for my friends, everything. for my enemies, meow meow beans

in mathis, tx (pop. 4,333) for the first campaign rally for tejano music star-turned-congressional candidate bobby pulido in the northern part of the (massive) district. pulido is probably the most interesting democrat running in texas this cycle, at least so far. about eighty people here tonight

i’ve been offline most of the day driving around south texas so i’ve missed most of this afternoon’s horrors and am still thinking about this instead

i am fascinated by the strain of nineties alt-rock that’s been folded into country music over the past year or two

this is a wild thing to announce in advance when the entire game of a shutdown is finding ways to say that bad things that happen because of it are the other party’s fault

is this good

“at the end of the day, what really makes anybody qualified for any job” tracks entirely with this worldview. nothing is real. everything is fungible. having a job is the same thing as doing it. a mug that says “world’s best dad” is the same thing as the world’s best dad

1- Dinner with friends in cities where none of us live 2- The face somebody makes when you give 'em a gift 3- Every once in a while when I wake up early and catch a sunrise 4- The feelin' you feel when you're looking at something you made 5- The layers and ruffles of my favorite pink-champagne cake

constitutionally incapable of reading this as anything other than “m-e-t-h-o-d MEN”

appreciate the warning on this one

i have no idea how network affiliate contracts work, if disney wanted to could they say “kimmel now comes bundled with monday night football, its a package deal” and force nexstar and sinclair to be the ones who have to choose

all corporate execs (disney, target, budweiser, wherever) should force themselves to spend like one day a month around normal people just so they don’t fall for it when far-right culture warriors inflate themselves like pufferfish to trick them into thinking they speak for millions of other people

if you’re young you’re not going to believe this but during the bush era “moral relativism” was a buzzword among republicans, who insisted it was a great american sin

i’ve been dog-earing every page of this book where something incredibly dopey happens

i’ve watched beto o’rourke do this quite a few times in different parts of texas over the years, and while it’s always ultimately turned out safe, it involves walking past a good number of people with ar-15s and never accomplishes what ezra klein seems to think it is supposed to

fyi just a note that “[sad voice] democracy is over, trump is now the sole authority over everything in america” is functionally identical to “[psyched voice] democracy is over, trump is now the sole authority over everything in america”

part of why you go after a big name is so that other big names see it and think “i could be next”

roooooof stooooooof

are we at war with venezuela y/n

of all the things outside of my control that are having an adverse effect on my mental health, caleb williams maybe not actually being good at football is absolutely the most humiliating

i get why this is getting ratio’d to hell, because “have a capacity for shame” and “offer tepid apologies there’s no reason to believe you actually mean” are the lowest bar for decency, but also, i wasn’t sure it was actually a bar a guy like this would be expected to clear, so i get his instinct

What a useful thread.

i know the problem the retweet is using this to illustrate is real and serious, but the idea of bob dylan either knowing who charlie kirk is, caring if he lived or died, or improvising his set list is fucking hilarious

me [lying face down on the floor]: ladies and gentlemen, the weakened

sweet/vicious forever

cancel culture is out of control

Last week, Dan and I went to the first game ever played in the new Art Briles Stadium. Dan wrote about it for TM: www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...

good stuff from @dansolomon.com

somebody check on the spongemakers and tell me if they’re ok

so will the ai people listen to the other ai people’s podcasts and pay for subscriptions or does their personhood not extend that far

honestly think when the most senior people in government start just popping off with stuff that has no apparent basis in fact to protect their leader, we are past the “theory” part of “conspiracy”

this is a real place

remember when baby gronk got rizzed up by livvy. a simpler time

so many of the headlines today (september 4, 2025) feel like worldbuilding for a very shitty sci fi movie

i know game of thrones ended up being bad and ultimately the white walkers-as-climate change interpretation didn't hold up but it still feels like that a little right now

wrote about this last year www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

i don't feel good about it but i'm kinda hoping he does a lil willy wonka somersault when he comes out now

one of the hardest things to reckon with about Our Current Moment is that it is so clearly and in so many ways an inflection point that tells you that the america we’ve lived in our whole lives is not the one we will be living in in the future. just hard to fully get your head around that

this would be weird as shit if it were happening at your apartment complex let alone the white house

I hate this a lot but I am once again asking for help to stay in therapy and get through the gap between when I start my part-time job and when I get paid at that part-time job. gofund.me/4c1963ab

there’s been a lot of smart commentary about trump’s history with pro wrestling as a way to understand the current moment but i think studying logan paul’s wrestling career is probably even more directly useful to making sense of a particular mindset

there are a few ways to make sense of it: eugenics and using disease to cull the population has a long fascist history, but also the idea that nothing *actually* matters beyond controlling a narrative is a core trump belief, so telling people we are healthier than ever is the same as being healthy

just gonna stay in bed an extra five minutes tomorrow morning before i get up and check my phone and enjoy living in a liminal space

hadn’t watched the death of stalin in a while, it’s very funny. imagine something like that happening

both spotlight and she said are pretty realistic but they each have a scene that is so shameful it makes me want to crawl into a hole

rfk is new to trumpworld, cut a late deal to get in on it, and has no history of loyalty. seems like if there is anybody in the administration trump could be pressured on it would be him

for all you vexillology enthusiasts, @forrest4thetrees.bsky.social and i ranked every one of these flags for @texasmonthly.bsky.social last year www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...

do travis and taylor have copies of the epstein files