I was champing at the bit to vote early, and did, along with 145,000 other Michigan voters, which suggests a lot of bit-champing out there. My early-voting center said it had been steady all day, and it was. Didn’t take me long with the straight-ticket option, a choice I used to scorn, but well: Things are different now. Then there were the usual Wayne County judicial races, lots of them unopposed and/or under-opposed, which means the ballot says “vote for no more than 18,” and there are only 16 names in the race, so why bother.

But it’s done. And I got the good sticker:

Now let’s see if the number of emails and texts drop off. I’ve found responding “fuck off” to the ones that come from candidates you despise works as well as STOP. Just another week and change until I can either stop taking OTC sleep aids, or start taking double doses, plus CBD gummies.

I’m fresh home from leading the neighborhood Halloween slow roll, although I didn’t. Lead, that is. I got the tandem out, wiped the dust off, pumped up the tires, made a playlist, and met about five kids and three adults at the appointed place. When we set out, I led for about half a block before three kids dressed as Ironman, some other superhero and a dragon (but “a Mario dragon, not a regular dragon”) blew past me and set a rather brisk pace. Fortunately, one of the other adults had done group rides before, and could outpace them and block the intersections. I just tooled along on my Soviet limousine, playing The Cramps and Bow Wow Wow, and everyone arrived at the block party safely.

Update: Just received a text from someone telling me to call Sen. Stabenow and tell her “Michigan families can’t afford higher prices and to support the elimination of taxes on overtime and tips to help families survive.” Testing my Fuck Off strategy.

Count me among those who are not outraged by the Washington Post’s non-endorsement. I’ve always found endorsements fairly silly, a relic from when every newspaper had a specific constituency. (Fun fact: There were once six daily newspapers in Fort Wayne, Indiana, two of them in German.) I could excuse a union worker for wondering which judge the labor paper thinks he or she could vote for. But the self-importance that some editorial boards display around this time is ridiculous, for a practice that maybe, maybe influences 10,000 votes nationwide. That said, to decide to forego endorsements this year of all years is only proof that an authoritarian doesn’t have to crack down, they just have to make other people think they might, and people like Jeff Bezos fall right in line. So I didn’t cancel our subscription. I should cancel Amazon Prime, and still might.

Meanwhile, I found this infuriating multimedia presentation on how abortion is, and isn’t, being performed in the new era. Dr. Kristi Tomlin’s story is particularly crazy-making.

Finally, if you’re online as much as I am, you’ve probably noticed the degradation of content on websites and social-media platforms. I used to hate that word — content — but what’s out there now doesn’t really deserve to be called anything else. Turns out, the problem is “slop,” most of it AI-generated. Interesting explanation at the link. I guess it was fun while it lasted.

Monday awaits us all. Hang tight.

I don’t believe we have yet said goodbye to Mitzi Gaynor. She died last week, at 93. She was mourned in the usual modern fashion — some amusing clips of her energetic dancing posted online, some YAS QUEEN, a note added to the lengthening list for the In Memoriam reel at next year’s Oscars.

I will remember Mitzi mainly for her effect on Eddie Fisher.

Eddie was a sportswriter in Columbus, already past his prime by the time I arrived in 1979. I don’t know if he even had a beat, but he looked like the kind of guy who’d cover horse racing. A bachelor. He always had a wet cigar stub clamped in his jaw, smelled like a wet cigar stub and had a tendency to look at women like a wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon. Eyes bugging out on springs, tongue rolling out like a carpet runner — you know the type.

He’s gone now, and his obit informs me that he spent a stretch as the paper’s entertainment editor. Even though he toiled in Sports, he hung on to one assignment from his earlier job, and that was writing advances for at least some of the Kenley Players summer-stock productions, and certainly the ones starring Mitzi Gaynor. I think he considered her a friend of sorts.

He loved, loved, loved Mitzi, and rarely missed the chance to drop her birth name into his slavering stories: Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber. I once walked past his desk when he was interviewing her. I think he was actually drooling.

Admittedly, Mitzi was quite something, an energetic hoofer with the legs to match. Her summer show wasn’t a play or musical, just “The Mitzi Gaynor Show,” with hoofing and jokes and false eyelashes and a crowd of backup dancers in tight pants and top hats. If you like that kind of thing, it was your kind of thing.

Mitzi had an active Instagram account, where she or her reps would post old clips of her dancing in some short number with a rhinestone-studded fringe hem. I guess that means she was young at heart. I could certainly watch her sing “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair” on repeat for about an hour.

In the midst of looking up stuff, I found a short piece about John Kenley, founder of the players, with this startling revelation:

Born to Slovakian saloon keepers in 1906, John was born in Denver Colorado, after the family had fled increasing prohibition laws on the East Coast. Born intersex, John (who occasionally went by “Joan” but utilized male pronouns when at work) entered show business when the family moved to Cleveland Ohio, where he worked as a female impersonator, acrobat, dancer, and audience plant at comedy show before he made the move to New York City.

I had no idea.

So farewell, Mitzi. You were a true entertainer.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mitzi Gaynor (@themitzigaynor)

Someone I know wondered this weekend whether the story about Arnold Palmer that Trump told this weekend came from his good buddy Jack Nicklaus. Not that we’ll ever know. Another reason to despise the Golden Bear. You Buckeyes know that Nicklaus is probably the most famous native of Upper Arlington, the Columbus suburb where I grew up. (There’s also Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, but he moved in later.) Jack is MAGA now, so I don’t feel bad about disliking him.

Or rather, Jack supports “the best candidate.” I expect he’ll consider the guy who talked about Arnie’s shlong the best. The guy who posted this last night:

Check out the package on that piece of fan art. MAGA is always going on about “stolen valor.” You’d think this would bother them. You’d think wrong.

Some of the early reports about the Arnold Palmer remarked didn’t say what Trump actually said. There were a few headlines like this, from the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (thanks, Jason):

I think even the NYT referred to “memories” about Palmer, but fortunately the rewrite desk sharpened it up:

Former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday spewed crude and vulgar remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania that included an off-color remark about a famous golfer’s penis size and a coarse insult about Vice President Kamala Harris.

…His monologue culminated in lewd remarks about the size of Mr. Palmer’s penis. Moments later, Mr. Trump gave the crowd an opportunity to call out a profanity. He went on to use that four-letter word to describe Ms. Harris.

“Such a horrible four years,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the Biden-Harris administration, as he surveyed the crowd of hundreds of people in front of him. “We had a horrible — think of the — everything they touch turns to —.”

Ugh. Oh well. Short shrift today, because my weekend was pretty full, but unexceptional. A Friday-night movie (“A Clockwork Orange” at a revival house), a Saturday bike outing, a Sunday bike outing, a welcome-home dinner for Kate, who’s been on the road this past week. Then I had this really weird dream just before I woke up, and it fogged my head for hours. Now I gotta get to work.

So I hope your week isn’t starting like mine.

I asked for sweata weatha, and I got it. Highs today in the low 50s, and because our Nest thermostat is always trying to save us a few pennies, I realized today that once again it had nudged the thermostat down to 66 and my nose was cold. And this reminded me of a nose warmer that some catalog we used to get carried; it looked like a stocking cap for your nose, and you would presumably give that as a gag gift to someone like me, but certainly never wear it where any other human being could see you.

I couldn’t think of the catalog’s name. And while it wasn’t Hammacher Schlemmer, that’s the only one that came to mind. Does it still exist? It does, as a website now.

And it’s still pretty weird:

And:

But this being the 21st century, guess what, they have vibrators. Behold, the “Award Winning Women’s Sexual Wellness Massager:”

“Come on, CVS carries those things now,” Alan told me. OK, but still. This is the place I first saw the “weather forecaster” that was a picture of a donkey with a tail made of yarn. “If the tail’s movin’, it’s windy. If it’s wet, it’s rainin’,” etc. It was something of a surprise.

But never fear, you can still buy a nose warmer, but not at Hammacher Schlemmer. This was from some other outfit:

They are surprisingly numerous on Etsy, as well. Go figure.

OK, then. I was going to stay away from you-know-who today, but the clips coming out of the Univision town hall last night were absolutely brutal; I suggest you dial some up. And I leave you with this banger of a deep dive out of Fort Wayne, about how Parkview Hospital grew and grew and got greedier and greedier. It’s detail-packed and riveting:

Revenue pressure was even brought down to the level of nurses – some of whom say they have been pushed to charge for the smallest of items from Kleenexes to batteries. One 2022 email, obtained by the Guardian, shows a supervisor at Parkview DeKalb telling nurses that she had reviewed their charts for the week and found they had “missed” $50,000 in charges as a team. The following year, managers told staff to be more stringent about how many linen towels they handed out to patients – an initiative they termed “linen stewardship”.

“It makes me feel disgusting. It makes me feel dirty,” said one current Parkview nurse, describing how staff have been made to charge for supplies and services down to the micro-level. “Why should I be trying to make sure that they’re getting the most money that they can?”

In some cases, these volume and coding protocols resulted in enormous bills and significant additional revenue for the system, according to medical and legal records reviewed by the Guardian.

In 2021, after a young girl went to the ER for an accidental razor cut, a doctor applied an “adhesive skin affix”, a special type of wound glue, on her finger for about 10 seconds, according to her mother. Afterwards, Parkview charged just over $85 for the glue capsule, about four to five times the price listed online. The hospital also tacked another $295 onto the bill for the labor, which it classified as an intermediate surgical procedure, according to paperwork reviewed by the Guardian.

Have a great weekend, all.

‘Twas a rough night last night. Bad insomnia, probably not helped by a late dinner of Alan’s chili, but never mind that. Slept horribly, which means today is a low-effort, low-achievement day, but oh well. And I missed my morning swim. But! I managed to unload the dishwasher, drank two large glasses of water and prepared a decent lunch, so here’s hoping tomorrow will be better.

In the meantime, new music from Shadow Show here.

And proud parental moment here, via WDET-FM here in Detroit:

Logrolling for my daughter out of the way, here’s one reason I slept badly: Trump’s dance party last night in Pennsylvania. It made me renew my vow, made periodically over the last few years, to not forgive any MAGAts in my extended circle, should they come groveling for mercy through the wreckage of the American republic. I know, that’s not Jesus’ way, but Jesus doesn’t have to live here, where I do, gnawing my nails to the cuticle that we might actually have four more years of this bullshit. Even if Trump loses, I expect weeks, maybe months, of civil unrest. It’s going to be ugly. My older friends remind me that the 1960s were in many ways worse, and they’re correct, but this is now. And every day, EVERY DAY, Trump is telling us who he is, and if that is who you are? Fuck off, all the way off, and don’t leave a forwarding address.

At the moment he’s being questioned by a braver soul at the Economic Club of Chicago, that is to say, braver than the limp noodle who questioned him in Detroit last week (see previous entry). If I were the “beautiful woman” he pointed to during this exchange, I’d get up, go home and take a Silkwood shower, followed by a dip in a mikvah, followed by a sage-smudging ceremony:

Trump points out a “beautiful woman” in the crowd and says to her of migrants, “they will look at you and kill you” pic.twitter.com/3r5vSEH6Vl

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 15, 2024

So you can see, it’s just not a good Tuesday. Imagine if Biden — hell, if Harris — behaved the way Trump did last night. The New York Times would be sounding klaxon horns and calling battle stations. Instead, we have this:

Donald J. Trump was about 30 minutes into a town hall Monday night in suburban Philadelphia when a medical emergency in the crowd brought the questions and answers to a halt. Moments later, he tried to get back on track, when another medical incident seemed to derail things, this time for good.

And so Mr. Trump, a political candidate known for improvisational departures, made a detour. Rather than try to restart the political program, he seemed to decide in the moment that it would be more enjoyable for all concerned — and, it appeared, for himself — to just listen to music instead.

“Known for improvisational departures” — I ask you. Grandpa is sundowning.

Later:

Mr. Trump generally returns to his planned remarks after medical issues at other events. On Monday, he seemed more uncertain how to proceed. After offering what appeared to be a closing statement and having his campaign play a James Brown song, Mr. Trump suggested taking another question or two. As the crowd cheered in approval, he said, “let’s go,” but then said he’d play “Y.M.C.A.” and send the crowd home.

But after “Y.M.C.A.” ended, Mr. Trump seemed a little perplexed. “There’s nobody leaving,” he said. “What’s going on?” The audience cheered, and so the music kept going, as Ms. Noem stood awkwardly by, and many in the audience seemed unsure about whether the event was over.

I need to take a break from this stuff. Between this, the Israelis cooking refugees in tents and the Tigers losing, there’s no reason to open the paper (literally or figuratively) this week. But I’ll try to be back one more time before the end of it.

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.

A former colleague of mine, Leo Morris, died a little over a year ago. He lived a couple blocks down the street from us in Fort Wayne. A nice guy, a bit of an odd duck, which sometimes came out in conversation. He mentioned once that he’d spent the weekend boxing up all the books that he had stacked on his staircase, having long ago run out of shelf space. He was down to a treacherous, narrow path, and you know how those stories often end.

Anyway, he died, and his siblings, both of whom live elsewhere, sold his house. A friend sent me a Redfin screen capture of recent sales; it seems to have gone for about $95K, then was sold again for $101K just a few weeks later, and the $6,000 probably represents the work the first owner put into cleaning it out. Now it’s back on the market for $289,900, an eye-popping amount in my opinion, but also appears to have undergone a full gut rehab. I recall a dark interior with a pool table in the dining room. Now it’s flooded with light, hardwood floors, brand-new kitchen, the works. Even the third-floor attic space appears to have been sided with cedar, a very nice touch.

I sent it to Alex, who informs me that not only are real-estate prices skyrocketing in the Fort for the usual reasons, but my old neighborhood, in the 46807 zip code, is now known as “The 07,” and is considered the hipster ‘hood.

Story of my life. Jeff Borden and I lived in a four-flat apartment house in a strip of Columbus between two suburbs (Grandview and Upper Arlington), at a time when everyone else our age was renting in German Village. (Motto: Drive our charming brick streets, but don’t expect to find a parking place.) Alan and I bought in the 07 because it was affordable and close to our office, and the houses were solid and had lots of charming architectural details. Both that old strip of Columbus and our little piece of Fort Wayne are now considered cool. I guess I really am an artist after all. Top o’ the world, ma!

I spent a few minutes punching the zip code into Realtor.com, and hoo-boy: This beauty, designed by Joel Roberts Ninde, a female architect who worked a lot around there, is a mere $319,900, and also looks like it recently underwent some major renovations.

Three thousand square feet, four bedrooms, and check out that bathroom tile. I used to walk Spriggy past that house; I think it used to be blue. The exterior is stucco, and the owner said it stayed cool in summer until the temperatures went past 90. There are several Ninde houses around that neighborhood, and they have stuff like built-in cabinetry, second-floor sleeping porches, arched doorways and other drool-worthy features.

Downside: The 07 was, when I lived there, considered a little risky ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo. Maybe the hipsters have improved the place. The only violent crime I saw there pales in comparison to what happens in Detroit and environs on a random Saturday. If I had to move back I’d snatch up that house and start a hipster salon, something like Laurel Canyon in the ’60s.

This one, two blocks away, was my favorite. Not on the market at the moment:

The front door is on the side. The street-facing side is a solarium, with a fireplace on the back wall, that also serves the living room. A million-dollar house in any other city in the country. Sigh.

OK, enough real-estate porn. For a while I thought I’d contracted Covid over the weekend; I was coughing from the depth of my lungs. Then I realized it started while I was making kung pao chicken, and had been a little heavy-handed with the Thai chilis. Basically, I pepper-sprayed myself when they hit the hot oil and sent up a cloud of capsaicin into my own lungs. Everything is fine now, but I can still tell it happened.

In other news at this hour, I am very, very worried about Florida. This storm is a mofo. Please stay safe, and I hope those of you in the footprint will send up a flare (so to speak) here when you’re out of danger.

We’ve been having an exceptionally warm autumn so far. I know many of you enjoy this, but I suspect we’re headed for another SLAM BANG OK IT’S WINTER NOW seasonal transition, having missed out on the pleasures of fall, i.e., the slowly cooling days, the slowly turning leaves, all of it. Right now it’s in the low 70s, forecast to top out at 77 in late afternoon, and all I can think is: Where is sweata weatha? Love sweata weatha.

“You miss January, Nance?” a friend asked me last night. I do not. But it’s a week into October, and I was hoping to put away my sandals by now.

It’s not that winter won’t come. Winter is never all that far away from Michigan. But we’ve had a few of those SLAM BANG seasonal changes of late, and I’m not crazy about them. You spend Easter in down jackets, then four days later it’s 85 degrees and stays that way.

Oh well. My house has not washed down a mountainside, so this is just mewling.

Let’s go to the news! Ho-ho, this is amusing:

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.

Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.)

Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

Actually it’s not amusing, it’s terrifying, because the rest of the paper informs us this is still anybody’s race. I mean, I’m glad the newspaper that practically considered it a crusade to get Biden to drop out is finally turning its attention to Trump, but who is listening at this point? Nobody. The few allegedly undecided voters, aren’t. As soon as early voting opens, I’m going in, casting my ballot with grim purpose, then returning to scan real-estate listings in countries where the language isn’t too hard to learn, and has some sweata weatha.

How was everyone’s weekend? Mine was fine. We saw “Megalopolis,” two of roughly six people in the theater. I’d describe it as…an ambitious mess. Those critics who keep saying, “Remember, ‘Apocalypse Now’ was a laughingstock at first” either never watched “Apocalypse Now” or weren’t there when it opened. I think it had been in theaters one weekend, and people were practically stopping me on the street to talk about the first three minutes, with the Doors and the chopper landing strut going through the frame, and the napalm. Three days after seeing “Megalopolis,” what I mostly remember was…none of it, really. Lush visuals, silly story, not much else. The girder scene, maybe? Aubrey Plaza trying her hardest, checking my phone inside my purse because I couldn’t remember where I’d seen the actress who played Julia before (she was Missandei in “Game of Thrones,” and her name is Nathalie Emmanuel) and ticking off the members of the Coppola Family Players who had parts (Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Laurence Fishburne) along with Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight and others. I think the ultimate explanation was the closing title, after FFC’s, “To my beloved wife Eleanor.” Eleanor Coppola died in April; this has the feeling of her surviving husband writing last notes and closing books.

Speaking of which, you know how Francis Ford Coppola got his middle name? His dad, Carmine, was a flautist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1936-41, the depths of the Great Depression, and his son was born here. The Ford Motor Company basically carried the orchestra through the Depression, sponsoring their performances and keeping roofs over musicians’ heads and food on their tables. Carmine gave his baby the middle name in gratitude.

On Saturday, I went with a friend to see Jonathan Richman at the Magic Bag. The show was great, but short — one hour start to finish. Today I saw someone describe him as “Lou Reed’s nicer cousin.” He opened with this number, which I loved.

And now I’m going to enjoy this lovely Sunday. I leave you with this:

What we know is that these two men have 17 children with 6 different women but it’s women’s bodies that need to be controlled! pic.twitter.com/1oadrzY55i

— nazir afzal (@nazirafzal) October 6, 2024

Have a great week.

I didn’t watch the debate. I came home from lifeguarding ravenous, inhaled a metric ton of pasta, did a little work and went to bed. I’m put off by the endless, ENDless pregaming for these events, the boners sprung by the entire Politico staff, all of it. I asked myself, will anything that happens tonight change my vote? It will not. I figured if Vance ripped open his shirt to show off his new swastika tattoo, I’d hear about it later. So I skipped. Sorry not sorry.

From what I’m reading this morning, I didn’t miss a thing. Republicans think Vance cleaned Walz’ clock, Democrats vice versa. Yawn.

I continue to worry about current events, don’t you fret about that. The Last Good Year is inching toward its finale, one ballistic-missile attack at a time. I read a thread yesterday about the longshoremen’s strike, and about the cozy relationship between the union president and Fat Orange Elvis, and it sounded like the girl in “Jaws” who’s trying to tell the panicking crowd on the beach the shark isn’t there, it’s over here. Last good year.

Speaking of Politico, et al, my friend Ryan — literally half my age, a former student, and author of the Last Good Year theory — said something the other day in our group chat that I’ve been mulling ever since. He said we were a better-informed nation under the old system of media-as-gatekeeper than we are today, which is in large part the utopia the earliest bloggers (99 percent of whom gave it up) dreamed of, back when we were invading Iraq and everything was democracy-whiskey-sexy. “The MSM is a lecture. The web is a conversation,” etc. I think James Lileks said that, and the whole warblog crew lifted him aloft and proclaimed him the pundit in whom they most trusted. (Note that he not only didn’t quit his six-figure MSM job — hard to find another humor columnist opening in our shrinking world — but now that his column has finally been taken from him, retaining his job, he has not ceased bitching about it.)

Anyway, don’t want to re-plow that ground. My point is, the old system wasn’t so terrible, even as flawed as it was. I’m a news junkie, and I only learned of the impending longshoreman’s strike…last weekend, I believe. And now it’s upon us, and it’s not even Wednesday. Once upon a time, an army of labor reporters would have kept us up to date for weeks, maybe months, ahead of the strike, and we’d at least have had time to process it, call our elected representatives, etc. Now there are hardly any labor reporters. One I follow is on Substack, essentially self-employed.

The old gatekeepers were overwhelmingly white and male, also older and well-to-do, if not rich. This undoubtedly left many stories uncovered. It also allowed a rich vein of alt-journalism to flourish, in the ethnic presses and the free weeklies in every city. One made their money on lower-cost advertising targeted directly at their readers, the other on racy personals and ads for escorts and strippers.

And what replaced this terrible system? Some marquee brands (NYT, WP) survive, a handful of nonprofit, serious news sites (MinnPost, Texas Tribune, the outfit I used to work for) and a whole lot of clickbait. Plus, a form of human clickbait — the influencer. The friend who likes all the things you like, will tell you about the things they like (use their product code for 10 percent off and free shipping) and lies happily to your face, but you like those lies, so it’s OK.

And don’t get me started on social media, the great bullshit amplifier of our age. I used to correct people who posted urban legends on Facebook as though they were facts, but I don’t anymore, because I was so often accused of being, essentially, a party pooper. Let people believe, etc. OK.

Don’t get me wrong. Some of these innovations have been welcome. We’re all busy. It’s nice to have some filters in our lives to productively direct our moments when we can be free to pay attention to the world outside our own bubble. And many podcasts are miles better than the hollowed-out husk of commercial radio. But for all the information we process from day to day — that I process, anyway — I still feel like there are yawning gaps in my knowledge.

And I know there are some in yours.

Anyway, that’s my rant for the day. Maybe some photos? OK. A yard sign a few blocks over:

Also, speaking of the MSM, I think this story is the very last place for a play-on-words headline, but no one asked me:

Fibs, not vicious lies, and “dog,” get it? HAHAHAHA.

Talk later.

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.