I happened to be in the D.C. area visiting friends this weekend but stopped by the Washington Monument on Sunday to check out the aftermath of Trump's big, weird military parade. Tourists were out there as normal, snapping photos in front of the giant stone obelisk while workers tore down the miles and miles worth of barriers that hugged the route. The gaudy stage from which Trump spoke was still intact, way too grand to justify the sparse crowd that attended. The day before, during the actual parade, Esquire political columnist Charles P. Pierce took it all in and wrote down his thoughts on the whole "joyless, lifeless, and sterile" affair. The piece will make you miss the days when parades actually meant something. Read it below. – Chris Hatler, deputy editor Plus: |
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I have never experienced such a joyless, lifeless, and sterile mass event in my entire life. |
Grim-faced soldiers, marching past half-empty grandstands, many of them obviously wanting to be somewhere else. No bands. Little bunting. Just piped-in rock music and MAGA hats. If this truly was meant to honor the 250 years of the United States Army, all we got was an endless procession of uniformed troops looking like they'd prefer to have been at Valley Forge. The president, sitting on the reviewing stand in that weird, forward-leaning attitude that he has, rarely smiling, a skunk at his own garden party. Scores of people being funneled through cattle runs of metal grates just for a chance to sit on the lawn of the Washington Monument and listen to bad music and speeches so dull and listless that they'd have made Demosthenes get out of the business and open an olive-oil stand. I think there probably was more good feeling and genuine emotion when they took Jack Kennedy out to Arlington for the last time. |
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Theo Croker, the famed trumpeter, composer, songwriter and Grammy nominee, holds a vast series of accomplishments. He's just released his eighth studio album, dream manifest, and tours almost constantly. And though some would call Croker a jazz musician, he's ready to move beyond the label. "Fuck jazz," he tells me at one point during our conversation. His new album is expansive, and spans many kinds of sounds I love—jazz, fusion, neo-soul, hip-hop, and rap (to name a few). I'd be remiss not to mention how cool this guy really is. |
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After thirteen years with a white-knuckle death grip on the steering wheel of their career, Bono finally learned how to take a breath. He embraced long lunches and late nights. Quality time with his wife and kids. And some partying too. "House parties, dance parties, our mates," as he recalls of the early days' scene. Bono flourished, finding lightness in himself for the first time in a long time. Maybe even ever. Looking back, he might've gone too big. "I was going through the pure joy of having adolescence the wrong way around—having it in my thirties instead of my teens," he recalls. "There was a moment where I had to ask myself, 'Where is this self-love and where's this self-indulgence?'" |
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