Cancellation Week just got easier! Bye, Vox! Bye, NY Magazine.

If these guys had had parents who loved them we’d be living in a different world.

Strike Force Five leaves in triumph. And that’s it for Paramount plus.

Cancellation week begins now. No more fusty 30 year old subscriptions to MSM outlets and publications I no longer trust. I’ll sub them out for smaller, harder-working news orgs that are that’s more reliable and easier to trust. Bye, Bari. When Colbert goes so do I.

Do they have any idea what superstars Colbert and maybe Kimmel will become if/when they leave their respective networks? No? Well, they’re about to find out.

90% of what’s on here comes from pitchers, influencers, attention-seekers and plagiarists. Just give us all a break and put your less urgent thoughts in a notebook. And keep them for yourself. That world of self-promotion will be gone soon anyway.

Anybody remember how Sergei Brin arrived here as a refugee and was sponsored by charitable groups until he became a self-supporting billionaire who chose not pay taxes? Because i sure do. www.forbes.com/profile/serg...

What? No ketchup?

Here’s my Desert Island disc—the video, not the records. For decades you had to comb YouTube to find barely watchable video of this. Releasing it in 2021 changed everything for those who’d seen the shows but couldn’t convey the sheer ecstasy of them. I hear Bruce had a very smart manager.

May he operate on…well, I have a list.

2026 in one image.

Saying that a whole civilization will die if you don’t get what you want is the old-guy equivalent of a toddler’s threats to hold his breath until he turns blue. Stop replaying this. And the good old days of doomscrolling are over. Get your ass offline.

Easter book: “The Easter Parade” by Richard Yates Easter decor: blaze in fireplace on a rainy day. Easter bonnet: forget it. Easter foliage: forsythia, Cornell azaleas, many flowering trees about to bloom. Easter mood: get him out before he does more irreparable damage. NOW.

As these sites become less enjoyable that problem may solve itself.

Goodbye to Chip Taylor, best known for writing “Wild Thing” and being Jon Voight’s brother. He also wrote this very funny song you may not know. I’m pretty sure it was prompted by a Kris Kristofferson interview. youtu.be/3Nuj4gG87ks

When the world is hemorrhaging money, conspicuous displays of loot hit differently. Sure, audiences love all that borrowed bling. I’m glad you felt special and looked good. But think about the message you’re sending.

Happy 83rd to him and so what if he never wins? #OscarDay.

Being the vainest party guy and biggest spendthrift in government may not be the best idea right now. That’s somebody else’s job.

Gimme one more F, Joe. I used up the last one decades ago.

SO tired.

Eric Anderson sings his "Thirsty Boots" at the Phil Ochs Memorial Concert in 1976. As Eric says, this is "very heavy." youtube.com/watch?v=YvQt...

Turns out we didn’t.

Well done. Grok just ID’d Marty Supreme as Bob Dylan.

Please give us 10 days’ worth of news about the weather. We’ll like it. Promise.

Will you believe them or your lying eyes?

The National Society of Film Critics has an award for the best film awaiting U.S. distribution. If you’re in a film-related voting group, consider doing this. And congratulations to Lucrecia Martel, who just won it for her documentary “Nuestra Terra.” It will be called “Landmarks” here.

Stay on these sites and you’ll have the attention span of a mayfly. Try to read, walk, visit. Do anything else.

Two films I greatly admired, David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds and Ron Howard’s Eden, have eligibility problems when it comes to 2025. Both opened commercially in the U.S. in 2025 but were screened elsewhere last year. As the awards game goes increasingly global, it’s too easy for this to happen.

Awards season is only a week old and it’s already exhausting. The Oscars are nearly three months away.

Good name for that big honking trophy.

True.

Thanks for sussing out how much I like Subterranean Homesick Blues, Spotify. I already knew that.

Fondest memories of John Duka, who sometimes came to our backyard parties. He brought us a rose bush one year and I’ll never forget it. He and I were born 4 days apart but I’m still here. He, the most dapper and beloved of NYT Style writers, died in 1989 of AIDS before his 40th birthday. Awful.

If a ratty plaid bathrobe has become so iconic that it’ll be recognizable 50 years from now it’s an awards-worthy costume. They don’t have to be fancy. Just saying.

Happy Birthday, @markharris.bsky.social. Hope you get offline early and have a great day.

Yes, exactly.

Netflix has renamed this “Death by Lightning” and drops its 4-part adaptation tomorrow. It’s b/o Candice Millard’s 2011 “Destiny of the Republic,” the best history book I covered in nearly 20 years as a daily NYT book critic. Her title was better. Can’t wait. www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/b...

Pleasantville isn’t a ritzy suburb. But it’s got a really good movie theater. @burnsfilmcenter.bsky.social

The Times’ having fired Peter Keepnews over a joke he made after his decades’ worth of service is outrageous. Didn’t know him, don’t know what the joke was. But I know this is excessive. He’s a second-generation jazz aficionado and the writer of some of the best NYT arts obits. He’s irreplaceable.

Happy 50th to all who celebrate.

Goddess. Cutup. Role model. Fashion original. And a fine filmmaker too. She directed “Unstrung Heroes” 30 years ago. R.I.P. 💔 www.nytimes.com/1995/09/15/m...

Also How to Stuff a Wild Bikini and Beach Blanket Bingo. Respect.

The TV/advertising model doesn’t work if no one’s watching. You’re welcome.

The most-read story in today’s Washington Post is a 3-day-old ranked list of 5700 holidays. Today is, among many other things, National Little Black Dress Day. Fine. Celebrate if you must. But don’t click on this junk if you want newspapers to cover real news.

NYT today has a gerrymandering game that you can play for fun while real legislators play for keeps. It’s adorable. Like Wordle! Like Connections! I’m not making this up.

It ranks just behind One Love and way behind Bohemian Rhapsody. But two of the top 7 were directed by James Mangold. Not bad.

This isn’t about movies. It’s about the Dome, a trippy spectacle joint in Las Vegas. What did you expect?

If Ron Howard’s “Eden” opens on schedule later this month, you’re about to start having very different conversations about Sydney Sweeney. She hasn’t done anything like this before. Neither has he.

He’s still alive as of 7/30/25. Just wish him well.