Workin’ for the Weekend #61: Maher Clips, Coleman Rips, Amash Dips

Also: Let’s talk about the Hamas horrors on the subscribers-only Second Sunday Zoom-cast at 8 p.m. ET

Hello from Beverly Hills, where I had been looking forward to some leisurely rooftop laps before typing up these weekend notes, only to wake up to the Hamas horror in Israel, which kinda makes such frivolity feel obscene. Our heart goes out to our friends on the ground there, especially beloved Fifdom kween Yael Bar tur, whose Twitter feed is a must-follow right now. Incidentally, if you see anyone in the coming days talking about how Israel blocks all trade to and from Gaza, show them this picture, of the Israeli citizen and Harvey Keitel-looking badass ponytailed atheist who was evicted from his longtime home on the strip by the Israeli government when it ordered a full withdrawal, and has since then operated the one fully functional trade-crossing between Israel and Gaza, frequently dodging deadly explosives in the process.

* We will be talking about this war in the very near future, beginning with tomorrow night’s monthly Second Sunday taping of a subscribers-only episode, where paying customers can join via Zoom and watch, chirp in, and chat. (And play guitar on mute, and keep their pants on, unless pre-approved.) For the five-digits number of you who are free subscribers, let’s just say that the Zoom-casts have forged deep and sometimes intimate friendships, launched whole-ass podcasts, and featured not a small number of Hey-Koolaid gate-crashes from the hilarious Ben Dreyfuss. That’s tomorrow night, penciled in for 8 p.m. ET. Come on down!

* Last night I was at the desk pictured at the top of this post, slinging hash with the recently be-babied Sarah Isgur and devoted family-phobe Bill Maher on his signature HBO program. It was just their second episode since the settling of the Writers Guild strike, an action in which Maher was a figure of some transitory controversy. I am tougher on my performances than an East German skating judge, but people (including the much more intimately assembled studio audience on their new stage) seemed to like it okay. Here is the CNN-broadcast “Overtime” segment:

* For those of you who might be new(ish) to The Fifth Column podcast, we are fortunate enough to have a long relationship with Maher’s genre-creating show. For instance, Moynihan was on this year just before the strike, I was last on in September 2022, and Kmele delivered a legendary performance in January 2021:

* Peter Meijer, the former congressman and perhaps future senator who joined us for Episode #424, has been tweeting up a storm about the Hamas offensive and aftermath, including this cheery observation: “If Hezbollah attacks Israel from the north at scale, the impact would be unimaginably catastrophic. Lebanese Hezbollah has an estimated 100k+ rockets aimed at Israeli cities/ infrastructure- if those are launched, the horrors will be beyond comprehension.” Meijer’s previous tours of duty on the Fifth includes Special Dispatch #51 (January 2021), just after being sworn in and besieged on Capitol Hill (this was actually a subscribers-only Zoom-cast, demonstrating that anything can happen on those sonsabitches); #307 (May 2021) about the Jan. 6 commission & UFOs; #339 (December 2021) about … Jan. 6 fallout & UFOs; and #367 (August 2022) about his GOP primary loss. We like Pete, so he is probably doomed.

* Did someone mention Israel’s northern border with Lebanon? Here’s a picture of me & Moynihan last November in a Hezbollah tunnel. Try to guess which one of us is claustrophobic:

* Meijer, you may recall, held (however briefly) the Grand Rapids congressional seat represented for five terms by Republican-then-independent-then-Libertarian Justin Amash (#184, #389). This past Wednesday, two pieces of Amash-related news crossed. First was a Reason column from me titled “Why Justin Amash Should Be the Next Speaker of the House” (emphasis on should rather than will); second was what appears to be an announcement from Amash that (as I fully expected) he would not seek the 2024 presidential nomination from the Libertarian Party. The announcement, which I’ve seen solely through screenshots of what appears to be a social media post somewhere (journalism!), said among other things that, “When I joined the LP, the party enjoyed widespread ballot access and seemed interested in expanding its reach. Today, not so much….Right now, I don’t believe the LP is positioned to support an effective presidential run.”

* Discussed in the back third of the Meijer episode was the startling denouement of former Major League pitcher Trevor Bauer in his sexual assault accusation lawsuit and counter-suit. This issue goes far beyond sporting interest, and straight into the heart of media, bias, #MeToo, and due process. As such it is perfect fodder for Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, the galpal pod of Sarah Hepola (#354) and Nancy Rommelmann (#79, S.D. #27, S.D. #30, #198, #203, S.D. #34, S.D. #50, S.D. #64, S.D. #111). And to the surprise of no one, the definitive media/culture/sports take comes from Fifdom’s favorite sportsballist, Ethan Strauss (#185, #333, #383, M.O. #151, #408). Do read his piece, with the unbeatable headline of, “The Trevor Bauer Mess: Can the Media Be Fair to an Asshole it Hates?”

* Was it still really just this week when we invited back (#423) our favorite Aussie Josh Szeps (#25, #80, #103, #117, #196, & #328)? In addition to getting a crackerjack primer on the upcoming Voice Vote Referendum, we spent a good deal of time tussling over the controversy between friendly neighborhood trombonist Coleman Hughes (#121, #144, #181, #188, #201, #379 & #412) and the folks over at TED. Coleman this week offered his “last word” on the kerf(l)uffle. Excerpt:

While Chris [Anderson] has called my version of events “reasonably accurate,” he has been careful to neither admit nor deny this core accusation. If he thinks I’m wrong, he should say so. But if he acknowledges that I’m right––which is all but conceded by his silence on the issue––then decency requires owning up to it and apologizing. Instead, he has chosen a middle path where he says a bunch of stuff without addressing the elephant in the room. […]

Life is triggering. Part of being an adult is learning to take responsibility for your feelings instead of insisting that it’s the world’s responsibility not to trigger you. We all understand this 99% of the time. Why woke institutions suddenly forget this when confronted with black anger (or Indigenous anger or  LGBTQ anger, etc.) is what TED’s critics, myself included, “just don’t get”.

* I have talked in recent episodes about the obvious cognitive decline you’ll see if compare Joe Biden interviews even from 2019 to 2023. Alert commenter Kevin sends along this link to a (cringeworthy) Parks and Recreation episode that was filmed in July 2012. Talk about the past being a different planet:

* Many of you sent word about the appearance on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast by my longtime personal friend (*checks notes; met him once, in July, but it was super rad*) Jim Downey, the former longtime Saturday Night Live writer probably most famous for being Norm Macdonald’s partner in crime on the all-time greatest version of “Weekend Update.” Ken Roucka sent a couple of links; I liked this one best, because of the don’t-fire-him story, which I did not know.

* You may have heard on extremely rare occasion that I once lived in Prague. But! You almost definitely have not heard that a dreary apartment I rented in the charmless outskirts of that marvelous city was, by unanimous appraisal of the many people who crashed there for chunks at a time, haunted. Old chum (and L.A. Examiner co-conspirator) Ken Layne recounts the spooky tale on last night’s episode of my very favorite podcast, Desert Oracle.

* Five—count ‘em!—October Reasontastic events: 1) Oct. 10 Reason Speakeasy in NYC, with Nick Gillespie (S.D. #72, #379) interviewing Alexandra Hudson about her book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. 2) Oct. 11 NYC screening of and discussion about Reason’s new documentary, Welcome To the Psychedelic Renaissance, with Gillespie talking with Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Studies (MAPS), an MDMA advocate. 3) Oct. 16 Reason D.C. HQ conversation “Anticipating the Future” with ex-Reason editor Virginia Postrel and American Enterprise Institute scholar James Pethokoukis, moderated by Katherine Mangu-Ward (#75, #395). 4) Oct. 18 SoHo Forum debate between Mark Mills and Rosario Fortugno on whether “Between now and 2035, electric vehicles in the consumer market will disappoint environmentalists by remaining a product bought mainly by the well-heeled minority.” 5) Oct. 23 Reason Speakeasy in NYC with Greg Lukianoff (#216, M.O. #183) and Rikki Schlott about their new book, The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution.

* Comment of the Week comes from Jordan Katz:

I hope all of the Israeli Fifth Columnists are safe. Fuck this shit.

Walkoff music from Leonard Cohen: