Oye Cuomo Va
Yesterday’s N.Y.A.G. report finding that vindictive handsy asshole Andrew Cuomo is a vindictive handsy asshole has percolated through the takeosphere, and your pal the proprietary and 100% objective Today in Tabs algorithm (your pal…gorithm) has filtered out only the essential takes. For Slate, Lili Loofbourow shows how Cuomo’s whole Executive Chamber was organized to protect and enable the Governor’s relentlessly abusive habits, along with a coterie of unpaid advisors including the Governor’s brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, which the real journalists at CNN aren’t thrilled about according to BuzzFeed’s Julia Reinstein. Liz Spiers has a New York Times guessay positing that Cuomo:
established a reputation as a jerk who treats people badly, so people shrug when he proves, yet again, that he is a jerk who treats people badly. His behavior is normalized because it seems normal for Andrew Cuomo.
We could call this the Donald Trump effect, for its most successful beneficiary. If you want cathartic rage, Danielle Tcholakian has you covered in The Daily Beast. The lede is:
This fucking guy. This empty shirt, this morally bankrupt sack of hot air, this corrupt scion of unearned entitlement and utter fucking bullshit.
I’m speaking, of course, about New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, a man who couldn’t tell the truth, or do the right thing or even just pantomime anything remotely resembling humility if his life depended on it—and indeed, for once, it seems like his political life might.
…and it doesn’t slow down much from there. But what happens now? NYMag’s David Freedlander points out that Cuomo, utterly immune to shame, has seemed politically dead before, “…and yet.”
Roughly everyone has called for Cuomo to resign, including Joe Biden, the Governors of NJ, PA, CT, and RI (all together, which is sweet), Nancy Pelosi, NY Senators Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand among many more New York political figures, NY Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (the guy that will need to impeach him if he doesn’t resign), and Governor Andrew Cuomo (2013 ed.):
At press time, Cuomo still stands unrepentant, the same tumescent phallus of arrogance he’s always been, but for the latest news, see HasCuomoResignedYet.com.
An Oral History of the Gawker Fiction Section
Chapter 1: Loomings
Chapter 2: The End
California Common Cause seeks a California based Program Manager who will lead its Media and Democracy Program. Role will focus on investigating and evaluating policy solutions that have the potential to create a healthy and resilient local and ethnic media sector in California.
You Are Good is a feelings podcast about movies, co-hosted by Sarah Marshall (“You're Wrong About”) and Alex Steed (just some guy).
Today in Sletters: Jeff Tweedy from Wilco has a newsletter now. Gabriel Snyder’s Off the Record hired some folks. Tom Scocca has quit his Slate politics editor job and taken “the Devil’s handshake” from Substack to relaunch HMM WEEKLY as the somewhat better-named INDIGNITY, which started with a call for New Yorkers to start honking their horns again. McKinley Valentine’s The Whippet informed me today that the “Drive-through body part heist …is a real thing you can do in Lincolnshire in the UK.” “This story is eccentric characters all the way down…”Jacqui Shine visited “The Sixth Floor Museum, located on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository building,” and you know what happened there. And I flat-out missed it last week but Delia Cai wrote about the universally beloved number one source for mach 3+ recon, Blackbird Spyplane. You know I copped one of those limited edition tees.
The Herb lost another one. Craig Jenkins put up one more in a streak of great posts, this one his review of the new Billie Eilish album. Last week’s post about DaBaby and the clinging homophobia of hip-hop is also great. Jenkins is a solid must-read right now. Lucille Ball has a podcast? Ok, I guess. 17,000 looted artifacts are on their way back to Iraq from elite archeological institutions Cornell University and Hobby Lobby. Podcast app Shuffle made an “AI” chat toy using a bunch of podcast hosts’ words and images without their permission. Like most purportedly GPT-3 based toys, it’s not very good, but here I am linking to it so I guess it worked. This Popula post on cryptic crosswords by Stella Zawistowski and Uri Bram is delightful. “A $100,000 Chicken McNugget Triggered a Child-Sex-Trafficking Conspiracy Theory,” less delightful.
Read Everest Pipkin in Pioneer Works’ The Broadcast: “I Know a Place,” about Roblox and the rules of teen party slab-space. Do you know what Roblox is? It’s maybe the most successful game (and/or game platform) in history, and probably the closest thing that exists to “the metaverse.” You should know what it is, and if you read this you will. If you already knew all that, it’s still a great essay.
Someone now makes breakfast in a kitchen where I was first dared to kiss Sara, on the lips. A family watches a movie where we threw bottle rockets into a campfire, screaming in laughter…
There is no sign we were ever there; our presence was scrubbed away well before the lots became Trulio listings. That summer lives on only through the fog of my fondness. The woods themselves are now lawn.
Today’s Song: Billie Eilish, “Happier Than Ever” (sorry, it’s a really good album)
~and I do talk shit about you on the internet~
I tweet @fka_tabs and I collect your money for these words with tremendous gratitude right here.