It started for me with a new relationship with a wonderful woman named Emily, and I am proud to say this is my third WNBA season. It started with a Chicago Sky playoff run that landed just short, but as I watched more, I liked more. After the second game or so I was convinced that Candace Parker could get 2 points on any possession she had wind for. By the fourth game I had referred to Courtney Vandersloot as a, ‘video game player’ because if I was playing as her in 2K, I would hold sprint the whole time.

As that season ended we were then treated to the first Caitlin Clark Iowa run. The next year I went to a Chicago Sky game with my season ticket holder girlfriend. Following that, the next Caitlin Clark Iowa run, and by then people were talking about what Emily and I were talking about. This year, Caitlin Clark elevates a sport, like Tiger, like Serena, like LeBron. I count myself among the grateful for those I mentioned, and for what Caitlin is going to do with her career.

It hasn’t been all gravy however, the influx of new fans to a league they have no experience with has led to a lot of bad takes. I’ll get this out of the way, many view Caitlin as another great white hope in a league that is predominantly African American. Many have viewed her treatment so far as some kind of bullying, and racial animus abounds in these conversations. This league plays hard defense, and the NBA should take note of it. I also think it would just remind her of her last time in Columbus when she almost got knocked out leaving the floor. O-H.

Caitlin can take it, this is the same hazing that goes on in every professional sports league on the planet. It is possibly more exacerbated by the fact that she is on a really bad team, and is constantly double teamed. For the nay sayers, I have her on my fantasy team, and she’s doing just fine. That’s right, our family did a WNBA fantasy league this year, not because we’re degenerates but quite the opposite. Emily is crushing us of course, but the point is we are watching.

As I watched the most viewed WNBA draft of all time, I was so happy that Angel Reese went to Emily’s beloved Sky. She is a fantastic player, and I honestly believe there could be a remake of the Magic/Bird rivalry in the next decade. For all of you LeBron haters who pine for the glory days of the NBA in the 90’s, watch a WNBA game now. It is the most physical game of basketball this side of Pistons/Bulls with the ‘Jordan Rules’ era. Now for the challenge: don’t be afraid to love that women are doing it.

Emily is going to a Sky game and a Red Stars game today, a Chi-town delight. Although I disagree with their hot dog toppings and pizza depth, Chicago is a great sports town with great women’s teams. Columbus, I am lobbying you to demand NWSL and WNBA franchises! Everyone should celebrate the renaissance of the WNBA and not just use women’s sports as a political prop for anti-trans legislation. Like Ted Lasso says, ‘Everyone Watches Women’s Sports.’

Bill Maher has been one of the most prominent voices in political commentary for my entire adult lifetime, and most of the time I have been defending his positions to the cringed faces that responded to them. He has always championed himself as a ‘classical liberal’ who lives and dies by free speech and the first amendment, and has spearheaded discussion in this country many times for the better. However, over the past year and change he has changed, despite his constant claims that the world has moved and he has been the calm center of it all.

His podcast, ‘club random’, which with his stature gets great guests has become a platforming tool for some of the lunatics he has on it to pander and watch him get fucked up. I’m going to give two examples, Jordan Peterson was the first one that really made me say why is a Cornell educated person giving this idiot time, and him chumming up with Robert F Kennedy Jr on vaccines was the last straw for me. As much as the Seth Macfarlane and Quinten Tarantino episodes were fun, the other two were a disgrace.

This is a guy I lionized as a budding atheist, sprouting from failed catholicism. He was just like me, raised catholic and then said, what the fuck? Just like I did. His 2008 documentary ‘Religulous’ is still candy to me, and a great place to start from for anyone questioning their faith, but he has strayed so far from that ‘seek truth’ mentality that history majors are supposed to live by. He was spot on in so many of those scenes pointing out the absurdities of religion and the American right in this country, and now it appears to me that the rich part of his brain has overtaken the liberal one.

I saw him do stand up at The Palace Theater here in Columbus with my parents and even got a selfie with him. It was a highlight of my year back then, but this is where I am going to put my foot in the ground and make a cut, he is no longer a voice of reason. He will still have a job, and I will still watch, because there is such limited real speech in American political discourse, but he’s officially done to me. Too many weeks of supporting the genocide in Gaza, too many weeks of marginalizing trans people, too many weeks of having fluff guests on like this week where there was no counterpoint to the genocide.

‘Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste.’ Bill Maher was that 5 years ago, now he’s just wealthy and bitchy. If I have to hear about his permits for his solar panel on an outhouse in his backyard one more time I’m going to vomit. His panel segments used to be the peak of political talk in this country, and this week it was reduced to pandering on a level I don’t understand unless the goal is attracting bloodthirsty viewers. One history major to another, et tu Bill Maher?

I wanted to take the opportunity to praise 5 people of my lifetime who have made it better. Great people inspire and make the world a better place. Isn’t it amazing that so few of them overall are Republicans? My rebuttal is FDR, Kennedy, Obama, I await your response.

Barack Obama

As the first person to receive my vote for president he was always going to be on this list. Inheriting a financial crisis and 2 wars of his predecessor it was as if the deck was stacked against him like so many African Americans in this country. Hope, the infectious positivity of this eloquent speaker and the healthcare plan that he started made me believe. Yes We Can! I’m waiting with baited breath for the next political figure who can move hearts and minds for the better like he did.

Tiger Woods

I followed him from the early days at Stanford where Arnold Palmer was buying him dinners and it was an NCAA violation, unbelievable in this NIL era. Walking and winning a US Open on a broken leg, there are just sports moments that inspire you to do your regular day job a little better having seen that. Tiger made an entire generation of people love golf who wouldn’t have otherwise, and broke down the racial barriers to the sport in a way that only greatness can. To quote a Nike campaign, ‘I am Tiger Woods.’

LeBron James

The Chosen One. The man who married his high school sweetheart and made 8 straight NBA finals. The man who came back to Cleveland and won a title. The block, the shot, the stop, and that championship comeback from down 3-1 should shut the mouths of every feeble minded asshole that burned his jersey when he went to Miami. In stark contrast to the previous person on this list, no scandals in the social media era should be a lionization in its own respect.

John Mayer

As a guitarist, I had to include one on the list. Most know him as the pop star with the ladies, and most Swifties get this look on their face when you mention his name, but I want to talk about the music. The pop acoustic stuff to start was fantastic, but the Continuum album and the guitar work with the John Mayer Trio during that period was sublime. The gold standard as a guitarist to me is being able to cover Hendrix, and if you look up John’s cover of Voodoo Child, you will have no more questions.

Dee and Jimmy Haslam

I don’t know how the 30 for 30 hasn’t been made yet on ‘Save the Crew.’ But in a miracle that was hard worked for by so many in central Ohio, the Browns ownership struck a deal to keep the Crew in Columbus. Symbolically to right a wrong that had taken place in Ohio within my lifetime, with the Browns moving to Baltimore, they are my Flying J capitalist heroes. It means we get to still have the Nordecke, we get to still have the greatest team the world has ever seen. Glory to Columbus.

I have to begin this by saying how difficult it is to honestly talk about it, but we need to talk about it. I am going to label it as a genocide because that is what it is, and that is what the United Nations has been openly discussing the prevention of. Because of the likelihood that you have already tuned out based on that statement, please allow me to say a couple of true things. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 and it was horrific. The government of Israel does not represent Jewish people as a theocracy, and criticism of the government is not anti-semitic.

Terrorist attacks do not come out of nowhere. With that statement I am in no way justifying the actions of Hamas, merely stating a fact that there are causes. The US support of the Abraham Accords under Trump, the apartheid state that Israel has been responsible for for decades, I know why the caged bird sings. Terrorism is not justifiable in any way, but to deny the causes is to bury one’s head in the sand and prepare for another prolonged Middle Eastern war.

The actions of Benjamin Netanyahu in response to the attack and hostage crisis have been homicidal. The indiscriminate killing of civilians in response is a war crime. The collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population through starvation and bombing is a war crime. There isn’t much coverage of it, but there are significant protests going on in Israel now for a cease fire to get the hostages back. Remember way back when it was about getting the hostages back?

Over 30,000 civilians have been killed in this ‘surgical’ military campaign in Gaza, and the United States is complicit in it. We provide 4 Billion dollars a year in aid to Israel to fund this atrocity. To be clear, I am not against the recent aid package because the aid to Ukraine was absolutely necessary and it had to pass the batshit House of Representatives. That does not mean we can’t move to right our wrong and force a cease fire.

The college kids are saying it for the rest of us that have to work day jobs. The unrest on campuses across the country should be waking up ‘Sleepy Joe’ to his responsibility as our empathizer in chief. I very badly don’t want to see this country turn into a dictatorship, and Biden ignoring this for another week, another month just isn’t going to work. Joe Biden your 4th alarm is going off on your phone this morning, wake the fuck up.

On this holiest of Good Fridays let us bow our heads in prayer to commemorate the occasion of our savior dying on the cross to forgive our sins for the 1991st time. (33 AD – 2024 AD) Let us give reflection on our time with a quote from Revelation: ‘And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”‘ For the MAGA flock, it is no longer God’s plan, but Trump’s plan that is most prescient.

I’m going to take the holiday to denigrate religion a little bit, because the first amendment gives me the right to, and I will spend the rest of my life scrubbing the 12 years of Catholic school from my brain. However, like the grime remaining after a Blockbuster Video sign is taken down, it is forever. I find much more value in the sarcastic reflection of George Carlin on ‘God’s plan’: “It’s a divine plan. What’s the use of being god if every run-down schmuck with a two dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?”

Donald J Trump becoming a Bible salesman is exactly this perfect bit personified. $59.99 for a faux leather bound King James Bible that also includes the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and pledge of allegiance. I only wish Trump would have included his own foreword to the good book, just to show that he has never read a page of it. Brings to mind another awful quote, sorry I’ll try to end this well: ‘When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.’ -James Waterman Wise.

I have to say the MAGA crowd are gluttons for abuse and misuse. The way Trump abuses them by channeling their faith to extract their wallets is his lowest grift yet. If you thought grown adults paying $100 dollars for Trump superhero trading cards was abusive, maybe I can also direct you to Trump University fraud victims or the citizens of New York City who voted for him who could have used his tax money he defrauded them of for essential services.

Now to the misuse, MAGA for years now have been self proclaiming themselves as patriots despite the fact that they are supporting an authoritarian figure in direct opposition to the founders’ intent. This was pointed out so explicitly by Jon Stewart last week, and I will leave many-a-MAGA with this classic uplifting quote from the film “Friday”: “I know you don’t smoke weed, I know this; but I’m gonna get you high today, ’cause it’s Friday; you ain’t got no job… and you ain’t got shit to do.”

We have now been treated to two Mondays of Jon Stewart returning to The Daily Show, and I have to say I’m salivating for next week’s residency slot. Jon Stewart is inseparable from the political and media landscape to a person of my age who is interested in politics and current events, and his return could not have come with better timing. His brand of satire is exactly what this country needs at a time when the Democratic Party establishment is wallowing in complacency.

After the first episode aired where he was critical of both presidential candidates for this November’s election he faced a lot of backlash from the left, the youth who haven’t been exposed to him before I can forgive, the rest I cannot. Jon Stewart is an honesty broker, a position with great responsibility and he would be remiss to not take the opportunity to criticize Biden who squarely deserved it. Not just because of the party nominating what they thought was a safe bet, but because Gaza could be to Biden what Covid was to Trump, disaster.

He was criticized for ‘bothsidesism’, insinuating that both sides are equally bad, which is absurd. Just because both parties are browning bananas so ripe for critique that their actions practically write the jokes for him doesn’t mean he shouldn’t tell them. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of news and politics can see that one candidate is running for president and the other is running for dictator to avoid jail, this was not a 50/50 bipartisan act of unity or apathy, but a skewering of both sides as a starting point.

This week he honed his sights on another soft target, Tucker Carlson, the Swansons trust fund baby who just won’t go away. As Jon Stewart historians will remember, Stewart appeared on Tucker’s CNN show ‘Crossfire’ and so tore the two hosts apart that it was cited as a reason for the show’s cancellation. He highlighted Carlson’s bent kneed interview with Vladimir Putin for the disgrace that it was and at one point shows a clip from the trip where Tucker makes a tasteless homelessness joke, “you’re such a dick” indeed.

As of right now it seems Jon has committed to the show for this election cycle, but I hope he is back for good. Satire is good for the soul, and when the media does such a poor job of accurately criticizing power due to corporate interest or ineptitude, Stewart stands in the gap. I hope you’re enjoying the return, and the interactions with a great group of correspondents and know that the pond is stocked for jokes this election year, we’re going to need it.

I spent my New Years’ Eve not enjoying, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ so I missed Green Day’s performance on ABC’s live year end celebration. However, since part of my 2023 was professing for the band (link below) I can’t help but weigh in, especially since this stirred up right wing controversy is from the album I mention and stand by as a classic to this day. Green Day wins the New Year as hard as the Detroit Lions got robbed on that tackle eligible missed call.

The reason I have to write about this is because of how much it mattered at the time to people who were teenagers. It mattered because it was Green Day, and it also mattered that it was political then as it is now. The album was released September 21, 2004, everyone had it. When I was serving my Catholic school service hours for the John Kerry campaign, even then. Sometimes being a rebel in your environment and doing the right thing are synonymous.

For the pre-millennial audience the original line from the title track, ‘American Idiot’ is:

‘Well maybe I’m the fa**ot America!
I’m not a part of a redneck agenda!’

Referring to the Bush administration in 2004; Mission Accomplished!

Green Day were a liberal rock band back then as much as it was in the waning moments of 2023, they censored the F word on the broadcast, but conservatives were offended by this version:

‘Well maybe I’m the fa**ot America!
I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda!’

Why are conservatives only outraged about Green Day making a political statement against them? Because they cannot accept the fact that they have been wrong for so long. That lyric from 2004 mentioning that maybe I’m the F word, just shows how long people have been subjected to that type of offensive, homophobic language and they still want to do it today. The fact that, ‘Redneck’ is considered a synonym for MAGA, should be an insult to Rednecks everywhere.

If you’re not already a subscriber, let me tell you about the best quality for the money proposition in streaming: Apple TV+. For ten bucks a month you get the highest quality shows, and to quote the legendary film, ‘Dazed and Confused’, ‘It’s quality, not quantity, alright man?’ While I could write an entire post just describing the best Ted Lasso episodes, I will try to make this one for the masses, and I hope that you will end reading this with a 7 day trial to the service.

The Morning Show

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston lead a fire-starting take on not only righteous journalism, but feminism in the modern media landscape and it is fantastic. The thing you have to love about this platform is that an issue like abortion will come up and be seriously addressed in the way that you can’t do on network TV. Both leading ladies kill, and the drama currently runs for three seasons that span the American reality so well the way that HBO’s, ‘The Newsroom’ used to do.

Ted Lasso

If you think this show is about soccer, let me stop you in your tracks before you lose interest. Jason Sudeikis takes over an English Premier League soccer team with no experience in soccer. What happens from there is a masterclass in character development, romance, camaraderie and a feeling that we all are AFC Richmond. The show gets into deeper issues such as mental health and relationships in a way that if you don’t cry in response to several episodes, you may have to turn in your human card.

Lessons in Chemistry

Continuing on Apple’s feminist trailblazing effort, this show is so wholesome, in its solidarity pushing agenda between both races and sexes. Based on a book of the same title, Brie Larson doesn’t dazzle, because she can, she instructs. The story of her relationship with famed chemist Calvin Evans and her struggle to become recognized in a world she masters but is not let into, makes for captivating entertainment.

Five Days at Memorial

This is inarguably the most controversial show I will recommend, so let that grain of salt set in. The miniseries retells the catastrophic and horrific events of a hospital in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. It challenges the viewer to consider the impossible moral decisions that the hospital staff had to make over 8 episodes, and Vera Farmiga reprises her role as a grey area hero similar to how I remember her from her role in, ‘The Departed.’ This does not disappoint.

I’m writing this on an Apple laptop; I consider my own bias, but in terms of the quality of shows you get on Apple TV+ that take chances other services wouldn’t, give it a try. If you haven’t seen Ted Lasso yet you are already doing yourself a disservice, and three seasons of that should satiate the most cynical person on the planet. Take a bite from the tree, unlike that bible nonsense, you will be left in a better place and no snake is involved.