Mom sent me a pile of stuff from my dad’s files: stories I wrote in 2nd grade, articles from high school, band flyers, including this Flat Old World postcard from 1993, a show I can't recall playing. I certainly did lots of shows with Dewan and Drink Me, but I feel like I'd remember Jad Fair. 🤷‍♀️

Actual quote by a guy on our local online message board, arguing that the t-shirt & slogan for the town’s annual 4th of July parade was too woke & anti-Trump: "I for one do not want to see a 4th of July parade celebrating revolutionary resistance."

💔 Steve Almaas was a musical legend but was also my friend and neighbor and just about the sweetest guy ever. Rest in peace.

🤷‍♀️

I have approached this question scientifically and it is a perfect tie between "Girl of My Dreams" by Bram Tchaikovsky and "Starry Eyes" by The Records.

Schoolyard assholes' "Lerner, you're such a fag" dialogue is now apparently the stuff of national political debate.

My life has improved 100% since I got Dr Z. checks.

Honored to be in great company with other scholarly publishing designers in the @aupresses.bsky.social 2026 Book, Jacket, and Journal show. My cover for Gaoheng Zhang's fascinating book was selected.

The level of corruption is off the charts, and somehow beyond the ability of our supine opposition party and major media outlets to convey. The American people are exhausted, broke, melting in a climate-change heatwave that portends our future. Hard to feel much hope at this moment.

I am a cheap date. I like most movies. And being somewhat frayed of late, I thought THE SHEEP DETECTIVES was a good choice. Babe-like, I hoped. Easy, fun. First time walking out on a movie in many years. Tedious, unfunny, and creepy-looking.

Early this morning, my father, Herb Lerner, died in Washington DC at age 87 after a long battle with metastatic lung cancer. My mom, his childhood sweetheart, was at his side. If you look in a dictionary next to the word "mensch," there should be a picture of my dad. I will miss him very much.

White House mentioning pro-transgender groups in its counterterrorism plan seems pretty bad to me. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

The very promising Bandcamp-for-pinkos site @subvert.fm launched today. Since my life is on fire lately, I haven't had a chance to get much of my music there yet. It will happen over the coming weeks. But I do have my latest album, HOME, up there. Browse the whole site. It's optimistic and smart.

lol

I just paid $6 for a Snickers bar 🧐

Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking. It is the weights for Gemini Nano, Google's on-device LLM. Chrome did not ask. Chrome does not surface it. If the user deletes it, Chrome re-downloads it. www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-...

Kingston NY and local-ish folks: Big local musicfest tomorrow at Westkill and Tubby's. I'll be bassing with Wygalator (with Janet Wygal [Wygals, Splendora], Sammi Niss [Laura Stevenson, Real Estate], Ted Prudhomme, and Jon Steele. We go on at 5 at Tubby's

Uh

I don’t know what a pocket square is or why 99% of all bluesky posts mention them now.

Microtonal guitar is so February 2026.

This Is Just To Say I have turned off the AI features that were in the update and which you were probably hoping to monetize Fuck you they were stupid so unnecessary and so annoying

It seems like I'm not on the list of people who hate AI with a white-hot passion. So I'd just like to say, yes, yes, I do hate AI with a white-hot passion.

I travel in a fairly woke bubble. It's vanishingly rare that I encounter a friend or acquaintance who drops casually racist, sexist, or homophobic sentiments. The depressing exception is dudes around my age (62) who cannot wrap their minds and hearts around the gender reckoning of recent years. 1/3

Range anxiety and the complete shitshow of lack of accurate info about public charging stations is severely hampering my ability to feel smugly superior to drivers of gas cars. But I can still do it.

They Might Be Giants put on a fantastic show at Bearsville. Horns! Songs! (I’m not sure how I feel about elaborate light shows) @tmbg.bsky.social

Bug or feature?

If I didn’t already love Kirsty MacColl, this little factoid would guarantee her a place in my heart.

Most dependably excellent band, among long-lived prolific bands? I’d say They Might Be Giants. Typically great new album out now, THE WORLD IS TO DIG. Somehow the memo requiring everyone to eventually suck never reached these guys.

I swear I should get hazard pay for every time my job requires me to read work in the worst of all genres: autotheory.

Nice article about Joe’s new record, beginning with some discussion of the striking cover image he provided me to do the layout with. The record came out yesterday and is really excellent.

NICE

The world not screeching to a halt when the US killed more than 100 little school girls on the very first day of this "liberating war" led us exactly to this moment

Listening to Persian folk music and feeling powerless and sick to my stomach.

“But enough of my yakkin’. Roll those fuckin’ eggs, kids, you crazy bastards!”

Locals, I just put my 2 tickets to tonight's sold-out Takaat show at Tubby's Kingston up for sale to the waitlist. Go grab them via Tubby's website or the Dice app and help me not lose my money! (Takaat = rhythm section from Mdou Moctar. Sounds awesome, but I have other plans.)

Just spent 400 bucks that I can ill afford on tickets to 4 chamber music concerts this summer, because i realized that almost any time I'm seated in front of a good string quartet playing good music I am happy.

Chicago pals! BUY TICKETS. Do not miss this! Souled American record release show 4/26. This will be a VERY special show and I'm gutted I can't get out there to see it myself.

RIP the brilliant Glen Baxter.

Someone needs a lil haircut

I’m coming to grips with the likelihood that I will never have Zazie Beetz’s hair. ☹️

Newsom needs to fuck all the way off.

Cleaning out my computer, came across this video clip I didn't realize I'd saved. Please enjoy ten seconds of me burning a copy of THE GIVING TREE. Worst book ever? Or Worst thing of any sort, ever? #booksky

Thanks Lars and NPR for shining some more light on Souled American, and congrats to the whole SA "team," because all songs considered is a fantastic boost for these guys.

Did the person making the title sequence for the 1967 Swinginglondonsploitation flick “Smashing Time” simply hate Lynn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham? jfc that chin

This is exactly the sort of shitty movie I need right now. #smashingtimes #tramadol

Insulted that my identity hasn’t been stolen for use in Grammarly's Expert Review AI thing.

Porch life.

All the snow in my backyard is melted! Yard is now 100% dog shit.

I did not know until today that Country Joe McDonald (RIP) had a child named Seven. And a child named Devin.