From Bad Bunny to Joan Baez, Bari Weiss and Beyond

Plus John Oliver, our usual cartoons, Tom Pynchon and call to revolution by Steve Earle.

We’ll open with John Oliver last night, on presidential libraries and Trump’s plans for one (Miami hurricane).

It’s official, some Bari bad news:

Paramount Buys The Free Press, Ushering in a New Era at CBS News

Bari Weiss, a co-founder of The Free Press, will become editor in chief of CBS News.

Trump addressing Navy folks yesterday, by law supposed to be non-partisan: “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats.” He drew applause (unlike from his generals last week) at various points.

He also claimed: “The problem with Vietnam, we, you know, we stopped fighting to win. We would’ve won easy. We would’ve won Afghanistan easy. We would’ve won every war easy. But we got politically correct.” (Trump dodged the Vietnam draft five times.)

Steve Brodner:

If you have been following Trump yesterday trying to get around judges by sending troops from Texas to Illinois and ones from California to Oregon, we have this from Gov. Gavin Newsom: “This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power by the President of the United States. America is on the brink of martial law. Do not be silent.”

On a lighter note, Bad Bunny teaching Spanish, old school, on SNL:

There’s a new Thomas Pynchon novel, and our favorite NYT critic Dwight Garner writes:

“If the director Paul Thomas Anderson — who adapted Pynchon’s ‘Inherent Vice’ (2009) for the screen and based much of his dazzling new movie, ‘One Battle After Another,’ on ‘Vineland’ (1990) — is ever inclined to make a film version of ‘Shadow Ticket,’ it would most likely be a musical.” In what might be described as “Western literature’s Great Cheese Novel,” he goes on, “Pynchon finds in the industrial production of curds and whey enough paranoia, satirical and otherwise, to power a midsize city.”

Was surprised to learn over the weekend, since she apparently joined the cast last month: Vau de Vire Society out in Alameda under a Big Top across from San Francisco is running for several more weeks what they call an immersive, circus-infused dinner-theater experience, The Soiled Dove, with an “all-star cast of 30+ circus and variety performers, dancers, and musicians to transport us back to a notorious bygone era in The Bay, set in 1890’s, Barbary Coast.” And who shall appear but a costumed Joan Baez (who seemingly retired about five years ago) with a few words of encouragement for dark times today, and then singing “Diamonds and Rust.”

And what we need: Steve Earle a few years back, with “The Revolution Starts Now.”

From Tunes to Toons

Was thrilled to see that I was one of the “winners” in Steve Brodner’s caption contest for his “Fat Elvis” portrait:

And Steve today:

Photo Finish

A new feature spotlighting an image from my own camera, a personal Photo of the Day, let me know what you think. Today: Under the Eiffel Tower. This is no longer allowed today, due to terrorist concerns….

Books by Greg Mitchell include: Best-seller “The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Film JFK Tried to Kill.” Award-winners “The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics” and “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” A New York Times Notable Book, “Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas.” Companion books to his recent PBS films: Memorial Day Massacre, Atomic Cover-up, The Atomic Bowl.

Also, two acclaimed books with the late Robert Jay Lifton, “Hiroshima in America” and “Who Owns Death? Against Capital Punishment.” On the media and Iraq, “So Wrong for So Long,” with a preface by Bruce Springsteen. And in a different vein, “Vonnegut and Me,” “Journeys With Beethoven” and “Joy in Mudville: A Little League Memoir.”