February 10, 2026
Happy 2026, everyone.
To kick off the year, I profiled Joyce Manor for the Los Angeles Times. The new album is great.
I also (sort of) won a Grammy?
Last year, I was asked to write the artist bio for Pino Palladino & Blake Mills’ That Wasn’t a Dream. At this year’s Grammys, it won for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Congrats to the team. I’m honored to have played a small part.
The Super Bowl halftime show was a lot of fun. In recent years, these musicians have leaned into the fact that their performance will be viewed by most people on TV. It should look good on TV. That last Bad Bunny album is my favorite of his, too; its Album of the Year Grammy win was worthy in an otherwise underwhelming year.
I still haven’t recovered from The Who “playing” the Super Bowl halftime show when my beloved Colts lost.
Since my last newsletter, IU won it all. What a game. What a season. I’m so proud of them. Honored to see them play in-person at my nearby Rose Bowl.
The world outside of LA has finally caught up to Max & Helen’s. I can confirm: the waffles are excellent.
The mood in LA post-ICE is getting a little better. Things still feel tense. And that’s just the side of LA I’m familiar with.
I have yet to hear a good argument in favor of the brutality of ICE’s methods, which are not even resulting in “the bad guys” getting caught and addressing the root problems.
We Californians are used to elected officials throwing money away at bad solutions. Trust me when I say that even this is egregious.
I have a hard time conveying this to family and friends who don’t live in the major cities that didn’t vote for Trump.
That’s the problem with politics: the classic “If it’s not ‘my’ problem, it’s not ‘a’ problem” response. It’s hard to talk about stuff like this with people who have never feared, and who will never fear, getting abducted by ICE. I don’t help myself in these conversations by living in a city that many people outright despise.
“If it’s not ‘my’ problem, it’s not ‘a’ problem” can apply beyond ICE, obviously.
Related: A little bit ago, an old friend of mine, whom I disagree with a lot, told me that the economy is in the toilet and that it’s all Trump’s fault, but at least the libs are hurting too.
The honesty was refreshing. Even he acknowledged that trains are not, as they say, running on time. Weird justification, though.
Politics as math has always fascinated me.
X is upset because of Y, and I don’t like X, so I will support Y as long as it upsets X, even though I don’t actually care about Y.
And so on.
I think I’m getting back into Kafka.
I’ve been convinced for a few years that his short story collection The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man was the best thing he ever put out. I didn’t realize until this week, when I ordered a new copy for myself, that the collection only came out in 2023!
Start here and then move on to The Trial and The Metamorphosis if you like what you read. These stories remind me of how funny Kafka can be.
My favorite movie of the year so far: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. This and the previous 28 Years Later together tell a special story. I hope there’s a finale in this trilogy.
I’m seeing Wuthering Heights this weekend …
Does anyone have any good podcast recommendations? I feel like I’m in a rut. Just killing time until the new Resident Evil comes out.
And that’s it.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
