SEE YOU IN 2024
It’s been a hell of a fucking year for me:
I made my 42nd rotation around our star.
I celebrated 4 years of marriage and 14 years total relationship time.
I finally started writing the stories I’ve been wanting to tell.
Oh, and I moved the fuck out of America, landing in Prague, Czech Republic, the culmination of a long-time dream.
The world seems a bit darker everyday so when there’s light to be seen, take it all in.
Thank you for signing up and reading my newsletter. It’s been a big creative release for me to bring it back this year, and while I’ve been in bit of an artistic rut here at the end of the year, it means the world to me that you take time out of your day to read my nonsense and ramblings.
So, here’s to 2024. I’ll be back the first Friday of the New Year.
Hopefully the world doesn’t go anywhere.
OI TO THE WORLD!
It’s just the right time to share the art I made in celebration of my all time favorite holiday album, The Vandals’ “Oi to the World,” an album that is the pinnacle of super niche holiday humor and punk rock.
I wrote all about it so check it out and get festive and shit.
THE THINGS KNOW THINGS
Alas, I believe the last device I own that is tracking me has spewed out all the metrics it’s collected on me over the year, well, since September, when I got my Steam Deck.
It’s crazy how we all just casually accept everything having unfettered access to everything we do all the time. While these data points are informative, perhaps they’re a little concerning as well?
I’m of the age where I can remember when people and things didn’t have any clue what I was doing at any time unless I told them, but why would I have done that?
Suffice to say, it’s a double-edged sword at best.
ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE’S TOP 500 ALBUMS
OF ALL TIME
I’m making my way through Rolling Stone Magazine’s top 500 albums off all time list. The journey continues:
482: The Pharcyde - “Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde” (1992)
This album is a time machine that transported me back to my local skateboard shop in the ‘90s, sitting around watching skate videos. The music was usually punk but tucked into every video was always a Pharcyde song, with it’s distinctly not G-Funk sound, good times vibe, hip hopping. It’s so ‘90s there’s even a song featuring nothing but classic “your mamma’s so fat” jokes. I mean, come on, it’s pretty great.
481: Belle and Sebastian - “If You’re Feeling Sinister” (1996)
This is my first encounter with this band. Very pleasant sounding, nice, soft, easy to listen to while I’m doing other things. I sense a bit of a darker meaning lurking behind these songs. It sounds very modern, like all those sad sack indie bands on today so I gotta assume that when this came out in the ‘90s it sounded like nothing else around.
480: Miranda Lambert - “The Weight of These Wings” (2016)
My tastes in country music definitely veer towards the outlaw direction, away from the typical Nashville, pop country style, so I was surprised to find I enjoyed more of this album then I thought I would.
When she does the radio friendly, trad country, it’s grating at best, but she has a tremendous voice and numerous times the songs veer off from country into a indie, rock, dance sort of vibe, and I think that’s where she truly shines.
LYRICS OF THE WEEK
Leonard Cohen once said
"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in"
And I am not an old man having an existential crisis
At a Buddhist monastery writing horny poetry
But I agree
boygenius - “Leonard Cohen”