Notes from a cluttered mind

Episode 1: The Spork Awakens

I mentioned this yesterday on X, but since a number of you don’t use the platform, I’ll reiterate it here. Frankly, the news is nothing short of triumphant: protein wisdom reborn! — the very column you are now reading! — is moving to a new format.

To wit: instead of posting long-form essays scattershot, I’m taking this full time, to the point I hope to make a modest living from original content. Otherwise, the Biden-Harris economy is going to force my hand, and I’ll be compelled to do what others do when their backs are against the wall: identitfy as Haitian and eat a park duck.

The new format will look something like this. On Monday will appear “Notes from a cluttered mind,” a collection of scattershot thoughts meant to replace an erstwhile scattershot posting schedule while keeping what to me is most important of all: my overuse of the word “scattershot.”

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ll post more traditional longform essays. So for you serious types who cannot brook my buffoonery, it is here I’ll do my best to please you.

On Wednesdays comes a humpday recounting of some of the news of the week in digestible bites, with said bites flavored in my own Jeff saliva, then regurgitated as a tight bolus for your delectation. To some of you, this may sound gross; to others of you, I’ve just given you a great idea for your new Only Fans page.

Finally, Friday. On Friday comes the feature “Mental Sorbet.” This is where the leftovers go — but only those leftovers I feel will usefully cleanse your intellectual palates. Think of this feature as the scoop of orange sherbet you never really asked for and don’t really like, and which — unlike sorbet — contains the dairy you can’t really tolerate and you hope doesn’t repeat on you all weekend. Then embrace it, like Sisyphus did his stone.

If this sounds good to you, I ask that the 3000+ of you who are already subscribed to this Substack consider purchasing a paid subscription. Not only does this help support my work, but it’s like a vigorous handy to my ego. From, like, a total stranger I just met in a bus depot whose name I’ll never even bother learning. You have that power, people.

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Notes from a cluttered mind

1. That nobody ever informed me Criterion has its own streaming channel with its own app is — or rather, would be — a hanging offense, were it not the case that because nobody informed me, everybody would need be hanged. And that seems excessive.

   Still, now that I’ve found it, I can replace those hours spent fruitlessly scrolling thru Amazon or Netflix recommendations with a curated collection of movies aimed at cinephiles — but fit for just about anyone who hasn’t been reared entirely on the Marvel Universe or 50 years of middling and increasingly woke space operas. And lest you think Criterion dauntingly highbrow and given only to fetishizing French New Wave or Indy art flicks, I spent most of the weekend watching films like Fulci’s decidely unwoke New York Ripper, and a selection of British noirs from the 40s and 50s. Never once did I have to speak French, or even Italian!

2. As technology has developed, I find myself more and more inconvenienced by its purported advance. I realize that I’m old and a product of the more traditional digital years. But seriously, fam. Can a guy just turn on the TV and watch a fucking football game? I mean, I didn’t sign up for a scavenger hunt — and a grown man shouldn’t have to track down Peacock+, whatever that is, on a moment’s notice just to watch a bunch of mostly minority dudes slam into each other in the most competitive and pleasing of ways. Honestly. I feel like the NFL is trolling me.

3. I’ll do something longer on this subject later, but the answer to the question “Am I racist?” is that, in a healthy society, the question itself is one that nobody even needs ask. Racists know they’re racist. Everybody else can stop worrying about it. And in fact, they should. It’s the only way we as a diverse people will ever get beyond racial tensions and their attendant grift.

4. A tax on unrealized gains is akin to the government claiming property tax on property that has yet to be purchased. And, because it lays claim to unrealized wealth, it is essentially the theft of what would have been a downpayment on the purchase of the non-existent property it has already taxed. Put more succintly, it’s theft at the point of a gun by a government who doesn’t produce a goddamn dime on its own. That’s what the Harris campaign is promoting — and a bunch of clapping seal liberal box wine women and their beta simps don’t care, because the Oval Office chair may finally feel a vag rub against its leather.

   — well, officially, I mean. Fucking Kennedy.

5. No, Rick Springfield is not a “one hit wonder.” Just because you’ve only heard “Jesse’s Girl” doesn’t mean those of us who actually lived through his glorious reign can forget “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” “Love Somebody,” “I've Done Everything for You,” “Human Touch,” “Affair of the Heart,” and “Love is Alright Tonight.” Generation X — like Pepperidge Farm before it — remembers. Stupid Boomers.

6. That’s it. You’re dismissed. Go touch grass, mids, as the kids say. Peak!

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