The Short Kings Abdicate

Cor blimey, it’s nearly back to St. Gobbers & Crappington!

September 15th, 2022

Get up on your tiptoes.1 Come on, stand up and do it. There you go. Feels pretty good right? The world looks different from up there doesn’t it? If I said you could enjoy this view permanently, and all it would cost is a price in the high five figures, two broken legs, and several months of excruciating pain, would you do it? In GQ Chris Gayomali has an extraordinary story about the men who answer yes to that question.

A short king can transform himself into just a king—as long as he’s willing to subject himself to the kind of horrifying, life-altering injury traditionally associated with getting hit by a bus. It’s as if we’re playing God to appear slightly more boneable on Tinder. On some level it’s grotesque. It’s also a medical wonder. And it raises all kinds of thorny existential questions, like whether creations as fragile as us should be playing God at all.

And in her death Queen Elizabeth II has given the British people the greatest gift of all: The Queue. After knife crime, there is nothing the soggy, snaggletoothed Briton loves more than queueing, and the queue to briefly see the flags draped over the alleged coffin allegedly containing the Queen’s alleged remains is currently almost five miles long. If you want to join The Queue, you’ll have to consult Youtube to find out where the end of it even is. Cor blimey, it’s nearly back to St. Gobbers & Crappington! Better put a flask of tea in the satchel, Reg.

The Queen is dead and the Short Kings are abdicating—monarchy seems everywhere to be in decline. America’s only king is capitalist ideology, and even that looks a little weaker today than it did yesterday. Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and his children donated the company to…

…a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.

Perhaps the nonprofit will opt to shut down or spin off Patagonia’s extremely quiet but profitable military and police products branch? We’ll see!

In another blow to capitalism, the railroad unions appear to have won the hard-fought right to have a day off, like, ever. The rail workers demands are generally getting described as “more time off” but in Vice, Aaron Gordon talked to twenty eight of them about what their work life is like, and it’s genuinely hellish:

Doesn't matter what you’re doing or where you are, if your phone rings, you have 90 minutes to be at work. You will then work 12 hours, after which, you will be taken to a hotel for an indeterminate amount of time. This hotel time is generally, in my experience, 12 to 36 hours. During this time, you are supposed to get rested, however, you have no idea when that phone will ring, could be midnight; could be 8 in the morning, you never know. When the phone does ring, you work 12 hours and go home. That would conclude one trip. After 12 hours, you start the process again. 

Today in Crabs: Maine lobster fishermen are crabby2 about the Monterey Bay Aquarium telling people to stop eating lobster because lobster gear could theoretically entangle right whales. If I say this is bullshit someone will probably get mad at me so ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️R E D A C T E D⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️, but that’s just one Mainer’s opinion.

More Surf n’ Turf? From lobsters let’s turn to Ethereum’s switch to proof of stake3. The line hates it, and even more ominously Kevin Roose called it “a bit of good news” for crypto. “64% of staked ether currently resides with five entities,” reports Axios, so the new Ethereum will be much more energy efficient but also more centralized, while remaining equally slow and expensive to use.

Figma balls → Adobeez nuts. Cat Marnell interviewed Julia Fox all week for Paper. School messaging app Seesaw got Goatse’d, which is pretty funny. Defector threatens to send David Roth to your house if you don’t donate. At least I think that’s what they’re doing, I only skimmed the post. The Smiths dot soup staffed up. Peter Baker reports that Trump’s idea to buy Greenland came from Estée Lauder cosmetics heir Ronald S. Lauder. Apparently Trump thought it looked like a good spot for a bodega, in a global sense. Pravda EIC is the latest Russian businessman to die mysteriously. He suffocated from having a stroke, apparently, which is definitely a real thing. Wikipedia is keeping a list—don’t sleep on Alexander Subbotin. Have you been trained?

Today’s Song: Calexico, “Black Heart”

~ I ain't here for a long tab, I'm here for a good tab ~

My messy ass space is featured in Alex Dobrenko’s newsletter’s occasional series of messy ass spaces today. There’s also a picture of me in there from, like, 2009? Imagine that guy but he’s Really Been Through Some Shit: that’s what I look like now.

+++LATE-BREAKING NEWS ALERT+++

Dildo Truck Spills Massive Load in Oklahoma. Onlookers were surprised the accident was so messy, since it was only a semi.

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