Good morning good morning. I am so tired. Stayed up all night thinking about a new country, a country for refugees. It was inspiring and amazing and then I got sad we live in a world where such things don’t happen. More on that later maybe. But, you know. One of those nights where I have a good idea and manically start thinking about every angle of it and get no sleep.

While manically scribbling notes, I saw Emma text me saying she was still at it trying to get Olivia tickets. No luck.

It was a whole drama yesterday. Ticketmaster is so fucking useless. And it does not help that the presale was a credit card presale, so I am sure this was compounded by American Express’ general uselessness. We tried two different Amex cards, both failed. We would grab seats, and they would disappear. Then they would re-appear. Then new seats would appear. Then disappear. We would finally be able to to click on some, go through the whole purchase process and then an unknown error would occur. Over and over.

Part of it is Ticketmaster’s fault – their monopoly gives them no incentive to make a decent tech system. Ticketmaster has made me reset my password over a dozen times in the last year. Made me reset it yesterday, made me reset it again just now as I stupidly, pointlessly try this again.

Part of it is sheer incompetence - if you have capacity issues, you do not need to do all 20 pre-sales at the same fucking time.

And maybe don’t ask for a presale password when you have to have a specific credit card to buy a ticket? Because you don’t need a password you just need a credit card? And also maybe make it a little bit bigger than the fine print that the password is just the phone number on the back of the card? Also maybe make it work with all the phone numbers on the back of Amex cards since there is more than one? Maybe?

(Just tried again. Good seats to be had. You select them, try and purchase and get an unknown error.)

Is it because I am using a Delta Amex as some people suggest on Reddit? Probably not! Emma’s normie Amex doesn’t work either.

Is it because Ticketmaster hates me? Are they making everyone else reset their password a dozen times a year? Probably not! But noentheless, that is not the problem: Emma’s was logged in on her account and it didn’t work for her either.

Though at one point they inexplicably blocked our IP and network name, no reason, just told us to physically get up and move and try and buy the tickets from somewhere else for some reason. I assume this is because we tried to purchase tickets on two different computers with two different Ticketmaster logins, which is apparently some cardinal sin (Olivia Rodrigo fans don’t have roommates, I suppose).

And of course they don’t want that because if you set two computers side-by-side trying to buy tickets, you realize everything is a lie — your place in line is a lie, which tickets are available is a lie. I was 2,000 places in line ahead of Emma (on my… erm, third try) and she got through the line first. For 30 minutes, the site listed the floor as having tickets for her, not for me. Not that you can purchase them.

RAGE. The monopoly cannot be broken quickly enough.

All this fucking hassle so I can give them two thousand dollars for three tickets. Not even amazing seats.

Two thousand dollars.

As Emma said, Olivia obviously loves Robert Smith — bringing him out at Glastonbury, name-checking one of his songs in her new #1 single — but not so much that she takes a cue from the Cure and makes her show reasonably fucking priced. Seriously how much money does a 23 year-old girl need? I get people don’t buy records anymore, and you gotta make your money on touring, but I bet she is doing just fine.

And so I also have to admit part of this is Olivia’s fault — it is an insanely under-booked tour. The venues are too small, there are too few of them, too few nights. And I get some of this is economics and necessity, but you ‘dun estimated wrong, livvy.

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!

I am listening to the new Kacey Musgraves, It is… well, it’s a bit of an enigma. It’s a country record, so it continues her retreat from pop that began on Star-Crossed. No more disco romps like “High Horse.” It is… well, it does not exactly follow the rules of country albums, which have some rules just like hair metal albums: there needs to be a ballad, a stomper, a shit kicker, a tear-drops in my beer song, something a bit Mexican, something that echos Hank or Willie. But she just does away with that. Every song is about the same tempo. Every song is produced the same. It is a songwriter’s record. And she is writing some interesting songs, but the presentation is very samey.

The track with Miranda Lambert is fun though.

Taylor brought Miranda out at the 1989 tour show Emma and I saw in Greensboro. I assume she figured North Carolinians would like a country star.

Last night, Emma and I went to Cat’s Cradle and watched two shows, four bands. We saw Lael Neale and Cass McCombs in one room and Big Sis and Gelli Haha in the small room.

Lael Neale was first, big room. I like her record. She sounds like a lady doing Suicide/Spacemen 3 shit and it is great. Jane really likes her song “I am a River.” We have put her on many playlists here. It was her and a dude, they barely spoke at all, she seemed very shy.

Wikipedia says she is from Virginia. Wikipedia also says that the other person who made the album with her is Guy Blakeslee, formerly known as Entrance, which is very interesting to me, since I met that dude at a UK ATP and enjoyed his music very much back in the day. I am looking at this photo and… I mean, I guess it could be him. Maybe not. Anyway, Entrance are great.

Also I do not know how to pronounce “Lael” or “Neale.”

Next we went next door to the back room and saw Gelli’s opener Big Sis, the one band of the night I did not know before this. Emma wrote down some of the lyrics:

fuck off
fuck you
fuck your mom
I fucked your mom

Good shit. I enjoyed them. Wish I saw more. They were a hoot.

Then the reason we came out at all, Gelli Haha. I do not know how to pronounce “Gelli.” I thought it was pronounced with a hard G like “gelding” or “Gilmore” oh shit I am questioning everything now. Except she has a song called “Gelliverse” and she pronounced it with a soft G, so I guess it is Gelli like Gel.

Anyway she was a great time. She had acrobats and parachutes and trampolines and hula hoops and confetti and side boob and dancers and an awesome lady drummer and modular synths and large inflatable porpoises. Her songs are fun and catchy and she has a lot of energy and maybe is slightly manic and terrified? I will have to check the lyrics. I need to read them in their entirety.

She may have played her entire album in order. I am not sure. I have only listened to it once.

Then we went to see Cass McCombs back in the front room. I like Cass and listen to all his albums but often find him a little samey. But he was way better live, actually. This might be his whole problem — he is an awesome rock band live, loud and crunchy and big. But his albums sound like a dude making solo music? I don’t know. I am not educated enough in the ways of Cass McCombs, but he did play that “Bum Bum Bum” song I like, along with a bunch I didn’t know that were way better.

The show was sparsely attended: Gelli was sold out in the small room, Cass was maybe third full in the big room, which would roughly equate to a crowd of the same size. If they had switched the shows, I suspect Gelli coulda sold a few more tickets.

The whole Cass show reminded me of Twin Peaks and the roadhouse, where you can go see some awesome national touring band in a sparesely populated venue where everyone slowly sways. And once I had that picture in my head, the whole thing was pretty awesome.

These two shows, along with the three shows I saw last week — Afghan Whigs, LCD Soundsystem, and Hold Steady — were, in total, cheaper than a single ticket to Olivia Rodrigo.

And I paid scalper’s tax (to the ticket company, natch — their whole thing this last decade has been to take over the scalper market) for two of the tickets last week.

Olivia is great — we saw the Guts tour, it was a lovely time. But is an Olivia show better than five other shows? In better venues? Jesus.

Last night I had the humiliating experience of watching Emma scroll through a GMHHAY on her phone. Gave me about a minute of her time, she did, my own wife, while I was sitting right there. Saw her try and zoom in on a photo and you can’t, not sure what is up with that, Buttondown. So I am putting the live photos in here using the other mode, some “full screen” mode Buttondown offers. Looks terrible in the WYSIWYG editor but maybe they’ll look good for you. We will see.

Jane was good for the babysitter but miserable for us. She has gotten a pattern-matching habit in her head now of acting like a lunatic in the car on the way home from Taco Tuesday. It was exacerbated this week because Taco Tuesday was also Cinco De Mayo so the whole place was packed and the food was slow. Place was packed at 4:30. So weird. People are dying to go to Mexican Restaurants at 4:30 on Cinco de Mayo but not Taco Tuesday. Go figure.

Anyway she does not want to talk, she just berates us for talking about adult things, doesn’t join in, insists we talk about cats with financial problems, but she doesn’t want to talk about those either, just wants to say the words. Becomes completely incapable of having a conversation it is very weird. I would like to find a way to trigger something else in her brain, but so far no luck. Very exhausting.

It seems that Gelli’s videos are a lot like her shows, so, here: Enjoy this Gelli Haha video:

Maybe tomorrow I will tell you about my new country. Or maybe tomorrow I will not write at all since I have it off! We will see!