Will

My Gen X mind (what remains of it) is blown. Today, I learned that the late Walter Koenig (Chekhov on Star Trek) was hired as a writer for Land of the Lost, where he created the character Enik, the mysterious extraterrestrial relative of the creepy Sleestaks.

I love fall in St. Paul.

As I did with "The West Wing" all those years ago, I get an uncomfortable feeling when I watch "The Diplomat" and see the distance between the fiction and the reality. But the feeling is so much worse today because, as silly as this show can be, the reality is SO MUCH STUPIDER.

Last night and this morning in St Paul.

(Midwestern) Folks, she’s running.

Kinda surprised anyone still believes any announcement from Tesla, let alone one that says Tesla is going to market a flying car.

Had a weird dream where Paul Westerberg (for you youngsters, he was the singer of the Repacements) and Sadie Sink (for you oldsters, she was the redhead on Stranger Things) were step siblings, negotiating where in the house they would do their respective Zoom interviews.

Not that anyone asked me, but I support James Hetfield’s right to not talk about politics. I don’t think I’d like his political views, anyway. But, I’d respect him more if he just said he doesn’t want to talk about it. Don’t put other artists down when they do want to talk about it.

I don't know whether to believe those reports of right wing bots disappearing after Ukraine bombed Russian data centers, but the right wing creeps are out in force in Facebook comments sections about Ilhan Omar today.

I’m getting really, really tired of the POTUS trying to pick a fight with Minnesota.

Unfollowing the local Bluesky guy who likes to argue because I don’t have time for that.

Congressional candidate Doug Chapin receives seed art mocking his opponent. This is a high honor in my culture (Minnesota resident).

Every hometown's got the ominous megastructure. What's yours?

I saw the Korean American author Min Jin Lee speak and she mentioned that her publishers didn’t want her use “Pachinko” as the title of her bestselling novel because they thought Americans didn’t know that word. Really? I knew it as a kid. Did you know what a pachinko machine was?

The polar ice caps are melting, our rights are slipping away, and we spend our time arguing about rainbow stickers and the state flag.

I just canceled the landline at my parents’ house, where I grew up. All they were getting were spam calls and calls from me. It’s going to take me a while to remember those familiar 7 digits are not their number anymore. But I have their cellphone numbers.

This thread points to some fascinating similarities between the pre-Civil War resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act and today’s resistance to ICE.

Supposedly, Mitch McConnell will return to the Senate this week. How funny would it be if he pulled a reverse Fetterman and surprised everyone by becoming the most progressive senator in his party?

I was just a little nervous about flying on 9/11. Had to turn off the radio on the way to MSP because of all the talk about it. Then, I’m getting out of the security line and putting my belt back on when they made the whole airport stop and hold a moment of silence. Then they played Taps.

A friend from out of state just arrived in Minneapolis and says she’s going to stop by the State Fair tomorrow to check out a few things. I had to tell her one does not simply stop by the State Fair to check out a few things …

Best Actor: Wile E. Coyote, as himself, “Coyote v. Acme.”

My parents’ families are from Kentucky and Tennessee, and the loss of Dolly Parton and Wendell Berry within a week of each other? Well, it hits hard for free-thinking people from that part of the country.

Haight Street Video, San Francisco, around 1999-2002. It was a small, cramped, mom & pop type place with cult movies, after those places had started to disappear, as VHS was dying out and DVDs were taking over. But that was one of the rare, urban neighborhoods where a place like that could survive.

Post your getaway vehicle.

I’m an American and the two foreign countries I have visited in the past 5 years were South Korea and Canada. Both are great places to visit. Great people, great countries. It infuriates me that my government is antagonizing both these places for no good reason.

Some personal news:

Separation of church and state cuts both ways. Separation of government and public health cuts one way.

True story: I have been trying to grow grass in some sparse patches on my lawn. I put some Scott’s “turf builder” on it along with some new seed. The seen won’t sprout and the surrounding grass now looks dead. I was mad at myself. After seeing this, I blame Scott’s.

I’m watching Ken Russell’s movie “Lisztomania” and I was not prepared for how bonkers this movie is. Roger Daltrey wearing a dress and walking around with a 10-foot phallus sticking out. The 1970s were wild!

Hot tip: If you see a post on social media about a musician you don’t recognize, you can Google their name and find out who they are. This takes only slightly more time than it would for you to type “Who?” in the comments.

I would like my social media feed to contain less conjecture about what's going on with the ass and genitals of the octogenarian POTUS, please. It's bad enough when we have to guess about what's going on in his diseased brain.

I got a book of coupons to local independent bookstores, but it expires at the end of the month. Gives me an excuse to visit a bunch of places I’ve been meaning to check out. My buddy and I made a bookstore crawl out of it and hit 4 places today. Days like today, I really love the Twin Cities.

Michele Tafoya has never visited the Crop Art gallery.

“I’ve seen TV programs you people wouldn’t believe. Variety shows starring mimes. Sitcom superintendents always barging in on the single mom and her two teenage daughters. Battles of the network stars. All those moments will be lost, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

This war on ska will not stand. www.classicfm.com/music-news/d...

To weigh in on the discourse about why men don’t read fiction anymore: Spy novels are sometimes derided as “dad books,” but that’s not always a bad thing. Graham Greene, John LeCarre: Good stuff. Mick Herron’s Slow Horses books are a good way to get started.

Happy 1 pm on the first Wednesday of the month, Twin Cities!

Since I first heard them as a kid, I have hated the Grateful Dead. Over the years, I have grown to appreciate the culture they created, and over the years I have met many Deadheads who are absolutely wonderful people, but I still can’t stand to listen to that band.

Nirvana was a punk band, not a grunge band. I don’t like grunge.