Good morning, good morning friends. Another day in this stupid world. How are you? I am eating a spicy turkey meat stick. It has so much sodium. But I cannot stop. more turkey meat sticks. I cannot satisfy my need for turkey meat sticks. This is a very loose quote allusion to the masterpiece song “More Mittens” by the Happy Flowers. No one remembers the Happy Flowers these days. Real masters of the craft of comedic punk. I have every Happy Flowers release. I have a hand-drawn Happy Flowers Reunion Show t-shirt from their 2-show 2006 reunion.

Strange memories on this nervous night in Chatham.

There is a special link on this photo if you need to listen to the Happy Flowers right now.

Speaking of meat sticks: The other day I was at the Walmart and I was trying to buy more meat sticks. So I was in the yeah-dude-bro-protein section where they keep the meat sticks and all the other disgusting meat-based dude snacks. Meat sheets. Meat globs. Meat masts. And there was a dude in that section with his wife. Like… they were discussing the pros and cons and nutritional aspects of assorted dead animal snacks together. Look, man, I am no traditionalist but this sort of behavior should only be done solo, with shame. What are these people, some sort of meat-based polycule-type-thing? Are they, like, progressive or something? Keep your meat shame to yourself dude, jesus.

Reader update: The image previews are back when I post the GHMHHAY link in Slack and on Threads/Bsky. Very exciting Buttondown fixed that bug.

I am going to comment on soccer just to say that it is, obviously, all Trump’s fault. Destroy everything you touch.

My desktops keep showing me photos of my dear, departed friend Jill this morning. Right now there are two of them, both from her LA apartment. One of her dancing with Andy Hunter, founder of the wonderful bookshop.org, and one of our old friend Elizabetha, with whom I lost touch when Jill moved back to NYC. That girl was great. Wonder what happened to her.

Man I still miss her. 15 years this year.

Graham Platner. I mean, jesus, man. I guess I’m not supposed to be surprised. Everyone out there who insisted on stereotyping ex mercenaries with Nazi tattoos sure is feeling smug this morning. I mean, bummed, and pissed, and sad, but smug. Can’t we just have a single ex mercenary with Nazi tattoo that turns out all right? Just one?

Of course I wish this hadn’t happened, and of course I wish that if we were gonna boot the guy we booted him before the primary, but also… there was no other path here, I guess. Maybe it was one of those fixed points in time like Dr Who. Or Agent Red from that other time travel book is pulling string ensuring that we stayed on this suicidal course. It is a thing I will never understand. I still think my acid trip at Harding Lake in 1988 excludes me from being able to run for office. These men who run for office with these skeletons in their closet. But it is a thing that is real. This dude was always going to run, and no one else running is a human being.

Actually I suppose I do not know if that’s true. I heard some leftists PAC “chose” him from a bunch of other people? And they decided they didn’t need to do an in-depth background check? Would it have revealed anything? Tough to say. Would the background check involved looking at his chest? Weirdo.

Are we gonna lose the senate now? God. Fuck. Probably. I thought for about six hours yesterday that they should put Stephen King in, but then he tweeted out — on X no less — that he hopes Platner does not drop out. COME THE FUCK ON.

I suppose there is a reason most of my heroes are rock and roll junkies they seem to be the only people you can trust.

Googling “most famous people from Maine.”

Anna Kendrick. Sold.

Oh god please don’t tell me Anna Kendrick’s political views I need this one thing.

It’s all lead poisoning isn’t it? Every once in a while I need to be reminded that half of America — and basically every Gen Xer and most older millennials — have been poisoned by lead. It is fucking crazy. We just ignore it. Companies kowingly poisoned the entire country. Except it’s not crazy, of course, because they keep doing it. Lead, smog, thalidomide, asbestos, PFAS, DDT, and on and on. It’s happening now! We are all filled with stars microplastics.

It has been happening two or three times, concurrently, since the founding of the Republic. This is America. Trump just cleared the way for them to keep killing our kids with Roundup wooo. Oh there was that stuff on all our couches when we were kids, too: Scotch-X or something like that. Scotchguard. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

It is useful to keep this in mind at all times: Half the country has lost their mind because of lead. It is worse in the elderly and, I am sad to say, Gen-X. No one should trust any of us. We’re all compromised.

Apparently if you have access to one of your baby teeth, you can get it tested for lead and see how bad you got it. I am sad I do not have any baby teeth. I suppose if my sister does I could extrapolate it. It is worse in first born, they get most of the lead washing out of the mother.

And my mother has told me, many times, she used to eat the lead paint off her walls.

Jesus.

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’re listening to the new Death Cab for Cutie today. it is our third listen, Apple Music tells me, but you cannot trust Apple Music. It is a pretty good record. It is, quite annoyingly, kind of happy and upbeat. I don’t know where this guy gets off being so content and perky in this stupid world. I suppose if I were to listen to the lyrics, they would probably be kinda sad, that was always their schtick, back to when we were all obsessed with Death Cab and Modest Mouse and Mineral/Gloria Record and that whole amazing wave of live music passing through our grungy indie town in the mid 90’s and playing the Middle East. We had such hopes and dreams for Death Cab and, paradoxically, they fulfilled them. But it’s never enough, Ben. Except for “Me and Magdelana.” That is a masterpiece that will transcend time. There are computronic galaxie-sized AIs out there weeping tears to “Me and Magdelena.” I don’t know how to spell Magdelana. Magdalena. There we go. a-a-e-a. Jesus.

(Jesus. Get it?)

“Trap Door” and “Riptides” are both pretty good on this album, FYI.

Two meat sticks. Jesus. 34% of my sodium intake and it’s still morning.

Had a Very Important Meeting yesterday at my day job, and it was a cameras on meeting, with Important Business People and I…

… totally forgot I was wearing my friend’s bar’s shirt that says FUCK ICE FUCK NAZIS FUCK TRUMP real big on it.

It was only briefly visible before I scooted forward and got it out of view, but it was definitely visible.

Couple of those dudes are Mormons too.

Way to go Rick.

I am usually pretty good about keeping graphomaniacal, depressive, leftist psych rock Rick separate from Business Rick but we had a definite breach in containment yesterday.

Oops.

Also had a meeting about marketing for Red’s Boat and RV Storage. Turns out we will (maybe) need to do more than put a single sign up on the side of the road to fill this place up with boats and RVs. But luckily we have a young eager marketing intern and he gave a great presentation last night filled with good ideas. It was solid. I was impressed.

He did, however, use AI.

I mean, not, like, “irresponsibly” so in the currently accepted business way. The ideas were his, they were good. He put the grunt work in (had to use his mom’s Facebook account to find all the relevant Facebook groups because no one his age has Facebook, lol). But AI definitely helped him with his deck design, which makes me sad because that’s where I got my start and where my wife still makes good money. And he definitely used it to punch up the text. He had a really great euphemism for it too: it wasn’t polishing or punching up it was, like… “AI gave it an enhancement” but it wasn’t enhancement. Shit it was so good. I should ask him but he was a little embarrassed when he had to admit it because my Fellow Old Person partner called him out on a grammar problem that the AI did.

Also the AI makes text way too small on decks.

Just dropped Jane off at the camp, she said hi to a friend, the friend did not say hi back with sufficient enthusiasm at 7:45 AM so now I am paranoid Jane’s friends do not really like her or anything. Have I ever heard this friend’s name before? No, I do not think so.

Also one of Jane’s friends moved away. Went back to China. No warning. Very sad. I am probably more out-of-sorts over it than Jane is, though.

Have you guys heard of Stellest lenses? The Eye doctor tells us they are glasses lenses for kids that can fix myopia? Fucking NUTS. Involves some dimples n shit on the lenses? I don’t know, man. Seems like magic. But they have been through several clinical trials. Also the doctor said once we get them, Jane can stop doing the drops. The drops — which are a miracle and also prevent or seriously mitigate myopia — are a huge issue in the family because Jane hates them and I am neurotically attached to them because of my guilt for giving her my myopia. And it is a huge drama every night. And of course the doctor mentioned that with these Stellest lenses Jane won’t have to do the drops anymore so now she is ALL IN. Gah.

Made an ill-advised Facebook post the other day (that lead to me arguing some more with an old friend about Gaza but that is a different story) and all it said were the titles and artists of the first three songs in this playlist, and you guys helpfully commented and filled out this playlist. Worked great. Almost want to do it again. But lightning does not strike twice. Couple of these I had completely forgotten about. Couple I listen to monthly. It is a deeply satisfying playi