Mercy me, it’s Thursday already? That it is, and I completely missed on the midweek blog. Sorry about that.

However, others have been gathering string on my behalf. On someone’s behalf, anyway. While I strive to find the top of my desk under a shifting stack of work, please enjoy:

Eric Zorn, a Chicagoan, justly praises Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stirring call to action, delivered in New Hampshire on Sunday. You probably saw piece of it here and there, and if you didn’t, rest assured: It was a good’un:

Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.

They must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history with our democracy intact — because we have no alternative but to do just that — that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors. … I’m telling you what I’m willing to do, and that’s fight for our democracy, for our liberty, for the opportunity for all of our people to live lives that are meaningful and free.

Being in Chicago, he was able to report the Tribune’s, and the Illinois GOP’s, ridiculous reaction:

The Illinois Republican Party rushed to the fainting couch in a news release Monday headlined, “Pritzker Calls For Violence Toward Republicans.”

JB Pritzker’s attempt to woo New Hampshire Democrats as he barrels towards the 2028 Democrat primary was full of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric. Pritzker’s obsession, to insult and to chastise President Trump, showed forcefully as he stoked the crowd in calling for political violence against Republicans.

The Tribune reported:

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, reposted a clip of Pritzker’s speech on social media and asked, “Are you trying to inspire a 3rd assassination attempt on my dad?” And deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller in Washington also criticized the remarks, saying they “could be construed as inciting violence.”

“The destruction of property sits directly adjacent to the — to attacks on humans, physical attacks,” said Miller, who also cited the past assassination attempts on Trump.

Easy there, Grand Old Paranoids. Fighting with “every microphone and megaphone that we have” is call for protests and rhetoric, not a call to take up bear spray, baseball bats and flagpoles, as those who answered the call from Dear Leader did on Jan. 6, 2021.

When you’ve pissed off both Don Jr. and Stephen Miller, you know you’ve hit a nerve. Keep it up, governor.

Eric’s Substack is pretty good, btw. He publishes twice a week, with the Chicago-heavy content going in the Tuesday edition, the paid one. Thursday’s is friendlier to non-Chicagoans.

Bonus Zorn: Exploring the origins of the word “tilt” as a synonym for malfunction, and its roots in pinball, he quotes from “Wired,” Bob Woodward’s book:

In his 1984 book “Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi,” author Bob Woodward described the coked-up actor at one point as “like a pinball machine on tilt, out of control.”

The quote made me wince, because it’s such a perfect illustration of what a leaden writer Woodward is. I remember reading “Wired” and thinking, how can a book about a comedian be so unfunny? FWIW, a pinball machine on tilt is not “out of control,” it’s dead. Activating the tilt sensors makes the machine freeze and lets the ball roll out of play. But the book was full of passages like that. Probably the worst was Woodward on the chizborger-chizborger sketch, an SNL classic, which he lays out in such excruciating detail that it isn’t even mildly amusing.

In other news, I recently became aware of a publication called Michigan Enjoyer. Hmm, what’s this, I thought, and clicked on their About page, where I read:

Michigan Enjoyer is Michigan media for those who relish the beauty of life here and are tired of apologizing for it.

Wha-? Huh? As one who enjoys the beauty of life here and has never once apologized for it, or even thought I should, I read on:

An antidote to the boring, biased, and out-of-touch local media, we’re here to breathe vitality back into a state that used to overflow with it. You “problematic” Michiganders too busy building to be depressed and offended—you’re our driving force.

Oh. OK. If you scratch someone upset about the boring, biased and out-of-touch local media, nine times out of 10 you’ll find a right-winger, and whaddaya know, I’m right. Here’s a recent headline:

DTW Is the Democrat Dream

Subhed: It’s an ultra-safe surveillance state full of high-end luxuries, so why do we all hate being there?

What follows is a glimpse into the mind of an editorial team who thinks some people go around apologizing for enjoying the beauty of life in Michigan. While I despise the early-2000s habit of dissecting blogs line-by-line, once known as “fisking,” I must say this column was just one jaw-dropper after another:

Detroit Metropolitan Airport is a leftist utopia. Everything is pre-packaged, arbitrary rules are strictly enforced, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s voice even blares over the loudspeakers.

That’s the lead. First of all, it’s a what? And how does pre-packaged everything make it so? At a time when having the wrong tattoo and a Chicago Bulls cap can get you sent to a concentration camp, is this the time to whine about arbitrary rules from a conservative corner? As for Benson’s voice, he’s objecting to a recording played every so often in recent weeks, reminding travelers that the Real ID deadline is absolutely coming for real this time, and they should be mindful. We heard it when we went to New Orleans. I don’t recall it being all that frequent, or in any way blaring.

I should stop here to confess my prejudice: I like our airport. I don’t like that it’s on the other side of the county, but I can live with that. The entrances and exits make sense, there are plenty of restrooms, moving sidewalks, a tram, lots of food choices and it’s never less than reasonably clean. But most important, it’s a hub. You can fly nonstop from Detroit to Tokyo, for crying out loud. Spend 20 years of your life in someplace like Fort Wayne, and then come back to me with your complaints. In that city, the choice was always to either pay significantly more to book a vacation flight out of there, or save the extra dough by driving to Indianapolis or Chicago, which isn’t so bad when you’re departing, full of we’re-on-vacation high spirits. When you return, tired and road-weary, you now face a 110- or 150-mile drive to your house, and that part sucks.

But it’s the nature of this guy’s complaints that blow my mind:

(Airports) are always regulated by county- or city-port authorities and almost always located within or adjacent deep blue urban hubs. They even have special police forces and federal TSA security apparatchiks enforcing terminal access.

…When faced with overt government regulation, travelers are forced through a slightly humiliating screening process, as frequent flyers pay for quicker security sweeps.

…The McNamara and Evans terminals look less like airports and more like suburban malls. The PGA Tour Shop, Johnston & Murphy, Estee Lauder, Brookstone, and iStore Express. These are global brands for a super-striver consumer. But it’s a command economy with a neoliberal flavor. Travelers are captured and repeatedly price gouged due to a lack of competition.

Welcome to every single airport in the country, except for the smaller ones like Fort Wayne, which probably doesn’t have a Johnston & Murphy, Estée Lauder, etc. The big thing everyone mentions about FWA is this: A crew of greeters offers warm cookies to arrivals. This is nice! I’d love a cookie. It would sustain me on my 150-mile final drive to my destination.

But so many questions have I! The terminals “look less like airports and more like suburban malls?” What should airports look like, because in between those mall stores and restaurants are gates with windowed walls where you can see planes. Would you prefer a three-sided shed, a wind sock and a crew that starts the planes by pulling on the propeller, the pilot in a leather helmet giving a thumbs-up from the cockpit? I prefer the modern version, even if it comes with a neoliberal flavor. And price-gouging? People don’t shop at the airport for bargains — it’s on the other side of security. You shop there because you forgot to pack something, or you’re bored, or you have money to burn. Expect to pay a premium for this.

Then he bitches again about Real ID, claiming “what it really appears to be is a state (and federal) cash grab to force adults over the age of 18 to get brand new state ID cards that are somehow harder to falsify.” Why do we have this law? Because the 9/11 Commission recommended it. It was passed by Congress and signed into law by, anyone? George W. Bush. Full implementation has been delayed now for 20 years. If it were a cash grab, it’s a pretty shitty one. But I’d point out to this writer that it’s no more onerous than the requirements they want to enshrine in the SAVE Act, the one that will require new voters to prove their citizenship to register. 9/11 actually happened. But non-citizens voting is vanishingly rare.

Oh, well. Some people will never be happy. I’ll offer this miserable traveler one pro tip: TSA Pre is the single best $80 I ever spent, even factoring in the hassle of having to be fingerprinted. It’s good for five years, and every time I fly, which isn’t often, I’m glad I did it. But then, I’m a Democrat. And I like having a cocktail before I board, even if it is overpriced.

The last thing I’ll say about Michigan Enjoyer: It’s the latest stop on the downward spiral of Charlie LeDuff’s career. And he’s doing the same thing to them that he did to Deadline Detroit: Cut/paste his column into his own social media, thereby depriving his publisher of the click. What a guy.

OK, it’ll be Friday in 24 hours and I still have work to do. Enjoy the weekend, and let’s hope there’s fewer chores next week.

I guess most of you saw at least something about the demonstrations on Saturday. Hands Off 2025 ranged from sea to shining sea, and organizers said at least 500,000 RSVP’d for the events. I didn’t even know that was an option; I just showed up. (Or maybe I did, saw the RSVP link that required me to give them my email, and thought: Nah, I get enough junk mail already.) Anyway, based on the turnout in Detroit on a chilly, overcast, rain-threatening day, I’d say the crowds exceeded expectations.

There were several thousand marching here. At least 8,000, I’d guess. The course was from the Detroit Institute of Arts to Little Caesars Arena down the southbound sidewalk of Woodward, then back on the other side of the street, 1.7 miles each way. The returning side was back at the DIA while some were still leaving the grounds. Lots of people, lots of horn-honking from passing motorists.

I made a sign, because George Soros promised me an extra $10 if I did:

Thanks to Dorothy for the idea. It was clever, but not cleverest by far. A selection of my own photos:

And some bangers I found on social media, mostly Bluesky:

Here’s Fort Wayne, with Mark the Shark’s granddaughter and her great-uncle Phil:

P.S. Her dad’s a pediatrician, and that little girl looks EXACTLY like her grandmother.

The biggest media fail I’ve seen so far comes from the Detroit News, which so dropped the ball they ended up posting a story about the march in Wyandotte, a downriver suburb. Three hundred people showed up, Debbie Dingell spoke, and they gave four paragraphs of pushback to the chairman of the state GOP, who sneered at what he called a “fake grassroots organization.” Are you kidding me? It was so grassroots it smelled like a new-mowed lawn. At least he didn’t talk about outside agitators or paid protestors, but I don’t know what the reporter left in her notebook. (And George Soros better pay me that extra ten bucks!)

I took the bus there and back, because we’re down to one car this week and Alan was supervising some plumbing fiddling over at Kate’s before she moves in. Stopped on my walk back from the bus stop for a slice of Buddy’s Pizza, and a nice Girl Scout was selling cookies outside. Now that’s what I call a good day.

Posting early for timeliness’ sake. Hope your Hands Off was fun and heartening, too.

I’m thinking of going to a Hands Off demonstration this coming weekend — there are several in the metro area. But I need some ideas for a sign. Bottom line: I want it to be mean, because fuck those guys. So far I’ve got:

HEY ELON
YOUR SON
is NOT a
HUMAN SHIELD

Too obscure?

Or

ELON MUSK:
GENEROUS WITH HIS SEMEN
STINGY WITH YOUR MONEY

Too wordy.

Or

VANCE & TRUMP:
FATMAN & ROBIN

This only works if you know the Burt Ward Robin.

Something along those lines. If you have any brainstorms, drop ’em in the comments.

An amusing story in the WashPost today (gift link) about the disappearance of the Oval Office ivy.:

The ivy sat atop the fireplace mantel for most of the past 50 years, providing a backdrop for meetings with countless leaders and foreign dignitaries at the White House. It has filtered the air breathed by Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and Whitney Houston.

Cuttings were given to exiting staff members, to propagate their own plants. “Countless” people have Oval Office ivy descendants in their own offices and homes now. A sharp-eyed trustee of his own ivy plant noticed something different on the mantel now:

In its place, conspicuously, are seven gleaming decorative objects, seemingly made of gold. A Maryland writer named Jamie Kirkpatrick noticed them earlier this month, around the time of the contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, when the mantel was visible in nearly every photograph of Trump and Vice President JD Vance arguing with Zelensky.

What were those? Kirkpatrick wondered. Golf trophies?

No. And they’re not trash, but they are golden objects for a president who loves golden objects:

They’re artifacts from the White House’s own collection. The central gilded bronze basket, called a compotier, was made in France around 1815 and gifted to the Nixon administration in 1973. To its left and right are a pair of urns from the Monroe Plateau, a set of gilded tableware acquired by President James Monroe in 1817, shortly after the British burned the White House. The outer two sets are from a collection acquired during the Eisenhower administration that are usually displayed in the Vermeil Room, which is named after its contents. (Vermeil is gilded silver.)

Click through for some shots of the ivy before and after the gold-plated president sent it back to the greenhouse. God, what a jerk.

Another gift link, to a story in the NYT, about a woman who rode her “medical freedom” to an early grave:

In 2007, more than 1,440,000 Americans were diagnosed with cancer. Dawn Kali was one of them. Then in her mid-30s and raising three kids, Ms. Kali’s natural warmth and openness made her a popular waitress at the raw-food restaurant where she worked in San Francisco. When her doctor told her she had Stage 1 breast cancer, the fact that survival rates for her cancer type were in excess of 90 percent (and rising) did little to soften the emotional blow. Ms. Kali knew what cancer entailed: a barrage of medical treatments that seemed to sap people of their quality of life. And then they’d die anyway. “That’s not going to be me,” she swore.

Nope! Instead, Kali fell in with a quack:

She discovered “The pH Miracle,” a 2002 book written by a charming self-proclaimed naturopath named Robert Oldham Young. Mr. Young asserted that deacidifying the body through diet, exercise and his pH Miracle-branded pills and creams could cure virtually any sickness. Cancer, Mr. Young taught, was merely a symptom of an acidic internal environment. His credibility was bolstered by his appearances on national talk shows that featured him as a diet guru.

Ms. Kali adopted Young’s “alkalarian” program: an all-liquid, low-acid diet of vegetable smoothies supplemented by Mr. Young’s proprietary pHour Salts, purified water drops and green powders. Soon she was drinking a gallon of juice each day. Now, she controlled her treatment. The prescribed combination of a strict diet, meditation and exercise left her feeling empowered.

It also left her cancer free to spread. You can guess how her story ends. I will say that Kali did finally wise up, but too late. The story is about much more than Dawn Kali, and I’ll bet you can guess whose name pops up.

OK, then. A nice weekend. Kate closed on her house! She moves soon.

We celebrated with champagne, and took some of it at the kitschy basement bar, likely to be a rehearsal space:

I did my friend Jimmy’s fun-fiction class again. The class is in Hamtramck. Followed this deep thinker through a few stop signs:

Sigh. As my friend Deb texted me last week, just once I want to wake up, look at my phone and not say, “Jesus Fucking Christ.” Let’s all have a good week, eh?

Seems I’ve been neglecting this venue in recent days. Sorry about that. Life and work has piled up, but the pile is manageable now, and so: Back to it.

Like most of you, I’ve been watching the unfolding of the Signal scandal — and it is a scandal, and not one I’ll affix “-gate” to — with a growing sense of horror. The initial horror of the deed, followed by the exasperated horror of the spin: Seriously this is not the big deal you think it is, nothing classified was shared, anyway Signal is secure, anyway that guy should have revealed himself anyway HILLARY DID IT FIRST, etc. As a friend said, wait until Hegseth leaves his phone in a bar somewhere. Because you know that’ll happen. But at this point I don’t have anything special to say about it that hasn’t already been said, so let’s just continue that conversation.

I do have a number of photos to share.

Got my car washed yesterday, because it was shamefully dirty. I don’t know about your car wash, but mine is like an explosion of small-market capitalism, the long hallway from the drop-off to the pickup bays lined with windows — so you can watch the wash, of course — and under that, stacks of stuff for sale because you never know what you might be missing. Peanut-butter pretzels are big this week; a while back it was barrels of cheese puffs. Office supplies of the sort sold near the checkout lines at Staples — tissue, Post-its, legal pads. Lots of car-related stuff like air fresheners or steering-wheel covers (a product I’ve never used, nor felt the need for). Shop towels, microfiber and cotton, in bulk. Lately they’ve been selling generic versions of those Scrub Daddy sponges. There’s a mechanical horse for children to ride while they wait. Self-published books by local authors, and the traditional bulletin board of business cards. But lately I’ve been taken by the family-business displays, like this:

The car wash is called Mr. C’s. That is the original Mr. C, although I’m sure he perished long before it opened. That is one impressive mustache. Sicilian, of course, because northern Italians weren’t the main immigrants from the boot, but rather, the impoverished southern ones. A framed obit near this photo tells more of the story. Sorry the picture is so crappy, but I can read it:

The subject being remembered is the second Mr. C, son of the mustache man. After the original Mr. C came here and earned enough money, he came back to Sicily, married, and left his pregnant wife behind while he crossed the water again and started his grocery business, “pushing a vegetable cart on Detroit’s east side.” At some point he sent for his family; his little boy was 6. The cart became a store, then another store, and by the time that little boy retired in 1969, he went to work in his children’s businesses, which by then included another market, and then a line of delis. The car washes came in 1991, across the street from one of the delis. His son, Vito Jr., is now called Bill. (Or was — this obit is from 2000. Dunno if he’s still with us. The top-tier wash is called “Bill’s Best,” and that’s the one I got.) The Mack Bewick Market is now deep in the hood; it was owned by a friend of a friend’s father for a time, and was notable for not having any bulletproof plexi between the customer and the clerk, “however, the clerks were never more than an arm’s length from a gun,” friend reports. I found a social-media post by someone who said “you could get ANYthing there,” and she wasn’t talking about drugs, but rather, the things that make hood life possible, like low-cost infant formula, counterfeit license stickers for your plates, etc.

An inspiring family story. I wonder how they feel about current U.S. immigration policy.

It’s been chilly this week, but it won’t last, and yesterday Alan raked up all the plant detritus, mulched it with the mower, ran out the gas in the snow blower and set the stage for the first green shoots, expected soon:

We’ll check back in a few weeks, see how it shapes up.

Finally, I followed a link on an old blog a few days back and lo, it still works, and isn’t this story more interesting now:

Boeing should have rejected then-President Donald Trump’s proposed terms to build two new Air Force One aircraft, the company’s CEO said Wednesday.

Dave Calhoun spoke Wednesday on the company’s quarterly earnings call, just hours after Boeing disclosed that it has lost $660 million transforming two 747 airliners into flying White Houses.

This was in 2022, and Boeing was already $660 million in the hole, and responsible for all cost overruns, under a contract signed during the first Trump administration. Meanwhile, I read this story last month:

President Trump, furious about delays in delivering two new Air Force One jets, has empowered Elon Musk to explore drastic options to prod Boeing to move faster, including relaxing security clearance standards for some who work on the presidential planes.

What could possibly go wrong! Keep an eye on this. It could get good — or funny!! — really fast. I want someone to only finger-tighten the bolts holding down the POTUS-only toilet. If regular civilians have to fly on planes with the doors blowing off, it’s the least they can do for us.

Thursday already! Have a great one.

We went to Costco on Saturday, a very bad idea, although Costco was handling the crowd pretty well — all checkout lanes open, and as always, the ruckus was in the fresh-foods section, where people were lined up for Lunch at Costco, i.e. all the samples they were giving out.

To be sure, one of those people was me, although only in the less-busy stations. I ate a bite of plant-based pasta, some sort of savory pastry, chicken Alfredo and cherry cheesecake. Mea culpa.

That said, it was kinda festive, because everyone, and I mean everyone except the Derringers, was outfitted in festive Detroit Lions merch, and spirits were high. Go Lions! We’re Super Bowl-bound!

Alas, that didn’t work out. This is why I, generally speaking, don’t follow sports. Isn’t life full of enough disappointment? Isn’t the idea of facing the next four years misery enough? Do we have to layer our crushing moods like a party dip? I say leave that to others. In return, I promise I won’t bandwagon when your team is having a great year.

This was the Costco in Macomb County, i.e. Trump country, so it’s possible all the smiles and go-teams were also about Monday’s events, and I’m not talking about the King holiday. Perhaps it just wore Lions merch instead of MAGA hats. Entirely possible, but at this point I don’t care. I put down the NYT in despair today, unable to read anything more troubling than a short piece on Jamie Leigh Curtis. But it won’t last. I’m only practicing self-care, and only for a while.

This very interesting data tool shows that I’m among friends in my precinct — Harris by 28 — and the metro area in general is still blue enough for comfort. For now. Anyway, I ain’t giving up.

That said, if you’re feeling fragile at the moment, you probably don’t want to read this, but here’s a taste. It’s about Trump’s phone call with the Danish prime minister last week:

In private discussions, the adjective that was most frequently used to describe the Trump phone call was rough. The verb most frequently used was threaten. The reaction most frequently expressed was confusion. Trump made it clear to Frederiksen that he is serious about Greenland: He sees it, apparently, as a real-estate deal. But Greenland is not a beachfront property. The world’s largest island is an autonomous territory of Denmark, inhabited by people who are Danish citizens, vote in Danish elections, and have representatives in the Danish Parliament. Denmark also has politics, and a Danish prime minister cannot sell Greenland any more than an American president can sell Florida.

At the same time, Denmark is also a country whose global companies—among them Lego, the shipping giant Maersk, and Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic—do billions of dollars worth of trade with the United States, and have major American investments too. They thought these were positive aspects of the Danish-American relationship. Denmark and the United States are also founding members of NATO, and Danish leaders would be forgiven for believing that this matters in Washington too. Instead, these links turn out to be a vulnerability. On Thursday afternoon Frederiksen emerged and, flanked by her foreign minister and her defense minister, made a statement. “It has been suggested from the American side,” she said, “that unfortunately a situation may arise where we work less together than we do today in the economic area.”

If you voted for this, then, well, you voted for this.

I will be practicing self-care all day Monday, i.e. not watching the new administration goose-stepping into the White House. If anything happens, I’ll hear about it later and there will be multiple camera angles. My house needs cleaning. That’s what I’ll be doing. How about you?

I’m leaving Twitter on Monday. Monday, the day all of Elon Musk’s evil plans click fully into place at noon? That seems to be a good idea. I’ve already deleted it from all my mobile devices. I can still access it through a web browser, but there’ll be another level of inconvenience that will discourage me from doing so (as though the content, which is truly like a sewer nowadays, doesn’t already).

But the other day I stumbled upon a tweet by a Detroit media personality who is currently grubbing the bottom of the barrel of his career, trying to rebrand as a conservative. And this individual made a point of excoriating our newbie senator, Elissa Slotkin, for her questioning of Pete Hegseth this week, on the subject of whether, as Secretary of Defense, he’d obey an order from Donald Trump to send in federal troops to quell domestic unrest, or anything else he feels like tamping down with jackboots.

She’s so dumb she doesn’t even know about 1967!, etc. Hard to imagine that a military veteran and CIA analyst, as Slotkin was in an earlier chapter in her life, wouldn’t know that indeed, the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions, about 5,000 troops, were sent into Detroit during the civil unrest. I mean, I know that, and I’m not even a native.

But he leaves out the most important detail: That federal troops came to Detroit at the explicit and official request of the mayor and governor, after local police and National Guard troops were unable to quell the violence after (I believe) three nights of it. I talked to a friend who knows more about this than just about anyone, and he said it was quite a dramatic moment; President Johnson requested network television airtime at midnight to announce the action. Flanked by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Attorney General Ramsey Clark, LBJ laid out the request and his decision to grant it. It’s on YouTube, and you can watch it. Said the president:

I am sure that the American people will realize that I take this action with the greatest regret and only because of the clear, the unmistakable, and the undisputed evidence that Governor Romney of Michigan and the local officials in Detroit have been unable to bring the situation under control. Law enforcement is a local matter. It is the responsibility of local officials and the governors of the respective states. The federal government should not intervene except in the most extraordinary circumstances.

Only someone trying to mislead you would ignore that Trump has said he wants to send troops into American cities on his own whim, not at the request of local officials. He has spoken of “the enemy within.” From the AP last fall:

As Trump’s campaign heads into its final stretch against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, he is promising forceful action against immigrants who do not have permanent legal status. Speaking in Colorado on Friday, the Republican described the city of Aurora as a “war zone” controlled by Venezuelan gangs, even though authorities say that was a single block of the Denver suburb, and the area is safe again.

“I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered,” Trump said at the rally. “We will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country.”

This is, of course, what Slotkin was trying to get Hegseth to talk about. What will he, and Trump, do when Fox News gins up another “crisis?” My friend said he thinks we’ll find out sooner rather than later. I’m afraid I agree. And he won’t do it with the greatest regret, as LBJ did. Get ready, Springfield.

Meanwhile, every MAGA idiot is rolling at the incoming president’s feet like puppies. This is in Indiana:

One of Indiana’s most influential elected officials wants to take the practice of trying to lure residents from neighboring states a step further by annexing entire counties.

Republican House Speaker Todd Huston’s bill to create an Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission to “embrace neighboring counties that want to join low-tax, low-cost Indiana” is one of the supermajority’s priority bills for the legislative session, meaning it has a good chance of passing.

“Annexing.” Such a benign word. You want to live in “low-tax, low-cost” Indiana? Fine. It’s still a free country. MOVE THERE. Of course, if you lose a hand in an industrial accident, you’ll collect about $4.17, because the insurance industry owns the legislature. If you need help in an emergency, make your way down to your township trustee’s office, get on your knees and beg. Chances are you’ll be sent away with a lecture about self-reliance. Maybe you’ll get a little cash, but prepare to come back in another month and do it again. That’s how Hoosiers do.

OK, then. The end of the week is coming into view, and mine’s been not-great. Let’s hope for a good weekend.

Kind of a mixed grill today. Life gets back to normal this week and I have a buncha things on my plate. So here goes:

** I have a few friends who tally their year’s reading — book reading, anyway. I’ve decided I should do the same, and made a note in the final page of my 2025 planner: #1: “Long Island Compromise.” It’s Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new one, following “Fleishman is in Trouble” from a couple years back, and it’s…fantastic. It, too, will probably be turned into a prestige-streaming series down the road, and it richly deserves to be. It’s funny, tragic, empathetic, smart, “sharply observant” (as the critics say) of the wealthy people in its pages. I loved every one. (And OK, I started it in 2024, but I’m counting it as a ’25 book, because I finished it Sunday.)

I also read “James” over the holidays, Percival Everett’s reimagining of the life of Huck Finn’s enslaved companion, Jim. That, too, was great. It’ll win a bunch of prizes this year, but I liked “Long Island Compromise” better. But it’s like preferring one flavor of ice cream over another. They’re both delicious.

** Most of you will be reading this on Monday, i.e. January 6, a day that will truly live in infamy for those with brains, eyes and memories. Note: This does not include million of idiots:

What began as a strained attempt to absolve Mr. Trump of responsibility for Jan. 6 gradually took hold, as his allies in Congress and the media played down the attack and redirected blame to left-wing plants, Democrats and even the government. Violent rioters — prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned — somehow became patriotic martyrs.

This inverted interpretation defied what the country had watched unfold, but it neatly fit the persecution narrative that binds Mr. Trump to many of his faithful. Once he committed to running again for president, he doubled down on flipping the script about the riot and its blowback, including a congressional inquiry and two criminal indictments against him, as part of an orchestrated victimization.

** I’m writing this before the Lions play the Vikings here in Detroit, the winner of which will clinch the NFC North and move into the postseason, or at least that’s what I thought I read this morning. You know me, no sports fan here, but the Lions are reversing their years-long losing ways, and it’s got the whole region on fire. The team is making the charismatic head coach, Dan Campbell, available for profiles and so on, most of which are kinda boilerplate, but oh well it’s football. The one fact I find amusing about the Campbell household is that he and his wife have three dogs, two of which are teacup Yorkies named Thelma and Louise, and have shared this photo with the masses, and OMG SO CUTE:

That is Louise, for the record. She sleeps in his armpit, the stories say. I’ll bet it’s warm there.

OK, 2025 is now fully in progress. Smash it however you like.

I was going to debrief you guys on Trump’s appearance — you can’t really call it a speech — before the Detroit Economic Club last week, but my week was back-loaded and I ran out of time. It was…well, it was fucking weird.

First, a little background: This was Trump’s second appearance before the DEC, which is a business group full of the city’s machers and machers-in-waiting. Another city equivalent might be the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco; I think New York has a similar group. They meet weekly or biweekly, and have speakers on serious subjects of interest to the business community, like tax or foreign policy, or topics of local interest, like the various sports teams, but almost always with a focus on the business impact of whatever the subject is.

One thing the club is very proud of is, they’ve been addressed by all U.S. presidents going back to…can’t remember. Decades. Usually these people come through when they’re still candidates, but they come through. They don’t pay honoraria; speakers come because it’s an honor to be invited to address the C-suiters of the auto companies and other industries based in southeast Michigan.

Trump first came through as a candidate, in 2016. It didn’t go well. A lot of people bought tickets with the intent to disrupt, and the first one — a woman who leapt to her feet and started screaming at him about something — came about 10 minutes in. I was there, and counted about 20 or so more, one of the yellers none other than not-yet-a-congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Security guards frog-marched each one out of the hall.

But Trump gave a speech, a prepared speech with a prompter. You can read it here. It’s full of empty promises, but it’s coherent.

Eight years later, he was invited back, most likely because of the influence of John Rakolta, a top-tier macher who served as ambassador to the U.A.E. during Trump’s term. He’s nearly the same age, and built a huge construction company here, Walbridge. Rich as Croesus, as you can imagine. Pop-culture fans may recall his wife, Terry, who was nationally famous in the ’90s when she led a boycott of “Married…With Children.” Bill O’Reilly had her on his show a lot.

(I know all this because I was hired to write a book for some anniversary of its founding, a custom-publishing job. I remember seeing Terry at the launch party and wondering why she looked so familiar. She still wears her hair the same way. She also appears to have an Instagram that reveals a fuckton of plastic surgery, but she looks damn good for 80.)

Anyway, Trump showed up last week, and it was very different. He didn’t speak as Candidate Trump, but Caesar Trump, rally-style. He walked the short distance to the podium and just stood there, while his walk-on music, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” naturally, played to its first chorus. It looked like this:

If his bronzer gets any darker he’s going to have to deport himself.pic.twitter.com/NhTtX2JqX9

#TraitorTrump

— Scottacular (@Scottcrates) October 11, 2024

The Twitter account I found this on quipped: “If his bronzer gets any darker, he’s going to have to deport himself.”

There was no prepared speech, and no disruptions. (I imagine the security was about 10X tougher this time.) He just stood there and rambled, rally-style, for TWO HOURS, Fidel Castro-meets-late-life-Elvis. The headline was that he said if Kamala Harris is elected, the whole country will look like Detroit. I don’t know what the reaction was to this; I’m told it was “muted,” as we say in Journalese. Given how hard many in the room have worked to achieve the city’s recent triumphs — new buildings, the NFL Draft, etc. — I would certainly hope so. But in my opinion, the headline should have been: Mush-brain candidate for nation’s top office rambles for two goddamn hours, but no one asked me.

Incredibly, this display was followed by an onstage conversation with his buddy Rakolta, and that was even weirder. I wouldn’t expect the ex-ambassador to question him sharply, but the rapturous brown-nosing was something of a surprise. There were many serious-but-respectful questions he could have asked, like maybe about the proposal Trump floated, to make auto-loan insurance tax-deductible; what would that cost the national treasury? Or maybe the construction tycoon could ask how we can build housing after we’ve mass-deported a large chunk of the construction workforce. But he didn’t. The opener was something like, “You have so much energy. How do you do it?” followed by an even grosser one about the impressive, successful Trump children, and how did he manage this feat? I mean, Tiger Beat magazine was tougher on Justin Bieber.

Incredible — here’s the full footage of Trump getting a question about his parenting style at the Detroit Economic Club, then going on a nearly 8 minute rant that culminates in him calling for drug dealers to be put to death. His brain just flits around. pic.twitter.com/Ry3WjAtEfU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 10, 2024

Bah. Enough. The whole event sounded terrible. But Harris got an ad out of it:

Detroit is a city of resilience and hard work.

Donald Trump knows nothing about that.

Watch our new ad: pic.twitter.com/OGILiahTDe

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 11, 2024

The rest of the weekend was spent celebrating a friend’s birthday. The day was in August, but the gift was Friday. For a couple years now, we’ve been experimenting with the premise that the best yacht rock is found on any streaming channel’s Little River Band Radio setting. (For non-streamers, the “radio” allows the algorithm to put together a playlist that features that artist, plus similar ones.) So when I saw the LRB was coming through town, I bought her two tickets, and she graciously selected me as her plus-one. I booked a room downtown and we made a girls’ outing of it.

The show was everything I expected, which is to say, a reconstituted LRB that contains not even one original member, plus none of the replacements are even Australian, as the originals were. But we got a fairly tight set that didn’t go on too long (about an hour and 20), and because the crowd were boomers, hardly any standing. And boy, does the LRB have a dedicated fan base; when I bought the tickets last summer, there were few good ones left. But we did OK:

The guy in front of me was a superfan, and threw up those hook-em-horns hands the whole time:

On Saturday we ate at a spectacular little patisserie, and then wandered the neighborhood. This is in the parking lot of one of those new-style restaurants made for Instagram:

We did not eat there. Our friend who lives in the neighborhood said the dinner-hour valet line is “all Cybertrucks with young women contorting themselves on the hood to take selfies.” Sounds like a place I’d be allergic to, but just as an aside to Donald Trump, not so many years ago this was a grocery with a drug marketplace in the parking lot. So hey — if that’s the way the country is headed, what’s so terrible about that?

Have a great week, all.

My friend Jimmy runs a monthly writing group in a local community center for addicts. You don’t have to be an addict to attend, but he’s a recovering alcoholic and thinks writing can be therapeutic for some. He’s very clear that the group is open to anyone, and lately I’ve found it fun and a good exercise, whether or not you’re stuck in a rut. It goes like this: You walk in, and collect four cards from four face-down stacks — a place name, an inanimate object, and animal and something else. You have an hour to write a sub-1,000-word short story incorporating all four. Today, mine were Guadalajara, paint, prairie dog and kerosene.

This is the story I wrote. It’s not Ernest Hemingway, but so what? Low stakes! Fun! Stay away from the news for a while! We can get back to that later this week, and of course you can discuss anything comments. In case you’re wondering, this story is untitled. But here it is:

“Get in the car,” he said for the fifth time. Yelling it this time.

“Guadalajara?” she called back, hand cocked to her ear, like she was having trouble hearing him. “Sorry, I didn’t bring my passport.”

And with that, the girl slipped around the fence and into the alley, where the car couldn’t follow. Tom and I looked at each other, brushes still working, because you didn’t want to be caught as an active spectator to a domestic squabble, not in this neighborhood. “MotherFUCK,” the boyfriend, or husband, or whatever-he-was-to-her exploded, before dropping the Challenger in drive and peeling off.

Tom dipped his brush in the paint and resumed his work on the fence. I had started at the opposite end, and we were working our way to the middle. We were now close enough to have a conversation, or at least the kind of conversation you have when you’re doing a job that doesn’t require much of your concentration. Painting a fence is one of them.

“She was a fine-looking woman,” I said, dipping my own into my personal bucket of Navajo White. Tom’s was labeled Ghost White, and I figured this would be a problem when our work met up in another few minutes, but the guy who gave us the job said it didn’t matter, white is white and stop asking questions. “But fine-looking women often come with a lot of strings attached. Ones you can’t use to pull her back in the car, as that guy found out.”

“Strings?” Tom asked, putting Ghost White stripes on the next panel. “Like what kinda strings.”

“They’re touchy, women like that,” I said. “You gotta pay attention to them all the time, but it’s gotta be the right kind. They want to be told they’re beautiful every day, but if they got a zit or their hair’s a mess or they’re on their period, then they tell you you’re a liar, and sometimes that starts a fight. ‘What else are you lying about,’ etc.”

“And how would you know all this,” Tom replied. “You don’t strike me as a guy with a lot of experience dealing with beautiful women.”

“See, that’s where we’re different,” I said. “I think all women are beautiful, although that one was especially so.”

Tom fell silent, and I continued my Navajo White conquest of the fence. We’d be standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a few minutes.

“My cousin Cheryl’s a woman, and she’s ugly as a dog’s ass,” he finally said. “So I think you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Five minutes it took you to think of one woman you know who’s ugly,” I said. “I’d say that proves my point.” The last few words were drowned out by the roar of the Challenger, coming around the corner again. He’s looking for his woman, I thought. I hope he doesn’t have a gun. But who could shoot a fine-looking girl like that?

He stopped the car in front of us, and revved it a couple times. Tom and I turned around.

“Where’d she go,” he demanded through the passenger window. “That bitch. I know you seen her.”

“Mister, she went down the alley and we ain’t seen where she went,” I said, turning up the Downriver twang to about 7. “I’m sorry about that.”

The tires chirped as he roared off, and half a minute later, a head popped up over the fence, like a prairie dog if prairie dogs were hot brunettes. She slipped around the end of the fence as another car pulled up, this one with an Uber sticker on the windshield. “Thanks, guys, but I need you to play dumb if he comes back again.” She blew us a kiss that melted my heart a little bit.

The Uber pulled away, the memory of her long thigh slipping into the front seat still throbbing in my vision as we turned around and saw Ghost and Navajo White close enough to see that white may be white, but these two were still only fraternal twins. A few more strokes and we’d be done.

“Time to clean up,” Tom said. I suggested we use kerosene. Outside, there wouldn’t be a fume issue. Tom went to the truck and came back with the can. The Challenger came around the block and passed us slowly, one more time. We ignored him, but he stopped anyway.

“That fence looks like shit,” he yelled. “It’s two different colors.” And he peeled out again.

“I see why she got out of the car,” Tom said.

I’m sorry I am probably the last person to tell you about the Bridgerton Ball fiasco here in Detroit last weekend. (Not as sorry as the dailies should be, who fumbled a story that went national. New York magazine even had an interview with the pole dancer. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

I’m not a Bridgerton fan, or even a watcher, although I know the premise of the show, which is sort of a fantasy Regency-England costume soap on Netflix, now in its third season. It’s based on a series of books, and produced by Shonda Rhimes. The producers practice what you might call “Hamilton” casting, which is to say, it’s color-blind, and so London high society is chock-full of people of color, which is never remarked upon. Even the queen is black, and it’s n.b.d.

Because of this casting, the show has a lot of black fans, which led to a non-show-affiliated party or parties to get the idea for a Bridgerton Ball in Detroit. Tickets were pricey, well over $100 to start and upward from there, and the idea was that you’d get dressed up in ball gowns and tiaras for the ladies (breeches and tailcoats for the gents) and attend a party on the scale of the ones in the show. (Never seen the show, but I gather it has a lot of balls.)

The first warning sign was when the party was moved from August to September over “venue issues,” but eventually the day came, and guests arrived at a historic event space to find: Scarce food, much of it cold or undercooked. Harsh lighting against bare white walls. No seating whatsoever. No orchestra playing waltzes, but a single violinist. Some paper backdrops for photos. And a pole dancer.

This photo, from the pole dancer’s Instagram, captures so, so much:

Part of me can’t stop laughing. I mean, this interview!

Did you see any of the details that have been reported — like, that there was chicken that was served raw or that plates were being reused?

No, but when I was doing character work for them, I did try going downstairs to see what was going on. The first floor was a mob of people, where you couldn’t really walk, so I just went back upstairs.

What is character work?

They basically just had me walk around and say, “Hello, I’m your Bridgerton fairy,” and just add to the ambience of the night. I don’t know. [Laughs.] It was weird.

Did they tell you to say that? What did they tell you to do?

No, I was going off-book because I didn’t know what they wanted me to do. They just said, “Do character work.” That was it. Usually when I work, I’m going to events as Tink the Fairy, so I just switched it to the Bridgerton Fairy.

Were you dressed as a fairy?

No, I was wearing what you saw in the video. But I did have a short lace robe on over it. I was trying to make the best of it.

And another big part of me feels terrible, because it looks like a lot of black ladies (and white ladies) just wanted to play dress-up for a night and pretend they were members of a royal court, but instead got a royal scam.

I know you will be as shocked as I am that the people who put this on — an LLC called Uncle N Me — is nowhere to be found. I’d say check the Tower of London, but I know we’re in an alternate reality here.

Anything else? Oh, I have some angry JD Vance stuff, but at this point, let’s not spoil the weekend. March into it like you’re Queen Charlotte! We’ll talk after it’s over.