
Second, thank you to everyone for your comments on the entry, and my heart goes out to the many, many of you who have written in — from Portland, LA, Alaska, elsewhere — who have been dealing with the same thing. It is intense.
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 to Ashes and Diamonds today, the new band from Daniel Ash of Love and Rockets, Bauhaus and Tones On Tail. And the Bubblemen. And Poptone I guess. Also features: Bruce Smith (drummer for the The Pop Group/ Slits/PiL/African Head Charge) and Sade’s bassist Paul Denman. It sounds like… Um… mid-period Love and Rockets? A bit like the self-titled album? A bit more of Daniel’s solo swagger. I like it a lot more than I was expecting. I might buy the vinyl. I am into this.
My Bloody Valentine played their first show in eight years the other day. It seems like it went well. Played a song they’ve never played before. No new songs. I was kinda indifferent to the whole idea before the show actually happened but after reading about it and seeing video I am actually really into it. Suddenly I am more into the idea of seeing My Bloody Valentine again than I was on the original reunion tour. I was bitter about that tour because up until then, for a good twenty years, I had seen “the last My Bloody Valentine show ever.” With Buffalo Tom. The Palace. LA. 1992. It was awesome. But now? Now I am very excited to see them again. In a club. I would even go to the Ritz for it ha ha (Raleigh equivalent of a Terminal 5 burn I swear it was funny honest).
Semi-related, last music item for today, RIP Mani, the legendary bassist of the Stone Roses, Primal Scream and the excelently named bassist supergroup Freebass. A friend pointed out yesterday that “Many was a guy you never heard a bad word about.” Man was the bassist in Primal Scream’s most fertile era, XTRMNTR is a masterpiece. To say nothing of The Stone Roses. I was lucky enough to see him play in both. Never got to see Freebass, though. A true legend.
Mani, if you were in my phone I would never take your number out.
Are the markets crashing? My retirement stonks are down.. mm… 6% ish off of their peaks. Bitcoin down 15% plus, gold down. Nvidia crushed earnings but the stock declined anyway. My wife sent me a viral video of AOC talking about how AI investment was propping up the whole economy and, like, oh shit, if AOC and the kids are talking about it we might be nearing the end here. Everyone was all like “Nvidia crushed earnings looks like the AI bubble doomsayers are wrong” but it doesn’t seem like anyone is buying that?
I wish there was an easier way to short all this, something safe I could just do myself in my Schwab account rather than, you know, hiring a financial advisor or getting into some bullshit. Some sort of “this all sucks” ETF. I guess maybe VIX but that is volatility. I want an existential ETF. A Gen-X cynicism ETF. A goth ETF. Holy shit that should be someone’s calling. Goth ETF. Heavy on Halloween chains, funeral companies, Revlon, synth companies, RIT dye and Sanrio.
Man this album is really growing on me. More original than I was giving it credit for at first.
When I was packing up my mom’s stuff, I packed up this rando gold-covered ceramic set of, like, little trays and stuff. One of them broke in shipping — I swear not everything broke in shipping. Only, like, three things out of hundreds. But One of the six or so pieces in this set broke. And, like, this set was never very important to me or anything. I think it might have been one of my grandparents? I don’t even really know its provenence. When we were sorting the stuff, Val and I were both looking at this set and another set of porcelin stuff that was just sitting around as kids. Like we have vague memories of it but nothing profound. And we just sort of each took a set, no major emotions at that moment.
Anyway, I put it on the family shelves in the library, but the one broken piece really bugged me. So I set out, like, in May, to get the single piece replaced on eBay. Looked on the bottom of the set, saw it was all made by “Wheeling Decorating” looked on eBay, a TON of Wheeling Decorating stuff, including many of the pieces I have, all for like $10-15 a piece. So, a totally doable endeavor. Set myself an eBay alert.
Two things here:
First it has struck me that I can completely replace the physical totem of a memory with a carbon copy, and my emotions will effortlessly attach themself to the replacement. I did this with the one plate (out of 40 or so) in the Family China set that broke. That was maybe a dress rehearsal, because after all, the other 39 pieces were original and intact. But I realized with this Wheeling Decorating piece that I can do it to a unique piece. I mean, it’s still part of a set, but it’s the only piece in the set like itself. But my nostalgia-emotion-attachment is fine with it. The replacement will serve my psyche’s needs as well as the original.
Not sure what to make of that. Calls into question my packrat-ism as a whole. Best set that aside. What am I if not an organized packrat.
Second, it turns out that this specific piece, this one piece of Wheeling Decorating gold porcelain, it turns out it’s really rare. Dozens, nay, hundreds of other Wheeling Decorating pieces — including every single other one I have — have shown up on eBay. But not this one. Not in six months.
Weird.
(I will never learn how to spell “porcelain.”)
Jane had Girl Scouts last night so I did not see too much of her after dinner. At dinner she was a complete lunatic, very manic. A friend bought her a magic eight ball for her birthday and a month later she is still obsessed with the thing, it really is something. Her two favorite toys right now seem to be a set of vintage Lincoln Logs at her gymnastics gym and a magic eight ball. Old school. Today was supposed to be the field trip, as you will recall from yesterday. She does not seem to miss it at all.
Dodged a bullet there.
Justa mix today. All new stuff. So much good new stuff right now. Love this new protest song from Alan Sparhawk and fellow Duluth musician Paul Metsa. Love all this new Twilight Sad even if it is making me sad about Annie. And I have not talked about it yet but can we talk about how great the new Lily Allen is? What an amazing snapshot of a marriage disintegrating, of humanity, of insecurity, of aging. My god. So good. I find myself listening to it over and over.
Who the fuck is Madeleine?
Righty-o. I have today off so headed off to do recycling and Walmart, exciting Walmart insights Monday. Oh a friend-of-a-friend is now in some innovation group at Walmart and I am waging a lowkey PR offensive to get him to sign up for GMHHAY. Maybe I can get a DJ shift of Walmart radio out of it. My god my god.
Can dreams come true under Fascism?
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.