Poetry Week

Don't blame me, OBX Dave started it when he talked about Edgar Allan Poe, which rhymes with David Allen Coe (I cannot believe it's taken me 55 years to realize that). What doesn't often rhyme is my poetry. 

My multi-hyphenate kid (poet-dancer-choregrapher-lunatic) turned me on to Robert Peake's poetry prompt generator a couple of years ago, and we'll send quickly dashed-off poems to one another on occasion. Mostly me sending to them these days, as they have bigger artistic fish to fry.

And now I'll send a few to you, 'cause a little bit of poetry never hurt. Here are a couple of my recent attempts at turning prompts into poems. I don't know from meter, and fuck off with rhyming, but I've got some tonality, if I do say so myself. Professor Truck taught us about timbre, and that's where I'm hanging my hat.

Forthwith, a couple of pomes (with the prompt that inspired them in bold):

Include as many of the following words (or variations on these words) as you like: luminous, larkspur (purple, palmate), variance, mutual, drupelets (little bits of fruit like blackberry), samite (rich silk fabric), roosted, relic, sage, occidental, feignings, faithless

Also:

• Include a mythical or fantastic creature
• Refer to a particular sensation

Samite scarf shining as larkspur

Luminous, she spins
Faithless, but not without belief
A relic, maybe, but sage

Mutual friends roosted in one 
Not the other
Feignings of neutrality as drupelets
Fall off slowly, inevitably

She went to Occidental
The Mighty Tigers
Now the variance vibrates
Pins and needles in her heart

Include as many of the following words (or variations on these words) as you like: withhold, penelope, intricately, ignatow, deepened, leg-music, underrate, focused, scribal, dayglo, unhurt, parasitic

Also:

• Refer to an an extreme or intemperate landscape
• Mention something absurd or impossible

Mel Ingatow got away with murder

Dayglo insanity, parasitic, unhurt, unfazed

Moonscape of electronic leg-music

Withholding human emotion, focused on

Penelope’s intricately carved ivory charm

Karma, underrated, killed him on a glass table

Include as many of the following words (or variations on these words) as you like: tertiary, pot, groin-scented, grifters, enslaves, git, statuesque, discount, ripeness, compost, twenty-second, spatula

Also:

• Make up an unusual name for a person and include it in the poem
• Mention another art form besides poetry

Git, grifters

Tertiary members of a discount

Society 

Flantz told me he danced

While the enslavers smoked pot

Groin-scented, loamy, composted and 

Wobbly statuesque

Took my only spatula

Fought off the twenty-second infantry

With only the ripeness of my imagination

I encourage the assembled Gheorghiness to compose their own pomes below.

Dream On

Dreams, Edgar Allen Poe suggested in one of his better-known poems, may walk hand-in-hand with reality and might be indistinguishable from real-life events. He repeats the same thought, first as a statement, then as a question: “All that we see or seem/Is but a dream within a dream,” and “Is all that we see or seem/But a dream within a dream?” 

No telling, Eddie P. wrote. Dreams have intrigued people for thousands of years. Poets and artists and philosophers approach them from one angle, scientists from another. Despite numerous studies, there is no consensus about why we dream or their principal effects. Notable theories propose that dreams help us process memories and deal with emotions. 

I tend to think of dreams as the brain off the clock, free to wander and create and prowl around the attic, unburdened by waking attention to work and kids and fetching groceries and navigating the healthcare system. I dream most nights, but the details usually evaporate seconds after I wake up. There’s a recurring theme, however, that sticks with me. 

You know the dream where you walk into a college classroom to take an exam for a class you haven’t attended and have done none of the work? I routinely have the sportswriter’s version of that dream. I arrive to cover a game between two teams that I’ve never seen and know nothing about. 

There are always variations. I arrive late, after the game has begun. I don’t have pen or paper to take notes. There are no notes or statistics about the teams. I don’t have a laptop to write a game story. I don’t have a seat from which to watch the game and must piece together an account from the radio or TV broadcast in the press room. I don’t have a desk or space to work when I return to the office to write a story. Sometimes, there’s a combination of obstacles. One recent twist within the theme was that I had to write a story on a recruit’s college choice, but I couldn’t talk to the kid. 

It'd be nice to remember the happier dreams, but I don’t. I have no idea if my brain is plumbing my (formerly) professional anxieties or just having fun at my subconsciousness’s expense. I don’t know if others’ brains work similarly and mechanisms are geared toward their pursuits and worries. Like, if Dave dreams about walking into a class to teach a book he hasn’t read, or if Z or Marls have to go into a courtroom and argue a case they know nothing about. Does Rob ever find himself trying to sell AI services to a roomful of homeless people? Or are your dreams sunnier and more productive? Does Whit dream that he persuades Bill Gates and Tim Cook and Nvidia microchip chieftain Jensen Huang to relocate their operations to Hampton Roads? 

Research about dreams travels down numerous paths. Freud in the late 19th century theorized that dreams represented unconscious desires and leaned heavily into repressed feelings and sexual motivation. Though many of Siggy’s ideas have been refuted, research indicates that suppressed thought tends to result in dreaming about it, something called dream rebound theory. 

Another theory is that REM sleep triggers the brain to create electrical impulses and a compilation of random thoughts, images and memories that people organize when they wake, something called Activation-Synthesis Dream Theory. One called Self-Organization Dream Theory posits that the brain organizes the day’s activity while we sleep and memories are strengthened or weakened; helpful memories are made stronger, while weaker ones fade (yeah, tell that to my scrambling sportswriter dreams). 

There’s a problem-solving or creative dream theory that accounts for people waking up in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning with “Eureka!” moments. Yet another says that dreams help to prepare us confront dangers – fight-or-flight, uncomfortable situations – known as Rehearsal and Adaptation Dream Theory. Emotional Regulation Dream Theory says that dreams help people process their emotions within the safe space of sleep. 

There’s even something called Lucid Dreaming, where a dreamer is aware of being in his or her own dream and sometimes having control over its content, though that occurs more rarely. Much of this gets to the “what” of dreams, but not the “why.” We’d like to believe that our subconscious is assisting us – organizing memories, providing coping mechanisms, smoothing the day’s edges. But then how to explain nightmares and the agitation of bad or troubling dreams. Do dreams talk us off ledges in a non-threatening setting, or do our brains simply spit back a mashup of the day’s, or a life’s, input? Might we ever learn how it all works? To quote Eddie P. in a different context: Nevermore.

Uncertainty at One Bills Drive

The Buffalo Bills fired their head coach and fellow Tribesman Sean McDermott on Monday.  I don't love this move for several reasons.

First, McDermott is a good head coach.  But much like the practice of law, being an NFL head coach is all about "what have you done for me lately."  Here's how McDermott compares to the best coaches over the last four years and their career Super Bowl records with the best in yellow:

McDermott is no Andy Reid or Nick Sirianni, but he compares favorably with everyone else over the last four years.  He made the playoffs with Tyrod Taylor and Nathan Peterman as his starting QBs for god's sake!  It isn't clear that anyone could do much better.  

Second, as with anything in life, a change can make things better or worse.  It was pretty ugly before McDermott arrived at One Bills Drive going back 30 years:

That's 17 consecutive years without making the playoffs.  From an AFC East perspective they finished in last place 8 times, in the bottom two 16 times, and went 24 years without winning the division.  That was not fun.  You know what was more fun?  Ninety-eight wins, eight playoff appearances and five division titles over nine years.  Will they do as well with Brian Daboll or Mike McCarthy or Klint Kubiak or Joe Brady?  For every Marv Levy or Sean McDermott there's a Mike Mularkey or a Chan Gailey.

Third, a bunch of things outside of McDermott's control cost them this game.  

zdaughter really got into football this season and plays a lot of Madden (which involves drubbing me mercilessly and talking smack about it).  At the end of the first half with 22 seconds left she said "They should run four verticals" and I said "No, they will take a knee."  They did not take a knee, which is on McDermott, but what happened after the snap is not on McDermott.

Allen should've thrown this away, or slid, or really done anything other than carry the ball like a loaf of bread.  McDermott didn't cause that fumble, or fail to recover it, or kick the FG for Denver.

I know that zdaughter is a real Bills fan because she woke up on Sunday still pissed off about the Brandon Cooks play.

Even this guy in a Celtics shirt says the Bills got ripped off and he brings the receipts with the same fact pattern but a different outcome in the Rams/Bears game.

Real Bills fans know that it isn't fair to besmirch someone based on another person's failures.

Fourth, there's no clear choice to replace McDermott.  

The last time I did one of these posts I talked about coaches with rings, or CWR.  No coach ever won a Super Bowl with two different teams despite the fact that there have been LIX (that's 59 for you math majors) opportunities to do so.  As a result I don't want a CWR so that rules out John Harbaugh (who isn't available), Mike Tomlin (who wants to take the year off and would require sending draft picks to the Steelers), and Mike McCarthy (who doesn't get me excited and probably wants to go home to Pittsburgh anyway).

The Pegulas' goal appears to be getting to the Super Bowl ASAP.  Only seven coaches reached the Super Bowl in their first year with a team:

• Don McCafferty with the 1970 Colts.  They won.  McCafferty was the Colts' offensive backfield coach in 1969.
• Red Miller with the 1977 Broncos.  They lost.  Miller was the Patriots' OL coach in 1976 (that's a crazy career upgrade by the way).
• George Seifert with the 1989 49ers.  They won (for the second year in a row) with a stacked roster including six Pro Bowlers, three first team All Pros, and the league MVP (and at least five future Hall of Famers).  Seifert was the Niners' DC in 1988.
• Bill Callahan with the 2002 Raiders.  This team was stacked with Rich Gannon (league MVP), Jerry Rice and Tim Brown, two first team All Pros on the offensive line, Rod Woodson, Charles Woodson, Bill Romanowski, and Sam Adams (the DT not the brewer).  Callahan was the Raiders' OC in 2001 and they lost to ...
• John Gruden with the 2002 Bucs.  He was the Raiders' HC in 2001.  This defense was one of the best ever with Warren Sapp, Simeon Rice, Ronde Barber, John Lynch, Derrick Brooks, and Booger McFarland.  Sapp, Barber, Lynch and Brooks are HOFers.
• Jim Caldwell with the 2009 Colts.  They lost.  Like Seifert, he was on the team's staff the prior year (assistant HC/QB coach) and he took over a stacked roster that won it all a few years previously including seven Pro Bowlers, three first team All Pros, and the league MVP (and at least two future Hall of Famers).
• Gary Kubiak with the 2015 Broncos.  They won thanks to arguably the league's best defense featuring five Pro Bowlers and one first team All Pro.  Peyton Manning's withered husk started 9 games going 7-2, completing 59.8% of his passes for 9 TD and 17 INT.  Brock Ostweiler chipped in 5 wins, 10 TD and 6 INT along the way.  Kubiak was Baltimore's OC in 2014 and he had a history with Denver as their backup QB in the 1980s.

So what's the best comp for this Bills team?  

The roster is not stacked--they do have three Pro Bowlers (Allen, James Cook, Dion Dawkins) but they have no speed at receiver, the defensive line has no one fearsome (despite spending lots of draft capital there), the defensive backs are shaky (despite spending lots of draft capital there) and always injured, two of their starting OL are free agents, and they will be more than $7.6m over the cap (due in not insignificant part to Allen's $56m cap hit, up from $36m this year).

The coaching staff has talent.  Bobby Babich put together the top pass defense (despite all the injuries) but the run defense was like a sieve.  Joe Brady would maintain Tribal continuity and he assembled a top five offense three years in a row.  But neither are as seasoned as Seifert or Callahan.

The closest match I can see is the 2002 Bucs--they were very good on one side of the ball--so I'm looking for a good head coach (or coordinator with head coaching experience) who didn't break through yet.   Looking closer at history, Gruden and Kubiak were offensive coaches who won Super Bowls as head coaches with dominant defenses so maybe the Bills need to hire someone who came up as a DC like Leslie Frazier (former Bills DC), Vic Fangio, or Steve Spagnuolo, but they're old as hell, so Vance Joseph, Robert Saleh, or Brian Flores.  For shits and giggles I'll give Anthony Campanile a shoutout because Fair Lawn and Don Bosco.

Ultimately though, they will probably hire Brian Daboll because Josh Allen loves him and that's as good a reason as any.  I don't love that hire (I watched him coach a lot of bad Giants losses) but I'll hope for the best.

Alright Alright Alright!!

At the start of my sophomore year at William & Mary, FOG:TB Ian said "You have to see this movie" so we went to the theater on DOG Street and what I saw changed my life.  We brought other people to see it and they all loved it too.  Since then I've rewatched it more than any other film and not always by choice because it seemingly played nonstop at Unit M.  Dazed and Confused is a masterpiece, one amazing scene runs into another.  Like this:

It features a bunch of people who went on to become famous like Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich and Parker Posey, and it's the first movie appearance for a few actors including Joey Lauren Adams ... and Matthew McConaughey.  Since then, McConaughey had an incredibly impressive career but his first line, "Alright alright alright!" sticks with him today.

So much so that when people impersonate McConaughey they almost always say "Alright alright alright."

You could say "Alright alright alright" is his trademark.  Because it is, legally.  He registered it.

I've written a bunch of trademark posts but there is no trademarks label.  Until today!

Trademarks are a form of intellectual property that protects a brand--they indicate the source of the goods or services to which they are attached.  They are typically words, like Coca-Cola, or logos, like the Nike swoosh.  But they can also be smells (like the smell of Play-Doh) or sounds (like the NBC chimes).  Here's a link to many other sound marks.  Neat, right?!

McConaughey registered ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT as both a word mark and a sound mark.  As with all trademarks, these registrations are limited to specific goods and services.  The word mark is limited to clothing, but more interestingly the sound mark is limited to "Downloadable audio-visual media content, namely, downloadable audio and video recordings in the field of self-help, human growth and spirituality; Downloadable audio-visual media content, namely, downloadable audio and video recordings in the field of entertainment featuring television series, comedies, and dramas."  Apparently he's trying to prevent people from using AI to simulate and misappropriate his catchphrase.  He also registered two videos of him saying the phrase.

These registrations are held by his non-profit company J.K. Livin Brands, Inc. which holds 49 registered trademarks and 6 pending applications.  The registered marks include another video "of The actor, Matthew McConaughey, standing outdoors on a porch speaking and gesturing," which I can't get to work but they include a JPEG.  Parenthetically, the pending marks include "THE GREATEST INVITATION IN THE WORLD. THE SOCCER BALL." and "PECKER POP."  

This is an interesting approach to protecting a famous person's likeness beyond right of publicity as it gives a federal statutory hook on which to hang a complaint.  But don't worry, we're still free to say "alright alright alright" so long as we aren't saying it to sell human growth and spirituality services (for the same reason I can make my kids to their chores by saying "Just do it!" without fear of Nike suing me).  So just keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N.

Joy Week Continues: One Shot Tournament Down Under

Tennis grand slams have been trying to spice things up to get more rears in the seats the week before the tourney starts. 

Last year the US Open changed how the mixed doubles tournament was set up by pairing up the top men's and women's singles players. This drew huge numbers. The eventual winners, an actual specialist mixed doubles team not made up of the top ranked pairings, won the title for the second year in a row. That format will likely continue this year. But what really drove the US Open to try and switch it up?

The Australian Open. Last year they had a one shot tournament. Basically two players rock, paper, scissored for serve and they play one point. Winner goes on, loser is out. Amateurs and Pros are in the draw. Last year the prize was about $40K USD. This year they bumped it up to $1 Million USD.

Amateurs qualify via state/Regional tournaments. So you have a total of 64 people (pros and amateurs) playing one point matches for $1 million dollars. Not much pressure.

The video is a little long but shows the progression of one contestant through to the end. The title spoils the fairy tale ending but he does beat the No. 2 player in the world along the way. 

I'm sure Dave is now looking for one point pickle ball tournaments or will try to start it up at OBFT.

Joy Week Continues: News from Cluj

It's always a treat when my numerous Google Alerts unearth a worlds colliding, Costanza-esque gem like this: in Romania, specifically Gheorghe's hometown of Cluj, you can apparently ride public transportation for free if you do 20 squats. That's right, exercising 'dem glutes gets you a free route.

"Budget-minded backpackers, take note, and the same goes for health-conscious travelers — in the past few years, Romania has rolled out innovative programs to promote physical fitness. In the city of Cluj-Napoca, you can even parlay a quick bit of exercise into a free ride on public transit. At kiosks around town, you can do twenty squats instead of paying for a bus ticket."

Honestly, this entire post could've just been this picture:

Finding Joy in Helping Others: WCSAGD: Donna Edition

[There's joy in helping your fellow man, and z is here for it.]

Donna wants a hybrid and I don't blame her.  She also asked for my advice so in that regard I do blame her, at least for this post.

There are two types of hybrids: standard hybrid ("HEV") and plug-in hybrid ("PHEV").  I touted the merits of PHEVs here before and I still think they are a best-of-both-worlds option for people who spend a fair amount of time puttering around town, but they require more effort to extract the maximum return on investment.  You need to charge them (hence the "plug-in" aspect of the name) and that means you either need to have a charger installed at home, or you work (or frequently visit) someplace that has charging stations available in the parking lot.  So keep that extra effort (and potential cost) in mind when considering between an HEV and a PHEV.

My first reaction to "What hybrid should I get?" is "Get a Mazda Miata because Miata Is Always The Answer" but that's a stupid car-guy joke and my serious reaction it to follow that up with "Have you looked at a Prius?"  For the first time in forever the Prius is a good looking car. 

It's available with AWD and the trunk holds 23 cubic feet of junk with the seats up, 50 cubic feet with the seats down.  That's better than a Mercedes GLA and just a stitch less than an Audi Q5 or a Mazda CX-5.  It gets 57 MPG, it hits 60 MPH in 7 seconds, and it's a Toyota so it will run problem-free for 200,000 miles.  Here's an AWD build with a roof rack for $31,444.  Here's one near me for $32,104.  There aren't many cars this practical at this price.

Toyota also makes a PHEV Prius but for some reason the cargo space isn't as impressive.  If you look at a regular Prius take a gander at the PHEV Prius and ask the salesperson about the cargo discrepancy.

If you want a car that doesn't appear so blatantly hybrid there are plenty of great options like the Toyota Camry (all Camrys are hybrid now) and Accord Hybrid, or the Toyota RAV4 HEV, Toyota RAV4 PHEV, and Honda CR-V Hybrid.  As with the Prius, these cars will run forever.

There are plenty of bad options too.  If you want to be a contrarian go get an Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV.  It isn't available in 2026 but no one wants to drive an Alfa (except me) so you can find 69 new 2025 models on dealer lots.  All 69 will probably break within minutes after you get them home so I don't suggest you do any of this, but it's a thing you could do.

A more responsible PHEV choice would be a CPO Volvo S60 Recharge.  It has AWD, 455 hp, about 35 miles of electric range and about 70 MPG in hybrid mode.  Here's one with 32k miles for $32k.  If you want something bigger, check out a CPO Volvo S90 Recharge.  Here's one with 12k miles for $46k.  You can hear Squeaky nodding furiously as he reads this.

If you really want to set hearts ablaze, get a Volvo V60 Polestar.  By far the coolest thing in Volvo's lineup, it was discontinued for 2025.  You can find CPO options but they are rare and pricey.  But worth it!

Donna asked about the VW ID.Buzz.  I love that fact that it exists but I can't picture buying one and a lot of people agree with me, so many that VW only sold 4934 through three quarters in 2025 and put the car "on hiatus" for 2026.  The base price of the base model is $60k and even with deep dealer discounts they're over $50k.  That's a lot for an EV with less than 250 miles of range.  You can buy a Honda Odyssey for $10k less and drive it cross country without having to take hour-long breaks to fill it up every 200 miles.  But if you just want to drive locally, have lots of stuff to haul, and love the Buzz.ID's looks, head over to VW of Alexandria and fight like hell to get this green CPO gem down to $45k.  Be prepared to point to the brand new ones selling for $51k that I linked to above (or do some research for others closer to home) and remind them that they also have an orange CPO one on the lot, then tell them you're doing them a favor taking these unloved and unwanted monstrosities off their hands.  Then go over to Lindsay VW of Dulles and run the same game on their two CPO Buzz.IDs and use whatever price you get in Alexandria against them. Go back and forth until you get a number you like.  Have fun with it!

Finding Joy: Mighty Macc

Sam Heathcote is an elementary school physical education teacher at Stamford Park Primary School in Altrincham, near Manchester in the northwest of England. So it must've been a bit befuddling to him to be the subject of interview requests from ESPN, the New York Times, SiriusXMFC and others this weekend.

That's what happens when you find yourself in the middle of one of the greatest upsets in modern soccer history.

In addition to his day job, Heathcote is a starting center back for Macclesfield FC, which competes in the National League North, the sixth tier of the English football pyramid. The Silkmen have only been in existence for five years; their previous incarnation, Macclesfield Town FC, was disbanded in bankruptcy in 2020. The new version is known as a phoenix club, having risen from the ashes of its predecessor.

On Saturday, Macclesfield hosted Premier League side Crystal Palace at Moss Rose, their 5,300-seat stadium in an FA Cup third round match. 5,348 fans packed the ground, a new record. Palace are the holders of the cup, winners over Manchester City in last year's final at Wembley.

They won't be this year. 

The part-time players of Macclesfield went toe to toe with the Premier League pros, taking a 2-0 lead into the 90th minute before giving up a goal. The six minutes of stoppage time must've seemed an eternity to the home faithful, but the time ended without another goal, and Macclesfield FC earned a 2-1 victory that numerous British commentators have hailed as the greatest upset in the tournament's 155-year history.

Sometimes upsets in the FA Cup are borne from the more prominent club having rotated its team, resting key players. And while Palace might not have started its full usual eleven, key players such as England national team members Marc Guehi and Adam Wharton, along with USMNT stalwart Chris Richards were in the starting lineup. 

The Macclesfield story is made all the more emotional by the recent death of 21 year-old forward Ethan McLeod, who was killed in an automobile accident while traveling home from the squad's December 16 match against Bedford Town. It's almost too much of a storybook tale.

The Silkmen drew Brentford at home as their fourth-round opponent this afternoon, and they'll likely be bounced from the tournament at that point - which makes Dave a bit of a villain. Again. But there is no taking back their moment of joy and glory.

Up Macclesfield!

Finding Joy Week

Gonna yang it up this week, cleansing this web neighborhood of fuckery vibes. We're spanning the globe to bring you stories of humans doing cool stuff with other humans. 

First up, a pair of pals from NYC who recently started documenting their effort to eat the cuisine of every nation in the world while staying in the Big Apple. This New Year's Eve entry featuring Bhutan is a smile inducer.

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Requiem for Yet Another Newspaper

I read that the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette is shuttering its doors. Another one bites the dust, Big Wave Dave. This one after 239 years of publishing the news.

That one in particular saddens me because my grandparents were very close friends with the Block family for decades. That family owned and operated the Gazette, then the

Post-Gazette, since the 1920's. When my mom, uncles, and grandparents lived in Pittsburgh in the 1950's (remember Robert Frost and Jonas Salk?), my Grampa Jack befriended Bill Block, and they remained friends for 50 years thereafter.

Bill and Maxine Block were just terrific people. In the '80s and '90s, they wintered in Sarasota as next-building neighbors to my grandparents -- they were always good for cocktails with the grown-ups and card games with us kids. Mr. Block was super smart and routinely encouraged me to pursue my writing interest. Little did he know I'd have this fun, non-paying, underground gig for two decades.

One amusing story: in the spring of 1989, I was hung over as all hell in Monroe freshman dormitory at the College of Knowledge, passed out in my boxers on our crappy thrift store couch. Empty cans of Busch and Krispy-Kreme boxes littered the floor near me. A knock came at the door at dawn, or so 11:30am seemed.

"What?!" I hollered at whoever was waking me up so early.

"Whitney?"

"Yeah..."

The door opens, and Bill Block poked his head in sheepishly. "Hi, Whitney, it's Bill Block."

This was the genteel 73-year-old newspaperman; what on earth was he doing here?? With me in shabby drawers and nary a stitch else in my hobo-chic dorm room? Well, just dropping in on his old buddy's grandson to offer him a nice lunch at the Trellis. Oh, my. No, no, no, no.

Eh. Lunch was good. And the lack of prior notice from my family meant they got to have a story to tell at the holidays for years to come.

Anyway, the paper is no more. Bill Block died two months after my grandfather did in 2005. Grampa Jack was 87, Mr. Block was 89. Lives well lived by men in search of public edification through publication. 

Bill Block, a number of years back:

I’ve always been that horrible term — liberal — more so than my editors. …We’ve been liberal in connection with civil rights, conservative on economics. That is my personal feeling and the road that we followed.

Ownership of the newspaper(s) eventually fell to Bill Block's nephew, a Trumpster who has dragged the publication rightward over the years. And now it's dead.

So it's just one more thing to be sad and worried about here in 2026.

Fuckery Week sucks, so now feels like a good place to slide this in. How I long for the days of regularly scheduled dipshittery. 

A Theory of Fuckery

[CONTENT WARNING: THERE'S A LOT OF WORDS HERE. I COULD PROBABLY USE AN EDITOR.]

I think we've established conclusively that it's just all so fucking stupid. But we haven't spent much time delving into the intellectual underpinnings of the fuckery. That's something we'll rectify today.

We're not talking about anything intellectual related to the President, mind you. That hump has no such foundation. He's 100% id, focused solely and entirely on what's good for him and only him. In him, a group of wealthy and ambitious white men (and they're nearly all white men) found a perfect blank canvas onto which to paint their vision for societal organization.

In 2008, a blogger named Mencius Moldbug wrote an online treatise entitled Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century. In the piece, Moldbug argues for the end of the nation-state, and in its place "a global spiderweb of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of sovereign mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents’ opinions."

Democracy out. Corporate hegemony in.

Moldbug went on in later years to coin the notion of the Dark Enlightenment, which refers in his telling to the preferred governance model, that of an anti-democratic social construct ruled by a CEO or monarch not beholden to the grubby masses. He calls for nothing less than the end of democracy in favor of start-up cities.

Cranks have written shit like this since my man Johannes Gutenberg first democratized the printing process. What makes Moldbug's story different is the people who became attracted to his ideology.

This sweaty motherfucker is probable the 
most dangerous person in the world

People like Peter Thiel, for example. And Elon Musk.

Thiel was one of the first tech titans to publicly embrace a particularly virulent strain of libertarianism, writing in a 2009 essay entitled "The Education of a Libertarian", “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” In Mencius Moldbug, the pen name of a guy named Curtis Yarvin, Thiel found a philosophical ally.

Curtis Yarvin was a software engineer and entrepreneur before he entered the world of right-wing political philosophy. His company, Tlon, was backed by Thiel's venture capital firm in 2013, though it's likely the two knew each other well before that.

In addition to Thiel, Yarvin influenced the worldview of Steve Bannon, and in 2016, his anti-democratic views suddenly found purchase in the White House. Eoin Higgins described that in his book Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left, saying,

Steve Bannon, [Trump's] 2016 campaign consiglieri, had served as CEO of a company selling gold in the massive multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. He was part of tech’s far-right underbelly. Once in the White House, Trump turned to the more elite Thiel to serve as liaison to Silicon Valley.

After Trump’s victory, tech leaders came to kiss the ring. Thiel was at his side for the December 14, 2016, meeting. The billionaire investor brought along allies Elon Musk and Alex Karp, even though at the time the respective companies they led, Tesla and Palantir, were not remotely on the same level as Google, Microsoft, Apple, and the others.

Since that time, Silicon Valley's uber-wealthy have increasingly embraced Yarvin's perspective, with Musk, Marc Andreesen, Bill Ackman, and others clearly deciding that business interests outweigh democratic ideals.

*This* is your king?

This does not mean that Yarvin's disciples chose to stay out of the political fray. To the contrary, they sought malleable men (again, nearly all men) with outsized ambition and a willingness to trade principle for power. People like Josh Hawley. And even more potentially frightening, J.D. Vance.

Vance's entire political career has been bankrolled by Thiel, his former boss. In October 2024, Politico ran an article detailing then-candidate Vance's political influences, which included this passage, "Vance has said he considers Yarvin a friend and has cited his writings in connection with his plan to fire a significant number of civil servants during a potential second Trump administration. “There’s this guy Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things,” Vance said on a conservative podcast in 2021, adding: “I think Trump is going to run again in 2024 [and] I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”"

So we know Yarvin's disturbing view of the world influences a number of wealthy and powerful people. And in early 2025, we saw one way that philosophy was made manifest.

At the time, Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid wrote, "It’s hard to overstate how much of Curtis Yarvin’s extremist playbook is being implemented at the highest levels of American government. It’s even harder to understand why so few seem to notice."

Shahid's piece articulated the ways in which Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was systematically following Yarvin's blueprint, saying, "And the public must understand that this isn’t about “efficiency” or “modernization.” This is about replacing democracy with an unelected, unaccountable ruling corporate elite—one that answers only to itself."

Interestingly, Yarvin has recently written that the second Trump administration is a failure, a "tragedy" even. Not because it's a flailing shitshow, but because Team Trump has spent too much time trying to govern and not enough speedrunning regime systematic change. Lord have mercy.

That Yarvin piece (and Shahid's) is worth reading, and it's in our societal interest to better understand the unholy alliance between neo-libertarian wealth and the elites of the MAGA movement. Because we're one clogged artery away from J.D. Vance ascending to the most powerful position in the world, and in his wake a coterie of people who believe you should be serfs to their unquestioned lordship.

Fuckery, indeed.

The fuckery will be televised.

Today at 2:30 pm ET the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights will livestream a hearing titled "Impeachment: Holding Rogue Judges Accountable" which is alternatively titled "The fuckery will be televised" (unlike the revolution, according to KRS-ONE and Gil Scott-Heron).

A group of Republicans, led by Ted Cruz, have their knickers in a knot because the Trump administration doesn't like some recent outcomes in federal district court.  Their response: impeach the judges.  This is exceedingly abnormal--for over 200 years, normal people appeal an adverse ruling to a higher court.  Don't take my word for it, here's what Chief Justice John Roberts said:

The Republican members of this subcommittee are a veritable who's who of dooshnozzlery:

Ted Cruz, Chair (TX)

Lindsey Graham (SC)

Mike Lee (UT)

Thom Tillis (NC)

John Kennedy (LA)

Eric Schmitt (MO)

I assume they will put on a hell of a show.  Make sure to take your losartan before you tune in.

Fuckery Week

Turning the page to a new year is often a chance for resetting, out with the old, in with the new. In the case of 2026, it's sure starting with a whole bunch of the same, only more brazenly disgusting. In our second Fuckery Week installment, we'll discuss entirely new achievements in insider trading that might go pretty much all the way up.

For those unfamiliar, Polymarket is an online prediction market that allows users to buy shares in binary (yes/no) time-based outcomes and get paid (or lose out) depending upon what actually happens. For example, right now, you can buy shares in Will Silver (SI) hit $90/oz by end of January? for 23 cents each. If Silver does hit $90 before the end of the month, you get $1/share, so in this case it's basically a bet at 4-1 odds.

In addition to bets on economic outcomes, Polymarket users can participate in markets for sports, cultural events, technology, really anything that you can turn into a binary. Including nation-state hostility.

Which brings us to today's fuckery.

On our about January 1, someone opened an account on Polymarket. The account placed a series of bets related to Venezuelan political events, including a $32,000 on "yes" at $0.07 to the question, "Maduro out by January 31, 2026."

A couple of days later, that account recorded a profit of $409,882 and subsequently withdrew it into a Coinbase account (some of the proceeds were subsequently used to buy Fartcoin tokens - that is not a joke).

In the interest of fairness, it is possible that this was a hugely coincidental and very lucky wager by someone who had a hunch. Possible. Also possible that I could tackle Derrick Henry in the open field.

Naturally, something like this would be likely to draw attention. Just so. An X user named Andrew GWEI 10 posted the following series of Tweets:

TL;DR version: an account that seems to be linked to domains that appear to be associated with Steven Charles Witkoff's corporation profited handsomely from an extremely well-timed bet on something a Trump insider might plausibly know. To be sure, "seems to be", "appear to be", "might plausibly know" don't meet any sort of evidentiary standard - this is something my attorneys suggested I should include. But would you put this sort of fuckery beyond the assholes running the country?

The Witkoff in question (Presidential advisor Steve) has been seen on Air Force One with the President in recent days, and would be in a position to know if something were planned in Venezuela, given his access to Trump. 

Complicating matters legally (there's no moral ambivalence to be found here - if the circumstantial evidence points to something real, this is disgusting profiteering), there's no clear law against using insider knowledge to participate in prediction markets. Many reputable markets say they try to vet trades to mitigate insider risks, but that doesn't seem to have happened in this case.

If anyone with prior knowledge of the Maduro operation used that information to profit, it's yet one more sign of the ethical bankruptcy of our national leadership. I bet one couldn't get very good odds on that "if" turning into a negative.

What kind of fuckery is this?

I've been noodling on a recurring bit that might actually recur based on the opening line of Amy Winehouse's "Me and Mr. Jones."

But before I can get to it some new fuckery occurs to render my plans obsolete.  Flood the zone with shit and all that.  Not today though.

Responsible people solicit advice and consent before making an important decision that impacts others.  For example, if your kids ask for a dog you will talk to them and your spouse to make sure everyone agrees and is willing to help shoulder the responsibility.  Similarly, if you want a new car you will do some research, take a few test drives, make sure your spouse agrees with your choice and line up a loan before buying it.  It goes without saying that even more legwork goes into buying a new house, especially if you have a family who will want a say in where they live.  Once you buy the house, renovating it might require approval from your local zoning board and they might require approval from all of your neighbors.  You can't just double the size of your home.

The same is true in a corporate setting.  If your marketing team wants to hire a vendor to build a website they will probably put out a request for proposals and those proposals will then be vetted by a cross-functional team involving people from at least sales and IT.  A smart process would ask the vendors to mark up your form of agreement during the dog-and-pony show while you have negotiating leverage, which means your legal team will be involved too.  And of course finance will have a say in whether the proposed cost fits in your budget.

That's just a minor transaction.  Licensing deals or mergers require much more due diligence, potentially even board approval.

You don't need a degree in government to see what I'm getting at--our lives are full of checks and balances to make sure that no one person does something that messes things up for everyone else.

I assume that, like me, you were surprised to wake up on Saturday and learn that we captured the Venezuelan president and his wife.  So too was the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  

Apparently the US government now runs Venezuela.  Exactly what that means varies depending on who you ask, but it looks like we are on the financial hook to rebuild Venezuela's infrastructure.  But no one told Congress beforehand because, according to Marco Rubio in his official capacity as the-adult-in-the-room, it was "a trigger-based operation" and Congress can't be trusted to keep this type of thing secret:

And that was a very limited and targeted operation.  It is also a trigger-based operation.  All kinds of conditions had to be in place.  The weather had to be right.  He had to be staying in a certain spot.  Everything had to be in place in order for that to happen.

You can’t congressionally notify something like this for two reasons.  Number one, it will leak.  It’s as simple as that.  And number two, it’s an exigent circumstance.  It’s an emergent thing that you don’t even know if you’re going to be able to do it.  You can’t – we can’t notify them we’re going to do it on a Tuesday or on a Wednesday because at some points we didn’t know if we were going to be able to carry this out.  We didn’t know if all of the things that had to line up were going to line up at the same time and the right conditions.  He had to be at the right place at the right time with the right weather, and all things like that.  So those are very difficult to notify, but the number one reason is operational security.  It would have put the people who carried this on in very – in harm’s way.  And frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason, and we thank them for doing that or lives could have been lost.  American lives.

So the media are more reliable than the Gang of Eight.  And the weather.

Or maybe "the oil companies" are on that aforementioned financial hook to rebuild Venezuela.  Did the administration check with them before executing this plan?  Are they more reliable than the Gang of Eight?  Even if the answers to those questions are "yes" and "yes," who will provide them with security during the rebuilding process?  I'm out of my depth in that regard but it seems unlikely that Blackwater has enough mercenaries to hold off the entire Venezuelan military if some general down there musters control of it all.  I can envision the need for US troops.

We are again faced with the ramifications of the Pottery Barn Rule but this time without any pretext about democracy and freedom, it's all unabashed rapaciousness.

All of this assumes that life is like a video game and capturing a country's president means that you now have unwavering control of that country.  I suspect that isn't how it works.  Moving forward, it might be cheaper and safer if we let Trump scratch his despotic itches by giving him an iPad loaded with Civilization.

College Athletics Angst, Part Next

Outrage about the college sports landscape has pivoted toward a 21-year-old Nigerian basketball player and the institution of higher learning in Waco, Texas in the latest edition of “Somebody Oughta Do Something.” It’s made for some fine rants from a handful of the sport’s leading voices that contain amusingly deceptive arguments as well as shadow confirmation that they really miss the good old days when they called the shots. 

Current indigestion revolves around James Nnaji and his mid-season addition to the Baylor University roster. Nnaji is a 7-foot center who was the No. 31 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. Though he played for the Charlotte Hornets in the NBA Summer League that year, he never signed a regular contract and did not remain in the U.S. He instead has played professionally in Europe for FC Barcelona for the past five seasons. 

Because he had never appeared in an NBA game and had not played college ball before 2023, he had a path to college eligibility because he is within a five-year window for what would have been his high school graduation date. The NCAA informed Baylor on Christmas eve that Nnaji would be eligible. 

The Nnaji situation, coupled with the NCAA’s decision to grant college eligibility to participants in the NBA G League, its developmental circuit for players who chose not to go to college, has further roiled the membership. Fulminators about this episode include Tom Izzo, Dan Hurley, John Calipari and Matt Painter. Even Nick Saban felt the need for a little finger wagging. 

Izzo, the Michigan State legend, in Spartan Illustrated likened college eligibility for G Leaguers to bringing back former MSU stars Magic Johnson and Gary Harris to play for his teams. When he learned of Nnaji's eligibility, he said, “If that’s what we’re going through, shame on the NCAA. Shame on the coaches too, but shame on the NCAA. Because coaches are going to do what they got to do I guess, but the NCAA is the one. ... Those people on those committees that are making those decisions to allow something so ridiculous and not think of the kid. Everybody talks about me thinking about my program as selfish, no. Get that straight for all of you, I’m thinking of what is best for my son if he was in that position. And I just don’t agree with it.” 

Hurley was unaware that eligibility for Nnaji was even possible. “It’s a frustrating game to play when you don’t know the rules and rules are being made up as you go and there’s no communication and there’s no leadership,” he said in The Athletic. “So I think college basketball needs a commissioner. A Roger Goodell. A David Stern. Somebody that’s gonna make decisions and start making moves that are in the best interest of college basketball, not just having coaches and players do what’s in the best interest of them.” 

Following a recent game, Calipari launched into a seven-minute harangue that began with the Nnaji decision and splashed outward. “You can’t be 30,” he said in part of his rant. “You’ve got five years. Clock is ticking. If you go pro, I don’t care what country you’re from. You leave your name in, you cannot play college basketball. If you transfer midseason, you can’t play. You gotta sit out. How about we just do that stuff? We can do it without having Congress and the Senate getting 60 votes. We can do that. Let them sue us on that stuff. … Does anybody care what this is doing for 17- and 18-year-old American kids? Do you know what this opportunity has done for them and their families? There aren’t going to be any (recruited) high school kids. Who other than dumb people like me are going to recruit high school kids? I get so much satisfaction out of coaching young kids and seeing them grow and make it and their family life changes that I’m going to keep doing it.” 

Hoo buddy, where to start. Granting a path to college for kids who played minor league ball for subsistence-level wages or for a 21-year-old who’s never played college ball isn’t within the same ZIP code of bringing back older, seasoned NBA stars. The NCAA’s admittedly fluctuating standards are a worthy target, but there’s nothing illegal or unethical about recruiting foreign players. Izzo has had foreign players, as have dozens of coaches. He’s also successfully mined the transfer portal in recent years, poaching gifted players from smaller programs, so his veneer of forthrightness is a mite selective. 

A college hoops commissioner is a fine concept if a true steward can be put in place. But someone might inform Hurley that people such as Goodell and Stern work for professional team owners, and their jobs are at least as much about making money for everyone and putting out fires than the actual good of the game. And if someone is installed as the Sultan of Hoops, who exactly sets the agenda and defines what’s best for the game? As for the selfless Reverend Calipari, he of the vacated Final Four appearances with both Massachusetts and Memphis and Godfather of the One-and-Done approach to recruiting and program building at Kentucky, are we to believe that he wouldn’t take a talented French or Serbian kid or a 20-year-old who’s spent a year or two in the G League? 

The idea that college hoops will suddenly be flooded with foreign players and G Leaguers at the expense of American high school prospects is absurd. There are 361 Division I programs and well over 1,000 NCAA men's teams at all levels. Maybe the 18-year-old American kid who Calipari is so concerned about goes to Arkansas-Little Rock rather than Arkansas, UNC Greensboro instead of UNC. Even Baylor coach Scott Drew admitted that he wasn’t a fan of mid-season additions, but injuries caused him to re-think his stance. 

Nnaji was on their radar because Baylor’s general manager knows Nnaji’s agent, who also represented one of their former stars. “We (coaches) don't create the rules, and if we agree by them or not, I equate it to the speed limit,” Drew told CBS Sports. “You go through a construction zone, it changes. You get on the highway, it changes. Right now, the NCAA has speed limits, and it changes. I don't blame the NCAA because a lot of it's about what they feel they can win in the courtroom. To me, until we get to collective bargaining, there's not going to be a solution. Until that time, my job is the coach of our program and we needed to add a player at semester break because we've had two season-ending injuries to two of our biggest players and had a third player out. If you're coaching a team, aren't you going to add the best player you can add that fits your program? That's what we did.” 

Drew’s remarks about the NCAA and the courtroom and collective bargaining are most pertinent. Courts have cuffed around the NCAA for years over attempts to limit athlete compensation and freedom of movement, all under the flimsy mantel of amateurism. Now, NIL money and rampant player movement have injected further instability to what was already a challenge in the best of times. The Nnaji situation isn’t even the first instance of an in-season addition who has foreign professional experience. Oklahoma, BYU, Dayton and Washington have all done so. The difference is that none of the others were NBA draft picks. One might wonder how much of the mass whinging is an increasingly tiresome yearn for the way it used to be or because Drew’s peers didn’t take advantage of the rules and land a kid with NBA potential. Sure, it’s unusual and uncharted territory, a new menu item on the buffet table of joy.