As awesome as it is for America to finally be seeing itself naked, these are ultimately arduous times. Democracy sucks, but it beats the alternative, as 2025 is relentlessly illustrating.
I don’t want DJT succeeding at shit. I don’t want the tariffs against Canada to work. He’s at war with academia? I need to see him take a fat-ass L. On the off chance he should ever find his penis inside of Melania again? I am on Team Premature Ejaculation. I would like:
To watch dude “die” onstage while hosting the Kennedy Center Honors.
To witness his arrest for letting the visibly-maniacal RFK, Jr. “run wild.”
And, of course, more finger tatts for him to ID.
Yet, like you, I propel his visibility. That unsettles me. So, before America begins foregrounding the Diddy trial and popular distraction takes over, how about one last diatribe on feeding at the Trump Trough, the sort of media gorging that our hearts cannot afford?
My undying hatred. It goes back to the night in Orange County when The Apprentice was unavoidable, on TV and in front of me while a female friend conditioned my dreadlocks. The worst thing I’ve ever seen, I said, with witnesses present. And the fierceness of my antipathy is ramped up second term because of the likely-undocumented immigrant children I cared for last fall. Every day, I wonder what their lives look like.
The full outline of my capacity to hate has become realized.
I say this having been raised in a Christianity that maintained nothing worthwhile comes out of hate. I hate Donald Trump, as a recovering Christian, but also as the son of a Black woman whose suffering Donald John Trump wants erased. That’s a huge power source. But don’t sleep on what comes out of me as a New York lover who takes his disgrace personally.
I could do a Cory Booker-length monologue and focus solely on the ways the POTUS can eat shit and die. Make no mistake, I am not a journalist who is here to referee the fight. I regard MAGA as an emergency. News organizations that revel in the lies, making content of them, are not your friends. Clip show jockeys ought now to be disregarded for those who aim to resolve our political quandary, not profit from it.
Sure, John Oliver is a fine entertainer. But if you ain’t doin’ something to fuck the Trump agenda, the laughter is ill-gotten. Ours a Democracy Now moment.
The nature of Trump hustling comes to mind when I hear the MeidasTouch network cycling into the day’s Dem-glorifying clip with its patently under-edited transitions and exiting into unannounced allergy adverts. The Meidas stuff works because it contains just enough bullshit for Americans to buy in. The secret ingredient is hype—obviously as in televised UFC and WWE. Also though? The ingredient’s in MSNBC coverage and on Al Jazeera, and—especially—on Substack. Trump hustlin.
Even my treasured Bitchuation Room is powered out of early 20th-century Queens.
It’s impossible to imagine what all of us would be doing without Donald Trump, Content Authoritarian.
Reefs of identity metaphor
Simard Bilodeau Contemporary presents Caribbean Stages, the Cuban artist’s solo show of new works. Tomorrow through June 7. Alexandre Arrechea: Caribbean Stages
The Full Herb Caen
Offering a master’s degree in Whataboutism will be required to earn university accreditation, starting in 2027…
For a split second you believed me…
Black and journalistic; I woke up like this
Last weekend, DC reporters burned millions of dollars celebrating themselves, instead of pouring money into a rebuild of local media, which is critical to reversing America’s political cancer…
Spotted in Spokane
Nothing says “Uninspire me” like a Senator Charles Schumer, “Look”…
The people who are looking to the NFL for meritocracy are the same suckers just now learning oligarchy’s definition…
10 The Limits of JJ Reddick
As the Lakers ended their season with the steadily dwindling energy of a team lead by a 40-year-old man, it was easy to think LeBron James to be the week’s big hoops story. Or, everyone might be talking about Austin Reaves and the possibility that the “fan favorite” might have played his last game as a Laker.
But no. Radically inexperienced rookie Head Coach JJ Reddick did something no one’s ever done in an NBA playoff game: He played his starters for the entire second half.
TrueHoops
Reddick is a candidate for regular season Coach of the Year, but the postseason is a second level of complexity. The Lakers played without a center, allowing Rudy Gobert his signature career offensive performance.
TrueHoops' CoachThorpe wrote, “Coaching is something that doesn't just easily happen. Doing a little AAU for kids isn't quite the same thing as as being a head coach in the NBA. The fact that ownership and management doesn't really understand that is shocking.”
Lil Hit
Tonight’s Game 6 of the Warriors-Rockets series will probably feature an uptick in Draymond Green playmaking if the home team is to move on.
NBC Sports Bay Area
Silicon Valley horror
The episode lead-in from from corporate news mainstay Chuck Todd is the exact same pointless horse-race coverage that you’ve come to expect from the former Meet the Press host.
You won’t miss a ton if you skip ahead to the 18-minute mark. That’s when our hour with Black Mirror writer Charlie Brooker begins. Among Earth’s greatest living storytellers, Brooker talks Rod Serling, addresses the difference between worrying about our dystopian conditions and actually warning the public, and a whole lot more.
9 Striking city workers: One more burden for LA
On Monday, 55,000 Los Angeles city workers walked off of their jobs. In the midst of an assault by the federal government, the city is absorbing this difficult blow on the heels of January’s spirit-breaking wildfires.
World Socialist Web Site
Writes Marc Wells: “Every step of the way, the Democrats have smoothed the path for Trump and the far right by enforcing austerity, expanding surveillance and policing, and silencing worker resistance. In Los Angeles, the very officials now attacking county workers are the pillars of the Democratic Party, which dominates California politics from top to bottom.”
Lil Hit
Shaquille O’Neal’s role as voluntary General Manager of Sac State men’s basketball is nebulous, but includes recruiting, mentoring, and sponsorship attraction.
ABC-10
Spotted in SF
Historically damaged and exposed.
8 Speak of the Diddy
This week prospective jurors in the Non-Artist Insiders Know as Satan trial were filling out questionnaires in Manhattan. Also on the island, journalists are starting to tell people that The Non-Artist has been a piece of shit for decades.
New York Times / NBC News
Writes Ben Sisario: “The City College incident was Mr. Combs’s first moment of notoriety, but far from his last. In the ensuing three decades, he has repeatedly faced allegations of violence or serious misconduct. The beating of a rival music executive. Gunshots fired in a nightclub. The threatening of a reality-TV cast member. An assault of a college football coach.”
Starting with the infamous 1991 oversold event in which six people died, Diddy has been catching bodies. Of all the people he’s gotten killed, the one I can’t forgive is getting the greatest rapper alive shot in 1997. Fuck Diddy, but in a way that he would not enjoy.
Lil Hit
This week, of all my favorite film podcasts, the concluding episode of The Old Man Is Still Alive spoke to me most directly.
You Must Remember This
7 Has Trump made Bend over?
As a Canadian tourist destination, that is. Tariff-free hotels have come to Bend, but the local economy still has a hole the size of Canada in it.
Central Oregon Daily / Associated Press
Prove you’re Canadian and get a 20 percent discount. Simple as that. Still, not many are coming. “We have seen a near-total collapse of U.S. business,” said Vancouver, BC travel agent McKenzie McMillan. “Probably about a 90 percent drop since February.”
Lil Hit
At the 15-minute mark, please hear the plan to rehabilitate Richard Nixon that’s already underway.
On the Media
CoCaen Circus
If Shaq and Chuck could do a show that focused entirely on who’s soft and who is not, they would be the happiest hacks on TV…
Democrats ought to face what they’re asking of voters to overlook when they ask voters to forgive their inaction in behalf of Gaza…
Ofc, I’m with the Illinois billionaire, for now….
The self-evaluation that Democrats have been forced to make would be appreciated more if the cause were not so bad…
Hey! Bedazzling bullshit by calling it “bespoke” is my lane, Scott Bessent.
6 The state of ports is up for debate
If you’re seeing images of empty ports in Seattle or catching word of 35 percent drops immediately ahead for the Port of Los Angeles, it’s okay to freak out. Volume will be down until a China accord comes.
Our imaginations may run amok and still not be far from wrong.
News Nation
After Liberation Day—a date that will live in infamy— ocean container bookings from China to the United States dropped 60 percent. The results have not yet tangibly arrived.
Lil Hit
Just as San Francisco’s Hippie Hill 4.20 event was cancelled due to the bureaucratic proclivities of weed legalization, government bullshit will keep NYC’s Cannabis Parade from happening.
Celeb Stoner
in praise of public libraries
Federal NPR and PBS funding are on the ropes. As Eugene has learned, libraries are next. Let me recommend both the public television documentary on libraries—so often taken for granted—and Lucretia Martel’s Zava, which I saw on the Kanopy library streaming service. I use Kanopy more than any film streaming service.
It is free and the best, which a lot of you cannot imagine.
Essentially, this is journalistic busking. Tipping is acceptable and even encouraged.
5 Sanctuary cities are next in the firing line
On Monday the President signed an executive order that targets sanctuary cities. The order instructs federal officials to identify federal funds granted to those areas, then to suspend or terminate.
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon is the oldest sanctuary state in the country. As its resistance goes, so might the others.
“Portland stands unwavering in its commitment to sanctuary policies, rooted in the belief that every resident, including immigrants, deserves dignity, respect, and protection,” Mayor Keith Wilson said.
Lil Hit
Guess what? The Border Patrol is not allowed to arrest Central Valley Brown people unless they do the basics of due process.
Fresno Bee
This is happening. Atrocities, on the regular.
4 Dame Dolla ain’t dead!
In the days following Damian Lillard’s season-ending Achilles tear, many rushed to call the 35-year-old guard’s career a wrap. Then, word leaked that science has made great strides and now there’s genuine belief that Lillard’s promise to return is legit.
Bleacher Report
Let it be known that Lillard is interested in returning fast like Kobe, not careful as KD.
The 2025 injury is the same as last year’s Achilles ding, but far more severe.
Lil Hit
A Washington first-time homeowners plan got intentionally and widely-disseminated as a program that offered a $120,000 gift only to Blacks.
Reddit
Catch up with 2025’s Sojourn podcast guests
Notes on America’s awkward adolescence
Today’s Sojourn has us revisiting conversations with Lauren Yoshiko, well-traveled culture writer Dan Epstein, even more well-traveled comedian Ngaio Bealum—a Northern Cali legend—and culinary cannabis leader Chef Maverick, whose deliciousness is known from Los Angeles to Atlanta and certainly points beyond. And, of course, John Yoo.
3 The most consequential idolatry of our lifetimes
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