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  • Good morning John

  • Wow! That's what my voice sounds like.

  • (Imitating Don LaFontaine) In a world...

  • ...Where a guy...

  • ...Has to make a video blog even though he was up quite late

  • and then his baby was up quite early...

  • (Normal voice) He makes a video blog.

  • Earlier this week, Lauren Lapkus, uh, tweeted the following:

  • "Older siblings are the original influencers. When I was little,

  • my brother said sausage pizza was gross and I didn't eat it again for 20 years."

  • Which was apparently,

  • 'hashtag relatable' for a lot of people, including me.

  • I quote-tweeted this, and I said,

  • "My older brother thought that it was a good idea to make video blogs!"

  • and,

  • Like, I wanna emphasize that that's not an exaggeration.

  • There's this thing about older siblings,

  • and I don't know if this is always the case, but it seems

  • Lauren's tweet and my experience combinedLike, there's something about this relationship

  • that creates this absolute clarity and confidence

  • in the correctness of, like, the taste-making ability

  • of this child. And it's kind of a remarkable responsibility for a child to have.

  • I don't expect children to live up to this responsibility.

  • Of course, sometimes your older sibling is into super weird or dumb stuff, like smoking cigarettes

  • and reading Ulysses for fun

  • John, for the most part, and especially when it comes to musicwhich, I find

  • this weird, 'cause you're not... particularly musical.

  • That's okay to say, I think

  • You have extremely good taste in music.

  • Like, all of the bands you have gotten me into over the years

  • have been way better than, like, what would be sort of a random selection.

  • I can literally remember the first time that you and Matt Brown brought

  • Flood, the They Might Be Giants album, into the house and put it in Dad's, like,

  • giganto CD player. But, like, if that had been a

  • Chumbawumba CD, I probably

  • would have learned every word to every song in the album,

  • and I would have like, plumbed the depths of Chumbawumba's

  • backlog of stuff—I don't know if that exists.

  • I don't know anything, maybe Chumbawumba's great.

  • I apologize to Chumbawumba fans and also to Chumbawumba.

  • But my sense is that I probably wouldn't have been able to

  • cultivate like a decades-long love affair

  • with Chumbawumba if that's what you'd brought into my life.

  • I'm in Portland, Oregon right now,

  • where I have traveled with my wife and child to go see

  • probably the 12th They Might Be Giants show of my life. For those who don't know,

  • They Might Be Giants is a weird, artsy, nerdy

  • rock band with generally opaque

  • but like, still meaningful lyrics, and the musical style

  • that is somehow extremely cohesive without hardly

  • ever sounding like itself. So part of me thinks

  • that I am super into They Might Be Giants because it's what

  • nerdy guys my age are supposed to be into? Like it's just

  • sort of the thing that happens to people like me?

  • But I'm honestly more interested in listening to my gut here,

  • and my gut tells me that there's something good about this band!

  • And the more and deeper I listen to any song or album,

  • I just keep finding layers of interestingness there.

  • It gives me this music with the goal of

  • like, creating something simple to enjoy that

  • has a lot of complexity within it. And they are

  • still releasing new, very good albums.

  • They're in their late fifties, and I'm sure financially stable,

  • but they're still learning new instruments, and

  • creating new ways of doing the thing that they do,

  • still touring, still making people happy.

  • There's something in it that lacks pretension, that leans into

  • enthusiasm and effort,

  • that's kindamaybe infected my entire life?

  • And that infection started with something you brought into our house.

  • I think the self-awareness and honesty of this music and the

  • persona of this band is what gives it such longevity.

  • It was never trying to be anything but what it was,

  • but it was always trying to be interesting and good, which has allowed

  • it to be a lifelong gift for me to enjoy.

  • And also to be inspired by.

  • I know that you didn't know, that you were giving me that, but thank you anyway.

  • I wish everyone was so lucky to have such good

  • and nerdy tastemakers in their lives when they were growing up.

  • John, I'll see you on Tuesday.

  • (clapping and drumbeat, crowd singing to Chumbawumba's "Tubthumping")

Good morning John

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