Welcome to this West Coast Sojourn

THC-Infused Sports + Politics + Culture

I’m writing from Oregon. Let’s be no more specific than that, for now.

This image was collected outside of a Fred Meyer supermarket, for a Lyft driver who somehow could not find me.

Thank you for subscribing to my weekly newsletter. I’ll be bringing it to your mailbox on Mondays, hopefully to some degree of delight.

My model for this effort is the Weedweek California business newsletter, which I started in 2018 with the guidance of Alex Halperin. The Sojourn will be way less weed industry-oriented than the joint I made with Halperin. Each 10-entry newsletter ought to be funny and, ideally, incisive. I hope to get off an extraordinary sentence every month or so, too.

And, yeah dude, there’s going to be sports. And popular culture and politics with as little Trump stuff as I can possibly stomach, which is to say that there will certainly be some Trump stuff.

The weed this time is not all business. It’s consumption hints and interesting stories and the spirit of this whole enterprise. The newsletter might go a month without mentioning the forty-fifth president of the U.S., but it won’t take a week away from cannabis.

Trump will pass. Weed is eternal.

***

A difference from the WeedWeed California is my countdown format. West Coast Sojourn wants to deliver a Monday tension of not knowing the week’s top story. 

Bonafide butterflies, some weeks you should have some.

But you’re going to have to pay for that. Are you familiar with the ancient street expression the first one’s free? Well, every Monday your first three or so entries will be free… because I’m generous. 

(Three items may well be enough of me for you. I can dig that. Quite frequently I’ve had enough of me.)

Regardless, a full subscription costs five dollars a month. The Founders deal is still better. (Especially once I get a handle on graphics and make this place look sweet!) In addition to this newsletter look for unscheduled bits. Like, later this week check your email for something cool, personal and probably pretty interesting. Treat yo self. 

And let’s get started

10. Do Not Go Gently, Good Ref 

Some investigations stink on their face. 

In May, the former Twitter revealed veteran NBA referee Eric Lewis to have operated a burner account that defended refs’ performance. A league investigation of the 19-year veteran ended last week with Lewis “retiring.” He’s 51. 

Nothing to see here!

For the uninitiated, the National Basketball Association has one fatal flaw, and it’s not the three point shooting of Ben Simmons. That flaw is the credibility of league officiating. None of the major sports has as much room for bettor manipulation or as many fix whispers.

What exactly did Eric Lewis do?

The NBA is very prickly about refs. Talk is that Jeff Van Gundy no longer calls ESPN games because he’s critical of officiating.

The Warriors Andre Iguadala got booted from a game last season just for saying to an official that he had seen the Tim Donaghy Netflix doc. (Donaghy may well be the Hunter Biden of NBA conspiracists) 

All of this is why the left field retirement of a premier ref reeks of fish. Top-notch officials are difficult to come by and Lewis's May social media hijinks merited a suspension, at most. 

Left to our own conspiracy-minded devices, we’re bound to think Eric Lewis went rogue and dirty. Does have a trail of shady games behind him?

9. Burning Man Rainout

Were there not a writers strike happening—see below—the temporary city that is Burning Man would be getting clowned nightly on TV.

Instead, it’s only the internet heating up a stranded Burning Man community. People on the former Twitter aren’t at all being vengeful or settling old scores. 

Psyche, I’m lying. They’re clowning as if getting paid by the joke.

According to local sheriffs, some Burners who had tried to drive out of Black Rock City instead made the muddy Earth even worse.

This is almost too on target for the caricature that the festival and its goers have become: Rich and willful self-indulgents indulging themselves, indulgently. And now they’re stuck in it.

Thing is, I have been to Burning Man. A friend gifted me a ticket to the playa years before prices rose and access to the temporary art wonderland became strictly about rich people you know. 

Those nine days were among my life’s great experiences. I biked my way through a dust storm and felt like a champ for meeting the challenge. Sexed a bit, designer drugged a lot. I lost eight pounds.

The weather changes from year to year, but the end-of-festival constant is shit. Piles and piles of feces. 

Bathrooms by the final burning of the man are a horror, an actual shit show. Right now must be nuts. Radical self reliance is the buzz phrase for each burn. In this moment that pose is being put to the test.

• I love Lamb’s bread, whenever I am fortunate enough to find it. The strain is undergoing a surge in popularity.
  Leafly

8. Austin Reaves or Mookie Betts?

Who’s the most popular athlete in Los Angeles right now? As the Dodgers took on the ridiculously loaded Atlanta Braves on this Saturday night, the question popped into mind. Betts was batting with the bases loaded and two out in L.A.’s half of the fourth.

Let’s set aside Lebron because he’s in a league of his own, an international corporate juggernaut. It’s one of these two guys, right?

Betts is leading a scrappy, overachieving Dodgers squad. A regular-sized Black dude in this white man’s sport, he’s more easy for fans to identify with than Freddie Freeman, his teammate and MVP-race rival. 

If Los Angeles manages to win the championship in this yper-local sport, Mookie will get the keys to the city.

Meanwhile, Reaves came out of starring in the Lakers NBA Finals run and went directly to starring for Team USA in hoops World Cup play. 

He wasn’t even supposed to make the team—the recurring theme of Reaves’ so-far storybook pro career. Instead, he’s done more of the same, but on the world stage.

In Manilla, where the action is taking place, a sneaker expo attendee asked if Reaves is single. He responded no, and a chant of “Taylor Swift! Taylor Swift!” went up, based on