#95. Mercury and You

I can't stand it. I know you, planet.

Sep 02, 2024

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re having a relaxing Labor Day Weekend! Shout out, as always, to labor unions.

Until my little trip out of town last week, I’d been wandering around to the gentle beat of a light late August (dol)drum. But the past ten days have been full of all sorts of fun stuff. Pals visiting from out of town! Seeing live music! Fun gigs! Karaoke!

My capacity to make it through the week relatively awake and alert despite several latte-ish nights was drastically aided by a slight miscommunication. On Tuesday night, Maris and I (and a clown car’s worth of friends) went to see Pup and Jeff Rosenstock play a show at Warsaw, which long time readers will recognize as the best music venue in New York City because they have good sight lines and sell pierogi from a window next to the merch table. Maris snuck out a few minutes early because she had an early morning appointment to rest up for. However, when she got home, she realized she hadn’t brought keys with her. So I rushed home to her (okay, I had one more drink and said goodnight to our friends while she waited at a bar near our apartment, but she said I could do that!) and we went to bed at the respectable hour of midnight. The next morning I texted our friend Mattie to apologize for running off into the night, and they said they didn’t get home until three a.m. I think had it not been for the key situation, I too would have been in it to win it (punk show going up…on a Tuesday) and torpedoed my consciousness for days to come. I am NOT being passive aggressive here. I am knowing my limits (after the fact, as long as they are imposed upon me by an external source)!!!

Also, on Friday night, Maris and I watched the movie Trap, the newest M. Night Shyamalan film, and we had a very good time. It is, in its conceit, one of the least believable cinematic works I’ve ever seen, but it compensates by being fun as hell. I think there are probably ways that this movie can be exciting and delightful because it doesn’t make any sense, but it maintains a style and tone throughout that splashes around in the pool of unreality. It’s not a “so bad it’s good” movie, but it’s a movie where the bad and the good exist hand in hand. It kind of operates on the latter day Fast and also Furious logic of: “What’s the next awesome thing that could happen?” It’s not even really gory or especially violent. It’s tense and kind of silly. I recommend it despite (because of?) its numerous obvious flaws.

PEP TALK FOR MERCURY

Mercury in what I am assured by the file name is its actual color. Okay. — If it isn’t the son of a gun who made me drop my coffee and twist my ankle stepping off the curb and catch pneumonia. (Image from Wikipedia)

Of all the planets, Mercury, you’re the only one I see routinely being blamed for people’s problems on Earth. Even Earth, where people are stressed out or unlucky or unhappy doesn’t take the same amount of heat (figurative heat, because obviously you are literally hotter on account of of your proximity to the sun).

Obviously, I am referring to the astrological phenomenon of Mercury Retrograde, which I have heard about for years but didn’t actually look up until just this instant. If you are also recently curious but averse to link-clicking—and goodness knows I often resist being shuttled off to a second digital location—it’s when Mercury passes Earth in its orbit and appears to be going backwards, which astrologically messes up all sorts of stuff (travel and communication especially, which are like…two of the biggies).

I am not here to speak ill of astrology. I don’t understand how it works, but that’s also true of string theory and air fryers. What I am here to do is say that Mercury cannot be the ONLY planet that’s fucking up people’s shit. How come we never hear about what happens when Jupiter is Ascending anymore??? Even though it turned Channing Tatum into a dog person that one time!!! (My understanding of the movie Jupiter Ascending comes almost entirely from my friend Mara describing the plot to me.) You’re telling me Venus is never Regurgitating or some shit? We’re talking about planets getting backed up…what about Uranus? *polishes the two Peabody Awards on top of the dresser in our guest bedroom slash office*

Not everything bad can be Mercury’s fault! It’s just a teensy little guy, planetarily! Even when it’s moonwalking (planetwalking?) across the sky flipping us humans the double birds, we can’t pin ALL of our woes on it. Maybe it’s unrelated bad luck. If you feel sick after eating shrimp it’s not always the shrimp’s fault. Maybe it’s YOU. Maybe you’ve made an enemy? Maybe you screwed up and simply forgot to book your flight to Des Moines? Maybe space didn’t cause your problems with the more nearby sky at all? Ever think of that? Before you go besmirching Mercury’s good name?

Mercury, I don’t know how much bullshit you’re responsible for. Maybe a lot. Possibly none at all. As someone who is neither especially religious nor especially spiritual, I’ll offer the compromise position: Roughly the same amount as God. But you deserve better than to serve as the scapegoat for all of our problems for weeks at a time.

Pluto’s getting off awfully easy here if you ask me. I know it’s not a planet, but it’s still out there making trouble.

PEP TALK FOR TWO READERS

I’m doing two reader pep talks in one, shampoo/conditioner style, because the requests were similar. SO SUE ME WHY DON’T YA??!?!

I would love a pep talk!! I’m leaving my job in September with severance and instead of looking for a new corporate gig right away I’m gonna try my hand at selling my art. Shit is scary!! And fun!
- Out Of Office
I’m a lawyer (not well established or anything!! Just been working for about a year) and the hours and pressure are killing me and I’m gonna quit my job soon anyway to pursue a master’s degree, but it’s all just getting super stressful. A little reassurance would be amazing bc I don’t exactly have the most supportive family haha.
- (Bob Loblaw’s) Law Blah

Forgive me, but I’m going to address you like one person because you’re in more or less the same position pep-talk wise. Yeah, going to grad school is different than becoming an independent artist, but for the purposes of our conversation…is it? You’re making a financially dubious decision in hopes that it pays off enough to be worth the psychological/spiritual/satisfactional(?) improvements.

This is a thrilling and good gamble if you can afford it! Most gambling is only good if you win, which is rare, so it’s usually bad. I mean, like, gamble on sports or dice or horses (who are kind of doing sports but don’t realize it so it’s maybe worse and I don’t count it) if you want! But the more you like it, the worse it probably is. Most stuff isn’t like that! You can like sleeping or reading or lifting weights a little more than average and be fine. Probably even some drugs are like that. But enjoying games of chance more than “somewhat” is probably a bad sign. (As always, almost nothing I say applies to the independently wealthy, who are free to do whatever and don’t need a lot of encouragement.)

The thing about betting on your own new career (again, as long as you are not putting yourself or more importantly other people around you under undue strain to do it) is that even if it doesn’t pan out, you win. That is not true of roulette where people rarely leave the table thinking: “Well, we played hard out there and we can be proud of that at least.” When you lose at roulette you think FUUUUUCK! In fact, again, the more you feel exhilarated by losing money at roulette, the more quickly you should call one of those 600 gambling addiction hotlines at the end of every podcast ad for FanDuel or SavingsDrain or whichever one is your app of choice. (I will delete this if DraftKings starts its own streaming service and hires me to write a sitcom for them. That’s a PROMISE.)

Taking some time to try and merge into a more fulfilling career lane will pay off even if you don’t accomplish all of your dreams. You’ll learn new skills and probably meet a bunch of interesting people. You’ll drive a stake through the heart of the “what if?” vampire that’s been lurking in the dark corners of your mind. The very worst thing that will happen is eventually you may end up falling back on your old career. So? In between you’ll have done a bunch of cool, stimulating thinking and creating and interacting that etched some new wrinkles into your brain. And yes maybe your friends will tease you if you go back to your old work life. Imagine how you’d treat your friend Stephanie if she told everyone to call her Lady Gaga but didn’t become LADY GAGA. “Should we pregame for the party at your palace, m’lady????” But that gentle roasting is a small price to pay for having grabbed the reins of your own career and guided it into uncharted territories…before eventually guiding it back because charts, it turns out, are important sometimes.

It’s your life, shouldn’t you be enjoying it and doing work that you care about, as much as is possible? You’re going to have to have a job of some kind for quite a while. Unless you strike it rich on classic gambling, in which case congratulations…this newsletter is no longer for you, as we established earlier.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Bad Moves - “Outta My Head”

The kind folks in the terrific band Bad Moves asked me to be in their new music video, pretending to be angry at them. It’s a VERY catchy song, and fun to sing along with especially if there are not sensitive ears around. I had such a good time getting fake-furious in the park with Kate Sweeney who directed my segment. It’s cool to be in this video with Margaret Cho and Chris Gethard even though we filmed in separate places on different days. :)

But also there’s lots of good new music that does NOT feature me in a video, which is hard to believe but true.

The new Illuminati Hotties record is very good, and this song scratches a Tegan and Sara itch that I hadn’t realized was there, right behind my knees!

I finally met Elise from Oceanator the other night at the Pup/Jeff show. Elise rules. Oceanator rules. This whole record is heavy and propulsive and thoughtful and great.