All about me.
Blade Runner — the original, which is to say whichever of the seemingly endless number of versions that are available thanks to studio meddling and the obsessive recutting of director Ridley Scott — is one of my favorite movies. Ill-received at the time of its release and scorned by some …
Darren Aronofsky wants there to be no confusion about the intent behind his new allegorical whatever-it-is, mother!. (I use his preferred stylization of the title, even after everything he has done to me.) Eschewing such aesthetic values as subtlety and ambiguity, Aronofsky has delivered a psychological horror film that he is …
Today in downtown Chicago, I heard the Reverend William Barber speak. Barber, the founder of Moral Mondays, follows in a long tradition of black preachers who stand for social, racial, and economic justice; he is an inheritor of the great lineage of Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson, who stood …
Because of the somewhat reserved nature of leadership in the Democratic Socialists of America, and because it is a brewing scandal that recent events have shown no sign of calming, I wanted to make clear my personal thoughts on the issue of Danny Fetonte’s continued presence on the DSA’s national political …
Cards on the table time: I am not a pacifist. I don’t believe that violence is never an option. I’m opposed to violence and cruelty on general principles, but I don’t think general principles really mean that much, especially when shit is starting to go down. I always reject aggressive …
We are living, you know, in an age of quality television. Everyone knows it. I know it; you know it; that one guy on Twitter who won’t stop gassing on about The Americans knows it. Television is so good that it would be worth giving up sex for, if anyone ever …
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice,” Bishop Desmond Tutu told us in 1984, the year I first manifested what might be called a political consciousness, “you have chosen the side of injustice.” Injustice, cruelty, oppression, and inequality refuse the position of neutrality; they will not recognize a central …
Today was the first day of the Democratic Socialists of America’s national convention. It’s taking place in my own city of Chicago, and it’s the first convention since the DSA experienced unprecedented growth in the wake of the Bernie Sanders campaign and the election of Donald Trump. In addition, it’s …
Criticizing the Republican Party is always a tricky proposition. With the election of Donald Trump in particular, it’s practically impossible; calling out a moronic huckster who won the election by making jerk-off gestures at the very notion of being a respectable politician is like arguing against a fart. Part of …
It has come to my attention, after a careful review of American commerce and culture, that what this country truly needs right now is another overpriced sandwich shop. Please give me ten million dollars in venture capital to make this dream a reality. All profits from Piercenham’s Sandwich Shop, after …
There was a time when I used to say, in agreement with the great Paul Fussell, that July 4th was the one day we should hold up nothing but praise for the things that make America great. The rest of the year should be given to relentless criticisms of what …
Who are your comrades? The more time I spend in the political space that involves ground-up building of resistance and alternatives to capitalist hegemony — call it activism, call it organizing, whatever suits you — the more I begin to notice the patterns that we use to trip ourselves up …
Ladies and gentlemen, my constituents, citizens of my lovely home town of Fleenerville, voters, and Platinum V.I.P. Brunch Club Super-Tee level donors; my beloved wife Plovis, and my two wonderful sons Coho and Spelt, who flew in to support me tonight right after their Offal Studies final at Klumner State …
It is giving no secrets away to say that, growing up, I was a huge nerd. I am, let us be honest, still a huge nerd, which is why you are reading these words on the pages of a decade-old blog instead of the pages of Entertainment Weekly. But in some fairly important …
Another week, another flame-out between liberals and the left over which we should ‘choose’ in the alleged battle between class and identity. Believe me, folks, I don’t like writing these pieces any more than you like reading them, but until we can bury this utterly false dichotomy once and for …
