RC@5: A Holly Dolly Christmas by Dolly Parton

written by Nate

A Holly Dolly Christmas

Dolly Parton

Week 98: December 13-19, 2020

I am so fucking dumb for signing myself up to continue Record Club lookback right before Christmas. So dumb! Fuckin the Holidays music, grah!

Anyway, some great takes in the archive, such as:

Dranders — Speaking in praise of Jimmy Fallon will win you no friends in my corner of the internet, though getting worked up about slop online will at least garner recognition, if not kinship. "Expectations are lower on a Christmas album," giving the whole damn game away.

Sunny — Correct diagnosis on breaking the fourth wall to chat with the listener mid-song, which is "this would probably grate if it wasn't done by USDA Prime-grade ham, Dolly Parton."

Rachel S. — Really more of a positive review of a broadcast TV special, and support for Dolly in general. No crime there.

Sara — I find myself at a personal crossroads revisiting this review. Sara saying "there should be no new Christmas music" feels like being frozen in hell, but at the same time I believe in my heart she is right. The mystery of faith, I guess.

DREW P. — "Dolly Parton is Guy Fieri" made me get up from my computer and take a little walk around the room.

Pam — Suggesting that part of this album was recorded via Zoom is both funny and stinging reminder that, oh shit, we reviewed this during the pandemic. Fuck man, that was like it was yesterday / like it never happened at all.

Joe — All is forgivable because this is coming from Dolly, is the take that our good friend arrives at after several paragraphs of hemming and hawing (I kid! Luv 2 blog with u!). 

Ultimately, listening back to this, I am shocked that anyone but the hardest-of-hardcore grandmothers / aged gays would pull this off the streaming pile. HOWEVER, it is useful to remember this product in its time, released in the Pandemic, when sentiments like "being good to each other" and "having a silly time" and "good will toward my brother and sister, who is all of creation" really did hit people (me) hard. This was the time of Ted Lasso! Of course this album had a weight! Happy The Holidays to you all.

Dreams of Being Dust, Joe

So I was stuck in traffic—

Wait! I promise I will eventually get back around to talking about this album! I can't promise I will do so quickly! But just let me type! Let's see what happens!

So I was stuck in traffic. Driving through Northeast and North Philly. This was to avoid crashes on I-95, according to my computer in my pocket that could talk to satellites. The traffic occurred when people were double-parked on side streets. Took about an hour. I hate driving. I was driving in the morning as an investment. I was investing an extra half hour of my morning commute in order to shave off an hour of my evening commute. I was working an extra four hours of overtime, and SEPTA wouldn't be reliable at that hour, so my plan was to ride my bike from the office back to my car that was parked in a free parking area. Hence the driving. Hence the traffic. A little piece of me died.

I read a Letterboxd review for Minions—

Oh god, no, please don't go! I'm getting there! I promise! This is related! Somehow! Swear to gru!

I read a Letterboxd review for Minions one time that spoke of the millions of little deaths that we suffer each and every day. This particular review was framed around sacrifice for a child, and that's true, but you can also expand it a little further. We sacrifice a tiny part of our bodies each and every time we do something for someone else, whether they know it or not, whether they care or not, whether you know them or not. A child, a neighbor, a self-hating moron you'll never meet. You do what's right and you sacrifice a little at a time and each time you sacrifice that little tiny piece of yourself, it feels like a death. With every death, you must grieve anew.

Driving to work on this particular morning was a sacrifice, a death. I'm going to work so that my kids can eat. I'm working extra hours so that my kids have somewhere to live. I'm driving late and hitting the worst traffic because it was my oldest's first day of the school year and I requested late arrival because I wanted her parent to be there to see her off. I'm going to this particular workplace because they say that children all over the city are going to be safer. I'm going to this workplace instead of working from home so I can keep my job so that I can pay the bills. I'm driving to a free parking spot a mile away instead of paying for the parking garage next to my building because I don't want the garages, who would rather we all drive instead of taking public transportation, to get any more money. I'm bringing my bike so that I can bike real quick back to my car and drive real quick home to say goodnight to my kids before they drift off to sleep. And now, because of all these sacrifices combined, I'm sitting in a car with no air conditioning stuck behind some fucking asshole who double-parked his car to buy a pack of smokes in the corner store, a stranger I'll never know and whom I would make so many unspeakable sacrifices for, if called upon. I'm dying. I'm grieving.

What I'm proposing for Dreams of Being Dust is that this is the manifestation of that grief. Not my grief. Rather, the grief we all share, the grief that spawns from our collective sacrifices, our mass deaths, our communal despair. TWIaBP was never this metal or this screamy before, and now they are, so that's clue #1. Clue #2 is the lyrics, which are poetically obtuse but still leave enough breadcrumbs for us to mostly figure out what they are about. So: 2) we're all upset about the world right now and all its horrors, and so: 1) let's fucking scream about it.

Screaming really does make you feel better. Temporarily, but still. It doesn't solve anything, but still. It might even hurt a little, but still! Scream. Scream it out. You remember those videos of nurses screaming after their shifts during peak COVID? I don't know if I ever actually saw one, but I was told about them and it made sense that that kind of thing would be true and would be happening. Doesn't matter if the videos themselves were performative or not—hospitals were undoubtedly a grim and depressing place to be during the spring of 2020, and there were countless medical professionals who went above and beyond to help people who were dying, so many fucking sacrifices made, so many deaths, so much grief. Why shouldn't they scream?

And why shouldn't we, now? Why shouldn't TWIaBP? Why shouldn't we scream along with them? Run through the lyrics and pick 'em out at random. The call to sacrifice here is never too specific, but you know what they are talking about. You know exactly what they mean when they're desperately bidding you to think about starving children. You know exactly what they mean when they're talking about shielding yourself from the algorithm. You know exactly what they mean when they're painting pictures of ecological disasters. You know exactly what they mean when they're screaming about "debt from a treatment" and "sick to death of scraping by a life" and name the damn song after the date that one of the most justified murders in American history took place.

Even if you don't care about one of these travesties, or maybe you don't care to know or deny it's happening because it's not happening to you, then you can at the very least thing about your own problems, your own concerns, and think about how they've been building up recently, and how you, here, now, feel just about fucking fit to fucking explore. More and more. Every day. And if you're feeling like that, feeling like I am, then you're feeling how the members of this band with the too-long name are too. We're all in this shit together. Metalcore/post-hardcore might not be for you, but you can hear it on an elemental level. Just listen to the screams. You can grieve through the screams. You can heal through them too.

So I was stuck in traffic because I had to be. It's a choice but there's no choice. There is no choice in love. Through love there is sacrifice. Through sacrifice there is death. I have no choice but to die, over and over and over. That kind of shit can wear on you. But you can't let it sit there either. You have to act. All you have to do is scream. You sit there in your shit car in terrible traffic in the middle of your crowded city and you open those windows and you put on an album and you wait till "Beware the Centrist" comes on, and you nail that line perfectly, screaming, as loud as you fucking can, throat-shredding screams, right there, right now, scream it:

"WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!"

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

RC@5: Empty Country by Empty Country

Record Club covered this album five years ago. I gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts.

Empty Country

Empty Country

Week 73: June 21-27, 2020

Here's to the albums that are covered in Record Club just a little bit after you became familiar with them. I wouldn't choose such an album myself, but I appreciate when the timing works out. Empty Country was released March 2020, and I was on the ground floor, being a big fan of Cymbals Eat Guitars before. And then RC was there almost exactly three months later. So this means that instead of my RC review presenting snap reactions from a week of listening, I was able to use the review to reflect upon an impact over three months' time.

And what a three months it was for this fucking thing. The memory I described in the review really did happen, and I really do remember it clearly, even now, five years later. Martha, a newborn, was in my arms. I was slowly unraveling due to the pandemic. Pam was doing a Zoom happy hour, and it was getting to me for reasons that don't have anything to do with Pam and her friends and everything to do with me being mentally unwell. Martha, as she is still wont to do, refused to sleep, and I was charged with getting her to go to sleep, so I did the rocking thing, full-body style, on my feet, rocking back and forth to the tempo of the music that was pumping into my ears. That music was Empty Country.

It feels so long ago. I wonder if I would've remembered that memory if RC hadn't given me the clear opportunity to document it. Maybe, but maybe not. But I'm thinking about it now, listening to this album again. I'm writing about it, and Martha, now five years old and an incredible kid, has interrupted me from my blogging at least eight times to show me "a new stretching exercise that [she] invented." I'm happy to check it out. We're so far past the night we needed Empty Country, but really not that far past it at all. 

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 6/26/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

It would be perverse to talk about golf at a time like this. By the time you read this, you'll either be on the other side of, or squirming out of the weakened teeth of, a massive heat wave that pushed temperatures up to triple digits almost everywhere in the country. I hope you made it. Only those who need to be outside are right now. They are waiting for the bus in shadeless tops as the sun pushes down on them. They are cleaning up parks for paychecks as the sun pushes down on them. They are seeking comfort in the shade waiting for splash pads to open while the sun pushes down on them. J.J. Spaun won the U.S. open. He probably took a private jet to and from Pittsburgh, PA, to do it. He's probably take a private jet to Detroit for the Rocket Mortgage this weekend. There's an extreme heat warning there now. It's usually in the low '80s there this time of year. Mama here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws. 

BASKETBALL

No such thing as a big star about to fall. Sometimes they do, history tells us they do, at least for some people at some places some of the time. For them in those places, it all ends in an instant. For the rest of the world, the lucky ones, we watch, we shake our heads, we move on. It must have always been that way, but I can only speak to how it is now, and that is how it is. To be so small and to be so aware of everything is to be regularly confronted with one's own impetus, a cuckolding signed up for and regretted, every hour of the day thanks to a tiny phone in my pocket that tells me every awful thing but provides no way to stop it. Tied to chair watching snuff film I paid for, beholding a great red dragon every day, thankful for the chance to do so. I would have liked to believe that the Pacers could do it, even after Tyrese Halliburton blew out his ankle in what is retrospectively becoming the most likely and obvious scenario to playing with his particular injury. That the collective grit and effort of the team's second and fourth options, plus the white-hot effort and racial discomfort of T.J. McConnell, would be enough to beat back the Thunder. Alas, it was not, and game seven look a lot like many Thunder games; they fucked around for the first half, turned on the jets in the third period, and never looked back. Good on them and their championship, they earned it. Good on the Pacers, who will be gone but not forever. 

CORONAVIRUS

Here's some investment advice: bet on the cavity boom.

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

I had sworn I would never try to write another novel, but after reading Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark, I am prepared to walk that promise back. Clearly, anyone can do it. 

Straight up, this book sucked. Satanic panic about child abduction and identical twin telepathy stretched out about 120 pages longer than the story required, this book should have gone down like seltzer and it went down like salt water. This is sub Koonz, basement-level Grisham, in the Iris Johansen zone. Boring, melodramatic dreck, so bad that it should inspire a generation of would-be hacks to at least take a swing, because anyone can do this and get lucky with the formula. There's no end to the sands I've been trying to cross.

INDIE ROCK

Listen.

RC@5: Watch Out! by Wells Fargo

Record Club covered this album five years ago. I gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts.

Watch Out!

Wells Fargo

Week 70: May 31-June 6, 2020

I wasn't even there. The protests in Philadelphia on 6/1/20, the one that found its way onto I-676. I wasn't there. I couldn't have been. I was home with an infant and a toddler and I was still trying to find my way emotionally through the COVID crisis. And yet, ask me now a question like "what was the moment you became radicalized?" and I'll point to this date.

This is a five-year retrospective about a Zamrock album from the '70s that was covered by a Record Club fifty years later, and not a five-year retrospective about an act of horrific abuse at the hands of police. But how interesting, five years later, to reflect on the serendipity of choosing this particular album during this particular week. How easy it is to draw the line across time and space and connect the two thematically, tighter than a straitjacket.

I assume that there was at least some forethought put into the idea of selecting a protest album while citizens across America were protesting the injustice of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police. He was murdered on May 25th. Wells Fargo's Watch Out! was announced as the album of the week on May 31st. The intervening week would've been typical for when I'd have gotten the album details together and composed the Sunday write-up. Back in 2020, I didn't have the albums chosen weeks in advance like I do now. Most like, I had this album in my back pocket (the article I found it in was published on March 23rd), and felt like maybe now was the ideal time to set it loose.

Even if the Philadelphia Police Department hadn't lied to justify a gruesome attack on its own citizens, then I think I would have been comfortable with this choice. Musically speaking, it's a wonder. The anger of the members of Wells Fargo simmers underneath bouncy grooves. Hooks abound, even if the lyrics are occasionally indecipherable. It's sweaty music, in a good way—sweaty like 11 PM in an underground dance hall on a hot night in June.

But because this particular event happened during this particular week, I'll always associate the music with the history. Rereading my review, it's interesting how my feelings about the incident are actually quite understated. At the time, I think I was hedging my bets a little about the blog, thinking that maybe if I didn't go full fire-and-brimstone, then I could pretend that this is a blog for "everyone." Five years later, I know there's no room here for those who vote to strip away our rights and dismantle our democracy, no fucking tolerance for any bootlicker who thinks police murder is justified, and I'm no longer afraid to say it. So consider this a mea culpa.

Plus, that radicalization that I spoke about earlier didn't come all at once. I knew the incident was wrong, but it wasn't until June 25th that the New York Times released a video exposé about the I-676 protest that I truly comprehended the idea that this was my Philly generation's MOVE bombing. There were no deaths, so I don't mean to exaggerate; what I mean is that there was an incident in which the police caused harm, and those in the know in this city came to an understanding that the police are the bad guys. Some of us fully comprehending this for the first time in their lives, and now tasked with living in a reality in which even liberal friends in Northeast Philadelphia scoff at the idea of the police doing anything wrong that day.

I wonder if anyone who grew up in 1980s Philadelphia remembers the MOVE bombing and thinks about a particular album that for better or worse soundtracked the atrocity perfectly.

I am deeply saddened by the fact that Watch Out! fit our times perfectly, by the way. I'm not celebrating this. Five years later, and I'm still shook every time I drive on 676. Overall, I think it's a good thing when music becomes a part of our lives in such emotional ways like this. Even if the emotions are anger and regret.

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/24/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

Here's a great song to listen to while golfing. 

The Charles Schwab Challenge is going on at time of writing. It's very early, too much so to draw any hard-and-fast conclusions, but the current top five on the leaderboard are five people that I, the most perverted golf observer this foul blog has ever seen, am not completely are real people. Patrick Rodgers? This is not a real person, this is a create-a-player. Golf, please be more serious.

Patches, I'm depending on you son! To pull the family through! Man, I love that song when I'm hooking a driver over some trees and into the loading dock of a Walmart. 

BASKETBALL

The extremely large Oklahoma City Thunder thrashed the Wolves (and may have thrashed them again by the time your read this), and the extremely Indiana Indiana Pacers outlasted the Knicks in a game resonant with history. The Pacers game was better than the Thunder game, in the sense that the Pacers game as a real slugfest back-and-forth that ended with one of the Pacers' main guys doing this. This made for more dramatic competition compared to what the Thunder did, which is what the Thunder do every game: decide at some point in the second quarter to steal the ball and dunk, and then keep doing that until the game is over. 

If one had to bet the farm, they should be it on Thunder over Pacers in six games and be comfortable with their agricultural future, but ask me again on Monday when more games have occurred and my mind has been changed. Also, cards on the table: I've been crushing a lot of Andor Season 2 this week, so my basketball observance has not been as diligent and loyal as it would be normally. Once I figure out what's going on with these Star Wars spies, I will lock back in and watch the fuck out of some sports. 

CORONAVIRUS

Gotta be honest, I did not think there was going to be so much shit to say about COVID when I picked this old-ass column format up off the trash-heap for... reasons still not yet known, actually. I assumed I'd talk about mental derangement via Too Much Online, maybe get into some measles negativity, maybe just relisten to a bunch of memory-holed albums from the pandemic era. 

And still! The 'Vid is as with us now as it ever was! Moderna was going to put forth a dual Flu/COVID vaccine booster, but that's off the table now because the general state of American politics! Fuck! That would have been so sick! So responsible! I'm getting red-assed over here!

I'll say this: respect to Moderna for not giving the game away in their statement, and for staying under the radar of the administration by leaning on the excuse of "needing more information about the flu," and not going with what Reuters calls "increased regulatory scrutiny of the vaccine approval process," which is one of those things that is technically true but emotionally disingenuous. Fuck and shit again!

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

You know what's good? And Then There Were None. Agatha wrote one book 100 times, and they were all good.

INDIE ROCK

The Spotify algorithm is bad and has been made worse when they, uh, fired the people who made it a decent discovery engine back in the olden days of eighteen months ago. But sometimes you get lucky. For example, maybe you were looking at a newsletter from Ed Zitron in which he recommends listening to El-P, and you think "huh, I haven't listened to El-P in a while, that could be cool," so you call it up on the machine only to find that he's, uh, doing a guest verse on a hard rock song. Sometimes things can be good if you adjust your expectations for what "good" should mean.

RC f/u #31: Adeem the Artist and Dua Lipa

It feels like a Record Club alumnus announces a new album every other day, so I don't know if we're ever gonna be completely caught up with this project. But I'm gonna try! Two per week no matter what!

Anniversary by Adeem the Artist

Released: May 3, 2024

Follow-up to: White Trash Revelry, Week 227

Adeem is one of the most important, if not the most important, country artists out there today. Please see any previous blog post that mentions them for evidence, including my own RC review. Their music stands in direct opposition, thematically speaking, to the mainstays of the established country music industry. Adeem's work is socially conscious and unapologetically queer. This is what makes their music important; the songwriting is what makes their music good.

Anniversary continues apace, but with one crucial tweak. This is Adeem's play at the mainstream country sound. The lyrical content doesn't change, of course. What I mean is that the sound, the music itself, is incredibly polished, and ostensibly stadium-ready (though those lyrics are probably the thing that will keep their music out of the stadiums, ultimately). They even have a big-time producer this time, Butch Walker, whose production discography is incredibly varied, but mostly features guitar music that plays to the cheap seats. Notably, he was producer on Taylor Swift's country-to-pop pivot, Red. There are undercurrents to this sound that remind me of that album.

But Adeem is still working their magic with the stories they're telling. "One Night Stand" and "Nightmare" could easily, easily be songs featured on country music radio right this current second, except for the fact that they are about a gay relationship and a questioning of faith, respectively. They are filling a gap for those of us who don't necessarily have an issue with the sound of modern country, just the content. There are other musicians working these margins, but no one does it explicitly as Adeem the Artist does it here.

Maybe it's only a half-puke lower than White Trash Revelry, but that's only because the hooks aren't quite as strong, and also, let's be real, the surprise isn't there anymore. I was taken aback by how essential Adeem the Artist was shown to be almost immediately. Now I know it for certain. I'm comforted by the idea of Adeem diving deeper into progressive ideas and swimming out farther into mainstream sounds.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5 (-0.5 from original review)

Radical Optimism by Dua Lipa

Released: May 3, 2024

Follow-up to: Future Nostalgia, Week 63

I'm afraid that too much has been written about Dua Lipa recently, we're going too far in the opposite direction, making her taking the blame for a culture turned upside down by a fucking pandemic. Here is a piece of truth: Future Nostalgia was successful and Radical Optimism was a flop because of COVID-19, its presence in 2020 and its "absence" in 2024 and 2025. Here is another piece of truth: Radical Optimism is still pretty good.

It's a tight, efficient pop album. Its eleven tracks are all pretty catchy. All of the subject matter that you would expect to be on such a pop album (love, romance, sexual attraction and distraction) are present throughout. Dua Lipa does what she needs to do. She sings the songs competently and gets us to the hook and does her choreographed dance in the videos and all that. She's good. This is good. Honestly, I don't really see any noticeable drop in quality from her last album.

The only problem is that we're free from our stay-at-home orders and we're out in the real world and we don't really need Future Nostalgia Part II. And perhaps Dua Lipa failed to meet the moment. Not that I personally care about this, I'm just idly wondering—what is the "hook" for Dua Lipa herself? What is her personality like? What type of fan would be attracted to her? For the record, I don't think it's healthy to have parasocial relationships with pop artists, and it's downright dangerous that we have normalized the word "stan," but still, could Radical Optimism have flopped commercially because I don't really have a clear sense on what being a "stan of Dua Lipa" means? 

I'm cool with listening to your standard pop album a couple times, I don't mind. This is fine. This is good. Not for nothing, but I've thought Dua Lipa was insanely attractive since even before Future Nostalgia came out, and nothing has changed in any of the videos or visualizers for this album. Still very hot. (Except in that one visualizer where she's missing eyebrows, no human being has ever looked more attractive after shaving their eyebrows. Isn't that right, AJ Soprano?!) I've seen the "Houdini" video a few times at the gym. I will cop to the fact that I like "Houdini" just a little bit better now that I've seen the video.

Anyways, all that bullshit aside, I don't see any change in Dua Lipa's repertoire in listening to Radical Optimism. It's the same old shit. Which is really good! The text is good, and the text has remained the same. It's the context that's changed. If the grade here is dropping from the original RC review, then that's because the first grade was overrated, due to the context.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5 (-1.0 from original review)

NEXT TIME: These are always liable to change, but as of right now, I'll be covering News of the Universe by La Luz and Timeless by Kaytranada.

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/21/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

Important Golf Tip: It does not matter if you are bad, as long as you are fast. To be bad is to be a person existing in the world playing the most complex and befuddling sport that Scotland has created. To be bad is to simply exist. To be slow in your badness, that is to make it everyone's problem. Hit the fucking ball and move on!

BASKETBALL

Despite what was said yesterday—and really, who can even remember what that was, there's no point in going back to look—there was no playoff basketball yesterday. This now frees up space to talk about something stupid that occurred in the WNBA (and also to make a media consumption recommendation). 

Last Saturday, the Indian Fever played the Chicago Sky. The Fever features Caitlin Clark, the Sky features Angel Reese. Clark and Reese were both top-performing NCAA players and led their teams to postseason successes. They are now both primary talents on their WNBA teams in their second years. 

It feels dumb to explain who these people are, such is their ubiquity, but in short: Clark is a gravity-warping three-point threat (think Steph Curry in terms of volume, gravity on the floor, and willingness to hoist it from anywhere), and Reese is a rebound-eating pogo stick who is points-agnostic (Dennis Rodman isn't a terrible comp, though she's smoother and more offensively potent, maybe closer to someone like Kevin McHale if you are old or Zach Randolph if you are merely middle-aged). Additionally, Clark is white and somewhat demure, while Reese is black and somewhat outspoken. Whatever conclusions you are drawing regarding how culture and media is treating these two women as a result of this simple fact, you're absolutely right, and probably not aiming low enough.

Anyway, all that preamble to get to: Clark fouled Reese in their game on Saturday. Reese hit the floor, there was some light hub-bub, the game went on, the Fever blew out the Sky 93-58. Both Clark and Reese have downplayed this exchange (Clark: "I was making a play on the ball." Reese: "Basketball play. Refs got it right. Move on.") Since this incident occurred, there has been a non-stop machine of news coverage, including the winding gyre of ESPN TakeZone Talking Head thought-bloat, as well as a whole lot of racist shit being tossed around. I will not link to it here, but it will not be hard to find.

As this column is something of Service Journalism, here's the takeaway for you: Do not engage with the media unless you have to. Things like this get a life of their own because the collective eyes and attention of the people permit it. Stop feeding it attention and it will stop making money. Focus on the game. The Fever play the Dream tonight, the Sky play the Liberty on Thursday. There's the story.

CORONAVIRUS

It is not the opinion of this column that people should still be thinking about COVID-19 all the time, nor should people necessarily be taking all the precautions and considerations that they might have in 2021 here in the blasted future of 2025 (this column's stated position is "do what you think is best for you, but don't be a scumbag"). 

However, it is the stance of this column that vaccinations are good, and that people should get vaccinated for COVID-19, basically for all the same reasons that people should get annual booster flu shots. It is not worth arguing if this is the ideal outcome (it is not), nor is this the place for a drawn-out conversation about the politics and forces that guide decisions about public health (one of those should be had until all sides are bloodied and exhausted, but if you are coming to the Vomit Anniversary blog to have that fight, it is the opinion of this column that you are in a loneliness crisis and must call that phone number Logic rapped about a while back as soon as you are physically able). 

Sadly, this common-sense guidance will be harder to fulfill, as the Federal Drugs Administration has decided that, unless you are already sick or getting an AARP subscription, you are not in need of a booster.

It is worth considering one's priors when taking in this news. For context, this columnist was probably a 7 out of 10 on the "Being Turned Insane by COVID" scale; more insane than most (washing groceries, not using playground equipment for fear of germ transmission), but not as insane as some. During this time, any guidance from any government organization or body (save the executive branch) would have been followed as gospel, because The Experts were Telling It Was So. Time has passed and the forces that now power those agencies are, well, more publicly known than they perhaps were at the time. So, when one sees the FDA saying what appears to be some fuck-ass guidance, where does that leave the good folks and people? Concerns about ethics in virus prevention are not the province of a normal or well mind, but then again, neither is blogging.

Anyway, no more boosters for you, unless you are my dad, and if you are, you need to stop looking at blogs on your work computer.

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto is so try-hard in its hard-boiledness that it nearly comes all the way around to being a parody or a critique of a set of established tough-guy crime tropes. Only nearly, though. Can't accuse the author of not knowing his notes. What does appeal about the novel is how low-rent and bottom-feeding all the crime is. No one is getting over on a big score, and there is no glamor in the life of guns and punching lived in pursuit of hundreds or thousands of dollars but never more than that. Pizzolatto's crimes are not glamorous ones, and the people who do them are motivated by inertia as much as they are anything else. There's not nothing here, but there ain't much. You can do worse, but you can certainly do better.

INDIE ROCK

Gloorp is not technically "rock," but it is absolutely rattling around between my ears right now, so let it do the same for you. If you have ever lived in South Philadelphia, you will see a friend in the album artwork.

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/17/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

It warps the mind, it does. Driving past a large field or a wooded area will never be the same. Where once the eye and the mind would register nothing regarding the landscape, or perhaps settle on a idle consideration of a pasture or a leaf or what have you, where once that simple biological auto-pilot would carry one moment to the next, now instead is a deep and rumbling urge to look upon god's land and think to oneself, without control or consideration, "I'd bet they could put a sick golf course here."

BASKETBALL

Steph Curry is the greatest shooter of all time and he is out of the playoffs, potentially for the last time. Perhaps the end of that previous sentence is unfair, since he's continued to produce at a high level well into his mid-to-late 30s. Nothing to suggest he wouldn't be good again next year. But the gravity will go away, eventually, and the injury luck that has landed so heavily on his side pushes up against longer odds the older his body becomes. Perhaps this speaks more to the hater's heart at the core of the G, B, C, BAC enterprise, but should the great man never make the playoffs again, the lasting memory of his awful and beautiful tenure at least around these parts will be when a gangly Californian put him into the torture chamber at the most crucial moment. 

CORONAVIRUS

Looking at the list of albums released 2020, it isn't shocking what is forgotten, because almost everything was forgotten during that whirlwind two years (in the Northeast, anyway). What stands out is what was able to rise about the fray, to still remain itself despite the conditions into which it was released. For better or worse, Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia exists not as a "pandemic album," but as an "above-average pop album that pushed Lipa into America." Fetch the Bolt Cutters is not a time capsule, it's a celebration and recognition of an American poet. RTJ4 is a document of a different type, tied not to chemical illness, but spiritual illness. The rest of these albums? Tears in the rain, man, drops on a test-strip absorbed and discarded, telling us only what was happening in that moment, not the next one.

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

James Elroy is a giant of the crime world, and his first novel is so bad it isn't worth reading. Blood on the Moon was ahead of its time in that it was a crime novel about a serial killer that either slightly pre-dated or was released concurrently with Red Dragon. Elroy has gone on record as to saying that he hates the novel himself, not because he made the main character as unlikable, cruel, and racist as he could, but because the writing and story aren't all that great. Having grappled with it recently, I more or less agree with him on that score. Our main is Lloyd Hopkins, who is The Smartest Cop of Them All, beloved by all women and admired by all men, expect for those too small and to cuckolded by his greatness. He's a rocky hang, and the story he finds himself in isn't as clever or as dark as it thinks it is. Elroy would go on to write great stuff, but this one wasn't.

INDIE ROCK

Cannot find a good cover of this song anywhere online. Its enough to make a person want to start a band again.

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/14/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

I found myself having to explain what is good about golf to someone earlier this week. Great sign when your pastime requires an explanation. So here are the reasons to play golf as I see them, assuming a need to defend it. This extends only to the playing of recreational golf; there is no defense for watching or following professional golf, that's for feet-lickers only. 

1. It scratches the itch of competition even if you suck absolute big-time shit. The handicap system is a beautiful thing. Using things like "math" and "numbers" that I straight-up don't really understand, it creates a system in which I could go out right now and play against Tiger Woods and stand a chance of competing with him. This allows for a real intermingling of talents and types, a lack of gate-keeping that is rare in sports. Elsewhere, there's a clear delineation between skill levels and who is allowed to play with who. In golf, you have a chance just by showing up.

2. It scratches the itch of competition even if you don't play with anyone else. Even playing against someone, it's just you out there. Your imperfect body, your imperfect movements, your imperfect mind, a bunch of weird sticks, an ass-dimpled ball (or twelve), and a hole in the ground somewhere 300-1500 feet away from you. Its simplicity is what makes it maddening, because there are millions of ways to skin a cat, and millions of different things to think about adjusting or improving or abandoning or elevating the pursuit of getting the ball into the hole. Every time the little fucker moves at all, its a miracle of human mechanics, mental strength, and applied physics. 

3. You can make it whatever you want it to be. If you want to get into the lab and work on a very specific and goofy set of stretches and lifts to make yourself stronger or faster at swinging the stick, you can do that. If you want to get locked in the Mind Palace and work on koans or focused positivity to create a greater mind-body connection, namaste. If you want to just walk around a very nicely maintained park and talk to a friendly stranger—or just be alone in a relatively quiet place—this is good for that. If you want to dress like you've just lost custody of the kids, drink as much as you can in the sunlight, then drive drunk in your own private kingdom, bar's over there and you've got your cart keys, friend. Golf gets a lot of well-deserved smack for being stuffy, but that's not really what it is. It's a vessel you pour your obsessions into, a place to give the noise and swirl form and focus.

BASKETBALL

The NBA Draft has occurred, and the vile Dallas Mavericks have achieved the number one draft pick. Those predisposed to wig out about all of the league's minor movements were going to claim this shit was rigged regardless, but considering that A) the Mavericks traded away their best player in a generation for a guy who cannot stay healthy and some junk in the middle of the season and B) they have received near universal and non-stop scorn for this decisions, the fact that the ping-pong-balls-that-be selected them to receive the NEXT projected best player in a generation have turned the basketball perves into Donald Sutherland in JFK. My personal take? Sometimes it be like that. Shout out to the Sixers who got the third pick in the draft, that's monumental shit. I hope Maeve is celebrating out there, wherever she is. 

Also, Jayson Tatum apparently blew out his Achilles on Monday. I hope somewhere Brian is shitting blood into a Paul Pierce branded toilet. I love when the people I don't like suffer, and if that makes me a bad guy, then awooooo, baby!

CORONAVIRUS

In a recent episode of the Song Exploder podcast, Michael Jordan Lenderman went deep on how he wrote and arranged the song "You Don't Know the Shape I'm In" from his most recent and most excellent album, Manning Fireworks. In that interview, he shared that he did the bulk of his songwriting for Boat Songs, his even more excellent 2022 album, during the COVID-19 shutdown when he had nothing to do but work on music. The pandemic was bad, but it did lead to me seeing him play my favorite song of his in a former church in Buffalo, New York last Saturday, so some good came out of the whole thing I guess.

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

The time has come for you—yes you—to read a 600-page book about cartel violence and the War on Drugs (political event, not band). 

So, the book is The Cartel by Don Winslow, and in the first 100 pages or so, you're going to think this is just a jack-off book of shock and blood. But the deeper you get into the thing, the weirder it's going to get. So weird, in fact, that it has to be real. So you're gonna start doing some light internet searching and you're going to find out that nearly everything in here has a basis in something that actually happened in the drug war in the last fifteen years or so. The giant Christmas party with families and hookers flown in to the maximum security prison in Mexico so the Don could celebrate the holiday? Real. The newspaper in Juarez that writes an op-ed to the cartels saying "we will no longer report on murders because you keep killing out journalists, what do you want us to do?" Tragic and real. The beautiful woman who is disfigured by the cartels for moving back to her rural home town, only for her to become the sole member of the town government as a form of protest and rebellion against their violence? Happened. The oil companies working with federal agencies to hire private security when cartel interests begin to intersect with oil fields? The Cartel isn't what actually happened, but its horrors come from history, imagination just fills in the gaps.

INDIE ROCK

Mclusky! They're back, too! They've never exactly left since their main voice has been doing Future of the Left and Christian Fitness for 20 years, but the original recipe is back and, thank god, they're as disappointed in you as ever.

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/13/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

I did not watch the Truist Championship (which used to be the "Wells Fargo Championship," I am only now realizing. Here's a pet theory for another edition of this column somewhere down the road: one can tell a great deal about who the winners and losers in the American baking system are by tracking the sponsorships of golf events). Looking at the leaderboard, this was a good call by me. Here is a rundown of the top five, with some notes for all you casuals:

Winner: Sepp Straka — Meaty, girthy Australian who has been playing some pretty good golf as of late. He gets is wins by smashing the piss out of the ball and hoping for the best. He is not fun to watch and has very little personality and is as neutral a winner as an event can have.

Tied for second: Justin Thomas, Shane Lowry — Thomas, the American, is bit of a broken toy trying to whip himself back into form. He was a young phenom for a while, and has since seemingly forgotten how to play golf for about five years, regularly missing cuts and withdrawing from events. Now he is less-young and less-phenomenal, but his performance here suggests he might be on the way back. Lowry, an Irishman, is best known as "Rory McIlroy's friend" and "looking like my high school friend Mannion." He looks like he'd giggle if you tickled his tummy. These two are what passes for a good story at an event like this. 

Tied for fourth: Patrick Cantlay, Jacob Bidgeman, Tommy Fleetwood — Cantlay is American and the absolute most sour-puss golfer the tour has on its roster. He's slow as hell, boring to watch, and has the personality of a waiter who has pissed in your food and wants you to know about it. Jacob Bridgeman is AI-generated and I will not be engaging with him. This guy is not real. Fleetwood is an English golfer with cool hair, a good attitude, and is most known for being the best player to never win a PGA tour event, which is a little bit like being the fifth-fastest sperm. 

In conclusion, no thanks.

BASKETBALL

Here is this week’s premiere basketball video: 

I will admit that this is very tangential to basketball, and borderline dereliction of duty considering that the NBA playoffs are going on as I write this. I will also admit that it is not cool or good that Riff Raff uses "gay" as an insult this 80-second clip. I condemn that practice and would ask you to consider the same. Cool? Cool.

Alright, anyway, what we've got here is the only freestyle rap that I think I've seen come out of the larger Sway / Funk Flex / rap radio show ecosystem in the last 20 or so years (not including some of the more autre work of Tyler the Creator, specifically on the Sway program). "Freestyle" in the sense that it is being conjured on-the-spot, not memorized or written. As such, it is an incredibly shabby and charming piece of rapping done by young Mr. Raff. The basketball-specific portion is the line about playing for the Dallas Mavericks before they found crack in his jacket, but the whole thing is a wonderful balm to apply at the beginning or the end of the day. Recognizing this occurred before Riff Raff's burly boy phase (when he was on juice) and his current indie-pop phase (don't get involved) has made me feel older than the moon and the sun.

CORONAVIRUS

Ryan Broderick—a journalist who produces the excellent newsletter Garbage Day—observed on Bluesky recently that children born in 2007 (disgusting, incorrect) came of age during the first Trump presidency, missed most a good chunk of high school due to the school closures of the Pandemic, and are now entering college at the age of AI and the continuation of outsourcing all critical though to the machines. These young people are likely functionally insane and as detached from a millennial experience as any generation is likely to be.

This is a significant series of horrors for one crop of 18-year-olds to go through, but every generation gets its shit, doesn’t it? COVID, Ferguson, housing market crash, Iraq War and 9/11, AIDS, on and on, boats beating against a current, the current warping the oarspeople in new and exciting ways. As I finish this paragraph, perhaps I land on Jeff VanderMeer as the novelist who best understands both the moment and the arc of history. 

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

They aren't all good. Havoc didn't work for me. It's about a little old lady who shacks up at an aging luxury hotel on the Nile River in Egypt during COVID and spends her time breaking up relationships that aren't, in her mind, ever going to work. It devolves into a paranoid, sweaty nightmare from there. It's a novel preoccupied with a few different things (elder care, mental health and medication, forgiveness and lies we tell to get through the day), but its focus on trying to recreate a Hitchcockian sense of closing walls and trap doors becomes the overarching point of the work. Not a terrible way to spend a week, but not one I'd recommend.

INDIE ROCK

The new Alien Boy album? It's pretty good!

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/10/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

By the time this is published, the first round of the Truist Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club will be dead and dusted. The course they're playing at was designed by famous golf architect, Philadelphia native, and extremely rich-sounding A.W. Tillinghast. He designed some famous golf courses that you would likely never have heard of, and he also sucked shit at playing golf. This is saying something, considering he played in a time when golfers were exclusively bootleggers, laborers, and farmers. Take a look at this record! Stick to course design, you dead S.O.B. Also, please return to corporeal form and put it in writing somewhere that I can play your courses for free, because there ain't no way I'm getting on at them otherwise.

BASKETBALL

The tyranny of the Celtics is that they are incredible sound. They have excellent players, a stingy defense, and a game plan that is less sport than physical application of an actuary table, which is a dumb way of saying that it works with ruthless efficiency. They shoot threes, all the time, because three points is worth more than two, and eventually they'll make about 40% of their shots, which is good for 120 points and usually a win.

The Knicks, by comparison, are a bunch of tall dudes who are gone off that Dennis Rodman juice. They love to get rebounds and play handsy defense, and if they happen to score in the process, so be it. They are anchored by a human Meatwad in Jalen Brunson, rolling ever onward toward the basket and seemingly taking no damage from any smacks he receives on the way. Their ideal game is basically the one they won Wednesday night, where they gutted out a 91-90 win to go up 2-0 on the vile Boston Herd-Immunity-Believers.

Were one to bet, the time to lay money on the Celtics is now. I trust the cold heart of unfeeling math more than I do the grit and guts of a bunch of dudes playing more or less every single minute of the game every night. But there is no shame in taking joy at the defending champs being down 2-0 to the Knicks. Bing Bong, for as long as it lasts. 

CORONAVIRUS

It's draft season, baby! The FDA is meeting later this month to decide which strains of the COVID-19 virus will be included in the next round of boosters. That said, the increased boost to cell service should not be affected whichever strains they choose to shy towards, so fear not on that front. At the risk of editorializing, I hope the conclusion they come to is "include some strains" and not "get rid of the boosters."

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

These are the indie rock singers who I would like to get off their asses and write a fuckin' novel about some fuckin' crime:

• Craig Finn, of the Hold Steady, Lifter Puller, and Craig Finn: Dude, just novelize "God in Chicago" or Separation Sunday and you're fuckin' home.
• Patterson Hood, of Drive-by Truckers: Dude, just novelize "The Fireplace Poker" or "Sinkhole" and you're fuckin' home. Jesus, "The Fireplace Poker" is basically Fargo meets Righteous Gemstones as it is, just put 80,000 words behind it and let me buy the fuckin' thing.
• Drug Church Guy
• Propaghandi Guy
• Meatwave Guy
• Fiona Apple
• Greg Dulli: Brother, you have a song called "Crime Story Part One," finish the series, but do it in a book!
• Single Mothers Guy

For more on these folks and their potential crime novels, please see all of their collective works.

INDIE ROCK

Speaking of Propagandhi, their latest album is out and it's... well, look, it's fine. The world is better with them without them. Here's one of the better songs from the record, but not one of their 20 best songs.

RC@5: The Main Thing by Real Estate

Record Club covered this album five years ago. I gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts.

The Main Thing

Real Estate

Week 66: May 3-9, 2020

I don't remember my mindset during this week of Record Club, like I don't remember living this week or any of the details. But based on the evidence presented to me through the Sunday write-up and a couple of the reviews, it was a rough week. And nothing about this Real Estate album got me out of that ostensible funk.

The Sunday write-up is most like the shortest I've ever written in Record Club history. Based on how blown-out those fuckers are these days, I imagine this record will stand until RC is kaput. Dwyer, that week's reluctant RC captain, gave a four-word reasoning for choosing the album. My own intro was sparse, no doubt due to COVID pressures weighing on me. Even the "Reading Some Shit" section doesn't contain any words, but instead a joke—an ongoing joke, and a joke that I hold very dear, but still.

My own review is tossed-off. One medium-sized paragraph that basically amounts to "I wish I didn't have to do this." And then more of my words end up in Dwyer's review, in the form of a grumpy editor's note. Rereading it, I may have misinterpreted what Dwyer was saying. I think I assumed at the time that he didn't listen to the album at all before writing a review, and that pissed me off. But he says "I planned to listen to this album again," the word "again" indicating that he's listened to it at least once before, which is good. He probably didn't deserve the editor's note. Oh well, I'll leave it up for posterity.

At least Sunny and Rachel C. took the assignment seriously. Though they both came to the same conclusion—this album is pretty light—they both use that conclusion to different ends. "Light" was a synonym for "pleasant" in Rachel's life, and it was a synonym for "empty" in Sunny's life. For the record, they are both right—this is light, pleasant, and empty music. I wonder if RC was blessed with some dense and interesting and fun albums over the first however many weeks of the pandemic, and then, when we finally stumbled upon an album that wasn't any of that, it all fell apart pretty easily.

The thing about The Main Thing is that it's actually not that bad (2 pukes out of 5 was a total underrate based on outside circumstances). It's nice to listen to in the same way that most Real Estate albums are nice to listen to. They all have the same feel. All the songs blend into each other a little bit. Sure, there are some standouts throughout the discography, but for the most part, you can easily pinpoint their sound.

Real Estate is released a rarities compilation album last week, and so I was scrolling through some interesting discussion in the comment section under the announcement of that album. (Fortuitous timing, knowing that I had to soon write this blog post.) The discussion was vaguely pessimistic in the same way that our reviews here are too, basically how Real Estate has a couple standout hits over the years but mostly they coast on a specific sound. (I was more forgiving about last year's Daniel than they were.) But there was some speculation that Real Estate was hit hard, artistically speaking, from the righteous and correct removal of Matt Mondanile for being a sexual abuser. Someone said that Martin Courtney and Matt Monadanile each only had like two or three great songs in them every album cycle, but without Monadanile, the number was cut in half, and it showed.

Maybe that's true, but it's also a moot point. I'd rather not have an abusive piece of shit in a band I'm listening to than listen to an abusive piece of shit's three good songs. I know that's just me. We're covering Hookworms next week, so obviously I'm going to be dropping another 1000 annoying words on the subject then. But I think that we can acknowledge the veracity of such speculation without even talking about Monadanile any more than we have to.

Real Estate is a band with a shtick, and they do it well, even if that shtick wears on you with repeated listens. They are a good band to have on while you're trying to chill. They are a bad band to have on while you're trying to dig deep and come up with important facets of their music to write about in an album review for a blog. And then maybe if you're not able to chill at all during a global pandemic, then this becomes the wrong album to review for two different reasons.

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/8/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

In terms of golf fashion, the flashy, bro'd-out party shirt is on the decline, and the rise of the preppy-ass yuppie-ass quarter-zip seems near its apex. What will come next for the slobs on the course? Check this out and remember where you heard it: the future of golf fashion will be stonewash jeans and a thin hoodie. 

Perhaps you find yourself saying "isn't that just a good look anywhere?," and to you I say, well done! That is exactly my point. Casual golf must continue to shed its stuffy image if it is to grow, and adults can only look like big bovine clowns at SantaCon for so long. Get you some 501s and a Salt Life with pouch in the front. Pull-over, not zip-up. Dress like you're ready for the tee box, the rodeo, or to sleep with someone's lonely wife. Doesn’t matter how you play if you look good.

BASKETBALL

God, Cleveland was dying to lose that game last night. Could see from the opening moments of the fourth quarter that 12-point lead was not to be trusted. It isn't so much that they missed the first six shots of the quarter, it's the way in which they missed them: botching an open layup in the middle of the lane, throwing an errant cross-court pass that winds up out of bounds, blowing two consecutive possession-extending offensive rebounds by generating no useful offense out of them. You could see the Cavs looking for someone to bail them out, and their only options were Donavan Mitchell, who scored 50 and seemingly did all he could while still not being enough, and Max Strus, who is a fine player but no one's idea of a closer. The Pacers' end-game heroics were basically written in the stars before the eight-minute mark. Cleveland is down 0-2 and looking down the barrel of a gentleman's sweep, another one-seed that couldn't live up to its reputation. Familiar territory around these parts. Come on in, boys, the water sucks. 

CORONAVIRUS

Back in late 2020, my brother was traveling for work in the American south. His job is manufacturing-adjacent, so his work puts him in contact with a lot of blue-collar workers: guys who work with their hands, guys who supply those who work with their hands, guys who employ the guys who work with their hands, you get it. Anyhow, he went down, paid a call on one of his clients, and upon entering the shop with his mask on, drew a look of confusion from the dude behind the counter, who said this:

"What's with the masks, anybody sick?"

"Oh no, sir, we just have these on for COVID protection."

"Oh sure, I forgot y'all are from up north. We don't have that Coronavirus down here anymore. Yeah, we had it for a while a few months back, but it's all cleared up now. But do what you're comfortable with! I don't want to tell you otherwise, but you can take 'em off down here if y'all want." 

It's a rich text from a unique time. 

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

Sometimes a crime novel is so sophisticated and well-crafted that it scrapes its head on genre and threatens to become literature. This tends to happen more with spy novels (John LeCarre lives here), or with works that include instances of crime but that are tangential to the overall proceedings, including crime but not so much about crime (Demon Copperhead by Barbar Kingsolver is a good example I'm working through right now). 

Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper is not this kind of novel. It is as pure a distillation of the highs of the modern crime genre as anything I've read in a decade, and it is in no way, at any time, making an attempt at literature. This is a pulpy-ass, crime-ass crime novel, twisting the durable P.I.-in-L.A. format into modern times: this time our P.I. is a publicist for black-flag clients, her partner is an ex-S.W.A.T. goon turned private security. Besides being the kind of book you'll want to swallow whole in less than 36 hours, it's refreshing in its open hatred of Los Angeles, portraying it not so much as a city as a series of conference rooms, homeless encampments, and pedophile party mansions. It's as propulsive as it is stupid, which I say with great love and affection. One of the best books I've read this year, and a must-have for people who like blood with their gossip. 

INDIE ROCK

I'll admit that the Bandcamp mines have been turning up more coal than gems of late, but I did find this amalgamation of programmed drums and '90s twee to be a charming way to pass two minutes' time.

Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/7/25

Welcome back to another edition of G,B,C,BaC, a blog series that has has six posts in five years and two posts in two days. Mostly written by Nate, he drops some knowledge about four different subjects, including... well, you know.

GOLF

Between the Masters, which is golf's Super Bowl, and the PGA Championship, which is golf's Game Four of the conference semifinals, there are six professional tournaments in which pros may ply their trade. The are as follows:

• RBC Heritage: This one is always held at Harbor Town in South Carolina, and is golf's hangover event post-Masters. It is a little like Sunday brunch after a rager; it's sleepy, no one is doing their best, but the diminished state of the collective group can make for some great fun. Some people look their best with a few miles on them, and sometimes the party really can roll into 2 or 3 PM before a workday. This is the best of the bunch by a mile.
• Corales Puntacana Championship: Basically, this is a minor-league game. It offers the tour's girthy middle (what my beloved No Laying Up podcast refers to as "the mules," in that they are golfers not sturdy enough to be considered horses) a chance to make a buck and see the sights of the Dominican Republic. For sickos only, and even then, it's not really worth being aware of.
• Zurich Classic: A lot of good stuff working in this event's favor. It's in Louisiana, which is cool because it makes a bunch of SEC republicans hang out in the goddamn swamp for four days. It's a doubles / team event, which adds a welcome shift to golf's usual staid competition structure of stroke play. I believe that pairs can choose who they want to play with, but I will not be looking it up. All that said, this is a clown event that bears no real effect on who is peaking or wilting within golf. It should be more fun than it is. 
• The CJ Cup Byron Nelson: Too many names. This event stinks.
• Truist Champions: This is in Philadelphia this year! Go check it out! Maybe you'll get to rub elbows with legends of the game like Will Zalatoris, Eric Cole, or Andre Spinovich! I only made up one of those golfers!
• Myrtle Beach Classic: Hey look, we're back in South Carolina. I don't know anything about this event, maybe everyone gets an air-brushed t-shirt. Wake me up when the Championship is on.

BASKETBALL

The Knicks beat the Celtics in game one, stealing one in Boston and winning in dramatic fashion as Philadelphian and one-time Sixer Mikal Bridges ripped the ball away from known weirdo Jalen Brown and heaved it aloft in the closing seconds. He played 51 minutes in that game, which is criminal. I can't even jog slowly on the treadmill for 51 minutes! 

The Nuggets beat the Thunder in game one, stealing one in Oklahoma and winning in dramatic fashion, as song-master and one-time Magician Aaron Gordon heaved in a three-pointer to win the game in the closing seconds. Once again, generational basketball player Nikola Jokić required his supporting cast to bail him out, because he also cannot jog slowly on the treadmill for 51 minutes.

Fantastic night for Sixers fans, as many of our most vile enemies suffered national embarrassments. 

CORONAVIRUS

You are likely aware that the White House recently updated its official COVID-19 page, stripping it of any actionable or useful information about the virus and its spread, replacing instead with a list of recriminations against elected and appointed officials who worked to combat it, as well as a point-by-point explanation that this whole thing was caused by a leak in a lab in China. The implication here is that this was done willfully, perhaps by some kind of Mega Man villain or some kind of 1950s mad scientist. As far as conspiracies go, it's sub-Tom Clancy, and speaks to both a misunderstanding of who the real enemies are (broadly speaking, the capital-first effects of modern business and the proliferation of violent and antisocial media to the already isolated and vulnerable) and a lack of imagination as to who could be out to get us (the cold war is over, bro, get a new mark). Like all things of this administration, it is cheap, flashy, and paper-thin.

What you might not be aware of is that if you go to Covidtests.gov, which was the website where you once could order some free COVID tests, you will not be able to get COVID tests at all. You will, instead, be taken to that mark-ass conspiracy website. Final ruling: this sucks!

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

You know who writes until the last goddamn page? Elmore Leonard, that's who. The Library of America has a remarkable twelve-story collection of the prolific author's work that I'd recommend to anyone who might be crime-curious, or perhaps someone who hates reading and would like to find a way into it. Every novel is 205 pages, moves like rapids, and is full of hard-boiled characters who are either a little bit smart or a little bit stupid. More to the point, Leonard is incredible at pushing his stories at pace for the entire run-time of his work. Not a page is wasted, and nothing is over until the last one. This feels especially true in The Switch from 1978, in which the true meaning of the novel's title isn't paid off until the last paragraph. It's about a put-upon and demure housewife to an absolute asshole land developer (who, I hate to say, is an excellent golfer) who is kidnapped by a couple of medium-hard guys looking to get one over. While this seems like it'd be dark shit, it plays out as one of Leonard's less-violent stories, and has the closest thing he seems to be able to muster to happy ending, in that the people who are bad get that back in kind, and the folks who don't deserve it get something a little better. Ace stuff. 

INDIE ROCK