Good morning good morning. Very scattered. Slept well, but had nightmares. I was in the throes of a revolving nightmare with three different scenss of domestic horror — one involving a cat I was not properly caring for, one involving really unpleasant, mean arguments with my wife, one envolving urban loneliness. All banal but all horrific, just super duper unpleasant…

…and then Jane came into the room and jumped on me and hugged me and oh my god that swift transformation from domestic horror to domestic bliss was disorienting and grand. I’m like Keaunu in The Matrix but with hugs. Woah.

Thank you Jane for saving me. I mean that in the small and big senses.

Update: That Depeche Mode pic was AI. We got in touch with Martin to confirm. I had a hunch. If I am being honest, they looked too young. AI is the worst. Just make it end. Make it end.

Trying to make sense of the Colorado vote last night. GMHHAY sources in Colorado tell me it is mostly good. The firebrand young socialist lady beat out the 15-term incumbent that sounds pretty great. I am told we are happy about the gubernatorial primary. And I mean, my god. Someone came within ten points of Hickenlooper in a primary. Even I can tell that is not very good news for the old-school establishment side of the Democratic party.

…a part of the party I was once one of? Not even that long ago! Read the writing on the wall, people. Jesus H. The times they are a changing. FOUR JUSTICES JUST VOTED TO OVERTURN AN AMENDMENT. The interplay between the arguments in these new court rulings are so absurd. John Roberts actually had the gall to say that the constitution was a living document and you could change it to deal with events the founders didn’t foresee. He did this not to, you know, deal with automatic weapons are PACs, but to be a racist. I love reading Supreme Court decisions but I suspect if I were to read the majority opinions in these last six or so decisions I would literally lose my mind from the immanent critique absolute bullshit. Masks are off, the whole thing is clearly a farce. I mean, it has been for ages but they aren’t even pretending anymore.

Was stressing all bedtime because I got asked for a quote for an article and I have to do it because we are bothering, finally, to do a modicum of PR for this company after, oh, six years. And I am just… man it is very hard for me to do this stuff. At Barbarian I could get away with the quotes being quirky and funny — we were a creative shop after all. But that sort of thing is mostly frowned upon on AdTech. The whole is wound up so tight that in the words of Ferris Bueller, if you stuck a piece of coal up there in a week you’d have a diamond. It would be so each to go and be the “bad boy of adtech” giving obnoxious quotes and calling everyone out. But I have no interest who wants to live that life. But also obnoxious quotes get attention. But also they give you attention in a bad way like John Malone with the sign on him in that super racist scene in Die Hard II. You don’t want that. But also I kinda need to live with myself and I am not capable of giving banal quotes unless they are about, like, gardening or flooring.

But eventually I came up with a good one and made my piece with being just slightly bomb-throwing and obnoxious. Just sent it off to the PR dude. Feel pretty good about it.

At the same time, in bed, while coming up with adtech quotes and thinking about spray foam pricing and Bond themes, trying to stave off the dread of the arrival of fascism, I found this moment. A moment of clarity that felt like a legitimate way to allow myself to be happy in this era. That didn’t feel like it was raitonalization for ignoring everything. That felt true and real. And it was so great. All of the sudden, for a single moment, I felt like it wasn’t my personal fault that the country had fallen into fascism and it wasn’t my personal responsibility to bring it out of it. IT WAS THE BEST.

But I lost it. It is gone. Alas.

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!

Right this second I am listening to a song from the upcoming new Mountain Goats album. The song is called “Charlie Sheen Reaches out to the Feds,” which is a solid title. It is a fast song, a tempo uncommon for the Mountain Goats. It has a catchy chorus. Mountain Goats have, I believe, left Merge records and are on their own, this album seems to be self-released. Dare I say he is putting some effort into making catchy music now that he’s gotta pay for it? No, I suspect that is incorrect. I suspect it’s a coincidence. John Darnielle is an artist, man. Gotta respect that guy. And this is not Gen-X sarcasm. You really do gotta respect that guy.

I own 15 Mountain Goats albums on vinyl and I am not even close to owning half his albums. That guy is prolific. I am jealous. Says the guy who has written tens of million words of a living journal.

There is a list on Wikipedia of the longest diaries in the world and were it accurate I would rank somewhere around 5th longest ever, but I suspect that whole list is BS.

Is Simon LeBon the only man to ever sing a Bond theme? This has been bugging me for two days and I keep forgetting to check. Chris Cornell. Sam Smith, whomever he is.

Oh god I am so dumb. A-Ha, Living Daylights. Also Tom Jones for Thunderball but I can be forgiven for that one. I have seen four bond themes live. I wonder how often Billie Eilish sings her Bond theme on tours. How many artists are out there, right now, performing Bond themes? Duran Duran still does theirs, I think. Garbage hasn’t done theirs since 2022.

Also what is up with this new Lana Del Rey Bond theme? People all making Bond themes without Bond films now what the heck.

Olivia Rodrigo released five LEGO sets this week, after bringing back the Lilith Fair last week and I swear to fucking god that girl is going to bankrupt this family. We thought Taylor was a great merchandiser but, man, Olivia puts her to shame. I wonder how much my Sour candy hearts from album one are worth now. Did you know that her Stanley mug collaboration was widely and expertly bootlegged? Whole forums dedicated to distinguishing the original from the very, very good bootlegs.

(Hrm there are only four Olivia Rodrigo sets at that LEGO link. Did I miscount or is there an additional one, exclusive to her site? Oh my god. There is. This woman is a master. Make her president. Olivia Rodrigo for president. I am maybe 5% joking.)

Jane and I did daddy school last night. It was about Star Wars. Not the plot, but the circumstances around it: George, Stephen and Francis at CalArts, the ride of independent film, the founding of ILM, Lucasfilm, etc. Marcia Lucas. The ILM→Pixar connection. The importance of being your own studio and artists controlling their work. The fact that George kept his merch rights and this meant later he could do a deal with LEGO to save it from bankruptcy. Kathleen Kennedy. Disney. It was so awesome.

She cared about half of it. But that was enough. Bliss.

I dont’ have a new playlist for you today, which is weird because I have listened to a lot of new albums this week. Lot of them hovering right around the 48 minute mark, just a bit too short to publish. Here. Enjoy this gorgeous new Phoebe Bridgers video. My god is it great. Thank you Brantley for alerting me to this.

May or may not write tomorrow, not even sure what time. Took the day off. HVAC people are coming. We have chosen to flush the line set and re-route it, thus providing Chore House with no AC on the hottest day of the year. Clever. Wish me luck.