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Coach Prime, the UK Cigarette Ban, and Jason Isbell’s ‘Southeastern’ Turns Ten

Author

Ed Festa
October 06, 2023

Welcome to the Good Times. We all need a break, and we’d love to be yours in your regular news diet. Count on us for great reads, amusements, and fascinating stuff from the last week or so (in 5 mins or less).

Yes, we're doing this to amuse America (and ourselves), but we’ll also donate 10% of revenue to education and affordable housing charities when we start monetizing (not to worry though, this will remain a free newsletter). So kick back and enjoy.

The Good Times Roundup

IPHONE SUCCESSOR?: Jony Ive and OpenAI partner to develop a device to go beyond smartphones. The smartphone channeled the internet, but what hardware should channel generative AI? Silicon Valley’s wrestled with that question since ChatGPT's release in November, and this week, a moonshot development was made public involving Jony Ive, the former Apple design legend, and OpenAI, ChatGPT's parent. Details are scarce, but industry analysts have speculated about an 'ambient computing' machine that 'processes the world in real time' and in some cases, takes action without human involvement (present-day example: when your iphone detects a potential car crash and automatically calls the authorities). SoftBank, the Japanese tech investment firm, has joined the discussions as a possible financier and per reports, early concepts have called for ~$1B in funding.

COACH PRIME: Colorado ticket sales up $14M this year. We’re only five games into Prime's tenure as coach, but Colorado has already banked about half the total value of his 5-year, $29.5M contract in incremental ticket sales. The Buffaloes have sold out the rest of the season for the first time since 1996, and they’ll start selling 2024 season tickets soon (slightly ahead of regular schedule). More on the Prime effect in numbers:

  • 🦬 Donations to the 'Buff Club,' UC athletics fundraising arm, are up $8M year over year

  • 🎽 Merch sales in the online team store have increased 2,544%

  • 💳 Sales at the team's physical campus store are up 564% 

NUCLEAR FUSION: A futuristic plan to make steel with nuclear fusion. Helion, a Seattle nuclear fusion startup backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman (this guy gets around...) has partnered with Nucor, the country's largest steel producer to make steel c/o fusion by 2030. The goal's a 500 megawatt plant (roughly enough to power ~300K homes) that Nucor can buy power from, and any excess power can be sold to public utilities. If successful, the arrangement would be a milestone for private industry's role in both power production and clean energy in general. And Sam Altman would be another step closer to global domination.

MESSI MAGIC: More than half the opposing team couldn't stop Messi from threading an invisible needle:

UK CIGARETTE BAN: Britain proposes ban on cigarettes for younger generations. Led by Tory PM Rishi Sunak, Britain's Government has proposed raising the legal age to buy cigarettes every year by one year, placing them out of reach for today’s underage citizens (and as today’s smokers pass on, eventually phasing them out entirely). Big Tobacco came out swinging in response, calling the law a 'disproportionate attack' on adults' rights and warning that black markets would emerge. Dire predictions. But how dangerous could a black market for cigarettes really be? Let’s roll those die, and good luck UK!

Take the Day Off Get Back to Work 💳

It's National Transfer Money to Your Daughter Day. Hallmark hijacked Valentine's Day long ago, and now daughters are conspiring to siphon more dollars from their hardworking parents (stay strong moms and dads, you've been warned).

With every newsletter we'll run a featured article on topics ranging from kids, dogs, news, sports, or anything in between. We aim to amuse - put another way, if Mark Twain were alive today we'd desperately try to hire him. Thanks for reading and without further delay...  

Today's Article: Jason Isbell’s ‘Southeastern’ Turns Ten

I was in my car in LA the first time I heard about Jason Isbell's Southeastern - he was promoting the album on NPR and playing tracks live in between questions.

I hadn’t heard of him before, but the music was brilliant and Terry Gross was treating him well (and not like a backwards curiosity from the South), so I leaned in. It was just him and his acoustic guitar, and after a song or two, I threw it in park and sat in a lot until the interview was done.

The music hit a spot, and Southeastern soon became my day-to-day soundtrack.

I wasn’t the only one - anyone who roughly shared my musical taste was gushing about it, and critics loved it too (Ken Tucker, NPR's rock critic, named it his number one album of 2013).

Isbell was soon celebrated on magazine covers as perhaps the best songwriter in America, and I was proud as a peacock for being a little early to the Jason party.

Prior to Southeastern, good independent country or Southern rock was hard to find. Black Crowes and Whiskeytown albums were my go-tos (and remain favorites) - Tedeschi Trucks were doing their thing too and Ryan Bingham was around, but otherwise the pickins were slim. But then Isbell pulled that great artist's trick of delivering exactly what we didn't know we wanted, and we've been living in a golden age of Americana ever since.

The alchemy of great songwriting with classic southern rock, folk, and acoustic country sounds opened the door for masters like Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Margo Price, and Tyler Childers to flourish too (in a nutso coincidence, Sturgill's debut album, High Top Mountain, was released on the same day as Southeastern).

Last week I opened Spotify and saw 'Southeastern (10 Year Anniversary Edition).'

'No way,' I said (aloud). That day in LA isn't that far in the rearview, is it?

I looked, the math checks out. And even sneakier, for the re-release, Isbell re-creates the original's cover art, just a black and white close-up of him looking into the camera, 10 years on.

To give the guy credit (and all early 40s guys everywhere a little comfort), I didn't notice the difference right away. But the choice to do it the same's a perfect one – despite Southeastern’s almost-classic status, the Americana renaissance it kicked off remains ongoing, and the album’s still a (the?) gold standard. No need to change a thing.

If you love these songs, the re-release is a feast (includes remastered original recordings, song demos, and live performances). So enjoy, and cheers to another 10 years of this Americana golden age.

Exclusive blue vinyl available here. 

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