The Good News Is...
I'm writing again! And it's a beautiful day!
I am a 40 year-old man.
Ipso facto, I haven’t the faintest idea of what the Culture has anointed its “song of the summer” for this blessed two-thousand and twenty-fifth annum of Our Lord and Savior. Even ChatGPT is hesitant to provide a definitive answer when pressed, cravenly offering only “strong contenders”: Ordinary by Alex Warren (who?), Golden by HUNTR/X (what?), Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter (ok this person I’ve heard of), Half Full by ROYOrbital (this one I made up).
But if I were asked to name the one instantly recognizable, seemingly inescapable earworm that captures this midyear mood and most deservedly claims the title of Official Ultimate 2025 Summer Jam™, topping my personal charts is that lo-fi, downbeat banger whose chorus I’ve caught myself repeating — often joined in by others — and whose understated hook has become the anthem of our collective soul:
I’m Sorry to Hear (Traditional).
Phoning a buddy I haven’t spoken with since January and learning he recently lost his dog, the first and only pet he’s ever had…
“I’m sorry to hear.”
Reading about a hit-and-run in the New York Post and realizing the victim was the sister of a Sunday school classmate…
“I’m sorry to hear.”
Having drinks with a lifelong friend in town from California and getting the latest update on his father, slowly slipping away to Parkinson’s…
“I’m sorry to hear.”
Watching the Mets announcers take a break from game commentary to eulogize the team’s longtime medical director, whose two sons were high school classmates and whose warm smile — and comped tickets — I will forever fondly cherish…
“I’m sorry to hear.”
Running into a neighbor I hadn’t seen in ages — at first a delightful surprise, until discovering her reason for returning to her childhood home is because her mother’s cancer had returned, too…
“I’m sorry to hear.”
OG Rogo’s readers might remember my post-inauguration post from January, in which I outlined my new year’s resolution to turn off, tune out, and drop in. That is: turn off my phone’s incessant notifications and end the tyranny of distraction I had been willingly — if unwittingly — inviting into my life; tune out the relentless thrum of impotent information — the armada of sensationalized negativity and righteous anger borne on ceaseless currents of doom and despair — that parades as “the news,” pervades our society, and invades our psyche; and drop in to the only thing that ever truly matters — the present moment.
I’m pleased to report that I’ve mostly stuck with it.
Coming out of Hoffman last June, I realized I was long overdue in scheduling a sit down with my phone to have that sometimes difficult but always important DTR conversation. It was time to tell my phone that it is a tool for me to use — that I choose to use — and not some oppressive force that uses me. I even broached the idea of seeing other phones, or at least opening things up and getting kinky with a third (we nearly made a move on a Nokia flip).
Since that talk, screen time has been way down, and thanks to a little nugget I nibbled from one of the “Staff Picks” on my summer reading list — Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act — I’ve added a new mantra to my morning routine: “Sun light before screen light,” meaning I’m not checking my phone until I’ve first checked outside.
Redefining the relationship with my phone is still a work in progress and a daily practice, requiring steady reinforcements of mindful intention to power my will and rewire my brain. And I won’t lie: resisting the pull of my social feed — an algorithmic hydra of baseball card breaks, jam band memes, and snippets from podcasts with templatized, tatted hosts and names like “Giggles and Jiggles” or “Pro Tips with The Gooner Gang” — has been harder than finding moist roast turkey at a Jewish deli.1
Tuning out has been easier in one respect. With no TV or radio in my apartment and no newspapers delivered to my door, I have largely extricated myself from the vicious cycle of 24/7 news. Of course, as a construct long cemented over many decades and so deeply ingrained in social interaction, it’s impossible to avoid it all. But each time I belatedly catch wind of a story, it serves as a humbling reminder of just how utterly inconsequential and flagrantly disposable that piece of news actually was — and, by extension, all of it is.
What was surely heralded with glaring headlines and blaring graphics upon its breaking — undoubtedly hijacking the public discourse and gripping the world’s attention for the day, maybe half a day, maybe a few hours? — is now a whisper of a memory in the hive mind; a drop in the frothing ocean of all-caps, all-consuming news that broke before it and has broken since.
For example: apparently John Elway killed a guy? In a golf cart? I was apprised of this tragic accident that occurred back in April — and for which Elway was cleared of any wrongdoing following an investigation that concluded in July — only last week, when my buddy Eli made a passing reference to it as we walked by… a golf cart.
The only reason this story became national news in the first place is because of its proximity to a famous former athlete — which I feel sparking within me a digressive diatribe about celebrity culture that I’ll bottle up for another post. But considering that, aside from possessing remarkable prowess at throwing a football, John Elway is simply a person like anyone else, and moreover a person with whom 99.999% of the population cannot claim to be personally acquainted, how does knowledge of his heartbreaking misfortunate affect me whatsoever — other than to make me sad?
“I’m sorry to hear.”
As for dropping in, well, allow me to drop into this very moment with you, and share my thoughts immediately as they come to me:
I’m reflecting on what a wonderful day today has been. The very day itself… the sun, shining so brightly, shouting so loudly, “Look at me! Well, ok, don’t look directly at me, but look at me, figuratively! Admire my majesty, the splendor of my light, the cozy swaddling of my warmth, the awesome abundance that I bring with my energy — my photons that radiate your way from 93,000,000 miles away (just down the block, on the galactic map) — energy that plants use to photosynthesize and grow leaves and fruits and herbs and nuts, that is then transferred to you, that allows you to live and breathe! Energy that heats up and evaporates the water in our rivers and lakes and oceans, creating great storm clouds bursting with rain, that carries the water across the land and dumps it in our forests and farmland — effectively powering an entirely organic, globally connected irrigation system. Energy that —”
The sun has a lot to say, if anyone’s listening…
I was admiring the sun while sitting outside having lunch with my Uncle Steve. We talk about consciousness and the nature of reality and I shared what I’ve been gleaning from Thomas Campbell — a discovery I must credit to Spotify’s algorithm2 which gifted me his recent appearance on the Know Thyself podcast. I find Campbell’s “theory of everything” to be rather compelling, and I believe — as he does — that we are on the precipice of a paradigm shift as powerful as the Copernican revolution.
In a future post I will offer my HOT TAKE on Artificial Intelligence and the launch of my self-funded rebranding campaign,3 but for now, let’s get back to this wonderful day, and that wonderful conversation with my uncle over a delicious BBQ-chipotle egg sandwich, which was followed by a wonderful walk in Central Park with my friend Jason — who made the cross-borough schlep all the way from Windsor Freakin’ Terrace just to see me!4 We followed our curiosity into an impromptu game of spikeball — a first attempt for both of us! — our new shirtless friends Tom and Austin who kindly showed us the ropes. We weren’t bad for first timers, coming back from a 4-point deficit to get ahead by one, only to lose by two!
I even captured the very moment Jason and I learned how to play on my Ray-Ban Metas:
After stops for pistachio matcha lattes and banana pudding cookies, I picked up the dogs and walked Jason to his train. On the way back to my apartment I met a woman named Teardrop standing outside of It’s Sugar who asked if I would buy her something from inside. I was more than happy to oblige, as Teardrop picked out some cotton candy-flavored bubble gum and this ICEE Snack Bar candy set:
And now I’m heading downtown to Quad Cinema to see the movie Or Something, which I only learned about last night after seeing the trailer before a different movie at Quad Cinema, Checkpoint Zoo. WHAT A MOVIE. If you like animals, and stories about human resiliency and selflessness and love, you will like it.
BUT BEFORE I LEAVE — a final bit of good news to share…
I have a game out! It’s called The Good News Is… and it was produced by Eric Poses at All Things Equal (of Loaded Questions fame). I recorded 200 “good news/bad news” prompts, and it’s up to you to fill-in-the-blanks with an answer, that will either match another player’s answer, or be chosen as the favorite answer of the round. It’s fun for almost the whole family (ages 13+), and if you want to check it out, you can buy it direct (with $5 off, free shipping, and a free puzzle thrown in when you order before September 1st) by clicking right here. Or here. Click anywhere you want, really.
Is there a law of kashrut I’m unaware of that stipulates sliced, roasted turkey must be as dry as the Negev???
Yes, Spotify is a for-profit corporation, born out of a Capitalist society, and is therefore powered by the same engine that drives all for-profit corporations, and therefore have behaved in ethically dubious and exploitative ways in greedy service of exponential growth and profit… but it’s not all bad!
OK real quick, what I’ll say for now is: Human beings created AI. We manifested it. We got here thanks to thousands of years of technological evolution, from man’s first tools of flint and stone to the nanocomputers and neural networks of today that are powering ChatGPT and Claude. We’ve built LLMs and fed them with every human idea that’s ever been recorded in the history of humankind: every invention, every innovation, every book and article and essay and experiment and song and poem and creative expression that has ever been made “real,” and that can be digitized and ingested. What we call “Artifical Intelligence” is really our intelligence! It’s Our Universal, Collective, Human Intelligence! More on this later…
Thank you Jason! Love you buddy!