The Long Road Out

I saw Hadestown when it opened off Broadway…was it Playwrights Horizon?  I don’t remember but I had a subscription.  By the end of Act 1, my ex and I agreed…”this one is going somewhere.”    Hades’ bass.  Knowing that we all live in the underworld and seeing it illustrated beautifully before us.  The New Orleans swing band.    I believe it was 2016.  The show closed…and then reappeared, improved…on Broadway.   I just watched the 2026 filming of the London production of Hadestown.  Film and theater at the level of Nicolas Nickelby .   Top tier. What a cast…what extraordinary production values…the muses, Persephone down in her cups shaking it.  Even the tenor is interesting!   Why do we build the wall?  For freedom…   Why do we hurt each other?  Because we keep our heads down and forget our names. ...

There’s a single reason---   First, if he backs down and admits that he can’t keep February 2 and February 3 straight—and that he does shoddy research—and that he doesn’t know dogshit about basketball—think how little impact it would have.  It would be a funny forgotten moment and the whole world wouldn’t witness him making an asshole out of himself.  (Why do we pay senators a salary—they don’t do anything except pull the lever they’re told to pull.)   But no—he can’t back down.  Toxic masculinity on display.  Here’s why:  If he backed down from calling Smith a villain and dirtbag, Trump would cut him off.  Leave him dangling.  No invites to Mar a Lago.  Exposure of all his dirty laundry.   Schmitt is a terrified tool.  Not a villain or a dirtbag (his favorite vocabulary words, apparently).  Schmitt is a victim of bullying.   Schmitt is a fledgling narcis...

Familiar bile after interactions with you. You blaming others for your mistakes. You claiming your truth doesn’t smell of rot. You claiming what you want is best for others who know you disdain them and wouldn’t lift a finger. You don’t exist for us, except as an untalented boring and endlessly looping nightmare. As someone easily forgotten when you stop throwing loud temper tantrums and sucking air and nutrients out of every room. You whose diagnosis requires multiple daily pills to replace your destroyed friend or foe biology and to stay alive. You whose are so certain it hurts. You whose lookalike and genetically matching father has never been wrong. To this day. In you. You who also never successfully practiced law or any other profession. You who can’t read the room. Any room. Even rooms where you’re lonely and afraid. You who hurt yourself doing psychedelics yet commits the malpractice of coaching others—passing on the risk and ignorance and danger. Ho...

I’ve awoken at 3 or 4 the last few mornings. Sad because my friend is down with her college roommates for a reunion weekend, and I was hoping to catch up a little. Instead I’m awake petting my cats and dealing with my enemy—the first in my life but she’s a pretty miserable personality and not interested in my needs, to put it as gently as I can. Never was, never is. There’s a new documentary out on narcissists and the damage they do. A friend told me it repeats the research I studied a few years ago to understand why someone like my ex, or Trump, could exhibit sociopathic disregard for others. Sane pattern in these two and in millions of others. Reading about Trump or hearing from my ex makes me sick to my stomach. I think recording these sleepless moments releases some of the disgust and anger and shame. Writing isn’t as effective at healing as I wish, though. The trauma, PTSD and pain caused by narcissists is real and documented. There are thousands of support gro...

…while your workmates and friends moved to better jobs and never invited you along. …while first timers attended your workshops and plays and readings, and never came back. …while you backstabbed whoever wasn’t in the room, primarily me. …while you fabricated truthes to cover your dishonesty. This began the first week I knew you—“I told you I was married.” No such thing, Ms Narcissus. …while you were afraid to confront those who should have helped you or ask those who could have helped for aid. …while you belittled your parents. …while my parents refused to stay under your roof. …while our two cats both died on your watch, after kidnapping. …while you bounced checks. …while you lost job after job after job.

This from Ellie Mystal and The Nation.  I love and thank you for speaking the wretched truth.  This newsletter is going to hit your inbox on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which means you’re no doubt being flooded with remembrances and retrospectives. And regrets. The country’s response to the worst terror attack in our history was to launch a global war of hysteria that consisted of rage-bombing two countries, destabilizing an entire region, and seeding a police state that has now been fully weaponized by an authoritarian regime against its own citizens. Moreover, every post-9/11 mistake we’ve made has been understood  as a mistake  in real time—not by all, or even most, people in this country, but by enough that nobody can credibly claim to have been unaware of the dangers. But the majority of Americans were always going to want to respond to violence with more, overwhelming violence. The majority of people were always going to be willing to ...

I look back at the life I had in NYC in 1994. And the one I left 30 years later. I was rich in friends—I now have none there. I had a higher net worth and cashflow than I have now. I had not experienced humiliation, depression, PTSD, or grieving. Or tsunamis of shame. I had two parents and a functioning brother. I was upbeat, happy, and multi-skilled. Reasonably athletic in many many sports. I was a great downhill skier. I read widely and believed a better world full of cooperation, respect and love was possible. I looked forward to sex with my partner (I just recovered that after 30 years of insulting and unsatisfying sex). I had never met a person who intended me harm. I only had shortterm debt. I believed I’d center my life in Manhattan forever and that it was second to none. Now I hope I’ll never see it again. I owned a business. I still do. 45 years without a down year. I felt successful. Now I feel like a slacker. A fucku...

No, not Trump—though similar. My ex: 1. Is not a lawyer and has never managed a legal case 2. Is unemployable 3. Can’t balance a checkbook or compute power of ten math. 4. Has Addison’s disease but doesn’t acknowledge its symptoms. 5. Trashtalks all her friends day in and day out and disappears in the presence of those who should educate or support her 6. Meditates (imagine this mess without meditation and you’d have Trump again—a fiery ball of ignorance). 7. Not really relevant perhaps but last she told me she was a lifelong bisexual polyamorous individual. Anyway she cheats on lovers and taxes. 8. Has never done therapy. 9. And—cliche alert here—she’s a life coach! Seriously. Those who can’t teach gym teach life coaching? How’s that client list doing? Lots of return attendees? She is an unsolvable lump of obsidian in my life. A dog with a bone. A eternal daily drag on joy. A poison and blockade destabilizing my healing investigations of depression, g...

To some degree, 9/11 will always be a self-inflicted disaster. Years of broken Middle East policy and our bumbling misdirected militarism—plus our love for demonizing dark-skinned peoples, is not going to lead to increase cultural exchange and tourism. Now, the hole in the earth is also self-inflicted. Next to the White House. And the exact same factors from 25 years ago have magnified to unimaginable and even genocidal levels. Plus, we are killing families in foreign counties alone and against the strong objections of every single Allie. Shame on us. Shame on every slob who voted for Trump and Bush.

A very special day for this putrid United States:   The NRA does not negotiate.  So, some woman has been living with a guy for 30 years.  He offs himself with his handgun.  Turns out some NRA bequest guy had talked this suicide guy into transferring his estate to the NRA.  He left the house to his girlfriend…but no cash.  So the woman is bankrupt, and in huge debt to the IRS (similar to the NRA, the IRS frowns on negotiation).  A friend of this now-homeless woman reaches out to the estate staff at the NRA asking if there’s any flexibility to aid this victim.  Ha.  That’s funny.  Form letter response.   LESSON learned:  girls, don’t date NRA members.  They commit suicide, lie about their financial goals, and have small penises.   Trump sets the G20 Finance Minister agenda.  Have you seen the film Wedding Crashers?  Similarly, a bunch of ...

Thanks, you two, for reminding us all that humility, humor and honesty are possible.  I’m so sorry that your deaths have to compete with the turd in the White House.  He’s done nothing, with degradation.  You’ve done everything, with excellence.

Mark Carney’s been great all along…but now, with dozens of multilateral deals in Canada’s pockets, he’s the winner of the year.  Congrats to every other world leader who refuses to sit down at any table with liars.  Strange that North Korea, Iran, and Canada have provided the path for others.  Ignore this clown.  Do NOT return his phone calls.  Do not meet with his sycophants. Sounding vaguely like a modern day Churchill, here's Carney:   America has changed, and we will not return to our old relationship. Bravo!!! Trump’s idiocy hurts the US far far far more than it will hurt Canada, or Iran, or Europe, or fill-in-the-blanks.  Short-term.  Mid-term.  Long-term.  Perhaps until the end of time.  You have fucked all of us, Don. We're not isolationist.  We are truly and fully marooned.  No one will answer our SOS.  As Carney says, the US signs its deals in pencil.  Sounds a lot like the Trump Organization to m...

Military research and the Proud Boys reminded Pete that there’s a much better way to guarantee rabid 18 year old child militias: force feed daily LSD to your recruits and draftees. It worked in Mogadishu. It worked at the Capitol.

It’s Elon Musk! Or maybe the Tate brothers. Or Greg Lindbergh? No wonder Trump wants to violate the birthright citizenship status. Get those bad genes out of our country!

I would not work for a company that endorses this crap.  Dead stop.  We all want to be rewarded for our achievements. Not how many times we hit the “e” key.  Shame on US employers who have similarly strapped their employees to their keypads with this digital duct tape.    Canadian workers speak out against growing screen time surveillance Entertaining and insightful stories delivered weekly. Read, watch and listen to highlights from across the CBC. View this email in your browser ...

I apologize to the families who have lost non-military family members around the world due to our president’s policies and mental illness.   Here’s a blog post about his day today.  Here’s the man who directly initiated the death of your husband or wife or children or parents:   At 2:30 in the afternoon, August 3, 2026, after spending the majority of the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, the President of the United States broke his silence with an important message for the world: he had made “The Winning Shot in the Bedminster Club Championship!” He won his own tournament, on his own course, run by his own employees, against members who pay him dues, and he needed everyone to know. “It’s called TALENT, and I have it, and they don’t!”   A sportswriter who interviewed more than 100 golf pros for a book on Trump found he has never won a championship at a course he does not own and operate. The one time he en...

Welcome to geopolitics, Donald Trump style.   Don’s solution when he’s in the bottom of a latrine?  Keep digging.  Pull all of the rest of us into his shit.    You’re a war criminal, Don.  Compare yourself to Kissinger who couldn’t leave the US the last twenty years of his life without facing immediate incarceration.  Henry was a pussy cat compared to you…though at this point Henry directly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, surpassing you in the homicide category.    Beware the fate of the Tate brothers, Don.  The rest of the world knows what you are.  

Argentina didn’t play their best in the finals against Spain. Several players got frustrated. The same thing happened with every team Spain faced. But, one party to this year’s World Cup was 100% disgraced: the United States. They are the only side in FIFA history whose poor coach and players got overruled by a phone call from daddy. Donald Trump, aided by FIFA, made US soccer into a laughing stock. Can you imagine taking the field with 80,000 fans screaming “who’s YOUR daddy????” Try not tripping over your own feet with that chant roaring in your ears. Belgium had played like thugs up until their 4-1 victory. Far worse than Argentina. They played well, smiling at the US, in the game. No wonder. Snarky giggles and laughter look like smiles.

  DOGE as we all know was a pathetic joke.   Meanwhile, US has been defeated and embarrassed by a smarter and ennobled adversary—Iran. If someone was dropping bombs on South Carolina, maybe we’d show some backbone—or remorse for our sins?  (I’m talking about white neighborhoods in South Carolina, obviously.)   Anyway, has a single Democratic candidate promised to really downsize the bloated Federal Budget?  Compared to the graft and slop of Trump, it’s easy:   Abolish ICE on day 1.  No severance or other pay available. Stop all military exposure to the Iran defeat.  Force Trump to pay for every litigation he’s initiated vis a vis voter fraud (more than 100, all of which he’s lost). Sixty day warning to Netananyu that all military support for Israel will stop, as part of our acceptance of Iran’s victory demands (and a US apology to the people of Gaza a...