WCS 77: Another cult, another time
w/: Kamala v Katie + Luka complaining + a 'Kanye Sucks' party on Saturday night
Anyone looking for a brief break from the hostile takeover of Canada or the other 2025 political cult shenanigans that are mucking up life as we know it, take your eyeballs on over to Netflix and Chaos, Errol Morris’s week-old documentary film. Morris is the pioneer of the form and just about the only filmmaker whose take I need on the worked-over subject that is 1969’s Manson Family murders.
With these provocative and gore-laden 96 minutes, the 77-year-old Cal philosophy grad takes viewers back to a time when cult murder had CIA and not Pentecostal ties.
Morris essentially invented the modern documentary with 1988’s The Thin Blue Line. He has perhaps a dozen legitimately excellent feature-length non-fiction titles to his credit. The man has no good reason to be improving at his age. (Aside from his relationship with LSD, it goes without saying.) Yet, Chaos might be my favorite Morris-made thing that I’ve ever consumed. It’s an unpredictable and contrarian ride.
My favorite part was learning that the bestseller Helter Skelter is full of shit.
Here’s a successful parody of Thin Blue Line that you won’t likely “get,” but that ideally will drive you to check out the original film.
I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness. My children have asked me if I see myself as having grown up in a cult. Over the years, my answer has changed. All organized religion has cult overtones or, at least the potential to get hella cult-y, in my opinion. And that’s fine. Do you. But once your surrendered autonomy—in the name of some larger project—leads to the harm of other humans? To my way of thinking, that’s when you’ve become a cult member.
So, yeah. I guess I was in a cult? Perhaps you know someone who has been or is currently in one. (I know you aren’t in a cult because you are reading this.)
Settle in for my 10 idiosyncratic-yet-oddly-coherent West Coast news takes for the week. But first…
The Full Herb Caen
That first season of Kennedy Center programming ought to be hilarious…
Excited to for the Whites House to learn that the rest of Earth doesn’t value America as much with Black people backgrounded..
San Diego X-91 listeners have complained about the Homeland Security PSA that promises “illegal aliens” will be “hunted down”…
I’ve long thought Russell Westbrook the secret ingredient in of Austin Reaves’ development, so the idea of him running UCLA’s program is exciting to me…
The story about Republican Senator Joni Ernst bangin’ military officers is fascinating because of the potential conflicts, and because we get to imagine Ernst gettin down. Noice…
The GOP knows Earth’s ultra-wealthy plan to pollute the Earth out of habitability, then lock the Mars rocket doors behind them…
We need someone who’s gonna call global realignment to benefit the 1 percent’s relocation to Mars a global realignment to benefit the 1 percent’s relocation to Mars…
It’s disheartening that folks are using “techno feudalism” over my own “business eugenics”…
People will say, Well, actually Trump’s dad wasn’t a Nazi. He was arrested at a Klan meeting. And I’ll be all like, Dude: My problem is White racists. I ain’t got time to be breakin em down into individual types…
In a Spokane Superior Court lawsuit filed on Monday, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown asserts that rural Adams County has been in violation of Washington’s Keep Washington Working Act for three years, as Adams has been turning over undocumented persons to the feds…
This is Jules Burn
I’ve known this artist since he was an infant in Chico. Now he’s making really strong content, both on Instagram and on three compelling albums. The latest from Jules Burn is Headwhole, and it can be accessed here. Fun fact: I was present for the Sactown shoot that produced the video above.
10 LA’s Saturday night ‘Kanye Sucks’ party
You can trade in your tarnished Kanye West gear in exchange for a prize tomorrow at Glassell Park’s Revenge Of comic book store and pinball arcade. This is the official Kanye Sucks party. Accept no substitute.
LA Taco
This early evening event includes a charity split flipper tournament, a community-minded game that has teams of two independently controlling one of the respective flippers on the same pinball.
Also, Revenge Of will also let folks trash Kanye merch in exchange for free Revenge Of t-shirts, which read: “Community Over Bigotry” and “Say NO to Kanye.”
A $10 donation will be taken at the door.
Lil Hit
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum narrowly won election last year. Now her approval ratings stand at 85 percent. Three guesses why.
Jacobin
9 What’s in store for the post-Geno Seahawks?
Fool’s gold in human form Sam Darnold takes over for Smith, a top-10 quarterback who’s now quarterbacking Pete Carroll’s (!) Las Vegas Raiders. Too, DK Metcalf is a Washington memory, having asked out when Seattle cut loose Tyler Lockett days before their QB left.
By the time you read this, Yakima’s Cooper Kupp may be a Seahawk. Interesting, but what exactly is GM John Schneider doing with next fall’s Seahawks? Looks just a little bit to me like rebuilding on the fly.
Field Gulls / My Northwest
The Seattle Times’ “Can Sam Darnold lead Seahawks to a Super Bowl win? Here are two musts” is the saddest, most credulous headline I’ve perused in a while.
Fun fact: In 2017 I was the LA Coliseum’s social media guy . I caught both Sam Darnold in his year as USC’s starting quarterback and Kupp’s emergence as a star receiver. Kupp was always my guy.
Lil Hit
From Vancouver environmental reporter Vince Beiser comes something, er… constructive.
Like the North Portland and Berkeley tool lending libraries, the Vancouver Tool Lending Library has a track record of success.
8 Burma Shave-style sign protest for NorCal Rep McClintock next Thursday
Mostly rural El Dorado County is divided into two districts, both represented by Republicans who are not presently down to do town halls for their furious and confused constituents. Next week though? This county is set to experience free and amplified political speech, but in an unconventional way.
Debra Lee, El Dorado Invisible’s communications director, explained that Thursday’s “Truth Out Rally” on Latrobe Road is set reach citizens in the mode of a throwback Burma Shave ad campaign, complete with complaints on intriguing signs.
Indivisible El Dorado
Latrobe Road feeds into Highway 50, which assures voluminous Friday afternoon traffic. It’s adjacent to the office of Congressman Tom McClintock, one of the state’s top Trump butt lickers.
Signs related to DOGE’s parks cuts can be expected, as much of El Dorado runs on National Forest jobs.
Lil Hit
On March 27, Cal-Poly Humboldt will hold its second Symposium on Cannabis and Environmental Stewardship. The daylong event seeks to “empower regenerative cannabis agriculture and best practices for licensed cannabis production.”
Redheaded Blackbelt
This is America
On Monday morning in Spokane, unmarked vehicles rolled up a car full of immigrants who knew their rights. The madness above followed. A Washington state immigrants rights organization confirmed that the video is legit, but declined to comment for the record. Because that’s the world we live in now.
The Fuller Caen
John Feinstein died yesterday. One of last century’s great sports reporter and authors…
Every Elon Musk reference should include the Nazi salute…
That so many millions still engage with his social media platform tells you all loads about Americans’ tolerance for fascism…
One cannot deny being impressed by how 4547 used hate of other to animate sweeping change. White supremacy proves once again to be the nation’s top renewable resource…
If your willfully ignorant gym partner has to be told why so-called Diversity, Equity & Inclusion measures are necessary, point to the efforts to stem the flow of fentynl into the US. Then take them back to Black America’s rock cocaine crisis of the 1980s and how America didn’t do anything about it as forcefully as they locked up Black addicts…
On that note, let me remind you that On Meditation is my clarity jam in this moment. But Adrienne’s 15-minute neck exercise remains the ease-back champ…
How about a round of applause all of those journos who managed to overlook and underreport Musk’s Nazi values…
Walter Issacson has some explaining to do…
Kara Swisher, too…
Predictable how corporate media wants you to believe people are only destroying and selling Teslas because of DOGE, and not because of the whole nasty Nazi business…
And while the Whites House is looking at opiates, it can next be expected to give the opioid-pushing Sackler family a proper punis—I am sorry, that joke is too easy for this Substack…
If you don’t think there’s a PowerPoint proposal for privatizing social security sitting on some firm’s laptop, you’re watching a different movie…
7 Rebecca Solnit: Emergency. Merge. Emerge.
This podcast conversation satisfied me to a noteworthy degree. It’s rare to hear extremely intelligent people, humans broadly recognized for their intellects, being uncommonly casual and sometimes saying dumb shit. Being cornered can bring the unexpected from us. Enjoy.
Anand Giridharadas
Lil Hit
Not yet sure why this is unnerving, but Sisters-adjacent Redmond, Oregon has been targeted to become a federally-unregulated “Freedom City.” Chills.
Wired
Will he outlast the blowback?
My sense is that Newsom looked at risk-reward analysis before he invited Charlie Kirk to be his podcast debut guest. A terrific thing about humans is our capacity to make data err.
6 The Hollywood Reporter is ready for its close-up
Because of the singularly showbiz inflections of America’s totalitarian lurch, The Hollywood Reporter hasn’t been a more fascinating read than it is right now. This week THR is covering the hometown biz’s ramp-up in partnerships with Canadian entertainment interests. And a guest column by author Michael Wolff claims that 4547 has kept his latest bestselling tell-all off of television, which manages to be simultaneously spellbinding and utterly predictable.
But the 95-year-old publication—its quirky old building on Sunset Boulevard were my old LA Weekly scribbling grounds— has a new story about Disney’s struggle to preserve an inclusive Snow White project in a new era of open racism. It’s what we should be thinking about now.
The Hollywood Reporter
Rachel Zegler, a queer Blatina who’s outspoken in her dislike for MAGA, stars as Snow White. The chauvinist tweets would write themselves, except that AI still sucks ass. Disney’s launch of this expensive project has been super soft.
The Wolff book embargo is an example of how large media companies are appeasing the Whites House to avoid litigation and stay on track for regulatory goodies.
Trump has been on Ozempic since the election, according to Wolff. So at least we got the fact that Trump feels like shit going for us. I mean, his conscience isn’t going to start bothering him. So, let’s hope stomach upheaval has the president filling that diaper on the regular.
Though he’s probably turning that into scat play. (Bastard!)
Lil Hit
Tryna build your wind or solar project in a region full of skeptics? Consider Heatmap Pro, an important platform for data and insights made to navigate “community opposition to renewable development.”
Heatmap
Pre-empt the oligarchic feast
Anyone who goes on the record saying 4547 doesn’t know what he’s doing has corporate dollars in their pocket.
5 The Next Big Thing: Watching hoops and smoking weed
According to this small and local news outlet, marijuana-infused March Madness watch parties are on the the next big thing. Who knew that me and my Ohio homies were on the leading edge 40 years ago, stepping outside between Clyde Drexler’s Phi Slamma Jamma games?
It’s sometimes hard to face how corny legalization has made cannabis.
East Bay Times
Two useful bits of advice here: Do start low and go slow. You cannot say this often enough when potent and delicious edibles are around and newbies are in the mix. And, it goes without saying that hosts have the responsibility to make sure their guests can get home without being super fucked up. (I do believe that’s the legal term, super fucked up.)
For some really solid weed talk—albeit light on college hoops—try this week’s WCS podcast episode, which features relevant cannabis insights from a celebrated weed beat reporter.
Lauren Yoshiko's revised media diet
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Last year, Roseburg native Lauren Yoshiko published the well-received Green Scenes: A Guide To Legal Cannabis Destinations Across the US. In 2025 she’s again gone into production, but differently.
Especially enjoying the experience that I’m trying to build? Help me buy the time to do my best work.
4 Katie’s in, but will Kamala and Antonio compete to run Cali?
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