The Wanderer Returns to NYC

Dion is back, and we don't mean Celine, plus our usual cartoons and Trump absurdities.

Yes, it’s still free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is the author of fourteen books and director of five films for PBS since 2022. In a previous life, he was a longtime editor at the legendary Crawdaddy.

You will see below from the chanting below why the work crew was ordered to spend hours after this simply hanging a tarp curtain so no one could see them actually pull down the letters in his name….

Today’s laff from Marco Rubio defending Trump’s UFC fight on the White House lawn:

President Kennedy announced that we were going to put a man on the moon. We did it. We are a nation founded on doing what no one else dared to do. And at some level, that's what this whole company, what UFC has been…It's a gift to the American people….a historic event.

Meanwhile, a commercial airline pilot filed safety reports after nearly being blinded by lights from Donald Trump’s UFC structure when flying into Washington, D.C.’s Reagan airport. And have to love that thunderstorms and/or showers predicted for around the time of the UFC event. Remember when Trump’s absurd massive military parade got wrecked by rain? Maybe there IS a God.

And: Algae resurfaces in reflecting pool after multimillion-dollar fixes, as experts warned.

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick says Senate candidate James Talarico is “going to Hell…I’ve never seen so much blasphemy from anyone running for office… He’s going to Hell, for sure.”

At least, via NY Times:

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the National Park Service from removing or revising signs, films and other materials at national parks across the country to comply with a directive from President Trump.

The ruling pauses enforcement of an executive order that called for removing or covering up materials at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans” or cast the United States “in a negative light.”

On the other hand:

Federal agents on Thursday conducted searches of a group in Ohio that conducts voter registration drives, part of a broader push by the Trump administration to find election fraud that critics have derided as a campaign to intimidate voters. More than 100 agents with the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. retrieved records or questioned people connected to the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a progressive organization focused on social justice and voting rights, according to Prentiss Haney, a board member with the group.

Music Picks

Frankly, I didn’t think that in 2026 I would be going to a rather exclusive NYC acoustic concert by Dion, but there I was on Thursday night (thank you, Bob Merlis), with PK, my Crawdaddy running mate from five decades back, seated directly behind our old pal Stevie Van Zandt, who now called us “The Everly Brothers.” But there was no need to wake up a little snoozing as Dion kept our attention with a string of fun anecdotes and both smash hits and surprising deep cuts.

We learned, for example, that as a pre-teen in the Bronx one of his profound influences was Hank Williams, and he played part of his song “Honky Tonk Blues.” Later we got everyone from Robert Johnson to Tom Waits. Amazingly, about to turn 87, his voice was stronger than ever and he did not do the usual corner cutting by older singers. He had a memoir last year with a documentary and the much-delayed Broadway musical “The Wanderer,” backed by Little Steven and others.

He sang his great early hit “Ruby Baby” but I learned only later that this clip below could be called “the first music video”—as it was filmed for what was supposed to be a groundbreaking add-on to jukeboxes, adding film. From 1963:

Here’s that Hank song he finally covered not long ago:

He closed the show with this Tom Waits classic:

From Tunes to Toons

Ann Telnaes:

Bramhall:

Goris:

Wuerker:

Ohman:

Brodner:

Photo Finish

From my camera to you: “Sunset Over the Catskills from Mohonk.”