Good morning good morning. Hello. How are you? Doing okay? I am in a “not this shit again” phase. My god I can’t even tell you how… routine yesterday felt. Just the same fucking non-living day. Like autopilot. Is this life? I mean I like routines! I am happiest in the morning doing my routine. But also I don’t want my entire day to be routine? I don’t know, man, I don’t know.

Plus I had already been thinking the last few days about how nefariously brilliant this fucking administration is, how they replaced the ICE director and we all thought it mattered, maybe we had a small victory but nope. They are all over the place right now, just fucking killing people.

THEN they go kill another person, for no reason, on video, absolutely no reason — they don’t even provide a rational excuse. And it’s just blocks from my friend’s house — my friend in Maine who feeds me all the good Maine political gossip. Feel terrible for her but of course moreso for the victim and their family and that little three year-old girl who saw her father get shot right in front of her like we’re living in a god damned DC comics film or some shit.

And now we’re gonna have to hear some bullshit speech on Thursday about how the 2020 election — which he fucking ran — was rigged or some shit. Dude you are eighty years old stop trying to make another term happen you aren’t even enjoying this one. It’s so obvious this is all he’s been planning for from day one: the fucking SAVE act is STILL NOT DEAD. He just fired an entire election integrity unit — established and managed by congress, not the executive — and doesn’t care if it’s illegal cuz the court said he could fire people so he’s just gonna keep firing everyone until they say — if they ever say — no, not that one.

I said this like six years ago, I’ve been saying it for decades, but cops should not be allowed to kill people. Ever. They should not have guns, if they kill a person there should be a mandatory jury trial. It should be explicitly against the law, it should be in the fucking constitution: if the government kills someone without a trial, people go to jail. I do not care if there are ten criminals in front of you with guns. You don’t get to kill them ever.

Imagine if firemen looked at a burning building and said “nah, too dangerous, we’re not gonna save that kid we might get hurt.” And imagine the non-lethal technology we would have by now if this had always been the law.

Blah blah blah says that friend of mine from high school who loves genocide, if there were gunmen shooting at your kids and the only way to stop it was to kill them you would want the cops to kill people.

Well, first: how bout we talk about the world we want to live in not this bullshit one? Those gunmen wouldn’t be able to buy guns.

Second: If we had a century of non-lethal technology, there would probably be other options.

Third: I am emotionally charged in that situation! I am biased! I am filled with rage and hate in that moment! Maybe my judgement is not the best!

Fourth: I am advocating for a trial. You think it is the only option shoot the guy and see what a jury of your peers thinks. FACE JUSTICE.

Firemen, man. Make Cops like Firemen.

Sure, sure I am just saying this because my dad was a cop and a fireman and I prefer to just think about the latter.

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What are we listening to? Yumi Zouma. Sorta shoegaze, sorta dream pop. From New Zealand I think? Don’t know much about them. Saw them on KEXP, looked at their wikipedia page, added them to the queue, forgot most of it. Let’s look again. Yes. New Zealand. Christchurch. Been around for ten years. Christ. (Church). There is so much music out there. Some awesome New Zealand band right up my alley kicking it for ten years and I haven’t even heard of them. And I’ve seen the Clean! This century! RIP Hamish. We lose too many to suicide.

Anyway album is called No Love Lost to Kindness and it is pretty good.

And RIP Sam Neil. Man you were a real one. Also a Kiwi. I had no idea. I always thought he was English. So many great films. For me, number one would be the five-hour version of Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World, but also loved his freaky sci-fi horror films, his small turn in The Piano, so much. I used to think being a Sam Neil fan was sorta a isolated affair, but turns out there a lot of fucking Sam Neil fans out there. I hope he knew how beloved he was by so many.

I was working in the studio last weekend and my trusty Klein kneepads are getting a little long in the tooth after, like, two years on my knees (this ain’t some kind of metaphor these squirrels are real) and so I added “knee pads” to my shopping list in the app I now have to use for such things, ToDoist, because Apple Notes doesn’t exist on Android.

And since that day, Saturday, all my social feeds are flooded with ads for knee pads. This is the only time I have said or thought about them. Seems pretty clear ToDoist is selling my data to advertisers. Their privacy policy does not mention advertising as a thing they do with your data, but, then, privacy policies mean nothing in America, and since this one keeps using the phrase “legitimate interest” it is very clear this is a EU-centric privacy policy. Seems a good bet they completely ignore it in the US.

Remember when it was inevitable we were going to have a US data privacy law?

Man I don’t even know if I care but it sure is creepy.

And yes, I know I work in this field. Don’t remind me. I hate myself enough as it is.

Jane was so morose this morning. Endless whining about teeth about this about that. Wouldn’t let me brush her hair in the car wouldn’t draw me a nice picture in the drawing app, complaining about the smell. I mean, fair. For some reason the car and driveway smelled like vinegar I suspect one of my wife’s manic late night cleaning sprees was at play. But it was rough. I am sitting here thinking about that poor dead man in Biddeford and that poor three year-old girl crying and… ugh, man. It is rough sometimes life is rough sometimes. I need to get back to my small joys. Find some joy in, like, styptic pens or that new potato and ground beef burrito at Taco Bell oh wait beef is killing the planet and so are my tires why do so many people have to be so freaking awful.

I have this foreboding sense that in the next, eh, six months my daughter is going to look at me and say something along the lines of “well I have sussed it out and aside from playing games and watching screens this world kind of sucks and I am pretty annoyed at it all why did you bring me into this shitshow?” Of course I have my answer prepared — greed! Just like I am greedy when I go to Shake Shack and my truck is greedy and my real estate is greedy and I am even, on occasion, still tempted to buy a bottle of RoundUp N.B. I have never bought a bottle of RoundUp but sometimes you really fucking want to kill some weeds.

Wow this is very out of order today I am supposed to end on some cute Jane story. OK I can still do that. She is, of course, very into her hour-or-so of educational videos in the evening with me. Lotta black hole videos, population decline, meat-is-murder, real uplifting stuff. BUT she no longer just calls it video time. Now it is video and snuggling time and she spends the entire time snuggled up against me and she get sad even when I need to go pee and the snuggling is so great. I mean, sure, I am a negative nancy and sometimes I’m like “man I am so cramped here and I need this other arm to pinch and zoom on this photo of an ICE agent” or some shit, but who am I kidding the snuggling rules. Keeps me sane.

Best part of the day.

In closing: Thank you to the four brave souls who told me about the pain they experience when they get diarrhea. You are pioneers in a new method of honesty and human communication. Props.

Instead of a playlist for you today here is a beautiful video made by the Times about a sign-making company in NYC who also runs a sign museum and it is all just so fucking earnest and beautiful. Bit too much vocal fry on these millennials but whatever, I am 54 and still sometimes sound like Sean Penn in Fast Times. Who can help it. BUT ANYWAY gorgeous video. Makes me achingly miss NYC. This supposed amazing summer in NYC is not my jam I do not like the corrupt world cup or the Dolans or Jay-Z so I don’t care about any of that but LOOK AT ALL THOSE BEAUTIFUL SIGNS.

The Times sucks but also The Times makes shit like this. Make The Times local again.

Okay byeeeeee.