1925, 2025
Sean Murphy“Civilization’s going to pieces...I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard? Well, it’s a fine book,…
Orrin Keepnews: Hero for America’s Music
Revisiting a piece from exactly 10 years ago, celebrating an unjustly obscure, sadly under-appreciated hero for American Culture. March 20, 2015 Orrin Keepnews frequently talked about jazz the way war…
Gene Hackman, The Bone Marrow of American Artistry
Once upon a time when I was sixteen I had the great good fortune to be driving my father's car when the alternator died (making it, at least initially, my…
Thank You, Jeff Bezos
Thank you, Jeff Bezos. On one hand, the news coming out this morning from the Washington Post issimultaneously shocking, grotesque, and, in ways that would only be possible in 2025, totally predictable. Sean…
2/26/12: A Poem for Trayvon Martin
On this day in History: On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, an African American teen walking home from a trip to a convenience store, is fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a…
Songs From the Big Chair at 40
Forty years ago today: Songs from the Big Chair, one of the best albums (start to finish as great as any album of that decade got) of the '80s dropped.…
Let The Music Be Your Master: Physical Graffiti at 50
i. Let’s Get Physical You want to understand and appreciate how transcendentally great Led Zeppelin is? If I were to say: I’d like to pay tribute to their masterpiece, you could reasonably…
Big Balls
See, in order to finally infiltrate the DEEP STATE, rectify decades of waste and mismanagement, and shut down entire departments that research and provide meds for disease, we needed to…
It’s All About Narrative, Always
In politics if you're explaining you're losing, but if you're being explained, you're lost. i. Emerging from a mysterious bout of food poisoning (and, I reckon, all bouts are mysterious…
The Last Waltz, At Last: RIP, Garth Hudson
Every group (athletes, artists, executives) requires at least one MVP who is willing (and, often, needs) to cede the spotlight, be content to stay out of the fray, avoid the…