Substack has been attracting more and more âhigh-level talentâ, as they say at my day job, most recently with the widely publicized Salman Rushdie Substack.
Which is a great thing!
Famous musicians like Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Neko Case have recently launched Substacks that are now at the top of the top paid Music Substacks chart.
However, that has also knocked higher profile music writers like Sasha Frere-Jones and Ray Padgett (who guest posted for us here) down the charts.
Which has then knocked Shuffle Synchronicities down to #23!
While my ego is certainly invested in this enterprise and there are of course financial benefits to getting more paid subscribersâŚ
More than anything Iâd like to keep the Shuffle Synchronicities Substack in the top #25 so it can remain easily âdiscoverableâ for other potential readers out there to benefit from.
So if you have been thinking about becoming a paid Subscriber, nowâs a great time!
"Hell Raiser" by Dee Watkins
This 2019 Dee Watkins rap song was featured by Pitchfork as a must-hear calling him a ârascalâ and a âscoundrelâ and that he âis a bit like watching Matthew Broderick in Ferris Buellerâs Day Off: You get the sense the delinquents are having more fun.â
When I shuffled to the song, I was looking for some insight into tonightâs plan to see James Blake at the Hollywood Bowl with the therapist woman I wrote about in part in this post last week and about how her meeting me on a date in August helped her meet someone new in September that sheâs dating long-distance now.
James Blake first came up in the Shuffle in this March post with his song âI Mindâ.
Which I analyzed then to be about the relationship between âenlightenedâ not wanting & âegoicâ wanting, specifically sexual desire, in the way that the song repeats the words:
I mind
(Pussy)
I mind
(Pussy)
I mind
(Pussy)
I mind
Over and over.
It was funny, a reader of the Substack, who is a relatively well-known music writer from the first generation of rock critics of the late 60s/early 70s, reached out after reading that post and urged me to try to date the therapist woman.
So I told her:
And she wrote back:
Anyway, yeah, so weâre going to see James Blake tonight on another non-date date.
I also did a shuffle of just all of James Blakeâs songs just now and got:
âIâll Come Tooâ
Which feels like a synchronicity now doesnât it?
I was originally considering going to the concert by myself.
But she said, Sure, Iâll come too.
Thereâs also this line in it:
I'll slot right in between the
Cracks between you and him
LOL.
But, no, thatâs not the ego-plan.
Even if itâs clearly in my id.
Which has apparently sparked my superego to declare itâll prevent my ego from doing such a thing
Sheâs right now taking a virtual class on Buddhist Psychology with Jack Kornfield and Spirit Rock today so hopefully she finds this amusing too.
I, myself, have been reading Sandra Maitriâs The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues, and she has just quoted Jung:
âIn fact we shall see clearly how this uncertainty forces the enthusiast to puff up his truths, of which he feels none too sure, and to win proselytes to his side in order that his followers may prove to himself the values and trustworthiness of his own convictions. Nor is he altogether so happy in his fund of knowledge as to be able to hold out alone; at bottom he feels isolated by it, and the secret fear of being left alone with it induces him to trot out his opinions and interpretations in and out of season, because only when convincing someone else does he feel safe from gnawing doubts.â
In other words, see my appeal for Subscribers!
But, still, please do totally:
The thing is: we agreed that you really canât go wrong with an outing to the Hollywood Bowl.
I love it there so much I have a print of a painting of it in my apartment:
The line that stuck out in this Dee Watkins song though was:
If you don't really fuck with me don't try to come around
Maybe for both of us???
Or in GIF form:
Okay, thatâs the two hundred and fifty-first Shuffle Synchronicities.