A few updates and scattered musings. Meaning that many of you will unsubscribe.
You unsubbers are a nutty breed. Back when I was writing for Taki's, and I'd post something political here, you'd be like “why should I sub here when you're posting the same stuff you do at Takimag?”
But when I started chronicling my homeless journey, you'd be like “why should I sub here when you're posting different stuff than you do at Takimag?”
I hate unsubbers. When I can, I fuck with ‘em. Every unsubber, I trace their email, and if it leads back to a real person with personal details online, I use it to mess with them.
Case in point? Last year some elderly dick unsubbed. From Googling his email, I found his Facebook (Boomers ALWAYS have Facebook) where I saw he's a gated community manager in Gainesville. And I saw that the previous day he'd posted “sorry the main gate stopped reading your key fobs. The minute I realized that people were unable to get in, I immediately called maintenance, and we've fixed the problem.”
So I emailed him, “You asshole – I've been outside the main gate for FIFTEEN MINUTES and my fob isn't registering. The gate WON'T OPEN! I have GROCERIES! Frozen food! You fixed nothing! I’ll have you fired.”
He kept running outside to the main gate to “let me in,” but, not seeing me, he'd come back to his computer like “where are you? I can't see you!”
“I’m right there, asshole! You even looked at me. Then you turned away.”
I let the gag play out for an hour or so.
THAT'LL teach him to unsub.
Well, probably not. But it made me laugh. And maybe gave him a coronary.
I don't get you unsubbers – this is free content. That you willingly signed up for.
Or maybe not. I had a dickhead last week unsub and when I fucked with him about it, he was like “I have no idea why I was subbed in the first place. I never did it!”
Yeah, sure. Fairies came into your home in the middle of the night and subbed you to Substacks you never wanted to read.
Sound absurd? Not to Taki's daughter. For the past few weeks I've been fielding DMs from readers mentioning that my photo thumbnail is still on the list of current Takimag staff writers. Some of you were like “are you back? Are you BACK!?” So to make sure there were no misunderstandings, I emailed Mandolyna and politely asked her to remove my photo so that readers know I’m gone.
A simple request, made with no rudeness or acrimony.
Her reply?
“That’s odd. I removed you the day you left. Maybe IT put you back. Adios.”
What a piece of work she is! Yes, somehow some IT nosepicker was like “Derrrrrr, I dun put David Cole back on the site behind Mandoleener's back!”
But then it occurred to me, maybe she didn't mean IT like “eye-tee,” but IT like the Stephen King monster. Perhaps a murderous clown re-added me to the authors list.
Be careful clicking Takimag – it might be haunted!
Of course, the reason Mandolyna didn't remove me from the staff writers list is that she's allowed the weekly columnists roster to dwindle. Coulter is available elsewhere, via her Substack. Sailer tries to direct ALL traffic to his Substack/website (he only sporadically posts on Takimag anymore). Stossel? Syndicated. So that just leaves Taki himself and Dalrymple in terms of exclusive content. I was not only the most-read guy on the site, but fiercely loyal, and exclusive to Takimag.
Mandolyna trying to blame some random IT guy (or demon clown) made me realize a significant difference in far-left and far-right white pathologies. Because it hit me (Norm Macdonald voice) in a sudden that Mandolyna has never admitted error. Over ten years, as she drove away our authors and refused to safeguard the site against hacking and bad coding (repeatedly refusing the offers of one of my best friends, a tech genius, to provide his web services for free), nothing has ever been her fault.
This is a stark difference between leftist and rightist whites.
Far-left whites are obsessed with self-flagellation and confessions of error. “I'm RAYCIST! I've sinned against my black betters! I need to IMPROVE! To kill the WHITE PRIVILEGE inside me. Forgive me my black saviors...even though I am not worthy of forgiveness. But please, give me a chance for redemption, lowly slug that I am.”
Far-rightists, on the other hand, can never admit any error or flaw. And you guys eat that shit up. You revel in idol worship, an irony considering how many of you claim to be Christian. But you love it when you can fixate on a new inerrant hero. Trump, Bannon, Musk, Owens, etc. You want to worship infallible heroes. I trace that pathology back to Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s declaring himself a “truth detector” and becoming the biggest name on radio as a result.
May I level with you?
Please cut that shit out. The rightist fetish for worshiping the self-declared inerrant is really unhealthy. Yes, the leftist pathology of whites declaring themselves eternally, racially flawed sinners is unhealthy too. But they're not my readers. You are.
Knock it off. The ability to admit error is the best way to gauge a person's intellectual integrity. One of the reasons I can't get far-rightists on X to stop posting my 1992 Holocaust work is that they won't accept that I was capable of error. If you follow (as a few of you do) my nightly back-and-forths with my denier cultists, you see me saying “I made some mistakes back then” and them saying “NO YEW DIDN'T! YEW WUZ A TRUTH DETECKTER! THEN THE JOOS MADE YOU CUCK!”
Literally, given the choice between two scenarios, 1) an arrogant kid made a few mistakes during a tumultuous post-Cold War, pre-Internet period, or 2) a 21-year-old was infallible to such an extent that a global conspiracy was formed to silence him, these retards choose #2.
Please, please stop demanding inerrancy from your heroes. Indeed, view claims of it with suspicion. Yes, Steve Bannon embezzled from you. Yes, Elon Musk, by boosting Jew-hatred and making it THE most popular genre on X, has helped the likes of Zohran Mamdani (sure, Musk made it safe on X to say “trannies are men.” But he also made it safe and profitable to say “kill the Jews”). Yes, Trump in many cases has no fucking idea what he's doing. Alex Jones and Ron Unz just make stuff up as they go. There ARE no “truth detectors.” Just blowhards and the gullible dimwits who follow them.
It's fine to prefer rightist morons over leftist ones. But the minute you get so wrapped up in hero worship that you begin to see your favorite rightists as infallible, you're lost.
This insanity can stop with YOU no longer being mindless followers. You revere Bannon? Great. But be able to say “I like Bannon but he did indeed embezzle a million bucks from MAGA, and I’m willing to excuse it.”
Your heroes have flaws.
As do I.
After all, I tormented an elderly property manager for an hour just because he unsubbed my Substack.
That's a character flaw, to be sure.
A minor one, to everyone but the old guy's family who'll never know why grampa suffered a fatal coronary running back and forth to the gate looking for a stranded tenant who didn't exist.
But I cop to it.
Anyway, in terms of my homeless situation, I'm currently on top of the world. Literally. Top floor of a Beverly Hills highrise hotel. Man this is nice. Totally unsustainable in terms of expense, but after the past few weeks, with all the shit I've dealt with in terms of bad hotels and Airbnb screw-ups, I needed it. This hotel is perfect. As a “penthouse” resident, I get free all-you-can-eat dinner and all-you-can-drink wine every night from 5pm to 7, a 24-hour free sundries store (bottled water, cookies, soft drinks, coffee, candy, juice, fruit, etc., all for the taking, no charge), in-room kitchenette, and the place even has a “designated smoking section” (almost unheard of in L.A.) where I can smoke my cigars in a beautiful garden while drinking booze or coffee.
As I said, economically unsustainable. But it's nice to finally be in a well-run hotel with a GREAT staff, amazing rooms, free everything, and in the heart of the area I love.
I don't wanna leave. And yeah, I can rationalize that getting free dinner every night offsets the expense.
I’m really good at rationalizing.
Another flaw.
This is my view to the east. Downtown is that hazy blur of tall buildings WAAAAAAY in the background.
Now do you get what I was saying about Downtown being REALLY far from the Westside? And the City Hall area where the anti-ICE riots took place is behind the tall blurry distant buildings.
Do you understand now how nothing that goes on there affects the better parts of town?
You think I could hear a hundred beans shouting slogans? Hell, I couldn't even hear a hundred blacks shouting slogans, and they be the loudest mofos on the planet.
Here's my view to the West. My beloved Century City:
At night…
This is what I tried to explain in my post about Downtown L.A., how Downtown's tall bank buildings used to matter before Century City did the tall bank building thing better by putting them on the Westside so you can live and work in safety. In Downtown, bankers gotta clear out at sundown, when the crazies take over. In Century City? After work you and your colleagues can go out for dinner and drinks in the safest neighborhood in L.A.
As I said in my post, that's why Downtown is irrelevant.
Anyway, I'll be staying in this penthouse, bleeding money but what's money for if not the occasional lightheaded euphoria of bloodletting, until after July 4th. Then I guess I have to grow up and find a proper place.
But for now, this is as good as it gets.
Also, you were all terribly generous when I raised money for my new book. I feel like I can write here. I have a big desk in front of a big window and absolute quiet (which I won't have in an apartment, where people have loud dogs and loud arguments and loud parties). So please know that I am making use of this period of peace to get work done.
Thank you as always for your readership.
I could never unsub from ol' Dave, hell I'll put a clause in my will, making my subscription irrevocable. I had to put up with no hot water for 3 days, my hotel room is $39 a night . You could get a 5 star over here really cheap, of course you would have to be willing to be surrounded by Mongols.
It's certainly a rare pleasure, to enjoy a period of harmony and peace with you, Dave. Long may you recall this moment when your bile rises again.