Even in a party with no shortage of heels, the Senate nominee’s slide from sympathetic storyteller to shameless sycophant is especially repugnant. — There’s an old Washington saying that whenever a senator looks in the mirror, they see a president. If it’s true, then a good chunk of Senate Republicans seem hell-bent on rerunning their last president’s playbook — say and do as much silly shit as possible and see what sticks —…

Reflections on Chicago basketball, sports fandom, and the seventh championship that never was. — Look… I know. Just let me explain. It’s April 16th, 2011, and the first game of the NBA playoffs is about to get underway at Chicago’s ever-raucous United Center. The visiting Indiana Pacers are in town to take on the hometown Bulls, who come into the game with the best…

This is not a note. — Content warning for… just read the headline. It is April 26th, 2021. You’ve scheduled an appointment with a university psychiatrist to discuss the possibility of going on medication for depression. Or anxiety, or stress, or whatever the technical term is for what’s been dragging you down since 2002. A virtual…

Meet the St. Louis COVID-19ers — and the oft-overlooked NBA star who’s about to make their existence a living hell. — Inspired by and paling in comparison to Jon and the other Boises at SB Nation/Secret Base, whose “Breaking Madden” and “Fumble Dimension” videos belong in gaming, sporting, and comedic Valhalla. Prologue: The Plague For many people in the United States, including yours truly, the coronavirus pandemic really began on March 11th, 2020…

The Godfather of Gaming is getting another crack at Hollywood stardom after thirty years, but as its casting choices draw fire, there might be another way for the film to succeed. — Nintendo held one of their much-vaunted digital Directs today, and its biggest announcement wasn’t about a game at all. Industry titan Shigeru Miyamoto announced that the animated Super Mario movie produced by Illumination Studios (now with the simple official title Mario) will be premiering during next year’s holiday season, alongside…

The beloved cop comedy tackled police brutality and institutional corruption head-on in its last season, but its buffoonish villain undercuts the show’s impact when it mattered the most. — In September 2012, a television show called Last Resort premiered on ABC. The premise is as simple as it is scary: after a routine mission to extract a team of Navy SEALS from a mission in Pakistan, the crew of the United States ballistic missile submarine USS Colorado (not to…

In a surprisingly enjoyable film that makes some strange choices, its characterization of its main star stands out as its most bizarre. — You know, I really hadn’t planned on Alternate Timeline Movie Reviews becoming a series, but welp, here we are. I had originally titled this piece “A Hater’s Review of Space Jam: A New Legacy.” Like I said earlier this spring, I was dead-set on grumping my way through this movie…

After this week’s backlash to the EURO 2020 final and The Little Mermaid remake, it feels like we’re long overdue for a better class of racist asshole. — As I continue my inexorable march to the grave, something I’ve tried to grapple with is the extent to which decades of pop culture consumption has impacted my development, and trying to deprogram its more pernicious effects. Sometimes those critiques are aimed internally, such as the way that (insert-royal-flush-of-descriptors-indicating-privilege-bingo-except-I’m-Black) men…