I remain confused as to what I’m gonna be doing with this blog. Indeed, I remain confused about what I’m doing on the internet, as a general rule. I turn 43 at the end of this week and I am feeling old and uncool and yet I’m also feeling that I don’t have to care anymore about trying to appear cool, because it literally doesn’t matter. This is not the place you go when you want to know if something’s cool. This is the place you go when you’re curious as to what’s going on in my brain.
So maybe, now that Tumblr is gonna die a very quick death in a few weeks, and Twitter is, well, Twitter, and Facebook is rapidly becoming a place for kid photos and Twitter screenshots, maybe this here site will become what I originally always meant for it to be: a blog. Blogs aren’t cool. But I’m gonna be 43 and I’m not cool, either. My hair is grey and I’m overweight and as an adult and a parent I am far more involved in the state of the world than I ever thought I’d be, and because the world is fucking insane* I overindulge in various media and medications, both recreational and non-, because otherwise I’d be in a padded room muttering about emoluments.
So let’s get cracking, then.
I have finished Red Dead Redemption 2 and I don’t know how to talk about it. It’s gonna get its own post, for sure. But the short version is akin to something I said on Twitter the other day, that it feels less like a game that I played and more like a show that I binge-watched obsessively for 2-3 weeks – not all of it was fun, but it was engrossing as all hell, and the feeling of the world is unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced from a game. For those of you that are my parents (i.e., you don’t watch TV), it’s also sorta like being wrapped up inside a huge novel and then emerging afterwards and not knowing what day it is.
Here are other things I am in the middle of enjoying, because I feel obligated to spread positivity:
I was gonna start working on my Books of 2018 post, and then I started reading this book, and HOLY SHIT everything changed. If nothing else, I urge everybody who is reading this post to go to their local bookstore, find a copy of this book and read the preface. I dare you to not buy the book immediately afterwards. Tommy Orange is a major talent with an incredible voice, speaking in a language that none of us know as well as we should.
I don’t know if I’m gonna do a Music of 2018 post, if only because my music listening habits have become far more idiosyncratic than I can manage and I have no idea how to take stock of everything I listen to anymore. Hell, I haven’t even written about my headphones, which are without question the best headphones I’ve ever used in my entire life. And, again, I’m old and the music that’s popular these days makes me feel even older. Anyway. The 1975 are a band that I probably shouldn’t like, but I’ll be goddamned if this song isn’t kicking my ass all the way around the block. For a bunch of 20-something British blokes, they’ve got some serious balls making an album this strange – while also including absolutely gut-wrenching anthemic singles like the above.
Shouts From The Couch 