good morning ~

(click the link / CDMX from above to listen)

today’s track is a mega stack of guitar loops I captured in the corner of my wife’s studio - wind ‘em up and let ‘em go

Wow, did not realize fully that I had accidentally taken like five full weeks off of weekly email writing. Great excuse, though - we were on our honeymoon. It’s nice to be back, wishing you joy yoinked from the jaws of tyranny in 2026.

Some reporter / designer / gourmand buddies of mine recently swooped in heroically and scooped up the lapsed Gourmet Magazine trademark, now they’re running a worker-owned cooperative food newsletter under the same name! Fuck you, Condé Nast! Their first few issues have been a delight to read, the opposite of inane food content - - I strongly recommend subscribing.

And a heads up to the lovers of Ben Seretan keyboard instrumentals: I am announcing a new LP with a new duo on a new label in this many days:

An evil looking, handmade wheel loomed over the bar when we arrived and I knew that I could not resist its temptations - I love to be challenged by fate and to rise to its nefarious occasions. When my two extremely cool friends - against all odds - moved out of New York City they threw what I have confidently called the greatest party of all time. Among that evening's many delights was a popup bar-within-a-bar that featured something similar - spin the wheel, receive a cocktail, help the two of them clear out their excellently curated home bar cart. And although some of the obscure spirits might have been a little punishing, it was far less masochistic than what the wheel promised those of us in attendance at this big, beautiful, Mexican wedding. My Spanish is improving but it's still pretty bad, did that section of the game really mean that you'd have to take four shots of tequila? And why was that man's skeleton so lovingly illustrated?

After dinner the bride came over to us and I asked her what was going on with the drinking game of fortune - she said oh, you know, it's so corny, we told them we didn't want to do it but the wedding planner was like, oh c'mon gringos love the wheel! And I will admit that it had a hold on me, I floated over to it like a cartoon character smelling pie on a windowsill. I was already deeper in my little sippy cups of mezcal than I've been in a long time - far drunker than I got at any of our own wedding parties - and I was filled with an enormous desire to be robust and unstoppable. Desire, action, consequence. We reap and then we sow, but more importantly there first opens up a reaping-shaped hole. Spinning this wheel could fix me, listen to its lovely clicks. I wondered as it slowed if there was any punishment on the wheel that I earnestly wanted to experience, but before I could reach any particular conclusion I was being handed three shots of mysteriously hued agave spirits, down the hatch. Yes, I've got a yearning for a burning. Ah, but here comes a far more unexpected outcome of what were very much my own actions - a scorpion dangling above me. I'm a rowdy little doggy, my tongue flopped out of my mouth. With the smoky taste of mezcal still on my tongue I crunched it, teeth gnashing through carapace.

I was reminded briefly of a strange piece of knowledge I learned that afternoon. A group of folks staying at the Air BnB had gone on this crazy ten mile volcano hike that we intelligently refused (I'm not that much of a masochist), but they brought back what looked to be an otherworldly bottle of booze. I recognized its sub label as something I had seen on food menus around town - pechuga. I knew that in a restaurant context it meant chicken or turkey breast, but I couldn't figure out what it had to do with the liquor. Turns out that certain types of mezcal are made with raw meat suspended within during certain parts of the fermentation process. And the bag of yellow dust attached to its rim? Sal de chapulin - cricket salt, of course. I am confused often but what varieties of gnarliness I can accept - eating bugs is fine and cool and actually pretty delicious but I haven't been able to eat a hamburger in like two years.

I wanted to find out about that man's skeleton. It looked like he was being electrocuted, were people being electrocuted at this wedding? I only ever experienced it at this party but sometimes when you're out at the bars in Mexico City you'll be approached by folks who have this little machine on them, they call it el toque. And basically for a couple of pesos you can prove to your other boracho friends that you're tuff by grabbing hold of these metal handles and gettin' fuckin' zapped. It's kind of like those strength testers or those love machines but instead of you exerting your strength on the thing, you demonstrate how much you can take. Well of course as soon as I learned about this I knew that I'd have to take a few fuckin' volts myself. I've been electrocuted a lot in my life, actually - one fairly common working hazard of playing guitar and singing at the same time. Felt like this was gonna be a breeze. Someone handed me a metal handle and then a wedding guest I had yet to have any kind of conversation with stuck his hand in mine. He said we're gonna do it together, man, and when we met eyes he squeezed my hand reassuringly. They turned on the machine and I felt something not dissimilar to when one of your extremities falls asleep really badly, that real prickly sensation of blood flow returning to the limb. Fine, no problem, crank it up. Now it's a little hot, too, and I can almost feel the energy of it snapping at the ends of the hairs on my arms. More, mas, let's go. And now there is something like a thrum, I feel struck and ringing, not unlike a tuning fork. And now we're at the maximum level and there's a little pain, sure, but nothing more than, like, maybe ten tattoos at once. I liked the feeling of it. And it was strange and sweet to be holding this stranger's hand - someone important to my two friends getting married, no doubt - and feeling this current circling through our bodies. He let go, shaking out his limbs.

YOU DA MAN, he said to me, laughing and slapping my shoulder, something he would repeat to me often throughout the course of the night every time we orbited near each other on the dance floor. But it was not I who was the man, my friend, it was we who were the party.

But what about you? Have you had any recent surprising run-ins with your old party boy persona? How susceptible are you to a dare, to a thrown-down gauntlet? Do you think you could handle el toque?