If You Don’t Shut Up, I’m Gonna Blockchain Your Ass

PITTSBURGH—Guys, you’re probably wondering what you get for your five mil when you buy into Whistlestop Zulu, and the answer is Blockchain On Steroids. We’ve gone so deep into the Blockchain that we own it. If you come with us on this express-lane paradigm shift, you’ll see that we ...

J. Frank Dobie

Goddammit, Don, Too Soon. Too Soon.

PHOENIX—The last time I saw Don Graham, we were talking about all the Canadian students at the University of Texas who come down to Austin and “don’t know who Dobie is—I have to tell ’em who Dobie is.” He was speaking, of course, of J. Frank Dobie, the father of Texas letters, the ...

My Byline Is Joe Bob By-God Briggs

CHICAGO—We used to make fun of anybody who would be so arrogant as to put a byline on his own article. In fact, it was sort of the definition of weirdos in the newsroom: effete literary guys in love with their own prose. Fortunately we had city editors who would blue-pencil a big delete sign ...

I Could Have Been Such a Charming Serial Killer

CLEVELAND—Back in my acting days, I always wanted to be cast as the boyfriend/husband/charming-stranger-from-out-of-town in a Lifetime Movie of the Week. Who wouldn’t want that job? You get a great wardrobe in the early scenes, then, when the heroine finds out your nasty secret, you get to chew ...

So Now Amsterdam Hates Tourists? Fine.

NEW YORK—The goddamn foreigners are trampling the tulips in Bollenstreek. Yes, that’s what I said. Amsterdam has decided to stop advertising itself as a tourist destination and to tell everyone to go elsewhere because, according to a local architect interviewed by CNN, the tourists are ...

Stop Lying and Eat Your Salad

HOUSTON—If it doesn’t come from an animal—or, I guess, if you wanna get technical and include Soylent Green in our definition, an animal or a human—then it’s not meat. I’m surprised I have to explain this. There’s no such thing as “plant-based” meat. As of Jan. 1, the ...

Is There a Vaccine for Vaccine-Haters?

NASHVILLE—If you go to Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, and you look around the streets behind the Capitol, you might stumble upon a curious little museum called the Old Barracks. It’s one of those quaint historical learning centers where all the docents are dressed up like British soldiers ...

No Thanks, I’ll Skip the Asian Raccoon Feces in My $75 Espresso

SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Over this past weekend there were exactly five places in Southern California where you could show up to exercise your Insane Hipster Street Cred. You could walk into the upscale Klatch Coffee bistros in Redondo Beach, San Dimas, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, or, oddly enough, Los ...

When You Can’t Hold Your Horses

DALLAS—Millions of two-dollar bettors became experts on the rules of horse racing over the weekend after Maximum Security, a handsome bay colt with a white stripe down the middle of his forehead, won the Kentucky Derby, then was disqualified for interference with three other horses on the final ...

Samsung Sero

You, Too, Can Live Inside Your Phone

LONDON, Ontario—The great thing about living among Canadians for a few days is that they don’t have an app for everything. They still answer their phones. They still toss actual coins into the toll basket. When you call room service at the Ramada Inn, you talk to a guy named Mike who ...