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For addicts of news about the political crisis that engulfs us, last weekend felt like a decade ago. Yet, the conversation between Irvine-born journalist Ezra Klein and popular author Ta-Nahesi Coates stays with me as I embark upon the Friday Sojourn thing. In large part the lingers talk lingers because of online reaction to that meeting, which was unrealistic and childishly simplistic.
Klein had spent the week on a redemption tour of friendly podcasts, popping up on The New Yorker’s pod as well as that of Trevor Noah, the kind of venues an Orange County boy is inclined to hit if he’s just just changed his obit’s first line by legitimizing a bigot. (Over my dead body would I allow the New York Times’ status quo-mongers to place the headline “Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way” above a stack of my paragraphs)
Klein showed us who he is—an elite who is ineffective at encountering America’s racial weaknesses—and left-leaning social media responded by calling Klein dumb and a very bad person.
I still find a nubbin of hope in the racists who have fellated me,
swallowing the content of my character.
Fact is, Klein is a super-bright policy wonk who’s probably a little above average when compared to the American mean on matters of race. Do not get things twisted: He absolutely shat the bed in minimizing the celebrated Klansman’s harm, but if White America is going to be held to the Tim Wise standard of sophistication? A lot of the anti-MAGA people we’ll desperately need in the ongoing conflict will be disqualified.
Let’s leave the binary thinking to those Neanderthals for whom the inability to comprehend nuance will prove their fatal flaw. Klein understands the workings of government, perhaps exponentially more than your stankin’ ass. And we need that real-time analysis, at least as much as activists and protestors are crucial. Too many MAGA threats loom to throw onto the trash heap this OC kid.
Groupthink licks ass, and not in the good way.
Having said that, a sequence from the Coates encounter has stayed with me, big time.
It comes early in the dialogue, after Klein defends his offending prose by saying, “[F]or me the immediate hours after somebody is murdered in public, when you see that sort of grief and horror pouring out of the people who loved him and many people loved him, my instinct is then just to sit with them [in] their grief.”
A longtime friend of Klein who acknowledges they’ve been texting about Kirk since before his Vanity Fair Klein column takedown, Coates offers a terrific answer in the form of a short question:
“All of that is understandable. But, I guess, was silence not an option?” It’s rare to hear a laugh-out-loud mic drop moment land in the form of a question.
Then there’s the talk’s indispensable section, the bit that both puts Klein in his place and lays out the parameters of what most non-Nazis and non-sympathizers are up against.
“I have heritage. What that means is that I do whatever I do within the time that I have in my life, whatever time I am gifted with. And much of what I do is built on what other people did before then. And then I leave the struggle where I leave it, and then hopefully it’s in a better place. Often times it is not,” Coates tells Klein, as well as us. “And then my progeny pick it up, and they keep it going. I descended from people who, in their lifetime fought with all their might for the destruction of chattel slavery in this country. And they never saw it. They never saw it. In my personal belief system, they died in defeat, in darkness. And so, I guess the privilege that I draw out of this is not that things will necessarily get better in my lifetime, but that I will make the contribution that I’m supposed to make.”
The passage put me in mind of The Indelible White lady whom I overheard at the Portland No Kings protest’s close. She said, “Well, maybe we can turn the corner now.” I chuckled to myself quietly. That protest was, what, 27 unprecedented outrages ago?
Democrats are niggas now. Welcome to a deeper level of resistance. This shit gon’ take a minute. Strap in.
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Every so often we have to look away from the struggle. My jams tends to be Community reruns, foreign films, and sports that allow me to vent my surplus aggression. The non-political items among this week’s happenings are largely fueled by these.
10 In absentia, Brock Purdy is shown to be a “system QB”
By throwing underneath passes all night—not once trying to beat LA with the long ball—Mac Jones helped the San Francisco 49ers upset the Rams in a 26-23 overtime Thursday road win. Switch his uniform number from 10 to 13, and the average Niners fan couldn’t have identified him separately from Purdy, who missed his third straight game with a bad toe.
Head Coach Kyle Shanahan’s offense scheme and after-the-catch running from Chris McCafferty and Kendrick Bourne made 4-1 San Francisco look like Super Bowl contenders, especially with receiving stars George Kittle and Brandon Aiyuk set to return this fall.
Yahoo Sports
Per usual, the Niners defense carried the day. On two crucial fourth-and-one plays, it stopped Rams running back Kyren Williams from converting.
In the fourth-quarter stop of Williams, lineman Alfred Collins punched the back in the face mask, forcing a goal line fumble and preserving San Francisco’s lead. Williams wept on the sidelines. A Patton-esque slap would have been in order.
Lil Hit
After buying weed in Oregon, the cost of California product will choke a motherfucker. It’s helpful though that the three-month old tax increase has been put off until October of 2028, at least. Praise Jah.
Marijuana Moment
All of this analogue stuff still works
The success of Burbank VHS store Be Kind Video makes all the sense in the world, especially if you’re trying to remain principled and your kids are jonesing for Bluey. (See Lil Hit below) There’s more to this story than that and nostalgia though; the video store was one of our last great shared spaces.
My cohost handled most of Thursday’s podcast discussion, because I’ve been in Sacramento a bunch. But I’ve got a little something to add…
The PDX War Report, with Lev Anderson
Lev offers equally astute assessments of the meaning of this moment in the streets. And they we offer more than a hint of our upcoming NBA preview, which features some of your favorite WCS sports analysts.
9 Fighting fire with pedals and tires
An emergency Naked Bike Ride is in the works for my dear Portland. When they bring Blackhawk helicopters to our skies, we treat pilots to a view of our brown eyes.
Out of the saddle, everybody!
The Oregonian
Imagine if some Blazers showed up for this event. It would break the Whites House.
I think we can all agree that helicopters hovering above homes in perfectly peaceful neighborhoods is a kind of terrorism. And what better statement is there that your town is war-free than a healthy frolic that features folks being kind to one other.
Did you know that the annual Portland event was created as a protest against Big Oil?
Lil Hit
Cleveland is playing Detroit in the other ALCS series. Which would be the preferred matchup for the Mariners?
MLB
Do the thing, Seattle!
8 As Many Weirdos as Possible is Seattle’s music archival project
Rachel Crick and her crew have been photographing members of the PNW scene from 1985 to 1995 in front of a local landmark of the scenester’s choosing and collecting their handwritten memories and anecdotes as part of a storytelling project named after a question from The Rocket’s longtime art director.
“So what’s the deal here?” asked Art Chantry. “Are you trying to take photos of as many weirdos as possible?”
Megan Seling reports that, “As Many Weirdos goes beyond the hitmakers and headline names to shine a light on the radio DJs, concert promoters, music critics, and even a pizza delivery guy, resulting in a richer, fuller picture than we’ve seen before.”
Tonight’s AMWAP storytelling event at Town Hall features musician and author Nabil Ayers with Riz Rollins, Marco Collins, Steven Severin, Paul Schurr, Sheila Locke, and Chenelle Marshall.
Lil Hit
Not only are Seth and Steph Curry playing for the Golden State Warriors this year, the enigmatic Jonathan Kuminga has signed a two-year deal. Shit.
CBS News
The Full Herb Caen
Did not forecast feeling advantaged by having little career to lose…
Tomorrow, winless Portland State travels to play 1-4 Eastern Washington in what should be called this weekend’s Degenerate Football Gambler’s Special…
Sometimes I call up my initial reaction to Amelia Perez and just smile and wonder…
Legal and security industrial complexes have got to be burgeoning under Trump…
The NW Chocolate Festival happens in Bellevue over the weekend…
Karma Rivera and Jacque Hammond will perform at Portland’s Alberta Abbey tonight.
7 The fantastical baseball journey of Jared Koenig
Unincorporated Aptos, California is the birthplace of MLB Hall of Famer Harry Hooper, Super Bowl champ Trent Dilfer, and Thomas Pynchon. Pretty impressive for a Santa Cruz community of about 25,000 people.
Jared Koenig, the 1038th pick in the 2014 MLB draft, also hails from Aptos. Koenig, 31, went 6-1, with 27 holds and two saves. He finished with a 2.86 ERA and 1.17 WHIP, and didn’t allow a run the entire month of September. To top matters off, he got married over the All-Star break.
Santa Cruz Sentinel
The Brewers have the best record in baseball, despite have a payroll that’s one-third of the Mets, Phillies, Yankees, and Dodgers. They open the NLDS against Cubs tomorrow morning having never won a World Series.
Koenig bounced around a bunch of colleges and even played in Australia in his road to attracting talent scouts. The journey stays on his mind. “I think I kinda do that reflecting often; I don’t think its just end of season,” he said. “I think I’m doing that pretty regularly, because of where I was at and how difficult it was in terms of everything.”
Lil Hit
Last week Microsoft said that it us partially halting the IDF’s access to the proprietary technology the army was using to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinians. A grassroots campaign deserves credit.
The Nation
Instagram cautioned me…
…for making a Story based on the above POTUS libel of Portland, along with the text: “Fuck this dude.”
Before allowing my Story to post, Meta hit me with a note: Did I really want to say Fuck the President, because numerous accounts had posted the same thing. Oh, more than anything I did. In this moment, I couldn’t have wanted more to go along with the crowd if I were competing on Family Feud. So I posted as intended.
Then, sure enough, another step toward censorship was added to my share:
So, fuck Meta, too. Same with the overlord of Former Twitter and, preemptively, the next act of censorship that the Ellisons are bound to enact when Skydance takes over CNN and HBO.
Those tech bros is some tech hoes!
6 ‘Businessman’ is becoming a profanity
The US now functions more as an aggressive, wheeling-and-dealing company than it does a democracy. Led by the most corrupt public figure in modern history, the nation where all of our relatives and crap live is only building on a legacy of malfeasance. That venal dickhead has only given AmeriCo a hard shove while demanding more vig.
Global Center for Religious Research / New York Times (Gift article)
The top 10 percent of American families hold 69 percent of our wealth. Meanwhile the bottom 50 percent of families possess only 3 percent.
Of course, business isn’t the only factor in wealth inequality. The stock market, tax policy, and even Social Security help set the table. American business lobbyists, of course, work behind the scenes to manipulate those factors.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have reunited, as only soulless monsters can. More unimaginable shenanigans are ahead.
Lil Hit
Talk of trans and non-binary identities has been banned from all five Texas Tech campuses. And I had my money on Texas Christian making the state’s first big-school ban.
Jezebel
Chico’s 1992 acid comeback
The Reagan-Bush Era was drawing to a close and psychedelics were becoming a memory. Acid was not much a part of the mass consciousness.
I’ve forgotten who told me that LSD had made a comeback among local high school students, but I do remember telling the excellent old hippie who was my editor and he instantly approved the story. When the above article hit our plucky little alternative weekly, the local daily picked it up, reporting in a tone of disbelief. Then the Sacramento Bee ran a news story about acid making a comeback in Northern California. Next came the SF Chronicle. And, finally, 60 Minutes weighed in.
So gratifying. And, you’re welcome.
5 From Bears backfield to The Bureau to personal dignity
Charles “Peanut” Tillman patrolled the Chicago Bears defensive backfield for 11 seasons. Last week, he quit the Federal Bureau of investigations, in an effort to sleep well at night, look at himself in mirrors, etc.
After eight years as a agent, had Tillman encountered a presidential administration that uses immigration as a pretext for ethnic cleansing. “I want to be on the right side of history when it’s all said and done,” he said.
The Pivot
“Everybody was told you’re going to go after, like, the most dangerous criminals. But what you see on TV, and what actually was happening, is people weren’t going after that. And, personally, that didn’t sit right with me or sit right with my conscious.”
Maybe Tillman can now focus on getting his chickenshit NFL brethren to speak up. A coach or owner would be awesome.
Lil Hit
Be in Stockton on 10.21 if you want to discuss whether hiphop is actually America’s biggest success story.
Zocalo
Caen’t top that
A hunk of past protest music feels kinda petty, in light of recent events…
I fear Jimmy Kimmel may have earned his last honest laugh as he will never again be just a comedian…
Of course the major news networks didn’t follow up by showing how to build on the success of protecting free speech through protest of the ABC show’s suspension…
They’re invested in you remaining traumatized and—especially—surprised…
And Trump has single-handedly reinvigorated the dying talk show format, it seems…
4 MAGA’s way gayer than you thought… unless you already thought ’em queer
No better proof exists that being closeted and enshrouded in Christianity makes you a mean person with sublimated behaviors than these podcaster takes on Josh Hawley, Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, and Benny “Ass Fuck Me” Johnson.
My deep-seated Christian impulse told me to pity these shame babies. Three seconds later, all of the pain that they’ve enabled knocked that naive emotion out of my mind.
Kristen Stafford-Howe
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