I'm putting together a team. The worst fucking team of all time
“President-elect Donald Trump is building his team, naming Cabinet members and key advisers after having been elected to a second presidential term.” — NPR
Listen. There’s a reason I wanted to meet with you. It wasn’t just so we could order a couple of rounds, play some blackjack, and catch up on old times. I’ve got a favor to ask. A big one. I wanna do one last job, and I’m putting together a team. The worst fucking team of all time. Are you in?
The details. Sure. First, I need a partner-in-crime. A real leader. I wanna hit the three biggest casinos on the strip, so I need a crew as nuts as I am—and that means I need you. Completely unqualified. No experience. A total fucking idiot. There’s nobody else who can’t do this as much as you can’t.
You beat me to it—I need a grease man. Somebody who can slip inside the vaults undetected. So I’m turning to you. You’re sloppy as shit, you set off all kinds of alarms, and you want to keep everything for yourself. Also, you’re, like, super greasy. I’ve never seen you wash your hands. Just a slimy, gross guy. Impossible to think of a single person I shouldn’t count on more.
If we’re gonna pull off the craziest heist of all time, we’ll need electronics. Surveillance. Someone good with computers. You’re exactly who I’m looking for: an absolute fucking moron. Aren’t you tired of clicking links in someone else’s phishing scams, giving out your social security number, and not getting paid for it? No? Great. You can do more of that with us.
We need some stuff to go boom, okay? It’s how we’re gonna break in. That’s why we can’t pull this off without you, the worst goddamn munitions expert on the planet. So I’m asking—no, I’m begging you to blow this whole thing up.
Look, this crew needs a driver. Someone calm, cool, and collected who can get us in and get us out. You’re full of rage and hate, you’ve got zero hand-eye coordination, and you’re legally not allowed to operate a moving vehicle. You’re fucking perfect. We’re all gonna die.
I need an old pro. A people person. Somebody who can mix and mingle. There are plenty of folks who could do it, but not you. Nobody wants to touch you with a ten-foot pole. That’s why I need you to come out of retirement and do what you do best: fuck everything up.
Money, money, money. It all comes back to money. It’s what we’re trying to steal and what we need to fund our plan to steal it. You made your millions the old-fashioned way: everybody else made it for you, and you took it. Do the same for us. Take all our money, like the asshole you are.
I just have one final question. It’s gotta be a yes or no, right here, right now. I’m putting together a team. The worst fucking team of all time. Are you in, or are you—oh, you’re all in? Wow, that was easy. Okay. Right. Well. Let’s get started and ruin things for everyone.
Q&A
Q: Why do they call it a cabinet?
A: I don’t know. Why?
Q: Oh, I thought you knew.
A: I do know. But I thought you were doing the setup to a joke.
Q: A joke? Is this whole thing funny to you?
A: No, of course not.
Q: Then why’d you write a little funny piece about it?
A: Well, I’m upset about—
Q: You’re upset, so you write little jokes. That’s how you get un-upset?
A: I guess…
Q: Great. Hope you’re un-upset. Hope that works for you, while the rest of the world burns.
A: What’s going on—
Q: Cause it’s always bottom-shelf.
A: What?
Q: I did have a punchline.
A: Uh. Are cabinets usually bottom-shelf? I don’t get it.
Q: Me neither.
What I’ve been reading
Demonize the Rich, Hamilton Nolan
“I’m sure many rich people are very nice folks. Unfortunately, they are responsible for all of this nation’s problems.” Only way to look at it.
Inventing the Crisis, Kay Gabriel for nplusone
I read this back in the spring, but returned to it recently. Unflinching reporting and crucial commentary. “The anti-trans panic is part of a calculated political campaign, assembling a coalition of disparate forces with overlapping interests and plans. Those plans include destabilizing bulwarks of working-class power, obliterating free and universal public education, privatizing critical elements of social life, reinforcing racial segregation, and pulverizing institutions that can and often do produce oppositional political consciousness. And, because our opponents know what they’re doing, it starts with attacks on organized workers.”
Featuring Doctors Without Borders today, an org that continues to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza while working to save lives.
This is really good. It's also really sad and weird and scary and true. But it's really good.
Eli is back, best taken with a lick of salt, as in the rim of your Li Hing powder 🍹 margarita.