Workin’ for the Weekend #5: A Post-Liveshow Encounter With Chesa Boudin’s Weatherman Dad, Wait WHAT???

This is what you get when you mess w/ Fifdom

Jun 05, 2022

You ever just blink dumbly when you encounter something that momentarily exceeds your capacity to comprehend? That was my reaction Thursday when I saw this tweet from beloved Fifdom listener Sandy Balzer:

Sandy @SandyBalzer

Meeting Bill Ayers on the SFO AirTrain was the highlight of my ⁦@wethefifth⁩ live show trip to New York. ⁦@NancyRomm⁩ ⁦@MattWelch⁩ ⁦@mcmoynihan⁩ ⁦@kmele⁩

sandysf.substack.comMeeting the WeathermanAirTrain meet cute

Yes, it’s true. Such are the benefits of getting priority access to Fifth Column live shows!

An excerpt from Sandy’s must-read:

“Are you a big fan of Chesa [Boudin]?”
He blinks. “Yes. He’s my son!”
And it suddenly all clicks into place.
“You’re Bill Ayers”.
More blinking. “Yes”.
“You’re the…” what’s a nice way to say terrorist? “…um, activist”? […]
Radical activist stories pepper my childhood, but in a very different way than I imagine they did for Chesa. My father served as a San Francisco police officer from the late 60s to the mid-90s. The radical activists were not the heroes in my house.
My dad’s first assignment in 1968 was to draw fire from suspected Black Panther gunmen in the Bayview-Hunter’s Point Projects. The projects sat on a hill above the a Naval Shipyard, and someone was shooting at the guards manning the entrance gates from the projects. The goal of the operation was to pinpoint where the gunfire was coming from so officers could find and arrest the shooter(s). So fresh faced, wearing his neatly pressed uniform and driving a black and white, Dad took on his first assignment: Be bait.

Ho-lee wow. Speaking of this Tuesday’s recall election, Nancy Rommelmann is already filing reports from Frisco; for more coverage keep refreshing her Substack, plus Paloma Media, plus the great Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em pod w/ Sarah Hepola.

* Last week we teased Moynihan’s Vice News extended segment on all things Meta; now you can watch the whole damn thing:

* There was some loose chatter (if not quite enough singing) this week about Marvin Gaye; don’t miss Kmele’s star turn talkin’ Marvin on our very favorite podcast to guest on, Political Beats.

* I wrote (and semi-podcasted) about the Libertarian Party’s new management after a semi-hostile takeover by a caucus that reveres Ron Paul, hates “wokism,” and immediately upon seizing the means of Twitter production began praising the likes of Lew Rockwell.

* LIGHTNING ROUND TIME. Cribbing mostly from the comments of Members Only episodes, some links to stuff mentioned this week: Moynihan’s anti-British Reason rant; Iowahawk’s get-outta-the-fast-lane thread, my 2012 Columbia Journalism Review profile of Ezra Klein (plus a companion piece of sorts about the death of The New Republic’s contrarian era); a different kind of Dimes Square profile from previous guest (#125 & #227) Ben Smith.