Peak Rock

This Marah show in Toronto someone just posted was just a few days off from a show Op & saw, a short set opening for Steve Earle on a tour that would soon be cresting that Fall as the absolute peak of Kids in Philly, and the peak of live rock & roll and a personal rebirth for me.

Moi SayMoi just a few months ago:

Kids in Philly will always be known as both their musical peak and their “this is their moment!” peak, it’s both their Sgt. Pepper and their Summer of Love, and I was lucky enough to see a bunch of shows that tour including the record release party & one autumn weekend run in particular that’s still a Top 5 music moment for me; everything magical about music I believed in seemed to be coming into being & focus just for me, and at the center of that in more ways than one was Marah's masterpiece Kids in Philly.

ENJOY! Long live Marah, and long live all the kids in all of us.

Newest Xmastime Original #1 Smash Hit

The Ballad of the Leaf Blower

Xmastime · The Ballad of the Leaf Blower

Coming for the Next 250, America

Good Advice is Good Advice.

The Hot Pockets people would like you to know that the main instructions to cooking a Hot Pocket in the microwave are (checks instructions)(checks instructions again) cook it in the microwave. 🤔🤷‍♂️

 

Current Events

....if Trump is smart he'll use the weather as an excuse to cancel a lot of the July 4th activities so he won't soil himself when nobody shows up.

This Seems Relavent to Today

Moi Say Moi back in 2006:

3) With warm weather coming up I’m bracing myself for the inevitable advice we’ll get during the first heat wave: “Stay inside with the air conditioning on.” Really? Wow, thanks! Because I was gonna cover myself in maple syrup, put on my heaviest wool sweater and spin in circles on the baking asphalt for a while. “Stay inside with the /ac on.” If I could do that, Professor, then I wouldn’t give 2 shits about the heat, now would I? That’s like if I wanna be a millionaire, “Have a million dollars in the bank!” Thanks, JP Morgan.

A Hot Dog Program

I can''t believe I randomly decided to look it up on the PBS app & today happens to be 30 years to the day since it first came out; not quite my whole A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court thing but still a great reason to remind you people for the bazillionth time to watch this fantastic documentary!!!! 🌭🤗❤️🇺🇸

Doctor to the Stars

In the waiting room earlier the nurse came out and asked the two toddlers who'd just gotten shots what color star they wanted; I don't think they even know what colors or stars are but hey long story short look who ended up with a star of his own.

 

Xmastime Films

Watch Previous Xmastime Films Here

SPEAKING of The New Yorker...

...I rather humbly submit that while this is close to being a great joke bigger would've been funnier than big here.

SEE MY PREVIOUS RATHER HUMBLE OPINIONS ON HOW THE NEW YORKER COULD'VE BEEN FUNNIER HERE

WELL Well Well....

...it's been a long year for The New Yorker front covers - and you know I love them! - so I'm relieved to see one I finally like. Finally.

The Musicality of Joyce Endures 🇮🇪

Moi Say Moi back in 2011: 

Like Finnegan's Wake I've never even bothered trying to understand Ulysses when reading, but from time to time I pick it up and flip to a random page to read just for that smooth rhythm of Joyce's. I can think of no other author for whom I do such a thing. I don't know what the hell's going on and I don't give a shit; it's like loving a song when you don't really know or care what the words mean.

I've repeated this several times throughout the years in conversation whenever Joyce has come up and - unlike my recent shocking Confederacy of Dunces revelation 😲 - upon finding more of my old college papers from a million years ago, it's kind of nice to know I thought the same thing back when reading & breaking down Joyce meant actually reading & breaking down Joyce. 😜🕺📓📚

 

Here's Your Chance to Make a Difference in This World

Current News

NPR fucked up earlier today:

 

PR has dramatically retracted a news story announcing that conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel

Alito would retire—and admitted its reporting was wrong.

The story, written by longtime legal affairs NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg, 82, was published minutes after Alito dissented from the Supreme Court ruling to keep birthright citizenship in place.

Her report was replaced by an editor’s note.

“Editor’s Note: Earlier today we erroneously published a story saying that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. He has not announced his retirement and we have retracted the story,” the story now reads.

I'm guessing Trump will have his standard $10B lawsuit ready to go today by 4, maybe 4:30pm at the latest.

The GOP & God & Slavery (That's Right!)

It's ironic that because of their pathetic daddy issues Republicans are so desperate for Trump to be their daddy when what they've gotten is a fucking toddler. - 2026

If we could have just one Republican president in my lifetime who’s not ruled by their daddy issues that’d be great, thanks. - 2025 

Can we get a psychoanalyst to assess the GOP's fascination with martyrdom? It goes: Jesus Christ -> The Confederate Army -> all Christians -> Trump -> any Republicans seeking public office - 2024 

... the GOP has turned into that sitcom character who wanders into the charismatic clutches of the leader at a local youth center, and promises to allow the leader to make all of his decisions for him. - 2011 

...it's the GOP's weird daddy issues that are going to fucking get us all killed. - 2025 

This seems to be thruline/pattern for the American Right, that there is not greater honor than being a martyr in their eyes; the problem is they insist on both being the martyr AND wielding the most amount of power over everyone else at all times. - 2024

These are just a few of the bazillion times on this blog I've mentioned Republicans' Daddy Issues or demands for more religion as being both a weirdly infantile infantile way to live but also a crushing & stupid way to run a government; mostly so far I've felt lost in the wild all by myself on this but an article today in The Atlantic shows maybe I'm not the crazy one after all:

Reynolds leaves the strong impression that slavery flourished in the South instead of the North simply because southern religion and ideology depended on mastery rather than because southern topography and climate also favored the plantation system. 

 

As long as daddy issues & fake Christianity run the country, we will be forced to deal with Trump/Trump 2.0/Trump 3: The Quickening over & over again until we're all just dust & bones and Fat Orange Baby Huey is all by himself writhing around in his soiled diapers happily clutching not only all our money but our collective integrity & self-worth with fat, orange greasy fingers. And we won't even be able to blame Trump since each time the bell was rung, 75M people showed up and demanded he be given all of it, so.

Nice Try Macca

Okay I can fend off my bff Paul McCartney no problem but now he's using my beloved Scooter to try & get me to listen to his new album? Not cool Sir Paul, NOT cool!! 🎸🐶

Maybe Let the Dishes Soak for Bit

Eventually, the few names on the Voyagers' Golden Discs will be the only people whose existence will be recognized from the entire course of human history, of which by that time there may be no record of having ever existed otherwise.

Penelope Keith

You can real Penelope Keith's obituary in the Guardian HERE.

Business & Bullshit Oh My!

Its funny that for at least the last quarter of a century Republicans have tried to sound smart by insisting the country should be run like a business & these are the two business geniuses they’ve come up with so far.

Goals. I Have Them.

Moi Say Moi back in 2011:

I wanna quit drinking so I can be incredibly judgmental and self-righteous. I don't really have a lot to hang over my friends. I'm not rich, or successful; I pretty much go through life like a fucking buffoon. But if I quit drinking and lord it over everybody, then I'd have something! I just wanna be sitting around with my buddies and when I hear one crack open a beer, loudly sigh, "great, HERE we go," and act disgusted the entire time. 

I want all these new & amazing AI music production/recording programs to become the industry standard so I can super-snobbishly say to some young musician "hey buddy I was on the front lines of rock, recording on a goddam reel to machine & sweating out train money back from practice in Manhattan before Brooklyn was even a thing, youngblood."

Probably won't happen, but hey.