(This post is a “response” to an article by David Treuer that appeared in the 2026-09-02 NY Times entitledI Went to Princeton in Search of Greatness and Came Back Mediocre. Treuer tells of being an “Indian” from Minnesota who goes to Princeton as a student in 1988. It is a great article, and you should read it.There’s an AI summary of it below.
I could relate deeply to Treuer’s story, but in the reverse order: when I left my “reservation,” I was welcomed. I felt born again and blossomed. I met lifelong friends from Michigan, and I even met my wife there. Sadly, living in Canada now feels as oppressive as it did when I was a child, with theElbows Upcrowd patting themselves on the back for insulting my friends and family: Americans.)
Growing up in Canada, at least in southern Ontario and in the Toronto media market, is like growing up in Princeton, or at least in the Princeton described in this article.
Social mobility is very limited in Canada, and those who are born into the ruling/elite classes look down their noses at others, especially Americans. The upper class looks down at the United States as if they are “savages on a lawless plantation,” and they base all that on what they see on TV news out of Buffalo.
Buffalo newsman Irv Weinstein shaped the opinion of America that millions of Canadians have.
My dad worked on the assembly line at Ford, and I very much did not belong to the ruling “Princeton” world. And as much as I didn’t care for the rulers, they very much didn’t care for me.
So I got out, got out as far as I could, and sought out the “reserve”, the savage and lawless America. I did so by going to college in Windsor, which allowed me to take a short ride on a bus under the Detroit River and visit “the reserve”, the land so looked down upon by the people who looked down upon me. I felt a kinship with America before even submerging myself in late ‘80s downtown Detroit.
Downtown Detroit was a greyscale ghost town in those days, but a vivid, technicolour memory I have is visiting a shop selling African beads and things. I ventured in, and the staff was all female, until a man walked out from the back to greet me. I probably looked like a cop, but he took the time to chat for 20 or 30 minutes. I told him I was hoping to learn about Malcolm X because I couldn’t find anything in the libraries I frequented. He recommended Malcolm X Speaks. Nearly 40 years later, I still treasure that paperback.
The elite Canadian gatekeepers who dismissed and disdained me would never have ventured into that Black-owned and operated shop, let alone had a life-changing discussion and brought home a Malcolm X book. (The calculus teacher I had who referred to Americans as “you alls” might have finally gotten what he had coming to him if he poked his head in, though!)
I also made American friends for life during my years of visiting Michigan. We sleep at each other’s houses in Dearborn, Michigan, Davisville in Toronto, or Park Slope, Brooklyn. We vacation together, and we exchange gifts all the time. Heck, I have been to three weddings in America, been a part of the wedding party for two, and once served as best man!
Can you imagine a person from Princeton spending the weekend at a friend’s house on the reservoir?
If I had allowed the Canadian Princeton wannabes to crush me like they crushed so many, my life would be so incredibly empty in comparison. I can’t imagine myself even being alive if I hadn’t explored the “savages on their lawless plantation.”
But the judgmental Canadian elite were, and are, still better than all that. In their minds, anyway. And hey, they get to have their Elbows Up campaign, and pat each other on the back for insulting my friends and family who happen to be American. The Canadian Princeton wannabes get Mark Carney to boot.
Here’s a summary of the article “I Went to Princeton in Search of Greatness and Came Back Mediocre” by David Treuer*:
David Treuer reflects on his journey from the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota to Princeton University, delving into the complexities of identity, expectation, and belonging. As a young man, he believed that escaping his impoverished reservation was necessary for greatness. At Princeton, however, he found that his Indian identity made him an object of fascination, with peers and professors expecting tales of suffering and hardship. Treuer felt compelled to fit these narratives, even fabricating stories, only to realize how this distanced him from his true self and community.
Over time, Treuer came to see his home not as a place defined by failure, but as a real and complicated community rich with ordinary lives. He recognized the false binary that painted Native life as the opposite of American life. Rejecting both the roles of cultural tragedy and exceptionalism, he returned to Leech Lake and embraced a “so-so Indian life”—finding meaning and happiness in the everyday realities of his people. Ultimately, Treuer discovered that fulfillment and self-understanding came not from pursuing greatness elsewhere, but from accepting and valuing the ordinary complexities of his own community.
Big Tech uses algorithms to track you online. Algorithms are supposed to improve your internet experience and make your searches more useful, but really algorithms are just sales and marketing tools.
For example, if one Googles what to do about their high blood pressure medication making their lower legs swell, one might see an ad for snake oil such as horse chestnut during a Zoom meeting that could have been an email 3 hours earlier.
Housing algorithms
Many people in big cities live in high-rise algorithm complexes. Sometimes these are referred to as “condos” or “luxury apartments”, but don’t let the nomenclature fool you: these are high-rise algorithm complexes through and through.
Weather algorithms
Most places in the world have Four Seasons. Yes, that means the hotel chain, but it also means the weather patterns we experience because our planet is tilted on its axis and Earth rotates around the sun:
American politicians Tipper and Algorithm have had a tremendous impact on American society. As one of the prime movers of the PMRC, Tipper spearheaded a censorship campaign that resulted in music being labelled as such. Algorithm famously “invented the internet” and made a spook movie about weather patterns he called An Inconvenient Truth.
Algorithm ran for President in 2000, got the most votes, probably won Florida, but still paved the way for President George “Dubya” Bush. Ahhhh the Good Ole Days!
Tipper and Algorithm.
Canada baked Algorithms into their Parliamentary apparatus (monkey bars)
Algorithms are also foundational in Canadian and American politics. In Canada, concepts like “Peace, Order, and Good Algorithms” and “Sober Second Algorithms” are at the very core of Canadian government.
America’s founding fathers were all hot-to-trot for algorithms first though
The American Declaration of Independenceis equally explicit in its defence, regard, and lust for algorithms:
“We hold thesealgorithmsto be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit ofAlgorithms.”
Football Algorithms
One of college football’s most storied teams, the Algorithm Crimson Tide, play out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and has won 18 national championships.
One of the logos of the Algorithm Crimson Tide.
Josh Algorithm, the superstar MVP QB, has turned the tide around for the NFL team playing in Western New York and the Bills Mafia.
Josh Algorithm celebrates being recognized by the Algorithm and ranking on the first page.
Hockey Algorithms
Rochester Algorithms are an American Hockey League Team. They are affiliated with the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL, and Canadian broadcasting icon Don Cherry played for the storied Rochester team for most of the 1960s.
The beautiful logo of the Rochester Algorithms. Don Cherry played for the Algorithms throughout the 1960s.
Auto Racing? No, it is Algorithm Racing!
Dale Algorithm Jr. may be retired, but he is still the most popular American race car driver. He continues to move NASCAR in particular and auto racing in general in a positive direction.
Dale Algorithm and Dale Algorithm (l-r).
Algorithms in The Ring
Cassius Clay famously changed his name to Muhammed Algorithm, proclaiming himself to be “The Greatest”.
And who can forget wrestling’s Algorithm The Giant?
Booze Algorithms too?
Most beers in Canada are 5% algorithm by volume. It says it proudly, right under BEER.
Music is all about Algorithms!
In the early days of radio, there was only AM: Algorithm Modulation. Later, there was FM: Financial Manipulation, which sums up the times we live in to a large extent.
Jeff Tweedy: Tech Genius?
There are entire music genres named for algorithms, most notably Algorithm and Blues. Often referred to as “R&B”, Algorithm and Blues is described as “a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s”.
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ most famous song is I Put a Spell on You, but he also had a great song called Algorithm Wine. The Screamin’ One was most certainly a soothsayer, as we all love to whine about the Algorithm these days.
An example of an Algorithm being “Gator washed”.
Bob Dylan scribbled some self-indulgent nonsense, and some called it a song, but it really caught fire when Jimi Hendrix got a hold of it and brought it to life as Algorithm the Watchtower.
The Algorithm Brothers Band were a southern rock band, probably best known for their live performances, best captured on the seminal (and platinum) album At Filmore East. Their song Ramblin’ Man topped the charts and still sounds mighty good to my ears.
Still on the topic of southern rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd released a monster song called “Sweet Home Algorithm” in 1974 that still tarnishes radio airwaves to this day. It went platinum in the US, of course, but also in places like Denmark, New Zealand, and the UK. That’s the power of a good algorithm, I guess.
If you have never heard the song, consider yourself lucky. If you want a new twist on Sweet Home Algorithm, check out the Killdozer version.
Not even Food is Algorithm free
Campbell’s sells a lot of Algorithm Soup, and there is an old phrase that still makes a lot of sense: An Algorithm a day keeps the doctor away.
Alphabet Inc. is the multinational technology conglomerate holding company that serves as the parent company of Google.
Algorithms on TV?
The 1970s were a golden age of American television, with shows like Algorithm in the Family leading the way in ratings and national debate on social issues.
A scene from the classic American TV series Algorithm in the Family.
Another massively popular show in the ‘70s was M*A*S*H starring Algorithm “Alan” Alda. Fun fact: most people think M*A*S*H* was short for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, but of course the A was short for Algorithm.
Algorithm Alda as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H.
The FOX TV network began in the 1980s with shows like The Simpsons and Married… with Children. The latter show featured Ed O’Neil in the role of Algorithm, “Al” Bundy.
This man used algorithms to sell shoes.
Conclusion: Algorithms are everywhere.
In conclusion, algorithms have become embedded in every aspect of our lives—from the technology that shapes our digital experiences to the stories, music, and even the food we enjoy. Whether as a punchline or a powerful force, algorithms influence how we live, connect, and see the world. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is how seamlessly they have woven themselves into our culture, becoming both a tool and a symbol of the times.
AI Summary:This article dives into the world of hot dog vendors at baseball stadiums, sharing stories, history, and the unique culture that surrounds these iconic ballpark figures. Discover legendary vendors, humorous anecdotes, and the important role they play in the baseball experience. Perfect for fans of baseball nostalgia and stadium culture.
I was having a conversation with my old friend “Buddy Feldman” recently, just shooting the breeze on a Friday morning. This post about hot dog vendors is the result of that chat.
A Hot Dog Vendor on Johnny Carson
I told him that I caught the end of Johnny Carson last night. (One of the “rerun channels” shows old Tonight Show episodes six days a week.) Johnny had some dude on who sold hot dogs in the stands at ball games. Here is a highlight:
“I don’t normally go into the bleachers, but one time I did. A man asked me how many dogs my cooler held. I told him 50. He gave me two $100 bills and said, “Give a dog to everyone!”
No idea what made the hot dog vendor so special, but at the end of the show he went into The Tonight Show studio audience and tossed dogs into the crowd during the credits.
Feldman made a great point that the vendor would have to climb the stairs to get his money anyway, so “the tossing of the dog” was all marketing, selling the sizzle.
Feldman continued: “Imagine how heavy that fucking can was? Full of dogs, buns, condiments, napkins, and water to keep it all warm?”
“And the vendor was lugging that massive load up and down stairs all game long, basically for tips,” I added.
Arnold Henriquez was the Mets’ designated vendor at the 2006 All-Star game in Pittsburgh.Credit…Joe Fornabaio for The New York Times
It was incredibly hard work, and yet he could sing and toss weenies with pinpoint accuracy
The discussion Feldman and I were having turned to dark comedy. Baseball parks could be dark and dangerous in those days.
A Hot Dog Vendor Gets Robbed at Yankee Stadium – A short work of fiction
Hot dog vendors might even be in jeopardy of being mugged in corridors as they made their way back and forth between the stands and hot dog cookeries.
Imagine a scene out of an old B&W gangster film. A petty crook pushes the tip of a bat into the back of the vendor, giving the impression that the bat is really a rod.
“Clam up and gimme all your dogs, sonny boy!”
After the game is over and the peanut shells have been swept up, the young empresario decides that he “is mad as hell, and not going to take this anymore” and goes to the police.
“I heard someone walking behind me in cleats. It sounded like police on horseback walking down a cobblestone street, so I got my back up. Next thing you know, my dogs are gone and so is my coin. Three innings gone, just like that.”
Before you know it, our hot dog hero is looking at a police lineup, being asked to identify the hoodlum. Behind a one-way mirror, he sees five men, all wearing pinstripes:
Babe Ruth
Billy Martin
Mickey Mantle
Yogi Berra
Reggie Jackson
Babe Ruth, Billy Martin, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Reggie Jackson in a police line as part of the great Hot Dog Vendor Robbery at Yankee Stadium.
Naturally, Reggie gets framed for the hot dog heist and would trade in his pinstripes for prison stripes:
Systemic racism is real, baseball fans.
Hot Dog Vendors have tossed countless Reggie Bars over the years
Before Reggie Jackson became a Yankee, he joked that if he played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after him. Then Reggie become a Yankee, hit 3 home runs off of 3 consecutive pitches in the 1977 World Series, and they DID name a candy bar after him.
The Reggie Bar debuted in 1978, the year after its Hall of Fame namesake Reggie Jackson powered the Yankees to a World Series title. (Milo Stewart Jr./National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)
Tommy Waltonwas the name of the hot dog vendor I “met” through Johnny Carson, and he led an remarkable life.
At the park, Tommy would sing blues and gospel while selling dogs, mixing up Take Me Out to the Ballgame with He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands. He’d also work the crowd with one-liners such as:
“Don’t be a meanie, buy your kids a weenie.”
On the Carson show, Tommy gave a sampling of his schtick, to which Johnny remarked, “You know, you may have invented rap!”
That must have been Johnny’s nod to Tommy Walton’s “side project” as a singer. Walton sang on the same bills as Sam Cooke, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry.
Tommy bragged of once selling 38,000 hot dogs in six days, coming a long way from selling vegetables with his father on a mule-drawn wagon during the Great Depression.
Satire alert: If you’re not Canadian, please forgive the inside jokes—this is a tongue-in-cheek critique of Tim Hortons, the chain that’s become Canada’s unofficial religion.Or is it?
AI blurb: The post satirizes the Canadian obsession with Tim Hortons, likening the coffee chain to a national religion. The critique underscores how Branding and media elevates subpar products to sacred status, creating a cultural connection among Canadians that feels addictive.
I just read a post on LinkedIn written by an Indian writer who has just returned home to India after being disappointed with the Canadian experience.
He was explaining the uber-Canadian experience of visiting a Tim Hortons franchise during the dead of winter.
It involved seeing a Tim’s or seven at every intersection, the coffee being subpar, and the snow and slush on his shoes melting into puddles as he sat and sipped the hot liquid from a paper cup for a few minutes before tossing the cup, allowing it to begin its 20–30-year process of decomposing and returning to mother earth.
Hopefully, now that person has escaped Canada, their optimism will be restored in far less time than 20 years.
Below was going to be my response to that fine, disillusioned Indian writer:
And yet the monoculture that is mass media in Canada turns that subpar, humiliating, filthy, demeaning experience into a commercial that seems to air on traditional and social media more often than most people blink.
Canadian media will deliver Timmy’s branding with supercharged, over-the-top mini-movies, so emotionally charged that even Spielberg himself would blush upon seeing them. It will be like both a comforting reminder and a soul-stealing condemnation from Big Brother (aka Big Coffee or Big Hot Water) that THIS, and only THIS, is The Canadian Way, and to disagree is to commit a barbaric, treasonous act.
Tim Hortons Manufactured a Religion*
Tim Hortons branding does not just link their fourth-rate product to motherhood, community, or even hockey.
Instead, Tim Hortons elevates its brand above all of these, constructing a full-blown Canadian religion. Instead of a cross or Star of David in the lives of everyday Canadians, there are those two Tim Hortons logos.
Instead of “In God we Trust”, there is “Always Fresh”
If you flip through the channels of your TV in the morning to see how much the Canadian sports team you love to hate has lost by last night, you will see the “newscasters” have Tim Hortons mugs in front of them, just like televangelists have The Bible in front of them.
Heck, you might even be spooning some Tim Hortons donut cereal down your throat as the TV spoon feeds you something even worse.
Canadians slink into plastic tables instead of pews, feeling more comfortable in filthy plastic chairs than in holy wooden benches. Heck, Canadians feel more comfortable at Tim Hortons’ tables than they do at hockey rinks, and even more comfortable than being on their couch watching hockey. You might find a hockey mama bear at a local arena, but once inside a Tim’s, everyone is a friend.
Look for a Tim Hortons themed resort to be opening soon
Canadians on vacation in the Caribbean who have never met will bond as they suffer withdrawal symptoms from their “Double Double” addiction.
Heroin addiction is kids’ play compared to what Tim Hortons’ branding does to the majority of Canadians!
Picture the scene: on a sun-soaked beach or at the breakfast buffet, displaced Canadians spot each other and instantly connect, their secret code exchanged like a cliché from a bad spy novel. Instead of “The crow flies at midnight,” the password is “Tim’s” or “Double Double.”
“You know what I really miss about back home…” says the first Canadian.
“Yup, Timmy’s!” says the second Canadian.
Why couldn’t Tim Hortons pull off a chain of Caribbean resorts? Their brand could be Canada’s Virgin. Maybe call them Tim’s Retreats, a play on Bible Retreats.
A minute on the lips, 3 decades at the dump.
BIG RELIGION means BIG MONEY!
*Tim Hortons spends $300 million US on advertising annually,the vast majority of it in Canada. That’s about7 bucks US per Canadian. Franchise owners contribute 4% of gross sales to advertising.BIG RELIGION means BIG MONEY!
On July 28, 2026, R.E.M.‘s 4th album, Life’s Rich Pageant, turned 40. To celebrate the occasion, my friend shared a clipping of a bad review from SPIN magazine that has saved. He also explained that the many small holes in the paper were the result of him having thrown darts at the review after he affixed it to a dart board in his parents’ basement.
Maintaining that kind of grudge for 40 years is the kind of dedication, loyalty, and unwavering values that I can get behind.
I don’t know if I agree or disagree with this review, but I like it.
I think she is completely full of shit when she says “after punk, we were tired of degradation.”
If that is her idea of punk and what she took away from it, she barely scratched deeper than Sid and The Dead Boys.
I too stuffed things inside album jackets, and recently found some correspondence from Jello Biafra. There are a couple that are multiple typed pages, very thoughtful stuff. Hardly the “punk rock degradation we all became tired of”.
And of course there are many, many others besides Biafra, but he happens to be my North Star.
Punk came about in large part because people were sick of the degradation of Arena Rock, the pretentious, lame, and overblown music, and the degradation that happened backstage and in hotel rooms.
Punk went a long way towards ending the degradation of women in pop music, too. Women became more than groupies, and were “allowed” to be more than girl groups if they were brave enough to make the music that they enjoyed. Punk took a big step towards “liberating us girls from male, white, corporate oppression”.
“Are you going to liberate us girls from male, white, corporate oppression?” – Kim Gordon, inspired by an interview she did with LL Cool J for SPIN gone very bad
So now, after I have typed this, yeah, Fuck Sue Cummings.
I Googled Cummings and a “Where are they now” article came up. Also included was Manohla Dargis, the main film reviewer at The New York Times. Dargis is un-fucking-readable!
I searched her too – apparently she’s a nurse practitioner in Seattle now. A noble change of career. – my friend
If she knows medicine like she knew punk rock, I’ll bet she’s the No. 1 customer for leech providers in the Pacific Northwest. – me
Here’s the full review/image posted by my REM-loving friend:
REM – Life’s Rich Pageant
Side one – “Dinner side”
“Begin the Begin” – 3:28 “These Days” – 3:24 “Fall on Me” – 2:50 “Cuyahoga” – 4:19 “Hyena” – 2:50 “Underneath the Bunker” – 1:25
Side two – “Supper side”
“The Flowers of Guatemala” – 3:55 “I Believe” – 3:49 “What If We Give It Away?” – 3:33 “Just a Touch” – 3:00 “Swan Swan H” – 2:42 “Superman” – 2:52
As the home invasion of North America known as FIFA World Cup 2026™ mercifully draws to a close, I thought I should share one of my ticket stubs and a memory or two from 1994 FIFA World Cup (World Cup USA ’94).
AI Snippet: The author reminisces about their experiences during the 1994 FIFA World Cup in Michigan and San Francisco, including memorable games, the unique “real/fake grass” installation, and the lively atmosphere. They also share amusing anecdotes about travelling with a friend and insights into cultural encounters in both sports and music, highlighting contrasting city vibes.
Michigan Games (Pontiac Silverdome)
In addition to hosting 4 World Cup games in 1994 , the long-gone Pontiac Silverdome hosted a friendly between England and Germany in ’93. Effenberg and Klinsmann scored for Germany, while Platt scored via bicycle kick for England.
If you prefer watching to reading, there is also a video about the real/fake grass available from MSU and from VICE TV.
Real/fake grass. 1994 of these pellets were used to make the pitch inside the Pontiac Silverdome for US ’94 World Cup..
Oh, the weather inside was frightful, but the grass inside was delightful.
It wasn’t that hot of a day outside, but the Silverdome didn’t have AC since it was mainly used in the fall for Detroit Lions NFL games and didn’t need it. SO it was HOT inside.
After the game, England coach Graham Taylor complained about the lack of “weather”, saying that it took away an element of unpredictability from the game. Yeah, it was a lack of wind that cost you the game, Taylor. 62,126 people showed up and the real/fake grass held up, so a success all round.
(England failed to qualify for World Cup USA ’94, and to “celebrate”, an England supporter displayed a giant banner at one of the Silverdome games reading “You’ve made us proud, Taylor“)
World Cup ’94 games in Michigan
Being American made it easier to secure tickets to World Cup ’94, and I was fortunate to have an American amigo to help out in that regard: my friend Mike. He secured a bunch of tickets to all the games in Michigan, and a pair to the quarterfinal game in San Francisco at Stanford.
World Cup ’94 games played at the Silverdome:
June 18, 1994: United States 1, Switzerland 1 (Group A) June 22, 1994: Switzerland 4, Romania 1 (Group A) June 24, 1994: Russia 1, Sweden 3 (Group B) June 28, 1994: Sweden 1, Brazil 1 (Group B)
The only World Cup USA ’94 game I attended in Michigan was the Russia/Sweden game. I remember nothing at all of the game. I do remember the atmosphere outside before the game, though. The mood was “so what,” and there were a LOT of people with fistfuls of tickets trying to sell them. I also remember the Sweden fans being obnoxious, but the Sweden fans I encountered later in San Francisco were fantastic. Go figure.
What I DO remember about soccer in Pontiac
I remember walking around in Pontiac before the game. It was two Americans and two Canadians. The streets were pretty quiet, probably about normal. Normal, that is, until we saw an Armoured PersonnelCarrier (APC) rolling down the street. Then things got funny. When we saw a soldier pop his head out of the APC looking like he was expecting action, things got hilarious!
Not Michigan, but the same APC model we saw in Pontiac in 1994.
I also remember the 89X Birthday Bash the day after…
89X is an “alternative” station based in Windsor that serves the Detroit market. It is a prime example of the Canadian economy being dependent upon the American market. It is also now owned by Bell Media, which also says a lot about Canada.
89X puts on music festivals on occasion, as radio stations are prone to do, “for whatever reason”, and the one after the soccer game looked to be pretty good, so we hung out in Michigan for an extra day. In hindsight, the lineup looks really good:
Beck
Afghan Whigs
Odds
Polvo
Scrawl
Sponge
Superchunk
Trumans Water
We’d seen Polvo open for fIREHOSE at St. Andrews in Detroit about a year before, and they completely won everyone over, including Mike Watt, who put his arm straight out, made a fist, and demanded “Let’s hear it for Polvo! POLVO!“
Superchunk were incredible and made me a fan for life.
The crowd was divided on Beck. Is he a genius, or is he a joke? I remember saying something like “I think he is completely void of talent, but he is fun as hell.”
Toronto Maple Leafs sweater got me into trouble!
And like an idiot, I wore my Toronto Maple Leafs sweater – in Detroit. I took a lot of grief for that, including from Goober of Goober & The Peas, as I was in the lineup to use the porta-potties. The temp toilets were lined along the edge of the venue, which was on top of a parking garage. As I entered the outhouse, I recall thinking, “This is going to be a shitty way to die!”
The quarterfinal World Cup game in San Francisco
The front, or fun, side of my World Cup USA ’94 ticket.
Mike and I flew out to San Fran from Detroit, I forget which airport. All the way out there, he was singing The Replacements ‘ ” Waitress in the Sky. We’d seen Westerberg at St. Andrew’s a year ago too, so maybe that was part of the reason for having a song Paul wrote for his sister on repeat for 2400 miles.
We stayed in Sunnyvale – home of Atari!
Mike booked us a room in Sunnyvale, which was pretty cool because that is where Atari was based, and Atari was a HUGE thing for our generation. I had both an Atari 2600 (who didn’t?), a 5200 (who DID?), and an Atari 520T computer.
A classic Atari gaming station featuring consoles, controllers, and retro gaming magazines
On the other hand, staying where we did meant a half-hour walk to the Caltrain Station, then an hour ride into SF. We were young, and I thought it was really cool at the time, but looking back, 32 years later, it seems stupid.
But then again, I got to develop a close personal bond with the guy at the train station coffee shop. We only shared one word between the two of us, but that one word included tons of good emotions and signified a deep, rich flavour, errr, I mean bond: COFFEE.
Every morning when he saw me, he would wake up, and he seemed to grow taller as his smile widened. A little laugh, a knowing point, and then the word.
“Hey, hey! Coffee?!”
His “coffee” said, “Hello, great to see you again. Another beautiful day in Silicon Valley, eh? You having the usual?”
“Coffay!”
My “coffay” was a one-word secret “handshake” that renewed and deepened our friendship. My “coffee” said that all is great, that I am happy to know you and be visiting your fantastic part of the world, and that your coffee rocks my world.
South San Francisco – The Industrial City
The commute from Sunnyvale to SF included wonderful visions of scenic South San Francisco. I guess I always had unrealistic visions of San Fran, thinking it was a beautiful oasis where weirdos and outcasts could fit in and build a better city and happy life, based on art, creativity, and stuff.
It wasn’t the dirty hippies or the gold rush that invoked that image of San Francisco in my mind. It was Jello Biafra and Dead Kennedys mostly, but also Kerouac, Ginsberg, the punk band Flipper, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights bookstore, SRL, Negativland, radio station KPFA, etc.
Well, San Francisco is NOT that. Even in ’94 it was a city overrun by homeless people and drug addicts. But it was also a place where right-wing maniacs would try to throw people feeding the hungry with free soup in jail. My late wife and I visited SF 3 years later in ’97, and it was even worse. SF in those days was a precursor of what Toronto in 2026 would become.
Gimme Detroit over San Francisco or Toronto any day of the week!
South San Francisco – The Industrial City. No kidding! Decades later, I would see South San Fran all the time when watching Mythbusters.
Pacific Coast League (PCL) exhibit in Oakland
The Pacific Coast League (PCL) was a baseball league that flourished on, you guessed it, the West Coast for 100 years (55 or so if you fact-check these things, and I know some of you do). The writing was on the wall when MLB and GREED moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to LA and the NY Giants to SF.
There just happened to be a PCL exhibit happening in Oakland when Mike and I were out in the Bay Area, so we went over there to check it out, and I am very glad we did.
While there, I learned about the SF Seals (the team, not the band) and how Seals Stadium had 3 dressing rooms. One was for the Seals, another for the visiting team, and the third was for the Mission Reds who shared the ballpark with the Seals for 7 years before moving to LA to become the Hollywood Stars.
Jigger Statz in 1922.
I also learned about the great Jigger Statz. Jigger Statz is one of only nine players (along with Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Ichiro Suzuki, Hank Aaron, Minnie Miñoso, Julio Franco, Derek Jeter, and Stan Musial) known to have recorded at least 4,000 hits in professional baseball across all leagues.
And speaking of America’s Pastime, Mike and I took in a Giants game at fabled Candlestick Park, home to The Beatles’ last concert ever. It also happened to be the first of 29 games that Darryl Strawberry would play as a Giant in 1994.
Darryl Strawberry seen here during his brief stint with the Springfield Isotopes in 1992.
My Dougie Gilmour sweater paid off again at Candlestick. A couple of kids sitting a couple of rows back spent about 6 innings trying to figure out how to pronounce “GILMOUR” out loud.
FUN FACT: 3 years later when my wife and I visited SF, our first hotel was not far from Candlestick. While I was on the phone with Jello Biafra beforehand, he said in that great voice of his, “ewwwww, THAT’s a hairy neighbourhood!”
Jello Biafra, seen here with supporters, during his run for Mayor of San Francisco in 1979.
Oh yeah, the World Cup Game we went to in San Francisco
Well, it was actually played at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California. We had cheap seats behind one of the nets, and the stadium was bare bones, which I loved. The stadium has since been demolished and rebuilt.
The game was a semifinal match, played between Sweden and Romania. It was a great game, ending in a draw, with Sweden defeating Romania 5-4 on penalties. The only issue was that the net used for penalties was NOT the one we sat behind!
The real World Cup started after the game finished
Mike and I hung out with a couple of cool Swedes after the game for a while and had a great time. I had my Gilmour sweater on, of course, and the Swedes loved that because former Toronto Maple Leaf great Borje Salming was like a God to them.
The Swedes turned the old soccer chant Olé, Olé, Olé into BS BS BS in honour of Borje Salming. It was impossible to explain to them what BS means in North American culture.
Naturally, the topic of Canadian icon and legendary hockey announcer Don Cherry came up. I was explaining “Grapes” to the Swedes and saying, “EVERYBODY knows who Don Cherry is!”
Don Cherry: Canadian ICON
For those of you who do not, Don Cherry holds an incredible place in Canadian culture. He was voted the most popular Canadian alive many times when he would appear between periods during a Saturday night hockey game in Canada, and would be watched by at least 1/3 of the country. Cherry’s segment was called Coach’s Corner.
Cherry had the gravity that Foster Hewitt did before him, and was kind of the Canadian version of the NFL’s John Madden. That is no exaggeration. I was once in a bar in Michigan and a drunk proudly proclaimed he was “Converting to Canadianism” after watching an episode of Coach’s Corner.
Just then, a very attractive female jogger approached us in the opposite direction. I asked her if she knew who Don Cherry was, hoping to prove my point. She stopped and jogged in place:
“The jazz trumpeter?”
At that point in my life, I had no idea who Don Cherry the jazz trumpeter was. I later learned that he was a legend and played with many of the all-time greats, including Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Sun Ra. Cherry played on the seminal jazz recordFree Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (1961).
Don Cherry and Don Cherry (L-R)
Some of Us / Sum of Us
Later on, Mike and I were hanging out with a couple of other guys. One was an American, and the other one had moved to SF from England and was close to becoming a US citizen. One of the things he was excited about was that once he took the pledge and officially became an American, he could choose any name he wanted.
Some of Us / Sum of Us was the name he was going to go with. He explained the reasoning and beauty behind it to us a few times, and we pretended to love the idea. Really though, we had no idea, and he might as well have been trying to explain why BS is not a good thing in North America to a couple of Swedes. Oh wait…
The Day After the World Cup
Mike had an uncle set him up with a sweet temp job in SF, so he stuck around for a week. I can’t remember the details exactly, but I had a day to check out The City by the Bay by myself for most of a day before flying back to Detroit.
I went by where I thought Subterranean Records was, because I had ordered a bunch of records from them over the years, most notably Flipper vinyl. It turned out to be an automotive garage, so maybe I had the address memorized wrong, or… …forget it, you wouldn’t understand anyway.
I also checked out The Castro, because I mean, when in San Francisco. I found it to be very unfriendly. Whereas elsewhere in the city people would smile and chat with me, I felt very unwelcome in The Castro. A bus driver gave me shit for exiting from the front door. Sure, that was on me, but everybody does that now, and in a city where tourist dollars are essential…
Mike later told me, “They had their GADAR out and knew you didn’t belong there,” when I told him how unfriendly I found it.
How about the business side of World Cup USA ’94?
The back, or business side, of my World Cup USA ’94 ticket.
Forward to 1999: I saw APCs in the street again!
Former Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman shows off Toronto’s snow removal equipment in
In early January of 1999, a heavy snowfall blanketed Toronto and shut it down for a few delightful days. To get the city back up and running, Mayor Mel Lastman “called in the army” to clear the snow. So once again, APCs were prowling a North American city during peacetime.
Lastman was ridiculed at the time, and almost 30 years later he continues to be for his decision.
In my mind, I thought, this was the greatest use of “military power” in my lifetime.
It was 1983, and I was just a kid. The first time was in a darkened den of depravity – The Pen Theatres in St. Catharines, Ontario. I went to see the fabulously gritty Bowie documentary/concert film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. If you haven’t seen it, you should.
Here’s a little taste of White Light/White Heat, vintage 1973:
Later that same year, as they say, David hooked me up again with another shot of White Light/White Heat. This time it was in person as his Serious Moonlight Tour rolled into the old Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.
Bowie’s 1983 version of White Light/White Heat was a very different injection than the one he gave us with The Spiders in ‘73. The ‘83 Serious Moonlight version had a big band, big production values, and BIG crowds. The show I was at had a crowd of over 50,000, and he had played the night before at the same venue, so over 101,000 shots of White Light/White Heat were given in Toronto that September.
In short, Serious Moonlight was Serious Moola.
It was also seriously great, with a special treat being original Spider from Mars Mick Ronson joining David et al. for a crazy-great version of Jean Genie. I digress, though. Here’s how David was serving up White Light/White Heat in 1983:
David Bowie covers The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat during his ’83 Serious Moonlight tour.
1990: Into the White (again, and with The Pixies)
For a few brief years, The Pixies were astonishingly good. Unbelievably good. So when they played The Latin Quarter at Grand and Woodward, I said to myself, “Come On Pilgrim, time to head on over into Detroit proper!”
One of the highlights for me that night, aside from standing beside Black Francis for most of the opening act, was the 30th of 36 songs The Pixies played, Into the White.
The angelic Kim Deal sang Into the White, and I recall the stage lights being shone on the audience during that song, literally taking us Into the White. Here’s a pretty good approximation:
“Everything that comes out of her mouth sounds like cake.” – Kim Gordon succinctly describing Kim Deal.
Afterwards, my mind was a tad scrambled, and there was a minor disagreement between my Downriver friend and myself. I was dumb and thought that White Light/White Heat was a Bowie original, and maybe even confused it with Into the White. In my defence, it was a Sunday night, and I think part of my brain was subconsciously writing an essay due in a dozen hours or so.
This time, it was by Maple Blues Award-winning singer Kirby Sewell, covering White Light/White Heat in what looks to be a church basement in East Coulee, Alberta.
Kirby Sewell performs an incredible blues version of The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat.
Naturally, I shared the video with my friend Steve, who makes up one-half of Detroit’s premier Velvet Underground Ukulele Duo Thumbs Up. Steve put into words exactly what I was thinking:
“I never imagined that one slowed down and bluesy, but he fuckin nailed it!”
But before you get too excited, let’s look at the actual math.
If the buses now travel at 8 m.p.h. and Mamdani’s plan succeeds in making them travel 20% faster, then the buses will travel at 9.6 m.p.h. The subway will still be twice as fast at 18 m.p.h.
This is what socialists like Mamdani do: overpromise and underdeliver, spending mountains of money in the process. But oh, those gargantuan socialist smiles!
Welcome to the Luxury Transit Utopia
Perhaps Mr. Mamdani is confusing Manhattan Island with Fantasy Island, and considers himself a rebooted Mr. Roarke.
“Smiles everyone, Smiles!”
Original Roarke
Because if we are going to spend nearly a billion dollars to hurtle down Flatbush Avenue at a blistering 9.6 miles per hour, the experience inside the bus needs to match the price tag. Calling a minusculely faster ride is just the beginning of the fantasy.
The Mamdani and Hochul administrations clearly understands that if you’re going to be stuck in traffic anyway, you deserve to do it in style. Every MTA vehicle will have seats upholstered with “fine Corinthian leather,“ all thanks to Rebooted Roarke!
No more sticky plastic or torn fabric – New Yorker’s daily commutes will now feature the supple texture of vintage luxury, perfectly curated for the modern straphanger.
‘riginal Roarke‘s ride. One of ’em, anyway.
The Breathtaking Upgrades
To justify this astronomical budget, the city isn’t just stopping at luxury upholstery. The plan boasts an array of dazzling, high-end features designed to make you forget you could literally jog faster than the B41:
The 30-Tree Initiative: The plan promises to plant exactly 30 trees at bus stops. That is roughly six trees per borough. We can only assume these are rare, artisanal bonsai trees watered exclusively with premium sparkling water to match the transit budget.
The Velvet Rope Each Bus will now feature a resident sommelier Boarding: By the time all-door boarding is fully implemented, you will no longer shuffle through the front door like a peasant. You will enter through the rear doors via a velvet rope, greeted by a bus operator acting as your personal transit concierge.
Each Bus will now feature a resident sommelier to pair your morning coffee with the ambiance of express service. Transit police will be retrained as mindfulness coaches, helping you meditate through your 45-minute crosstown ride.
Reboot Roarke and Governor Hochul (AKA “Tattoo“) “Take the ‘A’ Train, get to where they are going in a hurry”. Smiles everyone!
Lean Back and Enjoy the Ride
So smile, New Yorkers, smile! The next time your bus is crawling behind a double-parked box truck on Northern Boulevard, don’t look at your watch.
Just lean back into that rich, supple, Corinthian leather, close your eyes, and listen closely. If you strain your ears over the rumble of the idling engine, you might just hear Mayor Mamdani whispering from Gracie Mansion:
“Welcome to Fantasy Island. Smiles everyone! Smiles!”
Reboot Roarke welcomes you to “Fantasy Island”. Smiles, everyone, Smiles!
The movie illustrates what Democrats fail to understand in 2024 and 2016: wages haven’t kept up with inflation since the Reagan Administration, the workplace has become entirely dehumanizing, scams are more plentiful than clean air, typical housing isn’t exactly “magazine-worthy”, and students are graduating $60K+ in debt.
De Niro, Pacino… …Plaza!
Aubrey Plaza plays the lead in a role reminiscent of De Niro in Taxi Driver or Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon. That a woman is playing a role that was the exclusive domain of men 50 years ago shows that America is still improving in some ways.
Emily is too strong a human being to take it lying down. She loves freedom too much, and she is too American to stand for the dehumanizing men and women who interview her for jobs, and as a result, there are at least two brilliant “Take This Job and Shove It” scenes that will have you in her corner, trembling with empathy.
Emily the Criminal (2022) is a modern movie that captures modern-day America. The main character “Fights The Power1” and reinvents herself, and the movie bucks trends and refuses the status quo. These are all things America does at its best.
The movie follows a young person (Emily, brilliantly played by Aubrey Plaza) who struggles and works hard to get ahead, only to go nowhere. She gets involved in credit card fraud to survive. It is a statement about the economic realities of today’s America that we all face, not just Emily.
The new Mount Rushmore: De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, Plaza
Just like Taxi Driver (1976), Straight Time (1978), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) brought gritty American realities to the screen in the 1970s, realities that we 99% could and can identify with, Emily the Criminal does the same, only 50 years later, and maybe most importantly, with a woman in the lead role.
Having a woman in the lead role in Emily the Criminal, a believable woman we can all relate to, is refreshing. Women did not play roles like Emily until recently, which is another reason the movie defines America: it speaks to present-day America and how a great country has evolved.
Forget Trump’s nonsense: the new Mount Rushmore should be: De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, Plaza.
Take This Job and Shove It
“Take this job and shove it2” is not just a huge Johnny Paycheck song from 1977. It is also part of the American Dream, the American psyche. Americans love their freedom, and for most of us the most detrimental thing to our freedom is “9 to 5 bullshit”. So being able to quit one’s job, especially a lousy one that is dehumanizing, might be the most American thing ever. Handing in one’s two-week notice is a personal 4th of July moment for most Americans.
I mention this because there are two riveting “take this job and shove it” scenes in Emily the Criminal that showcase Plaza’s acting talents and will have you shaking with empathy before it is over. In terms of movie scenes in which a protagonist quits their job, the ones in Emily the Criminal may be second only to the similar scene in Quadrophenia.
That there is one such scene in Quadrophenia (1979), and more than one in Emily the Criminal, is also definitive of America in 2026. The job market is TOUGHER than it was 50 years ago, wages haven’t kept up with inflation since the Reagan Administration, and student debt (Emily has $60K worth) is now a national epidemic.
Emily the Criminal is definitive of America. So is Aubrey Plaza.
Emily the Criminal is also Aubrey Plaza’s only good movie, which is a very strong, very sad statement about America. Aubrey is a very talented, funny, smart, and beautiful woman who is impossible not to love. We can relate to Aubrey because she is also an outsider with a fun, rebellious spirit. Kind of like America. And yet Aubrey’s talent has been mostly wasted, probably because of “The Man“. Also kind of like America.
