10 SONGS 4 U

Here are a few songs I’ve been listening to lately.

You can listen on Apple Music or…… Spotify. Hopefully you’re done with them.

I thought I was insane. Turns out it was just winter. Two 65+ degree days in early March healed something inside me. *touching earpiece* This just in folks. We’re getting conflicting reports on that first point. Still might be insane.

Check back Friday for an interview with a great band. Who is it? That answer is somewhere below.

YouTube song links incoming.
Some thoughts on the news and internal monologues after the music.
Kisses.

Oh wait here are two pieces of music journalism I enjoyed and recommend:

The Year of the Ratboys 
It’s so rad to see Ratboys continue to ascend. What a great band.

American Football’s True Confessions
I’m intrigued by LP4 but this profile really bummed me out. I really hope Mike gets some help for his drinking before something bad happens. Everyone around him is worried about it.

MASSACHUSETTS REPRESENT!
Map of the Stars - “Ballad of a Tortured Hooper”

COOL SONG
Telehealth - “Cool Job”

NOT ONE BUT TWO GOOD ASS SONGS! FROM ONE OF THE BEST!
Gladie - “Future Spring” / “Brace Yourself”

A PRETTY SONG.
Greg Mendez - “I Wanna Feel Pretty”

yeah.

AF BABYYY
American Football - “Bad Moons”

HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THIS YET?
Kerrin Connolly - “Big Amygdala”

This record really is great so I’m talking about it again.

I also think my piece about it is nice!

SAW THIS BAND RECENTLY AND THEY ARE VERY GOOD!
Dead Gowns - “How Can I”

yeahhhh

A BAND I DISCOVERED AT FEST YEARS AGO IS BACK WITH A NEW RECORD!
Woolbright - “I Don’t Owe You”

SKA IS ALIVE!
Mega Infinity - “Temperance”

A BIG TEASE!!!!!!!
Del Paxton - “Another Heaven”

You can hear this one on Friday. Great tune. Killer guest vocals.

You can read my interview Friday as well. You can buy it here in the meantime.

Make time. Make reservations.

OH NO IT’S THE PERSONAL SECTION

Last weekend I went to my niece’s first birthday party. Lots of family, plus a whole bunch of people I don’t know. That always makes me nervous. But less so now. Strangers want to talk to me? About me? Oh my god no thanks. I have a list of like four things I want to talk about and that’s all and even then I’m not sure about it. But now… strangers want to ask about my kid? Sure thing buddy, I could talk all day. Having a kid really changed the game for small talk, I think I have always loathed. “Yeah man, thanks, I agree she’s adorable. Yeah, she’s 8 months now. Yup, it really did fly by. Yeah I’m having the most fun. I do silly voices all the time anyway and now there is a tiny human to entertain! I was acting like a silly goose anyways. Now she gets to enjoy it.” Etc etc. Being a dad rules. Watching my wife be the best mom rules.

Then I was sitting there listening to the group conversation and and trying not to let the running commentary in my head pull my focus away. I decided to write it down. It went something like this, and yes I think in lowercase italics.

my head hurts. am i in everyone’s way? by trying to be out of the way i think i put myself even more in the way. monotremes! am i sitting normal or is this weird? almost baseball season! i hope strangers don’t talk to me unless it’s about charlie. my head hurts. is everyone looking at me? is anyone looking at me? i haven’t said anything in awhile, has anyone noticed? my head hurts. electric vehicles make a ghostly sound when they go by. can batteries be haunted by ghosts? the darién gap episode of pluribus! the ninja turtles theme song! rip ruben ray martinez. my head hurts.

OH NO IT’S THE WAR SECTION

Hey pussy, listen up. It’s the Department or WAR and I’m the Secretary of WAR and our soldiers are WARFIGHTERS and we’re all about MAXIMUM LETHALITY and we’re done with the STUPID RULES OF ENGAGEMENT and we’re kicking those stupid women out because they aren’t TOUGH and READY FOR WAR — wait what, just because we’re spending billions every day on this shit and incinerating schools and sinking unarmed submarines thousands of miles away you’re calling this a war? Bro, are you serious, bro? I’m just a smol bean. Where did that idea even come from bro? This is just dudes being dudes.

Not the most important thing, but these people are just so insufferable.

Shoutout to anyone else having trouble going about their day while our country spends a billion dollars a day to lay siege on another country and kill innocent people. To anyone else who keeps thinking about all the nice things we could collectively have in this country if anyone in a position of power wanted those nice things. Anyone thinking about all the times we’ve been told we don’t have the money for something that costs the same as like three missiles. In so many ways we became the envy of the world and we just threw it all away for one old, angry idiot. Can you even imagine a better world? Do you ever hear people talking about a clear vision for a better country? It’s so rare. That’s who we need to elect. No Nazi tattoos allowed.

No one should be a billionaire. We need to keep saying this. That level of wealth hoarding is catastrophic for society and absolute poison to their brains. We cannot allow a few dozen psychos to hold the rest of us back. At some point it isn’t about money anymore. It’s about power and immunity. It seems like it worked? They want to be able to control everything, make the big decisions about life or death, and get away with the worst crimes imaginable, and it’s working. There are still 37 pages missing that implicate the president in the rape of a child. There is credible evidence that the president is a pedophile. It’s not “accused without evidence” anymore, it’s “hasn’t been formally charged.” Seems like that will never happen.

President Pedo started a war of choice, because he likes blowing stuff up. There’s no plan, there’s no contingency, there’s no end goal. It’s casual murder. It’s destruction for the vibes. It’s always been true that you can just kill whoever and bomb whoever but now we have a guy who thinks this shows strength and power. He thinks that more is better.

It’s Schrödinger’s war. Asked how he squared saying that the war would end "soon" with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's remarks that the attacks are "only just the beginning" Trump said, "I think you could say both." No, you couldn’t. That’s insane. You’re insane. This is all insane.

We bombed a school. Hundreds of children. I can’t stop thinking about it. The US and Iran can argue all they want about who did it but this is a group project and we’re grading them as a group. They are all failures as human beings. Yes, it’s a problem if it happened because their AI was working on outdated information. But the conversation doesn’t end there. The problem isn’t that the computer was wrong. This haunting perversion of morals cannot be allowed to stand. Arguing about who fired the shot is not the point at all. But to be clear, the NYT (more than once) and NPR have both confirmed it to be the US. It was a Tomahawk missile and we are the only country in this war that has Tomahawks. It’s not rocket science, it’s just rocket identification. Basic. This is American terrorism. They are responsible for every life lost, every structured razed. Hegseth can try to wave away rules of engagement or say whatever he wants. We cannot let them go on and on about their lethal precision and warfighters and all that shit and then go “well oops, we missed the target.” There are dead children. Don’t blame AI. You know what you did.

We also sank a ship for absolutely no reason. An Iranian frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka. Torpedoed the thing and then left the survivors to die. Bonus war crimes. 130 member crew. Many of them musicians in the Iranian navy band. It was leaving an Indian government naval exercise that the US Navy also participated in. It was just heading home. Just evil. Trump said “it’s more fun” to sink ships rather than capture them.

It’s also maddening to think that anything will be better whenever this war ends. Everything will be worse and for absolutely nothing. The people making these decisions know the blowback won’t reach them. They don’t care. They solved nothing and made it worse. They’ll take a victory lap anyway.

I wasn’t really paying attention at first, but the other day I heard some comments Trump made about the war and they were just absolutely standard boiler plate Trumpisms. We’re way ahead of schedule. No one’s ever seen anything like this. We’re winning decisively. Etc etc etc. Regardless of how the war was going, this is exactly what he would say. That’s what he would say if he was building a snowman outside the White House. That’s just how he speaks. Everything is always the biggest, the best, unbelievable, much wow. It still caught me off guard how flippantly he just threw that out there despite having absolutely zero expectations for him. He’d never actually admit if it wasn’t going well. It’s exhausting having someone so stupid as president and some people debase themselves so thoroughly to blindly agree.

THERE’S NON-WAR BULLSHIT TOO

You know those annoying Meta Ray-Bans that are always recording you without your consent? They shall be known as Mark Zuckerberg’s Pervert Glasses now and forever. MZPG.

We have a real “they got to the right answer but they got there the wrong (evil) way” situation here folks. The future is renewable energy. This is clear to anyone who doesn’t have a financial state in fossil fuels. Now thanks to the incredible energy demands of AI, they are starting to swing back to solar power. Trump hates solar panels and wind turbines because he thinks they’re ugly. They’ve blocked all kinds of solar and wind projects, even ones that were almost done being built. He’s always prioritized fossil fuels. Seeing this 180 is maddening.

An 56 year old ICE detainee in Arizona died of a tooth infection. What an excruciating way to die. Just another reason everyone involved with DHS/ICE at every level deserves to stand trial and be put away forever. They are torturing people. Anyone who could do this job isn’t fit for society. The only silver lining I want to hear about is the edge of a sharpened guillotine blade.

The leading cause of death for ICE agents: immigrants. Wait, no it’s COVID. Second leading cause: immigrants. Wait no, it’s cancer linked to 9/11. And here’s the kicker: “the most recent ICE officer death attributed to something other than cancer or COVID-19 occurred in 2021. But that incident did not involve an immigrant, either. It occurred when a special agent died after his service weapon was accidentally discharged in a parking lot.” Oh.

Trump, 79 and losing his grip on reality more every day, keeps buying the same pair of discount $145 dress shoes for everyone. He also keeps guessing everyones shoe size when he needs a break from destroying the world economy. “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them,” said a White House official. Just losers all the way down. His brain is expired yogurt and they are walking around in giant Ronald McDonald ass shoes because they’re afraid to speak up.

SPORTS!

It’s baseball season!!! The MLB season is right around the corner, and the World Baseball Classic has been a ton of fun to watch. Thanks to their new Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami, the White Sox have bidets in their clubhouse now. They’re not a great team, but their assholes are going to be clean as they’re striking out. Pitcher Davis Martin said “we’ve already had jokes with it and it has already brought us closer as a team.” Andrew Benintendi (who made one of the best catches in Red Sox history) said “it’s definitely an interesting way to start conversations.” Yes, and it’s the perfect invention. Every home should have one.

Speaking of the WBC, the American manager, Mark DeRosa, made a big mistake and thought the team had already clinched a trip to the quarterfinals before losing to Italy last night. Americans love to put people in positions of power who have no idea what the hell is going on. At least this won’t get anyone killed, but damn man. This lineup is bonkers and now you’re probably done. Woof.

HEY WE’RE ALMOST DONE

Here are six really good pieces for you to read.

We live in a clicktatorship. Welcome to the troll state. This is “government through content creation.” We are all just content to them. It is an assault on what’s right.

“There will be casualties. Look around you. Do you have a plan for winning that does not involve casualties? There will be casualties. It's on us to make sure their sacrifice leads to victory.”

The only thing worse than liberal US empire is illiberal US empire.

Okay bye! Listen to the songs! They’re so good!