BRAINWORMS: January 2025

New year. New format.

As part of my continued effort to make this thing shorter and easier to both read and write I’m stripping it down to the screws. My thought process here is that I should lean in to the idea of the “brainworm.” The momentary hyperfixation should be given a position of honor and allowed to rule the feature. So rather than four mini-essays about four topics from my usual cultural intakes, I’m gonna go for one essay about one thing that’s captured my attention and take a more scattershot, bullet point approach for the other stuff. You let me know (in the comments, maybe) whether you’d like that up front or at the end. For now, I’m letting the big boy bat cleanup.

MUSIC

Chart Courtesy of tapmusic dot net.

Earworm of the Month: Steely Dan - Gaucho

Always they ask me “who is the gaucho?” and never “how is the gaucho?” In a monthly-chart loaded with new stuff the old stalwart stands out. Gaucho rewired my brain when I first heard it while driving for DoorDash amid a pandemic and a snowstorm. Getting my car out of a snowbank while listening to “Babylon Sisters” is a core memory.

Gonna give another shoutout to my friend Casual-T. His yearly Top 50 Albums and Top 50 EP’s are the only thing keeping my music taste from fully atrophying into a Spotify algorithm remora. The size of the lists and relative quality of these records makes it a yearlong endeavor to work through them properly and by the time I’m done, the new list is coming imminently. The list is eclectic and has definitely broadened my horizons in terms of modern jazz, R&B, and a responsible, dignified amount of K-pop. But I think I’m happiest about how it finally showed me the on-ramp into Britrap after kinda writing it off as some impassable cultural gap. This Oakland/Joe James Love Riddims tape is very smooth (as is Joe James’ album Who Dares Wins from last year). Have also had fun with basically anything produced by El Londo. Probably because all the guys who hop on those tracks sound like they’re having fun too. Funny how that works.

I intend to attack Casual-T’s lists over the coming month but the urge to look backwards one last time hangs heavy, hence the late entries of Songs for the Deaf, Let’s Dance, Isolation, and the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack. Expect more Jonathan Richman in the coming month. I am “Parties in the USA” maxxing.

FILM

Eyeworm of the Month: Miami Vice, directed by Michael Mann

Happy Michael Mannuary to all who celebrate! The Big Mann is my favorite filmmaker and I had planned to do this one last year, but Criterion Channel was loaded with Seijun Suzuki joints set to leave at month’s end so I called an audible and celebrated Seijunuary instead. This was a pretty great move all told but Mannuary has been like coming home. Reaffirmed so much of my love for one of my favorite creatives. Brian Cox Hannibal Lecktor >>> Anthony Hopkins Hannibal Lecktor. Miami Vice (2006) >>>>>>>> Your Favorite Movie. Snuck in Collateral with the homies!

Gotta say, since we’re done with it now, didn’t really love any of the new releases I saw in 2024. Was hoping that would change when I got Brutalized but sure enough that one is also “good, not great.” Even with the Pennsylvania propaganda I’m not falling in love here. I’ll tell ya hwat tho, if it’s true that they shot that for $10 million in 31 days then Hollywood should be financing like a dozen productions like that per year. Those assholes can dig eight figures out of their couch cushions. (Assuming the couch in question was not consumed by the LA fires, my condolences to all those affected.)

LITERATURE

Wordworm of the Month: Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

Imma keep it a buck with you all I ain’t read nothin this month. The twentieth rolled around and I realized I had better finish Get Shorty or else I’d have nothing for this feature, which would look pretty bad after last month’s essay about how I started reading again. In typical fashion I left it late but we got it across the line anyway. This was my first encounter with Elmore Leonard in his native format. I’ve seen the adaptations. Jackie Brown, of course, and about twenty-thirty minutes of the Travolta vehicle that Get Shorty became. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from The Dickens of Detroit (strong epithet for a writer) beyond a good crime yarn ideal for subway and bathroom reading.

Leonard’s prose isn’t like my latest literature boyfriend Richard Stark/Donald Westlake’s. It’s languid, conversational, personable. Natural vacation reading. I’m not on vacation. Maybe that’s my excuse.The word I keep coming back to is clever. Leonard is a very clever guy setting up a very clever plot for characters that are not especially clever, which is itself clever. After all, this is a crime story. If these people were clever, or at least not narcissistic enough to examine their relative cleverness objectively they wouldn’t be criminals. When it all snaps into place Leonard does a fantastic job of getting his hook into you, shame it takes about 225 pages (out of about 360) to hit that “a-ha!” Moment. I think I’m a little crime’d out between this and Michael Mannuary so we’re pivoting for February but I have some more from Leonard in the backlog. When next we meet I’ll know better what to expect.

VIDEO GAMES

Pixelworm of the Month/Overall Brainworm of the Month: Balatro developed by LocalThunk

So I, uh, I have a problem, lately. I go to bed around midnight and my fiance is usually down for the count by 11 PM. So that gives me about an hour completely to myself. Usually not enough time for a movie. Sometimes I cook something. Sometimes I cue up some anime or YouTube. Ideally this would be reading time. What a world that would be. Hopefully this public self-flagellation will come to mind next time I get that hour. I’m probably still gonna power through the shame and sit down to play Balatro, though.

If you don’t know about Balatro already, heed my advice and stop reading here. If you stick around I can’t be responsible for what happens to you or your free time. My conscience is clear, I tried to tell ya. Get outta here Dewey, you don’t want none of this shit.

Balatro is a roguelike about poker, kinda. It sure seems like that when you start it. It’s a cozy lo-fi video poker interface. You’re dealt cards from a standard 52 card deck and given a point total to exceed in a set number of hands played in order to move on. You play poker hands to earn points. Beating a given point total awards money. Then you go to a shop and decide how you’ll spend it and this is where Balatro peels back its first layer. The money you earn can be spent on new cards for your deck, many of which have special properties of their own, Tarot Cards which modify your cards, Planet Cards to increase the value of a given hand, and Jokers. Jokers are basically passive skills. When certain prerequisites are triggered, the Joker activates. This can mean playing a certain type of card, beginning a round, completing a round, anything. There’s simple ones like Odd Todd, which awards extra points for odd numbered cards played, or Card Sharp, which triples your multiplier if you’re playing a hand already played in the current round. Then there’s the more complex ones, which can radically alter your playstyle. Joker Stencil gives a multiplier based on how many of your finite Joker slots are unoccupied, totally inverting the conventional build logic you’d been operating on up until that point. Then there’s something like Throwback, whose potential multiplier increases based on the number of rounds you’ve skipped in your current run. Skipping is always an option and confers a reward. That’s right you can be rewarded for not playing the game. There’s 150 Jokers, all with gorgeous art and the ability to completely break your run. That’s the point if indeed there is one. Balatro is less a game and more an equation with an infinite set of variables and potential solutions. The player is tasked with stretching its internal logic, making use of its various exploits and synergies, turning the game upside-down and inside out until you’re going from 300 points for a given hand to regarding anything less than 50,000 as mediocre at best. There are no rules which cannot be broken, no limit which cannot be exceeded. You wanna play five of a kind? You can do that. Wanna play a flush that’s also a full house? Knock yourself out. Wanna play five of a kind that are also a flush? Now you’re thinking like a true Balatro degenerate.

There are no two runs exactly alike. That’s before you even get into things like specialized decks which can radically alter your approach or Boss Blinds that add special conditions onto their rounds. I’ve experienced dozens of power-fantasies in gaming over the years but this may be the closest I have ever come to feeling like The One. The computer’s power is entirely based on rules. Rules which, if I am lucky, smart, prudent, and insightful enough, simply do not apply to me. Or at least don’t apply to someone. You can find video of YouTubers playing hands which earn more points than there are atoms in the universe. At higher levels, even that might not be enough to win.

You technically “win” Balatro at ante 8. But the game actually goes all the way up to ante 33, at which point the required number of points is literally infinite. So sooner or later your run dies and you’re free to begin again from zero. The lure of infinite possibility and escalating challenge keeps the machine perpetually in motion.

I sit down usually around 11 PM, boot up Balatro, and then all of a sudden it’s 2 AM and I’m groaning, anticipating the pain the morning alarm will bring. I really cannot overstate how much of a time sink this game is, how content-rich and endlessly replayable it is, how charming, satisfying, and simply fun it is. Addictive does not begin to cover it. You can get this on your phone! Irresponsible, to say the least. What’s worse is that it isn’t just me. I’ve brought the addiction into my home and it had its tendrils into my fiance now. As soon as she found out she could get it on Apple Arcade it was over, dude. We’re on our Sid and Nancy shit except with cards instead of heroin and we probably smell better.

BLOG BIZ

Wanna thank all those who have come on board in the past month, whether subscribing to the newsletter itself or just following me for Notes. Genius of Loathe saw easily its biggest hit on Substack in January and better yet we did it in a subject which I approached with some trepidation. I am by no means a sociologist and do not take it lightly when entering the often thorny territory of ethnicity, culture, and race relations. You folks have proven my initial thought process in posting on her under a pseudonym to be at least somewhat correct. Would also like to extend my humble thanks to any of the talented people on here who have allowed me the privilege of advance readings of and edits to their work. My longtime friend and collaborator

Alex McDonough

is getting back into more targeted essays after concluding his yearlong fiction reading and review series ELIMINATE DOWN. I really cannot recommend him enough to anyone subscribed to this blog. In addition, my more recent acquaintance

nadav

has impressed me with his openness, trusting and unpretentious nature, and enthusiasm for this platform and the promise it represents.

Additionally, in personal news, I’ve had my fiction published for a second time. My short story Bankroll has been published in Muleskinner Journal for your free consumption. This is in addition to my short story The Immortal Dreams of Sourdough, which was published in Apocalypse Confidential in 2023. Thank you to anyone who’s given either of these a read already. I hope I can direct a few more of you to have a look. I confess that I really am a fiction writer with an essay habit, rather than the other way around.

So what’s next? For the moment, I’m focusing on my novel, with an eye towards having a complete draft sometime this year. This will not mean any significant hiatus from Substack, but I may go silent for about a week or two here and there as I lock in. As this audience grows, I will attempt to communicate these pauses with you transparently. Some subjects I’m considering for the coming weeks include:

• The professionalization and corporatization of YouTube and private equity’s entry into the platform during the pandemic

• My hunch on a coming political shift (to the right, specifically) in America’s entertainment industry.

• The dull, drab aesthetics of the modern UFC and how we may find our way back to a more vibrant look for mixed martial arts.

• The rise and fall of the “professional nerd” as a social class unique to the early to mid 2010s (particularly relevant in the wake of the genuinely stomach-turning Neil Gaiman allegations).

You may see some, all, or none of these between now and the next edition of BRAINWORMS. If any of them particularly strike your fancy, I encourage you to let me know in the comments. The nice thing about an audience I could fit in a modest sized bar is that all of you have a degree of sway and I can afford to let you influence me when I so choose. It’s something I intend to cherish.

Until then, know that you’re all diamonds to me.

-JW