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...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Newsflash: the legendary Giants catcher Buster Posey has announced his retirement. I literally get choked-up when I think of all of the memories this great man conjures. Like in 2010 when, as a rookie, he replaced the seasoned catcher Bengie Molina and led them to their first World Series championship in SF. Or The Bu...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS What a wonderful visit from our great friends Elizabeth "Polly" Michaels and Primo Harvey, PhD. Thank you for the proverbial cherry on top of an amazing 3 weeks. Much love and we can't wait to see that Killer painting in its final location! But of course, even in this idyllic Land of Enchantment and surrounded by my w...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS I want to start by thanking Arthur and Mrs. Crup for joining us here in Santa Fe for an excellent 3 nights. We didn't do it all, but almost. They left mid-day Friday and headed to Taos to hang with Julia Roberts. We had an incredible weekend, and it ended in a magical fashion. The weather is breathtakingly perfect and...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS What with Arthur and Mrs. Crup in town, it's a miracle I could find the time or sobriety to write this, but I did (or at least I'm telling myself that). The lovely Mrs. Crup has, as always, exquisite taste in clothing. Although I cannot take credit for much of today's post: I borrowed a lot of it from Joe Scarborough'...

He denies it, but the social justice warrior Hunter Deuce sure seems like he's attempting to establish some kind of alternative to this newsletter. That's because he recently started going beyond the typical "went to a concert at a Sonoma winery and it was fun", or "went to the movies yesterday, and I liked 'Heaven's Gate'" kind of new...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS First, a quick highlight from our visit Monday to the ethereal Ten Thousand Waves spa in the foothills above Santa Fe. It was a Chamber of Commerce late afternoon in a Diamond Certified private spa - ours had a superb hot tub, a perfectly frigid cold plunge, a sauna, two showers, a bed and a comfy Adirondack chair. Th...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Greetings on a Monday from the high desert of northern New Mexico. Santa Fe is . . . gorgeous. Everyone in town, certainly including us, is saddened by the Alec Baldwin accident, but it's time to move on. RIP Halyna Hutchins. If you watch "Real Time" with Bill Maher, you'll recognize this rant from a few weeks ago. Li...