I went on a tour of the White House in 2018. Back in the good, old days of Trump I, you began your tour the way folks had for a century: at the East Wing. It was sort of underwhelming. It kind of felt like going to any other museum or landmark tour. But that's what filled me with awe. In the time Americans had been visiting the White House through the East Wing, our country had literally changed the world—and we didn't need a big, flashy building to make that point. Welp. Today Charles P. Pierce took a look at the plans for Trump II ballroom, built where the East Wing once stood, and not only is it a big, flashy building, but it's kind of… an architectural disaster? Naturally, Pierce has thoughts. Read them below. – Kevin Dupzyk, features director |
|
|
They haven't even built the damn thing yet, but maybe we should all start stockpiling sledgehammers for January 2029. |
It is now plain that El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago plans to leave his architectural spoor all over the District, a living celebration of his two catastrophic presidencies. I remember when people ridiculed Grover Norquist's Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, an ambitious plan to raise memorials to Reagan in every county in the country. That was how we got Reagan National Airport and the Reagan Building, the biggest office building in D.C. It also slapped or tried to slap the former president's name on a highway in Alabama, a mountain in New Hampshire, a missile site in North Dakota, a shipyard in Pago Pago, and dozens of other roadways and elementary schools around the country. Reagan at least had the good grace to let other people aggrandize him. |
|
|
Hard pants have a time and place. 'Course they do. We love a suit. Love a trouser. Love a jean, even. But sometimes, you want a pant that moves with you rather than against you—one that won't harbor any resentment if you drink four too many beers or start to feel uncomfortable after a long day in the car or on an airplane. And while athleisure, jogger-type pants can be great for truly casual situations, we have something even better: the elastic waistband. Here, we have trousers, chinos, and linen pants with stretchy waistbands for reasons that are both aesthetic and functional. They make the pants look laid-back, and they also make them feel comfortable—like something you actually don't mind putting on. Maybe you're thinking elastic waistbands are for toddlers. And they are. But why should toddlers get all the fun? We want in, too. |
|
|
I awaken in my kayak, about a half hour before sunrise. I'm so low to the water that any wave could swamp my cockpit. After I prepare my food for the day—freeze-dried meals that total 4,000 calories—I check messages on my Garmin InReach about the weather, the force of the winds. Based on that, I decide on what clothes to wear: Do I get the complete foul-weather outfit or shorts and a windbreaker? As soon as the sun rises, I dip my double blade in the water and start to paddle. I keep watch for obstacles. Whales can push my boat around. I could hit a floating container or the ship it fell from at any time. It requires discipline to do this all day, while also thinking about my health. What if I cut myself? Hurt my eyes? Or have GI issues? After the sun goes down, I wake up every hour to check my plotter. I've got a piece of equipment called the Automatic Identification System, or AIS, that broadcasts my position to other boats. But I still have to be aware, so I look to make sure there are no ships coming my way. When I reach the middle of the night, I wake up to hydrate and eat before going back to sleep. I'm wet all the time—even my sleeping bag is wet. There's no comfort. But I push my boundaries over and over again, every day for months, for as long as it takes to get all the way across the ocean. |
|
|
 Stephen King's novella "The Body," the inspiration behind the movie Stand by Me, begins with the line "The most important things are the hardest things to say … words diminish them." Wil Wheaton knows that better than anyone. Wheaton starred in the 1986 film 40 years ago, playing Gordie Lachance, the kid who never had friends again like he did when he was 12. King's story is told in the first person by a middle-aged Gordie, and now that Wheaton himself has reached that threshold (he turned 13 during shooting and is 53 now) he has closed the circle by narrating a new audio version of King's story, which just debuted this week. Those opening lines are on his mind in another way, since Wheaton recently joined 16 other actors in the onstage tribute to filmmaker Rob Reiner at the recent Academy Awards. |
|
|
"Fine, Daddy—I'm a Mets fan from now on." There it was, right in my own kitchen, the ultimate Uno reverse card, the dagger in any sports fan's heart: your kid threatening to switch to your team's rival because you had the audacity to ask him to finish his supper. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Mets fan. (I mean, apart from the obvious.) It's just that in my family, we are Yankees fans. End of. You support the team your family supports. And now one of my three sons, eight-year-old triplets, raised from infancy loyal to the New York Yankees and steeped in their legacy—Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Murderers' Row, DiMaggio and Mantle and Jeter and 27 world championships—was threatening to switch allegiances and pull for the can't-stop-talking-about-'86 Mets. They know how to get to me. |
|
|
It was a brisk summer afternoon in Lakewood, Colorado, August 24, 2016. Mark Pedersen was on the back deck when he noticed the commotion. First he glimpsed flashes of red pulsing across the front of the house through the rear sliding door. Seconds later, firefighters burst inside the main entrance. He knew immediately that something was wrong with Jack, the disabled teen he'd come to think of as a grandson, someone he called "a piece of my heart." In actuality, the two shared no family, though they had shared the home for the past two years. In the basement room he rented from Jack's mother, the sixty-year-old crafted cannabis oil to ease the boy's chronic pain, caused by cerebral palsy and dystonia. Tall and lean with a gentle gaze and gray chinstrap beard that framed his pointed jaw, Pedersen had helped dozens of clients in his years as a legally authorized medical-marijuana caregiver. | |
|
Móglaà Bap takes a sip of his beer and then lays an Irish-history lesson on me. He's calling over Zoom from a pub in Belfast alongside Mo Chara and the balaclava-wearing DJ Próva×the other two members of the Irish rap group Kneecap. The barkeep hands them all pitch-black brews as we banter about the weather and their music's recent inclusion in Netflix's House of Guinness. Before we get too far, I need them to sort out a few bits of Irish slang for this American. For starters: What's a Fenian? "Fenian was originally a term used for a band of warriors in Irish folklore, and then it was repurposed for revolutions before it was used as a derogatory slur," Móglaà Bap says, skimming through hundreds of years of Irish history with a pint in hand. "It was used to shame us—to make us seem barbaric, like we were these forest people that go around with spears—but now we're trying to put our own stamp on it, and this album is a part of reclaiming that heritage." |
|
|
Kevin Zegers fought like hell for his role on The Madison. At first, he didn't think he was right for the part of cowboy Cade Harris—and neither did creator Taylor Sheridan. "The response was like, 'He's great, but not for this,'" Zegers tells me. But something compelled the actor to get back on the horse and chase the role anyway. "I didn't really want the job," he says, laughing. That's the funniest part to him, looking back. "I just felt like I knew what his purpose was in the story," he says, "and the only way I could prove that was to sort of say, 'Not that I think you're wrong, but I know I can do this.'" It wasn't until Zegers was standing next to Michelle Pfeiffer in the fields of Montana's Madison River Valley that it finally hit him. The role—a helpful stranger who guides Pfeiffer's character through a journey of helplessness and grief—was a perfect fit. "It's not a secret," Zegers admits now, "but yeah, that's just most of my life." |
|
|
From a young age, I was a very sexual person. I knew I wanted to have a lot of sex, and I also figured that to do that, I would need to meet women who felt the same. I never considered making sex my career. Or at least not until one day in Tokyo, when I was with a friend who got a call about a job. He turned it down, then cupped his hand over the phone and asked me, "Do you want to work in porn?" Until that moment, I had no idea he was in the adult industry. Soon I was too. My first jobs were behind-the-scenes work for a porn studio that specialized in scenes of Japanese women with Black men. One day on set, a porn actor's dick couldn't get hard. The director was running out of time. "Do you want to give it a shot?" he asked. I managed to get hard and get the job done. Soon I was performing in porn regularly. |
|
|
|
|
|
