Good morning good morning hello hi howdy ho. Thursday. The 27. Jane is 8 years, 10 months today. August is almost over. That’s fine I am not a fan of August.

Had some new ideas for my presidency last night as I was falling asleep. Longtime readers may recall I have a presidential platform that consists of nationalizing a half-dozen tech startups, deporting to Johnston Atoll the bulk of the current administration, expanding the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, etc. Postal Service banking. A federal public cloud. A new USDS. A floatilla of executive orders on fun stuff like moving Customs and Immigration to state, border patrol to the Coast Guard, citizenship for every dreamer and anyone abducted by ICE, massive settlements on ICE abuses paid for by the abolition of ICE. Signing the plastic treaty.

Whatever. I have a nice long list. But I came up with three more yesterday:

1. An entirely new “military” outside of the entire current military establishment. Well, not completely. We will use the coast guard. All this military will be is defensive, in the Ukrainian style, mostly developed by heavy investment in Ukrainian innovation, as cover for supporting them. Then once that’s up we can just start starving the best on the rest of our bloated and increasingly obsolete military. Also the Coast Guard is going to name their newest two vessels the USS Carl and the USS Donut. IYKYK.

2. A fun weekly/monthly livestream event called “meet the critic” where whichever troll is giving me guff that month gets to come and sit down and debate, using a very specific set of rules enforcing actual conversation.

3. New rules of engagement with the press corps that I will answer any question to the fullest of my ability so long as at any time I get to ask you first why you’re asking it and what you’re motivation is. If I ask you this and you do not fully answer, I don’t have to answer you’re question. I suspect this would have far more of an impact than its simplicity implies.

What can I say. Some nights it takes me a long time to fall asleep.

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Listening to Ministry this morning. A live album called Live Necronomicon. It is phenomenal. It came out in 2017. If you are familiar with the phenomenal ministry live album In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up, well, then, this is the album for you. It is a muchly-expanded release of the exact same show: Merrilville, Indiana, February 22, 1990. It has much, much more of the show, including songs from Pailhead and Skinny Puppy and – get this shit — three Lard songs featuring Jello Biafra. It is insane. This shit is so good. Also it doesn’t have all the weird overdubs that In Case You Feel Like Showing Up had.

It does not have a lineup, but the original release did. This is the classic era: Paul Barker on Bass, William Rieflin on Drums, Chris Connelly on keyboards, Martin Atkins on Drums, William Tucker, Ogre from Skinny Puppy.

That tour was the only time I ever saw Ministry — sans Jello, alas. I have often thought of going again but haven’t made it. Partially because I cannot fathom it being as good as this tour. They’re on a “farewell Europe” tour right now that I assume will be followed by a “farewell America” tour, unless I missed it? I dunno. Alan is kinda broken these days. None of my favorite members are still in the band. But still… tempting.

Went to Walmart this morning, because we’re going to LA tomorrow, after school, yes, but I got enough to do tomorrow already. Haven’t packed. Working all day. I got there just before 8AM, and was rockin out to “Opalite” when it got cut off for the reduced stimulation hours, now expanded to two full hours, the voiceover informed me. They do not call them “reduced stimulation” hours, though. They call them “calm” hours. Same tactics Dolly used, I suppose, to not offend the freaks. Don’t use lefty terms. Make it plain language. Calm hours.

The Blue Diamond almonds and Wheat Thins have both changed their packaging and I do not approve.

The LPs have been moved to a less prominent location, sad, but have been completely refreshed. Nothing good there, but the refresh was sorely needed. Also the cover of the Olivia Dean album is pretty solid.

Chick Fil A has branched out into consumer packaged goods and I ‘m sure those fundamentalist christian potato chips taste so, so good. I bet they are delicious. Are leftists going to start eating Chick Fil A chips the same way they go to Chick Fil A? We’ll see!

There was a big new camo-print hunting garb section that I do not like at all.

They got rid of the little counter desk at self-checkout where the employees stood and took anti-theft tags off your clothes for you and whatnot. It’s real weird. Now they just have to stand there? Like is this some sort of incentive for them to interact more? Be more of a cop? No idea but I suspect no one likes it.

Trends in retail trends in retail.

Last night Jane didn’t want to go to sleep so Emma sent me in for wave 3 while she worked on laundry. I laid there with Jane and had a nice talk, she said she didn’t like boring rules that were unneeded. Specifically teeth brushing rules. For some reason I decided this was a good opportunity to tell her the story of asbestos, and how great and useful it was and how it kept people from getting burned and we used it in everything and then 50 years later we learned about it causing mesothelioma and how sometimes rules don’t make sense for a long time and that was kind of like teeth.

We both had taken off our glasses, and as I told the whole story, our myopic faces were maybe four inches apart. So much parental bokeh and cute-ass freckles.

And reader, even though that was a hell of a stretch of an example (not like we knew asbestos was gonna cause mesothelioma), and boring AF, it worked! I mean, she’s not gonna brush her teeth or anything but she both found the story interesting and understood the point!

And man, those might have been five or ten of my happiest moments of parenting.

Excellent closing to an incredibly stressful work day.

Club mix for you today. Bangin. Well, except for the last track. But it’s there cuz I am pretty sure I’ll pull off going to see Underworld at the Knockdown Center next week. if all goes well. Fingers crossed. It takes me forever to make a club mix, so I am very late in acknowledging that the new Boards of Canada is awesome. So is the new Peaches. I am kinda obsessed with this Self Esteem lady this month. Rebecca Lucy Taylor, born 1986. Neither a trust fund nor nepo baby. Reminds me of RAYE. Album is as sprawling and ambitious. Good stuff.