Firehose #135: View From the Front Row

Also: NFC Second Sunday w/ special guest penciled in for 8 pm ET

What a lovely time we had Thursday night meeting 100+ of you at the SoHo penthouse we somehow have access to, jawboning w/ the great Mike Pesca about media and politics and brain-melting trivia, eavesdropping on bootleg-merch transactions, fist-bumping with a solid handful of previous Fif’ guests. Any day now, a version of the conversation shall be released. This was largely a Pesca-family production, so muchas gracias to them, though it can and will be a template for future events/shenanigans available specifically to our beloved Never Fly Coachers.

SPEAKING of which, tomorrow is the Second Sunday of the month, which means our monthly taping in front of/conversation with paying subscribers. Ninety percent of the time we fling open the doors to all paying subscribers, but as explained in the fine print over there, this is enumerated as an NFC-specific perk, and tomorrow night at an estimated 8 pm ET we are exercising that 10% option. Partly this is due to the fact that tomorrow, in an effort to also make these tapings more releasable as audio products, we are bringing in a very special return guest, who writes for fancy magazines and has one of those three-named bylines. Bold, persistent experimentation!

* First, an Episode #492 recap from our unofficial animator, Arch Stanton:

* OK, lest there be too much comity in the Chat, here’s our Tuesday, pre-State of the Union appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show, on which we talked Democratic response, tariff wars, the Trump-Zelensky blowup, the stalled no-boys-in-girls-sports bill, and Chuck Todd’s late-in-life conversion to trashing Joe Biden’s family values. Whole thing:

* I see that our boy Andrew Schulz also did Megyn’s show this week, as well as Joe Rogan’s, to promote his funny (and popular!) new Netflix special LIFE. Here’s the trailer, with some Masshole:

* The Reason Roundtable, in addition to the Monday podcast/videocast thingie, is now doing special bonus quick-hit smaller-cast whatevers, of which me & Fifth Column-namer Katherine Mangu-Ward (veteran of #75 & #395) did one the bleary morning after the State of the Union:

* Episode #494, of course, was on the same topic, under the headline “State of Delusion.” Previous Fifth Column post-SOTUcasts can be compared and collected from 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023. Among the other SOTU reactions of note, I would include this rather anguished one from Andrew Sullivan (#139, #200 & #449). Excerpt:

Start with the opener, which was quite something:

The presidential election of Nov. 5 was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades ... Now, for the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction ... In fact, it has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency — it’s our presidency — is the most successful in the history of our nation. By many. And what makes it even more impressive is that do you know who No. 2 is? George Washington.

Trump’s popular vote margin was the second smallest of any candidate’s since 1968; yes, there’s been a jump among Republicans who think the country is now on the right track, but still many more Americans believe the country is on the wrong one — and Trump’s numbers on this, far from being unique in modern history, are the same as Biden’s were at this point in his term. Oh, and absolutely no one has said that Trump’s first month is better than George Washington’s — except Donald Trump.

So here’s what I’d ask of readers who say that I have Trump Derangement Syndrome: tell me how you personally parse all these claims that were a mere warmup for the rest. When you heard him say he was better than George Washington, did you giggle? Did you just ignore it? Did you roll your eyes? Did you feel a tinge of nausea? Did you actually believe it? Or have you stopped caring altogether?

This matters because it is central to Trump’s success: no sane person with a grip on reality — unless they had just arrived from outer space — could believe vast tracts of his speech. With huge self-evident lie after huge self-evident lie, insane exaggeration after insane exaggeration, you are instantly forced to choose between walking away from the nutter or acquiescing to his madness. And since he is president, you can’t walk away.

* Keeping on the subject of truth, Eli Lake (#52, #65, #141, #174, Special Dispatch #51, #326, #368, #407, Members Only #184, M.O. #244) was out this week with his latest episode of Breaking History, under the headline “Truth Mattered in the Cold War. And It Matters Now in Ukraine: Honorable men went to the gulag for refusing to repeat the Kremlin’s lies. Now an American president is echoing them for free.” The episode is largely a discussion of Czech playwright-dissident-prisoner-president Václav Havel, otherwise known as the guy you see over my shoulder sometimes during Second Sunday Zoom calls. Some of my past writings on the subject: “Velvet President” 2003, “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” (2011), “Václav Havel's Funeral: Why Truth Needs Love” (2011), “The Anarchic Interlude,” (2021), and “Milan Kundera's Eternal Feud With Václav Havel” (2023).

* Also feeling differently gruntled about the White House Ukraine-Russia switcheroo is past guest Douglas Murray (#390), who this week published “How MAGA Lost its Way on Ukraine.” Taking the opposing view is Matt Taibbi (#226, #348), “Farewell to Volodymyr Zelensky, the GEICO Lizard of the New World Order.” Trying to work it all out with Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmueller on Just Asking Questions podcast also was journalist James Pogue:

* We talked a bit in #494 about the disappeared N-word in The French Connection. Alert listener Bill D. lets us know that you can watch that in its original form, and commentary thereof, in this clip from a great interview with the late, great Gene Hackman:

* Comment of the Week comes from Chris:

I happen to be a content manager on Al Green’s YouTube channel. Not only is he alive, but he’s still recording music! We recently put out his cover of R.E.M.’s song “Everybody Hurts”.

Most positive comments section on the entire internet btw. Nothing but love from Al Green fans.

Walkoff music is filled with what the kids call rizz: