Mike Vachow

Brad Pitt as Floyd, a stoner who finds himself surrounded by vicious killers in the movie True Romance.

Rousseau knew it. Not a bad idea to get run over by a big dog while you’re at it.

I really like my primary doc. He told me a funny story today about failing to convince his college roommate’s Yaya that he was not a Greek. Hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that he looks like a central casting Greek guy, despite being 100% French-Canadian.

Landlines make a comeback for St. Louis parents hoping to avoid smartphones | St. Louis Magazine Last fall, Christina Ryan did something countercultural: She installed a landline.

Don't tell them that there's an almost 100% chance that when you call up the kid you're sweet on to ask her out, her dad or older brother will answer the phone.

Issue #110: "I Hope You Dance": On 25 Years Of Misunderstanding Lee Ann Womack "I Hope You Dance" was inspired by a divorce. “For ‘I Hope You Dance,’ I had written the opening line, ‘I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,'” Tia Sillers told Songwriter Universe in 2001, the ...

@natalieweiner.bsky.social singing my song here. Lee Ann Womack deserves more respect as a country star.

Mobile bike shop dude on the Schuykill right in front of the boat houses will fix you up for $15.

Now that the Red Sox are on a hot streak, you can tell who the real Sox fans are: they’re the ones who are still bitter.

Maybe Big Balls should give Tiny Balls/Roid Rage a try.

Family tradition for some smartass to sing “precious and few are the Momence” whenever we roll thru, part of a state road workaround we use to skip the I-80 summer toll road construction gamble.

Some of Paul D’Amato’s photos were on display at MDW last time I was thru (January?). Really great stuff.

Diana Rigg, as Helena, and Helen Mirren, as Hermia, in the 1968 film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

My fave is the 1968 go-go-boots-in-the-dirt version with Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, and Barbara Jefford. Ian Holm is Puck.

Eephus also revealed that baseball-time can be measured in 12 oz. increments of Naragansett.

A large Osage Orange tree bearing a bumper crop of its softball sized, yellow-green fruit.

My neighbors’ huge Osage Orange tree always produces a ton of fruit. It overhangs a church parking lot, so on fall Sunday mornings, they dutifully pick up fallen fruit before parishioners arrive.

Blissfully cool temps in STL last wknd, so I threw the windows open, but wildfire smoke was bad enough to set my smoke alarms off.

Even worse, this experiment will be performed on the poor and will leave those students with weak skills and little engagement and leave those districts broke. Rich kids will get teachers; poor kids will get machines.

Eco-politics aside, I drove thru north central IL on state roads last week, and saw the products of this year’s ideal growing season: massive, lush green crops. Yes, GMO, insecticides, etc., but also evidence of the incredible fertility of IL soil.

Namely, Erving Goffman’s “On Cooling the Mark Out.”

Fantastic piece.

That was before the entertainment industry (and kids) figured out that parents were willing to pony up for this stuff. Plus, now your mom wants to go to the show with you.

I know you’re just too modest to mention that Jenna is also smokin’ hot and moonlights as a model even as her star ascends in the corporate world.

YouTube video by Live From Austin TX Texas Tornados - "She Never Spoke Spanish To Me" [Live from Austin, TX]

RIP Flaco Jimenez

I liked Eephus for the same reason, but I unwisely took my (non-baseball fan) partner, who gamely sat through the screening but revealed later that she wanted to dig out her right eye after the first 30 minutes.

Washington University, St. Louis’s largest employer.

If there is a cringe god in heaven, the beer will be named Black and Tan, or Ebony and Ivory.

Outstanding BBQ Meat Dad discourse.

Zoinks!

Trump's "art of the deal" economy:
*no deals to date
*unpredictability of Trump's moves has caused massive layoffs and retrenchment in American manufacturing
*trade partners have elevated other nations to the place US once held as a trade partner

Squirrel Hill is one of the coolest, most culturally rich city neighborhoods in the nation. This will be socially devastating.

When Polar was a Maine product, they guinea-pigged the Bowdoin kids, sold singles with beta flavors written on masking tape at the little bodega in the student union. Might be worth swinging by Holy Cross or WPI. . .

Requiem for the Montrose Beavers The author was delighted when the wood-chomping rodents surfaced at the harbor. Then one turned up dead.

@levistahl.bsky.social Since we discussed it last night, here's my Chicago magazine story about the Montrose beavers: www.chicagomag.com/chicago-maga...