Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 169: Nate

Prompt: "A song about cycles"

Selected by Nate

"A Seat Behind the Wing"

Vista House

They'll See the Light, 2024

Titus Andronicus Bracket coming Monday. There wasn't enough time in the work week to blog several thousands of words about a punk band, so I'll need to take the weekend. The Ol' Nate Dogg regrets the error.

Winter tires for a 2014 Chrysler Town and Country minivan cost about $135 bucks a pop. The new sunglasses from Walton Goggins, beautifully called Goggins Goggles, cost about the same. Considering labor hours, rotation and balancing, one could purchase approximately seven pairs of Goggins Goggles for what I had to sink into my lemon this afternoon. It had better snow like a motherfucker this winter. There was a video game for the PS2 (I think) in which your POV character spends fifteen minutes trying to cover up a murder they have just committed in a bathroom, then the next fifteen minutes you spend your time with a different POV character trying to solve the murder you just committed and covered up. From that relatively grounded (but also decidedly very cool) springboard, the story devolves (or flourishes) into a metaphysical fantasy battle between... I don't remember what exactly, but I know one side was basically psychic hobos. I promise I am not making it up, Sunny, come in here and help me out, you're the only one else here who knows games.

Anyway, in that game, if you fuck up enough, the world is plunged into an eternal winter in which the remaining dregs of society have to live underground because it is too cold. For the goddamn $900 I threw at my minivan today, that shit better happen this winter, is what I am saying. Here's a tweet that sums this idea up, rest easy knowing it was made in the pre-nazi times for the platform.

Fahrenheit prophecy? Indigo Prophecy? I think the game was called Indigo Prophecy.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 168: Nate

Prompt: "A song about traditions"

Selected by Nate

"Kinky"

bby

1, 2024

Movies: they keep on making them! What was once a beloved pastime has become—thanks in part to the global pandemic from which the population has yet to recover, the individual pandemic of "having three kids under the age of seven," and the larger forces / inevitable conclusions of capitalism and the culture of bottomless consumption it creates—either a sometimes-indulgence from the comfort of the couch or a once-a-quarter-at-best night out made more expensive thanks to the cost of a babysitter, to say nothing of a popcorn bucket you can fuck if you want to, though I guess that's all popcorn buckets if you maintain a can-do attitude.

Considering all that there preamble, the following list is likely not all that relevant as service journalism, and perhaps more of a snapshot into How We Live Now. But, of course, you're living this way, too. It comes back then to the ultimate purpose of all blogging; kill a little time, have a little fun on the computer.

Two Nates Down:

Fool's Paradise

Comedy - Directed by Charlie Day - 2023

Mama mia, what a shame! America's favorite Bobcat Goldthwait takes a break from being the most charming member of Paddy's Pub to make a satire about Hollywood, in which the message seems to be that success is random and talent does not exist. For more on this theme and its ideas, please see nearly every single movie made about Hollywood since the dawn of time. Tell you what though, Glenn Howerton's cameo in this was killer. It brings no joy to say this was the worst movie viewed in the calendar year, but the truth is its own reward.

Leo

Children's movie / Comedy - Directed by Robert Smigle, Robert Marianetti, David Wachtenheim - 2023

Here are two true things: Adam Sandler is beloved, and Adam Sandler regularly produces and participates in some of the worst shit low culture can imagine. Leo is not at the bottom of the pile, but it ain't all that great, either. It's a movie about an old lizard who teaches kids to be nice to each other because their parents are apparently unable to do so. A bunch of Sandler's kids get to do voices in the movie. Bill Burr is there, too. It got the kids through 90 minutes during the long winter break and they've never asked to watch it again. They've left it back in January 2024 where it belongs, so this blog post will, too.

One Nate Down:

A Haunting in Venice

Mystery - Directed by Kenneth Branagh - 2023

Death on the Nile was such a nadir that this being merely garden-variety bad counts as a victory. Every year there should be a movie that a young person can see with their grandmother in which both participants will have a C+/B- time at the metroplex. Tina Fey should continue to do silly little accents.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1

Action / Thriller - Directed by Chris McQuarre while Tom Cruise drinks a glass of water - 2023

Joe Biden seeing this movie and becoming concerned about the capabilities of artificial intelligence and superpowered computing was a real "I feel bad for our country, but this is tremendous content" moment. The car chase segment of this movie was great fun, the other parts were either forgettable or remakes of the climax of the second Matrix movie. Hopes remain high for part two, which one assumes is coming soon. Generally speaking, this series has provided the most consistent source genuine entertainment compared to all other long-running franchises, so it gets a pass and remains high in the esteem.

Zero Nates:

Barbie

Comedy - Directed by Greta Gerwig - 2023

An interesting movie and probably a good one. The Stephen Malkmus joke was unexpected, which made its aim and sting all the more true. More Michael Cera in the monitors next time, and more America Ferrera, but maybe less of whatever her last speech at the climax was there, too. The Will Ferrell shit was so odd as to appear an insertion from a larger marketing team, always better for the true power to appear clownish and unthreatening, stay woke soldiers.

Women Talking

Drama - Directed by Saeah Polley - 2022

Nice try.

Self Reliance

Comedy / Thriller - Directed by Jake Johnson - 2024

Thank goodness two beloved comedic actors didn't make total duds in their directorial debuts. The millennial heart couldn't take it, several cottage communities on Tumblr would have to come down. Move movies should have ambiguous conclusions where things just sort of end. Also, that lady from Pitch Perfect is going to spend the rest of her life looking like a fawn but slowly becoming more deranged, which is cool.

Dune

Action / Sci-Fi - Directed by Denis Villinuve - 2021

One cannot Be So Back without first having it Be So Over. Society is failing Oscar Isaac, we gotta find this guy something cool and good to do that gives him nice clothes to wear and put him on a big screen with an actual script once every eighteen months.

Avatar: The Way of Water

Action / Sci-Fi - Directed by James Cameron - 2022

The last hour of this is basically Titanic meets Aliens and if that doesn't make you want to run to a TV and watch this shit, it's hard to know what you're looking for in your blockbuster entertainment. The stuff in the two hours before that is either the dumbest shit one can imagine, or the dumbest shit that one can imagine that none-the-less becomes effective over the outstretching minutes. See you at the third one.

Shot Caller

Prison / Thriller - Directed by Ric Roman Waugh - 2017

If one ever finds themselves getting their vasectomy and needing to wile away the couch-bound hours, here's a good path to killing two of them while reaffirming one's connection to a performance of masculinity so extreme that it comes out as parody on the other end. Kingslayer was rad in this one, to be fair.

The Fall Guy

Action - Directed by David Leitch - 2024

Few movies in recent memory have strained harder to remind viewers how much fun they are having than this one. Despite all that sweating, it was still quite fun. Emily Blunt should make five movies a year until otherwise notified. Gosling should be on the proposed Oscar Issac plan, but no more than that.

Hit Man

Comedy / Thriller - Directed by Richard Linklater - 2024

A Tom Cruise who fucks? Now we're cooking with gas, baby! The '90s are BACK.

Raya and the Last Dragon

Children's movie / Action - Directed by Carlos Estrada and Don Hall - 2021

Children's movies turn people into maniacs. It's fine for them to be fine. This one is fine. Send Aquafina to the negative zone never to return.

The Wizard of Oz

Old - Directed by Victor Flemming - 1939

Breaking a personal rule and rewatching an old movie at the behest of family is as noble a reason to break a personal rule as any, one supposes. Slapstick was rad, as was the concept of "being a witch," before these ideas were taken away from Americans during the Reagan administration.

One Nate Up:

Blackberry

Drama / Comedy - Directed by Matt Johnson - 2023

The Big Short, but Canadian. Imagine loving hockey so much you ruin cellular communication. It could very well be me.

Dune Part Two

Action / Sci-Fi / Religious Fanaticism - Directed by Denis Villinuve - 2024

Remove roughly 20 minutes of late-movie desert wandering and this a perfect film. First hour of this is Star Wars, the last 20 minutes of this alternate world Lord of the Rings where Frodo keeps the ring and leads the orcs into Rohan while also taking two wives (they call this movie The Empire Strikes Back). Sick, sick, sick move. Let your movie end on a sour note, cowards!!!

It's What's Inside

Thriller - David Leitch - 2024

It may look like just another piece of quasi-attractive neon Netflix slime, but it's actually the movie Clue with hot people. Great surprise, great fun, favorite find of the year.

Run Lola Crim

Romance / Crime / Family Drama - Directed by Tom Tyker - 1998

They did this shit in 80 minutes! Our computers have ruined us.

Two Nates Up:

None

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 154: Nate

Prompt: "A song that mentions a time on the clock"

Selected by Nate

"Five"

PoPo

A Compilation About Darkness, 2024

Hours on the clock, ranked from objective best to objective worst. This is probably 100 words or at least stupid enough that Puke on Your Birthday will have to publish it. My truth is represented either way.

1. 3 PM
2. 8 PM
3. 10 AM
4. 9 AM
5. 1 PM
6. 6 PM
7. 5 PM
8. 4 PM
9. 11 AM
10. Noon
11. 7 PM
12. 7 AM
13. Midnight
14. 2 PM
15. 5 AM
16. 6 AM
17. 8 AM
18. 9 PM
19. 2 AM
20. 1 AM
21. 11 PM
22. 10 PM
23. 4 AM
24. I'm not crazy, you're crazy for thinking that it takes 24 hours just like some dude in a cave did 300 years ago.
25. 3 AM

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 151: Nate

Prompt: "A song about the devil"

Selected by Nate

"Yankee Trails"

Drug Church

PRUDE, 2024

The devil is addiction. The devil is jealousy. The devil is lust. The devil is the feeling of being owed something, that what is owed should be taken, that ownership by-right outstrips any means or effects in its acquisition. The devil is ambition. The devil is the self. The devil is capital. The devil is a large man in a pinstripe suit sitting on the board of county executives somewhere in northern New Jersey, pulling the strings of influence in small and unseen ways to affect lives that will never know the author of their hardship. The devil is a car dealership owner. The devil is a customer service manager. The devil is a communications VP. The devil is Al Pacino. The devil is Jason Lee. The devil is Elizabeth Hurley. The devil is the neighbor who smiles. The devil is the seepage in the groundwater. The devil is the illusion of power. The devil is fleeting control. The devil is the first hit of heroin. The devil is the first line of pills crushed and inhaled. The devil drives slowly past basketball courts. The devil drives slowly past playgrounds. The devil lives in the dark of suburban basements. The devil walks on carpeted hallways at one in the morning. The devil is not subtle. The devil is unheard. The devil is a best friend. The devil is as distant as the horizon. The devil caught the ball by his fingertips. The devil hit the quadruple-doink. The devil stole home. The devil cut hours again this year. The devil is not accepting applications at this time. The devil is waiting to share the results of your tests with you. You should call the devil back as soon as you're able to. The devil deserves sympathy. The devil paid the price for asking "why." The devil didn't think it was fair. The devil will hold swimmers under still rock reservoirs. The devil does not run too far. The devil does not jump too high. The devil raises his hand. The devil walks among the throngs at the protest march. The devil sits at the outer ring of the board room. The devil wouldn't leave an impression if someone saw him. The devil will be here tomorrow. The devil was here yesterday. The devil is reading this. The devil wrote this.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 147: Nate

Prompt: "A song with exactly double the amount of characters in the title than in the artist name"

Selected by Nate

"Ladrones"

NOÏA

II, 2024

Is music undiscovered by other people intrinsically better than music known by a wide swath of the world? Indisputably so.

Here is a brief account of the items eaten on a recent visit to Sunny's Chinese in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. All these foodstuffs fall somewhere on a scale between "very good" to "really great." This may seem hollow, but consider this: when was the last time that a piece of food prompted a vocal response? That piece of food would have to be considerable in its qualities, would it not? Does not that reframing of the enterprise provide a cleaner and more meaningful context in which to understand the forthcoming list? These questions are, of course, hypothetical, as the answers are as clear as the nose on one's face or the gut protruding from one's midsection. Toes are theoretical.

4) Dan Dan Noodles — Could have been spicier, but undeniably delivering in the peanut flavor one comes to expect from Robert x2's signature dish.

3) Twice-cooked Pork — It was the second cooking that did it. This was served in a big hot pile with many vegetables of indeterminate origin. Really paired well with the rice.

2) Mustard greens — the garlic/sesame glaze on this was out of this world. Would that it were bottled so that it could be purchased over the counter and slugged directly like a particularly viscous version of YooHoo! This is what NAFTA has taken from us.

1) Salted egg yolk shrimp — An unexpected winner. Tempura-fried and served with the shells on. The first bite was texturally arresting. The second bite revealed the flavor and chewiness of the shrimp. The third bite is where the yolk flavor comes in, giving the whole dish a velvet luxury that will leave on pursuing its particular flavor for some time after. 

Sunny's does not sell XL shirts, or even XXL shirts, so plan the shirt-buying accordingly.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 142: Nate

Prompt: "The song that plays over the end credits of the 2024 remake of Dr. Strangelove"

Selected by Nate

"There Were Changes in the Hardcore Scene"

Cheekface

It's Sorted, 2024

Never seen the movie, ain't that some shit? I don't really fuck with movies made before 1979, because most, if not all, of those movies are bad. I don't read every one of Joe's movie blogs, but I can only assume he agrees with me. Anyway, this is a satire, this film, so I am told by Wikipedia and general cultural osmosis, so here's a song that it also a satire of sorts, in that it is sort of funny without actually making you laugh. I recently read the novel The Sellout, which is another satire, but it actually made me laugh out loud. As with all satire, I am not certain I "got it" (this is because I am very stupid, ask anyone), but I recommend that book wholeheartedly for anyone who wants a fun time with race in America. But back to Dr. Strangelove, wake me up when they do a remake with Austin Butler and that chesty broad from the HBO show.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 141: Nate

Prompt: "A song that reminds you of somewhere you traveled"

Selected by Nate

"How Do They Know?"

Ismatic Guru

IV EP, 2024

Dinner with my family, it brings me no pleasure to say, is the most stressful time of my day. I am regularly white-knuckling my way through a meal with my three daughters and my wife, angry as hell and trying not to let it leak through the gaps. This has to do with a lot of things, but ultimately it has to do with my kids refusing to eat anything except a handful of carbohydrates and sweet fruits.

I'm not actually mad at them. They're kids. Of course they only want to eat chicken nuggets or mac and cheese. I do not select these two examples as some kind of representative mass, but rather because these are the only two things I can count on all three of my children to eat at any given meal. If I expand the meal options to breakfast and lunch—or if I expand my mind to stretch beyond the limits of specific foods for specific meals—there are maybe six things in total instead of two. Again, I feel the need to stress that these are not exaggerated numbers. PBJ, waffles, mac and cheese from a box, pizza, chicken nuggets, freeze-dried strawberries. These are the options.

What I am mad at is the foolish and defeatist attitude my family has taken toward getting my damn kids to eat anything different or new. The party line has been to "expose" them to foods but not to force them to eat anything. To make sure there is always something they like on the plate. This is a nice idea when it comes from an influencer on social media, but in practice, it leads to the kids begging for second and third helpings of crackers while the pumpkin gnocchi and green beans go untouched. We have been at this for six years. It has not worked. All this policy does is turn every meal into a battle, a prolonged negotiation in which there are no winners and, best case scenario, my kids only cry and scream for 45 seconds as we deny them a third applesauce pouch.

I understand that it is only my job to give the children food, not to make them eat. God, though, I would love to go back in time to my own childhood when the order of the day was "you need to eat three broccoli or we're turning the lights off on you." You know what I did? Ate the fucking broccoli and eventually learned to love it. You know what my kids are not doing? That.

Were I seeking professional help with my issues, I am sure these two impulses would not be related at all. God, dinner. It drives me nuts. I love my kids so much and I hate that every evening meal—the one that apparently has the most meaning to long-term success and stability—is the one that turns me into a simmering set of clenched shoulders and closed fists, eyes down at the wood of my table, shoveling whatever is on my plate into my mouth so I don't explode.

Anyway, we had a lovely time in Vermont earlier this summer, shout out to Sunny, here's a song that reminds me of that trip.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 139: Nate

Prompt: "A song that has the same letter three times in a row somewhere in its title"

Selected by Nate

"www.nevergetoveryou"

Youth Fountain

single, 2022

Brett and Anthony moved away, both still live in the Philly area, though Anthony might have de-camped for the Research Triangle or maybe DC. Not being on Facebook means not having up-to-date information on the people in the outer boroughs of one's life. Maria, I think, is also still in the greater Philly area. Alex I lost track of, but I know she moved away. Krysten is somewhere in the Carolinas. Colleen was in Appalachia last time I heard, but I think she might have moved back closer to western New York. I don't know where Monica wound up. Same for Chris V and Evan. Ed is still in town. So is Chris C and Mannion. Sean, obviously, is still here, and Jeff has gone out and back, living in Syracuse now. I hope Liz is okay, and other Liz, too. I hope Kyle and Rashard are okay. Dirt, I think, is way out west, and I hope he is and that he's happy.

The thing about moving back to where you grew up is you run the risk of stumbling into people who never left. It hasn't happened much, but it's a small town and there are lots of opportunities. Word is out that I am back; Jimmy has put the word out through contacts that he knows I'm here and wants to see me. That'll happen eventually, I guess. A few exes are still in town but I cannot imagine running into them would mean anything to them. I would be weird about it because I am weird. Thanks have to be on my terms, if I come in on the back foot or not on the balls of my feelings, the interactions get sour.

I imagine this is inscrutable. That's at least partially by design. Trying to work something out, push through something. There's a feeling that settles on me that doesn't have a name yet, it's both immediate and distant, affecting me but not yet classified so as not to be treatable. A thousand years ago I would write my way through it, be as honest as I could and see what fell out at the bottom of the page. Very easy to not have to do that now, thanks to any number of electronic devices available to me, including the thing I'm writing this on. It's so easy to do nothing, to not engage, to let the days just run off the calendar. It's not like you're ever going to die. It's not like your brain will ever lodge and record regret in a detailed, organized catalog. It's not like today is as young as you'll ever be.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 135: Nate

Prompt: "A song that literally mentions some type of spice"

Selected by Nate

"Cilantro"

Bucko

Bucko, 2024

Here is a quarter-baked conspiracy theory: people are drinking too much water. I haven't worked out who this theory is working on behalf of (Big Water?), or what the benefit of getting people hooked on water would be. Maybe to once again go Immortan Joe Mode, the idea is to get people all honked up on water so that when it eventually runs out those people who are most used to slugging it will be the first to go, thus leaving more water for the more thirsty / hearty among us? Like I said, I'm still working the finer details out. I just think we're probably drinking too much water. I'm not saying we shouldn't drink any—also, I have no idea who "we" are in this context, since it's only me and I'm not really sure I even believe what I'm saying but whatever the ball is rolling down hill now—I just don't know that we need quite as much as we think we do. A gallon a day, I think is what people are supposed to get? That's perverse. We're not day-laborers or home builders in Tempe, we're just knobs with email jobs who might (MIGHT!) exercise sometimes. Lay off on the water (I will not be laying off on the water).

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 127: Nate

Prompt: "The song you sang along to during a pivotal moment in your life"

Selected by Nate

"in the knees"

long odds

fine thread, 2022

It's been just about two years since I moved back to Rochester. When I talk to people about the move—which happens a lot less frequently now and when it does I've sanded down the talking points enough to get the pitch to a tight five—I always frame it as "I moved my family to be closer to family," which is only a little bit of the truth. I didn't move my family; my wife suggested that we consider moving and we talked about it, and I suggested that if we were going to make the move we had to do it now, which we discussed and she agreed to. We moved together, together, even if it doesn't always feel that way, even if people don't really believe it when I say it, even if it's a projection and a perspective I hold to make myself feel safe.

And the other thing. We did move to be closer to family but really we moved to be closer to my mother who was diagnosed with aggressive, comprehensive stage four cancer. I can remember the phone call if I let myself; in the basement, at my glorified table that I used as a desk, during the workday, sitting in my office chair, one hand on my head and the other holding my phone as my parents talked to me on speakerphone about what the scans found and what the timeline looked like on average for people like her with conditions like hers. I can't recall the words but I can recall the sounds. I can't recall the weather but I can recall the feeling; like my eyes were too big for my head, like they were going to press and fall out of my head onto the floor. Like I hadn't slept in weeks. Like I needed a beer or a candy bar or fifteen beers or fifteen candy bars, like I needed to run out and get in the car and drive home, like I needed to run upstairs and hug my kids. Eighteen months, give or take. Some people longer, some people shorter, but eighteen months was what to expect, what felt safe to assume. She said she was going to keep living her life the way she wanted to until she couldn't, and then we'd figure it out from there.

I've written about this idea before somewhere—probably on this blog if not my other haunted house—and I think that, if I could go full Didion and do the research into grief and its expression, I'd find this isn't an original thought at all, but grief, for me, is expressed like a bell. Maybe not a bell, but like sonar or echolocation. It radiates out from the center of the mind in a ring of light, and it reflects off of memories of grief's past and bounces back to the center, making the feeling one long recurring sadness in which every new tragedy becomes part of a tapestry of loss and suffering. My mother's cancer reminded me of my cousin drinking himself to death, of my grandmother dying of a stroke, of my friend jumping in front of a train, of my grandmother dying of old age. All those hurts sang in harmony in my mind in the hours after that phone call. The impending loss of my mother was Diana Ross, all the other losses sang backup. I'm still there, part of me is, in that basement with an ancient heater and a cracked concrete floor and un-topped boxes of clothes and children's toys, holding a hand to my head and hand on a phone, waiting for the end to come.

Thing is, it hasn't. We've been here for two years. 24 months. 28 months if you count the distance between that first phone call and this blog post now. Between a surgery that basically scraped my mother out from the inside and bathed her body in radiation, a chemo cycle that slowed but did not stop the growth of cancer, and a clinical trial that has, miraculously, not only stopped the growth but shrunk it in some spots, my mother is still with us. She was at my house yesterday for my second daughter's third birthday. She's got the girls at her house now. She was at the beach with us earlier in the month. She was at the Fourth of July celebration in the Adirondacks in July. She came over to babysit while I went to a concert in April. She picked my oldest up from school on her first day of kindergarten. She's upright, she's moving, she's lively, she's warm, she's involved. My youngest, just about eighteen months old now, can say her name. My oldest daughter will have memories of her, and its looking more and more like my middle will, too. No one is getting ahead of their skis, no one dare believe that what's out there can be reversed. But I dared not hope that this is where we'd be two years into this move, into this reconfiguration of five lives. Everyone eventually becomes a memory, and eventually my mother will too and I'll have to figure out where the feelings go. But for now, she's here and we are too, and I cannot believe how lucky we are. Time is all you get. I love you, mom.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 121: Nate

Prompt: "A song that would soundtrack a montage sequence of kids in the 1950s having some innocent fun in some cheap shitty Netflix movie with terrible cinematography"

Selected by Nate

"주마등 (A Lot Can Happen)"

Parannoul

Sky Hundred, 2024

About 50 pages into The Looming Tower—roughly 15% through the tome—it seems like two ideas are going to form the center of what lead to Al-Qaeda and the further prominence of radicalized Islamic terror cells. The first is the cultural and spiritual effects of the six-day war on the larger Arab world. Namely: when Egypt, Jordan, and Syria declared war on Israel and summarily had their air-forces and navies destroyed in days (and in some cases, within hours), it decimated the psyche of those nations and the subsequent malaise created rhetorical space for the idea that only through establishing nations based not on traditional government but on a strict religious adherence to a specific and not necessarily agreed-upon interpretation of Islamic rule.

The second thing, which is fed by the first, is the Arab world's disgust and feeling of betrayal at the hands of the West when Israel was given formal nationhood after the Second World War. That feels almost so reductive and obvious as to not be worth pointing to, but it does illustrate how decisions reflect and refract through time. How people—and even some of us very specifically and explicitly—are living with the results of these decisions from 80 years ago.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 120: Nate

Prompt: "A song that has the word 'title' in the title"

Selected by Nate

"Don't Need a Title"

Haida

Don't Need A Title [CKRA026], 2022

Love and respect to anyone who picks that Death Cab song today. I am setting the over/under at 2.5 and taking the under.

The air conditioning is out in the house. It's out in the minivan too, but that's less immediate a need. The minivan is for short trips around town or long drives to reach vacation destinations. The air need not be conditioned for the former and will likely not be needed again in this calendar year for the latter. More to the point, in an increasingly and rapidly heating world, conditioned air is a hindrance. It behooves one to learn how to cope with the heat now, because everyone is going to have to cope with the heat later. Air conditioning is not a long-term solution, and as things start to burn up and burn out, it isn't hard to see a world where the power consumed by conditioning air is needed for more life-sustaining things like water supplies, ventilators, or VR headsets that can project the image of snow across our forgetful eyes. Better to go Immortan Joe mode and learn to sweat, lest one become covetous and desiring of that which temporarily relieves.

Is this perspective an excuse / cover for cheapness? Does this surrender more readily suggest one not willing to shell out $5,500 for a new A/C unit? File an FOIA request.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 106: Nate

Prompt: "A song that takes place at a sporting event"

Selected by Nate

"super bowl"

mateo silvester

single, 2023

Yeah well you can't prove this isn't about being at the Super Bowl, can you? Someone said this recently on here, might have been Joe Puke himself, that there's a difference between being a person who is sports agnostic or not into sports, and being a "sportsball person." That's a true observation, especially since the latter people are unserious noxious dweebs, but I'll give them credit that calling the Super Bowl the "Superb Owl" is pretty funny.

Disconnected Superbowl thoughts: Watching the game at Gilson's apartment with my still relatively new then-girlfriend/now-wife, potentially during the Katy Perry or Bruce Springsteen halftime performance year; watching the Prince performance on repeat the day he died, unclear why I was being so heavily affected by the passing of an artist I wasn't particularly interested in; watching the Bills in their fourth-consecutive Super Bowl in four years, going to bed with them having the lead, certain in my childhood that I would wake up to victory and crying when I found out they lost the next morning; seeing a guy in a Patriots jersey walk out onto the quad of the North Dorms at La Salle University the year that the Eagles lost to the Pats, seeing that same guy come back bloody and jersey-ripped a couple of hours later (perhaps my first-ever documenting of fucking around / finding out); watching the game at... Joe K's house one time, I think? The year the Falcons lost?; watching the game at my friend Ed's house in high school with a bunch of dudes, all of us wondering if we did, in fact, just see a titty there for a second; checking the score in the bathroom of a Baltimore playhouse where I was seeing Waitress for some reason, realizing that every other person in the pisser was doing the same thing. Sports: they pass the time in between this life and the next.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 104: Nate

Prompt: "The least appropriate song to play at the lighting of the Olympic torch"

Selected by Nate

"france is so bad"

Costes

Bad Trip in Petra, 2020

If, through some depraved set of circumstances, I was forced to represent the United States in the Olympics, and the people of... let's say Arkansas, were going to be executed if I did not medal, well those people are dead. But! Here are the events where they'd have their best chance with me participating:

1) Trampoline — Unexpected number 1, but I think there's a chance that this is one of those events where nations just send people with no hope of winning so I might be able to luck into a medal by the virtue of other people just bouncing themselves off the platform. I've got a low center of gravity so I think I could really get myself flipping around if I had to.

2) Rugby — Being a rugby forward isn't nuanced, you just have to grind yourself into grit and throw your body like a cannonball at other cannonballs. As a stupid piece of meat, I could potentially float as the worst member of a great team. We're basically playing for third though, since New Zealand is a shoe-in for one of the top two spots, and I assume the Aussies or the Irish would be in hot contest.

3) Golf — I'm terrible at golf, but I could at least find some joy in this particular contest. I think that should matter when three million people are screaming at me into their TV sets as I hit yet another ball 70 yards off-line into thick tree growth.

4) Basketball — This is similar to the rugby idea, except where rugby requires only will and flesh, basketball calls for higher-order thinking and fast reactions, neither of which is particularly a strength of mine in my advanced age and expanded waistline. I can set a mean pick, I can pump-fake okay, I have decent vision for an oaf, but I would get blown off the floor and likely explode all of my joints the moment I was called on to play on-ball defense against some heavy-smoking factory worker of a former Yugoslavian country.

5) Archery — I did this a few times at boy scout camp when I was in my teens. I was pretty good. Everyone in the Natural State is now dead. Regnat populus, brothers.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 100: Nate

Prompt: "A song involving a fork or a knife or a spoon (unironically, please)"

Selected by Nate

"Working for the Knife"

Mitski

Laurel Hell, 2022

On very good days I wake up an hour before the rest of the house and go for a run. I run past a school. I run past a library. I run past a public park with a playground and some baseball fields and a splash pad where people can cool off when it gets too hot. I run past a bakery and a donut shop and a church. I run through tree-lined streets of a well-manicured neighborhood where there's a slight incline or decline depending on which way you go. I run past a section of sidewalk that has been dug up and under construction for a couple of months now, one square missing from an otherwise uniform block, a big gap in a row of teeth. This sidewalk square is full of rocks. My kids like to walk past it and take a rock out of it to bring home "for their rock collection." This is something the older kid started doing, behavior that was quickly copied by the younger kid. After a while I had to tell them to stop because I was genuinely concerned that there would be drainage or reset issues caused by all the rocks my family had been hauling away. Also, they need to diversify their rock collections. A rock collection can't be all slate grey angular stones pulled from what is basically a construction site, small though it may be.

I think of this when I run past that segment of sidewalk. If I am feeling strong I will run through this segment, timing my steps so my footfall lands in rhythm, jumping down a little bit to account for the change in depth, leaping up out of the pit to keep going. When I feel less sure of myself and more aware of my ankle history or the new pain in my knees and back, I'll run into the street to avoid the gap altogether. I am not a senior citizen and I could likely survive a fall if I took one, but this is the fear now that I have a family. The other night I was alone in the house with my three girls and I started to wonder how long it would take for help to arrive if I dropped dead. The infant would be useless, the three-year-old wouldn't know how to work a phone. It would depend on the soon-to-be first-grader knowing how to use my phone, knowing where to find it on my dresser, knowing how to unlock it for emergency calls, thinking laterally and going to find one of the neighbors we have met but are not close with. I went to sleep and woke up and made the kids pancakes and tried not to think about it until now.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 99: Nate

Prompt: "A song about heart beating faster or heart issues or something about the heart doing something that's noticeable to the narrator of the song"

Selected by Nate

"Could Be Fun"

Banana Club

single, 2020

I've had two panic attacks that felt severe enough that I sent myself to the emergency room. The first one happened in college and I legitimately had no idea what was happening to me. I thought I was going to die in the emergency room until they wheeled a guy in who was having some kind of problem with his bowles or his bladder or something. This poor bastard was moaning non-stop from the pain of being unable to use the bathroom, but he also would not consent to having a catheter put in so he just laid prone wailing for the hour or so I was in emergency with him. The second time was a few years later after I'd briefly taken up smoking, and I was so worried that I was going to drop dead that I walked to Graduate Hospital only to find out that it wasn't actually a hospital. I've since been informed by medical professionals that if you can walk ten blocks to get to a hospital, you probably aren't having a heart attack. I haven't had a significant panic attack in a while now, which means I've once again solved mental wellness through the power of my incredible will and flawless mind. Another win for suppressing your feelings without consequences and another blow to therapy as a practice.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 98: Nate

Prompt: "A song with a tempo that matches your heartbeat right now"

Selected by Nate

"Make Ya Proud"

Hovvdy

Hovvdy, 2024

It's not one-to-one, but it's close enough for blogging purposes. I'm all in on this Hovvdy record. They are to me what that last boygenius record was to Maeve.

I recently had reason to be in Boston, and while there, I got somewhat wined and dined in the sense that I didn't have to pay for a meal for three days of travel. Not to look a business horse in the mouth, but I was reminded that most restaurants are a fucking rip off. Unlike most books (which are good) and most music (which is fine) and most movies (which are forgettable), most restaurants are bad. Not "bad" in the sense that the food will make you sick or you will not receive sustenance or they'll treat you like shit or whatever, but "bad" in the sense that the food will not be worth what you will pay for it. American cities are teaming with a creamy middle of fusion bistros that will upcharge you for an "elevated" version of a common thing that is not as good as the common thing but costs four-to-six dollars more for the privilege of eating somewhere with brass countertops that used to be part of a manufacturing plant. This is how you get a cheeseburger for $18 that doesn't taste as good as something from Wendy's, or how you get seven mango habanero chicken wings for $13 or how you end up paying more than $5 for fucking cauliflower. Go to great restaurants or cheap-shit holes in the wall run by immigrants, otherwise stay home and make your own shit. I ate at three places that felt like they were opened specifically by a hedge fund algorithm and not human beings. My grain bowl was $22 and I forgot about it midway through eating it.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 90: Nate

Prompt: "A song about American history"

Selected by Nate

"Into the Conquering Sun"

Ted Leo & Jeppesen Airplane

single, 2021

Take pride in America. Take pride in its origins, in its messy compromise of a system that was in and of itself a revolution of organization. Take pride in its progress, its accomplishments, the things it has gotten right, and if you are the kind of person who can find it, in all that it has gotten wrong. Take pride in its flawed system. Take pride in those willing to participate with it and in it, flaws and all. Take pride in the kind of person willing to work to improve the flaws against impossible odds. Take pride in those who wish to dismantle it, in those who see no errors in it. It's alright to be horrified by America. Horrified by the blood spilled in its name, horrified of its history, horrified of its present, horrified of its future. Take solace in the fact that you are America. Every day you get to decide what America is, what it might mean to other people, what it stands for, how it stands for it. This is pollyanna but true. This is Hallmark, Kevin Costner shit, but it's true. What is a government other than an organization of people? What is a country beyond the things one interacts with daily? Be America, and take pride in it. The notion of patriotism is being warped. There is a way to be proud and acknowledge failures, to stand by ideals in spite of what's carried out in their name. America is a religion, whether we like it or not, and to be born on these shores is to be baptized in this catechism. Find a way to make it meaningful, or be crushed by those who would seek to define it.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 89: Nate

Prompt: "A song about being late"

Selected by Nate

"Big Blue"

Hovvdy

Hovvdy, 2024

A bad but understandable habit to develop is not responding to text messages or emails from friends in a timely manner, or in some cases at all. It is one thing to live in a world in which one's phone is constantly pinging with one notification or another and to feel so frustrated by the constant calls for attention that one just ditches the phone altogether for a while. It's also reasonable to recognize that this modern pull for your attention has eroded what is expected of any one person in response to any other; letters used to take weeks, calls could take days to return, an email within 24 hours seems reasonable, a text not returned within minutes can signal unintended things. Still and all, there's being overwhelmed, and there's being overwhelmed at the expense of the people worth holding close. It's one thing to ghost a date. It's a worse thing to ghost a friend, lest you risk telling that person they fundamentally misunderstood the relationship.

This is a song about needing to call Uncle Tim, whoever that Uncle Tim might be.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 80: Nate

Prompt: "A song about platonic love"

Selected by Nate

"Neutrogena Spektor"

Origami Angel

Gami Gang, 2021

Hard prompt. Some emotional truths are easier to access than others.

I write this from the JetBlue terminal at JFK airport, one of New York City's top two airports. Portobello burger ordered through a QR code while the bartender checks his phone. Fox News flickering on a half-lit TV threatening an invasion or a hijacking that has not yet come. TART watermelon slices, listed at $8, sold at $12 plus tax. It's a really bad deal, is the thing. Piss the color of dull gold. It's been a long day. Woke up in a luxury hotel, hopefully falling asleep on a marriage bed in a Western New York city. A long way between here and there. Maybe 75 minutes getting through security. A small man in a greying shirt hollering at cow-eyed travelers, just fucking howling at them, taking what must have been a long bad day out on people moving through a troth, paying all those bad feelings forward. A mall food court inside a bus station, except you had to take your belt off and get your genitals touched to be permitted the privilege of the Port Authority transit center. No disrespect to regional transit centers intended. There's need everywhere and not nearly enough of whatever's needed to go around. People are doing their best. Hearts can swell in places like this, hearts can die. How do you treat your fellow man in purgatory? Does it have any bearing on the final destination? Do you gain anything back letting someone go in front of you in the security line if you forgot to tip the cab driver? Love might be as simple as choosing not to hurt someone, taking an extra step to watch out for another. Its opposite might be as simple as the absence of effort. Good intentions, poor executions. Hard to say, useless to know.