The author, Caitlin White, gets so much right here and misses so much. As with every “best ___ in [state]” you’re going to necessarily miss things – that’s really the point of these things, to spark disagreement, engagement, conversation. And, yeah, I’m taking the bait (though I’ll try hard not to make this longer than the piece itself). Her perspective echoes the nascent crush I’ve had on SoCal for some time now (It’s been a while, SoCal, I need to come visit!), which gives me all the feels and combined with her rationale for Amoeba being in the heart of Hollywood… I get it. I truly do. But California is enormous. She gives props to Amoeba in SF and Berkeley, but it’s lip service from someone who never went to the Telegraph Avenue store and then gotten a slice at Blondie’s (RIP) – Ah, I’m doing what she did, co-mingling location with the store itself and with memories. Okay, well, I also always liked Rasputin better as a music store (Fat Slice, too, FWIW). But beyond that, what about the mom-and-pop record stores that are hanging on by the skin of their teeth? In Santa Rosa we have the (appropriately named) Last Record Shop which is magnificent and a real treasure of a record store. I’m sure you could probably point to your favorite record store not named “Amoeba”. Okay, getting off my soap box now. And the article is definitely worth a read.

Now that we’ve got that highly-charged political link out of the way, how about gun violence?!

I was born more than twenty years after the Berlin Wall went up and for my entire childhood there had always been an East and West Germany and that was that… until it wasn’t. I vividly recall watching in awe the televised scenes of Germans climbing on the wall and chipping pieces away with hammers — by 1991 I was old enough to understand the ramifications of what I watched. There are few moments in my living history as indelible as that.

All that said, it blows my mind that from now to that day in ’91 is longer than the Wall stood. Just… wow.

In Conversation: Quincy Jones and Quincy Jones Has a Story About That

Vulture and GQ

I read a few reactions to these free-wheeling interviews before I actually read them. Holy cow, Quincy Jones is amazing — by “amazing” I mean genius, crazy, arrogant, misogynist, gifted, unbelievably talented, old school, irreverent, and did I mention crazy? And it doesn’t look like he’s slowing down.

Fern and I have tickets to go to see Black Panther on opening night. Her whole family is going with us, and it’s going to be great, and not just because it’s going to be a great superhero movie, but because it’s a giant-budget major motion picture that’s written by, directed by, and casts almost exclusively blacks. That matters for a lot of reasons, and this article does a good job of explaining exactly why.

 What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law

Regardless of what you think about Trump, everyone can agree that his presidency has been far from conventional in just about every way. This podcast featuring Roman Mars (from the amazing 99% Invisible podcast) and Constitutional Law Professor Elizabeth Joh explores the machinations of the Trump administration through the lens of Constitutional law. Far from being partisan or droll, each episode exposes the new Constitutional ground we’re plowing.

iTunes podcast: link

The Good Place

This is the type of show you want to tell everyone about. It’s painfully funny (really, you’ll be sore from laughing), whip-smart, and incredibly imaginative. If you haven’t seen it yet, please go to Netflix and start the first season — the second season finale just aired a couple weeks ago, and it’s been renewed for a third season. If you like well-written, funny shows you will not be disappointed.

A plot of land dotted with historic structures and completely surrounded by national parks has been put up for sale by the family that’s held it for more than a hundred years. Poised between preservation and development, it exemplifies myriad land battles in the West, particularly this fairly Tony section of the West.