There’s something going around.

Do you have the bad cold that’s all over the place right now? If you don’t have it, don’t get it. It’s a nightmare from which you never wake up, or you do wake up but it’s like 4 in the morning and you can’t get back to sleep even though it stays dark until 7 these days but what difference would it make, you’re spending those hours blowing your nose and wishing you were dead anyway, plus you know if you tell anyone about it they are going to push some sort of absolutely disgusting solution like a Neti Pot on you and just hearing about that is even more of a nightmare than the actual cold which, as we’ve established, is beyond horrible in and of itself. I’m sorry, Neti Pot people, but no, I am not going to waterboard my nose, go back to your commune and leave me alone.

Anyway, here’s another one off of Danny Brown’s new Atrocity Exhibition album. Because I am tired and generally run down here is where I will make the joke about Danny Brown winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2046. Can I get a “heh”? Thank you. Okay, enjoy. I’m going back to bed.

The Adventures of Liana Finck

Adventures is a spin-off of Liana’s Instagram account, @lianafinck.

Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate

Everyone should remember that there is no Nobel Prize in Takes on Why a Different Singer Should Have Won the Nobel Prize in Literature and maybe just take a day off, okay?

Congratulations to croaky-voiced legend Bob Dylan, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” The New York Times notes that he is the first American Jew who was born in this country to have won the award, which probably doesn’t have any larger meaning except to signify that unless Philip Roth lives to be 800 it is unlikely he is going to get the prize too. From a media standpoint, this is good news for all the organizations who have a Dylan obituary ready to go, because those should be super-easy to repurpose, but if you are an “online journalist” who works for anyone besides USA Today there’s a good chance you will be spending your afternoon hustling together a list of his songs from best to worst. While I would personally put “Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)” up near the top, that is an idiosyncratic selection on my part and should in no way direct your own assembly, but if you are looking for a little controversy in hopes of juicing traffic you could do worse than to have “Jet Pilot” in your top ten. Anyway, I’m sure we’re all very much looking forward to the rambling speech Bob will hopefully deliver come December. Now go call your Dad, I bet he’s over the moon.

★★★★ The early chill hadn’t kept a mosquito from darting around the living room. Maybe it was the same one that would die in a smear of blood on the medicine-cabinet mirror; maybe it was the one crushed bloodlessly in the shower. Light filled the green of the street trees from above and below. In the office, the cold air created the illusion that the outdoors must be uncomfortable too, but the sun out on the avenue was warm and so strong that the forms of things in the shade grew insubstantial. The black inner grillwork of south-facing cars was nearly as visible as the bright chrome and paint in front. A craving for baked goods took hold.

How much more wanting to die do we all have to do?

Here’s what 2016 would look like if just people who pronounce “crayon” with two syllables voted:

 — @scottbix

What do you think the Republicans are going to do to dress up the same racist bullshit they are having a hard time selling to America today in 2020, when the desperate, angry white people who make up most of their base are four years closer to the grave? The Economist has a theory, but sweet mother of Christ are you fucking kidding me the goddamn nightmare we’re living through in the present moment isn’t even over yet. Fortunately, the Washington Post’s Philip Bump has made a map of when the polls close in every state, which may come as a comfort now that the election has disappeared up its own asshole.

This is much easier than we’re making it

Drake and Rihanna broke up. We know this because The News is telling us. The pair never announced that they were together to begin with, so who’s to say what the terms and conditions of their alleged arrangement were, but somehow, this week, the media determined that the two are over and that Drake has moved on with another woman. I bring this up because the way I’ve seen individual outlets posting about this news is… a lot.

Will Drake and Rihanna ever work? Or will our emotions just continue to be toyed with. https://t.co/Q3yooP3bWd

 — @enews

I guess I’ll start with a bold proclamation: It is my preference that some companies not be voiced like teens. Namely my newspapers (you can call any site with any kind of news a newspaper if you want). If you are a TV show starring an alien with a catchphrase, it makes sense that your tweets would have a certain kind of vibe, but I’m not looking for that from The News. Don’t get me wrong, I love a too-close-read on a celebrity story as much as the next person—it’s just…a magazine shouldn’t need to get over Drake and Rihanna’s breakup because a magazine should have never been on-the-record excited for them in the first place. Be a fact-dispenser in my feed, not a fan.

Bearing that in mind, here are some tweets any media company—or individual who identifies as a media company—is free to use when a celebrity couple breaks up:

• two adults have decided not to kiss
• sucks—some artists made a tough call with regard to their hearts and genitals
• this, like most things, is not about me

Some people never eat alone.

“Pondicheri is not the place to take a crowd of people who want dinner to be the show,” writes Pete Wells, the only critic that matters, in today’s New York Times restaurant review. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what rubbed me so wrong about the line until I read this interview with Brooks Headley, the guy behind Superiority Burger.

I’m guilty of saying, “Only rich people eat at fancy restaurants,” which isn’t true. People who save up for a fancy occasion make up a big chunk, for sure. When I started at the first fancy place I worked, I’d never written “Happy Birthday” or “Happy Anniversary” in chocolate script. I’d say close to 50 percent of the desserts that went out had one or the other on them…. But while it isn’t necessarily all hedge fund guys, fine dining is for very wealthy people and for normal people pretending to be rich for the night. Either way, a $400 meal for two is pretty grotesque.

Depending on how much value you believe you derive from prepared food (or the pictures you take and share of it) you will obviously have your own opinion of what line the financial figure which separates extravagance from grotesquerie falls across, but the whole thing once again confirms my conviction that the greatest contemporary con rich people pulled on the strivers in the wake of the financial crisis was the “experiences are more important than possessions” scam, in that it somehow made “conspicuous consumption” its own double entendre while allowing the wealthy to present their expenditures as virtuous excursions into self-improvement. “People who want dinner to be the show” aren’t so much interested in being present at the performance as they are in being the stars of the larger spectacle where the real audience is everyone else who gets to see who turned up. Dining out — and, in certain cases, an evening at the theatre — is now a red-carpet livestream for anyone with disposable income and the desire to make everyone else aware of it. Are you walking into the auditorium or are you watching at home, on your phone?

An interview about digital media, death, kids these days, and the real Donald Trump

“What are they going to remember you for in fifty years?” the broadcaster asked the Trekkie. The spaceman leaned forward, not missing a beat. “They’re not going to remember,” he answered. Unsatisfied with the response, the broadcaster repeated the question. This time his guest’s reply was even more opaque. Utter nothingness.

“Do you see him freaking out right now?” a producer quipped from the safety of the greenroom. “Larry does not like that answer.” Dead ahead, through a glass partition, and on monitors and screens all over the Glendale, California studio, Larry King looked like his suspenders were about to pop.

A year shy of his sixtieth in the business, the eighty-two-year-old King’s movements are slow, but his eyes and words still radiate a sharp vitality. And by his own admission, he fears leaving the screen more than his own earthly departure. His swan song Larry King Now, is direct-to-web, streaming on OraTV, distributed via Hulu. While King’s people won’t reveal how many viewers it has, they point out that the show was recently nominated for its third Emmy (the same number of nods as in twenty-five years at CNN).

When we spoke, the man who refuses to learn how to text was surprisingly candid about his digital transition, which he admits hasn’t been easy on the ego. After decades of getting others to open up while remaining shut off himself, he appeared unafraid to share. His is a late-style magic leap—as J.M. Coetzee wrote, “If you live long enough, you come to a third stage, when the aforesaid great question begins to bore you, and you need to look elsewhere.”

You’re friends with Trump — can you speak to him in a way that cuts through the bullshit?

The best thing about Donald is whatever you say doesn’t matter. Last July, I was in Craig’s restaurant, and Donald was there and he calls me over and says ‘I think I’m going to run.’ And I said ‘Donald, you went on my show seven times, you were gonna run for governor, you were gonna run for president, you never run. You know you’re not. You like to say you’re gonna run, you like to be interviewed, it sells more hotels, but you know you’re not gonna run.’ He says, ‘This time, I may run.’ So he called me, a month ago, he said ‘I told you. I tooooold you.’ He remembers everything. So I kid him, I say ‘Donald, you’re against abortion?’ And he laughed and said, ‘Well, I’ve had some changes.’ He plays the game. His unbelievable advantage is, if you’re at a press conference and you say ‘Donald, you’re a pedophile!’ ‘I’m a pedophile? Your father’s a pedophile!’ He likes that. He likes to boast and say ‘If I shot someone on Fifth Avenue, it wouldn’t matter.’ It doesn’t matter what he says. So we have to confront that. What Hillary has to confront is, ‘What do I say to a guy who it doesn’t matter what he says?’

He remembers everything…He plays the game.

He attacks Hillary — I would bring this up with him — for enabling her husband by defending him against the charges of women. Yet he said, we have the tape, years ago, ‘Paula Jones is a fraud, why are they doing this, I’m standing up for Bill Clinton. Why? Because he’s my friend.’ If I ask ‘Did you enable Bill Clinton?’ he would get out of that. I know he would. It’s all bravado to him. He has a commercial running in which I say ‘He’s an egomaniac.’ That’s on his commercial!

And he loves that.

He loves it. He’s hard to fight, because he’s like the two guys chasing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Will he lose?

It’s hard to make predictions…I don’t think he can win. On logic, I don’t think he can win key states. He can’t get the Hispanic vote, he can’t get the gay vote, he can’t get the black vote. What is he gonna do with women? She’s disliked, he’s disliked more. It’s the most disliked campaign ever. You know who would have won this in a walk? Joe Biden, who you can’t dislike. What are you gonna call him? Trump would figure something. ‘He’s poor.’”

It’s the most disliked campaign ever.

You’re on an online-only show. Does that feel different than broadcasting on CNN?

I just taped William Shatner this morning, and I’ve taped Sir Anthony Hopkins, movie stars, hip-hop artists, but — I’m not doing anything different. Nothing different than the first day I was on the air in Miami. I’m still asking questions…The venue is different. It’s a half-hour rather than an hour, it’s not live. I like live better, but it’s like saying I like one child better than another. But I’m not doing anything differently — I’m being delivered differently.

If CNN knocks on your door again and said ‘We want you back,’ would you return?

[Heavy sigh] I would go back to be around — well, I’m eighty-two. Eighty-two year old people don’t get calls. However, I would be advantageous to them. I’ve got a good memory and a long knowledge of this political game. The first campaign I got really involved in was Truman, 1948, to which I gave out leaflets in New York. In ’52, I was in the crowds with Adlai Stevenson, in ’60 I was very involved in the campaign of Kennedy. Bumped into his car once. So I have a history I could bring to it. I would return to be involved, live, in action news. But I wouldn’t want to do tabloid. We did a lot of tabloid stuff at CNN. That was my least enjoyable.

We did a lot of tabloid stuff at CNN.

How much autonomy do you have here?

Total. There’s no bullshit. I don’t have suits around. I never got caught in office politics, which is why Ted Turner resisted selling for so long. This show is making money, I’ve got a great crew here. I had great crews at CNN, I had great crews in Miami. I’ve been lucky.

How much does luck matter? If you were starting over, could you achieve the same success?

I don’t think so. Too many people in the boat. And I don’t think people would go for long-form interviews. When I used to do my radio show the guests would be on for three hours. An hour-and-a-half interview, hour-and-a-half phone calls. And then two hours of open phones on anything. Five hours every night. Clinton called into that show when he was governor of Arkansas. So many things happened on that show. I don’t think that exists now. Maybe talk radio.

Barring a Howard Stern?

But Howard’s also matured a great deal. We were in Washington together, and he was — I couldn’t listen to him. Now I respect him. When I’ve gone on his show, he’s been very kind to me. He used to call into my show and have crazy people call in, that doesn’t happen anymore.

What about your model now — even thirty minutes — is it a testament to the guests, your name?

I think I can hold people. I ask good questions, I ask short questions, I listen to answers, I’m very curious. The show is entertaining. I would have been a stand-up comic if I weren’t doing this. I like that just as much. I like going out on the stage, cold, and telling stories. Would it have worked today? I have a certain personality that enough people watch to keep me healthy in the business for a long time. I knew I needed a Ted Turner to like me — what if he didn’t? — it’s subjective.

Is the business of media and journalism in a better or worse place today?

The worst [thing] is, anybody can be a journalist, and the Internet can spread lies. Twitter, you can send out whatever you want, anyone can blog, so everybody’s a journalist. So what we don’t have is we don’t have Walter Cronkites and William Brinkleys.

Does this generation appreciate the value of an Edward Murrow or Dan Rather?

I don’t think they know who he is. It pisses me off. My kids, two bright kids, they wouldn’t know who Edward Murrow is. But he’s a historical figure.

When you asked Shatner will anyone remember you in fifty years, he said ‘No one’s going to remember.’ Do you believe that — at what point do you say ‘I don’t want to do this anymore?’

Shatner was partially right. Let’s take Arthur Godfrey. You probably don’t know who I’m talking about. Arthur Godfrey was 33% of CBS’s income. He did a national television show, a national radio show. He was very important — when he had lung cancer it was front page news in The New York Times. He had enormous power. And no one knows him. No one. So, am I gonna be known? I think when you’re gone in today’s world of eat-it-up-spit-it-out, when you’re gone, you’re gone. Take Prince, that was a big story. A two-week story. Next month…

It happens so fast. And because I don’t think I’m going anywhere and I don’t have a great belief that I’ll be seen afterwards, I hope I leave a legacy that I entertained and informed. And that people remember me through tapes, it’ll be nice to know you’ll be seen. But when I’m dead, I ain’t gonna know. I’m not gonna exist. So if I’m not existing and I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. I was very lucky to have lived this long. When I was a kid, I didn’t know anybody [who was] eighty. Nobody was eighty.

I don’t have a great belief that I’ll be seen afterwards

Do you feel eighty?

No, I don’t. I don’t feel eighty. I had a heart attack, heart surgery, I have type-2 diabetes. Had prostate cancer. I feel fine. I drive, I stay alert. Now about retirement, I don’t think I could ever retire. As Milton Berle said, ‘Retire to what?’

What’s the most surprising thing about your life?

That a Jewish boy from Brooklyn who only wanted to be on the radio — since I was five, it’s my only memory I wanted — would have the kind of life that would take him into being known around the world.

Personally?

Screwing up marriages…I had a tough time in a personal life, and a great time in a professional life. I had two lives. Bouncing balls. Now, I’ve been married for close to 20 years. So it seems like I don’t remember those tough times. I mean, I had a child. And then I look up and say ‘Where did it all go? Where did it go?’ If I make it to May first, next year, I’ll be on the air 60 years. Not many people have broadcast in seven decades. So, I’m aware that I’ve done all that, but at the same time, I enjoyed talking to Shatner this morning. I drive home, I got two boys, watch them play baseball. Got a young, pretty wife.

Is that the best part of life?

Best part of life came late. Although, I’ve always loved what I’ve done. If you love what you do, you’re ahead of the game. So, all the modern technology and everything, I still like what I do.

What’s your take on our addiction to technology?

All I do with my phone [takes it out], and I’m proud of it, in this modern technological world, I make calls, and I receive calls, and it’s a phone. I can actually put it up to my ear, like a phone. I don’t text, I can receive a text, but I don’t send a text. I will not get an iPhone. I have a flip phone — because I have an addictive personality. I was addicted to cigarettes from age seventeen to fifty-three. And at the end, I was smoking three packs a day. The day I had the heart attack, February 24, 1987, I had cigarettes in my pocket at the hospital. I threw them into the Potomac River, driving home, a week later, never picked up a cigarette again, or ever wanted one. Because I was so scared. My father was a smoker, he died at forty-six, of a heart attack. I’ve outlived him to eighty-two.

I have a flip phone — because I have an addictive personality.

So I knew I’m an addictive personality. Now I see people with their iPhones. My wife, the worst. Up all night with the phone. Here’s the typical: she’ll fall asleep at 2 a.m. with the thing in her hand. At 2:30 a.m., wake up, start looking. The whole day. I don’t want to be controlled. I was controlled by cigarettes, so I know if I had it, I’d be controlled. I went to dinner with four guys once, I was the only guy at dinner. I would confiscate iPhones. In fact, I would ban them. Right now, you must have that phone?

Unfortunately yes.

Everyone who has it says ‘unfortunately.’

I’m recording our conversation, I’ll take a photo for social media, because that’s part of the game.

Tell you what bothers me: my kids never pick up a newspaper. Ever. First thing I read every day: LA Times, New York Times, USA Today, New York Post, New York Daily News, Wall Street Journal. I love the Washington Post, I love the Miami Herald. But The New York Times. What a paper that is. Every day the New York Times surprises me. The way they cover a story…The New Yorker does that, too. I’ll read an article about something I never thought about, suddenly I get absorbed in it.

If you sent me back two hundred years, what could I show them? Nothing. I could tell them, but I couldn’t show them how to make a car, a plane. Couldn’t explain a telephone. Technology produces bad and good. You just know — you don’t know when — someone’s gonna get into America with a mini-nuclear weapon. Someone’s going to invent it, and it’s going to blow up a city. Someone’s going to get into the drinking water of a whole population. Because some scientist is working on that. At the same time, another scientist is working on curing cancer. And they’re both working as feverishly. Einstein regretted the atom. He split the atom and died regretting it, because he killed a lot of people. If you never have an airplane, you’d never have a death in an airplane. With progress, comes regression. But, people text and drive and drive over cliffs. Or hit people while they’re texting.

Or don’t have present relationships.

My son, Chance, met, dated a girl and broke up with her and never was with her. They dated by text. If you could have sex by text, and someone will come up with that, there’ll be a way. Which would solve myriad of problems.

Soundscan Surprises, Week Ending 10/6

Back-catalog sales numbers of note from Nielsen SoundScan.

The definition of “back catalog” is: “at least 18 months old, have fallen below №100 on the Billboard 200 and do not have an active single on our radio.”

Happy Wednesday! Temple of the Dog is up at the top of the charts right after Juan Gabriel, que descanse en paz, at number two. They’re about to go on tour to promote a deluxe reissue. Rolling Stone has an oral history of the supergroup if you’re so inclined. Some lesser music sites are saying the group is open to recording new material, but why do you need anything better than “Hunger Strike”?

Did you know about Universal Music’s “20th Century Masters The Millennium Collection”? Like a million of them came out last week and they’re all over the charts. According to discogs.com, it’s:

A series that looks directly at “iconic” artists & bands of the 20th Century; providing their best hits on CD, launched in 1999. Run by Universal Music, 20th Century Masters boasts sales of over 9 million, more than 600 titles in a range of musical styles and being the “most successful and greatest hits series in Canada”. Alternations to the series include releases focusing on Christmas themed music (20th Century Masters The Christmas Collection), summaries of decades / styles of music and DVD video packs (20th Century Masters The DVD Collection).

On the chart this week alone we have: The Four Tops, Abba, Boyz II Men, Conway Twitty, Rob Zombie, Three Dog Night, Aerosmith, Buddy Holly, Joe Cocker, Whitesnake, Barry White, Chuck Berry, Gap Band, B.B. King, Oak Ridge Boys, Kiss, Jackson 5, Commodores, Marvin Gaye. (Ed note: I’m not positive whether the penultimate takes the article and Google is inconclusive but I’m gonna trust Billboard.)

Have you heard of Sam Hunt? He’s from Georgia, he was a football player, and now he’s a country singer, wedged on the back catalog between Ed Sheeran and Simon & Garfunkel! Obviously many if not most of the records on the back catalog are greatest hits or best of collections, so it’s always fun to see which individual albums make consistently sell so many copies every week, like all the Panics at the Disco and Adeles and Eds Sheeran along with the Eagleses and the Beatleses. Even Lars Ulrich doesn’t know why you’re still buying his music:

Metallica’s Lars Ulrich Says It’s a “Mindfuck” that the The Black Album Keeps Selling 5,000 Copies Every Week | MetalSucks

Bob Marley is right there behind him basically every week! I threw Van Halen in there because I think about “5150” a lot especially after the most recent episodes of “Transparent.” It’s a phrase (I know it’s a numeric code but like morphologically speaking I hear it as a phrase) that I have to think extra hard about each time to remember what it means. “Oh, right, the involuntary psychiatric hold thing.” It’s a code and I always wonder whether it works, or don’t people to know to listen for that and say “no, no, please don’t take me away.”

Sorry about that dark turn! Bon Iver’s getting some extra love on the back catalog from his new release, and last but not least, Halloween Party keeps climbing. I wonder where it will peak! Happy pumpkin decorating to you and yours.

2. TEMPLE OF THE DOG TEMPLE OF THE DOG 5,993 copies

5. MARLEY*BOB & THE WAILERS LEGEND 4,025 copies

20. HUNT*SAM MONTEVALLO 2,152 copies

41. VAN HALEN 5150 1,735 copies

55. TWITTY*CONWAY BEST OF CONWAY TWITTY­: THE MILLENNIUM COLLECTION 1,630 copies

96. BON IVER FOR EMMA FOREVER AGO 1,247 copies

111. V/A HALLOWEEN PARTY 1,210 copies

(Previously.)

We should have done an Internet fast today.

I was casting about for some music to share with you this morning when I came across this on the sidebar of one of the sites that I stopped in at.

Today is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, the Hebrews’ day of atonement. Although I am both a terrible person and a matrilineal Jew I do not observe this holiday, but perhaps I should. Perhaps we all should. Perhaps we should all bow our heads in shame and reflect upon the awful things we have allowed the Internet to become, the cancerous mutations we have empowered with our horrible habits and toxic sloth and poisonous greed. Maybe we should fast all day in hopes that somehow the lord God looks down upon our minimal sacrifice and sees that deep in our hearts we feel sorrow for whatever part we’ve played in helping to perpetuate this abomination against humanity, this sick indictment of who we are and what we think of our potential as human beings. Maybe in the moments prior to sending down His fire to smite us for all the sins we have liked and shared or even just clicked through out of idle curiosity, God will spare a second to acknowledge our remorse before He brings forth His appropriate retribution. Should God choose this day to put an end to His most misguided creation let us at least be swept aside with the last words on our lips being an apology for the Internet and all the evil we have enabled on its pages. (This is not meant as a reflection on the current condition of Rachel Hunter btw.)

Or not, whatever. It’s pretty to think that the cleansing fire of the Lord could somehow make things better but I’ve been around long enough to know that life just isn’t that sweet. Hey, here’s the best version of “Blue Moon” I have heard in forever. Enjoy. And if you’re fasting today, stay strong. Sundown’s got to come sometime.