The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

TRANSCENDENCE. I avoid writing specifically about my place of work but it is one of the oldest theaters in Chicago and considered by many to be the most acoustically perfect room in America. Last week, at sound check before a show, the sound guys were playing Holst’s The Planets and I stopped in mid-routine set up to soak in the bombastic Jupiter.

I’ve said for years that this piece of music is the embodiment of myself in musical form. Either that or Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’s Spanish Flea. Hearing it, even recorded, in the beautiful 135-year old venue, is just this close to a fully transcendent experience.

SITUATIONAL ENVY. A friend of mine is caught up in looking around, seeing the successes of others, and burning with comparative jealousy to the point that it seems he can’t see anything but the unfairness of it all. He puts in the work and, in the past few years, none of it has paid off in the financial windfall for which he was shooting. He is deeply unhappy about this state of things.

Comparison is the thief of joy, sure, but that doesn’t go far enough. It’s not just a thief—it’s a goddamn armed robbery at the corner of Self-Esteem and Sanity. It kicks in your door at 3:00am, rips your guts out, puts on your clothes, and parades around pretending to be you—a better you, thinner, richer, calmer, and more loved. And you just stand there, naked and twitching, wondering where the hell it all went wrong.

Every time you scroll, swipe, or side-eye someone else’s highlight reel, you’re loading bullets into the revolver pointed at your own sense of worth. Instagram is the modern Wild West: curated delusions in Lo-Fi Valencia, where everyone’s prettier, more productive, and somehow always drinking cold brew on a beach in Tulum while you’re chain-smoking on your fire escape, wondering how the hell they afford it.

Let me tell you something raw: No one is doing as well as you think they are. Not the ex with the Tesla. Not the “wellness entrepreneur” who posts about moon water and manifestation. Not even the smug bastard from high school who made partner at 32 and now runs marathons for fun. They’re all haunted. Everyone is haunted. But they package their demons in soft lighting and hashtags, and you eat it up like a starving junkie mistaking Clorox for tequila.

The brain loves hierarchy. It wants ladders, systems, winners and losers. It wants to know where it stands. And comparison feeds that addiction. But what it never tells you is: no one wins. Not really. Even the person you think is above you is looking up at someone else, grinding their teeth and muttering, “Why not me?”

It’s a treadmill with no off switch. A Vegas slot machine wired directly to your amygdala—always hinting that the next pull will be the one that validates your entire existence.

Here’s the truth, and it’s ugly and liberating: There is no scoreboard. No grand tally. No referee calling out who did life right and who fucked it sideways. It’s just you, trying to stay upright in a wind tunnel of other people’s projections.

So, stop comparing. Stop looking sideways. Rip the mirror off the wall and replace it with a punching bag or a typewriter or a goddamn cactus—something that serves a purpose. Chase your own weird joy. Let other people rot in the illusion of better. They’re just as wrecked as you.

ONE FREAKIN’ WEEK. That’s it. The administration includes a journalist in a group chat and exposes classified plans for bombing another country and it took a whole week for the country to move on and obsess over the failure of Disney’s Snow White to make its money back. Not only are we in a period when our leaders are unserious dipshits, it seems our collective inability to grasp any sort of bigger picture for longer than the attention span of a four-year old pivots us all into the same circus of morons.

Yo, Democrats? This is a hill to die on. Not rumors that Trump thinks he can get a third term, not the weird Greenland nonsense—this. Sink your teeth into this one like a pitbull on a child’s arm and shake it to death.

MR SMITH? Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) now holds the record for the longest Senate speech ever: 25 hours and four minutes.

This is the kind of political theater the Dems need right now. They have no power in Washington, no control over much, but they can make a show of it. Next up? Chris Murphy takes the Senate floor and eats 1,002 hot dogs in one sitting. Followed by Amy Klobuchar singing Total Eclipse of the Heart over and over for sixteen hours.

If you’re gonna reside in a circus, might as well work the tent, yes?

A guy who can’t even successfully bribe people is in charge of government efficiency. — Andrew Nadeau

ChatGPT’s version of me as a Muppet

HERE COMES THE PAIN. OK. Liberation Day. Big random tariffs. The misguided hope that this will foment homegrown manufacturing. Plenty of handwringing, predictions, Wall Street crashing going on. In the meantime (before we actually see if Trump’s Art of the Deal nonsense results in a course-correct or a dark depression of the economic soul) money on the personal level is gonna get tight.

Here’s a quick list of things you can cut back on to survive the coming financial squeeze:

The “It’s Just Coffee” Rationalization

$6 a day for artisanal caffeine because your soul needs froth. You could buy a pound of beans, a French press, and some goddamn self-respect—but sure, keep funding that faux-European café culture while your retirement plan consists of dying early.

Subscription Death by a Thousand Logins

You’re paying for HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Criterion, Peacock, and some half-dead app that just streams reruns of Knight Rider. You’re not consuming content—you’re hoarding digital validation and calling it culture.

The Uber-Eatsification of Your Wallet

You ordered a $12 burrito for $38 with tip and fees. You tipped someone handsomely for saving you from the grueling task of putting on pants. You didn’t eat a meal—you paid for cowardice.

Name-Brand Narcissism

Nobody cares if your toothpaste was crafted by virgins in a lab in Stockholm. You’re not a connoisseur, you’re a label addict. Generic ibuprofen works. You’re not special. Just swallow and shut up.

Gym Memberships for the Uncommitted

You’re not going. You know you’re not going. But paying monthly for guilt is the only cardio you’re getting. Bonus points if you also bought a Peloton you now hang laundry on.

Buying “You” in a Box

Monthly boxes of hand-picked nonsense “just for you.” Artisanal pickles, beard oil, tarot decks, socks with “quirky” animals. You’re not curating a lifestyle—you’re paying strangers to guess what might make you interesting.

Designer Water

You bought water. In a bottle. In a country with drinkable tap water. Jesus wept.

Fast Fashion Dumpster Fires

You “treated yourself” to another graphic tee you’ll wear once before it shrinks into a crop top for a raccoon. You don’t need more clothes. You need to do your laundry.

FOMO Spending and Social Bribery

You went to a silent disco because someone said it’d be “epic.” It wasn’t. You hate EDM and wore shoes that killed your spine. You paid to be seen being miserable.

Luxury Self-Delusion

You bought a $50 candle to “set the mood.” The mood for what? A séance for your financial future? You didn’t buy ambiance. You bought olfactory hallucinations with your rent money.

Gadgetry for the Emotionally Starved

Banana slicers. Pancake printers. Avocado preservation pods. Your kitchen isn’t a lab—it’s a graveyard of late-night optimism.

Retail Therapy Without the Therapy

You called it self-care. Your bank account calls it a cry for help. Buying another vinyl of Purple Rain won’t fix your abandonment issues, but it will eat your grocery money.

Bottom Line:

You’re not spending money to survive. You’re spending to feel seen. And worse—you’re not even enjoying it.

You want to stop bleeding green? Here’s the brutal truth: track every dollar like it’s your last, because someday it might be. Guilt is cheaper than bankruptcy. And lattes, like lies, taste better when you’re not using them to avoid your own bullshit.

Now go make your own coffee, cancel Peacock, and punch your spending habits in the mouth.

You’re welcome.

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Hey! Thanks for tipping your toe into my mind for a few minutes! I got my first taste of K-Pop this week and it was fun—weird and almost cult-like in its fandom—but very fun. It was amped up so loud that the bass vibrated my organs. Now my liver is where my heart used to be. Try something new this week cuz the new is a way to open up tributaries of the mind.