The tide is high, but I'm holdin' on

I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without posting a proper, long post.  But everyone in my house has been sick for nearly two weeks, and it’s finally come for me.  So this is about as much as I can manage in between cough drops and shots of Cēpacol.  At this point it seems foolish to try and promise anything, but please believe that I will do everything in my power to end this dry streak next week.

The joint is out of time

You know, when I said I should be able to get back to a normal schedule this week, I didn’t consider that it was the beginning of the March birthday season.  Even still, I might have been able to slap something together, except that another stomach virus—which germs seem to be attracted to birthdays and other holidays in our house—descended upon us and kept me home from work a few days whilst taking care of sick kids.  In point of fact, our middle child, whose birthday weekend this was supposed to be, eventually had to give up and take a rain check.  So there’s a distinct possibility that I might fail at making a blog post next week too.  But I’ll do my best to put something together ahead of time for a change.

Frenetic tumultuous chaotic confused ... it's been a bit hectic, is what I'm sayin'

This should have been a long post this week, but, due to some family matters and other things going on, I simply ran out of time.  I should be able to get back on schedule next week though.

I wanted to be with you alone ...

This week, we got both hail and snow in Southern California.  I’ve written about this whole climate change thing before ... about six years ago, now that I look back on it.  For my first ten years in California, it rained about twice a year—granted, it rained for a week solid every time, but still: pretty much twice in a given year, every year.  And, as near as I could tell, everyone else in SoCal considered this perfectly normal.  Then, about six years ago, the rain began coming more often and lasting longer.  And now suddenly L.A. county has gotten its first blizzard warning in 34 years.  Only for the mountains, true, but ... I mean, multiple co-workers posted pictures on our Slack this week of hail.  Hail!  When was the last time it hailed in L.A.?  Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I saw hail when I lived on the East Coast.

Typically, I use these types of opportunities to make fun of the climate change deniers.  But, honestly, I’m not even sure who’s still on that train: with more massive wildfires burning in increasingly unlikely places, so many hurricanes in a season that the National Weather Service now routinely has to start over at the beginning of the alphabet, so much flooding that it’s carrying away cars ... is there anyone who claims climate change is a hoax for anything other than performative reasons?  While I was marveling at the reports of snow and hail, one of my old friends from the East Coast was telling me that the temperature hit 80° for them: a new record for February.  I’m pretty sure everyone knows that it’s real at this point, primarily from personal experience.

The only question is, much like with the pandemic: are all these changes permanent? is this just the new normal now?  I don’t know ... I’d like to say I don’t believe it, or at the very least that I hope it’s not so.  But hope is a precious resource these days.  So I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

Getting Chatty

I’m probably not the first person to tell you this, but there’s a new AI wunderkind taking the Internet by storm, and it’s called ChatGPT.  Everyone’s buzzing about it, and Microsoft is pumping money into it like crazy, and even boring old news outlets are starting to pick it up—heck, I just heard them mention it on this week’s episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.  If you’re late to the party, perhaps I can give you some insight into what’s going on, and, if you’ve been hearing all about it but not really knowing what “it” is, then perhaps I can provide some insight.^*

AI has been undergoing a bit of a Renaissance here lately.  For a long time, AI development was focussed on “state machines,” which are like really fancy flow charts.  You’ve probably seen one of these on the Internet at some point: you know those web pages that try to guess what animal you’re thinking of (or whatever), and, if they can’t guess it, then they ask you to teach it a question that will distinguish your animal from the last animal it guessed, and then it adds that to its little database ... those amusing little things?  Well, those are very simple state machines.  If the answer is “yes,” it goes down one path, and if the answer is “no,” it goes down a different one, until it eventually hits a dead end.  State machines, as it turns out, are very useful in computer science ... but they don’t make good AI.  That’s just not the way humans think (unless you’re playing a game of 20 Questions, and even then a lot of people don’t approach it that logically).  So eventually computer scientists tried something else.

One way you can make a better AI than a state machine is doing something called “machine learning.” With this, you take a bunch of data, and you feed it into an algorithm.  The algorithm is designed to analyze the data’s inputs and outputs: that is, if humans started with thing A (the input), then they might conclude thing B (the output).  If you have a decent enough algorithm, you can make a program that will conclude basically the same things that a human will, most of the time.  Of course, not all humans will come up with the same outputs given the same inputs, so your algorithm better be able to handle contradictions.  And naturally the data you feed into it (its “training data”) will determine entirely how good it gets.  If you accidentally (or deliberately) give it data that’s skewed towards one way of thinking, your machine learning AI will be likewise skewed.  But these are surmountable issues.

Another thing you could do is to create a “language model.” This also uses training data, but instead of examining the data for inputs and outputs, the algorithm examines the words that comprise the data, looking for patterns and learning syntax.  Now, “chatbots” (or computer programs designed to simulate a person’s speech patterns) have been around a long time; Eliza, a faux therapist, is actually a bit older than I am (and, trust me: that’s old).  But the thing about Eliza is, it’s not very good.  It only takes about 5 or so exchanges before you start to butt up against its limitations; if you didn’t know it was an AI when you first started, you’d probably figure it out in under a minute.  Of course, many people would say that Eliza and similar chatbots aren’t even AIs at all.  There’s no actual “intelligence” there, they’d point out.  It’s just making a more-or-less convincing attempt at conversation.

Still, the ability to hold a conversation does require some intelligence, and it’s difficult to converse with a thing without mentally assessing it as either smart, or dumb, or somewhere in between.  Think of Siri and other similar “personal assistants”: they’re not really AI, because they don’t really “know” anything.  They’re just capable of analyzing what you said and turning it into a search that Apple or Google or Amazon can use to return some (hopefully) useful results.  But everyone who’s interacted with Siri or her peers will tell you how dumb she is.  Because she often misunderstands what you’re saying: sometimes because she doesn’t hear the correct words, and sometimes because her algorithm got the words right but failed to tease out a reasonable meaning from them.  So, no, not a “real” AI ... but still something that we can think of as either intelligent or not.

Language models are sort of a step up from Siri et al.  Many folks are still going to claim they’re not AI, but the ability they have to figure out what you meant from what you said and respond like an actual human certainly makes them sound smart.  And they’re typically built like machine learning models: you take a big ol’ set of training data, feed it in, and let it learn how to talk.

Of course the best AI of all would be a combination of both ...

And now we arrive at ChatGPT.  A company called OpenAI created a combined machine learning and language model program which they referred to a “generative pre-trained transfomer,” or GPT.  They’ve made 3 of these so far, so the newest one is called “GPT-3.” And then they glued a chatbot-style language model on top of that, and there you have ChatGPT.  GPT-3 is actually rather amazing at answering questions, if they’re specific enough.  What ChatGPT adds is primarily context: when you’re talking to GPT-3, if it gives you an answer that isn’t helpful or doesn’t really get at the meaning, you have to start over and type your whole question in again, tweaking it slightly to hopefully get a better shot at conveying your meaning.  But, with ChatGPT, you can just say something like “no, I didn’t mean X; please try again using Y.” And it’ll do that, because it keeps track of what the general topic is, and it knows which tangents you’ve drifted down, and it’s even pretty damn good at guess what “it” means in a given sentence if you start slinging pronouns at it.

Now, many news outlets have picked up on the fact that Microsoft is trying to integrate ChatGPT (or something based off of it) into their search engine Bing, and people are speculating that this could be the first serious contender to Google.  I think that’s both wrong and right: while I personally have started to use ChatGPT to answer questions that Google really sucks at answering, so I know it’s better in many situations, that doesn’t mean that Microsoft has the brains to be able to monetize it sufficiently to be a threat to Google’s near-monopoly.  If you want to watch a really good breakdown of this aspect of ChatGPT, there’s a really good YouTube video which will explain it in just over 8 minutes.

But, the thing is, whether or not Microsoft succesfully integrates a ChatGPT-adjacent AI into Bing, this level of useful AI is likely going to change the Internet as we know it.  ChatGPT is smarter than Eliza, or Siri, or Alexa, or “Hey Google.” It’s more friendly and polite, too.  It can not only regurgitate facts, but also offer opinions, advice, and it’s even got a little bit of creativity.  Don’t get me wrong: ChatGPT is not perfect by any means.  It will quite confidently tell you things that are completely wrong, and, when you point out its mistake, completely reverse direction and claim that it was wrong, it was always wrong, and it has no idea why it said that.  It will give you answers that aren’t wrong but are incomplete.  If asked, it will produce arguments that may sound convincing, but are based on faulty premises, or are supported by faulty evidence.  It’s not something you can rely on for 100% accuracy.

But, here’s the thing: if you’ve spent any time searching the Internet, you already know you can’t rely on everything you read.  Half of the shit is made up, and the other half may not mean what you think it means.  Finding information is a process, and you have to throw out as much as you keep, and at the end of it all you hope you got close to the truth ... if we can even really believe in “truth” any more at all.  So, having an assistant to help you out on that journey is not really a bad thing.  I find ChatGPT to be helpful when writing code, for instance: not to write code for me, but to suggest ideas and algorithms when I can then refine on my own.  Here’s the thing: ChatGPT is not a very good programmer, but it is a very knowledgeable one, and it might know a technique (or a whole language) that I never learned.  I would never use ChatGPT code as is ... but I sure do use it as a jumping-off point quite a bit.

And that’s just me being a programmer.  I’m also a D&D nerd, and ChatGPT can help me come up with character concepts or lay out what I need to do to build one.  If I can’t figure out how to do something on my Android phone, I just ask ChatGPT, and it (probably) knows how to do it.  Networking problem? ChatGPT.  Need to understand the difference between filtering water and distilling it? ChatGPT.  Need help choosing a brand of USB hub? ChatGPT.  Want to know what 1/112th the diameter of Mercury is? ChatGPT (it’s 43.39km, by the way, which is 26.97 miles).

But you needn’t take my word for it.  The Atlantic has already published an article called “The College Essay Is Dead” (because, you know, students in the future will just get an AI to write their essays for them).  A Stanford professor gave an interview about how it will “change the way we think and work.” YouTuber Tom Scott (normally quite a sober fellow) posted a video entitled “I tried using AI. It scared me.” The technical term for what these folks are describing is “inflection point.” Before Gutenberg’s printing press, the concept of sitting down of an evening with a book was unheard of.  Before Eli Whitney built a musket out of interchangeable parts, the concept of mass production was ludicrous.  Before Charles Birdseye figured out how to flash-freeze peas, supermarkets weren’t even possible.  And there is an inevitable series of points, from the invention of the telphone to the earliest implementation of ARPANET to the first smartphone, that fairly boggles the mind when you try to imagine life before it.  My youngest child will not be able to conceive of life without a phone in her pocket; my eldest can’t comprehend life before the Internet; and even I cannot really fancy a time when you couldn’t just pick up the phone and call a person, even if they might not be home at the time.  Will my children’s children not be able to envision life before chatty AIs?  Perhaps not.  I can’t say that all those friendly, helpful robots that we’re so familiar with from sci-fi books and shows are definitely in our future ... but I’m no longer willing to say they definitely won’t be, either.

The future will be ... interesting.

__________

* Note: This is not designed to be a fully, technically correct explanation, but rather a deliberate oversimplification for lay people.  Please bear that in mind before you submit corrections.

King Missile is cool ...

I have a friend in from out of town at the moment, so no blog post for you this week.  Still, all is not lost ... no, all is not lost: not yet.

By which I mean you’ll get another shot at it next week.  See ya then.

Blah blah blah

You know, at this point, even I’m bored of hearing me complain about my computer woes.  So let’s just say that today was a bit of a lost cause and leave it at that.

Next week, I sincerely hope that there will be something more exciting here.  I can hardly wait to find out!

80s My Way III

"On a Wavelength Far From Home (1982 Pt 2)"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the series introduction for general background; you may also want to check out the mix introduction for more detailed background.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

Last time we had arrived in 1982, and, despite enjoying nearly 78 minutes of classic 80s goodness, there was still more to cover.  So let’s finish that up, shall we?

As I noted, 1982 is the beginning of the end of the transitional years.  While there were still some tracks that tried to have it both ways—both straight-ahead rock and this new, “alternative” sound—trends like post-punk, new wave, and, most cruicially synthpop, were here to stay and truly starting to take over the scene.  And, most significantly, a lot of the non-quite-alt from last volume was, unlike volume I, from artists who were truly reinventing themselves.  The members of Asia certainly qualify, but the major success story from last time was Hall & Oates, who were perhaps the most successful at this feat.¹  But there are two other artists who were one thing in the 70s and an entirely different thing in the 80s, with both sides of that changeover still being pretty decent.  I’ve picked one of those to be our closer here:² it’s Golden Earring.  Now, if you’re a typical American, there are exactly two songs by this Dutch band that you’ve ever heard.  The first is “Radar Love,” which is in that 70s proto-hard-rock style epitomized by the Who and Led Zeppelin.  (Weirdly, Golden Earring actually originated in the 60s, where they sounded more like the Beatles or the Zombies.)  But, by the 80s, they were ready to remake themselves again, and so the second of their songs you’ve likely heard is “Twilight Zone,” which sounds nothing like “Radar Love” ... but still amazing: strong rock guitars, but a very complex bassline, overlapping vocals in very different styles, solid, scifi-adjacent synth work.  In 1982, I had a paper route, and I usually rode with headphones on and my Walkman cranking, playing mix tapes I’d made myself.³  “Twilight Zone” was definitely was of the songs on those tapes, as was “She Blinded Me with Science” by Thomas Dolby.  Forget “injections” of synth: this song was almost nothing but synths, and samples, and weird, nonsensical vocals.  Everyone was rushing to put synths in their music, because it was new and hip and different.  Utterly unsurprsing from Dolby, whose stage name after all came from his “always messing around with keyboards and tapes.”⁴  But from reggae/dancehall virtuoso Eddy Grant?  “Electric Avenue” was something special, something most of us had never heard before ... primarily because it almost certainly never been done before.  The synths in this otherwise Caribbean-flavored track made it irresistable to butt up against Dolby’s classic.

There are a few other people here who started in the 70s and reinvented themselves for this exciting new time.  For instance, being (musically speaking, at any rate) a child of the 80s, Genesis was an entirely different band to me than it was for the afficianados of prog-rock.⁵  The transition in Genesis came when its lead singer, Peter Gabriel, left.  Now, Genesis is certainly an important part of my 80s, and “Abacab” and “No Reply at All” were likely on those Walkman paper-route mixes, but we’ll have to wait for 1984 to get a proper entry from them.  But Gabriel, on the other hand ... as part of Genesis, he was known for outrageous costumes set to meandering prog-rock:⁶ sort of like what you might get if you could have David Bowie fronting Emerson, Lake & Palmer.  But somehow, as a solo artist, his music morphed into a sort of alt-pop: strong hooks and interesting synth work made songs like “Sledgehammer” and “Games Without Frontiers” 80s staples, not to mention the all-time most iconic 80s ballad, “In Your Eyes.”  But the first Gabriel song I ever heard was “Shock the Monkey,” and that’s the one I’ve included here.  A screed against animal testing, there’s something primal about the song, with its electronic perscussion and dreamy synth washes which play against the power chords.

But the real story of the time were the new bands, and few were bigger or more emblematic of the new style than Duran Duran.  Formed in 1978 and named after a character in Barbarella, Duran Duran scored a hit in their native UK in 1981 with “Girls on Film,” but it was barely heard in the US.  But they burst into 1982 with Rio and “Hungry Like the Wolf,” which played over and over and over on the radio stations of the time.  But somehow it wasn’t annoying: it just got better and better.  Spurred on by a great video on the then-nascent MTV and an appearance on SNL, “Hungry Like the Wolf” was #1 in Canada, #3 in the US, #4 in Finland and New Zealand, and #5 in the UK and Australia.  It sold over a million copies in the US alone; it’s been streamed in the UK over 40 million times; its video won the very first Grammy for best video.  VH1 says it was the third best song of the 80s, and Rolling Stone included it on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.  While “Rio” was a better song in many ways, and their material off Seven and the Ragged Tiger (such as “Union of the Snake”⁷) was more interesting, there can be no doubt that “Hungry” was fundamentally important: it shook up the scene, and showed that synthy, poppy alt rock could not only be sonically impressive, but cool and sexy and could make money.  I would love to believe that the explosion in alt rock was more about artistic integrity and exploring new musical fusions and all that, but let’s face it: the fact that Duran Duran became mega superstars (and presumably multimillionaires) certainly didn’t hurt.

And so the music starts to diverge more significantly.  Adam and the Ants had always been a bit out there,⁸ and for his first solo effort the former punk turned new wave actually moved just closer enough to mainstream that it would catch on.  Still, “Goody Two Shoes” was pretty distinct from most of the standard offerings.  And what were we to think of one-hit-wonders Men Without Hats and their “Safety Dance”?  My small town couldn’t get cable yet, so I had no MTV: I was reduced to watching Friday Night Videos on NBC.  And I distinctly remember the first time I saw the video for this song;⁹ the “what the fuck is this??” factor was pretty strong for this one.  This was new wave at its weirdest, and that’s saying something, considering new wave is the genre that gave us Devo.  And as for Wall of Voodoo, who were, according to lead singer Stan Ridgway, “on a wavelength far from home,”¹⁰ there was definitely nothing else like “Mexican Radio.”¹¹

This was also the time when I was regularly raiding my father’s reject box, which is primarily what I used to make those Walkman mix tapes.  That may have been where I found “She Blinded Me with Science” (certainly I can’t imagine why else my dad would have had the single); it was absolutely where I found “Reap the Wild Wind” by Ultravox, fronted by Midge Ure, who had formerly toured brifely with Thin Lizzy,¹² and would go on in future years to co-write the first of those charity supergroup songs, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”  “Reap” was #12 in the UK and #10 in Ireland, but peaked at a paltry #71 here in the US, so most of us yanks have never heard it; despite that, it’s a classic new wave tune that deserves wider recognition.

But the most fateful record I plucked out of the reject box was undoubtedly “The One Thing” by INXS.  It wasn’t their pinnacle—“Don’t Change” was more classic, and that album overall was just a prelude to the superb Listen Like Thieves, which would give us the nearly perfect “What You Need”—but “The One Thing” was the first time I heard the band that would go on to define a huge part of my 80s.  INXS is to me one of the four musical corners of the decade, in fact,¹³ and the first one to truly penetrate my consciousness.  From the plaintive wail of Hutchence’s voice to the even more plaintive wail of Pengilly’s sax, INXS is 80s perfection in some fundamental way that is difficult for me to describe.  It’s not really new age, and it’s certainly not synthpop, but it’s amazing, and different, and I’m not sure we ever heard its like again.

For proper Australian new wave, we need to look to Icehouse.  Their excellent Primitive Man was contemporaneous with INXS’ Shabooh Shoobah, but I don’t believe I was aware of them until a few years later, when I started getting serious about filling out my collection.  “Great Southern Land” most likely came to my attention in 1989 when the compilation album of the same name was realeased in the US.  With its individuated synth notes and echoey vocals, it’s a great example of the subgenre.  As is Missing Persons’ “Walking in L.A.”, with Dale Bozzio’s quirky vocals, like Martha Davis (of the Motels¹⁴) cranked up to 11 and twisted slightly out of true.  Of course, “Walking” is a much more jagged version of new wave than “Southern” or “Reap”; for an almost folksy contrast, we go to the Nails, known as one-hit wonders for their “88 Lines About 44 Women,” which, musically isn’t much more than a preprogrammed Casio rhythm track and some harmonized humming, but lyrically was quite adventurous: the “women” in question included Eloise, who “sang songs about whales and cocks,” and Tanya (Turkish), who “liked to fuck while wearing leather biker boots.”  And, if you want the Britpop version of new wave, there’s “Love Plus One,” by Haircut One Hundred.  I never really loved this song the way some did, but it was definitely an important milestone for the subgenre, and I have some fond memories of it.

But of course the ultimate new wave classic (for this volume, at any rate¹⁵) is “I Melt with You,” a song so insanely good that it transcends having the stupidest breakdown in musical history (seriously? a humming solo?).  “Melt” is an anthem about making love while the bomb is dropping, and it’s utterly wonderful.  I can’t quite consider Modern English one-hit wonders, even though it’s true that “Melt” was their only top 40 hit in the US (they did much better in their native UK), mainly because I think of a one-hit wonder as having one great song, period.  The rest of the album that that song comes from has to be mediocre at best, at least in my head: a band with even one really great album just doesn’t seem to hit the one-hit mold for me, despite technically fitting the definition.  But After the Snow is brilliant: opener “Someone’s Calling” is a solid offering; “Life in the Gladhouse” is dark and brooding; “Face of Wood” is pretty and melodic; the title track is martial and just slightly off.  But there’s no doubt that “I Melt with You” deserves its spot on just about everyone’s 80s retrospective.  Including mine.

80's My Way III
[ On a Wavelength Far From Home (1982 Pt 2) ]

“The One Thing” by INXS, off Shabooh Shoobah
“Should I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash, off Combat Rock
“Goody Two Shoes” by Adam Ant, off Friend or Foe
“Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran, off Rio
“She Blinded Me with Science” by Thomas Dolby [Single]¹⁶
“Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant [Single]¹⁷
“Shock the Monkey” by Peter Gabriel [Single]
“White Wedding, Part 1” by Billy Idol, off Billy Idol
“Mexican Radio” by Wall of Voodoo [Single]
“Steppin' Out” by Joe Jackson, off Night and Day
“88 Lines about 44 Women” by the Nails [Single]
“Save It for Later” by the English Beat [Single]
“Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners [Single]
“The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats, off Rhythm of Youth
“Reap the Wild Wind” by Ultravox [Single]
“Great Southern Land” by Icehouse, off Primitive Man
“Love Plus One” by Haircut One Hundred [Single]
“I Melt with You” by Modern English, off After the Snow
“Walking in L.A.” by Missing Persons, off Spring Session M
“Twilight Zone [single version]” by Golden Earring [Single]¹⁸

Total:  20 tracks,  82:09

There are two tracks which come close to straight-ahead rock (even more so than “Twilight Zone,” in my opinion): the first is “Shoud I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash, and the second is the crowning achievement of one William Idol, “White Wedding.”  The Clash were theoretically a post-punk band, but, honestly: they were still punk.  Especially for ‘82’s Combat Rock, which include both this classic and “Rock the Casbah.”  Mick Jones’ surly lyrics and Joe Strummer’s simple but powerful guitar licks make this a song to rival anything the Sex Pistols or the Ramones came out with.  And what can you say about Billy Idol’s magnum opus?  In many ways, I was more enamored of “Dancing with Myself” at the time, but, man does “White Wedding” really stand up all these years later.  Also coming out of the British punk scene, Idol and his guitarist Steve Stevens constructed a song that starts with a riff often described as “ominous,” breathy vocals, and background vocalizations, eventually building to that trademark Idol scream at just shy of the 2-minute mark.  Still capable of giving me the shivers decades later.

For further stretching the boundaries of what “alternative” can connote, the English Beat (of course known in Britain as simply “the Beat”) were one of the foremost purveyors of two-tone.  While Madness and the Specials were doing more or less straightforward ska, the Beat were doing songs like “Save It for Later” (which I’ve used here), and the earlier “Mirror in the Bathroom,” which infused some new wave sensibilities into the ska rhythms.  Turning instead to alternative jazz, Joe Jackson has had a tendency to reinvent himself on just about every album.  Whereas Look Sharp! was more poppy, and Jumpin’ Jive was swing and jump blues,¹⁹ his entry for 1982, Night and Day, was in many ways a modern inflection on old jazz standards (AllMusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine compares it several times to Cole Porter).  “Steppin’ Out” is cool, breezy, jazzy, and, as the name implies, nocturnal.  There is a bit of new wave flair in it, but it’s a light touch.  I thought it was a nifty song at the time; it was only some years later, when I heard the entire album, that I truly began to appreciate Jackson’s genius.

And that only leaves us with what must surely be the most improbable success of the year, “Come on Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners.  Dexys struggled with finding its image and tone for several years before settling on the coveralls that became their trademark style.  Their instrumentation was all over the place: a strong contingent of Celtic/country (banjo, mandolin, accordian, and two or more fiddles) but also a touch of brass (saxophone, flute, and trombone).  The album that spawned “Eileen” credits 11 musicians, not even counting backing vocals.  Speaking as someone who owns the dubiously named Very Best of Dexys Midnight Runners, I can tell you that it contains 19 tracks, and two of them are great—the second being their cover of Van Morrison’s “Jackie Wilson Said”—and 17 of them are absolute shit.  How this eclectic mess managed to stumble into a #1 hit in 8 countries, best selling single of the year in the UK, declared later by VH1 as the third greatest one-hit wonder of all time, and the sixth favorite 1980s #1 hit by ITV poll ... how this band did all that is anyone’s guess.  It’s a complex song, with key changes and tempo changes, rapid-fire lyrics, blazing fast fiddling, brass fills, and piano glissandoes.  It’s both unlike all the other music extant at the time and quintessentially 80s.  Almost everyone who was alive at the time will sing along when it comes on, despite the fact that very few of us know more than a few words.  It’s just that catchy.  That was just the state of music in 1982.

Next time, we’ll return to dreamland.

⇐ 80s My Way II

80s My Way IV ⇒

__________

1 One might argue that Heart did it better.  But, as Heart blossomed more into stadium rock than the synth-infused alt-rock that Hall & Oates was so successful at, we won’t feature them on this mix.

2 The other will have to wait for us to reach 1985.

3 Remember, my father was a record collector, so making mix tapes was a skill I learned at a fairly young age.  They weren’t very good mix tapes, of course, but everyone has to start somewhere.

4 According to Wikipedia.

5 As was Fleetwood Mac, I suppose.

6 Here’s a typical example.

7 But not “The Reflex”; that song is just annoying.

8 In fact, I almost threw in “Stand and Deliver” as my choice for Ant.  But in the end I decided to wait for this one.

9 Which was, apparently, some time after it came out, since FNV didn’t start till ‘83.

10 Title drop.

11 Fun fact: I used to have a friend who fantasized about an imaginary 80s song which was a duet between Stan Ridgway and Fred Schneider of the B-52’s.  Try imagining “Mexican Radio” with Schneider interjecting “Mexican radio, baby!” in between lines of the chorus.  It’s fun.

12 And sang for Rich Kids, the band Glen Matlock formed after he left the Sex Pistols.  Ghosts of Princes in Towers is damnably hard to find, but well worth it in my opinion.  Its title track was a little too early to land on this mix, but it was defnitely an early harbinger.

13 We’ll see the other three corners when we get to 1984 and 1986.

14 Who we heard from last volume.

15 I’m going to make a strong case for Icicle Works’ “Whisper to a Scream” being the ultimatest new wave song of all time when we get to 1984.

16 The single is probably sufficient, though The Golden Age of Wireless is not a bad pick-up either.

17 Unlike Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” even the single of this song is not easy to find.  However, Killer on the Rampage is pretty nifty, if you’re willing to put in the extra effort (second best track: “I Don’t Wanna Dance”).  Or, as always, just go to YouTube.

18 Make sure to get the “single version” of this track.  The album version is nearly twice as long, and that’s not to its credit.

19 You may recall hearing a lot of the latter album on Salsatic Vibrato.

Character noodling

It’s been a busy weekend, and I did a long post last week, so I think I’ll leave you with little other than the promise of something more substantial next week.

But, just for fun, my youngest and I have been working on a new D&D character: he’s a young (~13 years old) dinosaur person related to the Jurassic-Park-style dilophosaurus.  We decided his name should be Oxý Sálio (Οξύ Σάλιο).  (You’ll have to use Google Translate to work out what that’s based on, but it’ll be obvious in retrospect.)  We’ve still got more work to do, but it seems like a cool basic concept.  We’ll see what develops.

OGL Doomscrolling

I’ve never been particularly susceptible to doomscrolling.  I didn’t do it during the height of the pandemic, nor on January 6th, nor even during the run up to (and aftermath of) Trump’s election.  I didn’t do it during the most intense times of the Black Lives Matter protests, nor during the most heinous parts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The closest I ever really got was an obsession with TV news shortly after 9/11, but that was technically before doomscrolling was a thing (although really it was the same impulse).  But, overall, I was starting to think I was immune to the syndrome.

And then Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast (or WotC)—the company that makes D&D—started fucking with my game.

Now, on the one hand I suppose it makes sense that this thing, which is more likely to affect me personally than any of that other stuff (maybe even more so than COVID), was the thing that finally caught me in its web.  But that’s sort of a shallow assessment, and I would at least hope that there’s a better explanation than that.  After some introspection, I think I’ve put my finger on it: none of that other stuff really surprised me.  Anyone who was surprised that Putin would invade a country just hasn’t been paying attention, and anyone who was surprised that cops were killing black people is beyond clueless.  The US government wasn’t prepared to deal with a major health crisis? yeah, some “breaking news” there.  Corporations are using the pandemic to gouge us for more money? well, duh: it’s what they do.  As for Trump, I can’t say which is less surprising: that a politician would be a compulsive liar, or that a rich white guy would be self-absorbed and unscrupulous.

But this ... this actually caught me off guard.  I never thought that this could happen.

And that’s primarily because it already happened once before. See, what Hasbro is doing is trying to screw with the Open Gaming License (OGL), which was invented for the third edition of the game (3e), and tries to do for tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) what open source licenses did for the software industry.  Both 3e and 5e use the OGL, but 4e did not.  What happened?  Well, presumably, some dick executives at Hasbro decided that it sucked that other people were making money off D&D and decided to create a new version that wouldn’t use the OGL (I actually cover this is some detail in my discussion of what Pathfinder is).  And it bombed.  See, 3e made D&D the biggest TTRPG in the market—by a huge factor.  Other TTRPGs were, in those days, like browsers other than Chrome: sure, they exist, but the only people you know who use them are hardcore nerds.  4e killed all that, and other TTRPGs began to equal—or even overtake—D&D.  And it’s obviously an oversimplification to claim that moving away from the OGL was responsible for that ... but it’s hard to ignore it as a factor as well.

Especially when you factor in that 5e brought it back.  Basically, WotC said, “hey, guys, we know we screwed up, but now there’s a new version of the game, and it will use the OGL again ... please come back to us.” And it worked.  Oh, sure: once again it’s too neat and tidy to lay the massive success of D&D in recent years at the feet of re-embracing the OGL.  But, also once again, it’s hard to ignore that factor.  So it seems like the company learned their lesson, and now everything is good ... right?

Except corporate executives come and go, and often institutional memories are amnesiac.  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, warns George Santayana, and that’s exactly what’s happened now.  Thus, doomscrolling.

Well, today is my last allotted day to obsessively hit the refresh button to get the latest news on this topic, so perhaps I can declare it not a complete waste of effort by giving you, dear reader, a few links which can hopefully tell the story in a cogent, coherent manner.  I tried to focus on shorter articles and videos to make it quicker to get through, but there’s no getting around that this is a big topic, so don’t dive in unless you’re willing to spend some time on it.  But, for all that, I think it’s a really fascinating topic, with business aspects, legal aspects, issues of creative vs capitalist, and feats of journalism.  If you do have the time, it might just be worth it to take a look at this particular controversy.  And, even if you’re not into TTRPGs, considering the fact that the blockbuster D&D movie is scheduled for March, and a new D&D TV show was just announced, it’s possible that the fallout could impact a lot more folks than that, if only tangentially.

For each link below, I’ve indicated what format the media is in, and what expertise the author is bringing to the table.  I’ve tried to arrange things into an order that makes the story easier to follow (which is decidedly not chronological order of these things being published), and add a brief bit of commentary as to what I think the value of each is.  This list is highly curated, based on my own opinions; I tried to save you from going through a lot of the dreck that I did during my doomscrolling spree, but that inherently means that my bias about what to include and what to omit is on full display, so take with as many grains of salt as you feel appropriate.  Some of these I’ve marked “informative,” if they’re primarily to get raw data; some I’ve marked “entertaining,” if the authors have added a bit of flair to make the new go down more easily; and some I’ve marked “emotional,” if the authors are letting their feelings show as to how much this is impacting their lives and livelihoods.

I’ve explained most of the acronyms above; “3PP” means third-party publisher (i.e. someone who is not WotC or the consumer who is publishing D&D-related material).  The fate of the 3PPs are the main thing that’s in doubt with this move from Hasbro / WotC.  It’s also fair to note (as some of the folks below do) that, when we demonize the “company,” we need to be careful to disinguish the sleazy executives from the rank-and-file employees of WotC (and its subsidiaries, like D&D Beyond), who are really just trying to get along, and many of whom don’t agree with the policies of the “company” at all (and several of whom are, apparently, responsible for many of the leaks that are fueling the fire, precisely because they can’t stand idly by).

What the hell is all this about anyway?

• Best overall summary: (video) Mark “Sherlock” Hulmes (D&D streamer); emotional.  The first 13 minutes here are the best breakdown of almost every salient event that I’ve heard so far.

• Best summary of the situation pre-leak: (video) Profesor Dungeon Master (D&D streamer and third-party publisher); informative.  The first 4 minutes here are a very concise window on the situation up to the point where the leak happened (the leak was just a rumour at this point; it became official upon publication of the Gizmodo article—see below).  After that, the Prof goes on to make some fairly cogent commentary and predictions, but a lot of it was invalidated by later events.

Was the original OGL useful?

• Negative: (text) Cory Doctorow (author); informative.  Some people say the original OGL was useless or even harmful.
• Positive: (video) Roll of Law (lawyer); informative.  Others counter that this is too simplistic a view.

The business issues driving this

• Early predictions: Flute’s Loot (D&D streamer); informative.  Really, Flute is just collecting words of wisdom here from Matt Colville (founder of MCDM), but, since he’s done us the kindness of picking out just the good bits, we may as well take advantage.  (And he does add some useful commentary.)

• Assessment of the factors leading up to this situation: (video) Ryan Dancey (former VP at WotC and co-author of the original OGL); informative.  Nice short clip from a much longer discussion with the Roll for Combat folks (who were one of the third-party publishers involved in the leak) which explains very cogently the business side of things from someone with inside knowledge.

• What WotC should have done to address “undermonetization”: (video) Tulok the Barbarian (D&D streamer); entertaining.  This is probably about as pro-Hasbro as it gets (spoiler: still not very pro-Hasbro).  While this came out before the ORC license annoucement (below) and way before WotC’s response (even further below), it is still the absolute best (and funniest) assessment of what WotC / Hasbro could have done—still could do, for that matter—to address their concerns that D&D is “undermonetized” without pissing off their customer base.

What’s bad about the (proposed) new license?

• The original leak: (text) Linda Codega for Gizmodo (journalist); informative.  This is what kicked off the controversy.

• Why it’s legally bad: (video) The Rules Lawyer (lawyer and D&D streamer); informative.  A good summary of the issues from a legal standpoint.

• Why fans are outraged: (video) DnD Shorts (D&D streamer and third-party publisher); entertaining.  Anti-Hasbro biased, obviously, but really encapsulates why people are freaking out.

Reactions from the community

• A typical 3PP reaction: (video) The Dungeon Coach (D&D streamer and third-party publisher); emotional.  I could list literally dozens of videos just like this one, but I think DC is honest and raw and lays it out straight.

• The #OpenDND movement: (video) The ArchCast (D&D streamer); informative.  A decent summary of the situation post-OpenDND but pre Paizo.

• The ORC license: (text) Charlie Hall for Polygon (journalist); informative.  Paizo are the makers of Pathfinder, you may recall, and are severely impacted by all this since Pathfinder (or at least the first version of it) is completely dependent on the original OGL.  This article is a nice summary of Paizo’s annoucement of the new Open RPG Creative (or “ORC”) license, and it includes a link to the full announcement if you want to read that.

• Community reaction to the ORC license: (video) No Nat 1s (D&D streamer); entertaining.  I don’t love this guy in general, but his joy at the Paizo annoucement (just above) is kind of infectious.

The campaign to send WotC a financial message

• A typical plea on Twitter: (tweet) Ginny Di (D&D stremer); interesting.  Ginny Di is a major influencer in the D&D space.  Note that she’s retweeting something from DnD Shorts (see above), but most people feel it was her signing on that really made this go viral.

• A typical plea on YouTube: (video) Indestructoboy (third-party publisher); interesting.  Reasoned and rational.

• The end result: (video) Tenkar’s Tavern (D&D streamer); informative.  Not necessarly the best on this topic, but probably the most compact.

WotC’s response

• What it is and why it’s bad: (video) DnD Shorts (D&D streamer and third-party publisher); entertaining.  The only person I’m linking to more than once, Will from DnD Shorts is definitely very anti-Hasbro, but he’s just so damned articulate and simultaneously so damned entertaining that I can’t not point you at his videos.  This video contains the entire text of WotC’s response.

• Why people find it offensive: (video) Dungeons & Discourse (UK legal professional^* and wargaming streamer); entertaining.  Originally an anti-corporate voice in the wargaming hobby space,^** this creator originally published videos under Discourse Miniatures.  She actually just started this new channel focussing on TTRPGs specifically because of this OGL debacle.  She’s informed, articulate, funny, and I adore her accent.^***  (I actually just signed up for her Patreon.)

So that’s it; pretty much the whole story.  There are more details out there, but don’t get sucked in like I did.  It’s not worth it.

And maybe now I’ve learned that even something this massively stupid shouldn’t surprise me.  Hopefully that’s armor against the next crazy-ass thing that might tempt me into wasting my life reading about shit that’s just going to depress me anyway.  One can always hope.

__________

* The UK has a few different professions which are licensed to practice law, and I don’t know exactly which one she is.

** Remember that D&D actually grew out of wargaming, so it’s definitely related.

*** Northern Ireland, perhaps?

Paradoxically Sized World VI

"I Can Dream the Rest Away"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the introduction for more background.  You may also want to check out the first volume in this multi-volume mix for more info on its theme.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

My opening line for the the last installment of this mix was this:

Can you believe it’s been just over 3 years since we last saw an installment in my LittleBigPlanet-inspired mix?

And that was, ironically ... almost three years ago.  So I guess we can believe it, eh?  Look for PSW VII sometime in early 2026, I suppose.

This is just one of those mixes that started strong and has slowly petered out.  My middle child, for whom this was always their favorite of my mixes, has moved on to other music, and, honestly, my tastes in mostly wordless electronica run way more towards downtempo: basically, this music, entirely designed to make you feel like you’re in a happy little videogame like its inspiration LittleBigPlanet, is often just way too upbeat for me.

Still, there’s a time and place (and mood) for nearly all types of music, and I still reach for this mix every now and again.  You might think I’d be running out of actual music from LBP to seed the volumes with by this point, but the truth is that there’s 3 main games, plus the two portable versions (PSP and PS Vita), and, the one that I lean most heaviy on this time around, LBP Kart.  Kart gives us a whopping 4 tracks this time out, so let’s start there.

LBP Kart is exactly what you think it is: the LBP version of Mario Kart.  It’s a driving/racing game, so it’s quite different from the cute little platformers that comprise all the other installments in the franchise.  And the music is different as well—could Fishbone’s “Skankin’ to the Beat,” for instance, ever have made it into a “normal” LBP game?  Doesn’t seem that likely.  Actually, even “Fresh” by Devo is (unusually for them) a bit frenetic and punky.  Driving games require a whole ’nother vibe when it comes to music: you want fast-paced music that inspires speed and those daring feats of roadwork that are best left to videogames because you’d die in a fiery crash if you tried them in real life.  Crashes in driving games are more funny than scary, so that frenzied beat that you find in the punky reggae of Fishbone or the punky synthpop of Devo is perfect.  You know what else has that crazy energy?  Dubstep.  In this case, “Odessa Dubstep,” by Liverpool house/D&B group Apollo 440.  All 3 of these tracks have a beat which is driving (pun only half intended) and intense; the game itself uses instrumental versions, but I’ve gone with the original vocal version in all cases (as I typically do in this mix).  All these factors combine to mean that this is perhaps the most head bangin’, almost danceable, volume of this mix so far.  Its character diverges sharply from previous installments, at the same time that it’s still noticeably upbeat videogame-inspired electronica.

One of the consequences of that is it’s given me a chance to include a few tracks that I had had slotted for this mix but just never seemed to work on any of the other volumes.  Probably the best example of that is Finland’s Nightwish, whose metal tune “Whoever Brings the Night” was used in LBP2.  As boss battle music, it was okay for it to be a bit more intense than the other tracks in that game, but it meant that it really stood out in my other volumes (which, you know, don’t really have boss battles embedded in them).  Now, Nightwish is often described as “symphonic metal”—and I think that pretty well describes “Whoever Brings the Night,” with its operatic-adjacent choral background vocals, barely noticeable woodwinds, and interesting orchestral percussion.  Add back in Anette Olzon’s excellent vocals and it becomes a heavy metal anthem which still fits right in with the rest of the mix, amazingly.

Another track which fit nicely here was “Toccata” by Canadian electronica artist OVERWERK (the stage name for Edmond Huszar).  OVERWERK was introduced to me by another coworker, who is more into the EDM and techno side of electronica.  A lot of OVERWERK’s stuff isn’t my bag, but this take on Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is pretty awesome.  As is “Best Fish Tacos in Ensenada,” another track from LBP Kart, this time by British DJ Freeland.  It’s a hard driving EDM tune that makes a nice lead-in to “Odessa Dubstep.” Finally, Chicago’s Tortoise is usually described as “post-rock,” but to me it mostly sounds like a 2000’s update of prog rock—“Prepare Your Coffin” (used in LBP PSV), for instance, sounds like it’d be right at home alongside early Yes, or perhaps Emerson Lake & Palmer.  Hard to fit that vibe into other volumes, but it seemed perfectly comfortable here.

There’s also a fair amount of music from other LBP bands that we’ve seen on this mix before.  You may remember Ochre from their track “Sosacharo,” which was the opener for volume V; well, I actually discovered them after hearing their song used in LBP2, “Infotain Me,” which I planted right in the opening third this time ‘round.  I followed that up with Ratatat, a band who I now can’t remember how I discovered, but it surely must have somehow been related to LBP, because their music is so perfect for this mix.  We heard “Flynn” last volume; this volume’s track is “Dura,” which starts out with a sort of synth harpsichord riff, then explodes into happy electronic tones.  Likewise, we’ve seen Plaid twice before on this mix,¹ but the first time I ever heard them was LBP2’s use of “New Family,” a mellow yet still upbeat piece of electronica that I felt worked nicely into our closing third.  Röyksopp I also discovered via LBP;² “In Space” is a very mellow, almost spacey, track which leads us nicely into our closer.  Ugress is appearing here for the fourth time; after discovering the Norweigian wonder via his track for the PSV,³ I’ve sort of fallen in love with him.  “Apocalypse Please Wait Buffering” is exactly the sort of non-bridge bridge track that he’s so good at: with a slow build for a nearly a minute, it then bursts into a percussion-heavy thrash-adjacent groove that’s the perfect lead-in to Nightwish.

As for other artists who don’t derive specifically from LBP but that we’ve seen on this mix before, probably the most obvious is Bonobo.  I honestly can’t believe this brilliant British DJ and purveryor of amazing downtempo has never been featured in an LBP game: so much of his music seems perfectly suited for it that I’ve already used him twice so far,⁴ and here he takes the honor of closer.  “Nothing Owed” is a sax-driven, meditative but not sad, mellow track, puncutated by an acoustic guitar riff which is just a perfect way to close out this volume.  And the only other band to appear on this mix 3 or more times (including this one) without ever appearing in an actual LBP game is Combustible Edison, the lounge-exotica-electronica band who we’ve heard multiple times on other mixes⁵ as well as twice before here.⁶  “Solid State” (like much of CE’s output) sounds like it’s from a 50s sci-fi show.  It makes a nice transition from the center stretch of more intense songs into the gentler closing third.

For artists just appearing for the second time, you may recall my speaking of Monster Rally before; I discovered them via my old cable company’s “Zen” music channel, and had had “Panther” down for this mix forever before I finally managed to work it in last volume.⁷  This volume’s pick is a short but happy little bridge called “Paradise”: it makes a nice lead-in to the Ochre/Ratatat pairing.  And finally Smokey Bandits have appeared all over these mixes⁸ before they finally showed up last volume.  I squeezed “Revolucion Valiente” in between Apollo 440 and Fishbone because its strong, brassy, spaghetti Western feel could take it.

Paradoxically Sized World VI
[ I Can Dream the Rest Away ]

“Carefree” by Kevin MacLeod, off Calming
“Egg Nog” by Luna [Single]⁹
“Neopolitan Dreams” by Lisa Mitchell, off Wonder

PSV

“Paradise” by Monster Rally, off Return to Paradise
“Infotain Me” by Ochre, off Lemodie

2

“Dura” by Ratatat, off LP3
“Fresh” by DEVO [Single]

Kart

“Toccata” by OVERWERK [Single]
“Apocalypse Please Wait Buffering” by Ugress, off Reminiscience
“Whoever Brings the Night” by Nightwish [Single]

2

“Main Title” by Xcyril, off StarGate Odyssea
“Best Fish Tacos in Ensenda” by Freeland [Single]

Kart

“Odessa Dubstep” by Apollo 440 [Single]

Kart

“Revolucion Valiente” by Smokey Bandits, off Debut
“Skankin' to the Beat” by Fishbone [Single]

Kart

“Solid State” by Combustible Edison, off Schizophonic!
“New Family” by Plaid, off Double Figure

2

“Prepare Your Coffin” by Tortoise [Single]

PSV

“In Space” by Röyksopp, off Melody A.M.
“Nothing Owed” by Bonobo, off Dial 'M' for Monkey

Total:  20 tracks,  77:23

I wouldn’t want to imply that there’s anything too surprising here, but I will note that hearing Australian Idol contestant Lisa Mitchell show up in an LBP game was surprising to me; I mean, generally speaking, her music is more suited to, say, Sirenexiv Cola.¹⁰  But “Neopolitan Dreams” is a jaunty 3 minutes that, once stripped of vocals, you could imagine popping up behind Sackboy’s adventures (which it did, in the PSP version).  The use of a celesta (or similar toy-piano-adjacent instrument) just gives it that extra layer that makes it fit in so well here.  (Plus it handily provides our volume title.)

And I decided that the Mitchell tune should be the culmination of a very happy opening triad, sort of the bridge to past volumes.  I absolutely had to start with “Carefree” by Kevn MacLeod; because of MacLeod’s habit of releasing his music royalty-free, it gets used in an amazingly large number of YouTube videos, and “Carefree” is so close in sound to Lullatone’s iconic “Race Against the Sunset” (which was used in LBP3 and was the opener for volume IV), “Carefree” is used in a metric shit-ton of fan videos about LBP, because creators know they won’t get demonetized for using LBP’s actual (copyrighted) music.  So it’s an obvious choice for opener here.  That flows nicely into “Egg Nog,” by Luna, also known as “what the founder of Galaxie 500 got up to in the 90s.” “Egg Nog” is theoretically a Christmas tune, but it’s not overtly seasonal (aside from starting with the shaking of some sleigh bells), and is probably not particularly typical of Luna’s output.  But it’s a happy little tune that slots beautifully between “Carefree” and “Neapolitan Dreams.”

And that just leaves us with Xcyril, a French composer who does the occasional soundtrack and otherwise releases neoclassical works that feel like they ought to be soundtracks to something.  So far we’ve only heard from him on Phantasma Chorale, but his “Main Title” for what appears to be a Stargate fan-film series is short, sweet, and very videogame-y.  I’m not entirely sure why I thought it would fit between the Finnish goth-metal and the British EDM, but I actually think it works.

Next time, let’s dip our toes back into that pool that is the 80s.

⇐ Paradoxically Sized World V

Paradoxically Sized World VII ⇒

__________

1 Once on volume II and once last volume.

2 “Vision One,” their track from last volume, was used in LBP2.

3 “Ghost Von Frost,” which we heard on volume IV.

4 Once on volume I and once on volume II.

5 So far: Salsatic Vibrato V, Phantasma Chorale I (twice), Phantasma Chorale II, and Snaptone Glimmerbeam I.

6 Specifically, volumes III and IV.

7 Besides “Panther,” Monster Rally has also showed up so far on Gramophonic Skullduggery I and Apparently World I.

8 Specifically, Salsatic Vibrato VI, Shadowfall Equinox II and IV, Gramophonic Skullduggery I, and Snaptone Glimmerbeam I.

9 As usual, I hate to link only to YouTube, but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else to get this track.

10 In point of fact, “Clean White Love” does appear there.

Prolly not all it's cracked up to be

Welcome to 2023.  Please keep your hands and arms inside the new year at all times.  Side effects may include drowsiness and upset stomach.  Not recommended for children under 5 years old.  Risk of electrical shock: only qualified personnel should service this year.  Max load capacity 300 pounds.  If ingested, do not induce vomiting.  Read and understand operator’s manual and all safety instructions before using this year.  Authorized personnel only beyond this point.  Avoid direct exposure to year.  In case of damage or leakage, please notify the CDC.  Please mind the gap, and supervise children at all times.  Not intended for highway use.  Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your stay here in 2023.

Season's Greetings

After over a decade of researching the various holidays that exist at this time of year, I feel uniquely qualified to offer you the most diverse set of season’s greetings you’re likely to receive this year.  Here they are, in roughly chronological order of the establishment of the holiday.  Please believe that I sincerely extend unto you each sentiment, as serious or silly as each might be.  To you and yours, I wish you all:

Merry meet! (more about Solstice)

Shalom Aleichem! (more about Hanukkah)

Yazdaan Panaah Baad (more about Zartosht No-Diso)

Merry Christmas! (more about Christmas)

Greetings on Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (more about Sol Invictus)

Habari gani? (more about Kwanzaa)

Enjoy the Mystery Days

Jai Ganapati! (more about Pancha Ganapati)

Happy Festivus! (more on Festivus)

Merry Christmahannukwanzaakah!

Happy Candlenights! (more about Candlenights)

May you all know joy in all that comes your way.