Workin’ for the Weekend #69: Must Be the Season of the Pitch, Yeah

Also: Whaddya doin’ in Chicago next August?

Last weekend I gave you the soft-sell, so this week, as the preamble to what will surely be the longest Workin’ for the Weekend post of 2023, I’m coming with the high hard heat. If you are one of our 20,000-plus free subscribers, we love each and every one of you, and also you are missing out: on the weekly Members Only episodes, on the Comments & Chat, on the Second Sunday Zoom tapings that will resume (checks watch) next Sunday in fact, on the satisfaction of encouraging whatever it is we all do around here, and on—foreshadowing alert!—being given first crack at purchasing tickets to all future live Fifth Column events. If you are a current paying subscriber, we love each and every one of you even more, but are you still flying coach? If you’re one of the few and proud NFC’ers, have you fully grokked that there’s an upward-adjustable box right there on the Never Fly Coach form? And regardless of your subscriber status, have you known the joy of presenting your very dearest loved ones and sworn foes the truly special gift of The Fifth Column? Tis. The. SEASON. (More on all this below.)

* You come here not to get cajoled and begged, but for the weekly reports from the Fifdom universe. So … strap in. Megyn Kelly, in the midst of her “New Media Moment” that will include throwing “fastballs” at the non-Trump GOP presidential hopefuls Wednesday, brought us in Tuesday for our monthly wellness check. Among the topics: megadonors for Nikki Haley, White House staff dissension over Israel, the attempted cancellation of a pre-pubescent NFL fan, whether Chris Cuomo is joining The Fifth Column, and “What We Should Do When Anti-Israel Protesters Glue Themselves To Things.” Not sure whether Megyn or Moynihan won that latter segment.

* M.K. isn’t the only gone-solo media figure basking in the limelight. Why here’s old friend Bari Weiss (veteran of Episodes #89, #115, #159, #180 & #187), profiled in the Wall Street Journal under the curious headline, “Bari Weiss’s Surging News Startup Lures Readers Miffed at Media Coverage of Israel.” Key graf for those of us who love numbers:

In October, web and email views of Free Press content jumped 62% to 23.8 million, according to data from Substack, which the site uses as its support platform, while downloads of its Honestly podcast nearly doubled to 1.7 million. That interest translated into 40,000 new subscribers, including a mix of free subscribers and those who pay $8 a month or $80 a year for extra content. Free Press says it now has about 520,000 total subscribers, including nearly 75,000 paid subscribers.

* Speaking of Honestly, there was our own Michael Moynihan Wednesday interviewing political scientists Ruy Teixeira and John Judis about their new book, Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes. If that’s not quite enough of ol’ Hollywood, you can check out his visit this week on the podcast of sporto Ethan Strauss (#185, #333, #383, Members Only #151, #408), where they talk about Sam Altman, (subject of the shouted-out M.O. #190), plus “the damage well-meaning utopians can cause, whether A.I. will replace journalists, and, obviously: Would people prefer A.I. Sports Illustrated writers or A.I. Sports Illustrated swimsuit models? Also we get into an Israel/Gaza detour and address whether the culture war has ended.” And—what the hell!—here Moynihan is again this week on Live From the Table, the podcast of Comedy Cellar owner Noam Dworman, providing alongside Coleman Hughes (#121, #144, #181, #188, #201, #379, #412) “A Response to Norman Finkelstein's Moral Arguments”:

* Community timeout: “What’s everyone’s Fifth Origin story?”

* I teased Chicago in the subhed, and a live event in the lede, so let’s end the anticipation and begin the spadework. The Second City has always been the single most proposed destination for a Fifth Column non-coastal show, and it has not escaped our attention that the Democratic Party in its infinite wisdom has chosen to hold its 2024 presidential nominating convention in that famously well-governed and historically calm convention destination from Aug. 19-22. We been talkin’ ‘bout ChiTown ever since I don’t know when, so let’s see if the hive-mind can help us move the ball forward. Who’s got some ideas about journalo-lodging? Potential venues? Ideal guests? Malört antidotes? Figure Aug. 16-18 might be the sweet spot for a show. No promises, but promising nonetheless…. Email us at wethefifth@substack.com. 

* So, remember how I was making the hard-sell above to max out your subscriptioning? Please note that at the 27-second mark of this Katherine Mangu-Ward (#75, #395) direct appeal for the Reason Webathon, she reminds you, dear Fifdommers, of what you are to do before considering a donation to my 501(c)(3) dayjob. And if you do, please get there first through a Welch link (1, 2, 3, 4), and please use the comment functionality to mention The Fifth Column!   

* Related video content of the A.M.A. variety:

* We referenced on #433 our beloved hot-mess sidekick Ben Dreyfuss (#83, #97, #148, #214, M.O. #129, M.O. #140, #392, M.O. #180). Here’s his piece, “The Anti-Israeli Left Is Turning Into QAnon.” In fact, let’s just make this a Fifdom-universe Israel/Hamas omni-graf…. Jonathan Rauch (#323) went on Ask a Jew to talk about “moral courage, what the role of universities should be, how silence can be weaponized to make us feel like a minority, and…Jonathan’s struggle for gay marriage—when it seemed like the whole world was against him.” Mike Pesca (#343, #418) did an episode titled “’From the River to the Sea’ Rebranded as a Call for Peace.” Matti Friedman has not yet been on our podcast, true (though we met him in Israel, and have referenced him several times), but his appearance on The Dispatch Podcast on the topic of “When Journalists Go Along with Hamas” has been serially recommended. Wartime diarist Douglas Murray (#390) went on the Call Me Back podcast with Dan Senor to “Debunk 5 Lies About Israel.” To get more topical balance to this list, here’s Aaron Maté (#138, #173) tangling with Noam Dworman two weeks back:

* I mentioned previously that the are many many NYC events this month. Lawdy clawdy, are there! So: Dec. 12 Reason Speakeasy in which Nick Gillespie (Special Dispatch #72, #379) interviews Jennifer Burns about her book Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative. Dec. 13, Ask a Jew Hannukah party. Dec. 17 SOHO Forum debate on whether “The making of national internet policy was hindered, rather than helped, by the July 4th federal court ruling that restricted the Biden administration’s communications with social media platforms,” starring Kate Klonick and Jay Bhattacharya. Buncha other ones besides with less public invite-lists….

* Comment of the Week goes to Christopher Yale:

I had the pleasure of meeting Little Steven many years ago, when I was cwas wearing his trademark bandana. Indeed, from head to toe, he looked like he just stepped off the stage. He bought a huge stack of books, of various genres — on-tour reading, I imagined — and took all of my recommendations as I walked him around the store. It was obviously him but to confirm, I signed him up for our preferred reader program. Sure enough, the form read: Steven Van Zandt , New York, NY. I told him I liked his music, and he said, “Oh, thank you very much.” Very cool, nice guy.

When I excitedly told my chain smoking, fossilized manager, she had no idea who he was, which infuriated me.

Walkoff music comes from Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, an album that is so tattooed on my innards that I use phrases from it daily (“Johnny Turkey,” etc.) without having listened to the whole thing in decades. This song is a Top 5 in the important category of Stopping You Dead in Your Tracks Because You Never Thought People Could Write a Song About This. Some of the absolutest realest shit there ever was.