Good morning good morning. Hi hello how are you? Happy Friday. Read somewhere that 71% of Americans are completely exhausted. I certainly fit into that category do you fit into that category do you want to be friends? I got this old friend who’s going to Alaska and asked me about it and, because I can write, I wrote a nice long write-up for him about places to go, things to see, where to stay, how to get around. But he still wants to Zoom. I cannot Zoom. I cannot. You gotta be kidding me do you know how much I have to do that shit for work? I can do no more. Have we reached the point in end-times capitalism where we can just say “yeah I don’t do that it stresses me out too much.” I mean obviously billionaires can say that but can normies?

Still thinking about Laura Logan. Still feel really terrible about it.

There’s a Monet for sale. I want it so bad. Man. I had written Monet off as cheesy, a weird thing America got into in the 80’s along with tartans, cherubic angels, Griffin and Sabine and, like, movies with orangatangs in them. But a while back in Boston I met a friend at the MFA and we walked through the Monets they have there, MFA really kills it on the Impressionists for some reason. And it hit me all over again holy fuck Monet is awesome these things rule. That guy fuckin rules. Make Monet cool again. Or don’t. Buy me a Monet. Keep it cheap because it’s uncool, that’s fine. I’ll put it next to a Doisneau I don’t even own, another 80’s cliché remember when everyone was obsessed with Doisneau?

I’ll put some of Monet and Doisneau art in here for you. Maybe it’ll trigger something subconscious and stirring in the Gen Xers.

I recently had to do a background check on myself to set up our background check SOC control at work – figured the whole thing is kinda invasive and if I get to check my employees’ backgrounds, they get to check mine. And mine came back and told me I had an Art History minor. I knew this, but.. I guess that with the Monet auction triggered something in me. GOD DAMN NOSTALGIA it fucks you up how did I ever run a nostalgia company I swear to god I can smell the 80’s now. Smells like ice fog, DDT bug spray, and girls.

Ice fog: Smog with ice in it. You would not believe how bad that shit was in the 80s in Fairbanks. Was more polluted than LA.

Emma and I took a big boy step and started buying the 60v Flexvolt Dewalt OPE and one of our big boy batteries died and that fucker cost like $150 and it is less than a year old and I am SO PISSED.

And our new washing machine died in SEVENTY TWO HOURS, exactly 24 hours after their no-questions-asked return window WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO ABOUT THAT. I have never reversed a credit card charge in my life but this might be the first time. Wish me luck when we go to Lowe’s today and bitch. This sucks this sucks this sucks.

Hey question: has any country ever elected a woman minority (in that country) leader? No, right? I did some Googling and I can find no examples. I saw some guy on Threads last night saying that the rest of the world could maybe forgive us for electing that turd the first time but the second time was unforgiveable and I’m all like, look, man, Kamala was, well, Kamala but better than Trump, and lots of us voted for her but she was a minority woman and has YOUR fucking country ever elected a minority woman? If so, you are better than us, but if not maybe STFU.

Is that a sexist thing to say? It feels true but also maybe it’s slightly sexist? I mean, I voted for her, I’m saying it was a headwind with the racists and the sexists.

Which exist in every country.

I think a lot about whether America where America sits in some sort of imaginary “racist” rankings. I mean, America feels very racist. But then I go to ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD and it feels even more racist (England, France, Japan, Korea, Sweden) or completely incapable of even thinking about the concept because they’re so homogenous that it’s moot but you fuckin know the second it wasn’t moot they’d be racist like the Swedes are kinda racist.

And of course there’s this thing where America is trying to get over slavery. Or was trying to get over before you know what Lol. And a lot of countries have, shall we say, a somewhat less dicey history with slavery. On the other hand we did expend like a bajillion of our young boys to try and stamp out the thing. England got hip to its slavery evils sooner but a) they basically just exported it to us, and b) they didn’t have to kill half a million of their men to kill it off. WOULD they have killed it off if they had to kill half a million of their men?

I dunno. To be clear, America is racist AF but, somewhat pessimistically, I suspect we’re in the top 5 least racist countries. Seriously the only plausible contender I can think of is Canada, and, well, if you know anything about Canadian politics let’s just say they’d win by not a lot more than a scoche.

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We are listening to, or wait, gotta flip the record, there we go. We are listening to 1989-1992 by Velocity Girl. Recent reissue. Creamsicle edition. Right now I’m listening to their astonishingly good cover of the Jam’s “That’s Entertainment.” Discogs says I am the 127th person to catalog this variant on there. I have never been the biggest Velocity Girl fan but I knew I should be, and I got this promo ep back in the day, and I listened to it and thought “too happy for me” except for one track — “Why Should I be Nice to You?” And that’s always been my favorite song by theirs.

So then this reissue came out and I was like “no I do not need it. It does have that one song I love, but I can resist.” But then Bill told me it was a great re-issue, and how much he loves Velocity Girl and I have noticed in my late middle-aged years my musical tastes have evolved and Bill is one of my solid bellweathers of this. BUT EVEN THEN, I resisted.

But then I saw a Slumberland tweetskeet that showed a photo of this creamsicle variant, and they got that really good friction-free Shopify integration on their shop and, well, fuck. I cracked.

You may recall I mentioned yesterday that I cracked on purchasing the Pains of Being Pure at Heart record after seeing a Slumberland tweetskeet. This is true. This has happened twice to me in the last four months and I am… well, I’m not gonna lie I am a bit embarrassed.

Slumberland is out to get me.

And Bill was right Velocity Girl rules.

And look I am TRYING to not use the royal we in the music section here but it is SO HARD. I don’t know why. Someone get me a therapist. Just for this. Not for (gestures broadly).

Okay roundup of new music by successful 80’s an d early 90’s artists, a quick review:

• Dexy’s Midnight Runners – not a terrible album, has a couple lovely songs, including the last track especially. Not nearly as weird as more recent Kevin Rowland outings, not nearly as catchy as the hits

• Echo and the Bunnymen — I have given their new music five listens and I suspect it’s fun to bang it out in the studio and maybe even live but I can find absolutely nothing remarkable about it that justifies any further listenings. I may be wrong about this.

• Simple Minds — only one song is out so far, it is pretty good, pretty goth, reminds me of their earlier work, which could potentially make several old school Simple Minds fans (ahem Jussi) happy. Promising. Will listen more.

• Proclaimers — Had this in my queue then learned that one of them is gung-ho supporting transphobes’ brave truth telling and I was like fuck this. The name of the album, You may Offend suddenly took a much darker tone. I was pissed because I had this whole shtick we’re doing right now all planned out and I needed the content. So I ashemedly sucked it up and listened to the album anyway and you know what? It’s fucking boring, so fuck them.

• Susannah Hoffs — quite promising. There’s only three songs out so far from the upcoming new album, but the one with Rufus Wainwright is really good and so is another one. I have been somewhat dilligent in keeping up with Susannah Hoffs’ post-Bangles career and she generally puts out pretty great stuff and I quite like her selection of covers through the years.

• Inspiral Carpets — three songs and they are all pretty great and sound like Inspiral Carpets but with a bit of an updated sound and man, if the Charlatans can do it why can’t Inspiral Carpets. I would very much like them to tour America again they were great live. I am going to stick up for Inspiral Carpets.

• The Darling Buds — I am so happy they’re back but so far none of the new songs have caught me like “It makes no difference” still does all the dang time, but it’s pretty good and I’m gonna keep at it. I like them enough I may even force myself to believe the new stuff is great.

• There’s one new Fiona Apple song on a soundtrack and it is very good but I am not sure she counts for “early 90s’s” but I recently had an epiphany that if I had to marry a celebrity it would have been Fiona Apple because she is amazing and I do not find her super attractive but that becomes less important as you age but she is hard core and has her own shit going on and spends a lot of time court monitoring and would keep me woke, not that I’ve ever for a hot second thought about stopping being woke.

• Jesus Jones — so far so good. I am optimistic. Again, I bet it would rule live. Mayhaps they could go on tour with Inspiral Carpets again that would be amazing. Wait did they tour together or am I lumping them together because their shows were both at the Paradise and in the same era? No idea.

• Teenage Fanclub - maybe a bit late for this list, and a bit different because they never stopped putting out music and this list is more about bands who are making a comeback, ish, but everything is subjective and the new music is good, as good as all their music is but not as good as Bandwagonesque because nothing is.

• Air Supply - one song out, I think, and I liked it and you probably wouldn’t but you probably don’t have a deep attachment to Air Supply like some people have an attachment to the pope or something. YMMV.

For the purposes of this list, we have designated the new Weezer, Afghan Whigs, Tricky, Toadies and Beth Orton as “mid 90’s” and thus not eligible. I guess the new Butthole Surfers would count, it is quite good and I like it a lot, but we have covered that previously.

Coming up next week: quick reviews of all the sexy lady working indie musicians out there that Threads keeps putting into my feed because they kinda have me pegged.

Jane was so mean to me last night. Or was just as mean as she always is, disparaging daddy music, just on and on telling me men suck and daddy music sucks and man it was rough. I told her I didn’t feel like watching videos with her last night so of course she immediately got nice, I relented, we snuggled and watched videos, and at the end she didn’t argue, which was nice. So I thought maybe she was better and asked her really nicely if she could be nicer to me. I thought we had hit a point where she might be.

“Daddy videos are boring and you don’t deserve it.” She said as she went upstairs.

Awesome.

Justa mix for you today. Mix of old and new no wait that’s a lie only the Sinead is old. Everything else is new. Lotta good new stuff. Was unimpressed with the new Suki Waterhouse but I gave it a second listen yesterday and it’s more clever and moving than I thought. Love the new Dinosaur Jr. Saw the Tubs a couple months ago and didn’t love em live, didn’t know them, but I love this new record they are great.

Okay weekend is here. I’m flying to Boston on Monday for Cabaret Voltaire I will try and write to you but no promises. But man I will have some good chore stores to tell you if I do. CHORES HERE WE COME.