The Last Mayor Of Philadelphia

The understanding that we have reached when we've talked about it, to the extent we've talked about it at all, is that The Distraction should try to be a good hang even in bad times. This is dependent, of course, on the extent to which Drew and I are capable of managing that, and also relative to how bad the times in question are. We are, in every facet and on every front, in a real test of how well we can follow through on that goal at this moment.

The general thrust of The Bad Times you are no doubt familiar with; we have written about them at the site and talked about them in every episode of 2026, but also presumably you have a phone, or a window. But also, as you read this, much of the Defector staff is in Philadelphia for the funeral of our friend and Defector co-founder Dan McQuade. We have celebrated his life and work on the site in the week since he passed. There is a massive team-written remembrance of him on our front page right now; last night, some of us told stories about him in a bar in Philadelphia while "November Rain" played on the jukebox, which was both moving and kind of preposterous in a way I think he might have found funny. A lot of things have felt like that of late. This episode is like that, too.