Sam Fiske

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:42:29 -0700

Win a game on the boardwalk, get stuck with a giant teddy

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:24:28 -0700

Found a Zappy in the Jersey Shore

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 20:20:04 -0700

Been getting this look from this lady for about 16 years. Here’s to creating new faces in the next 16!

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 20:16:03 -0700

A wholesome day spent with these folks. Lucky to count them among my people

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 10:29:35 -0700

Watching a train arrive

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 19:42:41 -0700

Nice to see some old friends. Different life paths converging for a moment. Where to next?

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:07:03 -0700

First haircut

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:38:46 -0700

This book is as insightful as people claimed. Homelessness is one of those issues people see some stats on, then move on. This grounds those stats in real life experiences, but names and faces to numbers.

Finished reading: There Is No Place for Us by Brian Goldstone 📚

Sun, 24 May 2026 12:57:54 -0700

Nommin

Wed, 06 May 2026 16:56:39 -0700

Got the wrong album in the mail, and I’m not mad about it!

Switched-On by PACHYMAN

On VRA

Sun, 03 May 2026 13:49:55 -0700

I was asked recently what existential crises have been on my mind. Given it’s a take your pick world on that front (global wars, AI, gutting of various golden gooses like funding science research institutions, education, energy infrastructure and aid), it feels like so much of what we deal with is due to the circumvention of the democratic process, made clear by a string of Supreme Court rulings the past few years, most recently with the recent negation of a key part of the Voting Rights Act.

The New York Times published an opinion column by a couple of Harvard law professors shortly after that I think everyone should read. It offers historical clarity for the importance of the Civil Rights Movement, which ultimately was attempting to right the wrong of the failure of Reconstruction and the subsequent Jim Crow era. It also connects the dots on Chief Justice John Roberts decades-long aims to diminish and/or dismantle the VRA. Even if you’re not a history buff, this one’s short enough to be the cliff notes version to understanding our current moment.

In my view, the “woke” post-George Floyd moment really speaks to the desires of a nation to have a fully participatory, multiracial democracy, with equal protections. And everything that is considered “anti-woke” backlash has more in common with the Confederacy than anyone will admit.

A little extra credit/helpful visual - look at this series of maps that lays out some stakes when we say voters are being disenfranchised, and proceed to let that disenfranchisement (in this case, a glut of gerrymandering cases) happen.

Sat, 02 May 2026 08:29:38 -0700

Beautiful night in Palm Springs celebrating a good old friend’s marriage. Some of the best damn speeches I’ve heard in a wedding too.

Congrats to Mike and Rob, you got a whole lot of people that love you so much!

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 07:09:38 -0700

Sleepy boy

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 14:01:18 -0700

Hallelujah Chicken Run Band // Take One (Analog Africa Nr. 2) by Analog Africa

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 10:27:26 -0700

Spring Sing 2026

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:24:32 -0700

The instigator in chief Rufo back at it again. I wish it was more widely understood that manufacturing online outrage is common, real, and once better understood, we can better blunt the strategy’s influence

How a Calif. wildlife crossing became the target of right-wing hate

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 21:38:10 -0700

Beach day

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 23:24:56 -0700

So proud of this woman. She’s already the bravest soul in our little family. Now she’s walking the walk on helping people outside her work. She goes for things she wants to do better than almost anyone I know. While the work being an advocate for foster children is yet to begin, it was wonderful and overdue to celebrate you taking that first step, Katie. Celebrating you!

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 13:12:28 -0700

New to La Mesa, was curious who would show out for a little protest. Turns out quite a few! Enjoying this community more and more

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 14:56:44 -0700

Cousin Kristen took some time away from KU March Madness affairs (tight win against Cal Baptist yesterday) to come give this baby bear a little love. Emi seems to love the Jayhawks!

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:39:51 -0700

Proud to host a successful event with my brilliant colleague and friend, Léa. Not often do we get to meet in person, so we cherish the time when we do :). Another Startup Showcase in the books.

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 19:46:08 -0700

Lady and the Tramp (Tony)

Following the Science

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 19:36:08 -0700

One of the greatest challenges of the heightened misinformation environment we find ourselves digitally surrounded by is intellect is not a reliable indicator of who gets impacted and who doesn’t. Some of the smartest people I know either a) deliberately don’t follow the news and/or b) get certain news from communities on social media platforms…and therefore insulate from reasoning that isn’t factored into the opinions of those forums.

This is not a new phenomenon in 2026. We all are in this fractured media environment reading indie substacks, YouTubers, reddit posts, feeds from Meta/X(Twitter), podcasts, etc. Gone are the days you could point to a New York Times article or CNN and expect someone to have either read the story or knew of it. Or if you present if to them, they are likely to dismiss it or reject reading it in the first place (a point that comes up consistently in the book I’m read last year, The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer).

That said, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t read stories and reports that help us separate fact from myth. And one of those examples I struggle with the most is the belief in Robert Kennedy Jr. as this individual that is “following the science” and leading this great Make America Healthy Again movement that relies on conspiracy and decades-old falsehoods around infectious diseases, vaccines and autism.

I started thinking about this after hearing a friend say last year that RFK was just following the science with his earliest moves as the head of HHS. I think the hardest part to accept this framing that he’s “following the science” is looking at all the steps that have come to pass since then such as with vaccines: messing with vaccine trials, vaccine approvals, the childhood vaccine schedule or gutting research funding for cancers, so on and so forth. It was obvious to myself and whatever this niche of news/journo-minded folks that the risks of destroying public health were real, and have come to pass.

I guess the place I’m left at is not so much convincing the people around me like I initially thought of where to source their information, but recognizing a more collective push is required, and will find more touch points to believing in public health, liberal democracy, education. The pillars that will get us out of authoritarianism and finding true community with each other that doesn’t mean putting out needs at the expense of someone else’s. This pollster substack post spoke as much on this point to me, and I hope it’s a guide for the future.

Tough Flicks: Dead Ringers

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:10:33 -0700

TOUGH FLICKS Full Scoreboard →

#15 — Dead Ringers (1988)

John

Sam

Sean

Avg

Picked by: Sam

Why: The last of Sam’s backlog of prestige arthouse picks — Cronenberg’s most acclaimed film, a critical darling that barely made back its budget and somehow became a horror landmark anyway.

The Conversation

Sam came in a little lost — soft dialogue, no subtitles, and two Jeremy Irons performances that start out deliberately indistinguishable. He rewatched the first thirty minutes before the call just to get his bearings. “I was confused and I just started enjoying it anyway,” which is honestly a pretty good endorsement for any movie.

John, on the other hand, watched it on his big fancy Audio-Technica headphones in one unbroken sitting and came in hot. “I fucking love this movie. Phenomenal fucking movie.” He never once felt the two-hour runtime. He was also the one to connect the dots for Sam on the drug arc — how Claire’s departure triggered Beverly’s spiral, which pulled Elliot down after him. “One woman destroyed their brotherly relationship,” he said, “and she was the three uteri.”

Sean watched it in thirty-minute chunks over a few nights on the Roku, which somehow still left him gripped enough to look up the Howard Shore score on YouTube afterwards. He didn’t know Shore did Lord of the Rings until that moment, which felt like a genuine revelation. He also noted that Jeremy Irons deserves serious credit for how clearly distinct the two brothers become by the film’s second half — you start out confused, and then suddenly you just know who’s who without thinking about it.

The consensus standout: Jeremy Irons acting against himself. John put it plainly — he was essentially the only actor in two-thirds of the film, doing the straight man, the drug addict, and both at once. He got scooped out of an Oscar for this (too weird, too uncommercial), then won Best Actor the following year and thanked Cronenberg in his speech. The Chicago Film Critics gave it to him in real time, even if Roger Ebert only gave the movie two and a half stars — “a collaboration between med school and a supermarket tabloid,” which Sean argued was kind of the point.

A few highlights from the conversation worth noting: Sam floated a Cronenberg Easter egg theory — Beverly eating something oddly shaped early in the film, and whether it matched the fleshy connective tissue Claire bites in the nightmare sequence. “Is David up to some tricks here?” John went looking for the timestamp. Sean had noticed the pizza too. Nobody could confirm it, but nobody could rule it out either.

John also admitted that mid-film he briefly wondered if the twins were the same person — a Patrick Bateman-style break, one man’s full schizophrenic episode. They’re not. But the fact that the movie earns that question without ever confirming it is part of what makes it work. Sam compared their bond to Where the Red Fern Grows — one goes, the other can’t survive it. John thought that was interesting. He was right.

Sean brought up the production angle: getting Jeremy Irons in the same frame as himself was apparently groundbreaking for 1988 technology, and it holds up. The seam only shows in the first few minutes, and then your brain just accepts it. The apartment design got a mention too — sterile, muted, brutalist 80s Toronto. Sam noted that Cronenberg strips the frame of everything except Jeremy Irons, which forces you to just watch him. The only real color in the film is red, which shows up exactly when it needs to.

The Verdict

John called it his best score yet — a 90, ahead of It Happened One Night, the first film in the series to crack that threshold. Sean came in at 88. Sam gave it a 78, still processing, possibly revisiting. He was lost for a good stretch of it and is honest about that. The average lands at 85, tying They Live and Cure at the top of the Tough Flicks all-time list.

Roger Ebert gave it two and a half stars. The Chicago Film Critics gave Jeremy Irons Best Actor. The movie is in every serious top-100 horror list.

Sam put it best: “I’m glad I watched it.”

Choosing When to Post Your Political Colors

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:56:02 -0700

An old friend whose parents immigrated from Iran, never expresses political thoughts, only wants to be seen as a CEO/business/hustle grind lifestyle dude…posted Make Iran Great Again. I thought that was a peculiar phrase to choose.

At first it sounds like oh heavens he’s glad the Ayatollah is dead. And perhaps so, the regime has caused unimaginable pain and led many Iranians to leave the country.

But after a minute….why use Trump’s MAGA slogan, but Iran? Why now, after all the shit that’s been pulled the last year, the performative cruelty on immigrants (Iranians aren’t allowed to travel to the US, btw), weakening of the economy, etc? Can only speculate but boy does it sound like a way of showing your support for Trump, and acknowledging you don’t care about what comes next.

Think you’re going to get regime change? There are already reports surfacing a more hard line regime will likely take power through the Revolutionary Guard.

But understanding that would require giving a shit about history, the world order, anything beyond what you see on a social feed. It would require depth of thought, and this ain’t it.

So, glad it could be content for you that shows your shallow views. That’s about all this says about you.