Vecna & Venezuela

👀 What I’m watching: The Stranger Things series finale.

📰 What I’m reading: An interview with President Trump from The Atlantic.

🎧 What I’m listening to: Comedian Mike Birbiligia’s interview with Michael Che.

👨🏼‍💻 What I’m doing: Writing Monday’s video about Trump’s unconstitutional actions in Venezuela.

Alright, okay, I get it. All the kids in Stranger Things are somehow even older than me now. There were real issues with the writing this season, especially when it came to expositional dialogue (“And now here’s something else you may have forgotten from season 2 that we will say out loud again”). That all said …

I thought the finale was excellent and checked a lot of boxes.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, dear reader, but the internet tends to think in black and white (shocker!). And it turns out good writing and bad acting can exist simultaneously alongside bad writing and bad acting.

🚨 MILD SPOILERS AHEAD 🚨

Most of the actors, including the grown-up kid actors, did a really solid job wrapping up this show. And while I have some issues with the final fight (I don’t care about the Abyss because it was just introduced!), some scenes were unbelievably good.

Jamie Campbell Bower absolutely crushed it as Vecna in every single scene. People online are far too harsh on Millie Bobby Brown, who once again delivered as Eleven. And that final Dungeons & Dragons scene absolved the Duffer Brothers of all their previous sins and hanging plot lines (Suzie, do you copy? No, seriously, where did Dustin’s girlfriend go?).

Good news: I finished Margo’s Got Money Troubles, the book I mentioned in last week’s newsletter. What a wonderful, weird, beautiful book. I am not on Goodreads but I do have this newsletter, and so I highly recommend this book to you. I cannot wait to see Nick Offerman in the role of Jinx for the Apple+ series.

Bad news: Our President invaded a country without the approval of Congress. Our representatives appear to be at home watching the Stranger Things finale because we’ve hardly hear a peep out of them. In the Normal Times™️, U.S. Presidents have been impeached for arguably far less.

So, before I flee back to fictional books as an escape, I’m reading a ton on Friday’s capture of Nicolás Maduro and apparent occupation of Venezuela. This Atlantic interview with President Trump, from my former colleague at The Washington Post, Michael Scherer, is unsettling and terrifying. If you don’t read it, it will certainly be incorporated in my video tomorrow.

An excerpt:

It may come as no surprise to you that I devour podcasts from all sorts of comedians, usually while setting up between shots for a video with multiple characters, outfits and angles.

One of my favorite podcasts to come out of the pandemic - and there were a lot of podcasts that came out of the pandemic - is Working it Out, with comedian Mike Birbiglia. I’ve been a fan of his for well over a decade. I even listened to his CDs via Pandora Radio back in the day (Anyone remember Pandora Radio? No?). His film Sleepwalk With Me is my all-time favorite hybrid film/stand-up special.

One of his recent interviews with Michael Ché really tickled my brain. They both have such different styles on stage, yet the way they think about the world and comedy writing is so similar. I also just love when two men can openly compliment each other and show gratitude. It’s nice! Clip below, full podcast at this link.

Okay back to the depressing stuff. I’m making a video about President Trump’s moves to take control of Venezuela (and its oil). As you can imagine, a ton of work goes into researching, scripting, shooting, editing and posting these videos that are just under two minutes. With a topic like this, I’ve got to work ahead.

Even as I write this newsletter, I have to make decisions about how I phrase what’s happening. The good thing about working for legacy media was that I didn’t have to make those decisions. The bad thing about working for legacy media was that I didn’t have to make those decisions, and sometimes I hated the phrasing chosen by editors.

My overall policy is to be as direct as possible and not mince words. But I also won’t make assumptions (for example, we don’t yet know every detail leading up to Friday’s events, and I am not here to fill in the blanks for something this serious).

This is as good a time as ever to remind you that we are building out our style guide, with the help of Chris Vazquez. You can also read our Ethics and Transparency Pledge below.

One bright spot in working on a topic this serious and difficult: I’ve found lately that I can really stretch these videos out and give them room to breathe.

Since 2019, every year I’ve that worked on TikTok, and later Shorts and Reels, has been completely different. As we enter 2026, I’m sensing yet another change. You all are craving more in-depth “short-form” videos. I’m pushing two minutes on some of these! I no longer have to cut the extra bits and details just to fit this content within an imaginary time limit.

This was not always the case. And I’ll admit, in my weaker, lazier moments, I yearn for the 14 second videos that took only an hour to make and went viral:

But ultimately, I’m so glad to be making something that informs you, our audience, and hopefully makes you laugh once or twice while terrible news cascades down your phone screen every second of every day.

Make sure to check out last Friday’s video on Grok, and how no one in the world seems to know who to arrest when AI commits a crime: