Archive

America

Live in ’25

By
December 31, 2025
Music, Pop Culture, America, Politics, Rock, Religion
Leave a comment

“I have a show tonight for the band that’s probably gonna have my album of the year, but instead of prepping more for that, I spent last night watching Mario Balotelli highlights and listening to ‘Supersonic’ on repeat, then made myself tea for the first time this season because it’s finally not 900 degrees outside. Think it’s fair to say I’m catching up to the rest of you lot in excitement now.” – RKID, the oldest, not older – 27/8/2025

Having plied his trade playing up front in the aughts for Manchester City FC and Liverpool, among many other places, Balotelli provided a comfortable parallel: as the guy who created the unlikeliest Premier League-winning goal in history with what is literally his only league assist to date in five seasons, he has shocked the world, too.

One year to the date of the first official reunion announcement, the aforementioned premier brother texted the group of people who would go on to see a reunited Oasis[1] at MetLife Stadium over Labor Day Weekend, sixteen years after the tumultuous last tour and Paris break-up: Oasis Live ’25 was real. What do you believe in? Here’s one way I found out an answer I’d forgotten.

Read More

One To Remember

By
December 22, 2025
America, Basketball, Gambling, NBA, Sports
Leave a comment

TITLE! I meant *title! The New York Knicks were going to win the title this year, and what I meant when I said “2026” was “2025,” and what I meant by “NBA championship” was, actually, the NBA Cup[1], by far the most exclusive and wonderful of the annual basketball trophies. Down twelve in the third against a Victor Wembanyama-led team that had already defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Knicks came back to win the Cup final 124-113.

In what amounted to a single-elimination tournament held far enough away from anything familiar to make it feel neutral in mid-December, New York beating San Antonio in Nevada seems like a warning shot. Along with the rest of the league, NBA commissioner Adam Silver continues to eye Las Vegas as a potential expansion site, if only they would seriously consider it.

Read More

Patterns Fail

By
November 22, 2025
Politics, Soccer, Sports
Leave a comment

The craziest thing I saw in the past week – *exasperated, bleeding out of my ears, walking away from the podium* – we’re just going to get this on record.

The craziest thing I saw this week, funnily and tragically enough, involved Cristiano Ronaldo by proxy. Welcome back to the White House, one of the most obviously tan people in recorded history! They know and love you here.

Read More

(Approximately) 30 Thoughts On 30 NBA Teams, 2025-’26 Edition

By
October 20, 2025
America, Basketball, NBA, Sports
1 Comment

While the W was juggling its own expansion considerations over the summer, the men’s league was keeping its fist tight: the long-expected dual announcement of Las Vegas and, crucially, Seattle getting teams[1] came to nothing. Adam Silver has a commission going, and governors are now going to decide how to weigh the long-term revenue sharing benefits of two more franchises against losing all of the special events Vegas now hosts on the NBA’s behalf.

As all of that was happening, though, actual basketball teams put their plans into motion. A decade later than expected, it’s the world against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Frustrations are mounting in every direction, confusion its bunkmate; can you believe the Buss family would ever want to sell the Lakers? Bones Hyland is in Greece Minnesota now. 

We’ll get to this later, but I named my dog in large part after Russell Westbrook, who is now a *checks notes* …Sacramento King? Inside The NBA still exists, albeit on The Worldwide Leader, and “Roundball Rock” is back. In any case: we ball.

Read More

I Walk On Guilded Splinters

By
October 17, 2025
America, Auto Racing, College Football, Food, Hip-Hip, Music, Sports
Leave a comment
The interior of LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, as fireworks shoot in opposing end zones.

I don’t know if the last night in Louisiana was necessarily the time to introduce gator to my body, but as a final taste, it felt apt. As a reversal of fortune the next morning in the Louis Armstrong New Orleans Airport, it still felt apt, but much, much worse.

What happens when you throw four Fordham dudes, one guy who went to Western Illinois and then the only graduate of either of the two universities directly involved? A curious gumbo indeed. Here are snippets of a recent trip to Baton Rouge to see the University of South Carolina Gamecocks football team go against the Tigers of Louisiana State University. If you wanna know the rest, hey: buy the rights.

Special thanks to John, Fati, Tom[1], the oldest-not-older brother, Tom and Gavin for pulling and keeping this together.

Read More

Nothing In The Dark

By
September 23, 2025
America, Baseball, Basketball, Gambling, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, Sports, Television
Leave a comment

You know, it’s the damnedest thing – just the night before, last Monday, I watched Field of Dreams for the first time in a long while, and it reminded me that my favorite part of it is Burt Lancaster’s description of a dream that even the reincarnate hitchhiker version of himself wouldn’t achieve.

A fellow legend of apocryphal baseball ephemera, an erstwhile actor in a Rod Serling joint among many other things that mattered, Robert Redford passed away last Tuesday morning at 89. To echo the masses, we all moved up one slot in the world’s handsomest people rankings at his TOD.

Read More

Seeing Red Again

By
February 26, 2025
America, Auto Racing, Politics, Sports
Leave a comment

Let’s leave aside the obvious for a moment — Jorge Martin’s injury, Pecco Bagnaia’s defrocking, Marc Marquez reclaiming the best bike on the grid, KTM’s financial stay of execution, the whole Liberty Media court case, CryptoData’s now expectedly collapsed vendetta against RNF — and focus instead on one very specific type of person: the much coveted theoretical fan of MotoGP who lives in the world’s largest market for sports entertainment.

Read More

You Know You Sometimes Lie

By
February 3, 2025
America, Basketball, NBA, Olympics
Leave a comment

“I don’t do anything that’s scary.” – Nico Harrison, Dallas Mavericks general manager, February 2nd, 2025, right after taking one of the wildest, most inexplicable swings in NBA history.

Firstly, no: I have no idea why the Dallas Mavericks would do this, “this” being trading Luka Dončić for Anthony Davis, which is exactly what they did late Saturday night. Secondly, yes: I do think LeBron and Luka can work it out as an oversized Tatum-Brown spanning generations and leading a dynamite offense, if only anybody on the Lakers could defend anymore. 

Read More

Garth Hudson, 1937-2025

By
January 22, 2025
America, Blues, Folk, Jazz, Movies, Music, Pop, Pop Culture, R&B, Rock
Leave a comment

The very first sound anyone hears on the Band’s debut LP Music From Big Pink is that of an organ, melancholically ascending ahead of introducing the other instruments and Richard Manuel’s voice, a kind of knock on the front door from an old friend. It’s sad and haunting, familiar and forlorn, an extension of Bob Dylan’s “wild, thin mercury” sound of Blonde On Blonde. 

“Tears of Rage” opens Big Pink, having traversed from a slow folk grind in Dylan’s hands on The Basement Tapes to a steady, driving lament. Behind the organ was the oldest and last remaining member of the Band, Garth Hudson, who passed away in his sleep on Tuesday morning in Woodstock at 87. 

Read More