Of all the creative professions, acting is the one I have the hardest time reconciling an appreciation for. It’s not directly the fault of actors, but the culture of celebrity that has grown out of Hollywood and infected so much of how the United States operates—I mean, so much in this country is factored around fame and notoriety. While it’s not the fault of any one actor, the entire cultural phenomenon of the ‘movie star’ and its impact on the rest of us is grotesque and makes me feel the people who actually vie for that title are akin to those running for Prom King and Queen of the arts.

That being said, every now and then an actor comes along who is just so good that any fame they pick up along the way only seems fitting. Actors like Phillip Seymour Hoffman (RIP), Meryl Streep, and Daniel Day-Lewis are among names where it’s like, sure, they’re famous, but their fame is a byproduct of their talent. With the new trailer for Primetime coming out today, it’s pretty obvious that now Robert Pattinson is coming up to place his name among that list.

The irony being, of course, that this guy got his start as part of a giant teenybopper IP vampire franchise—but has since done outstanding character studies across a slate of independent stalwarts (a doomed brother in Good Time, a philosophical capitalist in Cosmopolis, an insane drunk in The Lighthouse, a dreamer in Maps To The Stars, a lost husband in Die My Love) as well as taking on giant blockbusters in ways that aren’t necessarily straightforward leading-man approaches (a reserved Bruce Wayne in The Batman, a fine-with-playing-second-fiddle operative in Tenet, the weird cloned double-lead of Mickey 17).

Then you have the four films he’s doing this year—leading roles in Primetime and The Drama and supporting roles in The Odyssey and Dune Part Three. Four wildly different roles in four films that are all going to make one year-end of list or another.

To me, there’s the impressive talent for sure, but another thing to look at is how an artist chooses their path. A guy that looks the way Pattinson does could have taken the Ryan Reynolds route and starred in the same generic romantic comedy year after year, stacking up paychecks and interviews with Seventeen magazine. Instead, he opted for challenging and particular roles generally backed by interesting writing and good collaborators—all the tell-tale signs of what makes acting and working in film or theater fun to begin with.

In an age where too many big names are cashing in on multi-film Marvel contracts, it’s good to see movie stars exist for people who actually love the movies. It’s important to see artists who have achieved success continue to push themselves deeper into craft, and hopefully that will inspire the next generation to not just adopt the idea that IP or AI green-screen slop cash-outs are the best way forward.

Oil companies pocketed $93 billion while the government is repaying hundreds of billions in tariffs deemed to be illegal by the Supreme Court—mostly to corporations, even though it was consumers who paid the bill.

The United States is a business, it’s completely profit-driven, and until the people are willing to utilize economic strikes to keep from being completely swindled by literally anyone in power—be it the state or private corporation—we’re just totally fucked, transferring money from employers to landlords and businesses.

Chris Hedges said it best:

The final stages of capitalism, Karl Marx wrote, will be marked by developments that are intimately familiar. Unable to expand and generate profits at past levels, the capitalist system will begin to consume the structures that sustain it. It will prey upon, in the name of austerity and government efficiency, the working class and the poor, driving them ever deeper into debt and poverty and diminishing the capacity of the state to serve the needs of ordinary citizens.

As time marches forward, we’ll see less and less of a government and more and more subscription-based business models with tech companies intervening into increasingly necessary, and formerly public, services. Just a couple years ago here in LA during the wildfires, billionaire developer Rick Caruso hired private firefighters to protect his home and his mall. Meanwhile, the entire Pacific Palisades burned around these structures. This is the future we can expect, especially with the climate crisis fast approaching.

Defector has the right tone when talking about Tom Dundon and his recent acquisition of the Portland Trail Blazers:

Fans of the Portland Trail Blazers should prepare themselves for a very unpleasant time. Tom Dundon, the team’s new owner, is digging in. Arena renovations would improve the value of his property, and so he wants arena renovations. He is simply and resolutely refusing to commit any of his own money to the project. If Portland refuses to pay for stadium renovations, and the stadium thus goes un-renovated, Dundon will have an ironclad pretext for packing the team into a U-Haul and moving it to Las Vegas, or Nashville, or—the monkey’s paw finally directing a shriveled middle finger at the world—Seattle. That’s how investor ownership works, and why it is fucked: The franchise has been in Portland for almost 60 years; Dundon bought it four months ago, and it is entirely and irrevocably his.

…

There’s a handy lesson in class solidarity. Dundon, wielding Hankins like a sock puppet, is putting tax dollars on one side of the scale and private investor wealth on the other, and arguing that because private wealth was previously spent by a member of Dundon’s billionaire class, the class has already contributed its share to the pot. It is now time for the tax-paying public to pitch money back at the billionaires, goes this argument. Dundon will simply collect this payment on behalf of his tribe.

The great irony about the rich is that they demean socialism, or honestly anything to the left of fascism, but expect taxpayers to foot the bill as a collective class for what is owned by private investment. ‘Socialism for me, not for thee,’ is basically the motto of the rich. (See also: Elected officials receiving healthcare benefits that amount to federal subsidies covering 72% of costs.)

Billionaires like Dundon should be driven out of places like Portland with pitchforks and vats of tar and the team reclaimed by the city with force, and given how much Portland loves the Blazers, I could almost imagine something like that happening. John Fisher notoriously moved the beloved Athletics out of Oakland instead of selling the team so they could stay in the East Bay.

The rich care nothing about culture or what things mean to the people who create and support it; they see only numbers, bottom lines, and profit margins in everything. Capitalism is a cancer on humanity—and I mean that in the most literal sense. It destroys what we are able to create with our minds and bodies for the sole purpose of money (another invention) to a select few beneficiaries and will eventually lead to the destruction of the planet. These people are barely human—grotesque obsessives hoarding wealth and we’d all be better for it if they were collectively disposed of.

There’s a pretty decent interview with Jordan Harper where he talks all things Los Angeles and he’s got some great one-liners (“This city is such a ball of contradictions—I love that we aren’t hidden from the violence of the world, but we also aren’t hidden from the beauty of it.”)

I think my favorite though comes toward the end when he’s asked about the nature of LA—

I just think that Los Angeles is the most American city. It is kind of the culmination of everything we think about ourselves and the truth about ourselves … New York, that’s a European city, they just happened to land here. People in the Midwest want to think that they’re different than us, but they’re captured by the same things: it’s real estate and money and guns and cops and sex and violence and dreams. This is the place where American dreams come from. Nobody talks about the American Real, they talk about the American Dream … This is America dreaming itself, right?

I wholeheartedly agree and I think that’s why I’ve always gravitated towards LA—even before I moved here I’d visit often and enjoy every moment. Even though most of my personal views are antithetical to much of what the city represents, underneath the Hollywood sheen does lie the foundations of what the United States is, for better and worse, and that’s a fascinating thing to observe while the empire is in a rapid state of decay.

If nothing else, Los Angeles is the cultural hub of America. While New York might represent the ‘Art World’ more, artists in LA have always had to clash and compromise with the world of entertainment—which is just art with its neck under the boot of capitalism. So much of culture in LA is representative of the class war being experienced nationwide—corporate movie chains struggling while independent theaters flourish, taco trucks having lines as long as fine dining wait-lists, the homeless encampments underneath apartment complexes where a one-bedroom is $3800 a month, Oscar winners grabbing In-N-Out. The contrasts are on full display, everywhere, all of the time—here, you can’t ignore what America truly is, how the push and pull between the everyday people and the ones in control ebb and flow, the way you can in a suburb where the center of town consists of an Outback steakhouse and a Whole Foods.

That, and the weather is perfect like seven months out of the year.

Jackie-O Motherfucker live at Zebulon

I can’t tell if this is an I’m just getting old complaint, but last night at the JOMF show, three bands were set to play and doors opened at eight, with Jackie-O’s headlining set scheduled for 10:20 pm. To me that’s just wild, especially given the first band went on after a 20 minute delay. A Thursday night show with three bands taking as many hours to wrap up—two of which had 20-30 minute sets—is just way too long.

Again, though, maybe I’m just getting old, and it was nice to hear “Hey! Mr. Sky” live.