Please Don't Add My Mom Back on Facebook: An Oral History of A Social Network

Please Don't Add My Mom Back on Facebook: An Oral History of A Social Network

The year is 2009. The first decade of the new millennium is coming to an end. The economy is in shambles. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is released to great acclaim. I am in 7th grade, and Facebook just arrived in my middle school. I was an active internet user from a young age. I regularly used the “kitchen computer” for Wikipedia wormhole dives, YouTube videos, and online games like Runescape. I’ve had consistent, pretty much unfiltered access to the internet since I was probably 11 or 12. I remember bits and pieces of early Facebook. The girl I had a crush on (and our whole friend group) had all made Facebook accounts around the same time. It wasn’t MySpace, and the part that worried me the most was using your real name and likeness. While the internet was largely unblocked and my site visits largely unmonitored, I was only allowed on Facebook if I didn’t use my full name, so I used my then online alias Yankeefanboy123, stylized “Yankeefanboy Onetwothree.” No, I do not like the Yankees anymore, and yes, I have always been an obnoxious contrarian. I was also very worried because I thought they (Facebook) would find out (classic Noah) I was under the age requirement. Welcome to Please Don’t Add My Mom Back on Facebook: An Oral History of a Social Network. Growing up online at the blooming stages of social media was complicated, but I think a lot of my peers have reverence for the early days of Being Online. Reflecting on Facebook’s influence on my life is also complicated; it’s the easiest way for me to revisit memories, both good and bad, of my late mother, whose descent into addiction and isolation is laid fully bare on her still archived and technically active Facebook page. This week, we’re going to cover those formative years, which for me coincided with being in middle school. What a fucking nightmare. Thanks for reading and listening. And why didn’t you poke me back? Dude, did you see Stanford is on theutpbook.com now, too? That’s crazy. I think we’ll get it pretty soon. Give me your email and I’ll let you know. Part 1: Parent Permission Required (2009-2011) I was on Facebook doing Facebook things probably every day, once I had access to my own computer. My dad would buy extremely-cheap, used business laptops from his work, which was how I had my “own” laptop. I didn’t have a cell phone, so Facebook messages were the only way I could message people. This was before most kids had smartphones, and Facebook had a text-to-message feature, same with text-to-post. There was an incredible crossover era where people had online forum-esque signatures for SMS messages, so every Facebook message would have a My Chemical Romance quote or something at the end of it. Incredible stuff~~xxX Welcom 2 Tha Black Parade MCR4EVA Xxx~~ Facebook was liberating. It was the first time I was somewhere online where I was interacting with people I actually knew in real life. MySpace was already falling out of fashion, and Facebook was also seen as being more “private,” which is hilarious in retrospective. This wasn’t Runescape or Xbox Live, but something totally different to me. Despite being 11 or 12 years-old, I was legitimately using Facebook to “catch up” with people, the timeless marketing gimmick used for Facebook once it outpaced its original market of current college students. I had a pretty major move in 3rd grade, and my now 6th/7th grade-self used Facebook to re-connect with my neighbors and school friends who I had drifted from, and even a few who had moved to other parts of the country. For me, the best and cringiest part about going back to old Facebook posts is without a doubt how earnest I was in sharing basically everything I was doing. Of course, everyone I know wants to see pictures of me in front of the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota. Of course, everyone wants to know how long it took me to read John Green’s Looking for Alaska. There’s an excitement to the novelty of writing out these silly UTP articles and essays for my friends that takes me back to a different internet that was optimistic and exciting. It’s fun to reminded that it’s cool to be earnest, actually. I also want to be up-front that, as the title suggests, a significant part of my early Facebook memories are of my late mother, who, like all good suburban moms that are also children of the 80’s, used Facebook to reconnect with friends, share life updates, and play games. Nothing had her in a vice-grip quite like fucking Bejeweled Blitz. She was putting up World of Warcraft playtime numbers in a Facebook match the colors game. This was also around the time her addiction began to consume her life. She was ostensibly more connected with friends than ever, even as she began to isolate herself. I have many, many memories of being in the kitchen talking to my mom while she played Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook on the Kitchen Computer, which typically transitioned into a frenzy of YouTube viewings, where my mom showed me all the things people always say they wanna show their kids. This is how I saw famous scenes from The Brady Bunch, cheesy 70s kid’s shows, and whatever nostalgia trip my mom was currently on. My parents always treated “showing me things for grown-ups” as a rite of passage, especially movies; I was a Quentin Tarantino fanatic at age 12. My mom loved to laugh. She introduced me to sketch comedy, stand-up, and was almost always trying to crack jokes. If she wasn’t using Facebook to try to catch up with you, she was trying to get you to laugh, her posts, comments, and messages full of bad one-liners and cheap punchlines. Linda was an avid prankster, frequently in trouble at her Catholic high school, and later on crank calling people when she was probably a little too old to be doing that (read: 40s). She enjoyed chatting with old friends and making new ones. She had a network of mutual friends that were all prolifically active on Facebook, including a few she never knew IRL. I have my suspicions about the real intentions of befriending men across the country on Facebook but she did make a lot of interesting connections, including a guitar player who played in The Meat Puppets for a short period of time in the early 90s. This man was in attendance at the infamous Nirvana MTV Unplugged Live in New York recording, which to me was tantamount to being present for Christ’s crucifixion. I have old messages begging for information about Kurt Cobain or what it was like to be there. He was clearly drunk while messaging me. I had a smaller, but just as active cohort of the other 12-year-olds I knew that had Facebook. It was well before my grandparents were on, or even my dad and siblings. I was documenting everything I did, and complaining a lot. As I mentioned earlier, ever the contrarian, I used Facebook to remind everyone just how special I was because I was a fervent Yankees fan, triggered by 2009 playoffs fever and a few years of baseball card collecting. I was also unusually upset about the Minnesota Vikings bringing Brett Favre in, and certainly didn’t like his wavering commitment to the team I barely understood. I wasn’t a football fan in any way, but caught the bandwagon spirit of 2009, what with Adrian Peterson and all. I made a litany of memes mocking Favre and Vikings management, despite having no investment before that football season. But, this was a big time for the Vikings, and my getting caught up in the excitement would lead me to play my sole season of youth football, which, like all efforts of mine, was an attempt to get girls to like me. Today, I am a loyal prisoner of the Vikings fandom, and it does not make me more attractive. And it all started with me making crass Brett Favre memes to share on Facebook. My mom was a common guest in the comment sections on my Facebook posts, which was unspeakably horrifying for a teenager. My mom always befriended my friends and we would spend time hanging out with her in the late hours of the night, like always at the kitchen computer, which was usually fun because she’d show us stand-up clips, iconic sketches, and whatever racist jokes were fashionable at the time; my mom did think Jeff Dunham was funny and MadTV was just as likely as SNL to be what we were shown, and a lot of those sketches have aged like milk. I’d protest to my friends, but my friends actually liked being treated like adults, and my mom loved cracking jokes and laughing. On utpbook, the one true social network, I felt 2009 was a good year to feature posts from. I credit high school speech team with socializing me, so my 12-year-old lack of awareness and unbridled online enthusiasm is really fun to look back on. I’ve peppered a number from that venerable first year on Facebook throughout the piece and plan to throughout this series. Part of what spurred the idea to talk about Facebook is because doing this newsletter and accompanying podcast feels like early Facebook to me. It’s the one place online I actually enjoy being, and sharing art/things I’ve made with people, even my faceless Substack subscribers, takes me back to a time shortly before my mom’s alcoholism became fully apparent and the beginning of The Bad Times (8th Grade-ehh present). Buuuuut this newsletter gives me the creative joy that I felt in the pre-The Bad Times times. This is a new kind of Times: Picayune. Uffda! I shared creative writing samples, of which I can no longer access because Zuck and his ghouls disabled the Notes feature on Facebook and now my anti-Twilight fanfictions from ‘09 are gone. Let me just say this: Jesus blows up Edward, Bella, and Ugly Betty with a rocket launcher. Just burn down the Library of Alexandria, why don’t you. In the years since moving back to Minnesota, where I’ve had my own office/studio/rehearsal space, I think about early Facebook because, in those 2009 days of old, I often posted about my guitar, wanting to play guitar, wanting to buy a guitar, post pictures of my guitar, and so on. Once again, this was an effort to get girls to like me, and like nearly all others, did not work. In a similar, yet less desperate, sense, I talk about banjo class a lot in my newsletter/podcast because it was the first organized music activity I’ve been in since I stopped marching drum corps in 2017. My therapist has made it very clear that my positive mental health improvements over the last year are directly correlated with banjo class. I regularly posted the exact models of guitars I wanted, in the vain hope that some non-existent wealthy relative will break the bank for me out of the blue; this did not happen. Though I would be remiss not to mention that I am beyond lucky that both of my grandfathers are guitar-players and at one point were professional musicians, and I have been blessed to receive multiple instruments from each of them, from my first 3/4-size guitar I got when I was 9, to my beloved banjo that sits out for me to play every day. That 3/4-size guitar was a piece of junk, but a great starter guitar for a little kid, and was paramount in learning musical skills outside of band class at school. One of the last truly kind things my mom did was facilitating repairing the guitar, and then giving it to a nurse who was taking care of her during one of her last hospital stays, so her daughter could learn how to play the guitar. My parents were also extremely supportive and paid/took me to guitar lessons (when I was in 6th grade) and I did have a nice electric guitar and amplifier, and went on to play in the school jazz band. I won’t lie, though, I’m pretty sure my incessant Facebook posting had something to do that. I am pleased to say I still play both that guitar and with that amplifier to this day because my parents believed in me and that’s one hell of an investment to have made in you. Despite the best efforts of Anoka-Hennepin public schools telling us to watch what we do online, I still posted literally every thought with no impunity, a practice that lasted until I abandoned Twitter in 2024. This was painfully apparent throughout 2010. If there are “inside thoughts,” I certainly needed a concept of “inside posts,” because I documented everything from my mothers hospital stays, my opinions on movies, and definitely one-sentence inside jokes that basically only meant anything to my mom, and maybe my dad. I definitely had an emo kid era that was more like an “Adolescent Reads Too Much About Kurt Cobain’s Drug Problems” era. I loved grunge music. I’d credit this in large part because it was what my parents listened to, but also because many grunge songs (or their riffs, anyway) are really easy to play on the guitar. Moving past 2009, we entered a new decade in 2010, and at age 13, in full emo mode, I regularly made Facebook posts that included either lyrics, references, or an actual video of songs that I guarantee I listened to while my Major Depressive Disorder was still in its infancy. Here’s a breakdown of the music I posted about: * “Bleed it Out” by Linkin Park (three times) * “Capital G” by Nine Inch Nails (twice) * Rage Against the Machine: “︻┳═一 Arm The Homeless 一═┳︻” * “Head Like a Hole” by Nine Inch Nails * “No Excuses” by Alice in Chains (woof—twice) * “Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers (three times; 7th grade heartbreak is the same as a debilitating heroin addiction) * “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers * “Blurry” by Puddle of Mudd (twice—one of my go-to “she doesn’t like me and it hurts” songs) * “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson * “Weapon of Choice” by Fatboy Slim * “Lithium” by Nirvana (twice—I really liked “all my friends are in my head”) * “Freak on a Leash” by Korn (twice on my golden birthday?) * “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana * “No More Tears” by Ozzy Osbourne (three times) * “Mountain Man” by Crash Kings (this song still slaps) [https://youtu.be/2OvqpNP7dTI] * Green Day (I hated American Idiot) * “Spoonman” by Soundgarden (twice) * “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant * “Dragula” by Rob Zombie * “The Crow and the Butterfly” by Shinedown (this song sucks ass but it made me cry all the time so I posted about it three times) * “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns ‘n’ Roses * “Jesus Built My Hotrod” by Ministry (twice—you can thank my dad buying it on Rock Band) * “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers * “Boonville Stomp” by Les Claypool (lmao what—twice) * “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails (hmm) * “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam (Major Wee-Woo-Wee-Woo Alarm Bells Red Flag—twice) * “Today” by The Smashing Pumpkins * “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots * “Sex Type Thing” by Stone Temple Pilots Here’s what I posted about in 2010: * New York Yankees: 8 times * Brett Favre and Minnesota Vikings Mentions: 10 times * Guitar (playing, buying, wanting to play, etc.): 16 times * Movies: 24 times * Being Sad: 13 times * Being Happy: 9 times * Being Sick 8: times * Being Bored/Tired: 6 times * Texas Roadhouse: 3 times * Cryptic Post About Crush: 4 times, although if you count song mentions it’s likely 20-25. * Kurt Cobain and Layne Stayley: 5 times (I got really fixated on Kurt’s suicide) So yeah, I was definitely a moody teenager. A therapist I saw at age 14 wanted to medicate me ASAP so I was not permitted visits to additional mental health professionals (although it was mostly because I was afraid of them, not that I was prevented from doing so). I was a quirky kid: this was shortly before my regrettable but definitely canon Brony phase (Fluttershy is best pony, FYI). I shaved my moppy hair into a mohawk (the mop would never truly return). I “arranged” the Super Mario Bros theme song for band class, a lifetime achievement of an 8th grade bando. I was desperate for everyone to know I could play the guitar. I tried really hard to do a lot of voices (Josh Robert Thompson and Frank Caliendo were my heroes) and be funny. Can you tell I really wanted attention? Anecdotally, this time of my life is particularly memorable. I remember this time of my life as a time where my mother was extremely active in my life. Looking back on early Facebook posts of mine confirms this much. She did appear in my comment sections quite often, including to defend me from peers trying to bully me (mortifying). I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, at this same time, my mom’s drinking problem became Everyone’s Problem instead of just something she dealt with privately. In fact, I blocked out most of this part of my life, at least timing-wise. In researching for this article noticed things started to change at the beginning of 2011. Facebook’s historical timeline starts from Dec 31 and works backwards, so I noticed immediately that the archived posts from 2011 didn’t appear to be as “good” or amusing as past years. But a post from earlier in the year, the last trimester of 8th grade, hit me like a ton of bricks. I shared a link to a CaringBridge site. If you’re not familiar, the site is a proto-GoFundMe-type site meant to share updates to people undergoing great crisis, usually serious medical issues or other situations so friends and family can follow along from home and offer support. I think the existence of the site is a good thing, but I have some reservations about putting someone’s personal medical situation on blast because an incapacitated person cannot consent to that. I digress. Anyway, the link was to a CaringBridge site for my mom. The post was dated March 26th, 2011 and said: “For my mom, for she is in the hospital and has been for almost 4 weeks.” About a week later on April 3rd, I posted about being part of my school district’s 8th grade honor band. I posted: Honor band was well, honoring, and now I'm at the hospital seeing my mom. Wonderful. In a wider context, we’re about two year’s past my “emergecy” room post, after my mom was hospitalized for falling down the stairs of our house in the middle of the night while she was walking, drunk, in the dark. We’re about one year away from my grandmother’s passing, but she is presently in chemotherapy treatment for lung cancer. Her passing would signal a point of no return for my mother’s struggle with alcoholism. I talked about this in therapy while writing this piece and remarked that I wasn’t sure what I was emo about before my mom’s extended hospitalization and then I remembered: normal people don’t end up in the hospital for months at a time from drinking. I just didn’t have any context or know any better as a kid. I just thought they were having grown-up drinks that smelled terrible (my parents were Rum and Coke-heads, my mom obviously went with Rum and Diet). It takes a few months, but my mom eventually does return to my replies, but not as often. Knowing what I know now, it is obvious from a very early point in the research of this article that my mom loved to drunk post. Later in the year she would incorrectly attribute a guitar I received as a gift to be from the wrong grandparent, something that really pisses me off even now. I was undergoing both dealing with an alcoholic mother and being a teenager, and from freshman year onwards would fill every moment of my life with activities so as to stay the fuck away from my house. For the rest of her life, she would be in-and-out of 30-day rehab programs so often that she should have had a punch card. Between these, and far more often, she would spend a night or two in the drunk tank, or the hospital. She had several DWIs, had so-called “whiskey plates” and ignition interlock on the family minivan, and would serve about a year in jail, as well as multiple stints in the workhouse. I also think it’s valuable to mention that those four weeks my mom was hospitalized were not in Minnesota—she suffered multiple seizures in Arizona while she was solo-tripping a family funeral. She was visibly drunk around distant relatives and, once hospitalized, would be diagnosed with jaundice and was intubated. My dad left me and my siblings in Minnesota where a revolving door of family members and family friends watched me and my siblings, which is also memorialized in Facebook posts. As an adult I have deeply complicated feelings about this time of my life, but the context is impossible to ignore when I saw the totality of the posts, and how stark the change in tone became. Was I growing up? Sure. But pretty damn fast, and without any mental health intervention aside from what would become weekly-or-more-frequent visits with the school guidance counselor. There are still a lot of silly posts in 2011, but more importantly, my freshman year of high school was truly one of the most formative periods of my life—and I documented it all on Facebook. I would choose to skip joining football in high school and follow my band friends, including my crush, by joining marching band instead. This would be one of the most consequential decisions in my life; the butterfly effect of this decision directly leads to me meeting my fiancee. I started posting about current events and providing commentary, including the disgraceful rash of suicides by queer students in my school district that made national news and resulted in a federal civil rights investigation into the deeply conservative school district. This part of my life is crucial canon to the Noah lore. I went through the aforementioned Brony phase at the same time I had a mohawk I never put up. That same school year I was diagnosed with a hernia (I know), and the school absences from the surgery permanently stunted my ability to learn math (I’m not kidding) and put me behind a full year of my peers. Buuut, if I hadn’t failed math, I’d never taken Graphic Design, a class that was the single most useful elective I took in perhaps all of my secondary and post-secondary educations. I posted about most of this stuff on Facebook, but in high school, Facebook became something else. Especially after I befriended numerous adults in drum corps, I posted achievements, almost always in extra-curriculars. Speech and debate trophies, marching band photos, drum corps competitions, swim team, Boy’s State, you name it. I’m proud to say that while my parents did shuttle me to and from practices and shows, I am forever grateful for the adults in my life who invested in me: coaches, teachers, fellow drum corps members, school counselors, and my family. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without these people who believed in me, and made sure I knew that I was worth believing in, because the world, especially at home, felt so cold and lonely—and in 2011, the worst of it was just getting started. I didn’t get many likes on my posts on Facebook, I was insecure about the amount friends I had. I loved adding random people, especially local news personalities on Facebook, particularly before minor public figures had their own pages—before you “liked” pages and instead “became a fan.” My personal favorite random friend is The Social Network composer and one-half of the modern Nine Inch Nails, Atticus Ross. I’m not sure why he added me back, but it is a fun fact, especially in the context of this series. How I used Facebook socially would change drastically with the changes Facebook made in general. Early Facebook was ruthlessly social and today is a ragebait farm of bot comments on news articles. We have come a long way, and Facebook has taken a nosedive from grace to a shell of what it used to be. Dead internet came for Facebook a long time ago. Long before AI bots permeated every part of the internet, Facebook chipped away at the inherently social aspects of Facebook and continued to add algorithms, suggested posts, videos, Reels, and other features nobody wants. Before long, and really even as early as like 2013, Facebook had lost much of the personality it had when using it meant communicating with people you immediately knew (at least if you were like, 12). Facebook hit me at the beginning of my socialization and peak puberty, and I have great (and horrible) memories, regrets and triumphs, and 17 years of memory lane to stroll down. We’re just getting started. In this series (and boy am I sorry this is going to be a series), we’re gonna talk about the eras of Facebook from the perspective of someone who grew up there. I would consider myself a Facebook ex-power user and have a long, and often intense, relationship with using the service. At my peak usage, I used it to connect with friends, engage in political activism, find the best memes online (what an era!), and connect with wider circles of people during those last few years (leading to 2019) where Facebook Was Good, Sort Of. Let’s be clear about one thing: I ain’t writing The Social Network. Aaron Sorkin already did that once, and God forbid he do it again. An aside about The Social Network is that it’s (predictably) one of my favorite movies of all time. We’ll do a review of it, as well as a review of the soundtrack, one of the greatest of all time. I’m also reading a book called Facebook: The Inside Story by WIRED journalist Steven Levy. While it’s safe to say that 2020 is a lifetime ago in tech world dystopia, especially as we’ve entered the latter-half of the decade, I’m reading it anyway because I ran into Steven at a DC-ass event about free speech when I was an intern and he needed someone to help him get to Union Station because there were no cabs and he refused to use an Uber. We rode the train together for 20 minutes as I asked about what he was doing and about his life. He told me he was working on a book about Facebook. Well, now I’m gonna read it and review it. Hopefully my review is as good as my Metro wayfinding directions. I want to spend more time talking about Facebook Games in the early era, the Candy Crushes and FarmVilles of yore. We’re going to talk about the meteoric rise of Facebook Groups as the heir apparent of the niche forums of the early internet, which also brings us the death of anonymity. And we’re going to talk about the giant that is Meta Inc., Instagram, their failures in AI, VR, and The Social Network. And maybe The Social Network 2. God I hope that isn’t fucking happening, So get your password book out, we’re logging on to the hottest place online in 2009: Facebook dot com. And for the love of God, please don’t add my mom back. Facebook is only fun if your friends use it, just like UTP! Poke your friends, write on their wall, stalk their pics, do whatever you need to do to get this newsletter in their hands. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com [https://uffdatimespicayune.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

There Is No More Regularly Scheduled Programming

Alright. Alright, alright, alright. The b***h is back. Sound the trumpets. Lay down the red carpet. Bring out your offerings. UTP is back for 2026. Originally, I had written a whimsical intro about the razzmatazz and pizzazz of welcoming the new year and my overcoming a writer’s block that has afflicted me for the better part of two months. I was actually finalizing the edits to this very edition while sitting in a Powderhorn, Minneapolis coffee shop the morning of January 7th, when Renee Good was murdered just over a mile away as the crow flies. I had actually taken that as a mental health day, if you can believe it. I can’t emphasize enough how much worse things have gotten in the last few weeks. I’ve actually been paranoid to write anything about this but I just don’t give a s**t anymore—Minneapolis did nothing to deserve this and the constant trauma and grief of everyone has so successfully been channelled into productive anger by people who are far braver than me. There is no figurehead making the media rounds. It is so decentralized it’s almost baffling that anything is coordinated. People act on good faith. Minnesota’s unique culture of civic participation, one that’s been stamped out in neighboring Wisconsin—which by definition is not a democracy, prepares a variety of responses. It is the most inspiring thing I have ever experienced. Believe it or not, living in a total police state is actually Not Great. South Minneapolis, particularly, is now teeming with SUVs with license plates from far-away lands, if they have any at all, filled with masked, armed goons who will turn any bystander—observer or otherwise—into a prop for their twisted fascist marketing campaign for a worse world. I mean, s**t, I’ve gone to mass twice this month. Thank God for Father RJ at St. Thomas More in Saint Paul. When I was revising this to write about the ongoing conflict in Minneapolis, I originally started writing about schools; the highly public assault of Roosevelt High School students on the same afternoon Renee Good was murdered was the high school the kids on my street attend. I was aghast at the cruelty of the decision to do that, and there was no naivete in my thinking that this was just the beginning. This is going to get worse. And it did. So here we are, weeks later. I can’t and won’t recount more of the events for you: I know you are paying attention. Don’t look away. I have an idea for a Minneapolis-centric gonzo piece about being a Regular Person In All This B******t, but that’s not what we’re doing today. Instead, I still want to share what I wrote, and maybe provide a little friendly humor in these trying times. They want you to be afraid. They don’t want you to enjoy jokes that made my Greatest Generation grandfather nearly faint. “I wasn’t expecting so many four-letter-words,” was his review of Putting the Moron in Moroni. They don’t want you to read UTP. The original bout of writer’s block was broken by a guest appearance at a local wrestling show, so I’ve got some of that below. Emily and I watched a dating show about virgins on Hulu and I have some things to say about it. And finally, I saw and am here to report on my Official Opinions of Wicked: For Good. Sorry ahead of time. Hang in there. Stay safe. Minneapolis is the greatest city on the planet and it’s not even close. RINGSIDE WITH UTP BREAKING: EDDIE KINGSTON SHOWED UP AT NIGHT ONE OF WREMIX AND IT WAS THE GREATEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE January means a lot of things to a lot of people, but for local wrestling fans, we know it as the first of local wrestling promotion F1RST Wrestling’s shows of the year, Wremix, one of their signature flagship events that combines burlesque dancing, pro wrestling, and music into a damn fun few hours of entertainment where the bar has no line, and getting ringside is achievable without shoving and pushing people out of the way. The show was re-branded from “WrestlePalooza” after WWE shamelessly ripped the name away from them to counter-program AEW’s September pay-per-view, All Out. Sure, it was an old ECW PPV brand name, but really? You gotta f**k over F1RST and AEW? F**k off. These shows usually have surprises—it is a wrestling/rock concert/burlesque variety show at the Twin Cities’ best “danceteria,” First Avenue, that venerable bus-station-turned-nightclub of old. This night was no exception, and my God what a treat. This was our first time attending both nights of this event. We had done much hand-wringing over whether we were actually going to go to the first night, but we decided a day or two beforehand that it was going to be worth the feet pain, little sleep, and extra cost and got tickets. F1RST has been host to stars from across the wrestling world in the past, and it’s not unheard of for stars like Swerve Strickland, Orange Cassidy, and Danhausen to make appearances at shows. My review of Saturday Night Nitro in September has many examples, like Ultimo Dragon, Shotzi, and Priscilla Kelly. We arrived early and stood in the same spot we always stand. The show started a little late and after the video hype package and following promo monologue by F1RST Wrestling’s own blue-haired host we love to hate, John Maddening. The first match begins with the walk-out of current Uptown VFW Champion Jordan, the toothless all-arounder billed by his full home address, who is also my coworker’s friend’s ex-boyfriend. He walks out to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” which always come back when he positions his opponent on the ropes and asks the crowd “Can I kick it?" with the required “Yes you can!” cheer in response. The match was billed as having a surprise opponent. “Can I Kick It?” starts to fade out and the lights go out. After a few beats of silence, the distinctive Phantom of the Opera-esque organ of the fake-DMX theme song of only one wrestler in the world: god damned f*****g Eddie Kingston. EDDIE KINGSTON? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The same Eddie Kingston I’ve been writing about for the past months since his triumphant, if disappointing AEW return late last year? The same Eddie Kingston of whom I have a magnet of a chibi version of on a filing cabinet at my desk at work? The same Eddie Kingston who had to fight for everything he had? Yes. It was. Eddie came out and didn’t say much. Billed as “The Mad King” Eddie Kingston, he and Jordan had a well-matched bout until the match was rudely interrupted by the perennial F1RST Midwest indie circuit darlings None More Violent, which features “The Freakshow” Cho (who threatened to murder me at the 2024 Doobie Dabbler) and the extremely scary and equally pretty Jinn Hallows, who is always killing it in a crop top. Eddie and Jordan teamed up (twist!) and fought None More Violent, but not before Eddie cut a little promo (thank God! Give this man the microphone!). The match featured an amazing moment where the crowd grew quiet and Eddie shouted “F**k you, you m***********g c********r.” Incredible to hear in person, literally 10 feet away. I didn’t mention that Eddie Kingston did make eye contact with me. We usually stand within eyeshot of the front right ring post on the ground level. Between the two shows, I: * Made eye contact with Eddie Kingston, * Drunkenly called for Jordan’s attention (on night 2) and, when I had his attention, I screamed “I saw you walking around at the state fair last year!” Emily hid her face in shame like Marge Simpson, * Double main-eventer and man whose career I thought we watched end at MOA, Gringo Loco, was given superpowers by me pointing at him and screaming as we made eye contact twice, * We also saw local music stars The Gully Boys hanging out at the Depot Tavern attached to First Ave before night 2. If I reviewed every match, it’d be the whole damn newsletter/podcast and I also don’t remember them all, but my favorite wrestler I had never seen before was Effy, the TNA legend (who is strangely anti-AEW) whose whole gimmick is that he is gay. He was begging Shane Black, whose gimmick is that he’s a lifeguard, not to take his clothes off. He apparently has a kayfabe gimmick of targeting twinks, so that also came up. He fought both nights and they were both amazing. F1RST Wrestling more than delivered with Wremix. Carrying the torch of the One True WrestlePalooza, Wremix featured excellent burlesque performances, including an outstanding “omelette du fromage” Dexter’s Laboratory cosplay. Music was awesome both nights, and the Gully Boys were a treat as it was their last local show for a while. Wrestling evangelists will tell you that if the campiness and pageantry of wrestling is even a little interesting-sounding to you, go to a local wrestling show. Wremix will likely happen twice yearly, once in January, and once in June for Pride. Let me know if you wanna go, I’m always down. WHAT’S ON THE IDIOT BOX? HULU’S VIRGINS AND THE BANALITY OF CULTURAL REGRESSION Ah yes, a 6-episode limited reality series about awkward grown adults seeking love and connection is actually about the slow cultural regression we’ve been speedrunning since the COVID-19 pandemic. Hear me out (or don’t, you don’t get a choice). The premise of Virgins is extremely simple: four adults who consider their lack of intimacy core to their identity struggle and flounder as they try (and fail) to get laid. We watched the spiritual prequel earlier last year (also on Hulu), Are You My First?, whose premise was far more competition-esque. Love Island but nobody has any game. Why anyone would sign up to be on this show is beyond me, but they found four wannabe reality stars who must have a thing for public humiliation rituals because I don’t understand how anyone would think this is a good idea. I want to point out, as r/polyamory users will do about the existence of the concept of “jealousy,” that the conflicts these people have with being virgins are entirely self-created and self-reinforced. You actually don’t have to tell people that? You actually don’t have to make a big deal about this fabricated social construction of your identity? Who knew hitching people with miscalculated values of self-worth (too high and too low) to the wagon of a social identity associated with naivete and inexperience on a TV show that doesn’t care about their well-being might come off a little, I don’t know…distasteful? Anyway, the first virgin we meet is Alex, [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm15756512/?ref_=tt_cst_t_3] a lovable loser who lives in the attic of his parents house in Reading, PA, a personal hell of his own design. He is a hairy man (no hate) with unkempt balding hair and a disheveled beard. He laments how difficult it is for him to get laid and date as we get a tour of his bedroom, which he does point is not his childhood bedroom. He has a crappy guitar that appears to be missing strings “on display” leaning against a wall, an out-of-date bikini swimsuit calendar, and most horrendously, a TJ Maxx generic video game controller throw pillow prominently placed in the center of his bed, where he says the action “doesn’t happen.” Alex’s wingmen for the show are his two older sisters, who are thoroughbred Rust Belt girlies who don’t mind putting down beers at the bar as they observe their brother fail miserably at interacting with women. They also love to put him down, frequently mock his appearance and demeanor, and only talk highly of him when he isn’t present. They push him to his limit as he fumbles his way through “tantric speed dating,” just one of multiple instances of the show appropriating various Southeast Asian cultural traditions. He connects with a woman who is verrry into him, and you just want to root for the guy. They have another date which he gets his chest waxed beforehand (coward) and gets an admittedly very good haircut and beard trim. Things go south for Alex when he makes what is either a) a bafflingly terrible romantic miscalculation or b) cruel set-up by producers he is too naive to push back against. Either way, after their second date, he brings her back to his parents house and shows him his bedroom, a proposition that is usually associated with intimacy. However, he gives her a literal tour and we see her excitement and adoration for our endearing loser turn to horror in real time as she sees the most personal space of this manchild with no social or emotional skills. The pièce de résistance of this disastrous date was when Alex sat her down on the bed and confessed that he was a virgin in an extraordinarily awkward and embarrassing way. She clearly dissociates as she plans her next moves. She says she had a good time with him and does really like him, but when he (again, EXTREMELY awkwardly) goes in for a kiss, she brutally rejects him because it’s “too early” for that. Getting rejected by the woman you met at a tantric speed dating class must be devastating. She leaves, and we later watch them Skype, where she proceeds to friendzone him. Incredible stuff. I’d be remiss not to mention the second primary woman he dates, who is a pretty, agreeable, put-together 30-something with a career, goals, and knows what she wants. She, again, finds Alex to be a lovable loser who is naive, but he does not reveal that he’s a virgin until their third date. Which is a weekend getaway at a couples sex retreat resort, one of the ones you see on architecture Twitter accounts because of the giant champagne glass hot tub and heart-shaped swimming pool: both in the room. What I also didn’t mention is that they had not even kissed before he took her to the resort. She put two-and-two together, but didn’t get a full picture of the situation until he confessed his virginity over dinner at the on-property romance-themed restaurant. They go back to the hotel room, he wants to try out the pool, so he strips and gets in. She takes her shoes off and sits on the side, only dipping her feet in. She reveals in an interview with producers that she is deeply uncomfortable and that she will be getting her own hotel room that night, LMAO. We do get an incredible sequence where he is trying the champagne glass hot tub…by himself. He’s a good sport, and you really hope this was just cruel planning by the producers, because it really does feel like he was the victim in a plot, not a dumb man with no emotional intelligence. It goes without saying, he does not get any action in the six-episode season of this show. Sonali is a 37-year-old Indian-American woman who has allowed her conservative upbringing and religious/cultural trauma to completely define her life (a personal hell of her own design) even when she admits her family mostly lives in India. I know a thing or two about concealing who you are for norms that exist entirely in my own head, but my God this woman takes it to another level. She has an extraordinarily embarrassing virginity mood board in her room, which has a giant sheet of paper with cute letters that reads simply “DEMI-SEXUAL” in her bedroom. She also laments that she can fall in love with someone with “just one kiss” and that she only calls having sex “making love,” much to the horror of the man she is dating at the beginning (they do not go another date). She is just…a lot. It’s hard to be mean to this woman because 90% of her problems could be solved if she had a team of mental health experts to help her manage her symptoms, ideally not filming and airing their sessions on national television. She is the most obviously exploited person on this show. She has an intense demeanor, doesn’t handle advice or help from experts well, and has extremely unrealistic expectations for what intimacy is and how to get it. I’ll spare the details but she sees a series of experts, each more dubious than the last, including a final “womb healing” from a white lady with dreads named Nicki Jean who is a self-proclaimed “priestess healer" [https://www.ebetantra.com/womb-healing] who details on her website that she was inspired to become a tantric priestess after a visit to Magdala, Israel. At the recommendation of a certified sex therapist, she struggles with a “sex surrogate,” an extraordinarily kind and professional man with whom she gets very testy over his insistence she do literally any of the things he or the other sexual health professionals recommend she do to overcome her purely psychological barriers to intimacy. She is literally told it’s all psychological and she immediately says “there is something physically wrong with me.” None of her dates on the show lead to second dates or a change in her virgin-status, but she does make progress with Nicki Jean and the surrogate, which I guess is something. Jacksonville, FL-resident Rhasha [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17391380/?ref_=tt_cst_t_4] is the oldest participant on the show at 42 years-old, and also clearly the most desperate to actually resolve her situation. At least she is seriously attempting to leave the personal hell of her own design. She is ruthlessly normal and suffered an incredible amount of emotional trauma from a scam marriage she was part of after a man in the US on a visa started a long-distance relationship with her with the goal of marriage. They got married, he got citizenship, and divorced after a year. He was never attracted to her and they never so much as kissed in the year they lived together. Talk about ego-destruction. Wheesh. This has also led to an extremely humorous relationship between her, her sister who looks exactly like her but with piercings and tattoos, and her mom. She is far too open about her (lack of) sex life with her mom and sister, much to their chagrin. Her sister mocks her and her mom is prudish but is the show’s closest thing to comic relief because her reactions to her daughter’s increasingly transparent and unhinged sharing of her kinks with her family are truly some of the best scenes of the whole show. Again I will spare details about her dating life but she gets does the best of all of the show’s competitors for willingly leaving her comfort zone to see what she likes, but not before doing, what I believe, is the most unhinged s**t I’ve seen on the show. She AirPlays her iPad to the TV in the living room to look at dating sites with her mom and sister, presumably just for the TV show segment. But this woman is using Bumble, which, sure, but in f*****g Safari. Who is using Bumble from a web browser??? I didn’t even know that was possible! Her unhinged run as the most desperate virgin ends as she books a weekend at a swinger’s resort with a friend of hers. She is propositioned multiple times but instead decides to invite the quiet, reserved man she’s gone on like four dates with to show up and go to the sex resort night club with her. She gets wayyy too drunk and despite a cliche closing of the hotel room’s door and blinds, they more than likely just went to bed as the show tells us she is still a virgin by the end. Deanne is the final and most unlikable person on this show, whose high standards and over-inflated dating market self-worth have built her an intimacy-less personal hell that she takes out on her friends. The 35-year-old LA resident is (shocker) a wannabe actor who admits her standards are too high. Multiple eligible (hot!) men proposition her for a date or two but she just dismisses everyone. The mark of any good reality show is deducing whether a star’s neuroticism is indicative of their mental health, an exaggeration for the camera/tryout for further reality TV opportunities, or a construction of the show’s producers and editors. With Deanne, I’m fairly confident she really is just this shallow. Instead of going to therapy, Deanne frequently visits a professional matchmaker (I hate LA) who is highly critical of Deanne’s standards and narcissism. She frequently remarks that she needs to be with someone who “looks like a celebrity.” I guess she’s pretty, but she does just look like a million other WASPs from Connecticut who moved to LA after the holiday visits home during her years at USC became too unbearable and that a return to New England will never be an option. Thankfully, we benefit from her unhinged narcissism as the matchmaker flatly calls her shallow, and we do watch multiple first dates with Deanne fail miserably as she so obviously has no emotional maturity. Unfortunately she doubles down and takes no opportunity for self-reflection. The banner segment for Deanne, however, is when her matchmaker signed her up for a live dating podcast show (I hate LA) where local comedians will do blind dating or something on stage, which is part fun variety show, part stand-up, part game show. The comedians roast her incessantly, and the beauty is that Up-Dated!, the live show, is a true blind date: she is literally blindfolded. Her vapid obsession with superficiality is put on ice as an extremely kind pick-me guy waxes poetically about how much he would do for the right girl, etc, etc. Thankfully, the comedians use every opportunity to poke digs at her inexperience and narcissism whenever she says something to signal her interest in him. Unfortunately for us, it goes really well! She actually sets up a real second date with the guy, which is at his house. He hires a private chef (I hate LA) and they dine al fresco with wine on his back patio. For literally no reason though, she gets ‘the ick’ and when he wants to kiss her at the end of the date, she denies him. Okay, Noah, what’s your point? What does this have to do with cultural regression? I’m sure true Reality TV foamers will be happy to tell me all of the similar terrible shows from the many years, but as someone who has watched a lot of novel dating reality shows made in the past couple of years, this one was a real throwback to the era where TLC went from an educational non-profit funded in-part by NASA to air educational shows in Appalachia to the human zoo nightmare that an average day of TLC programming since 1998 could be characterized as. This was the most Nathan for You-esque dating show I’ve maybe ever seen. At least Are You My First? was virgins with other virgins, and in a Big Brother-esque compound. This show is all about humiliating the stars in their day-to-day life. The show’s handling of Sonali is absolutely baffling and exploitative—she’s clearly very traumatized by her conservative upbringing, and instead of taking her to the appropriate professionals where she is able to actually heal, she’s given televised appointments with new professionals where she is prodded on things to intentionally antagonize her. She is always extremely uncomfortable on camera and gets in verbal confrontations with multiple people, including the producers. More importantly, this show lays bare that the social construction of virginity is very much alive and well. If these people, especially Sonali and Alex, just got out of their own way and would accept that intimacy is going to be messy, occasionally unpleasant, and rarely ideal for your first time, and that that isn’t a big deal, maybe they wouldn’t be on this show. The urgent surge of virgin-focused content merges pretty well with a subjective trend anyone who makes the mistake of using social media has seen, where incel-adjacent manosphere language and ideas are now part of the general American lexicon. Maybe it’s a stretch, but purity and sex culture in America are absolutely fucked and perceived wildly differently from person to person. It’s not a new trend either. I’ve bemoaned the Mormon cultural hegemony that the trad wife trend (another example of incel-adjacent manosphere garbage becoming mainstream) has co-opted. I’d argue shows like Virgins are meeting the same end, with far more banality. This show was made at the expense of four people who, despite their worst efforts, cannot get laid. It is not uplifting, it does not inspire hope, it does not have a real point. But the producers excelled at the Fielder Method because I was physically cringing, laughing out loud, and hooting and hollering at dozens of scenes across just six episodes. This show takes an uncritical look at the concept of virginity. Not a single person on the show suggests that “hey, maybe this social construction isn’t really that important?” For those on the show, the construction is a number of things: unjustifiably high standards, extreme discomfort with intimacy, lacking self-worth, having too much self-worth, bad luck, etc. The producers knew what they were doing when they make every star on the show awkwardly share with a date that they are a virgin in dramatic “coming out” type conversations where people are being subjected to serious and uncomfortable discussions rather early for a casual romantic or sexual relationship. In what world are any of these middle-aged suitors not going to run for the hills when they learn the uncomfortable and awkward person they are on a date with for a TV show has next to zero experience with intimacy or navigating the emotional challenges of a committed relationship, let alone having a history of dating literally anybody? Watch it if you want. It sucks and I basically told you everything that happens. Let me know if you think my takes are wrong. Is it really that deep? Probably not. But like classic episodes of Catfish, the misguided pursuit of lust, love, and longing delivers schadenfreude unlike anything a Mark Burnett show is able to do in 2026. UTP AT THE MOVIES AT HOME IN THE BASEMENT NOBODY LEARNED ANYTHING AND THE STRUCTURAL CONFLICTS AND POWER STRUCTURES OF THE STATUS QUO WERE MAINTAINED: YES, I WATCHED WICKED: FOR GOOD Just in time for the holiday season, I watched the much-anticipated 2025 film sequel to the 2024 film adaptation of the first half of a 2003 Broadway musical based on a 1995 gritty fanfiction based on a 1939 film adaptation of the 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. When I watched Wicked 1: Even Less Wicked, it was my first time engaging with the Wicked version of the land of Oz. I had obviously seen the 1939 classic, erroneously believing for years that it was the “first color movie,” but the closest I got to Wicked was when I was in high school and one of my band teachers bragged about seeing Wicked on Broadway during the school band trip to New York a couple of years earlier. This did not sell me on going on the New York trip in band class. We almost played a Wicked medley, but the senior band director had us do a Wizard of Oz one instead. The “If I Only Had A Brain” tuba solo was very funny, I’ll admit. I enjoyed Wicked: The Movie, although I had a lot to say about its themes, the fact that it’s a commercial for toys and brand tie-ins, and its missing-of-the-point about facades and the message of the movie. It was compelling enough that I was hesitantly excited for the squeakquel, even if I didn’t know any of the songs or story aside from the fact that Act II ties in The Wizard of Oz more than the first half. I won’t go as in-depth as the first one because I think a lot of my critiques are the same, while the praise is in far shorter supply. Wicked 2: 2 Fast 2 Wicked picks up one year after the events of the first one. Elphaba has retreated to a magic treehouse somewhere outside of the Emerald City. Glinda has been installed as a useful idiot/puppet of the anti-animal regime. Glinda is set to wed the guy from Bridgerton, who is actually in love with Elphaba. Tragedy! Wicked Episode II: Attack of the Clones takes the big picture of its predecessor and throws it out the window. The large-scale social upheaval of the anti-animal pogrom is heavily diminished and appears largely reduced to simply the Emerald City and Munchkinland. The widespread instances of violence and subjugation from the first movie are replaced with incidental moments, like the animals leaving Oz while Elphaba begs them to stay, which just happens to feature an aninal from the first movie, the bear who raised Elphaba, or when Elphaba discovers animals in cages in a windowless storage room accessed through a secret passage in the Wizard’s infamous room. An addition (according to Emily) to this movie that did show new subjugation was a passing scene where Broadway’s SpongeBob is unable to board a train to leave Munchkinland due to new policies of the Wizard and his regime. This movie was, to me, just a combo of Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Hunger Games. Far less Harry Potter this time because the gals aren’t in school anymore. Star Wars visual motifs are everywhere in this movie, especially Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith. The forest chase scene with Elphaba and the flying monkeys is eerily reminiscent of the Endor speeder chases. Throne rooms for the Wizard, the Rowling-ass-named Mrs. Morrible, and Elphaba’s sister Nessarose, the new de jure governor of Munchkinland, all feature geometric window patterns that evoke the Emperor’s throne room(s) featured throughout the Star Wars franchise. Elphaba’s black attire and green accents are evocative of the final form of Luke in the original series, who is grizzled and experienced, sporting a new green lightsaber. Glinda is (begrudgingly) the Anakin character—she’s smart enough to know the regime is evil but will never sacrifice her own comfort in the status quo for people she cares about. She will, however, cry a lot. My favorite is the new “Bubble” song that Grande sings in a setpiece not featured in the original musical. Comedian Chris Fleming called this set “Ariana Grande’s Room at the Marriott Bonvoy” but to me it is strikingly similar to Anakin and Padme’s apartment on Coruscant in Revenge of the Sith. I think in terms of creating an action movie geared towards a wide family audience that is dystopian beneath the veneer of Oz, this movie benefits from the groundwork that The Hunger Games’ depiction of “The Capitol” gave us. Both cities feature futuristic and fantastical cities, whose main connection to the outside world is a fancy yet impractical train. Citizens in both cities are easily persuaded with propaganda and choose to ignore realities they aren’t personally persecuted under. The Hunger Games cultural aesthetics in the Capitol are laughably gaudy and decadent—many people look like they belong in Whoville, and Wicked is, well, exactly the same way. Let’s talk about those aesthetics. The story of Wicked (not any specific adaptation) is more than just giving dark backstories to the ostensibly cheery and reductive 1939 story by making you think about the characters another way. It’s also meant to make it very very very obvious that the glamor and glitz of Oz is a facade that requires intentional and nefarious actions by those in power to maintain, hence the literal scapegoating of animals and by extension Elphaba in order to create a common enemy for Ozians. The aesthetics and facade of Oz are critical to the theme and message. We get a drawn-out sequence where Morrible gives Glinda her famous bubble, which is revealed to be mechanical, not a function of her magic. Glinda’s entire character in this movie is built around her being a total facade and that she is not magical; her entire identity is a construction of powerful leaders in Oz needing a universal good guy and useful idiot to keep the masses from getting too self-aware. Glinda, much like her fellow Ozians, is shown to be stupid, shallow, and somehow still a f*****g good guy by the end of it, only after anyone with any real stakes has already given everything they can to fight evildoers. She’s the epitome of a Counter-Strike player who hears that you’re rushing B on Dust II, but decides to walk behind the whole team and wait until the whole team is dead before actually pushing to nab a couple of stolen kills before losing the round for the whole team. The “America declaring unilateral victory in World War II after the Soviet campaign on the Eastern Front” of Oz. At every turn in this movie, in stark contrast to the first, nearly every person in this movie acts in their self-interest. Glinda has to be hit in the face with The Message at least a dozen times before she finally decides with Elphaba that, actually, we have to maintain the status quo. Elphaba should quietly leave with Bridgerton Man and Glinda will replace the Wizard and try to reform the system from within. Elphaba literally wants to avoid bursting Glinda’s bubble. Once again, however, where Wicked: The Way of Water misses the mark in its biggest sense is once again missing the whole point. Wicked as a marketing product cashes in extensively on superficial veneer of The Wizard of Oz. Wicked can only exist as a product if the iconic images of Munchkinland, the Yellow Brick Road, the Witch’s Tower, the Wizard’s room, the Emerald City. The movie unironically shows you these Things You Know to give you that serotonin boost from a feeling of nostalgia, that gets carried on to branded hairbrushes at Great Clips. The facade of Oz in the movie is literally the exact facade Wicked gets to hide behind in the real world to avoid telling an interesting story. We ignore the genocide, we do not really reform any institutions, and the movie still ends the way the first one started, with the burning of an effigy of Elphaba. As far as I’m concerned, this is just Reconstruction, everything stays basically the same even if the people are different and things are called something different. I Still Know What You Did Last Wicked misses mark in the most guilty way possible, however: the music. Holy s**t the book is weaaaaak. They already established they’re willing to add new music, why oh f*****g why is there not a Wicked: The Pre-Sequel medley reprise somewhere in the final act? Like what the hell? Why, oh f*****g, why do I not get to hear “Defying Gravity” and “Popular” one last time? Are you f*****g kidding me? Here, I’ll fantasy book it. When Glinda and Elphaba are in the Emperor’s throne room from Star Wars shortly before (spoiler) Elphaba fakes her death, we get a dramatic Frozen esque scene where both Elphaba and Glinda are on opposite sides of door so Glinda can hide while Elphaba is “killed.” They’re singing whatever song they’re singing, but imagine if they did just a few lines of somber reprisal from “Popular,” perhaps Elphaba realizing that, while Glinda did make her popular, the flying monkey’s paw dilemma has also made her a pariah. Then have Glinda sing about how proud she is of Elphaba for doing the right thing while she sings a few lines from “Defying Gravity.” The duet could last one minute or less and I would’ve been happy. But no. That never happens. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com [https://uffdatimespicayune.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Juice is Loose and Making Sound Investment Decisions

Hey this is Noah Hansen saying howdy to all the girls out there in Radioland. Or Newsletterland if you’re reading this instead. Hey listening audience, did you know this is also written down on Substack? You don’t just have to read the auto-generated “show notes” on Spotify. Anyway, it’s been a long week. Eddie Kingston tried to “do it the right way” and lost to Samoa Joe, but not before Joe could make a salute to John Cena as Cena nears the end of his retirement run. Cena acknowledged him on Instagram. [https://www.instagram.com/p/DSH0VCWjs0f/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==] I had to miss banjo class because of the snow, so that’s been a thing (if you’re reading this I’m soooooo sorry Julie) that ruined my week. Thankfully I’m still riding the high of the Minnesota Vikings shutting out the Washington Commanders a week after being shut out for the first time in two decades by the Seattle Seahawks. In today’s edition of UTP, we’re highlighting the heroic comeback and meteoric rise of the Bang Bang Gang before they take on FTR for the AEW World Tag Team Championship in Cardiff, Wales on Saturday. We’re also looking at the mechanical keyboard I got at the Goodwill on Black Friday—a first-ever thrift find even if I am finding the keyboard impossible to type on. …And another thing, I’m really annoyed that Warner Brothers has two potential buyers. Every link is a gift link if I call it that. Send this “gift link” to your friends because even if they don’t care what I’m writing about, maybe they’ll think I’m funny. You will tell them I’m funny, right? RINGSIDE WITH UTP THE JUICE IS WORTH THE SQUEEZE: THE BANG BANG GANG IS STRONGER THAN EVER (EVEN IF 2/5THS OF THEM ARE OUT INJURED) Throughout the history of independent wrestling (that is to say, not WWE), promotions have struggled to break through the Fed noise and make a cultural impact outside of the niche world of dorks fighting online about simulated combat interrupted by poorly written, acted, and directed soap opera scenes. World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the only true pre-AEW competitor to what was then called the WWF, did do so in the 1990s with perhaps the most commercially successful non-WWF wrestling brand, the New World Order (nWo), a villainous wrestling stable whose t-shirts you have almost certainly seen over the many years. Though, it should be said that a) the entire gimmick was former WWF Superstars teaming up to take over the competitor during the peak of the so-called Monday Night Wars, and b) basically every star, including the kayfabe leader of WCW, Eric Bsichoff, would end up as part of nWo. Are they really rebels if the entire establishment belongs to them? Across the Pacific, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW or just New Japan), had success with a legally-distinguishable but extremely similar gimmick, Bullet Club, a stable primarily made up of foreign-born wrestlers in Japan, which debuted in 2013. I am not a wrestling historian by any means, but the Bullet Club logo and accompanying brand is still wildly popular with wrestling fans stateside. If you go to any wrestling show, there’s a damn good chance you’ll see a handful of people wearing Bullet Club shirts. Twin Cities hip-hop-person-turned-pro-wrestler Nur-D sells shirts with a modified version of the Bullet Club logo. [https://my-store-10230669.creator-spring.com/listing/the-yellow-house-collection?_gl=1%2Afdggx%2A_up%2AMQ..%2A_ga%2AMjE1ODY1MjUuMTc2NTIyNTQ3Nw..%2A_ga_DONTUSE%2AczE3NjUyMjU0NzYkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjUyMjU0NzYkajYwJGwwJGgwJGRUeDdSeUxkaEtQVWUyOE0wQjNrSkNFcTMyRjFjUkctdHNR%2A_ga_G3GKJFR6Z9%2AczE3NjUyMjU0NzYkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjUyMjU0NzYkajYwJGwwJGgxMjE2NTYwODE3JGR0RUd1OHV6UUl2SXY1aXhVQ1V1Y0E1TWFyOW9tWmxBNEJn&product=823&thumbnail=front&tsmac=store&tsmic=my-store-10230669&variation=103662] Bullet Club’s popularity led to multiple sub-factions/spin-offs, perhaps most notably, The Elite, the wrestling stable that is the namesake of All Elite Wrestling. The Elite were the primary driving force behind the early success of AEW; the 2018 All In pay-per-view (organized by The Elite) was the watershed moment that proved there was a market for large WWE competitor in the US, and this was primarily boosted by the wildly popular YouTube vlog series Being the Elite (BTE) [https://www.youtube.com/beingtheelite], [https://www.youtube.com/beingtheelite] which follows the lives of the members behind the scenes. Today, only three groups of the original Bullet Club exist: the Bullet Club War Dogs, The Elite (which hasn’t been considered a Bullet Club faction since 2018), and Bullet Club Gold, also known as the Bang Bang Gang. The War Dogs almost exclusively exist in New Japan, and I’d recommend watching the 2025 match-of-the-year contender from [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9fiecy]Wrestle Dynasty [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9fiecy] back in January where Kenny Omega fought War Dogs leader Gabe Kidd [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9fiecy] in a nearly hour-long bout that was largely driven by Kidd’s hatred for the “traitor” Kenny Omega. The fight is easily in my top three of the year and famously left NJPW legend Hiroshi Tanahashi in tears. So that just leaves Bullet Club Gold, also known as the Bang Bang Gang. When I started watching in 2023, they were still billed as Bullet Club Gold, and even wore Bullet Club-branded apparel, albeit modified. The Bang Bang Gang debuted a few months before then, when “The Switchblade” Jay White (who led Bullet Club in Japan after The Elite left) made his debut in AEW saving fellow Bullet Club alum “Rock Hard” Juice Robinson (not to be confused by “Freshley Squeezed” Orange Cassidy). Within a few months, they were joined by Austin and Colten Gunn, the twin sons of wrestling legend Billy Gunn. Together, they put the Bullet Club name to the side and called themselves “The Bang Bang Gang.” Jay White, Juice Robinson, and the Gunns were immediately fan favorites. The Gunns had been stuck in the shadow of their dad for a pretty mid trio storyline, but they fit right in alongside Jay and Juice. Their signature intro has them standing in a circle facing out, with the lights out, with one lone spotlight directly above. As the fog machine blows into the beam, we can only make out a bit of each member’s face. Austin Gunn will say in a sorta bad guy (?) voice “By the order of the Bang Bang Gang.” Juice Robinson has long been the Charlie Kelly-esque “wild card” and would do what I could only describe as a crazy Street Fighter character’s idle animation, sporting a long, scraggly beard, and wild untamed curly hair. Picking up off our discussion of The Acclaimed at the end of last week’s UTP, there was a very amusing time after the Bang Bang Gang turned face in 2024 where the Acclaimed and the Bang Bang Gang joined forces in a supergroup they called the Bang Bang Scissor Gang. Billy Gunn was reunited with his sons and everyone got to scissor all the time. It didn’t last, of course, but it was an incredible few months before Jay White and Juice Robinson were both injured. In fact, in the two short years I’ve been a viewer, either Juice or Jay have been injured pretty much the entire time. There was a roughly year-ish long gimmick where they used a cardboard cut-out of Jay White called “Card-blade,” and would do the same for Juice as well in 2025 when both Jay and Juice were injured. This summer, the Bang Bang Gang announced a new member, Ace Austin (who was in the original Bullet Club), would debut in AEW as part of the stable. On July 12 at All In: Texas, Juice Robinson made his triumphant return from injury as part of the Casino Gauntlet match, AEW’s response to the Royal Rumble. He had a new look: no more trunks, he had a black and gold one-piece. He’s clean shaven and not acting like a monkey man. He doesn’t do well, but does get a nice pop when he comes out. A few days later, AEW releases a dramatic sit-down interview between backstage presenter Renee Paquette and Juice [https://youtu.be/U2EFDYAO-Vk] where he candidly says he is tired of being a punchline, and that he wants to do something different with his character. We don’t get much development until an episode of Collision before Full Gear, where the Bang Bang Gang are given the opportunity to win $200,000 in a match on pay-per-view. Uncharacteristically, Juice is the voice of reason between himself, Austin Gunn, and Ace Austin (confusing, I know), and proclaims the funniest line he’s said in a promo in recent memory: that they plan to save the money they win and invest wisely using deferred savings accounts, including a 401(k). [https://instagram.com/p/DRaZfTLEpX7] Extremely funny stuff. They did win, and since then, Accountant Juice is mostly gone, but this past Saturday (December 6) on Collision, something magical happened. Austin Gunn and Juice Robinson came out to harass current Tag Team champs FTR while they were grandstanding a promo shitting on some other tag team. They come out, and it’s f*****g insane. Instead of the typically silly or humorous take on a wrestling promo, Austin and Juice deliver on building some massive hype for this Saturday’s Winter is Coming: AEW Collision, which will be from Cardiff, Wales. Cash Wheeler says Austin Gunn will never be more than Billy’s son, and Juice will never be more than “Mr. Toni Storm” (Juice Robinson and Toni Storm are married). The Bang Bang Gang takes the mic and cranks things up a notch. Austin says he’s the son of a wrestling legend and that Juice is the son of a carpenter, while Cash Wheeler is the “son of his first cousin” and Dax is “just a son of a b***h.” Juice takes the mic and delivers more verbal abuse about how they’re going to be the next AEW World Tag Team champions. Juice delivers the classic Bang Bang Gang catchphrase. “And if you don’t like that, then we’ve got two words for you:” Juice pauses. We hear a loud “Guns Up!” from the crowd before Juice moves in closer to Dax Harwood, grits his teeth, and says “And New,” which is the phrase used in wrestling (particularly AEW marketing) to introduce the new champions. The crowd Ooos and Aaahs because this was…shockingly good and has me pumped for the future of the Bang Bang Gang. Juice Robinson and Austin Gunn of the Bang Bang Gang will be taking on Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler, FTR this Saturday on AEW Collision on TNT at 3:30 Central. UTP THRIFTS AFTER A DISAPPOINTING BLACK FRIDAY CLOSURE, THE SAVAGE GOODWILL RISES LIKE A PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES On Thanksgiving, Emily and I were doing our once weekly or so tradition of “TikTok Time,” where we watch the TikToks Emily had sent me over the week (I used to be a TikTok-er but stopped using it earlier this year). She had shared a video about a thrift store in Shakopee that was located in an old big box store shell. The finds in the video were incredible, and looked to be closer to how I remember Savers being in the golden age of thrifting (pre-Macklemore), so I was sold. We made plans to go on Black Friday after we got breakfast with some friends. We made the trip down only to find it was closed for the holiday, which was fitting, considering it was a partially government-operated thrift store. So it goes. All hope felt lost. But then I remembered something: I grew up around here, and there’s a Goodwill about a 3-minute drive from my very first childhood home, and while I have had mixed experience there, it was better than going home with my tail between my legs. So we went. I pulled into the Savage, MN Goodwill, and I as I got out of the car, I muttered “I can’t wait to be disappointed.” Emily didn’t think that was very funny. We went inside and I was immediately disarmed by the presence of a pair of tables up front with what I like to call “corporate merchandise,” the mass-produced, brand-less tat that is Amazon alphabet-soup-drop-ship garbage-level quality. Except in this case, it appeared to be surplus TJ Maxx or Marshall’s “gift” section products. Never mind that, I’ve got to get to the glorious left wall, which houses everything from kitchen goods, to tech items, and usually some part of the ever-changing “media” section. Congestion was out of control. A family of 3 chose to look at every damn mug and glass and took up the whole damn aisle with their cart. There wasn’t much that was catching my eye until we got to the electronics. Then I saw it. After years of clicking the keys on random keyboards and typewriters at Goodwill, I spotted a goofy-looking keyboard with typerwriter-like keycaps. I picked it up and saw on the back that it was a 60%-sized mechanical keyboard. Finally! For years, a mechanical keyboard has been on my list of Goodwill white whales, alongside steeply discounted high-quality furniture, designer clothes, or shockingly nice electronics. I’ve found Patagonia jackets, brand-new pair of suede Pumas, a Samsung Bluetooth soundbar with wireless subwoofer, but never a mechanical keyboard, or at least at an affordable price. If you don’t know, mechanical keyboards are keyboards for your computer where under each key is a physical switch that gets clicked to register your press, as opposed to “rubber domes” which provide a mushy level of resistance where your pressing connects a circuit rather quickly. People who use them prefer mechanical keyboards for their satisfying clicking, customization, and features like RGB lighting, macros to automate tasks, and as a status symbol to their plebian peers. Mechanical keyboards used to be the norm way back when; the IBM Model M from the 1980s is such a classic, that a company bought the patent and the molds and produces these old-ass keyboards to this day (I have one). [https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/NEW_M] However, in the late 90s, the manufacturing tech for rubber dome keyboards became remarkably cheap and relegated mechanical keyboards to the way of the dodo, except for tech enthusiasts, primarily in the US and east Asia. I bought my first in 2015, a little Ducky Mini with Cherry MX Blue switches. I also have a Unicomp Model M, a random 60% with Gateron Brown switches, and a Topre-clone I use at work. Don’t worry if this is all gibberish to you, it barely means anything to me anymore. All of my keyboards pre-dated today’s much larger and far-less sketchy DIY market, where enthusiasts can easily buy all of the parts online far cheaper and faster than “back in my days.” Because of this, keyboards have also gotten much cheaper. Within this context I find the black keyboard with a $10.99 price tag. A bit steep for a keyboard I don’t need, but the fact the model said “mechanical keyboard” was enough for me to not think twice. When I got back to my car, I googled the model and was disappointed to learn that I had…not really gotten a good deal. Brand-new, this keyboard cost about $20. This keyboard was just another alphabet-soup-brand-less drop-shipped AliExpress garbage (from brand I’ve never heard of called “E-YOOSO”), but still technically a working mechanical keyboard with generic “brown” switches. They have Cherry MX stems, meaning I can add new keycaps if I don’t like these fake-ass typewriter ones, but there’s a big problem: the right shift key is too small, meaning standard keycap sets won’t work and I also am constantly hitting the up arrow key instead of shift. The design is very human. It is RGB, which is shocking to me. My Ducky Mini only has the red and blue LEDs, which is great for bisexual lighting but less helpful if you want to go full gamer mode. I’m shocked it works at all, but the cable has a short in it or something; not to worry, it’s just a generic Micro USB port with a nice storage space so any cable will look natural. Believe it or not, when I got my Ducky, the removable cable was a feature you got as part of the justification for the $130 I paid for it or whatever. While I wrote most of this newsletter on a MacBook, I did as much writing and editing with the E-YOOSO as I could, only after I realized that is an actually useful angle to review a keyboard like this. It really does f*****g suck. The brown switches feel the same as my other knock-off brown-switched 60% keyboard I have. Buuuuut, I also have no sentimental attachment to this keyboard and will have no problem taking it apart and goofing around with it, because arguably the coolest part about this board is that the case is some metal, but there’s still a perfectly good PCB that can be repurposed for some DIY monstrosity. And supposedly (I haven’t taken it apart yet but reddit sources claim it’s a marketing lie) with the switches being hot-swappabl, Stay tuned. This wasn’t even the only solid find at this Goodwill. I got a working Blu-Ray player for a whopping $5. I almost bought a set of two IKEA LACK shelving units for like $1/piece, but they were just a little nicked on the side that stuck out, so I didn’t bother. The media section was enormous and featured one of the rarest sights for Twin Cities-area Goodwill locations in 2025: a VHS tape section. I should know; I’ve looked for tapes at Goodwill every time I’ve gone since my dad gave me our old family kitchen CRT tv and a working VCR and have amassed a good collection so far. But that’s a story for another day. This was my best Goodwill run in a while, and even though I didn’t get a good deal on it, and I hate using it, I still managed to find a working mechanical keyboard at Goodwill: a life-long goal. …AND ANOTHER THING NETFLIX CAN TA-DUM RIGHT OFF, AND TAKE PARAMOUNT WITH THEM This past week has been a firestorm of corporate conglomerations (and the ghouls that run them) making some the most brazen examples of open corruption in recent memory, as both Netflix and Paramount are chomping at the bits to pick apart the Warner Brothers media empire and further consolidate the already monopolistic media industry. There’s a lot to be annoyed about, but if you know me, the one thing that I am most annoyed about is how this will affect pro wrestling. You can also probably imagine the same thing for whatever Warner Brothers/DC/HBO/TBS/TNT property you like, if for some reason you’ve had it to here with wrestling content in this publication. Currently, there are three companies with regular wrestling programming on cable television: * The WWE has been airing NXT on the CW for a while now, but RAW is now exclusively on Netflix. SmackDown is presently on the USA network and Peacock but that’s almost certainly changing soon. * TNA will leave AXStv and be on AMC in the new year. * And my beloved AEW airs Collision on Saturdays on TNT and Dynamite on Wednesdays on TBS. This is not a serious or informed view of the modern media landscape; I am just griping. But the rumor was that WB-Discovery owns a share of AEW as part of their massive TV deal they inked earlier this year. If Netflix somehow got the programming power to decide if AEW airs or not, what would that mean for AEW? Could be bad! Could be worse with Paramount in charge. The talk is that Jared Kushner and the Saudis are trying to organize that, and we’ve already detailed much of the extremely fucked up and growing business relationship that TKO (parent company of UFC and WWE) has with the Saudis and the American government. The whole thing stinks to high heaven. Don’t take wrestling from me. The one good thing about living in times where things we enjoy continually are ruined by massive corporations, is that there’s a whole else lot you could be doing. I’d probably go to indie wrestling shows more frequently than I do now and probably buy AEW+ or whatever the f**k they’re gonna call it. I’m just really annoyed. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com [https://uffdatimespicayune.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Soundwaves: Alright, Let's Wrap It Up

Welcome back, friend, to the newsletter and podcast that puts the UTP in perfect utopia: The Uffda Times-Picayune. This one would be a good one to read and follow along with the voiceover, especially for the third article. I’m getting better at podcasting! As our brave and noble movement of journalistic malpractice marches forward and onward to victory over the dreaded menace, truth, we’ve also picked up a number of new readers and listeners that must be reminded of just what the hell we’re all doing here, and who better to do it than the propaganda arm of UTP, the Ministry of What’s It To Ya and Nunya Business (WITY-NB): NOAH THE EDITOR was born some time ago along the sacred mountainside of suburban Denver. The Glorious Editor was born of a sunbeam, carried by a flock of pigeons, before the infant Editor completed their first of sixty-seven most glorious perfect 300 games of bowling at the Bowling Alley of the Revolution. Shortly after, Noah delivered an edict: Friend’s Humorous Newsletter to Make Life Worth Living. [https://uffdatimespicayune.substack.com/p/extra-friends-humorous-newsletter] The most excellent and factual newspaper of record was christened with the raising of 1000 doves, a procession of 16 military wives, 32 softly focused brightly-colored eyes, and the heralding of 500 trumpets. The first edition featured the holy revelations of blessed AEW kayfabe scripture, another testament of "Hangman" Adam Page, a review of the first Wicked, and complaining about living in a nation of scams. It was truly what the brave, chosen people of UTP-land needed from their Glorious Editor. May we Uffda onward for one thousand generations! So anyway. Welcome to my personal mouthpiece for infodumping (did you know I wrote nine newsletters about Mormons?), complaining, opining, trying creative writing, and really whatever I want. Don’t take it too seriously. Hell has frozen over in Minneapolis. Ice is on the streets, despite the city’s promises to do what they can keep it out. It’s gotten mighty slippery out there. Keep an eye out for yourselves and others! Not only does your face hurt if you walk outside, but we also have a development on the Eddie Kingston-Samoa Joe storyline in AEW. They had their big promo, which they had hyped up on Collision on Thanksgiving, on this week’s Dynamite, and I couldn’t have been more disappointed. Eddie needs to be going after the Death Riders, not wasting his time with The Opps and Hook. I know Hook betrayed him, but they also weren’t really friends? Like they were teammates for like a month and two TV appearances. Just really disappointing. At least we’ll probably get an MJF return in the next 1, 2, 3 weeks. In this edition of UTP, I review the national tour of The Phantom of the Opera that stopped in Minneapolis, we give the green monster a run for their money as we do Noah’s iPod 2025 Wrapped, and I address the wrestling songs on my other wrapped top list. This is UTP Soundwaves, where we chat everything music. Thanks for reading (and listening!). It’s not spam if you send it to your friends. Give them a phone call. Why don’t you call anymore? Should we be getting landlines? UTP AT THE THEATRE PHANTOMS AT THE OPERA This past long weekend I had the privilege to attend the traveling production of perennial UTP person of interest Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1980’s 1890’s fever dreamThe Phantom of the Opera. Phantom is my partner’s favorite musical. One of our first experiences with musicals together was when I showed her the theatrical Jesus Christ Superstar, and she showed me the 2012 Royal Albert Hall anniversary production of Phantom. We had the pleasure of seeing the 50th anniversary production of JCS at the Kennedy Center in 2022, and we saw the non-equity tour at the DECC in Duluth in February 2024. But we haven’t had the chance to see Phantom. I’ve since seen the 2012 version of Phantom multiple times, the film version once, and shockingly good high school productions on YouTube. I’ve watched the horrific sequel Webber based on a 1999 Phantom fanfic, Love Never Dies, where the Phantom leaves the catacombs beneath the Parisian opera house and moves to, I shit you not, Coney Island. I’m not going to re-litigate Phantom. The story is relatively simple (even though I probably had to see it like 5 times to fully grasp what the hell was going on). Two buffoons buy an opera house, with an established pair of stars, when a mysterious playwright who lives in the catacombs of the opera, known only as the Phantom of the Opera, uses written threats and dubiously supernatural techniques to frighten the owners into substituting another cast member, the soprano Christine Daaé, who had a young love fling with the opera’s newest patron the Vicomte de Chagny Raoul. Drama ensues. Phantom is fun (and confusing if you are stupid, like me). This production was among the best of the best. In fact, Emily said that of the four times she’s seen it live, this was the best version. I was not a theater kid; band was my jam. But I did play in pit orchestra, including the single worst pit of all time for The Music Man. People thought our playing was a joke. One instructor affiliated with the production famously called us (in retrospective) the “worst pit orchestra ever.” I did play a Phantom medley in concert orchestra, but that was my only experience prior to meeting Emily. That and the drum corps version [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6AaSqUXiQ] (which was so popular they did it two years in a row). But despite my lack of theater kid credentials, I can appreciate this production’s extraordinarily intricate tech. We got the full chandelier experience, explosions, swinging, and all. The Phantom’s eerie voice was piped in using surround sound speakers around us. The way the curtains were so intentionally used as set devices, both in diegetic (Phantom has multiple musicals-within-a-musical) and non-diegetic senses (dynamic curtain draws and lifts seamlessly took us from place to place) was truly enamoring. This production did NOT fuck around. The cast was incredible. Isaiah Bailey delivers an all-time great performance as the titular Phantom, a character who is functionally an incel terrorist that does double-duty as an all-time favorite of the romance genre; he’s a misunderstood softie who is only evil because society forces him to be, secluded away hiding his talents and skills. Bailey is perfect opposite Jordan Lee Gibert’s Christine, and I would say that the casting is damn near perfect. You’d think Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the musical for these people. “I don’t get it. Why am I supposed to care about him? He killed people!” - my brother after the conclusion of the 2012 version. Our showing was marred by a technical issue, though. In the midst of the beginning of the final descent into the Phantom’s lair, I think the boat (an all-time silly Broadway prop) got its wheels jammed or something? They stopped the show and lifted the lights for about 8 minutes, but honestly, I don’t think a single person cared because the intricate production is worth the wait. No one wants to see half-assed Phantom of the Opera. Less interestingly, an opp from my past sat down right in front of us. A ghost from my past. A phantom at the opera, if you can believe it. I don’t believe in real ghosts, but I sure as hell believe in metaphorical ones. Anyway, the real Phantom of the Opera was fucking awesome. 5 stars. The only downer was that the production was priced appropriately… around $90/ticket. But if that’s what it takes to pay the high quality union crew, then that’s fine with me. SHAMELESSLY RIPPING OFF THE GREEN MONSTER NOAH’S IPOD WRAPPED 2025 I had a humorous idea on my personal Instagram story: what if I had a Spotify Wrapped, but for the music that’s just on my iPod? Well here you go. My partner Emily got me a purple iPod Nano for my birthday earlier this year. When I was a kid, all I fucking wanted was an iPod, and finally, I had one. The timing was nice—King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, my favorite band, left Spotify after widespread reporting about the CEO’s personal financial investments in drone warfare companies. So I loaded it up with a who’s who of music from my Spotify time, and also old music I’ve had in my personal data archive, which goes back to… 2010? 2009? Idk, but it’s been a while. I want to point out something kind of funny in all this: my family never had any Apple products growing up (or today). I explored too many places I didn’t belong on the internet with old Windows XP business laptops my dad bought. My first smartphone was a then-seven-year-old Google G1, the first-ever Android phone, hacked of course. So you’ll imagine my surprise when I use an old MacBook of Emily’s to start writing and doing *gestures to podcast and newsletter home studio*, plug the iPod in, and find out that actually, you can’t use an iPod on modern Apple hardware: iTunes no longer exists. It literally only exists on Windows in 2025. I have an 8GB model, which fits roughly 1000 songs. I’ve filled the whole thing up, but have a “to-go” playlist of 16 songs I listen to most often. Consider this the definitive THE TOP 16 SONGS ON THE ONLY PLAYLIST ON MY IPOD, you won’t believe number 15! In a humorous ironic twist revealing that I have no values, I’ve made this a Spotify playlist. [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6DFjUlXaMb7psMax90VltR?si=38h7Bi-9TRC7bLPp4aINdQ] * “Phantom, Pt. II” by Justice from [https://youtu.be/dXokkMPhRrY]Cross (2007) [https://youtu.be/dXokkMPhRrY] French electro duo Justice was the first grown-up music I really found on my own. I was on a certain website known for funneling young men into right-wing identity crises, which I thankfully never went down, but the song was featured in a meme on the /video games/ board of said website. Since that night in 2010, or whatever, I’ve loved this song and the band. I love Phantom Pt. II because, despite having no words, it’s infectiously catchy and easy to dance to. Easy number one and keeps me checked in for the whole album. I was also supposed to see Justice live this year but had fucking shingles. Fuck you, 3rd Grade Noah, for getting chicken pox even though I was vaccinated. * “Nouveau Americain” by Brazilian Girls from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_mWZtcZNLM]New York City (2008) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_mWZtcZNLM] This song is a fucking banger. You may recall a while back I did a whole UTP Soundwaves article interrogating the presence of music from the Grand Theft Auto games on my various playlists. Well here’s another one. It’s from the Grand Theft Auto IV expansion The Ballad of Gay Tony, which oddly had a very influential impact on me because I often think about the trailer for [https://youtu.be/x5W9KzatghM]Gay Tony [https://youtu.be/x5W9KzatghM] that featured Roxette’s “The Look,” [https://youtu.be/x5W9KzatghM] one of many (un)ambiguously queer songs I can point that I enjoyed growing up. I love this song’s fast drive, wub-wub-wub-bubba-bub bass, the ethereal piano, ambiguously foreign lyrics and vocalist. Just a banger all around. * “Murder on the Dancefloor (Extended Album Version)” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6dNaLa_OwM]Murder on the Dancefloor (2001) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6dNaLa_OwM] Oh, you fuckin’ know I had to go for the extended version. I really enjoyed Saltburn (2023). It was gut-wrenching, identity-affirming, repulsively-erotic, and the iconic last sequence set to this song as Barry Keoghan flops and hangs around the Saltburn estate. I have cleaned my house dancing to this song so many times. * “Cool as Kim Deal” [https://youtu.be/1alTRwj49Y4?list=PLNPGM2D7aODd1srJSh5P5WH64ATPisoXO] and “Not If you Were The Last Junkie on Earth” by The Dandy Warhols from The Dandy Warhols Come Down (1997) The next song(s) is actually a double feature from ‘97. “Cool as Kim Deal” is super catchy, with “bah-buh-ba-bahh” and “aaaahhhs” and a droning rock organ beyond an extraordinarily simple rhythm section. Who doesn’t want a cool girlfriend? I mean, come on. Have you heard The Breeders? I think this song pairs well with another one on the album, “Not If You Were The Last Junkie on Earth,” which begins with “I never thought you’d be a junkie because heroin is so passé.” Gotta love Gen-Xers. [https://youtu.be/pSANTRnEBgg?t=48] * “The Rockafeller Skank” by Fatboy Slim from [https://youtu.be/FMrIy9zm7QY]You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby (1998) [https://youtu.be/FMrIy9zm7QY] RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. CHECK IT OUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. CHECK IT OUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER.RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. CHECK IT OUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER.RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. CHECK IT OUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. For real, this is my favorite song to play in the now-dead 2021 DJ rhythm game FUSER, much to the chagrin of my loved ones who have had to endure one of my “sets.” I hope you’re ready for Ginuwine’s “Pony” mixed with Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby.” I can’t find it, but there was a livestream a couple years ago where a guy was trying to recreate “The Rockafeller Skank” on a modern DAW and Norman Cook (AKA Fatboy Slim) was in the chat literally walking him through it. Crazy stuff. * “Metal” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmZ6_tbLgXM] and “M.E.” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeucohIa5LQ] by Gary Numan from The Pleasure Principle (1979) If Slint touched Apollo by inventing grunge and math rock in Louisville in the late 80’s, Gary Numan did the same with The Pleasure Principle by so naturally including the synthesizer as another instrument. It’s insane this was still the 70’s. I love both these songs because I discovered them from the Nine Inch Nails cover of “Metal” which includes both songs. They just go so hard. * “von dutch” by Charli XCX from [https://youtu.be/35MjvGLdfoE]brat (2024) [https://youtu.be/35MjvGLdfoE] For this humble music critic, Brat Summer never ended. “von dutch” topped my Wrapped for a second year, and it only makes sense that it’s here too. This song is perfect. It has no faults. It is just under three minutes of the greatest pop song ever. I’d be remiss not to mention that I did mod this into my WWE 2K24 game and have a brat-themed wrestler who looks shockingly like me, aptly named “Noah XCX,” which the game announces exactly the way you’d expect. * “6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eBZqmL8ehg]Becoming X (1997) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eBZqmL8ehg] The late-90s strikes again on this list with a certified platinum Noah favorite. A GTA V song that has somehow permeated nearly every playlist of mine is one of my favorite songs ever. I waxed poetic about it in the GTA article so go read that. * “In Undertow” by Alvvays from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1n72aCdwdU]Antisocialites (2017) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1n72aCdwdU] I got into Alvvays at a very important time. The first semesters I had at the U of M were liberating—I was finally out of Dodge. The bedroom pop band came to my attention when my good friend RD (hey, RD!) asked me to go to their concert at First Ave. It was really good. I love this song because it’s a break-up song the lead singer wrote about the guitarist—although they aren’t breaking up. It's an exercise in simulated loss and grief, but the song feels like a breath of fresh air. A turning of the pages. The beach receding back to the ocean as another wave crashes against the shore. * “Voodoo People” by The Prodigy from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5fM6WpC_nE]Music for the Jilted Generation (1994) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5fM6WpC_nE] So there’s this movie called Hackers (1995) and it fucking rules. We get non-binary Matt Lillard, Hollywood-ass hacking scenes, and the raddest fucking rollerblading montage ever to “Voodoo People.” It’s the climax and our hacking heroes have to do the plot to make the movie end, which has to happen in phone booths at Grand Central Terminal for some reason. I think about the shot in front of Grand Central and the MetLife Building every time I hear this song. Can you tell I really like the 90’s? * “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5UOC0C0x8Q]Core (1992) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5UOC0C0x8Q] I love this song. Even though it’s so obviously trying to cash in on Eddie Vedder’s unintelligble singing throughout the legendary Ten (1991), infamous piece of shit (he still is, but he used to be, too) Scott Weiland. But ya know, I love this stupid song. Especially when I was like, 12. * “The Concept of Love” by Hideki Naganuma from [https://youtu.be/sVR8OFuE_R8?t=40]Jet Set Radio Future (2001) [https://youtu.be/sVR8OFuE_R8?t=40] UNDUHSTAH UNDUSTAH. UNDUHSTAH UNDUHSTAH. UNDUHSTAH UNDUHSTAH THE CON-CEPT OF LOVE! Curveball! This is from a video game: the cult classic rollerblading (lmao two songs related to rollerblading) graffiti game Jet Set Radio Future. The Jet Set Radio games are infamous for their Naganuma-penned soundtracks, which frankly feature only fucking bangers. This was one of two games packaged with the original Xbox I had when I was like, 4?, so this one is really lodged in there. * “Neverender” by Justice & Tame Impala from Hyperdrama (2024) I didn’t mention it when I talked about “Phantom Pt. II,” but Justice has enjoyed a new mainstream level of success that would have floored 2013 Noah. I was desperate for anything new; they had only done Cross (2007) and Audio, Video, Disco (2011). I actually joined Spotify to hear their second live album Access All Arenas (2013) the moment it came out. “Neverender” is catchy, has that warm Justice glow to it, and featuring everyone’s other favorite Australian psychedelic rock project Tame Impala is a treat in itself. * “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” by Nirvana from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEMm7gxBYSc]MTV Unplugged in New York [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEMm7gxBYSc] My first unhealthy interest in the darker side of the 90’s started like any good Gen Z/elder millennial when I was going through puberty and was obsessed with Nirvana. I was learning guitar, and their riffs are infamously easy, catchy, and recognizable. There’s more to this story that’ll come in my oral history of Facebook, but I had a certain affinity for their edition of MTV Unplugged, probably thanks to my late mom, who always found an emotional outlet in latching on to celebrity tragedies, usually from addiction. Especially Kurt Cobain and Michael Jackson. If you haven’t watched this one, please do. It’s the last song and is a cover of a blues standard, but Rolling Stone has called it the greatest rock performance of all time, and I’m inclined to agree. The last chorus, when Kurt’s voice gets raspy, his eyes get wide, and he hits the “don’t lieeeeee to me” for the last time. He’s singing a song about someone’s concern about reckless behaviors, much in the same way people who surrounded Kurt were concerned for his health and safety in the months and weeks leading to his death. Anyway, if I’m in the right mood this song will break me. I don’t usually listen to it, but we don’t have an algorithm or data that’s been harvested. Just vibes and a purple iPod Nano and the hope I’m not paying too much attention to the music when I’m iPod-ing it up. Wrap that in a box! Word to your mother. ENDEARING OR EMBARASSING? ADDRESSING THE WRESTLING THEME SONGS ON MY SPOTIFY WRAPPED For a similar and much shorter last feature, I wanted to highlight and address something I observed when reading my 2025 Wrapped: three wrestler walk-out songs were in the top ten. I wanted to talk about them individually and explain why they’re here. As we talked about in the past few weeks, wrestling rules because of the pageantry, and the walk-outs are, imo, like 90% of my favorite parts. The songs set the tone, the crowd pops fuel excitement. The announcers make stupid-ass comments. It’s high drama. It’s anime. I’m also a dork who will listen to the music when I am doing something that isn’t watching wrestling, which isn’t that embarrassing except when the song has the wrestler’s name as a chant in the song itself. Anyway, let’s do this. * “C.U.R.I.O.S.I.T.Y” by ONE OK ROCK ft. Paledusk, CHICO CARLITO, walk-out song of “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada 47 listens and #8 most-listened song of 2025 Earlier this year, Japanese wrestling superstar “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada came out to a different song. We heard his signature coin flip, but instead of the instrumental theme he’s had for at least a decade, a new, but somewhat similar-sounding song came on. I liked that it was fast, dramatic, had words, and also featured a lot of my favorite nu metal tropes. The words are…embarassing. The song is from ONE OK ROCK, an actual, successful Japanese metal band that Okada is apparently personal friends with. Okada is like, John Cena levels of celebrity in Japan, and he’s infamously the most expensive AEW wrestler, with a contract estimated at over $10 million. It takes a minute or so to get into it to the chorus, which is just spelling the word “curiosity” out loud? But the chorus is when the pyro starts, so we do get an awkward 30-seconds where Okada just kinda stands there waiting for the song, which I think builds up the drama. I don’t really get what curiosity has to do with anything, but at least it’s kind of clever: "C" everything that "U" really fucking "R," I-O-S and, "I" hate reali-"T"y, sometimes I don't know "Y," my curiosity. They don’t censor it though which is funny—if Okada is wrestling you’ll hear an F-bomb on live TV. Anyway, it’s a bona fide anime final battle song and Okada literally once played himself in a wrestling anime, so pretty apt, I’d say. * “Elevated” by It Lives, It Breathes, walk-out song of Will Ospreay 55 listens, #6 most-listened song of 2025 I won’t spend time justifying this because if you’ve ever watched Will Ospreay come out, and then wrestle a full pay-per-view match, you’ll understand why he’s allowed to have a corny-ass song that has “Os-preay, Os-preay” chants built into it. He’s a real-life superhero and his song just brings me so much joy, in part because of the corniness, part because of more nu metal tropes, but in general it just gets me going. * “Underground” by Jane’s Addiction, walk-out song of “The Pride of Pro Wrestling” “The Five Tool Player” Anthony Bowens 61 listens, #5 most-listened song of 2025 When Anthony Bowens returned during the Dynasty pre-show in April, it was honestly shocking. Bowens was one-third of The Acclaimed, a stable with “Platinum” Max Caster and “Daddy Ass” Billy Gun. Their gimmick was that they wear pink, everyone loves them, and their signature taunt is “scissoring” where they take peace signs and slam them into each other. “Scissor me, Daddy Ass” is a phrase seriously spoken and subsequently cheered for by adult, American men. I have a t-shirt that says “Scissor Me” on the front. Max and Anthony broke up a while back as Max was getting cockier and cockier, and his walk-out freestyle raps (as bad as it sounds, tbh) were getting worse and worse. Anthony was injured (?), I’m not sure, I’m not fact-checking this, and while he was gone Max had started the “Best Wrestler Alive” gimmick, where he trademarked that term and carries the patent around with him in a little frame. He made an awkward ass chant that was hated at first: “Let’s Go Max You’re The Best Wrestler Alive.” I say at-first, because he started doing these segments on Collision: “Can You Survive Five With The Best Wrestler Alive?” where Max has a five-minute open challenge match that he literally always loses. The Max Caster Open Challenge segment became a highlight of the show, where random AEW stars from across the card, occasionally guest from Japan, Mexico, or the UK, or anyone would beat the shit out of Max Caster for a few minutes. The chant also got super over, and has even been used pejoratively against Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF), when he’s being a cowardly heel. It’s in this context we get the announcement that during the Dynasty: Zero Hour pre-show, Max would have an open challenge. As the clip shows, the lights go out and the beginning of “Underground” starts playing—which we’ve never heard before. “Whose song is this?” remarks Bryan Danielson. Out comes Anthony Bowens, the first time we’ve seen him in months, and he’s with Billy Gunn! The crowd is cheesing, he gets a massive pop. He kicks Max’s ass. We hear Jane’s Addiction again. Incredible. We actually don’t see him too much for a while—his “superhero” gimmick didn’t work and he’s now several months into a fall from grace where he has stooped to Max’s level, carrying around magazine covers and awards he’s gotten. The booking moves have been to force The Acclaimed back together by booking them as a tag team, but it’s been tough. But I joked every time his song started that we had to “stand for the anthem” when we heard the first notes and “I TRIED TO FIND SOME LOVE FROM UP HIGH, THERE JUST AIN’T ENOUGH TO GO AROUND.” Goes hard as fuck. The actual lyrics are corny and not cool at all (“How is New York bro? Is it holding you up, or bringing you down? We’re all hustlers, huslters. I never gave up the Underground”). Buuuut it’s on this list because it’s my morning alarm, lol. I just really wanted to tell that story. Anyway, that’s our show. Don’t forget to tip your waitress. there’s a production of Jesus Christ Superstar opening in Saint Paul next week. Should I go? I probably should, right? Will you sponsor me? No? Well then we’ll just pull the plug on it— If you want to give me money to see Jesus Christ Superstar, that’d be cool af, but you can also just consent to me sending you “the news” once a week to your inbox hole. Subscribe to UTP, now. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com [https://uffdatimespicayune.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Please, God, Give Us the Donald Trump Face Turn

Happy Black Friday UTP’ers. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and made a point to bring up controversial topics and plug my newsletter to your coolest family members. I really appreciate it. I also hope you full-body-checked five dads for a good TV deal, but I know you didn’t, because that America we were promised is gone. RETVRN! Actually, I thought people didn’t shop on Black Friday in-person, but I swear to God the traffic in and around both the Eagan outlet mall and the Mall of America was worse than I’ve ever seen it. Easily a thousand-plus cars between the two locations just trying to get in. At 3PM! Insanity. I wanted to make a note that picks up off last week’s UTP. You may recall I published a diatribe about AEW CEO Tony Khan’s fumbling of Eddie Kingston’s return after a year-long injury. Well, Tony must have read my newsletter, because last night, on the Thanksgiving episode of AEW Collision, we were treated to three courses of whoop-ass as Eddie Kingston cut a self-described “shoot” promo, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbHpAavgr0w] where everything was off the cuff. Unfortunately the YouTube video version cuts out a good minute or two of preamble, but this is the first promo since his return where Eddie is ruthlessly real. Please watch the 2-minute clip. I hope you’re enjoying the long weekend are prepared for more snow if you live in da Great White North. Oh yeah, we’re on Instagram now. [https://www.instagram.com/uffdatimes/] Thanks for reading. COMING SOON TO YOUR INBOX HOLE AND SPOTIFY [https://open.spotify.com/show/2QxT7N4x25W0I8hQEx66sC] OR APPLE PODCASTS FEED: [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-uffda-times-picayune/id1850776232] Facebook had an outsized impact on my adolescence, as well as my late mother’s adulthood. Early Facebook signaled the final stages of transition from bulletin board systems and forums to multi-billion user websites and apps that define most people’s experiences online. In this sentimental special (hopefully not a series, lol), I’ll reflect on Facebook’s power to connect yet isolate, its stupid f*****g games, and more on Zuckerberg’s zombie social network, from when I made my account at age 12 in 2009, to today’s malformed monster that is Meta. Coming soon. Thanks for reading The Uffda Times-Picayune! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. U(TP) DECIDE ‘26 THE DONALD TRUMP FACE TURN: THE (OTHER) SWERVE AMERICA NEEDS This week we got the first piece of political news out of the White House this calendar year that brought me true joy: the bonkers, totally unexpected press conference Donald Trump held with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office. There were conflicting reports. In the morning, there were rumors Trump had backed out of the meeting. I had seen a headline or two that it might be happening, but I was shocked when I saw the N** Y*** T***** email subject line that Trump was “heaping praise” on Mamdani. Excuse me? In case you weren’t paying attention to the New York Mayor’s race, MAGA-land had come out in full force as anti-Mamdani. Although not in force enough to rally behind the endorsed Republican candidate and living Grand Theft Auto character Curtis Sliwa—Trump actually endorsed Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former Democratic Governor of New York who was making a pathetic attempt at keeping moneyed Democrats (read: Republicans) in power. Cuomo lost in a blowout. The anti-Zohran campaign was heavily focused on Mamdani’s identity. Brown man, socialist, non-white name, baddie Hinge-wife. Crash-outs a-plenty across social media after Mamdani’s decisive win. There were even threats to deport him, despite his citizenship. It’s been a couple of weeks since then, and a lot has happened, but MAGA-land has towed the party line, as everyone would expect them to when they spent the entire campaign regurgitating racist comments and seek to discredit then-Representative Mamdani’s reputation simply because he isn’t white. In this context, we get the Oval Office meeting. It’s a press conference. The administration has not been afraid to use these exact opportunities to humiliate wavering allies at home and abroad, and to welcome some of the most evil warlords on the planet (an ex-Al Qaeda leader and MBS—in the same week). So we expected the worst. Only problem, Trump fuckng loves Zohran. Even the Donald isn’t immune to Zohran’s infectious charm, positive attitude, and focus on getting things done, or at least that’s what he told us. “He said some things that were very interesting and very interesting as to housing construction and he wants to see houses go up. He wants to see a lot of houses created and a lot of apartments built. We actually—people would be shocked. But I want to see the same thing.” Pardon me what? When the f**k was the last time Donald Trump talked about the idea of “housing.” Like what? I don’t have much more to say about this press conference except that it gave us a Trump we really haven’t seen in a minute. I saw a tweet remarking that he hasn’t looked this happy since the McDonald’s banquet lunch he held for the Crimson Tide during his first term. He was genuinely happy to meet with Zohran. He took him on a tour of the White House, and most notably, took a photo together in front of a painting of FDR that Mamdani had said was one he liked. In the photo, Mamdani seems to struggle to even half-heartedly smile, while the President is beaming from ear-to-f*****g-ear. We are way past due for a Donald Trump face turn. Using wrestling parlance when talking about who is good and who is bad with Donald Trump are actually pretty apt, not just because I have no other frame of reference with culture other than wrestling. Did I mention I didn’t start watching wrestling until I was 26? If you didn’t know, in the aughts, Donald Trump was a frequent guest star on WWE programming. Trump is famously friends with Vince McMahon (which makes a lot of sense knowing how they’re both pervert sex pests). I was never a WWE fan, so I can’t tell you many of the angles, but I know they ran an angle where Trump had “purchased” RAW, and was going to be making booking decisions. Another, and perhaps the most famous angle, was when Donald Trump and Vince McMahon had “their” respective wrestlers duke it out, and whoever lost, had to have their head shaved. Trump would go on to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013—our first WWE Hall of Fame President. Trump’s appearances on WWE programming are sporadic over the years, but his friendship with McMahon goes deeper than just occasional attendance at WrestleMania. Vince’s kids were groomed much in the same way as Trump’s to be underlings for dad. Vince has appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice as a guest judge and “expert” promoter (read: carny). The entire premise of a huge chunk of challenges on The Apprentice involve who can be the most obnoxious on the streets of New York for attention. Hillary Clinton was more right than anyone will give her credit for when she called Donald Trump a “carnival barker.” Like all her clunky, intellectualized insults, this one could have been refined to just “carny b*****d.” My personal favorite intersection of prescient-politics-and-wrestling that was more foreboding than anyone could have expected was during an in-ring promo at WrestleMania XX in 2004. Former Minnesota Governor and WWE Hall of Famer Jesse Ventura conducted an in-ring interview with Donald Trump, who was running as the presidential candidate for Jesse’s Reform Party, a half-hearted publicity stunt that famously got Roger Stone connected with Trump. Ventura asks about the likelihood of a wrestler, suggesting himself. As Ventura touched Apollo, the stage was set for Donald Trump to make himself the main storyline in American culture for the first quarter of the 21st century. If you watch old episodes of The Celebrity Apprentice particularly, you see a different kind of Trump. Trump’s not usually the one running the show in the board room (where deliberations happen before he fires someone on the losing team each episode), because he usually sics his kids or a powerful guest/friend (like McMahon) on people; Trump is really there to be the real-world Hedonism Bot from Futurama. How decadent, mmmm! So now it’s been a week or so now and have we seen Trump turn face? No. This wasn’t a face turn because I don’t think Donald Trump views Republicans as the ‘faces’ of American politics. He used to be a Democrat, after all, and has never really exemplified anything close to “statesman.” He has, however, been hyperfixated on whether he will go to heaven or hell when he dies, and he talks about it a lot. Supposedly, Pope Leo XIV told him he would not be saved simply because of the Abraham Accords, the Trump-era peace agreement for the Middle East that famously precluded *gestures wildly at Palestine*. The face turn can only happen if Trump believes that Democrats are actually good guys and that he might see some redemption as a universal good guy, and I don’t think that’s going to happen. Trump called Tim Walz a slur on Thanksgiving on Truth Social, so I don’t think he’s any different than he was before this. Maybe Mamdani can leverage this relationship to be a more effective negotiator than any of DC’s Democratic leadership. Wild speculation on Xitter called for naming massive public investments in housing, transit, and health care after Trump, and that Mamdani might be the only lefty politico who is savvy an charismatic, and professional enough to trick Trump into doing good things only so he can take the glory. Imagine the country if the cult of personality of Trump was able to steer his toxic fanbase towards being less evil? Mamdani’s visit all but showed that the posturing, insults, dehumanization, coded and overt racism, and much more are all exactly what everyone knows them to be: just another f*****g promo. Instead of pay-per-views, we get elections. Instead of Bret Hart burying that piece of s**t Bill Goldberg, it’s Donald Trump literally burying his political rivals. Everything is done for the fan reactions, for the “pop.” It’s not a coincidence that Trump has held his signature rallies non-stop since before his first election in 2016. He’s a carny b*****d who has to do basically nothing to get a crowd wrapped around his fingers. But he could have so much more. Imagine if he were actually celebrated? Imagine if he was agreeable enough to not get yelled at when he goes out to eat in DC. I’d put up with oversaturation of the Trump personality cult, if only meant the material conditions in America, what actually matters to 99% of people, actually improved. Until then, I guess he’s gonna continue saying slurs online. I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED…IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE SHEPHERD’S CROOK IN YOUR LIVING ROOM? This is the first in a new series in our regular three-story UTP programming focused on highlighting the various eccentric and odd items I have around my house. These are conversation pieces that no is here to have a conversation about, and I wanna talk about them anyway. So what’s the deal with the shepherd’s crook in your living room? I’m so glad you asked…it’s kind of a funny story. The dining room of my home is vaguely religious themed: a stylized Last Supper sits above the hi-fi and turntable opposite a framed copy of Minnesota’s state photograph Grace. But tucked in the corner is a roughly 6’ tall bamboo shepherd’s crook with a clear purple Goodwill tag still stuck to the top. I bought this stupid decoration in December 2022, mere weeks before Emily and I would move back to Minnesota from Arlington, VA. I found it at the Arlington, VA Goodwill on Glebe Rd, perhaps the greatest single Goodwill location I’ve ever been to. This location is in a cute brick building in vernacular NoVA architecture and was probably a strip mall or auto shop or something in a past life. I was there with my friend Clare (hi Clare, if you’re reading this), who I have a long tradition of thrifting with. This Goodwill rules for a number of reasons. This location has been aggressively resistant to the corporatization Goodwill has undergone since the 2010’s. I’m guessing this is simply my perception because Goodwill’s franchises are pretty funky in terms of regional management, and if I had to guess, I’d bet the Glebe Road one falls under a more independent franchisee. It uses old stickers and prices are fair. I’ve found incredible art and furniture, and my best thrifts include a somewhat-overpriced-but-still-fairly-priced Logitech G27 PC racing wheel in great condition and a brand-new pair of turquoise Puma suede sneakers. My favorite part is it’s location: on one of the Arlington Transit (ART) bus routes. The ART system (at least how it was in 2022) is incredible. Arlington does have Metrobus routes and has four Metro lines running through it, but also operates its own network and fleet of buses, separate from the regional bus system. Buses only operate in Arlington County, which is the smallest county by area in the country. ART buses are infamously clean, rarely packed, and make getting around the county extremely easy without a car. I can’t say (aside from including wait times) I ever had a trip that went more than 10-15 minutes. I could count on one hand how many times I had to stand on one of them. On the day I acquired my shepherd’s crook, Clare and I had taken the bus, which typically limits what you can purchase. I found the crook in the golf club section. It was listed for $10—too rich for my blood. I was enamored with it. It’s stupidly large, yet discreet, and would make a humorous conversation piece/possible Halloween costume. We went shopping around the store and as we were getting ready to check out, I noticed a sign: purple tags are 50% off. S**t. Gotta get the crook. Without thinking, I grabbed the crook and made my dastardly purchase. The only problem is that I had to take it home on the bus. I figured I’d get stares, but we’re rolling with it. The bus took longer than usual, I keenly remember. I had this stupid crook in my hand as we waited for the bus and I remember getting looks from people stopped at the light the bus stop was next to. At this point, I had figured out my favorite joke. The bus rolls up, and I step forward. Before the bus driver has even fully engaged the brakes, I am in position. I slam the crook on the ground twice in rapid succession like Moses parting the Red Sea, and just like the great prophet of old, the door opens for me. The bus driver laughed. Emily was baffled that I had bought such a large, useless item just weeks before we were set to have a cross-country move. But you know what? It made it here and fits in well with the Jesus vibes of the dining room. Let my people go! So yeah. That’s my shepherd’s crook. It’s kind of a funny story! UTP SOUNDWAVES ROYEL OTIS’ “MOODY” IS AN ANTHEM FOR THE REGRESSIVE 20’S Over the past year, YouTuber RegularCarReviews [https://youtu.be/uCHBDlMmfMg] has included a phrase in multiple car reviews that I have latched onto as an explanation for the cultural zeitgeist we currently exist in: the Regressive 20’s. Everyone knows about the Roaring Twenties, that decade inter-war period where America dramatically liberalized culturally. Women won their long-fought right to vote, the safety bicycle enabled women (and everyone else alike) to travel without a horse and carriage, and certainly without the need to be accompanied by a man. Flappers and jazz music were abound. A young Joe Piscopo taught us how to laugh. 100 years on, halfway through the Regressive 20s, and it feels decisively different. Political correctness, at least in moderate (and white) spaces, has become passé. The R-word has made a roaring comeback while probably more contextually useful words like “suicide” are reduced to “unaliving” to avoid angering automatic censors or getting demonetized or whatever. Facebook explicitly allows bullying based on identity now. We’re basically due for a resurgence in new Jeff Dunham racist stereotype puppets. I think that this regression is bad. More and more aspects of life will continue to be what 2017 college classmates of mine would call “problematic,” as horribly evil nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE work with American oligarchs to buy up media congloemerats across industries, like their purchase of Electronic Arts and speculation that a Saudi-led EA will either remove or otherwise censor content that doesn’t jive with the kingdom—take the LGBTQ inclusion of The Sims 4. One other example, is that WWE went from being condemned widely for a single PPV in Riyadh, to now rapidly expanding their presence, including announcing the next WrestleMania will be in Riyadh. In this context, Emily and I were driving—I think it was heading out of town for the Missouri road trip—listening to Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current until we lose the signal in southern Minnesota. I’ve largely stopped listening to this station. It was the main station I listened to throughout college, but the quality (in my opinion) has dipped significantly over the years. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that multiple personalities, mostly women, have left, and shared their deeply unpleasant experiences while working there—multiple women DJs were targets of violent threats and stalked by the same man. [https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/kare11-extras/jades-story-of-survival-6-months-after-leaving-893-the-current/89-3841a40b-8550-46ad-9b74-2c11d3400bdf] I also disagree with a number of aspects of American Public Media (APM), the Minnesota-based non-NPR affiliated organization which owns MPR and The Current. Anyway, we’re listening to The Current when a mellow 4-chord pop song plays. I noticed I was enjoying it so I turned it up. Emily was also enjoying it. We listened to the song but were a little disarmed by the lyrics. Here’s the chorus: She’s always giving it to me Late nights she’s always accusing Last time she said she would kill me My girl’s a b***h when she’s moody But she’s my everything She’s all that I need Sometimes more than I want Hmm. On one hand this is a new song (summer 2025) that both my partner and I really enjoyed hearing and discovering the song for the first time, together—that doesn’t happen very often. On the other hand, the song perpetuates the “my crazy b***h girlfriend” misogynistic trope. The song is “moody” by Australian band Royel Otis. They sound like 19 year-olds and the song sounds very targeted towards hormonal, unmedicated, lovey-dovey teenagers in toxic relationships. TangerineTop8507’s top comment on an r/RoyelOtis post about the song having its lyrics censored for the radio [https://www.reddit.com/r/RoyelOtis/comments/1knlpre/new_lyrics_for_moody/] (instead of b***h, they say trick) sums up the position that I don’t necessarily agree with, but represents the nuance of navigating the Regressive 20’s as someone who reallllllly doesn’t agree with the premise of cultural regression: I’m saying this as a woman in my 30’s - it is such a shame how people find these things offensive. If a girl was singing this it would be like GO GIRL and POWER TO THE WOMEN but because a guys says “b***h” it’s suddenly misogynistic and so offensive. I just don’t see it at all … people totally misunderstood the whole point behind the song - no matter what he still loves her and she’s his everything, like where is the misogyny? Okay. So I can like the song even if it’s misogynistic? Actually, no. The band apologized for being misogynistic, although it’s still a top song on their Spotify page, and undoubtedly their biggest hit. I also learned, while writing this piece, that Royel Otis is a lot of things, but two 19 year-olds singing about their toxic ex is not one of them. Royel, whose real name is Leroy, is actually 37 years-old, and Otis is 24. They started the band when Otis was still a teenager. Weird! Worst of all, beyond a man who is way too old to be singing like a teenage guy with a thing for crazy girl, there are (relatively unsubstantiated) rumors and accusations that Leroy had an inappropriate relationship with a minor student while he was an instructor at a music conservatory in New South Wales. [https://tribune.com.pk/story/2562200/royel-otis-faces-backlash-as-resurfaced-allegations-against-royel-maddell-spark-outrage] Yikes! It’s in this context that I say: “moody” is an anthem for the Regressive 20s. It’s got everything: problematic lyrics that are misogynistic, inappropriate age gaps aplenty, and the most unfortunately contemporary regression of excusing or dismissing pedophilia because the predator is a public figure, or because the victim is said to be near the age of consent. [https://www.npr.org/2025/11/18/nx-s1-5612509/what-does-15-look-like-teens-and-former-child-actors-weigh-in-online-after-megyn-kelly-comments] Even if you can look past the misogyny (I love cognitive dissonance), it’s hard to justify liking a band that, in general, isn’t very good, and represents the cutting edge in groomer-core music. And much like Saudi Arabia buying EA (and in turn the Sims) and the Spotify CEO’s significant investments in AI warfare, Royel Otis shows that there’s nothing good in the world that can’t be sullied by evil men. It’s an extremely catchy song, and an extremely 2025-ass song. I really’” wanted to be able to say “go ahead, enjoy the Regressive 20’s at your own peril” and add this earworm to your rotation. Separate art from artist, etc. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that Anthony Fantano, the internet’s busiest music nerd, gave the album a “Strong 1,” a decisive condemnation of the album. Let your friends know how cancelled I am for wanting to wax poetic about a song like “moody.” I’m sure they’ll love that. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uffdatimespicayune.substack.com [https://uffdatimespicayune.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]