Jason Isbell, on the first night of his 2026 tour featuring solo shows and full sets with The 400 Unit, had played alone for more than an hour before the break. Just the artist and his guitar, perched upon a well-worn wooden chair and dressed in a dark jacket and pants, wire-framed glasses like he recently wore on The Late Show.

After the break, Isbell returned, admitting he had to use the restroom.“Everyone pees,” he quipped upon returning before belting the opening lines of “Bury Me” from his 2025 solo album, “Foxes in the Snow.”

This was this writer’s third time seeing Isbell in concert, the others with the 400 Unit, his backing band. The first was February of 2022. COVID was still top of mind, and Russia had just invaded Ukraine. I was in Santa Barbara with a friend; we had made the drive up Highway 1 on a work night. I remember a large great horned owl flying overhead while we waited outside the venue. For an encore, Isbell invited the legendary David Crosby on stage, who played with the band during a cover of “Ohio”. We’d been tipped off to this by a ticket scalper in line who said he had a buddy inside during soundcheck who saw Crosby on stage. He told us it was to show support for Ukraine, but I recall Isbell calling Crosby a good friend whom he always visited when he was in that part of California. David Crosby died about 11 months later.

I don’t remember my parents being big Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young fans when I was younger. At least it wasn’t the kind of music they played in the house, so I was lucky that night to be with someone who had, whose joy at seeing Crosby led to an excited phone call home as we cruised back to Los Angeles. Two generations bonding over protest rock.

The next time I saw Isbell in concert, I was traveling alone in a new city, in a new part of the country where I was living for the first time. It was 2024, six weeks before an election. I was regularly seeing a therapist for the first time, trying to figure life out. The band came out swinging with “King of Oklahoma” so loud you’d think they wanted Tulsa to hear them all the way from Durham.

What struck me most about that night, besides my own solitude, was how little Isbell interacted with the crowd. A few asides stand out, like when he covered “Just Like Heaven” during the encore, or when he turned the keys over to Sadler Vaden, his backing vocalist, to drive the show with a cover of Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s “Honeysuckle Blues.” But that night was about the music.

But this most recent trip to Durham, while he shed the band, Isbell brought along the jokes and stories. Besides his pee break, he shared the process of recording “Foxes in the Snow” at Electric Lady Studio in New York, the inspiration behind the song “White Berreta,” and stories from the set of Killers of the Flower Moon. He shared that if the father in “Speed Trap Town” had lived, he’d be the kind of guy who joined ICE. “But I killed that motherfucker,” he said to cheers.

Before the show, my girlfriend and I talked about seeing Isbell in the past, separately, and how he didn’t do much back and forth with his audience. Did removing the band and moving physically closer to the audience put us all on the same level? Or is he just in a more comfortable place now, compared to the last few shows I saw him? I don’t know the man, but I listened to his latest album, which is full of post-divorce regret and new love joy; it’s easy to make that connection.

“Old songs, new songs, and in between songs” was his set list and theme of the night. Some of the songs he sang, he said, he doesn’t like at all. Maybe that was for laughs, maybe it’s the truth. But the old songs felt worn in a comfortable way that night. Like that shirt from college that still fits right somehow. Songs I’ve heard countless times, and seen live now multiple times, were stripped down to the bones. Isbell’s aging voice was competing only with his guitar for our attention. He still hit all the notes, and the guitar never missed a beat.

His second break of the night led to a five-minute standing ovation until he returned for an encore. He kicked it off with “Cover Me Up,” a song so deeply romantic and personal it almost hurts to hear, maybe more so unplugged. The lyrics were the same, the applause after he sang “I sobered up and swore off that stuff forever this time,” was still there. But the feeling in the auditorium, at least in my seat, had shifted. I was only one section over from the last concert, with an almost identical view of the stage. But it was like seeing it for the first time. Aging, along with an artist whose discography I’ve memorized. The songs stay the same, the old, the new, the in-between, but the way the songs hit my ears was new. The heartbreak even sounds beautiful again. Nostalgia wasn’t a crutch this night, but a launching pad to something new.

The show ended with “True Believer,” mournful and forceful at the same time. And just like that, the lights were up, and we were out in the cold night air, heading back to the cars. Some heading home, some to bars, some just into the night, until the next time.

For one night, we really were true believers, babe.

But this time of year, that changes, and it becomes a house of horrors. With goblins and ghouls, skeletons and witches, and even a Gremlin or two, it’s not for the faint of heart. If you’re more of a Hocus Pocus viewer on Halloween as opposed to Friday the 13th, you might want to steer clear. We’ll come back to this house in just a moment.

On a day when we all get just a little spooky, fear is on the mind. Ten days ago, Chapman University released its 11th annual Survey of American Fears. And for the tenth consecutive year, the number one thing Americans are most afraid of is corrupt government officials. Number two on the list was “Someone I Love Becoming Seriously Ill”. Sorry, Grandma, but the State Auditor skimming off the top takes top billing.

A whopping 69.1% of Americans ranked this as their top fear. Dr. Steven Pfaff, Professor of Sociology at Chapman, observes in the study, “Majorities of Americans across partisan lines share this fear, which our analysis suggests stems from their perception that money has distorted the political process, and that powerful and resourceful interests achieve their goals even at the expense of the public good and voter preferences.”

I guess there is something the left and right can agree on in 2025 after all. I’m not sure there is a silver lining in the data. And I’m also not sure we should ever have a lot of trust in government officials; a skeptical voter can be a well-informed voter.

Fear can be a motivator or a paralytic. Heading into Tuesday’s elections, I hope people use fear as a motivator because things might be bad, and instead of fearing those in charge, we can vote them out. We’re still a republic for the time being.

Oh, the Halloween House, I mentioned before? Tonight, on Halloween, it will host a canned food drive for college students in need. Even on the scariest day of the year, and during one of the scariest times for so many, communities are stepping up. You can too.

See you soon.

On the same day UNICEF’s report came out, in an address to a joint session of Congress, the President of the United States emphasized that his administration had cut “$8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of.” This is also the same president who once questioned why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole countries” in Africa. Was the President briefed on the report the day of his address? We don’t know, there is nothing on his official public schedule before 8:30 pm on March 4, when he left the White House for the Capitol.

Since this speech inside the citadel of democracy, the main foreign aid arm of the wealthiest country in the history of the world has slashed 83% of its programs (although a federal judge has since ruled this likely unconstitutional). According to some estimates by people on the ground, gutting USAID has shut 70% of the food kitchens in the region working to combat what could be the worst famine in decades. Since Sudan’s civil war began, 11 million people have fled their homes, and tens of thousands are estimated to have been killed.

New York Times opinion journalist Nicholas Kristof just returned from a reporting trip to South Sudan, meeting refugees fleeing the conflict. His reporting gives names and faces to the numbers. I hope you all read it. Special credit to the photographs by Malin Fezehai and visual graphics by Sara Chodosh.

The title for this post is cribbed from an episode of The West Wing, where a fictional president who is supposed to represent the better angels of neoliberal ideals decides to recreate American foreign policy to stop acts of genocide in a fictional country. Do I think American military power is the answer when its soft power fails? Maybe. But The West Wing didn’t exist in a world where America’s soft power is cut away recklessly and maliciously. The arc of this story won’t be resolved after a special two-part episode.

So why does a Sudanese life mean less to me than an American life? The Vice President of the United States might argue that this is a Christian principle when it comes to the order of our love. Pope Francis has disagreed with this particular member of his flock. I’m not here to litigate an intra-faith conflict. But from where I sit, the order of love has never felt like a path that should be narrow, or confined by family ties or geography.

I’m not sure a lawmaker speaking out on issues of foreign aid will make sweeping changes to public sentiment. Democrats can hold as many press conferences outside of a shuttered USAID office as they want and I’m not sure the needle moves. But a selfish argument does work. It’s easy to turn a blind eye when a conflict rages halfway around the world and those being hurt are some of the poorest people in the world. But that’s only true if we only interact with the world through intermediaries. A 30-second story on the 6:30 news doesn’t bring it home. A TikTok of dubious authenticity is a bad place to seek the truth. But outside these mediums, the accounts of real people are where the truth can live. This isn't about silencing opinions or agendas, I have both, I think I’ve made that clear. But we also have a responsibility to one another. We all have to share the same sky in the end, and injustice under that sky will one day come for all of us.

See you Thursday.

Despite having my phone on me, I didn’t take a picture or video, go live on Instagram, or Snapchat anyone. At nearly 30 years old, Snapchat probably puts you on some kind of watchlist.

I recently deleted Instagram from my phone. My account is still there but I’m trying my best not to be. I’ll check in now and then. Most likely when I’m procrastinating writing. I’ll see who’s hard launching a new relationship, and double tap on a photo of a friend’s rock climbing trip. Those are the moments that once would have been shared in letters, phone calls, emails, and texts. Now they’re made for Stories and maybe for the grid if you’re bold enough. Communication evolves and we should evolve with it, I’m not here to tell everyone to burn their digital identities. We shouldn’t, rejecting modernity isn’t practical or effective.

I grew up with the internet, but now I find that painful. What once felt like a tool for knowledge is like living inside a billboard. It’s attention as capitalism. It’s a sea of algorithms that promote the loudest and angriest for profit. It's an 11 billion dollar industry to advertise to children on social media. My passive scrolling is helping to addict the next generation to be nothing more than money sacks for big tech to leech off.

One thing I’ve always taken with me through my work is showing something isn’t the only choice I’m making when I’m crafting. When we tell stories, it’s also a choice not to show something. It’s an active decision that what is being told is the most important, more important than whatever else could be said. But what’s not shown is just as crucial. Absence is not nothing, but everything. The same is true for attention. In her book, How To Do Nothing, Jenny Odell writes, “To pay attention to one thing is to resist paying attention to other things; it means constantly denying and thwarting provocations outside the sphere of one’s attention.” It takes active engagement to put your attention where you want it. The amount we have to distract ourselves feels infinite. As if being alone with one's thoughts was the worst fate imaginable. But to allow our attention to be fragmented and unfocused allows for other forces to grab hold of it, and by extension, us.

This moment feels heavy. The world is literally on fire, the United States has cut off aid to the rest of the world, and Guantanamo is getting an extreme makeover, ICE edition. It’s easy to retreat into passivity and doom. But to resist succumbing to the dread takes our attention. I didn’t delete Instagram because I didn’t want to see my friends. I got rid of the temptation to substitute the mirage of closeness for the physical world. I’m real, and writing this is real, and you’re real too.

I don’t think it’s just the world spinning out that makes everything feel so bad. It's those endless distractions. It's as if all our diets became empty calories. We can eat as much as we want but we’re never satisfied. It’s a media diet of celery and Diet Coke. We can choose the bottomless pit or we can choose something more nourishing.

Odell goes on to write, “If it’s attention … that makes our reality, regaining control of it can also mean the discovery of new worlds and new ways of moving through them.” Everything feels bad right now. That’s not the most profound way to articulate this moment, but it's the only one I have right now. However, how we choose to focus our attention is how we can regain control.

Go to a concert, sweat in a dark room filled with strangers. Don’t do it for others to see, do it for yourself. Go fishing, read a book. Call a friend. Just don’t let yourself be consumed by the moment. I write this just as much for myself as you. Our attention can either be fragmented into a million pieces, like a kaleidoscope of terror, or we can put the work in so our attention stays where we want it. It can be focused on our communities. To shift your attention now while you can will only reward you down the line. Because to focus our attention in the end is resistance.

See you Thursday.

Los Angeles is a confounding place for an outsider. I don’t remember seeing a cloud during my first year, and it felt disorienting, as if time wasn’t passing. The sun sets early in the winter, but when it does, nothing is more beautiful than the California sky. During the golden hour, it’s God’s most obvious country.

You can’t understand a city of contradictions without spending time there. It’s a loose confederacy of neighborhoods and towns separated by concrete but bound under that endless sky. Many have revisited Joan Didion’s essay on the Santa Ana winds and their mighty power this week. It was only last year I first read that essay, but it didn’t feel like I was discovering something new in its words. Instead, something that was already inside of me was awakened. Because to live in Los Angeles is to know the fury, might, and unease that hot air can bring. It was that first fall, around the time I was writing screenplays in Starbucks, that an Angeleno told me fall meant it would be windy. In a place without seasons, this makes do.

I’m safe 2000 miles from the inferno, but the people and the city where I spent so many years are not. In a city where I danced and ate, drank and smoked, loved and cried, the air now chokes the lungs of children. Families uprooted from their homes. The fire is a kind of violence and its aftermath and recovery will be violent for those left without homes, food, and clothes.

I don’t know how tragedies played out before the internet or 24-hour news. I only can speak to this life. But it’s strange to watch a place I know be turned into content by the worst people in public life. Los Angeles is a place that defies labels and categories. Seeing our government talk about conditioning aid to people during the worst moments of their lives seems cruel for the sake of cruelty. People's homes aren’t talking points and lives lost to climate change aren’t engagement.

If you've never been, it’s cheap to joke about Los Angeles traffic. It’s easy to paint it as a green juice-drinking woke-oasis. But the roads are gridlocked because it’s a city of blue-collar hustlers always grinding out the next job. Laborers, union hands, and delivery drivers make ends meet on canals of asphalt. Their chariots; sedans and SUVs, were abandoned as the flames enclosed. The automobile was the American dream, and Los Angeles is that dream come alive.

I think a lot about leaving Los Angeles. For the last 18 months, I’ve felt like I was running away. I’m not on the lam, but I was lost. But sometimes tragedy shakes the sleeping self. It's easy this week to focus on the worst actors profiting off the pain of others. But through smoke, there is a way forward. At least eight states have sent firefighters to assist, and so have two other countries. These heroes ran into the flames to save lives. Journalists ran in to tell the stories others couldn’t. The greatest chefs in the greatest food city on earth opened their kitchens to feed the hungry and the heroes. The incarcerated jump into action for only $10 a day to keep people safe in a country that will turn its back on them when the fires go out. In these darkest times, grace often shines the brightest. The winds have slowed for now, but the worst is far from over. In a city still recovering from a pandemic, labor strikes, and an affordability crisis, this is a setback that would doom most places. But Los Angeles is not like most places.

I’m not writing this for those still in Los Angeles, but for the rest of us who are not there. The next fire might not be a fire, but there will be a next fire. For a lot of people, the next four years will be a fire. We can shut down at the idea and allow all the worst people to be the loudest in the room. Or, we can look to the people running into the flames as guides. Words are cheap, but doing is hard. People inside the fire already know.

See you next week.

Ways to help Los Angeles

LAFD Foundation Emergency Fire Fund

World Central Kitchen

Mutual Aid Los Angeles Network

• 1 oz Plymouth Gin

• 1 Oz Campari

• 1 Oz Dolin Vermouth Rouge

• Ice

• Stir in a mixing glass

• Serve over ice with an orange peel and enjoy

A Negroni is more than just an aperitif. It’s a small gift to yourself, Christmas in a glass. It’s a small promise to be kind to yourself this year. It doesn’t have to be a gin cocktail. Some might say the negroni was the friends we made alonog the way this year.

Or maybe you just need gin to deal with family during the holidays. That’s ok too.

Cheers and Merry Christmas.

See you in 2025.

Had my name been Gage, how different would I be? This sliding doors moment I had no control over could have altered everything for your author. Would the beginning of every school year be different as a teacher went down the roster only to see a Gage towards the bottom of the list?

We don’t get to pick our first name or our family name. We can disappear into a sea of Williams or Smiths if lucky. Some last names come with a burden, others with the key to every door in the world. Some of us choose to abandon our names over time. In college, someone close to me hated their last name and went by just their first and middle name when possible. They even used a monogrammed pen with just their first and last name as proof. I know what you’re thinking, who monograms a pen? Well, to be fair it was a gift. I’m told they still have it.

A name like mine is an extension of the privilege I was born with. It only becomes an issue at Starbucks. As a white guy with a nasally Midwest accent, “Colin” often becomes “Allen” when I’m ordering. It’s a failure to communicate I’ve gotten used to. Either that or I've been stealing a lot of coffee from Allens over the years and I’m not sorry.

Mishearing my name never bothers me. But if you write my name wrong? “Collin”? Motherfucker it’s on sight.

A friend of mine started a new role recently. It’s a prestigious posting and the organization wanted to create a biography of my friend for their website. The bio writer, who I’m sure is a fine person, butchered my friend's name so bad you’d think it was by design. This is a person they had been emailing with constantly. And last time I checked, email is a very name-forward medium.

I don’t think the names we’re given at birth are the names that define us. It’s our chosen name that’s etched into our souls. Robert Allen Zimmerman is just a dude from Duluth. But Bob Dylan is the icon Zimmerman created. Some will die with their name while others will change it long before they shuffle off. If you’ve lived a life worth a damn, maybe your name will outlive you. But one day, your name will be uttered for the last time. So between then and now, our names should be what we want to hear.

Our names are an agreement of respect—a way to acknowledge someone exists and is a fully realized person—the person they want to be. In an era where people hide behind usernames to seek anonymity, a person living their life in the open and asking to be called the name they prefer should be respected. If we can’t extend that small amount of grace, we are lost.

Except for nicknames, we don’t get to pick those. Your friends, family, and lovers get to pick your nicknames. That’s just a rule of life.

Our names don’t have to be grand, unique, or divine with meaning. They don’t have to be inherited, bought or sold. But, they’re our most personal possessions. John Proctor would trade his soul but not his name. We could all put some respect on each other’s names.

I started writing this because I was thinking about the history of names and why we have them. Honestly, the history of language is cool, but its origins interest me less than the future. Humans have been writing their names for centuries. It was four early civilizations – Mesopotamia, China, Egypt, and Mesoamerica – that revolutionized language by putting words down on script. Historians believe these cultures developed writing independently, with the first being Mesopotamia’s sometime around 3200 B.C. We know this happened, but can you name a Mesopotamian? I’ll wait. The last book bearing your name will eventually vanish into dust.

Colin Andrew Williams is not on the surface an interesting name. What does each of those words mean? On their own, not much. But together, they’re whatever I choose. Or maybe, “I’m an American, our names don’t mean shit.”

Pulp Fiction has all the answers.

See you on Christmas.

For more on names and languages read Jack Knudson in Discover Magazine.

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But more than anything, I’m envious of his coffee order. Two Venti Starbucks coffees, black, with two shots of espresso. Or to put it another way, more than 1,100 mg of caffeine. That’s nearly 10 cans of Red Bull. A healthy adult can consume about 400 mg of caffeine a day, according to the Mayo Clinic. No wonder he goes for it on 4th down so often. No one with that much caffeine in his system has the patience for punting.

Campbell is more of a man than I’ll ever be. That’s not a knock on me, he's just a large dude. But also in terms of coffee intake, compared to coach Campbell, I’m only taking down a little more than 600 mg daily. With a wonky work schedule, I start with a Celsius, then pivot to about 4 cups of hot coffee in about 7 hours. I’ve never been an energy drink consumer, but I’ve been a coffee guy since high school. The caffeine addiction is real. I was once featured in a friend’s dissertation about the minds of drug addicts because of this coffee fixation. I’ve never tried blow, but you should see the lines of espresso I can take down.

My favorite coffee combination isn’t my current Celsius mukbang in the office. But on a quiet Sunday morning, waiting for kickoff, a hot cup of joe with an ice-cold American beer is Nirvana. A bottled Bud Heavy, PBR, or Coors Banquet hits the spot. Sometimes I’ll go north of the border and throw a Labatt Blue in the mix. It’s a thinking man’s speedball. Once on a vacation with friends, they awoke to find me in our Airbnb kitchen throwing back a Coors Light and a cup of coffee at 7 am while I got some work done. I’m not sure if my drinks or my lack of work-life balance was the bigger red flag.

But recently the toll of my caffeine uptake has been noticeable. My anxiety has peaked, my heart rate is faster and unusual, and the sleeplessness is persistent. Am I more irritable than usual? In recent weeks, yes. Is that caffeine or is it the world?

The NIH reports cocaine use has been up among adults and young people in recent years. Researchers at Virginia Tech noticed a similar trend. 10% of 19- to 30-year-olds olds use cannabis daily according to researchers at the University of Michigan. Not all trend lines point up. Gen-z reports to be drinking less alcohol than previous generations. So we’re still a sedated nation, just with less gin and tonics.

I’m writing this with caffeine and nicotine pumping through my veins, as I try to reach a self-imposed deadline. This isn’t a Tumblr confessional; it ain’t 2009 no more. I don’t have the desire to pour my digital heart out online. But I feel if I’m leaning on stimulants to make it through the average Wednesday, I should be honest about it. Because we’re all just trying to make it through the day, numbing ourselves any way we can. Doom scrolling, fast food, drugs, booze, it’s all the same, a reprieve from the awful truth of how sweet life can be.

I started this Substack because I’m a curious person who wants to answer life's questions both big and small. Today, it’s to find out why I need so much caffeine to make it to tomorrow. I don’t know if I’m any closer to that answer, but I also feel a little better knowing a lot of us might be in it together. Will all this introspection help me cut out the caffeine? Probably not. But maybe I’ll switch to tea now and then. But never decaf, fuck that.

See you Thursday.

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On January 20, 2001, President Clinton, on his last day in office, pardoned 140 people, including his brother. Believe it or not, that wasn’t even the most controversial pardon of the day. That honor was reserved for Marc Rich the billionaire fugitive who made illegal oil deals with Iran. Before his pardon, his wife, Denise Rich contributed more than $1 million to the Democratic Party and its candidates, $450,000 to Clinton’s library fund, $100,000 to a fund supporting Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign, $10,000 to the president’s legal defense fund, and $7,375 worth of furniture to the Clintons. She also presented a gold-plated saxophone to the president at a charity ball.*

Believe it or not, Clinton was the second consecutive President to grant a pardon for shady deals with Iran. George H. W. Bush granted pardons to Casper Weinberger and four others for their role in the Iran-Contra scandal. The special counsel overseeing the prosecution would later note that President Bush was a subject of the investigation*.

In 2005, Charles Kushner hired a sex worker to seduce his brother-in-law. He then filmed the pair having sex in a motel room on a hidden camera and sent the tape to his sister on the day of her son’s engagement party to make sure they would not testify against him in a case involving illegal campaign contributions. He later pleaded guilty to his crimes and went to prison. In 2020 President Donald Trump pardoned Kushner for his crimes*. Kushner’s son, Jared, is married to President Trump’s daughter Ivanka. Last month President-Elect Trump nominated Kushner to be the next ambassador of France where he will live in a 19th-century estate in Paris. You can donate to the preservation of his next home here.

This past Sunday President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for any crimes possibly committed in the last 10 years. This decision came after a Thanksgiving spent on Nantucket before jetting off to Angola for some presidential business. Honestly, as someone who has also run away after making an unpopular decision to avoid criticism, I respect it.

Head-scratching pardons are nearly as old as the nation. Andrew Johnson pardoned every Confederate soldier who took up arms against the Union. Richard Nixon pardoned Jimmy Hofa. Jimmy Carter pardoned all the Vietnam draft dodgers and the singer Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary after he was convicted of assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a D.C. hotel room in 1969. I could go on and on but I promised 2000 words or less.

The pardon power being delegated to the executive branch was a choice, and making it absolute except in cases of impeachment was never going to be perfect. Is a single “man of prudence” a better arbiter for granting grace than a body of people? Hamilton thought so*, and he could also spit bars. I’ve never seen the musical but I assume it’s accurate.

There has been a lot of pearl-clutching this week about pardons. The truth is we’ve been living under the leadership of tragic figures for some time. At the risk of sounding like our lame-duck President, my dad always said, “It’s not what you know but who you know.” But we ask more from our leaders than we ask of ourselves. I’m not a father, but I understand wanting to save a son. I don’t have a daughter with a convict father-in-law, but you can imagine how those conversations went. And certainly, no one has ever given me a gold-plated saxophone. But DM me if you want to send one my way.

We all have moral courage until we wield power ourselves. Most of us will never seek absolute power and we’re not weird enough to look in the mirror and say “I could be president”. And if you are, let me borrow some confidence. There isn’t an equivalence between one President using his power to protect his son, and the next guy probably pardoning the QAnon Shaman. But there are always in-groups and out-groups and even factions within groups. People feel pressure to help the people they know. Maybe we should demand more from our leaders, but we shouldn't be surprised when our leaders remind us they are mortals too. They are corrupt and vulnerable and just trying to keep their cliques happy.

I don’t see how we can hate from outside of the club. We can’t even get in.

See you Thursday.

Sources and further readings

1. Albert W. Alschuler, Bill Clinton’s Parting Pardon Party, 100 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 1131, 1137–38 (2010).

2. n.122; Albert W. Alschuler, Unequal Justice for Girtha Gulley, CHI. TRIB.(Jan. 13, 1993), https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-01-13-9303161543-story.html.

3. https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/30/politics/charles-kushner-france-ambassador-trump/index.html

4. Federalist 74

5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/17/peter-yarrow-carter-pardon-assault/

Was 2024 a perfect year? Far from it, you know what I’m talking about. Honestly, tough decade so far, all things considered. But it’s probably up from here, right?

So, as we gather around the dinner table, or hide in the bathroom to avoid in-laws or that one uncle who is way too happy about the election, let’s all reflect on the things we are thankful for this year. I’ll start. Here are 11 plus 1 I’m looking forward to in 2025. Why not do 24 for ’24? Don’t get greedy.

1. Alamo Drafthouse – Raleigh

Do I love living in Raleigh, North Carolina? No comment. Do I even love the business model of the Alamo Drafthouse? It’s honestly 50/50. Sometimes I can’t believe my luck to live in a city with a combination VHS store/bar, and an 11-screen movie theater. Just this year the theater gave me the chance to watch Days of Heaven, Alien, Streetwise, Love Streams, and Real Life all on the big screen. Total cinema baby. Sometimes this theater gives you a magical experience. Other times you sit down to see David Fincher’s The Killer next to a guy who ordered buffalo wings and a pot of hot coffee. The Drafthouse is kind of like life in that way. It’s filled with both the highs and lows.

2. Mikey Madison in Anora

Speaking of movies I saw at the Alamo, Sean Baker’s Anora is almost perfect. But his star Mikey Madison is perfect in the role. I don’t need to spill too much digital ink over the performance, there is great criticism out there on the film and Mikey’s performance. Read Alissa Wilkinson in The Times for more. Na Zdorovie.

3. Sonic and Knuckles (Jahmyr Gibbs & David Montgomery)

Not the hedgehog and echidna, but the Detroit Lions running back duo. I’m so ready for the Lions to break my heart this winter in the playoffs, I can already taste it. But until then, I’ll keep watching these dudes score touchdowns and give great wordless interviews.

4. The Libby App

Books are great, but free books? Incredible. I know I’m way behind on the Libby trend, but as I sit in this airport ready to board this flight with my Kindle all loaded up with books, I’m feeling thankful. Tax the rich and build more libraries.

Download the Libby App here.

If you want to help people around the world, get access to books, check out Book Aid International.

5. Coors Banquet

Turns out, if we had stopped making beer in 1873, I would have been just fine.

6. BelGioioso Parmesan Power-Full Snacking Cheese

Again, I only learned about this weeks ago, but if you want 7 grams of protein in a lil’ cube of parm, this is worth the price. Find them near you here.

7. The salad and the oysters I ate in Charleston, South Carolina

Last food pick I swear. But c’mon. Cucumber, watermelon, feta, chilis? Check out 167 Raw Oyster Bar next time you’re in Charleston.

8. A little book light

It’s like being a kid again hiding under a blanket with a flashlight and book. Order it from Jeff here.

9. Wrigley Field

I took my first trip to the friendly confines this year while I was in Chicago for a wedding. I almost feel like I was shortchanged on my experience because I ended up attending the seventh-fastest game in baseball history. Still lived up to the hype, especially after a few Bud Heavies.

10. Amtrak

Trains were not new to me this year. I even took a couple in different countries. But the ride from Holland, Michigan, into the Windy City, was a reminder of just how few public transportation options we have in the United States. Bring on trains, bring on high-speed rails, and, for the love of Christ, build wider bike lanes!

11. Din Fart

If you’re Danish or know the language, I don’t want to know what it means. But discovering all the speed limit signs with this phrase was maybe the highlight of my trip to Denmark this spring. Is it juvenile? Sure. But don’t act like you didn’t laugh when you saw it. You’re not better than Din Fart. I’m thankful for everyone in this photo and everyone else in my life who isn’t in this photo. 2024 was good because of all of you.

12. Next year – we get more time.

More time for what? That’s up to you, but I’m looking forward to having more of it. How I use it or how I waste it will be up to me.

Cheers, I’ll see you Thursday.

I don’t know who these men voted for this year, or if they even voted. We would probably have a very nice conversation about the Detroit Lions if I ever saw them again. But right now, I’m thinking a lot about their lack of curiosity. They had an idea about a place and by extension some idea about who I am because I was moving there. They didn’t want to know what I was doing or why I was going, their contempt for a place closed off the access we could have to each other. We were three men standing around a buffet drinking light beer. What should have been the ultimate venue for male bonding instead turned into an Old West standoff. There were no Gary Coopers in that house.

I’ve probably had a dozen conversations like this about the different places I’ve lived. Los Angeles, New York, and even Raleigh, North Carolina. All are accused of being liberal safe places by people who’ve never visited. Meanwhile, every Brooklyn liberal I’ve met thinks they’re living under Franco’s thumb.

This has been on my mind since the election some 20 days ago. That pool party in Michigan and the phrase, “shocking but not surprising”. It’s probably the phrase I’ve said the most this year, besides, “I can’t believe I need a Peacock subscription to watch that”.  I was shocked but not surprised by a Presidential debate in June, two political assassination attempts, and finally the election results. Despite a politically jolting summer, in the end, the country was itching to throw out the bums who raised egg prices more than 30 percent in one year.  But aren’t egg prices up 30 percent because of avian flu? Sure, but bird flu wasn’t on the ballot this year, so someone else had to catch a stray.

It's a cruel twist of fate and poor planning that elections fall so close to a national holiday that forces families back together. Even the Canadians have the good sense to get it out of the way before Halloween.  Politics is not fun right now, even if you’re winning. We’re all just a bit too mean, too distrustful, and too sure we’re right. I can’t pretend I haven’t committed all these sins myself. Like the buffet at the pool party, folks who see each other only passingly will be brought together this week to eat everyone’s least favorite poultry. And if your Thanksgivings are anything like my Thanksgivings, it also means, folks will be boozing, and the grownups will try to solve all the world’s problems. I’m lucky to be a native son of Michigan because hopefully this year we can all sing kumbaya about Dan Campbell and Jared Goff instead of arguing over how high the tariffs on Mexico should be. It could be much worse; I could have been raised a Cowboys fan. But with this forced family fun, I’m reflecting on how we’ll all get through this week and the next four years. On this week of Thanksgiving, I wonder how we bridge the divide.

In an audio essay after the election, Ezra Klein wrote the Democrats could go forward from this election emotionally with either contempt or curiosity. The losing party facing this kind of defeat certainly has some soul-searching to do, and I hope for the American experiment they chose to be curious.  I don’t think this is an argument for giving up on one’s beliefs. Maybe it’s time for one party to reframe how it talks about issues, and maybe it would also be good if one party toned down the outrage. Turns out, you can’t say everything is a crisis, because then really nothing is a crisis. If you’re upset or hurting after this election, I get it. I’m in no position to tell anyone how to feel right now. But if we all use this moment to be curious instead of throwing up our hands and accepting defeat, then maybe we can hear what people are saying.  

Listening to those you oppose isn’t a dereliction of your principles, but the duty of everyone in a big, diverse democracy. This country is messy on its best day and a disaster on its worst. The discourse is full of trolls seeking provocation. Every day we are berated by nonsense online that looks like information offering simple answers to complex questions.

This is a time to form the best argument for the future. That starts with hearing where we are all coming from and being curious about our neighbors like we haven’t been for a long time. These next four years will be hard and the burden of moving forward falls on everyone but will be carried unequally by those most impacted by the policies of the next administration. The hardest part about democracy is it asks all of us to be leaders. I hope the next time someone asks me if “you’re some sort of liberal or something,” I really hear them, instead of looking for the exit. For most of us, behind the bluster, we’re all just trying to get by.

Pass the cranberry sauce. I’m thankful for all of you.

See you Thursday.

And it’s not because they lost, I was rooting for the Dodgers all the way. I’m not crazy. No, it’s because on a Saturday earlier in October, Tarik Skubal gave up a grand slam to Lane Thomas in game 5 of the American League Division Series, assuring the Cleveland Guardians would win and advance over my beloved Detroit Tigers. I believe the first text I sent after this was, “I hate baseball.” A friend in a group chat wrote back to my pain, “I’m sorry but the last time I check, the game ain’t over till it’s over.”

I replied as only I knew how “Don’t try to give me hope. This is baseball.”

Now, I am a relatively well-adjusted person. I have multiple retirement savings accounts, I’ve never run out of gas while driving, and I even sort my recycling for the most part. But there’s something about sports, particularly baseball, that brings out the irrational. One minute you're adjusting your 401k investment strategy on Fidelity, the next you're cursing the name of a right fielder younger than you.

I can’t say I follow the sport as closely as I once did. There was a time when I could name every team’s starting rotation and lineup.  Now, it’s hard to follow the Tigers for a full 162 games. But I followed it closely enough to know the Tigers weren’t supposed to hurt me this year. But they messed around and went 36-16 down the stretch to sneak into the playoffs. They went from sellers at the trade deadline, to spoilers of the Houston Astros, a team everyone loves, and everyone definitely wanted to see win another legit, honest World Series.

I’m not alone in falling away from the game. Some more qualified people have tried and failed to answer the question of baseball’s dimming cultural light. I don't know if it's lagging attention spans, baseball's poor TV broadcasting, or a lack of star power, but the game has fallen.  The economics of broadcasting aren’t what they used to be, but I can’t believe there isn’t a network out there that can’t sell ads on a 3-hour baseball game, every day, over a 6-month season. Natural male enhancement supplements and MyPillows are just begging for that kind of publicity.

So why did it hurt so much to see my team lose? I’m now older than most of the roster. But these kids playing a game still threw my Saturday off so much I had to sit in the dark for 20 minutes nursing a bottle of Labatt replaying every scenario where a runner was left on base. The stakes on Tuesday are much higher, and I am confident I won’t react as strongly to the results that day. Sure, I might vomit blood when I see the first exit polls out of Erie, Pennsylvania but that’s just part of living in the greatest country on Earth in the year 2024.

Maybe my falling out with baseball has less to do with how I receive it, and more to do with the passing of time. Before this season, the last time the Tigers made the playoffs was in 2014. I was 19, a sophomore in college. A lot has happened in the intervening decade. I moved across the country and back again. I traveled the world and had my heart broken, there was a pandemic or so they tell me. After all the life I've lived, there's still a part of me embarrassed that I can't name every pitcher who came out of the Tigers' bullpen this year.

Baseball was the thing I fell in love with when I was 11. And it will remain the thing I’ll always love because I fell in love with it when I was 11. You can replace baseball with any number of things for just about everyone. The Beatles, Gilmore Girls, “Call of Duty”. Our cultural tastes are set at an impressionable age. Sure, they evolve. We might change how we dress, talk, watch or read. But those early memories latch on. If you know what I mean, give me an “oy with the poodles already.”

I don’t want to speak for others, but I’ll speak for baseball fans. This game of sounds and smells, of history, nostalgia, and of fathers and sons, does more to bring out the inner child than anything else.  It’s a common language you speak with the people who know you best. Even if you only communicate with them by recalling box scores or speculating who will be on the bump in game 4. Sometimes that’s all there is to say.

Baseball gives us back who we are, who we dreamed of being, and who we dream we can still be. I’ll never hit a walk-off home run in the World Series. I’ve mostly accepted this now as a man pushing 30 who stopped playing the game at 16. I mean, I couldn’t hit a curve ball back then, I doubt I could now.

But now and then, the game gives back, even to fans who have strayed. And I think that’s why last Saturday hurt so good. English soccer fans will say it’s the hope that kills you. Maybe the Brits are right. But if they are, I’d rather be dead than hopeless. Because for a brief moment in October, for that one-half inning, the Tigers had the lead, I was 11 again. Would I want that forever? No, the acne was bad enough the first time around. But, I’ll try to remember to slather on the pine tar of nostalgia and let it stick, just for a bit.

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