Think about it: 3,000 years of human beings getting tears in their eyes when they hear about the old dog Argos recognizing his master and then dying.

Death Valley Girls at the Turf Club. Finally got to see one of my favorite bands of the past 10 years.

I went down a rabbit hole reading about Thomas “Boston” Corbett, a very strange character who became famous as the man who killed the assassin John Wilkes Booth, and found what every Minnesotan craves: The Local Angle. tobiesstation.com/history/?fbc...

A guy dropped off a package delivery on this 94F day. As I brought it inside, I smelled something odd. At first, I thought food inside the package was cooking in the heat. Brought it up to my nose. No, I know what that smell is: The delivery driver must’ve been smoking a ton of weed in the truck.

A photo of an ICE thug slipping on Minnesota ice this past winter, seen reproduced on a T-shirt in San Francisco this summer. Last week, ICE killed someone in Houston. Today, ICE killed someone in Maine. From north to south, from sea to sea, Americans despise this agency.

So, what’s your theory: Why are Widow’s Bay, The Bear and Margo’s Got Money Troubles nominated for Best Comedy at the Emmys? Are we not making enough good comedy-comedies these days, and so the Emmys must pad the list with comic-drama hybrids?

Senator in coma, I know I know it's serious

I was prepared for the bros defending Platner over the past couple days, but I’m really bummed out by the women defending him today in my Facebook feed. Yikes.

This post could go down in Bluesky history.

Famous chef and gourmand Paris Hilton has a line of pink cookware at Ross Dress for Less.

I’m staying at my elderly parents’ house where they are glued to MSNOW (or whatever it’s called) for hours every night. Having the TV on like this annoys me, but I feel so lucky it’s not Fox.

When I was 16, I went up to Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and gave him my guitar pick. I thought it was some kind of reversal of the fan-celebrity relationship. Embarrassing to think about it now, but as dorky as it was, it was SO MUCH COOLER than this guy’s bit of bootlicking nonsense. What a dope.

Just thinking about a law school friend who, as recently as 6 or 7 years ago, argued that the SCOTUS majority — even Alito —made its decisions based on their good faith interpretations of the law, and not on whatever the Republican Party wanted.

Read all this political analysis, hand-wringing, celebration and worry and then you see that turnout was just over 20% in a congressional district, meaning we’re talking about a few thousand people in one state. Let’s everybody calm down a bit, OK? Everybody.

1. I don’t think anyone should be a trillionaire. 2. If there must be a first trillionaire somewhere in the world, that person is almost certainly going to be bad. 3. Surely that person does not have to be as bad as this.

Today I learned that, in 1957, just a year after he won the Palme d’Or for his classic short film “The Red Balloon,” Albert Lamorisse created the classic board game Risk.

Watching the Obamas’ speeches from yesterday, I remember that we have had it so much better than what we’ve got. And more painful than that: I realize that one of the things we’ve lost over the past 10 years is the belief that we *deserve* better than what we’re getting.

Yesterday on here, a writer I respect suggested I was “rattling my teacups” and feeding the narrative that anti-MAGA people are out-of touch elitists if I complained about the UFC match on the White House lawn and at the Lincoln Memorial. Today I see that: 1. Polls show more than 80% of Americans…

I hope someone can get the data and see how many Americans are watching a livestream to get the old creep’s name taken off the Kennedy Center vs. how many Americans are watching the World Cup.

1950s TV personality The Amazing Criswell was a flamboyant weirdo who loved hearing the sound of his own voice as he made predictions that would never come true. He ended up in Ed Wood’s notorious movie “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” but he had the skills necessary to be the world’s first trillionaire.

I’m no psychologist, but I’m pretty sure actual clinical dissociating isn’t the same thing as just letting your mind wander.

Those ads for food that talk about your “protein goals” give me the creeps. They sound like cattle farmers tweaking their feedlots to improve beef yields.

I stopped at a record sale in St Paul and picked up two albums I had been looking for: Fairport Convention’s “Unhalfbricking” and World Party’s “Goodbye Jumbo.” Oddly, both have alternative covers. I didn’t recognize them.

I know politics can be an ugly business, but I wish a certain MN DFL candidate would hold off on nasty attack ads until after the primary. Fight the real enemy.

Suddenly getting a lot of right wing slip in my Meta feeds. I’m usually lucky enough to avoid it.

Just sold two boxes of mostly relatively desirable books in pretty good condition to Half Price Books and got $50. I don’t know. Maybe it would be more satisfying just to hold a monthly book swap with my friends and neighbors.

I wrote a simple song and played it on acoustic guitar, but somehow in the recording process it turned into a shoegaze number. mastervioletray.bandcamp.com/track/silent...

Something to read this Memorial Day weekend.

So, did Todd Blanche come to MN to announce new fraud charges today just to bury the news that Aimee Bock was going to be sentenced? I have trouble believing the timing is all coincidence.

The Democrats absolutely should do post-election reports after they lose a big election. That can be helpful. But the news media coverage of this kind of thing annoys the hell out of me.

Since acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has confirmed that “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they are a victim of weaponization,” I decided to apply for reparations. Here is a template if you want to draft your own demand: shero.substack.com/p/everyone-c...

I found a document I started writing maybe 15 years ago, in which I tried to list every band I had ever seen. Looking at it today, I see I wrote Ministry, but I have no memory of ever seeing Ministry. Was I full of shit then, or did my brain discard that memory sometime in the past 15 years?

A key point in this story: The IRS settled a case with a hedge fund manager whose tax info was leaked, and all it had to do was apologize. So, what were the damages Trump suffered? What justifies putting $1.8 billion of our tax money into a fund for his allies? www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/a...

$1.776 billion divided by 200 million taxpayers.

1st Wednesday 1 pm tornado sirens

How about we all skip the Met Gala stories this year? Readers, read something else. Media, publush something else. Read the room.

Slightly diminish a book: Pride and Persnickitiness

Greg Bovino says the problem with Operation Metro Surge was that ICE wasn’t violent enough in Minneapolis.

There’s a 1954 animated movie version of Animal Farm that was commissioned by the CIA to be anti-communist propaganda. It’s about as subtle as you might guess. I just watched the trailer for the new animated version of Animal Farm and it almost makes me appreciate the old movie.

So, Republicans like gerrymandering again this week.

When I was a kid, I had a dictionary with all the world’s flags printed in the back, and I’d flip through, admiring them. But I feel like no one prepared me for how much emotionally-driven, flag-centered discourse I would encounter in my adult life.

The shooting last night has nothing to do with the ballroom because IT WASN’T A WHITE HOUSE EVENT. The WH press corps should not invite this administration’s officials to its event anyway. If it were to hold its event inside the White House, they may as well start calling themselves state media.

The size of the grain of salt with which you should take anything said by this administration.

I don’t mean to be a prude, and I don’t want to disrespect the Midwestern palate, but I don’t think St Paul gift shops need to sell T-shirts that say “PICKLE SLUT” and “RANCH WHORE”

Sorry, Millennials, the St Paul Trader Joe’s oldies mix has moved on from the 80s and 90s and is playing all your indie favorites from the first term of the Obama administration.

Went to a gift shop at SFO to get a pack of gum before my flight. Put a five on the counter. Cashier said, “$6.29.” I was stunned. It was a regular pack of Orbit. “For that?” I said. “Yes, sir. Everything is up.” “I guess I don’t need it.” Does chewing gum go through the Strait of Hormuz?

MN, Just FYI: www.startribune.com/heres-why-to...

Maybe going back in time to kill Hitler isn’t enough. Maybe we need to go back in time to kill John Wilkes Booth.

Me whenever I see mockups of what the White House ballroom or this stupid triumphal arch are supposed to look like.

Here is the original cropped photo I have. Even this copy has been enhanced in Photoshop. The one on the internet has been reconstructed by AI. You can see differences in the background and it reconstructed their missing bodies. what is most important is the spirit of the photo/Lugosi's intentions.