I made two pound cakes -- one for yesterday's gay Thanksgiving (which was *awesome*) and the other for my co-workers -- and the disappointment I felt and spread to others at forgetting to bring the cake to work this morning was palpable.

Now begins my Pacific Northwest challenge of getting butter to room temperature while turning off the heat in my house as I leave for work.

My station's parent company made a PNW version of the holiday yule log and it's kinda one of the most brilliant ideas I've heard from them since I started working there.

This is the type of hater energy that will fuel us in the years ahead.

pig stand, san antonio, texas, 1982

My annual tradition of posting my favorite jazz albums of the year in my hard to decipher handwriting continues, though I miss doing this on an oversized mailing envelope

This week's newsletter is now live. Please consider subscribing for direct links to my writing/pods. Thank you! stevenhyden.substack.com/p/how-to-rea...

I'm worried about getting and giving the stink-eye. I'm uncertain my food isn't messed with. I'll still feel obligated to tip. Just a bad dining experience all around.

How would the Diva Plavalaguna have gotten the stones out of she weren't shot in the stomach? I've wondered this for nearly thirty years.

Many a jazz DJ of my generation have a close relationship with the song choices of The Weather Channel's Local Forecast on the 8s of the hour. Add to that, I wanted to write ever since I read Carter G. Woodson's 'The Mis-Education of the Negro' when I was 16.

I certainly hope nothing happened in the world today because it felt like *everything* happened today at work and I don't know what more capacity I have.

I also was belated to this (wrapped it up last weekend). This show is *entirely* my shit. On some 'Bored to Death', 'The Long Goodbye', 'Inherent Vice' type shit. It's delightful and beautifully honest.

I've been in Portland long enough that I now scoffed at an invitation to a party where I'll have to wear my tuxedo.

It's too early for Christmas movie season, but I'm looking forward to my annual watch of 'Eyes Wide Shut', 'Batman Returns', and 'The Lion in Winter'.

We’re seeing the entire federal government push towards punishing Black people for being in public life, but we’re still supposed to be triple sure and super grave about the idea that anyone in particular could actually hold any prejudice.

It’s funny that even now, with everything we know, there’s still a retreat towards treating racism as somehow uniquely unbelievable.

It's like they're giving everyone the opportunity to literally boycott them twice as hard

I went to a screening of Black Dynamite with a video Q&A after and the director mentioned there were like a dozen different lines until Cedric Yarbrough threw this out and it took another dozen takes for them to get a clean take without everyone cracking up

Any time someone at work asks me if I'm going home for the holidays, I take great pride in asking them how I can afford to fly to Texas with the little OPB pays me. Cc: @opbkmhdcreators.bsky.social

"This isn't the America I know." Black people:

Felt some kind of calm relief seeing this rainbow today as I went to grab lunch

"Even though my job requires me to commit sociopathic acts of evil that directly contribute to making the world a measurably worse place from Monday through Friday, five days a week, from morning to night, outside work, I’m actually a really good person."

Black thinkers & activists have been saying the same thing for more than 150 yrs: the rights, laws, & programs passed by Congress are meaningless if white Americans remain unwilling to enforce them.

Being a hater with pattern recognition is such a burden to bear because my God it takes being beat in the face with the same information over and over again over the course of YEARS for idiots to catch up.

So glad to have caught @jayjurden.bsky.social this evening crushing it just as hard as he did in his latest Hulu special.

breaking: if people can’t get paid they don’t want to spend. who would have thought!

Stand with Condé Nast Union 🚨 We’re calling on you to sign our petition telling management to reinstate the Fired Four, reverse the suspensions, and end the union busting. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...

My rental management company is having trouble arranging a cursory walkthrough because I had to present to notion to them that I actually go to work during the day. Like, you like me paying the rent on time, right? I have to go to work to make that happen.

Breaking News: Late last night Conde Nast illegally fired 4 union organizers who asked company execs to explain the downsizing of Teen Vogue and continued layoffs. We’ve filed a grievance.

He does economically hit the highlights. Plagiarism, energy/environment, and horseshit. Check, check, check.

What’s the phrase… when people tell you who they are, believe them.

Any time I play Najee is either beloved or annoying the hell out of someone who doesn't know better

Meg is one of the best people I've ever worked with in my whole career, and we're fighting for a fair livelihood to keep making radio for you all. What's weird is we're growing and successful, so this fight shouldn't exist. We deserve a fair contract for this substantive (and sustainable) work.

One thing that drives me particularly insane about Pacific Northwest niceness is the constant endeavor to keep an open mind in the face of repeated bad faith behavior. Too many folks politely getting got around here.

One issue in our first contract negotiation is compensation. OPB hasn't given us a proposal that addresses our concerns. Many of us struggle to make ends meet. Our current pay doesn't help alleviate the challenges we face. In the coming weeks, we’ll share more about the struggle our creators face.

KMHD's latest Record Store Rundown looks at Passenger Seat Records. Located off Alberta St. in North Portland, this shop has been stocking so much of the new music we play at KMHD for years now, plus great reissues and releases that are hard to come by stateside. www.kmhd.org/article/2025...

Really going for making the Birkencrocs (Birkenstock Boston clogs in EVA material) the shoe of rainy Portland fall & winter.

Saw a kid dressed as Santa Claus today which felt like both a loophole of the encroaching Christmas season on Halloween and an embraced paradox and I want to see what shrewd, brilliant mind this tender soul will grow to be in twenty-ish years.

After every man truly committed to his Halloween costume shaves his beard to some other thing, then commences the November of weird "this should go back to normal... eventually".

I am always bothered when people misuse the word shwag (n. bad weed) for swag (n. 1. cool shit given away; 2. cool energy or aura, short for swagger).

Despite the walkability of my neighborhood, I'm still not fully oriented with the actual closeness of proximity of my assorted favorite haunts.

@alexzee.bsky.social is one of our talented unit members. She reports on Portland city politics and here, brings us the latest on Mayor Wilson's shelter plan. She's a critical part of the OPB newsroom, give her a follow!

Marathon four hour radio shift -> last minute four hour DJ set + last minute four hour radio shift tomorrow is quite the doozy that... Yeah, I'm me. I ain't actually mad at it.

Admitting you were wrong about someone, or admitting you yourself made mistakes, that is hard and deeply uncomfortable. But if you cannot embrace the “cringe” involved in having standards or unfucking a situation, at the very least, stay out of the way of the people willing to do that work.

Someone last night said I looked like trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson and I truly appreciated that extremely specific comparison (that I sometimes have made myself).

Meet Kami Horton She's been with OPB for 20+ years and has produced for OPB's series "Oregon Experience" since 2006. She finds meaning in researching and telling the often overlooked stories of our state. Kami says "I love what I do, and I know that is true of many of OPB's dedicated employees."

mfs be like "you can't be purity testing we need a big tent" and the "purity test" is minorities objecting people who are trying to toss them out of the tent

Love this story in Editor and Publisher on innovative website Adopt a Station, showing how much public media TV and radio stations relied on federal funding. No surprise, many of those most dependent serve rural, indigenous and Black communities. READ: https://loom.ly/oY2Jmt0

I love Ronnie Laws' "Always There" but what the fuck is up with that bridge?

As I watch this traffic while I grab a slice of pizza before a Saturday shift at work I decided to grab, I realize I'll have to change my commute route today.