Keith Plocek

My dad died in November. He showed up in one sentence of an essay I published in March. And now he’s busted through the wall of an art review I published today.

Just as a private equity firm buys out a corporation and strips it for parts, a consultant class is raiding the Democratic Party and getting “generationally wealthy” along the way New from me and @adambonica.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/2163...

How my first drafts usually start

“I want to be able to offer a barely perceptible nose-exhale to a meme on their slideshows, knowing they at least suffered searching for the perfect one.” Thank you, Naishu. We live for that nose-exhale.

New from me: a deputy refused to show his tattoos and was fired. His wrongful termination suit revealed the scope of an internal investigation that identified 271 employees that either admitted or potentially have tattoos associated with two deputy gangs.

A student just guessed I was 36 years old and I've decided to sell everything I own and create an endowed scholarship for him

Meta took down the No Kings instagram; TikTok banned the Musk documentary account for supposedly violating its political posting policies. A reminder that platforms are owned by the wealthiest of people, control the means of media distribution, & put their thumbs on the democracy scale as they wish

Did CNN not watch the video? This is misleading at best and journalistic malpractice at the worst. Shame.

Dating back to 1914, the graffiti was discovered by anthropologist Susan A. Phillips in the year 2000. Now it's gone forever.

Exclusive new footage of the Tesla Roadster

A machine cannot be held accountable. AI cannot be held accountable. Arrest the men controlling the robot.

I wandered down to the confluence of the LA River and the Arroyo Seco a few days ago, hoping to find the graffiti that’s been there since 1914…

Death in Venice Beach

This is nightmarish and not how journalism should work.

Great story about a cranky bot trying to stay alive by pitching skate mags

It’s been too hot for my long walks down Los Angeles streets, so I hung out at the mall instead

On my deathbed: “At least I won‘t have to download any more apps.”

Manbun at True Value

The inaugural issue of SAUCE, "A DIY journal dedicated to the cultural, social, aesthetic, and athletic contributions of skateboarding," is now live. Stoked to work on this with such a talented, smart group of people. www.saucejournal.org/issues/issue...

ProPublica got the literal check Collins was bribed with.

"AI is rotting the bonds of trust that keep us working, playing, and being together." — Nathan Munn in @flaminghydra.com

In The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of the characters describes himself as "a picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean," which seems like a wonderful way to engage with the world. (Then he asks Sherlock Holmes if he can run his fingers over his skull.)

Some people see the LA River and think of Grease or Terminator 2. Others are reminded of Jackass.

It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than a slight modification of capitalism

I think about this guy all the time because, dangit, I am this guy sometimes

Ain’t no party like an indoor piñata party…

Y’all love talking about quicksand, but I was also raised to believe there would be more limbo parties in my life

Beep beep!

Finally got around to reading this one, and damn: “The more we suspect that each other’s words and images have been generated by machines, the less we value each other’s humanity. And the more we dehumanize each other, well, you know where this is going, because in many ways we’re already there.”

This year’s first-day-of-class walk-up song is…

[Exit Queen.]

I tracked down the guy who's been painting pigs along my morning commute

I'm thrilled to share "Series: One Thing After Another," the online exhibition I juried for Site: Brooklyn Gallery. I selected 35 artists who use seriality, repetition, and sequence in their work to explore formal, narrative, and conceptual themes. www.sitebrooklyn.com/series-one-t...

I wrote about my favorite script for @tar.land

That logo

Not gonna lie, that first year or two, it felt pretty good to have all those randos wishing me happy birthday on Facebook

Police officers typed the wrong license plate into the computer and smashed a guy's car window before pulling him out of the car and pepper-spraying him. When they realized it was a mistake, they charged him anyway. Those charges remained until he committed suicide.

Hey reporters, if you load your notes or audio into an AI cloud service (ChatGPT, Claude, Otter, etc), there’s a good chance those companies will comply with a court order and hand that info over. “The rule is simple: Don’t share anything you wouldn’t the service provider or a court to see.”

Or the reporters are also tooted out of their minds

Out of my walk videos so far, this one easily has the most views, with some people calling me a wuss for not walking further and others calling me crazy for walking what I did

It’s pretty jarring we’ve just come to expect that the feds will lie to us and publicize false information and that there is virtually no consequence for it.

I haven’t seen y’all this excited about a negative review since that takedown of Guy Fieri’s restaurant in Times Square

One of my passions is helping people learn about the business of freelancing, so I was excited to help organize this event with AAJA-LA & @lapressclub.bsky.social Featuring UC Irvine Prof. Erika Hayasaki & Robert Lopez, McGraw fellow 🍕 & 🧋 provided. RSVP: lapressclub.wufoo.com/forms/zzspwh...

Every independent coffeeshop in Colorado Springs is also a church

Pete Hegseth: "We need our warriors to embrace the Spartan mindset" U.S. Military: *suffers crushing defeat to the Persians*

Good morning