Family | Faith | Food | Friends | Utes | Music (Swiftie, U2, The Killers) Never be so kind you forget to be clever / Never be so clever you forget to be kind
If you’re visiting for a very large sporting event & you happen to discover RANCH while you’re here… pls pack it in your CHECKED BAG on the way home.
Thank you.
Add @NoahKahan ‘s “The Great Divide” album to the list of albums like The Killers’ “Pressure Machine” or @taylorswift13 ‘s “Folklore” that need to be experienced start to finish on a long road trip. It will heal your heart just a little bit. 🫶🏻
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Writing this song felt like a musical departure and coming home at the same time. Creating something for Jessie was a new challenge and also felt like second nature all at once. And being a @toystory kid from the age of 5 til now… is an adventure I plan to be on, to infinity and beyond.
Thank you to the brilliant Andrew Stanton for imagining me for this, all those years ago when you wrote this newest film. Thank you to the incomparable @RandyNewman or the gorgeous sonic tapestry of songs and scores you’ve meticulously woven over the years. You created the Toy Story musical world, and we are lucky to get to live in it.
By we, I mean myself and my pal @jackantonoff. We wrote this with so much adoration for these characters that made us laugh and helped us learn lessons and think outside the backyard all throughout our childhoods. “I Knew It, I Knew You” from Toy Story 5 is out everywhere now. 🤠🐴
https://t.co/2JaaQvxHjp
Remarkable. He’s compared a puddle to three skyscrapers and somehow made it sound like a moon landing. The Lincoln Reflecting Pool is 2,000 feet long because it’s horizontal, Donald. So is the floor you’re standing on, but we’re not putting that on a chart.
And Fox just sat there and took it seriously. These are grown adults with broadcast licences and, presumably, a basic grasp of geometry. Any European journalist who tried to present this without bursting into tears of embarrassment would be out of a job by Friday. In Britain, a politician who pulled this stunt would be filleted live on Newsnight and served cold by morning. In America, Fox gives it a graphic and a theme tune.
In 250 years, the United States has produced Lincoln, the moon landings, and the Marshall Plan. And now this. A man with a chart comparing a pond to the Freedom Tower, surrounded by people nodding like dashboard dogs. For god’s sake.
Nobody talks about the late 30s to 40s personality shift where you no longer want to be remarkable, you just want to be rested, unbothered and completely unavailable to anything that's exhausting. And it hits you without warning.
One day you are chasing goals, chasing people, chasing validation, and the next day you wake up and something inside you has completely rewired itself.
The hunger to impress disappears. The need to be seen vanishes. The desire to be everywhere, know everyone, and prove yourself to the world just quietly packs its bags and leaves. And in its place is a woman who wants nothing more than peace, quiet, and the freedom to say no without explaining herself.
And the most liberating part is you stop feeling guilty about it.
You cancel plans without anxiety. You ignore calls without remorse. You let friendships fade that no longer feed your soul without chasing after people who never chased you. Your circle shrinks and your peace expands, and for the first time in your life, that does not scare you, it excites you. You are no longer interested in being the most impressive woman in the room, you are interested in being the most rested, most protected, most intentional version of yourself you have ever been.
The late 30s to 40s shift is not you losing yourself, it is you finally finding yourself after decades of performing for a world that was never going to be satisfied anyway.
Welcome to the era where your energy is expensive, your time is sacred, and your peace is no longer up for negotiation.