Pizza

We’re going to do something different today: random thoughts on a range of topics. Hope it makes you grin.

Non sequiturs

This was about five years ago—I was in a restaurant across town, about 45 minutes away from my house, when I got a text from one of my old Lehman buddies. It said:

FIRE

What? Is something burning? Is my house on fire? I dropped my fork and picked up my phone to look at the security cameras to see if my cats were turning into a seal-a-meal. Satisfied that my house wasn’t burning down, I texted him back:

What the ____ are you talking about?

No response. No response until the next day, actually. He eventually texted me back, and said that he was listening to one of my DJ mixes from a year ago, where the intro had a crackling fire sound effect. Seriously—that is what it was about. A sound effect from a mix that I recorded a year ago.

Let me tell you something, and this is very important in the world of text messaging: context matters. It happened again today. Someone texted me a picture of a donkey for no particular reason. What? How am I supposed to know what is going on here?

I get this a lot with my newsletter. I will get emails from people saying stuff like, “Boy, were you wrong about that,” and nothing else, with no context. I write 3,000-5,000 words a day, every day—how am I supposed to know what you are talking about? And it will turn out to be something I wrote two weeks ago. Context would be helpful!

So then what happens is that I have to send an email back, what are you talking about? And then they explain, and it is a minor waste of my time. I think the overall lesson here is that you want to be clear in your communication. Write like you want to be understood, which is something I constantly strive to do. No ambiguity. You may think you are making sense to people, but I assure you that unless you are really trying to be understood, you are not making any sense. I am constantly getting texts and emails with no context that do not make any sense. If they seem to be harmless, I ignore them, which I’m sure pisses people off, but guys—get your shit together.

Advice

Ever ask someone for advice, and then you don’t like the advice? There is an old saying: don’t ask for advice from your boss unless you are ready to take it. I learned that one when I was about 22.

I had a guy call me up recently—he has some mental health issues (he is bipolar), he’s manic, he’s depressed, he’s this, he’s that, gave me a whole litany of issues that he was going through, so I asked him, are you on your medication? No, was the answer—he didn’t like how he the medication made him feel. Classic bipolar bullshit. So I said to him, well, I can tell you the solution to your problems: you need to take your meds. That will solve your problems. Uh, thanks, he said, and then he hung up the phone. I’d bet the left arm of my firstborn son that he didn’t start taking his medication.

Now, I am the king of not taking advice, but I am like the Churchill quote about Americans being counted upon to do the right thing after exhausting all possibilities. I had someone tell me that I should be donating more money, given my status in life. Yeah, whatever. Well, fast forward about seven years, and I came around to his point of view, and now I give like it is nobody’s business. I had someone tell me once that I needed more prayer in my life. Ha ha ha, very funny, and I ignored him, but years later, I came around to his point of view, and you know what—prayer works!

The reality is that people need to figure it out for themselves, which is a topic I’ve explored in here a few times in the past. You’re a drunk—get help. Fuck you, I’m not a drunk, and seven more DUIs later, they get help. You could save a lot of pain and suffering if you just took the dude’s advice the first time around. Nope—people need to learn the hard way. I need to learn the hard way—every single time. It’s the curse of being human.

Sex

The primary benefit of being in your fifties is that you’re not constantly trying to launch your wiener into space. I will give you an example. For me, the point of DJing is not to get laid. I’ve had times when I’ve had a bunch of girls in the booth, but thought of taking one back to the hotel has never crossed my mind. Not true with some people! I know someone in particular whose musical career seems to be entirely motivated by sex. I couldn’t be less interested.

Sex is simultaneously one of the most important and least important things we will ever do. I want you to marinate on that quote for a second. That’s why I find it so interesting. It can be beautiful, and perpetuate the species, or it can be an escape, much like drugs, alcohol, or gambling. You can become addicted to sex, just like anything else. Like I said, the nice thing about getting older is that you’re not thinking about sex all the time, so you’re freeing up space in your skull to think about other, more important things. At age 52, the slow-twitch muscles work better. I think better. I write better. I trade better. I was probably a better day trader when I was the sperminator, but now I think long-term. You don’t do dumb shit, at least, not as much.

The idea of having an affair just seems exhausting. It’s funny—I got this new BMW X5, and I haven’t had a new car in a while, and the car shows me my text messages, which is new to me. It’s actually very cool, I can respond to the text messages using voice-to-text. I can be very productive in the car. Anyway, I was in the car and a text rolled across the screen. I don’t remember the circumstances, but let’s say it was from “Kristi.” Who’s Kristi? my wife asks. Oh, it’s my PR agent, I said. Crisis averted. Can you imagine carrying on some tryst and being worried about the next text message that is going to pop up in your car? Or having to go through the trouble of disabling the text messages in the car? Or buying burner phones and all that? Exhausting. For what? Ten seconds of bliss? Your ego? For the love of God, just whack off.

When you’re younger, you do this mental masturbation about the Brazzers porn fantasy that you are going to carry out with the girl in the DJ booth. Like I said, I couldn’t be less interested. Life is much simpler.

Canadians

This was back in 2017, I think—I got an email from some woman in Canada, telling me about how her husband was a big fan of my writing, and could I sign a book and send it to her? Well, I said, I’m going to be in Toronto in the next few months, so why not just do this in person? She was thrilled.

So we set a time to meet at my hotel in Toronto. 12pm. We were going to go out to lunch. I’m sitting in the lobby, and they’re a little late, and at 12:10pm I get a text saying they were just leaving the house. What? I had no idea how far away they lived. So I sat there like a chump in the lobby, and time passes, and more time passes, and it’s now a little past 1pm, and I’m ready to pull the ripcord, when all of a sudden, they walk in. A very handsome couple—probably the best-looking Canadians I have ever seen.

Anyway, we go out to lunch, and we’re having small talk, and I give them the signed book (ALL THE EVIL OF THIS WORLD, I might add), and I don’t exactly remember, but I’m sure the conversation turned to finance at one point, and I’m sure I gave them my bearish thesis on Canadian real estate. I also agreed to send them The Daily Dirtnap for a month for free. We go our separate ways, and when I get back home, I send them a thank-you email.

No response.

Well, that’s funny, I thought. Oh well, thank you notes don’t necessarily need a response, though I suppose they should have been the ones thanking me. Anyhow, I send them The Daily Dirtnap for a month, and at the end of the month, I wrote, I hope you liked it! And gave them a link to subscribe.

No response. They never talked to me again.

No mystery as to what is going on here. They were tweaked at my bearish Canada view, and ghosted me, which gets me to the point of my mini-essay—these are the most passive-aggressive people in the world. Americans will poke you in the chest and say FUCK YOU to your face, and then you go out and have a beer afterwards. Canadians will get their knickers in a twist. These are the most chronically sensitive, passive-aggressive people in the world. I mean, look at the response to Trump’s joshing around about annexing them—he was trying to get under their skin, and boy, did he succeed, to the point that there are major geopolitical consequences as a result. Because they take themselves so seriously, and can’t handle a joke. I’m sure some Canadians will get sniffy about this, too.

Sorry to the Canadians—I have known some fantastic ones over the years, but I have more anecdotes, if you want them.

P.S. I just played an AMAZING gig in Nashville last weekend, and recorded the set. If you’ve ever wanted to come to one of my shows, but geography prevents you from doing so, this is the next best thing. I want everyone to click on this link and enjoy some of the darkest, deepest progressive house in existence. Also, please give me a follow on SoundCloud—I’m just two dozen people away from getting to 3,000. Thanks!