Links are at the end.
If you’ve not been following the vital political issues of our day, you may not know that Florida governor and obvious alien-in-a-skin-suit Ron De Santis has been wearing cowboy boots with lifted heels. This seized the attention of the unconvicted felon who at present leads De Santis by about 50 points in the national GOP presidential sweepstakes polls, and who has been mocking him unmercifully the while.
Trump’s allies have boosted headlines suggesting DeSantis wears lifts in his boots. DeSantis told Newsmax that if “Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head.”
DeSantis’ super political action committee then began selling a set of golf balls with the inscription, “Ron DeSantis has a pair.” Responded Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung: “Ron DeSantis is so broke he needs to sell his balls to strangers in order (to) make rent and keep the lights on.”
I’ve never asked anything of Trump and I never will again, but please: Making America great again rests entirely on the spectacle of De Santis with a boot on his head. Go to the debate, man; admire the boot and hand him a pair of balls—with his name on them.
Please, sir. Please.1
I’d rather have a juggalo president than an alien or orange one, although there might be some overlap. The JNC (Juggalo National Convention) didn’t nominate anybody, but any one of the attendees would be better. Be best. Detroit Metro Times photographer Josh Justice has a gallery of attendees. The level of commitment is awesome.2
Fall back! Fall back!
I’ve had the good fortune to live much of my life in states where daylight savings time isn’t a thing. Indiana didn’t observe it when I lived there, and Hawai’i, where I’ve been for 30 years, is sane in that regard. It does take a bit of time to fix in my brain whether we’re now more hours or fewer hours behind the mainland, time-wise. (Always light years ahead in many respects.) Looking forward to the spate of articles remarking the change in quirky fashion or debating the utility of it.
In Texas, the important thing is you get an extra hour to buy booze when 2AM becomes 1AM the morning of the change.3
The Washington Post has a whole thing on better/worse/why can’t we quit you, in which we learn that Ed Markey is nicknamed the Sun King in honor of his 40-year battle to make daylight savings time permanent. Sometimes necessary change takes time, takes time.4
The Yurok Tribe in Northern California has a condor breeding/restoration program which is about to release three of the great birds into the wild, along with a previously released one which had to be brought back in for lead poisoning treatment.5 The tribe’s website for the program is here,6 and they have a condor-cam here.7
I dunno, man.8
Daniel Cohen has a long piece about Spotify in the London Review of Books from a few months back (no paywall). Near the last of many many paragraphs, he notes that Spotify is valued at $23 billion and has never made a profit; very Uber-like, and Uber-like in its payments to the people who make the service possible. Friends tell me that Spotify recommends a lot of music they like, based upon what they listen to, but Cohen makes the music recommendation algorithms sound like compulsive flatterers.9
Our new House speaker once presided over a phantom law school10 named for a prominent Southern Baptist Convention leader and former Texas appeals court judge who has been accused by several men of sexual assault, and who settled with at least one of them.11
Chances that Mike Johnson would be running the justice department in a second Trump administration look pretty good. I’m sure His Orange Vileness is praying on it.
Meet jormungandr walhallaensis, a 50-foot sea lizard with flippers, and jaws the size of a strip-mining claw bucket. They’re the reason momma T-Rex’s told their babies don’t go near the water.12
I can’t find a good recording of Jimmy Page and his double-neck guitar playing Link Wray’s “Rumble” on the occasion of the latter’s insanely overdue induction onto the rock and roll hall of fame but here’s one,13 and here’s the Rolling Stone piece on the whole affair.14
(Page adores Wray and “Rumble,” crediting the musician and the tune for shaping his enthusiasm and style, as witness the documentary It Might Get Loud.15)
Link Wray, “Moonlight Walk.16”
And that, Comrades, is all I got. Please share it if you like it, and if you’ve not yet considered subscribing, please do—it’s free unless you want to pay.
I really enjoyed the Link Wray video, but got distracted by the projection of The Birth of Venus behind the band. I can’t see it without thinking of the words of the great Carl Carlson, “What’s wrong, Homer? Ain’t you ever seen a naked chick riding a giant clam before?”