PicoBlog

Hi friends, Sorry this newsletter is a little late. I’ve been too busy making deals this week [hair flip]. And it kinda worked in my favor, because last night I went to the book launch for Jo Piazza’s THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE—I cannot wait to read this book!!!!—with my friend Glynnis MacNicol, whose book you need to preorder RIGHT NOW (it’s about Paris and sex and cheese and pleasure and it’s great and look at this cheeky cover!

Gabe “look at my tats and biceps and worship me” Kapler. It would be an exciting hire for the Cardinals. They would conquer the offseason rehab tour with a flashy managerial change-their second such swift change in three seasons. It would be like going into a restaurant and simply asking for what’s hot, instead of thinking about what your stomach really needs. Do the Cardinals need Kapler? That’s a kinda, yes-ish sorta response, as in it’s going to take more time to explain.

One of my earliest memories is John Denver—real name Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.—playing his guitar on Sesame Street. I’m not sure why Denver strumming his guitar with a bunch of Muppets made such an impression on my mind, but I remembered many of these songs and liked them for their simple harmonies and beautiful, happy lyrics. (I remember getting mildly upset when some of my uncles—who were more like big brothers—would make fun of Denver, whom they considered an uncool hippy.

A few days ago I took my fourteen-year-old to the premiere night of the new movie The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. While we both enjoyed it very much, I spent a lot of the evening wide-eyed, with many recent media headlines marauding through my mind. This was because Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games series centres on the concept of children and young people being killed as a spectacle, asking questions about the inhumanity of those who cannot see this as irrefutably, morally wrong, no matter who the perpetrator is.

You have probably noticed by now that America’s corrupt legacy media is running yet another hoax targeting Donald Trump, this one claiming that he threatened America with a “bloodbath” if he isn’t elected in November. It’s a completely false claim, but hey, so were Russia collusion and about a hundred other media hoaxes over the past 8 years, so what’s new? They generate clicks and attract viewers, and that’s all our media cares about anymore.

Little quibbles: * I think it's a little cynical to think that Scott, Megill, and Butto will be the three to emerge from the current group of pitchers to start in 2025. I mean, I know you were saying "as of now," but it's pretty meaningless to say. There are a lot of compelling arms in the Mets system and we really have no idea where McLean and Sprout will be a year from now, much less Vasil and Hamel and Stuart and Tidwell and Ziegler and Peterson.

We are nearing a half century since the Milwaukee Bucks last hosted an NBA All-Star Game, and based on reporting that surfaced Wednesday, it’s hard to imagine that wait will come to an end anytime soon. Joe Massutto of The Oklahoman, in writing about Oklahoma City’s own pursuit of landing an All-Star Game as they ready for a new arena, relayed the specific requirements the NBA is looking in host cities for future All-Star Games:

For years, almost a decade, the Pac-10 was the potential rumored destination for the Texas Longhorns once realignment got going again. At one point it was even being reported that a departure for the Pac-10 was basically a done deal. Instead, the Pac-10 passed on adding Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State to join Colorado in creating a Pac-16. However they didn’t want to allow the Longhorns to bring the Longhorn Network, which was a deal-breaker for Texas, and instead took just Colorado and added Utah as a throw-in when the raiding of the Big 12 didn’t go through.

The Packers offense seemed in control of this game from the very start. But their inability to finish drives (and finish the game) would end up being their downfall. Green Bay made 5 trips into the red zone and a 6th trip just outside of it. They ended up with a combined 6 points from 4 of those drives. On top of that, Green Bay made too many mistakes during the final 17 minutes of the game, including 2 interceptions and an incompletion to an open receiver on 3rd-and-2.