My birthday was last week. To reward myself for a birth I had nothing to do with, I went to one of the best restaurants in America, but the spot that really made my month, the place that felt like the true gift to myself was not that restaurant. But that’s how it goes sometimes. That new seemingly great job opportunity turns out to be a boiler room pyramid scheme. The perfect partner turns out to be a serial killer.
Perhaps known best for their 1976 smash “Car Wash,” Los Angeles natives Rose Royce were far from one hit wonders. Sprinkling elements of disco, funk, R & B, and soul throughout their catalog, they also crafted notable hits like "I'm Going Down," "Wishing on a Star," and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" with an incredibly talented lineup of musicians and Gwen Dickey on vocals. The group’s extensive catalog is begging for exploration in documentary, long-form article, and podcast form, but “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” seems especially ripe for rediscovery due to the pioneering use of a drum machines as a focal point of their production.
If you’re not awestruck and a little bit frightened by Artificial Intelligence right now, I’d suggest you’re not paying attention. While we’ve been taking advantage of various AI tools for years in voice command apps and content recommendation engines, new “generative AI” tools like ChatGPT (for text) and Midjourney (for graphic art) have sent us reeling into an uncertain and unsettling future. We should all be burning with questions about how these applications - which can seemingly produce original, quality content in seconds using simple voice prompts - will change how we work, learn and create.
It’s Old Fashioned Week, so let’s talk about Old Fashioneds. Like Negroni Week, Old Fashioned Week is a brand-sponsored event — in this case by the excellent, reliable Heaven Hill bourbon Elijah Craig — but it’s also just an excuse to make and drink Old Fashioneds. The Old Fashioned looms large in this newsletter’s mindspace: The very first edition was about how everything can be an Old Fashioned, and the Old Fashioned is almost certainly the cocktail I have made most often over the course of the last decade.
Imagine if there was a company making Babe Ruth rum and Babe Ruth clothing and Babe Ruth iPhone covers and using iconic images of the baseball legend in all sorts of manners. Much wealth is built on dead cash cows- it’s the capitalist American way. But what if the family of Babe Ruth was never contacted before the market became flooded with images of their husband or father? What if they never received a dime?