The Most Important Final Issue Of A Limited Edition Summering Newsletter For The Most Important People In The World Ever
It's packing day. Let's get this over with.
Today is Friday, August 30th, 2024.
It’s the fifteenth and final Summer Friday of the year, zero to go until Labor Day.
The official FOSTERTALK Presents: Summer Fridays playlist is on the radio.
New in theaters this weekend is Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan in Reagan, Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne in the space thriller Slingshot.
In sports this weekend, the 2024 Paralympics begins in Paris! On Saturday, in Premiere League action, the unbeaten Arsenal face the unbeaten Brighton & Hove Albion. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Formula 1 returns to Monza for the 94th running of the Italian Grand Prix.
Finally, around the world today, the weather: New York City: 72/67, cloudy • Malibu: 87/66, partly cloudy • Ibiza: 82/75, light showers • Capri: 86/80, partly cloudy • Bloomville: 66/58, clou—
—oh, fuck, no, please don’t do that, hey, hey, I know what that look means — I mean, christ, we haven’t even gotten past the weather-interrupting bit yet! Yes, it’s the Final Issue of FOSTERTALK Presents: Summer Fridays.
But don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened! Here, I’ve got something special for you. As a kid I went to a summer camp for four summers outside of Atlanta, in the northern Georgia woods. Every year, during Packing Day, the counselors would console the crying campers with a song, which those campers would one day sing when they became counselors, to the tune of “Camptown Races”:
You’re never gonna see your friends again, doo-dah, doo-dah
You’re never gonna see your friends again, oh, doo-doo-dah-day
Never gonna see your FRIEEEENDS, never gonna see your FRIEEEENDS
Never gonna see your friends again, oh, doo-doo-dah-day
Delta’s gonna crash and burn, doo-dah, doo-dah
Delta’s gonna crash and burn, oh, doo-doo-dah-day
Delta’s gonna CRAAAASH, Delta’s gonna BUUUURN, Delta’s gonna crash and burn
oh, doo-doo-dah-day
And so on. Actually, come to think of it, they’re probably not allowed to sing that anymore. Also, this as a “formative memory” probably explains a lot. ANYWAY, PEOPLE:
Look where we’ve gone, how far we’ve come, how many places have had their weather forecasts rhetorically interrupted!
Yeah, I know: A rhetorical voice interrupting a view-from-nowhere voice delivering weather nobody actually needs written by a single person is a, uh, interesting bit to commit to. Especially as all of those forecasts were actually the real forecasts, every issue, in each of those cities, which means I was looking up every forecast in each of those cities, every Friday. Why?
“Why” is not an unreasonable question to ask of…all of this. And today, you might get some answers. But before then, we’ve got The Final Issue to knock out. We’re also gonna check in on the progress of some of our big summer stories, and run a few we’ve had sitting in the hopper for a minute. Either way, let’s get this show on the road.
The final lap of FOSTERTALK Presents: Summer Fridays starts….right now:
Interview: How to Visit the Greatest Island On Planet Earth, and What To Do Once You’re There, With The One Person Who Knows Best
A little over a year and change after the worst day of my life, some friends and I and some friends fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine, and went to Ibiza for a week. The Ibiza you’ve heard about — a hedonistic spring break-adjacent clubby hellhole filled with “the lads” and “hen parties” — is probably different from the Balearic paradise I know (and always dreamed of visiting).
Ibiza is rooted in a past as an artistic enclave and hippie-strewn bohemia, long before it was a tourist destination (conceptual artist legend Robert Irwin lived there when it was “very much not a hotspot”). The historic core of Ibiza Town is an incredible UNESCO site — one of four on the island — a beautiful fortification fought over for centuries by various kingdoms, built into the side of a mountain that people still live within, today. It’s becoming a destination for art and its restaurant scene, and its beaches among some of the most beautiful I’ve ever been on.
And yeah, there are clubs, which follow the law of averages. But try spending a Sunday night with Solomun at the closest thing the world has left to a living Studio 54, Pacha, then tell me you don’t want to write 6,000 words about it for the New Yorker and tell every living soul you know about it, either. All in, Ibiza’s one of the more special places on this planet you can spend a week in. And the best person to tell you about how to do it?..
…is also the person to tell you: Maybe you shouldn’t.1
Whether it’s Ibiza’s essential workers being forced to live in tent cities or a teacher who has to fly 40 times a month to get to her job there, or Diplo stomping over protected lands in an ad hoc DJ set, Ibiza has now been stretched well its limit. Tourist spending in 2023 in Ibiza was €4.5B, a 20.8% increase from 2022. 2024 is looking, again, to outpace 2023. The economic growth is insane, and it’s leaving everyone who built lives there behind. So, my questions: What’s happening, what’s going to happen, and is it possible to even ethically visit Ibiza? And rather than ask one of the many writers offering their own scoldy ethical guides to becoming a “better” traveler, I thought I’d just ask Rafael Giménez, 37 years-old, a spokesperson for the protest movement Prou Eivissa (“Enough Ibiza”).
Did you grow up on Ibiza? Yeah — I was born and raised in Ibiza, there almost all my life, in the south — the town of Ibiza.
And these days, you work as a police officer there? I was working as a police officer there until last year, when I moved to the mainland. Now I’m living in Teruel, a small town on Spain’s mainland.
Tell me about Prou Eivissa — how did it start? It’s been around since 2016, it’s a group of people from Ibiza who wanted to advocate for the natural resources, culture, and citizens of Ibiza, and agitate for laws to protecting them.
And what, above all, are their aims? To stem the excesses of tourism and its breaking past critical mass, endangering the ecology of Ibiza and well-being (or survivability) of its citizens. Which, by the way, isn’t just happening there, it's happening in other parts of the world, too.
Right. But especially in Ibiza... We’re experiencing very, very serious problems, not only in infrastructure, but social problems, too. People can’t afford houses, as mass tourism necessitates more workers. Those workers can’t afford a rental, so they’ve starting to live in caravans, or places that — I don’t know how you’d say it in English, but in Brazil, they call them “favelas.”
Slums, you mean? Right. And once you start with slums as a standard of living, it's very, very difficult to go backwards. And this problem — the demand for workers, the lack of housing — it puts us on the edge of social collapse. It's very small island, and it has its limits, and it’s already stretched beyond them.
Do you have specific political goals or policy items you're advocating for? Yeah, very basic demands: Controls for the access of vehicles on and around the island (including waters) which cause traffic, stretch our infrastructure, and collapses access to beaches on the island. And also, some measures to control the growth of hotels, part of the housing problem.
But you’re not against tourism? We are not against tourism. That we can want these measures and not be against tourism is a fake dichotomy.
Go on… This isn’t a choice between the massification of tourism and being an isolationist republic like, I don't know, North Korea, or something. We don’t want extremes, we don’t want to stop tourism! We just something reasonable, something that’s enough for people from the island to enjoy a basic quality of life, that allows them to conduct business, make a living, have a home. And not just people from the island, but people from everywhere in the world. There just needs to be limits — it’s a small island.
Are hotels really causing that much of a problem? Well, when I’m talking about hotels — sorry, maybe I didn’t find the exact words, there — I’m talking about the tourism housing.
You mean, hotels plus AirBnBs, VRBOs, and short-term rentals? Right. For example, we know there are 100,000 legal units for tourists to stay in Ibiza, according to the local authorities, who have also estimated that there are 120,000 illegal units for tourists to stay.
Wait, sorry, back up: Ibiza has a population of ~159,000 people. There’s a housing crisis with 100,000 legal tourist housing units and 120,000 illegal tourist housing units?! Right! These are places rented without any authorization or short-term license or anything, on rental platforms or social networks, and people just book them.
Okay, so, getting rid of illegal housing inventory is one goal. Do you guys have any other specific policy goals that you're trying to push forward with the government of Ibiza? We want controls on illegal coastal activities, yachts and boats that come to our coastline, drop anchor wherever they feel like it, and destroy the water’s ecosystem — our coral and seed plants that make our water as blue and clear as it is — and the tourists who then swarm our beaches from those boats, taking over everything that locals used to really enjoy.
It wasn’t always like this, right? What changed? No. In 2010, we had two million visitors a year. Now we’re close to four million.
So what kind of controls, exactly, are you agitating for? Have you and the group ever considered something like the tourist tax imposed in Venice? We already have a tourist tax — we’ve had one for the past five or six years. Apparently, it doesn't work because the tax is so low. You’ve been to Ibiza, paid it, and didn’t even know it was there!
Are you hopeful for the future of the island at all? It’s my duty to send a positive message to the world from the people of Ibiza, and there are good examples in our history of these protests working — in the 80s and 90s, protests achieved some protections of natural areas, like Ses Salinas, a beach in the south of Ibiza. Some people wanted to turn it into a resort, but protests stopped that from happening. But it's going to be hard this time. The economic incentives (for real estate developers) are strong.
If I’m thinking about coming to Ibiza this summer, how can someone like me — as a tourist — visit while respecting (and promoting the cause of) the people of Ibiza? Is it even possible? This is a tough one, but I’ll try.
First: Check to make sure you’re making legal bookings for your accommodations. If you find a place to stay that’s cheaper or nicer than everything else, or in a residential area, just make sure it's legal.
Second: This is an island with a community that lives there year round. Pay some attention to that local community. Operate with basic decency and respect for it. For example: We get so much drunk driving during the summer. Comply with the laws.
And if you’d avoid coming in July and August, that’d be nice. We have good weather now almost all year, and you’ll find a calmer island outside of the peak season.
That’s what we’re planning on doing, some friends and I — a late September trip. Maybe even early October. You’ll see the difference. You’ll be nicely surprised. And thank you for calling. I appreciate this interest in our in our land, which I just really, really love.
Regrets Only: Theme Issues, All Travel Media Sucks Now (Except For Mine),
2Oh, yeah, speaking of Ibiza and The Ibiza Issue that wasn’t, I was gonna do a whole bunch of theme issues: A music issue featuring musicians! A Summer Reading issue, featuring books, and the people who wrote them! Turns out: Not so much. Theme issues, am I fucking insane, I can barely get through writing a footnote without a half-hour Google sidequest to find the best martini north of the South Pole. Theme issues, yeah, right, lol.
But there was one theme issue I didn’t get around to doing that I actually really am sad I won’t get to pull off, if only for the phenomal art spun up by ad hoc FOSTERTALK Presents: Summer Fridays creative director Tag Hartman-Simkins — who also happens to be Futurism’s creative director, and made that incredible header art you’ve seen on top of every issue. Which was:
Oh my GOD come on that is SUCH A GOOD REFERENCE Tag you are a GODDAMN LEGEND. My idea for travel coverage was going to go something along the lines of: 3,000 words of about 10 different “reviews” of various ephemeral experiences that otherwise don’t speak to the “quality” of a hotel or a restaurant but more to a very human and relatable moment within it3 that brings back something from a far away place. Or something completely unrelatable but no less interesting, like this:
How to Buy Espadrilles
Anyone spending more than $100 on espadrilles should be thrown into the Balearic with (concrete) espadrilles on. There is only one brand to buy espadrilles from, and it’s Castaner. We, my Traveling Companion and I, we landed in Ibiza last summer and immediately got to work, chewing on paper at the baggage claim and cabbing it to the town center — while he took a call inside our hotel room at The Standard, I went outside into the Ibiza Town square, to buy some vodka, some gum, and some espadrilles. I had to wait ten minutes outside the store at 6:20 for the shopkeeper to return from siesta, and when he did, he found yours truly, hiding from the late day sun and sweating like fourth quarter Patrick Ewing, pupils the size of paella pans, holding a bottle of Ciroq and a box of Nicorette, asking if this is the place he can buy a pair of espadrilles, in the rare and profoundly strange tenor where enthusiasm borders on desperation, which anyone could understand as weird behavior no matter the native tongue (which given that I could barely speak my own, no beuno). I later ran through the white carpeted hallway of The Standard, old shoes aloft in my hand, burst into the room, and screamed “GOT ‘EM” at T.C. like I’d secured the Holy Grail. He slammed his laptop and screamed back at me. Two seconds of silence followed, after which he asked how they felt. Honestly, I told him, surprisingly comfortable.
Cf Castañer | Conde Rosellón, 12 IBIZA, 07800 ESPAÑA | +34 97130 14 70
You know, that kind of thing. Other travel items I didn’t get to: This GQ travel column (LOL), this glorious Geoguesser story (genuinely beautiful all-timer travel writing), A Brief List of Simple Summer Pleasures the only item I wrote for it being
Walking through a park, and casually, perfectly throwing or kicking a wayward ball back in play.
a series of screengrabs from celebrities looking lost behind the DJ booth while making cameos at Black Coffee’s sets at HI IBIZA (example here), a thing that started with the words “I find something deeply sweet about the foosball tables in Fumencio,” something about what we wear when we travel but just as an excuse to publish the words “anytime you see them remember Loro Piana sweats are just overpriced Juicy Couture exclusively worn by those rich white women who secretly voted for Trump” and a list of all the many wonderful places FOSTERTALK Presents: Summer Fridays readers went on vacation that I’ll just put in the footnotes instead.4
A Series of Updates, Follow-Ups, Corrections, and Regrets
REGRETS ABOUT ZEMPIES: I previously lambasted non-vital users of Zempies because they contribute to the problem of people with diabetes actually needing them!
has since written about his experience on Zempies:These days, with various compounds and versions easily available, shortages seem to be less of a concern. I have been on it for the better part of three years and am currently taking it. My life on Ozempic has been markedly better.
Yeah, he kinda changed my mind with that one. Read it.
ON THE GUY I TALKED TO WHO ONCE TOOK STEROIDS, AFTER HE READ THE ARTICLE: “I’m happy to report your balls would not fit in my mouth these days (I’m still not taking steroids).” Okay, but also, how would you know, pal?
AN UPDATE ON THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT RULES OF THE SUMMER: While you still shouldn’t take your dick out or light anything on fire, as it turns out, that guy who hit a bong inside the Sphere somehow managed to get his ban rescinded!!!
ON THE MOST IMPORTANT RATIONALITY PARADIGM OF THE SUMMER: Don’t forget to commit to the bit. Full send, baby. Also,
called me later and personally explained to me the Repugnance Paradox of Utilitarianism while deploying a metaphor involving champagne and beer. I don’t have the time to reiterate here but promise it was good.CORRECTION:
’s place of business is not, I’ve been told, a “shoppy shop,” but a “corner store.” Also, the bread she offered Captain E-O while he was ascending the Heaviside Layer in the middle of it high on that Catskills Dank was zucchini bread, not banana bread. We regret the errors.GATEKEEPING?!?
CitiBike: Doesn’t seem like the problem it was now that they raised the price.
Adderall: The shortage is still very real and the back-to-school Purge-like hunt for it is ON, baby. But at least these guys are probably going to jail.
Noncompetes: Don’t sign them.
Where To Go In Ibiza: Reverse double footnote reference suprise, GUESS WHO’S GATEKEEPING NOW??!
A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE SUMMER FRIDAYS PLAYLIST: The first time I ever heard Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” was at Bernie’s and if there’s ever a G*wker movie it should start with that song, Jamie xx played Chris Rea’s “On The Beach” on the last night of his residency and it’s one of the vibeyest songs I’ve ever heard in my entire life, Jamie xx also closed that residency with Little River Band’s “It’s A Long Way There” and he was having so much fun dancing to it at the end of four nights of pretty labored DJing and I knew it’d be the last song that went on that playlist, I first heard that Big Ben Beat cover of Bowie’s “Heroes” at the end of a Justin Strauss set earlier this summer and as far as covers of Bowie go? Pretty wonderful. The K.W.S. cover of “Please Don’t Go” is etched in my psyche as it was the first cassette single I ever purchased. And “Ride Like The Wind,” well, if you’ve never seen The Worst Person In The World, watch it, or at least the party scene from it. It all fucks and I really was rinsing that playlist on repeat as I was writing this.
A SUPER BRIEF GUIDE TO NTS RADIO: Another feature I wanted to write but didn’t probably because I was just pissed that someone pitched the Times piece before me (it’s very good). NTS is the absolute best and if the only thing you took away from all this was a supporters’ membership to it, I’d be fine with that. Listen to shows by Flo, David Holmes, Floating Points, Melodies International, Malfalda’s Tropic of Love, and Naomi Zeichner’s New York Naomi, and Moxie.
LAST MUSIC ENDORSEMENT I SWEAR but that Fred, Again.. rooftop set is, perhaps, the closest thing I’ve seen to a perfect two hours of summer vibes on a London rooftop EXCEPT ACTUALLY WAIT ONE LAST THING
is one of my favorite music writers alive and writes about it more colorfully and beautifully than most of the people on the planet, and so, this post is behind a paywall but if you feel like it he wrote one of my favorite little things I read this summer about Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” here and also he threw down on the review of that Total Blue record, also, as far as strictly vibes-based albums go, is transcendent.STATISTICS:
There were 15 summer Fridays, and 13 (including this one) issues of Summer Fridays. I tried!
8 of those issues actually made it out on a Friday, 5 of them didn’t.
Published Word Count: So much.
Actual Word Count: lol, you don’t even want to know.
EXPLANATIONS:
The absolutely brain-vaporizingly dumb hyperbolic headlines of these newsletters is a reminder that most people proclaiming things on the internet are fundamentally ridiculous and full of shit. The Best/Most Important/Coolest/Smartest whatever “Of The Summer” is whatever you decide it is, your summer is not the “Summer of _____” it’s whatever your summer is, and the contemporary state of media is so laughably bad that people are stretching hyperbole past the point of parody5 in order to assert their authority. See:
’s recent post about “Summer Of/Of the Summer” for further explanation.Yep, the weather updates at the top of each newsletter were inspired by John Mulaney delivering the weather in LA during his late night show from earlier this year, which I just found to be utterly charming. Initially I was going to stop doing it after the first newsletter but became weirdly attached and fond of just….looking up the weather in other places, a weird ineffable warm feeling that, honestly, I kind of recommend it.
THAT INCREDIBLE LOGO was in fact a reference to the logo for Weekend At Bernie’s, because an 80s movie about two guys dragging a dead guy around with them in order to party in his house seemed spiritually correct as far as this newsletter goes.
And finally:
How to Make An Exit
You don’t, you just go! I mean, christ, look at this self-congratulatory idiot for pulling off a summer of Substacking — once a week — I know, except, reminder:
1. As ever, FOSTERTALK is free,
2. If you already think this is unhinged, just take the absurd wordage I’ve committed to this thing and multiply it by three, and you’ll have what I’ve actually written for it,
3. I’ve got, like, several jobs, including a day job! I’ve been asked how I keep a day job while also filing 6,000 word cover stories and filings for the Times in addition to helping out with every issue of
4. Also, I stopped writing for a while, not without good reason. The reason for that — the story behind all of this, and I promise, there is one — and why you basically just decide to throw away what could’ve been one of the most profitable newsletters three years ago only to just kind of bring it back in a form totally unlike what it once was was actually going to be the first issue of this thing. That’ll come at some point soon. Just, for now, know:
Making a thing, and trying to make it original, and trying to make it for the love of the thing, and trying to do it with the enormous pressures we put on ourselves, to say nothing of all the reasons not to put your whole ass out there for everyone to see? By the numbers, there are more reasons to avoid doing it than not. And this was never going to be good if I charged for it. Money is an incentive, and when new incentives are introduced into anything, the fundamental nature of a thing is altered. Money for creative work isn’t a bad thing by any means. But that was never gonna be this. Ultimately, the incentive here was: I wanted to have fun writing again.
And for reading this — for giving me an audience willing to dignify a weird, totally random assortment of “news” about noncompetes from a newsletter with a “focused” area of coverage ranging anywhere from poppers to noncompete agreements to, like, that Australian Bowl Place and nightlife, that is just beyond, and I can’t thank you enough. Every person every person who opened this, even the person who’s been giving me side-eye at parties for the last decade who opened every single issue probably as a hate read (BUT STILL!), thank you, thank you for taking your time to read it, to write nice things back, and tell other people about it, and give me ideas for newsletters, and feedback, and, truly:6 If this sounds self-aggrandizing, that’s because I’m not good enough of a writer to actually convey what it means to have people encourage your weird, creative pursuits, except to say that we should all spend more time encouraging people’s weird, creative pursuits.
That’s all I’ve got. Remember: It’s always summer somewhere. Be that place.
See ya7, -F.
SURPRISE, HERE BE ETHICAL CITIZENRY TEXTS! Lol, yeah, right, like I was gonna do platform Ibiza travel service content and tell you my spots? LOL. On the Summer Friday hierarchy of needs, moral integrity is actually at the self-actualized top, right above “good vibes” and “summery philautia.” Sunglasses, sunscreen, and tunes are at the bottom. Should really get around to filling that whole thing out and drawing that one up. It’d make good merch. Oh well, next year!
Turns out you can’t footnote a headline? Maybe because the only person who’d want to do that is me, because I’m deeply troubled. Anyway, what was the footnote I meant to leave there? Oh yeah: …Which is forthcoming. Maybe.
Guess who spent their summer brushing up on Alfred Adler. Huge younger brother energy, it’s true. To the four therapists who read this, you’re welcome.
A lot of hay gets made over supposed editorial “communities.” Most of it’s bullshit. Here’s what’s not: FOSTERTALK readers are the most cosmopolitan, discrete, discerning global citizens in any media readership, in any language. They make T readers look like Monocle readers and Monocle readers look like AirMail readers and AirMail readers are, ironically, the only people who meant to sign up for that AARP magazine and somehow instead ended up with the inflight magazine of the Ron Burkle’s “Air Fuck One.” Which is why it’s important to know where they’re vacationing this summer.
A bunch of them are going to the Hamptons and the Adirondacks, which only kind of counts for vacation (remember: the Hamptons are for poor rich people). JGP’s going to Newport, while Corey’s going to Freeport because he’s “old and washed,” though he is seeing a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard show in Portland by himself (read: on drugs). Maura’s hitting Ocean Grove, NJ. Diane Marshall’s in Mexico City for the summer. Anna just dropped racks on trips to Oslo and Copenhagen in the spring so she’ll be posting up at her parents’ in Southeastern Mass.
The legendary Sophie Donelson, whose house is infinitely more well-appointed than yours, is going to Prince Edward Island. The most talented hired gun in media, Mark Lotto, went to Amsterdam, and I sent him to Cornerstore (he loved it, everyone does). Connor Simpson’s going to Lisbon and Porto/Amares, and Downtown Tony Tran — the hottest man in tech journalism — is riding motorcycles from LA to Baja California with a friend.
Disturbingly charismatic hot fun couple Ian and Ariana are also (of course) top-shelf travelers, not surprised that they’re going to Palermo, the Aeolian Islands (Salina and Filcudi), and Pantelleria, which (as previously noted) the NYT did a trender on a few weeks after they booked their trip — coincidence? Absolutely not). Sergio’s going to Montreal and Quebec City, and spending second summer in Toulouse and Switzerland. Marlene’s joining her friend on tour in Japan in Osaka, Hiroshima, and Tokyo, while Charlotte’s going to a retreat center overlooking Mount Fuji.
Shea’s going to Barcelona, then a shorter trip to Iceland and Ireland. Speaking of: Katie’s heading to the motherfucking Isle of Skye. Brianne’s also going to Scotland. Brandy just moved to Paraty, Brazil, so life’s a vacation. Big Gabe Brosbe’s going to Bordeaux and San Sebastián (Getaria, Bilbao, Biarritz), and he’s doing an entire week on Formentera, incredible. He’s also going to Sardinia over Labor Day.
But hey, I tried!
James, Shel, Alison, Lotto, Ryan, Nate, Jeff, Dan, Eric, Sivan, Verena, Lil, Max, Easter, Helen, Dave, Mango, Zainab, Nick, Ben D, Tyler, Jess, Fabio, Sam, Nick, Julia, Chels, Colin, Brett, Gabe, Bakes!, just a few of a bunch of names of people that don’t mean anything to you but mean the world to me, thanks guys.
…soon:
In 2015 Foster called my brother "effortlessly charming" in The Times. My revenge is being footnoted as a world traveler in the final issue of Summer Fridays
btw does anyone have recommendations for Toulouse or anything between Paris (or Barcelona) and Toulouse?
Summer Fridays forever.
Thank you for all of this. I really hope you did have fun writing it, because I had a lot of fun reading it, even though I'm comically outside what seems to be your target audience. Summer Fridays forever!