So much for posting three times a week. On the other hand, even I get bored with my own misery over current events. Plus, it’s Wednesday, the worst day of my week. But like a boxer losing in the 11th round, I stagger to my feet and offer…something.

Here’s two things, one a column that I wrote for the Freep. Here’s the official link, which you should click first. Why? Because it’s my understanding that Gannett paywalls are shifty things, determined by AI. If you haven’t hit a particular paper’s site too often, you get in (I guess). If you’ve taken too many free hors d’oeuvres, you hit the paywall. I ask you to at least try that link, because if you get in, it’s good for the paper, which enables them to pay me.

However. If you get walled out, here’s the dodgy free link. Of course, this could be at least somewhat mitigated by a gift-link system, but Gannett doesn’t do that yet. Maybe it never will.

For comic relief, enjoy this short interview with the sculptor who did that ridiculous Trump statue unveiled this week:

Demands to nix the turkey neck and make the model skinnier, missed payments, and calls to install the statue last-minute — no Cottrill commission has been as complicated as the statue dubbed “Don Colossus.”

The tech bros in 2024 paid an initial $300,000 for the initial statue, then paid another $60,000 a year later for the gold-leaf plating, and another $150,000 to use imagery of the statue to promote a crypto token, Cottrill said. But getting the payment was easier said than done.

“‘You were supposed to make these payments nearly a year ago. I can’t trust you to do that,’” Cottrill recalls telling his patrons. “So I held the statue. I put it in an undisclosed location and said it won’t be delivered until the final payments have been made.

You don’t say. Shocked, shocked, etc.

OK, that’ll be it for today. May I sleep well and deeply tonight.

I was somewhere in this crowd:

June 1, 1980. Day one of CNN, an abbreviation that was still new to every ear. Cable News Network, the dream of this handsome fella, who died this week at 87:

He was the star of the show that day. What a wild idea, news that ran all day every day. He led small-group tours of the building, with one question coming up over and over, in various forms: How on earth will you fill 24 hours a day with news? Back then, recall, broadcast news came on in the morning (usually a blur of chatty-housewife features), 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Turner, rich as hell on his daddy’s fortune (billboards) and his own expansion of it (WTCG, an Atlanta UHF station he had the idea of putting on the satellite, renaming it WTBS, aka the Superstation) had a different idea.

You can’t say he didn’t give the staff everything they needed to make it work. He had bureaus all over the world, because Americans needed to know they weren’t the only people in it. He hired commentators to do talking-head editorials, across the political spectrum. I spoke briefly to Phyllis Schlafly on day one. I think Daniel Schorr, who’d recently run afoul of CBS, was another. And a lot of the talent did double duty with WTBS — Flip Spiceland, the weather guy, was one. Here’s a gift link to the NYT obit; the video includes a few seconds of a Flip blooper.

It’s safe to say not everyone believed in this idea; Turner was every inch a southerner, and didn’t share the DNA of the NYC/DC journalism axis. For one thing, he had a sense of humor and believed it was fine to try weird things on the air, even at 2 a.m. Maybe especially at 2 a.m. He hired people like Bill Tush, who was a radio guy, then an announcer, then an anchor, then a comedian, all for WTBS, which also ran 24 hours a day, unlike most stations at the time, which still signed off sometime around midnight.

How do I know all this detail? Because I have a good source, none other than J.C. Burns, who worked first for WTCG, then WTBS, and never exactly for CNN as a full-timer, although he did a lot of work for them, mostly graphic design. And he’s how I ended up in the crowd on day one of CNN — he’d been telling me it was coming, and I offered to cover it for the Dispatch. There was a lot of why-would-we-care, but seeing as how I was going anyway, sure (the editor said), go ahead and get credentialed and file something. My story ran inside; no one cared because no one thought it would amount to much.

But hey, it did. That same why-not attitude he brought to the 3 a.m. time slot on WTCG was the spark for 24-hour cable news. The world bureaus didn’t last, the commentary eventually dwindled away, but the idea of news-around-the-clock did. It’s a mixed blessing, but it’s here to stay.

Later, much later, Turner would go Hollywood to some extent, marrying Jane Fonda, buying his Montana ranch and giving up his media empire. But I’ll always remember the man who resembled a 20th-century Rhett Butler (or Clark Gable, anyway, with that dimple in his chin and ‘stache), a championship sailor who won the America’s Cup and was so drunk at the press conference afterward he sank under the table with a bottle in each hand. He was half-crazy, but he was a smart businessman and he made his mark. RIP.

Trivia question: The first story read on the air on CNN? An update on the attempted assassination of Vernon Jordan in Fort Wayne, two days before.

Two bits of bloggage, both gift links, before we let the weekend wash over us:

Jeffrey Epstein’s purported suicide note is as semi-literate as his emails. “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!” the note reads. No, we wanted you to stand trial and serve a long stretch in prison, but what’s done is done.

And The Atlantic hits another one out of the park in its probe into Kash Patel, drinking man:

President Trump’s FBI director has a great deal of affection for swag. Merchandise for sale on a website he co-founded—still operating, nearly 15 months into his term—includes beanies ($35), T-shirts ($35), orange camo hoodies ($65), trucker caps ($25), “government gangsters” playing cards (on sale for $10), and a fight with kash Punisher scarf ($25).

One thing not for sale is liquor, because liquor is something Patel gives away for free.

… it is not unusual for him to travel with a supply of personalized branded bourbon. The bottles bear the imprint of the Kentucky distillery Woodford Reserve, and are engraved with the words “kash patel fbi director,” as well as a rendering of an FBI shield. Surrounding the shield is a band of text featuring Patel’s director title and his favored spelling of his first name: ka$h. An eagle holds the shield in its talons, along with the number 9, presumably a reference to Patel’s place in the history of FBI directors. In some cases, the 750-milliliter bottles bear Patel’s signature, with “#9” there as well.

There’s a picture of the bottle, which the magazine bought on eBay. The seller said it was a gift from Patel at an event in Vegas.

All over the south this week, Republicans are gerrymandering the shit out of individual states and carving up majority-black districts. This moment seems to capture the weirdness and injustice of it all:

Chaos in Alabama:

Last night, Republican State Senators rammed through a bill to advance redistricting while tornado sirens blared, the chamber was being evacuated, and the livestream went dark.

When this is how they pass it – that tells you everything you need to know.

[image or embed]

— Fair Fight Action (@fairfightaction.bsky.social) May 7, 2026 at 12:02 PM

And that’s our republic today. I’m not CNN, but I do my best. Have a great weekend, all.

We had one of those super-intense spring thunderstorms Monday evening. One minute I was talking to a friend in his back yard, the next I was thinking I probably didn’t need sunglasses anymore, the next a cloudburst with serious straight-line winds was upon us. It didn’t last long, but managed to take a bite out of my friend’s neighbor’s tree. Split it down the middle. As I left he was dragging the branches to the curb.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I called out the car window as I backed out.

“So am I,” replied.

Then it was home to scan the outfits at the Met Gala. My interest in fashion is pretty much entirely as a spectator these days, although I appreciate an opportunity to get a little dressed up. And I’m of two minds on the Met Gala, the fundraiser for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, held the first Monday in May. It is considered the absolute peak of the season for fashion, even more so than the Oscars. After this, Hollywood stars, models and other professional pretty people are free to dial back the Ozempic and fuck off to Greece until the Emmys in September.

And it’s a night for fashion, pure fashion, all stops out. Avant garde? Oh yes, this is the night for it. And in recent years, it seemed there was no limit to how far people were willing to go to dress to the annual theme — this year, it’s “Costume Art.” And here’s where the two-minds thing comes in. One mind says sure, why not, fly your freak flag, choose something outrageous, bold, creative. And the other says, don’t be ridiculous. The line between outrageous/bold/creative and ridiculous is almost invisible. The other thing the other hand says is, keep in mind while this is fashion, it’s still clothing, and clothing has to work with the human body, not against it. You should be able to walk in it, and maybe even sit down. If your whole ensemble is suitable for only one pose, you’ve crossed the line. This, for instance, was unquestionably on-theme, but thoroughly ridiculous:

That’s Heidi Klum, by the way, who throws a Halloween party every year where she does stuff like this, but appears to like it too much.

Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Bezos paid $10 million to be official co-sponsors of the event. Here’s what Mrs. B wore:

Supposedly she’s playing off John Singer Sargent’s “Portrait of Madame X,” The dress is pulling across her midsection, her boobs look like they’re struggling to escape and she had to be helped up the steps because it was so tight around her legs, but sure, Madame X, who was also said to be a relentless social climber. Where’d you get it, Macy’s?

Ultimately, I agree with Tom and Lorenzo in Cosmo, about this particular dress they observed:

As the wife of one of the richest men in the world, an over-the-top display might have invited blowback. Still, the whole look is a little basic, too tight, and doesn’t really fit either the art or the high fashion vibe of the evening. She looks like she’s at some high-roller gambling event.

Or Mar-a-lago, I’d add.

What else, today? Oh, how about a progress report from the yard? Three views

Three views, from roughly the first of March, April and May. It’s been a chilly spring, o it’s a bit behind its usual glory. But you can see why we long for this season so much, at this latitude. It was a long, cold winter. They all are, but this one in particular.

I’ve been watching too much TV this winter/spring. It’s like Covid all over again. All I can say is, I’ve been bored, and dispirited, and the remote is right there. However, I did find one series worth recommending, and that’s “Beef,” season two.

The first was OK, promising but ultimately disappointing. The premise is a season-long exploration of a disagreement, a beef, between two parties, and the way failing to let things go only makes everything worse. Season one started with a road-rage incident and I can’t even remember how it ended, mainly because I lost interest at some point.

But this season is sharper, the beef more amorphous, its ripples generational and socioeconomic. The conflict is between two couples, one Gen Z and the others millennial/young X. The two young people are trying to get ahead in the world, blame “late-stage capitalism” and other boogiemen, and settle on blackmailing the older ones as a way to do it. And did I mention the older couple (Josh and Lindsay) are the managers of a posh California country club, and the younger one (Austin and Ashley) is its bev-cart driver and part-time personal trainer? In other words, the “power” couple are basically serfs of the club members, and the other are below them, so it’s a two-bald-men-fighting-over-a-comb thing.

The club members talk about “buy-borrow-die” investments and PJs (private jets), $40,000 plastic-surgery getaway weekends, while simultaneously treating Josh and Lindsay as both pals and serfs, a truly evil combination that never allows anyone to feel comfortable. (Anyone other than the club members.) Austin and Ashley, besides being young, are dumb and clueless to boot. After an initial extortion attempt gets them a promotion for Ashley, she rhapsodizes over a $45,000 salary “and health insurance” as the holy grail. “Set for life,” she says. (Not a spoiler: It isn’t. She doesn’t understand how deductibles work.)

Both couples are, at base, awful. The elders are insecure, unsatisfied, bitter, aging and just starting to realize this is likely the end of the line, advancement-wise. The youngers are equally insecure (they’re always telling each other how much they love the other party), ignorant of how the world works and so phone-addicted they seem to have turned their entire lives over to ChatGPT. Which is not telling them how the world works.

The series does suffer from Netflix Bloat, a little. And the conclusion is unsatisfying. But it’s such a fun trip along the way, I can’t fault it too much.

OK, then, on to the bloggage:

In all the static about MAHA, RFK Jr. and “eat real food,” one fact seems to be getting lost, i.e., no one can really define what “ultraprocessed” means, when it comes to food. I follow Jessica Knurick on the socials, and she came up with a definition that probably works as well as any: Corn, eaten straight off the cob is unprocessed. Corn, stripped from the cob and frozen, minimally processed. Canned corn, processed. Corn chips, ultraprocessed. But she’s the only one who’s said this, so god knows what Bobby K will come up with. This is interesting:

But behind the scenes, officials said, the process of defining ultraprocessed foods is still very much up in the air. Agencies are struggling to agree, and it is unclear when a definition will be released.

… Under one classification widely used among the scientific community, essentially any foods or drinks made with ingredients you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen are defined as ultraprocessed. If regulators adopt that sort of definition, nearly three-quarters of foods sold in the United States could be deemed ultraprocessed.

The food industry is arguing against a strict definition that would label chicken nuggets, strawberry yogurt and whole-grain tortillas as ultraprocessed.

Based on that definition, deli turkey could be categorized the same as a snack cake, the National Turkey Federation wrote in a comment letter to regulators last fall. It said that certain food additives and processing steps were critical to keep turkey fresh and that those “benefits are especially important for lower-income households, where access to nutrient-dense, high-quality protein can otherwise be limited.”

Exactly. I don’t think most of us would like to see something like breakfast cereal defined as PRACTICALLY POISON, but it’s to be expected when ideologues get their mitts on policy.

This might be paywalled, depending on how many New York magazine pieces you’ve read recently, but I read this Friday morning and thought I’d found my new best friend:

The only time that wine importer Victor O. Schwartz was in the same room with Donald Trump was during a lunch in the 1990s at Jean-Georges, the high-end French restaurant on the ground floor of the Trump International Hotel. Schwartz overheard a nearby table of ABC staffers — the network’s old headquarters was around the corner — ragging on the local mogul who had just left behind a mess of bankrupt casinos in Atlantic City. “A bunch of people were trash-talking him and making fun of his hair,” Schwartz says. “And then he walked by, and, of course, they’re all glad-handing him.” The moment stuck with Schwartz. “I mean, he was a laughingstock in New York, he really was,” he says. And yet when Trump entered, all mocking turned to flattery. “It’s the hypocrisy of that world.”

As a 67-year-old on the Upper West Side, Schwartz is fairly representative of the boomer class living in the city. He likes the Grateful Dead and Lucinda Williams and hates what Donald Trump has done to this country. “We were a dependable military partner, a dependable economic power. We were a country of laws, all those kinds of things,” he says. “All of that? Just with these tariffs — out the window.”

This is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that overturned the tariff policy, fyi.

OK, then. That’s enough for today. Let’s hit the week like a tackling dummy and get some stuff DONE, dammit.

I had a period of social-media idling Thursday, waiting for something I needed to post. You go deep enough into Facebook, sooner or later you’ll turn up a pathetic newspaper slapping a pathetic magazine’s even more pathetic story up, then trying to draw eyeballs with a pathetic promo. For this one, the headline:

1975 Soft Rock Hit, One of the Saddest Songs of the ‘70s, Started With a Dream

I will save you a click: It was “Wildfire,” the ludicrously sappy song by Michael Martin Murphey (three names, to distinguish him from all the other Michael Murpheys out there), lampooned by every humorist fond of low-hanging fruit. You know the one:

Written about the ghosts of a woman and her horse, “Wildfire” is often recalled as one of the saddest songs of the ‘70s more than 50 years later.

It was pounded into our brains with a mallet, back in the day when pop radio contained everything from the Allman Brothers to, well, this crap. I can recall parties where someone would start howling SHE RAN CALLING WIIIILLLDFIRE, but as a joke, not a singalong. I think Dave Barry snatched that apple off the tree when he pointed out only one of the ludicrous lyrical howlers:

Oh, they say she died one winter
When there came a killing frost

A killing frost is dangerous to plants, not people, assuming you have the brains and wherewithal to take shelter.

Next lines:

And the pony she named Wildfire
Busted down his stall
In a blizzard, she was lost

Sa…Wildfire broke out of his stable and ran wildly — wildfirely — into the storm? And she took off after him? Maybe this chick is better off dead.

Then I made the mistake of reading the comments, expecting to find my people there. I did…not. I found a score or more of women who are still brought to tears by the tragic story of this stupid goddamn horse, or “get chills” at the hootowl outside MMM’s window for six nights in a row.

I raised my head and concluded: All these women were Trump voters.

Left Facebook for The Detroit News, and was at least entertained to learn that a meth lab was discovered in a Michigan State University building. A classroom building, not a dorm:

MSU police said Wednesday a 31-year-old man was arraigned on felony charges related to operating and maintaining a meth lab and destruction of property.

In a statement, MSU police said they responded to reports of property damage inside Wells Hall on Sunday, April 26, and found Xin Tong with multiple substances that can be purchased legally, including sodium hydroxide pellets, hydrochloric acid, methanol, isopropyl alcohol, acetone and butane, according to a release from the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety. He was charged with trespassing in 54B District Court for an offense listed on Sunday, although MSU police did not mention trespassing in their statement.

… The release does not specify if Tong has any affiliation with the university.

We just concluded a rewatch of “Breaking Bad,” so this was quite top of mind.

I know I spend a lot of time here whining about the weather, but it’s 49 degrees where I sit today, on the last day of April, and I am absolutely NOT happy about it. I hope it’s better where you are. Happy weekend.

In my continued effort to pierce my NPR bubble, I was listening to WJR (“where Michigan comes to talk”) on the way back from the pool Tuesday morning. The morning hosts agreed the Jimmy Kimmel joke about Melania, delivered before the Incident Saturday night, wasn’t funny.

The joke: Something about how beautiful Melania is looking, “she’s glowing like an expectant widow.”

This, the hosts agreed, was too much, given the number of assassination attempts the president has already endured.

To which I say: You triggered? Cry harder.

Kimmel defended himself Monday night, on his show. He said the joke was about the age difference, and about “the look of joy” the First Lady wears whenever she’s in her husband’s presence. That’s another joke, obviously. It’s rare you see a high-profile marriage where one party so openly despises the other, and millions of Americans have convinced themselves this is a love match for the ages. It’s a comedian’s job to point stuff like this out, to say the truth plainly: That when Trump dies, Melania will be a far happier woman. She can stop pretending to occasionally live at the White House. She can say farewell to the whole United States, if she wants. The south of France is very nice in summer, the Caribbean ditto in winter, and isn’t French one of the 17 languages the First Lady is said to be fluent in?

Don’t back down, comedians. Nor should other artists. Let higher ed and big law and other so-called powerful institutions bend the knee, kiss the ring and suck whatever they’re told to suck. Kick out the jams, Bruce Springsteen. Keep the writers working, Jimmy Kimmel. Hold your head high, Stephen Colbert. You’ll look a lot better at the end of this than the University of Michigan will.

Meanwhile, let’s go on another Cletus safari, shall we? Let’s sit down with a tray of cookies and some disenchanted Trump voters.

The stupidest motherfuckers on the planet, ladies and gentlemen. The guy making that argument for not levying property taxes on people living in paid-off houses thinks he might enjoy that benefit someday. His tiny brain can’t conceive that the richest people in the country — the kind who can afford to pay cash for a house — would be the happiest recipients of this policy change. He doesn’t even understand what property taxes are, does he? No, he does not. And yet, his vote counted the same as yours.

Bring back civics education. And happy Wednesday to all who live in this stupid, doomed country.

I had to read pretty deep into the incident Saturday night at the correspondents’ dinner before I realized the gunman was stopped at the first of multiple security perimeters at the Washington Hilton. He wasn’t even on the same floor as the event and the president. In other words, security measures did what they were supposed to do – stopped a threat.

Pardon me if I don’t gnash my teeth and clutch my pearls. Lots and lots of people dislike any president, not just this one. I don’t think this justifies any more police/security intrusions into public life; there are already plenty. As a fan of crime fiction, I long ago noticed how many novels are now set in the past, before thousands of high-resolution cameras were installed to spy on all of us, all the time. People willingly put these things inside their own homes, in fact; I heard an entertaining story about the role a camera system played in a divorce recently. We download and install tracking apps on the people we love and trust the most. Please, less. Please, enough.

A few grimly amusing details. What was right-wing Twitter saying, in unison, last night?

What does this have to do with anything? The ballroom isn’t going to be a rental space. No matter who is president in the years to come, the correspondents’ dinner will never be held there, nor should it be. But it does tell you who is on the White House text chain, and confirms what I’ve long suspected: That there’s a daily memo, of sorts, that goes out to certain connected accounts, which is then picked up and dutifully amplified by an unquestioning herd of baa-ing sheep. (I mean, when I amplify something I read online, I at least try to give credit, in the form of “I read something online…”)

Did you notice Bobby Kennedy, sitting at his table, head held high? Almost like he was just waiting for something. Something like…his destiny as a Kennedy. ONWARD TO VALHALLA.

I’m already bored with this story, and it’s not even a day old. I’m bored with so much these days. I can’t tell if it’s old age or just too much, too soon, too fast.

By the way, if you want to read the gunman’s “manifesto,” i.e., a 1,000-word email he sent to family members a few moments before he made his play, it’s in the New York Post (of course). It’s described as “crazed.” It is not crazed. It’s most definitely the wrong move, my brother, but it’s not crazed.

On to why I did any of this:

I am a citizen of the United States of America.

What my representatives do reflects on me.

And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.

Doesn’t sound crazed to me. Inviting the worst president in history to party with you, a journalist, and your colleagues? That sounds crazier.

And now here we are, more deflection from what should be our No. 1 priority for the remainder of 2026: Sweeping the midterms and defanging these rabid beasts. So let’s not worry about any of this. Eyes front.

It appears spring is finally here. I kept the windows open all night and woke to the distant sounds of the early morning traffic on the freeway. (It’s not quite a mile distant.) I’m trying mightily to get back into three-posts-a-week mode, but as I noted earlier, current events are coming along so fast I don’t feel capable of dealing with them, something I have in common with millions of my countrymen.

That said, here are three stories to discuss, all gift links, two about you-know-who, the last just good writing.

First, we have the stupidest story of the lot, how the Secretary of the Navy was fired, because he couldn’t conjure a new class of battleships on an impossible timeline:

“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest and by far — 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Mr. Trump boasted at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate and resort in Florida a few days before Christmas. (John) Phelan, a billionaire investor who has a home near the club, stood next to the president as he made the announcement.

Mr. Phelan’s job was to deliver the first of Mr. Trump’s battleships by 2028.

Fucking battleships. When we’re currently in a war where the deadliest weapon is a cheap drone. But wait, there’s more:

Presidents rarely pay close attention to military procurement, but Mr. Trump has spoken repeatedly about his plans for a new “Trump-class” battleship. In a February speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., Mr. Trump insisted that he had helped design the new class of ships that bear his name.

“I put a little more spirit in the hull,” Mr. Trump told the troops. “I want that ship to look gorgeous, you know.”

For Mr. Trump, the ships recalled “Victory at Sea,” a documentary television series that ran in the 1950s and touted the role that battleships and other Navy vessels played in World War II.

“Did you ever see ‘Victory at Sea?’ ” he mused to reporters in January when talking about the new battleships. “What a great thing that is to watch!”

I can’t stand it. Meanwhile, the next target for the pimping of the capitol:

Next up on President Trump’s renovation tour of Washington, D.C.: the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, which he called “filthy” and “dirty” and in need of a major upgrade.

The president appears to think it should look more like a Florida swimming pool, because that’s who he’s hiring to “improve” it:

He said one contractor proposed removing the pool’s granite and replacing it with stone as part of a three-year renovation that would cost $300 million.

“I said, ‘No, there’s a better way of doing it,’” Mr. Trump recalled. “I said, ‘What we’re going to do is I’m going to call all three of these people that have worked for me in the past doing swimming pools.” He said he told the contractors to “give me a good price,” and one agreed to do the job for $1.5 million to $2 million.

He said the contractor began work two weeks ago and has “scrubbed” the surface of the pool.

“Now we have a nice, clean surface on which we’re putting an industrial grade swimming pool topping,” Mr. Trump said in a video on social media. “They said, ‘What color would you like, sir? It’s called American flag blue. I said, ‘That’s the color I want; I want American flag blue.’”

Blue. It’s not a fucking swimming pool, you brainless twit. It’s a symbol of tranquility and, y’know, reflection. Now it’s going to look like a water feature in the middle of a shopping mall. Which, p.s., don’t even have blue liners anymore.

Finally, I gotta note the passing of Joy Harmon, who fans of “Cool Hand Luke” might remember as the girl washing the car in front of the chain gang. A very well-done obit:

Joy Harmon, who needed only three minutes, a bucket of soapy water and a housedress held together with a safety pin to sear herself into Hollywood history as a chain-gang prisoner’s fantasy come to life in the classic 1967 film “Cool Hand Luke,” died on April 14 in Los Angeles. She was 87.

The scene itself.

“Anybody look dat good got to be named Lucille,” as George HamiltonKennedy said. “Pop, safety pin, pop!”

OK, that’s enough for Friday. See you next week.

I’m a city person. Nothing against the country, but I’m happiest in a densely populated crush of humanity. I don’t care if no one is speaking a language I recognize, or if the subway station is dirty. I’m an extrovert. I like people.

So even though we kinda over scheduled our three-day getaway in New York, and my feet/knees were killing me by the end, I can’t say we wasted our time. The outline:

Thursday arrival, 3 p.m. Thursday night: “Oh, Mary!,” with John Cameron Mitchell in the title role. I really wanted to like it, but it left me meh. Food: Eataly. I know it’s touristy, but it was close to our hotel and honestly, the food was great. Italian is the easiest cuisine, IMO. Buy the freshest ingredients, don’t abuse them, enjoy.

Friday: Considered the Whitney Biennial, read a review, opted for the Met’s Raphael exhibit instead. I find his skin tones enchanting. The NYT did an exegesis on this painting in their review…

…but to cover the high points: This was probably an engagement or marriage portrait. The legend said only a virgin could tame a unicorn. The jewel around her neck bespeaks wealth, as does the richness of her garment. The blush on her cheeks — that’s just Raphael.

A word about modern museum behavior, something I first noticed in Italy, i.e. the visitor who scuttles directly in front of a painting, whips out a phone, takes one pic of the art, another of the title card, then scuttles off to the next one. Maybe they want to contemplate it at length later; maybe they’re on a scavenger hunt. Whatever the reason, they spend little time actually looking at the art. It’s all about bagging photographic evidence they were there.

These are 500-year-old paintings, and they look like they were painted last week. Truly amazing.

Then it was home to recharge before a two-banger of an evening — an early set of jazz at Zinc Bar, with Mingus Dynasty, then over a few blocks to a restaurant to catch Salty Brine, a cabaret artist we’ve seen three times now. He’s remaking one of his Living Record Collection shows, the one with Laura Nyro’s “Eli and the Thirteenth Confession,” wrapped with personal storytelling and a satire of the Nativity. This was advertised as an unplugged show, meaning it was just him and one pianist, and it was a work in progress.

Then back to the hotel. Watched Mayor Mamdani’s video on the new pied a terre tax.

On Saturday, a little light shopping, then to Death & Co. for cocktails. A slice of NY pizza before the subway, then an early night. Sunday, home.

I was texting with a friend, a Staten Island native, and he offered the advice his dad gave him whenever he ventured outside the borough: Keep your wallet in your front pocket. Ha ha. Doesn’t really apply anymore. We rode the subway and buses all weekend with little more than our phones, tapped quickly on the touch screen. No more MetroCards, a glimpse of our cashless future (or present). I still carry some for tips, but I arrived with about $80 in my wallet, and spent $70. That ain’t much.

Didn’t take one taxi. Even the airport transit was a breeze. One bus, one train, walk one block. It was great.

Random observations: The city looks great. Young women waiting in nightclub lines were wearing outfits that would embarrass a streetwalker. Too many tourists don’t know how to behave on a sidewalk, which is as simple as “keep moving.” Finally, I regret not moving here after college graduation, just to have my NYC era. But I did all right.

Other news at this hour: The Michigan Democratic Party had its state convention Sunday, and I gather it was wild. Lots of division over the Gaza/Israel wounds, with a strong showing by the progressive wing, who are arguing we’re tired of holding our nose and voting for moderates, let’s try it our way for a while. Haley Stevens, who was considered the frontrunner for the U.S. Senate primary, was booed and is now polling third, after a surging Abdul El-Sayed and Mallory McMorrow, who are in a dead heat. It’s going to be an interesting summer.

One last photo of an amusing subway billboard.

Oh, and a whole-ass baby grand piano for sale, on the sidewalk. I guess they dare you to steal it.

I haven’t been writing as much about current events of late, other than an occasional nod and link. Truth be told, I don’t feel up to it anymore. The firehose of bullshit gets me down, and as many others have noted, no mere mortal can keep up.

I’m in awe of people like…oh, Aaron Rupar, who spends all day every day watching right-wing media and clipping it for the rest of us. His Substack is well worth the money, too. Many Substacks are, in fact, but I still don’t know how the hell they do it. If a kid asked what it takes to be a journalist these days, I don’t know if I could even answer. The circus has passed me by. And every young journalist I know is working 10 times harder than I ever did.

For some reason, this makes me remember a reporter in Columbus, who, when called one evening by an editor with a question about something in his story for the next day, snapped back that he didn’t appreciate being bothered at home and don’t do it again. Ha ha ha ha ha. A very different time.

That said, there are days when I simply cannot believe what’s happening in the world. The good days are when I can be simultaneously agog and almost helpless with laughter, like today, with the spectacle of the vice president of the United States, a Catholic convert of seven years, lecturing the Pope on Catholic theology. Of course, he’s doing so on behalf of his boss:

President Trump has appeared stung by Leo’s condemnation of the war, criticism that has highlighted the challenge the administration faces from the coalition of conservative and religious voters who helped elect Mr. Trump in 2024. The president lashed out at the pope on Sunday in a social media post that called the first American-born pontiff “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.”

…The back-and-forth has presented a particular quandary for Mr. Vance, a convert to Catholicism who is publishing a book about his path to the faith and who has long courted the Republican religious base. Asked about the debate between Mr. Trump and the pope at an Athens, Ga., event hosted by the conservative group Turning Point USA, Mr. Vance admonished Leo, saying that if he was “going to opine on matters of theology,” his comments needed to be “anchored in the truth.”

Holy shitballs. I’m no believer in papal infallibility, but I do believe in papal competence on matters of theology, certainly competence above that displayed by this sleazy grifter.

As Lily Tomlin said, “No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up.”

In other actual news at this hour, an influencer was sentenced to a six-month stretch in prison in South Korea, and for once, I’m sorry the sentence wasn’t harsher, or maybe in North Korea instead:

(Johnny Somali) was convicted by a court in Seoul on several charges, including obstructing a business and distributing sexual deep fakes, according to local news media. A court official confirmed the sentence but the verdict was not immediately available.

Somali, 25, whose legal name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael, is an online personality who specializes in producing “rage bait” — chosen as 2025’s word of the year by the Oxford University Press, and defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive.”

His stunts involved blasting music in public, yelling at strangers and vandalizing a small business in Seoul. He was arrested in Japan for trespassing on a construction site in Osaka in 2023, and was fined the equivalent of about $1,000 for disrupting a restaurant there with loud music.

Speaking of influencers:

MIAMI — Controversial influencer Clavicular was hospitalized in Miami on Tuesday night after suffering a suspected overdose during a livestream.

Few details have been released, but Miami Fire told CBS News Miami that crews were called to the corner of 9th Street and South Miami Avenue in Brickell after getting reports of a possible overdose of a 20-year-old man.

A source close to Clavicular told CBS News that he was suspected to have had an overdose.

Video from Clavicular’s livestream on Tuesday night caused concern for his hundreds of thousands of followers, saying that he seemed out of it.

Then the video abruptly ended.

I watched part of this; a friend sent me the video. Miami is a sewer at this time of year.

OK, this is the last entry for the week. We’re off for a long weekend of R&R in a major American city that you will probably recognize when I post photos, which I hope to do later this week.