Rocket Bummer

One minute it was hot girl summer, with smoke-red Soylent skies pressing heavily on New York City, fire storms hurling lightning down on bone dry Oregon like a dragon birthing its dreadful young. And then a long wave of ego crossed the smothered land.

Rocket bummer. People leaned from their burning porches and watched the Divorced Man’s giant space dong blowing out pink clouds of fire and self-regard. The rocket thrust upwards, mach 2, mach 3, dreaming of low earth orbit at 120 miles altitude and 7,400 miles per hour. It reached apogee at 65 miles up and 0 miles per hour and started falling immediately. “Whee!” said the Divorced Man. “Whoopee!” He tried not to kick anyone.

Rocket bummer. The words passed among the people. It only lasted 10 minutes, but that’s not bad for a man his age, they told each other. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground, but that was normal since we fucked the climate, so no one noticed.1

Media Jerbs: Buzzfeed’s Mort Hangnail is taking Gordon’s spot as EIC / head mixologist at MIT Technology Review. He was so excited to announce it that he couldn’t even find the exclamation point key. Matthew Keys, previously of Livejournal, Reuters, The LA Times, and prison is returning to his job at California’s Atwater Prison Camp for six months, after leaving his last job at Comstock’s Magazine and then deleting the publication’s Youtube channel. Today in Tabs wishes him a very never work in media again. Rolling Stone hired Daily Beast editor Noah Shachtman to be its new EIC, and seems to have started breaking news well before his September start date. And Spencer Ackerman is starting a Substack, with a Pro deal. “Ackerman doesn’t ‘really want to be responsive to the news cycle much at all,’” reports VF’s Charlotte Klein, outlining a famously successful formula for a news publication.

Media Job News That Isn’t About White Men Trading Editor-in-Chief Roles: TKTK

Facebook’s Substack clone Bulletin announced 30 more writers, including… Malala Yousafzai? Ian Bremmer? Idk, friends. Meanwhile Our Regrettable Platform is funding podcasts, including one by Bob Garfield, recently fired by WNYC for persistent bullying, called “The Bully Pulpit.” I once again apologize for being on a platform run by people who think this kind of thing is making the world better.

Today in Crypto: Etherium co-founder Anthony Di Iorio is selling his DeFi company and quitting the crypto world in order to be filthy rich and escape the endless crime. And Malaysian police laid out 1,069 bitcoin mining rigs on a parking lot and drove a steamroller over them. There isn’t much more to the story, it’s just very satisfying to watch.

Singapore announced new restrictions on indoor dining among vaccinated and unvaccinated people. For example, any two people can dine together regardless of vaccination status, as can one vaccinated adult and up to four children from the same household, but not five unvaccinated children, whether in a trench coat or not. for more information, see the simple quick reference card:

Eli Saslow has a dispatch from the front lines of the housing wars, on the outskirts of Boise, ID. When the collapse arrives, you’ll vividly remember this article as the moment you knew it was coming.

Today’s Song: Thom Yorke feat. Radiohead - Creep (Very 2021 Rmx)

~The rocket made tabs, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land…~

Please don’t use the word orbit today, in re: the space dong. It wasn’t even close. Thank you for allowing me to science. I’m @fka_tabs, and brand-safe @TodayinTabs. “[Not] just chum,” raves Ed Zitron.