There's nothing wrong with hope.

Music as a tonic in tough times.

A rainbow framed my daughter’s soccer training this afternoon.

See how defiantly it reaches past where my phone can catch all of it.

No way, screen machine. You’re not having all of me.

A terrible man convinced millions of people to vote for him to continue to be terrible.

His big tech and manosphere following and the tech vomit that dominates our screens and culture is the root of most of the garbage male behaviours and attitudes I write about here.

I thought Kamala Harris’s positive campaign would shine through.

It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise it happened but how do we cope now?

Doomscroll? Delete some apps? Switch off those podcasts?

I’d say make something.

Or as someone beautifully added to Ian Dunt’s recent piece about how to handle the emotion of it all… help someone.

There’s nothing wrong with hope.

I’ve found that the older I get, the more I’m into hope. It’s not that I’m not angry.. so much makes me angry… but I do try to dig in to find courage and control to see a bright side to a problem.

A couple of years ago I was in a work meeting where a management bro neg-head was delivering some dire money figures that would affect the future of our jobs. He drolly pummelled us with glum figure after glum figure - there’s no way out.

I usually see these situations as puzzles to solve so I’m thinking of ways to we can dig ourselves out. It’s much in the way the Fantastic Mr Fox sees a dead end problem as a game.

But the thing that got me in this meeting was when someone said, “oh, no, it’s Glenn the Pollyanna again.”

Great, thanks, Champ.

Don’t be ashamed of digging for an upside. There’s nothing wrong with hope.

I look for things like this afternoon’s rainbow and earlier today, I turned off the name dropper, always traveling around the world politics podcast hosts that have wasted so many of my hours in past months.

Music took the wheel.

This is the playlist/mixtape I made today about hope.

Here’s the same playlist in Apple Music (LINK).

Let’s talk about some of the songs.

The Hardest Word - Kirsty MacColl is a rambling prayer through generations about being kind to each other that gets me in the tear holes every time.

Lisa O’Neill wrote this incredible ballad about Violet Gibson, a strong Irish woman who shot Mussolini.

There are many ways to go mad
I go out to Rome
With a rock in my fist and a gun in my bag
And I shoot Mussolini in the nose
I didn't shoot to skim the skin of his snout
Or his teeth or the lips on his mouth
I simply saw a bad egg and I thought
I'd take the bad egg out

Trains Across the Sea by Silver Jews was an anthem for me during lockdown.

“Half hours on earth, what are they worth? I don’t know.”

Lust for Life and Meditjin could be the same song as far as I think. What a vibe.

Nick Drake is everything in my ears, no matter what mood I’m in. You’ve gotta hear the Soundtrack Of Our Lives version.

Jagadishwar by Alice Coltrane and Holy Affirming, Holy Denying, Holy Reconciling by Thomas de Hartmann and George Gurdjieff are from the two albums I’ve played most in the past two years. I will listen to either in those last moments before I fall asleep.

A never-fail playlist for being alone with your thoughts deep, deep into the night.

This is my most special playlist. I’ve been refining it for the past five years. It’s music spanning from 1600ish to now. Unless you’re into this sort of thing, you won’t know much of it but it will hit you in the hope feels until you sleep. And there’s nothing on it to jump out at you 20 minutes after you’ve fallen asleep.

You can start at the start with Arvo Part (we’re going to his sound museum in Estonia at Christmas time!), or choose a time to jump on midway. Allegro’s Miserere leading to Holy Affirming is a good start point. For months I started with Debussy.

Sorry, no Apple playlist version, but maybe you can write down the tracks so you can make your own. Problem with me sharing Spotify lists? Fine. I get it and I hear you. But I don’t think we need that discussion every time we talk about music, do we?

More night music.

Another night time listen is the new Mount Eerie record. It won’t make you cry like the previous two have. He’s perked it up quite a bit, and there’s lots of ideas - musical and lyrical - packed into its hour and a half. It’s almost movie-like in its scope. Do the whole lot of it in one sitting if you can get the chance.

It’s available everywhere and I think there’s a stems version where you can do your own mixing somewhere.

Let’s turn it up a bit more.

I’m so happy that Amyl and the Sniffers are ripping the world a new one right now.

Ridiculousness.

Or you can listen to two old men squealing with joy in this LNL interview.

Longtime readers to this newsletter thing might remember my thing about my love of Phillip Adams’ and his show Late Night Live.

I’m happy to say that David Marr has settled in to be an excellent replacement. He gets to the right questions quickly, fine when topics get difficult or distressing, and is quite funny a lot of the time.

Last week’s hour long interview with Stephen Fry is wonderful. Both seemed to love each other’s company to the point that you could hear Marr SQUEAL with delight.

Oh, and I just wrote another footy ad.

I wrote the words. Couldn’t have done it without the AFL team. I’m happy we got the win and the four points.

Also still writing weekly Shark Tank recaps for SmartCompany. You can read them here.

I’m getting some great briefs lately, but nowhere near enough so if you’re at an agency reading this… give me a call.

Byeee.

Hope you see a rainbow reach through your dark clouds and we’ll talk again next week.