Firehose #93: Would You Risk a Subway Ride With This Man? (2024)

This hang-it-in-the-Louvre pic (photo credit: Nancy Rommelmann) of Moynihan flanked by Olivia Reingold and Suzy Weiss, came a couple hours after Ol’ Reaction Face had yanked some poor listener off the train and brought her to the fancypants book-launch party for our pal Nellie Bowles (as discussed at the top of Episode #455). Obvious moral of the story: Ladies, don’t take the subway with this man.

We will spool out some lore about the aforementioned here in a moment. BUT FIRST! Our monthly Second Sunday taping/Zoom thingie with paying subscribers, having been punted last weekend in honor of Mother’s Day (or whatever Kmele’s is calling it nowadays), is taking place Sunday night some time after dinner East Coast time. I reckon something like 8 pm or 9 pm; we’ll send out the usual link in an incredibly timely manner, I am sure.

* Nellie’s book, which covers many Fiftastic themes, is called Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History. You can catch her this week in The Free Press, on the Ask a Jew podcast, talking with Yascha Mounk (#124, #195) at Persuasion, and then pretty much pilloried by The New York Times, The Guardian, New Yorker, Wired, and Washington Post. I am sad to see that Politico’s New York Playbook has corrected its previous double-Moynihanning (with a dash of double-Dana Perino), but here’s an example of who you might run into when a certain thirsty Fifth Columnista drags you off the C train:

SPOTTEDon Monday night at a book party forNellie Bowles’ “Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History” ($27) hosted byLiz LangeandDavid Shapiroon the Upper East Side:Bari Weiss, Bobby Kotick, Lloyd Blankfein, Tim Dillon, Michael Moynihan, Jonathan Rosen, Uri Berliner, Shawn McCreesh, Olivia Nuzzi, Keith Urbahn, Adam Rubenstein, Emma Goldberg, Hope Hicks, Dana Perino, Arianna Huffington, Ben Schreckinger, Alana Newhouse, David Samuels, Graydon Carter, Ariel Levy, Elliot Ackerman, Dana Perino, Suzy Weiss, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Roland Fryer, Risa HellerandDanielle Sassoon.

* Speaking of brave dissidents (I keed, I keed), Moynihan and the rest of the rabble associated with the recent Dissident Dialogues got some ink at Fox News, some hate-clicks from The New Republic (“The Anti-Woke Grifters Get Their Tithe”), and some critical attention from Cathy Young over at The Bulwark. A snippet from the latter:

There was more counterbalance from formerVicecorrespondent andWe the Fifthpodcast cohost Michael Moynihan, who had his own criticism of the media but argued that the problems are open to self-corrections (and who also dissented from the festival’s framing, declaring, “We’re not dissidents! This isn’t dangerous!”). I’m not sure why Williams and Moynihan had to share a stage and time with aserially dishonestcrackpot. But the media panel at least had a clear and necessary lesson: If mainstream institutions can benefit from the checks and balances provided by “heterodox” alternatives, “heterodoxy” definitely needs checks and balances from mainstream institutions.

* It has come to my re-attention that Jacob Siegel, star of #454, was a guest last year on The Reason Livestream with Zach Weissmueller and Nick Gillespie (Special Dispatch #72,#379), just after Siegel’s doorstopper disinformation essay came out. The full YouTube link doesn’t embed, but here’s a teaser of the gravelly voiced one giving the business to Sam Harris about the Hunter Biden laptop story:

* Here is some phenomenal news: Beloved live-show vet Aaron Monheim, who Fif’ listeners helped get a stem cell transplant last year, announced the results of his one-year checkup with the oncologist: “All of my blood counts are normal, my new immune system is fully functioning, and I have had ‘dramatic results’ when it comes to the lessening of disability…. [N]o new lesions, growing lesions, or any other evidence of current disease activity. Hell, I’m now Sloan’s soccer coach and I run around with 6 and 7 year old girls for an hour once a week — once I was diagnosed, I never thought that I would get to do things like this.” Ka-BOOM!!!

Last add:

So, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your help, support, encouragement, and conversations throughout this process. It took me almost three years to get my transplant. I was rejected three times by my insurance company. I retained an attorney, changed insurance companies, and finally got approval. Then all of you helped us financially by raising over $35,000 in EIGHTY HOURS! Each and every one of you, thank you. I will never be able to fully articulate how grateful and humbled I am by all of you.

* Speaking of the community…. Music nerd alert! My garden, did you people go HAM after our various Gen X digressions Members Only #210. On the Chat, Ben Levine vamped about Vampire Weekend, John C. Haas stanned The Strokes, John McWaters started a rip-your-face-off album thread, then asked “If you could pick one song to be on the outro for the members only, what would it be?” On Twitter, Brad Knollenberg started a “best new music” thread. In the comments, people are rating sexytime album covers. On Insta, a certain professional musician DMed me about a “f*cking cool” app called Radiooooo, the Musical Time Machine, which allows you to “search music by year and country of origin with a map.”

But the best were the pictures. First up, Fresca in Amsterdam 11 years ago, moodily flashing one of the obscure records we mentioned:

But the winner is Matt Wilson & wife, not only for their crackerjack Wayne Coyne/Miley Cyrus Halloween costume, but getting it reposted by the Lead Lips man himself:

* Oh! Remember that Shaggy Rat story I told in #455 about the famous Fenway Park shot of Carlton Fisk waving his walkoff homerun fair in Game 6 of the classic 1975 World Series? Well, according to alert listener Ameya A., the tale seems to be true: “Carlton Fisk's iconic 1975 home run and the rat that changed television.”

* Our juicy pile of upcoming events kicks off with THIS VERY WEEKEND in NYC, which I guess functionally means Sunday, when Fifdom artiste Dave Cicirelli is opening his studio as part of the annual Industry City Open Studiosin Brooklyn. It’s an awesome place in any case to visit and shop and eat and walk and browse, but Dave hisself will be there tomorrow from 11 am to 5 pm, so go say hi and look at his cool stuff.

Then…. May 20! SoHo Forum debate in NYC between Alan Dershowitz and Glenn Greenwald (#183,#197,#211) about bombing Iran. May 21! Moar Greenwald in Gotham for a Reason Speakeasy interview w/ Nick Gillespie. June 6! Me and my Reason Roundtable colleagues taping a live show in Washington, D.C., plus on the better coast Kmele teaming up with Lara Bazelon (#357, #369, #417) in a debate against Michael Shellenberger and Seneca Scott on whether “criminal justice reform has made our cities unsafe.”

* Comment of the Week (though maybe it’s “Johnny,” not “David”?) comes from Dacia:

In 2000, I was 24 and spent 5 weeks in France (another story, also wild) and then hopped the train to London where...in two days with only a map:

1. I wandered past the Globe Theatre and watched Vanessa Redgrave play Prospero in The Tempest - she looked right at me when she said "We are such stuff as dreams are made on."

2. I stood in a mysterious crowd on Trafalgar Square (where I'd gone to exchange money) until, about an hour in, I asked what we were waiting for and six gay dudes told me it was the premiere of "The Next Best Thing" and we were waiting for Madonna and about 30 other people to show up. They did. It was cool. Some dude behind me tried to stick his dick up the back of my shirt at one point and the gays loudly shamed him. Walked by Rupert Everett on the way to drinks with the gay crew, where they gave me a Time Out and with the help of that, the next day I...

3. Attended the Queen's Jubilee where I was surrounded by very posh old people from all over England (I was in smelly travel clothes) and live violins played Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and horses hauled out CANNONS where they shot live rounds into Hyde Park. Liz wore yellow. I sat right behind her canopy because someone didn't show up and I got their ticket.

My parents and brother arrived the next day, we rented a golf cart and spent three glorious days driving to the border of Scotland (I was the shortest in my family at 5'9", my father is a horrid international traveler, and it was miserable), and then my brother and I ditched the folks and hightailed it back to France where we took a train to Royan, hated it and, seeing palm trees "where the ferry goes", hopped on, walked about 6 miles and ended up spending two days in what I now know is Soulac-Sur-Mer. I spoke French so we were fine. Back in Paris, I dropped my brother off at the train station back to London and, because I stayed near Place de la Republique my final night there, walked out of my hostel where David Hallyday was giving a free concert.

I knew nothing about any of these events ahead of time (save for the Jubilee because of Time Out). Smart phones for youth when traveling can f*ck all the way off.

Sometime I'll have to tell you about the five weeks in France....

Walkoff music comes care of Kyle Koontz: