My thoughts on The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño, a work of genius about how when you are a twenty-year-old artist, you feel like everyone around you is an artist, and when you are a forty-year-old artist, you often feel like you're the only one who hasn't given up.

Congrats to my friend @johnlingan.bsky.social on the publication of "Backbeats: A History of Rock and Roll in Fifteen Drummers!" John is one of the best people writing about music today. His passion and expertise bleeds through on every page of his work. Order your copy today!

What drives me insane about centrists "finding a solution" to lower premiums is that there is no viable solution to the right of Obamacare. You got to try the market and the market can't deliver. The market cannot be trusted with healthcare.

What DSA backed candidates have been stinkers? I think that generally outsider "progressives" are a mixed bag, but DSA backing has a very high batting average

There is truly no male loneliness epidemic in Long Beach, California. Tide is high today on the bay and out my window I see tons of dudes on skateboards with fishing rods pulling up.

Interesting @vanityfair.com Little Gold Men podcast on political Oscar contenders today, but I would dispute One Battle After Another as being attacked "from the left." I would say it is being attack through a lens of liberal identity politics whereas the left has embraced it

Of the 3 films made by comfortable white guys trying to make sense of poorer, angry politically polarized white guys that have come out this year I think their relative quality comes from each director's capacity for empathy: 1. OBAA [big gap] 2. Bugonia [bigger gap] 3 Eddington

What do you think are the common doomer questions people ask around climate change other than: Why care so much if the world is just going to end anyway? Why save for retirement if there won't be a world left for us? Why bring children into a world ravaged by climate change?

Eh, DSA LA's candidates are all pretty normal, but we have union and non-profit machines for them to grow in.

The "ratfucking by the DNC" portion of the Democratic Primary process is important because it helps you figure out if you have an AOC or a Lee Carter. DSA bench candidates have a much higher chance of being the former because they are already mostly vetted.

Hate to say it, but Tea Party had an explicit ideological program and No Kings does not.

I attribute this to the brilliance of GOP coining the term "Obamacare" as that would obviously exclude Medicaid and Medicare improvements and just focus on the marketplace plans, the aspect of the bill they knew they could kneecap without a public option.

The DNC wanting to litigate old social media posts gives me hope that insurgent candidates are about to romp in the next couple of cycles. So out of touch with the moment, it's like sending cavalry horses to charge gatling guns.

Bro, a Reaganite tried to ruin your life a month ago lol

Almost all of my biggest gripes with Newsom boil down to that he is such a NorCal guy and our governors should always be SoCal guys.

Enjoying my time over here but allowing QTs disabled is shameful cowardice

We all have our criticisms of Obama but no one of voting age at that time thought he would pass single payer. Dems wanted a public option, which would have made the ACA much better and he sacrificed it to get Joe Lieberman's vote on ACA.

I guess you can criticize No Kings, but it does beg the question why your thing has an order of magnitude less interest, and you should be prepared to answer that without sounding like a freak.

The No on Prop 50 campaign is one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen in CA politics because if they tell the truth at all, almost everyone in California would go against them, so their signs say vague stuff like "Say NO to Nuisance Newsom"

BlueSky is amazing

Lots of TV gurus try to help writers craft "good samples" when the reality is that every show I'm put up for has 500 people submitting to staff and your sample matters far less than your connections. I think your best bet is writing to sell and hope one of them fits a staffing need.

Watched an amazing documentary last night: Sherman's March (1985) is a rom-com documentary set in the backdrop of Civil War history. The filmmaker sets out to retrace Sherman's march to the sea but gets sidetrack by various failed love affairs.

Here's the deal. If you are making a project for over, say $3 million, you could choose to use union crew. Some great filmmakers were famously anti-union (Kubrick) some are vehemently pro-union & have great working conditions (Eastwood). It is a choice.

Megalopolis and Madame Web represent the two types of bad movies (misguided auteurist vision and bloated studio catastrophe) so hats off to the Razzies for getting it right this year 👏👏👏

Gene Hackman one of the best to ever do it. His performance in Royal Tenenbaums was the perfect comedy leading performance and his performance in The Conversation was the perfect drama leading performance.

Nancy Pelosi has been wrong about so much but she was really right about how good Jeni's Ice Cream is.

It's so important to read "The Shock Doctrine" so that when evil politicians do it you can be like "ah, there's the shock doctrine again" and get really mad.

The reason you know free markets work really well is that every billionaire has to spend like a third of their time and money defending them. The polyamory of the aristocracy.

Tonight, Claire and I watched Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, a musical that dares to ask "What if twins were hot and one was blonde and one was brunette and men constantly implied they wanted to do group sex with them?"

Put up my dart board. Single best upgrade a writer can make to their study/office.

My thoughts on "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Milan Kundera, a novel that prioritizes theme above form and as such falls a little short.

My review of Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer by Paul Schrader: a good book about movies I generally hate.

It's amazing that Walton Goggins is basically playing a darksided Brother Baby Billy in White Lotus.

Parker Posey speaking Mike White's dialogue is one of the most perfect artistic synergies I've beheld on television.

Listening to Schrader's "Transcendental Style in Film" and I think a big part of the disconnection between film festivals/critics and awards season audiences is that festivals way overrate slow cinema in the age of Jeanne Dielman supremacy.

electoral politics non-believers pretty quiet this last month or so...

My thoughts on "The Joke" by Milan Kundera, a novel that reminds us that actually getting canceled means being sent by the communists to a mining camp in the provinces where the only art is folk music.

60 year-old white man at the gym made a point to let me know he did not like the halftime show.

We moved to a more family-friendly neighborhood and our girl scout cookie budget quadrupled.

One indicator of America's declining literacy and communication skills is how much text they are putting on the inside of Valentine's Day cards now.

Saw I'm Still Here tonight. Stands with The Brutalist at the top of this year's Best Picture crop and provides a nice view of what America could look like if Democrats remain this feckless for another year or two.

I read today that @iatse.bsky.social floated a national film/TV tax credit to Congress which would honestly be better than Georgia, California, New York, Texas etc. fighting each other over tax credits and racing to the bottom.

I'm reading (listening) to Kubrick: An Odyssey by Nathan Abrams and Robert P. Kolker. It's a 25 hour audiobook. I'll drop some interesting takeaways below.

My first reaction to DeepSeek is that US artists should be supportive as open-source tech in a more heavily regulated economy feels like a better home for AI than the US charlatans who have been lying about what their models can do & bragging about putting people out of work.

The Big Chill is a pretty good movie but after you see it you'll realize that like fully 10% of your ideas and ideas other people pitch you for indie movies other people pitch you are just The Big Chil for your generation.

I love reading about golden eras in cities (Paris interwar, Rome 1950s, NYC 70s). Not that it made LA as interesting as these places but I think a lot about the golden age of streaming (Premiere of Sopranos to Better Call Saul finale) and what it meant, what has changed.

One of Them Days is very good. A female-led heir to the era of Friday and How High. And Keke Palmer's character works the Norm's on La Cienega 👍

1st Trump Term: It’s time for serious reflection on how deindustrialization and globalization have created an environment of frustration and hopelessness in my hometown and other rural areas across this country. Can we come together? 2nd Trump Term: Fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck off.

The @chapotraphouse.bsky.social lads were asked what political views of theirs changed the most over the last decade. For me: 1. Keeping up with national politics beyond special moments is useless (Bernie, gay marriage amendment etc.) & 2. unions are the most effective tool at our disposal

@brendenmgallagher.bsky.social gets it