Good morning good morning hello hi howdy ho how are you? All well? What fresh horrors await us today. My mom used to always say that. Or was it my ex situationship from the 90’s. I am not sure, I am not sure. Was a pretty maternal relationship, not gonna lie.

I hope it provided something for both of us.

I would say my Monday blues were…. mmm… at maybe 8 out of 10 yesterday? It did not reach existential panic levels, or abject horror levels. I was still able to laugh at it.

Man this world is rough these days. Is it rough? Did Boomers think the world was rough in their 50’s? I mean, those with a conscience did, those few hippies who were in it for the political activism and not the free sex, and who didn’t turn into republicans. My mom was pretty horrified by the 80’s, if I recall. I mean, here you are in your 20s thinking you’re going to change the world and you ended a war and then, boom, oh by the way, we have developed a technology that could kill everyone on the planet and the entire planet has descended into low-level proxy wars that may or may not accidentally trigger doomsday.

Oh shit.

Wow.

And our proxy wars aren’t even that low level.

Well shit. You’d think for being the first generation to face this, the Boomers would have had something wise to say about it all.

Alas.

A GMHHAY reader wrote in to tell me that slap bracelets are just measuring tape cut up and stuck into rubber and I knew this but had not thought about it and man, that is a really good point. Maybe I can cut out the slap bracelet middle man and just cut up snippets of measuring tape for my cable conduit runs? Maybe I can find someone who sells bulk measuring tape tape and/or measuring tape cut into 6 inch snippets.

This reminds me of that Monthy Python skit about string I wonder if that is still funny.

Bought a new washing machine this week. Our old washing machine came with the house so it was at least fifteen years old, so I guess, you know, that’s a good run for a washing machine. Its transmission blew. It was literally leaking transmission fluid on the ground. I legit did not know washing machines had transmissions. I mean, electric cars don’t really have transmissions, do they? Hrm. Actually, seems they do. Wow. Learn something new every day.

So we went to Lowe’s to capitalize on their labor day sale. Every single washing machine was wi-fi “capable.” Some required it! It is insane. I do not know what to make of this world, man.

You know, in 1988 in high school I wrote a paper about the smart connected house. It seemed so cool. I was so excited about the prospect of some day to have robots controlling my house. My teacher called the paper very informative because they had no idea such things were even on the horizon.

And here we are, and my god it has turned into a nightmare. I mean, I guess Unifi is pretty solid, mostly. I hear grumblings they sell shit to Russia, but that’s through re-sellers and they don’t make, like, strategically restricted products. I mean, they should be, but… whatever. I digress. The point I am making here is that my god. The nerds even fucked up cool helpful robots.

I am starting to think us nerds can’t be trusted to do anything.

We got a Maytag in the end. Maytag is owned by Whirlpool. Oh wait. I think it’s the other way around. Wait no. Whirlpool is the Parent corporation. We got a Maytag. It’s owned by Maytag. They still make their shit in America and our phenomenally amazing do-everything appliance repair guy assures us they are still really good. I looked em up on Wikipedia. Still made in America. 11 factories, 15,000 people.

When I was younger I thought this whole thing with countries was dumb and outmoded and we should all be one world republic and who cares where things were built. I mean, well, I still believe the first part but now I realize it’s not happening any time soon and things should be made in democracies when they can be. Mexico and Canada are fine. But I do think it’s kind of cool when something is still made in America. I guess I’m old fashioned like that.

PEOPLE. Sure, yes, the AI companies are calling for a slowdown because they are going broke and ultimately going to lose the race to Meta and Google and the IPO market looks kinda shitty and probably secretly the ratings agencies and the NASDAQ rejected their requests for insta-membership into the cool kids club. Sure, sure.

But still. Don’t 3D chess your way into losing this opportunity. Even a shitty slowdown is better than no slowdown. The correct move here is the same move as when your kid says “fine I’ll brush my teeth but only if I can stomp my feet while doing it.” Fine! Deal! Brush your teeth! Fine! Yes, put some dumb non-employee academic observer in your company. More intel the better. This is not gonna slow the next Lina Khan down from trying to clamp your ass down.

I know the fear is that if they can do some half-assed self-regulation thing, it’ll ease the pressure on them. This is probably what they’re going for. Sure, fine, but they already have regulatory capture.

We hardly hold all the cards here but I do not see any other move than taking them up on the opportunity and getting as many concessions out of them as we can. One could argue that the alternative is to let them starve and die but they are not going to starve and die. I mean, not now, not yet.

And it’s not like having Meta and Google own all AI is any better.

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 this morning to the new live Pulp album, commonsensedly (should be a word) titled Live (is this really their first live album? No, right? Oh right. No. But yes. The 30th anniversary of Different Class came with an extra disc of the Glastonbury ‘95 performance. Great performance. Middling recording.). It is great. I regret not going to see this Pulp “reunion” tour. I had seen Pulp “back in the day” and I saw them four times on the last reunion tour, so it did not fit in with my paradigm for bands I could travel for. Yet nonetheless, I purchased a ticket for their DC show. But then Trump sicced the National Guard on Pulp and I was too depressed about it to go, I did not envision myself able to carry the euphoric high of a Pulp show out onto the streets of fascism.

Of course now, two years later, the National Guard are still roaming around DC, everyone’s forgotten about it, and now I’m sure I could go to a Pulp show in DC just fine because we are all boiling frogs.

Alas.

Here let’s have a topic-relevant colored vinyl photo today.

So, last night in Lost Angels, a band called the Tear Garden played what I think was probably their first show ever? It is hard to confirm this but I can find no online evidence of earlier shows. This is noteworthy since the band is 40 years old, primarily consisting of two guys who have basically spent their lives in bands and touring. Their best albums have never been pressed on vinyl.

There is massive excitement for this tour in the industrial music community, what with the main dudes being from Skinny Puppy and the Legendary Pink Dots.

But the weird thing? They played, god, like nine hours ago in LA and there is still no setlist listed on Setlist.FM. I mean, Google has already indexed Setlist.FM and they have a placeholder page for the gig all set up already – last week the only mention of The Tear Garden was a single gig by some band that had the name in the 70’s. But no tracks are listed. The trainspotters of the American industrial music community are letting me down.

This is of no idle curiousity for me. They are playing in Boston Thursday after next and I am so going. I am deeply curious if they are going to play “Romulous and Venus,” so I can bawl my eyes out unabashedly for several minutes. Ideally they would follow that up with “White Coats and Haloes” and I can have a complete cathartic breakdown.

I am going to Boston next Monday, too, by the way. On Sunday, I’m gonna see Son Volt with Nick at the awesome old mill out in Saxapahaw here in North Carolina. Then I’m gonna get up ungodly early, take Jane to school, drive straight to RDU, fly to Boston, sleep all afternoon and then go to the Wilbur, ugh, to see Cabaret Voltaire.

There are like three or four bands I have never seen that are “on my list” that I want to see this fall. None of them are playing North Carolina. I have resolved that in order to, you know, dampen the existential despair of life under fascism I am going to go to every single one of these shows. And I am going to do it in such a way that I do not unduly burden my wife with too many school mornings to cover for me. Thusly I will be returning to North Carolina on Tuesday, immediately after the Cabaret Voltaire show. Then I will be home for, eh, nine nights, and do the same thing all over again to see The Tear Garden. Then I will do the same thing nine days later for a birthday party and Tricky.

We also have the Ida reunion, The Afghan Whigs, Russian Circles, Gilla Band, Faetooth and Heavens to Betsey (!!) in the next two months here in NC. AND, Jane’s first club show! Linda Lindas are coming to Saxapahaw, and she’s going with a friend! And us, of course, but a friend! Oh my god it is going to be so cute.

I am trying, trying, trying to go to all the shows. Not be lazy. Not wuss out. BE OUT IN THE WORLD AND FEEL THINGS.

ANYWAY, if you are in Boston and going to Cabaret Voltaire, The Tear Garden, or Tricky, let me know.

(This Pulp album is so good)

Janey Jane Jane has got a nice morning routine going on with Roy the cat now where Roy is flopped outside her door when she comes out and Jane pets him and then Roy trots down the stairs and Jane follows and Roy flops at the bottom of the stairs and Jane pets him again and it’s all very cute and it’s nice that Roy has realized Jane is useful for pets and he’s into her.

I wish that cat would snuggle with me sometimes, but I gotta say this is pretty f’n cute.

Noise and Metal playlist for today. This Maquina band is a little normcore for me but have their moments. The new Chat Pile is pretty solid we have talked about that. Love the new Russian Circles, excited to see them in a few weeks. Just discovered Der Weg einer Freiheit yesterday and they are awesome. Wrotre about Oranssi Pazuzu the other day. And I just discovered this Bob Bellerue fellow yesterday afternoon, no idea who mentioned him or why he was in my “To Investigate” playlist but that album ruled. Two tracks, 20 ish minutes each, symphonic noise, really well done. Apple Music tells me I have listened to it twice but I completely missed it the first time. Now I love it.

Okay people have a day. A good one if you can, just get through it if you can’t manage a good one.