“hardline” mike sugarbaker

Computers don't do anything

Fulla stank ’n’ seein’ red

This is the second time I've been subjected in public to what I'm pretty sure are Spotify covers, e.g. new versions of songs that aren't soundalikes exactly but certainly don't add anything interesting, being played on a coffee shop's PA. The first one was Maps but just slightly defanged, and just now it was This Must Be The Place but with a vocalist who sounded figuratively, but not literally, like he was generated by AI. I Shazammed the first one - if that's ironic in some way, we can talk about that some other time - but I have yet to do anything to try and verify my theory that it's a Spotify-produced version.

I wonder how I can best help to create a norm of public venues noticing, perhaps even skipping and/or reporting these songs. But maybe that's silly.

It sucks a little! Like, it's great to have an explanation for a lot of my life that goes beyond "lol git gud noob," but that gets kinda offset by the new anxious self-consciousness. (Some of which, to be fair, may stem from my slightly-less-recently-unleashed fondness for the hobbits' pipeweed. Another damn thing I should really cut back on.)

(Indeed, it's impossible to separate anything I'm feeling from the overall discourse/malaise/psychic maelstrom. I mean come on, it turns out that autism and gender diversity have some sort of link?? You gave the unemployed middle-aged socialist cis hetero* white guy a link from currently-in-contention identity politics to his own identity, what the hell kind of nightmare are you trying to unleash)

(I think I'm actually doing okay on this front but if that changes lmk)

Also there is a... flavor? of autism known as pathological demand avoidance, sometimes rebranded as "persistent drive for autonomy" by people who don't like the pejorative odor of "pathological." I am a big, big candidate for having this, and in the US in particular I don't feel I have much hope of getting support of any kind. It's already bad enough just for being an adult with autism - I think we're all assumed to be safely ensconced in quant jobs somewhere, rather than serially laid off by tech companies until I finally haven't caught an interview in a year. (I am incredibly fortunate to have family who 1) don't want me to be homeless and 2) are in a position to do something about it, but that help is limited, and contingent on the perceptions and whims of a literal Boomer. Who is probably also on the spectrum.)

In short, would anyone like to be an angel investor in a startup that may or may not ever ship anything that makes any money? That used to be a popular enough thing to do, I dunno