Micah's Read of the Week, Vol. 10
What a week. Plus fun stuff about Stevie Wonder, how to make the perfect cup of coffee according to science, Texas and A&M football's extremely poor ROI, the Fleetwood Mac TikTok guy, and more.
Hello, and welcome to Micah’s Read of the Week.
This is a newsletter filled with things Micah Wiener finds interesting.
Check out the introduction post here, and the entire archive of previous newsletters here.
Please, subscribe and share with a friend.
It’s been quite a week, huh?
If you want to skip over all things POTUS, (and I wouldn’t blame you for doing so) please scroll down to the Fun Corner section.
Remember last week when I simply alluded to the NYT story about the President’s taxes? Well, since then we had a, let’s say “interesting,” debate Tuesday. Also Thursday, audio of a secretly recorded conversation with the First Lady was released. In it, she complained about decorating the White House for Christmas and said some wild things about the children separated from their parents by our federal government. Then:
On Thursday, counselor to the president Hope Hicks, who reported feeling symptoms during a trip with the president to Minnesota on Wednesday, tested positive for the virus. Early Friday morning, Trump announced that he and the first lady also had tested positive and had begun isolating inside the White House residence.
As Trump’s condition deteriorated during the day Friday, the president and his team ultimately made the decision to send him to Walter Reed preemptively — and, from a public relations perspective, when he was still able to walk to Marine One on his own, according to one outside adviser in frequent contact with White House officials. They feared the possibility of a further decline, and what that might mean, both for the president’s health and his political optics.
Since then, we’ve had a million other stories about inconsistent health reports. The POTUS wanting to leave the hospital, but instead bargaining his way to a bizarre car ride that looked like a scene out of a third-world dictatorship. Leading a doctor at Walter Reed Hospital to tweet:
Reports say that Trump knowingly interacted with his own supporters and big money donors after testing positive. White House staff apparently were left in limbo about whether they should show up to work.
Of course, if you turned on a TV, or looked at your phone this weekend, you’ve seen plenty about this situation. I could get into everything here, but I won’t.
However, I do have some takeaways and some questions.
Across this country, Americans are dying. Mothers are delivering babies with masks on. We all hate wearing them. I’m breaking out with pimples on my face like a 15-year-old. It sucks. Every trip to the grocery store in a mask is weird.
Yet, this administration, openly flouted the guidance of their own experts up to the highest levels of the government.
My questions for our Trump voting readers:
This guy ignores advice to keep his advisors, donors, and himself safe. Why in the world do you think he cares about you? Or your family? Why would you trust someone this reckless with the nuclear codes?
And lastly, aren’t you tired of weeks like this?
Of course, I am hoping POTUS and FLOTUS and everyone else effected recovers quickly and fully.
I want to see both sides, but I can’t understand how anyone at this point can say, “sign my up for four more years of this!”.
Fun Corner
These stories about working with Stevie Wonder are AMAZING
Stevie is one of the greatest artists in American history, and an undisputed genius. This piece is about the making of Hotter than July, and it is absolutely fascinating. It’s an interview with Lou Neumann, who worked as an engineer on the album.
During the recording of this album, what was Stevie Wonder’s typical studio routine?
You touched on a sore point there because Steve has not had any vision at all since birth. He’s never seen anything which is amazing. If you look at his lyrics, there was all this lush, rich, visual imagery. He was creating visual imagination. Well, part of that is that he has never seen the sunrise or sunset. We don’t appreciate how much of our regular daily cycles are really locked to the sun. When the sun comes up, we wake up. When the sun goes down, there’s a transition period, but ultimately, we go to sleep. In any case, it’s a regular daily cycle. Well, Steve never developed those habits because he never saw the sunrise and sunset. His daily clock was not 24 hours. It wasn’t synchronized to the sun because he just never developed those habits, which made it challenging for those of us who do cycle with the sun. [laughs]
When would you all begin the recording process?
First of all, we’d wait for hours, but then we would get busy, and we would work a long time. Steve was amazing because he could go a full daily cycle and then take a 20-minute catnap and be ready to go again. It was hard for us to keep up with him because he had this amazing property but that was the way it was.
Would you be interested in hearing about Stevie Wonder’s air hockey skills?
Steve plays air hockey like nobody has ever seen. I’ve never seen Steve lose at air hockey. It was just the most amazing thing. He was playing without being able to see a thing; he just does it by ear but he also cheats. He leans all over the table and blocks stuff. I’ve never seen him lose. One way or the other, he always wins in air hockey.
Here’s more about Stevie’s working routine:
Where would Stevie be most of the time in the studio?
Well, most of the time he’d be on the phone.
He was working the phones a lot. Before cell phones, this is when there were landline phones. There were these kinds of phones where you would have multiple lines on buttons. So he would have multiple conversations going on at the same time. He would have five or six conversations going on. He’d be talking along and he’d say, “Hold please.” He would switch over to the other conversation and resume that one, and then he would go, “Hold please,” and then switch over. He’d keep multiple conversations going at the same time.
Seriously, just stop what you’re doing and read the whole thing now.
How can you not love this man’s story?
You’ve seen the TikTok. This dude long-boarding down the street, drinking Cran-Raspberry and singing Fleetwood Mac. It’s incredible. And so is this dude’s story.
As his viral fame ballooned, Apodaca realized he needed to talk to the big boss at the potato warehouse, where his father also works.
Within a few days, Apodaca had an L.A.-based manager fielding interview requests.
In the “Dreams” clip, it turns out, he was longboarding to work after his car battery died.
“I use my penny board when I want to go somewhere real quick, real fast,” Apodaca clarified. “I use my skateboard when I’m messing around and want to try to break my ankle. And then I use my longboard when I wanna go coast.”
That bottle of Ocean Spray he gulps in his “Dreams” video? He buys the big jugs to save money and estimates he goes through about one a day. The colder, the better.
As for that feather tattoo on the side of his head, it represents his mom’s Native side of the family, and contains the Northern Arapaho flag.
Not even a week into his viral success, Apodaca is taking the newfound attention in stride. Since Saturday, he has received $10,000 in donations from fans via Venmo, Cash App and PayPal. He’s “feeling blessed,” he says, and plans to spend that money on his parents, car repairs and a new RV.
You love to see it.
For Texas and Texas A&M, mediocrity has to be cheaper than this
UT and A&M both got embarrassed Saturday. This from Mike Finger:
Maybe we’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it no longer makes sense to keep expecting our state’s marquee college football programs to win more often. Maybe throwing money at a problem just doesn’t work.
And maybe instead of asking if anybody can do the job better than Tom Herman and Jimbo Fisher can, we should just start asking if anybody can make mediocrity cheaper.
Oh, there’s more.
Jimbo Fisher (at $7.5 million per year) and Tom Herman (at over $6 million) are the two highest-paid public employees in the state.
Neither program merits much sympathy, even if they are experiencing a few pangs of buyer’s remorse. Both essentially bid against themselves to get into this situation — A&M by blowing Fisher away with an unprecedented 10-year, $75 million deal, and UT by adding two extra guaranteed years to Herman’s contract after a four-loss season.
Now, as college athletics budgets nationwide get slashed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, neither the Longhorns nor the Aggies can even consider coming up with the kind of cash it would take to make a change.
So while the rest of the country laughs at both for spending and spending and spending in spite of the worst return-on-investment numbers this side of a speedboat filled with Blockbuster Video stock, UT and A&M face the possibility of another year without a championship, and more questions about whether they’re getting any closer.
But, Finger wasn’t the only columnist giddy to pile on. The great Pat Forde also had some words:
The two richest athletic departments in America are Texas and Texas A&M, both of them raking in more than $212 million in 2018-19 with their massive stadiums and huge fan followings. They also sit on some of the most fertile recruiting soil in America. Yet in a sport that rewards the wealthy and the geographically blessed, the Longhorns and Aggies continue to produce middle-class results year after year.
Both teams have four-year starting quarterbacks, and both coaches have had enough time to recruit the players they should need to compete at a Top Ten level. Yet thus far this season, Texas is 2-1 with an extremely fortunate victory over Texas Tech, and A&M is 1-1 with a grim slog of a win over Vanderbilt.
The irony here is that two programs that do not like each other and very much want to be better than the other are almost identically mediocre. Since Texas played in the BCS Championship Game after the 2009 season, the Horns are 49-43 in Big 12 play. Since Johnny Manziel’s Heisman Trophy season in ’12, the Aggies are 29-29 in the SEC.
Excluding bowl games, which are largely cosmetic crapshoots, Tom Herman is 1-9 at Texas against teams who finished the season ranked. Jimbo Fisher is 2-8 at A&M against teams that finish the season ranked.
Herman is 27-16 in his first 43 games in Austin, a .628 winning percentage. Mack Brown was 26-17 in his final 43 games at Texas, a .605 winning percentage that got him fired despite nine straight 10-win seasons that preceded the downturn. Under Herman, Texas is 18-11 the Big 12; Iowa State has the same league record in that span.
Fisher is 18-10 in his first 28 games in College Station, a .643 winning percentage. Kevin Sumlin was fired at A&M with a .662 winning percentage. The Aggies (10-8) are two games better than Mississippi State (8-10) in SEC play since Fisher arrived.
Texas is largely to blame for the rapid increases in coaching salaries. Back in 2009, they increased Mack Brown’s salary from $3 Million to $5.2 M/year. That’s $100,000 a week! The average American salary in 2009 was a little over $50k. That’s a lot of money. And I know that these programs make a lot of money and CEOs in America are paid well.
But damn, if the current ROI with Herman and Fisher is poor to quite poor. As mentioned, the Aggies gave Jimbo a 10-year guaranteed contract. Is there any person alive you’d offer a ten-year contract to do any job? Seriously, you might love you lawn maintenance guy, but you’re not gonna guarantee him ten years worth of money. Especially not at a number higher than any other lawn guy in America.
Poor Aggies.
How To Make The Perfect Cup Of Coffee
Sounds simple enough, right? Speaking of Aggies, this scientific breakdown of the perfect cup comes from the experts at the Texas A&M AgriLife Center for Coffee Research and Education. First, what to look for when buying beans:
The best quality beans you can get are labeled as “specialty coffee and 100% Arabica beans.” The beans should not be dark and oily – they should be brown and look almost dry to the touch.
Specialty coffee has been graded and sorted out before it is roasted, with few to no defects such as fungus, insect damage or malformation.
If it makes 80 points or more, it becomes specialty coffee. Anything under 80 points is considered commercial coffee.
I did not know that. What’s the best method for brewing?
“To get the truly best coffee, pour-over is the way to go,” Chavez says.
Most households have a heating plate underneath their coffee machine, which is one of the worst things to do for coffee. Once the coffee is done, do not continue to apply heat. With extra heat, the coffee will burn and become very acidic within minutes. So, brewing then pouring it into a thermos once the coffee is done is best to keep coffee warm, rather than leaving it on a hot plate to continue heating.
Pour-over methods remove this possibility, making sure you get the best cup possible.
How much coffee should I use?
There is a coffee-to-water ratio to follow, just like any other cooking recipe, Chavez explains. It all starts with the roast. The coffee is at peak flavor after a medium roast.
Usually, it takes 15 to 17 units of water to one unit of coffee to reach peak extraction and release all of the good flavors.
There’s a lot more information in the piece. Check it out, and get gone off that Boomin’ Loud. Shouts, as always, to The Phenom Cole Campbell.
Recipe Corner
The fiancé and I are doing Whole30 this October. It seems like a good time to get into it with the holidays around the corner, plus there’s no end to quarantine in sight. If you’re unfamiliar, you basically spend 30 days not eating flour, dairy, sugar, or consuming alcohol. There’s other rules too, but that’s the gist of it. We’ve done it before. It’s not a lot of fun, but the idea is to reset your mental approach to food (and booze).
So, this month, recipe corner will feature things I want to eat, that are Whole30 compliant or at least close. So here we go:
Sai Ua Samun Phrai
This is a Thai-style sausage. I’ll have to remove the sugar and serve with lettuce. But, it still looks pretty good. To save space, I’ve only listed the ingredients below with the process in the link above.
INGREDIENTS
Chile Dip
2 medium shallots, unpeeled
1 head of garlic, unpeeled
4 Anaheim chiles
1 red or green Thai chile
2 Tbsp. (or more) fresh lime juice
1 Tbsp. finely chopped cilantro (some stem is good)
1 Tbsp. (or more) fish sauce
1 tsp. (or more) sugar
Kosher salt
Sai Ua and Assembly
1 lb. ground chicken
1 small shallot, finely chopped
2 makrut (Thai) lime leaves, thinly sliced
¼ cup red curry paste
2 Tbsp. fish sauce
2 Tbsp. unsweetened coconut milk
1 tsp. granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. finely chopped cilantro, plus sprigs for serving
Kosher salt
⅓ cup vegetable oil
Thin cabbage wedges, thinly sliced daikon (Japanese radish), and cooked sticky rice (for serving)
Shredded Green Apple Salad With Fish Sauce + Cilantro
Everybody knows it’s Apple SZN.
INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
4 tart green apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled
1 small shallot, minced
Large handful cilantro leaves and tender stems, chopped
DIRECTIONS
Whisk together the fish sauce, vinegar and sugar in a mixing bowl.
Grate the apples on the large-holed side of a box grater over that bowl; discard the cores.
Add the shallot and cilantro, tossing lightly to incorporate and coat with the dressing. Serve right away.
Where else can I find Micah content?
Podcasts: Mind of Micah, Back Door Cover, Too Much Dip
Twitter: @micahwiener & @producermicah (Why two twitters? It’s a long story)
Instagram: @micahwiener
LinkedIn: @micahwiener
Peloton: #badboysofpelly @micahwiener
Email: micahwiener@me.com
Solid write up on Trump. Good luck on the Whole30. Hook yourself up with some nutritional yeast.