Kicking the poor in the teeth never goes out of style, particularly when questions about the nation’s economic future are troubling the minds of many. Ever since food stamps were introduced in 1939, one of FDR’s many radical ideas about how you shouldn’t have to suffer and die just because …
I’ve been to a lot of major league ballparks in my day. I’ve seen games at fully half of the existing 30 MLB stadiums, and if you count ballyards that are now defunct or no longer used for baseball, that adds four more. While I haven’t had the chance to …
About a month ago, IFC — not exactly a broadcast powerhouse, but the home of some appealingly quirky programming including David Cross’ sporadically brilliant The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret — announced that it would not be renewing Garfunkel and Oates for a second season. This came as a shock to …
With the birth of direct streaming and binge-watching, the average cable provider (if a handful of multi-billion-dollar conglomerates can be said to have an average representative) has to fight even harder for our entertainment buckaroo. Once the undisputed masters of their realm, they now throw anything that sticks at the …
Today is the 144th anniversary of the founding of the Paris Commune. One of the most astonishing, inspiring, bitter, tragic, extraordinary, and powerful events in human history, the very nature of the Commune is the subject of intense and violent debate, and has been since its first barricade went up. Conservatives, …
Anthology shows are all the rage these days because if the show is a hit, you can avoid the actors asking for too much money to do the second season by just firing everybody and bringing in a bunch of scrubs. Thanks, True Detective! The latest offering in this vein from …
It’s been a good 40 years since hip-hop was birthed booming onto the streets of New York, and having sped past various barriers to respectability and minted at least one billionaire, it would seem that there could no longer be any question about its legitimacy as a genuine modern music …
The most popular Japanese import since ruthless corporate efficiency, the phenomenon known as karaoke helped every bar-hopping American realize their lifelong ambition of being a rock star, even if it was only for three minutes in front of a crowd of rum-soaked programmers hoping you finish up quick so they …
I don’t wanna be a burden on nobody. Here these things are if you want to read them. 1. It drives me near madhouse when someone says they have lived a life without regrets. It’s a good thing to keep moving and all, and we all like that song by …
I am not religious, and I never will be. But, just as I have been shown grace and kindness by Christians and Jews whose faith I cannot share, I have had the privilege of knowing a number of Muslims whose beliefs inspire me even though I will never follow them …
The latest from the comedic mind of Tina Fey (and her less media-friendly writing partner, Robert Carlock), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt made its Netflix debut this week, inviting fans missing the golden days of 30 Rock to binge-watch its 13-episode first season. Unfortunately, I was not among the 30 Rock faithful; I thought it was …
The fucking city man was going to get it, he’d been asking for it all night and he was goddamned well going to get it all right. He thought that Brog Bingand was stupid but he was the stupid one because he was goddamned well going to find out what …
NBC’s The Slap is based on a very important novel, and if you weren’t aware of that already, you will be within two minutes of the first episode. The ponderous voice-over — by Victor Garber, no less! — drops with a thud, delivering lines like “For a moment, Hector luxuriated in …
It’s time once again for Four Colors to Infinity, the semi-ongoing feature where I buy a bunch of comic books I’ve (mostly) never heard of and try and find something interesting to say about them. This feature is in dire straits, to be honest, because first, comic books are stupid …
It’s only March and already the handicapping of the 2016 elections seems impossibly dreadful. We are still ten months away from the first presidential primary, and yet it seems as if the whole obese, god-awful thing has been going on for ages; the prospect of another year and a half of …
