I think something has been missed in the whole Ed Sheeran/Macklemore/Everybody but Ed quits the tour controversy.
First of all, even Bob Kraft, who got Macklemore tossed from the tour, doesn’t actually believe that criticism of the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitic. Kraft is a supporter of Trump. You know, the guy who famously said there were “very fine people on both sides” when incels with tiki torches marched through UVA chanting “Jews Will Not Replace Us!”
I actually don’t enjoy writing about this stuff. You know what I enjoy writing about? Professional wrestling!
And speaking of professional wrestling, I saw a piece today about a wrestler who is having a hard time getting booked because they are a domestic abuser. They haven’t been convicted of anything—their former partner has just detailed the abuse, and people have been like, “this person is a piece of shit. I’m not booking them.” Plenty of pieces of shit continue to get booked in pro wrestling, so I’m not suggesting it’s some sort of piece-of-shit-free utopia. But it did strike me that this person has faced more consequences for their actions than most of the people who were friends with Jeffrey Epstein.
Indeed, while a lot of wrestlers who are pieces of shit are still working, most of them have lost their jobs at the promotions that offer the most money.
Sadly, this is not the case for Epstein’s pals. A LOT of them have faced absolutely no professional consequences for their association with him. (Though if you want a grim laugh, check out this post by former MIT researcher Joscha Boch about how very hard it was for him to have his association with Epstein exposed. The poor guy!)
Like most Bostonians when he was mayor, I met Tom Menino a couple of times. (This isn’t an exaggeration. I saw a poll or something the last time he ran for re-election that said that over fifty percent of Bostonians had met Menino personally). He seemed affable, and his complete inability to do competent public speaking was strangely charming.
I don’t have any personal animus, is what I’m saying. People revere Menino largely because he seemed like a good guy. Which may be true. But he wasn’t good for Boston, and I think it’s really important to acknowledge this lest a present or future mayor repeat his mistakes.
The mayor of Boston, whoever they are, always faces a difficult choice: do you serve the people who live and vote in the city, or do you serve the people who use the city for work and entertainment?
Obviously the mayor needs to take the needs of the suburbanites who use the city into account, but their top priority should be the residents of the city who voted for them, and when the interests of residents and non-residents are different, the mayor should side with residents.
Sadly, this hasn’t really ever been the case since I’ve lived in Boston. St. Thomas of Menino was primarily interested in serving real estate developers, which is why the soulless, sterile Seaport is Menino’s baby and also probably why he illegally shredded a bunch of his official records before he left office.
I was an early adopter of Sirius XM Radio, back when you had to buy a special little box to play through the FM radio in your car. I discovered a lot of cool music in the early 2000s by listening to it, and I’ve subscribed a few times since then.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about which albums I return to again and again as full albums. Since streaming has made it trivially easy to only listen to songs you like, I think many of us listen to playlists rather than albums. I do listen to albums I’ve bought on Bandcamp as full albums, but otherwise, I mostly listen to Sirius radio or playlists.
But there are some albums I like to listen to in their complete form. So I thought I’d share them with you not to show how cool I am (I mean, sure, that too) , but also because I’m always interested in music recommendations from real people, so maybe you will be too.
Hey, so I’ve noticed that the definition of “one-hit wonder” seems to be shifting a little bit. Or maybe I’ve just misunderstood it all along. So I wanted to take a minute to address this crucially important issue.
I saw Supergirl during the last heat wave. (So like, 2 weeks ago?). I knew it didn’t do well with critics and that the box office had been underwhelming by blockbuster movie standards, but I liked it a lot.
I was as surprised as you that I got an invite! Here’s what happened: on arrival, we were ushered into what looked like a fairly traditional wedding chapel that had been custom built inside Madison Square Garden.