Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away via OPE!’s homepage.
Hey now, welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). Once a week, I talk about one specific “thing.” I also have a podcast where I’m reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake one sentence at a time, and a blog analyzing each week’s Billboard Hot 100 updates. Follow me on X, Bluesky, or Threads for song recommendations; I find all three silly. Follow me on Instagram for memes. All typos are intentional.
Well, hello there. How are you?
This will make more sense once you see the movie.
One Battle After Another.
What an awesome movie.
What an awesome time at the movies.
I’m hot and cold on Paul Thomas Anderson—I’ve seen The Master dozens of times and still think only half of it is coherent—but this was the PTA movie I loved the most on first watch.
We’ll see if this movie will stand the test of time.
I saw it last week and am seeing it again today; I think it will.
The entire cast deserves Oscar nominations.
Weirdly, his funniest movie?
One of the best California movies ever made—which is more interesting and weird if you live here and catch what PTA is showing. (This movie doesn’t take place in SoCal.)
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away via OPE!’s homepage.
Hey now, welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). Once a week, I talk about one specific “thing.” I also have a podcast where I’m reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake one sentence at a time, and a blog analyzing each week’s Billboard Hot 100 updates. Follow me on X, Bluesky, or Threads for song recommendations; I find all three silly. Follow me on Instagram for memes. All typos are intentional.
Well, hello there. How are you?
What a twat.
My sources and colleagues in the know had hinted for weeks that Kennedy and Trump would make this connection between Tylenol and autism official, so I wasn’t surprised by all this week’s hoopla. This conspiracy is also not totally new.
If anything, this week further validated what my colleagues and I have been trying to say forever.
It doesn’t feel great to be right.
I wrote a lot about RFK Jr. in an old newsletter that was just for paid subscribers, published around the time he was nominated for the HHS position he currently holds.
Here are some relevant quotes from that newsletter, slightly edited for clarity:
I’m a writer on the autism spectrum, though I rarely write about it in this newsletter or for any of my freelance publications.
I have my own reasons for not writing about it much in public. I made an exception a few years ago when for New York Magazine, I wrote about being a culture critic on the spectrum and watching pop culture’s promising yet slow evolution of more nuanced depictions of autism, specifically for adults, and the thorny push-and-pull between the quiet power of popular works of art that helps us gain empathy (aka the ideal kind of representation that adds much to everyone and doesn’t take away anything from anybody) versus the dangers and lingering effects of misguided, or just lazy or mean-spirited, depictions of historically not-well-treated folks (aka fuck Rain Man, even though I understand why it was made and why it felt groundbreaking at the time).
I won’t rehash all those points here; here’s my feature link if you’d like to read all my thoughts on these topics.
I’m bringing all this up because Trump recently announced his nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Health and Human Services. It’s freaking me out in a way I was not expecting. And I felt stuck. I didn’t know how to write about it. Until now, I think.
In general, I don’t talk about politics too much in this music-focused newsletter. I think most of you can guess where I land on Trump. Essentially, I’m not anti-conservative, but I can’t stand MAGA. There’s also a difference between “I’m apolitical” vs “I pick and choose the hills I die on.” I subscribe to the latter.
Autism and disabilities are some of those hills. And I bring up ASAN (the Autistic Self Advocacy Network) because their official statement from last week summed up everything I wanted to say about RFKJ’s potential impact and the complicated, mostly thorny baggage that comes from a man whom I would describe as a villain of folks in my world, a comparison that makes more sense after reading the ASAN link.
It’s a doom and gloom feeling I’ve had for many years, which has really crystallized in the past few weeks. It’s something I still struggle to talk about with other people, especially my friends and family who might mean well yet don’t seem as interested in my corner of the autism world that doesn’t directly affect them.
It’s the same problem of indifference that gets in the way of most progress: If it’s not my problem, it’s not a problem.
Ever since the outcome of this most recent election, I was getting nervous, because I felt stuck not knowing how to talk, or even write about, this election and how much I’ve been freaking out over a very hyper-specific reason, and in a way I think would feel most effective and processed. Now, I’m thankful to ASAN for creating a handy link that is easy to share.
(ASAN usually does good work; I highly recommend their newsletter if you’re curious to learn about the biggest news and updates related to this world.)
It feels like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. And now the best thing I can do right now is to pass along the right message that doesn’t need more words from me.
I do plan on writing more about autism in the future. For now, if you care at all about what I’m about, and I’m assuming you at least are curious about my thoughts—though I also like the idea of someone hate-subscribing to OPE!—I highly encourage you to check out the statement and keep these thoughts in mind as we see if this nomination goes through.
I have no illusion that sharing these words will stop the nomination, and I have no interest in changing your mind if you’re not open to reconsidering any preconceived notions. However, I do ask for your time and attention; I take your time and attention seriously, so I hope you return the favor.
This week, I also published a rare LinkedIn post, adding some new thoughts that follow:
The spectrum can be a weird, lonely place.
As it’s been the case for so long, myself and a lot of my ASD friends and colleagues still silently struggle to articulate what makes all this misinformation so dangerous to folks who are indifferent (”If it’s not my problem, it must not be ~a~ problem”), folks who actively benefit from said misinformation (e.g., RFK Jr. earning literal millions of dollars as the founder and former chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit known for their anti-vaccine campaigns), or folks who are so afraid of people who act and process the world differently that they consider neurodiversity a death sentence, or something to “fix.”
It’s hard to know that the people you’d most like to reach and connect with in the name of peace and understanding are the ones quickest to shut you out.
I’m still struggling with that last sentence. It’s also why I don’t talk about this stuff often online or even in public, among other reasons. The very people I’d like to talk to about their fears of autism and where they come from probably aren’t going to change their minds by reading one of my tweets or newsletters. At this point, the infrastructure works too well. Too many politicians, content creators, and influencers, especially on TikTok, are making actual money from the discourse that comes from all this noise.
It’s the smoke theory of propaganda, playing out in real time. Someone creates smoke (bad agents who present misinformation) until people become scared of that smoke—and what it could imply—and someone starts a fire (followers of said bad agents act upon the misinformation that causes the desired response). In the end, a bunch of people get burned, and the bad agents can claim no responsibility; they can say that their smoke didn’t cause any literal fire.
It’s the oldest trick in the book.
That doesn’t make it any less annoying.
Still, it does help to talk about it in some way, thus this newsletter. And I appreciate anyone who’s reached out. You’re the best.
I’m wrapping up Hollow Knight: Silking, a wonderful game with incredible music that I probably won’t finish due to its increasing difficulty, and getting ready for next week’s remake of my favorite game of all time: Final Fantasy Tactics. For me, this is the gold standard for strategy gaming. Check it out if you have any remote interest in Final Fantasy or RPGs. I think IGN’s review of the remake does a good job breaking everything down. (I’m aware that IGN reviews are easy to make fun of; they still get it right more times than not, especially if you’re just looking for a clear “Should I buy this?” recommendation.)
And that’s it. See you next time.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away via OPE!’s homepage.
Hey now, welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). Once a week, I talk about one specific “thing.” I also have a podcast (where I’m reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake one sentence at a time) and a blog analyzing each week’s Billboard Hot 100 updates. Follow me on X, Bluesky, or Threads for song recommendations; I find all three silly. Follow me on Instagram for memes. All typos are intentional.
Well, hello there. How are you?
In my early 30s, I read, and then annually reread, Brian Eno’s published diary, A Year with Swollen Appendices, released in 1996, in which Eno kept a diary tracking his everyday life throughout 1995, which was a relatively quiet year for Eno.
I always keep my 25th anniversary copy by my bedside or writing desk.
It’s an amazing, albeit quasi self-aware look into one year of a beloved artist in middle age. (Eno admits in his introduction that he decided to publish his diary a little over halfway through the year.) Eno turned 47 in 1995, still working and in demand by his fans but not quite the bellwether he once was; the time when “trailblazing musician” turned into “still curious yet grumpy statesman.”
I’m not projecting an unfair image of a washed Eno onto him either. This is from his May 15th entry regarding his birthday:
“Today I am 47 — Christ, that does seem old to me … I’m always feeling that I’ve spent most of my life getting ready for something, honing skills and sensibilities for … what? I don’t mean to convey a sense of hopelessness here — I’m certainly not depressed or anything like that — but there is a feeling that things could just drift on and on like this: me being quite successful and accruing the respeect of sheer inertia — being praised for still being there, while somehow not exploring the extent of my interests and intellect.”
Now, I’d like to have an inch of Eno’s success — this passage gives strong “Jerry Seinfeld’s joking about how life sucks” energy. Still, it’s inspiring to me to read private journals from a creative icon I’d consider “successful” and realize that he, too, felt a sense of malaise and uncertainty with his own life and work.
My favorite passage in the diary further explores this idea. It’s written towards the end of the book as one of the titular appendices, talking about a low point in his life as a young man.
The appendix section is titled “Into the Abyss”:
“After several months of work, I slowly grind down and it all starts to seem like ‘my job’. I do it, and I probably don’t do it too badly, but I find myself working entirely from the momentum of deadlines and commitments, as though the ideas are not springing forth but being painfully squeezed out. At the back of my mind, unadmitted to, are some nasty thoughts swimming about in the darkness. They whisper things like: ‘You’ve had it’ and ‘You’re out of steam.’
Experience has shown me that, when I reach this point, all the distractions I can muster are only postponements. It’s time to face up to total, unmitigated despair.
I sometimes do this by going alone on a ‘holiday’ – though that word scarcely conveys the crashing tedium involved, for I usually choose somewhere uneventful, take nothing with me, and then rely on the horror of my own company to drive me rapidly to the edge of the abyss.
It goes like this: me thinking, ‘What’s it all for?/ What’s the bloody point?/ I haven’t done anything I like and I don’t have a clue what to do next/ I’m a completely empty shell.’ This lasts two days or so, and is the closest I ever get to depression. Then I suddenly notice – apropos of something very minor, like the way a plane crosses the sky, or the smell of trees, or the light in the early evening, or remembering one of my brother’s jokes – that I am thoroughly enjoying myself and completely, utterly glad to be alive. Not one of the questions I asked myself has been answered. Instead, like all good philosophical questions, they’ve just ceased to matter.
I think the process involves reaching the point of not trying any more to dig inside, but just letting go, ceding control, saying to myself, ‘I am utterly pathetic, so I might as well give up.’ And at the point of giving up I’m suddenly alive again. It’s like jumping resignedly into the abyss and discovering that you can just drift dreamily on air currents.
I think I got this idea from Robert Fripp. I was in New York in 1978, living in a hotel, with bronchitis, and feeling very miserable. I met up with him one day and, on the subway, told him how down I was and that I felt like a completely empty shell.
‘But, Captain,’ he said (he always called me this), ‘don’t you realize that all over North America people are shelling out enormous fortunes to feel the same way?’ I nearly fell on the tracks laughing, and felt wonderful for the next six months. Peter Schmidt used to call that feeling Idiot Glee.
This feeling, of sheer mad joy at the world, is ageless. It’s the fresh, clear stream at the bottom of the abyss.
Joy is energy.“
Brilliant.
This week’s link worth clicking:
This has now become my most-watched YouTube video ever. It’s a masterpiece. It’s Steak Bentley’s video essay from 2018: “Metal Gear Solid 4 Was a Mistake.” Might not make sense for anyone who’s never played a Metal Gear Solid game. For everyone else, enjoy.
And that’s it. See you next time.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away via OPE!’s homepage.
Well, hello there. How are you?
First off, since I was out last week:
“UCLA?”
“Yes, every day.”
The Naked Gun reboot.
What a wonderful film.
The hardest I’ve laughed in a theater.
I ugly cried.
I saw it on a Friday and saw it again on Saturday.
Crab people. Ronald. Squishy trash cans. Scatting. That snowman montage. All that coffee. A dirty oven. Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago. Chili dogs. Body-cams. “Amish Paradise.”
Go see it, folks.
Elsewhere, this week on the OPE! podcast, I talked about KPop Demon Hunters and Horses 4k.
But enough about all that. Here are this week’s best links and songs …
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK / WHAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
ASAN’s recent statements regarding some troubling new health policies. (For those new to OPE!: Whenever someone asks me how I feel about any autism news, I direct them to ASAN’s monthly newsletter. They do a great job articulating a lot of what’s going on in the world. For example, whereas I would simply tell you that “RFK Jr. is a cunt,” which would make me feel good in the moment but would not answer your question, ASAN will calmly explain the bogus science he’s relying on and what he’s pushing onto health workers. ASAN is a great resource; we’re better off with it. Check it out.)
Related: Information is Beautiful summed up some debunked “vaccines cause autism” myths and studies in one helpful page.
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away here.
Well, hello there. How are you?
This week on the OPE! podcast: I talked about Alex Warren and Ravyn Lenae. Listen and watch below.
It’s done! For now. Existing sections have been updated based on new reader feedback (thanks, ya’ll) and some tightening of the longer sections. Stay tuned for more, as always.
Anyway.
This Week: Ozzy
What sad news. I already miss him. I don’t have a lot to add to all the lovely memorials that have been written and shared throughout this week. He was great. He was an amazing singer—weirdly underrated at this point? What a performer. What a rockstar.
But enough about all that. Here are this week’s best links and songs …
Hey now, OPE! is supported by readers like you. And caffeine. Consider becoming a paying subscriber to fuel my coffee fund. It’s like getting a really tasty cup of coffee each month with me. You’ll also get access to some exclusive goodies.
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK / WHAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
I have mixed feelings on Jon Stewart, but Stewart talking about Colbert’s cancellation was awesome (I’m linking the whole 30-minute segment because he does a little warm-up that feels silly and distracting at first … but then sets him up to go off in a way that makes me miss watching The Daily Show every night as a young teen)
Speaking of comedy that I don’t keep in touch with anymore, but which now feels weirdly dangerous: South Park’s Trump PSA (I didn’t have “my jaw dropping while watching a South Park episode in 2025” on my bingo card)
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away here.
Well, hello there. How are you?
This week, NPR ran a feature about the recorder, and I was one of the many folks interviewed to discuss how great and special this musical instrument is, especially for accessible music education. I hope you read it.
Also, the OPE! podcast is back for season two. New episodes to run on Thursdays for now. This week, I talk about Alex G. Here’s the Apple podcast link:
This week, I added the rest of the sections that are also one-to-one to the original Strunk and White Elements of Style book:
Elementary Principles of AI Interaction (the art of turning AI chats into helpful conversations … still with boundaries, because it’s still just code)
A Few Matters of AI Form (e.g., assume everything you put into AI can be read and published by someone on the internet)
AI Concepts Commonly Misunderstood (AI vs. Machine Learning)
An Approach to AI Philosophy (again, be a person)
Stay tuned for more, as always.
Anyway.
This Week: The email pitch template I start with when I’m reaching out to publications for stories
This is a (very) simplified outline that’s one of many parts of a lecture I give every year to writing and journalism students at the University of Virginia with friend-of-the-newsletter and all-star human being Michelle (hi, Michelle).
Of course, there are several ways you can pitch someone. Some of my colleagues might send very different kinds of pitches. That’s cool. There’s no single “right” way to do this. We call it the 6-point pitch because most good pitches, regardless of format or content, usually hit at these six specific points.
Here’s our (simplified) 6-point pitch. The half sentence is a new addition by yours truly.
An attention-grabbing lede / an overarching thesis on what the subject is and why it’s so important
A good lede is hard to find and write, so do the hard part first. Start your pitch with how you think you can kick off your article and grab people’s attention. This sentence should immediately tell the editor why they should care … and more importantly, why they should keep reading your pitch.
Bad: There’s this band called Mr. Farty Pants that I think is pretty interesting.
Better: Indie rock band Mr. Farty Pants has quietly become one of the most innovative acts in the post-punk revival, crafting politically charged anthems that blend 90s nostalgia with urgent commentary on Gen Z’s climate anxiety.
Something surprising
Jump scare! Extend your lede with a take, angle, or piece of information that separates you from every other mediocre writer, including me. Give a concrete hook with actual numbers or data. Make sure this is actually surprising and verifiable, too.
Bad: Mr. Farty Pants have been working really, really hard and deserve more recognition.
Better: Despite having no major label backing, Mr. Farty Pants’s latest album ‘Static Futures’ has been streamed over 50 million times, with their track ‘Borrowed Time’ becoming an unexpected TikTok phenomenon among climate activists.
A connection to how your reporting will advance the story for readers of this specific outlet / mention the specific section and format where this story will live, and comparable features
The key is “for readers of this specific outlet.” Show that you actually read the publication, understand the audience, and that you’re not just sending a mass pitch. The same story is going to read differently in The Atlantic compared to The New Yorker, for example. Make sure your comparable features are recent and similar; bonus points that they’re written by freelancers, too, as opposed to trying to pitch a staff writer’s column.
Bad: I think Mr. Farty Pants would be great for Rolling Stone because you guys cover music, and I think readers would love this story.
Better: This profile would fit perfectly in Rolling Stone’s ‘Artists to Watch’ section, similar to your recent feature on Mrs. Betty Betties, exploring how Mr. Farty Pants is channeling political urgency into accessible indie rock that’s resonating with young audiences.
A brief explanation of why you’re the right person to cover this story
Establishes that you’re not some random person and that you have the relevant clips and history.
Bad: I have a blog where I write about bands I like, and I’m really passionate about music journalism, and now I’m passionate about Mr. Farty Pants.
Better: I’ve covered emerging indie acts for Pitchfork and The Fader, and I’ve been following Mr. Farty Pants since their early EPs, having interviewed them for a local music blog in 2022 before their breakthrough.
Author’s note: If you’re just starting out as a writer and don’t have any bylines yet, do what I did when I had no bylines: Start a blog, write about what you want to cover, then go to the publications you want to write for and say something like, “I’ve already written about Mr. Farty Pants on my blog, and I can expand upon my coverage for you.” Sometimes, you have to create your own work in order to get more work.
Your reporting plan, story structure, and specific questions that you will explore (OK if two sentences, thus the 1.5 point in the 6-point pitch)
Tells the editor exactly what they’ll get for their money: specific scenes, questions, and story structure.
Bad: I’d ask Mr. Farty Pants about their music and their influences and what they’re working on next.
Better: I’ll structure this as an intimate band profile following Mr. Farty Pants during their upcoming studio session, interviewing each member about their creative process and political awakening. I’ll explore how they balance activism with artistry, their thoughts on social media’s role in music discovery, and how they’re navigating industry pressures while staying independent.
A news peg that explains why the story is important now
Explains why this can’t wait; convey urgency.
Bad: Music is always relevant and good bands, like Mr. Farty Pants, deserve coverage whenever.
Better: With their major festival debut at Coachella next month and growing buzz around their upcoming sophomore album, now is the perfect time to introduce Mr. Farty Pants to your readers before they break into the mainstream.
There you go.
I hope it helps.
But enough about all that. Here are this week’s best links and songs …
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK / WHAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away here.
I’m back from vacation. What a wonderful time off.
When I got back, I did a clean-up of my website, if you care to gander: https://bradygerber.com/
And before I get to this week’s mixtape, I wanted to shout out the new Blake Mills & Pino Palladino album, which was announced this morning. I was honored to be asked to write the bio for this (excellent) new album. Can’t wait for y’all to hear it.
Many of you already know this, but I do technical and UX writing when I’m not working on fiction or music writing. This explains why you may notice a decent amount of tech-related links in my weekly link round-ups.
As much as I like to make fun of AI superusers (which I continue to do so in this week’s link roundup), I do a lot of experimenting and writing on AI, mostly these days with Claude (way better than ChatGPT) and Cursor (a dream if you already have basic coding skills). (Shout-out to friend of the newsletter Sam for encouraging me to get out of my OpenAI hole and give Claude a shot.) And recently, before I went on vacation, I had a conversation with a fellow writer-who-got-into-coding-at-the-best-time-until-it-became-the-worst-time-but-now-who-knows-what-time-it-is, and the idea came up of trying to write something that could be like The Elements of Style (great books, no notes, all the haters are losers) but for using AI. I liked the idea because selfishly, I wanted an excuse to figure out how to better use, and write about, AI, since that’s increasingly what I’m being paid to do with my freelance work. Plus, I think a guide like The Elements of Style but for AI would be actually helpful. By this point, there are plenty of evergreen truths that we can fall back on even as AI evolves at a rapid pace.
Since this is inspired by The Elements of Style, I’m naturally calling it The Elements of Artificial Intelligence.
Am I the first person to write a guide like this? Absolutely not. I won’t be the last, either. Still, the first full draft is finished, and I’m quite happy with it.
I plan on adding new sections each week on my website, and I’ll briefly let y’all know the main takeaways each week.
Don’t worry: This is not turning into a weekly tech bro dispatch.
The first part, now live on my website, includes a Foreword, Introduction, and Section I: Elementary Rules of AI Usage.
Some quick takeaways:
AI is wonderful, and it sucks.
Don’t lie about your AI usage. You’re probably not good at it.
“Plausible” is not “factual.” (This is trickier than you think.)
Even if you don’t know what you want yet, it’s helpful to know and convey what you don’t want. (Aka follow the White Stripes rule; set constraints, and make a little room.)
Be a fucking person.
You—not the AI—will get blamed for using AI irresponsibly.
Enjoy.
But enough about all that. Here are this week’s best links and songs …
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK / WHAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
Writing code was never the bottleneck (or, article #7,634 on why it’s weird we’re pumping billions of dollars into AI technology addressing something that was never the ~main~ issue)
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive content. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away here.
Well, hello there. How are you?
Go Pacers. Always and forever.
Also, no newsletter next week. I’ll be spending a whole week away from my laptop. Happy 4th of July to all my fellow Americans and my non-American subscribers who have a morbid curiosity about one of our summer holidays. (Hi, Christian.)
Also, also, for my paid subscribers: Be on the lookout for a special email after the 4th of July. I have a surprise for you.
Anyway.
This Week: Obsolescence
I was doing a scan of the initial Death Stranding 2 reviews (I’m now convinced to at least check out the first game; I just picked it up), and I was struck by the subhead of Simon Parkin’s Atlantic review:
“In Death Stranding 2, players control a courier who trips over rocks, experiences sunburn, and faces his own possible obsolescence.”
That’s what 2025 feels like in so many ways. Standing exposed in the sun, waiting for something to change, getting sunburn while sitting around.
“Wow, that’s quite purple, Brady,” the voice in my head groans.
Yes.
Still, I’m having more conversations with friends and family in which no one seems to know what’s going on or what’s going to happen. Not that any of us ever knew. But it feels uncomfortably honest now. No one seems happy with where we are now. We all want something to change, yet no one is willing to change. So nothing changes. Until obsolescence comes our way.
Put that on a greeting card and smoke it.
And yeah, maybe Zohran getting elected is a sign that I’m wrong.
Hopefully I’m wrong.
Still, I’m getting a lot of blank stares.
I’m sure I’m giving them, too.
But I have to remember: I’ve been in this emotional state before with Kojima.
Famously, the first Death Stranding game, Kojima’s first big statement after his unceremonious end with the Metal Gear Solid series (you can Google that whole drama), was released in 2019 and followed a deliveryman trying to literally reconnect the United States’ Internet following a global isolating catastrophe that destroyed the world’s infracturcture. There’s also death ghosts, raindrops that make you age, phrophitical babies trapped in goo backpacks, and a lot of Monster energy drinks, but anyway. Regarding the broad strokes: What was silly and pompous upon its release turned serious and surreal just a few months later.
Once again, as he did with AI and the Internet in 2002, Kojima “called” it.
Or Kojima is just a very talented artist who’s freakishly sensitive to the frequencies of modern life, and was not trying to predict the future but instead convey the timeless feelings, worries, and fears through the lens of histoday.
Good art is less “write what you know” and more “write what you see,” and Kojima sees the world with such scary clarity of how we communicate ideas with each other. He’s got his pulse on the forces that can and will determine our futures. Still, he’s talking about how it feels to be alive today.
It’s like how critics still throw praise at Radiohead for “predicting” the 21st century with OK Computer and Kid A, when instead, they were just conveying timeless feelings through the tools of late ‘90s Brian Eno-friendly alternative rock that still resonate. Art becomes “predictive” if we can still connect with it years later. Radiohead were only concerned about today … the today of the ‘90s, or the today of 2025? Correct.
Their British rock cousins, Blur, said something similar a few years before OK Computer. The future today … it’s nothing special.
We’ll see if Death Stranding 2 earns the same “Kojima called it” praise regarding the nature of post-globalization “work” and “value,” two words we’re redefining right now in real time. We’ll see if this game resonates in the future as we continue to stare at the sun, get sunburned, watch the people who are beneifitng the most from AI and the modern job market being the same people who were already doing OK, and face a new flavor of obsolescence that our parents and our parents’ parents are not prepared to prepare us for.
That last sentence, quite the word salad.
But also, I love the word “obsolescence.”
It’s fancier than saying “obsolete.”
It’s fun to read.
It’s fun to say out loud.
It softens the blow, in a way. Like vegan ice cream.
MY FAVORITE LINKS OF THE WEEK / WHAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
But also, how new AI jobs will make humans more essential. “In freelance journalism, as in many fields where the work product is written text, you aren’t just being paid for the words you submit. You’re being paid to be responsible for them: the facts, the concepts, the fairness, the phrasing.”
The cultural decline of literary fiction. “It doesn’t matter that no white man born after 1984 has been published by The New Yorker, because I honestly doubt any serious reader of fiction could easily bring to mind a short story by any younger writer in The New Yorker at all.” The only one I can think of is “Cat People” from a few years ago, but the point stands.
White Reaper “Honestly” I was worried what would happen since they lost some key band members, but I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy this new direction
Mac DeMarco “Home” I love late-career DeMarco and the John Lennon of it all, but this is quite a boring song. Still hopeful for the new album
And that’s it. See you next time.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive weekly curation of my favorite songs and links. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away here.
Well, hello there. How are you?
I missed last week’s newsletter. Apologies. Life got in the way. That also explains why there’s no podcast this week. Hoping to set the next one up soon.
Also, yes, today is Friday, not Wednesday. That’s because …
This Week’s Thing: Newsletters
Very meta, I know, but stay with me.
I hit a few speed bumps this week in how I managed my time. New work came up. Friends came in and out of town. I’ve been spending more of my evenings and weekends out of the house. Which is great. Yet within the past few months, this newsletter began to crystallize into something that imposed a certain expectation on my life. That I had to be free for a certain number of hours and days per week to devote to this newsletter. A newsletter I still love, by the way. It’s great when I have these hours and days in the week. It’s great until that time is gone. Then it’s bad. But I don’t regret this time spent.
So something, eventually, has got to give.
Or does it?
Can it also adapt … and, like, relax a litte?
Did I learn about the concept of “taking yourself less seriously?”
Maybe.
Why are you looking at me like that.
Stop it.
See, I’m trying something new this week.
Another reason why this newsletter is free this week: As I spend more time on post-COVID Internet, I now have no idea how newsletters work, or frankly, how anything on the Internet works anymore.
Have I ever known? Maybe not. But at least I could understand the shapes and outlines of discussions held by my friends and colleagues. I knew who I was speaking to.
Now it’s just a blur of … I don’t even know? Calling it brainrot makes it sound funnier and more useful than it actually is. Outside of Instagram, where most of my actually enjoyable brainrotlives, most of this stuff is just …. stuff? And we’re still so serious about it. Stuff like viral newsletter posts titled “This is how this ends.” and it’s 30,000 words long and it’s about something vaguely interesting but not useful like an analysis on the reclaiming of The King of the Hill by The Left (or The Right or The Center or Whatever Keeps You Up At Night) and it has a dramatic lede and the rest is poorly written and it has 561 likes and it ranked No. 1 on Hacker News and it turns out that the post only cited two or three people who have actually watched King of the Hill.
No disrespect to King of the Hill, of course.
Can we bring “dislike” buttons to Substack?
Can we bring public “dislike” buttons back to YouTube?
Can we add a “This caught my attention but I found your point uninteresting or bland so I’d like my time back please” button to everything?
So, I felt confused this week, more so than usual.
I think about this newsletter’s paywall, too.
I think about the “value” of what I do as a writer, and more specifically, the value of this newsletter, with my links and mixtapes.
I think I’ve been approaching it wrong.
Not totally wrong.
But for a while, I was curious to learn and understand if the most valuable thing about what I offer as a writer, thinker, builder, and professional music listener and seeker—the “thing” you’d pay me for—was my curation. Or at least, you’d pay for my taste.
I think it’s still true.
In fact, I know it’s still true.
So many of you send very nice emails (and even tell me in person if you’re also in LA) about all the great music you discover through this newsletter.
These emails always make me smile. I always appreciate them.
And believe me: I stand by my taste.
“You have really good taste,” my mom said, in a conversation I just made up to prove my point. (Hi, Mom.)
I stand by what I offer.
But I think I’m going to rethink what “value” means, especially when it comes to the literal money spent in exchange for the content on this newsletter, or some kind of access.
More to come, of course.
And yes, for everyone this week: Please enjoy the free newsletter.
I put a lot of work into these links and tunes.
There’s a lot of bad stuff out there. I’m protecting you from all those imaginary King of the Hill thinkpieces you were never going to read anyway. I do it out of love, of course.
Happy Friday.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). This essay, originally published in my weekly newsletter, is free for all subscribers. Paying subscribers also gain access to an exclusive weekly curation of my favorite songs and links. All typos are intentional.
Get future essays sent to your inbox right away here.
Well, hello there. How are you?
Yes ‘Cers. I’m so excited for my Pacers making it to the finals. Congrats to the Knicks for a tough series and for having a great season; as a former New Yorker, I would have been happy to root for them in the finals. Onto OKC.
On this week’s podcast, I wrote about They Are Gutting a Body a Water and their new song “AMERICAN FOOD.” This band, shortened to TAGABOW, is beloved by a certain circle of unemployed music critics who credit them with helping revive shoegaze. I wouldn’t go that far, but they capture a mystique comparable to Black Country, New Road, except they don’t suck. “AMERICAN FOOD” caught me off guard. I’m not sure if I like it, but I think it’s fascinating, so I wanted to talk about it.
“I Had Some Help” is Wallen’s collaboration with Post Malone, which was the lead single off Malone’s 2024 “I’m now a country bro because Internet rap no longer hits the zeitgeist and I’d rather sell records” album F-1 Trillion, an album that feels as dangerous and seductive as a Zara cowboy hat.
I think “I Had Some Help” is a compelling song. More importantly, it showcases what makes Wallen work as a vessel for modern country radio. A Bud Light slur with the grace of a well-fitted white tank top. The feeling of getting drunk with someone who wears Carhartt jackets but, get this, has built something with power tools. A muddy Ford F150 truck that’ll get me to Sweetgreen. The confidence of a man who can wear a hat. These are the images I daydream of while listening to “I Had Some Help,” because lord knows Wallen is boring as shit to look at.
So, essentially, Morgan Wallen is great when he has a foil like Malone, or he’s pretending to be Malone, who oozes charisma and is ~just~ a little better at hiding that he’s using auto-tune. Still, Wallen makes his limited vocal range effective in the context of the song, and genre, that most values the impression of authenticity. Wallen is not a fantastic technical singer. Neither is Willie Nelson.
As much as I would like to write off Wallen as anti-woke karaoke for idiots (obviously these idiots aren’t aware that we’ve entered a golden age of conservative DEI) (I’m an idiot too, but in more interesting ways), I understand and appreciate Wallen’s appeal, as someone who likes modern country more than the average rock critic, especially a song like “I Had Some Help,” which is well-crafted. These top-line melodies are great; every instrument sounds expensive and pristine. The Nashville machine, as they say.
If it seems like I’m getting off topic, I have conflicting feelings about Gillis that are relevant to how I feel about Wallen.
I find half of Gillis’s jokes fantastic. ISIS Toyota, no notes. HR Meeting is one of SNL’s better recent skits. The other half, like his insistence on lame autism jokes, sucks. Gillis is the best-case scenario of “Well, I’m not disabled, but I think disabled jokes are funny, so this must be funny,” which is not saying a lot. With Gillis, at least, I think he’s smart enough, or at least self-aware enough, as a performer to pick and choose his indulgences. He’ll do shitty autism jokes, but then he’ll move on to making fun of everyone else. In his own way, he has range.
Unlike Morgan Wallen.
After listening to Wallen’s new album I’m The Problem, I realized something new: he has anti-range. I’m The Problem, which is still the number one album in the country at the writing of this column, has nothing as compelling as “I Had Some Help.” Not even close. And there are 37 songs on this album.
Who the duck told Morgan Wallen that releaseing a 37-track album was a good idea.
Still. Holy shoot. This album is too, too long. I listened to the whole thing in one setting. That was a mistake. I could have cooked soup instead. I could have taken a walk. I could have asked ChatGPT to define the term for people in positions of power who go out of their way to be offended and hide behind victim mentality because they were once criticized or didn’t get what they wanted. (I asked ChatGPT: the term is “loser.”)
According to Apple Music, I’m The Problem is one hour and 57 minutes. That’s too long. That’s one hour and 56 minutes and 20 seconds longer than any momtok influencer fact-checking anything. That’s a few minutes longer than Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, which I watched the night before I started writing this week’s column. Wallen’s label probably gave him a larger budget than any amount Altman ever got for his films, but Wallen wishes he had the shaggy charm of a 35-year-old Elliott Gould, a rambler who at least knew how to keep your attention, powered by Altman’s unique point of view. Or maybe Wallen doesn’t know who Altman is, so he’s not bothered. It’s probably the latter.
The peak of the album is its titular album opener. I like it because it sounds like a Goose song. The line “If I’m the problem, you might be the reason,” which is positioned as a Wallen micdrop, sums up the mental gymnastics you’ll have to do as a listener to understand what Wallen is, like, going through.
In the middle of the album’s eighth song, “Skoal, Chevy, and Browning,” I had to check to see if I could remember any of the song titles. Nope. Twenty-nine more songs to go.
“TN” has a decent chorus melody. It’s a pretty line that feels attainable for anyone to sing along to. It’s smart to make music that’s easy to sing along to in a stadium, if you are, in fact, an artist playing stadiums.
It’s nice to hear Eric Church again, even if he’s just a glorified harmonizer on “Number 3 and Number 7.”
Other than that, I got nothing.
I spent way more time on my intro this week because I can’t think of anything more to say about the literal music on this album. I know that the job of the modern music critic is to do free PR for TikTok and celebrity brands, or to host a podcast talking about the current state of music journalism instead of doing any actual journalism, and much of Wallen’s rise as a music celebrity comes from how much non-country fans hate him and his embracement of being hated by people who are easily offended … which includes most music journalists. I’m The Problem fully leans into this imagery and is designed like a dopamine torpedo for people who can sum up their political beliefs on a t-shirt.
But my guy, we’re not in 2014 anymore. I just can’t think of anything else to say in the service of making Morgan Wallen seem worthy of all these streams or angry gripes. I’m always game to engage with music beloved by a lot of people whom I don’t always agree with or even like. This implies, however, that I’m The Problem has music and not just TikTok snippets. He’s not worth it.
Wallen does have a problem, but it’s not the one he’s promoting. A lot of people like this kind of inoffensive country radio. I like it sometimes, too. A lot of people also poop, but that doesn’t mean they look forwad to it.
What a waste of time.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. My views don’t reflect my clients or the publications and brands I work with. All typos are intentional.
