TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Today, I will be lazy. Just a few random notes, although I do have a Special Edition coming tomorrow. 2021 Darwin Awards Are This Saturday, January 8! The countdown has begun and the energy is palpable. If you are reading this, you are invited, as are your friends and other assorted hangers-on. I'll be there early, bu...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS . . . with SF. You see, as earlier, I continue to struggle in my love affair with San Francisco, even at the dawn of this new year. Despite some glorious rain, and with now over a full year without wildfire smoke fouling our pristine coastal air, I am still pissed off. Yeah, I know: shocker. But seriously, and now it'...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS I've always liked live albums, from the earliest days. I have vivid memories of Frankie Huttner (that's his real, non-newsletter name) bringing over his new copy of Frampton Comes Alive. We were 12 - gosh, am I dating myself? I prefer the energy of a live album and they often give one a more exciting greatest hits col...

OVERVIEW Although we're not (despite being in SF for 30 years), we like to consider ourselves nearly natives. As such, or at least so the schtick goes, we're supposed to hate LA. But we don't, and as evidence I give you the fact that this Travel Guide is based upon our 5th visit, completed over Christmas in 2021. LODGING For our visits...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS If you think I've written dark and foreboding newsletters in the past, this will top them all. That's because today, I am declaring baseball dead. Sure, there may be some sort of agreement hammered out to settle the current lock-out by the team owners, and there may be games for a few more years. But the days of baseb...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS No doubt you've been worried, but rest assured we've been luxuriating and dedicating ourselves to decadence. There will be a full Travel Guide published soon, but for now, here is a tidbit from our Christmas holiday in Los Angeles. This was after lunch yesterday at The Getty Center. There is nothing beyond Diamond Cer...

Without further ado and in response to the clamoring from so very many, here's who will be taking home a Portico on January 8th. A reminder that the winner must be present to claim their award - if a winner is not present, I will arbitrarily assign their Portico elsewhere. But who wouldn't show? Airbnb, Etc. Of The Year Nominees • Cove...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS I know: two newsletters on audio gear within just a week or two is a bit much. Of course, you could always go outside or volunteer to help sick children. But we leave for LA later today for 3 nights, so I had to keep it easy. In fact, I am being responsible, and recycling. Because a recent outing with the esteemed bre...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS You can file this under "Portico Darwin is doing his Jerry Seinfeld thing again". Or, "What a Scrooge!". Because today, I will rant about people being too nice and too friendly. In other words, they're on my lawn again. Specifically: enough with every TV chat show implying that everyone on it are real PALS, and just h...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS It's Monday, and I am recovering nicely from a wonderful holiday party at the home of Emery and Nib Riddle. Thanks, guys - great job - it was very festive and oh, those gin fizzes. Today will be a touch on the serious side, but not in a dark way. If you're reading this, it's probably obvious by now that I enjoy writin...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Happy Friday. In what could be my single most useless newsletter ever (and that's definitely saying something), today I take the time to note a troubling trend. The trend is that every commercial now seems to feature someone wearing a shirt or shoes that match the color of the sponsor's logo. I will start with the com...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS My predilection for lists knows no bounds, and that doesn't change during the holidays. Here are the Christmas movies we watch each year, in roughly my order of preference. Nightmare Before Christmas Although it's more of a Halloween movie, we still like to kick off the season with this one, especially Julie. Has anyo...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Last Friday's epic post on music streaming and music hardware took a lot out of me. Probably you, too. So Happy Monday and Happy Mostly No Portico Darwin Writing Day. I will say that I'm not sure I've ever seen a more exciting finish to a sporting event than yesterday's conclusion to the Formula 1 race in Abu Dhabi. W...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS . . . but didn't think you'd ever be bored enough to ask. Warning: this is one of my insanely long (but very informative!) newsletters. Like "Julie, is he OK?" long. Not to worry: it is on a subject that was once a hobby, then a profession, and now a hobby again. If you're not a music person, you can safely skip this ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Today, I give you the brilliant Heather Cox Richardson. Dr. Richardson is an acknowledged expert on American history; I am not. “Senate Republicans will not issue any sort of a platform before next year’s midterm elections. At a meeting of donors and lawmakers in mid-November, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Happy Monday. Should we all be dusting off our copies of the ultimate Stephen King novel "The Stand"? Sadly, "It's not over until it's over" never felt more real? On that note, I just got a booster vaccine dose last Wednesday, Julie gets hers this Wednesday, and I sure hope you're getting yours. Here is the CDC's guid...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS It's not all rock bands and parties. Today, I'm going to stake out middle ground on the headlines. I've included links to some supporting information for those of you that would like to go deeper. (I've probably touched on one or more of these in other writings. My apologies. Of course, you could always be reading som...

You are cordially invited to this year's 2021 Darwin Awards! Seriously! You simply won't want to miss how little of the party (none of it!) will have anything whatsoever to do with me or this newsletter! The 2021 Darwin Awards and the Portico private jet statuettes that go to the winners are simply a figment of my overly vivid imaginat...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS First I dump on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show, and now I slam The Beatles? Over the recent Thanksgiving holiday weekend, we screened the just Serviceable The Beatles "Get Back" documentary in its entirety. Yeah, all 8 hours of latter-day Liverpudlian lad glory. But was it actually glorious? Well, there is nothin...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Here's another entry in the occasional series I call "Plans No One Asked For". Previously, I featured lists of the real National Parks of the Eastern US, and also my ideas for the ultimate travel year. Not to mention my commuter rail plans for that vital Albuquerque - Santa Fe passenger train corridor. Today, I give y...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS As we luxuriate in the grip of America's favorite holiday weekend of the year, I will reflect on the latest entry in the lengthy canon of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. HBO recently telecast a recording of the event, held in late October in Cleveland, which we screened earlier this week. Let me say r...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS As I mentioned Monday, my dear friend Steven Simon - we go back to the 6th grade and grew up together in Albany - asked that I don my MAGA hat, and address the Culture War topics I raised recently, from that perspective. And not be nasty or sarcastic doing so. Wow - not easy! So, for inspiration, I turned to my copy o...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Enjoy your Monday, completely free of my opinions, apart from the fact that SF is gorgeous, the debacle at Union Square over the weekend notwithstanding. I just love this photo, which I took last week in The Presidio. FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES One reason for the brevity of today's post is that I am hard at work on resp...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Said no one: "Portico, would you be so kind as to comment upon the raging Culture War in America?" My pleasure, and thanks for asking. And "Culture War" is so much nicer-sounding than "Civil War"! I often point out that there's a dearth of policy ideas coming from what is currently the Republican party. Instead, they ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS From the serious to the ridiculous. Today, we'll turn away from my usual sturm und drang regarding our country's state of affairs and steer towards the fun and the light. Very fun and very light because it can't be much more of either when the topic is the 2021 Darwin Awards. Here are the people, places and things vyi...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS I really wanted to kick off Monday with a cheery, fun newsletter about a light topic. But no. First was Bill Maher on his show on Friday night chatting up the story that the 13 House Republicans that voted for the recent infrastructure bill have each received death threats. Over an infrastructure bill that will benefi...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS It dawned on me that the USA and its sorry state is all of our faults. After a recent post, where I asked what Republicans are so afraid of, I realized if you replace "Electoral College" with "Elite Universities" and "Multinational Corporations" with "Big Media", we're both afraid of the same things. That is, we're af...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS This is a good time for me to let others do the talking. I may or may not explain why later. This is a stunning video from The New York Times regarding states where Democrats control the legislative and executive branches. It's not pretty, but I hope you'll watch, if for no other reason than to dispel the notion that ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS It's great to be back home in SF. But it will be a while before we forget about Santa Fe and the special time we had there. Big thanks again go to Arthur and Mrs. Crup, and to Elizabeth "Polly" Michaels and Primo Harvey, PhD., for joining us. I will now take the cold plunge back in to reality. As I watch Trump support...

Most people either understand why Santa Fe is a big deal, or they don't. Put me in the former camp, and maybe this Travel Guide will inform the latter. My experience in Santa Fe dates to the mid-1980's, when Arthur and I would pretend to be grown-ups and come down from Boulder to party. That was then but this is now, and this is a Trav...