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.

Hi there. I — we — are back. Where did we go? This place:

It was a whirlwind three days. We ventured uptown and down, saw a play, saw cabaret, saw jazz, saw art. This art, in fact, the Raphael exhibit at the Met:

Dog walkers on the upper east side:

Cocktails on the lower east side:

(Actually, I think it’s more properly the east Village. Whatever, I’m a tourist.)

It was exhilarating but exhausting, and I’m still recovering. More later, but we need a new thread.

P.S. To the dismay of perhaps some of you, NYC is not imploding under its COMMUNIST MAYOR. In fact, it seems to be thriving. Of course, he’s only been in office a few months. Give it time. :::Mitch Albom shakes his fist angrily.:::

I’ll be back when I’m more rested.

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.

A chilly spring morning, and off we went to Elmwood Cemetery for one of the occasional history walks they offer. This is a very old cemetery, with every name you now see on street signs, or in the names of Michigan counties, on some monument — the founding fathers (and daughters) of the state. I think the theme of this one was Art and Architecture, so we stopped at a lot of artists’ stones, but as always, the interesting stuff was everywhere.

People leave change, and an occasional bill, in the lap of this lady, who serves as the unofficial logo of the cemetery.

This coffin-size bronze is actually the entry to an underground vault for one family. It’s only been opened once in modern times, the staff historian told us — on her day off. The lid alone weighs a ton, but once it was raised, they could see inside to several niches with initials on the end. And it was totally pristine, no water, no seepage from the earth. Whoever built it, built it to last.

The co-founder of Pewabic Pottery. There was originally an open pot in that niche, but weather took a toll and it was later replaced with the mosaic.

A plate on a natural rock monument:

It exists, and you can get it via Project Gutenberg. Wikipedia:

He practiced for several years in Mansfield, Ohio until he started his journalistic career in 1860. He was the editor of the Port Huron Commercial (Port Huron, Michigan), and the Detroit Evening News (Detroit, Michigan). In 1880, he abandoned journalism and entered the US Patent Office. He was appointed principal examiner in 1886 and served until 1893. In 1877 he became Washington correspondent for the Scripps Syndicate, serving several prominent newspapers.

He continued in this capacity until after publishing his groundbreaking 1893 work “The Law of Psychic Phenomena,” which brought him international fame throughout the English-speaking world. The book’s sales continue to this day.

This was followed in 1895 by “A Scientific Demonstration of the Future Life” (considered by many his superior work), then “The Divine Pedigree of Man,” and finally “The Law of Mental Medicine” in 1903, published just days before his death from heart failure on May 26, 1903, in Detroit.

A more modern resting place. “Asiwaju basegun” is apparently a title associated with his native tribe; he was Nigerian. Also, an accomplished medical doctor.

I was reminded of the Sedgwick Pie, the burial ground of the Sedgwick family (Edie and Kyra being the most notable examples), in Massachusetts. The patriarch and matriarch of the clan are buried in the center, with descendants arrayed around them in concentric circles, feet toward the middle, so that on judgement day, when they arise from their graves, they only have to see other Sedgwicks. Ha ha ha.

After that, we had a late lunch at Saffron De Twah, came home, collapsed into dual naps and awoke to find the wind had changed and the temperature had risen by 20 degrees. Everybody outside was in shorts. I opened the windows. We’re still alive, might as well enjoy this warm breath while it lasts.

So much news over the weekend. Orban ousted, JD Vance fails in Pakistan, the president farts out another few emissions on Truth Social. I’d rather enjoy the spring weather and let my laptop run a software update. So take it away in the comments while I eat a piece of cake and enjoy the sounds of playing children through the open windows.

Psych! It was TACO Tuesday after all! And now we’re in a position where Iran is collecting tolls on a strait that was free a month or so ago, the one that we totally don’t need, that isn’t our problem, that should be secured by the countries that didn’t start this war and never wanted it. And also, it’s a ceasefire, but Israel is still bombing sound Lebanon.

Well-done, boys. I smell a Nobel in your future.

Good lord, am I tired. Spring break was last week, and this week it’s back to the 5 a.m. alarms — with one at 4:20 a.m. — and it is killing me. I’m trying different strategies to cope; this week I’m trying to return to bed when I get home at 7-ish, abjuring coffee until I reawaken sometime between 8:30 and 10. Today I awoke to seven million emails and twice that many texts. I don’t think this is working. Then again, it’s Wednesday, the 4:20 a.m. day. Approximately eight more weeks of this bullshit, and then I’m off until next fall.

I’m an early riser by nature, but it depends on getting to bed at a reasonable hour, and the Trump administration isn’t making that easy to do. One of a million reasons I hate them.

Over the weekend we watched an above-average rock documentary on Netflix, “Becoming Led Zeppelin.” It concentrated only on the first two albums, and how the band members developed into the musicians who could make them. (Spoiler: They started as actual musicians. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were session players of long standing, and both could read a chart. Jones could write one.) That sent me down the YouTube rabbit hole for one of my favorite Obama clips, the one where he’s introducing Led Zeppelin at the Kennedy Center Honors, his charm and humor on full display. And that led me to that evening’s performance of “Stairway to Heaven,” by the Wilson sisters, Jason Bonham and a choir of dozens. If you have a few minutes, both are worth your time. It will remind you keenly of what we once had, and what we lost.

Time to get into the shower. Have a good rest of Wednesday, all.

A belated happy Easter. It didn’t quite sneak up on me, but it also kinda did. Kate, her boyfriend two other friends came over for brunch. One of us was a vegan, so that was a challenge, but extra-firm tofu can be dressed up a million ways. I made frittatas for the five non-vegans, a bunch of sweet potato hash with the tofu, fried potatoes, a nice Meyer lemon cake. It was fine. Food is never the most important part of a party; the company is. It was good company, and we had a nice time.

I did, anyway.

But I did fall asleep on the couch after everyone left, or at least dozed while watching “Michael Clayton” for the twelve thousandth time.

God, I remember holidays when they were the occasion for a genuine unplug, especially one that falls on a weekend, but we can’t do that anymore, can we? Not if you want to be a conscientious citizen:

That guy could ruin… anything. I don’t even have a metaphor. And yet, here we are, surrounded by cowards and toadies and hand-wringers, and somewhere out there is a monster who will assume the weight of that straw and, back broken, start planning — or stop planning and start implementing — a plan to damage as many Americans as possible. But the shithead will be cosseted behind layers of security. Someone else will suffer, and he won’t care. It’s just how he is.

So I don’t have much for you today. Let’s wait for Real Spring to arrive and hope for the best.