Give What You Can
I'm giving you guacamole
Hello fellow travelers, from La Paz, Mexico, a very strange place to be during what happened yesterday in the capitol. Several people have said to me, “You should be glad you’re there,” and to be with family, sure. But as a journalist and an American, I feel as though my place is there. Last night I chased a story (that did not materialize, alas) of a woman who’d traveled across the country to participate in the “Stop the Steal” rally in DC, only to be terrified and angered by what she saw, if from afar. She was very shaken, and I think hers is an important story to tell, to understand that people who might think differently about Trump or any issue are overwhelmingly not the marauders we saw last night on TV or in-person (shout out Tina Nguyen); not the people we’ve seen tearing up Portland for the past seven months. They are everyday people as appalled by violence as (most of) the rest of us are.
This morning, as the mourning doves cooed and landed on the balcony railing, I heard some hymn singing or megaphoning from nearby, and I thought, maybe it’s for our country. I was choked up by this thought (as I am again now). I was tilting toward the idea that people want to be good to each other, which David French captured very well in his column last week about the series Ted Lasso. The piece is sweet and worth a read and made me check out the show (which also captured chef David Chang, who was moved by Lasso’s humanity). At the end of the piece, as French sometimes does, he linked a Christian song, which I clicked off after about 20 seconds… and then found myself humming for half the day.
This was the same day Matt Welch’s daughter Coco gave me a hard-love edit.
The following day Welch and I hit Lowe’s and bought what we needed to trick out the studio at Paloma Media.
A few hours later, after throwing down some twinkle lights, we had our first recording session, a Patreon bonus episode of The Fifth Column podcast.
Did we give some dating advice, talk about the $30,000 I made on a commercial I never saw, and all do terrible Scottish accents, except for Moynihan, who can do any accent? Find out for yourself! And more to come - plus video!
The Fifth Column taped another episode from the studio last night, covering yesterday’s horrific events, “A Slovenly Rebellion (Pass the Tequila)”
I walked into a story a couple of weeks ago about one of my favorite foods and as these things go, it became a story about New York and COVID and overcoming tragedy. That published a few days at Reason.
I leave you with a recipe for guacamole that is super-easy and among the best I’ve tasted. It’s from my late friend Charlie Quintana, whose only job (with the exception of spending one day as a teenager delivering flowers) was being a rock star, a drummer to be exact, he started several bands, including The Plugz and The Cruzados (heard in the background here), and played with everyone, Bon Dylan, John Doe, the Gin Blossoms, Social D. I lived down the block from Charlie in Los Angeles when our daughters were very young.
I had an avocado tree in my yard and we ate guacamole well and often. As I mention in the video, Charlie died a few years ago and I know he would be very happy to have his recipe live on (and shot, here, by said-same daughter).
Recipe recap: Amounts are super-flexible and to taste; this is what I have here:
4 small avocados, salt, 1/2 chopped yellow onion, 1 chopped jalapeno, 4 small limes
With love and hot pie xx