Morning morning what it is. Hello howdy. Just back from grocery store. Did my Yiddish Duolingo in the parking lot. I think this might be my daily time. But my god that Duolingo bird is fucking rude, man. The icon gets more angry looking throughout the day and they push like 20 notifications a day someone really needs to reign that company in. Also the Yiddish lessons are way less… “ethno” than the Spanish ones. Like there are no friendly cartoon characters telling you about the culture, nothing about the history. It’s no frills. Which has pros and cons I suppose, given its history.

BUT right before that, I was reading my Google Alerts and one of them had a little Hebrew in it — just one word — and I managed to translate it! A first! Of course, I lucked out that it is a word that is the same in Hebrew, English and Yiddish, but still. Progress!

They played Coldplay’s “Trouble” in the store this morning. Man that fist album had some pretty songs on it. Suzy and I were supposed to go to that show at Avalon, it got cancelled or postponed or something very sad. Didn’t get to see them until a secret show at the Paradise on the second album. But they were still good then. I mean. God. I am writing about Coldplay god help me. The thing is, they’re not terrible. Like I admire the sonic work they did with Eno on several of their albums, and every album has one decent song. They’re sorta like U2 in that regard, but without the politics, and, well, U2 already exists. But also that recent video with Dick Van Dyke? Heartbreaking. Beautiful. One of the great works of the 21st century so far. And I am not ashamed to say so.

Couple people asked me what I meant when I said “it’s all Tik Tok now isn’t it” for new music discovery and I suppose I should clarify a few points:

Number one: While I do have a Tik Tok handle, I have only ever posted two videos and I have never once, in my whole life, “browsed my feed” or whatever the kids like it. So I am sort of intuiting this whole thing in the manner astronomers and physicists intuit dark matter and non-Plutonian Trans Neptunian Objects like Eris.

Number two: I should clarify: I didn’t mean all music discovery is on TikTok now. Like I do not use TikTok to discover music and you, my genX friend, probably don’t eithert. I meant every artist that gains a following these days probably did it on TikTok. All those kids at Slowdive shows? TikTok. That sort of thing.

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To reassure you I am fierce and complicated and underground still, I am not in fact currently listening to Coldplay, I am listening to sunn O))), which is unfortunately and incorrectly pronounced by the band as “Sun” when obviously it should be “sun oh.” Some namers can’t be allowed to determine the pronunciation of the name I am looking at you Steve Wilhite. It is obviously pronounced gif with a hard G. Seen sun O))) eh, three times? Four? It is always awesome. Dragged Emma once. Obviously not her jam, but she was not unimpressed. Who doesn’t love the ground shaking underneath them. Ladies find a speaker to sit on and you’re in for a very special sun O))) show.

You guys hear about the Lego Star Wars theft scandal at Bricks and Minifigs? My god what a shitshow all around. Story really has everything: old people being robbed, corrupt companies, good old boy religious cultist corrupt cops, overly-incautious Youtube influencers who maybe should learn a bit more law? Everyone is somewhat to blame except for the poor old man at the heart of this whole scandal. It’s a mess. Guy’s gonna get ripped off of $100/200/300 thousand dollars of Lego (number varies based on whatever argument anyone is trying to make). The video that brought this whole scandal to light is well over an hour long and hilarious but also legally dubious AF. Best bet is to watch this legal analysis by a legal Youtuber. Story is still unfolding daily right now. Lotta law suits, criminal cases, counter suits, (civil) RICO charges, just bonkers all the way round. AMERICAN TWILIGHT FUN TIMES.

Controversial thought I had the other day: Disney did all right with Star Wars, no matter what people say. They did not do great but they did decently. Could have been a lot worse. Obviously could have been better, but, you know, almost every film, on its own, is at least a fun time. They made one of the greatest television shows of all time, they made two pretty good, albeit contradicting, films. They made a lot of half-decent tv content and a couple fun lightweight films. Imagine if the whole thing fell into the hands of Zack Snyder instead, jesus.

Controversial thought number two: We got this whole screen time thing backwards. Kids up until about 12 should be able to have whatever (monitored, locked down) screen time they want, then we should ban large chunks the internet from humans over 12 forever and then treat them like cigarettes. Screen time is not rotting my daughter’s brain but my god is it rotting yours and mine. We got it backwards.

Jane and I got in an argument about swishing last night. She has this antimicrobial mouthwash I gotta get her to do every night in preparation for her procedures next week. She fuckin hates it. It doesn’t even taste that bad it just doesn’t taste good. And, like, this whole injury, this whole massive damage to her front teeth, she is mostly fine with all of it she isn’t even scared of her upcomign dentist visits. But last night she was crying about how much she hates this injury and wishes it doesn’t happen solely because of this mouthwash. It is bonkers. And I had an endless, rough, cram-packed-with-meetings-from-both-my-jobs day along with an HVAC repair guy (oh shit did I turn the HVAC off over there? I need to go double-check) And I just… I just needed a bit of coopoeration here.

We made up pretty quickly, were snuggling in bed, talked about how successful and fun daddy week was, and how we only got in two arguments. But they were both about this dumb mouthwash. And she said she was sad because the two arguments are overshadowing a whole fun daddy week. So, yeah. I feel awesome. Woo.

Emma comes home this afternoon. I kinda wish we had one more daddy bedtime so we could end on a high note. But she’s too excited to see mommy.

Alas. I whiffed it in the end.

Goth playlist for you this morning. Because it’s been a while. Because I am a goth at heart. I mean, you know. My kind of goth. Not synthy goth or rave goth or punk goth well maybe a little punk goth but not like the Cramps even though they are awesome not fitness goth not elder goth just GenX goth? Grunge Goth. yeah maybe Grunge Goth.