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32 years and still diggin!

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:38:26 GMT

On 10/7/1994, I wrote my first blog post.

I've been blogging ever since.

In the first years when wifi wasn't in every hotel room and restaurant as it is today, before cell phones or even iPods, there were weekly lapses when I went on vacation or to a massage retreat in the middle of nowhere.

Or in 2002 when I had life-saving heart surgery. I was gone for a week then. But as soon as I got home, I added a post so people knew I was okay. I understood that I was missed, and appreciated that. ;-)

But other than those week-long lapses, I'm pretty sure I've blogged every day since. I am what you would call a Natural Born Blogger. I got the blogging bug.

We've done a lot on this blog, it's hard to sum up. We created things that had lasting value. Told the truth about what the tech industry was up to, from the point of view of a Silicon Valley insider (me) who knows the language, where most journalists are intimidated. We fought the big companies and won. Podcasting was created in the community defined by this blog in the early 00s, and it remains independent to this day.

The bigs declared RSS dead, another product of this community. Wishful thinking perhaps, but things like RSS don't die. It's not like that. You can't create a better format for a standard. All the competition RSS has ever received, just changed the names of things, that's not competition, that's being petty.

I think we're on the verge of having new relevance, it feels that way because my secret weapon, Frontier, is running again and it will get even stronger and fit in better, now that I've been working primarily in JavaScript for the last 13 years. Today we're adding Node-like packages and support for WebSockets. Last time we worked on this, neither of those existed.

I take blogging seriously, you should too. It's very powerful, as long as we're really working on the web. There's a difference between having a product you can access through a browser and being on the web.

Small pieces loosely joined. All parts replaceable. Never forget that. If you can't plug in replacements for any component, if one piece gets too large to replicate, you should hit the Back button, as Google says you should do on my blog.

Why are they trying to destroy the historic record about the web on the web itself? I have no idea. Certainly they must have had some discussion internally, or with their partner at the EFF about the cost of destroying so much history. Usually when a platform vendor is going to break you, you get invited to a private meeting where you can tell them the cost and beg them not to do it. Not with Google.

And, as they say --

Still diggin!

Infinite Mixtape: Episode 3 - No Scotland, No Party (With Ross McFarlane)

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:37:34 GMT

My guest for this episode is Ross McFarlane, who made a mix for me with the deterimiantion to make me a Scotland fan in the World Cup back in June. Mission accomplished! In return, I made a mix for Ross to make him a fan of...well, Boston and Massachusetts!

Ross is a freelance project manager, writer, poet, and performer. He’s the writer and producer of the audio fiction podcast FOXLORE, and the script supervisor and production manager for CAMLANN. He works primarily in audio production and event coordination, specifically working to elevate queer and disabled artists with a focus on effective communication, and a love of spreadsheets!

Ross's Mix:

SpotifyAppleYouTube

Jeff's Mix:

SpotifyAppleYouTube

Transcript:

EAR•WAX Magazine

Infinite Mixtape: “No Scotland, No Party” with Ross McFarlane

Episode transcript · Runtime 1:01:51

Speakers

Speaker

Who / where they appear

Jeff Van Dreason

Host of Infinite Mixtape (EAR•WAX Magazine).

Ross McFarlane

Guest: writer, poet, performer and producer (Foxlore, Tin Can Audio). Made the mix “No Scotland, No Party.”

Transcript notesTimestamps mark the start of each new section only.Sound effects and music cues are in [italic brackets]. They describe what the recording sounds like and aren’t official cue names.Song clips are described, not transcribed.Clean verbatim: filler words (um, uh) and false starts were removed. Wording is otherwise as spoken.[unclear] marks words that couldn’t be made out. Band and song names marked [spelling?] or [title?] were spelled by ear and are worth checking.Contents

00:00:00 Cold Open and Introductions

00:01:28 Scotland at the World Cup

00:07:27 Ross's History of Making Mixes

00:11:53 Ross's Mix: How "No Scotland, No Party" Came Together

00:13:21 Not Always, Not Never: "Think Again"

00:18:39 "Shake That Bagpipe"

00:20:34 Mickey 9s: "Maradona"

00:23:12 Stanley Odd: "Who Am I"

00:27:37 The Narcissist Cookbook: "Castle of Rats"

00:32:15 Frightened Rabbit: "The Twist"

00:35:12 Elsie McDonald: "Tourist Town"

00:40:33 Picture Skruer: "Let's Get Ice Cream"

00:43:22 More from Ross's Mix: Fisty Muffs, Spencer Mason, Chido Babies, Burnout Baby

00:51:12 Jeff's Mix for Ross

00:59:06 Wrap-Up and Where to Find Ross

01:01:21 After the Sign-Off

[00:00:00] Cold Open and Introductions

[An opening collage of sound effects (what sounds like a sharp bang, applause and typing), then intro music.]

JEFF VAN DREASON: Welcome to Infinite Mixtape, a podcast from EAR•WAX Magazine. Infinite Mixtape, where the tape rocks and never stops. Each episode, my guests and I decide on a theme, make each other a mixtape, share it with each other and you, and then talk about it. I'm your host, Jeff Van Dreason, and I'm delighted to introduce our guest, Ross McFarlane.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Ross McFarlane is a freelance project manager, writer, poet, and performer. He's the writer and producer of the audio fiction podcast Foxlore and the script supervisor and production manager for Camland. He works primarily in audio production and event coordination, specifically working to elevate queer and disabled artists, with a focus on effective communication and a love of spreadsheets. Ross, thank you very much for joining us today.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Thanks so much for having me. Any excuse to talk about weird music things.

[00:01:28] Scotland at the World Cup

JEFF VAN DREASON: Very weird music things, and your love of your country, specifically your national football team, because this episode is all about converting me. The theme of our mix: converting me into being a fan of Scotland and the World Cup, which is happening. Scotland has won their first match against Haiti, and today, in just a matter of hours, they're gonna be playing Morocco. Ross, how do you feel about that game?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Oh, terrified. Terrified is the technically correct way to put it, because I've started to get a little bit of hope, which is the worst thing that can happen to you as a Scotland fan. I'm also a St Mirren fan, if that means anything to anyone listening. It probably doesn't. Tiny club from Paisley. And we're not used to things going well. So Scotland being in the World Cup at all is just an incredible experience. The whole country has stopped, or left to go to Boston.

JEFF VAN DREASON: And there's a lot of you over here right now. It's true.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. I am just getting videos upon videos from friends over in North America being like, "Here are the Scots doing their thing." Which brings us quite nicely on to the title of the mix, which is No Scotland, No Party.

JEFF VAN DREASON: No Scotland, no party.

ROSS MCFARLANE: That is our vibe. If we're coming over, we're there to have a good time. Not a long time, but a good time.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yeah, yeah. Well, you never know. Maybe it'll be a long time. I have to tell you, one of the things I love: I was away last weekend for the first game. My family went to visit some other family in Salem, Massachusetts, and there was a Renaissance fair going on. You know what a Renaissance fair is?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah, yeah.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Okay. You don't have them in Scotland, though, I assume, right?

ROSS MCFARLANE: There's a couple across the UK. I have friends who are into it, and it seems like the kind of thing that if someone sorted it out for me, I'd love to go. I'm just never going to go.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Well, these Scots did not know what the hell was going on. And — explain to me the hats. The cone hats that are fashionable to wear. Why, for Scotland fans? What's that all about?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Okay, so this has just become a thing over many, many years. In the middle of the city, just by George Square, which is kind of the big square in the middle of the town, and just down from there, there is the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art. Outside it, there is a statue of the Duke of Wellington on a horse. At some point, people started putting an orange traffic cone on his head. The police came along, took it off, and someone went, "Well, we need to get his hat back." And now, no matter how many times the police try and take it down — and they still do — someone gets to go up and put it back on. Quite often there's a hat on the horse as well. I remember it like it's always been a thing, the cone on the head of the statue. It is only recently that I've seen it as a marketing tool for Glasgow.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Seems like it's really spreading. There was a guy sitting at a pub outside my neighborhood, and he had a little stuffed animal with the cone hat on. I was like, "Oh my God, this is everywhere."

ROSS MCFARLANE: I did see a picture of one of the Boston statues where someone had made a mohawk of cones on top of it, and I'm like, yes. Yeah, you know what? That's actually a very specifically Glaswegian thing.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Got you. Okay. Well, anyway, to continue the story: there was a woman on the train back who was wearing kind of a gnome hat, because she was going to this Renaissance fair. And the Scottish guys all started hitting on her and assuming that she was a Scotland fan. And she was like, "No, I'm going to a Renaissance fair." And they're like, "What the hell is a Renaissance fair?" And she's like, "You know, you go and you pretend like it's medieval times." And they're like, "We all live in castles" — which they surely don't, just joking — "we don't need that." They were really sweet, though, and they were nice to her. And some Haiti fans got on.

JEFF VAN DREASON: And what I love is that in US sports — it isn't always this way — there's a lot of animosity between sports clubs, which I think is stupid, right? A friendly rivalry, fine. A little bit of tension, fine. But there's also just a lot of uber-masculine nonsense that I find distasteful. None of that. They were like, "Good luck today, mate." They were slapping each other on the back. And I think it speaks to the larger appeal of soccer, or football, in general, where people love it for the game more than anything else. Sure, you have your pride in your team and your country or whatever, but it's really more about just the sport, I think. Am I wrong about that? Or is that accurate?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Oh, Jeff.

[Laughter.]

JEFF VAN DREASON: I'm so naive, aren't I? Okay, never mind.

ROSS MCFARLANE: That's such a lovely sentiment, and I want you to hold on to that forever.

JEFF VAN DREASON: All right.

ROSS MCFARLANE: The Molotov cocktail was first brought to Scotland by Dundee United fans when they were feuding with Aberdeen.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Wow, okay.

ROSS MCFARLANE: There is no way in which I could go into the history of just how violent football is in Europe. It's for another podcast. I'm sorry. Not this one. What you have witnessed there is two teams who are just there to have a good time. The Scotland fans think they might get a win off Haiti, but they're just there for a good time. The Haiti fans, just there for a good time.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Haiti's not going to win at all either. They don't have the strongest squad either.

JEFF VAN DREASON: That makes sense.

ROSS MCFARLANE: There is something deeply sweet — I'm kind of aware of American animosity among sports teams. I really hope that that is your experience of football, because that is the better experience of football. Probably best to see that than how they look after a loss to a team that they hate. So I'll just leave it there.

JEFF VAN DREASON: And I didn't even witness it. It was my family that told me about it, and they said it was a lovely experience.

[00:07:27] Ross's History of Making Mixes

JEFF VAN DREASON: I'm gonna transition to questions about the mix, and then get into specific questions. I think we already said this, but this is Ross's attempt to convert me into a Scotland fan — a Scotland football fan — which I feel like I am already, because I don't really have a lot of stake in US hockey. Or, I'm sorry, US soccer. US football. So why not root for an underdog, for one? And also, they're bringing the party, and it's clear that they are. But before we get to your mix specifically, can you talk a little bit about your history of making mixes or playlists? Did you start making CD mixes, or were you always just a playlist kind of person?

ROSS MCFARLANE: The one that comes to mind as the biggest one was when I was about sixteen. My partner at the time was learning to drive, and so I spent a couple of months making, like, "When you learn to drive and get in your car, we're going to have a playlist."

JEFF VAN DREASON: A driving playlist. Yeah. Songs to drive to.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And through that — because I went to Fraser, my big brother, and went, "What am I missing from this? What should I put on?" — that was when he introduced me to Bright Eyes, because we put on "Road to Joy," and "Stuck Between Stations" by The Hold Steady. That was my first introduction to the two of those bands.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Really? That was what you discovered? Ross and I bonded over The Hold Steady. How does it vary when you make a mix for yourself versus for somebody else? What's the difference there? Is it intentionality?

ROSS MCFARLANE: So I have two different types of playlists on my Spotify. One of them is, "Here's all the stuff I'm listening to," and they're full albums just thrown in there to be played on shuffle. I have one for the poetry night that I run that I just play before every single poetry night, and it's got a bunch of full albums that I like. So that's one side of it. And then I like really specific playlists with rules. Generally, my rules are it has to have a certain length — most of the time for me, that's 12 songs — and it should kind of sit like an album.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I was surprised. Yeah, I was surprised the one you made with me was longer. I made a short one thinking you were going to make a short one. I was like, "Oh no."

ROSS MCFARLANE: You'd said 15 to 20 songs.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I did. Well, I told you. Then you said 12, and I was like, "Well, we can change it."

ROSS MCFARLANE: Oh, sorry.

JEFF VAN DREASON: It's all right. It's all right.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah, so normally it would be 12 songs and a strong theme. Recently I've been getting back into a playlist I made for myself a couple of years ago. I made one in the week leading up to a general election here, and then one for directly after it. Just a level of, "Okay, we need to get a bunch of anger out, and now we need to get motivated."

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yeah, I'm familiar with those types of mixes. I've made a few of those recently.

ROSS MCFARLANE: But yeah: a strong theme, a set length, and trying to make it listen like an album. I want it to pass through phases, both in terms of intensity or content, and move between things. So, especially when I was making something for you, I was like, I want you to be able to listen to this as an album and go through a bit of a journey with it.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Both sonically and lyrically, kind of? Like the themes, but also the sonics, how they blend together. Is that sort of the idea?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yes. Although I would not argue that I have any real understanding of the musicality of it. I played some instruments growing up, but I am a lyrics guy. I am a words guy. So when I say it needs to go up and down, it has to have dynamics — I'm going on vibes. This one starts slow and goes fast. This one starts fast and goes slow. We can have some dynamics that way, you know.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yeah, I think vibes count. I mean, that's all I'm going on. I'm not a musician either, just a music lover. And I think vibes are at least more than 50% of the whole thing. Sometimes I'll get really specific and think about how a song begins or ends, or how much contrast is there. That's how I try to do it too, although, to be honest, I didn't do a great job, I think, with the mix I made for you.

[00:11:53] Ross's Mix: How "No Scotland, No Party" Came Together

JEFF VAN DREASON: So obviously you're making this mix to convert me into being a fan — also, mission accomplished, both because of the music and also because of the vibe that the Tartan Army is bringing to this area. I love it. What was your mindset? How did you select the songs with that in mind? And how did you sequence the songs? What was your process, I guess?

ROSS MCFARLANE: So the process for this: initially, I'd been sent the form that you'd put out about doing this podcast, and there was a section that was like, "Suggest some concepts." I had put in about five or six. I was looking at that list on the day that we were gonna meet up and talk about what we were gonna do, and I went, "I'm pretty happy to do most of these. I have some preferences. I think the only one I really don't wanna do is Scottish music." I put that in there because it's something a bit different, but I don't really — unless. And this is how most of my ideas creatively happen: "I don't want to do this, unless —"

JEFF VAN DREASON: Unless.

ROSS MCFARLANE: "— I think that's the least interesting version, unless it was like this, this, and this." And then I went, "Well, then I'll just do that, right? That's the thing I'm doing." And I kept coming up with ideas for what I would want to put in it. It helps that one of those tracks on there is my brother's, and it's the World Cup song.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh, you're kidding me!

ROSS MCFARLANE: And he'd just done that. So if you look at the album art for that, that's me in a Scotland top with my single.

[00:13:21] Not Always, Not Never: "Think Again"

[A clip of "Think Again" by Not Always, Not Never plays: a rock anthem with guitars and gang vocals (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: Wait a minute. That's towards the end of my questions, because it's towards the end of the mix — the second-to-last song. I thought that was a song that was commissioned by Scotland for the World Cup, 'cause first of all, it rules. You got the references to Boston, you got, like, "Shipping Up to Boston," and to cheer them on. That's just a song he made because he's excited about Scotland being in the World Cup? Like, for real?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. I think it was part of — he runs a wee songwriting circle in Paisley for songwriters there, and it fit the theme, and he started doing it as a joke. And then he was like, "Oh, I think I've made something kind of fun here," and recorded it. And there's been a whole thing around everyone trying to make a World Cup song for Scotland, and it's become a bit of a joke. But he recorded this months ago, and I feel bad for him that it's become a joke, 'cause I think he's done a good job.

JEFF VAN DREASON: So here's what I'll say. This is Not Always, Not Never; the song's called "Think Again." It's hard to make a song like this not sound cheesy, in my opinion, right? Because it's very patriotic. It's very loving of the country and also the team. But I think it works so well, because first of all, it's propulsive. It gets you psyched. You get really excited. It's very heart-on-its-sleeve, but I think it works so well, and it kind of just rips. I was so impressed, because I don't think we could do a song like that in the States for any sport and have it work. So I was very impressed with that, which is why I thought it was commissioned by the country. Your brother did a great job.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Recorded in his flat in Paisley.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Wow.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And it is really annoying, because he's very talented. I grew up going to his bands' stuff. I think my first ever gig was him playing in Glasgow when I was about eleven years old — going to a little underground, fucking skeezy punk venue and seeing him play with his high school friends. And then he stopped making anything for like 10, 15 years. He would make one song every few years in his room and send it to me, and I'd be like, "This is amazing. You should do more of this." And he just wouldn't. But in the last few years, he's been making incredible stuff. And I felt bad putting this track on specifically, because he's made a bunch of really good music.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Sure, yeah. Well, I'll check it out. But I still think this is a perfect song for it. It's like a summer anthem, I think. You can't pick a better song for the vibes of going into this and coming to Boston specifically to root on your team. It just works.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I'm sorry — and I will say the bridge just makes me so happy, which is the repeated line, "Will you deep-fry apple pie?" Which I just think is amazing. "Deep-fry apple pie" is an incredible hook. Is there something to that? Is it a Scottish thing? Is it something people think we do in America?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Scotland's known for deep-frying everything.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh. Gotcha. That makes sense.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. Especially desserts.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Really?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Do you have Mars bars over there? Are Mars bars a thing?

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh, yeah.

ROSS MCFARLANE: So a deep-fried Mars bar: a Scottish delicacy.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh, okay. Sure.

ROSS MCFARLANE: We deep-fry ice cream, we deep-fry pizzas, we deep-fry whatever you want.

JEFF VAN DREASON: We do that too, but usually only at state fairs or crap like that, right? I mean, we love deep-frying shit, who am I kidding? But not as many desserts, necessarily. So that's interesting. Deep-fry your apple pie. I love that.

[00:18:39] "Shake That Bagpipe"

JEFF VAN DREASON: All right. Going back to the first song, which is kind of similar in a way, because it feels like — this is "Shake That Bagpipe." It sounds like a song that's blasted at stadiums pre-, maybe during, maybe post-game. Is that true? Or what's the story with the song?

ROSS MCFARLANE: I think it should be.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh, it's not?

ROSS MCFARLANE: No, this is just a song that my pals play that I really like. We often have it on on road trips. And I will say this is where I have broken my rule for the playlist. I feel like I was allowed one rule break. This band is Italian.

JEFF VAN DREASON: What?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. This is the one non-Scottish act on it. But the fact that it's called "Shake That Bagpipe," and it feels like it should be played in a football stadium — I think we'd be too embarrassed to. I think it's a bit too catchy for it to be sincerely loved by the masses, but it is just a fun track.

[A short burst of electronic music plays.]

JEFF VAN DREASON: God, absolutely. I mean, I guess it wouldn't make sense for them to play it in Italy, because they don't vibe with the bagpipes. But why is this Italian band making a song called "Shake That Bagpipe"? What's the story?

ROSS MCFARLANE: I'm imagining that there are Scottish links in the band. To my knowledge, they're an Italian band, and they play electronic bagpipe music. But I imagine there are some Scottish roots going back.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Gotcha. Wow.

ROSS MCFARLANE: So that's the one non-Scottish band that I have on there.

[00:20:34] Mickey 9s: "Maradona"

JEFF VAN DREASON: And speaking of — this is going back to my very naive thought earlier about how football as a sport is uniting people, which you were like, "No." We've got the second song, which is Mickey 9s, right? And it's paying homage to an Argentinian great, Diego Maradona.

[A clip of "Maradona" by Mickey 9s plays: an electronic dance track with chanted vocals (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: Is that why this is here? Just thinking about how you're celebrating great players, even if — he was Argentinian, right? I'm not making this up. He didn't play for Scotland or anything, but you're still celebrating a great player. Is that the idea?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Absolutely. One of the best ever did it, and iconic for many things, including, you know, the Hand of God goal, which is celebrated around the world. Definitely everywhere. Nowhere dislikes that one. But yeah, Diego Maradona. And this is a very silly song. Mickey 9s are an incredible band, and one of the best live bands you can see in Scotland. I've managed to see them a few times. You see the lead singer up on stage in a football top, trackies, and a full face of makeup, just dancing beautifully, having the time of their lives.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. There are many Mickey 9s songs that could have been on this playlist. And I will say this about any artist we talk about on this playlist: there are so many songs that I probably like more, care about more, have more to say on. But this just felt like it fit. This is our relationship with football, and it is a song about Maradona having a couple of lines with you at the after-party.

JEFF VAN DREASON: It's very catchy. I mean, it is silly, but it's super catchy. It sticks. It's an earworm. I'm going around saying "Maradona" all the time, because there's something about the enthusiasm that gets into my head.

[00:23:12] Stanley Odd: "Who Am I"

JEFF VAN DREASON: All right, now we have Scottish hip-hop, which I'm not too familiar with. I know they're not exactly hip-hop, but I know Young Fathers is a Scottish band, right? And I'm a big fan of them. But I had never heard — and to be fair, you predicted this — I hadn't heard most of these bands. Stanley Odd, right?

[A clip of "Who Am I" by Stanley Odd plays: rapped vocals over a hip-hop beat (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: It feels very like an anti-anti-immigration song, kind of tying into what we were talking about earlier. And there's a lot of that going on in the world right now. But I'm interested: is this the reason why you picked the song "Who Am I" for the mix? Is that what it means to you? Or is there more to it than that?

ROSS MCFARLANE: So yeah, Stanley Odd: again, just an incredible band. I've been going to see them since I was a teenager. And the reason I picked this track — again, so many tracks I could have picked, especially from their 2014 album, A Thing Brand New, which this song is from. I think it's such a beautiful full album. But the thing I wanted to do with this track, at this point in the playlist, was touch on the slightly more complicated aspects of Scotland. I'm not a very nationalistic person —

JEFF VAN DREASON: Sure.

ROSS MCFARLANE: — and so I did not want to be like, "Here are the reasons Scotland's amazing. Scotland's great."

JEFF VAN DREASON: Right, sure.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. I was like, oh, well, this is the perfect song that is about someone grappling with the complicated identity of being both colonized and colonizers. And I think especially in Scotland, we can be quite bad for that, especially during the last 15 years of independence [unclear], and all of the politics that came out of that, and the ways in which we are still to this day beholden to another country's government. That's all true, and we do have a very different culture and a very different politic up here. However, we still made a bunch of money off slave ships, and we made a bunch of money off colonization, and we don't do a good enough job of recognizing that. So I was like, where do I bring in that aspect? And "Who Am I" is literally that in a song. It is entirely about, yes, Britain, the British Empire, bad. And yeah, we were along for the ride on that — we were very much along for the ride on that, and we did profit off it entirely. I thought that was important to get in there early, to be like, this isn't just going to be "rah-rah Scotland."

JEFF VAN DREASON: Right, yeah. I was thinking about this today, partly because I was really listening to the mix. The idea of patriotism is so distasteful to me, because traditionally it just feels like a very nationalist idea. You set aside whatever issues there are with your country, whether it's in the past, whether it's current, and just love it unconditionally. And I don't think it's a good idea to love anything unconditionally — except for maybe your children. Even then, though, you gotta not just be like, "I still love them, and that's that." I think true patriotism really should be loving your country not for what it is, but for what it can be, and also having really concrete ideas about what it has done and is doing wrong. Certainly that's the case with my country, right? I look around right now — but let's be honest, there's been issues, and we're talking about profiting off of slavery since before our inception, right? So I think this song really hit me hard, because every July 4th, I'm like, how am I supposed to celebrate this country when it's like a rotten shell? But also, it always kind of was, and we're just seeing the rotting corpse of it come more to light these days. So this one resonated with me big time. I liked it a lot. So thank you for that introduction.

[00:27:37] The Narcissist Cookbook: "Castle of Rats"

JEFF VAN DREASON: However, my favorite song on this mix —

ROSS MCFARLANE: Okay.

JEFF VAN DREASON: "Castle of Rats." I love this.

[A clip of "Castle of Rats" by The Narcissist Cookbook plays: spoken-word vocals over acoustic guitar (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: It kind of seems to continue the theme a bit: a takedown of those in power. And I love how the singer sings, like, "This isn't a metaphor." There's a real power to being like, "I'm not fooling around. This is really what's going on." But I'm curious: is this a well-known song, or is this one where some folks coming over here to watch the game would be like, "What is this?" I'm guessing the latter, right?

ROSS MCFARLANE: The latter. So this was the hardest choice to make. I love "Castle of Rats" as well. I think it's a great song. However, The Narcissist Cookbook, who is a Stirling-based singer-songwriter, is not quite well known in the States, but quite well known here — has a very specific following of late. Mentally ill queers are probably a good fit. And there are so many tracks. I will say, Amber Devereaux told me to listen to The Narcissist Cookbook for years, and I did not do it. And then I was forced by someone else to listen, and I was like, "Oh, Amber was right. I should have been listening. This is so my shit."

JEFF VAN DREASON: Takeaway from this podcast: always listen to Amber. Amber knows all. Literally just met with him yesterday. There's a mix coming with Amber, so I'm excited about that. But anyway, continue, please.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Amber, yeah, knew me well enough to be like, "You will love this." And Amber actually did some sound design and some work on The Narcissist Cookbook's most recent album. The two of them used to busk in Stirling together when Amber was at uni there.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh, no way.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And I have become obsessed with The Narcissist Cookbook. Everything that Matt does is incredible. Really strong concept albums, spoken word pieces to music that are just some of the best that I've heard done. So much incredible stuff. I could have done a full playlist of Narcissist Cookbook stuff. In fact, I have one of Narcissist Cookbook spoken word things specifically, but I wouldn't subject you to spoken word pieces on a music podcast.

JEFF VAN DREASON: That could be another one that we do at some point, because why not? I'm down. I'm going to have to explore more of The Narcissist Cookbook, because first of all, I just love the name. And second of all, this hit all the vibes for me. I was like, this is a band I should know. I'm gonna take a deeper dive. But tell me a little bit: why here, why now? Is it true that it's kind of continuing off some of the themes from the last song, "Who Am I"? Or is it going in a different direction, do you think?

ROSS MCFARLANE: So the idea, I think, initially was: we start off with the party — "Shake That Bagpipe," "Maradona" — and then hit "Who Am I." We're going to talk a bit more seriously about some things and really set a precedent for the playlist: "Hey, here are some of the problems with Scotland. Here's some of the problematic history of Scotland." And then we're going to move into, "And here's what we all think about it here." Here is the kind of protest music, angry political music, that is being made here.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Got it.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Because again, the idea is to appeal to you specifically, and I felt like you would enjoy this.

JEFF VAN DREASON: And I did.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Well done. So yeah, that was the idea with that kind of progression: start off fun and happy, and then lure you into the politics —

JEFF VAN DREASON: Sucker punch me with that. Yeah.

[00:32:15] Frightened Rabbit: "The Twist"

JEFF VAN DREASON: Well, the next song is from the only band I'd heard of on this mix: Frightened Rabbit. I was a fan of theirs for a long time.

[A clip of "The Twist" by Frightened Rabbit plays: guitar, tambourine and male vocals (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: "The Twist." Possibly — I could be wrong — kind of the most mournful, sad song about getting down. Is that true, based on the lyrics? And if so, what is it about? Or explain why it's here, in any event.

ROSS MCFARLANE: I needed to put a Frightened Rabbit song in there. I absolutely needed to. And this one is just my favorite from this era — one of the best albums ever made, The Midnight Organ Fight. "The Twist." There's something so melancholy. I'd say if we're talking about the most depressing song about getting down, it's absolutely "Keep Yourself Warm." It's on the same album.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Okay, fair. It's fair. But he's saying the same thing. He's saying, "I need warmth, I need human warmth," or something. There are similar themes there, right? But fair enough. Fair enough.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. Frabbit — just a deeply important-to-me band from back in the day. For many reasons, I don't listen to it nearly as much.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Hard to listen to after everything that happened, I think. And that's valid.

ROSS MCFARLANE: But yeah, I saw them more than any other band in my teen years, I think, 'cause they were just about at the time. I went to their album launches and saw them at Record Store Days. And when it came down to "What do I put in? What really fits?", I'm like, well, we're just going into a different vibe of the playlist, and I can use this Rabbit song to kind of shift those gears. We skipped a couple there, but we can use it as a movement. And this is a banging track. There needs to be a Frightened Rabbit song on this playlist, of course.

[00:35:12] Elsie McDonald: "Tourist Town"

JEFF VAN DREASON: As someone who lives in a high-tourist area, the line from "Tourist Town" — "these tourists buying postcards in the place I'm gonna die" — man, that hit me like a bolt to the heart and the head. I was quite taken with the song. It's just great songwriting. Obviously I'd never heard of the artist before, so tell me a little bit about Elsie McDonald. Is that their name? And why you included that song here? I have a theory as to why, but I'd love to hear it from you.

ROSS MCFARLANE: So there's a few things to talk about. We've gigged together once in the past, at an event called Queer As Punk in Edinburgh, which I also want to give a massive shout-out for a bunch of the bands on here, because the person who runs that, Suki Goodfellow, who's a poet and punk promoter, just does incredible work over in Edinburgh, putting on acts, and has a huge audience of wonderful punks. And is just doing so much good work, including a playlist of queer Scottish contemporaries — of which there have been two — where I discovered a bunch of the bands on here. So, huge shout-out to Suki for all the work going on there. Recently I went and saw Pigeon Pet [spelling?], Cheap Dairy Horse [spelling?], and Maz in the Phantasms [spelling?] over there, which was fantastic. I'm going tomorrow night to spend Edinburgh Pride with Queer As Punk. So, huge shout-out to Suki for all that work.

ROSS MCFARLANE: But yeah, Elsie and I did a show at the Fringe, maybe three, four years ago. And when I saw Elsie, they were doing more kind of Grace Petrie, Billy Bragg vibes.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Okay.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And so when I started thinking about artists that I've enjoyed from the local scene, Elsie kind of crossed my mind: "Oh, I'd love to find something like that." And then I hit upon this song. I hadn't heard it before. I was making this playlist and went, "Oh, wow! This is banging. This is great."

JEFF VAN DREASON: What I love is, obviously, you've got tourists over there, but what fits for me is that you could almost see this as some of the Scots coming to the Boston area, right? So it hits on both levels, and I really like that synergy. Maybe you weren't thinking about that, but it is perfect. And it really resonated with me on a deep level. It was very intimate and very personal, but also very cutting at the same time. Everybody's like, "Tourism is good," but it's also very weird in a way, right? And I like that that's being explored in the song in a way that is truthful, I think. But anyway, tell me a little bit about why you included this song, other than what you just said.

ROSS MCFARLANE: I love it. I'm not sure, Jeff — have you been to Edinburgh before at all?

JEFF VAN DREASON: No. Never been to Scotland.

ROSS MCFARLANE: No? You'll have to visit now.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I will. I will. It's on my list.

ROSS MCFARLANE: So this is so quintessentially Edinburgh to me. I think Elsie's Edinburgh-based, but I don't actually know. That's where we gigged together. It's the descriptions of the cobbles, and the fact that Edinburgh is just the tourist center of Scotland in a lot of ways. People go to Edinburgh, they go to the Highlands, they avoid Glasgow because of the knife crime. I will always say Edinburgh is the best place to visit; Glasgow is the best place to live.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Okay.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And I've heard many years of people talking about living in Edinburgh and what it is to live in this place that is just so heavily touristy. It is not a big city. It's smaller in population size than Glasgow. But in August every year, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe happens, and the city's population doubles overnight and stays that way for a month.

JEFF VAN DREASON: God.

ROSS MCFARLANE: It's the biggest arts festival in the world. It's an incredible thing to be part of. And it's an incredible thing to be part of when you can get in your car and drive home at the end of the day, and not have to deal with it for 28 days in a row, or whatever it is. There was just something in this song that was so deeply Edinburgh. And I realized that I'm biased towards Glasgow in the songs that I pick and the stuff that I'm adding in here. When I heard it, I was like, "Oh, this is so Scottish in a way that isn't necessarily my Scotland, but is one I really recognize."

JEFF VAN DREASON: Nice.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And it was just a beautiful song. I've listened to it a bunch since I put it on the playlist.

JEFF VAN DREASON: We have cobblestone streets here. So again, there's a lot of little lines — because we're old for America, right? Not that old, but there's a lot of little touches that just seem to kind of cross the Atlantic a bit. It moved me quite a bit. Just a well-written and well-performed song.

[00:40:33] Picture Skruer: "Let's Get Ice Cream"

JEFF VAN DREASON: I have a question about the next one. And we are skipping around a bit, just because there's a lot of songs. I'm only talking about the ones that really made an impression. That's not to say there's nothing — there's plenty of great songs here. "Let's Get Ice Cream" by Picture Skruer [spelling?]. Also very lovely.

[A clip of "Let's Get Ice Cream" plays: acoustic guitar and vocals (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: Is this a "frozen ice cream" song? What's the deal with this? I'm just curious about how it fits in and what the idea behind it is.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Honestly, I don't know quite what to say about this one, because I have the version of it in my head that it's about being queer in small-town Scotland.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Okay.

ROSS MCFARLANE: That is my version in my head. I don't know what this is.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Headcanon counts, man. Headcanon for the win is my theory. I love it. And sometimes you don't have any text to point to. It's just a vibe where you're like, "Oh, I think that's what this is about." And then people will argue with you, like, "No, that's not what it's about." Well, that's what it's about to me. That's valid, right?

ROSS MCFARLANE: No, it definitely just has this vibe of this particularly seaside, small-town Scotland, and feeling watched when you're just trying to do very normal things. There's so many elements to it that just give me that. I put this on there and I went, "What am I gonna say if Jeff asks me about this?" Sorry. I don't actually know what I have to add to this, other than vibes, and —

JEFF VAN DREASON: Doing a normal thing that everybody should and can do, having the added pressure of being different, but also just trying to ignore that and enjoy yourself, kind of. Is that the idea?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. And I can't say that I know for sure that that is the intention of the band, but it was the vibe that I got listening to it. Picture Skruer — not someone that I know very well, and I've not listened to much of their stuff, but this has been on a bunch of playlists since I found it. Again, shout-out to Queer As Punk: I heard this song on their playlist and went, "I'm stealing that. That's going on the playlist." It just has that vibe.

[00:43:22] More from Ross's Mix: Fisty Muffs, Spencer Mason, Chido Babies, Burnout Baby

JEFF VAN DREASON: All right. Obviously, I was going to end with your brother's song, but we covered that first. But there's plenty of songs I didn't get to talk about. Are there any specific songs that you really want to mention and give a little insight about that I didn't mention yet?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Oh, what have we got? There's a bunch of fun stuff on here that I don't know that I have much more to add to, other than: I really like these songs, I really like these people, check them out. Oh — "This Job Is Killing Me." Fisty Muffs [spelling?] is Suki Goodfellow's band.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh, really? Okay.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And Suki is absolutely responsible for me being introduced to a bunch of these bands.

[A clip of "This Job Is Killing Me" by Fisty Muffs plays: a punk track with drums and guitar (lyrics not transcribed).]

ROSS MCFARLANE: Go check out Fisty Muffs.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Check out Fisty Muffs. I just clicked on their profile in Spotify, and yep, that makes a lot of sense. It all tracks. And that's a fun song. So yes, definitely check out Fisty Muffs.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Spencer Mason is probably one of the most exciting voices in Scotland in terms of writing and performance. They mostly focus on spoken word these days, as you can maybe tell from "Swarm," which is the track on there. It's very spoken-wordy, kind of erring towards that.

JEFF VAN DREASON: That song is one where I need to sit down and listen a few times with the lyrics.

[A clip of "Swarm" by Spencer Mason plays: spoken-word vocals over music (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: I wanted to talk about it, but I was like, "I need more time to process this one." It was very good. Also right up my alley. But it was just a lot. Yeah, it was good. There's not a miss on this list. It's a strong playlist. Remember — I'm going to shout this out at the end — all of the playlists are linked in the show notes, so you can go listen to Ross's list and discover a great bunch of Scottish bands, and one Italian band too. But anyway, continue. Sorry.

ROSS MCFARLANE: I will say, that's a very common one with Spencer. I love them dearly. They're going to be around — they're finishing up band practice with Burnout Baby, which is the next band on the list, for which they are the guitarist. They're finishing up and then heading round here to watch the football tonight.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Nice.

ROSS MCFARLANE: I'll say that they have no interest in the football, but their partner does.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Sometimes that's all it takes.

ROSS MCFARLANE: They're gonna do crafts with my flatmate, and me and Lisa will watch the football. But Spencer's incredible. Last year at the Fringe, they came along and did a one-hour-long poem every day for the Fringe, and it is that style: extremely eloquent, beautifully performed, really intricate. It was a [unclear] through hell, and it was called The 100-Headed Song [title?]. It's available with live improvised music on YouTube. Highly recommend.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Wow.

ROSS MCFARLANE: But Spencer came out afterwards, after the first show, and I was like, "That was incredible. It was just an experience to have wash over you," and all these sorts of things. And they went, "Do you think everyone got it?" No. Oh, absolutely not. It was an hour-long poem.

JEFF VAN DREASON: But that doesn't diminish it at all. You need a couple drinks and a full evening, I think, to really appreciate it, right?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. I went and saw it three times, and twice I took the book of it and read it as I watched Spencer perform it. And that's when I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm getting it more." I can't talk enough about how incredible they are as an artist. They deserve the absolute world.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Nice. Well, [unclear] — great job, and I'm looking forward to more of their work. Was it a different poem every day? Like, a different one-hour poem every day?

ROSS MCFARLANE: No, it was a single one.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I was like, that's crazy. But that makes a little more sense. Any other songs you want to touch on before we move on?

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah: big shout-out to Chido Babies [spelling?], who had their last gig in March this year. Absolute icons of the Scottish scene, and organizers, and a very, very important band from Scotland.

[A clip of "Equinox" by Chido Babies plays: loud, driving punk (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: Why is that the final song? Is there a reason? Is it just 'cause they're important to Scotland, and you feel like it's fitting to close out the mix with them?

ROSS MCFARLANE: There were a few places that I had Chido Babies, but I couldn't think of the right song to close out the playlist for a while. I didn't want to leave it just on the World Cup song.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Sure.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And "Equinox" is this really great song. It has a nice build and trail-off, and it used to be their set closer for a while.

JEFF VAN DREASON: That makes sense.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah. In my head, when I'm listening to it, I can really feel that idea of everyone singing along at the end of a [unclear] gig.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yeah, it makes sense.

ROSS MCFARLANE: And yeah, go check out Not Always, Not Never. The pick that I would have normally put on here would have been "April Showers," but it had to be the Scotland song. And Burnout Baby have two songs released as of now — they had one song released when I made this playlist.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh my gosh.

ROSS MCFARLANE: An incredible new pop-punk band. Proper pop-punk, like we all loved in the early 2000s. That is the vibe, and it makes me deeply happy as a guy in his thirties.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I still love pop-punk. I always will. I'll defend it until the day I die.

ROSS MCFARLANE: It's good. It's fun.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Sorry that I like fun with my punk. That's an important aspect.

[00:51:12] Jeff's Mix for Ross

JEFF VAN DREASON: Speaking of which, there's plenty of pop-punk on the mix I made for you. Do you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, comments about my — in my opinion — underwhelming mix, comparatively? I just had a hard time. I was stinking — 'cause I was trying to keep it more recent, and I'm a bit less connected to local scenes than I used to be, although there are some friends of mine on this mix. Anyway, that's all I'll say. I'll leave it to you. And if you don't have anything to add, or even if you didn't listen to it — which has happened before; some people were like, "To be honest, I didn't even have the time to listen" —

ROSS MCFARLANE: Fair.

JEFF VAN DREASON: — but I want to give you the opportunity to talk about it if you're so inclined.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Would love to. I will say I had a chance to listen to it once the whole way through, so I have some thoughts and feelings. First of all: yeah, you got me. You read me for filth. This is the stuff.

JEFF VAN DREASON: And that was the goal. So, yeah.

ROSS MCFARLANE: There's a bunch of stuff that I'm going back to from this, without a doubt. There's a bunch of stuff that I absolutely loved in here. From the moment I put it on, I was like, "Okay, we've got some — a little bit moody, a little bit — oh, the vocals are high in the mix. That's for me. Some nice rhythms." Songs in under two minutes — all of this is very my shit.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I figured it would be. Yeah, yeah.

ROSS MCFARLANE: What did I really enjoy? What really stood out? I loved when you were talking earlier about how you didn't have enough time to sort transitions and stuff like that. You did a very good job on that.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I tried as much as I could, but it was tough, because I was picking very different songs in some ways, and in some ways too much that was similar. So I tried to lump them together in a way that made sense, but I wasn't altogether happy with it, to be honest with you. But anyway, thank you. I tried.

ROSS MCFARLANE: "Mosquito" and "Kiss the Ladder" just went along like it was the same song.

[A clip from Jeff's mix plays: loud, distorted rock (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF VAN DREASON: Some similar — and actually, "Mosquito" is a pretty out-there song. New York City will claim Model/Actress as theirs, but they started in Boston, so I'm sorry, I consider Model/Actress to be a Boston band. Similarly, Ezra Furman did not start in Boston, but they live here now. They perform down the street from me all the time, so I claim them as a Boston artist now. So it's sort of fluid, who counts as Boston and who doesn't. But whatever. I decide the rules, right?

ROSS MCFARLANE: So Ezra was the only artist on here that I think I'd heard of before.

JEFF VAN DREASON: That makes sense. Yep.

[Another clip from Jeff's mix plays: guitar-driven psychedelic rock (lyrics not transcribed).]

ROSS MCFARLANE: I think things like the Little Low song — I was like, maybe this has come up on a Spotify mix for me. I'm not sure. I don't know.

JEFF VAN DREASON: That's my friend Christine's band. Actually, we just interviewed her for EAR•WAX not too long ago. Little Low. That's from their EP. Their new album is fantastic. I highly recommend it. It's actually a year old now, but it's good stuff. So if you like that song, check out Little Low. Massive Nightmares: another local band. They're more friends of friends, but I know them, and it's very Replacements-y, but I think there's good stuff there. They're doing a good job, playing at local pubs and so on.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah, definitely. The things that stood out: the Rebuilder track I enjoyed. And the Palehound — the "Independence Day" one —

JEFF VAN DREASON: Love that song. I could listen to that song every day.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Something about the lyrics to that, about writing your first draft because you can't go back and rewrite. I don't know, that really hits me. I just love that kind of — really strong Beths energy, to me.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yes. Yeah, that's a good comparison. I love The Beths too.

ROSS MCFARLANE: It was brilliant. I spent all of last year listening to it, since my partner had to move back to New Zealand. I have not listened to [unclear] alone.

JEFF VAN DREASON: I believe it. Yeah.

ROSS MCFARLANE: It's so good, though. I need to go back to it. I remember — because I was over in Aotearoa just at the start of the year — sitting by a river listening to "Mosquitoes," and really feeling flashed back to 2020, 'cause it was about a flood that happened in Auckland back in 2020 [as heard]. The whole energy of that, and then being in the country where it was made, and all these sorts of things, and just being like, "Oh, this is the best song, actually." Lots of feelings about The Beths. But yeah, I definitely got that vibe from Palehound. And I was really interested in you picking three tracks from the same artist, 'cause one of my rules on my playlist was —

JEFF VAN DREASON: As much as I want to give a bunch of different songs from a bunch of these artists — I could have, again, filled it with Narcissist Cookbook — that Fiddlehead album was my pandemic album, and I feel like it saved my life. First of all, the first two songs just bleed into each other, and you just don't separate them, because they just do in my mind. And then the last song — it's the last song on the album, and it closes the mix with the same poem that opens it. The lead singer is an English teacher for his day job. And just the idea of — despite separation, whether you're in Boston, New Zealand, Scotland, or wherever you are — carrying someone's heart with you wherever you go. It's such a lovely poem. It's one of my favorite poems. I was like, "I need another song. I need a good closer." And I'm like, "I don't fucking care. I'm putting the Fiddlehead song on." And that was that. So yeah, I broke all sorts of rules with this mix, or whatever.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Yeah, good. Okay. No, great. Great choices. That's one where, even from the first two tracks, I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna have to listen to this."

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yeah, I recommend you do. It was my favorite album of the year it came out. And they're a great band, and they're proper, proper local. Big supporters of the local punk and hardcore scene, and just a great bunch of [unclear] guys.

[00:59:06] Wrap-Up and Where to Find Ross

JEFF VAN DREASON: So, thank you so much for listening. I guess I didn't do as badly as I thought I did, but comparatively, I was like, "This isn't as good." And I feel like I'm a Scotland fan; hopefully you're a little bit more of a fan of the local area. We are hours away — even closer — from Scotland versus Morocco, and I am hyped. I'm going to watch the game. I'm gonna Discord message you and commiserate with you, or celebrate with you. I really appreciate you making the mix and converting me into a proper Scotland fan. It's nice to have somebody to root for, especially a little bit of an underdog.

ROSS MCFARLANE: I'm so glad. I'm so glad it worked.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Thank you. Yeah. Well done.

ROSS MCFARLANE: Thank you so much for having me on. This has been great fun. I would do this again —

JEFF VAN DREASON: We'll do it again. We're going to do it again. We're probably going to do one of the other ideas that you have. We can do it multiple times. Remind folks where to find you online, if you're so inclined, Ross.

ROSS MCFARLANE: I am. You can find me at Ross D. McFarlane Poetry. That is where I will mainly post about things that I am doing as a poet, and occasionally audio drama things. Or you can follow — I work with Amber Devereaux and Ella Watts at Tin Can Audio. So if you follow Tin Can Audio anywhere, that'll be where you'll see more of the audio drama side of things, podcasting and such.

JEFF VAN DREASON: One of the best podcast production [companies] in existence is Tin Can. [They were a] huge influence on me. Amber and Ella — the three of you are just, you know, the Mount Rushmore of UK audio fiction? I don't know.

ROSS MCFARLANE: [Unclear] — that's a bad analogy. [Unclear], yes.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Oh, come on, don't sell yourself short. Spreadsheets are important, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Jordan Stillman is our spreadsheet master, and I wouldn't survive without them. So: remember that you can find Ross's playlist and mine on the EAR•WAX Magazine website, on Spotify, and in the show notes. And also, bonus playlists are available via Patreon. Until next time, remember: the tape rocks and never stops on Infinite Mixtape. Thank you for joining us.

[01:01:21] After the Sign-Off

ROSS MCFARLANE: [Unclear.] I just can't believe that I made it to the end of over an hour of podcasting without making fun of the English once.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Would you like to? Here's your chance.

ROSS MCFARLANE: That was just — that was me doing it now.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Yes. We got it in.

[Laughter.]

[Closing music sting.]

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:37:58 GMT

I started blogging on October 7, 1994. Thirty-two years on Wednesday. The longest running blog, and it's still even worse than it appears.

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:37:22 GMT

What's the best way to block a browser from a website? Is there a meta code for that? Like Firefox is fine, but Google is blocked. Just an idea. Sort of like, you're not blocking me, I'm blocking you.

Spotlight: Nine Species of Deep Sea Sponges Discovered in North Pacific and Bering Sea

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:33:32 GMT

A sharpchin rockfish internally incubates its eggs while sheltering within a sponge on the seafloor off Alaska. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

NOAA researchers were reminded again that they explore a place on our planet that is still 99% unknown – the deep sea.

They recently studied and analyzed deep sea sponges collected incidentally since 2012 during their annual research expeditions in the North Pacific and Bering Sea. They discovered nine new species of deep-sea sponges, including one species so unique they created a new genus to classify it. That genus is Polycapus, and this particular sponge was named Polycapus rubrum.

These discoveries bring the total number of known sponge species in Alaska to a whopping 232, making the Aleutian Islands a global hotspot for sponge biodiversity.

NOAA scientists described four of these species in this Zootaxa article, and the other five new species in this Zootaxa article. They also mapped these sponges’ genetic codes, and added them to a marine genetic library, contributing to the growing data that’s informing medical and materials research.

The wonder of our remarkable global ocean and the world of deep sea sponges is truly mind-blowing! As NOAA writers note:

Sponges are far more than simple ocean dwellers—they are living water pumps. They feed by filtering vast amounts of seawater, build seafloor structure, and produce complex chemical defenses. Dating back more than 600 million years, sponges are among Earth’s earliest multicellular animals. And, they survive and reproduce without a brain, organs, or complex tissue systems.

Deep-water sponges of the Aleutian Island Archipelago. Credit: NOAA

Let me say this: Fuck Google

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 23:45:59 GMT

I keep thinking of cheesy ways I could switch over to https for new posts on Scripting News, esp now that Google is getting more militant in trying to sweep all the history of the web into the trash.

I know people think it would be a snap to do the conversion, honestly, sorry -- they are idiots. They don't understand that it's a viral format. If you claim to be "secure" then everything you include must also be https, and of course everything they include must be as well. So even if I would have to do nothing other than this conversion over a full year, what's to say Google doesn't invent another hoop we have to jump through lest their browser defames us and eventually shuts us down. It's like the web would become just like the Apple Store. Even if there's nothing on the site that requires https. Or if it's a historic site that very few people visit, but the archive is there because we believed the web would be a constant because no one owned it, no one could break it.

I've been on these trips with corporate platforms, and if they want you gone, you should just take the hint and go, because eventually you will get the point. This is a company that has nothing put spite for the web, or perhaps envy, or individual developers (ie indieweb). They are pure fuckers when it comes to people like you and me.

On the other hand you will probably be able to get https versions of my new writing at some point, Murphy willing. That's relatively easy. But I don't have that many years left, and I sure as hell don't want to spend any part of that trying to appease Google.

PS: This is the walkthrough of the answer to the question of who owns the web and how it is not Google.

Labor and the Linotype

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 23:36:39 GMT

The story of labor and the Linotype is unexpected in many aspects. For this Labor Day, I’ll share a bit on the subject from my book Hot Type. (Links to buy the hardback and audiobook versions and signed copies are here).

Printers waged their first strike against publishers in occupied New York in the winter of 1776. They came together to form what would become the International Typographical Union (ITU) in 1850.

All through the nineteenth century, a few hundred inventors tried to build the machine that would automate typesetters’ work. One might think, then, that they would follow in the paths of the Luddites and Captain Swing and destroy the contraptions. But those earlier protests were against feudal factories more than technology; the workers were not yet not organized into unions like the typesetters; and Swing’s followers ended up swinging from gallows. Besides, typesetters watched the experience of pressmen; with the introduction of steam-powered presses, their ranks shrank but then grew as publishing did.

More than the machine, typesetters feared the intrusion of women into composing rooms and forbade entry of black men — most notably Frederick Douglass’ son. (In Hot Type, I tell his story and that of Gussie Lewis Troup, who organized the first, regrettably short-lived women’s typographical union.) Typesetters were generally sanguine about the machine because so many of the 300 attempts at building one had failed.

Until the Linotype, the machine at the center of my book. On July 3, 1886, the first working Linotype invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler was hoisted up into the nonunion composing room of the New York Tribune, under the eye of its publisher, the villain of my tale, Whitelaw Reid. From Hot Type:

At the start of July 1886, a decade after he first met [his muse, James O.] Clephane, Mergenthaler supervised the installation of a Linotype in the New York Tribune composing room. “Through the Frankfort Street end of the composing room ran a huge flagpole,” that machine’s first operator, John T. Miller, recalled fifty years later, in a commemorative issue of the company newspaper, The Linotype News. “To that pole, that memorable afternoon in 1886, a block and tackle was attached. Nine stories below, in the street, was the first Linotype. It was completely boxed, and on top of it stood a man to guide it up through the network of telegraph wires. . . . As the man who made the dangerous ascent (I’m sorry I can’t remember his name, if I never knew it) threw one leg over the large window sill, he gave loud expression to his relief.” The composing room foreman gave that man thirty-five dollars for his perilous duty. “And soon Ottmar Mergenthaler and Charlie Letsch” — a nineteen-year-old assistant who had accompanied the machine from Baltimore — “had the Linotype in working order.”

The Tribune composing room was lined with hundreds of compositors’ typecases, which ran from one side of the building to the other. There were also three Burr machines, an unwieldy typesetting device that had survived multiple inventors, owners, bankruptcies, and names (it was later called the Empire). The Burrs composed and distributed type as [the machine Mark Twain backed] Paige’s Compositor did, a letter at a time. “The middle one of our three Burr machines had been shunted aside to make way for the new device,” Miller recounted. “Naturally, the arrival of the new and improved contraption made a big stir. All of us who could manage to, crowded about for a good look at it. Most of the hand men didn’t think much of it, and many said so. Even we Burr operators were a little skeptical.” The Burrs would soon be sold and four more Linotypes ordered.

The New York local of the ITU — known as Big Six — had a spy in Reid’s scab composing room. “‘The experiments were carried on in a partitioned-off end of the composing room floor, doors locked: entrance, except to pass-holders, forbidden,” J. W. Sullivan of Big Six recalled years later. “But one of № 6’s half dozen card men under cover on the then non-union Tribune got me a sketch of the machine with some of its type-faced slugs, explained its principles. . . . I could not rid myself of the conclusion that Gutenberg’s epoch-making invention of movable types had had its day.”

Here’s the surprising bit: The ITU did not forbid the machine. It embraced the machine, but under one condition.

The next year, the ITU dispatched “some of its most thoughtful and conservative members” to witness an “improved Linotype first-hand and report back. “It was found that this machine was capable of some excellent work, considered from a mechanical stand-point, and produced lines perfect in spacing and with a clear face, from which plates were made as readily as from type,” their report said. The delegation gathered data from twelve days’ work in one composing room in Brooklyn and another in Manhattan, where an experienced compositor was pitted against an expert typist. (The typist was a tad faster.)

The committee came away with a recommendation impressive for its foresight: “It is concluded that printers ought to stand ready to operate the machines, and that unions should in no way discourage their use, but should insist that their members be employed” to operate them. “It is not thought that there is anything apprehensive in the situation or that there is need of a panic in typographical circles.” They advised against “the foolish effort to stand in the way of mechanical improvement.”

And so, the typographers’ union made a bold and strategic decision not to reject the Linotype but to control it. On March 3, 1889, a newspaper publisher asked the union whether it would object to his introduction of a machine. “It is the sense of this union,” №6 resolved in reply, “where an employer desires to introduce typesetting machines the union should merely insist payment of the scale of the union and the employment of its members to do the work.” The national union followed suit, directing that “where typesetting machines are used, practical printers shall be employed to run them and also that subordinate unions shall regulate the scale of wages on such machines.” . . . .

The ITU came to recognize the inevitability of technology invading its sphere. “This is the day of the machine,” said a report to the union’s 1893 convention. “The machine is with us, and it behooves us as craftsmen to get closer together, en masse, and take care of it in a manner to show our appreciation of so important an invention and reap whatever benefits it may be possible for labor to derive from labor and dollar-saving machines. The web press is with the pressmen as the typesetting machine is with the compositor.”

It was a risk. By one accounting, the ITU lost 36,000 positions in short order, including older members who felt incapable of learning a new way to work. But with the new technology, media industries exploded.

“After 5 years the trade has about adjusted itself to normal conditions, and the membership of the printers’ union is to-day greater than its membership of compositors ever was,” the ITU’s Donnelly testified in 1900. “The policy adopted by the typographical union was not to oppose the machine, but to admit its success and make the best of it; to try and master it,” he explained. “The spirit that was manifested by the members was something of this kind: ‘Here is something that will take my bread and butter away from me and I must try and become its master.’ They endeavored to learn the machine as quickly as possible.”

One key to printers’ survival and success was that publishers chose not to pocket their machine dividends — a 66-percent saving in the cost of typesetting, with half the errors to boot. Instead, proprietors invested in more, bigger, and more competitive publications.

In my research, I was impressed to see federal commissions convened at the turn of the century to study the impact of new technologies on work and the economy. If only our current government were capable of such sane and sober study and analysis of AI’s entry into the workplace and culture; we need it.

There seems to be a lesson in the ITU’s actions: Rather than fighting and trying to forestall the inevitable arrival of new technology, it is better to take control of it. That worked well for the ITU for three-quarters of a century as it lobbied successfully for the eight-hour work day and drastically improved the working conditions — and health — of its members. The ITU — and particularly New York’s Big Six — became immensely powerful.

Until they weren’t. In the 1960s and ’70s, new technologies threatened: punched paper tape that could run a Linotype without an operator, like the robot it appeared to be; cold type (shining light through letters onto photographic paper to set text); computerized hyphenation and justification of text; computers in newsrooms, allowing publishers to “save keystrokes” and eliminate typesetting in composing rooms; and finally PostScript, which turned letters into shapes to be described to and displayed by computers and printers.

This time, the ITU tried fighting the technologies. A series of strikes over these issues killed six of nine New York newspapers — and eventually the union along with them.

The lessons the ITU and its leadership faced with these new technologies was different from the lessons learned with the Linotype. For all these fascinating stories, you’ll need to buy the book.

Happy Labor Day.

The post Labor and the Linotype appeared first on BuzzMachine.

EAR•WAX Newsletter 005 | September 2026

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:37:17 GMT

Tracklist:

Audio Fiction and Music Updates! Gavin Gaddis reviews The Bird Roads from Tin Can AudioBest of Everything But - Part 1: Quality 2026 Country Albums Worth Your Time Coming Up on the FlipsideOctober 7th - our next Infinite Mixtape, where Ross McFarlane makes me a mix and a fan of the Scottish World Cup team. October 14th - our next episode of Drama Club where we talk about Writing for Sound

We could really use your support on our Patreon. If you appreciate our efforts at EAR•WAX, please consider contributing to our fees for the website, newsletter, podcasting, and helping pay our writers and staff. Supporters receive bonus playlists, access to our Discord, early episodes, and more.

NEWS AND UPDATES!

Audio Fiction Announcements:

True Tales of the Illuminati - Season 3

If you listened to the last episode of our magazine, you’ll have heard an excellent treatise on writing comedy for audio by Max Kreisky. You also would have heard that Max’s show, True Tales of the Illuminati, the audio sitcom about conspiracies gone wrong, is returning with its third season premiering on Nov 26, aka American Thanksgiving. Look forward to their five episode season, with new episodes dropping every two weeks. Something to surely be thankful for!

The Cold Plunge named semi-finalist for the Austin Film Festival

In a recent issue of both the magazine and newsletter, I wrote about how The Cold Plunge was one of my favorite audio fiction pieces of the year. Now it’s just named a semi-finalist in the Austin Film Festival. We wish writer Sunny Bleckinger the best of luck.

The Fable and Folly network to end in December

On a sad note, the Fable & Folly network recently announced they will close-up shop officially in December. The team has been honest and upfront about their reasons, next steps, and resources. As a member of the network from the very beginning, I bring nothing but appreciation for Sean, Eli, Russ, and everyone at F&F for their support these past several years.

Music Shorts:

New Song You Must Hear: Nobro - Girls Like Us

Rip it up with this punk banger.

The New Colossus Festival 8th Edition announces initial lineup:

One massive festival. A billion bands. Various clubs in the Lower East Side. Take it from me, it's the best time imaginable. This year's New Colossus Festival was a highlight of 2026, and I'm so excited to learn about a new crop of artists that will be rocking our socks off next March. This is just the tip of the iceberg with more to come, and a surprising onslaught of international talent too. I'll be going back, and if you've never experienced it, you owe yourself a new music treat.

The Deathray Davies return:

The Deathray Davies are back with “Red Lights,” the first advance single from their forthcoming album LAMPSHADE EARTHQUAKE MICROPHONE, a spellbinding set of pocket symphonies that cull inspiration from vintage garage rock and psychedelic pop nuggets while employing heady musique concrète embellishments and ornate studio wizardry. The album is due this November.

Audio Fiction Review: The Bird Roads by Gavin Gaddis

The Bird Roads is a new audio drama miniseries from Tin Can Audio, written by Ella Watts and starring Ferah Ahmet as pilot Noor Latif. The story kicks off with Noor flying her plane Blackbird across an infinite ocean, an off-screen apocalypse having flooded the world and sparked a supersized hurricane dubbed the “giga-storm.”Noor’s trying to find her two lovers, Finn and Aster.The series is currently available in both episodic free podcast format, as well as the classic Tin Can Audio methodology of putting the entire series up for direct purchase on Bandcamp. This particular Bandcamp version comes with the added incentive of lightly re-editing episodes to flow directly into each other without credit sequences, allowing for the entire story to be consumed in one sitting without stopping for intros and outros every five-ish minutes. Given the short length of the episodes, I highly recommend the Bandcamp edit over the podcast edit. While not a problem exclusive to The Bird Roads, I find bite-sized audio drama pacing suffers quite a bit from intro/outro segments when consumed too close together. It’s an issue we all put up with for the sake of the medium, but when given the opportunity to consume a text as a text and not small tracts, I take it.

It’s been six years since I’ve checked in on Tin Can Audio with the podcast The Dungeon Economic Model. It’s heartening to see Amber Devereux is still out there delivering incredible sound design and music. The beating heart of The Bird Roads is Devereux’s deft hand at keeping a sense of place to Noor wherever she is.

As your local autistic audio drama critic, I’m going to say two things back to back that might sound contradictory, but I genuinely mean:

1. The Bird Roads is a sincere, eager miniseries full of passionate acting and deft sound design. It is absolutely worth your time and money to buy the Bandcamp version and experience as fully intended.

2. The Bird Roads feels like it yearns to be a full-length podcast, or a script for a visual medium. In making the sacrifices needed to be produced, the final product feels more about the vibes than the actual content.

Check out the full review here!

Best of Everything But Part 1:

I recently guested over at Gabbie’s excellent newsletter New Bands for Old Heads and wrote about some great albums in genres many people write-off. Sharing the first half with you all this week - great country albums of 2026 you should check out. Read the whole piece here.

Do You Have an Everything But?

If you’re reading this, you likely share similar tastes with Gabbie, and good for you, because Gabbie is the patron saint of musical taste. But everyone has genres they don’t care for, or in the very least, aren’t terribly familiar with. I call these genres everything buts.

Why? Well, you’ve either said this before or have heard it before when you ask someone or someone asks you what kind of music you enjoy. The response is inevitable. “I listen to everything but fill in the blank.” Maybe it’s metal or hardcore punk, and I’m not talking about hyper-specific, niche Spotify wrapped made-up genres like Gym Phonk or Pink Pilates Princess (I refuse to believe these are real), I’m talking about the basic level music genre everyone universally understands.

For example, when people asked me what I listen to, I used to say “I listen to everything but country.” Later, I amended that to say “I listen to everything but pop-country,” because there’s plenty of older country music I greatly admire and enjoy listening to, and more and more there are new country artists emerging that I actually really like, and many of them even flirt with pop sensibilities. Here’s a list of Quality Country Worth Your Time in 2026:

mildred - Fenceline

Genre: Country / Slacker Rock

RIYL: Wilco, The Silver Jews, Pavement, Ratboys

Ratboys released a great new album this year, Singing to an Empty Chair. If you like that brand of country rock, might I suggest Oakland’s mildred and their album Fenceline. Similar to Ratboys, they blend indie rock and country with clever lyrics and great hooks, but with some slacker-rock elements: think early Wilco mixed with the Silver Jews and that’ll give you an idea. Check out Fleet Week first, which imagines a California NAVY custom with the type of detail that would make the best poet jealous.

Start with: Fleet Week

Fenceline by Mildred Queen Ester - Blackbirding

Genre: Country / Soul / R&B

RIYL: Lucinda Williams, Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russel

Looking for something ambitious that merges genres even more? Listen to Queen Ester’s new album Blackbirding, a musical excavation of Gettysburg that tackles moments in the civil war battlefield with the spiritual battle Black Americans have been fighting in its wake since. Mixing soul, R&B,and country while tackling ambitious and emotionally material, Ester somehow makes it look easy, and still lays down tracks both haunting and full of hooks.

Start With: Hold Steady Blackbirding by Queen Esther Andrew Sa - American Rough

Genre: Country / Queer Country

RIYL: Lavender Country, ANHONi, Roy Orbison

American Rough is a gorgeous collection of melancholy country storytelling. This is classic sounding country through and through, with steel guitar and references to honky tonking, but Sa sings with a voice Roy Orbison might be jealous of. Imagine if ANHONI made an album of country ballads and you might get some idea of what this sounds like, although that doesn’t quite do it justice either. Lead single Lavender Cowboy is a heartbreaking ode to the late Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country, who pioneered the queer country genre. Sa credits Haggerty with embracing his queer identity in country music, and we’re all the better for it, because this album announces a talent not to be trifled with.

Start With: Lavender Cowboy American Rough by Andrew Sa Nathan Evans Fox - Heirloom

Genre: Country / Folk / Singer-Songwriter

RIYL: Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell

Heading further out west, Nathan Evans Fox’s new album Heirloom is so country he worries at times about not being country enough. Case in point, in the opening track Lots of Beginnings, he sings to his daughter that he worries she’ll lose her accent. “Honey, we live in a city,” he croons, “You gotta talk how you talk. I just miss how my grandma did it.” That type of poignancy, with love and respect going in two different directions of his family tree is both simple and heartbreaking, as is every carefully crafted song on the album. At the end of the song, he acknowledges that his daughter scares him, that she’s different, before ending the verse in the most country way possible. “Lord, ain’t it a blessing.”

Start With: Lots of Beginnings Heirloom by Nathan Evans Fox

Want more 2026 country? Check out Appalachia by Emily Scott Robinson, Nellene by Deloyd Elze, Weapons of Beauty by Jay Buchanan, and heck, even Florida Water Blues by Twisted Teens if you want some crusty punk with your gritty country.

What short blast of sound have you been vibing with? Email us at mailearwax@gmail.com and let us know or hit us up on Instagram, Tumblr, or Bluesky. No, we’re not on X. F X!

The Crows Made Me Do It

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:41:55 GMT

When Mark tries to train the neighborhood crows to bring him money, everything goes terribly sideways in this serial comedy horror.

Link: https://helloseanmcginty.com

RSS Feed: https://media.rss.com/the-crows-made-me-do-it/feed.xml

EAR•WAX Magazine: Volume 1, Issue 3

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:29:29 GMT

Transcript below. Find the episode on your favorite podcatcher:

Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Pocket Casts
YouTube

EAR•WAX Magazine

Volume 1, Issue 3 — Episode Transcript

Runtime 1:00:47 · Released: September 23, 2026

Speakers

Speaker

Who / where they appear

Jordan Stillman

Main EarWax host: reads the rundown, segment intros, the Wooden Overcoats pick, and the credits. Not named on air.

Jeff Van Dreason

“Professor Van Dreason”: the Doomed lecture, the Depressed Horse review, For Further Reading, and roundtable moderator.

Oliver Morris

“Ollie” / “Professor Morris”: the MF Doom lecture, the Patreon break, the Gay Future pick, and the roundtable.

Max Kreisky

Guest editorial on writing comedy (True Tales of the Illuminati).

Wil Williams

Roundtable: the Charli XCX expert.

Bee Lidstone, Adam Cecil, Jordan Stillman

The other roundtable voices. The host names Adam Cecil, Bee Lidstone and Jordan Stillman as panelists. Adam also gives the This Is Branchburg pick, and Jordan provides her pick for Wooden Overcoats.

Hannah Wright and Rhianna Stephenson

Unnamed writers who give the Two Flat Earthers Kidnap a Freemason and Fawkes and Stallion picks.

Eric Propp

Voice of the opening Holy Roller promo.

TH Ponders

Voice of “Starbucks in Blue” (credited to T.H. Ponders as writer and producer).

PA Announcer / Neil Johnson

The school-PA voice that opens the Depressed Horse review.

Contents

00:00:00 Promo: Holy Roller

00:00:46 Opening Ident

00:01:00 “Starbucks in Blue” by T.H. Ponders

00:05:02 In This Issue

00:06:11 Editorial: Why You Should Write Comedy, by Max Kreisky

00:16:16 Professor Van Driesen Discusses Open Mike Eagle’s Doomed

00:19:16 Sad Girl Summer, Part 1: Roundtable

00:30:00 Patreon Break

00:30:49 Five Comedy Audio Fiction Funnies

00:35:05 Review: Depressed Horse

00:40:00 Professor Morris Discusses MF Doom

00:42:30 For Further Reading: Best New Songs of August

00:45:29 Sad Girl Summer, Part 2: Roundtable

00:57:08 Wrap-Up

00:57:28 Run for Cover: “Coat of Many Colors” (Dolly Parton original)

00:58:47 Credits

01:00:08 Run for Cover: “Coat of Many Colors” (Sierra Ferrell cover)

01:00:32 Outtake

[00:00:00] Promo: Holy Roller

Eric Propp: When heavy metal vampires unknowingly resurrect their namesake, Vampooza. A sexy ancient vampress with mind control powers. The fate of the world is put into the hands of Sister Margaret. A woman of God with a secret past. She, along with her plucky postulant underlings and boss, Mother Mary, must work with [unclear], a centuries-old vampire guitarist with a flair for the dramatic. Can they stop a supernatural groupie army with old-fashioned ass kicking and a supercharged secret weapon? Only time will tell. Holy Roller is a comedy horror film by Eric Prof. Currently in production with Prop Shop and Another Age Production. Their Indiegogo campaign is now live. Like your life depends on it.

[Music sting.]

[00:00:46] Sonic Branding - EAR•WAX Magazine

[Sonic branding: a voice says “EarWax Magazine” over music.]

[A brief burst of applause-like sound.]

[00:01:00] “Starbucks in Blue” by T.H. Ponders

[Blues guitar music begins and plays under the narration.]

TH Ponders: You may not associate a Starbucks in the suburbs with good motions in the body. Maybe not even good feelings. The Starbucks isn't really the important part. It's the song that comes on the radio. Not even the song. The changes.

[The music swells. A voice counts beats over the music, partly inaudible (“One… five… four…”).]

TH Ponders: Bring it back home. When I was in high school, was dragged one night to a blues dance. I haven't stopped dancing since. One of the nice things about blues dancing is that there aren't any fancy patterns or big movements. Blues dancing can be as big as leaping up in the air and landing with a thud, or as small as wiggling your big toe.

[The music swells.]

TH Ponders: [unclear] each beat, find a part of your body to take. Playing with it letting the pulse of the music and the pulse of your own heartbeat. Why do you ever so slightly. When I dance, I feel like I'm transported somewhere else. Where? not only my movement is correct, but my body correct. Everything feels like it belongs here. Like it can all work together. Be what I want it to be which is sometimes a rare feeling. Not when the blues music is playing.

[The music swells. A voice counts beats over the music, partly inaudible.]

TH Ponders: Back home in Starbucks for now.

[The music fades out into a radio-static transition.]

[00:05:02] In This Issue

Jordan Stillman: EarWax Magazine. Volume one. Issue 3. In this issue. An editorial on why you should write and make comedy by Max Kreisky. Professor Van Driesen discusses Open Mike Eagle's Doomed with the class. Sad Girl Summer, Part 1: a roundtable discussion of three summer albums with EarWax writers. The best comedy audio fiction podcasts ever, picked by our writers. A review of the micro audio fiction podcast Depressed Horse by Jeff Van Driesen. Professor Morris discusses MF Doom with the class. For Further Reading: a Best New Songs of August mixtape. Sad Girl Summer, Part 2: part 2 of our chat on You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, Music, Fashion, Film, and Lost Weekend. Our monthly Run for Cover cover battle: “Coat of Many Colors,” originally performed by Dolly Parton, and a cover version by Sierra Ferrell.

[00:06:11] Editorial: Why You Should Write Comedy, by Max Kreisky

Jordan: Here's Max Kreisky of True Tales of the Illuminati and Wizard Seeking Wizard on why you should try to lighten up and make more comedy.

[A drum-machine beat kicks in, then continues quietly under the editorial.]

MAX KREISKY: When I say that I write comedy in an audio drama meetup, the sentiment that almost always greets me is, oh, I could never do that. People think it's too hard, or they don't think they're funny, or they think that they can't be funny on purpose. In one notable instance, someone said to me, oh, humor is so personal. What I like about horror is that everyone is scared of an axe. Friend, I am not scared of an axe. What scares me is not the idea of someone with an axe killing me. It's how you convey your fear of someone killing you with an axe. Can you bring me into your character's head? Make me see what they see, feel what they feel. That's, you know, what makes a story work. And it's what makes comedy work too. Yes, humor is personal, but guess what? So is every other art form and genre. Everything that you express is personal to you and the trick of art is communicating that to another person. Here's a joke from the great Groucho Marx. Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. Here is how this joke works. You have a setup that establishes the base reality and set of expectations within which your idea is operating. Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. This plays on the saying, dog is man's best friend, a common aphorism here in the West. We are comparing book to dog and finding that a book almost, but not quite, matches the companionship of a dog. Then you give the audience a moment to make an assumption about how this idea will end. In this case, we have the noble period ending one sentence and showing that it is a complete idea before the next idea starts with the following sentence. In a sketch or scene, you might have a silence, an action of some kind, so on and so forth. I find that roughly two to three seconds is a good earmark for most comedic timing.

MAX KREISKY: You should experiment and find what works for you. Then you subvert that idea in a way that shows a consistent worldview that your audience understands. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. We now see that the statement is not that a book is almost as good as a dog for providing companionship, but that it is the preferred choice at all times, and that rather than outside being an exclusionary preposition, it is one of position. Much like how grief is the human brain's response to filling in the gap where there was once a reliable part of their life, laughter is its response to filling in the gap between the original understanding of an idea and the new one. Almost every joke. Works on some variant of this model. This is part of why comedy degrades over time and distance. The shared understanding of the world changes as you travel and as society moves on. Jokes that still work over these differences are ones that are either universal (see Mr. Bean and its many innovations on “man falls down”), reflect human nature (Jerome K. Jerome's inability to wake up in the morning in Three Men in a Boat), or are set up and paid off by the piece itself. See Groucho Marx and his wonderful dog joke. It's too dark to read! I know that sounds very academic, but the important takeaway is this. A joke is about showing your thought process to an audience, getting them on board with it, and then subverting it. So when you find something funny, no matter what that is or how strange and personal you think it may be, I assure you. If you can show your thought process to your audience, you can make them laugh about it too.

MAX KREISKY: Humor writing is a skill like any other type of writing. It's not divinely imbued. It's not even particularly difficult compared to other types of writing. But what it does require, more so than any other form of fiction writing is a willingness to be vulnerable and to collaborate not just with your actors and sound designer, but with the audience themselves. While we always want to test our writing, no matter the genre, to get feedback and refine it to see if it works, to convey what is in our hearts, let's face it. You can never be quite sure if a story is actually working. Comedy is different. You have to bring those jokes in front of an audience. Did they laugh? Then it works. Did they not? Then you need to keep tweaking it or throw it out and write a new joke that does work. I hope so far I've at least convinced you that you can write comedy. Now I want to tell you why you should. Remember that thing I said earlier about vulnerability? I believe that comedy is the most vulnerable art form. Showing someone what scares you, what makes you angry, what makes you sad. If someone doesn't feel the same way, or thinks it's silly, those aren't emotions most of us like feeling anyway. Showing them what gives you joy? Being told that it isn't funny or is inappropriate or makes you a bad person in some way? That's scary. It can make you feel like you can't trust your own joy, like you can't access that happiness in life securely. After all, isn't there little enough joy to go around right now? Can you risk losing some of it? That is exactly why you need to share it.

MAX KREISKY: When you write comedy, you cannot hide behind what you think other people will like or what you think should make people laugh because that won't be funny. You have to write something that makes you laugh first and then get other people to laugh at it too to bring them into your joy. Comedians talk about how they get hooked on their first laugh. It's not just because it makes them feel powerful or important, though yes, there are comedians who do make that mistake. It's because it makes you feel powerfully connected to everyone who laughed. That feeling of connection is what our species is made for. We are a social animal. We travel in herds. We cooperate. That's why we laugh at all bond together. Beyond just the philosophical reasons, here are some reasons why making comedy is good for your writing on a practical scale. It encourages brevity and clarity. A joke gets exponentially funnier the fewer words that you use to tell it, and in order to bring people into your mind and set up that expectation you want to reverse, you have to be exceptionally clear in what you're communicating. And the shorter you get, the more careful you have to be about word choice, delivery, timing all of which are the fundamental building blocks of audio drama. Writing comedy is powerlifting for the muscles that let you inject meaning in the air around your words. When you go back to writing anything else, you'll have developed a better understanding of how to get someone to hear what you're saying without even saying it. It makes you think really, really hard about what information that characters and thus the audience have.

MAX KREISKY: Three: It shows you that you can be your most vulnerable self in front of people, and bring that back to the rest of your writing. It'll help you with your pacing. Jokes need room to breathe, but they also need to heighten and grow as the story proceeds, just like the stakes of your story do. Put the jokes into your story and listen to the audience. Are they getting worn out? Your story needs to pick up. Are they missing things? You need to slow down. Are the laughs getting bigger and louder? Your stakes are heightening, just [unclear]. The number one reason why you should write comedy though? We need more of it. Audio drama is perfectly suited for comedy and yet it makes up a very small sliver of what's being made today. If you want to listen to more comedy. You can listen to Crowley Time. You can listen to We Fix Space Junk. You can listen to Death by Dying. And you can listen to the best one, True Tales of the Illuminati, which is mine. For each one of these titles, or the many other great comedy pods out there, there are dozens and dozens of found footage horror stories. And look, those are great but we need variety. Flood the market, give comedy fans more to sink their teeth into. Fans make more fans, and then you have a bunch more people looking for comedy in the first place. And for me, the reason I got into comedy in the first place is that I love to laugh. So make me laugh. Here's an exercise you can try at home. Take a piece of paper and divide it into fourths. Label one section love. One hate.

MAX KREISKY: One fear and one excited. In each of these segments, jot down a few things you love, hate, fear or are excited by. Then, take one of these and think about why you feel that way. Now, see if you can write a joke that expresses how you feel without directly saying it. Send it in we'll produce them and put them in our next issue. So go. Make some comedy.

[The music plays out, ending on a chime sting.]

Jordan: Thank you, Max. Also, big scoop. True Tales of the Illuminati Season 3 coming this November. You heard it here first. And as Max said, we're looking for your short comedy pieces. Follow the instructions in his editorial and email them to us at mailearwax@gmail.com, and we'll publish them in an upcoming episode.

[00:16:16] Professor Van Dreason Discusses Open Mike Eagle’s Doomed

[Classroom sounds: a scratching noise, like writing on a chalkboard.]

JEFF VAN Dreason: [Good] morning, class. All right, settle down. Yep, cool it, cool it, settle down. Welcome to week three. If you reference your syllabus, you can see we're going to be discussing our latest text, Open Mike Eagle's collaboration with Kenny Segal: Doomed. This came out in August, so it's nice and fresh, with dusty loops and subtle jazz production by Segal. Now, who can tell me the subtitle of this text? [Pause]

[A jazzy saxophone loop plays.]

Jeff: Very good, Wendell. Songs About a Relationship That Ends in Every Possible Universe. In this text, Open Mike Eagle explores the possibility of hopelessness that comes in the wake of a bond that once felt freeing, which in of itself is an oxymoron. Destined not to work, it feels like not only is the relationship over, but every aspect of his life has shifted. Can someone point to an example of how Open Mike demonstrates this in the text? [Pause] Good. The title track is a perfect example. How would you cite this text for the class?

[A clip of the title track “Doomed” plays: rap vocals over the beat (lyrics not transcribed).]

Jeff: Here we can see that it's not just one relationship, it's everything. From Mike's old childhood home to his barber to, later, his primary care physician, his life is upended and it all feels fated. Beyond that, he has to see movies by himself. He saw Superman by himself. Bugonia, Weapons, The Phoenician Scheme — he saw [unclear] by himself, class. How does he feel about breakups and seeing movies by himself? [Pause]

[Saxophone music plays.]

Jeff Yes. Breakups are ass. It's fucked up. It's ass. Shit fucking sucks. Good. Good job, class. Good discussion. Now, to go deeper on this text for homework, we're going to assign one of Open Mike Eagle's influences and a namesake for this album. Please study up on Doom for our next class meeting. You'll pick up the discussion with Professor Morris. Please be prepared for the test. Class dismissed.

[Horn-led music plays the segment out.]

[00:19:16] Sad Girl Summer, Part 1: Roundtable

[Chime transition.]

Jordan: Now, part one of our roundtable discussion on Sad Girl Summer, featuring Adam Cecil, B. Lidstone, Oliver Morris, Jordan Stillman, Jeff Van Driesen, and Charli XCX expert Wil Williams.

[Crosstalk as the recording starts.]

JEFF VAN Dreason So, to give you a bit of a breakdown, we're talking about three albums. We're going to start with June with Olivia Rodrigo's You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. And then we're gonna go to July. We had Charli XCX's Music, Fashion, Film. And then August, we have Phoebe Bridgers' Lost Weekend. Man, that's a sad album, but we'll get to that in a second. I'm going to start with Olivia Rodrigo. I really have liked Olivia Rodrigo. I think her music is very good, I think she's a very good artist. But I think this is her best album and I think it's grappling with some, I know. Well, that's just me. You guys can have your own take. I think it's grappling with some more sophisticated stuff than what she's done in the past.

Jordan I really liked I liked her last two albums. I but like I there's something special about this one, I think. Like, it's it's without a doubt her best album in terms of just like lyricism and arrangements and like the Exploration of different emotions. She's really becoming the musician she's meant to be. You know, because she started so young. She's written about.

JEFF: of someone who's been dumped and had her heart broken kind of maybe been cheated on, but maybe not cheated, but close to it. And this album, first of all, the sequencing is perfect. It's a concept album. She's taking you through this relationship. And in the beginning, she's describing it like she's sick, like she's love sick. And the sickness theme carries through the album until things go bad. And this time when they go bad, she realizes she's the problem, not him. And also that maybe relationships aren't the thing that is gonna fix her like she once thought they did. And that's where I think the maturity kinda comes into play. Totally. The whole album is like exploring the beginning and end of something. Like

Jordan: It's exploring how she's outgrowing this relationship that it's not a good fit for her, and like her realizing that. I also just love an upbeat song that's like devastating, and there's plenty on this album. Like What's Wrong With Me, which she she does with, um Robert Smith of The Cure devastates me every time I hear it. It's a song that's exploring the idea that, like, we're not meant to be together. Like, I feel awful. And I think it's actually because we're together. I think it's because of you. Like it specifically is what she said. I think you're what's wrong with me. Right. And it. I know.

WIL WILLIAMS: That is like a very mature sentiment in itself of like. You are the problem, and I hate that, and that hurts me. I don't want that to be the problem.

JEFF: This one sounds the most unique. The other ones are really rooted in either ballads or like a pop punk kind of sound. There's none of that here. There's lots of eighties kind of like sound to it, which is interesting because no one's doing that right now. Everybody's into the nineties. Yeah. At first it kinda put me off. I love a good Paramore hook as much as anybody. But like this is completely a left turn and I think it really works. Can we talk about “Purple” for a second? Yes.

Jordan She's like, I visited your town like a tourist. And then now I've got a local grocery store and a favorite florist. And it's just like the lyricism in this album. This song is also the turning point. I have the beginning is like love sick and the end is like just…depression.

JEFF: This is what I mean about the sequencing. It's smack dab in the middle of the album. And it's, what is it, 13 tracks? So it's the outlier. It's like right at the center. And some of the lyrics are talking about, you know, you're red and my blue. Combine to make purple, right? And it's like the red is the love for sadness, and this album is sequence one side is being. So in love. Second side. You Seem Pretty Sad. Just like the Ars Paradoxica logo. Oh my god, yes! Literally, yes. [Crosstalk] I love it. That's why we have Wil Williams here. Just like the Ars Paradoxica logo.

OLIVER MORRIS: I think I described it to you Bee as baby's first Reckoning with I might be the problem in the relationship.

[Laughter.]

OLIVER MORRIS: Yes. The I think I think for me, one of my favorite songs was uh if leaving me's what you have to do because you love me. I kinda wish you loved me less. I love you so much. I love seeing your baby pictures. I love this. I love that. I hate all the other girls. And then purple happens. And then you get uh the the The Cure. “The Cure,” that's it, yeah. And then it gets really introspective and really interesting. And again, that sort of deconstruction of persona of the all-American girl. I'll say that

BEE LIDSTONE: This album Everything that I once wanted from a Taylor Swift album.

Oliver:Oh, real.

Bee: Listening to this album the first time that I listened to it, I was transported back to being 22 years old and being the sad, chaotic little mess that I was. And it is an amazing Brilliant album. It's hyper pop and it reminds me of like bubble blowers and going out on a night out, getting drunk, crying in the toilets. And then listening to an entire album on the night bus home. Oh, real, yep. Like that is that is the vibe of this entire album, you know, and as you said with purple and then it kind of like drips down into being real. That's the point of the night where you're like, oh God, what have I done? You start sobering up, yes. And you start to then become very introspective. The Cure is my favourite song on the album. And I I think that is because it's it's that moment where she's sitting there and she's going, What's the lyric? It's it doesn't matter how your love feels anymore, it'll never be the Cure. And it's going, no, yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm I'm messy, I'm screwing everything up, and maybe I need to take a step back.

ADAM CECIL: It’s pop but it doesn’t feel manufactured off of that pipeline. It doesn't feel like she was made in a factory. Because if you were making a pop star in a factory, you would never be like, oh, yeah. And she loves Robert Smith from the [unclear]. Yeah. I love this album in particular because it really feels like she's starting to pull in those. Or Older influences, more esoteric influences. And some of the stuff on this record, I feel like, is some of the best indie rock songs I've heard this year. No shade to everyone who loves Westside Cowboy or whatever. But like, you know, she could kill a classic alt-pop indie rock record if she wanted to.

JEFF: Well, let's move on to Charli XCX. Because first of all. This is not Charli XCX's only album that she's released this year. This is her second, [unclear] if you count it. And I really liked the first album. I liked Wuthering Heights. This is considered more of her Brat follow-up, I think, because it's not a soundtrack album. It is a statement, I think, from Charli XCX. I kind of view it as a statement that's a bit coming off anti-Brat being basically like, oh, you want Brat too? Well, fuck you. You're not going to get it. And I like that. I like it too. Let's turn to the resident Charli XCX expert, Wil XCX to see what they think. I love Brat.

WIL WILLIAMS: Despite being a huge Charli XCX fan, I had never done a full chronological discography listen through. Oh wow. I started from her very first album all the way through. And I do definitely think that on one hand, This is a big “you're not getting Brat 2.” And on the other hand, I think that for a lot of us who have been around for a while, Charli's music seems to go through kind of cycles. Jumping off of Olivia Rodrigo in this album, Charli, I feel like. Kind of hit. The culmination of everything that she's been working towards musically. With Brat. And this seems like a very much uh like the response is kind of like. Well fuck, now what? Now, what am I supposed to do? From what I've heard, her life during Brat was extremely difficult, and she did not like enjoy that process. I think kind of all of it was like really, really, really hard for her.

JEFF: You mean like blowing up or do you mean before or when she was making it? Like getting huge and successful? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

JORDAN:: The mega massive fame. Cause like Charli XCX was famous, was famous before Brat, but like not whatever this is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fact that Brat has on it.

WIL WILLIAMS: A line about like not knowing if she even wants commercial success at this point, and this is the album that did it. The irony. Right. And so I feel like Music, Fashion, Film is a little bit of a fuck you to people who came in at Brat and are expecting her to do Brat. But I also feel like to those of us who've been around for a while, it's very much in conversation with Brat. Very much. I think that even Conceptually, Music, Fashion, Film. Is inherently bratty. It's a big fuck you. I mean, it starts with, um, with rock music and her saying like, oh, the dance floor is dead, which people apparently took very seriously. Like people thought that she wasn't joking?

JEFF: It's a dance album. Like, I mean, yes, it's got guitars. WIL WILLIAMS: She’s Charli XCX!JEFF: Yeah, I mean, like, that whole thought process. I mean, my brother said that to me. It's my still a dance album. My brother's a huge fan of hers, and he's a gay man. He's like, I guess she's done with it. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, clearly, it's dance. No, like, yeah.

WIL WILLIAMS: I'm sorry, if you know anything about Charli XCX, it's that you know that she's funny as fuck. Like she is going to be hilarious and she is. Wink wink. Uh is her the whole is her being like, I'm a good girl now. I'm a good girl now. I just said those things to be provocative, right? Um, that's hilarious.

[00:30:00] Patreon Break

[Whoosh transition with a radio-style effect.]

OLIVER MORRIS: Hi, it's Ollie here, your resident [unclear] at EarWax. Just here to let you know that, as always, we have a Patreon, and that you can go onto that Patreon and become a patron. Our Patreon is EarWax Magazine. You can also put an ad right here, where I'm speaking, if you have the money and you ask Jeff. We have a number of tiers suited to your [unclear] desires. Come, give us some money, help us keep the lights on. You know the drill. You've been listening to us.

[Music plays.]

[00:30:49] Five Comedy Audio Fiction Funnies

JORDAN: Now, here's five comedy audio fiction funnies for your listening pleasure.

[Upbeat electronic music plays.]

HANNAH WRIGHT: I'm gonna be real with you, Jeff. This is an entirely new space and I haven't unpacked anything, so I have no idea how this sounds. I also haven't unpacked my headphones, so… Two Flat Earthers Kidnap a Freemason. What is the funniest audio drama? Everyone has a different opinion, and everyone is wrong, unless they agree that the answer is Two Flat Earthers Kidnap a Freemason. Jeremy Ellett takes an inherently ridiculous concept and makes it even more ridiculous. Multi-level marketing, hive mind, the ghost of Sir Isaac Newton, a man turning into an owl monster. How do you take a concept steeped in a very sad truth, that most people are radicalized through desperation and loss. And make it funny. I don't know, but Jeremy Ellett did the dang thing. I have a fan-made bumper sticker of this show, I like it so much. Go listen immediately.

OLIVER MORRIS: Gay Future. Gay Future describes itself as not just an assault on the YA genre. But a disgrace to the very concept of words, being as it is allegedly written by Mike Pence from its banging EDM opening to its straight protagonist. Gay Future is funny, charming, and gay as hell. I think what I enjoy about it is its chill, naturalistic delivery of dialogue, its dynamic sound design and music, and the world it creates. A terrified homophobe who knows a little too much about the culture. It's also got Ayo Edebiri in it, which is kind of dope. She plays Chad, and I remember at the time when I first heard it being like, oh, this is this actor is really, really funny. I think there's too many footsteps though, which I think is indicative of a larger problem, which is its cinematic style. Less is definitely more when it comes to sound design sometimes. Too much sonic information can distract from the larger piece. Still, a rip-roaring time from the heady days of 2019, and listenable in an afternoon. So go listen to it. You've got an afternoon.

RHANNA STEPHENSON: Fawkes and Stallion will make you look at Baker Street in a whole new way. This comedy series follows the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson's neighbors, Underdog detectives Hampton Fawkes and Madge and James Stallion. Their luck changes when Holmes is out of town and they're asked to save a woman's life, except they're kind of hopeless. If that's not enough, season two includes the famous detective duo themselves. And it's thrilling, heartwarming, sometimes devastating and drop dead funny.

ADAM CECIL: This Is Branchburg. Is it hyperbole to say that nothing has captured the unique otherworldliness of the American suburbs and comedy better than This Is Branchburg? Probably, but it is the kind of show that inspires breathless praise. Once you've heard This is Branchburg and fallen in love with it, you'll need everyone else in your life to follow suit. It's a shame, really, that there's no late-night programming block for podcasts, because This is Branchburg would be best stumbled upon after midnight, well, a little high, letting the soft absurdity of this New Jersey town and its bizarre residence break through your haze and enthrall your ears. “This is the funniest thing in the world,” you would whisper to yourself. “Everyone needs to know.”

JORDAN STILLMAN: To listen to Wooden Overcoats is to love it. The sitcom follows two rival funeral parlours on the dreary island village of Piffling Vale, pitting the miserable and often blundering twins Rudyard and Antigone Funn against the seemingly perfect and dazzling newcomer Eric Chapman. The premise is both nonsensical and utterly captivating with a peculiar cast of delightful and freaky little weirdos living out unexpected twists and turns. The writing is wry, peppered with fast-paced quips witty wordplay and a dash of innuendo, delivered by an outstanding cast with impeccable timing. The show is a contemplation on the absurdity of the mundane juxtaposing the somber and the silly within a rich tapestry of some of the best voices in audio fiction.

[00:35:05] Review: Depressed Horse

[An announcement over what sounds like a school PA system.]

PA ANNOUNCER: Depressed Horse, report to the principal's office immediately. Again, can I have Depressed Horse? Report to the principal's office immediately. Thank you.

JEFF VAN DREASON: Depressed Horse. Hmm. Um, well, I'll say this for Depressed Horse. It made me feel depressed. I don't think that was the goal though. Then again, I don't know if it has a goal. I don't know what it is, but I'm not even sure it knows what it is. BoJack Horseman spoof? A reason for its admittedly fun and catchy theme song to exist?

[Low, sonar-like pinging tones play in the background through much of the review.]

JEFF A bet between friends with senses of humor that… Exist? Here's a setup for every episode of Depressed Horse, a theme song that runs longer than the actual content of the episode. Then it abruptly cuts off short. Although in some episodes it plays for longer. Then there's some poorly edited sound effects, things like a horse galloping or the sound of a ticking clock. We're in a therapist's office therapist asked the patient a question. The patient answers, referencing his dream about a horse. The theme song kicks back in the show is over. Now keep in mind I was listening to this on a platform that had ads. Ads at the beginning, ads at the end. In the case of every episode except for maybe one or two, the ads were longer than the actual content of the show. I could argue that it's an audio fiction equivalent of a botched knock-knock joke, but that's doing botched knock-knock jokes a disservice. It just feels like it exists for the ads at the beginning and the end. But the idea that this thing is getting monetized seems downright insane to me. There's no characters, no growth, no story, just this weird setup and... Punchline, I guess? [Unclear] land like pianos in the middle of the ocean. Noisy, meaningless sound, swallowed by the waves before you can even register the crashing chords. My advice? You'd spend your time better listening to a therapist or nearly anything else. In a lot of ways, this episode is about comedy and the theme of it is kind of got a back to school vibe. I would call the Depressed Horse the class clown, but again clowns are funny.

JEFF: Instead, I'm gonna stick the Depressed Horse in the corner wearing the dunce cap. [Unclear] believe people actually made kids wear dunce caps back in the day. That's horrific and also very funny. I'm sorry, Depressed Horse. You're a dunce. Wear your cap. Part of me wants to recommend it just so other people can have insight into what I'm talking about. It's that insane. I admire it almost for how galling it is. There's very little there. It exists despite itself. Is it a comedy? I guess. Is it funny? No. What's it doing? I have no clue. What's the point? I don't think it has one. It's mystifying. And that makes it feel like I'm praising it when I don't mean to be. I don't think it knows at all what its purpose is. And you know, I'm sure that there's a clever person out there who would say that's the point. I don't think it's the point. I don't think a point exists. I think the only point is the point at the top of the dunce cap it's wearing in the corner of my classroom. Class dismissed, except for you, Depressed Horse. You have detention.

[A clock ticks, followed by typing on a keyboard.]

[Ambient piano and synth music plays.]

[A bell rings, like a school bell.]

[00:40:00] Professor Morris Discusses MF Doom

OLIVER MORRIS: Okay class, settle down, settle down, settle down.

[A hip-hop beat plays under the lecture, with snippets of rapped vocals.]

OLIVER MORRIS: Now you'll notice the cobwebs in the corner of the classroom. That's cause we're going old school. Get it? Now, show of hands. Who knows the villain with a metal face? Well it's more of you than I expected. Now Professor Van Dreason extols the new and novel, but you gotta know your roots and the roots is Doom. MF Doom made Operation Doomsday on a borrowed Akai MPC drum machine once a week while crashing at his friend's house. Why? Because the other six days he was sleeping on benches and hustling to get by. The death of his brother left him traumatized and miserable and twisted him into the villain we know as Doom. Doom's style is a slick stream of consciousness flow containing oblique and obscure references, layers of rhymes and wordplay that sort of meld into a word salad. An example of this is rhymes like dimes. Is he referring to selling rhymes like dime bags of weed? Is he referring to the fact that his rhymes are a perfect 10? Who knows? Probably both. We simply don't have time to get that deep into it, but if we wanted to, this whole album could be a syllabus in and of itself. The beats, sampled, as I said, with an MPC, use loops and licks from various soul and smooth records, including my personal favourite, Gastros, which used a sample of Stevie Dan's Black Cow. For additional reading, you can listen to mine and Professor Van Driesen's symposium, Any Major Dudes. We simply don't have time to get that deep into it, but if we wanted to, this whole album could be a syllabus in and of itself. The beats, sampled, as I said, with an MPC, use loops and licks from various soul and smooth records, including my personal favorite, “Gas Drawls,” which used a sample of Steely Dan's “Black Cow.” For additional reading, you can listen to mine and Professor Van Driesen's symposium, Any Major Dudes.

OLIVER MORRIS: But that's not what makes the work great. What makes the work great is the joy and love he has for the mic, the music, the nostalgia of old cartoons. His music is great in spite of hardships, not because. Get that Protestant puritanical thinking out of here right now. This album is rich, [unclear], and gives you plenty to come back to. So I suggest you start listening so you can fully absorb it. Class dismissed.

[00:42:30] For Further Reading: Best New Songs of August

JEFF VAN DREASON: Okay class, for further reading, I'm suggesting you head to the EarWax Patreon, where you can find an extensive list of bang new tracks from August. There's some no-brainers here, like engaging new treatises from Erykah Badu's collaboration with The Alchemist, but those who are really interested in discovering the best new music around, you'll find more than 20 songs of bliss to impress your new classmates. Case in point: “17” by Teals, a song so funky and fun, you'll forget it's about an underage affair that leads to murder. Here's a short sample.

[Clip: “17” by Teals plays (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF: Need something with a harder edge? Check out the K-pop punk band Sailor Honeymoon with their cut “Bad Apple.”

[Clip: “Bad Apple” by Sailor Honeymoon plays (lyrics not transcribed).]

JEFF Finally, have you heard the new Wishy single? I bet you wishy you did. Yeah. Okay, yeah, all right, class. They can't all be winners, all right? Give it a listen and find the rest of this dope mix on our Patreon. You won't be disappointed, and it'll help you get some bonus points on the test.

[Clip: the new Wishy single plays.]

[Chime transition.]

[00:45:29] Sad Girl Summer, Part 2: Roundtable

JORDAN STILLMAN: Now, part two of our roundtable discussion of Sad Girl Summer.

OLIVER MORRIS: I think as well, the reason that it's sort of spelt out in sort of text rather than subtext is that she has a real message for her fans, which is kind of leave me alone. Like, like, I think one of the last songs is about how. There's the image of her and then there's the I can't remember what the name of it is. Sounds like “Wink Wink [unclear]” or something like this. Yes, yeah. Yeah, it's wink wink. Wink wink. Yes. Where it's like, I'm the bad girl, wink, wink. Like, come on, it's a game, guys. You must understand. I'm not actually like this. I'm in my 30s. I'm married. Like, I'm not a perpetual party girl anymore. And.

BEE LIDSTONE: That song is so funny. It's very good. Yeah, it's catchy too. It's like, I mean, there's actually quite a few songs on this album that are clearly taking a right turn away from the sound that was her, you know, mainstream commercial breakout. You know, she's very clearly trying to do something different and challenging to her audience. But at the same time, I feel like some of these songs are like the poppiest songs she's ever written. I kind of love how vacuous it is. Like there's a vacuity. There's a sort of.

OLIVER MORRIS: 'Cause I watched the the the video of it as well, so I watched the film version. And when I watched the film version, they would do things where it's like the song that always occurs to me is Camera. Bit before the video starts, where Charli XCX is going, like, well, it's about cameras and it's about how they sort of take an image of you and it sort of stops in time and it's sort of Project onto it and all that. And then the song kind of goes. I like how a camera stops time and projects an image onto you. It's like there's no there's no subtext, it's all just kind of text.

BEE LIDSTONE: telling your audience Multiple times. Well what they're listening to or what the the context or subtext is because you know that they're going to be watching Instagram reels or TikToks or something like that. And also it's it's it's creating those little sound bites for Instagram reels and TikToks and things. So that's what uh that's what I view that as. But that's the that's the that's the pessimist and the Um you know like, like, I'm expecting the world to be burning because it is.

OLIVER MORRIS: in me. Like there's there's no sort of there's no room for interpretation. Yeah.

ADAM CECIL: There's no room for interpretation, but also she's an artist who is perpetually misinterpreted. So yeah, it's hard to avoid that. But it's, I think that's, you know, like that first single, like rock music that came out where it's just like, oh, everyone was losing their Goddamn mind over like, what does it mean? Like, you know, and it's just like, actually, I think.

WIL WILLIAMS: One of the things that I really love about Music, Fashion, Film in comparison to Brat is, first off, again, like this general fuck you attitude. And I also love something that I think is super special that I haven't seen anybody talk about with this album is on Brat. She has the song “So I,” which is a posthumous tribute to SOPHIE, who she worked with very, very closely and clearly

JEFF VAN DREASON:: Had a very deep friendship with

WIL WILLIAMS: Wanted to have said these things when she was alive. And then on Music, Fashion, Film, talking about her producer that she always worked with, A. G., we have “Magic Metal Montana,” which is Tribute to him while he is here and alive, and her saying, I love this about you. I love this about you. I love this. That's a really nice.

JEFF: There's a couple more things points that I think have more in common. Then people are kind of giving it credit for. I really like camera and I like camera because a lot of people are like, oh, she's acting now, whatever. Like, and she's like, yeah, I'm acting now because it's the only way I can not be me. It's like, oh man. Yeah. And that, that to me, it's devastating, but it's also real. And it also feels a little bit like that sort of the insecurity that she's always had all her. Especially on you know, stuff like [unclear], or songs on Brat — Brat's such a powerhouse that you forget how real she's being around it and how much she's being kind of confessional and vulnerable. And I think that Yes, she's still being cheeky because she is who she is, but she's still got these songs in there where she's just like... Yeah, you might hate it, but fuck it, I'm gonna do it because it's me and also this is why, right? Like she'll she'll kind of like sucker punch you a bit with her vulnerability. Totally. And I feel like that totally pulls through on Music, Fashion, Film.

WIL WILLIAMS: Like, easily the most real song on this album, and I would argue one of the most real songs she's ever done. Is this discussion of what your legacy means as an artist? And she interviewed. David Cronenberg for it, and it ends with a sample of him talking about a near-death experience. And she had asked him, I presume, were you th what about your art was thinking like what were you thinking about in this moment potentially before you die, your life is flashing before your eyes. What did you think about your legacy? And he was like, I didn't. This I was thinking about the people that I love, and it ends on this rumination that, like, the artists. Do not experience their legacy. They are dead. They are gone. The legacy is for everybody else. I think having that as the sort of bookend. On this reflection of easily her most famous and commercially successful album is um again, very sweet and it it's it feels Freeing to me to hear as somebody who is like an artist and a creator. Which leads us to the saddest of the sad girls, I would argue.

OLIVER MORRIS: Phoebe Bridgers, Lost Weekend. Phoebe's going through it.

BEE LIDSTONE:: Phoebe's definitely going through it. Phoebe is going through it in a big way. She's going through it. She's feeling the big feelings. This feels very Bo Burnham. If you listen to Inside and then you listen to this album… And that it is very interesting because Bo Burnham is on the album. He's credited he's he's credited with songwriting credits as well as with um Um his voice is in uh a couple of the songs as well. Um, you know, [unclear]. Um so it's very interesting. The For me, as a Bo Burnham fan, I have definitely seen that this is more of his album than hers. I think she's someone who is

ADAM CECIL:: Improved by collaborating with others. She has her distinct voice and she has her point of view. And that never gets lost in these collaborations. And I think one, like she's her at her best sometimes when she's really in a deep collaboration. And two, I think she brings out the best in other songwriters as well. Conor Oberst is a great example, I think, where he was really lost before that and a bit lost after that. But that record is something really special. And, you know, there's something interesting there too, where. You know, she's Romantically involved with a lot of these male collaborators as well. But a lot of great music is made from people who are romantically involved, as we know. So, so yeah, I don't know. I feel like the bigger problem I have with this record is that she just kind of forgot to write songs in there..

JEFF: It’s a very emotionally complex album. That I think that you end up feeling a bit lost in. Like, I have a hard time pinning it down and getting a clear read on it. And I think other people do too. And I don't think that makes it bad.

JORDAN: I just, it kind of feels a little spectral. So I'm, I'm a huge fan. I love, I loved Phoebe's other two albums. I love all of the boys, all the, the, the boygenius boys. I'm on board. Uh, and so I was really. Really excited to. I wasn't paying attention. So I was like, when I found out this album was coming out last month, I was like, oh, wait, what? And so I've been, you know I all all the other boys have come out with albums, but um not Phoebe yet. And so I was really excited to hear this. It picks up where she left off. Like it's very much I feel like thematically still in line with her previous work. But it is exploring a lot of different things and like it's got the killer lyricism that she always has. Um in her in her music. And yeah, I just I sort of just trusted the process. There's so many songs I like off this album. It's a long album. I think that's one of my I think that's one of my problems with it, honestly. 16, 15 tracks. It's a bit overstuffed. And some of them are quite short. And I think you could have lobbed them off. But that's that's just me. It's like, I mean, there's like there's songs like, what is it, like “Lost Parade,” where it's like mostly very like ethereal like

JEFF: To what I was saying before that adds to the sort of like Goosey, goosey, ghosty vibes, which I don't. I think it does. But at the same time, again, I have a hard time listening to it. And this is not to say it's bad. I have a hard time listening to it all the way through. Because one, it's so long, and two, because it kind of unsettles me. It's unsettling. It is unsettling. It's like really wistful and just like.

JORDAN: introspective and reflective. The it comes away unsettling not just from the lyrics but like the composition itself is unsettling. And I believe that is intentionally so. Yeah.

WIL WILLIAMS: I think she's I mean she's always had. A very strange, unsettling vibe. I think “I Know the End” is like a perfect culmination of that. This album for me, I'm not gonna lie, it really did not land. I think part of this, Jeff, is because I also have the same problem. I listened to albums the first time the whole way through. And for me. I being a Charli person, I'm used to artists having very different sort of like not quite concept albums, but different concepts for their albums? Um you know, piece to piece. And for me, it just felt a little bit too Punisher 2. It felt like they could have fit just fine on Punisher, but to me, Punisher is a perfect album. There are some tracks I really loved, and they're the ones that usually take some big differences. Like Governor's Waltz, I think, is gorgeous. Lyrics remain incredible. And I do think that overall, this is a much darker, stranger album that I think Hopefully will grow on me.

JORDAN: My initial read on it was like a little bit like, oh. But like I've been listening to it a lot. And I the more I listen to it, the more I like it. And there's just like different things that get like stuck. In my head, like, uh, this is gonna kill me. Wait, like, that line is just like burrowing in my head. Um and I just can't stop thinking about it.

[Brass music transition, ending with a mechanical click.]

[00:57:08] Wrap-Up

JEFF VAN DREASON: And that's a wrap on EarWax Volume 1, Issue 3. Thank you so much for listening. We're gonna end this episode with another Run for Cover cover battle, this time with a song by the [unclear] Dolly Parton. We're gonna begin with the original song by her, “Coat of Many Colors,” and then transition to a cover by Sierra Ferrell. Please stick around for the credits. And class dismissed.

[00:57:28] Run for Cover: “Coat of Many Colors” (Dolly Parton original)

[Dolly Parton’s original recording of “Coat of Many Colors” plays (lyrics not transcribed).]

[00:58:47] Credits

Jordan: Issue 3 of EarWax Magazine was written by Jeff Van Driesen, Adam Cecil, Neil Johnson, B. Lidstone, Oliver Morris, Rihanna Stevenson, Jordan Stillman, Hannah Wright, and Wil Williams. “Starbucks in Blue,” written and produced by T.H. Ponders. Editorial on comedy and audio fiction by Max Kreisky. Produced and scored by Oliver Morris. Huge thank you to Max, and remember to check out True Tales of the Illuminati Season 3, coming around Thanksgiving. Sonic branding, artwork and transition sound effects by Neil Johnson. Other segments produced by Jeff Van Driesen and Oliver Morris. Music by Neil Johnson, Oliver Morris, and Jeff Van Driesen. We need your support. Patreon at patreon.com/earwaxmagazine. You'll get access to bonus playlists, audio fiction recommendations, and more. Visit us at earwaxmag.com to subscribe to our newsletter, and check out our social media pages on Instagram, Bluesky, and Tumblr. Check out our other shows on this feed, including Infinite Mixtape, Drama Club, and Any Major Dudes. New episodes release every Wednesday. EarWax Magazine is a Third Site Media production.

[01:00:08] Run for Cover: “Coat of Many Colors” (Sierra Ferrell cover)

[Sierra Ferrell’s cover of “Coat of Many Colors” plays, including a yodeled passage (lyrics not transcribed).]

[01:00:32] Outtake

JORDAN: You can hear my cat going absolutely nuts. Franklin, stop it! You're ruining my recording!

[A synth sting, then the recording ends.]

Audio Drama Sunday: The Bird Roads review

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:29:24 GMT

by Gavin Gaddis

Noor’s trying to find her two lovers, Finn and Aster.

The series is currently available in both episodic free podcast format, as well as the classic Tin Can Audio methodology of putting the entire series up for direct purchase on Bandcamp. This particular Bandcamp version comes with the added incentive of lightly re-editing episodes to flow directly into each other without credit sequences, allowing for the entire story to be consumed in one sitting without stopping for intros and outros every five-ish minutes. Given the short length of the episodes, I highly recommend the Bandcamp edit over the podcast edit. While not a problem exclusive to The Bird Roads, I find bite-sized audio drama pacing suffers quite a bit from intro/outro segments when consumed too close together. It’s an issue we all put up with for the sake of the medium, but when given the opportunity to consume a text as a text and not small tracts, I take it.

As your local autistic audio drama critic, I’m going to say two things back to back that might sound contradictory, but I genuinely mean:

As we learn in later arcs, Noor is a Kara “Starbuck” Thrace-style pilot. She flies test planes with a devil-may-care attitude and is one of the few polyamorous characters in audio fiction to not give a Queer Terminology 101 lecture about how polyamory works for the audience’s sake. I much enjoy both of these concepts.

However, those concepts come with a big airbrake attached: The Bird Roads has a decided lack of payoff for Noor and her story overall. The plot takes a circuitous route, explaining very little about the apocalypse or how long it has been since said apocalypse until it’s too late to be of any intrigue. At the end of the first act we’re presented with a cliffhanger that could be the instant death of Noor, or her learning something invaluable about the giga-storm that has swallowed the world. In a world where act one is meant to be a Kickstarter pilot for a longer show, it makes perfect sense as an end point.

Gentle spoilers from here on out. You have been warned.

Then one finds out the actual path of the show: acts two and three are a flashback to before the apocalypse that establishes Noor’s relationships (or, one of them at least) and leads her right up into the opening moments of act one.

Having seen this plot device my fair share of times, I spent the majority of the series patiently waiting for payoff. For what would ostensibly be episode four of act one that further explains what happens with Noor. It’s a miniseries about overcoming the odds, of pursuing love for the sake of love. If Noor is insta-killed by something in the eye of the storm, at the very least one would expect another character to take over and give some closure. Barring that, an epilogue.

I feel I should dedicate a section of this review to airplanes, as I come from the world of vehicle neurodivergencies. While I’m a card-carrying reverend and train autist, I have a minor in plane hyperfixation. The concept of a plane-based world is a fun one. From the soaring heights of Porco Rosso to the B-movie cheesy depths of Slipstream (or, if you want to apply a very Reddit-coded theory to a kid’s cartoon: TaleSpin). Heck, even this year we had a flooded-world apocalypse with Storm Rider: Legend of Hammerhead.

The Bird Roads - Complete Series by Tin Can Audio

The trick is, all of those previous stories have the planes baked into their very existence. Slipstream explains fuel post-apocalypse with a combination of everybody using lightweight gliders to traverse jetstreams, and settlements that carefully dole out fuel. Perhaps it’s my background in consuming sci-fi and vehicle-based stories in the past, but I hate walking away from The Bird Roads not even knowing what Blackbird even vaguely… is. I know it can land in water, is powered by props, and has a nondescript pseudo-magic claw machine grabby thing that Jamal’s plane also has.

But that’s pure speculation from someone who has seen too many movies and listened to too many podcasts. In practice my suggestion is simple: this show is about the journey, not the destination. If you’re in it for a thrilling ending or some big sum-up about the nature of true love, look elsewhere.

If you come to the table ready for a tone piece about a character refusing to give up when everything else tells them to, you’re going to have a grand time. Also, once you’re done, go watch Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson’s short movie Enigma for a 20 minute reflection on depression and hope that’s oddly in the same wheelhouse as The Bird Roads.

Apocalypse fiction generally acts as a mirror for the times and the person creating it. Zombies, disease, global floods, they all carry implications. Noor has lost literally everything. The real world is gone beneath her. In our current world where love is in very short supply, Watts and Devereux have crafted a story of someone steadfastly refusing to give up hope. Of pursuing love at any cost. That is something worth holding on to.

EFF Statement on California Governor's Executive Order on AI

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 18:22:43 GMT

California Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order is an opportunity for a needed, thoughtful conversation about artificial intelligence and its potential harms. Everyday Californians are feeling real anxiety about the risks of artificial intelligence, and as an organization that works to ensure technology empowers people, EFF welcomes this order as a way for the state of California to lead a much-needed dialogue that addresses these concerns.

Nonetheless, the most immediate and current concerns with this technology are not about sci-fi scenarios concerning rogue super-intelligence. They are happening right now through biased algorithmic decision-making for employment or government benefits, AI-powered surveillance systems such as Flock cameras, and artificially inflated personalized pricing. People want state and federal leaders to act, and we urge Gov. Newsom to develop thoughtful policies to address those concerns. Today’s EO is a good start.

To that end, EFF supports the focus on expanding the reporting requirements under SB 53 (2025) for loss-of-control incidents, alongside third-party investigations. We urge the administration to consider how to make these third-party investigations available for smaller developers. As the Government Operations Agency prepares its recommendations for the governor, we urge leaders to also realize that the effectiveness of kill switches in advanced AI systems remains an area of active research. As such, they should ensure that - as we’ve previously mentioned - any technology regulation targeting cybersecurity practices at AI labs must be careful, precise, and practical. Moreover, we also caution that government-controlled kill switches run the risk of being used as a form of retaliation against protected speech, as demonstrated by the Trump Administration’s retaliatory actions against Anthropic earlier this year.

Ultimately, true safety requires California to focus on concrete, immediate, and urgent harms of AI technologies by ensuring that algorithmic decision-making in both the government and private sectors respects people’s rights and well-being. We urge Gov. Newsom and the state of California to develop thoughtful policy in collaboration with those most at risk of harm to address these and other concerns.

Victory: Court, Using a New Test, Rules Embedding Links is Legal

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 22:39:42 GMT

Courts have for two decades found that linking and embedding someone else’s web content, be it a photo, music, or an article, doesn’t violate copyright law–the entity that controls the server that hosts a copyrighted work, not the user or website that merely directs others to it, is directly liable if the content turns out to be infringing.

News publisher Emmerich Newspapers sought to convince the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to chart a new and dangerous course, arguing that an aggregator website that published links to its copyrighted articles was in effect “displaying” them and can be directly liable for infringement. EFF, along with several other public interest organizations and trade associations, filed a brief urging the court to follow multiple other circuits and reject that theory.

Fortunately, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals did just that. While it rejected the server test–the rule courts have used to determine copyright liability rests with whoever serves up the content–the court came to the same practical conclusion by focusing on who is responsible for transmitting content.

Applying that test, the court found that pointing or directing a user’s browser to request and receive the copyright owner’s own copy residing on its computers does not involve transmitting or communicating the content. “Although we take different routes to get there, both the server test and the test we announce end up in a similar place: a website cannot transmit a work that it does not have,” the court said.

We told the court that accepting Emmerich's theory would make the common act of embedding links a legally fraught activity, one that many websites might be unwilling to risk, which would seriously damage the internet as a tool for creating and disseminating ideas and knowledge,

We applaud the court’s decision–even though it applied a different test, it correctly concluded that a user linking pictures, video, or articles isn’t in charge of transmitting that content to the world. The user doesn’t control what’s located on the other end of the link—that’s up to the person who controls the server.

Emmerich also claimed linking violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), arguing its URLs were copyright management information (CMI) and when the aggregator displayed Emmerich’s articles under its own URL, it tampered with Emmerich’s CMI, which violates the DMCA.

Under that logic, unsuspecting internet users could face ruinous legal risk for doing something as simple as using a link shortener, particularly given potential statutory penalties of up to $25,000 per violation.

In our brief, we told the court that URLs don’t necessarily equate to a copyrighted work or provide sufficient information about the nature of the underlying content, making it highly unlikely that anyone would expect a URL to contain CMI. Quoting EFF’s brief, the court concluded that URLs are first and foremost a locational reference tool and while it may be possible for a URL to contain CMI, the bar to that conclusion is high.

Overall, this was a good and sensible decision that will protect ordinary online expression, communication, and access to knowledge. Hopefully this issue is laid to rest at last.

Related Cases: Emmerich Newspapers v. Particle Media

Victory! Appeals Court Rejects Expansive New Copyright Claim

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 22:38:10 GMT

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit handed internet users and programmers a big win today, by rejecting an attempt to stretch a narrow provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) into a new source of copyright liability.

The case involves Section 1202 of the DMCA, which prohibits intentionally removing copyright management information (CMI) like an author’s name or a copyright notice, from a copyrighted work. Open AI and Microsoft used code from Github as part of the training data for their LLMs, along with billions of other works. A group of anonymous Github contributors sued, alleging the new code coming out of these LLMs was similar to theirs—but with the CMI stripped out.

The Ninth Circuit correctly agreed with what we said in our brief: removing copyright information from a copyrighted work is fundamentally different from creating a new work that didn't have CMI in the first place. Section 1202 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was intended to serve as a backstop for traditional copyrights in the digital age—not to create a new, more expansive right to inhibit otherwise non-infringing uses.

As we also explained, accepting the Does’ theory would have created a brand-new source of liability for otherwise perfectly lawful activities, undermining creativity and innovation far beyond the specific context of AI development. Copyright holders would be able to file costly lawsuits against all kinds of legitimate users, such as artists making remixes based on older works, teachers adapting works for a classroom presentation, engineers reverse engineering code to understand it better, and search engines that help us all navigate the web. The risks would have fallen especially hard on independent software developers and other small creators. Large companies can afford to litigate these claims in federal court for years, if necessary. But an independent programmer facing massive statutory damages may simply have to settle, even when their underlying use is completely lawful. That’s why EFF fights to make sure courts don’t expand copyright beyond what Congress authorized.

Copyright law still protects programmers when their work is unlawfully copied. They can still bring copyright infringement claims if someone uses a model to reproduce their code. Additionally, the plaintiffs’ contract claims against the AI companies are still in play. The specific holding here was narrow but important: that the absence of copyright information from a new work does not mean, by itself, that someone illegally removed it.

That’s the correct result. New technologies will keep raising hard questions about copyright. Courts should answer those questions by applying the rights that Congress actually authorized, not by inventing new rights that could harm expression and lawful use for everyone.

Additional Reading:

9th Circuit Opinion in Doe v. GitHub EFF’s Amicus Brief in Doe v. GitHub

Ask the Editor: When did Sherwood’s newspaper change to The Sun?

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 21:10:07 GMT

SHERWOOD, Ore. — Hello readers,

A reader at the Marjorie Stewart Senior Community Center recently asked me about when our newspaper became The Sun.

The answer is, we are a new publication that I founded in October 2025 before selling to Active Media Publishing in January 2026 to fulfil the community’s need for an online and print publication covering local civics, education, community, business, and events.

In short, we are not the Sherwood Gazette, which sadly no longer exists as of August 2024.

The Sherwood Gazette was a part of Pamplin Media Group (PMG), once the largest media conglomerate in Oregon and most widely known for publishing the Portland Tribune (where I was formerly the editor for a stint). It was owned by Dr. Robert Pamplin, an Oregon businessman whose holdings also included a vineyard, farms, textiles, industrial, and manufacturing companies.

As you may well know, times are tough for the journalism industry. PMG made many innovative attempts to keep news in business, such as reducing and combining its numerous hyperlocal papers. The Sherwood Gazette became a part of the west side’s Valley Times, which also now includes what were formerly the Tigard Times, Tualatin Times, and Beaverton Times PMG papers.

This effort helped reduce printing and staffing costs, but ultimately, PMG — along with EO Media, owner of the Bend Bulletin and more — sold all of its newspapers in June 2024 to Carpenter Media Group, an Alabama-based conglomerate, who cancelled many of the print publications and laid off many of the Oregon staff over the next year.

This comes as federal funding was also cut for public media, including NPR, PBS, and OPB, in July 2025. Without local news, as The Washington Post’s slogan says, democracy dies in darkness.

The Sherwood Sun aims to reinvigorate the local media landscape by providing easily accessible information about what’s going on with the city council, school board, locally relevant legislation, new businesses, the community, and hyperlocal events, all in one place. I launched this publication intending to shine light on the stories that sparkle.

Every reader counts toward keeping local news alive and supporting an informed and connected community, so please read on! Every time you share a story with a friend, or subscribe to our free online weekly newsletter, you personally help keep trustworthy, local news alive right here at home in Sherwood.

Genuinely, thank you for being a reader.

— Jules Rogers, founder, editor, neighbor

Email your questions to editor@sherwoodsun.com

Fighting for the Future of Libraries (With Jennie Rose Halperin)

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 21:08:24 GMT

This week we’re joined by Jennie Rose Halprein, executive director of Library Futures, a non-profit that advocates for a fair digital future for libraries and the communities they serve. We have written a bunch of stories about libraries over the years, and I have talked to Jennie a few times for those stories. I always have really interesting conversations with her, but a lot of what we talk about never makes it into my articles. That’s why I wanted to share one of those conversations with you today. We of course touch upon censorship but also many other subjects, so I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Become a paid subscriber for early access to these interview episodes and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.

The architecture of persuasion: United States v. Hemani

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:45:28 GMT

Although some law professors make a living hiding the ball, I will repeat my thesis right up front: Good legal writers are simply good writers – strong English stylists. As my first example, I offered Chief Justice John Roberts, who showed in Learning Resources v. Trump how to choose the optimal subject for English-language storytelling: an actor who can do things (there, the president imposing tariffs unlawfully). To emulate Roberts, focus on the first seven or eight words of your sentences in search of a subject that is a character.

But why focus on those first seven or eight words? After all, subjects are moveable. As Master Yoda might say, “Near the end of a sentence, a subject you can find.” In United States v. Hemani, Justice Neil Gorsuch shows why we don’t write like Yoda speaks: English readers look for and prefer an early subject/verb transition, after which they will automatically emphasize new or important information at the end of a sentence.

Gorsuch leveraged this tactic right in the first paragraph of Hemani, where he signaled (without saying so) that the Supreme Court had reached a surprising result. Remember back to October 2025 when the court granted certiorari. The cognoscenti (including my favorite legal podcast) predicted that Hemani would lose. Hemani seemed like other cases where a “bad man” (who smokes weed and might be a terrorist) goes to jail – at least until Gorsuch wrote his story.

With sentence-level choices, Gorsuch immediately revealed that Hemani would prevail. We read that Hemani used marijuana “a few times a week.” But based on that fact alone, the government sought to “disarm him for life.” With this windup, Gorsuch asked whether this was “consistent with the Second Amendment.”

No, it was not. Nobody even dissented.

Gorsuch made the outcome seem inevitable by placing each of the phrases quoted above at the end of a sentence. Even more, he placed all the key, persuasive information in the same position.

Just like the chief in Learning Resources, Gorsuch is not engaged in legal writing so much as strong English style. From outside the legal academy, both George Gopen and Joseph Williams would tell you that English readers give the last few words of a sentence special emphasis. Gopen even calls them a “stress position.” And Gorsuch treats those stress positions as the most valuable real estate in an English sentence: Only key facts that drive the outcome are welcome to reside there.

Focus on the sentence endings and you’ll see the facts crucial to Mr. Hemani. You’ll learn that Hemani spent “most of his life [in Texas].” He held a “stable job.” But the government searched the “family home in 2022.” When interviewed, Hemani was “cooperative.” He admitted using marijuana “about every other day.”

Do the same thing, focus only on sentence endings, and you’ll see the factors that damage the government’s case. For example, the government did not prosecute Hemani for “terrorism—the reason for the search in the first place.” Nor did it prosecute him for “anything like [serious drug crimes].” Instead, he was charged merely as an “’unlawful user’ of a controlled substance.” Based on this alone, the government sought “disarmament for life” without contending Hemani was a “drug addict,” a “danger to himself or others,” or that he had done anything with his gun “other than possess it in his home.”

To engineer those stresses, Gorsuch again makes an architectural choice that your English teacher would applaud: early subject/verb location. In “Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace,” Williams notes, “If you have managed your subjects and topics well, you will by default put the words you want to emphasize toward the ends of your sentences.” He recommends curt beginnings: a short transition, a concrete subject, and a verb. And in “The Sense of Structure,” Gopen warns that your reader expects a subject to be followed “almost immediately” by the verb.

With very few exceptions, Gorsuch used this architecture, putting his subjects and verbs together, right at the start of his sentences in Hemani. Indeed, he gets so snappy that several sentences rely on implied subjects that readers must supply on their own. (“No matter that the government did not assert Mr. Hemani was a drug addict. No matter that it did not contend that his drug use had ever led him to pose a danger to himself or others.”)

In his factual narrative, Gorsuch made this choice in every sentence but four – and those were not an accident. Every time that Gorsuch significantly delayed subject and verb, he filled his initial, dependent clause with information that he thought should not change the outcome: gun ownership, uncharged crimes, and marijuana use.

“And because Mr. Hemani admits he owns a gun despite the ban, . . .”“But, suspecting Mr. Hemani and his family members of terrorism-related activities, . . .”“After the agents found cocaine in his parents’ closet, . . .”“Instead, relying solely on his admitted use of marijuana about every other day, . . .”

With this choice, a Jedi-level writer is signaling, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along.”

Thus, by intentionally delaying subject and verb, Gorsuch decreased reader attention on information that had no place in his persuasive mission. But a writer changes that story – perhaps drastically so – if subject and verb are placed haphazardly.

Skeptical? Note how some versions of the same information undermine Gorsuch’s persuasive mission when Gorsuch’s own ideas are just moved around. In the first, Mr. Hemani’s work ethic is swallowed in a long, dependent clause, while the reader is invited to focus on the city where he lives.

In recent years, while working a stable job and residing with his parents, Hemani has lived in the Dallas area.

In the second, the work ethic becomes episodic and is swallowed between subject and verb, while the reader is invited to focus on a grown man living with his parents.

Hemani, while working a stable job in recent years, has lived in the Dallas area with his parents.

But Gorsuch puts the emphasis where it helps his persuasive mission: Mr. Hemani works a stable job.

In recent years, he has lived in the Dallas area with his parents and worked a stable job.

Which Hemani would you rather be? The one who worked a stable job? The Dallas resident? Or the one who failed to launch and probably lives in his parents’ basement?

So, to calibrate what your reader notices, write like Gorsuch. Prefer subjects and verbs together, near the beginning of a sentence. When you do, you help ensure that the most important information lands in the stress position where your reader will value it.

Write first drafts in any style, even intuitively or by ear. But when you line edit, make structural decisions like an architect:

Underline subjects and circle verbs.Are they close to each other?Apart from short phrases (like this one), do they start off the sentences?If not, do you have “good reason” to make another choice – for example, de-emphasis?Looking to the sentence endings, does each contain a worthy tenant – something important, novel, complicated or persuasive?If not, has important information been swallowed elsewhere? In a dependent clause? Between subject and verb?

Hemingway was right, so right that he now seems cliché. “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.” But if he has become cliché, that’s only because he has been right for so long. Sure, some lawyers and professors still primp ornamented, filigreed sentences. But English readers prefer a different architectural style: subject/verb . . . stress position. In Hemani, Gorsuch followed the blueprint.

The social web vs the software web

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 14:56:10 GMT

I launched ChatGPT for the first time in a long time because I now have access to the new version. One new thing I see is that they are popping up suggestions about things you can do in realtime, like smart queries in a feed reader, which as far as I know is still uncharted territory. Like this: "let me know when the Mets have a three-game winning streak."

That's the kind of thing TBL dreamed about in his semantic web plan, but he wrote the spec before writing software, and that doesn't work. His invention, the web, which came before was a perfectly timed, perfectly simple approach to sharing ideas on the internet. It worked because he created a product that worked, and made every piece completely replaceable. It came at a time when stagnation in tech made something necessary, or the whole thing was going to fall apart, and so close to so much incredible potential. Just like the moment we're in now with AI.

Rules for Standards Makers says a lot about this.

The value of disruption is that it undoes stagnation.

Anyone who has the same software plan today that they had a year ago is going to find themselves isolated. Even WordPress, though it is open source, is a silo that imho in the future will not work. The main selling point of AT Proto is that it is a safe haven for developers who nuzzle up, another word for that is silo.

The siloers are probably scrambling to find a way for the AI to run inside their world, mistake -- instead they should be trying to be fully relevant to applications in the AI world. Like Slack, for example, and Claude Tag. It's now built in. Has to be replaceable too. Small pieces loosely joined. That's what you have to be imho to have a role in the future of tech.

If your advantage is your silo, undo that as quickly as possible. Become the default version of whatever it was meant to be wrt the web. Both Bluesky and WordPress find themselves in the same quagmire. Probably a lot of others do, but this is the area I study. (I just am very familiar with the products of both companies, for some reason.)

This is the intuition we all had, coming to fruition. Evolution is something we haven't seen much of in the software world since 2006 or so. Incredible stagnation because of the dominance of the social web. We lost the software web. All the focus was on personalities, celebrity -- hype and 99.999% bullshit. It was a 20 year period where all that happened was scaling.

Lots more to say about this. The world we lived in ran on hype, now guess what -- having lived through a few big evolutionary changes in tech is a huge advantage vs the people who have never been part of one, and I think most of the people in tech today qualify.

What Happens If OpenAI Dies?

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 02:33:30 GMT

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I’m not trying to be a buzzkill here, but I have meaningful concerns about OpenAI’s ability to survive, and they’ve only grown more pressing in the last few years. In the same week that it completed a $7 billion internal share buyback, OpenAI saw both COO (and former CFO) Brad Lightcap and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) Denise Dresser leave the company, the latter of which had only been there eight months, and had this to say a mere four months ago:

“I just have never seen this level of conviction spread so quickly and consistently within the industries,” Dresser told CNBC in April, as she was wrapping up her first 90 days on the job.

Dresser likely walked away from a large amount of stock options by leaving after less than a year on the job, which I’m guessing means she decided that staying at OpenAI would, for whatever reason, not be worth getting what I imagine are tens of millions of dollars of stock she would be able to liquidate when it went public. You know, that thing that’s definitely happening.

Unless it’s not quite so definite anymore. Back in late June, The New York Times reported OpenAI was “leaning toward” going public some time in 2027, but that was before Anthropic started one of the most-aggressive pre-IPO marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen, with investors “leaking” to the Financial Times that they thought it would have a $2 trillion valuation and have (sigh) annualized revenues of $100 billion to $120 billion by end of 2026, an entirely fictional statement made with the intent of pumping their bags, with the FT, for whatever reason, printing it with little pushback.

Yet what’s likely far-scarier for OpenAI is that even Anthropic’s pre-IPO marketing has a whiff of desperation. A Reuters report from late last week that feels precision-engineered to manipulate dimwitted investors said that “Wall Street [was] looking further into the future than it commonly does to put a price on the AI company, valuing it based on how much revenue it could generate two years from now,” adding that it was “projecting revenue of roughly $190 billion to $200 billion.”

This was arguably the worst part:

Established companies are typically valued more heavily on earnings, or EBITDA, which gives investors a sense of the economics of the business.

For Anthropic, however, current EBITDA does not fully capture the economics investors expect the company to achieve at scale. Anthropic is spending enormous ⁠amounts on GPUs and other computing capacity, model training, inference and hiring. Those expenses are necessary to support its rapid expansion but could become a smaller percentage of revenue as the business grows.

While I imagine the writer in question believed that this was being “fair” and “objective,” this paragraph exists only to manufacture consent for a company that clearly has questionable economics. “Current EBITDA does not fully capture the economics investors expect the company to achieve at scale” is a euphemism for “ignore your lying eyes,” a plea with the audience to not judge a company based on its actual business but on a theoretical business that, to quote Reuters, have “...training and inference [costs] become more efficient as technology improves, while personnel and other operating costs could become a smaller share of revenue as the company scales.”

Could, could, could, could, could, could could COULD! It’s always a bloody could or will or might with these fucking companies, and it’s astonishingly bad journalism to see it as an “objective” choice to vaguely say that a company should not be evaluated based on its actual business but on some theoretical business that they might build in the future where the economics are completely different.

Sidenote: the defense of a statement like this is always that it’s “to show both sides,” but the article also fails to disclose that Anthropic loses billions of dollars a year, or that the AI labs are horribly unprofitable. It does, however, include that Anthropic had a “profitable quarter,” which is something that was only made possible with Musk’s discounts on its compute costs in May and June 2026. That fact is also left out of the article.

The reason I bring up the noises coming from the manufacturing consent machine is that if Anthropic beats OpenAI to an IPO, I cannot see a viable (or reasonable) path for Sam Altman to float his nasty little company. The fact that the Financial Times and Reuters are already being co-opted into softening the blow is a sign that Anthropic’s S-1 will look and smell like the inside of a tauntaun, and Anthropic is, from the reporting I’ve read, in a much better condition than OpenAI, if only because it didn’t have multiple side quests involving video generation or browsers or smart speakers, though both companies love to give away $20 to $40 for $1.

Put simply, if Anthropic goes public with its own horrifying economics on parade, it’s hard to imagine OpenAI — a company that lost $20.9 billion in 2025 on $13.07 billion in revenue — will fare much better.

After all, Anthropic just hit, per Bloomberg, $65 billion in annualized run rate — a month multiplied by 12, or four weeks multiplied by 13, I’m guessing, because it never defines this number — in May 2026, and OpenAI is “on track” to hit $40 billion annualized revenue…in the middle of August.

Another Sidenote: I gotta say, that Bloomberg story about Anthropic’s run rate is even weirder than usual, defining run rate as “a metric that projects full-year revenue from a shorter period” without actually saying how it’s derived. No need to ask difficult questions I guess!

We are, of course, in the era of madness, so I’ve already read three or four people on Twitter say that OpenAI’s actual annualized revenue is so much higher, because they’ve heard stuff from people they trust. The AI industry’s loudest advocates think and act like cultists at the end of a doomsday prophecy, except instead of the world ending, OpenAI and Anthropic become the largest companies — or in the case of giga-oaf hedgie Gavin Baker, the only companies — in the world, rewarding all those who believed with…something. Glory? Smugness? Salvation?

In any case, OpenAI has a real problem if Anthropic beats it to the markets.

OpenAI’s Revenue Growth Decelerated At Exactly The Time It Needed To Accelerate

On October 31, 2025, a flustered Sam Altman told booster and investor Brad Gertsner that OpenAI would make “well more than $13 billion” in revenue that year before saying he’d “find a buyer for his shares.” In the end, per my own reporting, “well more” would mean “$70 million,” with OpenAI making $13.07 billion in revenue in 2025, with SoftBank accounting for $862 million. A week later on November 6, CNBC would report that OpenAI was “on track” to generate “more than” $20 billion in annualized revenue. OpenAI works out its annualized revenue by multiplying its most-recent four-week-long period by 12, which means that in a four-week-long period it had $1.66 billion in revenue, I guess?

On March 4, 2026, The Information would report that OpenAI had “topped” $25 billion in annualized revenue after hitting $21.4 billion at the end of 2025, and included the following hilarious line:

OpenAI calculates annualized revenue by multiplying the last four weeks’ revenue by 12. If OpenAI calculated the metric based on revenue spikes just in the last week, OpenAI’s annualized revenue would be roughly $30 billion, one of the people said.

Yeah man, this is why using annualized revenue is such a stupid idea. If you have a particularly-busy four-week-long period — like a product launch with a big social media push — you can use that period to inflate your revenues, which is exactly what OpenAI is doing, as evidenced by the sources (who I assume work at OpenAI) saying that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Annualized revenues are not a useful way of measuring these companies’ financial condition, and exist only as a form of marketing, made worse by the fact that AI token spend is not a recurring source of revenue. While you could theoretically use annualized revenue as a directional bit of data if it was just two companies selling (subsidized) subscriptions, the ability for these companies to cherry-pick periods of time that might be inflated by aberrations (like when someone spent $500 million on Claude tokens by accident) makes these numbers somewhere between useless and actively harmful to investors.

Even then, it took OpenAI seven months to be “on track” to reach an annualized revenue run rate ($40 billion) that was seven billion dollars smaller than Anthropic’s ($47 billion) from May, and a full $25 billion in run rate less than what it hit at the end of July.

Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but it’s also worth noting that the news about OpenAI’s exciting new annualized revenue “leaked” mere hours after the abrupt resignation of its Chief Revenue Officer.

The reason that OpenAI (and Anthropic, for that matter) wants you to think about things in terms of “annualized revenue” is because its actual revenues look a little tame compared to its commitments and burn rate. The Information reports that in Q1 2026, OpenAI burned $12.1 billion on “cost of revenue” and training on $5.7 billion in revenue, though it left out the sales and marketing segment where OpenAI burned $5.73 billion in 2025 — or, put another way, OpenAI spent $12.1 billion on compute to lose $6.4 billion, and that doesn’t include things like data costs or salaries or, well, anything. OpenAI (and by proxy The Information) somehow rationalizes this to only be a burn of $3.7 billion, likely using the same accounting bullshit that it did in the financials I saw.

Now, some of you might read that and say “wow, $5.7 billion is a lot of money!” but it doesn’t matter, because the more money OpenAI makes, the more its services cost. This is not difficult mathematics, but it is something that continues to escape the vast majority of coverage of the company, I assume because all of this feels a little insane when you think about it.

No, Really, OpenAI Could Die

I know you’re gonna call me a firebrand or a hater or a skeptic or try to capture me and put me in a zoo, but I must be clear that OpenAI has set expectations — and made commitments — that range from ridiculous to outright impossible.

To get really specific:

For OpenAI to meet its compute obligations, it needs to have both the demand necessary and more than $800 billion in cash (or, alternatively, the ability to trade stock for compute, which it’s done in the past).For OpenAI to continue as an ongoing concern, it has to, at some point, work out a way to become profitable. It is unclear how it (or Anthropic) manages to do this. The Information reports estimates that OpenAI will go from negative $51 billion in free cash flow in 2029 to positive $39 billion in 2030. I’ll share the chart below.For OpenAI to actually survive, it will have to raise between $100 billion and $200 billion basically every year until then.For OpenAI to go public, it will need to have numbers that are competitive — both in revenues and losses — with Anthropic, a company with significantly-faster growth and a larger enterprise customer base.

For any of these things to happen, OpenAI will have to grow at a staggering pace, and effectively (per The Information’s reported projections) 10x its revenue between now and the end of 2030.

OpenAI’s projections have it near-tripling its 2025 revenues, doubling its 2026 revenues, nearly doubling its 2027 revenues, growing its 2028 revenues by 68%, and then growing its 2029 revenues by 64%. At the end of this magical mystery tour through revenue hallucinations, OpenAI will have it making more than NVIDIA did in Fiscal Year 2026 ($215.9 billion) and, somehow, becoming profitable:

I realize that many people have been conditioned by the tech industry to believe that every idea that a tech CEO has will always become reality, but the sheer scale of what OpenAI is both promising and obligated to do outpaces anything in modern history.

While much of what I’m saying is also true of Anthropic, (a company that itself has over $300 billion in commitments due in the next three years and is similarly-unprofitable) OpenAI has decidedly failed to play catchup at a time when enterprise customers see costs as a “huge issue,” which also makes it unlikely that (along with recent model price cuts) it will magically re-accelerate outside of allowing users to burn $14,000 a month in tokens for $200, which…also didn’t work well enough to get close.

In any case, any acceleration of revenues would also be an acceleration of costs, which will mean OpenAI will need several more $122 billion rounds from a dwindling pile of investor capital. SoftBank can quite literally not afford to invest anything further, with liquidity becoming so tight that it’s had to take out a $10 billion loan collateralized by its entire OpenAI holdings, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang saying that its $30 billion investment from this year likely being its last. While various different venture capitalist paypigs may have some interest in funding it further, OpenAI will need more than it last asked for, without fail, every single year.

So, there’re really only two eventualities:

OpenAI becomes the literal largest and most-successful company of all time.OpenAI runs out of money at some point.

This, again, is not me being a firebrand, but taking a relatively-clinical look at the hard numbers and asking how the fuck it affords it all.

And man, does a lot of shit have to go right.

OpenAI Has Over $800 Billion In Obligations Due By End of 2030, Accounting For An Estimated $146 Billion In Cloud Revenues For Oracle, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft Through The End of 2027

Per my last premium newsletter, OpenAI needs at least $800 billion to meet its commitments in the next three-and-a-half years, based on both the Wall Street Journal’s report on its projected $750 billion in compute spend through 2030 and an analysis of analyst notes on Broadcom, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and CoreWeave.

The problem, however, is that much of this money will come due through the end of 2027, and require at least one more massive round of funding.

To get specific:

I estimate that, based on analyst notes from Wells Fargo, that OpenAI is on the hook for around $87.5 billion in Broadcom chips across Fiscal Years 2027, 2028 and 2029. I have not included these in the total, because it’s unclear how much OpenAI is actually on the hook for. The Information reported a few months ago that both Broadcom and Microsoft would be financing the chips. It’s unclear whether OpenAI would be on the hook for ongoing payments as Anthropic is under its $35 billion, private-credit funded deal to buy Google TPUs and then rent them back from Google. Per analyst notes from Wells Fargo, UBS and Barclays, OpenAI alone is expected to account for over $126 billion of Google, Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud revenues in the next year-and-a-half.The reason for the odd year-and-a-half designation is that Microsoft’s Fiscal Year 2027 runs July 1 2026 through June 30 2027).This analysis also assumes that OpenAI will spend a linear $40.1 billion (per Wells Fargo estimates) on Microsoft Azure in Fiscal Years 2027 and 2028. In all likelihood, its deal and commitments will require it to spend more.This doesn’t count what OpenAI will need to pay CoreWeave as part of its five-year-long, $22.4 billion deal.Though the estimate is from December 2025, Michael Turrin of Wells Fargo estimates that OpenAI’s contribution to Oracle’s Fiscal Year 2027 (which just started on June 1 2026) will be around $10 billion, then rising to $39 billion in Fiscal Year 2028. I think a fair estimate here is to put this at around $20 billion.

Now, all of this is contingent on Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle building enough capacity to capture that revenue, but if we assume that happens, OpenAI needs more than $147 billion just to handle its expected compute commitments through the end of 2027.

Here’re some other costs that aren’t included:

Any and all costs associated with its still-theoretical $30 billion development in Georgia.Any and all costs associated with the launch of its consumer device.Salaries for its thousands of employees.The billions of dollars that OpenAI spends on data to train its models.Its compute costs with CoreWeave.Its compute costs with Cerebras ($20 billion over three years).How Does OpenAI Raise More Funding?

With its IPO likely delayed — if it ever happens — until 2027, OpenAI will almost-certainly have to raise another round of funding by March 2027, likely at a similar scale to its $122 billion round from March of this year.

Who Would Invest?

The biggest problem that OpenAI has is that $110 billion of its last $122 billion round was made up of Amazon ($50 billion), NVIDIA ($30 billion), and SoftBank ($30 billion), leaving a mere $12 billion funded by a primordial soup of different venture capitalists, private credit funds, and public endowments that should have their executives fired, ideally into the sun.

In any case, $12 billion isn’t enough to cover a single quarter’s compute costs.

The point I’m making is that raising further rounds — before we get to any niggling problems about valuation — has already become near-impossible to do without the help of massive entities that are showing increasing signs of strain at exactly the moment OpenAI needs more money.

Let’s break it down.

As mentioned previously, SoftBank is running at the very edges of its liquidity, and owes another $10 billion due on October 1, 2026. While in theory it could sell more of its ARM stock to fund further rounds, said stock makes up effectively all of its Net Asset Value, and while further margin loans are possible, doing so would put genuine pressure on ARM’s stock price as, well, at some point you’re not just investing in a company but whether SoftBank might use its stock like a piggy bank.

A few weeks ago, Amazon sent the remaining $35 billion of its $50 billion investment as part of the larger round, and while it’s theoretically possible that it could invest more, its free cash flow has now gone negative, and it needs as much money as possible to meet its (agh!) projected $220 billion in 2026 capital expenditures.

Google is a potential investor, as I’m not sure people realize how big a Google Cloud customer OpenAI has become, with Stephen Ju of UBS estimating it will spend $9.375 billion in 2026 and $12.5 billion in 2027, and Google Cloud increasingly becoming Google’s largest growth vehicle. Then again, Google’s free cash flow also went negative in its latest quarterly earnings, and even the most braindead of investors are becoming a little nervous about how circular everything is looking.

NVIDIA could, in theory, afford to invest more, but the markets are even more nervous about its slow transformation into GE Capital. Jensen Huang is clearly aware of this, which is why his “backstop” of a “10GW” data center in Ohio (which OpenAI has signed a 20-year-long lease to rent) isn’t actually backstopping OpenAI’s compute spend, but the underlying assets in the event of a short sale:

For instance, if OpenAI were to walk away from the project, SB Energy would first try to lease the site to another customer for the same price, some of the people said. If SB Energy wasn’t able to find another suitable tenant, the firm would try to sell the site, and Nvidia would pay any difference in the value, up to $105 billion if the initial phase is completed.

By backing the asset value of the data center—not OpenAI’s ongoing lease payments—the structure limits Nvidia’s risk exposure substantially, those people familiar with the deal said. The chip giant’s guarantee covers completed data centers, not facilities under construction.

That’s a pretty big “if,” because it refers to 5GW of theoretical capacity built by a company that has never built a data center, at a time when the nearest equivalent — Stargate Abilene, at 1.2GW — is two years in and has only finished three out of eight of the buildings. Based on this description of the deal, NVIDIA only has to guarantee things in the event the data center is actually built.

As part of the deal, NVIDIA is investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy, a company invested in by both OpenAI and SoftBank that is trying to go public some time this year, likely as a means of adding further liquidity to SoftBank’s balance sheet, though the IPO would only raise, per Reuters, between $5 billion and $7 billion.

What About Private Credit?

OpenAI has already, across multiple funding rounds, raised from private credit funds from Blackstone, BlackRock, and Insight Partners, and it’s possible that these same funds could fuse together like Voltron as a means of keeping OpenAI alive.

That being said, we’re talking about over $100 billion a year for the foreseeable future, which is a little more than they could stomach on a private company with ultra-negative margins and a younger competitor currently eating its lunch.

Then there’s another problem: that private credit is already having trouble funding AI data centers, which are a (theoretically) far-more-stable investment in infrastructure and power. When NVIDIA announced its “$500 billion” fund, the media was quick to assume that it had already closed the money, rather than it actually being a “memorandum of understanding,” also known as “a non-binding agreement to maybe do something in the future.”

Yet a follow-up from Bloomberg found that it was even less than nothing, and that Jensen Huang had insisted on making the announcement despite months of slow progress:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Blackstone Inc. and Apollo Global Management Inc. had been working tirelessly for months to draw up debt deals that would help developers of artificial intelligence systems pay for chips from Nvidia Corp.

With slow progress on the complex deals, Nvidia’s chief executive officer, Jensen Huang, decided to change tack: He went public this week with the effort, saying the group is aiming to collectively finance AI computing deals totaling $500 billion — a round figure with no obvious provenance.

The reason I bring this up is that if private credit funds are having trouble funding data centers, they’re going to have a shit-ton of trouble convincing investors to pile into an unprofitable second-place AI lab run by a uniquely-unlikeable CEO who has a penchant for lying.

Could Venture Capital Step Up?

As mentioned earlier, OpenAI (and Anthropic) have scraped the bottom of the barrel of venture capital time and time again, and never managed to raise more than $30 billion at a time.

$30 billion of OpenAI’s $40 billion 2025 funding round came from SoftBank.Anthropic’s $30 billion funding round from February 2026 involved an estimated $10 billion from NVIDIA and $5 billion from Microsoft, with the remaining $15 billion or so covered by thirty-seven different venture capital and private credit funds, including hedge fund Jane Street.Anthropic’s $65 billion funding round from May 2026 included $10 billion from Google and $5 billion from Amazon, as well as funding from Micron. Out of the 28 investors, only 8 were venture capital firms, with the rest made up of a mixture of hedge funds, asset managers, sovereign wealth funds and investment firms.

The sheer volume of names on these deals suggests that it’s genuinely very difficult to mobilize this much capital, and I think it’ll become difficult-to-impossible to do this every single year, even if Anthropic were to go public, as it’s very unlikely that the majority of these investors will actually be able to liquidate their holdings.

And remember, we’re talking about OpenAI here — stinky, expensive, second-place OpenAI, the one with all the obligations, the one with the CEO that wants to surveil everything his customers do. The one that has raised no more than $12 billion of funding from sources outside of NVIDIA, SoftBank, Microsoft or Amazon. That one.

There’re really two major problems:

While venture capital might want to invest in OpenAI, actually mobilizing more than a few billion dollars is very difficult.OpenAI’s valuation is just too gosh darn high.The Valuation Problem

OpenAI’s $122 billion funding round valued it at $852 billion.

And, per the New York Times, advisers pushed back on the idea of trying to go public at a $1 trillion valuation:

OpenAI’s advisers presented company executives with the option of waiting until 2027 to go public with a $1 trillion valuation, or lower the targeted valuation for a quicker I.P.O. Mr. Altman, said one person in contact with him on the topic, responded that any change to the trillion-dollar valuation was a nonstarter.

For some perspective, a $1 trillion valuation would be around a 15% premium, for a company that now accounts for 70% of Microsoft’s AI revenues and allegedly is the single-most-important startup since Google or Facebook.

Sorry, I’ll stop vagueposting: this is bad. For a company of this scale and importance, OpenAI should’ve waltzed into a $2 trillion valuation, except a public offering requires you to provide audited financial statements and an explanation of why your company is worth that much that goes a little further than an investor deck with annualized run rates and charts that promise the world.

The problem here is that if OpenAI can’t go public at even a trillion dollar valuation, it’s unclear why anyone would invest at $865 billion, or $800 billion, or even $700 billion, unless they happened to believe that it would go public at less than a trillion then magically become worth trillions more, somehow. The ability for any investor at this point to make a significant return is very, very small, made smaller by the fact that Anthropic appears to actually be meeting with investors for an IPO and is showing revenue growth…

…except even then, AI bulls are nervous, because $65 billion in annualized revenue (at the end of July) was lower than some forecasts, with market intelligence firm Yipit claiming it had hit $74.3 billion on July 22, causing confusing feelings in the minds and bowels of boosters that had expectations set by, I imagine, a combination of black magic and black mold.

While Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao has not been discussing valuations at early IPO meetings, investors and analysts are either expecting or wishcasting that it hits a $2 trillion valuation, though if OpenAI can’t get a trillion, it’s hard to see how Anthropic — a business of larger-yet-comparable size and equally-rotten economics — would somehow double that and, I assume, then some.

Seeing all of this, why would any venture capitalist with a working brain still invest in OpenAI at anything close to an $865 billion valuation? While current investors might follow on as a means of keeping the company afloat, at some point their limited partners might ask reasonable questions like “how do you intend to make us money?”

This is a problem already hitting Thrive, which has invested billions in OpenAI. Per Bloomberg:

The firm’s 2022 growth-stage fund — which includes Wiz, a business sold to Alphabet Inc.’s Google earlier this year — has returned 0.3 times the initial money it invested. That places it above the top 5% of funds. Most venture funds take between 10 to 12 years to return capital.

Thrive’s largest investment, OpenAI, is expected to generate a meaningful return. The firm was an early backer, investing in the startup through at least five separate funds going back to Thrive’s $408 million vehicle from 2018 and a fund that closed this year, a $6.23 billion instrument. Other notable IPO contenders within Thrive’s portfolio include Stripe and Anduril.

That’s right folks, if you invested in Thrive’s 2022 growth-stage fund, you’ve made 30 cents on the dollar, with much of it tied up in OpenAI.

While I’m not denying it’s possible, limited partners have their limits — especially as funds from Sequoia and other venture capital firms underperform the S&P 500.

And, not to repeat myself too much, OpenAI needs so much more money! It needs at least $100 billion a year, or it’s toast!

OpenAI Is Running Out Of Time (And Money)

The collapse of OpenAI would likely be a result of the walls closing in around its ruinous obligations and economics, with counterparties left short-changed and deals broken as things begin to unravel.

It starts, as obvious as it sounds, with OpenAI running short on funds, and we’ve already seen one sign that had happened with Amazon “completing” its $50 billion investment in the company a few weeks ago by sending another $35 billion.

To be explicit, that $35 billion was rumored to be contingent on OpenAI either going public or reaching AGI, though all that was said in the funding announcement was that it was contingent on “certain conditions being met.”

Nevertheless, Amazon didn’t decide to send $35 billion out of the goodness of its heart, or because it thought OpenAI was such a wonderful company — if I had to guess, it’s because OpenAI needed that money to pay for its compute costs, an estimated $9 billion of which flow through Amazon Web Services.

The fact that OpenAI needed $35 billion mere months after receiving at least $40 billion (and barely a month after getting another $10 billion from SoftBank) suggests that either compute pre-payment costs are brutal or OpenAI is absolutely annihilating cash at a rate unforeseen in the history of capitalism.

Whatever the reason, OpenAI clearly needs tens of billions of dollars every few months to keep up with its costs, and will only need more money as it “grows” — by which I mean has to pre-pay for compute costs for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Oracle, and Cerebras.

While it’s foolhardy to say when OpenAI might collapse (don’t I know it!) its collapse will come from the most obvious place — when it’s required to pony up a bunch of money without a means of raising more funding.

When you take a step back, OpenAI has had to raise funding near-perpetually since its $6.6 billion round closed in October 2024 on top of a $4.4 billion credit facility. On December 27 2024, OpenAI would say in a blog post that it needed “more capital than it imagined,” and would begin talks a mere month later in January 2025 to raise another round of $40 billion that would “close” on March 31 2025, though it would only raise $10 billion at first from SoftBank (with $2.5 billion of that from a syndicated group of investors).

Five months later in August 2025, OpenAI would raise another $8.3 billion “as part of” the round from a group of venture capitalists and asset managers, sell another $6.6 billion of internally-held shares to investors in October 2025, and by the middle of December 2025 was already rumoured to be raising another $100 billion, just before getting another $22.5 billion from SoftBank on December 31 2025.

While we know OpenAI ended 2025 with about $25 billion in cash, The Information was able to update us that it had around $73 billion in cash and “marketable securities” at the end of Q1 2026, which likely includes at least $35 billion from Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank, though for whatever reason the reporter refused to break out the cash part. Nevertheless, this means that OpenAI’s actual cash position looked better only by virtue of an influx of capital, and whatever happened to the company in Q2 2026 meant it needed another $45 billion (Amazon plus SoftBank, and maybe another $10 billion from NVIDIA, as it’s unclear how that whole thing was amortized).

What I’m getting at is that at some point in the next three months, OpenAI is going to need more money, likely tens of billions of dollars, especially as it enters new fiscal years for Google, Amazon, and CoreWeave, all three of which will likely require up-front payments for capacity that OpenAI does not have.

And, as I’ve repeatedly said, OpenAI needs to keep raising money because its costs increase with its revenues, and it has no clear path to either reducing them or increasing prices, as it found when it (and Anthropic) moved enterprise customers onto accounts that required them to pay the actual cost of their AI services.

None of this has much to do with my feelings about AI, and far more to do with basic mathematics. OpenAI has no economies of scale, it’s horribly-unprofitable, and does not have a stable business. This naturally means that it has to continually raise capital, except raising further capital is going to be difficult, based on the sheer amounts it needs, the dwindling funds available for it to raise, its already-inflated valuation, and the fact that it’s way behind a competitor facing exactly the same problems.

OpenAI has promised the impossible, and built a company that only makes sense if you’re willing to ignore the worst economics in the history of capitalism. Its future is dependent on raising over a hundred billion dollars a year in one of the worst funding climates in history. Its revenues are slowing, its competitor (and there’s really only one) has outpaced it (all while slowing itself), and its CEO is one of the single-worst spokespeople in history.

However you may feel, it’s impossible to argue with the logic that OpenAI is going to need more money by the end of the year — likely tens of billions of dollars — and that money will have to come from somewhere. It could be from Google, or Amazon, or even Meta. It could be from SpaceX, though Musk would have to hold his nose a little. It could be from Microsoft. It could be from a last gasp telethon of venture capitalists coming together to prop it up one last time.

But it’s gotta come from somewhere.

And at some point, OpenAI will simply not be able to pay its bills, or more precisely, it will have to hand over money to somebody who will not accept equity or IOUs in return.

Whoever it is that refuses that deal will be the one that pulls the trigger, and sends OpenAI’s body to the glue factory.

What Would OpenAI’s Death Look Like? Sidenote: I want to be clear that this is all speculation. The world is chaotic, the future is uncertain, etc.

So, as much as I have talked about OpenAI’s death, its apocalypse could arrive in many different forms, but likely starts (as I just said) with it someone asking OpenAI for some real, non-circular dollars, only for Sam Altman to look at them like this:

But the first place to look for the end is OpenAI’s revenue growth. To compete with Anthropic, it will have to hit $60 billion in annualized revenue (I’m so fucking tired of annualized revenues) within the next three months. The first domino to fall will be them either missing this target or seeing revenues regress — if they haven’t already done so, of course, given that OpenAI measures run rate based entirely on a hand-selected four-week-long period.

All that it takes is a little stank of regression for the market to get nervous.

It’s inevitable, at this point, that both Anthropic and OpenAI’s revenue growth slows, if only because both of them have only got this far through a combination of subsidized subscriptions and companies burning millions on token-maxxing initiatives that will have petered out by the end of the year. OpenAI has spent a little over a year trying to play catch-up on the enterprise — a strategy led by now-departed COO Brad Lightcap — only to find that customers are becoming cost-conscious at exactly the time they need to be spending more. To make matters worse, Ramp found that customers have been slow to adopt Anthropic’s more-expensive “Fable” model because of the price, meaning there’s effectively no way to jack up prices.

I imagine Anthropic’s interest in bumrushing for a September IPO is an attempt to avoid investors seeing post-tokenmaxxing deceleration. In doing so, it’ll put OpenAI in a brutal position of having to defend itself against both its own and Anthropic’s economics at the same time.

So, the thing to watch out for is any sign of deceleration, which could mean outright “run rates have dropped,” to lower burn on OpenRouter, to more price cuts, to any kind of attempts by OpenAI to offer discounted tokens if bought in bulk.

Then, at some point, the money will stop flowing to somebody.

The problem about guessing who that might be is how much of the AI bubble is held up by OpenAI’s revenues. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all have vested interests — literally and figuratively — in at least appearing to get paid by OpenAI, which means they’re likely work with it on deferred payments and/or equity shares in trade, likely instituting some sort of bastardization of the already-problematic “payment-in-kind” system used by private credit when it can’t afford it loans.

CoreWeave could be a place to look, with its largest customers being Microsoft (for OpenAI), OpenAI, NVIDIA, Google (for OpenAI), and Anthropic. While Microsoft and Google are unlikely to stop paying their bills due to OpenAI lacking the cash, OpenAI is allowed to pay its bills Net 360, meaning that if CoreWeave’s cashflow suddenly starts sagging despite revenues growing, it’s potentially because of Sam Altman stapling IOUs to Michael Intrator’s car along with a note that says “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.”

Cerebras — which gets somewhere between 50% and 70% of its revenues from its OpenAI contract — would be another place to look. If revenues (or cashflows) fail to materialize, it could be another sign that OpenAI is unable to pay its bills.

Other obvious signs would involve changes in guidance across any major hyperscaler, especially Oracle, Microsoft, Google or Amazon — specifically language suggesting that OpenAI’s revenue either isn’t real or isn’t arriving.

I also, to be clear, expect some sort of fundraising, likely heavily-funded by asset managers, with the potential for NVIDIA to break its pledge and invest again as a means of keeping the party going. Despite OpenAI’s lousy financial condition, its existence is critical to the entire AI industry, representing the majority of compute demand across effectively every provider, which will mean everybody will probably try and chuck a few dollars its way.

This could take the form of a suicide round (valuing it at or above the $965 billion valuation from Anthropic’s Series G round) or a brutal downround of around $800 billion, justified as ‘technically higher’ than the $730 billion pre-money valuation it got when NVIDIA, Amazon and SoftBank last invested.

I could also see it taking a doomed run at a public offering — especially if Altman somehow pushes out CFO Sarah Friar, who had previously said it wasn’t ready for IPO and got rewarded for her honesty by being made to report to “CEO of Applications” Fiji Simo, who left the company in July due to medical issues but for whatever reason remains active behind the scenes, per the FT.

Going public is a terrible, awful decision, which is why I’m increasingly-confident that Altman would consider it, especially if there’s demand for liquidity from investors. OpenAI, despite its prominent in the industry and load-bearing compute spend, is in a desperate and untenable position made worse by a competitor that worked out how to swindle enterprise customers that don’t know how to measure their token spend at a much-larger scale, and without something completely-unexpected, it’s unclear how it pulls itself out.

When things get rough, expect Altman to make comments about the challenges of building the future, criticizing those who are “endlessly negative” about AI and set "unrealistic expectations” from a man who said that OpenAI is close to creating a genie that can grant any wish. He will blame everybody — critics, the financial markets, journalists, ex-employees, Elon Musk, Dario Amodei, counterparties that “don’t understand what innovation demands,” venture capitalists, Twitter posters, and basically anybody other than Sam Altman, the guy who made hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of commitments to the largest companies in the world with little or no plan as to how he might do so.

Sidenote: I am not engaging with stuff about government bailouts or nationalization, because I think both are intellectual crutches that exist to avoid thinking about truly chaotic events. OpenAI may get a government lifeline, it may get the ability to raise a loan from the government, or Trump may do absolutely nothing, as midterms are coming up and his approval rating is in the shitter.

No, these data centers are not all part of some big, secret surveillance state. No, there is not some mysterious $150 billion bailout. Every time you choose to believe this you are attempting to side with the wealthy, assuming they all have some brilliant plan they’ve formed with their magnificent brains, when in reality they’re all obsessed with growth and thought AI was the next big growth thing. Reality is far more depressing — the rich and powerful are as stupid (or stupider) than a regular person, they just got lucky.

OpenAI’s actual death could take a few forms, each of them fairly destructive.

Microsoft Absorbs OpenAI

In the event this happened, Microsoft’s first move would be to cancel effectively all cloud contracts that OpenAI has, and have to restate guidance to remove the $250 billion in “incremental Azure spend” it promised. There isn’t a chance in Hell that Satya (if he’s allowed to stay) is going to give Google, Oracle or Amazon hundreds of billions of dollars, even if it means taking massive impairments on GPUs.

In this scenario, Microsoft would potentially strip back (or entirely eliminate) the free ChatGPT product, and likely either tighten rate limits or move everybody on a ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscription to token-based billing, much as it did with GitHub Copilot in June.

OpenAI Is Allowed To Die, And Altman Becomes The Sacrificial Lamb For The AI Bubble

While I imagine some rescue package is pulled together, OpenAI could simply be allowed to run out of money, short-changing nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of compute contracts, killing CoreWeave, Cerebras, and anyone else reliant on its income. Its customers would be given API keys that flow to Microsoft AI Foundry, Amazon Bedrock and Google Vertex, and be told that there would be little or no further development or training of OpenAI’s models.

This situation, while obviously destructive for the entire industry, would give everybody a scapegoat. Who made all the promises? Sam Altman. Who ran a shitty company into the ground? Sam Altman. Who misled everyone into believing that there’d be infinite demand for compute? Sam Altman. Stories will leak that OpenAI was “not consistently candid” with its financial condition with partners, allowing everybody to reframe a trillion-plus dollars in waste as the result of one egregious con artist.

To be clear, the person to blame is Satya Nadella. He’s the one that made the initial investment, bought all the GPUs, and then kept buying them the second that ChatGPT took off. He’s the one that’s misled investors about the concentration of Microsoft’s AI revenue. If there’s an opportunity for him to lump all of the blame on Altman, he’ll take it, as will Jensen Huang, Andy Jassy, and Sundar Pichai, even if he’s relatively quiet about OpenAI’s billions in contributions to Google Cloud.

At 70% of Microsoft’s AI revenues largely from its tens of billions of dollars’ worth of compute spend, OpenAI will represent a material drop in hyperscaler revenues, and somebody will have to be blamed. It won’t matter that Anthropic is just as unprofitable or made hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of promises it also can’t keep. OpenAI will make a fitting punching bag, a well-deserved one.

Anthropic and OpenAI Merge

I know, I know. Sam and Dario won’t even hold hands at an event. They hate each other. They both are vacuous psuedo-intellectuals desperate for attention.

Yet in a moment of desperation, OpenAI could turn to Anthropic for a lifeline — a choice merger that would pump both of their bags, all while allowing Altman and his cronies to escape blame. The united entity would likely be worth over $2 trillion, if only because of its combined customer base and theoretical “reach,” even if thinking about that for even a second makes it sound so unfathomably stupid, as said “reach” would come with multiplicative financial issues stemming from OpenAI’s lousy economics meshing with the equally-crap numbers underlying Anthropic.

That being said, in a desperate moment, this unity could also justify further investment from hyperscalers, venture capitalists and asset managers, giving them all something to point money at and say “this is the future of computing.”

I think it’s very unlikely this happens, and if it does, it would be ruinous for everybody involved. Neither of these companies make any kind of economic sense to anyone outside of the recently-concussed and AI boosters with dichromatic vision. Combining them would only create a much larger, uglier problem — one that would carry with it the very same problems that both companies have, compounded by the expectation that it would become the literal savior of the entire tech industry.

OpenAI’s Future Relies On The Impossible

The following is an objective list of what OpenAI has to do by 2030:

Reach $284 billion in annual revenue.Pay $800 billion or more in compute obligations.In doing so, OpenAI must become one of the largest customers of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, all at the same time, and continue to grow its spend.Become profitable. OpenAI lost $20.9 billion in 2025.If you are going to look at this and say “actually it didn’t” because of its Enrontastic accounting treatment, I also need to warn you — that identical guy in the bathroom is actually a thing called a “mirror,” a reflective surface that is showing you a reflection of you, not another person who is dressed like you and copies everything you do. I can’t imagine how scared you’ve been, and hope this has helped. As of Q1 2026, it has a non-GAAP operating margin of negative 122%.

OpenAI is currently “approaching” $40 billion in annualized revenue, at precisely the time it needs to be accelerating. This company needs to leave 2026 at somewhere in the region of $75 billion in annualized revenue to have even a snowball’s chance of paying its ridiculous compute costs, and even then I’m not sure how it possible keeps up with the (at least) $146 billion in compute bills it’s got coming up.

It’s time for everybody to start having a real, meaningful conversation about what happens if OpenAI dies. This company has remained economically unstable since I started writing about it in November 2023, and while I might have underestimated its staying power, nothing has changed about my larger thesis that this company is headed for perdition, leaving its counterparties unpaid and alone with the consequences to follow.

Said consequences, as I outlined in the OpenAI Bubble, are very, very serious, representing an existential threat to SoftBank, one of the largest companies on the Japanese stock market, and its collapse will guarantee massive changes to the guidance of some of the largest companies in the world. There is a very real scenario in which nobody left with OpenAI stock is able to reach a liquidity event, which means the tens of billions of dollars of venture capital will remain unlocked and zeroed out unless it can go public, which is increasingly-unlikely.

It is no longer rational or reasonable to avoid discussing what happens if OpenAI dies. It’s a situation that should be on the mind of every journalist, analyst and investor, even if they don’t think it’s certain, because OpenAI is both horrendously unprofitable and has made commitments so significant that they now represent at least 20% of hyperscaler cloud revenues in the coming years, if not more like 30% to 40%.

It is actively irresponsible to ignore this situation any longer, and I encourage my peers, analysts, journalists, economists and investors to start seriously considering the likelihood and ramifications of the death of OpenAI.

For me to be wrong, in the space of three years OpenAI will have to become a company with annual revenues higher than Meta ($200 billion, versus projections of $284 billion in revenue in 2030) and meet obligations ($800 billion+) 27% larger than the combined revenues of NVIDIA ($215.9 billion), TSMC ($122 billion) and Samsung ($270 billion).

OpenAI doesn’t have to be illegal to be dangerous. Every time consent is manufactured for the astonishing waste and unrealistic promises of Sam Altman, companies further leverage themselves in an attempt to capture its theoretical value, and investors are further manipulated into supporting an industry almost-entirely founded on its compute spend.

As I discussed in the OpenAI Bubble, its collapse will have now-unavoidable economic consequences. The death of SoftBank is a very real possibility. The likelihood of the vast majority of AI investments going to zero is much, much higher than anyone wants to think about, at a time when, per Bloomberg, a venture capital firm that returns thirty centers on the dollar is considered an above-top-five performer. Oracle will collapse without OpenAI’s revenue.

To not actively and meaningfully discuss the potential for OpenAI to collapse is actively irresponsible. To act like there are not significant, existential problems with this company’s economics is to intentionally avoid reality, and whoever is on the receiving end of said ignorance deserves better, be they an investor reading your analyst note or a reader burdened with incomplete journalism.

What follows may be an Enron-Lehman Brothers hybrid, one that leaves unbelievable destruction in its wake, an avoidable systemic risk empowered and enabled by a kneecapped media industry and sell-side analysts incapable of seeing further than two quarters in the future.

In the end, there is no avoiding the damage that OpenAI’s collapse will create. The time to do that was in 2024, before it made all those commitments, and raised so much more money. Once it did so, it led the entire industry to believe that there was significant demand for AI, when all that was happening was Sam Altman and Dario Amodei were taking up every ounce of compute capacity, paid for with equity investments from the companies they bought it from, an illusion created by men driven mad by their desperation for hypergrowth.

However you feel about my work, I am begging you to take even the prospect of OpenAI’s collapse seriously, and prepare accordingly.

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