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Dry summer/then comes the fall

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August 10, 2023
America, Blues, Folk, Gambling, Jazz, Movies, Music, Politics, Pop, Pop Culture, Religion, Rock
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“You’re still there, huh? We’re gonna do one more song, and that’s it.” His golden, overdriven guitar tone[1] was perfect. He’d already bettered Dylan in some respects; why not in Marvin?

There’s a thing about certain Canadians (two’s a company; three’s a crowd; more: that’s a trend), A few tend to write better songs about the United States than Americans can. Familiarity breeds contempt, or something like it, but from pastoral documentation, à la Neil Young[2] and Joni Mitchell, to the psychodramaticism of The Weeknd and poptimism of Carly Rae Jepsen, some friends from The North hold the mirror up to Americans better than we can do unto ourselves. 

You wanted a hit? Baby, maybe, he just did hits: “The Weight,” “Up On Cripple Creek,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” fit the bill. Having backed The Hawk, Ronnie Hawkins, and then Bob Dylan, Jaime Royal Robertson, who died on Wednesday at 80, ran the gamut of roles in early rock bands. Later, he’d end up having to try to save his bandmates, and then himself. He knew how to get the best out of those around him, when the bells were ringing.

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252 words on “Dog Day Afternoon”

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August 31, 2022
America, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion
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The body is the temple of the LORD.

“The guy who kills me, I hope he does it because he hates my guts, not because it’s his job.”

“You’re dying. Do you know that you say that to me every day of your life? You’re not dying, you’re killing the people around you, is what you’re doing.”

Just like us: they’re doomed, and they know it.

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Sold Short?

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January 29, 2021
America, Gambling, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture
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Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen in Network (1976)

Wall Street in the American imagination is simultaneously held in a state of contempt and awe. It’s the site of both magic and misery.

The name “Wall Street” itself has become a shorthand to denote the capitalist class. Yet, Wall Street is only a segment of this class, known as Finance Capital. 

Finance Capital has become a growing segment within capitalism since the 1970s due to the decline in American manufacturing. Manufacturing took a dive during the 1970s in America due to the postwar recovery of European industries and the emergence of Asian competitors. Big swings in oil prices during the OPEC crisis of 1973, as well as inflationary spending from the Vietnam War, also broke the halcyon days of American prosperity, to which many politicians and their constituents today look to return rather than an anachronism. 

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The Unbecoming

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November 20, 2020
Auto Racing, Movies, Sports
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“A man is severely injured in a mysterious accident, receives an outrageous sum in legal compensation, and has no idea what to do with it” is a pretty simple story idea, but that’s verbatim the pitch for Tom McCarthy’s Remainder. The publisher’s blurb is elegantly written around what he does wind up doing with it, so if that doesn’t sound like something you want to know, it’d behoove you to stop reading here. The real spoiler that’s not a spoiler is that if you’re reading this, you already know everything’s going to end in motorcycle racing anyway.

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There’s No Place Like Highland Park, Illinois

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April 19, 2020
America, Basketball, Gambling, Movies, NBA, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Sports
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Michael Jordan House

From Zillow

First of all: Hello. How are you doing? Are you safe and sound? Do you have what you need, or know how to get what you need in responsible fashion? Have you acclimated to the sounds of sirens happening all around you, or at least to the dull murmur of people performatively reacting to those and other things that will never affect them personally on television? Cool and good < A phrase you may or may not use when looking at anything happening in the United States of America in response to a literal plague befalling those of us lucky enough to inhabit the land of hope and dreams.

Keeping in mind how much all of that is relentlessly destroying us, particularly how much money people accumulate who don’t particularly seem to have any utility for it beyond “Hey I have more money than you do lol,” and also ahead of a particularly enticing documentary premier on behalf of Mickey and friends Sunday night – The Last Dance, an unprecedentedly in-depth look into the 1997-’98 Chicago Bulls season – let’s talk about Michael Jordan’s house in Chicago.

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Grid Positions: A 2019 MotoGP Season Preview

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February 25, 2019
Auto Racing, Movies, Music, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion, Sports
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You have options. Before the start of every new sporting season, dedicated fans take a step back to join casual onlookers just catching up in assessing offseason developments, visualizing the year ahead, prognosticating to pass the time. There are bland press releases to read, rehearsed transcripts to read into, social media posts to pick apart. Media sources both official and otherwise get paid to distill this pile of corporate-backed bollocks into coherent season previews with scripted narratives to follow for your benefit so you can regurgitate it to uninterested parties as the smartest, least likable person in the room when the topic of conversation finally comes around. I know what these previews will say. So do you. This is the ritual.

But there are alternatives. That’s why you’re here.

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Everybody’s Got a Thing: The 2018/19 TwH Megathread

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December 31, 2018
America, Auto Racing, Basketball, Movies, Music, NBA, NFL, Olympics, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, sexism, Soccer, Sports, Television
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Graphic by Brian Kraker

Another year down. Another year older, but perhaps none the wiser? Maybe that decision doesn’t belong to you alone. It felt like nothing did, most of the time. From Tide Pods to the Philly Special to countless acts of cruelty and many more of plain senselessness to the continued existence of the Golden State Warriors to having 12 years left to stop the sun to inexplicable blue lights over Astoria, everything that happened felt like it was going to happen anyway, sooner or later, and we were all left to bear it as best we could. Same as it ever was, but different.

Still: we would be equally bereft of sense to assume that darkness would drive out darkness. You may have heard that only light can do that. For all the bad and rot everywhere, urban, suburban and rural, at home and abroad, there were the moments in between that made everything we experience every day that kept us together, however briefly. If we experienced them together? All the better.

As Bootsy Collins said in 1972, “Balance is my thing/The snow, wind and rain must come.” With that, we delve into the year that was, with an eye toward the twelvemonth ahead.

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“Supersonic”: How Much Do You Want It?

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October 27, 2016
Movies, Music, Pop Culture, Rock
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Getty Images

What is it that riles up the Gallagher brothers? The list of answers to that question are as extensive as the number of fans that fill the grounds at Knebworth in 1996, the framing device for the Oasis documentary Supersonic, which enjoyed a one-night U.S. debut Wednesday evening in cities across the country[1].

As several reviews noted ahead of time, Supersonic largely avoids anything from Knebworth onward, instead focusing its efforts on the Gallaghers’ childhood in a Manchester suburb, their shared musical ambitions and the eventual rise of Oasis while merely hinting at what falls outside of the film’s timeline. Despite this somewhat revisionist view – who among us in 2016 isn’t out to use filters to enhance away imperfections, real or perceived – the film is a compelling look at the most important, and self-important, British band of the mid-1990s.

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