PicoBlog

My coverage of Season 16 of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia continues with episode 6. A recurring episodic theme across It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the Gang invading spaces meant for children out of a perceived ownership over them. This can be seen in “The Gang Goes to a Water Park,” “Waiting For Big Mo,” and, though less aimed at present-day children, “The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore.” Still, what all three episodes share is portraying the Gang as very obviously stunted, adult children who are desperate to cling to these vestiges of adolescence that they can still manage to partake in.

The Riverboat Gamblers wish you a Happy New Year. Or do they…?Happy New Year. If it feels like I’ve been absent during the holidays, I probably was. I had two big projects for print publications due, including the latest chapter of The Austin Punk Chronicles series for The Austin Chronicle. (Here’s Part One, and this is Part Two.) With all that outta the way, now I can concentrate on my Substack duties.

Well well well, I guess I’m back? Apologies to you all for going MIA for a year (oops)! When I set my mind to something I like to do it wholeheartedly and consistently so I’ve been too ashamed to come back and post little tidbits here and there. Now that I have the time (and energy), I am SO excited to let you know that this substack is here to stay.

PC, Mac, and Steam Deck $10.99 on Steam 7 to 12 hours long Roadwarden is an illustrated text-based role-playing game (RPG) where you explore an isolated, godforsaken peninsula in search of the previous roadwarden who’s gone missing, while also trying to re-establish trade and political ties between the peninsula’s fractious settlements and your home city of Hovlavan, while also fulfilling your official roadwarden duties as combination ranger, diplomat, trader, and postal worker.

I should get a mom of the year award. While on back to back zoom calls on Monday, I received the following text from our very kind room mom. “Hi Danielle! Are you still planning on helping with the library field trip today?”  You know that feeling when your stomach drops below your waist and you feel a little panic nausea coming on? Let me back up though. Because I dropped my daughter off at school actually feeling very accomplished.

Hi and happy Saturday to THE MOST AMAZING COMMUNITY to exist on the internet! First of all, we are making it official: by popular demand, WTC will now arrive on Saturday instead of Sunday! Secondly, your support of What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cookingthe BOOK has *literally* blown me (and my editor, and my agent, and my entire team…) away, and I am truly thankful for each and every one of you for supporting this newsletter, which, of course, is why there’s a book to celebrate in the first place.

IF you're a music fan, you know the work of Rob Stoner. You might know his name, his bass, and his harmony singing with Bob Dylan's 1975-1976 Rolling Thunder Revue, and his playing on Dylan's Desire album from the same period. Stoner also was co-band leader, and with Dylan, the arranger, for the live albums Hard Rain (from RTR, 1976), and Live at Budokan (recorded in 1978, from"The World Tour"). This was the beginning of the process in which Dylan sometimes challenges, sometimes entertains, sometimes baffles his concert audiences, with presentations of songs that were not like the record, and to some, not recognizable.

I’m rewatching the American fantasy series Once Upon A Time and reflecting just how good Robert Carlyle is in it. I shouldn’t really be surprised. It reminded me of this interview. There are very few American TV series that capture my imagination, NCIS is one, The Amazing Race another, and then, of course, there’s Bewtiched. So I wasn’t really expecting too much when a review disc of Channel 5’s new Sunday night fantasy drama, Once Upon A Time, landed on my desk back in 2012.

Share With Covid more or less under control, I seldom wear a mask on the bus or think twice about eating out anymore. But like most seniors and many sprier adults, I’ve become an after‑dinner stay‑at‑home. After playing albums nonstop during the day as I have for half a century, I spend evenings with the TV and my wife as we absorb the news, crime series, Criterion picks, and likely‑looking music docs (try the rock‑solid 2004 The Howlin’ Wolf Story or the mind‑blowing 2019 Dolly Parton Here I Am).