Snapshots from Seattle
"I Miss the Comfort In Being Sad."
An Assault on Free Speech
While he has been a vocal critic of President Trump, this is what Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday commenting on the death of Charlie Kirk while underscoring the hypocrisy of President Trump that sparked his program, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, to be taken off the air indefinitely last Wednesday.
The MAGA crowd seems to only be concerned about free speech when they feel wrongly threatened or criticized, especially by the press (see Trump’s now-dismissed $15 billion defamation case against The New York Times and Penguin Random House concerning the publication and promotion of a less than flattering book about the President) and comedians and late-night TV hosts like Jimmy Kimmel.
While the murder of Charlie Kirk on September 10th was deplorable, the instant martyrdom and near canonization of a bigoted white supremacist infamous for spewing hate speech has been revolting—from moments of silence at MLB and NFL games, to an executive order to lower flags to half-mast, to a posthumous Medal of Freedom to be awarded by President Trump, to a Senate-passed National Day of Remembrance next month. But inciting and deputizing MAGA conservatives to turn in businesses for not lowering their flags or report anyone publicly criticizing instead of lionizing Kirk and encourage their employers to terminate them is repugnant.
Stephen Colbert and now Kimmel have each lost their long-running late-night shows, along with the the jobs of hundreds of employees, because of the thin-skinned petty grievances of Trump, who once again abused his power by siccing FCC Chair Brendan Carr to threaten Disney and ABC over Kimmel's remarks ("We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said Carr like a mob enforcer shaking down a neighborhood business for protection money). Under the sovereign rule of Trump, America is run without checks and balances by a corrupt wannabe mob boss/con man and his regime of wildly unqualified sycophants. With the continued threat of censorship of the free press and media, his authoritarianism is clearly stepping into a fascist state where free speech and criticism of our government leaders won’t be tolerated.
But rest assured, Charlie Kirk’s fan base is free to memorialize their fallen hero by having his name written out on their Starbucks cups when they order a mint tea (a.k.a. the “Kirk Special”) in a show of solidarity.
“Starbucks is a company built on human connection. Having a name, rather than a number, attached to a customer order has been a core part of the Starbucks coffeehouse experience for decades. Most customers use their own name. And when a customer wants to use a different name—including the name Charlie Kirk—when ordering their drink in our café, we aim to respect their preference.” -[Starbucks via
’s Feed Me]On Thursday night CNN journalist and news anchor Kaitlan Collins reported this typically rambling and misinformed Trump quote while aboard Air Force One:
“When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do—if you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative one in the years, or something—when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”
YES THEY ARE!
This excerpt from a 1968 letter that President Lyndon B. Johnson wrote to The Smothers Brothers in response to the comedians’ apology for years of mocking the President for the sake of entertainment has been making the rounds and is worth remembering:
“It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists. You have given the gift of laughter to our people. May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives.”
President Trump, via Truth Social, has already moved on and with Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers now in his sights, he aims to clean house altogether on his late-night critics:
“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT"
And even late-night legend David Letterman caught a stray:
“Whatever happend to the very highly overrated David Letterman, whose ratings were never good, either. He looks like hell, but at least he knew when to quit. LOSER!!!”
The First Amendment is under assault now more than ever and more critical voices will no doubt be silenced in the weeks and months to come, but hey, at least the White House will finally have a big beautiful ballroom.
—BTP
Snapshots from Seattle
Now back to our regular programming! Did you miss me? My apologies for the radio silence since the start of September. I appreciate your patience and promise to get back into my regular publishing groove. LAST CALL is a one-man band and I’ve been in the weeds dealing with a chronic case of performance anxiety (what pitchers call the “yips,” or more like Richie “The Baumer” Tenenbaum’s meltdown at Windswept Field) struggling with writing deadlines coupled with a ton of prep work leading up to my recent work trip to Seattle for two amaro events. Last week several friends asked me, “Are you excited about your trip to Seattle!?” I was, but honestly, with the pressure of everything I still had to do for the trip itself balanced with the regular workload on my plate, this was far from a relaxing vacation, but I certainly made the most of it while battling the usual demons.
When I moved from Seattle in the spring of 2010 I returned at least once every year but my last time in the Emerald City was in the fall of 2019 while on the book tour for Last Call. I got used to not traveling and dealing with flying in the post-pandemic years and kind of liked that. But I’m trying to get back out there more often, especially as more bars and businesses reach out to inquire bring me into town for events.
Whenever I’m in Seattle it’s usually during fall or just as autumn is starting to enter the scene and I always get nostalgic and a tad wistful, wondering how my life would’ve turned out if I had stayed there. I suspect physically being here in New York helped kick-start my professional writing career, but now that so many people work remotely, I often think, What if?…
A great-big grazie mille! to Jamie Hunt at Fast Penny Spirits for pitching this trip to me over lunch at Dante earlier this year and for flying me out; Tom Douglas and his team for hosting me at the Hôtel Ändra, my Scandinavian design-inspired home away from home; and Book Larder, one of my favorite independent bookstores for their longtime support of my work and for facilitating off-site sales of books at my two Seattle events. And a special thanks to friend and neighbor Toby Cecchini for checking in on Enzo!
This super-sized dispatch is more of a photo album with commentary, but I think it captures the flip-book highlights of my three nights back in Seattle. I hope you dig it.