PicoBlog

Share Who is the greatest American rock band? Who gives a shit. In 2020, that’s like asking which was Churchill's best derby hat. All “best of” considerations are the purview of time killers and space fillers. Counterpoint: I’m trying to do these newsletters every week and I don’t have 52 good essay ideas in a year, and “who is the greatest American rock band” is grade A filler. Sorry, what I meant to say was “in these trying times, I hope that this discussion of music, that eternal salve, can provide some comfort.

With Valentine’s Day mere weeks away, I’ve been getting a lot of requests for date night spots in NYC. Which begs the question: what’s in a date night? Last night I was wandering the East Village with my friend Belle Bakst and we found ourselves talking about Valentine’s Day plans. She and her husband are over-the-top, all things red and pink, cheese and wine and duck a l’orange kind of people on Valentine’s Day.

The Best FM23 Addons I’ll be blunt — the Football Manager base game isn’t all that much fun. There are numerous problems: problems with player growth, problems with teams being unbalanced, problems with good young players only coming from a few countries, problems with having no logos and no other fun stuff, and on and on the list goes. There are a few things that I include in every serious save I undertake.

Editor’s note: I promise this blog won’t be all Kanye posts but it’s the theme of the day with Donda 2 coming so it makes sense right now. If you haven’t peeped my interview with Alex Klein of Stem Player on GQ, click here. Kanye West is the most influential man in men’s fashion over the last 20 years. Normally I’d feel compelled to justify that take but this is the benefit of having my own Substack…I can just lob out big statements and expect the audience (you!

Some of the best fiction being written today will never hit the New York Times bestseller list. It’s all on Instagram. But if we’re going to adopt a fictionalized version of motherhood to emulate, why does it have to be the one where we’re always unhappy about something-or-other about our kids that’s threatened the very delicate psyche that still longs for days when we had to shower out the alcohol smell or it would sweat into our bedsheets.

This is Medium Rotation, a newsletter about the bands we used to play on my college radio station, 88.3 WSBU-FM, St. Bonaventure. It’s also the home of Weekly Neil, but this week, I’m excited to present something different. The great New York band Patio — featuring my good pal Loren DiBlasi on bass and vocals — have just released their second album, Collection. In addition to Donna Summer and The Bee Gees, Patio’s influences on this new record include 2000s New York indie bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol.

A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.

Why the best consumer-oriented presenter remotes are the Logitech Spotlight and Logitech R800 clicker remotes and why they aren't seen as often in professional presentation settings like professional conferences and keynotes. [Last minute edit:] A strong case can be made for the R500 by Logitech as the R800 can be hard to find nowadays. Thanks to Alexander Grabner-Jarlung for pointing it out. Now, I want to point out that I'm not a tech reviewer, so I won't be doing a tech review of both of these remotes.

There’s something about finding out an artist’s real name is completely different from their stage name. Like you’re trying to tell me Chief Keef’s mom really just named him Keith Farrelle? That might be a bad example, but either way, these artists have some pretty epic birthnames and some interesting (or nonexistent) stories behind their more recognizable aliases. As a little quiz, I'll give you a couple real names and you see if you can guess the artist name: