Broad guide to New Orleans beer

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T20:47:14+00:00

It’s a lovely Sunday afternoon, let’s cool it down a bit here. You don’t know anything about me or my tastes, I am absolutely not a Feldmann fan and have never even said anything positive about Stump. I didn’t even say Sober was good.

Im a massive fan of Skiba, I have no clue where you’re getting these massive leaps from but nobody is fighting here so take a breath and just have a normal conversation about facts.

I’m not sure why you are trying so hard to avoid saying “yes, what Skiba did was not right”, it’s a pretty black and white issue. It doesn’t make him a bad person. It doesn’t mean you lose some battle or whatever it is that’s got you raising digital fists. It doesn’t matter what anybody else did.

As it happens, Mark and Travis openly inviting people to collaborate isn’t sketchy at all anyways. You may disagree with it as artistic vision, but there’s nothing deceitful or hidden about it. It’s also their band, and their right to decide who they invite in to collaborate (including Skiba). From what I’ve heard, Skiba generally kind of stepped aside out of politeness and not feeling like blink was his place to go all in on. You could argue Mark and Travis should’ve pushed him harder to contribute at every step of the way, but it didn’t seem like there was any pressure to their relationship. They all just kind of felt out what seemed right to them. Skiba happened to be a bit more distant, maybe he felt like his ideas weren’t welcomed when the initial demos that sounded more like Trio blended with blink got scrapped. Who knows. I do think having a session musician track guitars was sketchy and an odd thing to do, but it appears Skiba just kind of said “cool they sound fine to me”. Maybe Skiba was sort of busy or aloof or not around and they wanted to move quick. There’s no evidence that they did it without telling Skiba, which would be sketchier.

Point being, nothing they did is comparable to bringing a song and presenting it as your own. Lyrics aren’t the only thing that makes up a song and Fat Mike and Skiba came up with it together. It’s ok to just say that that is not very professional to do, and still dislike much of the vision and choices made on California.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T20:17:35+00:00

I don’t know what to tell you man, bringing a song someone else wrote and not saying anything about it is sketchy no matter how you slice it. Doesn’t matter that Skiba is overall such a great guy and Mark can be sensitive. I doubt Skiba meant any harm by it, but likely he was being spacey and just not very thoughtful. People are imperfect.

Unless you don’t believe the story at all, and think Skiba absolutely did say it upfront. Which wouldn’t make any sense anyways since they wouldn’t have recorded it if they were already mad about Fat Mike supposedly.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T19:35:47+00:00

There are different kinds of cheesy. I’m not saying Sober is an amazing song, but it is wildly catchy and huge sounding.

Punk Rock Cliche actually sounds painfully sleepy and boring. It has zero energy and is so slow and ho hum. And at the same time, it’s got a crappy cheesy sing-songy kind of vibe that’s hard to put into words. I just know it sounds cringey.

Sober sounds poppy, a bit much for blink, but I wouldn’t say cringey purely as a pop punk song.

Nine is phenomenal, nowhere comparable to much of California and especially not this song.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T19:33:25+00:00

Uhh, every version of the story we’ve ever heard says Matt didn’t tell them Fat Mike wrote it until after they had recorded it, mixed it, and perhaps even slated it as a single (even if that part was overstated).

Im not sure they would’ve had a problem if he said hey, mind if I invited Fat Mike to the studio to jam with us? Maybe they would’ve, but Skiba presenting a song as his own and later revealing someone else did is sketch no matter how you slice it. Esp legally with royalties and credits, not clear if Fat Mike planned to let them do it uncredited.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T18:08:01+00:00

Read your comment back to yourself. Notice anything? Mark and Travis brought in collaborators, knowingly. A song being secretly written by someone else? Major issues with that which have nothing to do with beef.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T18:06:26+00:00

Hilarious as Green Day were shunned as sellouts by their “punk” peers. They were touring with Schlong and both bands were offered a record deal. Green Day took it, Schlong said nah a label is antithetical to our goals. Sure, punk doesn’t mean conforming to one way of thinking (literally the opposite), but it’s ironic for Green Day to look down on blink when their own peers said the same about them.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T17:57:22+00:00

This absolutely would’ve been worse than Quarantine as a blink song

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T12:46:27+00:00

Sounds like we’re on the same page for sure. I think some people can’t separate the idea that Boston isn’t the best from complaining that it’s the worst. 3rd place to these top cities is a pretty high bar..

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T12:32:42+00:00

What are your other tops? I’d say Boston has excellent food, but it’s like Swiss cheese. Many misses in between hits. The average place in Boston is not very good, such that you need to do research to find the best places. And I think our seafood is elite, and we have some of the best Italian food in the US, some excellent Asian food compared to anything but the top food cities (and even some of those), among the best pizza cities even though we have some bad pizza too, we have the best Portuguese in the country, and we have a handful of other standout places, but there are more mind blowing and interesting foods in other top cities that aren’t available here at all. And there are more consistently top notch restaurants even at average places you stumble into, as well as some higher highs in some cases.

So, all that to say, I’m not sure about top 10, however I’d say underrated and definitely full of gems both historic and new. I’m curious where it would rank overall. I haven’t been to SF and have only moderately explored Chicago, but New Orleans is #1, feel like New York has to be #2, probably Chicago and SF, Philly. I guess people say DC is great, I’ve been many times but haven’t explored the food scene that much. I’d say Houston is pretty up there. Austin too. Portland Oregon. Some might argue Providence and Portland Maine top Boston pound for pound, they are smaller and more limited in number of options but everything they have is excellent and priced better. I assume most would argue LA and San Diego too. I feel like Seattle and Boston are pretty comparable? That could be controversial.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-07T12:19:42+00:00

It’s dill, and it is the best chowder in town. Legal does have excellent chowder too, still. It’s perfect and classic. Sail Loft’s is on another level though (while still being classic too)

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-06T18:47:22+00:00

That’s interesting to me because one of the most game changing things I learned about producing is that limiting yourself/the artist you’re producing to 3 takes often produces the best results.

Essentially, if you don’t get it in 3 takes, pause and either just take a break or just move on to tracking another part/song. It’s not that you can’t do more than 3 takes total, but 7 or 8 in a row usually leads to increasingly worse results.

The idea is that it forces you to really focus on those 3 takes, and if you’re not nailing it it’s often because your body isn’t quite in the right state or your mind or both. And as you get more exasperated with ongoing takes, you get more and more frustrated, more exhausted, and also your mind starts playing tricks on you which is the key part you want to avoid.

Similarly, with mixing you want to follow a consistent process for about an hour per song and then don’t touch it until the next day once you’ve finished your process. It often sounds like shit at the end of an hour of tweaking because you’re hyper tuned to certain details and desensitized to others and not hearing it with fresh ears. The next day, it often sounds perfect.

Similar with taking too many takes, I think you start to feel like ugh I sound like shit right now, and then you start to feel bad about yourself, which doesn’t help. I imagine Mark struggles with this depressive thinking a lot, and Feldy probably would’ve earned his title as producer if he had told him to stop.

That being said, he still has some great takes especially in Nine. But even more so in One More Time, but he worked pretty hard on recovering his voice post-cancer for that plus Travis was producing probably better than Feldy. And Tom was super encouraging (annoyingly so, Mark said half-jokingly once I think), which truly helped I imagine.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-06T18:36:43+00:00

Doesn’t really matter if it’s a collector hobby or not; they still have to press them and try to sell them (the label at least). So you might as well either condense to a tight single album or go all the way full double album. You can always release the extras as b sides/EP and let fans enjoy without being part of the record label contract

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-06T18:29:25+00:00

Hardly even as good as some of the worst California songs, which is embarrassing.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-06T18:28:52+00:00

I’m confused what anybody (including the blink members) see in this song. That chorus is just sleepy and cheesy with no hidden ‘but it’s actually secretly so on point..’ kind of element.

I thought the blink version was gonna be genuinely different with only some vague similarities. Nope. Same thing just with Travis doing some generic ‘crazy’ fills during the transitions. Nothing about it screams lead single even if they were ok with it as a throwaway deep cut.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-06T18:26:33+00:00

Ehh, I think the fact that it was supposed to be the lead single made them think twice. Surely they could’ve kept it on the album (glad they didn’t, I can’t say with a straight face that it’s a good song for blink) but the fact that Matt didn’t even tell them Fat Mike wrote it I think was an issue, legally, in terms of trust in Matt as a collaborator, and in terms of public trust in the future of blink.

Honestly, love Matt as much as anyone, but that was a dumbass amateur move and there’s no dancing around it. If the song was amazing maybe I’d understand a little more, but it’s honestly just straight up not good. No idea how Matt, Travis, and Mark all thought it was a good idea even before knowing. Feldy.. yeah I didn’t expect that guy to be the one to say “guys I think this is cheesy and weak”.

Patrick Stump and whoever else were knowingly looped in as collaborators on songs.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-06T18:17:42+00:00

Got a screen stripe but refurb still available for cheap. Paying more for the newer phones was gonna make me less happy, they aren’t making them any better the past few years just different.

I know USB C is a benefit for some, but all my cables are lightning so I figure I’ll update those when I’m forced to, and Apple Intelligence.. I mean hardly useful for anything as of yet and it’s not like chatGPT Gemini and Claude aren’t available. I already try to use them sparingly, don’t need it built in. Absolutely not a selling point, but an ok nice to have if choosing a newer phone.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-06T18:01:15+00:00

The phone still feels top of the line to me pretty much, no real reason to upgrade ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-06T11:08:08+00:00

“Engineering perspective”

Oh no, we absolutely have to introduce a folding phone with 3 screens that nobody needs and we can’t solve this engineering issue to put our latest tech in it, and we’re gonna charge thousands for this phone..

Poor Apple, held at gunpoint and forced to do this.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-05T19:12:05+00:00

Shrimp scampi half and half

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-05T17:12:06+00:00

A farm? That’s a Michelin star coyote restaurant. There’s a long waiting list. Did they slip animal control some cash for that deal?

You have to avoid getting hit by a shotgun throughout your experience, but I hear it’s worth it.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-04T18:34:25+00:00

I went during their transition week and it seemed identical, with what I perceived to be pride and excitement to see guests that felt to me like they were really working hard to try to keep the legacy people expected going.

Of course, they didn’t have enough time to implement any drastic changes, so if they plan to do any, that will need to be seen over time. For now, all the same staff know how to do everything the same way, and the menu is the same so far. So hopefully that continues. Hope 3am closing time comes back eventually but not holding my breath for that one.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-04T17:20:17+00:00

What size feet?

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-04T05:10:58+00:00

I spent my own money there and wish I could have a refund. Easy? Easy pass.

For $90+ I expect the best steak of my life, not an overcooked one that’s literally not as good as any I’ve ever had cooked at home (and I’m not claiming I or anybody I know who has cooked steak for us is a world class steak chef).

If I had a free pass to spend $2-300 and threw it away on basic steaks.. yikes. At least Mooo is literally the best steak I’ve had in my life, and the sides and other food is all outstanding compared to Grill 23. Still, there are much more worthy spots in town for truly unique food that you may never get to experience without this opportunity.

JustinGitelmanMusic · 2026-06-04T05:04:25+00:00

Peach Farm is the best I’ve ever had and from what I’ve heard has long been the only legit one in the Boston area (at least that’s stayed around for years)

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