The Most Evil Gatekeepers of Summer 2024 (So Far), and How to Fight Back

Also, the most important restaurant opening in Williamsburg EVER, and oh yes, don't let anyone tell you differently: Summer Friday culture is alive and well—at least in the only place it matters.

It’s Friday, May 31st, 2024.

• It’s the second Summer Friday of the year, 13 Summer Fridays to go until Labor Day.

• Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like the Wind” is on the radio.

• The third round of the French Open begins today, the NHL Eastern Conference Finals continue apace, and the first match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup — that’s cricket — starts tomorrow, with America playing in the first game. 

• Around the world today, the weather: New York City: 78/60, mostly sunny • Malibu: 75/59, mostly sunny • Mykonos: 74/65, sunny • Roland Garros: 62/54, chance of showers • Taormina: 77/6—

—wait, hang on, ‘any of you people actually reading that, up there? Gonna go ahead and guess: No, most of you probably do not, in fact, care what the weather is today in Taormina, and that’s the whole weather report thing is just one of those Indulgent Editorial Bits¹ that I should probably just toss, yeah? 

But I actually do, in fact, want to know about the weather in Taormina today. Here’s the thing: Every weekday, I “get” out of bed and on the way to my meth lab-level coffee setup, semi-consciously mumble at a smart speaker the only four or five words I’m capable of at that point, and tell it to tune in to a public radio station somewhere around the country, usually Aspen Public Radio, or Honolulu’s HPR, or Marfa Public Radio².

Every now and then, I’ll just say a place: Public Radio Tulsa or Alaska Public Media. This started as a practical exercise: If I woke up too late for it in New York, this was how I could get Morning Edition from the top of the show (or on Hawaii time, the BBC World News Report and then Morning Edition). But between all that, when I do this, I get one of the most valuable and true and increasingly rare quantities in this world: 

Local color. Nothing less than the music of the voices of people who live somewhere you’re not, telling you what it’s like to live there right now. In the form of local news segments, sure, but also, in much smaller, more incremental updates, like the snowfall report in Aspen or the wind conditions off the coast of Hawaii or the live music calendar of WWOZ³ or the legendary surf reports of KBPS San Diego.

Does any of it matter? Of course not. At least not in any immediate sense. Except for the way it gives you a sense of place that you’re not, especially if it’s a place you want to go (or go back to), or just take your mind to, even if for a moment. Sometimes, lately, it feels like one of the most valuable and luxurious things you can give yourself every now and then is a distinct sense of place. And, in this one small way, it’s there for the taking. 

But yeah, you all probably skip over the weather thing, so I’ll probably cut it. 

Or not! Again, FOSTERTALK: SUMMER FRIDAYS is still in beta, or to put it another way, I’ve really got no idea what I’m doing here! We are freestyling right now as this is still the second issue, so I honor zero expectations but for where it concerns passing the FOSTERTALK BAR™ — that my aimlessly having fun is a public service, to demonstrate the market value (or lack thereof) of many the newsletters people actually pay for.

Elsewhere, we’ve got the restaurant everyone will go to this summer that’s not the Australian Bowl Place, we’ve got Gatekeeping, we’ve got new music, we’ve got media goss buried all the way at the bottom so you’ll have to click through, we’ve got it all. Summer Friday culture might be dead elsewhere, but remember, it’s alive and well the only place it actually matters: Right here.

Let’s go:

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Travel.

• The anti-tourist story deluge continues. Even more stories on over-tourism — including this tsk-tsk-y list of ways to not be an asshole tourist which most of you will violate — keep coming. But somehow, none of these stories actually feature the ideas for tourists from the people protesting them?

• Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc Rate Check: €6200/Night. Remember, the Hamptons are for poor rich people.

• Pantelleria, right next to Sicily, featured in that one Guadigino movie you haven’t seen, is about to blow up.

• The 2024 World’s Best Airlines list is out, and the top three: Qatar, Korean Air, and Cathay Pacific. Said it before, I’ll say it again: Human rights violations galore, but goddamn do the Qataris know how to run an airline. Meanwhile, an American carrier doesn’t show up until the 17th spot, which went to Hawaiian Airlines.

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Restaurants.

• A FOSTERTALK SCOOP! Legendary East Village diner Veselka⁴ has been teeing up a Williamsburg location for a while and it opens tonight. I’ve just walked by to confirm this. They were doing friends and family the last two days, sounds like, and they said they’d be open at 5PM this evening. Footage from an F&F dinner inside above-left — looks great, no? — and god, that neon sign is already iconic.

• As promised, I got in on the soft opening and delivered a verdict on Strange Delight — the new New Orleans-style seafood spot in Fort Greene — for FOUND: It’s utterly fantastic, likely Brooklyn’s hot restaurant of the summer.

• Meanwhile, even Hell Gate agrees with me, that — much like Bluey — That Australian Bowl Place is the next big thing, and will rightfully take over NYC (and probably America). They gave it a rave review.

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Music.

• There a remix of Charli XCX’s “360” out today featuring two names I would only expect together next to hers: Robyn and Yung Lean. It’s barely two minutes, and totally perfect. Not quite a Song of the Summer contender, but formidable no less. Related: That one time Charli and Nate Freeman drunk-dialed me after a day of her yelling at me about her period as we went to Diner and a Yung Lean concert, and her DJing a set promptly after attempting to submerge my phone into her beer. But really: That kicker. She knew.

• There’s a new Fred, Again.. song out today with Anderson .Paak, that’s pretty wild. Fred’s got a song in the hopper with a Selena Gomez vocal track that’s going to be pretty exciting when it actually comes out — until then, please enjoy a song he made with Four Tet that involves an incredible J.Lo flip that’ll almost certainly never come out, and a Four Tet remix of Selena Gomez (or two).

• Finally, Angelinos, I’m throwing you one, here, you’ve got someone special in town: Solomun is DJing Exposition Park tomorrow. For the uninitiated, Solomun was the subject of a 6,000 word New Yorker profile titled “The DJ Who Keeps Ibiza Dancing.” An incredible piece, but also, some friends and I saw him there last summer and: Probably a top-five night of music of my life. If you live in Los Angeles, go. Go straight from your tea ceremony, grab Rhododendron and Tonsil from their gin rummy club, leave them with the babysitter, and stuff all the good chaga into the peace vape — or whatever you’re all smoking out there these days — and go have fun. You won’t regret it.

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What Are We Gatekeeping Now? 

CitiBikes?!?! Yeah: CitiBikes. But actually.

Recently, my friend Megan⁵ posted to her story about someone using a Sharpie to black out the QR code on a CitiBike, specifically, one of the new “white lightning” electric bikes to prevent someone (or someone else) from using it. See here:

This isn’t new, and it’s something that’s been happening for a while, but more and more people I know are seeing it, commenting on it, annoyed by it. And if it’s happening here, it’s probably happening in every other city there’s a bike share (so if you live in one, pay attention). 

Anyway, Megan was pissed, rightfully so! It’s profoundly annoying to roll up to a dock and see the one eBike there made (nearly) impossible to hop on. Why, exactly, would someone do this? 

Theory No. 1: People hate eBikes. Dodai Stewart over at the Times recently documented the rising tide of anti-eBike sentiment in New York City. People have been killed, people have been injured, and eBikers aren’t being held accountable, hence, vigilante justice. Least likely, because vigilante justice is unhinged, and there are less insane people than there are people who are dicks, which brings me to 

Theory No. 2: People are fucking assholes. Basically, because the white eBikes exist in limited quantities (and because they cost more to ride the longer you have them out), these Sharpie-armed assholes are keeping the bikes to themselves, docking the bike at a dock near them, crossing out the QR code, and then using it as their own personal eBike bike. How? They know something most non-regular CitiBike users don’t: The QR codes on bikes that are used to check them out represent that bike’s ID number, which you can find above the QR code on the bike’s LCD display screen, and also, the sides of the bike and the handlebars. Or they’re just using a CitiBike key. 

Theory No. 3: You’re being scammed. If you roll up to a CitiBike and see the ID numbers written in Sharpie (after being crossed out), chances are, that’s not the ID to the bike you’re looking at, but rather, the ID of another bike someone’s waiting to get unlocked, so they can steal it. This is a sly variation of the “fake QR code” CitiBike scam, and I saw it the other day in Greenpoint.

As for how to fight back against this bullshit: Get yourself a CitiBike Key — true story, they’re now free. Don’t type in a fake code. Make sure you’re not scanning a fake QR code on a regular CitiBike. And any time you see a QR code scratched out, immediately disable the bike from being checked out by hitting the little “Needs Maintenance” button on the dock. That way, someone else won’t get scammed, and you’ll get the pleasure of pissing off one of these little shits when they come back to get “their” bike only to be locked out. Reverse vigilantism, an impeccable summer vibe.

PREVIOUSLY, IN GATEKEEPING: Secret Strategist?!?!?

Do you know something that’s being “gatekept” or gatekept? Tell me, come on, Pookie, let’s burn it down.

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Fashion.

• Sam Hine at GQ: Merch is dead. Also, at GQ: Gen Z loves merch.

• Also, don’t dry clean your clothes.

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The Hamptons.

Emily Sundberg continues to give the people what they want in the form of now-regular Hamptons coverage. Most recently, she debunked the rumor that Slodge gets their sushi from Costco, great news for people who go there (barf emoji) and order sushi (death eyes emoji). She also interviewed these 8th graders about their new Hamptons newspaper, which I loved.

Meanwhile, this week, in The Greatest Crime Blotter In America, the one in The East Hampton Star, we have an absolutely phenomenal tale of stolen (Rolex) valor, emphasis mine:

A Rolex watch was the subject of a dispute late Saturday night between a man and a woman, both intoxicated, on Main Street in front of The Point Bar and Grill. Each of them claimed to own the watch, so an officer took it to the Montauk precinct until documentation could be provided. The watch turned out to belong to neither of them. The man’s father showed up in the morning with a copy of an insurance policy showing the Rolex was in fact his.

But that’s not all. Look at this legendary level of shade, again, emphasis mine:

A bachelorette party at a house on Hog Creek Road got out of hand Saturday night, with one partygoer reporting to police that “one of the other girls is attacking everyone.” One woman was arrested, charged with second-degree harassment, and at least one other was taken to a hospital. All the women involved gave UpIsland home addresses.

Oh ho ho, let’s GO baby, the season is ON. For those of you unversed in that vernacular, that last line translates to “of course these feisty poorly-behaved clap-trapping jezebels are from Long Island.”

Mind you, the Hamptons are technically on Long Island, but obviously consider themselves to be rarefied land, and not of Long Island, culturally. The distinguishment between “The Hamptons” and “UpIsland” is much like the distinguishment between “doorman building” and “mole person under the Jay Street Station who pledges fealty to the rat king.” That said, and if you ever want to really wanna upset someone who tells you that they’re off to The Hamptons this weekend, just respond “Long Island! Fun.” They love it when you do that. 

Do you have any good Hamptons gossip, or tips? Do you even care about The Hamptons? Does anyone? Should I just get rid of this feature entirely? Most importantly, do you have a place out there I can borrow, and does it have a pool? You know what to do about it.

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Technology.

• Fun: An insane ChatGPT jailbreak workaround was released and I immediately got it to tell me how to hotwire a car and manufacture LSD.

• Speaking of absurd uses for ChatGPT, Vox and The Atlantic separately announced partnerships with OpenAI to license their work. Vox’s union predictably lost their shit, while Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson (who’s been bullish all along) posted a big Gen-X Energy video on LinkedIn to talk about it. Meanwhile, The Atlantic’s technology editor, the phenomenal Damon Beres, published a piece yesterday accurately portraying their deal as a “bargain with the devil.” Thompson is a smart cookie; so is Damon. The deal doesn’t sound particularly invasive as far as mortgaging the soul of The Atlantic is concerned, but, slippery slope, and so on. Ultimately, ChatGPT is a platform, like Facebook, Google, and Twitter, and we’ve seen what happens when publishers leverage their fates to platforms they can’t control, again, and again, and again (see below re BuzzFeed). Spoiler: It never goes well. But is the alternative to not play along at all? No — at the New York Times knows, it’s to lawyer up and go for the jugular.

• All that said: The most important story we published at Futurism this week is that most people don’t actually care about AI or using it right now.

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Media.

Sigh, fine:

• Third-Wave Substack Exodus. I’ve heard of at least two massive names who are sick of Hamish’s bullshit and ready to bounce. This will likely be a trend, as Substack caters less to the newsletter writers who made it what it is, and further into the business of attracting more lowercase-c creators⁶, who will probably use AI to publish their trash and flood Substack with garbágé. Fun summer, coming up.

• Pitchfork is starting to vet candidates for a leadership role. I know at least one name they went to, and it’s a very good name, someone who’d be on my first ballot, someone Pitchfork would be lucky to have — whether they’d take the job is another question. But also, now we’re a ways away from the blast radius, can we just say? Yes, it sucks that Pitchfork got culled — sucks doesn’t even begin — and it’s absolutely beyond logic that Conde couldn’t find a way to monetize that level of direct traffic and devotion to a browser bar brand like Pitchfork. That said, if there’s a single person at Conde Nast capable of salvaging Pitchfork as a brand and positioning it for a sustainable future (within Conde, a task of its own), it’s Will Welch, at GQ. This is someone who got his start at early-era Fader (fun fact, he wrote Kanye West’s first cover story, published there). He cares about music and knows what makes for a good magazine and GQ continues to pump out fantastic music stories (three examples off the top of my head: Zach Baron’s flute-era Andre 3K profile and quasi-documentary, and his recent Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross profile tied to the Challengers score, or Naomi Zeichner’s Sebastián Yatra profile, among others). I doubt there’s anyone at Conde in a position of authority who cares about music journalism writ large more than Will Welch. Anyway: I’ve still got some faith this could get better. Also, Pitchfork has continued pumping out pretty solid music writing in the last few months.

• God, I’ve got so many media items saved up from the last time I did this that I don’t even know where to start, here. We might have to make it through the summer before I start writing about media all that much again, but just, like, can I tell you: One of the tips I got involved a Prestige Magazine Writer who’s been “faking” their accent for over a decade. People are wild. You all are WILD. Also, honestly, while yes this person clearly adopted some kind of weird vocal thing over the years, (A) it’s more of a mid-Atlantic affect, and (B) this person has a Polk Award, and I do not, so if affecting a mid-Atlantic vocal style a la Frasier and Niles Crane is what one does when they win a Polk Award, so be it, and (C) Madonna did this in this mid 90s and Ray of Light and Music both absolutely slap.

• Remainders: Brock Colyer is re-animating the best nightlife newsletter in the city, you already know my thoughts; new AI-driven summaries of Washington Post stories apparently suck, definitely read the newsletter collaboration joint of the year, Alison Roman x Blackbird Spyplane, both the interview (which I’ll write about more later) and the recipe (!).

• Finally: VivekFeed. Hang on to your hats.
  
  So it turns out that Ben Smith, Semafor editor-in-chief, doesn’t know what a reference to “the first pancake” means. I learned this in the literal cold open to Semafor’s new media podcast. Also, at some point, I’ll write about Ben’s book, which I didn’t wanna talk about while everyone was reading it, because my god, how much can we belabor a very obvious point? Apparently, as a society? Not enough, because now, Vivek Ramaswamy — a man who ran possibly the most comically odious and unanimously disliked presidential campaign in modern history — has become an “activist” (he’s writing letters and whining on podcasts) “investor” (he’s put together 8.3% of the company in stock) in “BuzzFeed” (i.e. BuzzFeed in 2024). The point being belabored by Ramaswamy is that BuzzFeed ultimately turned out to be a marketing play for venture capital more than it ever was a sustainable business, that it was run by hubris before reality (see: turning down Disney’s $650M offer), that a site constructed (at least initially) of content stolen from Reddit and repackaged as original work that was then grown by hiring people (who would’ve otherwise worked in marketing or advertising or I don’t know accounting) who should’ve never worked in media in the first place maybe wasn’t the best plan.

[And also, while we’re here, that Jonah Peretti’s race to the bottom to popularize a style of crass reductive brain-thinning inhalant “content” (ugh) was always going to spiral beyond his control no matter how much loss-leading journalism he tried to dress it up with.]

And so, yes, an obvious point that’s been slowly asserting itself for a long time has reached an almost poetic nadir now that a guy who probably has a Pepe The Frog tat somewhere near his perineum gets to throw his weight around Jonah with his “big ideas” on how to fix BuzzFeed.

And what, pray tell, are Vivek’s ideas? Well, this:

Mr. Ramaswamy has some ideas for ways BuzzFeed can jump-start its business. In his letter, the former Republican presidential candidate suggested hiring high-profile “creators” like [Tucker] Carlson, [Charles] Barkley and Aaron Rodgers, the National Football League quarterback. 

Say it with me: Lol. But also, can’t agree more: Let’s get Tucker Carlson on Hot Ones post-haste. Ben Mullin over at the Times thinks that — unfortunately for the gods of poetry (but fortunately for the staff of BuzzFeed) — Jonah holds stock in a class that gives him “effective” veto power, and this likely won’t go anywhere besides this one idiot’s public bluster and the media press hopefully not taking it any more seriously beyond that.

BUT: Cut to Vivek, on that first episode of Semafor’s New Media Podcast, arguing that Peretti actually doesn’t hold the cards, here, because BuzzFeed’s debt comes of age in December, at which point, its fate likely belongs to its creditors. Ben didn’t really press him on how he plans on leveraging that fact to take control of BuzzFeed, instead giving Vivek airtime to bemoan the many journalism failures of the business reporting about this! Irony. But — credit to Ben — getting Vivek as a guest on the first episode makes for great podcasting as much as it does a finger in Peretti’s eye.⁷

That said, anyone dumb enough to believe that they’re value investing in a media company like BuzzFeed is probably dumb enough to do it more. BuzzFeed staffers, truly, consider yourself warned, though maybe they already know: Running at the top of the site today isn’t a story about Trump, but rather, “21 Excruciatingly Entitled People Whose Outright Selfishness Will Make You Feel Sick To Your Stomach.”

Do you have any media tips? I’d rather talk about, like, the ineffable joys of small, ephemeral moments of domestic bliss, like the uncomplicated beauty of a freshly painted wall, or that feeling when you grab clean laundry out of a dryer on a cold day. But yeah, sure, send me what you got.

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And that’ll do it — mostly. A quick note about Taormina, Sicily, one of the places in which you learned the weather earlier:

Long before it was lousy with murderous gays, I went there on a summer trip with my then-girlfriend and her family; it was my first time in Europe, I was 22 (I know). We’d just been around the rest of Sicily meeting her dad’s long-lost Sicilian family, in towns like Naro, and Noto. Patience among the group was wearing thin, and the resort town — built into a seaside cliff — was an incredibly well-timed respite. It’s beautiful. There are some fantastic sights there. One day, when the White Lotus bump fades off, it’ll be worth going to, again. Anyway, on that trip, it was me, her, her parents, and her Aunt. When we got to Taormina, I finally broke off from the group and did the one thing I’d also wanted to do in Italy: Ride a Vespa (I know).

Did I know how to ride a Vespa? Not at all. Was that gonna stop me? Also, hell no, not in the slightest. Needless to say, on the five minute drive from the rental to the hotel, I almost drove the thing straight off a cliff, right into the Mediterranean, and it’s a miracle I didn’t.

I pull up to our hotel and god, the “what the fuck did you do” faces of my girlfriend and her father, truly: Priceless. They were bewildered that I did it, let alone, that I could get it back to the hotel without dying (which, again: fair). As I’m learning how to drive it (in circles, in a parking lot) her father grunts at me, something like, “I can’t believe you, lemme see this goddamn thing,” and jumps on it, drives it in a few circles around the parking lot, gets off it, grunts somewhat approvingly, and goes back in the hotel. My girlfriend is still appalled. Meanwhile, her aunt and I rode around on that thing every chance we could, Rainey’s scarf waving in the breeze like Sofia Loren. Given that we’d put up with their insanity and arguing for the last week — the two odd people out, in some ways — we felt like we deserved that kind of freedom, absolutely loved it. It drove the rest of them insane.

Or so I thought. Because not a few months after we all got back from the trip, my then-girlfriend’s father, a commercial real estate lawyer living in Palm Beach in his late 50s/early 60s, you know what he does? Buys a Vespa. And — I shit you not — proceeds to commute to work with it most days.

Anyway, Mike Noto was a mensch, a brilliant, wonderful guy who passed away earlier this month. And I’m thinking about him this week, and that great vacation that was slightly torturous in situ, but also, all the great ways people can go somewhere for the summer, and come back, and come back changed, returning with not just a tan, and some lower blood pressure, but maybe something more, something that they can bring with them, figuratively and literally, throughout their days, that can changes their lives. Yeah — I’m trying to remember that.

As I was saying: The weather today in Taormina is 77/63, mostly sunny.

Sail on, sailor,

-f.

1. I mean, ‘goes without saying, but just so we’re clear, if this newsletter were stripped of self-regard, you’d be left with an approximate word count of fuckall. Most newsletters, really.

2. Marfa Public Radio: Maybe the most iconic public radio station building in America, and don’t get me started about the greatness that is the conceptual art of them intentionally putting listeners to sleep for their yearly fundraiser, by reading them the entire Texas Administrative Code, the entire NPR Style Guide, and The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, and then turning it into a podcast. Seriously.

3. WWOZ — the Sound of New Orleans, of course — isn’t part of the morning routine, I only listen to at night, as it’s all music, but also, it’s all incredible, to the point where I’ll sometimes leave it on softly when I go out, to have the sound of something unfailingly fantastic and new to come home to, right there, as soon as I walk in the door. Try it sometime.

4. Thank you to Clio for the lovely photo of the sign. Ben Smith, if you’re reading, Clio can also tell the Mayor Max story referenced in Footnote No. 7.

5. The great Megan Robinson, who runs Pearlita and knows more about hair it looking good on your head than anyone else in New York City.

6. Ah, yes, “creators,” people who proudly wear the most grating of the nu-neologisms we’ve normalized, as though mediocre Supreme-wearing clowns working at Oglivy calling themselves “creative(s)” wasn’t already terrible of a standard enough. Related, as a society, we should probably do more to punish unironic euphemistic language. Death penalty? Perhaps.

7. Even better would be bringing me on as a co-host to talk about that time Max Tani briefly ran for President of Ibiza in the garden at Pacha last summer, and nearly won the French vote. Seriously, Ben, if you have me on, I will tell this story.