The 92nd West Coast Sojourn is what this is
w/: Mamdani's meaning + a yellow-cake callback + Diddy touched me
On a Sojourn podcast episode a few months ago, a guest found herself grasping for an explanation of the space that this Substack occupies. “You’re not strictly a cannabis publication, you’re not strictly a sports publication,” observed Lauren Yoshiko. “You talk about all kinds of things, and I’m curious—is that freeing? Is it more stressful, less stressful?”
This handful of Lauren’s lines bobs up into my conscious mind more than I expected upon hearing them. Mass government kidnappings had yet to become a regular feature of the media landscape. The reality of tariffs were but a fuzzy, half-remembered government class lecture.
In March, Stephen Miller merely loomed, as yet to be unleashed.
Lauren Yoshiko's revised media diet
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.
This year’s iteration of the WCS project initially wanted to be a diversion, a means of getting my subscribers and their content-swapping friends through the seasons of dread head. That might have been its aim? But a tiptoe through the archives shows a gradual and you’ll experience the escalation of emotion.
But also of focus. Even by Tariff Day, the uptick was measurable.
My shows of anger have been real and ideally the most distinctly articulated of everyone showing up in your mailbox to talk politics. (And weed and hoops, of course)
The way Tiffany Haddish comported herself with Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Guillermo Luna made me think she grew up REALLY into Star Wars…
I love sprinkling bits of leading-edged interviews in among the digital shoe-leather aggregation, like those recent quotes on Pride celebrations all over losing massive support from business. (PNW excepted!) Take that Sunday night whim of a chat with Leonard Peltier’s son, too. Dude just picked up out of nowhere and gave the next Friday email a smidge more inside dope, about his Dad’s impending release from prison.
👇🏿 is a separate thing. Something like a promo.
A lil somethin' for my Native people
In which we promote promote Shinnecock Nation entrepreneur Jay Wright, the most recent WCS podcast guest. See too that we’re putting together an episode with Intisar Abioto of The Black Portlanders project and and Protest City author Rian Dundon.
Photo by Melissa Lang
So. This week’s intro to another DMT trip of weekly news coverage is here to tell you that the journey makes me feel more than free. At the end of POTUS’s most successful week ever—on the day he scored one dagger of a Supreme Court decision—it’s liberating to declare my undying opposition to him and his bullshit, circle jerk administration.
For your purposes, West Coast Sojourn is a clear, funny distillation of our American District’s top issues. For me, every Friday is a rehearsal for that glorious hour in which I suggest to Donald Trump’s fat fucking face that he blow me, to conclusion.
And now, working our way down from least obviously consequential to the totes importante…
10 Will Vancouver or Seattle open WA’s first In-N-Out Burger?
Throughout Seattle and as far north as British Columbia burger fans have been raving that Ridgefield, a Seattle suburb, will get to sell the state’s first official “animal style” food products. Sold too, of course, would be those famous In-N-Out Burgers.
But my intel says the elder Vancouver—the one across the Columbia River from PDX—is likely to open a franchise first.
Vancouver Is Awesome (BC)
The Vancouver location is at 13511 SE Third Way, off of Old Mill Plain, according to Reddit. The shop will occupy the old Rite Aid.
I happen to possess an In-N-Out gift card that’s supposedly loaded with over $100. Presently, the nearest restaurant is in Keizer, Oregon. So, let’s get er done, Vancouver.
Lil Hit
The headliners at next month’s SF Hip Hop Fest are so old that even I’ve seen the festival lineup’s top three lines of performers. Still, there’s a lot of young talent at the pyramid’s bottom.
Do the Bay
The full Herb Caen
Next month is my 59th birthday, and my great and unexpected midlife lesson has been that I’ll need to be even less of a Boy Scout…
In order to not become some villain’s breakfast…
Oshea Jackson, Jr’s appearance on Rich Eisen’s talk show revealed Ice Cube’s son to be a pandering, tom-ass nepo baby…
Has Bagby Hot Springs always had a sketch reputation?
I’m no believer in the po-po, so imagine my surprise when into my brain popped a commercial film idea: Renegade cops who can no longer tolerate federal government lawlessness lead a rebellion from inside their ranks…
My kid called me an MSNBC Liberal when I shared the idea….
That’s his single favorite insult…
9 Coward’s chaotic collegiate end
If you managed to make it through the Washington State swingman’s career without learning who Coward is, you’re not alone. Without regular Pac-12 games, it takes commitment to catch the Cougars. Plus, last season he only played in six games.
Nevertheless, scouts and sports scribes began watching the (Division 3) Willamette University and Eastern Washington transfer’s tape and fell in love with Coward’s long arms, broad shoulders, and very high ceiling.
TrueHoop / NBA.com
After a flury of attention that had the esteemed David Thorpe urging teams to take Coward over any eligible player aside from Cooper Flagg. The up-and-coming Memphis Grizzlies traded up five spots with the Trail Blazers to obtain his rights at 11.
Before injuring his wrist, the defensively tough Coward was averaging 17.7 points per game to go with 7 rebounds, 3.7 assists. He blocked nearly two shots per game and connected on about 60 percent of his field goals. 40 percent on three-pointers
Lil Hit
Cannabis beverages were eight percent of Seattle-based Jones Soda, but the Seattle-based company is selling off its Mary Jones offshoot brand anyway.
Food Dive
Bits o’ war pretext past
It was quaint, the way President Bush and his cabinet went to the trouble of selling the Iraq war to America, rather than just yanking the planet along on its whimsical adventure. As potential misadventuring goes, Iraq was funnier than Iran, and this has as much to do with distance and memory as it does with ‘q’ being inarguably funnier than ‘n’.
8 Beneath ICE lurks a Dodgers faith crisis
We fans have overlooked so much. There was the parking lot owner who cheapened the Dodgers brand like the Whites House presently cheapens the US. Before that, Al Campanis’ racist remarks were largely forgiven because our team was the Jackie Robinson franchise. (Also because Americans stubbornly decline to do their homework.)
If you think No. 42 busted ass on the diamond? You oughta get a gander at the work Jackie’s done legitimizing the franchise that famously destroyed Chavez Ravine’s thriving Mexican community. Well, all of that overlooking is over.
There can be no artificial separation in a world of terribly real separations.
Latin Times
“Many in the crowd today are descendants of those evictions. Some sat with their grandparents during Fernandomanía when Fernando Valenzuela made Dodger Blue feel like home again. That was the beginning of a fragile reconciliation, writes The Post’s staff. “But now, that trust wavers.”
As of 2023 nearly 40 percent of the team’s ticket buyers were of Latin heritage, according to the Dodgers’ front office.
Lil Hit
According to Democracy Now, more than 60,000 of your migrant neighbors are in US prisons, most of which are private, for-profit enterprises. Abelardo Delgado, 68, is just one who has died in ICE custody.
The Guardian
7 Big Dumper and rising cream in the same sentence
Third baseman Cal Raleigh is set to become Seattle’s most famous baseball player since Ichiro Suzuki and Ken Griffey, Jr. roamed the same outfield.
Not only is the Mariners third baseman posing an underdog home run derby challenge to Goliath Yankee Aaron Judge, he’s making one “one of the most unexpected MVP-level campaigns in recent memory.”
ESPN
Raleigh’s 32 homers and 69 RBI leads the majors. His 65-home run pace and 4.3 WAR have him on pace for the greatest season ever by a catcher.
Lil Hit
The headline is trash click-bait. The actual substance is reason in the form of electoral process explanation. Our tendency is to think everything boils down to right and wrong. Actually, when one arrives at their beliefs—them or you—is what most matters.
Ezra Klein
6 Trump puts National Guard on weed-search duty, immolates tax dollars
The federal government sent 315 National Guard troops to Riverside County—100 miles from the “unrest” they had been sent in bad faith to tamp down— to be part of a Thermal weed farm search order execution, about 25 miles southeast of Palm Springs.
LA Times / The Columbian
The federal declaration of Guard deployment did not reference Riverside County.
According to the DEA, two men were found padlocked inside a trailer during the operation. But these people lie like they breathe. Most likely this detail was cribbed from one of their cheaply transparent and artless TV shows. Fuck them.
Lil Hit
Santa Ana public school children won’t get field trips this summer, because White America is permitting a trauma spree that will take generations to heal.
Immigrant Magazine
We Caen work it out
It’s hard not to think that the Big Media dialing back usage of “Big Beautiful Bill” has played a small part in the formerly inevitable legislation getting bogged down…
Small parts are all we need. Many, many , many small impediments. And stamina…
Bet ya Dana White’s cheap ass rents out UFC fighters to work ICE shifts behind masks…
Rewatched the Warren Beatty-Diane Keaton epic Reds this week. Totes forgot that the long yarn begins in Portland…
The way Tiffany Haddish comported herself with Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Guillermo Luna made me think she grew up really into Star Wars…
The Portland International Airport remains the country’s best, according to the Washington Post. People are endlessly charmed by its indoor trees and movie theater…
Way back in my ESPN The Mag days, a multi-part office lecture of mine covered the ways that gangster tropes were replacing cowboy ones in the American psyche, primarily via rap music…
“She’s going to go through some things” is easily the most gangsta-ass shit ever uttered by someone whose ass has rested behind the so-called Resolute Desk…
5 Mark it: On 6.24.25, Dems euthanized its national gerontology program
It wasn’t just New York City’s Tuesday night rejection in of an old-school Democratic party candidate in favor of a young, fresh Socialist. Nope. Down in DC earlier that day 47-year-old California Congressman Robert Garcia was elected to become the Oversight Committee’s chair ,indicating that the Dems we all kinda wish would fuck off and die might be getting a push forward.
From The Left.
Don’t get it twisted. The primary victory of Zohran Mamdani is the most consequential election win since AOC’s upset House victory eight years ago, possibly since Obama’s election. Time shall reveal.
Zeteo / Politico
On Tuesday, Medhi Hasan astutely observed: “I can only imagine what the Rupert Murdoch media has planned for Mamdani.”
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